The good news is, you're getting this early. We're leaving for the hospital tomorrow. Not sure what day we'll be back but it won't be Wednesday because that's my son's angioplasty day. Please keep praying for us. My kid's taking everything in stride although he doesn't like the heparin shots that he must take for the next week.

Oh! I have a book. Moms on Missions by Jess Molly Brown is now available on Amazon for pre-order. The release date is May 30th. I am looking forward to discussing the story with you.

As of tomorrow, I will have no access to a computer or Word. By the end of the week, I should be certifiable. Have a good one, my friends.

︻┳═一

September 27, 1916

︻┳═一

The clock on the mantle ticked loudly. Eddie regarded Dr. Harris (who was so blurry he looked like a grey ghost) mistrustfully from his chair. The man liked to pace—the sign of a nervous disposition. Harris stopped and gazed out his office window.

"You must understand, Anthony, that most people who try to commit suicide afterward claim that they made a mistake and they are hale and hearty. Those who are released frequently go home and try again. Often, they succeed."

Eddie frowned and corrected him. "Edward."

"It was not so long ago that you insisted your name was Itchy."

"Doctor, you have been calling me either Lieutenant or Edward for a fortnight. I should like to know why that has changed."

The doctor's silhouette became less distinct as he turned to face him. "Your proper name is Anthony. I have a letter from your father that directs me to address you by it."

Eddie quashed his panic and held up his palm. "Triple A—" (i)

"Must you use slang? It's so common."

"My apologies." He let his hand fall. "I didn't mean to exclude you. I suppose I've spent too long in the trenches."

"Exclude me? Slang is coarse, lazy language. You are an officer."

And you are a snob, Eddie thought. "A non-com. I worked my way up through the ranks. You know that."ii

"You could have been a commissioned officer if you'd cared to."

"I didn't care to."

"Accepting your identity is paramount if you wish to recover. Your father is an important man, Anthony. I must yield to his evaluation of your condition based upon his superior knowledge of your history."

"Anthony is my father. I prefer to be called Edward—Eddie, to my friends."

"Your father says you ran away from home three years ago."

"I did."

"He says you were a rebellious, immoderate and incorrigible youth, suffering recurrent bouts of melancholia and high temper."

This doctor was dumb as a bag of hammers (iii), but if Eddie were to lose his temper now, he knew he would lose this battle. "My father refused to listen to what I wanted to do with my life, and then blamed my reactions on my temperament rather than his provocation."

"He also says you are now but sixteen years old."

Eddie was tempted to call bullshit. He disliked being manipulated and refused to manipulate others. "As I am certain you are well-aware, my birthday is in a couple of days."

"Indeed." The doctor set down a piece of paper on his desk. "But you are still not of legal age to marry without your father's consent."

Every sinew in Eddie's body caught fire, but he showed no outward sign. Bella was the best thing that had ever happened to him and nobody was going to come between them. "Colonel Cullen, Captain McCarty, Captain Stewart and their superiors were perfectly aware that I was underage. It did not prevent any of them from shipping me off to Egypt and the Dardanelles to teach as many men as possible how to kill a man economically. Nor did it prevent the Brass from using me in Gallipoli, the Suvla, the Somme and Beaumont-Hamel to dig tunnels, set landmines, remove them from the field when the lines moved, blow up bridges and construct fortifications, so please don't try to tell me I am incapable of managing my own affairs."

The doctor paced over to Eddie again. "And yet, here you are, in a mental hospital. Would it not be logical to suppose the horrors of war have broken the reason of a boy who was sent at a tender age to commit barbaric acts of destruction?"

Eddie clenched his jaw and counted to ten. He could hardly blame Harris for making such a conclusion when he'd walked right into the man's supposition.

"Why did you run away?"

"I am a musician. My father objected to my aspirations. Once I achieved long pants, he took me into the mines daily to train me for future employment." (iv)

"He says he wants you to take over his business someday."

"As I have repeatedly told him, I have no wish to do so." Eddie was not about to share that he couldn't bear enclosed spaces. It might merit another tick in the column against him.

"You have no wish to assume gainful employment?"

He bit back a curse, shifted in his chair and considered his answer carefully. "Without sight, doctor, I am far more apt to find gainful occupation in music than I am in the mining industry. As my wife and I have extensive savings, we will not have to worry about it for some time."

"Your wife is significantly older than you are."

"That's not very gentlemanly of you."

"It's simple fact. She turned nineteen two weeks ago."

"Oh, dear. Of course she did. And I missed it because I didn't know the date until I got my hearing back. I shall have to make it up to her somehow."

"I daresay she'll understand."

"Yes, she's lovely."

"She does seem an excellent person. But she is still older."

"By a small amount. She also went to work when she was underage. It does not worry me." What was the man getting at?

"Please don't kill the messenger."

"Noted."

"Your father is concerned that your wife is a gold digger."

Eddie clapped his boot heel on the floor. "Hah! Of course he is. You are attempting to be funny, I gather."

"Not at all."

He arched a brow. "Are you aware, sir, that my father mines gold and copper?"

"Oh!" Dr. Harris laughed. "I get your meaning now! I did not make a pun intentionally, I assure you."

"Well, it's irrelevant. Bella and I have plenty of resources to sustain us. I neither want nor need my father's money."

"You cannot blame him, surely, for worrying about her character and background."

"My wife was raised by her eminently respectable aunt in London Society, in a very fine house." Eddie enunciated every syllable, his light Acadian brogue becoming increasingly pronounced. "She is a Senior Nurse with the QAIMNS, and served with distinction for nearly two years at a Commonwealth Base Hospital in Northern France. Her character is beyond reproach and she has substantial financial assets of her own. While I understand my father's misgivings, they are without foundation."

"And if he challenges your marriage?"

"I shall take my wife and disappear."

"What if you're locked up in an asylum?"

Eddie felt his lip tip up. "I'd like to see him try."

"Which brings us full circle. Why are you here?"

Eddie crossed his arms and glared at the floor.

"Come, now. If you want to get out, you must talk to me."

"I wonder," Eddie tapped his foot, "how you would have felt if you were told that your entire regiment fell. That the boys for whom you were responsible all went west in one morning."

"Went west?"

"Died, sir." How could he be around so many soldiers and not know the parlance?

"Well, I don't know. I have never been in that position. But I should hope that I would thank God for preserving my life."

Eddie nodded, seething. "Let's just suppose, doctor, that something tragic happened to you. And then, you can tell me how one ought to sanely react."

"We aren't talking about me."

Eddie crossed his legs. "Are you afraid you won't have an answer for me?"

Dr. Harris pulled up a chair. "All right. Let's hear it. I shall do my best to answer you."

Eddie nodded. "You are responsible for many of the individuals who live and work in this hospital, are you not?"

"I am."

"Splendid. So it's not unrealistic to say that you create and maintain rules designed to keep everyone safe?"

"That is not unrealistic, no."

"Let us suppose, sir, that there was a gas leak discovered here. What would happen?"

"The people in the building would be evacuated and the leak repaired."

"Indeed. So, what if your board of directors, instead of ordering you to evacuate the building, told you to light a match?"

"That is preposterous! It would never happen."

"And that is what my regiment believed, until the Brass ordered us to light the match."

Harris was quiet.

"How do you suppose you would feel, doctor, if your Brass ordered you to personally light the match, and you did it—knowing that it meant that you and everyone close to you would die, leaving orphans and widows and mothers to grieve—only to discover afterward that you were the only one to survive the carnage?"

"But, you weren't the only one to survive Beaumont-Hamel."

"Did anyone else in my troop survive?"

Dr. Harris sighed heavily. "No."

"My platoon?"

"No."

"Bella told me that twelve Blue Puttees survived Beaumont-Hamel. Out of the entire Newfoundland Army, sixty-one men responded to their names at roll call the next morning."

"That is correct."

"Therefore, over 800 soldiers from Newfoundland, alone, fell in one day."

"In all, 66, 000 Allied men died in three hours and the Huns suffered similar casualties."

Eddie sighed and ironed his palms over his thighs. "That's… worse than I thought."

"I am sorry."

Eddie set his hands on his knees and leaned forward. "I am also sorry. And I feel guilty because I, along with countless other officers, followed senseless orders that destroyed almost every man in Beaumont-Hamel. I am sickened by the sheer amount of waste of manpower and resources. The Upper Brass orders soldiers about like so many chess pieces. We are utterly expendable. So tell me, doctor, how would you have felt in my place?"

"Not suicidal."

"It was the shock." He wasn't about to reveal to anyone that he'd thought himself back there. "I thought it was wrong for me to live if my boys all died."

"Do you still feel that way?"

Eddie paused to gather his words. "I talked to Hale."

"Yes?"

"He told me I shouldn't feel guilty, that God saved me so I could come home to Bella. He said the Brass has sent a lot of men to die and it wasn't as though I could choose not to obey orders. He said if I expected him to forgive himself for being a monster, then I would have to forgive myself for surviving."

"Seems like pretty sage advice."

"Yes."

"Why does he think he's a monster?"

Eddie's jaw dropped. "You mean you don't know?"

"Nobody knows what happened to McCarty, Hale, Crowley and Yorkie."

Eddie threw back his head and laughed for a long time. By the time he settled down, he had to wipe tears from his cheeks. Dr. Harris resumed pacing.

"I don't understand what is so funny! These were valuable men. Your friends!"

"Oh," Eddie shook his head solemnly. "I'm not laughing at them, sir. I would never laugh at them. Oh, no. I'm laughing at you."

"At me?" Harris barked.

"Indeed. How wonderful…" He chuckled again.

"What—"

Eddie fell somber. "Have you ever been a soldier?"

"No, but—"

"You do not inspire trust, sir. They are afraid of you."

"Of me?" The doctor sounded thoroughly astonished. "Whatever for?"

Eddie bit his thumb. He felt quite giddy, but the doctor probably couldn't understand what amused him so. "Have you read Frankenstein?"

"Naturally. I read it when I was a boy. A most fascinating cautionary tale."

"The damaged man who wanted only to be loved… But people were afraid of him, and judged him a monster."

"That's a simplistic view. It is a morality tale cautioning scientists not to play God."

"It is also a simple story of an imperfect man who longs to be accepted."

"Your point?"

"Hale, McCarty and Yorkie did something horrible in order to survive. They were all good soldiers. They followed orders and they really had no choice but to act as they did. But afterward, they felt monstrous. Yorkie blew his head off and Cap and Jazz stopped eating."

"What did they—?"

"That's their business. But I suspect they want to live. However, to live, they must get past the guilt and they're also afraid their actions will be discovered."

"Why would that matter now?"

He smiled wolfishly. "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps they think they'll be court-marshalled and shot. Or perhaps they're afraid an angry mob will bring torches."

"And you think that's why they won't eat?"

Eddie sighed and shifted in his chair. "What motivates man, doctor?"

"You tell me."

"Love and fear. There is nothing else."

"Anger, jealousy…"

"No. They are a product of fear. Perfect love casts out fear. Without love, one operates based on fear. There is nothing else. If you want them to stop being afraid, you'll have to make them feel safe. You'll have to guarantee they will continue to be accepted. Otherwise, they will never tell you what's wrong."

"But they told you."

"Hale told me. Yes."

"Why did Hale tell you?"

"I understand the atrocities of war. You don't."

"I see the casualties of war every day!"

Edward grinned and held out his hands for inspection. "These hands will ne'er be clean." He leaned forward. "You may have seen the casualties of war, but I have created them. These hands made bombs that were used on civilians. These hands slit the throats of horses lamed in battle, and killed suffering dogs that had been shot. These hands threw grenades, shot and bayonetted countless enemies, strangled Turks and Krauts, and snapped the necks of traitors. These hands comforted the dying and dug dead men out of shit-laden muck. And these hands rescued a woman who was being raped, fed starving children, evacuated feeble old Frenchmen and Belgians from battle zones, and wrote deathbed letters for friends." He sat back. "These are good hands, but they would be seen by some as belonging to a monster. No, Doctor. Your hands are clean and soft and have never known evil. And for that, you should thank the Triple Entente (v) soldier every day. I pray you will never have firsthand knowledge of the atrocities of war."

Edward picked up his cane, stood, walked to the door and stopped. "Is there anything else?"

Dr. Harris huffed in frustration. "Edward?"

"Yes?"

"You know I was testing you."

"Lucky me. Did I pass?"

"With flying colours. But I can't let you go home yet."

Eddie nodded. "I didn't suppose you would."

"Next time, I want to talk about your nightmares."

"I bet."

︻┳═一︻┳═一︻┳═一

i A-A-Ah/Triple A/Ack Ack Ack: trench slang for "stop" or "desist." From the Morse Code for Stop.

ii Non-commissioned officers ascended through the common ranks. They were more apt to mix with their men. Interestingly, as British non-coms trained and managed men who were often not from their geographical birthplace (example: a Londoner might be put in charge of troops from Yorkshire or Scotland) they quite often became the instruments who carried slang from one group of people to another.

iii Because who needs a whole bag of hammers? Duh. Thank you, Acadians, for your wonderful bounty of expressions.

iv Dressing a male child in long pants signaled parental recognition that he was no longer to be babied. Small kiddies of both sexes wore dresses up until approximately the 1920s, which probably changed thanks to the invention of rubber training pants. (Young ones: count yourselves lucky if you never had to wear rubber pants. I can still remember how dreadfully uncomfortable they were. And having an accident was extremely messy. Just try to get pee out of rubber pants without getting it everywhere. It's an art. Those moms were brilliant. Seriously, people, thank God and Huggies for Pull-Ups.)

Obviously, it was easier to change diapers if a baby wore a skirt, and easier for a small child to get to the potty. Most children were potty trained by the age of 18 months but children commonly wore dresses until the age of five or six. By the age of seven, boys were put in short pants. This was called breeching. By the age of 10 or 11, most boys were presented with long pants and a lot more responsibility.

v The Triple Entente was a military alliance that was formed between Russia, Great Britain and France before WW1. It was disbanded when the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in 1917. The Triple Entente was created to counterbalance the enemy Triple Alliance that was formed between Imperial Germany, Austrio-Hungary and Italy.