A shadow moved across Henry’s eyes, shielding the light and warmth from his face. It drew him awake and instinctively he smiled, his eyes still closed against the sun, listening to and smelling the world around him. He smelt roses and damp earth. He could hear the idle chatter of men, the uniform pounding of spades in the dirt, as another trench was being dug. He felt a weight on the mattress beside him and stretched himself out, enjoying the tightness in his limbs, the groaning of his muscles that only a long and nourishing sleep could bring.
“Hello,” he said, opening his eyes to Sandrine sitting next to him.
“You snore,” she said, smiling.
“I do when I’m that tired,” Henry replied, masking a yawn with a hand. “What time is it?”
“I brought you a cup of tea.” She handed the cracked cup over to him with the handle facing.
“You are a very kind woman,” he said, taking it from her. He shuffled himself up into a sitting position against the wall at the head of the bed, careful not to spill any of the tea onto the sheets, this despite them looking grey with filth. He sipped cautiously at the hot brown liquid, aware of Sandrine’s eyes on him. “What?” he asked finally, looking over the brim of the cup and smiling, his spirit teased by her attention. “What is it?”
“You,” she replied, stretching forward with her hands just short of Henry’s leg beneath the covers.
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” she said, coyly, scrunching up her nose and looking to the window. She looked back and saw that Henry’s deep blue eyes were focused on her intently. For so long she had chased love, longing for the feeling of being desired, being adored, being cherished as something of value and worth. For so long she had wanted someone, anyone, to show her love beyond lust, beyond a base carnal desire. Since she’d left Fampoux she’d sought out love, as if it was a prize to be hunted. For too long she’d felt starved, using the brief relationships she took in Arras to snatch brief glimpses beyond love’s ajar door. But always, when she looked through it, she’d found that nothing lay beyond.
She’d lain in the arms of so many men since leaving her village, soldiers and businessmen, traders and Priests. Alessandro had lavished her with gifts and praise but his attention had always been too cloying, too anxious. His brother had loved her with a passion and desire which almost overwhelmed her, but his remorse after every climax cast a shadow across their afternoon dalliances, an abrupt curtain drawn across the confessional box.
She remembered the politician she’d seduced at the Central Hotel in Arras, with the large belly and small manhood, who liked to be beaten, and how he’d promised her wealth and the power of his connections if she came away with him. But none of them had fired her soul like this quiet and gentle man, drinking tea in bed in front of her. She thought it funny how, after all her chasing, she felt peace and the first pangs of love within the ruins of her village, from where she had set out to find love she’d never known as a child.
She reached forward and pushed the short curl from his eye. He blushed and she sat back, saying with a shake of her head, “You really are not my type, Henry.”
“And what is your type, may I ask?”
She hesitated because she didn’t know. And then she realised that he was sitting in front of her; someone who loved her for who she was, not what she was. In short, the opposite of her father.
Henry grew uncomfortable at the silence and coughed quietly. “What time is it?” he asked.
“It is lunchtime. Maybe two o’clock?”
“Two o’clock!” he cried desperately, setting down the cup on the floor and springing from the bed in a single leap. “I didn’t expect to sleep so long! Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked, hopping about the room with a leg in his trousers.
“Because you looked so at peace.”
“I won’t be when I’m in front of Major Pewter for sleeping in. Bloody hell, I’ll be for the chop! I should be securing defences, not lounging in my bed.”
He drew up his trousers and secured them with his braces. Urgently he pulled his shirt over his arms, hiding the vest and his keenly muscled chest beneath.
“You have good arms,” said Sandrine, pretending to test her own biceps.
“They’ll do me no good when I’m on report!”
He sprang from the room and tumbled down the first few steps. He then stopped and stuck his head back through the open door.
“Thank you,” he added, “for the tea.” He vanished again and Sandrine listened to the thump of his heavy feet down the steps, the sudden stop and curse as he manhandled his boots on, and further heavy footsteps out of the house. She looked down at the bed and lowered her hand onto the tangled warmth of the sheet where he had lain.