Forward they came, the massed ranks of the German forces, striding across the ravaged shell holes and undulations of No Man’s Land with caution and uncertainty as to what lay ahead. There had been jubilation within the German ranks at the news that they were to go forward into Fampoux, jubilation mixed with hysteria because of how the scouts had insisted that Fampoux had been deserted. Some said that it was a trap, others said there was a curse on the place, recounting how the Germans had been driven from the village less than a week ago. Expectancy was mixed with terror; fear became aggression.
They attached bayonets and shouted their loyalty and allegiance to the Kaiser. They lined up in their trenches, mumbling final prayers and kissing rings and necklaces. There was not one who did not reflect upon – in those final few moments before the whistle was blown and they filed up the ladder and out into No Man’s Land – the catastrophic assault made the other night. Their Sergeants screamed for loyalty and belief in their commanding officers and told them to go forward and do their duty.
Isabella staggered towards the hole in the trench into which Tacit had vanished. The pale rays of sunlight scorched across the landscape, reflecting on the wave of bayonets moving slowly closer towards the trench and Fampoux. She sank to her knees, her eyes welling with tears. She shuddered and roared a long and terrible cry of loss and pain, which scattered birds from the trees and rang about the land like a wail from beyond the grave.
He was gone.
Once night fell, she knew the wolves would tear out from the hole, the Germans would be torn and decimated: the British would steal forward and recapture the village; and the pitiless cycle of horror would begin again – capture, destruction, capture, destruction. An aimless, endless machine of death and devastation, all the soldiers and wolves small cogs in the great device. She knew she should leave, return to Arras, take a train to Rome and the Vatican, tell them the news, give her report on the assessment. Clear Tacit of all charges. Tell them he was the bravest and the most honourable man she’d ever met. But not yet. She owed Tacit a few more minutes of her time, reflecting on his grim resolve and their bond.
She hung her head and clapped her face within her hands, sobbing uncontrollably with grief as the emotion engulfed her utterly. She wailed, wretched tears streaming down her face.
She was crying so hard that she almost missed the crunch of earth from the trench. She lifted her head, blinking with pain, rubbing a sleeve across her nose, rubbing the tears from her eyes. She wept and looked again.
It was him!
She threw herself forward, sliding down the edge of the trench and diving into his vast frame, wrapping her arms around him.
“You’re alive!” she moaned. “You’re alive,” hugging him tight to her body.
Tacit stood stock still, his arms drawn out away from his body as if crucified on an invisible cross, the Sister weeping and tugging at him, her hands on his back, her head on his chest. Momentarily, something inside him softened and gave way, and he drew an arm forward and rested a comforting hand on the top of her back as she wept into him.
“You’re alive, you’re alive,” she kept whispering over and over until her voice finally shrank to silence.
Tacit loosened his grip on the Sister and pulled her a little away from him, wincing as the adrenaline ebbed out of him and the pain from his wounds returned.
“Are you hurt?” she asked, seeing the tattered remains of his coat hanging from his side. “You are!” she exclaimed with horror, looking closer and seeing his clothes sodden with his blood, chainmail hanging in blasted, matted rags.
“It is nothing,” Tacit hissed back.
“But your side!” Isabella fussed.
Tacit took her hands and drew them from their inquisitive search of his bloodied flesh. “There’s something back in Arras,” he said urgently, holding her fast at arm’s length in front of him.
“What?” muttered Isabella, wiping the last of the tears from her eyes.
“I’m not sure. Within the lair, a wolf, perhaps he was their leader, he was certainly the last one alive before I was finished, he said something about ‘you and your kind turning’.”
“Turning?”
“We need to go back and see the Cardinal.”
“Cardinal?”
“Poré. What about the Prideux woman? Did you find her?”
Isabella turned her eyes from Tacit’s face. Her faced flushed with shame but then, almost at once, a resolve grew within her. “Yes, I found her.” She looked hard into Tacit’s eyes. “But I let her go,” she said, staring into Tacit’s impassive face. “I let her live.”
Their eyes bored into each other. Isabella shuddered, imagining all the hateful things Tacit was summoning within his vocabulary to castigate her for this act of foolish kindness. But he wasn’t thinking anything of the sort. He was recalling the face of his mother in the contours of Isabella’s and his life when she was alive.
“Then our only move is to Arras,” he growled, as if coming out of a dream.
“If we want to catch Poré we should hurry,” suggested Isabella. “He’ll be leaving for the Mass for Peace shortly.” And then Isabella stopped. “Peace,” she muttered to herself, recollecting Sandrine’s words.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Nothing,” said the Sister, shaking her head.
Tacit found a steep pathway out of the trench and scrambled his way up it, proffering his hand to Isabella once he was out. His grip was like a vice around her wrist.
They half ran, half walked along the top of the trench and up the sunken road beside the retaken village.
“The Germans will find nothing left,” Isabella mused, looking over her shoulder towards where the Germans were scrambling across No Man’s Land. “Nothing except shadows of the past.”