Page 49 of A Question of Betrayal (Elena Standish)

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After that, Cecily and Hans left to have their first night in an expensive local hotel and set out in the morning for the hunting lodge. At this time of year, it was still mild, but autumn was coming and the trees were turning color. Occasionally, there would be a nip of frost in the air. For the newlyweds, the honeymoon in the countryside would feel like being on an island away from the world, drenched with beauty. Too short a time, but idyllic. One they would not forget. Margot hoped that, at least for a few days, they would utterly ignore everything to do with the political situation in Berlin, Vienna, or anywhere else. They had so much to learn about each other, day-to-day things that would be woven into the rest of their lives. They could weave memories to carry them through the bleak times of illness or anxiety, the habits and minutiae of daily life.

Margot could have envied Cecily that, but there were also dangers in it. The first tide of magic did not last. Reality could be as gray as a fog-ridden dawn. There were icy mornings when one could not see a single step ahead. You needed courage and good manners to sustain you then. Her memories of Paul had never been marred by a later reality. There had been none, at least not together. Paul had never disappointed, said or done anything shabby.

She suddenly became aware of a man next to her. He was speaking and she had ignored him completely. “I’m so sorry,” she said, embarrassed at her own unintended rudeness. “I was…daydreaming…”

He smiled. He was quite tall, standing very straight in his German army officer’s uniform, and it was a moment before she even noticed that his left sleeve was empty, folded back on itself and pinned. He had lost an arm at the elbow. He seemed almost her own age. There was a touch of gray in his dark hair, but many more lines on his face than on hers. Perhaps she had misjudged his age? Or, more likely, he had seen harder times; more physical pain, at least.

“Konstantin Buresch,” he introduced himself, with an inclination of his head, rather than a bow, and a silent clicking together of his heels.

“How do you do, Major Buresch?” she said, reading the marks of rank on his uniform. “Margot Driscoll.”

“Driscoll,” he repeated. “I met a man named Driscoll once. Perhaps I can recollect where. It seems to me it was a good memory, or at least there was good in it.”

Margot froze for an instant, then recalled it was not an uncommon name entirely. “Have you spent much time in England?” she asked. It sounded a harmless enough question. There were plenty of Germans in England, as there were English in Germany, and just about everywhere else!

“A few years,” he said quietly. “But they treated me well…”

She felt clumsy. She should have foreseen that possibility. So, he had been a prisoner of war. She looked at him frankly and saw no anger in his face.

“You are surprised.” It was not a question, but an observation. “Actually, it terrified me.”

Now she felt a chill settle over her. What was he going to say? It was too difficult to think that her own people were capable of the atrocities she had heard of, but history is written by the victors, not those who lost. Except that, in a sense, everyone who fought had lost. The real winners were the ones who stood apart and then fed on the pickings of the dead of both sides.

She felt a gentle touch on her arm. He had put down his glass and used his one hand to reach out to her.

“We all lost people, we have that in common.”

It was as if he had read her mind and the confusion in it. Maybe she was more transparent than she thought. “And yet we learn so little,” she said quietly. “We have a generation rising now who knows only the stories of war, not the taste of it, the exhaustion and the loss. I look sometimes, listen to what they are saying—hatred, excuses, blame, solutions that will only make it worse—and I am ashamed. If we do it again, we will all be ashamed.”

“Fifteen years. See what another five will bring. But I have found the memory. It was the fifth battle of Ypres. It started in September. I remember it was dark. Mist and smoke drifting across no-man’s-land. I was lying in the mud. My arm hurt unbelievably. I had never felt anything like it before, although it was not the first time I was wounded.”

Margot forced herself to listen. “But you were rescued.” She made it a statement. He was here, he had survived it, he was home.

“Yes.” His smile was distant, far away in time and place. “By a British soldier. I must’ve been making a noise, crying out, because he told me to shut up or we’d attract attention and get shot at. He half carried me and half dragged me, until we got to a trench. We practically fell into it. He went first and caught me, so I didn’t fall on my shoulder.” He gave a short, sharp laugh. “We both thought it was a trench with people in it, and help.”

“Wasn’t it?” She couldn’t imagine the pain and the fear. He was safe now, although perhaps he would always have pain in his arm, and always dream about what had happened to him.

“No, it was just a really big shell hole,” he explained. “I remember he swore dreadfully, strings of words I barely knew, but I knew the intonation and the meaning didn’t matter. I joined him, in German. It became a competition. He wasn’t hurt, but I knew he was as exhausted and frightened as I was. But he didn’t leave me. I don’t remember it all. I was in and out of consciousness, and after a while I couldn’t think of anything but the pain.”

“But you got out? Both of you?” Now she had to know.

“Yes. I couldn’t go any further, and he realized that. He left his water bottle with me and went to look for help, just as another volley of shots came over. In the light of the flare, I saw the terror in his eyes…”

“But he wasn’t hit?” Her voice was nearly strangled.

“No. He took a long swig of the whisky he was carrying, then gave me that, too. Then he scrambled out of the hole and disappeared. I never saw him again, but he must’ve found someone because a couple of Brits came and got me. They said he had sent them. It seemed he’d got lost, no sense of direction. He rejoined his men. I don’t know if he survived or not. I’d like to think that he did.”

“What made you think of him tonight?”

He looked around the room. “Well, I believe his name was Driscoll. We sometimes forget that good men fought on both sides.”

Tears filled Margot’s eyes and she could not stop them. It took a moment before she could force out the words. “Yes…indeed.”

“I’m sorry,” he said with instant remorse. “I’ve upset you.”

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