Page 16

The rain pelted them like gravel. Each drop carried ice in its core, and where it hit exposed skin, it left numb patches that burned only after the fact. Tomasz's collar was soaked through, the wool heavy against his neck. The mud beneath them existed in its own state of matter, a cold plasma that was neither liquid nor solid. It felt alive, like a throng of desperate mouths pulling at Tomasz’s boots, ready to swallow them whole.

The sling held Alistair. It held him as Tomasz pushed forward through the morass. Each step extracted a cost the larger man's face did not betray, but his shoulders communicated their fatigue with every increment of movement. Water ran down his neck in rivulets, soaking his uniform, turning the fabric dark and heavy. His breath came in controlled bursts despite the labor. The mud seemed to grab at his boots as if attempting to root him, to keep him in place, to prevent any forward motion. Cradled against Tomasz’s chest, Alistair felt a fine tremor running through the larger man’s arms. It came with every step, subtle but inescapable.

"Lá." Tomasz's voice cut through the rain. A single word. Pointing with his chin toward something in the distance.

A structure rose from the devastation with an improbability that seemed like a hallucination. Stone. Dark stone, weathered, ancient-looking despite the relative modernity of its construction. A church.

The approach took longer than it should have. Distance was a fluid concept in the mud. What appeared to be fifty yards might have been twice as much. Tomasz slowed as they neared the spot. The churned earth demanded careful footing, and he adjusted his pace accordingly. His breathing was controlled, but Alistair felt the increase in heart rate, felt the way his stout frame was marshaling resources for the final push.

The door hung from a single hinge. Or what was left of the door. The wood splintered, charred at the edges, suggesting fire or ordnance attempted violence on it at one point. Tomasz pushed through without pause, his broad shoulders dipped as he navigated the narrow opening.

The sanctuary received them in silence. The rain continued beyond the threshold, but inside, there was a reprieve from its horizontal assault. Alistair's eyes adjusted gradually to the interior dimness. Most of the stone arches above were still intact, but one section was compromised. A hole in the roof let in a single gray beam of light, revealing dust suspended in the air like a living, conscious thing. Puddles formed on the limestone floor beneath the hole, with concentric circles where drops of water were already beginning their quiet work of erosion.

Most of the pews survived. Fractured, some of them. Splinters where a bomb’s shrapnel may have grazed them. Overturned in places, as if the violence had been enough to uproot even stone-bolted furniture. The remains of candles melted into abstract shapes, wax pools that ran and hardened and began to melt again. The smell struck Alistair with full force: ash, damp wood, and something else. It might have been incense or the burnt almond scent of TNT.

A pigeon erupted from the rafters. It was sudden, violent, wings beating with an urgency that seemed designed to startle. The bird's cry—a guttural sound that belonged to this place, to this ruin—echoed through the sanctuary. Tomasz's body went rigid for a moment; his arms tightening fractionally around Alistair. Then the tension released. The bird disappeared back into the shadows above, having completed its protest at the intrusion.

They walked further into the space, the sound of Tomasz’s heavy boots on stone echoing through it. As he walked past the last pews, he was careful. He assessed his surroundings, looking for shelter, resources, and any potential threats. When he reached the center of the sanctuary, he adjusted the sling, allowing him to shift Alistair's mass without removing it. The officer supported himself by wrapping an arm around Tomasz’s neck.

"Such a pity," Alistair whispered. The words came unbidden, pulled from him by the sensory assault of the place.

Tomasz did not respond. He carried on with his assessment. His dark eyes scanned the sanctuary’s layout, noting the damage and figuring out what may be salvaged. He carefully carried Alistair to a less-damaged pew. He placed the officer down, making sure he was stable, and his legs were positioned to minimize pain. Once Alistair was settled, Tomasz let go and Alistair’s body settled into an uncomfortable but stationary position, a welcome relief from being carried.

Tomasz turned and began dismantling the splintered pews. His work was methodical; his remarkable strength applied with brutal efficiency as he snapped long boards into manageable pieces. He broke wood at joints, extracted cross-pieces, gathered the fragments into a pile. The crack of splintering oak echoed through the space, competing with the continued flutter of pigeon wings and the patter of rain through the hole in the roof.

Alistair watched. Tomasz's shoulders tightened as he wrenched a board free. He broke each piece with the same economy of motion, discarding what would smoke too much, keeping what would burn clean. Alistair tracked Tomasz’s hands: selecting, tracing, testing, and gathering. The pile of burnable wood grew at the center of the floor. Tomasz cleared an area near the wall where the damage was least severe. He used some loose bricks to create a crude fire-pit.

He arranged the kindling with care. Small pieces formed the center, while larger boards encircled them. This layout allowed air to flow and gave the flame room to expand. Tomasz knew his way around a fire.

“Crois-tu en Dieu?” Do you believe in God? The question tumbled from Alistair's throat before he had the chance to suppress it.

Here, in this place, with the rain falling through the hole in the roof and the altar visible in the distance, pale against the shadows, the question felt necessary. It felt like the only possible thing to ask. Tomasz did not pause. He did not turn to look at Alistair. He kept on arranging wood, his massive frame folded slightly as he worked. Alistair waited for some acknowledgment—words or a gesture. Even a hesitation in the rhythm of his labor would do. None came. Tomasz continued: placing kindling, building a structure of flame in a space designed for prayer. The fire would be his answer.

Tomasz straightened, his enormous frame unfolding from the crouch. He reached for something in his pocket—matches, from the tin of tea they carried since the field of bodies. He struck one, the small spark sudden and bright in the dimness. For a moment, nothing. The kindling seemed indifferent to the introduction of flame. It absorbed the heat with the neutrality of stone absorbing rain. Then a spark caught. A single thread of orange appeared, grew, and spread.

The wood began to smoke. Then, gradually, fire arrived. It began small, tentative, a flame uncertain whether it deserved to exist in this place. But Tomasz fed it carefully, introducing larger pieces of wood as the fire grew stronger. His hands moved with the exactitude he brought to the gathering, to the arrangement. He avoided overwhelming it, allowing heat to build and spread effectively.

The warmth, when it reached Alistair, was almost shocking. It came across the stone floor in waves, tangible, material, the embodiment of survival extracted from ruin. The shadows in the sanctuary shifted as the fire grew. The altar, which had been invisible in the dimness, began to materialize; pale stone, stained but intact, watching everything.

The arches above caught the firelight and threw it back, creating visions of shifting illumination and shadow. Tomasz settled beside the fire, his enormous frame casting its own shadow on the wall behind him. He did not move to comfort Alistair, did not try to speak. He plainly existed in the space, a silent presence breathing in the changed air as they both watched flames devour the sacred wood.

"C'était l'église de quelqu'un.” Alistair's voice was barely more than a whisper. This was someone’s church. The statement emerged as an observation, but also as a kind of prayer itself. His eyes fixed themselves on the altar, on the marble that absorbed light in a way the rest of the sanctuary did not.

Tomasz shifted beside him. Not to move away, but to settle more deeply into the position they assumed. His broad chest rose and fell with each breath. Alistair sensed the movement and its steady rhythm. It matched the rain falling above them.

"C'est toujours," Tomasz said. The two words hung in the air between them, precise and absolute. Not "was." consigning the space to memory, but "is." The present tense of persistence in the face of destruction.

Alistair's eyes closed. For a moment he allowed the meaning of that statement to settle into his consciousness. Still. It was a form of faith, though the word felt too small for what Tomasz had just communicated.

When his eyes opened again, he was looking at the altar once more. And in that moment, something changed in his perception. The altar was not simply an object. It was a presence. It was watching over them. The space between the two men and the marble surface had bearing. It was filled with something: attention, maybe, or intention. It felt like the accumulation of ten thousand genuflections, the stone worn smooth in the spots where countless knees had pressed against it.

Then Tomasz's hand moved. It was a simple gesture. His palm, enormous and scarred, settled against Alistair's back. The fabric of the officer's shirt was still damp from the journey through rain, from the fever and from the accumulated moisture of their travel. The warmth of Tomasz's hand penetrated through the material.

His huge hand began to move in slow circles on Alistair's back. It followed the width of his shoulders, which were slowly regaining their composure as the fever faded. His fingers glided over the bruises, reminders of the trench. It was the kind of touch neither of them had known for a long time.

Alistair's body responded to the contact in ways he dared not name and was unable to suppress. His breath, which had been shallow, deepened. The circles on his back continued, patient and steady. With each rotation, his shoulders dropped by a fraction, muscles releasing from the perpetual tension that had become part of survival. The warmth of Tomasz's hand penetrated the damp wool of his shirt. Alistair felt his own heartbeat in his throat, then lower, spreading through his chest with the same rhythm as the hand that moved across his back.

He gazed at the altar again. The marble caught the firelight and held it, pale against the shadows. His body began to tremble. He was not cold. The fire warmed the sanctuary, and Tomasz's body beside him radiated heat. Nor was it pain. That had been a constant, measurable, separate from this. This tremor came from elsewhere. It started in his shoulders, then his hands. Weeks of war. The trench. Wickham. The beam. The fever. The simple, brutal fact that he was here and so many of his men were not.