Benedict Hall

by Cate Campbell

Genres: Family Life; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

In this richly layered debut novel, Cate Campbell introduces the wealthy Benedict family and takes us behind the grand doors of their mansion, Benedict Hall. There, family and servants alike must face the challenges wrought by World War I--and the dawn of a new age brimming with scandal, intrigue, and social change. Seattle in 1920 is a city in flux. Horse-drawn carriages share the cobblestone streets with newfangled motor cars. Modern girls bob their hair and show their ankles, cafés defy Prohibition by serving dainty teacups of whisky to returning vets--and the wartime boom is giving way to a depression. Even within the Benedicts' majestic Queen Anne home, life is changing--above and below stairs. Margot, the Benedicts' free-spirited daughter, struggles to succeed as a physician despite gender bias--and personal turmoil. The household staff, especially longtime butler Abraham Blake, have always tried to protect Margot from her brother Preston's cruel streak. Yet war has altered Preston too--not for the better. And when a chance encounter brings a fellow army officer into the Benedict fold, Preston's ruthlessness is triggered to new heights. An engineer at the fledgling Boeing company, Frank Parrish has been wounded body and soul, and in Margot, he senses a kindred spirit. But their burgeoning friendship and Preston's growing wickedness will have explosive repercussions for everyone at Benedict Hall--rich and poor, black and white--as Margot dares to follow her own path, no matter the consequences.

Release date: June 1, 2013

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

Frank Parrish went down the steps of the Alexis Hotel and turned toward the Public Market just as the shopkeepers were opening their shutters for the day. He walked with deliberate steps, trying not to hurry, though his need was urgent. Thin sunlight glistened on the gray waters of Elliott Bay. A sharp breeze chilled his face. He turned up the collar of his greatcoat, but he drew deep lungfuls of salt-scented air, wishing he could cool the fire burning in his arm. His shoes clicked on the Market’s wooden walkway as he passed the high stalls, where fishmongers would soon shout their wares, and the day stalls, where farmers were setting out potatoes and squashes and onions. Following directions from one of the hotel’s bellboys, he climbed a short set of stairs that led to the café on the upper level. The café jutted over the pier, an establishment of one room, with ironwork tables and chairs and a zinc counter stretching along one side. White cotton curtains filtered the morning glare from the bay.

The café was open, but empty of customers. A woman in a long bib apron looked up with an automatic smile when Frank stepped through the door. “Good morning, sir.”

He took off his hat, and nodded to her. He saw her glance, first at the major’s insignia sewn into the cuff of his coat, and then, inexorably, at the empty sleeve folded into the opposite pocket. Her smile softened into one of pity, an expression he had come to dread. She put down the glass she was polishing. She said in a gentle voice, as if he were as fragile as a child, “Get you something, sir? Coffee?”

He fiddled with the brim of his hat, hesitating. He hadn’t come for coffee.

The army doctors had told him some pain was to be expected. In the hospital in Virginia they dosed him alternately with laudanum and morphine, but both made him feel slow and stupid, and did little to quell his pain. The kindest of his doctors prescribed whisky. It was corn whisky, shipped in from Canada, the only legal stuff they could get, and the nurses measured it out in careful doses. It was harsh and sour, the way medicine should be, but it was strong. It was the only thing that worked.

Frank was damned glad to be away from the hospital, but he still craved whisky. The bellboy had whispered that everyone in Seattle knew how to get around Prohibition because they’d had four extra years to figure it out. He had recommended this place. Frank could only hope what they sold here wouldn’t make him go blind, or give him jake foot.

He avoided the barmaid’s eyes as he dropped his hat on a table by the window. The humiliation of his need was nearly as bad as the pain. But not quite. He muttered, “Do you have—uh—any-thing stronger, ma’am?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Wait just one moment, sir,” she told him and disappeared through the swinging door behind her.

Frank sat down, stretching his long legs beneath the little table. He fought the urge to knead his arm with his fingers. That only made it worse. In fact, any touch—fingers or towels or bedsheets—further inflamed the knobby ends of his amputation. Even the sleeve of his shirt, gently folded over it and tucked into his pocket, chafed against the rough red skin.

The barmaid returned with a thick white mug in her hand. She plucked a cotton napkin from the zinc counter, and crossed to Frank, the long hem of her apron fluttering around her ankles. “Here you go, sir.” She set the napkin on the table, the mug on the napkin.

The liquid in the mug was most definitely not coffee. The pungent smell of peat rose from it, and Frank’s mouth watered in anticipation. He nodded his thanks, and made himself wait till she had gone back behind the counter before he took his first swallow.

The whisky burned in his throat, a welcome fire that nearly made him groan. His second swallow sent warmth radiating into what remained of his left arm. The third flowed on, like a river running to the sea, washing away the pain of mutilated flesh, shattered bone, severed nerves. It went farther, to that space where there was no flesh or bone, where it soothed the phantom pain that had tortured him half the night.

He couldn’t help himself, though he knew the barmaid was watching. He closed his eyes, and sighed his relief.

Frank had spent the previous night pacing his hotel room, gritting his teeth against the agony in his arm. It was a small room, the least expensive the Alexis had to offer. There were six steps to the door, three to the window, four more to the bed. He had walked those steps over and over again, counting the hours until the slow winter dawn lightened the sky beyond the window. Now, three fingers of whisky in his belly brought respite at last. He could have wept with gratitude.

The barmaid reappeared at his elbow. She picked up the empty mug, and set another in its place.

He kept his gaze on the slice of glassy bay he could see through the drawn curtains. “Thanks,” he said, his voice rough with the bite of the whisky.

She lingered beside his table. “Beautiful morning for January, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He forced himself to lean back, lift his chin, and look into her face.

She was plain, and no longer young, with tired eyes and a sad mouth. She said, in a tentative way, “Lost your arm over there, sir?”

He hated saying the words. He lifted the mug, and drained half of its contents in a gulp.

She persisted. “Was it France?”

Frank set the cup down, and said in a flat tone, “Jerusalem.”

Her expression of sympathy turned to one of confusion. “Jerusalem?”

“Yes.” Most Americans knew little of the war with the Turks, Frank knew.

She twisted her apron. “I guess it was awful.”

Frank shrugged. The movement loosened the sleeve from his pocket, and he shoved it back with his right hand. The barmaid turned from him to pull the curtains back, giving him a view of the bay. A black freighter with angled stacks was steaming out to sea, trailing twin clouds of smoke. Seabirds dipped and soared above the fishing boats docked at the pier, and Chinamen in shapeless pants trotted to and fro, carrying tin buckets of shellfish and wicker baskets of salmon.

The barmaid came back to the table. “Can I bring you some food?”

“No.” Frank drained his cup and handed it to her. He came to his feet, reaching for his hat. “I’ll take my check, please.”

She took two steps backward, a mug in each hand. “I’m sorry. I guess I talk too much,” she said, her homely face flushing. “Don’t go, sir. I’ll leave you be.”

Frank said, “It’s all right,” but he knew his voice sounded angry. He reached into his pocket for his money.

She took another step, shaking her head. “No charge for our men in uniform, sir. My boss says, any man who went to fight the Huns deserves his drink.”

“Kind of him.” Frank dug for a quarter, and dropped it on the table. “For you, then.”

He jammed his hat on his head and hurried away before she could thank him. His boots clattered down the stairs and echoed on the wooden planks of the walkway.

People were beginning to gather in the Market. At the fishmongers’, two women in long winter coats haggled over pink slabs of salmon. Housewives straggled past the vegetable stands, fingering turnips and spuds. The morning air rang with the sounds of gulls crying into the wind, of the clopping of horses’ hooves on pavement, and the harsh whine of an automobile motor. Frank left it all behind, and wandered up First Avenue in search of breakfast.

The scent of frying bacon enticed him into a short lane called Post Street. It was too narrow for much traffic. The buildings were small, and a bit dilapidated, jumbled together like a set of bad wooden teeth. He passed an Italian grocer setting out trays of greens, a barbershop with a striped pole, a shoe repairman with blackened fingers who tipped his grimy cap as Frank went by. He found a tiny diner with a chalked sign in its window proclaiming BREAKFAST, 75¢. He stepped around an iron rooster doorstop and into the smoky haze of the interior. He had to duck his head to clear the lintel.

There were just two tables, and the cook and the waiter were the same man, but the food was hot and filling. Frank tucked into scrambled eggs and thick sausages and potatoes fried with onions. He sat on when he was replete, drinking black coffee, gazing at passersby through the greasy window.

He leaned forward to watch a tall woman stride up the street toward the diner. She carried a black leather satchel in her gloved hand. Her coat, something short with a drooping fur collar, fell away to show a low-waisted, loose-fitting dress. It reached only to the middle of her calves, showing strong, slim ankles. Her hat was some sort of bucket-shaped thing, and her hair was bobbed in the new style, leaving her neck bare. Her small breasts, unfettered by corset or stays, moved with her purposeful steps.

Frank tried to imagine Elizabeth dressed like that, but he couldn’t do it. When he had seen her last, her skirts brushed the high tops of her boots, and her shirtwaist buttoned to her chin. Her hat had been wide-brimmed, with a posy of flowers at the crown.

The cook appeared beside Frank to lift his empty plate. He nodded toward the woman as she passed by. “These modern girls,” he growled. “Bare legs, cropped hair. Smoking. And that one’s a doctor. It’s indecent. Makes you wonder what you fought for, don’t it?”

Frank looked up at the man, a big-bellied, whiskered fellow in a stained apron. He wanted to speak a denial, but in some obscure way, the cook was right. The changes Frank found in his country, and in himself, disturbed him. He had gone off to war in search of glory and honor, but had found only filth and waste. The lifeless corpses of the enemy gave him no more joy than did the bloody bodies of his own men lying in the dirt of the hills. Somehow, out there, he had lost more than his arm. Some other part of himself had gone missing.

It wasn’t just the war. He had mustered out of the army into a society he barely recognized. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth amendments passed while he was in the Virginia hospital. His new job had evaporated without a word of warning. And Elizabeth—well, perhaps it was asking too much to expect her not to have changed. Nothing was as it had been.

These thoughts stole his tongue. The cook turned back to his kitchen, and Frank knew that he had, again, failed to say what was expected of him. In the past year this had happened too many times. The high-spirited Montana boy he had once been had vanished. The Great War was over, but it had left Frank to wage a new war, with himself as the enemy.

He groped in his pocket for the money to pay for his breakfast, and the cook came back to scoop it up without a word. Frank spoke a monosyllabic thanks, and ducked out of the diner, turning back toward his hotel.

Just three days before, Frank Parrish had stepped down into the broad expanse of Seattle’s King Street Station after a long train journey from Virginia. He stood in the terminal for an hour, his valise in his hand, while the bustle of a thriving city swirled around him. He saw faces of every color, bodies of every shape, clothing from a janitor’s overalls to a mink stole with bright dead eyes that glinted at him under the brilliant lights. He put down his valise for a time to rest his fingers, then picked it up again, worried someone would steal it.

All he had in the world was in that valise. His discharge papers, his medical records, his old uniform, his medal in its little black box. A packet of letters from Elizabeth.

His mouth twisted at the thought of those letters. Nurse Gregorio had offered to burn them. He couldn’t think, now, why he hadn’t allowed her to do it. It was stubbornness, he supposed, or perhaps simple disbelief. Elizabeth had been part of his future since he was seventeen.

The ranch in the Bitterroot Valley had also been part of his future, but that was pointless now. What could a one-armed man do on a cattle ranch? It might have been different if he had been able to tolerate the prosthesis, but every attempt to fit it caused such ghastly pain that both he and the army doctors had given up.

After waiting another hour, and watching two more trains deposit their travelers, Frank had to accept that no one from the Alaska Steamship Company was coming to meet him. It would be all right, he told himself. He had Eccles’s letter in his pocket, assuring him of his new position and suggesting a hotel to stay in. No doubt someone had mixed up the dates of his arrival, or gotten the train number wrong. His arm hurt, as always, but it would feel better if he walked for a bit, got himself moving after days of being cooped up. He stopped a porter and asked directions, then forded the crowd to make his way out of the station.

Frank’s first impression of Seattle was of grayness. Sky, streets, mist-shrouded buildings, all were painted in drab shades. Automobiles mingled with horse-drawn carriages and slow-moving oxcarts. Walkers carried umbrellas and wore boots against the dampness of the streets. As Frank turned down Yesler, a streetcar clanged by, its scarlet paint the sole spot of color.

Ahead, Frank could see the dull gleam of the bay. Behind him, the hills were thickly forested. A spatter of rain freshened the air as he walked, and all of it worked together to create a kind of frigid charm. He was cheered by a spurt of optimism. He found the Alexis Hotel at the corner of First and Madison. He set down his valise for a moment so he could straighten his collar and wipe raindrops from his hair, then picked it up and went inside to secure a room.

By ten o’clock the next day, Frank’s good mood had evaporated. At the Alaska Steamship Company, Eccles blustered an apology for his broken promise. He blamed the general strike of the year before, the influx of returning soldiers, the depression that had sucked the energy out of the wartime boom. He didn’t offer to pay for Frank’s travel expenses, and Frank was too proud to admit he had spent most of his savings on his train ticket. Eccles, avoiding his eyes, shook his hand, wished him luck, and said good-bye. Frank spoke no more than a dozen words throughout the whole encounter.

He took the streetcar back to the hotel, and spent the rest of that day in his room, trying to think what to do next. A letter from his mother had been waiting for him when he checked in, and it still lay, unopened, on the marble-topped washstand. He cradled the aching stump of his arm gingerly in his right hand, gazed out his window into a gloomy drizzle, and tried very hard not to wish he had died of his wound in the field hospital outside Jerusalem.

Now, his third day in Seattle, Frank Parrish spread the contents of his wallet on the bedside table and contemplated them. It was a bit like looking over your ammunition and wondering if you had enough to make the run up the hill. He had grown to hate loading his clip, checking the bolt-action on his rifle. The Lee-Enfield was supposed to be his pride; but the sight of the rounds, cold and hard and lethal, called up images of torn flesh, staring eyes, slack lips, the tortured postures of the dead. Sometimes it had been all he could do to swallow his reluctance, to put those rounds into the clip, to accept that he was, when ordered to do it, going to fire his rifle at living human beings.

He made an impatient sound in his throat. He had to stop thinking of all that. The issue this morning was money.

Frank had left college to join the war, too impatient to wait for his own country to declare. At the time it had seemed a grand and adventurous thing to do. The British uniforms, the clipped accents of the officers, the romance of the cavalry had drawn him away from classrooms and lectures and boyish pursuits. The King’s army had been pleased to commission a man who knew both engineering and horses. He did real engineering in the King’s army, building bridges and throwing down roads. He had loved the work until he saw an actual battle.

Nothing like blood and guts—literally—to dim the glories of war.

He tossed his emptied wallet aside, and picked up his mother’s letter. He pictured her bent over the kitchen table, writing by the light of a kerosene lamp while his father tamped his pipe and stared into the fireplace. He had postponed writing to them, hoping to send them good news of his fine new job. Now he had nothing to say.

Frank felt a wave of sorrow for his parents, but he couldn’t go home jobless and broke. He couldn’t face seeing Elizabeth, meeting his old friends. He gazed down at what remained of his left arm. The worst of it all was knowing that it was his own fault. A stupid waste. With a shudder of loathing, he drew his sleeve down and tucked it into his waistband.

He scooped up his money, poured it back into his wallet, and went to stand beside the window. The morning sun had retreated behind a layer of clouds, and the city streets looked cold and unfriendly. They had barely dried from the day before, and now it looked as if there would be more rain. Frank turned back to the bureau for the list of potential employers he had written out. His arm began to ache again, despite the generous shots of whisky the sad-faced barmaid had served him.

A diffident knock on the door came just as he reached for the list. He called, “Come,” and the door opened, barely enough for him to see the apologetic face of the Chinese maid.

“Oh, sorry, sir.” Her voice was high and thin, birdlike. “I thought you were out. I’ll come back later.”

“No,” he said, more sharply than he intended. The pain always made him snappish. He drew himself up, and tried to speak more gently. “No, it’s all right. Come in.”

She was a pitiful thing, with a child’s body and huge eyes with dark circles beneath them. She came in, carrying folded sheets over her arm, and it seemed to Frank her step was unsteady. He dipped a quarter out of his wallet and laid it on his pillow before he sidled past her into the hall, shouldering into his coat as he went.

He was halfway down the corridor before he realized he had left his list on the bureau. He muttered, “Hell,” but he didn’t turn back. The list was more or less arbitrary in any case. He had simply written down every possibility he could find in the slender Seattle city directory.

He strode out of the hotel and turned toward the port. If Alaska Steamship had no job for him, perhaps Pacific Coast would, or the Shipping Board. Failing those, he would just knock on the doors of likely places and see what turned up.

At the Good Eats Cafeteria at First and Cherry, Frank spent a dollar on a lunch of chowder and bread. As he ate, he cast his eye over a copy of the Seattle Daily Times someone had left on the table. The headline blared, in two-inch type, that unemployment was higher than ever. Frank turned the paper over and shoved it away.

As he paid his bill, the cashier smiled at him. She was rather pretty, in that way very young girls are, with pink skin and clear eyes, but her hands were familiar to him, broad and work-hardened, like those of the country girls of Montana. He touched his cap to her, and she blushed. He stepped out of the café and turned left.

“Hey!” came a voice somewhere behind him.

Frank started off down the street, assuming the call was for someone else.

“Hey!” There was a laugh in the voice this time, and it seemed vaguely familiar. “Cowboy! Is that really you?”

Frank stopped, and turned slowly. Cowboy was his army nickname. He hadn’t expected to hear it ever again.

A young man bounded easily across the street toward him, dodging a truck farmer pushing a wheelbarrow full of vegetables. “Cowboy!” he exclaimed again.

Frank, repressing an urge to slip away into the crowd, waited where he was on the sidewalk. When his old comrade reached him, he drawled, “Benedict. Completely forgot you were from Seattle.”

Preston Benedict thrust out his hand, exclaiming, “I’ll be damned!” They shook, and Benedict said gaily, “I was sure those quacks had killed you!”

“Not quite.” Frank took back his hand, and gazed, narrow-eyed, at Preston Benedict. He didn’t look like any other veteran of his acquaintance. His color was high, his eyes clear and untroubled. His fair hair sprang vigorously from his forehead. He made Frank feel old and used-up.

“Come on,” Benedict said, with a wave of his hand. “Let’s have a drink. You can tell me all about it.” He put his left hand on Frank’s back, as if to guide him. The hand slid across the back of his greatcoat and encountered the empty left sleeve.

Benedict dropped his arm and stared at the empty sleeve tucked into Frank’s pocket. “Damn, Cowboy! Lousy luck. You lost it after all.”

Frank’s jaw ached, and he realized he had ground his teeth together. He said only, “Yes,” but hot, sudden pain flared through him.

Benedict gripped his good arm. “Come on. We need a drink. I know a place.”

A drink sounded better than ever to Frank, but he shook his head. “Can’t,” he said. With care, he disengaged his arm from Benedict’s hand. It wasn’t easy. Preston Benedict’s fingers were strong.

“Why not?” Benedict demanded.

Frank took a half step away, making a space between them. “Appointment,” he said. “I’m looking for work.”

Benedict’s smile widened, and he clapped Frank’s good shoulder. “As am I, old man! As am I. We can compare notes. What kind of work are you hoping to do?”

Frank made a vague gesture. “Engineering,” he said. “Came out to work with Alaska Steamship, but the strike . . . Position is gone.”

Benedict clicked his tongue. “That’s rotten, Cowboy.”

Frank shrugged.

Benedict chuckled. “Talkative as always, I see,” he said. His blue eyes sparkled, and his smile was easy and confident. Frank wondered why he disliked this man. He always had, even when they were both under fire out in the East.

“Listen, old man,” Benedict said. “I’ll let you get on with it, if you insist. But you must come up to the house, have dinner. Where are you staying?”

“Alexis. A couple more days, anyway.”

“Good hotel! Excellent. I’ll send the car. Six o’clock?”

“Thanks, but I don’t think—”

Benedict clapped his shoulder again. “No arguments, now! You must meet the mater and pater, tell them what heroes we both are.” His grin was as guileless as a boy’s. “Car at six!” He was gone, dashing back across the busy street, before Frank could think of a way to refuse.

He chided himself as he walked on. It was nice of Benedict to pretend they were friends. By the time they met, Frank was already disillusioned, soured on the war. He had made a few friends in Allenby’s army, but most of those fellows had died in Turkey. He was disinclined to become attached to anyone else, and he didn’t share Benedict’s enthusiasm for all of it—the shooting and the bloody charges and the vanquishing of the enemy. He’d been in the field hospital when Benedict came back from Jerusalem, and by the time his first, brutal surgery was over, Benedict had shipped out.

Frank remembered now hearing that Preston Benedict was the youngest son of a wealthy Seattle family. He wished he had found a way to escape the dinner invitation, kind though it might be. He didn’t look forward to suffering through a formal dinner, trying to be polite to well-bred strangers. Small talk was, as Preston had reminded him, not one of his skills.

Preston congratulated himself as he strolled up Western Avenue, where coolies and Indians labored on the slippery wooden docks, hauling who-knew-what back and forth, gibbering their weird languages at one another. Mother would be pleased when he brought home a war buddy, and a superior officer at that. Father would like Parrish. Everyone did. His brother Dick should be glad to meet another man who had been in the show. Too bad about the arm, but there was something glamorous about a wounded war hero. It felt like a lucky day. Maybe Margot would be stuck at the hospital and miss dinner entirely. That would be a bonus.

The sapphire, hanging on its silver chain beneath his shirt, felt cool and heavy against his chest. He touched it with his palm, thinking he should decide soon where he wanted to work, some office where his war record and the Benedict name would command respect. He would choose the right firm, sit down with the owner, settle his future.

He came to a bench facing the bay, and threw himself down with his legs outstretched. The clouds had cleared, and the wintry sun shone on the Olympics rising in their snowy majesty beyond the water. Relaxing was pleasant, but, he reminded himself, he’d been idle for an entire month. That was long enough, surely, for a man to recover from his war experience.

The Near East had been a nasty place to spend his war at first. Allenby’s people acted like snobs, looking down their noses at the Yanks, making officers like him do the scut work. He’d had to run back and forth along the supply lines, carrying other people’s gear as if he was no better than a coolie.

But then, when the battle ebbed in the hills of Judea, he and Carter had marched into Jerusalem with Allenby’s forces, and everything changed.

He closed his eyes for a moment against the weak sunshine. A scuffle of feet on the sidewalk made him open them again.

A little gaggle of boys had gathered around him. There were three of them, the usual street urchins with ragged hair, short pants showing dirty ankles and scuffed boots. Their noses ran, and their faces were dirty. Preston straightened.

Two of the boys backed away, but one held his ground, pointing to the insignia on Preston’s collar. “You’re an officer.” One of his front teeth was missing, and the other was broken, making him lisp.

Preston smiled. “Of course.”

The brat gave him a gap-toothed grin. “Didja kill anybody?”

Another boy, from a safe distance, said, “Yeah, didja? Kill some Huns?”

“I did.” Preston leaned forward, and the boys’ eyes widened. He said, still smiling, “Do you want me to show you how?”

Three open mouths greeted this question. Preston laughed. He put out his left hand and caught the broken-toothed boy by the arm. He spun him around to hold him tightly around the chest, while with his other hand he grasped the kid’s skinny neck. The boy cried out, then choked as Preston’s thumb and forefinger constricted his throat. Preston lifted him off his feet, bending his neck backward. The urchin reeked of mud and grease. He kicked, and pulled at Preston’s arm with desperate hands.

One of the other boys said, “Hey, mister! Don’t hurt Jackie, he’s—”

“That’s captain,” Preston said. He squeezed the boy harder. Jackie’s grimy hands clawed at his sleeve. His kicks grew weaker, his tattered boots flailing harmlessly around Preston’s knees. “This is how you do it, boys.”

“Let him go!” one of the urchins shrieked. Both of them began to cry. Their weeping was openmouthed and ugly, intensifying the mess of dirt and mucus on their faces.

Jackie’s feet twitched, and his fingers scrabbled uselessly against Preston’s arm. He made thick gasping noises that died away when Preston tightened his fingers.

Preston felt the curious attention of the nearest dockworkers turn to him, drawn by the boys’ wailing. He gave the hapless Jackie one last little squeeze, and released him. The boy fell to his knees, scrambling away over the pavement as he sucked in air with noisy gulps. His companions reached for him, and pulled him up between them. Jackie leaned on them, his lips white, his face pinched with panic.

“Hey!” one of the brats sobbed. “Whatcha think you’re doing?”

Preston chuckled as he came to his feet. The boys backed away, clinging to one another in that endearing way of the powerless. The familiarity of it, even with these unworthy adversaries, warmed Preston’s groin.

“Scary, isn’t it?” he said.

One of them cried, “What is?”

Preston let his grin fade and his voice harden. “Killing people. It’s no joke.”

“We wasn’t joking!”

Jackie sniffled, “You hurt me, mister.”

One of the others said, “Captain, Jackie. He’s a captain.”

Preston nodded. “Right you are, lad. Captain.” He touched two fingers to his cap. “You learned something here, boys. See you remember.” He spun on his toes, feeling full of life. Yes, this was a lucky day. A good day to decide what to do next.

Dressed in the same suit he had worn all day, Frank stood on the steps of the Alexis, awaiting the car Benedict had promised, and dreading the evening ahead.

It had not been a good day. The managers of two firms had offered sympathy, but nothing more. With the contraction of the economy, they said, they were letting people go, not hiring. He had to screw up his courage to call upon three more businesses. Two were polite, but not interested. At the third, a company that fabricated boilers and other steel products, the proprietor took one look at his empty sleeve and said, “Major, you’re wasting your time and mine. You’d better take your disability pay and go home.”

Frank stiffened. It was possible that one day a pension from the British Army might reach him. There had been no sign of it yet, but he wasn’t going to say so. It was none of this man’s business. “Sir,” he said, “I can be an engineer with one arm.”

The man looked angry, as if Frank had done something to affront him. “Have you done any drafting since you got out?”