Charlie's War, part five

Continued from here

Cairo, Egypt

November 1919

Despite her fears, Charlie slipped into the role of being a wife with ease. It wasn't a difficult part to play – their house in the London area of Kensington had been beautiful and came equipped with a cook, a butler, a gardener, a maid, and a chauffeur. The servants did most of the work, leaving Charlie very little to do domestically, so she threw herself into learning more about hieroglyphics, hieratic, Coptic, and modern Arabic. Jack was shocked at how quickly she learned the complex languages and soon was bringing work home, asking for Charlie's help with translations. Not long after that, she was accompanying him into the offices at the Egyptian Exploration Society, where he introduced her to George Herbert, Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, the financial backer for the massive digs in the Valley of the Kings, and Gaston Maspero, Director of the Antiquities Department at the Bulak Museum in Cairo, and of course Jack's boss, Howard Carter.

Jack and Charlie impressed Carter greatly, reminding him of himself some ten years ago, when he'd first joined the EES. Carter immediately asked Jack and Charlie to accompany him to Egypt to assist in the as-yet unsuccessful excavations in the Valley of the Kings. Work had been continuing on and off in the area for nearly five years, and Carnarvon was getting impatient. Carter hoped that by injecting new blood and archaeologists newly graduated from school would help shake things up a bit and lead to the find of the century.

The Taylors didn't need even a portion of the week Carter gave them to come to their decision. It was a dream come true for both of them and they quickly sold their house, put their affairs in order – including updated wills reflecting their newly married status – and hopped on a ship that would take them to Calais, in the north of France, and then on a train that took them down to the tip of the Italian peninsula, then another ship that took them across the Mediterranean to Port Said, Egypt, and finally another train straight into the heart of Cairo.

The long trip ran together in Charlie's mind; one train station looked like another when one didn't actually leave one's sleeper car. But when she climbed down out of the train into the station in Cairo, she knew immediately that she was in Egypt. The mélange of languages that assaulted her ears – French, Greek, Arabic, even German – and the scents of dry, dusty air combined with foreign spices, frankincense, myrrh, and sandalwood made her giddy. She turned to Jack and grinned up at him. “I can't believe I'm here,” she said in a hushed, awed voice.

Jack chuckled and leaned over to kiss the crown of her head. “You're here, Bunny. And next week, we'll be in the Valley of the Kings, with shovels and pick-axes in our hands.” He flagged down a horse-drawn carriage, loaded first his wife, then their luggage into it, and then asked to be taken to the Shepheard Hotel. Charlie grinned; she'd long dreamed of staying where Napoleon headquartered his army during his invasion of Egypt more than a hundred years ago.

Sandwiched between the Nile River and Ibrahim Pasha Street, the Shepheard Hotel commanded a beautiful view of the city and the surrounding desert from its storied terrace, lined with potted palm trees, wicker chairs and tables, and waiters dressed in pristine white galabeyas and crimson fezzes. As Jack and Charlie sat and sipped thick, syrupy mint tea, he told her a little more of the history of the hotel. “Did you know that both Henry Morton Stanley and T.E. Lawrence sat here?”

“Lawrence of Arabia?” Charlie whispered in awe. She grinned and looked around, eyes wide with wonder and excitement as they fell on the Great Pyramid. “Did you ever think you'd sit here and see this view?”

Jack laughed softly, taking a great deal of pleasure in Charlie's excitement. “I did. But do you want to know a secret?” He leaned closer to her, putting his lips right against the delicate shell of her left ear and whispered, his breath warm and ticklish against her skin. “I never thought I'd be sharing it with someone whose beauty beggars that of the view around me.”

Charlie shivered and turned her face to his, kissing his lips softly to hide her blush. “I never, ever thought I'd be here, Jack,” she told him when they sat back in their seats. “Hank and I used to talk about traveling to Europe when we were older.” She frowned softly at the memory of her brother and blinked rapidly to deny the tears that those memories brought. “He would have loved this place,” she said quietly.

“He'd be so proud of you, Bunny,” Jack replied in an equally quiet voice, reaching over to take her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. He knew how hard Hank's death had hit her, how much she missed him, and he wanted to do something to take away some of that heartache. Seeing her face light up when she first saw the Pyramids had helped, but he knew just how deeply that pain ran.

A pair of waiters brought their mezze and Charlie stared at it in wonder. She did not recognize anything on the plates in front of her. Jack took pity on her and pointed to each dish and described it. There was hummus, a dip made of ground chickpeas and olive oil and flavored with roasted peppers; fattoush, a green salad covered with grilled eggplant and zucchini and small pieces of toasted pita, which were small, round grilled flatbreads; tabouli, another sort of salad made with bulgar wheat, parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers, mint, and olive oil; baba-ghanoug, which was sort of like hummus, but made with roasted eggplant and sesame seed oil; and koubeiba, torpedo-shaped croquettes made from minced lamb and bulgar wheat and fried in olive oil.

Charlie sampled a bit of everything and was surprised and delighted to discover that she loved it all and had seconds, except for the baba-ghanoug, but then she'd never been a fan of eggplant. After the waiters cleared away their plates, they quickly replaced them with an astounding selection of desserts. “You're trying to make me fat!” Charlie accused Jack, who laughed and shook his head.

“No, I'm just trying to introduce you to the cuisine of your new home,” he replied and then named and described every dish again for her. There was fakhfakina, which was a salad made with figs, pomegranates, apricots, and oranges, mixed with their juices and cream and served chilled; baked sweet potatoes, smothered with cinnamon-flavored honey; and qara’asali, a baked concoction of pumpkin, milk, butter, flour and sugar that reminded Charlie of Thanksgiving pumpkin pies.

“I cannot eat another bite,” Charlie said after trying everything and going back for seconds of the fakhfakina, which she decided she could live off forever. “I think you're going to have to carry me to our room.”

Jack smiled. “I could do that. In fact,” he said and stood, reaching down to draw her to her feet before scooping her up into his arms. “Shall we retire to our rooms, Mrs. Taylor?”

Charlie giggled when Jack picked her up and buried her face in his shoulder. “I didn't mean it, Jack!” she protested. “Put me down!”

“No, ma'am, I will not. You said I'd have to carry you and that is what I'm going to do.” Nodding to the people still gathered in the hotel's terrace and tipping a wink at their smirking waiters, Jack carried Charlie through the hotel and to the elevators, which took them straight up to their suite. Once inside, he gently threw her down on their bed, undressed her, and did to her what Napoleon wished he could have done to Josephine, if only the Empress was as brave and beautiful as Charlie.

Valley of the Kings, Egypt

November 1922

“This has to be it, Taylor,” Howard Carter said to Jack, three weeks into their final season in the Valley of the Kings. “Carnarvon is giving us this last season to find Tut and if we don't, he's pulling our funding and we'll be out in the cold. Six years out here and only a few bits of junk to show for it.”

Jack glanced once more at the collection of evidence spread out on the large map table in Carter's tent. There wasn't much in the way of concrete proof that Tut's tomb existed – a few pieces of faience pottery, a bit of gold foil, and a small cache of funerary items that bore Tutankhamun's seal gave a little credence to Carter's theory that the tomb had not yet been found. And the tiny village of workmen's huts and the calcite jars with Akhetaten-era carvings found at the entrance of another Pharaoh's tomb last season indicated that there had been extensive work done in the time not long after the Akhenaten's city had been abandoned. Carter had used these tenuous threads to convince Carnarvon to give him one more season. “But now we have those stairs, that door, and Carnarvon must feel that we've found something important. He's here, after all,” Jack pointed out. Then in a hushed, excited voice said, “We've found him, Howard. We've found Tut. I just know it.”

“Well, we've found something, that's for certain. I won't invite Fate to insert her heavy hand into the proceedings just yet,” Carter said with a small smile. “Tomorrow we'll know for certain.”

The group – comprised of Carter, Jack, Charlie and twenty Egyptian diggers – had begun excavating the workmen's huts on the first of November, uncovering the huts quickly and spending the next four days documenting them, before the dig beneath could begin in earnest. Late on the afternoon of the fourth, a single step leading downward had been uncovered; then by mid-morning on the fifth, twelve steps had been uncovered and suddenly, right in front of them, the upper half of a blocked entrance could be seen. With Charlie's help – since she was much smaller than any of them men and could fit into tighter spaces – Carter looked for a royal seal but could only find the seal of the necropolis. Still, the design was of the Eighteenth Dynasty and theories began to spin out of control – they'd found another cache, or the tomb of a major noble who'd built in the Valley with royal consent, or perhaps a place where the Boy Pharaoh's body and its most precious equipment had been moved for its safety, either from flooding or tomb raiders.

Carter had his diggers cover up the steps and left a small group of those he trusted most to stand guard while he, Jack, and Charlie went back to Cairo to make arrangements, and most importantly, send word to Carnarvon that his gamble had paid off. Early on the morning of the sixth, Carter had asked Charlie to send a cable to Carnarvon in England. She composed a short, fairly vague message: "At last have made discovery; a tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for your arrival; congratulations." Three weeks later, on the afternoon of the twenty-third, George Herbert, the fifth Lord Carnarvon, and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, arrived at the dig.

Charlie was amazed at the English gentry. She had expected them to be snobby and cold and instead found them to be warm, generous people who worked right alongside Carter, Jack, and herself, getting their hands dirty and sharing meals with the natives. She and Evy – as the woman had insisted on being called – had even begun to form a friendship as both were happy to have female companionship in an otherwise male-dominated place.

The day after the Herbert's arrival in the Valley, the full flight of downward steps – all sixteen of them – had been uncovered and the expedition was faced with an intact door, complete with Tut's seals, which had been still been covered by rubble three weeks ago. The upper left portion of the doorway had been broken through by grave robbers, but the fact that the tomb had been resealed proved that it was not yet empty. Digging paused for a small celebration which lasted long into the night.

Charlie and Carter thoroughly photographed the door on the morning of the twenty-fifth and then it was carefully removed. A passageway emerged in the darkness, a passageway that was filled with limestone chips. The wind went out of everyone's sails, until Jack pointed out that the stones in the upper left portion of the rubble were of a different color. “Yes”, he said, “the tomb has been open and some things have probably been removed, but would they bother to go through all the trouble of sealing it again if it were empty?”

“He's right, of course,” said Carnarvon. “This tomb has been broken into twice – probably once only a few years after it was sealed, and then more recently. The robbers could only have gotten away with small pieces; the holes through which they made their ingress and egress are far too small to accommodate anything else.”

The following afternoon had the entire passageway cleared and the group was once more confronted with a sealed doorway, identical to the first one. This door, too, showed signs that robbers had broken through. “I'm starting to think this is going to be another cache,” Carter said, “and not a tomb. The configuration is all wrong – the arrangement of the stairway, the entrance passage and the doors remind me the other cache. They found Tutankhamun's seals there, too.”

“Well,” said Charlie. “There's only one way to know for certain. Open the door.”

With trembling hands, Carter made a tiny hole in the upper left corner. Darkness and blank space as far as an iron testing rod could reach showed that whatever lay beyond the door was empty, not filled in like the passageway they were now standing in had been. Candle tests as proof against noxious air were done and then Carter widened the hole a bit more and he peered inside.

Charlie reached for Jack and Evy's hands, finding them just as damp with nervous sweat as hers were. Carnarvon took a step forward, standing now very close to Carter's side. “Well, old man? Can you see anything?” he asked, finally unable to stand the suspense.

“Yes,” Carter replied. “Wonderful things.”

The next morning, November the twenty-seventh, Carter and Charlie once more documented the seals and photographed the door before it was removed. The wall of the room – which was later called “the Antechamber” – opposite the entrance was piled floor to ceiling with gold. Couches, boxes, chairs, chariots, statues, and so much more, had been grouped together in barely organized chaos. On the right-hand wall stood two life-sized statues, presumably of the Boy King himself, standing guard over yet another sealed door that bore the signs of having been breached at least once before.

Carter, Jack, and Charlie began to look through the organized chaos of the artifacts collected together in the Antechamber. As they worked, Jack noticed yet another door – this one obviously breached but not sealed – hidden away behind the couches on the far wall. Since Charlie was the smallest member of the group, she was selected to explore what lay beyond. Carefully she crawled through the tiny hole, gripping an electric torch, leaving her husband, his boss, and his boss's boss behind, stooping and peering over her shoulder with breathless anticipation.

“My God,” she whispered as she swept the room with her tiny light. If the Antechamber was organized chaos, this room – later called “the Annex” – was nothing more than pure pandemonium. Grave goods – faience pots, jewelry, a chariot, couches, chairs, tables, statues, even a small barque had been piled and tossed willy-nilly. There was no room for even tiny Charlie to maneuver in the mass of stuff. “It's so crowded in here,” she called out to Jack and Carter. “I don't know how we're going to document everything in here. There's no way we can do this in a single season!”

That night, Carnarvon, Carter, Jack, Charlie, and Evy sat down together to discuss the prodigious task ahead of them. Just clearing out the Antechamber would be a monumental undertaking. Each and every item had first to be photographed in situ, then sketched with a written documentation made on correspondingly numbered cards. Then the item was noted on a ground plan of the tomb. All of this had to be done before items could be removed from the tomb and loaded into wooden boxes to be transported by train to Cairo, where each piece would be further documented by the Cairo Museum’s curator. After this, the Curator would decide which pieces would be retained in Egypt, and which would be sent to the Egypt Exploration Society's other facilities around the world.

“It's like a game of pick-up sticks,” Jack said around a mouthful of tabouli and pita. “How will we ever move those sandals, for example? They're being held together by 3,000 years of habit alone; the threads have all long since disintegrated.”

Carter nodded and sipped his tea. “It will prove to be a matter of extreme difficulty, but I've no doubts that we'll be able to make a proper go at it. We can undertake an elaborate system of props and supports to hold one object in place while another is removed. Then we can place them on stretchers, wrap them in gauze and bandages and remove them that way.”

“Yes,” Carnarvon agreed. “That is a capital suggestion. We will use another tomb, perhaps Seti's, as a conservation laboratory, as well as a dark room for you to use in developing your photographs, Mrs. Taylor.” Charlie readily agreed and over the next seven weeks, the Antechamber was slowly emptied of its contents, including the two life-sized statues.

Finally, on February the seventeenth, 1923, the Antechamber was cleared and Carter began dismantling the sealed door that stood between the two statues. After approximately ten minutes of work, he'd made a hole large enough to insert an electric torch into. He was presented with a wall – floor to ceiling – of pure gold. “We've found the sepulchral chamber,” he said in an awed, shaky voice.

After the door and most of the wall surrounding it were removed, they discovered that the chamber contained a massive shrine made from wood, gilded with gold foil and inlaid with a brilliant blue porcelain – Egyptian faience at its finest. Charlie remarked later that it was the exact shade of her husband's eyes. The shrine was sixteen feet long, ten feet wide, and nine feet tall. There were only eighteen inches of clearance between the walls of the shrine and the walls of the chamber itself.

Over the next two months, work on the items recovered in the Antechamber continued. Carter and Carnarvon both determined that the conversation of these artifacts took precedence over dismantling and moving the shrine. As the group worked steadily, word spread of their amazing find, and soon the entrance to the tomb was surrounded by hundreds of tourists, newspaper reporters and photographers, and even a motion picture camera crew. When stretchers laden with artifacts covered in gauze were carried out of the tomb, the workers were met with cheers, applause, and the pop of camera flashes. Photographs of Carnarvon, Carter, Jack, Charlie, and even Evy were published in just about every newspaper in the entire world, making them instant heroes and celebrities.

Egyptian fever gripped the world, insinuating itself into every facet of life. Masses of mail and telegrams deluged the team, and people tried to use their money and their influence to arrange tours of the tomb. Even fashion and architecture began to reflect the obsession; clothing with ancient Egyptian influences began appearing in magazines from New York to Paris, and Grauman's Theatre in Los Angeles, and even Lenin's tomb in Moscow, were built with obvious Egyptian styles.

As the rainy season began in late March, work tapered off in order to protect the expedition from a plague of mosquitoes, whose bite brought with it the very deadly threat of malaria. Carnarvon received one such bite on his cheek, but it was not malaria that killed him on April fifth, 1923. It was a blood infection due to aggravating the bite by shaving over it that ended his life and his sponsorship of Carter's digs. It was also an awful foreshadowing of what would happen just a week later.

Continued here

Charlie's War, part four

Continued from here

Michigan Creek, CO

December 25, 1918

Charlie woke up just after dawn on Christmas Morning and stared out over the snow-covered fields of South Park. The rising sun had stained the pristine snow pink and for a moment, she indulged in a childish fantasy that the snow would taste of fresh June strawberries. She could see the summit of Mosquito Peak and the waves of snow that were blown from it, looking for all the world like sea foam off a breaker.

Below her, the house was utterly silent, except for the occasional snoring of her father and the fitful fussing of Henry, Georgia and Junior's youngest. He was just a year old now and cutting some teeth, Mama said. He was generally a good boy, happy and laughing, but teething had made him grumpy and irritable, and his mother looked haggard and worn. Charlie wondered for a moment if Junior had been helping out at all and decided that she'd intervene on behalf of her sister-in-law.

But all that would come later, for this morning, there was cooking to do. There was going to be an enormous Christmas dinner later that day, with the mayor of Michigan Creek and his family, the Colonel, the entire McNamara family – including Al and Gwen – plus some of the other families in the community. There was a turkey and two geese, thanks to Jack, Charlie, and the Colonel's latest hunting trip, as well as a ham and bread and dressing and vegetables and sweeties enough to feed an entire army.

There was much to celebrate this Christmas, after all. The Great War had finally ended, and while Charlie's closest brother had been killed on the battlefield, many other families attending tonight's party had their loved ones home with them, hale and hearty and safe once more. The Spanish Flu epidemic seemed to be retreating, too; there were fewer and fewer cases reported every day, and it had been nearly a week since someone had succumbed to the illness.

Charlie rose from bed, washed her face and dressed quickly in a corn-flower blue calico dress and descended the stairs, tip-toeing past her parents' room and going to Hank's old room, where Jack had been staying since July. Charlie rapped lightly on the door and it soon opened, revealing a bare-chested Jack looking sleepy and mussy-headed. She grinned and stood on her toes to kiss him. “Happy Christmas, my darling,” she whispered against his lips and was rewarded with a one-armed hug, the other arm hiding somewhere behind the door.

“Happy Christmas to you, Bunny. Did you sleep well?” Jack asked her as he ran expert fingers through her loosely-plaited hair.

Charlie snuggled against him briefly and nodded. He smelled incredible and was still warm and soft and pliant from sleep. “I slept wonderfully. Did Santa come to visit you during the night?” She tried to peek over his shoulder into his room, but his broad shoulders were blocking her view. On purpose, she thought, and tipped a suspicious look up at him.

He grinned knowingly down at her, his blue eyes sparkling. Her constant curiosity and slightly suspicious nature were two of her more endearing qualities. “Yes, but strangely enough, he didn't leave me anything.” He drew his other arm out from behind the door and presented a small, sky-blue box wrapped with a silver bow to her. “Apparently you were a very good girl this year. Look. It has your name on it.” And sure enough, in Jack's neat, copperplate printing was her name.

She bit her lower lip and took the little box, surprised at how heavy it was. She shook it and sniffed it, all the while looking up into Jack's face with a mischievous grin. “Hmm. Shall I open it now, do you think?” she asked. Jack nodded solemnly and she carefully untied the bow and lifted the lid from the box.

Nestled inside, on a bed of excelsior, was the most breathtaking pendant Charlie had ever seen - a huge oval-shaped opal, which was easily the size of Jack's thumbnail, surrounded by enameled flowers painted in blue and green, and scroll-work and flourishes lined with pavé diamonds. The setting looked like it was silver or perhaps platinum. Charlie gasped and her mouth went dry. How much this must have cost Jack! She looked up at him with wide eyes and saw that he was actually nervous. She realized that she'd have to say something and quickly. “It's...it's beautiful, Jack.”

“Do you really like it?” he asked earnestly.

“I love it, Jack. Really, I do. But...isn't it rather expensive?”

Jack chuckled softly and darted a kiss against Charlie's forehead. “Silly Bunny. Nothing's too expensive for you.”

She kissed him again and they parted, lest her mother, who had just risen – Charlie caught her talking softly to Papa – saw them together unchaperoned. Charlie darted another quick kiss against Jack's cheek and went silently back up the stairs to her bedroom, tucking the box away somewhere safe until that afternoon, when she could show it to her mother and sisters-in-law.

Some ten hours later, the house was filled with people, and food, and laughter. Dinner had been a thumping success and everyone had remarked upon how beautiful the decorations looked. Junior and Papa had found a huge Colorado blue spruce and dragged it back to the parlour of the house on Michigan Creek. It was decorated with silver and blue ornaments, white electric lights, and a sweet-faced blonde angel sat atop the tree, holding a lyre and looking a bit like Charlie. A mountain of gifts lay under the tree and the children in the house – including Charlie and her brothers – were having a hard time waiting until after dessert to plow into it and discover what that year's presents were to be.

After the pudding had been consumed, the brandy and tea drunk down, the party gathered in the parlour and presents were finally handed out. There were squeals of joy, gasps of surprise, and not a few tears of happiness from the recipients. Papa had given Mama a necklace with four stones in it – an amethyst for Junior, a diamond for Hank, a sardonyx for Al, and an opal for Charlie. Mama – and indeed all the mothers present – had been reduced to tears as she put it around her neck.

Charlie herself received new dresses and shoes from Mama, a bottle of Quelques Fleurs perfume from Papa, jade earbobs from Junior and Georgia, a pair of handmade, deerskin gloves from the Colonel, and a pearl and diamond brooch from Al and Gwen. But the most surprising gift of the evening came from Jack.

When everyone had opened their gifts and were chatting happily, Jack suddenly stood in front of the tree and tapped a fork against his brandy glass delicately, quickly gaining everyone's attention. He smiled at Charlie and reached his hand out for hers, drawing her up to stand next to him. “I have something I'd like for everyone here to share with us,” he said. “For the past six months, I have had the opportunity to come to know each and everyone here. You've been gracious to me, opening your homes to me, feeding me and caring for me. I feel as though I'm with family here and I'm grateful to you all.” He paused and then turned to face Charlie. Very slowly, he descended to one knee and fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, taking out a small black box. He opened it and held it out to her. Inside was a ring, a huge solitaire in a platinum setting, surrounded by smaller diamonds in a sunburst pattern.

Charlie's knees suddenly felt weak and she sank to the floor, tears filling her eyes and her heart pounding in her ears; she could barely hear Jack's next words. “Charlie, you're an amazing girl. You're beautiful, and funny, and so damned smart. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” He took her left hand and slid the ring down her third finger as she nodded. Then she launched herself into his arms and kissed him. The crowd around her exploded into applause and cheers broke out.

Junior turned to Papa and said, “So that's what happened that day in your office! He asked for your blessings!” Papa laughed and confirmed it. Jack had finally worked up the nerve to ask Mr. McNamara for Charlie's hand – leaving him pale and shaky. And Papa had been utterly stunned that the heir to the fifth largest fortune in America had asked to marry his only daughter.

The celebration went long into the night, with everyone asking to see Charlie's ring and giving Jack hearty congratulatory thumps on the back and words of advice on how to tame Charlie. He told them all that he had no desire to tame her. He liked her fiery and wouldn't have her any other way. She was one of a kind, he told them. Utterly perfect and utterly unique in every way.

Michigan Creek, CO

June 15, 1919

“Where are your gloves, Charlie? You can't get married without gloves.”

“Oh, Mama,” Charlie said with a small amount of annoyance. “I'm not wearing gloves. It's so old-fashioned. Gwen and Georgia didn't wear gloves at their weddings; why should I?” She was tired of being fussed over, tired of people picking at her and poking at her, dressing her hair, applying make-up, insisting she wear this bracelet instead of that one, or this necklace rather than that one. She'd chosen to get married outside, in the middle of a mountain meadow because she wanted to avoid being all done up like a doll, but her mother and two sisters-in-law had taken over like matrons in a women's prison, shouting orders and pushing Charlie around.

Mrs McNamara gave her daughter a narrow-eyed look and carefully adjusted the fit of Charlie's brand-new dress. It was a beautiful creation, sleek and narrow-fitting, made of silk with an overlay of delicate ivory lace. It had short, cap sleeves and a daring, plunging V-neckline, but Charlie was young and beautiful and the dress made her look like a princess. But Mrs McNamara worried that she was showing off too much skin. Hence the necessity for gloves. She sighed and gave in; after all, Charlie had submitted to everything else she and Gwen and Georgia had demanded of her. “Fine,” she said to Charlie. “But at least wear some lipstick. And powder your décolletage.”

“Yes, Mama,” Charlie said with a sigh of her own. She turned back to the mirror and applied a thin layer of peach-colored lipstick and carefully dusted her chest and cleavage with some sweet-smelling powder. Then she carefully put on her grandmother's triple-strand pearl necklace, matching earbobs, and a delicate Chinese cloisonné bracelet painted with orange and yellow butterflies. Her mother helped her with her veil, carefully attaching it with carved ivory combs into the up-swept loose chignon of Charlie's hair. Charlie rose from her seat at her mother's vanity and took a deep breath. “Well? Do I look all right?” she asked Mrs McNamara.

Mama took a deep breath and with a voice thick with tears said, “Oh, my darling girl. My angel Charlotte, you are beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Jack's breath will be stolen right from his chest when he sees you.”

Seeing her mother so close to tears triggered the same reaction in Charlie and she went and hugged her mother, closing her eyes and pretending just for a moment that she was six again and Mama's hug could make everything bad and scary in the world go away instantly. “I'm scared, Mama,” she admitted softly. “What if I'm a horrible wife? What if I'm an even worse mother?”

Mrs McNamara gently patted Charlie's back and then held her out at arm's length, giving her a soft smile. “May I tell you a secret, Charlie?” Charlie nodded and her Mama raised her hand to gently cup Charlie's cheek as she said, “I felt the same way just before Howard and I were married. And then just after Junior was born. And Hank, and Al. And definitely just after you were born.” She smiled and chuckled a little. “Every woman who has ever been married or become a mother has felt the same way. Yes, some of them have been horrible wives and awful mothers, but you come from a long line of amazing, strong women, and you will not be horrible or awful.” She gathered Charlie in for another tight hug and kissed her cheek before turning her loose. “I'll go find Papa and then we can get this show on the road!”

Georgia and Gwen, Charlie's bridesmaids, came into the room, looking beautiful and sunny in their pale yellow georgette dresses, wide-brimmed straw hats, and bouquets of wildflowers – black-eyed Susans, wild carrot, Indian paintbrushes, and alpine lupins. They oohed and ahhed over Charlie, wishing her well and giving her practical advice – don't forget to breathe, keep her eyes fixed on Jack's face, repeat exactly what the minister said, don't forget to smile and try not to cry and ruin her make-up. Then Mr McNamara entered the room and it was suddenly time to go.

Mr McNamara's car, a fancy Packard touring car – the twin to Al's, in fact – soon arrived at the meadow Charlie and Jack had chosen for their wedding. A small area had been roped off with yellow and white ribbons, and chairs – filled with family and friends already – had been set in rows right in the grass, which was filled with the same flowers that were in the bridesmaids' bouquets. Jack, Junior, and Jack's brother Jacob were standing together at the head of an aisle between the chairs. The minister, Reverend Doctor James Raymond, stood there as well, looking rather severe in his stark black robes, which were only slightly lightened by the purple stole around his neck.

“Are you ready, Charlie?” Papa asked from the driver's seat, glancing into the back where Charlie was sitting, clutching her bouquet of black-eyed Susans, field daisies, and tasseled grasses. She nodded and he flashed her a smile before getting out of the car and going around to open her door to help her out. At that moment, the small string quartet started playing and Georgia and Junior's four-year-old daughter, Isabelle, started down the aisle, dressed in a white frock with a yellow sash, spilling handfuls of tiny white flowers onto the ground from a basket between her hands. Then Gwen, Georgia, and finally Charlie and her father made their way down the aisle and Charlie lost track of time and place, losing sight of everyone and everything... except for Jack.

Charlie barely remembered being led down the aisle, or her father handing her off to Jack – though she did remember her hand slipping into his, the rough callouses from digging, the sheer heat of his skin against hers suddenly made everything realer. She certainly didn't remember Reverend Raymond's brief words before Jack's voice broke through the thick haze of nerves.

“I, John Moses Samuel Taylor, take thee, Charlotte Alma McNamara, to be my wedded wife,” Jack said, gripping Charlie's hands tightly in his own, his normally open and smiling countenance clouded and serious with the gravity of the proceedings. “I do promise and swear, before God and these witnesses, to be thy loving and faithful husband; in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.” He paused for a moment and then continued in a slightly more confident voice, reciting the words to an ancient Egyptian love poem, “She is the only girl. There are no others. She is more beautiful than any other. She is a star goddess arising. She has captured my heart. We will remain joined until the end of years. We will remain together in the endless line of hours and not even death will part us.”

Charlie managed not to start crying when she heard those words though she could feel the hot pricking of tears at her eyes as she made her way through her Anglican vows. She paused and took a deep breath, fighting the tears but she was quickly overwhelmed by them. She made a few false starts with the ancient words of her own poem, but finally got enough of control of herself that she could speak clearly, albeit with a slightly damp voice. “My beloved is like a garden, full of beautiful papyrus blossoms and I am like a wild goose attracted by the taste of love. I will never leave you, my darling. You are my health and my life. My only wish is to stay in your house, by your side. We will always be hand in hand, and come and go together everywhere.” When she finished, she looked up and saw that Jack, too, was crying and the sound of sniffling from behind her and to her right proved that others had joined in.

They managed to quell the waterworks long enough to exchange rings and finally, Reverend Raymond pronounced them Mr and Mrs John Taylor and allowed Jack to kiss Charlie. He swept her up in his arms, held her close and kissed the living daylights out of her, drawing a blush from her cheeks and stealing the breath right from her lungs. The small crowd exploded into applause and cat calls and wolf whistles, the Colonel's Indian whoops of joy being the loudest of them all.

A long line of cars left the meadow, headed back to the McNamara's house on Michigan Creek for the reception party. A tennis court had been set up on the front lawn, and a croquet field in the back garden. The parlour had been emptied of its furniture and turned into a large dance floor while a sumptuous buffet luncheon had been set out in the dining room. There was hot bouillon, sprinkled with grated hard-boiled egg yolks; chicken jelly salad with mayonnaise; tiny bread and butter sandwiches; frozen custard in ice cups trimmed with white paper petals, so that each individual serving looked like a daisy; and small squares of sponge cake, iced in yellow and dotted with white candies.

Jack and Charlie danced together and with their parents, and Charlie took a turn with each of her brothers as well as Jack's, while Jack danced with Georgia and Gwen. The Colonel allowed Charlie to beat him at tennis – or so he said – and Mrs McNamara and Jack enjoyed a heated game of croquet. There were stories of the bride and groom told by their grandparents and aunts and uncles, toasts and beautiful speeches made by friends and siblings, and finally, it was time for Jack and Charlie to leave. They were spending the night in Michigan Creek's one and only hotel before leaving early in the morning for Denver, so they could take a train to New York City and board a boat that would take them to the Italian Riviera for their honeymoon.

Their goodbyes were bittersweet; after the honeymoon, they would be going immediately to London, and it would be some time before Charlie saw her parents or her brothers again. Jack had accepted a position with the Egyptian Exploration Society, whose headquarters were in England. He'd be working directly for Lord Carnarvon, the famous patron of most of Egypt's more lucrative digs, and alongside Howard Carter, an up and coming archaeologist who had a knack for finding untouched tombs.

Soon, Jack and Charlie found themselves alone in a plain but functionally furnished room at the Creekside Hotel. Charlie was horribly nervous about the wedding night, despite some rather practical advice from her mother and sisters-in-law. Still, she did have to admit to being excited about the whole affair. She loved the way Jack made her feel on the numerous occasions when he'd kissed her and touched her, always taking care to never push her to do something she didn't feel comfortable with.

Jack opened a bottle of champagne while Charlie changed from her wedding gown into a lilac-colored silk nightgown and a matching peignoir. He built a fire in the room's hearth to ward off the mountains' chilly night air, and stripped out of his tuxedo, leaving just his shorts and undershirt on. When Charlie slipped out of the bathroom and entered the bedroom, Jack gasped softly, his eyes growing as wide as dinner plates and a look she'd never seen on his face set her heart pounding in her chest. “My God,” he whispered. “You look heavenly, Charlie. Come here and let me kiss you.”

She went and melted into his arms, tasting champagne on his lips, feeling as though she was floating high above the Earth on a cloud of pure bliss as he ran his fingers through her hair and stroked her arms and shoulders. Then he carefully peeled off the peignoir, leaving a trail of hot kisses down her neck and out across her shoulders before scooping her up in his arms and carrying her to the bed. “I'll be gentle, my love,” he promised, his breath warm and ticklish on the side of her neck. “If it hurts too much or doesn't feel good, please tell me and I'll stop. All right, Bunny?” Charlie nodded and smiled at his pet name for her; she trusted this man, this bronzed God who was her husband, completely with her heart and soul, and now she was ready to trust him with her body.

Jack slowly, carefully undressed her, his expressions like that of someone unwrapping a longed for and much-desired present. His eyes never left her face as he drank in her pleasure and her excitement and when she nodded and told him she was ready, he lifted himself above her and took her gently, carefully. It did hurt – as her mother and sisters-in-law said it would – but at the same time, it was a good kind of pain, the sort of pain that promised to blossom into searing pleasure if she could just stand it long enough. And she found she could and was utterly overwhelmed as white-hot lightning stabbed at her when Jack drove her over the brink and into orgasm, again and again.

Later, drenched in sweat and utterly spent, they lay side by side on the room's small bed, curled up together in a boneless heap of intertwined limbs. Charlie's head was nestled in the hollow of Jack's shoulder and his arm was around her back, fingers sliding idly through her hair. “I love you,” he whispered in the dim light cast by the dying fire. “I love you more than I can ever hope to express. I love you more now than I did yesterday, but not nearly as much as I will tomorrow.”

Charlie smiled and raised her head, looking up into his blue-blue eyes. “Thank you,” she said, wanting to say more, to pour her own feelings into words as lovely as his. But she'd never been good at that sort of thing, so she settled for gratefulness and tried not to be disappointed in her words' lack of poetry.

“For what? For loving you?” She nodded and Jack laughed. “Silly Bunny,” he said with a soft smile. “I couldn't do otherwise. Loving you is like breathing now. It's just as important as my heart beating or my blood rushing through my veins. Loving you keeps me alive.”

She moved closer to him and kissed him, feeling emboldened by his words, and let her hands roam over the firm planes and angles of his body, unfamiliar territory now but the terrain of which she very much looked forward to having intimate knowledge. Jack gently took her hands between his and showed her how to give him just as much pleasure as he'd given her earlier. They finally fell asleep just as the sun peeked over the Reinecker Ridge, throwing streams of yellow, salmon, and orange sunshine across the wide valley and through their room's lacy curtains. “Goodnight, Mr Taylor,” Charlie said through a yawn and grinned when she heard the response –

“Goodnight, Mrs Taylor.”

Continued here

Charlie's War, part three

Continued from here

New York City, New York

February 1918

“But Mama, all the other girls are going to be wearing red,” Charlie complained. “I'll look like a bumpkin.” She glanced at her mother, thinking she'd hit upon the perfect argument against wearing the dress Marjorie had created especially for her. “None of the boys will want to dance with me. That means no husband. No grandbabies.”

Marjorie merely smiled and held out the dress to Charlie. “That's quite all right. I have two already, and I'm sure that Al and Gwen will have babies soon as well.” Then she sighed the long-suffering sigh of mothers with headstrong daughters everywhere and thrust the dress out to Charlie once more. “I guarantee that at least one young man will ask you to dance tonight, Charlie. You will stand out in the crowd. You'll be the prettiest girl at the Plaza tonight.”

Charlie took the dress and then began putting it on while she continued her protests against going to the Valentine's Day ball in the Plaza Hotel's Grand Ballroom. “I have to study, Mama. I have exams next week. And I have an article to write, too. I don't want to...” She trailed off in mid-sentence and looked at herself in the full-length mirror of the dressing room in her mother's flat. “Oh, my,” she said softly, her eyes going wide with shock. “I look like Mary Pickford.” She turned a brilliant smile on her mother, the first of such expressions since June.

Marjorie smiled at her daughter, her eyes filling with tears. Charlie looked like a proper lady. The dress was a floor-length gown of a soft butter-colored silk charmeuse with fine lace edging at the bodice, overlaid with cream lace netting that ended in a small train in the back. Blue topaz flowers framed the neckline and decorated the sleeves, and the sleeve's four points each ended in a blue topaz briolette. With Charlie's wild mane of wheaten gold properly tamed into curls piled high atop her head and a little artfully applied make-up, the resemblance to America's Sweetheart would be remarkable. “See?” Marjorie said and adjusted the dress a tiny bit, picking bits of imaginary lint off the shoulder and darting a kiss against Charlie's cheek. “You'll be the prettiest girl there tonight. Let's finish getting you ready. Gwen and Al will be here in an hour.”

An hour and a half later, Al's Packard Touring car stopped in the front of the Plaza Hotel. Once they were standing on the pavement, Charlie clutched Gwen's arm and looked up at the building's edifice with wide eyes. “It's so elegant,” she said in a hushed voice. “You're really going to get married here?”

Gwendolyn Beck, of the Westchester Becks, a petite girl with a lush feminine figure and glossy golden curls, glanced down at her future sister-in-law and nodded. “Daddy said yes. It is the most expensive and exclusive hotel in the world after all." Then she smiled, softening her tone a bit. "It was quite a coup for Alfred to get invited to this ball. I'm glad he convinced you to come with us, Charlotte. There's sure to be many eligible men here tonight. Let's go in.”

The Hotel's Grand Ballroom quite literally took Charlie's breath away. The large room, done in white and gold, was lit by two enormous electric chandeliers dripping with Baccarat crystals. Balconies on the east wall overlooked the dance floor and a large stage dominated the north wall. Elegantly dressed couples took turns waltzing or sitting at one of scores of tables covered with red tablecloths, crystal goblets, gold place settings, and arrangements of fresh red roses. A coat check girl took Charlie and Gwen's wraps and Al's coat before they descended to their table. As they cut through the crowd, Charlie noticed that she was right about red being the predominant colour of the girls' dresses tonight. But she also noticed more than a few men looking at her and smiling hopefully.

That night, Charlie danced with an Astor, a Vanderbilt, a Mellon, and a Rockefeller. They were all polite but slightly aloof, and Charlie was left with the feeling that they danced with her as a matter of form and not because they had any interest in her personally. She sat out most of the dances, sitting alone at her table and sipping champagne punch while she watched Al and Gwen spinning around the dance floor.

And then the orchestra's leader announced that their next number would be a tango and a young man asked Charlie to dance. The tango was on Mrs McNamara's list of forbidden dances but Gwen pushed Al to let Charlie go once she realized just exactly who was asking. Jack Taylor was the great-grandson of Moses Taylor, the founder of the First National City Bank of New York, the most handsome and eligible young bachelor in the city.

Jack was tall, dark haired, elegantly dressed in a bespoke tuxedo, and had the bluest eyes Charlie had ever seen. He was polite but not cool and aloof. He talked to Charlie, asked her questions, and made her laugh. And he could dance. Boy, could he dance! He expertly led Charlie around the floor for the tango, a foxtrot, and two waltzes, before leading her back to her table. “May I join you?” he asked Al.

Gwen spoke up before Al could say anything. “Oh, yes, Mr Taylor. Please do.” She grinned across the table at Charlie, pleased that she'd found such a catch. The Taylor family was consistently on the Forbes list of the wealthiest families in America.

Jack sat next to Charlie and turned to face her, leaning closer to her and giving the impression that she was the most interesting, most fascinating girl in the entire world. And truth be told, she was. He'd been impressed with her when he first caught sight of her, standing out in the crowd like a ray of sunshine in her daring yellow dress. All of the stuffed shirts got to her first, which actually had worked out in his favour. She could see what cold fishes those boys were and when she danced with him, he'd be sure to impress her.

Charlie was more than impressed. She was smitten. Jack was handsome, well-bred, and he'd made her laugh. His sense of humour reminded her a great deal of Hank's and she had missed laughing like that. He was also a graduate student at Princeton, studying archaeology and had been promised a position with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in their Egyptology collection when he graduated just four months from now.

When the ball ended, Jack walked with the McNamaras and Gwen to Al's car. He caught Charlie's hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it before saying, “Miss McNamara, may I call on you again?”

Charlie glanced at Al and then Gwen, who were both smiling at her. Then she turned back to Jack and nodded. “I'd like that very much, Mr Taylor.” Jack grinned happily, bowed to Gwen, and shook Al's hand before giving Charlie one last fond look and turning on his heel. Al saw Gwen and Charlie into the car and then went around to climb into the driver's seat, setting off for Marjorie's flat a little further up Fifth Avenue.

Gwen sat next to Charlie in the backseat, nattering on about how handsome Mr Taylor was, how nicely mannered and interesting, and of course, how rich his family was. Charlie didn't hear a word she said; her head was still far too full of Jack to even think of anything else. Her mother had been right: she had stood out in the crowd and the most interesting man there had noticed her.

Michigan Creek, CO

June-November 1918

Al and Gwen were married in a huge ceremony in the same ballroom where Charlie and Jack Taylor had met four months earlier. It was the event of the New York social season. The ceremony was attended by the mayor of New York City, senators from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and many railroad, lumber, and coal barons. Gwen's dress was a frothy confection of white satin and lace, and she had selected peach chiffon for the dresses of her bridesmaids. It was the first time since Hank's funeral that the entire McNamara family–all three generations–had been gathered together in one place, and though they were all thrilled for Al and Gwen, that joy was nonetheless touched with heart-ache over Hank's absence.

Jack Taylor and Charlie had been seeing each other every weekend since the Valentine's ball at the Plaza. He went up to Poughkeepsie from Princeton to see Charlie at Vassar, and sometimes they'd meet in the City at Mrs. McNamara's rented flat near Central Park. They went to see talkies and went to dances; he took her out to dinner at expensive restaurants and she cooked for him and her mother. His constant cheerfulness, solicitous manners, and kind-hearted, generous nature helped Charlie heal from the loss of her closest sibling, and by the time school ended just a few weeks after Al and Gwen's wedding, Charlie was back to her old self, laughing freely, smiling often, and cracking jokes about everyone and everything.

Seeing that her daughter would be in good hands with Mr. Taylor come the autumn and would no longer need the presence of her mother so close by, Mrs. McNamara announced that she would return to the Michigan Creek house in July. Charlie invited Jack to spend the summer there with her, her parents, and Howard and his family. Jack eagerly agreed and in early July, they arrived in Michigan Creek just in time to learn that the Germans had launched what would prove to be the turning point of the war in the Western Front. For days, the entire family, Jack, the Colonel, and Mr. McNamara's legal clerks and junior associates surrounded the radio in Mr. McNamara's office, glued to news reports of the Second Battle of the Marne. When the German retreat was announced on the twentieth of July, all those gathered cheered and the Colonel opened a bottle of champagne.

The rest of the summer passed by too quickly. Charlie and Jack went on a week-long camping trip with the Colonel and she taught Jack to hunt and fish, and he taught her how to spot potential archaeological sites, how to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the line of Pharaohs from the First Dynasty clear through to the very last Pharaoh, Cleopatra VII.

They returned just in time to learn about a new threat to the world, the Spanish Flu. First reported at Fort Riley in Kansas, the sickness reached epidemic proportions by mid-August and no community, no matter how isolated, escaped unaffected. The first people in Michigan Creek to feel the sting of the killer virus was the small group of German Lutherans, who worked most of the farms in the South Park Basin.

Since the Great War had started, this small community had suffered horribly, becoming the object of suspicion and outright hatred. The ignorant and afraid pelted the German children with dirt clods on their way to school, called them “Huns” and worse, and the local war board harassed them even in the sanctity of their church. A group of men had marched into their sanctuary in the middle of church services one Sunday and announced that from that day on, no services would be held in German or the church would be shut down. Soon after, there were reports that several of the men who were present in that church had been abducted, and tarred and feathered. There were also suspicious fires in which an entire family lost everything they owned, including their farm animals.

The flu, however, was the Great Equalizer. It didn't care if you were German, Irish, Native American, male or female. If you were between the ages of twenty and forty, chances were you would contract the disease. In the first three weeks of the flu's arrival in Michigan Creek, fifteen people died and another thirty fell ill. Junior and his wife, Georgia, got the flu, as did both of their children. Even Charlie and Jack didn't escape and spent the last month of their holiday in Colorado, wandering in and out of consciousness. No McNamaras died, and eventually, Junior, Georgia, Charlie, and Jack recovered and helped tend to others in the tiny town. Junior and Jack, along with Mr. McNamara and the Colonel, dug many graves, and Georgia, Charlie, and Mrs. McNamara helped take care of many children whose mothers were deathly ill.

By September, a total of twenty-five people in South Park had died and fifty-eight more were sick. Charlie learned that Vassar had cancelled its classes, urging everyone to stay home until the epidemic ran its course. Jack had graduated earlier in June, but was set to return to New York City when Charlie did, to begin his position with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but his mother begged him to stay in Colorado as well and not to return to the City. Things were even worse there. More than 90,000 people had fallen ill in the state and some 12,000 had died.

In early October, Jack had a conversation with Mr. McNamara, a private conversation in the attorney's office with the door shut. Clerks and junior associates of the little firm exchanged worried looks and Junior hovered around the door, trying to listen through it, straining to hear even just a few words. At the end of the conversation, Jack emerged, looking pale and shaky, and Mr. McNamara sat behind his desk, a stunned expression on his face. He noticed his employees and his son lurking and swore them to secrecy. No word of this closed-door conversation was ever to leave the office.

On the morning of November eleventh, a curious thing happened. Church bells rang, car horns honked, and telephones jingled with the “general call” of the party line. “The armistice has been signed!” shouted the operator, amidst a cacophony of bells, whistles, horns, and cheering in the background. “The War is over!” That night, there was a huge celebration at Michigan Creek's Town Hall, and the world felt as though it had stopped holding its breath. Years later, when the final death toll from the fours years of fighting was made available, more than nine million combatants had been killed. No family in the countries involved in the conflict went untouched. It seemed as though everyone knew someone who had been killed on the muddy battlefields of France.

Continued here

Charlie's War, part two

Continued from here

Poughkeepsie, New York

June 1915 – June 1916

Despite repeated attempts by his parents, his brothers, the Colonel, and his sister, Hank left Yale two years before receiving his degree and traveled by train to Toronto, where he volunteered for service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. The officials with the CEF didn't seem disturbed by the fact that he was an American; they welcomed him with open arms, trained him, gave him a gun, and sent him off to France. He was the grandson of an Irish immigrant, after all. British blood ran in his veins.

The spring and summer of 1915 were a time of intense changes for the McNamaras. Not only had Hank shipped off to Europe to fight in a war that promised to change the world forever, but Charlie had been accepted to Vassar College in upstate New York, Junior's wife had given birth to their first child—a girl they named Isabella Marjorie—and Al began expressing the desire to leave school to pursue a career as a painter.

Charlie received only two letters from Hank during the summer months and both were brief and vague. He talked about how much he missed home and hot, home-cooked meals. He talked about basic training and how much he was looking forward to finally seeing some action. He described hearing mortars exploding in the distance and the constant chattering of machine gunfire. The only indication he gave about just how awful the conditions were for the boys was when he mentioned going out of his way to avoid the medical tents because of the stench and the constant moans of agony from the soldiers inside.

In September, Charlie and her mother packed up Charlie's things and boarded a train that would take them clear across the country to New York state. Charlie viewed attending college with a strange mix of apprehension and excitement. She was worried that her coarse, back-woods education and manners would ostracise her from her classmates. These fears were alleviated immediately upon meeting her roommate, a girl from New York City who found Charlie's stories of hunting and fishing and amateur archaeological digs fascinating.

October brought with it amazing autumn colours that put the golden Colorado aspens to shame. Vassar's campus had been planted with over two hundred types of trees, and the month's cold snap brought with it a patchwork quilt in a riot of scarlet, aubergine, and amber. It also brought another letter from Hank, a letter that Charlie cried over every night for a week.

Hank had finally seen battle in a skirmish with the Germans in a French village called Loos. It was mostly successful, but at one point, the officer in charge of releasing the chlorine gas timed it incorrectly and inadvertently gassed his own men, poisoning more than 2,500 of them. The reserve troops had been forced to march fifty miles in only four days and were utterly exhausted when they arrived on the front lines. They were inexperienced troops as well, and in the four-day period of the battle, the British lost 50,000 men, mostly to German machine guns. Hank described in detail what he experienced while in the trenches:

Men are blown into showers or their bellies are turned inside out. To die from a single bullet seems to be nothing. Parts of our being remain intact. But, Charlie, to be dismembered, torn to pieces, reduced to pulp, this is the fear that flesh cannot support and which is fundamentally the greatest suffering.

We eat beside the dead, drink beside the dead, relieve ourselves beside the dead and we sleep beside the dead in these trenches. The stench is awful. People will say that the front line was Hell. Hell cannot be so terrible as this. Humanity is mad; it must be mad to do what it is doing.

Charlie wrote to him, begging him to leave, to come back to America where it was safe. She didn't hear from him for months. The very real fear of losing her brother distracted her from her studies and her grades began to slip. Her professors eventually offered her the chance to write for The Miscellany News, Vassar's weekly newspaper, in an attempt to find a constructive outlet for her worries. She quickly took to it, becoming one of the most popular writers on staff, working side by side with Edna St. Vincent Millay to develop her editorial voice.

Finally, in February of 1916, Charlie's father wrote to her to say that he'd heard from a friend of a friend that Hank was still alive, though deeply entrenched on the Western Front with the CEF's 13th Battalion. This relieved Charlie greatly and she found she could once more concentrate on her studies though her dreams were still filled with the horrible images Hank had relayed to her in his last letter. She ended her freshman year at Vassar on a high note, receiving perfect marks in all of her classes, making many new friends, and had discovered a promising career as a journalist.

Poughkeepsie, New York

June 1917

“And so we can see that these two answers look different until we remember to include the arbitrary constant when we compute the antiderivative. Any questions?” Professor Ashby turned away from his blackboard, and peered over the top of his half-moon cheaters, scanning the classroom full of second-year calculus students. With less than a few weeks left in the school year, he was worried that his girls weren't paying attention to his reviews and wouldn't score well on the final. “No questions? Well, let's move on then.”

Just then, there was a knock on the classroom's door and a student stuck her head in. “Is Charlotte McNamara in here?” she asked the Professor, who turned and nodded to Charlie. The girl walked quietly to Charlie's desk and handed her a slip of paper and then exited the classroom.

Frowning softly, Charlie unfolded the note and read, “Please come to the Dean of Students office immediately.” With a dawning feeling of dread, she shoved the note into her book bag, gathered her things, and left the classroom, walking quickly towards the Dean's offices. What could have happened? Was it Papa? Had something happened to him? Could he be sick?

She arrived at the Dean's office and saw Al standing with the Dean himself. They were both wearing sorrowful expressions and Charlie's knees felt suddenly weak. Al looked up at her and rushed to her side, cupping her elbow and murmuring soft words that went unheard. It wasn't Papa. It was Hank. She knew it immediately. Something had happened to him in France. The world went a little grey at the edges and the next thing she knew, she was sitting down with Al's arm wrapped around her shoulders and the Dean kneeling at her feet. “Charlie? Charlotte, can you hear me? Eunice, bring her a glass of water. Quickly now, please,” the Dean said.

She nodded woodenly and turned to Al. “What happened?” she asked. It was terribly difficult to get words past the lump her heart had made in her throat. Someone pressed a glass of water into her hand and she mechanically sipped it. The coolness of the liquid made it somewhat easier to breathe.

“Papa phoned me at Yale and sent me here to get you. We're going back home, Charlie.” Al paused and glanced at the Dean for a moment, then back to Charlie. He reached out and laid his hand over her free one and said in a voice thick with tears, “Hank's been killed in France.”

There was a loud crash and the sound of glass shattering, and suddenly Charlie's feet were wet. She heard a high-pitched keening and it took her a moment to realize that it was her making that noise. She covered her face with her hands and shook her head back and forth, denying Al's words. A bubble of anger burst in her chest and she stood up, throwing a right cross at Al's nose. The blow landed perfectly, snapping his head back and breaking his nose to send a river of blood gushing down his face and onto the front of his snowy-white shirt. She screamed, “Don't you lie to me, Alfred Hanson McNamara! This isn't funny! Hank's not dead! Do you hear me! Hank's not dead!”

Mass confusion ensued. Al clutched his broken nose while at the same time tried to comfort his hysterical sister. Charlie collapsed in a heap on the floor of the Dean's office, sobbing and keening. The Dean called for a nurse while his secretary rushed around trying to staunch the blood flowing from Al's nose. Finally, the nurse came and pushed a sleeping pill on Charlie and tended to Al's nose. Charlie soon calmed down enough for Al to take her out to the car that had brought him from New Haven. They drove back to Charlie's room and Al helped her pack her things before driving back into the City and getting on a westbound train.

The next week went by in a fog. Charlie would have no memory of the train trip from New York to Colorado even years later. Her first clear memory after Al breaking the news to her about Hank's death was being crushed in an embrace by the Colonel on the front porch of her family home. The old man's cheeks were wet and he wouldn't let go of her hand all throughout Hank's memorial service. The entire town turned out for it, then filled the house afterward, forming up into little groups who spoke in hushed, reverent tones and tip-toed around the grieving family.

Charlie found she couldn't breathe and the walls of the house began closing in on her. “I have to get out of these clothes,” she said to the Colonel. She gently disengaged her hand from his and went up the stairs to her bedroom, where she changed from the confining, stiff black dress her mother had insisted she wear. She put on soft flannel trousers, a linen shirt, and an old denim jacket that had been handed down from Junior. Then she dug out her knee-high leather boots, put them on, found her rifle, and slipped out the back door, headed for the river. Her Mama had mentioned wanting goose or duck for supper.

Moments later, Junior and Al caught up with her, carrying their guns and wearing hunting gear, too. No one spoke as they cut their way through the new spring turf. They soon reached the river and headed towards their old blind, which they found in nearly-perfect condition. After making a few repairs to it, they settled in and began the worst part of hunting–the waiting.

Charlie broke the silence first. “What happened to him? Where did it happen?” She couldn't bring herself to say Hank's name.

Al and Junior exchanged looks and Junior eventually said, “It was at a place called Vimy Ridge. He and the other gunners were dug in and laying covering fire against the Germans. That's all we know.”

Charlie nodded and went back to staring out at the river, watching the water silently. The McNamara brothers exchanged helpless looks and watched the water as well. Finally, Charlie said at length, “Do you remember the summer I was twelve? When Papa and the Colonel took Hank and us on that dig down near Hartsel?”

“When you and Al found all those arrowheads and the big scraping stone?” Junior asked.

“Yeah, I remember that,” Al said, cracking the first smile since his father had phoned him with the news of Hank's death. “That was a great week.”

And so it went until an hour before sundown. They exchanged memories and stories of Hank, recalling his wicked sense of humour, love of practical jokes, and his fierce love of and loyalty to his family. They didn't shoot anything, forgetting entirely after a few hours of talking that they'd went to the river to bring home supper. When they finally made their way home, they discovered that everyone had left, leaving Howard, Marjorie, and the Colonel in rockers on the front porch. After a supper of warmed-up casseroles and a roast brought by the Sheriff's wife, Charlie went up to her room and re-read Hank's letters before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Continued here