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Caleb Brewster grew his beard, not out of gross confidence, as some assumed, but of extreme self-consciousness. His round baby face and perpetual toothy smile embarrassed him to no end, especially in a time when men were supposed to save the world from the most unspeakable horrors of war anyone had seen.
He was a poet, after all, not a soldier. He was supposed to take long sabbaticals to the French countryside, live in a plaster-walled cottage, and write neverending cantos on life and love and beauty. Instead he was downing a much too weak beer in the back of Parisian pub during a brief furlough from his position in a moldy trench somewhere near Chantilly.
At least Benjamin Tallmadge was his commanding officer. Ben understood him - often better than he knew himself - and didn't let anyone get after him for spending his extra time with his nose in a yellowing notebook. Ben, with whom he'd grown up and unwittingly fallen in love.
Ben was a military genius. Washington, the head of the American army, considered Ben his protege, letting him command his own troop although he was only a movie actor from a small town in New York.
He was out smoking now. Caleb had watched him dance with the greying wife of the bar owner, thoroughly charming her, before ducking out with one of his officer friends. It's not that Caleb didn't have friends in the army - he was typically respected in the companies with which he fought - but he prefered to sit with his back to the wall and one hand on his firearm whenever possible. His body language kept the prostitutes away, at least. Unfortunately, it also kept away the kind of company in which he was interested.
An hour or so later, after Caleb had resigned himself to writing an ode to his muse (kept, of course, just vague enough to avoid suspicion if found), Ben reentered the pub: a subdued tempest making a straight path to Caleb's inconspicuous hiding place. He dragged out the chair opposite Caleb and seated himself, nearly vibrating with nervous energy.
"Someone seems awfully happy." Caleb finished his poem with a flourished ellipsis.
"Have you ever met someone who just - aw, I don't know - makes everything seem," Ben's hands floundered in the air between them, "fuzzy?"
A bemused chuckle escaped Caleb's lips as he took a sip of his now room temperature beer.
"In a good way, Caleb. You know what I mean."
"You do know that quiffs are paid to make you feel like that, don't you?"
Ben's blush nearly covered the freckles across his nose. "It wasn't a prostitute, Caleb." He shook his head. "I met a dancer."
"Oh, and that's much more respectable because..."
"He's American." Caleb nodded approvingly, dismissing the glimmer of something between hope and jealousy that pooled in his stomach.
"He rich?"
"I'm assuming so. I mean he was wearing nice things and he got in a private car that was very shiny and very new. And his manners were impeccable."
"Anyone's manners will seem nice after being stuck in a trench with us for months."
"I'm serious. He seemed a gentleman."
Caleb ran an ink-stained finger through the condensation from his glass filling the ridges of the old wooden table. "A gentleman who rode away without offering to see you again or take you with him?"
Ben bowed his head. Caleb almost felt guilty. "I'm an officer. I'm not even supposed to be here- I can't be seen leaving grimy bars with well-dressed gentlemen I don't know." The Major picked at a hangnail. "He did say I could write him."
Caleb laughed. "Why do you look so upset, then? I thought you liked this, how did you put it, 'fuzzy' feeling?"
Lifting his olive cap off of his head, Ben pushed a hand through his sandy hair and replaced his hat. "I can't write worth anything. I'm an actor: other people write clever things and I just act them." Ben waited in vain for Caleb to respond. "Could you help me?"
"Help you?"
"Yes! You're a poet, after all. These things come natural to you. He won't know that it isn't me writing it, he'll just know that it's me meaning it, you see?"
"Benny, I don't know if I like this..."
"Please?" Half of Ben's face quirked up in a smirk. "Aw, now don't make me command you, Brewster."
Caleb took his time downing the rest of his beer. "Fine." Ben let out such a cackle of relief that half of the bar turned their attention. He coughed in a minimal attempt to disperse them.
"So what're you working on there?"
It took Caleb a moment to actually relinquish his poetry over to his secret muse, but he did it with silent prayers that it had nothing too incriminating. "It's an ode to light hair. It's dumb, I know, but -"
"May I read it?"
With a seemingly unending swallow, Caleb nodded and slid his battered notebook across the rough table.
"This is..." Ben ran a hand across his day-old stubble. "This is perfect, Caleb. You don't mind if I use it, do you?"
Evidently the lines dedicated to the sun glinting off Ben's golden hair, or the way it hung across his tanned forehead into his eyes, or the slight curl towards the end when it got too long, didn't dawn on him. "Yeah, I guess. It's not well-polished or thought out, but go ahead."
"Is there anything I shouldn't use?"
"I wouldn't go through the rest of it." Caleb tried to keep his blush down. "It isn't very good, and it's probably not specific enough to your beau."
"Well, thank you. For everything." Ben stood, tucking the notebook - no, Caleb's every incriminating thought - into his breast pocket. They exchanged a weak salute. "See you at reveille."
“If you say so.”
***
It was two days later, and only three into their two week furlough, that Major Tallmadge stalked into the dormitory, his hands clasped behind his back like any other officer on a mission. "Lieutenant Brewster, may I speak to you, regarding that... request?"
Caleb followed him into his officer's dorm, cleaner, sparser, and more private, quaking in his boots. Ben closed the door and came to stand too close to Caleb than he should have. The Major's eyes didn't reveal an ounce of mercy as he stared down at Caleb.
"Major?"
"He loved it, Caleb," Ben released with a sigh and day-brightening smile. "He thought it was brilliant and wants to keep writing back and forth." He placed Caleb's notebook tenderly against Caleb's chest with his fingertips. His words dripped with sincerity. "Thank you."
"When do you want to write him again?" Caleb asked, dreading the answer that awaited.
"As soon as possible. Furloughs don't last forever, you know." A cloud of remorse hung just behind the sunny brilliance of Ben's devoted sincerity.
Caleb gave him a slow smile. "I'll see if I can find a poem suitable for you."
"Actually," he trailed off, grabbing Caleb's arm, "Could you write a full letter? I... want to give him something more. And I don't want him to think I - we - are just trying to flaunt our - your - skills."
"Of course! Of course." Caleb cleared his throat. "Where do you want to start?"
"I want to attract him a... certain way."
"A certain way?"
"A... more physical way. But nothing too risque."
"That is definitely certain." He scratched at his beard. "When do you want it?"
Ben considered, tapping at his belt. "After dinner."
"Of course, Major."
***
He spent the afternoon with images of hands untouched by war filling his mind and his page. Of strong, lithe fingers. Of clean, swift movements. Of warm, sure touches. Of soft palms, sturdy wrists, and sunkissed skin.
Per usual, he sensed the vague, distant conversation and chuckling of the men around him was centered in his oblivion to anything outside of his pen and paper, but he ignored it.
This is for the commander , he would say, if he were asked. Special assignment . He would stick out his chest, tilt up his chin, put his hands on his hips. He would smile proudly and smugly and let them make of that what they may. One, Bradford maybe, with his glossy hair and ego, would stalk up to Major Tallmadge and ask - like a schoolboy trying to pass off blame. And Ben would agree with Caleb. He would draw himself up and glare down at him. Damn right, it’s a special assignment , he would bark, one I assigned myself . Once everything returned to a begrudgingly silent normal, Caleb would look at him with grateful eyes and Ben would return with a larger-that-life wink of secrecy and companionship.
But he stayed silent, shifting his body away from his regiment to better hide his writing. He pulled at his beard in absent thought.
***
“Lieutenant Brewster!”
Caleb turned around, searching between the heads of the countless Parisians walking down the street for the familiar olive uniform he knew belonged to Ben. Running awkwardly around pedestrians and even into the cobbled street, he eventually caught up to Caleb.
“I want to visit him tonight.”
“Your dancer?”
Ben’s face lit up in an open-mouthed smile at Caleb’s possessive implication. He bit his lip, Caleb’s eyes unable to look away from the motion. “Yes, Mr. Hale.”
“Oh, he’s a name now, has he?”
Continuing to walk again, Ben knocked his elbow against Caleb’s with a laugh. “Will you come with me?”
Caleb rolled his eyes. “Really, Major? You sure you want a third party tagging along on this date of yours?”
“If it decreases suspicion, yes.” Ben suddenly somber tone drew Caleb’s eyebrows together in sympathy. “I’m sorry to rope you into this if - if you don’t want to.”
“No,” Caleb asserted, grabbing Ben’s arm. “If you want me there, I’ll be there. I promise.”
“I don’t know where I’d be without my Lieutenant.”
They stood in the street, just upraising each other. It wasn’t the awkward, stiff looks they exchanged during troop inspections. It was the nostalgic, familiar gazes they had shared as children, on the beaches of Long Island and tucked in the last rows of Caleb’s uncle’s orchard. Ben roped an arm around Caleb’s shoulders. “Now let’s go get a drink before I can talk myself out of it.”
Caleb was hasty to agree, if only to forget that Ben had called him his.
***
Major Tallmadge’s mysterious Mr. Hale lived in a townhouse just blocks from the Eiffel Tower. The streetlights reflected off of the damp walls, intensifying the contrast between the beige stone work and olive vines climbing up to a black metal balcony. Gauzy white curtains fluttered in and out of the upstairs window in the dusk breeze, soft strains of music floating down to their ears.
Ben knocked on the wooden door. The music abruptly stopped.
In a few seconds, a tall, lanky man opened the door. The yellow street light accentuated his already well-defined, thin features and put highlights in his nearly red hair and viridian eyes. He wore a gentleman’s suit, albeit a little worn and graying, and carried it with an air of new money, although his shoes and clothes begged to differ. As soon as he recognized Ben, his face relaxed into a smile and he lunged forward to shake his hand. “Major Tallmadge, a pleasure.”
Then he saw Caleb.
His self-assured, self-protective demeanor popped back into place as he stiffly shook Caleb’s hand. “And you are?”
“Lieutenant Caleb Brewster.”
“My second in command,” Ben interjected, pulling Mr. Hale’s jealous stare away from Caleb.
“Of course.” Mr. Hale turned completely from Caleb, placing his hands high on Ben’s shoulders, his thumbs resting at the top of Ben’s collar. “You’re awfully quiet, my love.”
Ben reached up to hold one of Mr. Hale’s wrists. “I’m happy to see you in person, Nathan, is that not enough?”
Mr. Hale - Nathan - stepped forward, further towards Ben. Caleb felt as though he was intruding on an intimate moment. He turned and lit a cigarette. “Of course, Benjamin. But I know you to be a man of words, and silence does not become you.”
“You’d be awfully disappointed in my films, then.” When Caleb laughed at Ben’s attempt at humor, he felt a set of piercing green eyes on the back of his head.
“I’m content to listen, even if it takes you all night.”
Ben laughed his pretended, confused breath of a laugh. “Out here? In plain sight?”
“Aye, my love. Tell me of the beauty of nightfall. Tell me of the reflection of light in my eyes. Tell me of your love.”
“I love you.”
“I think we both know that,” Nathan protested, an eye roll evident in his tone, even from where Caleb was trying his damndest not to obviously eavesdrop.
“Well, it’s true: I do love you.”
“But what of it?”
“I love you. I adore you. I would do anything for you, Nathan. What more is there to say?”
“You must take me for a fool.”
Cale turned in time to see Nathan rip his hands off of Ben.
“If anyone is the fool, it’s me. I’ve upset you and gone stupid enough to have let you down.”
“Is your eloquence not worth wasting to my face?”
“No, I-”
“Have you run out of words to… to flatter me?”
“Never, Nathan, I-”
“Then out with it.” A pause thicker than the fog settling in from the Seine hung between Nathan’s threats. “Or out with you.”
“Nathan, please. I love you.”
“I know. Goodnight, Benjamin.”
Caleb heard the door slam behind Nathan. Ben stood staring at where his lover’s silhouette had been just moments before. “Caleb, you have to help me. Please.”
“What can I do? I’m sorry you got caught in your own… invention, but I don’t know what you could want from me.”
“Tell me what to say.” He bent to pick up some pebbles from where they lay scattered around a rose bush next to the door. “Whisper to me what to say, and I’ll say it to Mr. Hale.”
“Benny, I don’t think -” But the Major was already throwing stones up to rattle on the balcony.
Nathan appeared above their heads, suit off and cuffs rolled up to his elbows. His backlit figure, dramatically enhanced by the soft light of the Parisian night, reminded Caleb of a scene in one of Ben’s movies.
“You’re nothing if not persistent, Major.” He lit a cigarette.
“ Caleb ,” Ben hissed, jabbing a sharp elbow into Caleb’s arm.
Ben crooned, after Caleb’s hidden whispering, “Persistent for love, and persistent in love, for I cannot love you enough.”
“How original, Juliet,” Nathan scoffed.
“Originality does nothing to dwindle the fire in my head - my heart... Was Juliet’s love not as passionate or true as Tristan’s? Guinevere’s? Orpheus’s?.. Mine? Surely the depth of my love for you cannot be expressed without their examples,” Ben proclaimed, echoing Caleb’s suggestion.
“No, my dear, but it can be doubted with a stumbling tongue.”
“If only my tongue were a pen,.. and these words written in ink,.. they might please you.”
Nathan looked on with a chuckle and amused smile. Caleb fought to swallow.
“ On a terrace, there watches for me a man: who, though I know it's improper, bends my poor mind out of tune.”
“Tell me more of this waiting man.”
“On creeping close, all that’s best of dark and bright meet in his two eyes.” Ben paused to take a deep breath. “The river itself,” with a gesture to the water running nearby, “runs warmed by his eyes, even more so than the sun.”
“Oh, his eyes! Is that all to him?”
“His cheek, and his brow, and oh, his hands!” Caleb sighed to Ben, looking to his muse - literally - for inspiration. “So soft, and cool, and brilliant. With such a winning smile that, should he ever really want it, this war would soon be won.”
“Is that all to be won, Major Tallmadge?”
“Should he ever be in need of it, I’m sure he would also have won my heart, Mr. Hale.” Caleb gazed surprisedly up at Ben, infinitely proud of him for coming up with a retort on his own. As Nathan disappeared from view, a crooked smile plastered on his face, Ben gave Caleb a half-bodied shrug. Ben squeezed Caleb’s shoulder in gratitude as Nathan swept his door open again. “Won’t you join me upstairs, Major?” He stretched out a thin, clean hand.
“I’ll see you at reveille, Lieutenant?”
“If you say so.” Ben had waited for Caleb to respond before he accepted Mr. Hale’s hand. As Nathan ushered him off of the street and into darkness, he leaned toward Caleb.
“Lieutenant, if I may.” Caleb lifted an eyebrow. “Please take care of him.” Shivering in the cold, Nathan rubbed at his upper arms. “I don’t know what I’d do without him. And his letters,” he added with a slow, shy smile.
Caleb took a long drag of his cigarette as he turned and walked away. He heard the door slam behind him and Mr. Hale’s music start up again, until the sound was lost behind the closing window.
***
Major Tallmadge arrived back in the dormitory just before reveille, looking slightly disheveled and boundlessly happy. Caleb, who hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, saw him slip into his room and back out as the alarm sounded. Droplets of water from when he’d splashed his face darkened his collar as the men filed into their formation, albeit sloppy from nearly a week of furlough. Ben dismissed the men after roll without even a glance in their direction.
“Lieutenant Brewster,” Ben commanded with a pretended air of urgency and importance.
As they made the familiar trek to Ben’s quarters Caleb couldn’t help the swell of jealousy that swelled beneath his skin as he looked at the officer. The wrinkles in his uniform where there shouldn’t have been any. The skuffs of his boots where they’d been carelessly cast aside. The gel in his hair that was obviously two days old. The edge of deep red mark showing beneath the side of his collar.
The fact that it was all because of someone else and Caleb let it happen. No, he caused it to happen. Had it been Caleb’s sole handy work that would have been one thing - one exhilarating, enjoyable thing - but instead it was a reminder of his loneliness. That he could have kept Ben from sleeping with some dancer he met by chance and could, instead, have bedded him himself.
“You didn’t have to cover for me, did you?” Ben should have been frantic. The boy Caleb knew in New York would have been. The Major Tallmadge of a week before would have been running his hands through his unstyled hair and searching every corner for someone to catch him.
“Nah, Tallboy. I just came in and told everyone I took a smoke. Nobody asked for you.” It was true. No matter how aggravating as it was that Ben was so happy without him, Caleb wasn’t about to lie to his best friend, even if only to get a rise out of him. “You seem relaxed.”
Ben laughed, almost to himself. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Oh, I know. “Sounds like you and Mr. Hale had a good time. He didn’t chew you out for not spouting poetry again, did he?”
“We didn’t do much talking.”
Of course not. “High time, Benjamin,” Caleb wagged his eyebrows. It kept the frown and tears from his face and, more importantly, kept the smile on Ben’s.
***
It was a blissfully wonderful day, with rays of sun that kissed the earth and everything on it with the color and feeling of fresh honey. Days like this - covered in a cozy warmth that beckoned every living thing out of doors - were rare in war-torn Paris, and even rarer for those doing the tearing. Major Tallmadge’s regiment, in particular, gave into the delicious invitation one at a time until most of them, lounging against the walls and cast iron fence, were outside by a half hour past breakfast. Cook was strumming a banjo he’d found somewhere, enlisting four other men to sing (everything from La Marseilles to Over There and back) along. Churchill started a pick up soccer game with anyone who wanted or happened to pass by. Caleb, as he scribbled away in his notebook, fondly rolled his eyes at any man who tried his hand at flirting with the Parisian girls who strolled by, ultimately failing to say anything of consequence, but delighting the entire company.
Ben was even out among his men, laughing at failed soccer plays, flat chords in Auf Wiedersehen , and frankly butchered conversational French. He eventually wandered over to Caleb’s bench, sitting beside him with a contented sigh. “Haven’t had a day like this since Long Island.”
Finding himself instinctively hiding his work with his shoulder, Caleb looked up at Ben to see him not paying anyone or anything any mind. His head was leaning on the stone wall of the dormitory, his pale neck lengthened in the sunlight and his dark eyelashes fluttering as his eyes closed. Caleb quickly averted his eyes, focusing instead on the trail of graphite on paper in front of him.
“Tallmadge!” Churchill yelled, breath uneven from the soccer game. “Man ‘ere to see you!”
One of Ben’s eyes lazily pried open as he sat up to see Mr. Hale standing at the gate.
Caleb tried to ignore the pace at which Ben got up and walked across the yard. Caleb failed to ignore them as they spoke over the fence, pressing their foreheads nearly together and speaking in serious, hushed tones. Caleb also failed to conceal his interest when Ben returned to his side with a furrow in his brow and an achingly heavy silence, the muscles in his jaw jumping where they were clenched.
“Benny?”
The Major turned his back on the rest of the men, his hands in fists on his hips. “Nathan… Mr. Hale says some of the higher-ups were at his club last night and it sounds like we may be moving out earlier than we planned.” He rubbed at his forehead, minutely moving his cap back on his head. “Apparently the front needs reinforcements. Badly.”
“Just tell me when and where you need me,” Caleb confessed with every ounce of sincerity and meaning he could muster before Ben gave him a tight smile, ducking back inside the dormitory.
***
Caleb had foolishly hoped, over the course of his brief furlough, that the front line had somehow gotten less revolting. They had been on sight for less that twelve hours and he was already up to his knees in what he chose to believe was nothing more than mud, the cold moist of it all caking his socks and pants to his skin.
Men lay dead, sleeping, or otherwise too exhausted to move in the mix of dirt, blood, rain, and God only knew what else that lined their trench. Some barely looked old enough to be 18, and others looked too pale to be alive.
Atop the far wall of the trench where Major Tallmadge’s company was stationed, a human foot sat, severed and yellow with barbed wire poking out of the skin. A man with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks said it’d been there for a week.
They were sent - along with a few other companies - to bolster the line at Baccarat, hopefully enough for a frontal attack to gain some territory across no man’s land and advance the front a few hundred yards. Caleb, along with most of the other, older men, knew it was practically a suicide mission, but they also knew that raising hell about it wouldn’t help the situation.
Ben and the other officers holed themselves up in the small bunker in the trench for three days, an occasional shouting match escaping to the ears of the men outside. After about 80 hours without a glimpse of the grey sky, Ben emerged: arms crossed, shoulders hunched, and silently seething. He walked past Caleb without looking at him, but grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip and dragged him to a slightly more private section of the trench.
“They want us to charge.”
“I know, Tallboy.”
Ben stuffed his hands in his pockets, missing the first time in his haste and anger. “There’s no way it’ll work. We don’t have enough men or ammunition for that. We have to wait them out. Even so, a small town like this? Not exactly the top priority at the moment.”
“Is there any chance you can convince them?”
Ben’s laugh was emotionless. “No.”
“Then we have to trust ‘em. We have to go with it, Benny, what other choice do we have? Get shipped East?”
When Ben finally looked at him instead of trying to scrape the mud off of his boots, it was with quiet, resigned eyes. “Fine, Caleb.” He licked his lips, a nervous habit despite the damp air. “I just wish there was a better way.”
“Don’t we all.”
Over his shoulder, Caleb heard a pretended gruff voice call out: “Major Tallmadge, message for you from headquarters.”
“Nathan?” Ben brushed past Caleb, knocking him so he had to catch himself on the wall. It wasn’t his fault, really - the trenches were cramped enough as it was.
Caleb turned to see a familiar shock of strawberry blond hair stuffed under the olive cap of an official messenger that brought out his green eyes even more.
“Isn’t this brilliant, Brewster? Mr. Hale’s volunteered as a messenger for us.” Ben looked like a child again, with glowing eyes and his lopsided smile.
“I figured I’d put my flirting skills to use by getting information out of headquarters that other couriers can’t.” His shit-eating grin made Caleb’s eyes squint in revulsion. “That and his near-daily letters have made me miss him even more,” Nathan confessed mostly to Ben, as if Caleb didn’t know. Ben had a romantic sonnet on Nathan’s eyes tucked in his pocket at that very moment. It was supposed to be mailed three days ago, but Caleb knew him better than that.
Ben unfolded the message Nathan handed him. “Washington says he knows I’ll be causing trouble, so he wants me to go along with whatever General Lafayette says.” He laughed softly at the General.
“What a sign, eh Tallmadge?” Caleb questioned with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.
“Oh no, that there’s holy providence -” Ben started, before being interrupted.
“Those are German alright!” Came the cry from about a hundred yards down. And as soon as they heard it, missiles and gunfire came roaring overhead, turning the packed dirt of the far side of the trench to powder.
Ben shoved Nathan towards the officer’s bunker, and reached for a gun. “Everybody up - fire at anything that moves!” Caleb hoisted himself up to follow Ben’s instructions. Ben climbed up next to him, firing almost completely in sync with the bearded Lieutenant.
They fired back and forth for hours, the German barrage heavier and longer than any assault Caleb had seen or thought the enemy could muster. At the end of what must have been his tenth magazine, Caleb crouched down with his back to the Germans and his head well below the top of the trench to reload.
Ben however, was pulling himself up above the line of the ground. “Benny! The hell’re you doing?”
“I’m trying to see their guns.”
“Ben, you’ll get yourself shot, get down here.” Caleb tugged at his pant leg.
“Cover me, damn it!”
Begrudgingly, Caleb crawled up in time to see Ben fall backwards, his hands clutching his stomach. Scrambling after him, Caleb shooed Ben’s hands out of the way to put pressure on the bullet wound just below his right ribcage. His other hand slid up to cup the back of Ben’s head, his hat lost somewhere in the mud.
“Tallboy, you gotta stay with me. Just breathe in ‘n out - that’s it, Benny,” Caleb spoke nonsense as clearly as he could with Ben’s hot blood seeping through his fingers. “I need a medic!” He screamed into the panicked fray.
“Caleb,” Ben’s voice croaked, somehow sounding both young and decades older, “Caleb, the letters…”
“Shut it, arsehole.” Caleb laughed. “You gotta save those breaths for me, Ben.” When Ben opened his mouth again, Caleb talked over him. “Now isn’t the time for chatting, Tallmadge.”
The medics - two young women in white dresses who looked more at home than Caleb had felt in his military tenure - arrived with an already pink stretcher. “Fuckin’ finally, it’s only a war - how far’d you have to go, Austria?”
One of Ben’s blood and gunpowder stained hands shot out at Caleb. “Find me after this, alright Brewster?” The medics were already carrying him away.
Caleb could only nod as Ben’s fingers slid away from his. “If you say so.”
***
Ben’d been gone a month. His old regiment was transferred to General Lafayette - a young French officer from one of the old families of France who’d survived their numerous revolutions - with the promise that Major Tallmadge had been awarded the title of Colonel and sent home to America.
They were shipped up to Saint-Quentin to try and push back the Germans from the North.
Caleb remembered the beginning shots and shouts and smell of gunpowder, blood, and gas. Then everything went white. He hit the ground. It faded to black, the detached sounds of his own screams echoing in his ears.
***
Caleb woke up on his back, staring up at ivory vaulted ceilings and soft pastel light across the wall far down to his left. His entire body ached with inactivity, but his left leg felt especially numb. He turned his head to see rows of filled cots beyond him on both sides. The muted noises of normal life bustling outside covered the relative silence inside.
A woman in a white habit walked by, just within his line of vision from his pillow. “Miss!”
She walked over to the side of his cot, eyebrows drawn together in worry despite the small smile across her pale features. “Is everything alright Lieutenant?”
“I… I suppose so. Where am I?” He hated how small he sounded.
“A cathedral just outside of Paris.”
“You don’t sound French.”
Her laugh was the most warm and generous thing he’d heard in months. “No, I’m American, but they’ve set up a hospital here, so here I am.” The soft lilts in her voice reminded him of home.
“What’s your name?”
“Mary Smith.”
“Where you from?”
“Awfully inquisitive, Lieutenant,” she responded with a bright grin. “Connecticut.”
Caleb’s face felt almost foreign as he smiled. “I’m from Long Island.”
Mary made a show of resting her hand on his arm, rubbing back and forth with her thumb. “Well now we know where to send you home, Lieutenant Brewster.”
“Please, call me Caleb.” With just a twitch of her chin down and back up, Mary nodded. Then Caleb registered her words. “Home?”
“Well you can’t very well go back out there in your state.” She reasoned, walking around the end of his bed to his left side. The quirk in his brow was enough to show Mary his confusion. “Let’s sit you up.”
Grabbing his arm to steady Caleb as he shifted backwards, she grimaced into a smile. As Caleb adjusted to being upright, he looked down across his cot, taking in how the white sheet fell flat below his left knee. Mary was already peeling back the covers, short, careful fingers checking the bandages around where his calf should have started.
Hot tears rolled down his cheeks, falling to the blanket beneath him. If Mary noticed, she didn’t say anything. He clenched his jaw and reached up to wipe his eyes. His fingertips ghosted over smooth skin. Of course they’ve shaved me . They’ve taken my ability to walk and my ability to hide .
“We should be able to get you out of here in a day or two, Caleb.” Mary tentatively reached out to brush the back of her hand against Caleb’s cheek. “Everything will be alright. I promise.”
Caleb was so tired of the war and of himself and of everything else. He fell asleep listening the the soft sounds of Mary walking away.
***
Setauket was greener than Caleb remembered, even though he’d been subjected to the overwhelmingly grey and brown landscape of war for nearly a year. It still held that quiet bustle of a town that pretended to be bigger and more fashionable than it was. And Caleb, believe it or not, had missed that downplayed pretentiousness.
He went home to his Uncle, who ate with him and said nothing through dinner. Caleb didn’t mind. Anything he would have said would have felt like too much like forcefully avoiding the elephant in the room.
The next morning, he dressed in his olive uniform and walked to where his Uncle said, in no more words than necessary, Colonel Tallmadge was living. His Uncle must have called, as Ben stood on the front steps of the small, golden Victorian house, his hands nonchalantly in his pockets, as Caleb slowly made his way down the sidewalk. Ben saw his trouble getting the gate in his white picket fence open - what with Caleb’s crutches and all - but the surprise in seeing his amputation was evident once the gate wasn’t blocking the Colonel’s view.
Visibly swallowing his shock, Ben laughed into a face-splitting smile. “Finally back, Brewster.” He roped him into a hug and Caleb hugged back as best he could. Ben led him up to the front door. “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to you out there?”
“Just lost about twenty pounds is all.” He was vaguely aware of a wonderstruck smile on his face, but he was even more aware that he didn’t care.
Ben shot him a look that was equal parts amused and scolding as he opened the door. It was a quaint little house, with striped wallpaper beginning to curl and antique furniture painted white. Ben directed him towards the room on his left, an airy study with gauzy blue curtains and ivory walls. An oriental rug took up most of the floor, a big white dog lying on one corner that obediently trotted up to Ben, rubbed at his knee, and left.
“Looks like you’re doing pretty well for yourself there, Benny.”
Ben leaned back on the desk next to the window, his arms crossed, but more relaxed than Caleb remembered ever seeing him. “I’m here until I get picked up again. I have a few auditions in New York next month, but I’ve this place till then.” He shrugged. Caleb chewed at his lip.
“Any word from Mr. Hale?” he asked the fringe at the nearest end of the rug.
He heard the beautiful, musical sound of Ben’s genuine laugh. “No. I haven’t seen him since I was shot. I’ve no idea what happened to him, but I heard a few messengers were selected to get themselves captured to feed the German’s false intelligence and it didn’t exactly go to plan.”
“Aw, I’m sorry Tallboy, that’s awful.”
Ben shook his head. “That’s war.” He appraised Caleb. “And my best friend is alive, which is more than I could’ve asked from this world.”
Caleb felt himself blushing, which mortified him without his beard to hide it.
“Speaking of,” he continued, wagging his eyebrows and turning to shuffle papers on his desk. “I still have that last letter you wrote for me.” The creases in the paper were well-worn, the ink along those lines slightly faded. “Do you remember it?”
Ben was standing next to him now, facing the window. “Something about eyes, was it?”
“Indeed.” Caleb felt Ben reach up to scratch at his nose. “I reread it a thousand times while I was in the hospital and on the way home. And, um…” Trailing off was uncharacteristic, even for his adorable awkwardness, so Caleb looked up at the light pink across Ben’s nose and cheekbones as he searched for words. “I realised something you did.” Caleb cocked his head to the side, his eyes on Ben even as he moved closer to Caleb to point at the letter. “You call his eyes ‘cerulean,’ even though you know his eyes are green.” Ben looked at him knowingly.
Caleb - much too obviously, he was sure - turned away. But Ben continued.
“Some of the men who’d seen Mr. Hale asked if we were related, we shared so many characteristics. Pale hair, long hands and legs.”
A pounding in Caleb’s chest and head started and grew to a crescendo as Ben kept talking in the soft, still voice of his.
“Brewster, you were writing about me - weren’t you?”
He nodded, swallowing around boiling, painful tears and scorching, angry disappointment.
“Caleb,” Ben begged until Caleb turned to find him much closer than before. “I love you.”
And as quickly as those words washed over Caleb’s ears, Ben’s hands were cupping Caleb’s jaw and Ben’s lips were on his. Caleb sank against him, happy to listen to the soft sounds Ben pleaded into his mouth as they kissed.
When Ben pulled away, Caleb was quite proud of his breathlessness until he said, “This doesn’t feel right.”
Immediately embarrassed and filled with that same fear and frustration as earlier, Caleb stiffened and leaned as far back from Ben as he could get without letting go of him.
Ben sensed his change in demeanor and immediately pulled him back in with another kiss. “No, oh my God, Caleb - no .” He had the audacity to laugh . “I meant the beard. It doesn’t feel like it’s really you without the beard, Cal.”
With a burst of a chuckle, Caleb dove back into the comfortable warmth of Ben. His hands came up to rest on Ben’s chest as Ben tucked one hand into Caleb’s curls and the other against the small of Caleb’s back to bring them as close as possible. “I love you too, you know?” Ben kissed him that he knew. “I always have.” Ben kissed him in agreement. “And I always will.”
Ben eyes smiled as he leaned their foreheads together. “If you say so.”