We work runs to only two poste de secours, both accessible by a single road, a road as straight as a yardstick and nearly as narrow. We have hardly any cover, and the Boches have recently taken a position that gives them a perfect shot of anyone who happens to be caught on that road. The stretchers used to be taken back along this road by hand, but the Boches had to pick off a fair number of brancardiers before the French finally got the message.

When we get a call and start heading for the postes, a certain spot by a derelict barn marks the unofficial boundary between the shelled zone and the safe. As we approach that barn, there’s an instant where we toss any fears out the window and open the flivver up as much as she will go.

We can’t think as we drive down this Corridor of Death, we can’t concentrate, we can’t reason. We just look at the brown ridge of the rear trench that marks the end of the corridor and forget all else. It takes only twenty-six seconds to drive this road, but it feels like twenty-six minutes, so we’ve taken to counting it aloud. Yesterday I made it in twenty-five.

Oh, God, I don’t know how Riggles could be content with selling autos after this is all over with. I don’t know how Harry can be content teaching whining undergraduates. I don’t know how any of us can be content with doing anything that doesn’t make us feel invincible.

David

Isle of Skye

4 October 1916


Davey,

My brother is gone.

When he walked away from me in Edinburgh, he walked away from the whole family. He didn’t even send Màthair a telegram to say goodbye. She hasn’t come out of her bed in days.

The way he’s always kept an eye on the horizon, I think we all half-expected this would come, especially after his discharge. Deep in my heart, I’ve always thought he’d leave one day. Màthair said he only ever stayed on Skye because of me, that when he saw, growing up, that I would never set foot on that ferry, he tucked away his wishes and let Da take him out on the fishing boat. If I couldn’t leave, he wouldn’t either.

But now he did! Without a backwards glance, he sailed away. I should be glad he escaped the fishing and crofting life he never looked for, but I can’t help but cry. After all this time, he did it without me. Worse, he did it to spite me.

I wrote Finlay a letter, even though I have nowhere to send it. I told him I was sorry but that he was wrong, that “my American,” as he put it, had made me a promise. My American isn’t going to forget about me up here on my island. He isn’t going to sail back to America without a backwards glance. “Here I am,” he said to me once. And he is. He’s there, no matter what happens. And, in another month, his contract will be finished, and he’ll come up here and sweep me away.

You promised me Christmas, Davey. I know you won’t walk away like my brother. Please.

Sue

France

October 18, 1916


Sue,

I hate having to say this, but I don’t know if I’ll be home by Christmas. I know you’ve probably thrown this letter across the room already, but once you pick it back up, hear me out.

I wasn’t happy back when I told you I would renew only until December. The glamor of this all, the excitement I’d felt last fall when I volunteered, had started to fade. I wasn’t doing much but sitting around behind the lines waiting for the next sector. I wanted nothing more than to go on permanent repos with you.

But now, with the new section, I feel so alive. You wouldn’t believe how much. Sue, for the first time, I matter.

Remember, I couldn’t cut it as a student. I couldn’t cut it as a teacher. Hell, I couldn’t even cut it as a son. My dad still thinks I’m a disappointment. But now, using the bravado that did nothing but get me in trouble as a kid, I’m succeeding. Guys who otherwise wouldn’t make it now do. And all in the back of my flivver. Mine.

So, you see, I can’t leave now. Not when I’ve really begun. Can’t you see that, Sue? Would you pull me away from all this just when I’m needed most?

David

Isle of Skye

1 November 1916


“Would you pull me away from all this just when I’m needed most?” Yes, yes, I would, especially when you’re needed even more here. Davey, I’m pregnant. So stop all of this nonsense and come home.


France

November 12, 1916


This is how you tell a fellow news like this? This wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s why I brought the French letters. We’re not in a position to make a decision like this. A family, Sue? You’re still mourning, I’m still “playing war.” We’re seven hundred miles apart. And look at how your brother acted in Edinburgh. I deserved each blow. After all, I’m the American who came between you and your husband. I’m the one who caused the rift with your brother. Why would your family welcome me after that?


Isle of Skye

29 November 1916


Then come and take me away from here! Whisk me away to America, where there is no war or disapproving brothers. The neighbours are already starting to whisper and, oh Davey, I just want to go away with you and start on that future we keep talking about.

Yes, this is enormous. It’s overwhelming. It’s even a bit scary. But how can the thought of impending fatherhood be scarier than speeding down the “Corridor of Death” every day?

It terrifies me too. The way I’ve already torn my own family in two, I’m not fit to raise a child. Maybe I was right all those years ago when I said I shouldn’t be a mother. I don’t think I can do this.

Davey, I need you to be the strong one. I need you to be brave for the both of us. Please come here and take me away. I feel invincible when I’m with you.

I’m tired now. I don’t want to argue about this. It’s a fact and not worth fighting about. Amidst all this war, all this death, we’ve made life. The baby, it’s just another adventure. And, remember, I can face any adventure with you by my side.

Sue

December 3, 1916


Dear Elspeth,

I wish I weren’t writing you. Months ago, Dave gave me this envelope and told me to mail it if something ever happened.

We were doing a run four nights ago. When we got there, we found that the dugout had just been hit. Doctors, orderlies, blessés—gone. An officer was trying to put some sort of order on the situation, directing those coming up from the first-line trench.

Having a little medical training, I started checking over the blessés coming in, deciding who was going to even make it back to the poste de triage. Those brancardiers still upright were dumping their loads and heading back out as fast as they could stumble. Dave, fool that he is, jumped into the trench and followed after. He came back a few times, ignored my shouts, and went back out. One time he didn’t come back.

He had no business being up over the first line, but you know Dave. He never would listen to prudence. He did what had to be done, though.

I debated for those four days whether or not to mail you this letter. I kept hoping he’d come limping out of No Man’s Land with an amusing story about yet another lucky escape. It wasn’t to be.

There’s not much I can do for you from here, but please write to Minna if there’s anything you need. I know about your situation. Dave told me that night, as we were speeding along to the poste. Yes, he was shocked and scared. But that night he was hopeful. And quite happy.

So to satisfy the last wish of the best friend I could ever hope to have…

Harry Vance

Sue, my own sweet girl.

This is the letter you were never supposed to read. If you are, it means this is the last one I’ll ever send.

As I’m writing this, it’s May and I’ve just gotten back from seeing you in Paris. Your stack of increasingly frantic letters waited for me upon my return. As I read them, I began to realize exactly how scared and worried you must have been, so far away from everything happening here. I don’t want you to have to go through that again, not knowing, so I’m doing what works best for us. I’m writing you a letter.

I don’t know when you’ll read this. It could be next month, it could be six months from now, it could be a year. I hope it’s never. I don’t know what the world will be like then. I don’t know what sort of things we’ll have been writing about. I don’t know if you’ll have found yourself another handsome American ambulance driver.

I can say with certainty (even looking into the future) that I haven’t and never will find another Sue. You are the reason I frown at the sunrise and smile at the sunset. Frown because I have to face the day alone, without you by my side. Smile because that’s one less day we have to spend apart.

You wrote in one of your letters that you didn’t think you were strong enough. You said, “I can’t do it all on my own without knowing you exist in this world.” You are strong, Sue. Look at you—you crossed the English Channel for me! When I see the things you did for me, it makes me wish I was a stronger man for you.

I know you wish I had never gotten involved with this war over here, that when I got to London I had just stayed on that train and raced clear up to Skye, never leaving again. But I had to do this. I couldn’t come to you as a failure, Sue. I had to prove I was something. You always call me a boy. I needed to grow up and become a man.