I tore my gaze from Alex’s face and turned the page. Here was what I had been looking for: his war history. He had enlisted in February of 1915 and had been sent almost immediately into pilot training at the Military Aeronautics School in Reading. After eight months he’d gone to France for advanced training in Reims that seemed to consist of both classroom work and flight practice, both of which he excelled at. A note was written in pencil beneath the Reims record: “Skills very promising. Naturally suited for this kind of work.” The signature beneath the note had been blacked over with ink.
After training, Alex was moved to the Western Front, where he spent most of the rest of the war. The record listed relocation to Soissons and Neuve Chapelle in 1916; and an extended period up and down the Somme in 1917, moving every four to five weeks. In every place he was assigned as a pilot, “for purposes of reconnaissance and battle, if engaged.” He seemed to have gone wherever the authorities in charge needed photographs or other kinds of intelligence information, his piloting skills reserved for close observation of the enemy rather than head-on battle.
I studied his leave record. He had been given ten days’ leave in 1916—I remembered it well; it had been spring, several of the days unseasonably warm, and Alex had seemed intensely happy to be home in a way that had almost confused me. The war was still new to both of us, and we’d bumped through the first days of his leave like strangers until we remembered how to be married. His second leave, in early 1917, was when the camera arrived, and he had seemed more distant by then, more quietly weighed down by the things he’d seen.
There was no leave listed for August of 1917, the month Franny had died. There was, however, a notation in the file.
“What does this mean?” I asked, breaking the silence in the room and looking up at Colonel Mabry. “In August of 1917. There is a note that says ‘authorized travel.’”
I turned the file toward the colonel for him to read, but even from several feet away he barely glanced at the writing on the page. “I’m uncertain of the details, Mrs. Manders, but the implication is that your husband’s superiors sent him somewhere for official reasons.”
“But it wasn’t leave,” I said.
“If the file doesn’t state that it was leave, then no,” the colonel replied. “Your husband was sent somewhere for a purpose, which in this case does not seem to have been recorded.”
“Would ‘authorized travel’ have sent him to England?”
“I would be very surprised if it did. Travel to England was strictly monitored during the height of the war, as you can imagine.”
Martin was looking at the file over my shoulder. “That’s the month my sister died,” he said. “Alex was here then. At Wych Elm House.”
“Was he?” Colonel Mabry said.
I studied the colonel’s face, the even features, the salt-and-pepper eyebrows above impassive eyes. “How could he have been at Wych Elm House when he was not on leave?” I asked.
“There’s one way, I suppose,” Martin answered before the colonel could speak. “That is, if Alex was sent somewhere on official business—and then came here on his way back. A sort of side trip.”
“But it wasn’t authorized,” I said. “That would mean Alex took unauthorized leave. He would be court-martialed for desertion.”
Martin seemed surprised I even knew such a thing. “That may be true, Cousin Jo, but not if he were granted a favor. Off the record, you see.”
“Off the record?” I asked.
“It might not be so,” Colonel Mabry interjected sternly. “But Mr. Forsyth is correct. It’s a possibility that could explain what’s in the file.”
“It makes sense,” Martin said. “By then Alex was an officer with a very high flying record. He could have simply called in a favor.” His voice gentled. “So you see, Jo, it wasn’t the case that he took leave without telling you.”
I stared at the file in my lap, appalled. No, Alex had not been granted leave without telling me. Instead, he had called in a special favor asking to make an off-the-books trip—to Wych Elm House, instead of home to me.
Hans Faber, I thought. Who is Hans Faber?
I could feel both men’s gazes on me—the colonel’s sharp and unwavering, Martin’s soft and concerned. I did not want either of them to see the pain on my face, so I kept my gaze in my lap and ran my finger along the page. Alex’s final leave had been in early February of 1918, and it had been three weeks long—the longest leave he’d ever been given. Even at the time I had known that it was a longer leave than most men were granted, but I had guessed it was a sop for a man who had been fighting so well for so long. Except for a strained shoulder and an infected hand, Alex had never even been sick enough to be out of the fighting.