The Warm Hands of Ghosts

The queen and Gage arrive. Laura watches to make sure no one notices Winter in the far corner of the recovery ward. Suddenly, a gunshot sounds through the room, and Laura sees Winter and Pim wrestling over a pistol. The gun goes off again, a bullet flying just past Gage’s head. Then Winter hits Pim in the face and drops the gun.

Everyone freezes in shock. Pim sits up looking horrified. Winter bleeds from his reopened wound, and Gage demands that Jones save his life so that he can be interrogated and executed. Winter points out the window and tells Laura that Faland was there. Laura turns and runs out of the building.

Laura finds Faland waiting for her. He leads her to the hotel, where she finds Freddie kneeling on the floor, gaunt and ghostlike. She grabs his hand, but he pulls away. Faland suggests they stay at the hotel together, where they can hide from the world. Laura ignores him, pulls Freddie to his feet, and leads him through a door.

The door opens into a trench in the pouring rain. Laura is overwhelmed by the “sound of guns, the smell of wet wool, and excrement, and corpses” (273). Freddie makes an agonized sound, and Laura slams the door shut. They try another door, which opens into a hospital. Laura freezes, recognizing the scene of a corpse that falls into pieces when the orderly tries to pick it up. Freddie begs her to stop, telling her that the Freddie she knew is dead and that she would not want the person he is now. He tells her he is a traitor and cannot go back, but Laura begs him to try.

They try more doors. One door leads to the memory of Freddie murdering the Canadian soldier. Freddie stands at the door and watches, saying he wanted Laura to see his cowardice. Lastly, they open a door that leads to Laura’s memory of her mother’s death. Faland speaks, telling them that they do not have to remember: They can stay and forget. Realizing the doors will not help them escape, Laura snatches Faland’s violin and threatens to smash it if he does not let them go. Furious, Faland lets them leave.

Laura and Freddie are now free from the hotel but lost. Laura remembers Winter telling her to ask the ghosts for help and calls out, “Maman, I’m lost. Can you hear me? We’re lost, Freddie and I” (280). She closes her eyes and feels a warm hand reach for hers. She remembers Kate saying that ghosts have warm hands and knows it is her mother, who leads them back to Couthove.

In Couthove, they learn that Gage has taken Winter away for questioning and execution, and Pim intends to go to Poperinghe to “smooth things over” by convincing Gage that the hospital is not responsible for Winter’s actions (283). Jones takes Freddie away to be treated, but Mary realizes that he is a deserter and threatens to report him. Mary agrees to help hide Freddie if Laura goes with Pim to help assuage Gage’s anger.

Freddie recognizes Pim as the woman who spoke with Faland. He tries to warn Laura that something is wrong, but she does not understand.

Before leaving, Laura asks Jones why he is helping. He says he “want[s] to hear [her] laugh one day” (286). Then Laura and Pim go to Gage’s house in Poperinghe. They enter an interrogation room where Winter is tied to a chair, Gage standing over him. Pim slams the door shut and locks it to keep the guards out; she then reveals a pistol and points it at Gage’s head. Laura realizes that it was Pim who tried to kill Gage, not Winter. Pim pulls the trigger, killing Gage. Then she drops the gun and tells Young to arrest her.

Pim explains that she hated Gage from their first meeting, when he told her what happened to her son. Jimmy ran away after Passchendaele, but he was caught trying to escape the country and was brought back to be executed for desertion. The morning of the execution, Gage told Jimmy that his death would be a lesson to others and that even in dying he would serve the war cause. Pim believes that Gage could have saved Jimmy. The night they stayed in Faland’s hotel, she saw herself killing Gage in the mirror and realized that Young’s offer to teach her how to shoot a gun was her best opportunity for revenge.

Winter offers to take the blame for Gage’s death, but Pim refuses. She unlocks the door, planning to let the guards arrest her. Instead, Faland walks in, offering to take Pim away with him. Laura tries to convince Pim not to make a deal with Faland but recognizes the look on her face as that of someone “who had simply had enough. Who meant to leave the world behind” (295-96). Laura unties Winter, and they leave Gage’s house as Faland begins to play his violin. Then Jones and Freddie arrive.

Freddie and Jones walk to Poperinghe, convinced that something is wrong and that Laura may need help. They arrive as Laura and Winter exit Gage’s house. Freddie hears Faland’s violin, inciting another riot. Somewhere nearby, a fire starts.

Freddie sees Faland and Pim leaving together and is momentarily jealous. He has chosen to remain in the world for Laura’s and Winter’s sakes, but Pim has accepted oblivion. For a moment he regrets his choice, but then Winter’s arm wraps tightly around his waist and Laura leans against his shoulder. Faland and Pim disappear into the crowd. Freddie, Laura, Winter, and Jones leave.

They stop at a boarding house. Laura and Freddie share a room, but when Freddie wakes screaming, Winter comes to the door. He explains, “[S]ometimes, waking, I’m back in the pillbox with no way out. There’s no light. There’s no air. I would have died, if I’d been alone. I’d have gone mad, if I’d been alone. I think for him it’s the same” (301). Part of Laura resents that Winter knows her brother better than she does and can offer him comfort she cannot. She leaves to sit with Jones. Jones holds her hands and tells her it is time for her to go home. Jones offers to pay for false IDs to get them safely out of the country. Laura thanks him and tells him to come find her after the war is over.

In the other room, Freddie and Winter speak. Freddie is ashamed of his cowardice. He thinks he would be better off dead, but Winter tells him he is wrong. Winter adds that there are no such things as cowards in a war—only survival.

Freddie asks why Winter stayed when he could have escaped to somewhere safe. Winter says he stayed for Freddie. They’d made a promise to keep each other alive. Freddie reaches for Winter and asks if their promise is the only reason. Winter says, “I cannot live without you” (308). They kiss, and Freddie feels at home and “alive in his own skin” for the first time since he charged up Passchendaele Ridge (308).

Jones provides false IDs and ship passage for Laura, Freddie, and Winter to reach Canada. Just before they board The Arcadia in Calais, Laura kisses Jones. When they arrive in Halifax, Laura learns the Parkey sisters have died and left her their entire estate.

Finally, the war ends. People fill the streets, yelling and cheering, and Freddie suddenly announces that he cannot stay. Halifax is too loud and too haunted with memories. Freddie and Winter plan to leave for an isolated town where Winter can raise sheep and Freddie can paint. Again, Laura is momentarily bitter, feeling that she has saved her brother for someone else and lost him despite everything. Then she lets the feeling go and asks Freddie to be happy again. Freddie looks at Winter with light in his eyes, and Laura knows they will be safe together. Months later, in the spring of 1919, there is a knock on her door. She opens it to find Jones there, smiling.