Chapter 5
He saw it coming.
In the waiting room of a train station in a suburb of London.
Everything about her.
Her age said she'd mothered a soldier in the last war, the one that was going to end the rest.
Had now become a crone who'd lost her one and only. He watched her change direction his way. Like she smelled him. The way her fine nose contracted and seized on his odor. Pointer genes in this one, he supposed.
"Why aren't you in uniform, young man?" She wasn't buying what she saw in him. And just polite enough. He knew where this was headed because it wasn't the first time. He knew what she wanted to say for all the world to hear, her voice pitched one indignant level too loud. She fully intended to make a public, unavoidable accusation; fishing for supporters among the crowd packed in like stinking and uncomfortable sardines.
He looked around.
True enough. Every other man his age was in military dress. And several nearby were clearly curious how he would answer. Damn.
"My orders just come up, madam." A little of the underclass never hurt.
"For where?" she huffed, affronted that he had any kind of answer.
"Can't tell you that, madam," he sighed. "Everything's a secret." Murmurs at that. Murmurs against her now. Maybe she was a meddling old crow. The important thing for him was she walked away, deflated, just as two bulky men struggled into the waiting room from the street carrying a steamer trunk.
They saw him. He was looking for them.
"Over here," his voice cracked like a whip above the crowd. Even the fading old bitch turned to look. He waved eagerly to the porters.