Two Soldiers by Hollis Shiloh

Author:Hollis Shiloh [Shiloh, Hollis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sweet gay romance, short story, historical fantasy, wwi, gay marriage, gay romance, gay husbands
Amazon: B07WVF2YL2
Goodreads: 47894141
Publisher: Spare Words Press
Published: 2019-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

THE TROUBLE WITH WALNUT dye was that it didn't wash out. Nor had he anything on his person, up to and including a scrap of uniform, to prove his claims. As things had begun to get dicey with spies, he had only his speech and powers of persuasion, and it took some time to get through to anybody. He spent a couple of hard nights of it in jail, was subjected to some rather rough questioning, and altogether began to wish he'd stayed with the local resistance instead of finding his way back over the lines, as soon as they'd come close enough.

He had decided to live after all, but it had not been an easy time and he still sometimes had doubts about the whole thing. It was such a lot of bother sometimes.

Still, after a week in a very disagreeable facility, someone was found who could vouch for him. An old comrade from the battlefield. He arrived after yet another week, and Henry, brown and dark-haired and whippet thin, was finally freed.

He was sent to superior officers to report. Since he now had a great deal of personal, on the ground information about the situation and lay of the land behind enemy lines, he was there reporting for quite some time. At least they had food, and he didn't have to kill anybody. But he wanted desperately to go home.

At last he was given a week's leave for his trouble. He was more homesick than he'd ever been in his life, and it seemed to grow worse the closer he got. He was certain somehow that it wasn't real, it would be ripped away from him. That nothing would be there, it would be razed to the ground like so much else.

War had taken everything from him, and now it would take the last illusions, that of home and some few days of safety and peace.

At last he stood outside the gate. He'd tried to brace himself for finding it changed, now a rest facility for recovering soldiers. It was still strange to see it. Everything seemed eerily as if he'd seen it in another life, familiar yet changed. He wandered up the road, looking and feeling lost.

"Go round to the tradesman's entrance if you're looking for work, lad," said a gardener, not unkindly. He was no one Henry knew. Nobody here was, the shuffling and sitting soldiers looking as lost and tired as he felt. And in that moment, Henry found he hadn't the strength to do anything more.

He sank onto a bench, putting his head into his hands. He felt lonelier and farther from home than ever. He knew he needed to announce who he was, ask to be shown in, ask to see Isaac, if he were here—but it was all so close and so final, and he'd used up everything he had just to make it this far.

He sat and breathed, head in his hands, shaking a bit and not sure why, except that everything was awful and perhaps he should have died in that battle after all.

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