Beatrice appeared in the doorway of her older brother's room, her cloche hat askew. Stephen was in bed – sick, not asleep – with piles of books and a cup of hot tea to keep him busy. Stephen's artificial leg was leaning against the side of the bed. The leg looked like the bones left over from a ghoulish butcher's best cut, but the siblings paid it no attention at all. Stephen looked his sister up and down, then closed his book, laying it on the white sheets that were pulled up to his waist.

“What's wrong, Bea?” he asked, a fit of coughing swallowing the last word.

“Oh, nothing,” she said dramatically. With a sigh, the young woman collapsed onto her brother's bed. She lay on her back in the space where his right leg ought to have been, her felt hat tumbling onto the floor. Her short hair spread around her head like a ruddy brown halo. “Nothing's wrong except for that ridiculous George Armstrong.” Beatrice rolled over onto her belly to face Stephen, silk stocking-clad legs in the air. “Why doesn't he like me?”

“George Armstrong? I thought he did like you. He asked you to picnic with him in the park, didn't he?”

“He did. And didn't I buy a new dress? And do my lipstick so I'd look like Theda Bara? And pack a whole picnic basket full of his favourite doughnuts? Doughnuts I had to buy because I'm such a hopeless baker? And George didn't notice, Stephen! He didn't notice any of it. He spent the whole time sitting on the river bank, staring into the water. It gave me a turn, I tell you – just staring, staring at nothing.”

“Oh,” Stephen said, before the coughing overcame him again. Beatrice waited patiently for him to continue. “That doesn't mean he doesn't like you, Bea. He's just – well, you know.”

“No, I don't know,” Beatrice frowned at her brother, “but if you're going to talk about that stupid war again, I'll smack you, bronchitis or no bronchitis.”

“Fine, then,” Stephen replied peevishly, “I won't say a word about it. Tell me more about your date.”

“What date?” Beatrice sounded frustrated. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, her feet dangling off the edge of the bed. “He was supposed to take me dancing after the picnic. We were going to go to that new jazz club.”

“I take it you didn't go?”

"Of course not! It's six o'clock and I'm already home, aren't I? And I had to take the streetcar by myself! After all that mooning about, George suddenly said he wasn't feeling well and had to go home. He walked me over to the streetcar stop, paid my fare, and disappeared! Thank goodness I knew where to change cars - no thanks to awful Armstrong.”

“Don't call him that, Bea,” Stephen said gently. He looked at his watch. “I suppose the club isn't even open yet. You could see if one of the girls wants to go with you.”

“And let my friends know that George disliked me so much he couldn't be bothered to finish our date? Not likely! I hate him!”

Her brother's lips quirked into a smile. “Then why did you agree to go picnicking with him in the first place?”

Bea retrieved her hat from the floor and threw it at Stephen. “You know very well why I went!”

The soft, felt object hit Stephen full in the face, then landed in his lap. He tossed it back so that it sat on the bed beside Beatrice. “Because you like him. Even though you hate him, you like him.”

"Exactly,” Bea sighed, “But I guess he hates me.”

 “Armstrong has other problems.”

 “You've got that right! I don't see why you consider him a friend.”

 “You know we were at school together. And then, during the war - “

Beatrice cut him off. “I told you, I don't want to hear about that stupid war! That's all you men ever talk about. War, war, war. Well the war's over now! It's been over for five years.”

Stephen sighed. “Do you want to understand George Armstrong, or not?”

Beatrice snorted. “Right now, all I want to understand is why you're standing up for him, instead of for me! Aren't you supposed to be saying, 'Unhand my sister, you heartless cad!' or something?”

Stephen laughed, which turned into coughing. Finally, he said, “I thought you wanted more handling, not less.”

Once again, the hat flew in Stephen's direction. This time he set it neatly on the bedside table. “At any rate,” he continued, “You don't understand what it was like. You weren't there.”

“Neither were you, for most of it. You were sent home within six months!”

“I didn't ask to be gassed and then blown up, Bea. And those six months -” Stephen coughed again, then shrugged, looking pale.

“I know,” Beatrice said generously, “I remember when you came home. I remember you sitting in that wheelchair. Nobody had told us you had lost a leg. And I remember that when you saw mother, you cried.”

“Yes, well, it was hard. ” Stephen frowned. “On the whole, though, I think I had an easier time of it than George Armstrong did.”

“George Armstrong still has two strong legs, and lungs that don't develop bronchitis every time he sniffles.”

“No, but he went over the top, you know. Twice. That does things to a man. I never had to face that. I managed to be nearly killed without ever leaving the trench. But going over the top – the thought was almost paralyzing.”

“So you're telling me he's a coward?”

“That isn't what I'm saying. Nobody is so brave that he wouldn't be afraid to go over the top of the trenches and out into no man's land. And nobody's so heartless that he's totally unaffected by seeing his friends die, stumbling over their bodies in a field of mud.”

“I – I guess so.” Beatrice sounded uncertain.

"Also, Beatrice, when's the last time you killed a man?”

Beatrice's mouth fell open. “Never, of course! Schoolgirls are not usually called upon to be soldiers, as you may recall!”

“You've never killed a man. I might have. I honestly don't know. There was a lot of shooting and a lot of dying, and I apparently was no good at either one. There's a chance -” For a moment, Stephen was silent, staring at his hands. He clenched both hands into fists, then unclenched them and folded them on top of the pristine, white sheet. “There's a chance I killed someone. And there's a chance I never did any such thing. I chose to believe the latter; anything else would make me go mad, I think.” The long speech made the cough return, though Stephen quickly silenced it with a few sips of tea.

Beatrice nodded, her face a study in fascinated horror. “But it was a war, Stephen. Killing people is what you're supposed to do.”

“That doesn't make it right, Bea. It doesn't make it feel right. No matter what they tell you. I talked to a lot of fellows when I was in the hospital. I saw grown men, experienced men, break down when they were telling me about how they had to kill a man who was equally intent on killing them. Even when they killed in self-defence, they were affected.”

“And George – George killed people, of course?”

"Of course,” Stephen said with a sigh. “As you said, it was a war, Bea.”

 “So why did you do it, Stephen? Why did you put yourself in a position where you knew you'd have to do something you thought was wrong? You and George both chose to join up; you weren't conscripted.”

 “Because we didn't think about that part of it. We thought it was the right thing to do - all of us did, stupid young fools that we were. We thought we'd show the enemy what was what, and be home for Christmas, and all that nonsense. And besides, we thought dying for your country – or causing some other poor fellow to die for his – was terribly noble, terribly honourable.”

“That's stupid.”

“Stupid? Ah, Bea, you weren't a boy. You didn't read the books we read, hear the stories we boys were told in school – or if you heard them, they didn't mean the same things to you that they did to us. But think of the food served up to boys' minds: Napoleon and Wellington; Richard and Saladin; Caesar and Pompey; Agamemnon and Odysseus and Achilles, Hector and Priam. We learned about so many great, noble, admirable men, who fought and killed and sometimes died, but who were always heaped with honour and glory and remembered long after they were dead.”

“And you thought you could do the same thing,” Beatrice said. It was a statement, not a question.

“I did, Armstrong did, we all did. And then we all found out that it was a lie, a colossal practical joke, and we were its victims.”

"Of course,” Bea agreed. “So, about George - he stares off into space and ignores me because he feels guilty?”

“I don't know. Maybe. But I'm sure he sees you as -” Stephen's brow wrinkled for a moment. “He sees you as good, and pure, and innocent. Far too good for him. And although he's drawn to you, he feels he should stay away, for your own sake. He knows he's killed people. He thinks he's broken. Perhaps even evil. And you're an innocent child whom he's afraid he'll ruin, someone he'll damn along with himself.”

Bea sat silently for a long moment. “I am much stronger than he gives me credit for.”

Stephen smiled. “I know you are, Bea. But that's why, whether or not you like him in the end, you must be kind to him. He's still learning what it means to be human, again.”

Beatrice nodded. “I understand. And I will be kind, or at least, I will try. Stephen? Do you ever feel that way yourself? Broken?” She did not say the word 'damned'.

“Sometimes - but not often. I have some advantages Armstrong lacks.” He reached over to the bedside table for Beatrice's hat, and handed it to her. “My health is lost, and I know that. I will never be the same again. But Armstrong has it worse. Armstrong's afraid he's lost his soul.”

Beatrice nodded. “Then I suppose I shall have to help him find it again.”

Beatrice placed her cloche hat back on top of her shingled hair. Then she walked from the room. Stephen smiled as she went.