The Whisperers

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I? I am a collector.’ He slipped two pieces of paper across the table to Dr. Al-Daini. ‘But there is a price to be paid for relinquishing such a unique item to the proper authorities.’

Dr. Al-Daini examined the papers. On each was the image of a small cylindrical seal.

‘Consider them destroyed, or irretrievably lost.’

Dr. Al-Daini was a man of the world. ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘For your own collection?’

‘No,’ said the Collector, as he stood to leave. ‘In recompense.’

The air was still. Rain had fallen earlier in the day, and the grass in the Maine Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery gleamed in the sunlight. Bobby Jandreau was beside me, his girlfriend waiting on the path behind us. We were alone among the dead. He had asked that I meet him in this place, and I had been happy to do so.

‘For a long time, I wanted to be here,’ said Bobby. ‘I wanted it all to end.’

‘And now?’

‘I’m with her.’ He looked back at Mel, and she smiled at him, and I thought: she will be buried here next to you.

‘They’ll save a place for you both. No need to hurry.’

He nodded. ‘This is our reward,’ he said. ‘To lie here, with honor. There is nothing more – not money, not medals. This is enough.’

His gaze was fixed on the nearest stone. A husband and wife were buried there, side by side, and I knew that he was seeing his name alongside Mel’s, just as I had.

‘Their intentions were good,’ he said. ‘At the start.’

‘Most of the bad situations I’ve encountered began with the best of intentions,’ I replied. ‘But they were right, in a way: the injured, the scarred, they deserve better than what they’re getting.’

‘I guess there was so much money that, in the end, they couldn’t bear to give any of it away.’

‘I guess so.’

He reached out to me, and I shook his hand. When we were done, there were two small cylinder seals in his palm, each decorated with gold and gemstones. A fragment of paper was bound to one with a rubber band.

‘What are these?’

‘Souvenirs,’ I said. ‘A man named Dr. Al-Daini has crossed them off his list of stolen items, in return for a certain gold box. On the paper is the name of someone who’ll pay a high price for them, with no questions asked. I’m sure you can find a way to put the money to good use.’

Bobby Jandreau closed his fist upon the seals. ‘There are men and women worse off than I am.’

‘I know that. That’s why they’ve been given to you: because you’ll do the right thing. You need any advice, talk to Ronald Straydeer, or just ask your girlfriend.’

They left before I did. I stayed for a time, among the dead, and then, as the shadows lengthened, I crossed myself, and left the fallen to their own.

Here the dead lay down their burdens, for a time. Here are names etched in stone, and bouquets on cut grass. Here husband lies next to wife, and wife next to husband. Here is the promise of peace, but only the promise.

For the dead alone can speak of what they have endured, and just as sleep may be punctuated by restless dreaming, so too the final repose is sometimes uneasy for those who have seen too much, who have suffered too much. The dead know what the dead know, and soldiers know what soldiers know, and they can share their torments only with their own kind.

At night, figures emerge from the shadows, and dark forms move in sheltered glades. One man sits beside another on a stone bench, listening quietly to his comrade as a bird sings lullabies above their heads. Three men walk softly through the first fallen leaves, disturbing none, leaving no trace of their passing. Here, soldiers gather, and speak of war and of what was lost. Here, the dead bear witness, and witness is borne in return.

And the night air carries whispers of consolation.

Acknowledgements

This book could not have been written without the generosity and patience of Tom Hyland, a veteran of the Vietnam war and a good man, who answered many questions over the course of its completion, and who improved the manuscript immeasurably with his knowledge.

I am grateful too to the contributors to Truckingboards, the truckers’ forum, who took the time to explain the nature of their work between the US and Canada.

I consulted a great many newspapers and journals in the course of writing The Whisperers, in particular the committed, sensitive reporting of The New York Times on the issues of PTSD and the treatment of returning veterans. Meanwhile, the following books proved invaluable in filling in the gaps in my knowledge: My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell (Putnam, 2005), from which much of the detail of serving in a Stryker squad originated; Trigger Men by Hans Halberstadt (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008); In Conflict: Iraq War Veterans Speak Out on Duty, Loss, and the Fight to Stay Alive by Yvo

Many books have been written about the experience of war, but few authors have written as beautifully, and as incisively, as Richard Currey, who served as a combat medic during the Vietnam War. Fatal Light, his classic novel of Vietnam, was re-issued in 2009 as a special twentieth a

My thanks, as always, to my editor at Hodder & Stoughton, Sue Fletcher, and my editor at Atria Books, Emily Bestler, as well as to all those who at Hodder, Atria, and elsewhere who help to get my odd books into the hands of readers; to my agent, Darley Anderson, and his staff; to Madeira James and Jayne Doherty; to Clair Lamb; to Megan Beatie; and to Kate and KC O’Hearn.

Finally, love and thanks to Je

Oh, and Sasha.

About the Author

John Co