A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows: An Outlander Novella by Diana Gabaldon Page A

dark man said, his voice fierce. Then he was gone again, with the
shoof-shoof
sounds of boots in dry grass, leaving Jerry with his mouth agape.
    He caught the other man’s voice from the darkness, irritated, half-amused. He spoke differently from the dark man, a much thicker accent, but Jerry understood him without difficulty.
    ‘Why did ye tell him a daft thing like that?’
    And the dark one’s reply, soft-spoken, in a tone that terrified him more than anything had so far.
    ‘Because he isn’t going to make it back. It’s the only chance I’ll ever have. Come on.’
    * * *
    The day was dawning when he came to himself again, and the world was quiet. No birds sang, and the air was cold with the chill of November and winter coming on. When he could stand up, he went to look, shaky as a newborn lamb.
    The plane wasn’t there, but there was still a deep gouge in the earth where it had been. Not raw earth, though; furred over with grass and meadow plants—not just furred, he saw, limping over to have a closer look. Matted. Dead stalks from earlier years’ growth.
    If he’d been where he thought he’d been, if he’d truly gone … back … then he’d come forward again, but not to the same place he’d left. How long? A year, two? He sat down on the grass, too drained to stand up any longer. He felt as though he’d walked every second of the time between then and now.
    He’d done what the green-eyed stranger had said. Concentrated fiercely on Dolly. But he hadn’t been able to keep from thinking of wee Roger, not altogether. How could he? The picture he had most vividly of Dolly was her holding the lad, close against her breast; that’s what he’d seen. And yet he’d made it. He thought he’d made it. Maybe.
    What might have happened? he wondered. There hadn’t been time to ask. There’d been no time to hesitate, either; more lights had come bobbing across the dark, with uncouth Northumbrian shouts behind them, hunting him, and he’d hurled himself into the midst of the standing stones and things went pear-shaped again, even worse. He hoped the strangers who’d rescued him had got away.
    Lost
, the fair man had said, and even now, the word went through him like a bit of jagged metal. He swallowed.
    He thought he wasn’t where he had been, but was he still lost, himself? Where was he now? Or rather, when?
    He stayed for a bit, gathering his strength. In a few minutes, though, he heard a familiar sound—the low growl of engines, and the swish of tyres on asphalt. He swallowed hard, and, standing up, turned away from the stones, toward the road.
    * * *
    He was lucky—for once, he thought wryly. There was a line of troop transports passing, and he swung aboard one without difficulty. The soldiers looked startled at his appearance—he was rumpled and stained, bruised and torn about and with a two-week beard—but they instantly assumed he’d been off on a tear and was now trying to sneak back to his base without being detected. They laughed and nudged him knowingly, but were sympathetic, and when he confessed he was skint, they had a quick whip-round for enough cash to buy a train ticket fromSalisbury, where the transport was headed.
    He did his best to smile and go along with the ragging, but soon enough they tired of him and turned to their own conversations, and he was allowed to sit, swaying on the bench, feeling the thrum of the engine through his legs, surrounded by the comfortable presence of comrades.
    ‘Hey, mate,’ he said casually to the young soldier beside him. ‘What year is it?’
    The boy—he couldn’t be more than seventeen, and Jerry felt the weight of the five years between them as though they were fifty—looked at him wide-eyed, then whooped with laughter.
    ‘What’ve you been having to drink, Dad? Bring any away with you?’
    That led to more ragging, and he didn’t try asking again.
    Did it matter?
    * * *
    He remembered almost nothing of the journey from Salisbury to