Cold Comfort Read Online Free PDF

the world as he could. He had even stopped reading obituaries. They were too sharp a reminder of the fact that he had survived when so many had not. For the dying had not stopped with the Armistice.
    The service for Major Clayton was different. Clayton had saved his life, and in doing so nearly lost his own. The leg had never healed correctly, and in the end it had become the source of the gangrene that overtook first his foot, then his knee, his leg, and finally his body. Dying by inches, he’d called it.
    For Major Clayton, he would have to make an exception. He hadn’t been asked by Clayton’s sister to deliver the eulogy, even though he knew the man better than anyone living. And he was just as glad.
    Instead the sister had invited a Colonel from London to do that honor. He wondered what Clayton would have made of that, given his feelings for HQ and the generals who had given orders they themselves would never have to carry out. Decisions that sent men to their deaths, maimed them, made them numbers on interminable lists, names and ranks and dates but never the faces or shortened lives that should have reminded the generals that they were dealing in flesh and blood.
    Of course St. Mary’s would be full for the service. He reminded himself that he would have to stay well back, where he wouldn’t be noticed.
    Only for Clayton, he thought on the Friday as he shaved and then dressed himself with more than his usual care. The Major had been a stickler for appearances; he’d said often enough that if a man respected his uniform, he would respect himself. It would not do to be less than parade perfect even in civilian clothes.
    At half past one, he set out for Burwell, planning his journey to arrive shortly before the mourners went inside to take their places. He had no desire to greet anyone, exchange pleasantries or memories. Or to offer condolences to the sister. He barely knew her, and his brief words of sympathy would not lessen her grief.
    As it was, by the time he’d reached Burwell and walked on to St. Mary’s by a roundabout way, ending up on the street just above it, the hearse had arrived and only a handful of people were still standing by the west door. He slowed his place, waiting until everyone else had gone inside ahead of him, and listened to the heavy bell above his head toll the brief years of Clayton’s life. Thirty-five. It was a hell of a thing to die at thirty-five with so much to live for, leg or no leg.
    He glanced up at the bell and then back at the church doorway. And there, to his utter astonishment, he saw a face he had never wanted to see again. Much less find one day here in this isolated corner of Cambridgeshire.
    He brushed a hand across his eyes, certain that in the bright sunlight he’d been mistaken. That in his distress over the Major’s death, other memories had forced themselves to the forefront of his mind. It would be too cruel—
    But no. There he was, bold as brass, smiling and chatting with one of the men in uniform next to him. There could be no mistake.
    Captain Hutchinson. What the hell was he doing here? He hadn’t known Clayton, had he? Why was he among the mourners?
    Quickly stepping back into the shadows cast by a large tree overhanging the street, he tried to think.
    Hutchinson must have traveled up from London with the Colonel. That would explain his being here. Hutchinson was always quick to see an advantage. Or had he somehow discovered that Clayton’s sister was inheriting everything and fixed his eye on her? There was a well-set-up estate in Gloucestershire, and the older property here in Burwell, presently occupied by a tenant. Both would bring in a tidy income.
    It would be like Hutchinson, to curry favor before the will had been read, to prove he was no fortune hunter. But he was.
    He felt ill, perspiring in the late summer heat like someone with a fever, his legs trembling.
    The last of the mourners had stepped inside the church, the coffin had been lifted