by Anne Perry
The guard hesitated.
“I’m not dangerous,” Joseph went on. “For heaven’s sake, he and I aren’t going to attack anyone. And the fact that Cavan’s still here should prove he’s not trying to escape. I’m not charged with anything except not looking hard enough for the men who did escape.”
“Yeah, all right. The doc in’t no harm.” The guard shrugged. “I reckon as the whole damn thing’s a farce anyway! Lock up the doc an’ the priest, and let the lunatics run the army! Come on. Can you stand up? I’ll take you to him. Want to finish your tea first?”
“Please.” Joseph remembered to drink using his left hand, and put the mug down so he could still use his left hand to eat the bread. “Thank you,” he said when he was finished. He stood up awkwardly, careful again not to use his right arm at all.
Cavan was sitting on the floor when the soldier opened his door and pushed Joseph in ahead of him.
Cavan looked up in surprise, and—when he recognized Joseph—rose to his feet. He noticed Joseph holding his right arm awkwardly.
“Hurt your shoulder, Chaplain?” he said curiously, his eyes flicking to the guard and then back to Joseph.
“Yes. I was wondering if you could ease it back or something?” Joseph replied.
“No doctors on the outside?” Cavan said with a wry smile that barely reached his eyes. He looked tired and strained, deep lines scored into his face and a hollowness around his eyes. He must know that death was no longer a probability for him, but a certainty.
Joseph felt a sudden, blinding rage at the injustice of it. “I expect they’re good enough,” he replied, his voice trembling and sounding more strained than he had intended. “But since I’m in here and can’t get out, I hoped you would help.”
Cavan was nonplussed. “In here? You? For God’s sake, what for?”
“I was ordered to look for the escaped men,” Joseph replied. “Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner believed I was being dilatory in my duty, or even possibly intentionally obstructive.”
“That’s absurd!” Cavan said, shaking his head.
“Actually it’s perfectly fair,” Joseph told him. “If I’d fallen over them I wouldn’t have told him. Not that I did! I imagine they are miles away from here. I hope so.”
The guard cleared his throat. “I’ll leave the chaplain ’ere with you, Captain Cavan, if I may, sir? See if you can fix ’is shoulder for ’im.” He went out and closed the door. Again the heavy sound of the lock reminded them he had no intention of being held to blame for their escape.
Joseph straightened his shoulder. It was becoming painful holding it at a unnatural angle.
Cavan noticed.
“Thank you for healing it so quickly,” Joseph said with a tight smile. He walked over and sat down on the floor a few feet away from where Cavan had been sitting. “He may be back soon,” he went on. “I hope not, but you can’t rely on him. At least, I assume you can’t?”
Cavan looked confused. He sat down also, but said nothing.
“I’ve been thinking about how to escape,” Joseph went on conversationally. “The more I consider it, the less I can see any way at all, without pretty brave and well-thought-out help from at least one person outside. More likely two.”
Cavan’s face was expressionless, carefully so. “Your escaping seems pretty pointless. They haven’t got a charge against you that will stick. Faulkner’s done this in a fit of temper, that’s all.”
“Yes, I know that,” Joseph agreed. “I’m hoping they might even release me later today. That’s why I need to speak to you now.”
Cavan’s face darkened.
“If you think I’m going to try and buy some kind of leniency by telling you how the others escaped, or who helped them, then you’re a far bigger fool than I thought you. And a bigger knave as well. What kind of a traitor to my friends do you think I am?”
“I think you are a man too exhausted to think clearly,” Joseph answered. “And actually I didn’t ask you who helped them. I would very much prefer not to know. Although I have an idea, and, if I am right, then it is the last person on earth I would betray.”
Cavan blinked quickly, aware that he had given himself away. He tried to hide it by lowering his eyes. “If you don’t want to know that, what do you want?” he asked softly. “I wouldn’t tell you where the men were if I knew! And I don’t.”
“I want to know what happened at Northrup’s mock trial,” Joseph answered. “I was told that you didn’t mean to kill him. General Northrup is reasonably inclined toward having the charge reduced to insubordination and accidental death.”
“Rubbish!” Cavan lifted his head, his eyes wide. “His son is dead. Apart from wanting revenge, he’s a military martinet. Discipline is his catechism.”
“He’s a proud man,” Joseph said thoughtfully. “And limited. He has little imagination, but he is not essentially dishonest. And certainly he does not lack courage. He knows his only son was incompetent and a danger to his men, which is a very hard fact for a military father to face.”
“Why would he face it?” Cavan asked.
“He has no choice,” Joseph explained. “If this charge goes ahead as it is, then the prosecutor will need to prove a very powerful motive for twelve men to conspire to murder an officer.”
“We had one,” Cavan argued, a little impatiently. “He was getting men killed and maimed unnecessarily. He was grossly incompetent, and too proud or too stupid to be guided by the men who’d been out here for months, or even years, and knew how to avoid most of the losses.”
“Exactly.” Joseph nodded, watching Cavan to see if he understood. “Do you imagine that is something his father wishes proved beyond reasonable doubt in a court-martial?”
A flash of comprehension lit in Cavan’s eyes. “Someone has pointed that out to him? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely positive.”
Cavan bit his lip.
“I see. Why do you want to know? Do you really believe it will make any difference? I like optimism, but not unreality. Shouldn’t you be helping me to face the truth, perhaps make my peace with God? Isn’t that what you call it?”
“It’s a little early for that,” Joseph said drily. “Unless that’s an oblique way of telling me that you personally shot Northrup, intentionally and avoidably?”
“I’ve no idea who shot Northrup!” Cavan said tartly. “Except that it had to be one of the twelve of us, and it wasn’t me.”
Joseph asked the question to which he dreaded the answer.
“Were you loaded with blanks, or did you deliberately shoot wide?”
Cavan stared at him. “I suppose you want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Where would we get blanks?” There was the faintest smile in Cavan’s eyes. “The army supplies only live ammunition.”
“You wouldn’t get it from supplies,” Joseph pointed out. “You’d use a pair of pliers to take the heads off live bullets, then crimp the casing closed again.”
“Make our own blanks. Yes, I suppose we would.”
“It would be a bit rash to leave anyone to simply to shoot wide,” Joseph said, not taking his eyes from Cavan’s. “It would be so easy for someone to make a mistake and shoot the man accidentally. You’d be lucky if you ever found out who it was—or unlucky.”
“Yes, it would be rash,” Cavan agreed. “Neither I nor Morel are rash. The two of us blanked the bullets ourselves.”
“So someone changed theirs for a live one.” It was the unavoidable answer: deliberate murder.
“Must have.”
“But you have no idea who?”
“No. Honestly, I haven’t. I don’t believe it was Morel, but I don’t know. I’m sure I didn’t, and ten of the others didn’t.”
Joseph believed him. He had never thought him guilty of anything but wanting to frighten Northrup into taking advice in order to cut down on the useless deaths. And now, of course, of refusing to betray whoever had rescued the others.
�
�Why didn’t you escape, when you could?” he asked curiously, shifting position a little on the hard floor.
“I couldn’t,” Cavan said with the very slightest shrug. “I’d given my word.”
Joseph understood. An officer’s word was binding. “And the others?”
“I didn’t give my word not to help anyone else escape.” Cavan smiled.
Joseph had to ask. “Morel?” He was an officer, too.
“Refused,” Cavan answered. “They put him in with the men. Six in one room, five in the other. That left me alone in here.”
“So you helped them, and stayed behind?”
“Yes.” Cavan’s face was suddenly filled with emotion, as if a crippling restraint on him had momentarily broken. “Speak for them, Captain Reavley. Northrup was a dangerous man, weak and arrogant. Even when he knew he was wrong, he wouldn’t listen. The men were at the end of their endurance. Someone had to act.” His voice was urgent, pleading. “It was only meant to frighten him into listening. They weren’t bad men, just desperate to save their friends.”
“I know,” Joseph said softly. “I come from the same village. I’ve known a lot of those men all their lives. Morel was one of my students in Cambridge.” He took a deep breath. “Judith is my sister.”
Cavan closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were bright and sad, but he said nothing.
A moment later the guard opened the door again. When he saw that Joseph’s shoulder was apparently mended, he took him back to his own room.
In the middle of the afternoon Joseph was released and escorted to Colonel Hook in his dugout.
“Sit down!” Hook said impatiently. He looked as if he had slept little since the last time they had been here. “Don’t stand at attention like a fool! Faulkner’s gone, at least for the moment.”
Joseph obeyed, sitting on an old ammunition box. “Is he still insisting on court-martialing Captain Cavan alone?”
“I’ve managed to prevent that, at least for a week or two,” Hook replied. “He thinks we can find out how they escaped.”
Joseph’s stomach clenched. Did he already suspect someone? “Really?” he said huskily. “How?”
Hook gave a little jerk upward with his hands. It was angry, a denial. “He doesn’t know the men. No one is going to tell him anything. Did you see Cavan in the farmhouse?”
“Yes. I don’t know whether he knows or not, but if he does, he certainly isn’t going to say.”
“I don’t imagine you asked him, did you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Could you have escaped?” Hook regarded him curiously.
“No…but I didn’t try.”
“I’m asking you, officially, to try now.”
“Officially?” Joseph wanted to be quite clear.
“Yes.” Hook gave a very slight smile, so small it could even have been an illusion of the light.
“Yes, sir. Of course.” Joseph stood up from the ammunition box. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”
“Oh, don’t wait that long, Reavley. Tell me in a couple of days. I’ll tell Faulkner.”
“Yes, sir.” Joseph went to the step, then with one hand on the sacking he turned back. “Only one of them is guilty, you know. There were eleven blanks and one live round.”
“We don’t have blanks,” Hook pointed out.
“They made their own. It’s simple enough. The others are innocent.”
“Not innocent,” Hook said with a grimace. “Guilty of insubordination, not murder. But I’m glad to hear that.”
“It makes a difference, sir. If they were tried and found guilty of insubordination, it might be a matter you could deal with. No need to take it higher. All inside the regiment?”
“That isn’t going to help whoever sprang them out of custody, Reavley. Faulkner will still want them court-martialed. And probably shot.”
Joseph felt the cold hurt tighten in his stomach again. “I realize that, sir. I imagine it will be very difficult indeed to find out who they are. Practically impossible.”
“Still, we must oblige Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner. Attend to it, Reavley. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir.” Joseph went out, praying that the good luck he would have would be a complete and total failure to find any proof whatsoever.
It was difficult even to find a man he could decently ask about the escape. It was not merely that no one wished to help find the men themselves; they were even less eager to add to the general misery by exposing whoever had been clever enough, and above all brave enough, to free them. Everyone was overwhelmed by the continuing battle for Passchendaele. The losses mounted, not in twos or threes but in dozens, too often scores. Sometimes the rain eased, but it always came back again until the trenches were like canals; shell craters were deep enough to drown a man and often did; and running water gouged out channels down every incline so savage they would sweep a man off his feet.
Joseph carried stretchers, when there were any, men on his back when that was all there was. As always, he did what he could for the dying and the dead. There was little enough time to think of anything else.
Still, as discreetly as he could, he began to find out where different people had been on the night of the escape. He did not begin with Judith, aware that Faulkner might follow his steps. What he could learn, so could others.
He hoped he could find that she had been miles away, with a dozen witnesses—perhaps other officers new to the area and who had no personal stake in the escape. He sensed the anger as he asked, the suspicious looks, the reluctance to answer. Men stopped talking when he approached; shaggy-dog jokes died halfway through. They did not offer him the usual tea—or Woodbines, even though they knew he did not smoke.
Most men simply said they had no idea of Judith’s whereabouts. Others had observed her in at least half a dozen different places at the time of the escape, all miles from the farmhouse. She and Wil Sloan were the only ones about whom such a variety of lies were sworn to. All other V.A.D. staff were in one place only.
These men were not very sophisticated liars. If Joseph could follow that trail so easily, so could Faulkner, once he thought where to look. Then there was only one possible end: Wil and Judith would be arrested and charged. All the lies in the world would not help, because the truth was obvious. He had thought only a little while ago that it was someone extremely clever; now he thought perhaps only supremely brave, and trusting in the loyalty of the men. The guards might even have been party to it.
He walked in the late afternoon mist, his boots sodden and sloshing in the mud. He moved slowly because he had no wish to arrive. The gunfire sounded far away, over the rise and beyond the woods toward Passchendaele itself—or what was left of it. All along the Ypres Salient there were miles of mud and blasted tree stumps, craters with corpses floating in the stagnant water, some still wreathed in the heavy poison gas.
He could imagine the scene at night: Judith and Wil Sloan arriving in the ambulance, possibly even two ambulances. They would stop. One would get out, probably Judith, tired, tense, her face pale in the headlights, skirts heavy and dark with mud. She would have gone up to the guard and asked for something—perhaps fresh water or another blanket.
Wil might have waited until they were occupied helping her, and crept up. Or had they simply been honest and said what they wanted, and asked for help? Joseph might never know, and it did not matter. Without thinking about it at all, he knew if they were ever facing trial, they would say they had done it by violence and deceit. They would see that no one else was blamed.
Joseph reached Colonel Hook’s dugout. He pulled back the sacking and saw the light burning inside. He knocked on the lintel.
Hook looked up and waved Joseph in. Fear was in his eyes for an instant, then he mastered it. “Yes, Captain Reavley? Have you found out anything about the escape?”
“Nothing at all, sir,” Joseph said instantly. “It could have been anyone at all. The only answer is to s
ee if we can find the escaped men. I am quite certain that only one of them is guilty of murder. The others did no more than…than behave insubordinately, provoked by extraordinary circumstances. Then we could have a court-martial that would be fair and reasonable…sir.”
“We have no chance of finding the men, Reavley. They could be anywhere. Unless—” Hook stopped. “Do you believe you can?” His face puckered, gaunt with weariness. He did not daresay it, but he was begging Joseph not to tell him what he did not want and could not afford to know.
“I believe so, sir.” Joseph stayed standing to attention. “If I have your permission, I would like to try. Immediately.”
“They have several days’ start on you,” Hook pointed out.
“I know. But I think the Royal Flying Corps might give me a little help if I explain. And if you give me orders…sir?”
“Try,” Hook said quietly. “And God help you!”
CHAPTER
NINE
T he day after Wheatcroft’s death, Matthew received an urgent summons from Dermot Sandwell. He had asked for Sandwell’s help, but he had not expected to hear from him so soon. He went eagerly, even with a sharp flutter of excitement. He found his heart beating hard as he strode along the pavement, bumping into people unintentionally, having to apologize. He had spent three years seeking the identity of the Peacemaker, moving from one fear to another, hoping and yet also dreading the moment when he could no longer deny that it was someone he knew and liked. It had to be someone his father had once trusted, and that trust had cost his father his life.
It was a close, heavy day in late August. The air seemed to clog his throat. The sky was hazy and there were heavy clouds gathering to the west. There would be a thunderstorm by midafternoon. The armies along the Western Front would be drenched once again.
Matthew walked because it was ridiculous to try to find a taxi for the mile or so to Sandwell’s office. He kept to the main thoroughfares and moved briskly.