by Anne Perry
Matthew woke late and excused himself to find something to eat.
There was no word of any German prisoner asking to see either Joseph or Matthew, and there were so many coming through the lines in the general area of Ypres that it was impossible to check all the names. Joseph continued with his usual duties. More often than not he was far forward of the Casualty Clearing Station, beyond even the old trench line, as the armies moved forward. British troops had just taken Messines and were advancing on Menin.
Matthew spent the days restlessly, trying to look as if he were collecting some kind of information that would justify his presence in the junior intelligence work he had told Colonel Hook he was engaged in. He spoke to German prisoners, but there was nothing of use they could tell him, and the pretense would soon wear thin.
It was the middle of the afternoon of the sixteenth when Snowy Nunn came to tell Joseph that Colonel Hook wanted to see him. “Roight now, Chaplain,” he added, his fair face puckering up with apprehension. “It’s another German prisoner. Oi don’t know what anybody done to this one. Officer an’ all, by his uniform, and the way he stands. He’s got a foot all mangled up, so looks loike someone ran over it or something.”
“Right.” Joseph’s heart sank. Another piece of random brutality, pointless but so very understandable. “I’ll be there.”
Snowy nodded, his eyes grave. “Whole lot more for the hospital, Oi reckon. Some o’ the poor sods are knocked about pretty bad. Look loike hell, they do. Oi thought winning weren’t much fun after all, an’ we waited long enough for it. But Oi reckon losing’s got to be a whole lot worse. Roight away, Chaplain, he said.”
“I’m going,” Joseph said impatiently. He resented Hook sending for him over some breach of discipline. There were going to be lots of instances of loss of self-control. He had known people to nurse loved ones over years to a painful death, never complaining. Then when it was all over and there was some ease at last, they were suddenly overwhelmed, letting slip the courage and the selfless endurance that had governed their lives throughout the sacrifice. He could sense now the same longing for peace and fear of change. They wanted to go home to what they had originally left, what this whole bloody war had been about saving, but it wasn’t there anymore. The past never is. The England they had paid for with such a price no longer existed.
He walked quickly through the mud, used to keeping his balance in it, not avoiding the rain because he was already wet and there was no point.
He found Colonel Hook in the command bunker nearly a mile farther east. He looked tired and too thin.
“Ah, Reavley.” He looked up from his maps spread out on top of a packing case. “Odd thing’s come up.” He looked puzzled rather than angry, and it was unusual that he had addressed Joseph by name rather than rank or calling.
Joseph stood to attention. “Yes, sir?”
“Got a German officer, says he’s a colonel, but I think he might be more senior than that, although my German’s not good enough to be certain. Know everyday language well enough, but not the differences of education and class. But he’s asked to speak to you.”
“Is he badly injured?” Joseph was surprised. Snowy Nunn had mentioned only a crushed foot.
“Not at all. Painful, no doubt, but he didn’t even refer to it,” Hook replied. “He didn’t ask for a chaplain, he spoke of you by name—Reavley. Seemed to expect you to be here.” The demand for explanation was clear in Hook’s eyes.
Was this the Peacemaker’s ally in Germany at last? “No idea, sir,” Joseph said aloud, his voice husky. He cleared his throat. “I’ll go and talk to him. Where is he?”
“Casualty Clearing Station,” Hook replied. “His foot’s a mess. Looks like someone pinned him to the ground with a bayonet.” His face was pinched with disgust. “Damn stupid thing to do. If I thought I had a cat in hell’s chance of catching the man who did it, I’d have him up on a charge.”
“What’s his name, sir?” Joseph’s heart was pounding. Could they really be this close to the Peacemaker at last?
“No idea!” Hook said impatiently. “They’ve only got one colonel. Go back and bloody well ask!”
“Yes, sir.” Joseph stood to attention, and then hesitated. He knew Hook wanted to say something more. Their eyes met for a moment. Joseph smiled.
Hook shrugged. “Get out,” he said quietly. “Go and find out what the poor sod wants. No favors.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You mean no, sir,” Hook corrected.
It was Joseph’s turn to shrug. He went out without replying. It was raining hard again. The wet khaki had rubbed his skin raw at his neck and his feet were getting new blisters by the time he caught up with the ambulances. There were very few men around. Most of the troops had moved forward, beyond Ypres now. Joseph remembered the town well, the places where in 1914 and 1915 they had eaten quite decent food, drunk wine, even sung around the piano in one or two of the better estaminets. He wondered how many of the people were still alive after occupation. Or had most of them fled ahead of the German army, back somewhere into France? How many of the buildings were still standing after the incessant bombardment? He had heard that Passchendaele was in ruins, nothing left but scattered stone and burned wood.
He walked back the way he had come through the mud to the cratered road. Thirty minutes later, he was back in the Casualty Clearing Station, standing by the cot of a German officer whose foot was swathed in bloody bandages, his face white and mask-like with the effort of controlling his pain.
“Captain Reavley,” Joseph said, introducing himself. “I believe you wanted to see me, Colonel?”
The man stared at Joseph’s uniform as if trying to understand his insignia, and the Military Cross and Distinguished Service Medal. These were both front-line awards, and yet he was still a captain. “You have been demoted?” he said in German. He spoke very quietly, the subject being a delicate one, and there was sympathy in his eyes.
It was Schenckendorff, Joseph was sure of it. He thought he was speaking to Matthew, and had therefore expected a major. And certainly the chaplain’s collar confused him. Only the name was what he had been told.
But he must be careful. “What is your name and rank?” Joseph asked. “Why did you send for me?”
The man was exhausted, and to surrender must be almost intolerable for him. His accent was discreet, highly educated. He probably spoke English, even if he chose not to now. But if he really was the German ally of the Peacemaker, then he would be the man who had obtained the kaiser’s signature on the original treaty, and he would unquestionably be of the old aristocracy.
“Why did you ask for me?” Joseph repeated.
“I asked for Major Reavley,” the man replied, drawing his breath in sharply as another wave of pain overtook him. “I did not know you were a man of the church. It does not seem to make sense.”
“It makes excellent sense,” Joseph told him, moving a little closer but remaining standing. You did not sit on the narrow cot of a wounded man; the sheer alteration of weight could hurt intensely. “I am chaplain of the Cambridgeshire regiment, the remnants of which are still here at Ypres. I refused promotion because I want to stay with the men, not move back to regimental headquarters.”
Schenckendorff nodded fractionally, both understanding and respect in his eyes.
“I think it is my brother, Major Matthew Reavley, whom you want, Colonel Schenckendorff,” Joseph went on.
The man’s face tightened. It would have been impossible for him to have grown any paler. Joseph realized with a sudden, searing pity what his decision must have cost. He was a man who loved his country and had once believed passionately that it could dominate and govern in a lasting peace. Now he was coming through the lines to betray, in turn, the trust that had deceived him. The courage and the grief of it were overwhelming. For the first time Joseph saw with wrenching power the meaning of defeat, not just of a nation but of individual men and the dreams they had lived and died for. Perhaps
heroism could only be truly measured in those who had lost, and faced the ultimate truth without flinching.
“Yes,” Schenckendorff agreed at last. “I would be obliged if I could speak with him. It is…necessary.”
“He is here,” Joseph told him. “I’ll bring him as soon as I can. But as you will be aware, we dare not tell anyone else who you are, or why you are so important.”
Schenckendorff did not answer.
“You must tell no one,” Joseph said urgently, lowering his voice even further. “Be as invisible as you can be, just like any other prisoner. We have no idea where the Peacemaker…” He hesitated. “Where your counterpart may have allies,” he amended. It was brutal, but he could not afford to be unclear. “He may have guessed that you have come to us, and he will see it as a betrayal, one he cannot afford.”
“I know,” Schenckendorff said in no more than a whisper. “He will kill me. Perhaps he will do that eventually anyway. With him the cause was always first.” He spoke with difficulty. “Perhaps that is the germ of his moral decay—he cannot see that some weapons destroy the men who wield them in a subtler and deeper way than the enemy they kill with their use. I will be extremely careful, Reverend Reavley.” The shadow of a smile touched his lips. “I have to survive in order to tell your prime minister what my…ally…has done. He will not believe it from anyone else. Even I may have some difficulty. It will be necessary for you to be there, and to swear to the existence of the original treaty your father took. Do you still have it?”
Joseph smiled very slightly. “Who is the Peacemaker?” he asked.
Schenckendorff smiled back. It was a thin, painful gesture but not without both humor and comprehension. “The treaty would help,” he said, evading the question. His voice was growing weaker, as if the pain of his broken foot, the shock to the bones, the extensive loss of blood, and no doubt several days of bitter deliberation before the struggle to get through the lines had exhausted his physical and mental strength. He had risked being shot as a deserter.
Joseph debated within himself whether to tell the doctor in charge here that Schenckendorff was of special importance and to take care that he did not die of neglect to his wound. That was possible in the vast crowd of German prisoners pouring through the lines now in their tens of thousands. Not all of them would be fed, treated, and cared for. And Allied soldiers must come first, always. But he could give no reason. The doctors were harried to exhaustion. Burdening them with secrets was foolish, especially one they would not understand. The risk was higher than any advantage. He decided against it.
“I’ll have my brother here by this evening,” he said instead. “Get as much rest as you can. Sleep if possible.”
There was a flash of appreciation in Schenckendorff’s eyes that he had not indulged in platitudes. “Good night, Chaplain.”
Joseph managed to find Matthew and get the message through to him. He arrived back at the Casualty Clearing Station by sundown, but when he saw Schenckendorff, the German was feverish and in intense pain. The wound in his foot was messy, as if a bayonet rather than a bullet had caused it. He had lost a great deal of blood, and there was a fear of septicemia.
“You’d better start praying,” Matthew said grimly when he found Joseph in the storage tent. He was sorting through supplies and trying to tidy them up after the night’s casualties. “That foot looks pretty bad. Hope to hell they don’t have to amputate it. It would make him hard to move. We won’t convince anyone if we can’t get him to London.”
“Did he tell you who the Peacemaker is?” Joseph asked, turning from the table where bandages, linen, disinfectant, and suture thread were laid out.
Matthew looked back at him steadily. “No. Did he ask you if you still had the treaty Father took from the Peacemaker?”
“Yes. But I didn’t answer him.”
Matthew chewed his lip. “Joe, do you think that’s what he really wants? Is he still on the Peacemaker’s side and they need to get that treaty back before the armistice, just in case we expose it then?”
The thought had crossed Joseph’s mind with a bitter disappointment, but he could not dismiss it. “Maybe,” he said unhappily. “Perhaps we’d better not tell Judith anything until we know more. Damn it.” He swallowed hard. “Damn it! I’d begun to hope we had him.”
Matthew gripped Joseph’s shoulder hard. “Maybe we have.”
Joseph looked at him. “Have you thought what it would cost a man in Schenckendorff’s position to turn against his own like that? I can hardly imagine the courage and the moral strength to face the fact that you had dedicated your life to a cause that was fatally flawed, then give yourself to the enemy to undo your own efforts and accept whatever they choose to do to you.”
“Nor can I,” Matthew agreed. “Which is part of why I dare not believe it yet. He’s either a true hero or a very clever double dealer. Either way, he’s a brave man.” He sighed. “And he could die of that damn foot. What did it, Joseph?”
“Bayonet, by the look of it.”
“God in heaven! For what? What’s the point of that now?”
Joseph did not answer. For a man who had seen half the men he knew killed, the rage to commit such an act was easy to understand, and impossible to explain.
CHAPTER
THREE
It was another long night of casualties. More German prisoners coming through the lines voluntarily, or taken in desperate, failed battles. Joseph worked between the first-aid post and the Casualty Clearing Station. He finally got a break at almost half past three in the morning and lay down in his dugout. He was exhausted and filthy, but here it was at least dry. Matthew was curled up, sound asleep, and he took care not to disturb him.
He woke with a jolt to find Tiddly Wop Andrews bending over him. There was a thread of daylight coming down the steps. He could see that Tiddly Wop’s handsome face was gaunt with weariness, and now also creased with new anxiety. “Chaplain!” Tiddly Wop said urgently. “Wake up! The colonel wants you roight away.”
Joseph struggled to the surface of comprehension, his head pounding. “Why? What is it now?” His first fear was that Schenckendorff had died. Then he realized that Hook had no idea how much that would matter. He struggled to sit up. Every bone and muscle in his body hurt. “What’s happened, Tiddly?”
Before the war Tiddly Wop’s hair had been long, and when he was worried he brushed at his brow as if it still were. He did it now, unaware of the movement. “Oi don’t know, Chaplain, but it’s bad. Looks loike hell, he does. Something at the clearing station, that’s all Oi know. You’d better go now. That’s whoi Oi didn’t even get you a mug of tea. No toime.”
Joseph was suddenly ice-cold. “Have you seen Miss Reavley?” he demanded, his mouth dry. That was always his first thought.
“Yes, an’ she’s foine, sir. But you’d better go,” Tiddly Wop urged.
Warmth flooded back into Joseph as if the blood had started pumping again. That was absurd. Judith had been here for four years, and usually he managed not to think about what she faced, or he would cease to function at all. It was the only way anyone could survive. Most men had family here, or at the very least lifelong friends. They all came from the same few villages. It was what bound them together, made the sharing and the loyalty complete, and the loss devastating.
He struggled to his feet and followed Tiddly Wop out into the pale, misty daylight. The rain had stopped; a watery sun was gleaming on the mud. Here and there it shone on a flat surface of a crater, making it look like polished steel.
It was a fifteen-minute hard walk to the colonel’s command bunker. Joseph went down the concrete steps and parted the sacking over the entrance. He asked for permission to enter. When it was given he went in and stood to attention. This was farther forward than the Casualty Clearing Station. It was an old German bunker, and deeper than the British equivalent. The floor was dry, the walls lined with pretty decent wood.
“Sit down,” Hook ordered, gesturing to an ammunition b
ox turned on end. They must have taken the chairs when they retreated. Tiddly Wop was right: Hook looked dreadful. “I’m afraid there’s been a death at the clearing station,” he said grimly. “I’ve no choice but to call in the military police, but I want you to be there. You know how to keep your head and deal with these things.”
Joseph was confused. There were deaths every day, in the trenches, in no-man’s-land, in the ambulances, in the first-aid posts, in the clearing stations, in the fields, and on the sides of the roads, violent, desperate deaths all the time. A hospital was the best place to die, not the worst.
“One of the nurses,” Hook added. “Sarah Price.”
“I’m sorry,” Joseph said automatically. “I’ll write to her family. What happened?”
“For God’s sake, Reavley!” Hook snapped, his voice near the edge of control. “I wouldn’t have woken you up to tell you if it were an accident! The poor girl was hacked to death with a damn bayonet!”
For the second time since waking up, Joseph was stunned into complete immobility. He struggled to grasp what Hook had said, and yet the words were clear enough. A nurse had been brutally murdered. Of course the military police had been sent for; there was no other possible action. “Yes, sir,” he said slowly.
“Be there, please,” Hook asked. “The men are going to take it very badly. I don’t want…” He looked for the right word. “I don’t want revenge. I suppose it was one of the German prisoners, but we can’t have them all massacred. Do what you can, Reavley.”
“Yes, sir.” Joseph stood up sharply. His mind was racing now to Schenckendorff. How would they get him out? He could not tell Hook that the man needed to leave. Perhaps they would find out what had happened quickly and it would all be settled in a day or two, then Schenckendorff’s fever would have broken and he could travel. He would be in pain, but so were tens of thousands of men. War was about pain of one sort or another.
Hook drew in his breath as if to add something further, then let it go again in silence. Joseph excused himself and went to find Matthew before going to the station.