At Some Disputed Barricade

“Yes, sir,” Joseph said quickly. “I will do all I can to determine exactly what happened, and if possible find the men and return them. Apart from anything else”—he studiously avoided Faulkner’s eye—“it will be extremely difficult to try Captain Cavan if none of the other men are here who could testify in the matter. There will be no one to give evidence or be questioned. I believe he has not confessed to anything…has he?”

“No,” Hook said instantly. “Quite right, Captain Reavley. Begin immediately. If there is any help you require, I’ll see that you are given it.”

“Report back in twenty-four hours, Captain,” Faulkner said stiffly. “Although I can’t imagine what you think you will find. They have deserted, apart from Cavan. And he may well also be guilty of conniving at and concealing the escape of the others. Certainly he has refused to tell us anything.”

“Or he may be innocent,” Joseph said sharply, a raw edge of anger to his voice. “And feel that he will get a fair hearing, and be able to prove it.”

“You are excused, Captain,” Faulkner told him. “The sooner you begin your inquiries, the sooner we may proceed.”

Joseph saluted, then turned on his heel and left. He had no intention whatever of finding out where the men had gone, even if there had been the remotest chance of succeeding. Privately he thought Faulkner was right and they would almost certainly have made for the Swiss border. However, he was afraid that the regiment in general might suffer, especially anyone who had either positively assisted them, or negatively turned a blind eye. And profoundly he did not wish Cavan to be tried at all, but if it was inevitable, then it should be on a lesser charge, simply of having been aware that some of the men were unhappy with Major Northrup and not reporting it. The general might still succeed in getting the charge reduced.

He was also sure that Hook felt as he did, and had asked him to make the inquiries precisely because he knew he would appear to be busy, but actually do nothing at all.

Some of the men were suspicious at first, resentful that he should appear to be cooperating with Faulkner, but a couple of sharp words from people like Barshey Gee and Bill Harrison and goodwill was restored. Some even joined in a little play-acting, as if determined to help.

But of course it deceived no one. Joseph reported to Faulkner twenty-four hours later.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, investing his voice with as much apology as he could. “None of the men appear to know anything useful. I daresay those accused were very careful to keep it all secret.”

Faulkner listened to him with open disbelief, but he could prove nothing.

At noon the day after that, on Faulkner’s orders, Joseph was arrested for failure to obey a direct order of a superior, and locked up in the same farmhouse from which the eleven men had escaped.

This time there were regular military police on guard, not wounded men, and in order to preserve their own liberty, they were determined that there should be no further breakouts.

They were embarrassed to lock up a chaplain and apologized awkwardly. They treated him with the greatest respect. He did not want to assault their consciences by obliging them to be other than courteous.

By two o’clock he was sitting on the floor in what had once been one of the smaller bedrooms of a farmhouse. The only window gave onto the roof, but from there it was a sheer drop to the ground, where a soldier stood on duty, his rifle at the ready. Not that Joseph had considered escaping. It would only make a desperate situation even worse.

There was nothing to do. Time crept by. Joseph stood up and paced back and forward again. Where were the men? Had they gone east, making for Switzerland? Perhaps they believed the Germans would break the line and the war was lost anyway. It was painful to accept that Morel would desert now. Joseph would have imagined him doing something more dramatic, more imaginative, truer to his roots and his nature than flight. Possibly he would have gone over the top in a grand gesture, giving his life in a way none of his fellows would ever forget.

This escape was tragic, tired and grubby, and the pain of it cut deep.

Food was brought to him at about six o’clock. It was hard rations, much the same as if he were still free. The young soldier looked embarrassed as he put it on the floor just inside, then backed away.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Joseph said wearily. “You don’t need to look like that.”

“No, sir, but I got to be careful. Can’t afford to have anyone else go, or I’ll be the one shot.”

“Why? Was it your fault?”

“No!” He looked indignant.

“How did they get out?”

The soldier shook his head. “You won’t be able to copy ’em, sir. Please don’t try. I really don’t want to shoot you. We’re on the same side, sir. We all are.”

Joseph looked up quickly.

“Who else is in here?”

“Just you an’ Treffy Johnson, an’ the doc, of course.”

“Treffy? What is he here for?” Joseph was startled.

“Insubordination. Nothing much. Probably let him out tomorrow.”

“And send him back up to the line?”

“Yes, of course. Poor little sod.”

Joseph waited.

The soldier pulled his mouth down in a grimace. “He’s only fifteen. Scared stiff, and can’t hardly bring himself to shoot another man, Jerry or not.”

A dozen ideas flashed through Joseph’s mind: to keep Treffy Johnson in here on some other charge, to find a medical reason why he should be invalided out, even as a last resort to put him beside someone who would care for and protect him. They were all pointless. He was one of thousands. He might survive. Even if he did, he would never be the boy he was before. No one would.

“Eat it.” The soldier indicated the tray of food on the floor. “It’s rotten, but it’s probably better than you’d get up the line. And at least it isn’t raining in here.” He went out and closed the door. The moment after, the lock turned and the tumblers fell home.

Joseph walked back to the window out of curiosity. How had the eleven men gotten out, then tied up the guards, and left? The more he thought of it the more obstacles there seemed to be.

He stared over the roof. A man with a good head for heights could probably manage it quite easily and reach a place where there was a down pipe. Except that the whole place was in such disrepair after three years of neglect, and the occasional bombardment extremely close by, that he could not see any down pipes left fully attached. The weight of a man, let alone eleven one after the other, would rip them off altogether. The yard below was paved. Anyone landing on it would be likely to break an ankle at the very least.

He tried to remember the other walls as he had seen them when he came in. There had been nothing to give a firm enough hold to climb down: no outhouses attached, no woodshed or apple house or milking shed. Nothing of half the height to form a safer landing. Certainly there were no trees left within half a mile. And that meant there was also no cover to hide anyone fleeing. But then they had gone at night. Still, the distant artillery lit the sky and would have made any figure on the barren landscape as obvious as a fly on a whitewashed wall.

There had been twelve men imprisoned here, and Treffy Johnson. How had they been separated? There were not thirteen rooms in the house, so at least some had been together. There were no blankets in his room, only a straw palliasse. But then one had no blankets in trenches. And it was August. Could they have used their own clothes to make a rope to descend from the window? All of them? At the same time? Were they even in communication with one another?

The light faded outside and it began to rain again. He could hear it on the window.

He sat on the palliasse in the dark. The more he considered and weighed what he knew, the more it seemed impossible that the men had all gotten out at the same time and tied up the guards. Without help, how had they escaped over the barren land and gone sufficient distance that, by the time their absence was known, they were untraceable? The escape must have been carefully planned—and it must have been effected with a vehicle large enough to take all eleven men.

Such as an ambulance! That was the thought Joseph wanted to push out of his mind altogether, but the harder he tried the more firmly it became fixed.

He lay down at last. He was cold in spite of the warmth of the air. It was probably because he was tired and miserable, and—no matter how hard he tried to quell the thought—afraid for Judith.

If the court-martial of Cavan went ahead, and they found him guilty, there would be only one sentence: the firing squad. It would be referred right up to Field Marshal Haig.

Joseph realized that in the morning he must find a way of persuading the guard to let him see Cavan. Cavan was a doctor and Joseph was a priest! There must be some argument for one of them needing the other!

When his breakfast came, the tea was at least hot. He was grateful for that.

He disliked lying to the guard, but he could think of no better alternative. He sat hunched forward, looking wretched, trying to make one shoulder lower than the other.

“Something wrong, Chaplain?” the soldier asked.

“Think I’ve pulled a muscle,” he replied. “Thought it would be all right yesterday, but it kept me awake all night.” He gave a bleak smile. “First time I’ve had the chance to lie down for more than a couple of hours. Could you let me see Cavan? Lock us in. Room with no window. I don’t care. He might be able to put it right for me.”

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 see 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

The 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.

Everything was scarce at the moment: petrol as much as food and clothes. Naval losses had severely limited all imports; nevertheless in London, if you had money, you could get almost anything, while in some areas in the country there was actual starvation.

He reached Whitehall and went in, giving his name and telling the official on duty that Mr. Sandwell was expecting him.

He was received immediately. Sandwell stood up from behind his desk and came forward, extending his hand. He looked tired. The lines were etched more deeply in his face, both across his brow and around his mouth. His fair hair had paled to silver at the temples, but his eyes were as deeply blue as ever and the grip of his long, thin hand was firm.

“Thank you for coming so promptly, Reavley.” He waved to a chair and peered at Matthew intently as they both sat down. “Miserable business about Wheatcroft’s suicide. Did you learn anything of value from him?”

“No, sir.” Instinctively Matthew guarded the threads of impression he had of someone else behind Wheatcroft’s accusation of Corracher. “I’m afraid not.” It sounded too bare. “He still protested his innocence, but felt no one would believe him.”

“The reason for his suicide, do you think?” Sandwell asked.

In that instant, Matthew knew what he did think. “Possibly. That’s certainly what his note implied.”

“Implied?” Sandwell picked up the word.

“Said,” Matthew corrected.

“And Corracher’s betrayal of him,” Sandwell added quietly. “Poor man.”

Matthew said nothing. It was Wheatcroft’s betrayal of Corracher that lodged in his mind, and something else that eluded him, a memory of something that did not fit where it should.

Sandwell leaned forward, his blue eyes studying Matthew’s face. “I’m afraid I have come to some deeply disturbing conclusions. I must swear you to secrecy before I share them with you. You will understand why as soon as I do.”

“Secret from whom, sir?” Matthew asked, puzzled by such a request—in fact it seemed to be a condition. He had imagined he was being told in order to refer them to Shearing.

“From everyone, at least for the time being,” Sandwell answered. “What I have discovered is more dangerous than I can begin to tell you, and I have no idea yet how far it extends. A word or a whisper in the wrong ear, and we could both be killed for it, if I am correct.” He leaned forward. “Do I have your attention now?”

Matthew stiffened. “Yes, sir.”

“I imagined I would.” Sandwell smiled openly. “Apart from your loyalty to your country, a man such as you could never resist the sheer curiosity of it. If you could have stood up and walked away from here without knowing, I should have recommended your removal from the Intelligence Service.”

“Why me?” Matthew asked. It was a bold question and to one of Sandwell’s seniority perhaps impertinent, but it was not irrelevant.

Sandwell’s eyes widened slightly, appreciating the perception. “You are ideally placed” was all he said. “I think you will understand when I have told you what I know and what I fear.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sandwell touched his fingertips lightly together in a steeple and looked at Matthew.

“You said that in the beginning you believed Corracher was not guilty of attempting to blackmail Wheatcroft, although Wheatcroft might indeed have behaved indiscreetly. I considered the possibility that you were right. If that were so, then there is only one conclusion that makes sense, and that is that there is a conspiracy behind it, formed and carried out by someone else.”

He continued to regard Matthew steadily. “I weighed the likelihood of it being purely personal, driven either by ambition or revenge. I could find nothing to suggest it, and it seemed less likely than the desire to get rid of them both from their positions of political power. They are of similar beliefs in many issues, especially regarding the kind of peace we may make with Germany.”

The muscles of his face tightened as if for an instant the reality of the deaths and the rage of destruction overwhelmed his mind, and the quiet room overlooking Horse Guards Parade on a great August morning was only an island, a temporary haven in the midst of ruin.

Matthew waited.

Sandwell composed himself again, but he did not apologize for his emotion. “I have noticed that two other rising politicians of similar mind have also been lost to us recently. Do you begin to understand me, Reavley?”

Matthew drew a deep breath, as if standing on the edge of an abyss and having looked down.

“Yes, sir. Someone is…planning ahead, maneuvering so that when the time comes they will have control over whoever is in power to agree to the terms of peace.” At last he was not alone in his knowledge, but Sandwell had glimpsed only a fraction of the Peacemaker’s design, just this last few months’ work. Should Matthew say any more? Not yet. Be careful. Listen, only listen. And there was still the frayed end he could not place that lingered at the edge of his mind.

“Precisely,” Sandwell agreed. “And doing it with very great skill. Which leads me to wonder why he is doing this now.”

Matthew was about to point out the obvious, that now there was the greatest hope of the end to the war. But that was not true. They had hoped for it as early as the autumn of 1914. He bit back the words. Then with a catch of his breath, he realized what Sandwell really meant! If someone had these hopes and designs now, where had he been during the last three years?

Sandwell read him perfectly. “Exactly,” he said in little more than a whisper. “What else? What has there been all through the years since the beginning that we have not seen?”

Matthew’s mind raced. Had he found an ally at last? Then suddenly he heard his father’s voice in his mind again, that last day on the telephone, warning him that the conspiracy went as high as the Royal Family. He knew now that that had been a reference to the treaty that the Peacemaker had wanted the king to sign.

“Reavley?” Sandwell’s voice interrupted the sense of loss as sharp as the day of John Reavley’s death. It jerked Matthew back to the present. “Yes, sir. The thought is…overwhelming. It is possible this is his first act…but…”

“His?” Sandwell questioned him. “Whose? Do you think it is one man?”

Matthew spoke slowly. Without having reached a decision consciously, he could not bring himself to trust Sandwell. He must weigh every word. He was acutely aware of Sandwell’s extraordinary intelligence. “No, certainly not acting alone,” he answered. “But it might be one man leading and others following. It seems to have a coherence about it. Forgive me, sir, if I am a little slow. The thought is enormous, and incredibly ugly.”

“But not new to you,” Sandwell pointed out.

Should he admit it? He saw the knowledge reflected in Sandwell’s eyes. He knew at least something of Matthew’s earlier convictions of conspiracy, but how much and from whom? Shearing? Someone else in the Intelligence Service?

“We’re always looking for conspiracies,” he said aloud, trying to make his voice sound rueful. “It’s still a surprise when you find them. I did suspect that Corracher might be innocent, and if he was, then Wheatcroft is implicated, even if just another victim with less honor than Corracher, willing to ruin another man in order to escape himself. It is the other thought, of what else might have been done, or yet planned by the man behind this, that stuns me.”

“As well it might.” Sandwell leaned back in his chair, his eyes still on Matthew’s face. “And it is that which we must address, Reavley. Saving Tom Corracher is a relatively small matter. Finding this…this arch-traitor is the main thing. As long as he remains hidden, with the power he has—and we have no idea how much it is—then we are desperately, perhaps even fatally vulnerable.”

“And have always been,” Matthew added.

Sandwell let out his breath in a slow sigh. “Tell me, Reavley, you have been in intelligence since the beginning of the war. You must have as good an idea as anyone how our enemies work. Where are we most vulnerable? If you were this…this man, where would you have struck already? And where would you strike next?”

Matthew saw the depth of the question and the power. If he did not answer, he would betray the fact that he did not trust Sandwell. And if he did answer, he would show that he did trust him, completely, perhaps more than an intelligence officer should trust anyone at all, especially anyone outside the service, even if he were of cabinet rank in the government. It was a position of ironic delicacy. Did Sandwell know that? He dared not assume that he didn’t. He was forced to tell the truth, or something extremely close to it.

“In the past,” he began carefully, “I would have struck with propaganda aimed at morale, especially within the forces. I would have aimed it particularly at recruitment points. Next I would have struck against the navy. Without sea power we’ll lose in weeks. Being an island is both our strength and our weakness.”

Sandwell nodded.

“And now?” he said very softly, almost as if he feared being overheard, even though there was no one else in the room.

“I would try to neutralize the effectiveness of some of our ministers who have strong diplomatic contacts abroad, particularly in countries that might be persuaded to turn against Germany and its allies, such as Hungary. Or to hasten the withdrawal of Russia.”

“Yes.” Sandwell’s eyes were the clearest, most brilliant blue. “That would be the natural thing.”

“And of course if possible weaken the Western Front.” Matthew heard his own voice loud in the utter silence. “Passchendaele is proving the most terrible battle we have ever fought. At this rate there will be a quarter of a million more dead before it’s over.”

Sandwell’s face was white; the misery bit so deep it drove the blood from his veins. “I know…”

“Morale is almost at breaking point,” Matthew added. “One really disastrous injustice, even a fatal mistake, and the men might even mutiny. Then the line might not hold.” Instantly he wondered if he had gone too far. Sandwell looked as if he was in emotional pain so intense it had become physical. He was short of breath and his muscles were locked as if in a spasm. His face was ashen.

Matthew waited. He could hear the clock ticking on the mantel over the ornate fireplace and the first heavy spots of rain that fell against the window.

“I was right to trust you.” Sandwell let out his breath in a sigh, his shoulders relaxing. “You understand perfectly. There has been an incident. An incompetent officer was shot by his own men. They know who it was, and they are up for court-martial.” His voice was quite light. “Unfortunately two of these are officers; both have served the full duration of the war with distinction. In fact, one is up for the V.C. If he is found guilty and faces the firing squad for what was essentially saving his own men’s lives by getting rid of a disastrous officer, then there is your incident of injustice. It could even be seen as a betrayal, if you believe sending brave men into battle led by an idiot to be a betrayal of their trust. And God knows, they deserve better than that!”

Matthew stared at him. Was it possible that at last he really did have an ally? One with power! He remembered Cullingford with a grief so sharp it brought a wave of nausea. “Be careful!” he said with sudden urgency, unable to help himself from the warning.

“Oh, I am, Reavley. Believe me, since I have become aware of this possibility, even probability, I have been extremely careful.” He frowned. “But what makes you say that? Have you felt yourself in danger, personally, I mean?”

Matthew hesitated for a fraction of a moment. Again, he could not afford to be caught in a lie. But could Sandwell possibly know the truth? No, but that was not the point. Matthew had given the warning. He had to justify it.

“Yes, twice,” he answered. “Once might have been an accident; the second time it was definitely an attempt to kill me.”

Sandwell blinked. “You are certain? Or am I foolish to ask?”

Matthew gave a half smile. “If this man would betray his country and cause the deaths of thousands, tens of thousands, why on earth not a single one, if that one was a danger to him?”

Sandwell blinked. “Cause the deaths of…I was thinking rather more of someone who wants peace, even if it is the peace of defeat, rather than a continuing of this…slaughter….” The word came out with a burst of passion which he controlled only with an intense effort of will. He bit his lip. “I’m sorry. I suppose I have no evidence for that. I just have…” He took a deep breath. “I have intense fear as to who this man may be, how highly placed in order to have done what he has. I had not considered his motives. I admit, Reavley, I find the whole thing shattering.”

“You have some idea who it is?” Matthew asked, unable to stop his voice from trembling.

Sandwell looked away. “I would rather not say anything yet. It…it is so appalling. But I will give you all the information I have, as well, of course, as placing copies in my safe where they will be available to the prime minister if anything happens to me. But it is your safety I am concerned about, Reavley, because it is your skills that will unmask the man, if anyone can do it.”

“But why not reveal your suspicions now?” Matthew insisted.

Sandwell met Matthew’s eyes unflinchingly. “I would prefer you reach your own conclusions. You may see the same facts as I do, and place some different interpretation on them. But I am correct regarding the catastrophe about to happen on the Western Front when this court-martial takes place. Begin by looking at the record of the military prosecutor they have appointed to the case.”

“Yes, sir,” Matthew said very slowly, his mind grasping at sudden reality, a course to pursue. “I’ll begin immediately.” He rose to his feet.

“Reavley!” Sandwell stood up also. “Be careful! No one must know what you are doing, even in your own office. In fact”—he sighed—“especially in your own office.”

Now there was a chill in the room, in spite of the August closeness of the air. “I understand, sir.”

“Do you?” Sandwell questioned. “I hope for your sake, for your life’s sake, that you do.”

Matthew did precisely as Sandwell had warned him, and told no one that he was going back to see Mrs. Wheatcroft again. As before, he found himself obliged to use the weight of Sandwell’s name in order to be received.

He stood uncomfortably in the withdrawing room. The bay windows overlooked the immaculately groomed late summer garden.

Mrs. Wheatcroft entered with only the briefest acknowledgment of him. She stood pale and graceful in a long muslin dress.

“I don’t know how I can further assist you, Captain Reavley,” she said coldly. “If it were not that apparently you have some connection with Mr. Sandwell, I should not have seen you at all.”

“So much you made clear, Mrs. Wheatcroft,” he replied. “However, I assume that if there is a conspiracy to ruin your husband—and Mr. Corracher—in the interests of German victory, then you will be as keen as Mr. Sandwell and I are to uncover it.”

She bit her lip, momentarily confused. “Do you think it is such a thing? I had assumed it was simply Mr. Corracher’s greed, both for money and personal advancement.”

“Mr. Sandwell does,” Matthew answered. “If you doubt that, call him and ask. I understand you are acquainted with him?”

“Socially,” she said, the chill returning. “I would like to believe that I could trust an officer of our Intelligence Services, but if you wait here, I shall place a call to Mr. Sandwell. Then I shall consider what he advises.”

“An excellent idea.” He sat down in the armchair before she left the room. She saw his ease and her face tensed with disapproval at the liberty.

It was half an hour before she returned, looking considerably chastened. Now the hinted aggression was gone, replaced by fear, and for the first time she met his eyes candidly.

He had risen as she came in, but she waved him to sit down again, and sank into the chair opposite him, barely bothering to straighten her skirts.

“I apologize,” she said briefly. “Mr. Sandwell has advised me to tell you the absolute truth, so that is what I shall do.” She took a deep breath. “My husband had a weakness. I did not know it when I married him, but I learned it within the first few years. If you repeat this, I shall say you are a liar.” For an instant the defiance was back in her eyes.

“It is not in my interest to repeat it, Mrs. Wheatcroft,” he told her. “Nor to make judgments of him. I am happy to accept the story that he was no more than naïve and unfortunate. What I do not accept is that Tom Corracher tried to extort money from him in exchange for silence on the matter. Nor do I believe that it was his own idea to put up that defense.” He was watching her closely, and saw the flicker in her eyes.

“His letter—” she began, then stopped abruptly.

Then he remembered the element that did not fit. It was a matter of timing. He was cold as the confusion fell apart, leaving the beginning of a picture even uglier.

“I read it,” he agreed. “He had obviously written something—the pen and ink were there, freshly spilled and blotted. But the letter I found was written days ago, before he knew about Marlowe being transferred.”

She looked confused. “Who’s Marlowe? What has that to do with Alan’s death?”

“Nothing. Marlowe was the man he thought would take over from him, but by the day before he died, when I saw him, he knew it was Jamieson.”

She stared at him, frightened and unable to hide it now.

“You destroyed his real letter, didn’t you?” he said grimly. “Because he admitted that Corracher was innocent, and he had accused him to save himself…and of course you. But he couldn’t live with the lie, and couldn’t face you if he told the truth.”

She drew her breath in sharply to protest, but the guilt was hot in her face and she saw no escape. There was something else in her eyes as well, an acid, corrosive hate.

He was glad to see it. It made it easier to crush her.

Something must have relaxed in him and looked to her like retreat.

“You can’t prove that,” she pointed out. “I burned his second letter, and he did write the first, just not then. He wrote several. It wasn’t hard to put one together. He always used the same ink and the same paper. There’s nothing you can do.”

“Whose idea was it, Mrs. Wheatcroft?”

“Mine!” she said quietly.

“If you had said it was his, I would not have believed you,” he told her. “You had to force him into it, if not for your sake personally, then for your sons.”

“If you like!” She had regained her composure. “But when Alan realized what his disgrace would do to them, he was willing.”

“I doubt it,” he said drily. “But it’s irrelevant now. It was the guilt of lying that killed him.”

“It was the guilt of being so unbelievably stupid!” she snapped.

“How did you know to blame Tom Corracher rather than anyone else?” He remembered Sandwell’s words about political ideology, and the Peacemaker’s plan behind the ruin of all four men.

For an instant she hesitated, then grasped after an answer. “That was Alan’s idea. I just said to think of someone.”

“Someone with the same political beliefs about the terms of any possible peace treaty with the Germans,” he elaborated.

Again there was confusion in her eyes, then a sudden new understanding. “They worked together. It made sense.”

She was guessing. Actually they had not worked together, simply held the same opinions. Someone else had suggested the idea of blaming Corracher to her. Perhaps she knew who it was and why. More probably she was simply a willing tool, caring only to save herself and her sons. Anyone would do as a sacrifice, and the larger cause was irrelevant.

“Was anyone else aware of this, Mrs. Wheatcroft?” he asked casually, as if it were no more than a passing thought.

Again the half-second’s hesitation, then she denied it. “No, of course not.”

He looked at her chiseled face. It was beautiful in a hard, brittle way, but without yielding, without forgiveness. Perhaps she was a knowing tool after all. In protecting her own, she was not open to the vulnerability of mercy or conscience.

“Thank you, Mrs. Wheatcroft.” He rose to his feet. “You have been most civil. I shan’t need to trouble you again.”

A faint smile touched her lips. “It would be courteous to say I regret that, Captain Reavley, but I do not. Good day.”

He also took Sandwell’s other piece of advice and made inquiries about the man who had been sent to prosecute the twelve soldiers accused of murdering Major Northrup. The answer that came back was exactly what Sandwell had warned. Faulkner was known to be a stickler for the law in every detail. He believed justice, and therefore society, was best served by following procedure to the letter. The innocent were protected by the unfailing punishment of the guilty, and there was no room for personal interpretation of the law.

Matthew arranged to meet an old friend, Errol Lashwood, for luncheon at the Ivy Restaurant in Covent Garden. They received excellent food, and the atmosphere was easy and charming. The restaurant was highly popular with all manner of people, especially the theatrical community. Matthew had on occasion seen Bernard Shaw there, and Ellen Terry and Gladys Cooper last year when they had been playing in J. M. Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton at Wyndham’s Theatre.

This time Lashwood smiled and pointed out the amazing profile of Ivor Novello, who was sitting only a couple of tables away.

“Faulkner.” Matthew returned him to the subject.

“Not a bad man,” Lashwood said wryly. “Just highly unimaginative, and very little sense of joy in the absurd. I think, personally, that he is rather afraid of change, and therefore feels threatened by anything he does not understand.” He shrugged. “Or perhaps I am thinking beyond the mark. The man infuriates me. He could be so much better than he is. I believe he once fell in love with a highly unsuitable woman, and the whole experience soured him for life. His father was the same.” He smiled. “But his mother is as different as could be. Delightful woman, charming and eccentric and full of life. Still wears rather old-fashioned clothes, almost prewar, very feminine. Has a famous collection of gorgeous parasols and hats with flowers on them. Loves the horse races…and a good champagne.”

“What on earth does she make of her son?” Matthew said in amazement. “I presume he is scandalized by her?”

“On the contrary,” Lashwood assured him with a smile. “She is his only redeeming feature. He adores her.”

“But she has never managed to imbue him with her own joy in life?”

“Never.” He speared a succulent morsel of meat from his plate and put it into his mouth. “He considers it his duty, and his privilege, to look after her, and indulge her, which she accepts with the utmost grace.”

Matthew’s heart sank. It was far too little information to be of any use. “How the hell did we get lumbered with having him prosecute the men accused of killing Northrup? And how do we get him changed for someone with a little more compassion and imagination, possibly amenable to considering the larger picture?”

Lashwood pulled his mouth into a grim line. “Difficult, old fellow. He’s a friend of your boss. Sorry, but for all I know, it could have been he who picked him out.”

Matthew was suddenly cold. “Picked him out? You mean for this prosecution?” Was this at last what Sandwell had been wanting him to find out? It was the fear that had rested like poison at the back of his mind almost from the beginning—the Peacemaker was Shearing himself. He had hated the Peacemaker for killing John and Alys Reavley, and all those since then: good people, men who had trusted him.

But how many more had died fearful deaths on battlefields all over the world? How many were shot, frozen, gassed, drowned in mud, or carried to the bottom of the sea in the millions of tons of shipping lost? How many starved to death, even here at home? How many more were maimed in mind and body or crippled by grief? How much of the whole world was ruined in blood and fire and grief?

The Peacemaker had wanted to prevent it and, when that was too late, to stop it, at any cost! He was an idealist who had lost his balance. He had worked to save lives, but had taken to himself the power to decide what cost was to be paid.

He could hate such a man, but he could also understand him.

“Reavley!” Lashwood’s voice cut across his thoughts.

Matthew jerked himself back to the present. “Yes. You are quite sure? No possibility of a mistake?”

Lashwood frowned. “I’ve known Faulkner for years, and his mother.” He leaned forward across the table. “You look a bit green, old boy.”

Matthew struggled to compose his face and respond noncommittally. “So you think there’s no chance of getting him changed?”

“Not really. Bad show. Wish I could think of something helpful. But from what I hear, he actually requested the case.”

“No point in going over it. Spoil what’s left of a good meal,” Matthew said, trying to smile. He left the thoughts raging in his mind until he could escape and find privacy to think.

That opportunity came as he walked back across the park. It took him a mile and a half longer than necessary, but he could not yet bear to face Shearing. Lashwood would not have lied, nor could he have been mistaken. Shearing knew the man, knew his rigidity, and had allowed this, possibly even contrived it. Was that something Sandwell had also known Matthew would find, and be driven to the inevitable, hideous conclusion?

He found himself taking the other path across the grass, not in the direction of his own office, but back toward Sandwell’s.

He had to wait most of the afternoon to see him, but at four Sandwell returned from a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street, and admitted Matthew immediately.

“I see by your face that you have followed the trail to its bitter conclusion,” he said quietly. He walked over to the table at the far side of his office and picked up the crystal decanter from the tantalus, pouring two glasses of brandy and offering one to Matthew. “I’m sorry. It’s the worst of all answers.”

“Why would he do such a thing?” Matthew asked, taking the brandy. “Who is he? What is he? There’s nothing in his office—no pictures, no mementos, nothing from the past at all! He never mentions family, or even friends, where he went to school or university, or any other place that matters to him.”

Sandwell’s face was bleak. “He wouldn’t,” he answered, motioning Matthew to sit down and sitting opposite him. “He sounds like an Englishman because he’s taught himself to, and he’s nothing if not thorough. Actually he’s an Austrian Jew. Settled here thirty years ago. No idea what happened to his family. None of them are here in Britain, or ever were.” He sipped his brandy. “Unless they came in under forged papers, but I’m as certain as I can be that they didn’t. His name was originally Caleb Schering.” He spelled it out, in the German way.

Matthew drank a mouthful of his brandy. It was a waste of a fine spirit, but he needed its fire more than its savor. “How in God’s name did we come to have him in the Secret Intelligence Service at all, let alone as head of it?”

“Because he started when we had no cause to fear Germany, let alone the Austro-Hungarian Empire,” Sandwell said simply. “And there’s no proof of a single error or slip of any kind against him. English sense of fair play, I suppose!” He shrugged slightly. “Added to which, I daresay he knows where a few bodies are buried. No one will want to be the first to suggest anything. He’s an agreeable man. People like him. One doesn’t want to seem paranoid, seeing ghosts where there are none.”

“God Almighty!” Matthew swore. “How…how bloody amateur!”

Sandwell smiled, his expression suddenly warm and extraordinarily charming. “The English disease,” he said ruefully. “And at times our genius.”

Matthew closed his eyes. “Not this time.”

“What are you going to do?” Sandwell asked after a moment or two.

“Collect evidence,” Matthew replied. “There’s nothing else I can do.”

“Where will you take it?” Sandwell’s face darkened. “Be careful, Reavley. There have been murders already. I don’t know how many, but he is playing for empires, even millions of lives. Yours would be nothing to pay for victory.”

Matthew grimaced. “I’ll remember.”

Matthew spent a wretched night. Unable to sleep, he sought every kind of escape from the only conclusion now possible.

He lay staring at the ceiling. He was safe and comfortable in his own bed. The silence surrounded him, cocooning him from the world. He began to think about his brother.

Joseph, if he was sleeping at all, would be in a hole dug in the sodden earth of Flanders. There would be no silence there. The guns never entirely stopped, least of all now with the battle for Passchendaele raging on. Now and then phosgene or mustard gas would be pervasive. Death and decay would be everywhere—the smell of it, the taste of it. Those Joseph shared tea and bad jokes with tonight might be torn apart by shrapnel tomorrow, and he would bury what was left of them.

And here was Matthew in silence and clean sheets, tossing and turning because tomorrow he would begin proving that Calder Shearing was the Peacemaker, the idealist turned betrayer who had killed John and Alys Reavley.

He finally gave up trying to sleep and made himself a cup of tea. Then he sat in his armchair noting all he knew already, and what he needed to learn from a reputable source who would not take the inquiry back to Shearing.

The second was the more difficult. He remembered Sandwell’s warning that Shearing would not hesitate to kill if he was threatened. Matthew already knew that. He had never forgotten Cullingford, and his loss still hurt. Looking back now he was certain that the attack in the alley when he had so nearly been knifed himself was not an attempted robbery but a murder foiled more by luck than skill.

Why? He had not suspected Shearing then. In fact it was barely twenty-four hours since they had eaten a hasty supper together of ham sandwiches and coffee, set up over maps of safe houses and escape routes for saboteurs. He could see it exactly in his mind’s eye: the lamplight on the table, Shearing’s dark head bent over the diagrams, his sudden smile when he had seen the solution, and then the eagerness in his voice. It had been one of the rare betrayals of emotion in him. Matthew had felt an intense companionship at that moment. They had even joked afterward; Shearing had told some long-winded story about a dog and a newspaper. They had laughed, mostly from relief.

There was really only one person he could speak to, and that was Admiral “Blinker” Hall, the head of naval intelligence. He had gone to him before when he had had knowledge that was sensitive and painful. He was used to harboring secrets that would make or break nations, and that could never be revealed.

It was still a little after one the following afternoon when Matthew was shown into Admiral Hall’s office. Hall was sitting behind the desk, papers spread in front of him. He was a stocky man with an eaglelike face and thick white hair. His narrowed blue eyes blinked rapidly every now and then, as if he could not help himself.

“Well, Reavley, no preamble. No time. What is it that you must tell me that cannot wait?”

“Not tell you, sir,” Matthew corrected him. “Ask you.”

“You had better know a good reason for this. Sit down, man. I’m not spending my time straining my neck looking up at you! Spit it out.”

Matthew sat obediently.

“Information has come to me, sir, from a source high in the government that casts doubt on some of Colonel Shearing’s actions and decisions.” He felt like a traitor saying it aloud.

“For example?” Hall asked, blinking several times.

“His explicit approval of Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner as prosecutor in the court-martial against Captain Cavan, and the other men, if they are caught,” Matthew answered. “Faulkner is an absolute hard-liner, and if Cavan is found guilty and shot, it will be a disaster to morale, possibly beyond our ability to cope with. It could even become a full-scale mutiny.” He had no need to elaborate for Hall what would follow that disaster.

“Have you asked him?” Hall raised his eyebrows.

“No, sir. I realize I know nothing about Colonel Shearing except that he is an Austrian-Jewish immigrant. He arrived some thirty years ago, and none of his family is in this country, as far as we know.”

“No, they aren’t,” Hall agreed, leaning back a little and making a steeple of his fingers on the desk. He regarded Matthew over the top of them. “All his family are dead. Both his parents were killed by the Austrian police. The woman he loved—Ingrid, I believe her name was—was raped and killed in a particularly brutal incident on the Serbian border. He and his brother, Baruch Schering, escaped to England, but Baruch went back, working for British Intelligence, to see what information he could gain about political alliances in the Balkans at the time. He was especially concerned about Austrian treaties with Russia which might affect us in the future.”

His eyes were steady, the blink forgotten. “He was caught and tortured, but he died without giving away any of our other men, although he knew the names of at least a dozen of them. It is because of Baruch and our debt to him that we trusted Caleb…Calder Shearing. He has never let us down. I am prepared to stake Captain Cavan’s life, and the outcome of the court-martial in Passchendaele, on his honor in this, if not his judgment. If, indeed, he really did propose Faulkner.”

Matthew sat still, his face burning, his brain trying to accommodate all he had heard, and decide what he believed. He had come in accepting at last that Shearing was the Peacemaker. Deeply as that hurt, he no longer fought the idea. Now all was confusion again.

Hall must have seen it in his face. “I understand your concern, Reavley. On the face of it, to send Faulkner seems the worst possible choice. He may have reasons we are unaware of. Find out, and bring me the answer.”

“I have no authority with which to question him, sir,” Matthew began.

“I said find out, Reavley, not ask him,” Hall snapped. “Learn what you can about any friendship between them. Is it possible Shearing is so burdened with other issues he has been misled, careless, or used by someone else? And do it quickly. We have no time to spare. Report to me in forty-eight hours. Or less, if you find a satisfactory answer.”

Matthew stood up. “Yes, sir.” His head was swimming. He heard every tick of the clock on the desk as if it were consuming the seconds until Cavan should be shot, and the whole Western Front collapse.

Judith also had very little sleep, and even in those brief hours snatched here and there she was troubled by memories and fears. She was accustomed to physical exhaustion and the discomfort of being bruised by the constant jolting of the ambulance over rough ground, her muscles aching from floundering in mud and trying to lift stretchers awkwardly. She was also, like everyone else, accustomed to being wet most of the time, having her feet hurt as her rough shoes scraped where the leather had become twisted and hard from being soaked and caked with mud. She felt permanently filthy. Like everything along the entire Western Front, she almost certainly smelled stale and dirty. She felt about as feminine as a road navvy or railway stoker…or a soldier.

Over the last year, that had not mattered. Seeing the wounded, thinking about the war in general and this Salient in particular was all that anyone had time for; helping friends, and friends were whoever was near you. But Mason had looked at her with that tender, aching intensity, the softness in his eyes so naked it tore through her like a fire, destroying complacency and balance.

Before the war she had been beautiful. She knew it from the reflection in men’s eyes. Now they looked on her as one of the chaps, something of a mascot even: a good driver, a good sport, brave, reliable, someone to trust. And yet still not really one of them.

As she lay curled up in the back of the ambulance, she could dimly see the outline of Wil Sloan a few feet away. He was breathing evenly, almost certainly asleep. She had never admired anyone more. Wil was brave with a casual air as if it were ordinary, and he made off-beat silly jokes, told long stories about the American West that no one else understood. But he laughed at the English tales that must have been equally obscure to him. He shared his food and blankets, when there were any, and he never complained. She would have trusted him with anything except the vulnerability of her emotional need and confusion at the moment.

He had helped her free the accused men from the farmhouse, and that could have cost him his life. It still might, for that matter. Colonel Hook had asked Joseph to find out how the escape had been effected, and he had been so obviously dilatory that Faulkner had insisted he be imprisoned for his collusion.

She turned over in bed carefully as her muscles tweaked with pain. Poor Joseph. He had been so wretched over realizing that Northrup had been shot by his own men, even though this time there was no way he could have avoided it. Mason knew, and that was the end of his chance to conceal it.

The last time she had seen Mason there had been a bitterness in his words, an anger that was not at the Germans just beyond the ridge, or at circumstances that had brought them all here. It was as if he had expected incompetence and futility, and hoped for nothing better. His faith in the world was gone.

She huddled a little tighter, remembering their conversation.

“Do you know Through the Looking Glass?” he had asked wryly.

“Yes, of course I do,” she had answered. She had loved it, possibly even more than Alice in Wonderland. There was an extra absurdity to the logic, and the poetry stayed in her mind, especially the White Knight. “‘…fingers in a pocket full of glue. Or madly pushing my left-hand foot into my right-hand shoe.’” Aloud she had said “Why?”

“‘Walrus and the Carpenter,’” he had replied. “Walking along the beach, ‘wept like anything to see such quantities of sand.’”

She picked it up. “‘If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year. Do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?’”

“‘I doubt it, said the carpenter, and shed a bitter tear,’” he finished. “How many women, in how many factories, their backs aching, feet sore, labor all day and all night, to make the shells that are shattering this land and sending mud into new piles, for someone else to blast all over a slightly different place tomorrow, and tear apart a few more human bodies in the process? That’s real absurdity. A world that makes no sense.”

She had longed for something to say that would explain to him the will to fight, the love of all the remembered sweetness of life: small things like a walk in the woods at bluebell time; lark song early in the morning; sunlight on shaven fields in autumn when the air is gold; and big things like laughter with friends, and faith in tomorrow. But she did not want him to damage her faith with his disbelief, and paint gray over her dreams. They were too precious to risk. Without them she might not survive.

Now there was a darkness in Mason that saw no point in their efforts, almost as if he derided them in his own way. She remembered his words as they had stood together in the dark, talking in between the crashes of mortar fire and the heavy shells exploding less than a mile away. Even in the clouded night they could see the great gouts of earth and mud flying into the air. Judith perceived his anger—not only what he said, it was the edge of despair in his voice.

It was at that moment that she had realized how small a part of his life she was. Yes, he could laugh and need and give like anyone else. But how much courage had he to hope when it was almost impossibly difficult? To lay the soul bare to the darkness, with the knowledge that it might not end? All the intelligence, the imagination, and pity, the moments of tenderness, were not enough without hope as well.

She sank into a kind of sleep at last, and by five o’clock she was awake again in the gray light. A splash of cold water on her face brought her to attention. Wil gave her a large mug of hot tea. She picked a bedbug out of it, then drank. It was so strong she could barely taste the strange mixture of things that had been in the Dixie can before it.

She was doing a little maintenance on the ambulance when she heard footsteps across the cobbled farmyard. At first she assumed it was Wil again, returned from his errand, but when he spoke she swung around in amazement to see Joseph. He looked tired, as always, the shadows around his eyes making them look even darker.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

She saw an intensity in him that sent a wave of fear through her. In spite of all his care not to, had he found undeniable evidence that it was she who had organized the escape of the prisoners? Would he lie to protect her—tell a deliberate, outright lie? Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he had some kind of priestly oath, or a covenant with God. Perhaps he would not break that oath for her, or anyone.

“Hello, Joseph.” Her voice croaked a little.

“I know I’m interrupting, but I need to speak to you,” he said. “It’s important.”

She put down the rag with which she had been cleaning the carburetor.

“About the escape,” he went on.

She tried to look as if she had no idea why he was asking her, and knew that she failed.

He smiled bleakly, his face tight, his eyes gentle. “Be careful what you tell me,” he continued. “So far I have ideas of who was involved, but I don’t know for certain, and without proof I wouldn’t say anything.”

“Oh.” She let out her breath in a sigh. “I see. What is it you do not want to ask me?” She was puzzled. “I wouldn’t tell you who it was, even presuming I knew.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” he agreed hastily. “I imagine you have an intense admiration for them. It was clever, simple, and took great courage, and of course a loyalty as deep as that of any of the soldiers on the line.” He was still looking at her intently, eyes so shadowed with weariness she could not read them. “They are willing to die for one another. And that is what it would come to. If that person, or two people probably, were to be caught, it would be a firing—” His voice cracked, too. “A firing squad matter. I wouldn’t ask you to tell me…if you know. That kind of betrayal is unthinkable.”

Her mouth was dry, her heart pounding. He was playing a game, but what? And what for? “Joseph—”

“But I want you to use your imagination,” he cut across her. “I’ve just spent a little time in the farmhouse where they were kept. And I spoke with Cavan. I know more about what actually happened now. I think only one of them is guilty of murder, the rest of…let’s say ‘conduct unbecoming.’”

She cleared her throat. “Does it make any difference?”

“I think so. I’m going to go after them and try to persuade them to return and face court-martial.”

“They won’t!” She was appalled at his naïveté. “For heaven’s sake, Joseph, they’d be shot! Guilty or innocent, the army’s after blood! You know that.”

“Not if they come back willingly,” he argued. “If they stay away then they’re deserters and fugitives. Worse than deserters, actually: mutineers and murderers.”

“Then they’ll just stay in Switzerland! Or—” She stopped abruptly, realizing she had told him which direction they were going. But they had at least three days’ advantage on him. “Or wherever they go,” she added lamely.

“Yes. Or South America, or wherever we have no treaties of extradition for murder,” he said grimly. “They can never come back to England. Never have careers, never stop looking over their shoulders, never be honest with anyone. That’s a heavy burden to carry all your life.”

She almost said that there might not be an England to come back to, but that was a terrible possibility she refused to harbor. Then the enormity of their situation began to sink in: the endless state of not belonging; the loneliness for anything deeper than passing acquaintance; the knowledge that you were forever a stranger.

“Think of their families,” Joseph said quietly. “They’re not cowards, not ruthless or without honor. I think they would rather try to prove their reasons for acting as they did, their innocence of murder, than run for the rest of their lives.”

“Maybe. But it would take almost impossible courage.”

“If anyone on earth has it, it’s the men here,” he said simply. “All I want to do is give them the chance, Judith,” he said. “Where were they making for? Were they going to travel alone, in separate groups, or all together?”

She did not bother to pretend anymore. “Switzerland,” she answered. “Pretty well all together, although if anyone got hurt or wanted to drop out, the rest would go on. They went on foot, so as to look as much like ordinary soldiers as possible. There was no way of making them look like civilians. Also, only Morel really speaks French, and anyway they’re all of military age and obviously perfectly fit enough to fight, so there wouldn’t be any explanation for their being out of uniform anywhere but a neutral country.”

He gave her a sudden hard embrace and held her for several moments. “Thank you,” he said gently. “Thank you very much.”

“Be careful, Joseph,” she said, clinging onto him. They were always in danger, but this mission was particularly unsettling. This time he was going away from Passchendaele and into country neither of them knew. He would be among strangers, and no one would bring word of him. “Be careful!” she said again, more urgently.

“I will,” he promised. Then he broke free and gave her a quick salute. “You, too,” he said huskily. He turned and walked across the cobbled yard without looking back.

CHAPTER

TEN

Joseph realized that his only chance of finding the escapees before they crossed into Switzerland would be with the help of one of the reconnaissance planes from the Royal Flying Corps. They were fast enough to cover the distance in hours, and skilled enough to spot a group of men moving eastward instead of with the rest of the troops.

For this, of course, he had a letter of authority from Colonel Hook. Other than that, he took only a shaving kit, toothbrush, the minimum of clean underwear, an extra pair of socks, a pocket copy of the New Testament, and the regulation soldier’s first aid equipment and hard rations.

When the staff car dropped him off at the Royal Flying Corps airfield, the sun was breaking through the mist and it looked like a good day for air reconnaissance. He felt a sudden lift of optimism as he thanked the driver and started walking toward the huts that served as headquarters.

Joseph spoke to the first officer he met, a good-looking young man with dark hair brushed back off his brow, deep-set eyes, and a shy smile. At the moment he had a pipe clamped between his teeth.

“Lost, Padre?” he said, looking at Joseph’s dog collar and squinting a little in the sun. “Or are you an answer to someone’s prayer?”

“I doubt it!” Joseph answered drily. “At the moment, I’m looking to receive help rather than give it.”

The man extended his hand. “Captain Jones-Williams.”

“Captain Reavley.” Joseph shook the offered hand.

“What can we do for you, Captain Reavley? Looking for a trip up to find God?” Jones-Williams gestured into the milky blue of the sky.

“Actually I’d settle for eleven escaped prisoners,” Joseph replied with a rueful shrug. “Sounds a little disrespectful, but I’ve got a few things to do before I meet God. Not really ready for that yet.”

Jones-Williams laughed outright. “A priest who’d rather find eleven escaped prisoners than find God is worth getting to know. Will any eleven do, or do you have a particular set in mind?”

“Sorry, I have a very particular set in mind,” Joseph replied. “They were held in a farmhouse just this side of Passchendaele, and—”

Jones-Williams’s face was suddenly desperately grave. “From that poor bloody regiment that’s being slaughtered? Can’t you let ’em go? Turn a blind eye? Wouldn’t your faith allow you that much mercy?”

“They’ve been accused of mutiny and the murder of an officer, Captain.”

“Sorry, old fellow,” Jones-Williams said with a brief smile. “We’re pretty shorthanded ourselves. Lost quite a few lately. Got to keep what we have for taking a look at Jerry and what he’s up to. Can see troop movements quite well from up there. I’d give it up, if I were you.”

Joseph knew exactly why the captain was refusing, and he understood the pity and the revulsion behind it. He liked the man the more for it. “That’s not the whole picture,” he said, meeting his companion’s eyes. “They would be fugitives for the rest of their lives. Never go home again. And I think all but one of them are innocent. I want to give them the chance to come back and clear their names.”

“Of murder and mutiny?” Jones-Williams’s eyebrows rose in disbelief. “They’ll shoot them. They’ll have no choice.”

“I think the officer’s father, who is a general, might push pretty hard to get the charge withdrawn.”

“Really?” Jones-Williams still looked skeptical.

“A capital charge has to be pretty thoroughly proved,” Joseph pointed out, “and the defendants given every opportunity to put their case.”

The drone of an airplane broke the silence above, sounding like an angry insect. Automatically Joseph glanced upward as it made its way lower and sank toward the airfield, sputtering now and then.

Jones-Williams chewed his pipe stem a moment. “I’d have thought in this instance those two were rather the same. Their defense that the man was an ass, and a dangerous one at that, gives the prosecution their motive on a plate. Doesn’t excuse shooting him, though, even to save their own lives. On that score they could get rid of half the officers we’ve got!”

“Thing is,” Joseph went on thoughtfully, “General Northrup won’t enjoy having the court-martial drag out and prove each point of his son’s incompetence, and exactly how many men were maimed or killed because of it. Even the surgeon, Captain Cavan, soon to be V.C., felt no alternative but to put him on trial.”

The plane landed at last, and Joseph felt his shoulders ease with relief that it was safe.

Jones-Williams took the pipe out of his mouth. “So what do you want from us? A lift as far as possible along the line to look for them?”

“That’s exactly what I’d like. I realize it’s only a chance I’ll find them, but it’s worth a try. You’d better see my authority.” He fished in his pocket for the paper.

“What?”

Joseph smiled. “Well, I could be a deserter looking for a damn good start eastward myself!”

“No point. Your dog collar could be real or not, but at your age you could reasonably beg out anyway.”

Joseph winced. “Depends how desperate we are. You won’t have them in the R.F.C., but we have fourteen-year-olds in the army. Lied about their age, of course, but we know. Sooner or later they say something that gives them away.” He stopped abruptly.

“That was a bit tactless of me,” Jones-Williams said by way of apology. “Come on and I’ll find you someone to take you up for a look, and drop you off as near to the Swiss border as you think you want.” He turned and sauntered over toward the line of hangars beyond the smaller buildings of offices and control tower.

Joseph followed him, catching up quickly. He glanced once at the three planes drawn up on the strip, including the one just landed.

“Take you in something much bigger than those,” Jones-Williams said cheerfully. “Two-seater. One of the observation planes. Keep low much of the time. Hedgehopping, we call it. D’you know how these fellows of yours went? Got a car or anything?”

“On foot, at least to begin with,” Joseph replied.

“Won’t have got far, then. Hey, Vine!” he called to a slender young man in R.F.C. uniform, goggles and scarf around his neck, flying jacket slung over his shoulder and helmet swinging from his hand.

“Yes, sir?” Vine paused a few yards away from them, more or less to attention.

“Chaplain here is from the army,” Jones-Williams explained. “He’s looking for a hand to find a few fellows gone AWOL. He thinks if they come back they’ll have a chance of doing better than if they keep on running. Wouldn’t like to take him along the lines a bit, would you?”

“Of course,” Vine agreed obligingly, turning to look at Joseph curiously. “How far, Chaplain?”

“Until you find them. Or Switzerland,” Jones-Williams said cheerfully. “Good. All set then.” He turned to Joseph. “Come and have a cup of tea. Officers’ mess is over there. We’ll find you some decent goggles and a jacket. Chilly up there. Vine will come for you when he’s all ready.”

“Thank you.” Joseph found himself off balance with the speed of the decision, but he could not afford to question it. He thanked Vine again, and followed Jones-Williams over to the low, rather rambling buildings at the side. He felt grateful now for time to prepare himself for the flight.

But all the imagination of his life was futile compared with the reality. First there was climbing up onto the wing and into the small seat and fastening the harness to hold him in. The engine was started with a tremendous roar, then a moment later the tiny, frail craft went racing over the grass, bumping on every tussock, before lifting off jerkily. The plane bucked slightly, catching the light wind and clearing the neighboring stand of trees by what felt like no more than a few feet.

It was an appalling sensation, being out of touch with the earth—and apparently completely out of control. Joseph felt he was a prisoner.

He was sitting behind the pilot. A lightweight machine gun—a Lewis gun, to be precise—was mounted beside him. He had been told cheerfully that it was just in case they should meet any opposition.

They seemed to veer around quite badly as they gained height. Joseph had the very alarming feeling that he could be pitched out any moment and find himself falling through the air. Was he high enough up that it would kill him outright? Or might he be left broken but alive? Why on earth could he not have left well enough alone and stayed on the ground?

Then there was the question of keeping his stomach in place.

They were a few hundred feet up now and steadying. He could see nothing but trees slightly below him. The airfield and control tower were somewhere over to the left.

He steeled himself to look down, afraid of an overpowering sense of vertigo, but below him and stretching into the distance he saw a landscape that took his breath away. There was a strip of desolation a few miles wide, ruined, it would seem, beyond recall. It was cratered with shell holes that steamed in the August warmth—or perhaps it was poison gas that curled yellow-white in the hollows.

Blasted tree trunks poked up here and there. The wreckage of vehicles and guns was easy to see by outline rather than any difference in color. Everything was gray-brown, leached of life. Shape also distinguished the corpses of men and horses, too many to count. From up here the sheer enormity of it was overwhelming. So many dead, enough men to populate cities, and all destroyed.

Faint sunlight gleamed on the watery surfaces of trenches in recognizably straight lines, zigzagged to block the lines of fire. Two long stretches were waterlogged, like some gray mire, dotted with corpses.

He could see men moving around, foreshortened, dun-colored like the clay. Up here it was ridiculous how anonymous they seemed, and yet he probably knew all of them. He understood what they were doing only because he knew; he had done it all himself: shoring up walls, carrying supplies, cleaning weapons. A few cars chugged slowly on pockmarked roads, sending little puffs of exhaust out behind them. Judith might be in one of them, seeming to crawl along compared with the crazy speed of the plane. Ambulances were easy to spot. Columns of men moved on foot, reinforcements going forward, wounded going back. It was also easy to see the field guns, the huts and tents, the dressing stations, and the first aid posts. Some of the humps in the ground he knew were dugouts.

The plane gained more altitude, and Joseph could see the German lines as well. He knew their trenches were deeper, their dugouts better organized—and better furnished, so he had heard. But the land was the same: shattered and poisoned. The men, such as he could see, were engaged in the same activities. They, too, when motionless, catching an hour or two of sleep, blended into the earth and became almost invisible.

The terrain was becoming less distinct as they climbed higher. Beyond, the green was visible again, in both directions: Trees had leaves; there were patches of grass. On toward the horizon to the south and west there were the dark scars of roads and railways, but they lay across cornfields and meadows, and soft, blurred patches of woodland. Here and there Joseph saw the silver curl of a river.

It was like looking at the track of a wound across the land, or the scorched path of shrapnel through flesh, leaving the rest oddly whole.

For three long, terrible years they had faced each other over those few thousand yards of ground, and killed—and killed—repeatedly. It was madness! In the silence up here with nothing but wind and sun and the shattering roar of the engine, it was so obvious he wanted to lean over and shout invectives at them. But of course no one could hear him. He might as well scream at an anthill.

They were moving east and south. He saw railway tracks and marshaling yards. He thought he recognized some of the features of the land, the curve of hill and river. He saw what he thought was Lille, but he was not sure how far they had come.

Half an hour passed in silence. He searched the sky nervously, but there were no other aircraft visible. The French lines below them looked the same as the British or Canadian: just gray mud, wreckage, what one could make out of men moving about the same midday duties.

When was Vine going to go low enough for him to have any idea if there were men moving eastward? So far they had followed the battle line southeast as it curved away from the advancing German army.

Had they not gone far enough yet? He had lost any sense of where they were. The ground was so far below he could barely make out the roads, let alone who was moving on them. Perhaps this was an idiotic cause anyway, and Jones-Williams had let him come only because he had no imaginable chance of succeeding.

He leaned forward and shouted at Vine, and as he turned for a moment, Joseph pointed downward.

Vine held out his hand, thumb up, and obediently swooped the plane low, hedgehopping, as Jones-Williams had called it. Details became sharper—roads, the colors of men, horses, and artillery—but Joseph saw nothing to indicate the presence of his eleven men. He thought they would have moved much farther eastward by now. They could have covered twenty or thirty miles a day with a little help—a lift here or there. They were all fairly fit and used to marching.

Suddenly and with absolutely no warning, the aircraft pitched and yawed like a tub in high seas. One minute the sky was above them, the next they rolled so the earth swung around, over their heads, then right and left wildly. Finally it fell away as they reared up and climbed steeply, racing toward the faint shreds of cloud, which were still far above.

Joseph thought he was going to fall out. Only the harness jerking violently on his body held him in. Bruised and shocked, he was sick over the side. They were still climbing. He clung onto the cockpit, knuckles white. Even yesterday, it had never occurred to him that he would die this way.

They swiveled around and dived, then climbed again. That was when Joseph saw them, black outlines against the sky like dragonflies, swooping and diving. They seemed angry, turning on each other, always going back again into the heart of the swarm. It was a great aerial dogfight, high above them, up almost to the thin layer of cloud.

Vine was keeping their plane lower, probably hoping that against the darker background of the fields and interlacing support trenches they would be almost invisible. The pilots in the dogfight would be concentrating on each other, looking for who was in their sights and who was on their tails.

The seconds seemed to stretch forever. They climbed a little. Joseph did not know why, but he assumed it would be to give them space to dive and evade if they were seen.

Joseph touched the Lewis gun experimentally. He was a noncombatant, a man who served the fighting soldiers, but did not possess a weapon himself. But if they were attacked now, not only Joseph’s life but Vine’s as well would depend upon Joseph shooting and doing it effectively. He did not even think of trying to find an escape from it.

The dogfight was still above them and only a short distance behind.

Vine put the aircraft into a climb again, trying to gain height in case they needed the speed of a dive to make a run for it.

From the whirling dance of the dogfight one plane exploded, red fire and black smoke staining the sky. The pieces of it plummeted downward. Another blossomed a long trail of smoke, smearing across the blue. Then it cartwheeled over and over, hideously slowly.

They were climbing again, then without warning another plane roared above them. It was probably fifty feet away, but seemed barely to miss them. It was so close Joseph could see the pilot’s face for an instant—his head bent forward, his muscles tense. Then it was gone, swinging away and up again. On its tail was a red-winged triplane, guns blazing.

Vine suddenly swung wide also, and for a moment—there and then gone again—Joseph had the red-winged plane in his sights. Too quickly it was away and there was nothing there but blue sky.

He was dizzy as they soared up, and he realized there had been another plane above and behind them. Bullets ripped through the very edge of the wing as they slithered sideways, around, and then up even higher.

Now there were planes all around them. The maelstrom had descended. More bullets streamed overhead and struck the tail of a plane above them.

Joseph was galvanized into movement at last and gripped the gun. Next time he saw anything in his sights, if it was German he would fire. If he had long enough to be sure.

The need came before he expected. Vine swung the plane around, over in a roll too close to a somersault, pitching Joseph almost over the side. He straightened up, bruised, heart pounding, and raised the barrel of the gun. It turned easily. He found he could follow the course of a plane for seconds. Long enough to hit it.

Except that Vine never kept them still. They surged and slithered across the sky. One minute Joseph was staring at fields, the next at gray trenches, then the sky. Other planes crossed his vision and by the time he was certain they were German, they were gone.

Then bullets tore the wing again, and the red triplane was there.

Joseph squeezed the trigger and bullets exploded out of the muzzle. They just caught the very edge of the red tail. An instant later it was gone.

Joseph sat hugging the gun, his heart pounding. It was the first time he had ever fired a gun at a human being, intending to kill. It was an extraordinary feeling, decisive, shameful, exhilarating. He had passed a certain barrier. How much did it matter that he had not hit the man? The wind rushed past him as the plane banked.

They were in the middle of a swarm, like angry hornets, engines roaring, bullets stuttering. Another plane whirled and cartwheeled, spiraling down with a black plume of smoke trailing behind it. He saw it strike the ground and explode in flames. He realized only then that he had not noticed whether it was British or German, only that the pilot would die.

There was another rattle of bullets. Several struck so close to him that he flung himself backward with a jolt, mouth dry, gasping to regain his breath. Then he grabbed the gun savagely. When the next German plane came into his sights, he let off a stream of fire in return and was elated to see the tracer bullets strike the back part of the fuselage. It tipped the balance wildly, the plane yawing like a sailboat in a bad sea.

Vine raced after the damaged plane, turning wide to give Joseph another shot. He hesitated, almost lost aim, then at the last second shot at the engine. It was a senseless distinction from shooting at the man. If the plane went down the pilot would be killed anyway. The difference was a sophistry.

On it went, almost like a three-dimensional dance. Up here it was noise, engines, bullets, wind ice-cold on the skin. They wheeled and climbed, juddered on the top of the ascent, careened sideways, swooped, guns chattering. Then they increased speed until the wind was screaming in their ears and the ground seemed to race up toward them. They struggled to break out of the dive and bank around again, caught the enemy in the gunsights and shot.

He lost all count of time. He shot in short, rapid bursts at other planes with no idea if he hit them or not. He was hardly even aware of it at first when the bullets struck them. It was even a moment or two before he realized with mind-numbing clarity that the smoke was their own. This long dive was not going to end in the swift turn and banking up into a climb again.

The ground came closer and closer. He could see trees clearly and a farmyard. Then he realized Vine was making for the fields beyond. He was going to try to land.

The seconds were endless. Joseph had no doubt that he was going to die in seconds now. He had expected to die in Ypres, certainly, but this was France now, a summer cornfield ready for harvest. Almost like Cambridgeshire. Almost as good as home.

Now he had no more time to do better, try harder. Soon he would know the truth, whatever it was. He ached with a blinding pain for what he left behind.

They leveled out, lower than the trees. There was nothing but fields ahead. Something tore at the wheels, pitching him forward so violently for a moment he could think of nothing but the weight of the blow. He felt bruised in every part of his body. They were still moving, tearing through the corn, ripping a path in it toward the little copse of trees.

Then everything was still, eerily silent after the noise.

He heard Vine’s voice shouting: “Get out! Run! Reavley, get out!” There was fear in it—high, sharp-pitched fear.

He was jerked out of his stupor. Awkwardly, oblivious of the pain, he scrambled to release himself and get out of the cockpit. He clambered over the edge and dropped into the corn. The black smoke was still pouring out of the engine.

He staggered to his feet. He must get as far away as possible. Then after a couple of steps he turned. Vine was still in his seat.

“Come on!” Joseph yelled at him. “Get out!”

“Can’t!” Vine called back. “Got a bust leg, old boy. Get going while you can. This thing could go up any moment. Good luck.”

Whatever it cost, Joseph knew he must try to get Vine out. He could not run for his own safety and leave the pilot to be burned to death. Vine was only here because of him. He stumbled back the few steps, climbed up onto the wing and over to the cockpit.

“Get out!” Vine said sharply. “Don’t you understand? I can’t stand anyway. My whole right leg is shot up. Go on!”

“I’m used to carrying wounded men,” Joseph told him. “It’s mostly what I do. Get that harness off and grab hold of me. This is not that much different from a mud crater, and God knows how many men I’ve pulled out of those.”

Vine hesitated.

“Come on, damn it!” Joseph shouted suddenly. “Don’t be a bloody hero. You’ll get us both killed! Hold on to me!”

Vine unfastened his harness and gripped Joseph. His face was white under the smears from the smoke, and there was a sheen of sweat on it.

Joseph looked down to see the blood-soaked leg, wanting to cause as little extra pain as possible. He was hideously aware that any moment the engine could catch fire and the fuel tanks explode, killing them both. He took hold of Vine and tried to heave him up. It was far more difficult than he had supposed. He knew he was hurting Vine, but the only alternative was to run and let him die. He could feel his own muscles tearing with the strain, and the sweat of fear running down his body.

Vine rose a little. The seconds were ticking by. Smoke billowed out, sharp, hot, and acrid.

Joseph pulled again, putting all his strength and weight behind it. Please God he could do it! He must!

With a bitten-off scream of pain, Vine came out of the cockpit. Joseph collapsed backward onto the wing and slid down it to land on his back in the corn, Vine on top of him.

Then he felt hands pulling him and heard voices. For a moment he did not understand. Then with blessed relief he realized people had come from the farmhouse and he was being lifted up. He and Vine were half-dragged, half-carried across the ripe ears of corn, their stalks catching and poking at them.

They were seventy yards away when the plane exploded. The blast knocked all of them off their feet, scorching them with its heat.

Joseph sat up slowly, at first his vision obscured by the tops of the corn. Then he saw the flames and the black column of smoke going up.

“Thanks,” Vine said hoarsely from beside him. “Thanks, old fellow. Wouldn’t have liked to be in that. Bit of a mess, eh?” His face revealed a pain so intense he could barely keep consciousness.

A couple of yards away an elderly man rose to his feet, muttering expletives in French. He was gray-haired, his shoulders sagging, and the stubble of a beard darkened his chin. He shook his head and looked regretfully at the scorched and trampled field, then he turned to Vine and apologized in broken English.

Vine was lying on his back. He looked crumpled, smaller. His eyes were closed, and it seemed as if the agony of his leg had finally overtaken him.

A broad-shouldered, handsome woman—possibly the old man’s daughter—staggered to her feet, yanking her skirt out of her way impatiently. She was clicking with her tongue, her face anxious.

Joseph spoke to her in French. “We need to stop the bleeding, and see if we can splint where the bone is broken,” he said urgently. “I expect there’ll be an army hospital not far away, but he’ll die if we don’t do that much immediately.”

“Yes, yes,” she agreed. “It looks bad. Poor man. And you, are you all right?”

“Fine. Only a few bruises,” Joseph replied. “He made a good job of landing. Sorry about your field.”

She waved her hand, as if dismissing the subject. Then she looked up in the sky where they could just make out the tangle of planes wheeling around each other. “Circus of the Red Baron!” she said disgustedly. “I suppose you are lucky to get out alive.”

Joseph remembered the red triplane. He had actually taken a shot at it himself! Even hit a piece off the tail. Manfred von Richthofen—but he would have time to think about that later. Now they must look after Vine.

It was an arduous job, but one at least that Joseph was accustomed to. With the help of the French farmer and his daughter—as she proved to be—they splinted Vine’s leg and then stopped the worst of the bleeding, at least for the moment. Then they put him in the one decent wagon left and hitched up the ancient horse.

It took them two hours of driving along mud-rutted lanes to get Vine to the French military field hospital behind the lines, but he was still alive—and conscious again—by then. The surgeon looked at the leg and said he thought he could save it.

“Thanks,” Vine said when he was alone with Joseph, after the farmer and his wife had gone. He was lying in a hospital cot, a sheet up to his neck. “Good luck in finding your fellows. Tell them from me they’d better come home and face the music. They owe you that.”

“They owe you that,” Joseph corrected him. “I’ll be sure to tell them so. Good luck.”

Vine’s face tightened in momentary pain, then relaxed again into a smile. “I expected you to say ‘God be with you, my son,’ or something of that sort.”

“God be with you,” Joseph replied wryly. “I trust God. It’s the luck I’m a bit dubious about!”

He went to the commanding officer of the section, no more than half a mile from the hospital.

“We’ll find someone to give you a lift back to your regiment, Captain,” he said in excellent English. He was a slender man with a dark, intelligent face. He had an air of weary resignation, but he was unfailingly courteous.

“Thank you, sir,” Joseph replied, also in English. “But I was making my way to Switzerland, or at least in that direction.” And he explained his errand, showing him Colonel Hook’s letter as proof. Without it he could hardly expect anyone to think him other than a deserter himself. He said that the men were wanted for the murder of Major Northrup, a grossly incompetent officer, but it was his belief that only one of them was actually guilty. He skirted around the issue of mutiny, aware that it might be a sensitive subject for a French officer, especially if introduced by an Englishman. He had no idea what this particular man’s sympathies were. He was aware of sounding rather stilted. Then he saw the smile on the Frenchman’s face and appreciated that he had understood Joseph rather better than he had intended. But to apologize would make it worse. Instead he simply smiled back.

“So you are going east after the eleven men?” the Frenchman asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me give you a good dinner and a night’s rest first,” he offered. “Then if you wish to proceed, may I suggest that you change your attire? You appear to speak French at least adequately.” He pulled a slight face. “Not enough to pass for French, unless you claim to come from some other region—Marseille, perhaps?” His tone suggested that to him Marseille was barbaric, barely French at all. “Have you any other language? German, perhaps?”

“Yes. And rather better,” Joseph admitted. “But I don’t think passing for German would be very clever.”

The Frenchman gave a particularly Gallic shrug.

“Of course not. I was thinking German-speaking Swiss,” he said. “That would account for your accent. A Protestant priest, Swiss, and therefore neutral.”

The idea was very appealing, except that if he were captured out of uniform he could be shot as a spy rather than held as a prisoner of war. He pointed that out.

“Indeed,” the Frenchman conceded. “I was considering your chances of success in traveling unnoticed, and finding your eleven men. We can get you some suitable clothes. Stay as far back as the supply trenches, or even farther, and you are unlikely to be taken by Germans. Do what you think best.”

When Joseph set out in the French staff car the following morning he was well fed, by trench catering standards, and well rested.

It was not raining and the late summer air was soft and bright. He was so accustomed to the smells of overcrowding, open latrines, and too many dead to bury that he barely noticed them. He thought instead of the sun on his face and—at least to the south—a land that held some echo of its prewar glory. Farms were ruined, villages bombed and burned as everywhere else, but on the horizon there were trees and the hills rolled away green in the distance. He could even see cattle grazing here and there when he veered farther away from the trenches and the incessant sound of guns.

Just as in his own lines on the Ypres Salient, there were men returning to battle after brief leave, often because of injury. There were columns of wounded making their painful way back to field dressing stations, and there were supply trucks, munitions, and ambulances on the crowded roads.

The car took him another thirty miles. After that he had to walk.

He stopped only to ask directions or seek information of anyone who might have seen a group of men together who were going along the lines rather than back or forward to fight. He was appalled how easily it came to him to invent lies to explain his errand. The only part that did not vary was his physical descriptions of the most noticeable of the men, particularly Morel, the one he was sure could speak French fluently and would be the natural leader.

He slept where he could. Men were unfailingly willing to share the meager rations they had. Any thanks he offered were inadequate, but gratitude was all he had.

When he finally found someone who seemed to have seen them the day before, he was dubious. The description he received in return could have been almost any soldier.

That evening the sighting was much more positive. Crouching in one of the rear support trenches, Joseph listened to a group of French soldiers describe someone lost and badly frightened. Apparently the man had admitted considering mutiny, which they sympathized with wholeheartedly. The man had divulged that he had an idiot for an officer, that he had rebelled against his orders. As a result he was now a fugitive, cut off from his friends and all his connections with home. Worst of all, even if they won the war, he could probably never go back. He had stuck with it for three years, gone through hell, and one stupid useless officer had ruined it all.

Since Joseph was pretending to be Swiss, they did not think he had any serious interest in the issue, so they were prepared to talk about it to him, and he did not disabuse them. He set out again with quickened hope and moved more rapidly than before, believing the escaped men were not far ahead of him.

Directly to the east was the German border. He was past the field of Verdun, where 350,000 Frenchmen had been killed or wounded the previous year, and still the battle raged on. Joseph had no idea how many Austrians and Germans had been killed there, but he knew it must be at least as many. The Russian Front he had only heard about, and the Italian, and the Turkish fronts, and the arenas of war in Africa, Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. He refused to think about them. All he could do was this one tiny contribution: give Morel and the other fugitives a chance to come back. Even that might be beyond him, but trying had become almost as important for his own sanity as for their survival. It would mean that in this endless destruction there was something within his control.

In the end, he found them in the ruins of a bombed village, so little of which was left that even its name was obliterated. He had followed a rumor: a joke about someone’s French being notoriously bad. Some young men, worn out and with several days’ beard, had asked for directions to a farm where he and his friends could sleep. Only he had mispronounced it as une femme—a woman. He had met with much bawdy laughter, and remarks about all ten of them.

The joke was told with pity for their desperation but then everyone was desperate. It was not that they were unwilling to share what they had, but they too had nothing. They were gaunt-faced, exhausted young men with eyes that stared beyond the mark, seeing a hell they would never forget. The images lay inside the eyelids, waking or sleeping, and coiled into the brain, pounding in the blood. The sound of guns never stopped; even in the rare silences it was still there in the head.

The escapees saw Joseph at the same moment he saw them. He knew Morel instantly, even in silhouette against the sunlight on a stretch of wall still standing. He was thin, and his uniform was filthy—perhaps on purpose to disguise its markings. But the way he stood was characteristic. Even now the grace had not left him, the natural elegance he had always had. Trotter and Snowy Nunn were sitting on piles of rubble. Snowy was drinking from a tin can. The others were out of sight, perhaps asleep somewhere.

Morel saw Joseph and froze, his hand on his revolver.

Joseph stood motionless. He did not have a weapon, but even if he had he would not have used it. He took a step forward experimentally.

Morel raised the revolver.

“That would change everything,” Joseph said quietly.

Morel stiffened, recognizing him now, even though Joseph was wearing borrowed French civilian clothes, and Morel was facing the sun.

“Would it?” he asked. “Who would know?”

Joseph stood still. “You would,” he answered. “You might forget shooting me, although I doubt it. In hot blood now, it might be all right, but peace will come eventually, of one sort or another….”

“I can’t count the number of men I’ve killed,” Morel told him wearily. “Most of them were perfectly decent Germans doing no more than I’m doing, fighting for their country. What choice do they have, any more than I?”

“None,” Joseph said honestly. “I expect it hurts them just as it does most of us. But you know me. I’m part of your peacetime as well as your war. But even if you can live with it, can Snowy? Can he ever go back to St. Giles, to his family and his land, if you kill me?”

Morel gave a sharp burst of laughter. “What the hell is so special about you? You’re ridiculous!” There was deep, wounding pain in his face. “A million Englishmen are dead. God alone knows how many French and German. Why should it make any difference if you’re dead, too?”

“Not because it’s me,” Joseph corrected him. “As you say, that’s nothing. It’s the circumstance. To shoot an armed soldier is one thing, albeit he’s a mirror image of yourself. To shoot your priest is different. Ask Snowy.”

Snowy rose to his feet slowly, the sun catching his pale hair. He looked older, his young face etched with tragedy.

“Stand still,” Morel ordered him.

“Or what?” Snowy asked, lifting his shoulders and letting them drop. “You’ll shoot me, too?”

“Because I damn well ordered you to!” Morel snapped.

“What’s the matter, Captain?” Snowy said quite casually, although his voice shook a little. “Don’t you approve of men thinking for themselves when it’s a moral issue? What’s that, then—mutiny?” He took a step forward, then another.

Morel raised the gun a little higher. “Don’t be stupid!” he warned. “Whatever he’s come for, he hasn’t deserted. He’s here to get us to go back, and you know as well as I that if we do, we’ll be court-martialed and shot. There’s no way on earth they’ll let us get away with killing Northrup.”

“Did you kill him?” Joseph asked, doubt in his voice.

“No, I didn’t!” Morel said with sudden anger. “But it’s academic. I arranged the mock trial and I was in charge. It’s my responsibility. That’s how the army works. It’s how life works. You want to lead, then you take the glory—and the blame.”

“True,” Joseph conceded. “To do less is without honor. Did Snowy shoot Northrup? Did Trotter?”

Trotter was still sitting in the rubble, staring from one to the other of them. There was a bandage on his arm, but it had bled through.

“No,” Morel replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m bloody well sure!”

“How can you be?” Joseph persisted.

“Don’t be idiotic!” Morel’s patience was shadow thin. “You know Snowy. He fires high at the bloody Germans. He couldn’t kill anyone except by accident.”

“And Trotter?” Joseph’s voice wobbled a little with fear of failure, now that success might be so close. It was hot here in the sun, and quiet. They were miles from the guns; they could hear them only in the distance.

“Are you sure about him?”

“Yes, I am! It was Geddes who killed Northrup.”

“Why?” He had to say something, and he wanted to know, to be certain.

“I’ve no idea, and I don’t care,” Morel replied, still holding the gun steady. “And the court-martial won’t care, either. Don’t soil your dog collar by lying, Captain. I’d rather take my chances in Switzerland than come back and be shot by my own. Can’t go home anyway, so it’s all pointless.”

Snowy took another step toward Joseph.

“Stand still!” Morel snapped at him, jerking the gun toward him. “Think, Snowy! It might be all very heroic and honest to go back, but if they shoot us, what do you think that’s going to do to morale, eh? Do you want a real mutiny? All along the line?” His voice caught and there were tears on his face. “The Germans would make mincemeat of us—those of us that are left of the Cambridgeshires. Is that what you want?”

Snowy froze.

“They’ll shoot Cavan anyway,” Joseph pointed out. It was so quiet now that they could hear birds singing in the summer sky.

Snowy Nunn walked slowly over to Joseph. Not once did he turn to look at Morel. “I want to go home,” he said simply.

Joseph waited.

Morel put the revolver away. “They’ll shoot all of us,” he said again, but there was an exhaustion in his voice so intense that pity gripped Joseph like a vise.

“General Northrup wants to reduce the charge,” Joseph told him, his own voice gravelly, slipping out of control. He explained what the general had said.

Morel shrugged. “It won’t make any difference. What a bloody fiasco. We must be the stupidest people on earth. You won’t get Geddes back so easily, supposing you ever find him.”

“Where are the rest of you?” Joseph asked.

“I’ll tell them what you said,” Morel smiled bleakly. “They can make up their own minds. You go for Geddes; he’s the one you want.”

“Did he go on to Switzerland?”

“That was his intention.” Morel hesitated. “Look, Reavley, you’re a decent man, but you haven’t a ghost of a chance of bringing Geddes back. You aren’t even armed, for God’s sake! He’ll shoot you if he has to, to get you off his trail. I’ll come with you. That way you’ve a chance.”

“No—” Joseph began.

“Snowy and Trotter can put your arguments to the others,” Morel cut across him bluntly, all the old respect and acknowledgment of seniority gone. “They’ll get back. You’ll give your word, won’t you?” He turned to Snowy, Nunn, then to Trotter.

“Yes, sir,” Snowy said immediately. Trotter agreed also, rising stiffly to his feet at last. Only then did Joseph notice that his left leg was hurt as well.

“I’d give you my gun,” Morel went on, looking at Joseph. “But I don’t suppose you would know which end to fire.”

“Actually I nicked the tail of the plane of the Red Baron,” Joseph said with some dignity.

Morel stared at him.

“From another plane, with a Lewis gun,” Joseph added. “How do you suppose I got here so quickly?”

Morel began to laugh. It was a wild, hysterical sound, very nearly out of control.

Joseph came to a decision immediately, although possibly not a sensible one. He stuck out his arm, pointing.

“Right. Snowy, you and Trotter go and find the others, or as many of them as you can. Get them back to the regiment. Make sure you give yourself up and aren’t taken!” He looked at Snowy closely, his eyes hard. “Do you understand? It could all rest on that!”

“’Course Oi understand, sir,” Snowy said gravely. “It shouldn’t be too bad. Nobody’ll be looking for us going the other way. Good luck, Chaplain. But you watch for Geddes, sir. He’s a hard one, an’ he’s got nothing to lose now.”

Joseph and Morel turned south and made the best time they could. Joseph managed to persuade Morel to change clothes with a middle-aged man invalided out of the army and now mending shoes in a small shop. They continued with Morel looking less like a British officer on the run. Joseph also convinced him to speak German, and say that he too was Swiss, heading back home. No one was interested enough to challenge them seriously. They all had their own troubles.

Joseph and Morel were tired and hungry. They were within thirty miles of the Swiss border when the trail they had been following petered out. The village they arrived at had not suffered as much as many, and they were treated with courtesy, although less than the profound kindness that Joseph had received earlier when he was still in uniform. The people were war-weary, robbed by circumstance of almost everything they had. Still, they faced the possibility of invasion and occupation, and the loss of the only thing they still possessed: the physical freedom to be themselves—Frenchmen who owned their own land, blasted and burned as it was. Joseph did not blame them if they were less than wholehearted friends to men going back to a land that chose to fight on neither side.

“Can’t find any trace of him,” Morel said despondently.

Joseph’s feet hurt and his back ached. The late August sun was hot, and he was thirsty enough to have been grateful for even rainwater in a clean ditch. “No,” he said honestly. “I think we’ve lost him.”

Morel sat down on the grass, waiting silently for Joseph to make a decision. The sunlight on Morel’s face showed not only the ravages of emotion but the physical exhaustion that had almost depleted him. He was so thin his bones looked sharp beneath his skin.

Joseph, too tired to remain standing, sat down in the dust. He felt empty. He had not allowed himself to plan against the eventuality of losing Geddes. Consequently, he had no reserve strategy now to fall back on. If he had been alone he would have prayed, but it would be awkward in front of Morel, who had no faith left in God.

Was Joseph any better? What did faith mean? That everything would turn out right in the end? What was the end? Could any overriding plan one day make sense of it all?

“I don’t think he’s gone to Switzerland after all,” Morel said, interrupting Joseph’s thoughts. “If he were just a deserter, it would be one thing; but he’s wanted for murdering an officer, and that’s quite different. Any Englishman there, and maybe even many of the Swiss, would turn him in anyway.”

“Well, the French certainly would,” Joseph agreed. “No question.”

“Yes, but the Germans wouldn’t,” Morel pointed out.

For a moment Joseph barely breathed. “Through the lines?” he said softly, understanding at last.

“Why not?” Morel looked back at him, his dark eyes steady. “The ultimate escape.”

Joseph climbed to his feet slowly and dug his hands into his pockets. He stared beyond the lines in the distance, at the German trenches beyond. “Perhaps,” he murmured. “You speak German. So do I.”

Morel rose to his feet also, his eyes wide. “Really?”

Joseph knew what he was asking. “I want him back, to get the rest of you off. Especially Cavan. Are you game to try?”

“Of course,” Morel responded. He gave an abrupt little laugh. “What use would you be by yourself?”

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

As darkness came, Joseph grew more and more apprehensive. Crossing the lines was likely to get them killed. Maybe Geddes was already dead and they would never know why he put live ammunition in his gun and deliberately betrayed his fellows by executing Northrup instead of merely frightening him.

The only plan they could form was to lie low until the first attack, then join with the French soldiers going over the top, keeping as far from the lights as possible. Become separated from the group as if by the fighting, and in the general turmoil press farther and farther forward. At least no one would be likely to suspect anyone coming up from behind and going on over.

The more Joseph thought of it, the more suicidal it seemed. But was it worse cowardice still to back out now and simply go home with Morel and hope he was believed.

“We should go now.” Morel’s voice came out of the darkness. “We might need all night to work our way into the French force and join them. We don’t know when they’ll go over. I don’t suppose they know, poor sods.”

That was the decision made. To argue now would look like fear. At the very least it would leave Morel to go alone, and that was unthinkable.

“Right,” he said as if Morel were in charge. Perhaps he should be. Joseph had been into no-man’s-land more often than he could count, but as a chaplain, in order to pick up whatever bodies he could find and help the wounded. After the worst night’s fighting he had been as far as twenty yards from the German trenches, but he had never faced an enemy soldier in anger, never fired a gun at a man.

“Are you all right, Chaplain?” Morel asked, the use of his occupational title betraying the uncertainty he felt of Joseph’s mettle.

“Yes, I’m right behind you,” Joseph said. “If we go over just behind the first attack, we can look like stretcher bearers. Attract less attention, and go as far forward as possible.”

“Won’t fool anyone for long,” Morel replied over his shoulder. “But maybe by the time they realize it we’ll be through. Just hope they don’t take us for deserters.”

“Deserters usually go the other way,” Joseph pointed out. “That’s what makes Geddes clever.”

“He’s a clever bastard, all right,” Morel agreed dourly, his voice low in the darkness in spite of the guns in the distance. He did not add anything more, and they went the rest of the way in silence, dropping down the slight slope toward the field dressing station a thousand yards away.

They curved around it, keeping as far away from the light as possible. Joseph, with his priest’s collar, did not need to account for his presence. For Morel it was harder. He had no rifle, only the revolver.

All around them were French soldiers, their outlines in the near dark little different from the men of the Cambridgeshires: helmets smooth, the occasional peaked cap, rifles stark. Their voices were muted, a little harsh with tension. Many smoked and the smell of Gauloises was different from Woodbine, but the long, slightly sour jokes were similar: self-mocking, the laughter quick.

There was coffee in their own version of a Dixie can. It was offered generously and both Joseph and Morel took it. It was bitter as gall.

A little over an hour later the order was given to advance, and without guns they rose with the other men and charged forward. Like the Ypres Salient with which Joseph was familiar, no-man’s-land was desolate, but drier than the thick Flanders clay. There was the same greasy film of chemical residue from shelling. The earth was strewn with the wreckage of guns and half-sunken vehicles. The same stench of decaying corpses filled the nose and mouth. Drowned men, bloated and inhuman, rose to the surface of water-filled craters when they were disturbed.

They moved forward as fast as possible, struggling in the mud, crouching low to avoid the return fire of the enemy. Star shells lit the sky, rose high and bright, then faded away again. The noise of guns was everywhere, and now and then the dull whoomph as a shell sent earth and mud flying up only to fall, crushing and burying everything it landed on.

There was a surge forward again. There were men running all around Joseph, bent forward, flailing in the mud. Every now and then one would stumble and fall. Sometimes they got up again, sometimes not. Instinct and long habit made him want to go back and see if he could help. Once he stopped and Morel lunged at him, half dragging him forward, all but wrenching his arm out of its socket.

They were far closer to the Germans now. When the flares went up they were clearly visible running and firing. Joseph realized with sudden, stomach-jarring horror that in a few moments he would be fighting for his life. He would have to kill or be killed, and he had no idea how to do it. He was not a soldier, he was only playing at it—wearing the uniform, eating the food, sharing the grief and the hardship, but never doing the fighting, never seeing the purpose for which a soldier lived and died.

Ahead of him a figure stumbled and fell forward into the mud. Automatically Joseph stopped and knelt beside him, almost tripping Morel in the process.

“Are you hurt?” Joseph shouted in French at the man on the ground. He tried to turn the man to see, and realized his chest was torn away.

“Come on!” Morel lunged at him to pull him up.

Joseph tore the rifle out of the dead man’s hands. “Merci, mon brave!” he said briefly. He took the ammunition belt as well, putting it on with clumsy fingers as he stood up again. “Pardon,” he added.

“Get on with it!” Morel yelled at him. “We’ve got more pressing things to do than get shot or bayoneted here. We’ve got to get that son of a bitch back and clear the rest of us!”

Joseph moved forward, following on Morel’s heels. He had grown up in the country. He had no pleasure in shooting, but he knew how. He could understand overwhelmingly the ordinary young soldier’s desire to aim wide rather than at a living man.

The next moment they were almost at the German trenches. The noise was indescribable: gunfire, the scream of shells and the roar of explosions, shrapnel flying—all alternating between darkness and glare.

Suddenly there was a man in front of Joseph. He saw the light on the blade of bayonet and in trying to avoid it he slipped in the mud and staggered forward. It was all that saved him from having his stomach ripped open. Immediately there was someone else in front of him. He saw the high point in the center of the helmet, and lifted his rifle to fire. The man fell, but he did not know if it was he who had shot him, or someone else. There seemed to be gunfire everywhere.

He plowed forward, sliding into the trench and running along it toward the supply line leading backward. He shouted in German at Morel to follow him.

The trench was deeper than he had expected, and drier. It startled him and he felt both ashamed and resentful. It was several minutes before he realized that he needed to change identity. Now he must be German. Being covered in mud was an advantage. He threw the gun away and looked around for a wounded man, any wounded man, to make it look as if he were helping.

Where the devil was Morel? There was no time to go back and look for him. What if in those last few seconds he had been shot? What if he was lying wounded, maybe bleeding to death just beyond the parapet, while Joseph was pretending to be a German soldier and running for the supply trench?

He turned back just in time to see Morel fall over the parapet and raise his gun to fire at him.

He froze. It was the final absurdity. They had made it, and were going to shoot each other! He started to laugh, crazily, idiotically.

Morel lowered the gun and came toward him. “Chaplain, are you all right?” he asked sharply.

“In German!” Joseph snapped back at him, using that language for the command. “Are you badly hurt?” he went on.

“I’m not…” Morel began, then as a German corporal came around the corner of the trench he doubled over and all but collapsed in Joseph’s arms.

Joseph took his weight with difficulty. “It’s all right, I’ve got you,” he said in German. “I’ll take you back to the dressing station. Here!” He half-lifted Morel over his shoulder and, ignoring the corporal, set out along the supply trench.

“Can you manage?” the corporal called after him.

“Yes, thank you,” Joseph answered. “I’ll carry him to the surgeon, then I’ll be back.”

Morel muttered something into his ear, but he did not catch enough of it to make sense.

Joseph kept his head down, easing Morel’s weight higher—both because it was easier to walk, and because it allowed him to hide most of his face without arousing suspicion. He hurried, as if Morel were bleeding to death and he had to get him out of the range of fire and then attend to him.

He passed other people: stretcher bearers, medical aides, even another priest. There was enough noise from gunfire to make conversation difficult and everyone had their own duties. Even so, there were more offers of help, which he refused.

It was eerily like a mirror image of the British trenches he was so used to where he knew every yard, every bend and turn, every rise to stumble over or pothole to turn your ankle in. He knew every ledge and shallow dugout where a man could curl up and snatch an hour of sleep.

These trenches were deeper, drier. He passed a dugout with electric lights. It was harder going out into the darkness again. Morel was growing very heavy.

Suddenly there were two figures black in the gloom ahead of him, talking softly in German. Cigarette ends burned brightly for an instant, then disappeared.

Suddenly panic seized him and he slithered to a stop. Morel dropped over his shoulders to land in the mud, cursing roundly, but having remembered to do it in German.

“Bless you,” Joseph replied. “Are you hurt?”

“Bruised to hell.” Morel stood up slowly, wincing. “You might have warned me.”

“Geddes,” Joseph whispered, pulling Morel away from the men. “Which way?”

Morel looked around carefully. “There.” He pointed forward. “He’s getting away from the lines as fast as possible.”

“Does he speak any German? He must, or he wouldn’t dare come through.”

“Picked up some, but he won’t want to put it to the test this close to the firing line.” Morel started along the trench again and Joseph caught up with him, moving swiftly now.

They kept out of sight as much as possible, but always as if priests ministering to the wounded. Reluctantly, Morel had gotten rid of his gun also. It was too dangerous to keep if he wanted to maintain his disguise.

By dawn they were two or three miles behind the lines. The light came early in a clear sky, which held only a few shreds of gray cloud, lit from beneath with pale brilliance. It showed a land shattered by war. Trees were splintered, their naked trunks leafless, some scarred black by fire. Farmhouses were roofless, walls fallen away. Fields were scoured up, crops ruined.

Joseph glanced at Morel but did not speak. It was time he thought more clearly. Now they were through the German lines they needed to plan, and first to deduce what Geddes would have done.

“Change clothes,” Joseph said slowly, thinking aloud. “Eat. More important, drink. Water would do, anything clean. Need strength.” He imagined Geddes giddy with freedom, but so tired he could barely stand, and knowing he was a fugitive who did not even speak the language and understood very little of it. “Might have to fight later,” he went on. “Need a safe place to rest first. Exhausted now, and need to plan.”

Morel was staring at him, frowning. “We have to find Geddes,” he said awkwardly, his face twisted with sudden and startling pity, so deep it gave him pain.

Joseph saw it and it took him by surprise. Morel had misunderstood, thinking he was speaking of himself. The pity was for him, and perhaps for what he had once been, in another age, in Cambridge. He realized something would be broken between them if he said the wrong thing now. The emotion must be acknowledged, then put away as if it had never happened. He looked over toward the fields and the road, away from Morel’s eyes. “You know him better than I do,” he went on, as if considering deeply. “What do you think would be his first priority?”

Morel answered after only a moment’s hesitation, and he kept his voice very nearly expressionless, as if he had known what Joseph meant from the beginning. “As far from the lines as possible,” he said, relief making his voice a little high. “He’s not a coward, but he wouldn’t look for trouble. He’s strong. He grew up in the country. If any man knows how to survive on the land, he does.”

Joseph turned to look at him for a moment, then at the fields again.

“I know.” Morel lowered his voice, almost as if in the presence of the dead. “It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? I should think if there’s anything to eat in that, the locals will have had it. Turnips, wild berries, even roots, nettles. God! What a…” His voice caught. “I don’t know. I haven’t got a word for it. Tragedy doesn’t seem big enough.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “If one man with the potential to be great is brought to his knees by a single weakness, we call it tragedy. We haven’t got a word for an entire continent committing suicide.”

“It’s mutilation, not death yet,” Joseph said softly, willing himself to believe it.

“Isn’t it?” There was little hope in Morel’s face.

Joseph started forward. “Let’s see if anyone’s encountered Geddes.”

They walked in silence for more than a mile. They passed only one person: an ancient man leading a plow horse, a dog at his heels.

Then Joseph picked up the conversation. “What are we going to say? I should be able to make them believe I’m a priest. And that I’m nearly forty. They’ll believe I’m that old.”

Morel gave him a wry look. He was in his mid-twenties, but he looked gaunt and there were deep lines in his face. “Or more,” he said drily. “But so are plenty of fighting men. I’d better think of something, and before we reach that farm.” He gestured toward a group of buildings perhaps half a mile away. One side was black from fire.

“The simplest is best,” Joseph answered, having already given the matter some consideration. “You are a priest also.”

“What happened to my collar?” Morel asked the obvious. “German priests wear them, too.”

“Swiss,” Joseph corrected him. “Your accent isn’t good enough for a native. You were helping someone and got blood all over it. You could wash yourself, but your collar and tunic were ruined. Don’t forget the tunic, nobody gets blood only on their collar. They’ll know you’re lying. Another tunic is no problem from a dead man, but he wouldn’t have a priest’s collar. You know enough from your prewar studies of biblical languages to pass as long as you don’t try to conduct a service.”

Morel smiled. “You lie better than I expected.”

“Thank you!” Joseph said sarcastically. “Geddes won’t get away with that. So what would you do in his place?”

The farm was only a hundred yards away now. It was dilapidated, mended with old boards and clearly whatever had come to hand. There obviously had been no glass to replace the shattered windows, and perhaps no putty either. It must take either courage or desperation for the inhabitants to have remained here.

“He doesn’t have more than a few words of German,” Morel said dubiously. “But he’s a fly bastard. He’ll have thought of something.”

“If you don’t understand, best to pretend you can’t hear,” Joseph observed. “Maybe he’ll pretend to be shell-shocked and deaf.”

Morel looked at him with a flash of respect, but he said nothing. They were at the entrance to the farmyard. An elderly woman was putting out kitchen scraps for a few scrawny chickens. She was rawboned and thin, her face seamed with grief. She looked up at them with alarm.

Joseph smiled at her. “Bless you, mother,” he said quietly in German. “Can you spare us a little clean water to drink?”

She saw his collar, and the fear melted out of her eyes. Joseph was ashamed at the ease of the deception. “Of course,” she answered him, only glancing at Morel. “And food? Are you hungry?” That was a gracious formality. Of course they were hungry. Everyone was hungry.

Joseph hesitated. Which was worse—to take her food or to insult her by implying that she had too little to give away?

“Come,” she directed, and led them into the farmhouse kitchen. It was stone-floored, with heavy wooden rafters across the ceiling from which in better times there would have been a flitch of bacon and strings of onions, as well as the few dried herbs there were now. Being late August there was no need to heat the room, and she had allowed all but the embers to go out in the big black range. She had probably been going to eat whatever she had cold. Now she opened up the door of the range and prepared to put a small piece of wood inside.

“It is hot walking,” Joseph said quickly. “Pastor Morel and I would both be grateful for cold water, if that is possible? My name is Josef…”—he picked the first name that came into his head—“…Bauer.”

She introduced herself shyly and then turned her attention to cutting dark rye bread into slices and finding a small portion of cheese and half an onion. She served it carefully on polished plates, and with glasses of cold water, presumably from the well. They were far enough back from the battle line for the water to be unpolluted.

Joseph began the conversation by explaining their presence. He said they were looking for a young man, a parishioner in peacetime, who was badly shell-shocked and who had run away, terrified. They were afraid if they did not find him he might be shot as a deserter, but since the incident he had been deaf and would not understand. Had she seen such a young man pass this way?

She said she had not seen him herself, but her neighbor three miles to the south had mentioned just such a man to her only yesterday. They thanked her profusely and took their leave. She had given them directions to the nearest village, and then to the small town beyond. She felt certain that anyone in the young man’s position would head in that direction, hoping to hide and find shelter and possibly food before making his way home.

They thanked her and left.

They passed munitions and supply columns going toward the front, men on foot going back from leave and brief recovery after minor injuries, and raw recruits going to join the front. Most of these last were painfully young and their faces soft with the last remnants of childhood. Now they were struggling to mask fear and honor their commitment, and their families’ faith in them. Many would already have lost fathers and older brothers.

“Jesus wept!” Morel said under his breath. “That blind boy on the right looked just like Snowy Nunn! What the hell are we doing here, Chaplain? What are we doing anywhere except at home?”

Joseph did not bother answering. Platitudes were no use anyway, and there was nothing else to offer but words that had all been said before.

They found shelter for the night in someone’s byre. Even though it was dry, clean, and perfectly comfortable, the owner apologized, quite unnecessarily. The next morning they were offered a kind of gruel for breakfast. They ate it gratefully and without asking what was in it. Everyone they saw was hungry, frightened, trying hard to hang on to some dignity and a shred of hope.

Morel knew nothing of the Peacemaker, and for a few moments Joseph was overcome with the longing to talk to Matthew, to try to explain why looking at this land, these people, he could understand the dreams and the pain that had driven a man to want peace at any price. The world in which right and wrong had seemed so obvious was gone like a bubble grasped at by a hand, disappeared in an instant.

But he could not say as much to Morel. Morel needed him to be certain of at least something—therefore he must seem so.

Finally it was Morel who broke the silence. “Will you go back to St. John’s?” he asked, staring straight ahead, avoiding Joseph’s eyes.

Joseph was appalled. Is that what Morel thought of him, that he would go back to the same old escape, exactly as if nothing had happened? Build himself another cocoon!

“I don’t imagine there’ll be much to go back to,” he said a little sharply. “I can’t see many people wanting to learn biblical languages in the aftermath of this, can you?”

“They have their uses,” Morel said with a frown. “Perhaps if we’d studied the past a little more diligently we’d have seen further into the future.”

“That’s a leisure pursuit,” Joseph said. “I don’t think we’ll have much leisure in the years after the war. It isn’t going to be the same.”

“Nothing’s going to be the same,” Morel agreed with intense earnestness. “Women are doing half the jobs men used to. A woman’s life isn’t defined by who she marries anymore. It won’t go back to that, not now. Think of your sister.”

Joseph knew he meant Judith, but even Hannah was changed. All over Europe there were women who had learned to manage alone, to find courage and learn skills that had not been imagined before the war.

“You can’t turn time backward,” he said aloud.

“Good God, no!” Morel was suddenly savage. “Not in anything! I’ve fought beside men who used to wait on me at table or clean my boots. We can’t and mustn’t go back to that.”

“We won’t.” Perhaps because Joseph had been home on leave so little, and then only to St. Giles, where social barriers were as old as the land and who owned and worked it, most of the change had made little impression on him. He had always known men like Barshey Gee, Snowy Nunn, and the others. He had played with men like them in the village school, knowing they would go on to work with their hands, and he would go up to university.

“There’ll be a new government,” Morel said thoughtfully. “If they don’t care for the sick and disabled, then we’ll force them to. There’ll be legislation so it’s every man’s right to work, or if there’s no work, then to be cared for, to have medicine, food, a roof over his head regardless, and over his children’s. And the right to be taught because he has the brains to learn.”

He was walking with his shoulders hunched, muscles tight. “Not out of charity, but because it’s every man’s right. We’re quick enough to call him up to fight in the blood and filth of the trenches and to die for his country. And he came in the millions, without a question or a complaint. We owe, Chaplain! And by God, if I live through this, I’m going to do what I can. Not just for them, but for ourselves. What are we worth if we don’t?”

It was a challenge. Joseph knew he meant it. It was for the men he led that he had been willing to mutiny against Northrup, and that was blazingly clear now. It was not one isolated anger or a personal rebellion. It was his nature, and he would be as true to it in civilian life as he was now. Joseph could imagine him in the future, a firebrand politician fighting for social justice, with a decency man to man that owed nothing to charity. The loyalty in the face of horror would not fade just because the guns were silent.

Nor would the suffering. Only a fool could imagine that. The dead would never return, nor would most of the crippled or blinded ever be whole again.

Was Morel waiting for him to say what he would do? The silence within his own head demanded it. There was only one decent answer: to go back into an active ministry, if there was one that would have him. What faith would there be after this? Millions would be desperate for help, comfort, and hope in the future, a belief that there was meaning to the ruin of so much. But would they look to God for it? Or would the Church seem as much an anachronism swallowed in the past as the golden afternoons of cricket and tea on the lawn in that last gilded summer of 1914?

And could he do it alone, without a wife to encourage him, explain the village gossip, the relationships he did not even see, to pick up his mistakes and oversights, simply to believe in him?

Joseph had no answer for himself, never mind for Morel. “In any event I’ll not go back to St. John’s.”

“Didn’t think you would.” Morel smiled.

It was the second night, after a gaudy sunset painted across the southwestern sky, that they arrived at the bombed-out part of a small town where they hoped to find Geddes. They were moving carefully, aware that he was a fugitive and although he would not expect them, he would be wary. He spoke little German and knew he was in enemy territory, and a hunted man.

For their own safety they had long ago discarded their French rifles, and even Morel’s British Army revolver. As priests they had no justification for carrying them, much less for using them. Geddes, on the other hand, would certainly have armed himself with a German pistol to go with his masquerade as a German soldier.

There was little light in the sky and it was several moments before Morel was even certain that the man they had spotted was Geddes. He waited, watching as the man looked one way then the other, preparing to settle himself for a brief rest. His face was haggard, stubble growth on his cheeks. He could easily have been what he pretended: shell-shocked, exhausted, terrified because he could not hear.

Deliberately Morel tapped his boot on the stone lintel of what was left of the house. The man spun around, facing the last of the light from the fading west. He saw only Morel’s outline in the archless doorway. There was a second when he was uncertain what to do. His movement had betrayed that he could hear. That ruse was lost to him. He could not recognize Morel, who was deliberately standing with his back to the light, and one hand near his hip where a gun would have been—had he still had one.

Joseph was at the far side, closer to Geddes. When he saw Morel nod, he moved to stand close enough to Geddes that he could push a small piece of wood into his side, like the barrel of a gun. “Don’t move, Geddes,” he said quietly. “I’d rather deal with you alive, but if need be, dead will serve.”

Geddes froze. He might not have known Joseph’s voice, but the fact that he had spoken to him in English was sufficient.

Morel strode forward and took the piece of wood. “Thank you,” he said easily. “Now I think we should all start off home while it’s still dark. It’s a long hike. But as long as we make the lines before dawn, we have as good a chance as we’ll get.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Geddes said flatly. “Shoot me if you want to.”

Morel was not in the least perturbed. “Actually I do rather want to,” he said quite lightly. “If you hadn’t shot and killed Northrup, we wouldn’t all have this present spot of bother. What the hell did you do that for? We could have made our point without hurting him.”

“Maybe you could,” Geddes said sullenly. “What about the poor bloody soldiers he was going to order into the next stupid piece of action? Wouldn’t be you, would it, Major! Your skin’s safe.”

“Not now, it isn’t,” Morel answered. “But a little testimony from you would help.”

Geddes sat down deliberately. “Too bad.” His sneer was visible in the half-light. “Because I’m staying here. Shoot me, if that’s what you want. It won’t get you anything—no testimony, no defense. Please yourself.”

“I wasn’t thinking of shooting you to death,” Morel told him. “Something rather more painful, but not fatal—at least not yet.”

Geddes was motionless. When he spoke, his voice wobbled a little. “You wouldn’t…”

“The Chaplain might not,” Morel admitted. “But I would. The way I see it, Geddes, it’s your life or mine. And not only mine, but Cavan’s and all the others’. Put like that, and you bloody bet I would!”

“If you get me back, what makes you think I’ll tell the truth?” Geddes stayed where he was, but there was no ease in his body now. His back was stiff and the muscles were corded in his neck. “I could say it was you! More than that, I could tell them how we got out of that farmhouse.” His smile widened a little. “I could tell them all about that nice V.A.D. driver who rescued us and her Yank friend. Do you want to see them shot, too? And make no mistake, they would be. Can’t have V.A.D.s deciding who faces court-martial and who doesn’t!” He turned slowly to peer at Joseph in the near dark. “Isn’t that right, Chaplain? You’d better go while you can. You’re in enemy territory!”

Did he know Judith was Joseph’s sister? Probably. The enormity of the situation washed over Joseph like a cold tide. What had he been thinking to imagine they could get Geddes home and that he would simply confess rather than take as many people down with him as he could? He was desperate—a murderer, a mutineer, and now a deserter as well. He had nothing to lose. If he were to survive at all, it would have to be this side of the lines.

“Maybe you can’t see it in this light,” Joseph said quietly, hating doing it. “But we are dressed as Swiss priests. We both speak German. You don’t, and you are in German uniform. Who do you think the Germans will believe if we’re caught?”

Morel did not move. Geddes sat still on the floor.

Outside, a car engine rumbled in the distance. They were not far from the road.

Geddes cleared his throat. “You wouldn’t do that, Chaplain. Isn’t that against your oath or something?”

“You’re planning to let Cavan be shot for your crime if we don’t get back, and to betray the V.A.D. who helped you if we do. What do you think, Geddes?” he asked.

“You tell the Germans who I am, I’ll tell them who you are,” Geddes replied, sitting a little more upright

The red in the wash was fading to pink and the shadows were impenetrable.

Joseph changed direction. “Why did you kill Northrup, anyway? You’ve made it very clear you don’t give a damn about the lives of your fellows, so it can’t be that, which is almost the only thing that would be understandable. What is it? Money? Hate? Stupidity?”

“Because he deserved it!” Geddes snarled. “He was an arrogant, incompetent fool as an officer, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. Always had to do it his way, even if it cost other men’s lives.” He was facing Joseph now, ignoring Morel. “But I know more about him than you do. Scare the hell out of him, he still wouldn’t have learned.” He jerked his arm toward Morel. “They all thought you could talk sense into him. I know better. He was born that way. His father thought the sun shone out of his ass, indulged him rotten, let him do any damn thing he wanted. Lorded it over the rest of the village, ran up debts, then when he hadn’t the guts to admit it to his father, lied in his teeth.”

Joseph did not interrupt. Geddes’s voice had the bitter ring of truth—at least the truth as he saw it and felt it burning like acid inside him.

“He ruined my father that way,” Geddes went on. “My father trusted him, the more fool he. I could’ve told him Northrup was a liar and a coward, but he wouldn’t hear ill of the old general’s son. Cost him his house. Our house!”

“So Northrup dies a hero, shot by mutineers, and Cavan goes to the firing squad for it,” Joseph said with equal bitterness. “Who was it you said was the fool?”

Geddes was silent.

“You’ll not make it here,” Joseph went on. “You’ll starve, if they don’t shoot you as a spy first. Nobody likes spies. They might question you a bit first, to see what you can tell them about our positions. Or is that what you’re going to bargain with, betraying your regiment?”

Geddes swore viciously.

“Then they’ll shoot you,” Joseph went on. “They don’t regard traitors any more highly than we do. You can come back to Passchendaele and at least tell your story.”

“If you come back you’ll get revenge,” Morel added. “If you stay here, you’ll get nothing at all. Although actually I’m not going to let you stay here anyway.” Without warning he walked forward and raised his arm. He gave Geddes a hard clip on the side of the head with the butt of the gun, and Geddes crumpled over without a sound. “Do you really want to take him back?” Morel asked quietly. “On the chance that he could still betray the V.A.D. who let us out? It was your sister, you know? Maybe you didn’t realize that?”

“Yes, I know,” Joseph replied. It would be ridiculous to deny it now. “Anyone looking into it could prove it pretty easily. But we’re not going to shoot Geddes. We’re going to get him back to the lines, and then through them.”

“How?” Morel asked. “He’s out cold now. Who knows what he’ll say when he comes around again, but whatever it is, it’ll be in English, because that’s all he knows.”

“Then we’ll have to see that he doesn’t say anything,” Joseph replied. “We’ll take him as a wounded man. We’re priests. That’s reasonable. We’ll be heroes. Who knows—they might even help us. We’ll tie his head and face up, with a gag underneath the bandages, so he can’t speak. Cut him a little so there’s blood. Just hope to hell that whoever helps us isn’t a surgeon!”

“We can’t carry him that far,” Morel pointed out reasonably. “We’ve come four or five miles at least!”

“If we go back on the road we’ll find some debris. With luck, something with wheels. We can cannibalize it and make a carriage for him.”

“I realize how little I knew you at Cambridge,” Morel said drily. “I was a child!”

“We all were,” Joseph replied. “Let’s tie him up first. We don’t know how soon he’ll come around.”

They used Geddes’s own shirt to bind him for lack of anything better. They slit it with the knife he had and tore it into strips. It would be enough to hold him until they found better. Then they took turns carrying him as far as the road. He was a young man, heavy-boned and well muscled although any surplus flesh had long since gone, and he was dead weight. In fact, twice Joseph was anxious enough about him to stop and make sure he was still breathing. He was not certain how hard Morel had hit him.

They had to carry him another laborious half mile along the road before they came to a car that had been blown to bits. But no matter how they tried to imagine it, there seemed no way to take any of it apart. Reluctantly they abandoned it and again began the arduous task of carrying him.

They were still three or four miles from the nearest trenches when they were passed by a couple of soldiers who had apparently become separated from a relief column. It was a summer night, cloudless with a three-quarter moon, and light enough for Joseph to see how gaunt they were. He judged them to be veterans who had been wounded, and sent back too soon out of desperation. He had seen the same in the British ranks. In so many ways this was a mirror image of home. It tore at him with a familiarity, an acute understanding he would rather not have had.

The two men stopped. Neither looked strong enough to help carry Geddes, for which Joseph was grateful. Geddes was going home to face trial. He would never fight again, but still it would be one deceit too far.

“Looking for the nearest field station?” the taller one asked.

“Yes,” Joseph replied. “Not sure how bad he is.”

Geddes must have been conscious. He started to wriggle and become extremely awkward to hold. Had they been alone Joseph would have threatened to drop him, and done it. Geddes was trying to shout.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Morel offered. “We’re looking for something to wheel him on, if we can find anything.”

“There’s bound to be something with wheels,” the shorter man said hopefully. “Even something broken might do. We could fix it to take the weight. He’s nothing like as heavy as field artillery.”

“Nothing like as useful, either,” Morel said under his breath.

They walked together, alternating Geddes’s body from one to another. The Germans insisted on taking their turn, and there was no way to refuse them without offense.

They had gone another half mile when they came to a pony cart at the side of the road. One wheel was blown to bits and what was left of the pony’s carcass was still between the shafts. They put Geddes down, Joseph adjusting the gag to make sure it was not working loose, and also retightening the binding around his body so it was less obviously a restraint and rather more like a bandage.

The other three undid the harness and lifted the broken trap off, then hauled it up onto the road. It sat sideways because of the missing wheel.

“Got to find another wheel for it,” Morel said thoughtfully. “Even one a different size would be better than nothing. Pity we have no tools. It won’t be so easy. Have to make do with lashing things together. Still, not far to go.”

The Germans had introduced themselves as Kretschmer and Wolff. Wolff and Morel now wandered off to see what they could find. Joseph and Kretschmer set about getting the three good wheels clean from the rubbish and making sure they could turn as freely as possible.

Wolff reappeared with a small wheel from a barrow of some sort, and Morel had a length of rope and a short piece of chain. Using everything, and considerable ingenuity, they lashed together a fourth leg for the cart, with the wheel on the end. It still did not make the height exactly, but it was a great help. Pleased with themselves, they laid Geddes on it as comfortably as possible, and set off on the road, taking turns, two at a time, carrying the shafts. The wheels squeaked appallingly.

“Here,” Kretschmer said cheerfully, digging into his pocket and bringing out a small bottle. “Have some schnapps.” He offered it to Joseph.

Joseph thanked him and took a mouthful. It felt as if a fire had exploded in his stomach. He was sure he could belch flame. Coughing hard, he thanked Kretschmer and passed it on to Morel, who took it rather more easily, then offered it to Wolff.

A mile later, after a couple more changes of shift as to who was pulling, they passed the schnapps around again. Joseph realized with a smile that they were marching in time to the squeaking of the wheels. The last shreds of cloud had gone and the moonlight shone pale on the cratered road, making black skeletons of the few shattered vehicles and broken trees. In the distance they could make out the standing walls of a burned house.

Wolff began to sing a drinking song. His voice was light and pleasant. Joseph remembered a little of the tune from his visits before the war, and he joined in.

An ambulance passed them going back, and a munitions supply convoy passed going forward to the lines.

They found a second song, and a third. There were still at least two miles farther to go. Joseph started to worry about how they were going to explain leaving these two men who in some absurd way had become friends. The last drop of schnapps was gone and none of them had any food. The squeaking of the wheels was incessant, and they were all unquestionably a little drunk.

Wolff began to sing again, this time in English, and they all joined in.

“There’s a long, long trail a-winding, into the land of my dreams,

“Where the nightingales are singing and a white moon beams…”

They went through all the verses, then began again. The three-quarter moon lit the road, but the only sound apart from their voices was the squeaking of the wheels, and the guns roaring a couple of miles ahead. The odors of bodily waste and putrefying flesh were already strong, and in the distance there was the flash of red and yellow mortar fire.

Joseph had no idea how they would get through the lines, other than the same way as they had come. Additionally, they would have to untie Geddes so he could run. But first they would have to find a way of parting from Kretschmer and Wolff, who with luck, would have a specific place to report.

But for this moment, his feet hurt, and his hands were blistered from holding the cart. His back and his legs ached and he was so hungry he could have eaten a raw turnip with pleasure, if he could have found one. But he was light-headed with schnapps, singing in the moonlight, and there was a kind of happiness in it that was desperately, passionately real.

CHAPTER

TWELVE

Mason returned to London with a heavy sense of oppression. His mind should have been crowded with thoughts of the slaughter at Passchendaele and the impending farce of the court-martial of Cavan, the only one of the twelve men who was actually in custody.

But all the way across the Channel, and then standing crowded in the troop train from Dover to London, jostled and jolted, kept upright largely by the press of other men’s bodies around him, he felt a deep and abiding misery that was almost paralyzing. There seemed no light in his inner landscape at all. Had he really imagined the court-martial would solve anything?

Rationally, perhaps the idiocy of it all, the casualty toll climbing toward a quarter million men for the gaining of one shattered town, would have been enough to make sane men call a halt to it, at whatever cost, on whatever terms. But was there any sanity left? No one looked at the whole monumental disaster. They all looked at their own little patch of it.

Perhaps it was too big for anyone to comprehend the ruin that stretched right from the Atlantic waves that swallowed men and ships off the battered shores of Britain right to the blood-soaked sands of Mesopotamia, to the snowbound graves of Russia. Europe was a charnel house. No one could count the millions of dead, let alone those maimed forever.

And yet Judith Reavley was prepared to risk her life to help eleven mutineers escape and flee to Switzerland, and Joseph was equally willing to risk his life to bring them back! In the scheme of things both actions were equally pointless, and just as likely to end in death.

Perhaps that was what hurt? Joseph had hardly any chance of succeeding, which—if he were a logical man—he would have known; but he wasn’t logical! He was an idealist, a dreamer, seeing the world he wanted more clearly than the real one.

Mason wished he did not like him so much. He had wit and imagination, courage to the point of stupidity—no, actually beyond it. And compassion, again beyond sense. You could not argue about honor with him because he did not listen. He followed his own star, even though it was an illusion; beautiful, better than the truth, but a mirage. And when he reached the place where he thought it was, he was going to discover that there was nothing there. That was what Mason hated: the disillusion he knew had to come. No one would be able to help them. What does a man do when he climbs the vast heights, struggles his way upward to heaven, and when bleeding and exhausted he gets there and finds it empty?

He was furious with Joseph for being so vulnerable, and leaving people like Mason to be wounded by his pain.

The train jolted and threw him against the man beside him, knocking him off balance. He apologized. They stopped somewhere in a siding, crowded together, hot and exhausted, legs aching.

The minutes dragged by. He was impatient, although it made little difference when he reached London. He was going to see the Peacemaker, and he would be admitted whatever time he got there. He was going to report on the court-martial and the mood of the men. The Peacemaker would not be pleased. The court-martial was not only going to be absurd, it was going to appear so. Might someone step in and prevent it even now? Was there anyone who could? If so, it would be obvious they had, and that would be absurd also.

The train started to move, lurching with a clang of couplings, then stopped again. Someone swore under his breath. There was another lurch and bang, and another. Then slowly they picked up speed.

Mason was lying to himself: It was not really the thought of Joseph that weighed him down, it was Judith. He could remember the touch of her lips, and her eyes as she looked at him when he drew away at last. He wanted to hold that forever, and he knew he was losing it already. Even if no one ever betrayed the fact that it was she and the American volunteer driver who had rescued the mutineers, she had been willing to do it. That was the division between them that was uncrossable. She was impulsive, quixotic, rushing in like a fool to do something noble without thinking of the inevitable result.

He should force himself not to care. He would only be hurt. She was not going to change. Possibly she was not even going to live through the war! That had always been a risk. Ambulance drivers did get killed, of course they did! Anyone on the battlefront ran that risk.

Why did that thought all but make him sick with despair? She was not part of his life. They had no commitment to each other. They had met only a few times, shared intense emotions of terror and hope and pity, laughed too much, to the edge of weeping, and kissed just once.

He was lying to himself again. She was part of his dreams, of the quiet places inside him that fed his strength, the things for which he struggled and climbed to his feet when he fell, the thing that gave the journey a purpose, a distinction, a place to belong.

The train was moving swiftly now, swaying with a kind of rhythm, everyone so close they held each other up, and all lost in their own thoughts.

How had he allowed himself to do something so stupid? Why could he not have chosen any of a dozen pretty, intelligent, and reasonable girls he had known? Because to persuade himself that he cared for any of them was one lie he could not get away with. There are parts of a man that will accept only the truth.

The train slowed going over the bridge, and finally pulled into Waterloo. They spilled out onto the platform—stiff, dirty, their bodies aching and so tired no one spoke. Mason pushed his way to the entrance to find a taxi, but there was a queue so long it would take hours, and many of the men standing there had injuries far worse than the few cuts and bruises he had. He went instead to the underground train, and an hour later was walking along Marchmont Street in the warm evening air. He passed a newspaper seller and ignored him. Their chief correspondent on the Western Front was a man he knew well. He could imagine what he would make of the court-martial story, and he would be bound to get it. He would make Morel look like a traitor, and Joseph Reavley like a fool.

He reached the Peacemaker’s home and was let in by the same manservant as always, and received in the upstairs sitting room. A moment later he was joined by the Peacemaker. He was wearing a smoking jacket, as if possibly he had been reading a little while, having a last cup of tea, or whisky and soda, before going to bed.

“You look tired,” he said sympathetically. “Rough crossing?” He gestured to Mason to sit down. He had already asked the manservant for sandwiches and fresh tea.

Mason sank into the familiar chair. “No. Calm as a millpond,” he replied. “But no room to sit on the train. Stood all the way from Dover. Hardly room to lift your elbows.” He was not looking forward to reporting on the state of the court-martial. He did so briefly, almost tersely, to get it over with.

“What a mess,” the Peacemaker said with little expression, surprising Mason by his control. “I assume someone helped the mutineers escape? Any idea who?”

“None at all,” Mason lied without compunction. “Could have been any of a thousand people. Nobody wants this court-martial to go ahead.”

“Any chance of capturing the escaped men?”

“One in a thousand, maybe,” Mason said, leaning back in his chair. “But I can’t see that it would improve matters. Just increase the chances of someone saying who helped them.” He spoke honestly, then felt the pain grip his heart and knot in his belly as he thought of Judith in the dock beside Cavan. It was a sense of loneliness as if the lights had gone out in the world, or in his part of it. But it was also jealousy. Judith admired Cavan, and surely he must admire her, too. They would stand side by side, ready to be crucified for loyalty to the men they served. Everyone else was shut out, especially someone like Mason who thought the whole thing was a pointless sacrifice.

He looked across at the Peacemaker, expecting his reaction to be one of fury, perhaps most of all for the waste of good men of just the kind of nobility, courage, and loyalty he himself so valued. But the Peacemaker was smiling bleakly, his eyes bright. He saw what Mason was describing, understood the words if not the heart of it, and was ready to move on to the thoughts that obviously took precedence with him. It was as if he were not really even surprised.

“Thank you,” he said aloud, crossing his legs comfortably. “It is exactly as you say: a final piece of idiocy. I wish we could prevent it, but I know of no way. I believe they are sending Faulkner to prosecute, and he will carry it to the last degree. A narrow man full of fears. He worships the letter of the law, because he has neither the courage nor the imagination to see the spirit behind it.”

Mason remained silent, not trusting himself to speak. His mind raced, skittering around, crashing into ideas in his search to think of anything at all he could say or do that could save Judith, or even save Cavan! Would he save Cavan, for her, knowing that it would exclude him forever?

That was a stupid and crassly sentimental thought. There was no forever. The darkness had begun in August 1914, and now, three years later, it was almost complete.

“I have more news from Russia,” the Peacemaker was saying. He was leaning forward again in his chair, fixing Mason with the intensity of his eyes. “They are on the brink of a real revolution! Not the halfhearted affair of Kerensky and his Mensheviks, but one that will change everything, sweep away all trace of the old regime. They will get rid of the tsar and all his family forever.” He made a short, jerky movement with his long hand. “Lenin is back, and he and Trotsky will lead it. It will be violent at first; there is no alternative.” His face pinched for a moment. “There will be many deaths, because the old guard is strong—they have been there for centuries and the corruption runs deep. No one gives up power unless they are forced to.” The light came back into his face. “But think of the future, Mason! Think of all that the Bolsheviks can do with their passion and ideals. A new order, started from the beginning! Unity, equality, an end to war.”

“It will drown Russia in blood.” Mason was appalled. He should have guarded his speech. He knew his protest was pointless, or—worse than that—dangerous, but the words were out in spite of himself.

“No, it won’t!” the Peacemaker argued, too excited to be angry. “It will be violent to begin with, of course it will. The tsar had warning after warning but he took no notice. What else can they do, Mason? As long as the Romanovs are alive there will always be the old nobility, the property owners, the oppressors who will try to return. They are of the old aristocracy of privilege and violence who know no social justice. They use the ordinary man as cannon fodder in a war the people of Russia have no interest in. It must stop! It is not the tsar or his supporters who are dying out there in the bitter snows of the Eastern Front—it is the ordinary man! It is the family of the ordinary man that is starving at home.”

He leaned farther forward. “Well, no more. The people will rise. They will refuse to fight. Mason, we are at the beginning of the end. By Christmas there will be peace in Europe. We can begin to rebuild, not just materially but socially as well.” His face was alight, his eyes burning.

It was a dream again. Mason had a sudden terror that he was being swept along in a fantasy in which everyone else believed, and only he could see the bitter truth. Individual ambitions would always play their part; men would build on towering visions and subsequently forget the details that would undo them.

The Peacemaker had lost sight of the individual in his sweeping plan, as if one man’s ideas could command the loyalty of millions, and their obedience.

For the first time Mason began to wonder if the Peacemaker was mad. No man had the power to do what he dreamed, and no man should.

Perhaps he had seen too many dead and become tired, his own passion exhausted. Judith would hate everything the Peacemaker had said. She would tell him it had nothing to do with reality, the way people actually were.

The Peacemaker would say her sight was too small, too ordinary.

She would say that his was too far from the human heart to see into it: too overweening, exercising not leadership but dominion.

“Mason!” the Peacemaker said sharply. “It is the beginning of the end! Can’t you see that? Peace! There need never be this abomination of war again!”

“Yes, sir,” Mason said a little flatly. “Well, not here anyway.”

The Peacemaker was not to have his spirits damped. “You’re tired. Go home and sleep. Write your article. Then go back to Passchendaele. Attend the court-martial and write the truth about it. The men deserve that. Cavan deserves it.”

Joseph and Morel, with Geddes in tow, made the crossing back through the German lines, over no-man’s-land and then through the French lines. They had great difficulty but achieved it in the same manner as they had crossed the other way: running, crawling, scrambling the moment it was dark enough between the star shells. Perhaps they had been a little less frightened, thanks to the schnapps, and for the same reason also a little clumsier.

They had found parting from Kretschmer and Wolff had occurred naturally because the German soldiers had had to report to their units. In the darkness and the tension before an attack, other people’s minds had been more preoccupied with what was to come than identifying individuals. Like the British and French armies, their regiments had also been decimated. The losses were staggering, and men were assigned anywhere just to fill in the numbers and make up a platoon or a brigade. There were more strangers than friends left. No one questioned Joseph or Morel closely, and the clerical disguise did the rest.

Getting through the French lines was more difficult. They were taken prisoner at the point of a rifle—in fact several rifles.

“We’ve got a German prisoner,” Morel said immediately, in French, indicating Geddes, whose mouth and lower face were still bound. He was still in his stolen German uniform, so there was nothing to make the statement appear untrue.

The French lieutenant in command looked dubious, but he accepted the story, at least on the surface. Joseph was so covered in mud that his dog collar was all but invisible.

When they had been taken farther back to a dry dugout suitable for interrogation, they told the truth, more or less.

The French lieutenant shook his head. “I suppose you want to take him back to Ypres now?”

Joseph smiled. “Yes, please. If you can help it would be enormously appreciated.”

The lieutenant shrugged. “Well, you can barely walk! And I don’t suppose your prisoner is very keen. We’d better have somebody drive you.” He rolled his eyes. “Entente cordiale,” he observed, making an elegant gesture of despair with his hands, but he was smiling. He might never admit it, but he obviously found it secretly rather entertaining. It was something different, and a story to tell.

He must know, just as Joseph did, and any other soldier anywhere would, that war is frequent terror, occasional hideous violence, sometimes terrible pain, a lot of exhaustion and discomfort and hunger, but it is mostly boredom. It is the comradeship, the laughter, the stories and bad jokes that make it bearable, the sharing of the glorious and the absurd, the dreams and memories, and the letters from home through which one clings to sanity.

Thus it was with the help of the French lieutenant, after a meager but well-cooked meal, and armed with a new stock of tall stories, they were driven the long way back to Passchendaele. They arrived the following day, with Geddes still bound but no longer gagged since there was no necessity for it.

They thanked the French driver profusely and offered him a tin of Maconachie’s and a bar of decent chocolate, which he accepted reluctantly but with grace.

Before reporting to Colonel Hook, Joseph had a brief moment alone with Morel. There was a military police sergeant in the doorway; there would be no second chance to escape. He wanted to ask Morel what he intended to say about his original escape. Faulkner would ask, and if Morel refused to answer he would add to the original charge that of concealing the identity of his helpers who had committed a criminal act in aiding him.

It was a crime Joseph was guilty of as well.

Far more urgent, however, was the matter of what Geddes would say. It would have been pointless trying to persuade him not to betray Judith and Wil. He was already facing the firing squad. There was nothing they could offer him or threaten him with. It would depend upon what the other men said. There was a faint glimmer of hope that if they all stuck to the same story, it would be believed over Geddes’s testimony. It would be suggested that he named Judith as accomplice out of revenge, because it was Joseph who had brought him back.

But he could say none of that now. He and Morel had traveled together, shared laughter and pain. Each man’s survival had depended upon the other; but now Joseph was going to resume his duties, and Morel was facing court-martial and perhaps dishonor and death. Nothing was equal between them anymore.

“Thank you” was all Joseph could think of to say that was not condescending, false, and completely pointless. He offered his hand.

Morel took it, held it hard for a moment, then turned and walked over to the sergeant. Without looking back, he went out of the door.

Admiral Hall had given Matthew forty-eight hours before reporting back on Faulkner, and Matthew knew that they could afford no more. He toyed with the idea of simply asking Shearing why he had chosen him, but in spite of what Hall had told him of Shearing and his family, he still could not silence that last whisper of doubt. Sandwell’s words stayed with him. Whatever he learned, it must be from his own investigation, his own sources. And it must be discreet.

But all the searching he was able to do swiftly and discreetly only confirmed that Faulkner was an extreme disciplinarian, rigid in his interpretation of the law, a man who seemed unfailingly to have pushed for the letter of the law above mercy. He had served all his career in England and had, so far as was known, never seen the battlefield or had the slightest knowledge of life in the trenches, let alone death in no-man’s-land.

He seemed the worst possible choice to prosecute Cavan, Morel, and the others. If Faulkner was single and he had any weakness, or even any redeeming factors, whatever it was, Dermot Sandwell had not known of it. He believed Faulkner was invulnerable, and Shearing had agreed to him for precisely that reason.

Matthew had no time left, and now no alternative but to face Shearing.

As they sat facing each other in Shearing’s office, Matthew began without apology or preamble. “Sir, I recently had a matter which I took directly to Admiral Hall. He gave me instruction to investigate it and report to him within forty-eight hours. That time is up today, and I have no satisfactory answer. I need to know if you have any knowledge on the subject.”

Shearing put down his pen carefully and sat back, staring at Matthew. “I assume this is about your vast conspiracy again,” he said slowly, his face tight and wary.

Matthew evaded the answer. “It is about Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner, sir,” he said. “He is going to prosecute Cavan. And any of the other men, if they are found.”

Shearing’s eyes were cold. “I told you, Reavley, that matter is in hand. You are not to interfere with it. That is a direct order. If you disobey me, I shall have you transferred to the front—immediately. Do you understand me?”

Matthew felt the chill as if a window had been opened onto an ice storm. “Yes, sir. But I have been studying his past record…”

Shearing sat upright sharply. “Who gave you permission to do that? You could have jeopardized the whole court-martial! You—”

“Admiral Hall, sir,” Matthew cut across him.

Shearing’s eyes were like black stones. “Do you think me incompetent, Reavley? Or that I am involved in this conspiracy of yours?”

Matthew stared at him and felt guilty for the spark of pain he saw in Shearing’s face. It took him by surprise and he found himself speechless.

Shearing breathed a faint sigh. “There is no good solution, Reavley. Faulkner is simply the best we have—”

“I don’t see how,” Matthew interrupted him bitterly. “He’s—”

“I know what he is!” Shearing snapped. “If you think about it a little harder, use your brain rather than your emotions, you might see it yourself.”

“He’ll insist on the charge of mutiny and murder,” Matthew said wretchedly. “General Northrup might have moderated it, to save his son’s reputation, but from what everyone says of Faulkner, there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance he’ll go for anything less than the full thing, and a firing squad—no matter what a rank injustice it is, who gets executed, or even what it does to the regiment, or even the whole damn Western Front! He’s an obsessive, single-vision martinet.” His anger and helplessness made him louder than he had intended.

“That is precisely what he is, and it is the single weakness that may, with great skill and luck, be turned against him.” Shearing’s voice was elaborately patient as he held up his hand, fingers stiff. “There are three possible verdicts: guilty of mutiny and murder, guilty of mutiny and manslaughter, or guilty of gross insubordination and accidental death—for all except the man who deliberately front-loaded the live round. He alone is guilty of murder.”

“Faulkner will insist on mutiny and murder,” Matthew interrupted him. “Even mutiny and manslaughter will get the firing squad. They might be able to delay it a while on appeal, but what use is that? The end is just as inevitable, and everyone knows it.”

“Which is why there is no use finding a prosecution who will go for the middle charge,” Shearing said grimly.

Matthew still saw no hope. “There’s no way Faulkner will accept gross insubordination!”

Shearing’s lips were drawn into a tight line. “Of course there isn’t! He will insist on murder, and if we can get the right man to defend Cavan and the other men, he will force Faulkner to prove it, to the very last act and word, even thought, beyond any doubt at all, reasonable or unreasonable. He will hang on like a bulldog, until the arena is swimming in blood, but he won’t let go.”

Matthew was stunned.

Shearing’s voice was very low. “It will destroy Howard Northrup’s reputation, but for his father it will be like seeing him killed again. It will show the court exactly why Cavan and Morel and the others felt they had no choice whatever, no morally acceptable choice, but to take an action which they believed would save the lives of at least some of the men they led, and who trusted them, for whom the army had made them responsible.”

At last Matthew understood. He breathed out very slowly. “It’s a hell of a risk, sir.”

“Can you think of something better?”

“No,” Matthew admitted. “Have you got a military lawyer with the nerve to do that? And the knowledge of the front line?”

Shearing smiled with a bitter irony. “No. It’s customary for an officer from the regiment to defend on lesser charges. I think the very best they can do is pick one of them this time….”

Matthew was appalled. “Against Faulkner? His opponent will be cruficied!”

There was a bright, hard light in Shearing’s eyes. “It doesn’t need a brilliant student of the law, Reavley. It needs a man of passion, courage, and undeviating loyalty, a man who knows the accused and what they have endured, and why. A man who will be prepared to sacrifice himself before he will stand by and allow an injustice to be done. A man whom the court will respect as one of their own.”

Matthew could feel his heart pounding in the oppressive room with its still, hot air. “And you have such a man?”

“Naturally! He knows the case better than anyone else, and he believes in their moral innocence. Also, he does not know when he is beaten, so he will not give up.”

“Joseph…”

“Precisely,” Shearing agreed. “I have an excellent man there to brief him. Let’s hope he does not get himself killed in the meantime!”

In Passchendaele the fighting wore on. A sense of foreboding filled the air they breathed, the clothes they wore, the food they ate, and darkened the vision, like the rain, everywhere. It was all hopeless, as if the final insanity had seized the world. Rescue was pointless. Whoever did not die today would die tomorrow, or the day after.

Colonel Hook sent for Joseph. It was late. As August moved into September, the nights were drawing in. Summer was fading.

“The court-martial is going ahead,” Hook said gravely. “The preliminaries are tomorrow, the real stuff the day after.”

Joseph had expected it. It was unrealistic to hope for anything different. All the arguments and pleas had been made and rejected. The desperate state of the battle had been argued, as had the morale of the army, the possible effect of such a trial and the verdict on the entire Western Front, and therefore on the war as a whole.

“Rubbish!” Faulkner had dismissed it. “We are winning the battle of Passchendaele,” he had insisted. “The discipline of the entire army depends upon never, in any circumstances, being seen to allow mutiny and murder. If disgruntled men who think they know better than their officers can take the law into their own hands and commit murder and get away with it, then no officer will be safe from now on. It is impossible that you can be so stupid as not to see that. If we do not serve justice both when we wish to, and when we do not, then we serve nothing. The essence of justice is that personal feelings do not enter into it. Either it is impartial, or it is meaningless.”

Alone with Hook, he was at a loss to know why he had called him to tell him no more than they already knew.

The briefest of smiles touched Hook’s face. “I know you are already aware of that, Reavley. What you don’t know is that it has been requested from London that you represent the accused men.”

“Of course I shall be there,” Joseph said quickly. “But it would be far better if their defense did not call me. Much of what I know I cannot testify to. Let Morel tell them about finding Geddes and bringing him back, and anything he said about Northrup and his father. He knows it all as well as I do.”

Hook pushed his hand through his hair. “I have no intention of letting you testify, Reavley. I know perfectly well that you know who helped them escape. I have a damn good idea myself. I am not calling you as a witness. You are to defend them.”

“What?” Joseph was horrified.

“You are to defend them,” Hook repeated.

“Me? I have no experience—and no natural ability,” Joseph protested. “I don’t know the first thing about military law. They need an expert. In fact they need the best there is.”

“No,” Hook said wearily. “They need a man who believes in them, and doesn’t know when to give up. They need a man who knows what it is to fight, and what our losses have been.” The briefest flicker of amusement touched his eyes. “I would also prefer it if you were not called to testify. I’m sure you’d lie in your teeth rather than implicate…whoever it was who helped them escape.” His gaze did not waver. “Even if it was a civilian, such as the V.A.D., for example, and not subject to military law, only ordinary imprisonment. They were not worried about betrayal of anyone. Morel in particular thought you would lie, possibly hating doing it, but lie nevertheless.”

“I must remember to thank him,” Joseph said drily. “That doesn’t alter the fact that I have no experience. Faulkner would make mincemeat of me.”

“I don’t think so,” Hook told him. “But regardless of that, it is you they have chosen, and I agree with them. And London is satisfied.”

“That’s hardly enough!” Joseph exclaimed, desperation rising inside him, and a hard, stomach-twisting fear. He would fail! He would let them all down!

Hook did not flinch. “They’re facing the firing squad, Reavley. They’ve a right to ask for whomever they wish. I’m assigning you, so you’d better go and prepare. You’ve got tonight and probably most of tomorrow. You’ve seen courts-martial before. You know the drill. There’ll be people there to keep you straight on the law. If you’re still on speaking terms with God, you’d better ask Him for a little help. You’ll need it.”

“Yes, sir.” Joseph saluted a little clumsily, and walked out into the darkness wondering if he was actually still on speaking terms with God. He had once believed that he knew the truth of doctrine, and morality, and that he could argue it with conviction.