At Some Disputed Barricade

But that was a long time ago. Now he was confused, torn by emotion, and above all afraid. He stood in the mud and looked up at the enormity of the September sky, for once glittering with stars.

“Please help me” was all that came to his lips. “Father, please help me.”

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Joseph’s mind was racing, and yet the words poured over his head uselessly. He was sitting in his own dugout with an army legal officer trying to help him understand the legal niceties of what he could do, or not do, in order to defend the twelve men. Outside in the distance the gunfire was sporadic, mostly sniper fire, but it was growing dark and the rain was starting again. In an hour or two some poor devils would be going over the top.

The air was heavy and close; it seemed to cling to the skin. The oil lamp on the table burned steadily with a small, yellow flame, casting highlights and shadows on the familiar objects, the few books, the picture of Dante, a tin of biscuits, the pen and paper.

They had been through the procedure three times. Joseph was feeling as if the whole trial and verdict were as inevitable as the tides of the sea, and anything he did would make as little difference as he would to them.

“Remember the difference between civilian and military law,” Major Ward said urgently, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Civilian law has the right of the individual at the front, the first concern. Military law is at least as much about the good of the unit. You’ll have soldiers in active service on the panel. The president will be a major general from a division just like this one, who’s fought along the Ypres Salient since 1914, just as you have. Give him half a chance and he’ll be on your side. Never forget that, Reavley, and you could save them.”

Joseph rubbed his hand across his brow, pushing his hair back so hard it hurt. “Why on earth did they choose me? You know the law. You’d do a far better job. I’m a priest, an ordinary soldier!”

“Haven’t you been listening?” Ward demanded, frustration and weariness sharpening his voice. “That is exactly why you might succeed! You don’t need to know the law, man! You need to know the army, the trenches, the reality of death and loyalty and what it means to be part of a regiment.”

Joseph wanted to believe him but he had no faith in his ability to overcome the unarguable facts of the law. The men were placing a trust in him that was born of faith and desperation, and possibly some hope he had given them falsely, and beyond his ability to live up to. He would have betrayed them as deeply as the whole war had. In his own way, he was as incompetent as Northrup, another man put into a job for which he had not the skills.

“Nobody wins them all,” Ward said to him drily. “But you damn well fight them all!”

An ugly suspicion flashed into Joseph’s mind that they had put him onto this case because they did not want one of their own to be seen to defend mutineers, and of course to fail.

“Yes, sir,” he answered.

Joseph got little sleep. By the following day, when the court-martial proceedings were under way with the usual declarations, and the accused men’s right to challenge all the officers was in progress, time had assumed the character of an infinitely slow nightmare.

There was a farcical element to sitting in this airless room in what was now September heat, and hearing all the prescribed questions put to each man as if somehow it were going to make any difference. As Ward had said, the president was major general Hardesty from a nearby section of the line, and the other officers were Colonel Apsted from the regiment immediately to the west, and Major Simmons from a regiment to the east. It would have been pointless to object to any of them, but the protocol had to be followed.

Throughout, Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner sat behind his table, backbone like a poker. His face was tense, only a tiny muscle twitching in his cheek betrayed the looseness of his hands in front of him as a calculated pose.

The twelve accused stood together. It was an unusual circumstance for there to be so many, but the prosecution had chosen deliberately not to divide them. To present one accusing another might allow an intimidated or overcompassionate president to say he could not choose between them. He could excuse all on the argument that it would be better for the army to let guilty men go free than to be seen to punish the innocent. But innocent was a word Joseph already knew Faulkner did not allow easily. He believed that the authorities hardly ever accused innocent men, and in this particular case the evidence was overwhelming.

Joseph felt the sweat trickle down his sides and soak into his tunic, and yet he was cold. He looked around the room. He must not avoid their eyes. Morel and Cavan were easy to distinguish at a glance because they were officers. The rest of the men were noncommissioned. Most of them had been in the army since late 1914 or early 1915. That alone made them worthy of some respect, especially from a man like Faulkner, who had never seen a shot fired in anger. He had never gone over the top at night, into the mud and darkness, knowing that the men facing you had guns as well, and the murderous shrapnel could tear a man’s body in half and leave his head and chest a yard away from his legs, and his guts streaming across the ground.

Joseph forced his mind back to the present. These men had asked him for help, not pity. Anger only clouded his thinking.

The charges were being read out: mutiny and murder. He had known it would be, but it was still a crushing of ridiculous hope to hear them.

He looked around to see General Northup. Had he really tried to get the charge reduced? Or had his grief and anger at the death of his son overridden everything else, and he had dismissed the ruin of his reputation?

Despite Joseph’s sympathy for General Northrup, it was the sight of Morel that bit most deeply into his emotions. He could remember the youthful Morel arriving at Cambridge his first year. The man he was now—honed hard by mental and physical suffering, the isolation of leadership, the rigor of living with his own decisions—was not even foreshadowed in him then. That had been only five years ago, but when the world was still young.

Morel should have been graduating this year, and wondering what to do with his life! Instead he was standing in a farmhouse near Ypres expecting to face a firing squad of his own countrymen, because he had rebelled against what he believed passionately to be wrong. Was there any way on earth Joseph could make that argument in his defense?

Morel stood straight now, at attention as the charges were repeated.

The farmhouse room was full of men, and a few women from among the nurses and V.A.D. corps. The three officers were seated behind the wooden table. Joseph and Faulkner were at separate tables immediately in front.

Joseph still had only the barest idea what he was going to say. He was reluctant to think of departing from the truth on moral grounds, and in practical terms that course was far too dangerous. To be caught in even an evasion would destroy the only advantage he had, which was the hope of understanding. If they had any defense at all, then it was that their act had been driven by a moral necessity.

The preliminary formalities were over. Faulkner rose to his feet, but did not move from behind his table. He had a curious quality of stiffness that was apparent from the very beginning. He made no gestures with his hands nor did he even seem to alter the weight of his body from one foot to the other.

He called his first witness: the medical orderly who had initially examined Howard Northrup’s body. The man was manifestly unhappy, but the facts were not contestable. Northrup had died as the result of a rifle bullet to the head. It had struck him through the brow. He had to have been facing forward at the time.

“Let me understand you clearly, Corporal Tredway,” Faulkner said heavily. “Whoever fired the shot was standing in front of Major Northrup, looking straight at him?”

“Yes, sir.” Tredway gulped. He had no room for evasion, although he would clearly like to have had.

“Head up?” Faulkner persisted. “Head down? Turning, ducking?”

“No, sir,” Tredway said wretchedly.

“And you know this how?”

“Path of the bullet, sir. Straight through and out at the back, sir.”

“And the distance the man with the gun stood from Major Faulkner when he fired the shot?”

General Hardesty looked inquiringly at Joseph, but Joseph made no objection.

“The distance?” Faulkner repeated.

“Hard to say, sir,” Tredway answered.

“Touching him? Fifty feet? Half a mile?” Faulkner raised his eyebrows.

“Most like fifty feet, sir.”

“How do you know this, Corporal?”

“’Cos o’ the wound, sir. An’ how far the bullet went through.”

“And can you tell the kind of gun it was fired from? At least whether it was a handgun or a rifle? A British gun or a German one? Or French, perhaps?”

“We’ve got no French ’ere, sir,” Tredway said tartly. “They’re up farther to the east.” There was clear contempt in his voice for Faulkner’s ignorance. He was a man who shuffled papers, not one who fought.

“I was thinking of the gun itself, Corporal,” Faulkner corrected him. “Not the nationality of the man who fired it.”

There was a rustling in the room. Someone coughed.

Tredway flushed. “A rifle, sir.”

“British?”

“Couldn’t say, sir.” His jaw set hard.

“A rifle, possibly British, fired at apparently fifty feet,” Faulkner summarized. “Thank you, Corporal.” He gestured to invite Joseph to ask his questions.

Joseph stood up. Now that the moment had come he felt a sort of calm hopelessness. “Corporal Tredway, your knowledge is impressive, although I imagine after three years’ active service you have seen a great many wounds of all sorts? Rifle, revolver, pistol, shrapnel, shell splinters, even injuries caused by explosions, overturning gun carriages, panicking horses…”

Faulkner stared at him with mounting irritation.

Hardesty winced but did not interrupt. His expression suggested pity more than anger.

“Yes, Chaplain…I mean…Captain Reavley,” Tredway said, frowning.

“Any way to tell if they are caused by accident or by malice, Corporal?” Joseph asked.

“No, sir,” Tredway said, meeting Joseph’s eyes squarely. There was a flicker in them, as if he might have thought of smiling. “’Cept for horses panicking, like. That’s almost always accident. They don’t often do it maliciously. They’re better than people, that way.”

There was a slight ripple of laughter in the room.

Faulkner’s face tightened.

“And gun carriages,” Tredway added. “That’s more likely accident, down to stupidity…sir. They don’t have no malice neither.”

Joseph preempted Faulkner. “But gunshots would be most likely intended, I assume. Is there any way you can tell, from the injury itself?”

“No, sir. None at all, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Faulkner declined to pursue the issue. General Hardesty also did not take up his right to question the witness. He looked around slowly, gauging the emotion of the court, and perhaps judged correctly that almost to a man they were in sympathy with the accused. They would have to be forced or tricked into giving any evidence against them if it could be withheld, misinterpreted, or simply denied.

But Joseph knew it was a shallow victory. In the end it was the officers who would decide, not the men who crowded the benches or stood at the back waiting, their hands clenched, faces tense. There was no jury, no public opinion. Those who attended were either witnesses called or men who were off the front line due to injury.

The next witness took the stand. He recounted who he had seen—and where—on the day of Northrup’s death. He was neatly tricked by Faulkner into stating that most of the men charged, and Cavan in particular, had not been at their usual posts in the early evening. In fact, Cavan had not been in any of the places he usually was at that hour. The man’s testimony, intended to help, went to indicate that Cavan behaved out of character, and that no one knew where he was.

Joseph knew he would not improve the situation by questioning the man; more likely it would make it more obvious that he was lying in an attempt to save Cavan.

Hardesty looked as if he was aware that emotion was having a far larger effect than the facts, but he did not intervene.

Faulkner called more men and elicited similar responses, building a picture of curious and unexplained behavior that night. Each piece was minute, but placed carefully together, as Faulkner did, they were like the fractions of a mosaic, and the picture was chillingly clear. Twelve men were unable to find a single witness as to where they were. The conclusion was only implicit, but it sank with deeper and deeper weight on everyone in the hot and overcrowded room.

There was a brief recess. Joseph saw Judith come in. Actually what he saw was the crowded men move to make space for her, and then the light on the fair streaks of her hair, bleached from when the summer had been bright, before the battle at Passchendaele, and the rain. Their eyes met. She was frightened, but had he not known her so well he would not have seen it in her pale face.

The court resumed.

Faulkner began calling his other witnesses. This was the most difficult part for him, far worse than any defense Joseph might mount. He must prove some kind of motive for such a terrible and self-destructive act as mutiny, and by officers, in particular, who had until that time shown exemplary service. There cannot have been a man in the room, or beyond it in the regiment, who was not burningly aware that Cavan had been put up for the Victoria Cross. Compared with him Howard Northrup was both a moral coward and a military fool.

At the same time Faulkner must not allow anyone to suggest that Northrup had deserved his fate, or even that he was seriously incompetent. It must seem that every other man faced with the same situations might have given the same orders, with the same results. There must be motive, but no justification. It was a delicate balance, but he stood on the balls of his feet, weight slightly forward, voice confident.

Joseph looked over to where General Northrup sat, his face so pale the shadows under his eyes looked like old bruises. His lips were tight, his nose pinched as if he had long carried an inner pain which had finally come to a crisis.

Joseph turned away. To stare at a man in such distress was intrusive, the more so because Joseph would only add to it when circumstance allowed him. There was little room for compassion here, perhaps none at all. It was deeply against his instinct to strike at a man whose grief he had seen so openly, who had possibly even trusted him. But gentleness toward one now might yield the death of the others, and his loyalties could not be divided. Everyone else in the court might be evenhanded, but his duty could be only to the men whose champion he was.

Faulkner was careful in his questioning, almost to a fault. He called men as witnesses who had been on the edge of incidents, and were not caught up emotionally. By presenting such a bland view he showed that he was not ignoring the incidents. He conceded that they had occurred, robbing Joseph of the need to and if Joseph were to then call men who gave very different accounts, they would be seen as biased.

Their closeness would in itself color their views and they could easily be suspected of leaning too far in the opposite direction, of seeing fault in Northrup simply to justify the actions of their friends who now faced judgment. Joseph saw the trap, and yet he still feared overbalancing into it.

His hands clammy and his chest tight, he rose to cross-examine the third witness, a young soldier who had been at the front only a matter of three months. He came from the Derbyshire Peak District and had no ties with Cambridgeshire.

“Private Black,” Joseph began. “You have given us a clear account of this unfortunate accident with the gun carriage, which you say some of the men felt was Major Northrup’s fault. You saw nothing to suggest that it was?”

“No, sir,” Black replied. He looked uncomfortable and confused. He was very young, perhaps sixteen.

“But you say they were extremely angry?”

“Yes, sir. At least, they were cussing a lot, and swore he was…well…not up to much as a soldier.”

“Did anyone suggest that he should take advice in the matter from some of the more experienced men?”

“I dunno, sir.”

“Are you quite sure about that, Private Black?”

Black glanced at Faulkner, then back at Joseph. It seemed to occur to him for the first time that he was out of his depth, and that whatever Faulkner promised him, it was the men of his own regiment whom he would have to live with, and very possibly die with. He stood fidgeting slightly, clenching and unclenching his hands.

Joseph could not afford to be sorry for him. Everyone in the room—and especially the officers who would have to make the judgment—must surely have seen that look.

“Do you know why you in particular were asked to give evidence today?” Joseph pressed his advantage.

“No, sir.”

“You did not have a particularly good view of the accident?”

“No, sir.” Black was now visibly unhappy.

“Nor much knowledge of field guns, horses, mud, bad weather?”

Black was sweating. “No, sir. I only just got here, sir.”

“Did you volunteer to testify?”

“No, sir!” That was from the heart.

“I see. Perhaps you simply represent a certain point of view, a very impartial one?” Joseph suggested.

“I think impartiality is what we are seeking, is it not?” Faulkner interrupted coldly. “It is the indulgence of emotion and personal opinion over obedience, discipline, and loyalty which has brought us to this place.”

“Impartiality perhaps,” Joseph said, knowing his voice was rough-edged with the power of his own feelings. “But not apathy, indifference, or, above all, total ignorance.” He stopped himself from continuing only with an intense effort. In spite of himself, of seeing it open in front of him and knowing its exact nature, he was still overbalancing into the trap.

Faulkner smiled. “I have nothing further to ask Private Black,” he said.

Hardesty turned to Black.

“Did you hear talk of mutiny, Private?”

“No, sir!”

“Simply distress at an accident?”

“Yes, sir!”

He was excused, and Faulkner proceeded with perhaps a little less assuredness. He called more witnesses of military misjudgment, lack of knowledge or foresight, but always making it seem like no more than the misfortunes of combat that happened all the time, and to other men as well as Northrup. He built up a careful picture of resentful men who were desperate to escape the battle line, to blame someone else for their pain and fear, and their helplessness to alter the terrible fate ahead of them.

The case closed for the day.

Joseph left the farmhouse and walked alone back toward his dugout. It was more than four miles, but he wanted the time alone to think. If there was to be justice then eleven of the twelve men would be found guilty of no more than insubordination, and that even with understanding; but Howard Northrup would not be exposed to the whole army as an arrogant and incompetent man, a failure. He had been placed by circumstances into a position he was not suited to fill. Possibly an ambitious father who saw what he wished to was additionally responsible. But was there any justice served by forcing him, publicly, to see every bitter moment of his own mistakes, and what they had cost?

Joseph would like to have saved them all.

He trudged through the mud in the dying sun, refusing to accept that it was impossible. Was he capable of virtually crucifying General Northrup?

If he did not, then his evasion, his cowardice, would condemn Cavan and Morel and the others. And it could also betray the rest of the regiment who trusted him to fight for them all. And they did see the fate of them all in whatever happened to the twelve, he had seen that in their eyes, the tension in their movements, the questions they did not ask. They believed they knew him.

Perhaps that was the decision made. He could strip the defenses for Howard Northrup, and those from his father, as far as he had to. He would be careful to say nothing but the truth. That was bitter!

No, it wasn’t! The fact that in one man’s opinion something was true, or part of a truth, did not rob him of judgment whether to speak it or not. The responsibility was still his. It was the ultimate hypocrisy to shelter behind morality instead of standing before it.

He reached the lines, ate a brief meal of stew and hard bread already beginning to mold, then walked through the mud to his dugout. He read for a little while, and finally fell asleep after three in the morning, with the words crying out in his mind “Father, help me!” but no idea of what that help could be.

The next day began with Faulkner once again calling witnesses from among the men who had been at the front only a short time and had no personal loyalty to Morel or to Cavan, and no friendship with the other men of the Cambridgeshire regiments.

Within the first half hour, his questions turned in the direction Joseph had dreaded from the beginning. “Why,” Faulkner asked, “if the accused men were not guilty as charged, did they escape custody and flee the battlefield, and try to reach neutral Switzerland? And what is more interesting—how did that escape occur?”

Joseph was cold to the pit of his stomach. Had he underestimated Faulkner in thinking he did not know that Judith and Wil Sloan had helped them? Was he looking for someone to betray that? Was he trying to apply pressure on Joseph that would force him to lie to protect them both, and thus expose himself as a passionately interested party doing everything he could to conceal a crime out of personal motives?

Was that why they had chosen Joseph to defend the men? Because he had the ultimate weakness and they had known it all along? How blindly, arrogantly stupid he had been! Yet again he had walked, open-eyed, into total betrayal! And not only Cavan, Morel, and the other men, but Judith and Wil Sloan would pay for it with their lives.

Now he was angry, deeply and passionately angry. He was sweating. The room seemed to roar in his ears as if he were underwater. Surely the Germans had not advanced far enough to make the room ring and tremble like this?

Faulkner was questioning one of the guards who had kept the prisoners in the farmhouse rooms. The man stared back stolidly, answering exactly as required.

“Yes, sir, Captain Morel refused to give his word, sir, so we had no choice but to lock him up.”

“But separately, not with the other ranks?” Faulkner clarified.

“That’s right, sir.”

“And he escaped?”

“Looks that way, sir.”

Faulkner’s eyebrows shot up. “You have some doubt, Corporal Teague?”

“Only know he was there in the evening, an’ gone the next morning, sir,” Teague replied blankly. “Don’t seem likely he was abducted.”

There was a snigger of laughter around the room.

Faulkner flushed. “You find this amusing, Corporal?” he said icily. “We are investigating a man’s death!”

“Holy God!” Teague exploded, his face suddenly white. He swung his arm out in a generally northeast direction. “We got a thousand men out there dying every single bloody day!” he shouted. “One idiot officer gets a clean bullet in his brain, or what passes for one in his case, and you become righteously indignant, as if it never happened before? I got no bloody idea what happened to him, and I don’t sodding care!”

His voice was growing more strident. “Good men got crippled or killed because he was too stiff-necked to let anyone tell him what he didn’t know. And God ’elp ’em if they tried! If someone bust them out, I don’t know who it was. They give me a clip on the back of the head, an’ I don’t blame them one bit, but I never saw their faces.” He flung his arm out to point at the accused men, but still stared defiantly at Faulkner. “Haven’t you got something better to do than stand here arguing the toss over those poor sods? We’re going to lose the war ’cos you lot shot us from behind!”

Faulkner’s face was burning with rage, but General Hardesty stepped in before he could speak.

“Corporal Teague, one of the reasons we fight this war is because we believe in the rule of law, not of barbarism. We appreciate that you have been tested to the extreme by seeing the deaths of your comrades, some of them perhaps unnecessary deaths, but you will apologize to the court for your disrespect, and then answer Captain Reavley’s questions, should he have any for you.”

Teague controlled himself with an effort. “Sorry, sir.” His voice was strangled. He turned attentively to Joseph, his expression changing to one of utmost respect.

Joseph stood up, an overwhelming sense of belonging surging through him, and a passionate will to succeed.

The tension in the room was teetering, willing Joseph to defeat Faulkner, but the law was even more tightly around the accused men now than before Teague had spoken. But Joseph’s mind was racing with fear for Judith. Did everyone know it was she who had rescued the prisoners, just as surely as they all knew Northrup was a fool?

They would not execute Judith, but they’d send her to prison. Even after all she had done here, the years of hardship and danger, pushing herself to exhaustion, living in hunger and filth. Would prison finally destroy her? Would bitterness at the injustice of it break her spirit?

“Corporal Teague,” he began. What could he ask this man who so fiercely wanted to help?

“Yes, sir.” Teague stood smartly to attention.

“You guarded these men during their imprisonment?”

“Yes, sir.” There was disappointment in Teague’s face. He had been hoping for something brilliant.

An idea flashed in Joseph’s mind, partial, a hope only. “Did you hear them talking to one another at all?”

Teague hesitated. “Yes, sir.” His eyes were wide, tentative. He wanted to be led.

It must be done with exquisite care. Joseph breathed in and out slowly, steadying himself. “Were they always aware of you overhearing them?”

“Er…no, sir.”

Good. He dared not smile, not give the slightest encouragement. “Did you ever hear them say that they had intended to kill Major Northrup?”

“No, sir.” The disappointment was back again in Teague’s face, deeper.

Faulkner gave an exaggerated sigh of exasperation.

The silence prickled in the room.

Joseph plunged on. “Did you ever hear them say that they had wished he would listen to advice from men who were familiar with the battlefield? With horses, for example? Or the peculiar nature of the clay mud here?” Faulkner objected, but Joseph ignored him. “Or when it was more dangerous,” he said clearly, “or less, to go over into no-man’s-land to try to recover wounded or dead? Or even the lie of poison gas. Or sniper fire, visibility, any of the things the rest of us have learned by experience over the years.”

Teague was following him now. “Yes, sir,” he said cautiously. “Yes, I did hear them say as it would’ve been better if he would’ve listened, but no one could make him. ’E were dead stubborn….” He blushed. “Sorry, sir. But ’e were a very proud, unbending sort of man. The ignorant ones often are.”

There were several gasps in the room, followed by a moment’s silence.

“Why did they want him to take advice, Corporal?” Joseph needed him to nail it home.

Teague blinked. “’Cos we were getting hurt bad, or killed,” he said with incomprehension at Joseph’s stupidity. “No man sees his mates getting killed for nothing an’ stands by with his fingers up his arse…sir.”

“You mean the army is built on loyalty to the men beside you, whose lives depend upon you and yours upon them, even more than upon obedience to discipline?” Joseph made it doubly clear.

“Yes, sir, I do mean that,” Teague agreed. “Being obedient isn’t enough. When you’re out there with Jerry firing everything he’s got at you, you got to be right as well.”

“Yes,” Joseph agreed. “Yes, I know. I’ve carried the bodies home.”

“Yes, sir. I know you have. And a lot o’ the ones still alive.”

Joseph thanked Teague and resumed his seat at the defense table.

Faulkner knew well enough to remain silent. His face was pale, the freckles standing out.

Hardesty asked Teague again if he was certain that he did not know who had let the prisoners go. Teague repeated that he had no idea.

Faulkner called upon the testimony of other men, particularly those who had searched for the escapees afterward, asking about how the escape could have been effected, and drew from them the answers he wanted. It required a vehicle large enough to transport all eleven men, and of course a driver. No vehicle had been reported lost or abandoned. The conclusion was obvious: An ambulance had carried away the prisoners.

The room seemed to be hotter, smaller, the walls crowding inward.

Joseph accepted the possibility that he would have to lie under oath to defend Judith. Could he? Could he swear on the Bible that he knew so well, not only in the poetic glory of the King James version but in the Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic as well?

Yes, he could. Words were strong and beautiful, but it was the reality they spoke of that mattered. What were all the scriptures in the world worth if he placed his own emotional comfort first and let Judith suffer, even be broken, for doing what she believed was essentially the right thing? And the fact that all the men of the regiment whom he knew, whose lives and dreams he shared, thought so too eased the decision. Yes, he would look Faulkner in the face, and lie to him. If he had to.

Judith was wondering the same thing, and yet it did not frighten her as much as it should have. She had known the risk when she took it, and would have done it again. It was Cavan and Morel she was afraid for, and the other ten, not herself. She had known Teague would lie about knowing who was behind the escape.

She looked at General Northrup’s face and saw the pain in it. He must be realizing now that every rank and file man in the room, every man who actually went out into the mud and death of battle, would risk his own freedom, perhaps his life, to lie for the men accused of Major Howard Northrup’s death. Could there be a loneliness, a failure more bitter?

There was a stir in the crowd to her left and automatically she turned to look. It was Richard Mason. As if he felt her gaze, he turned toward her. He must be here to report on the court-martial. He looked tired, more than physically exhausted, as if there were a weariness inside him. The ridiculous thought flashed into her mind that he had been wounded and what she saw was the debilitation of pain. But she knew that was not so. She had seen him too recently for such a wound to have been sustained and then healed enough for him to be here now.

As soon as there was a break in the proceedings she looked for him, to find him also looking for her. When they met outside the farmhouse only a few yards from other war correspondents, drivers, and witnesses, she could think of nothing to say. She knew from the fine lines in Mason’s face dragging downward, and the tiredness of his eyes, that he had lost something. Immediately her mind went back to what Joseph had said about a darkness in Mason that would prevent him from making her happy, and the coldness of that thought touched her now. Since she had seen him last, a fire had gone out of him, as if some hope or trust had been betrayed.

She was suddenly angry. All hope might be betrayed, all trust soiled, used and thrown away. It did not alter the value of all the things that were loved, or the need to go on fighting for them. What was the alternative? To deny that they were infinitely precious, whatever the cost proved to be? There was no second best, no fallback position worth having.

“Hello, Judith,” he said quietly. “Joseph is putting up a better battle than I thought he would.”

“What did you think he was going to do?” she said with unexpected bitterness. “Fold up like a deck of cards? You should know him better than that.”

“Not fight a battle he can’t win,” he replied, but he said it softly, as if it caused him pain.

She searched his face and saw not triumph or any vindication of his earlier views but a sense of loss that startled her. It seemed so immediate, as if the erosion were happening as she watched.

“Sometimes you don’t win battles,” she answered quietly, but with unwavering certainty. “But your side wins the war. People get lost, soldiers get killed. Do you only fight if you know you’ll win? That sounds like a coward to me.”

He winced. “I choose my battles,” he answered. “There are not many of us fighting my war. Every loss counts.”

“What is your war?” It was a challenge and she meant it as such. She looked at his dark face with its powerful lines—the shadowed eyes, the emotions within—and she remembered the joy and compassion they had shared. And she remembered how he had kissed her, as if she could smell the warmth of his skin now, and taste him. She had given him more of herself than she had realized.

“What is your war?” she repeated. “What is it you’re fighting for? Or have you given up?”

“Sanity,” he replied, the hurt in his eyes deep. “And yes, I probably have given up. I ought to. Joseph can’t get these men off, and if he isn’t careful they’ll take you down with them as well.”

She felt a sharp grip of fear, like a cramp in the stomach. Would Mason betray her, thinking the truth worth more than individual loss? Exactly what did he believe in? Had she ever known, really? She found herself staring at him, searching, trying to dig deeper than she had any right to, tear off the protecting mask and understand the dreams and the pain underneath.

“Judith!” he said desperately.

What did he want? Trust? She could not give that to him. There was a dark, unknown void inside him that could swallow the things she loved: Joseph, Wil Sloan, Cavan, the men she had known as friends all these years, the men who trusted her. If she let them down there would be nothing left of herself, either.

She turned away from Mason, tears stinging her eyes. There was not anything to say, nothing words could capture or enfold. Either he understood already, or it was too late.

He watched her go with a sense of a door having been closed against him, shutting him out. The blow was not unexpected. He had known she helped the prisoners escape, and he was exasperated with her but not surprised. It was the sort of insane, thoughtless, idealistic thing she would do. She still had the same heroic ideals that the young men had had who went to war three years ago, believing it was glorious. Most of them were dead now, or crippled, shell-shocked, disillusioned. Rupert Brooke, the epitome of them all, the golden poet, had died of blood poisoning before the battle of Gallipoli. The poetry now was of realism, of destruction, of anger and loss. Only dreamers like Judith refused to grow up, clinging to a paper-thin mirage.

And Joseph, of course, trying to defend the morally just and legally indefensible! He would go down with it, like the captain of a sinking ship.

So why did Mason, standing in the sun watching Judith’s gaunt, square shoulders and the light on her hair, feel as if he had been shut out of Paradise? The pain of it caught him by surprise, taking his breath away, taking his hopes, and he was naked without them.

Early in the afternoon Faulkner closed his case for the prosecution. It was legally perfect, and he knew it. There was no doubt that the twelve men accused had mutinied, regardless of their motives, and that as a result of their act Major Howard Northrup had been shot by one of them, and it could not have been accidental. Which one had fired the bullet that killed him was immaterial to the charge. He turned to Joseph, inviting him to attempt a defense.

Joseph stood up, forcing himself to keep calm, to try to look as if he knew what he was doing. This was his last chance.

Hardesty asked him the usual questions. Did the accused wish to testify in their own behalf? Did they wish to call any witnesses?

“Two of the accused will testify on behalf of them all, sir,” Joseph replied. “And we have two witnesses.” Please God this was the right decision.

He had racked his brain, considered every possibility both likely and unlikely. He had prayed about it, but no sense of ease came to still the gnawing doubts in his mind or comfort any of the fear. If that was a sign the decision was wrong, that left him with no answer at all. Every other alternative was worse.

Hardesty nodded grimly. “Very well. Proceed, Captain Reavley.”

“Thank you, sir.” He called Cavan first.

Cavan swore to his name and rank and exactly where he served and for how long. Joseph had considered listing some of Cavan’s achievements, but decided it would give the impression that he was desperate. He was, and probably Faulkner knew it, but bluff was all he had to play.

Carefully, and in sparse, verifiable detail, he drew from Cavan a list of men he had treated and what their injuries had been. Every time he asked if Cavan knew whether the men had survived or not, and if so, if he had lost limbs or eyes.

The court listened in silence. Every man Cavan named was known to them, a friend, possibly even a cousin or brother. If Faulkner could be unaware of the feeling around him then he was truly anesthetized to life. He was at least wise enough not to challenge Cavan.

“Thank you,” Joseph said gravely. He turned to General Hardesty. “Sir, it is a matter of record which I will be happy to have Colonel Hook verify that each of these men was injured while obeying the direct orders of Major Northrup. I shall call other witnesses to confirm that the orders were given against the advice of more experienced but junior men.”

“That will be necessary, if you wish to make this evidence of any value in these proceedings, Captain Reavley,” Hardesty replied. “So far all you have achieved is to illustrate for us the tragedy of war, of which we are all wretchedly aware.”

“All except Colonel Faulkner, sir,” Joseph replied. “I believe he has not seen action.”

“It is irrelevant!” Faulkner snapped, his face pale except for two spots of pink in his cheeks. “This court-martial is to address the crimes of mutiny and murder, not to praise or blame the war record of the officers concerned, or to comment on the tragedy of young men’s deaths.”

“It is to exercise the circumstances, Colonel Faulkner,” Hardesty responded coldly. “You will have your opportunity to contest any of Captain Cavan’s testimony, if you wish.” He turned to Joseph. “Continue, Captain Reavley. You have a long way to go before you have made this relevant to the charge.” There was warning in his face and sadness. Was it for the dead and injured, or because he believed Joseph could not succeed?

Joseph reached the moment of decision. He turned to Cavan again. “When you realized that Major Northrup was not going to take the advice of the men familiar with the conditions and the dangers, Captain Cavan, what did you do?”

“I knew there were many other men who felt as I did,” Cavan answered quietly. “Particularly Captain Morel. We decided to use force to make Major Northrup listen. We decided to frighten him badly enough he would feel he had no choice. Morel devised a plan that we hoped would make him see that it was both wisdom and his duty to act on advice, and I agreed immediately.”

“What was that plan, Captain?”

“To take him by force to a place where we could hold a mock drumhead court-martial and charge him with the mutilation and deaths of the men who suffered because of his arrogance,” Cavan replied. “If we proved to him that it was his fault, we believed he would be willing to change. He was a stupid man, arrogant and out of his depth, but he was also frightened, and I believed he wanted to succeed; he simply didn’t know how. He wasn’t actually cut out to be a soldier, but then most of the men here wouldn’t be if they had a choice.” His voice was quiet and clear, the anger in it almost hidden. “We thought it was a way out for all of us.”

“And why wasn’t it, Captain Cavan?” Joseph asked.

There was complete silence in the room. No one even shifted position.

Cavan’s face was white, but he stood stiffly to attention, his eyes fixed on Joseph’s. “He was terrified. We found him guilty of gross negligence, and followed it through with a mock execution. We thought it was necessary at the time, in case once he was free again he reneged. We all loaded with blanks—”

“Blanks?” Joseph interrupted sharply. “The army doesn’t issue blanks. Where did you get them?”

“We didn’t,” Cavan said. “We made them. It’s easy enough.”

“Is it safe?” Joseph pressed. “How did you know they wouldn’t still fire bullets? It looks as if one did.”

“No sir, it’s not possible. The bullet that fired was a live round.” Cavan again explained carefully exactly how a blank was made.

“Then one of the men replaced his blank after you had seen him load it?” Joseph deduced.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you know that at the time?”

“Of course not!” Cavan clenched his fists, and his voice shook. “Do you think we wanted this?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Joseph replied. “But we need to demonstrate it to the court. Who shot the live round?”

“I have no idea, sir, except I don’t believe it was I.”

“Why not?”

“The kick from a live round is different. I’d have felt it. From a blank there is no recoil.”

“You are a surgeon,” Joseph pointed out. “How do you know what firing a live round feels like?”

Cavan blushed faintly. “I’ve fought as well, sir. I have fired a rifle many times.”

There was a murmur around the room. Many knew of his V.C.

“Thank you, Captain Cavan.”

Faulkner rose to his feet.

Joseph swallowed, his mouth dry. He sat down.

“Yes, thank you, Captain Cavan,” Faulkner said. “I’m not sure how much of your story I believe, but I can think of only one thing further to ask you. Regarding these various men and their injuries, I imagine you will only repeat what you have already told us.” He smiled bleakly. “However, I am interested in the fact that when your eleven coconspirators in this…disciplinary action of yours chose to escape and run for a neutral country, leaving the battle front altogether, you did not. Why was that, Captain?”

“I had given my word not to, sir,” Cavan answered.

“And you are a man of the utmost honor?” Faulkner gave the question only the barest lift of interrogation. “So much so that you will remain to face a firing squad rather than break your given word?”

“Yes, sir. I would have imagined that as an officer yourself you would have understood that,” Cavan replied, the faintest edge of contempt in his expression.

Cavan had not seen the trap, but Joseph did. He felt the sweat break out on his skin and his stomach clench.

Faulkner smiled. “I do, Captain, I do. Who organized the escape of the other eleven men held prisoners with you?”

The heat in the room prickled. Someone shifted their weight and a board creaked.

“As you observed, sir,” Cavan replied. “I am an officer and I gave my word. I was not imprisoned with the men. I did not see them go, nor did I see who assisted them.”

“That was not exactly what I asked, Captain Cavan,” Faulkner pointed out. “I asked you if you knew who it was, not if you saw them. But as a matter of fact, Captain Morel went, and he is of the same rank as yourself, an officer! Were you not billeted together?”

“No, sir. Captain Morel was with the men.”

“Indeed? Why was that?”

“You must ask him, sir.”

“I will. You have not answered me as to who effected this…rescue. I accept that you did not see them. I asked you if you know who it was!”

Joseph rose to his feet, his legs stiff. “Sir!” he said to Hardesty, far too loudly. “If Captain Cavan did not see who it was, then he cannot know. Anything else would be no more than an educated guess, or what somebody else had said, and not evidence.” He had phrased it badly, forgotten his legal terminology.

“Quite,” Hardesty agreed. He looked at Faulkner. “You may consider the action reprehensible, Colonel, but hearsay evidence will not stand up. Captain Cavan has told you that he was imprisoned separately and did not see anyone. That is the answer to your question. Proceed.”

“I have nothing else,” Faulkner said curtly. “For this witness.”

Now it was Morel’s turn. He stood as stiff as Cavan had, but he was far leaner, almost haggard, all taut muscle and bone, his face thin, dark eyes hollow.

Joseph found his throat too tight to swallow. He had to clear it to speak. “Do you wish to amend anything in what Captain Cavan has said, Captain Morel?”

“No, sir.” Morel’s voice was hoarse. He straightened his back even more.

Joseph knew he must address the escape first. The knowledge and the fear of betrayal was in the room like an unexploded bomb.

“When you were arrested and imprisoned in the farmhouse you refused to give your word that you would not escape. Did you expect to be rescued?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Do you know who rescued you?”

Morel hesitated. He was so tense he was swaying a little with the concentration of keeping control. He knew he must be believed. Joseph had told him everything rested on that.

“Yes, sir.”

Joseph could hear his own breath in the silence of the room. The walls seemed to swell and then recede, as if they were the chest of some sleeping monster. “Who was it?”

“I refuse to say, sir. They risked their lives for us. We do not betray our own men.”

“Just so.” Joseph felt his heart pounding. “Did you fire the shot that killed Major Northrup?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know who did?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And will you refuse to tell us that also?”

“No, sir. He did not act for the good of the regiment or to save the lives of his men. It was a private vengeance for a civilian matter and had no place here.”

“Who was it?”

“Lance Corporal John Geddes, sir.”

There was a rustle of movement, indistinguishable voices.

Hardesty looked startled.

Faulkner was taken aback, angry.

“And how do you know this, Captain Morel?” Joseph asked loudly.

“I heard him tell the whole story when we were returning from our escape,” Morel replied. “It would be easily verifiable. I expect General Northrup, who is here in court, would testify to most of it, since it happened in the village where he and his family live, and so also does Geddes’s family. I daresay General Northrup would find it painful, but I believe he would not lie.”

A score of men in the room turned to look at Northrup who sat ramrod straight and ashen-faced.

“The motive might be easy enough to check,” Joseph agreed, his voice husky. He loathed doing this, but he was aware that he must raise all the objections before Faulkner did—bite first and draw the poison. “That does not prove Geddes’s guilt. Why would he tell you this? And if he was indeed guilty, why would he return to stand trial rather than simply continue in his escape? Was he not already far beyond British jurisdiction when he made that decision?”

“Yes, sir.” There was not a flicker in Morel’s face. Now everyone had turned toward him. “He was in German territory, sir,” Morel continued. “Hurt, alone, starving, and unable to speak the language. If the Germans had caught him, I think it possible he would have been treated as a spy. He might not have been shot cleanly, and we can do at least that for him.”

“How do you know this, Captain Morel?”

“I was there, sir.”

“Do we have anyone’s word for this, apart from yours?”

“Yes, sir.” Again there was not a flicker in Morel’s face. “There are a number of French officers who could testify to various points of our journey. And you yourself could testify to all of it.”

There was a rustle around the room, a murmur of voices, one or two gasps. Then Hardesty leaned forward. “Is this true, Captain Reavley?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

“And are you willing to testify? If you do so, you will, of course, be subject to cross-examination by the prosecution.”

Joseph cleared his throat. He had no choice. He had struggled to avoid it from the beginning, but there was no way around it that did not make him look like a liar. “Yes, sir,” he said hoarsely.

“Very well. After Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner has questioned Captain Morel, we shall have you testify.”

Faulkner obtained nothing further from Morel that was of any use and Hardesty adjourned the court for the long, miserable night. Joseph spent most of it awake, trying to think of a safer way to introduce the evidence he needed. It all depended on the understanding of morale, of the loyalties that bound the men together, their trust in Morel and his knowledge of it, the obligations he felt. His own testimony of that was useless. Faulkner would judge it self-serving and dismiss it. Only men like Morel could know what he believed and why.

A jury of his peers. The phrase flashed into his mind in burning clarity. It was still only a chance. Faulkner might still trip someone and catch them out over Judith, and of course Wil Sloan. Although since Wil was American, the consequences might be less severe for him.

Finally, almost as the sky was paling in the east, he fell asleep.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

The next morning Joseph called his first witness. Snowy Nunn stood scrubbed and stiff, answering with surprise to his given name, almost as if he did not recognize it. He had been called “Snowy” since before he could talk.

“Private Nunn,” Joseph began, addressing him formally.

“Yes, sir.” Snowy was so rigid Joseph could see where the fabric of his uniform was strained by the unnatural posture.

“How long have you been in the army?”

“Since the autumn o’ ’fourteen, sir. Oi soigned up immediate.”

“Why?”

Snowy looked startled. “Roight thing to do, sir. Same loike everyone, you know that, sir. You did the same thing. And your sister, to droive ambulances.”

“Yes, I do know,” Joseph agreed. “But perhaps General Hardesty and the other officers on the panel did not. And of course Colonel Faulkner. Does that mean you have known most of the accused men for all that time?”

“Yes, sir, most of them. Known the rest since summer of ’fifteen, just after the gas attacks started. Came to replace…” He swallowed. “Some o’ those we lost.”

“How long have you known Captain Morel, for example?”

Faulkner rose to his feet, addressing General Hardesty rather than Joseph. “Sir, the prosecution is happy to concede that Private Nunn, and indeed the majority of the men in the Cambridgeshires, all know each other and have a loyalty greater to the men of their own villages than to their king and country, or to the laws thereof. It is wasting the court’s time for witness after witness to attest to it.”

Hardesty looked deeply unhappy. Beside him Apsted grimaced.

“Sir,” Joseph responded. “I object profoundly to Colonel Faulkner stating that any man in the Cambridgeshire regiment has a greater loyalty to his fellow soldiers than to His Majesty, or to England. On the battlefield a soldier’s loyalty is to the men who fight beside him, and to those for whom he is responsible. We fight for king and country, give our lives if necessary, endure injury, hardship, and sometimes appalling pain, but we do it here. These are the men whose backs we defend, whose lives we save, or who save ours, whose rations we share, with whom we laugh, and weep, and face the evening, and whose wounds we will try to stanch if we can, or who will carry us back from no-man’s-land—dead or alive. Loyalty is not an idea here, sir, it is the price of life.”

There was a murmur of approval from the body of the court. One man raised his hand and shouted out his agreement.

“For God’s sake!” Faulkner snapped. “This is not the place for a sermon. We are dealing with facts, and the law—not emotionalism. We are only too well aware that the chaplain is partisan; I may say, highly partisan. He comes from the same village and has known these men all their lives. I do not question his honesty, but I do most profoundly question his ability to separate the law from his personal loyalties.”

“Thank you for not questioning my honesty,” Joseph said with considerable sarcasm. “The fact that you raise it at all suggests that you might.”

“If you give me cause to, I shall, sir,” Faulkner retorted. “I believe Captain Morel was a student of yours in your Bible teaching days in Cambridge? And one of the better-known women ambulance drivers is your sister? Your personal loyalties are deep enough to make questions not unnatural, Captain Reavley.”

The attack on Judith had come at last, and not to answer it would be to signal his vulnerability. Joseph dared not ignore it. The challenge had been very cleverly made, discreet, oblique enough not to seem deliberate, and yet of course it was. He had walked into the trap. Had there ever been a way of avoiding it?

“My sister is one of the ambulance drivers,” he agreed. “And yes, Captain Morel was one of my students, of Biblical languages, actually, not of the Bible itself. And certainly I have known most of the men in the regiment all their lives, or if not them, then men exactly like them, from villages like my own. That makes me better able to understand them than you are.”

“I understand the law, sir, which it seems increasingly apparent you do not!”

Hardesty drew in his breath, as if to speak. There was a sharp snap as Apsted broke a pencil, accidentally twisting and turning it too hard.

It was time for Joseph to play his only card. He looked unblinkingly at Faulkner. “One of the few things I know about the law, and have admired the most, is that a man is entitled to be tried by a jury of his peers. Not men who are higher or lower than he is, or who are of a different nature or class, or who have never walked a step along his path and know nothing of his faith, the trials he has faced, or the burden he has carried. We cannot be judged fairly by the arrogant or the ignorant. I hope to demonstrate that I am not too partisan to see the truth, but partisan enough to understand it, and the men who have lived for it, or died for it.”

He steadied himself. It must be done. “And that includes the grief of General Northrup, his desire for justice, and perhaps for revenge, his guilt that he pushed his son into a rank and a position for which he was not equipped, and which ultimately destroyed him. And for Major Northrup who was sent to a miserable death by men who did not understand him, and circumstances that are beyond the control of any of us.”

Faulkner was furious. “Sir, you exceed your own position! You are a captain. You are a priest in uniform, because the army must offer what spiritual comfort it can to men who face death. You have no right and no remit to judge your superior officers, or the military ability or record of any man at all. To insult General Northrup from the safety of your appointment to this court is a despicable act. I hope the court will see fit to admonish you.”

Hardesty was pale, his face tight with anger. “Colonel Faulkner, I will exercise my own discipline, without suggestion from you, sir.”

He waited, but Faulkner did not apologize. He inclined his head and then straightened his shoulders as if he would have taken a step backward, but the room was so crowded men stood pressed against each other; there was nowhere for him to go.

Hardesty turned to Joseph. “For goodness’ sake, Captain Reavley, ask your questions and get on with it! Does Private Nunn have anything to contribute or not?”

“Yes, sir,” Joseph replied. He looked at Snowy, doing his best to hide the helplessness he felt. He was not sure now if calling him was wise—in fact if the entire strategy, which had seemed in the night to be possible, was not a disastrous idea. “Private Nunn, do you know all the men who are here accused of mutiny and murder?”

Snowy’s face was almost as pale as his hair. He stared at Joseph, desperately seeking guidance. Joseph dared not give him any, and was too transparently honest—it would show instantly.

“Do you?” Joseph repeated. “Just answer truthfully.”

Snowy relaxed a fraction. “Yes, sir.”

“Including Captain Morel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are a private. He is a captain. How do you know him, other than to take orders?”

Snowy hesitated, unsure how much Joseph wished him to say.

“Your brother Tucky was recently killed,” Joseph prompted him.

Snowy swayed, struggling to get his breath.

Joseph waited. He felt brutal, but he knew even worse could be ahead.

“Yes, sir. He was shot going over the top,” Snowy answered. He took another shuddering breath. “Oi suppose that was when Oi got to know Captain Morel a bit more. He was…he was very good to me. Knew how Oi felt. Tucky an’ me…” He stopped again, unable to go on.

Joseph had to rescue him. “Were very close. I know. I think we all know a great deal about loss, comforting one another…the responsibility.”

Faulkner rose to his feet.

“Yes, sir!” Snowy said loudly, before Faulkner could speak. “Captain Morel took it very hard when any of his men got killed…or injured, either. He’s a good man, sir. Oi hope—” He stopped abruptly, aware that he had nearly said too much. He blushed scarlet.

Hardesty had the briefest of smiles, little more than a softening of the eyes.

“I hope so, too,” Joseph said softly. “It is my responsibility to look after my men, and I will do everything I can to fulfill that duty. In your judgment and experience serving under him, did Captain Morel feel that same sense of duty to his men, Private Nunn?”

“For heaven’s sake!” Faulkner said furiously. “That’s an idiotic, self-serving question. The man’s a private! He’s hardly going to say no. He’s talking about his officer! And one who showed him some compassion when his brother was killed. Sir!” He appealed to Hardesty.

Joseph cut across them both. “It’s also an excellent opportunity to earn credit with his new commanders, and at the same time get a certain revenge, if he felt Captain Morel had been less than the leader he wanted. Private Nunn risks far more speaking for him than he would against him, sir.”

“You have an excellent point, Captain Reavley,” Hardesty conceded. He looked at Snowy. “Private Nunn, will you please tell me, in your own words, not Captain Reavley’s, what was your experience of Captain Morel as an officer.”

“Yes, sir.” Snowy stood very straight. “He was a hard soldier and he didn’t like any lip, but he could see a joke like anybody else. He expected you to be obedient, jump to it instant, loike, no slacking, no hesitating once you’d gone over the top. Always look after your own, help the wounded, bring everyone back if you could. Always looked out for his men. Be loyal to him, an’ he’ll be loyal to you, even to his life. Sir.”

“Thank you, Private Nunn.” Hardesty looked at Joseph.

For a moment Joseph hesitated. Was it better to reinforce what Snowy had said, or leave it as if Hardesty had done enough? Leave it. The deference to Hardesty was wiser.

“Thank you,” Joseph said aloud. “That was my point precisely, sir.” Awkwardly, still not quite sure, he sat down.

Faulkner stood up. He looked at Snowy with weary disgust.

“Do you believe mutiny is wrong, Private Nunn? Or let me put it this way, is your loyalty to your country, or to the Cambridgeshire regiment?”

“Oi reckon as they’re the same, sir,” Snowy answered.

“Well, Cambridgeshire may be your whole world, Private Nunn, but I assure you there is a great deal more of England than that!”

“Oi expect there is,” Snowy agreed steadily. “But all Oi know is Cambridgeshire and here, and maybe it’s all Oi’m like to know. Cambridgeshire’ll do me.”

There was a rumble of approval from the men in the room.

“So your loyalty is to a Cambridgeshire captain before the king!” Faulkner challenged, his face pink.

“Oi don’t know the king, sir,” Snowy told him unblinkingly. “An’ Captain Morel’s from up Lancashire somewhere.”

Faulkner stood motionless, unable to decide whether it was worth pursuing what seemed to be a fruitless course.

Joseph waited also, terrified Faulkner would go on and try to provoke Snowy into a mistake, or worse, into losing his temper. He had tied himself irrevocably to Morel, and through him to all the accused men. It would be disastrous. He stared across at Snowy, trying to will him to stay calm.

“Private Nunn,” Faulkner said again. “I ask you, do you condone mutiny? A simple yes or no will do.”

“Oi never thought of it, sir,” Snowy answered. “Oi trust Captain Morel. Oi know him. Oi’d go over the top if he told me to, any day. Oi have done. He wouldn’t order it if it weren’t necessary. He knows what he’s doing, and he respects his men, sir. Loike they do him.”

“That wasn’t what…” Faulkner began.

“You have the best answer you are going to get, Colonel Faulkner,” Hardesty told him. “If you have any further questions for Private Nunn, ask them.”

“No, sir. It seems pointless to ask. Except one thing.” He turned again to Snowy. “Private Nunn, do you have any idea why Corporal Geddes, alone among the accused men, should have wished to kill Major Northrup? You seem to know all your comrades so well, surely you know that?”

“No, sir, Oi don’t know,” Snowy answered. “But Oi don’t think Corporal Geddes is stupid. If he had a good reason in his own mind for thinking of something like that, he isn’t daft enough to tell me about it. He’d know Oi wouldn’t go along with it, sir.” It almost amounted to insolence, but not quite.

Faulkner gave up. “That’s all, Private Nunn.” He looked at General Hardesty. “Sir, since this defense claims that only Corporal Geddes was guilty of murder, perhaps Captain Reavley will provide a credible witness as to what possible motive he could have had. I have questioned him myself, and he denied it. I do not find Captain Morel credible, since his interest in the issue is that his own life depends upon it. Captain Reavley would testify, since he was apparently present when Geddes allegedly admitted to the crime. Then in the interests of both law and justice, I may cross-examine him on his testimony.”

The trap was sprung, tidily and completely. Joseph could not refuse him or he would appear to be denying what Morel had said, and the whole defense would collapse. And once Joseph was cross-examined, Faulkner would find a way of raising the escape again. Could Joseph lie? And if he did, would that jeopardize everything in the defense so far?

He had no choice. He was sworn, and briefly told them all that Geddes had said on the long journey back. No one interrupted him.

“A most interesting tale,” Faulkner said finally. “Did you believe him, Captain Reavley? Or is it Chaplain, in this case?”

“If you mean, am I breaking the sanctity of confession, no, I am not. If you remember, Colonel, Captain Morel was also present.”

“Oh, yes, of course, your onetime student, Captain Morel. You have a great loyalty, Captain Reavley. How does your loyalty to your calling, to the truth and honor you have spoken about so eloquently, compare with your loyalty to the ambulance driver who helped the mutineers to escape, and of course the murderer Geddes, as well?”

All movement in the room ceased. Everyone looked at Joseph.

He stared back at Faulkner, terrified that he might accidentally look at Judith.

The slightest misstep now, even a word, and Faulkner would have him.

“I do not know who helped them escape, Colonel,” he said.

“Come now,” Faulkner said tartly. “Is being disingenuous to this degree not morally the same as a lie? You may have taken great care not to have anyone repeat news to you, but are you telling this court that you really do not know who it was? Be very careful precisely where your loyalties lie, Chaplain!”

“You are quite right,” Joseph admitted. He could feel the sweat trickle down his face. Deliberately he relaxed his hands. Was Judith afraid he would betray her, even accidentally? “I have taken very great care indeed not to know who it was. And I have been successful,” he said levelly. “I can guess, but as you yourself have pointed out, most information comes to me in the way of confession, and I cannot repeat it. Not that anyone has confessed to that.”

“And you do not consider it your duty as an officer to report such a crime?” Faulkner said in amazement.

“No, sir. I consider it my duty as an officer to go after the men who escaped, and bring them back to face trial. Which I did. It redressed the situation, without betrayal of any trust.”

“Bringing them back for trial, and possible execution, was not a betrayal of their trust? You amaze me.” Faulkner’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“I persuaded them to come back freely,” Joseph corrected him, feeling the heat burn up his face. “For trial. I believe them to be innocent of mutiny or murder, and I hope this court will find them so.”

“Except Geddes! He didn’t come willingly!”

“He admitted to murder. That is different.”

“Not one of your village men, Chaplain?”

“No.” Joseph knew what was coming next. But at least they had left the subject of the escape, for a moment.

“Could that be why he is guilty?”

“If you are suggesting all Gloucestershire men are murderers, that is ridiculous,” Joseph retorted.

“I am suggesting, sir, that your loyalty to your own men supersedes all honor or balance or judgment on your part. Fighting together in these appalling circumstances, and your fearful losses, have warped your judgment and upset the balance of your thinking. We have no one’s word for it but yours and Captain Morel’s that any of these events in Major Northrup’s home village ever took place.”

“Are those your last questions to me?” Joseph found his voice was trembling and there were pins and needles tingling in his fingers. The last chance, the one he had been hoping to avoid since the beginning, was now facing him.

“They are,” Faulkner replied with a gleam of satisfaction.

Joseph turned to Hardesty. “Sir, I need to call one last witness who can substantiate the greater part of what I have said.”

“Who is it, Captain Reavley?”

“General Northrup, sir.”

Hardesty stared at him, eyes wide, questioning.

Joseph stared back. The fact that he had made the decision did not lessen his revulsion at it.

“Very well,” Hardesty agreed. “General Northrup, sir. Will you take the stand.” It was an order, not a request. There was no choice for either of them.

Slowly, as if his whole body ached, Northrup rose to his feet and walked forward, back straight, shoulders angular and rigid. He was sworn in and turned to face Joseph. There was nothing gentle in his face, no silent plea for mercy. He looked like a man facing his execution. It seemed Faulkner had convinced him that Joseph was utterly partisan, a man without justice, only blind loyalty to his own, regardless of innocence or guilt.

Joseph wavered. He longed to be able to prove him wrong. He had mercy, honor, a sense of justice being for all, as it was for none. But his calling here was to fight for his own men, and that did not allow him space to cover Major Howard Northrup’s weaknesses with mercy. He wanted General Northrup to know that, to understand. He realized in the same moment that to do the right thing was necessary, to need to be seen to do it was a luxury, even a self-indulgence, and completely irrelevant.

“General Northrup,” he began, his voice firmer than he had expected. “Would you confirm for the court that you live at Wood End Manor in Gloucestershire, and that your son Major Howard Northrup grew up there, and lived there until the outbreak of war in 1914?”

“That is correct,” Northrup replied coldly.

“Did Corporal Geddes’s family live in the same village at that time?”

“Yes.”

“Did Corporal John Geddes’s father become involved in a business venture with Major Northrup?”

General Northrup stiffened, his face pink. “I did not concern myself in my son’s financial affairs,” he replied quietly.

Joseph loathed doing it, but his voice was perfectly steady. “Every man in this court would understand your desire to protect your son’s name, sir, but you are under oath, and other men’s lives depend upon your honesty—good men, soldiers like yourself. Are you swearing on your word as an officer that you at no time involved yourself, financially or otherwise, in your son’s business affairs?”

Northrup’s face burned scarlet. “I…I lent him money when it was…necessary. Once or twice. Not…not as a habit, sir.”

“Would it be truthful to say that you indulged many of his desires, and that when he overspent, you paid his debts?” Joseph pressed. “Or did you never do that?”

“I did it…. It was a matter of honor,” Northrup said savagely. Hiseyes blazed in sockets so shadowed as to seem hollows in the bones of his head. He had aged bitterly in the weeks since his son’s body had been found.

“Did the Geddes family lose their home?”

Northrup’s hand jerked up. He drew his breath in as if to deny it, then remained silent.

“Is the Geddes family still in the home in which Corporal Geddes grew up?” Joseph insisted. “If necessary we can find out, but it will delay proceedings, surely pointlessly. The answer will be the same. Is it something you wish to hide?”

Faulkner rose to his feet, and Hardesty waved him sharply down again.

“No, sir,” Northrup said very quietly. “I believe they were evicted.”

Joseph chose his question very carefully. “Did your son’s business succeed or fail?”

“It failed.”

Joseph was aware of Faulkner tense in his seat, ready to spring to his feet any moment. He would need only a shred of a chance.

“Might it be possible that Corporal Geddes could believe that was Major Northrup’s fault, whether it was or not?”

“It…” Northrup swallowed, a flash of gratitude in his eyes, there and then gone again instantly. “He might have believed it, yes.”

“Thank you, General Northrup. That is all I have to ask you, sir.”

Faulkner shot to his feet, stared at Northrup’s ashen face, then very slowly sat down again. “I have nothing to add to this…this fiasco,” he said angrily.

Hardesty looked at Northrup. “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly. “The court has nothing further to say, either.”

In a room electric with hostility, Faulkner made a closing speech demanding justice against one man who had committed murder, and eleven others whose act of mutiny had condoned it and made them accessories both before and after the fact. He requested that the court sentence them all to death, for the sake of law, justice, and the values the army and the country stood for. He demanded that they not allow sentimentality or fear of the enemy to dissuade them from doing their duty.

He sat down again, still with the court in utter silence.

Joseph stood up.

“The circumstances of this war are unlike anything we have ever known before,” he began. “A man who has not floundered in the mud of no-man’s-land, faced every fire, and seen his friends and his brothers torn apart by shellfire, riddled with bullets, or gassed to death, cannot even imagine what courage it takes to face it not just day after day, but year after year. Many of us will never leave here. We know that, and we accept it. Almost all of us came here because we wished to, we came to fight for the land and the people we love, our own people.”

He took a deep breath. He realized with surprise how passionately he believed what he was saying. “But in order to walk into hell, we need the loyalty of our brothers, whether of blood and kin, or of common cause. We have to trust them without question, trust that they will share with us their last piece of bread, the warmth of their bodies in the ice of winter, and that they will never sacrifice our lives uselessly, on the altars of their own pride, or expect us to pay the price of their ignorance. If you will follow a man into the darkness and the mouth of the guns, then you have to know beyond question that he will do the same for you, that he will give all he has to be the leader you believe him to be.”

He was speaking to Hardesty and the two men beside him, in whose hands judgment rested, but he faced the body of the court.

“Captain Morel and Captain Cavan, and nine of the other ten men here, took the action of trying to curb Major Northrup in order to fulfill the duty of trust they know their men placed in them.

“They were guilty of gross insubordination. It was the price they were willing to pay to save the lives of their fellows. They will accept judgment for that at the hands of their peers, of men who know what it is to be a soldier at Passchendaele, and they will serve whatever punishment those men decide is just, because they have walked the same path.”

He sat down again, the sweat prickling on his skin, his heart pounding. “Thank you, Captain,” Hardesty said quietly. He looked at the men on either side of him. “Gentlemen, we shall return to the farmhouse kitchen in case there are any points of law you wish to consider.” He rose to his feet and Apsted and Simmons went out after him.

Not a man or woman left the court. No one even spoke. Minutes ticked by.

Hardesty, Apsted, and Simmons returned.

Joseph found his heart beating so violently he gagged on his own breath.

As the junior officer, Simmons gave his verdict first.

“I find Corporal John Geddes guilty of murder,” he said quietly. Then he listed the names of all the others, which seemed interminable. No one moved a muscle. “I find them guilty of gross insubordination, sir.”

Hardesty thanked him and turned to Apsted.

The tension was almost unendurable. It was like the minutes before men go over the top into the enemy guns.

“I find Corporal John Geddes guilty of murder.” Apsted swallowed hard. “And all the other accused, guilty of mutiny.”

Joseph felt the sweat run down his body and his hands clench till his nails drew blood. The room swayed around him.

Hardesty spoke last. “I also find Corporal John Geddes guilty of murder.” He listed all the other men. “I find them guilty of gross insubordination. By a majority decision, that is the verdict of this court. Sentence of death on Corporal Geddes will be referred up through the usual channels. The others accused will be dealt with at regimental level.”

Then at last the cheering erupted. Men shot to their feet, shouting, holding hands high, gasping, laughing, with tears in their eyes and on their cheeks. Morel and Cavan were saluted, the others grasped by the hand, hugged rapturously by friends.

Mason waved his notebook in the air, his eyes bright, although he knew that in London the Peacemaker would be white with rage, uncomprehending that somehow, yet again, the Reavleys had beaten him. Judith wept openly with relief and overwhelming joy.

Joseph was hoisted up and carried out on the shoulders of Snowy Nunn, Barshey Gee, and he knew not who else. He had found a decision within himself and been prepared to pay the price of it, bitter as it was. He had not flinched. He had repaid the trust. Now he was dizzy with hope and a searing promise of faith, a belief in the possibility of the impossible, even out of utter darkness.

And to the north, toward Passchendaele, the big guns continued their relentless pounding of the lines.

About the Author

ANNE PERRY is the New York Times bestselling author of the World War I novels No Graves As Yet and Shoulder the Sky, as well as four holiday novels: A Christmas Journey, A Christmas Visitor, A Christmas Guest, and A Christmas Secret. She is also the creator of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England. Her William Monk novels include Death of a Stranger, Funeral in Blue, and Slaves of Obsession. The popular novels featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt include Long Spoon Lane, Seven Dials, and Southampton Row. Her short story “Heroes” won an Edgar Award. Anne Perry lives in Scotland. Visit her website at www.anneperry.net.

By Anne Perry

(published by The Random House Publishing Group)

FEATURING WILLIAM MONK

The Face of a Stranger

A Dangerous Mourning

Defend and Betray

A Sudden, Fearful Death

The Sins of the Wolf

Cain His Brother

Weighed in the Balance

The Silent Cry

A Breach of Promise

The Twisted Root

Slaves of Obsession

Funeral in Blue

Death of a Stranger

The Shifting Tide

FEATURING THOMAS AND CHARLOTTE PITT

The Cater Street Hangman

Callander Square

Paragon Walk

Resurrection Row

Bluegate Fields

Rutland Place

Death in the Devil’s Acre

Cardington Crescent

Silence in Hanover Close

Bethlehem Road

Highgate Rise

Belgrave Square

Farriers’ Lane

The Hyde Park Headsman

Traitors Gate

Pentecost Alley

Ashworth Hall

Brunswick Gardens

Bedford Square

Half Moon Street

The Whitechapel Conspiracy

Southampton Row

Seven Dials

Long Spoon Lane

THE WORLD WAR I NOVELS

No Graves As Yet

Angels in the Gloom

Shoulder the Sky

At Some Disputed Barricade

THE CHRISTMAS NOVELS

A Christmas Journey

A Christmas Guest

A Christmas Visitor

A Christmas Secret

At Some Disputed Barricade is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2007 by Anne Perry

All rights reserved.