Shoulder the Sky (14 page)

In the trenches they sat huddled together for warmth, told ridiculous jokes, shared one another's dreams, and pains. They risked their lives to save one of their own, and a death was personal and very deep, like that of a brother.

Joseph sat in the trench in the sun with Cully Teversham, Whoopy's brother, who was busy running a lighted match over the seams of his tunic to kill the lice. He did it with intense care, his big hands holding the fabric gently, keeping the flame exactly the right distance away not to burn the threads.

Joseph was listening, as he did so often, but now, more than in the past, he was afraid that he would not have any answers. If he said there was meaning to it all, a God of love behind the slaughter and the pain, would anybody believe him? Or would they merely think he was parroting the words expected of him, the things he was sent here to say, by people who had not the beginnings of an idea what the reality was like? What kind of a man looked on living hell like this and mouthed comfortable, simple phrases he did not even believe himself?

A dishonest man, a coward.

Cully let the match go and lit another. "Is Charlie Gee going to make it?" he asked. "It ain't roight. Oi just got to loike 'im. We never knowed the Gees till we come 'ere, Whoopy an' me. Tevershams and Gees never spoke. All over a piece o' land, years back, it was. Don't even know roightly what 'appened. Something to do wi' pigs on it. Dug up everything worth 'having. But that's pigs for yer. Everyone knows that."

Joseph said nothing, just listening.

"But they're alroight, Charlie an' Barshey are," Cully went on, keeping his head bent, the sun bright on his ginger hair. "An' that newspaper man ought never to 'ave bin in that casualty place, let alone go sayin' what 'e did. Whoi don't they do something about that, instead o' nailing that poor bastard what got 'is hand tore to bits, eh?" He looked up at last, awaiting an answer from Joseph.

What was there to say? The truth was no use, and lies were worse. He could not tell them that he knew no sense in it, he was just as afraid as they were perhaps not of maiming or of death, but afraid that all his life he had striven to have faith in something that was beyond his understanding, and at the very worst, was a creation of his own need? What did he worship, except hope, and a desperate, soul-starving need for there to be a God?

He worshipped goodness: courage, compassion, honour, the purity of mind that knows no lies, even to oneself; the gentleness to forgive with a whole heart; the ability to have power and never even for a moment misuse it. The grace and the strength to endure, the fortitude to hope, even when it made no sense at all. To be found dead at one's post, if need be, but still facing forward. That was the answer he gave himself, and pieces of it he gave to others.

"I don't think they have the answers any more than we do," Joseph told him. "Major Wetherall will do everything he can for Corliss, and it doesn't matter about Prentice any more." He looked up at the narrow strip of sky above the trench walls, the wind whipping mares' tails of cloud across it. Sometimes it was all the beauty they could see, a reminder of the rest of the world and the glory and purpose they fought to hold.

"I'm glad that bastard's dead," Cully said, dropping the spent match in the mud and regarding his tunic sceptic ally Apparently it satisfied him, because he put it back on again. "Is that wicked?" he asked anxiously.

Joseph smiled. "I hope not!"

Cully relaxed. "He was pretty damn unlucky! He must've run bang into the only Jerry around here, 'cos we were to the east of where 'e was and Harper's lot were to the west. Don't know how any Jerry got through."

Joseph was puzzled, but he thought little more of it until later in the evening when he was helping Punch Fuller light a candle to heat tea. He overheard a conversation that made it clear there had been a patrol between the German line and where he had found Prentice.

"What time?" he asked.

"Well, I dunno, Chaplain," Punch said, his eyes wide. "Line held, that's all I know. We lost Bailey, and Williams got hit in the shoulder, but no one got past us. I'd stake my life on that!"

It was Prentice's life Joseph was thinking about. "But there must have been one German got through," he argued. There had to be. Maybe that was why Prentice was drowned rather than shot. It began to make sense. A German had been caught, probably out on a reconnaissance of the British lines, and he was alone so he couldn't afford to make any noise at all, or he'd attract the attention of the patrol.

"Why's that, Chaplain?" Punch asked.

"I found one of our men dead," Joseph answered. "About twenty yards out directly in front of Paradise Alley." He named the length of trench as it was known locally.

"Then you must have found the Jerry too," Punch said with certainty. "No one got back past us."

"He must have waited till you went, and then gone."

"We didn't come back till dawn," Punch assured him. "That's how we lost Bailey. Too damn slow. If a Jerry'd got up out of the mud and gone back, he'd 'ave passed right through us. Believe me, that didn't 'appen. We'd all 'ave seen him us, our sentries and theirs." He turned to Stan Meadows beyond him. "Isn't that right?"

Stan nodded vigorously.

"I must be mistaken," Joseph told him, and bent his attention to the candle in the tin, and the mug of tea. He was not mistaken, but he did not want anyone else to start thinking what was now racing through his mind. The thought was ugly, bringing back hard, painful memories of Sebastian's death the surprise and suspicion, the broken trust and the knowledge he had not wanted. Death was grief enough; murder was a destruction of so many other things as well. It stripped away the protection of small, necessary privacies, and exposed weaknesses that at other times could have been guessed at, and then left to be forgotten.

Was this murder again? In the general carnage of war, had someone taken the opportunity to kill Prentice, in the belief his death would be taken for granted as just another casualty?

Who? That was something he did not even want to think about.

What would happen now if he told Colonel Fyfe what he had found? Everyone would know. The trust between men would be destroyed, the friendships that made life bearable; the bad jokes, the teasing, the willingness to listen, even the silly things -anxieties that were foolish, dreams that would never happen -simply in the act of sharing. The certainty that one man would risk his life for another was what bound them into a fighting force.

Suspicion of murder, and the questions that went with it, would poison that, and the cost here would be even greater than it had been in Cambridge. If he told Fyfe, an investigation would begin. The truth might be found, or it might not, but at what price? Wil Sloan? Even Barshey Gee? Or one of the sappers who had been Corliss's friends? And if it were not found, if they never knew, then what shadow would be over them all, perhaps endlessly?

But surely among all the things he could not help, could not even ease, this was one small certainty he could? Prentice had been killed deliberately, by one of their own. The morality of that could not be changed by the fact that Prentice had been arrogant, insensitive, even brutal. To say that it could was to set himself up as an arbiter of who could or could not be murdered with impunity!

The fact that justice was impartial was one absolute in a world descending into chaos. Truth was one certainty worth pursuing, finding and clinging on to. Whatever the work or the pain involved, he had a purpose.

Joseph did not speak to Colonel Fyfe. When he knew the cause and could prove it, that would be the time to act.

There were many things he needed to know. The very first was the one he dreaded to learn most, and perhaps, in his heart, was the reason he had to find the truth. He could not forget Sam's rage at the court martial of Corliss. The whole thing had been merciless, and it would never have happened had Prentice not pushed the issue. Perhaps Corliss had lost his nerve. He would not be the first man to have been pushed beyond his limit, and for an instant cracked. Men covered for each other. The moment of terror was kept secret. There were few men who did not understand.

Corliss was Sam's man, his to punish or to protect. That was what loyalty was about, and Corliss had trusted him, as his other men did.

How could he ask Sam? How could he now protect him? Only by proving that he could not be involved, before he began any inquiry.

Sam looked up from cleaning his rifle. "Was he?" he said without emotion.

"Yes." Joseph sat down beside him, ignoring the mud. "I have to find out who did it."

"Why?" Sam lit a cigarette.

"You can't go around murdering people, just because you think they deserve it," Joseph replied.

Sam smiled, his black eyes bright. "Better reason than because they're German."

Joseph did not smile back.

Sam's face darkened. "Leave it alone, Joe," he said quietly. "Lots of people had pretty good reasons for hating Prentice. This isn't peacetime England. Better men than Prentice are being killed every day. We have to learn to live with it, and face the fact that tomorrow it could be our turn, or that of someone we love, someone we'd give our own lives to protect. Have you seen Barshey Gee lately? He knows what happened to Charlie. He's his brother, for God's sake!"

"Are you saying Barshey Gee killed Prentice?" Joseph's mouth was dry.

"No, I'm not!" Sam snapped. "I'm saying he'll be suspected. So will Wil Sloan, or any of my men. Or me!" He stared at Joseph unblinkingly. "I'd see him in hell, with pleasure."

"I know," Joseph's voice was little more than a whisper. "That's why I'm here. I want to prove you couldn't have, before I begin. Where were you when Prentice went over the top?"

"Down a tunnel under the German lines," Sam replied. "But I can't prove it. Huddleston saw me go down, but he didn't come with me."

Relief washed over Joseph like a blast of warmth. He even found himself smiling. "I had to ask," he said aloud.

"Leave it alone, Joe," Sam repeated. "You don't want to know!"

Joseph stood up. "Maybe I don't want to, but I have to. It's my job. It's about the only certain thing I can do."

Sam's face was puckered.

"Hannah sent me some Dundee cake," Joseph offered. "Come and have some after stand-to."

Sam raised his hand in half-salute, and acceptance, then went back to cleaning his rifle.

Joseph knew it would not be easy. No one else wished to know what had happened to Prentice. He had been either tolerated or positively disliked by all the men. They answered Joseph's questions out of deference to him, but unwillingly.

"Dunno, Captain," Tucky Nunn said bluntly. "Don't see much out there, 'ceptin' what Oi'm doing me self

"Sorry, Chaplain," Tiddly Wop Andrews said bashfully, pushing his hair back, as if it were still long enough to get into his eyes. "Nobody loikedim. After what 'e done to that sapper, nobody gave 'im toime o' day. Couldn't say where 'e went."

"Oi saw 'im earlier on," Bert Dazely said, shaking his head. They were standing with their backs to the trench wall. It was raining very lightly and the wind was cold. Joseph offered him a Woodbine and Bert took it. "Thank you, Captain." He lit it and drew the smoke in thoughtfully. "E were asking a lot o' questions about how it felt to kill Germans. Oi said it felt bloody 'orrible! An' so it does. You know Oi can hear them on a still day, or if the wind's coming our direction?" He looked sideways at Joseph with a frown. "They call out to us, sometimes. Oi even got a couple o' their sausages once. Let 'em out there, for us, an' we left them a couple o' packets o' Woodbines and a tin o' Maconochie's."

"Yes, quite a few men do that," Joseph agreed, smiling. "I've even had the occasional German sausage myself. Better than a Maconochie, I think."

Bert smiled back, but his face was serious again the moment after. His eyes were intense on Joseph's. "If Oi swap food with them one day, an' the next Oi'm goin' over and killing 'em, what does that make me, Chaplain? What kind of a man am Oi going to be when I go 'ome if Oi do? "Ow am I goin' to explain to moi children whoi Oi done that?"

The easy answer was on Joseph's lips, the answer he had already given many times: that a soldier had no choice, the decisions were out of his hands, there was no blame attached. Suddenly it felt empty, an excuse not to answer, an escape from himself.

"I don't know," he said instead. "Would you rather have been a conscientious objector?"

The answer was instant. "No!"

"Then it makes you a man who will, reluctantly, fight for what he loves, and believes in," Joseph told him. "Nobody said fighting was going to be either safe, or pleasant, or that there were not only risks of physical injury, but mental or spiritual too."

"Yeah, Oi reckon you're right, Chaplain," Bert nodded. "You got a way of cutting to what's true, an' making sense of it. A man who won't foight for what he loves, don't love it very much. In fact maybe he don't love it enough to deserve keeping it, eh?"

"You could be right," Joseph agreed.

"Oi s'pose it's a matter o' deciding what it is you love." He lifted up his head and looked at the sky. In the distance there was a flight of birds, south, away from the guns. He knew all of them, every bird and its habits. He could imitate the calls of most of them. "Oi think Oi know what matters to me England the way it ought to be," he went on quietly. "People comin' an' goin' 'ow they want, quarrelling and making up, a pint of ale at the pub, seed time and harvest. Oi'd loike to be married an' buried in the same church what Oi was christened in. Oi'd loike to see other places, but when it comes to it, Oi reckon Cambridgeshire's big enough for me. But if we don't stop Jerry here, doin' this to the poor bloody Belgians, boi the toime he gets to us, if he wants to, it'll be too late."