Shoulder the Sky (29 page)

"You're right!" Dick agreed with a broad smile. "You win a chest full of medals and go home and win Jeanette's hand. Sweep her off her feet! Or try, anyway. Is she a big lady, with beautiful .. . eyes?"

"Yes, I'll do that!" Stallabrass said with another loud sniff. "I'll show them. I'll show them all!"

"To love!" Dick held up his glass.

Wil refilled Stallabrass's glass again and topped it up with a few drops of water. "To true love!" he said, lifting his own to his lips. "Always win in the end. Drink up, oP boy!"

"To .. . true love!" Stallabrass emptied his glass all the way to the bottom, and slid off his chair on to the floor.

"Yeah, maybe," Dick agreed. "But not tonight, I reckon. Yer want a hand to get 'im up to 'is bed?"

"Thank you," Wil accepted, climbing slowly to his feet. "We'd better put him away nicely."

"Can't leave 'im 'ere, like nobody's child," Dick agreed, bending down to pick up Stallabrass in a fireman's lift. "Beggin' yer pardon, miss," he said to Judith, 'but I think you'd better leave this to us. "E's totally rat-arsed. Welcome to the army, Corporal!"

Judith stepped back. There was nothing more for her to do. It was three in the morning, and she had nowhere to sleep except in the ambulance. It would be chilly, but at least it would be dry, and she could lie down.

She woke in the morning to Wil shaking her urgently. She sat up, trying to remember where she was.

"You'd better get straightened up," he said in a hoarse whisper, as if they could be overheard, although actually there was no one else within fifty yards. The ambulance was parked in a side alley and it was not long after dawn. The cobbles still glistened with dew and the light had the hard, pale clarity of early morning.

She rubbed her hands over her face and pushed her hair back. Her head pounded and there was a vile taste in her mouth. Then she remembered the estaminet, Corporal Stallabrass and the Pernod! No wonder she felt awful. She had not drank so much, but he had, and she was filled with guilt. How must he feel?

"Get yourself up, sugar!" Wil said firmly. "I don't think Corporal Stallabrass is going to win any medals today. In fact he just might not be safe to drive at all, and we wouldn't want the general to end up in the ditch, would we?"

Judith blushed and cleared her vision with an effort. She must find enough water to wash her face, a comb for her hair, and straighten her uniform so it wasn't so obvious she had slept in it. Then a hot cup of tea would help her to feel considerably more human. Actually, anything except Pernod would do.

Half an hour later she was standing in the square when General Cullingford came across the cobbles towards his car, beside which stood a bedraggled and deeply unhappy Corporal Stallabrass. He was only too obviously the worse for wear. His uniform looked as if he had put it on in his sleep, which he may well have done, and misjudged most of the buttons.

He attempted to salute, and looked as if he were a drowning man waving for help.

Cullingford stopped. A flicker of disgust crossed his face, then anger. Apparently the smell of alcohol was inescapable.

"Corporal, go and sleep it off," he said stiffly. "Then when you are sober, report to the duty sergeant for an assignment not with me!" He turned away and saw Wil about twenty yards across the square, walking towards him with a fresh pastry in his hand.

"Good morning, sir!" Wil said cheerfully. He affected surprise and dawning concern. "Your driver not well?"

Cullingford looked at him coldly.

Wil gave the very slightest shrug. "You need someone?"

"How observant of you," Cullingford answered. "I don't believe you speak French."

"No, sir, I don't, but I've still got Miss Reavley with me, if you like? She knows the ropes, sir."

"Indeed." Cullingford took a deep breath. "Then you'd better send her. I have to be in Ploegsteert by eight o'clock."

"Yes, sir!" Wil saluted, forgetting the pastry, and turned on his heel to march over to Judith.

Chapter Nine

It was still imperative to Joseph that he learn who had killed Eldon Prentice, even though no one seemed willing to help with anything but the barest information that was so obvious as to be useless. Edwin Corliss remained in military prison, awaiting the final verdict on his appeal. Any application of the death sentence was referred all the way up to General Haig himself, regardless of the offence or the circumstances, but the feeling against Prentice for having pushed the issue, where Sergeant Watkins would have let it go, prevented anyone now from caring greatly how Prentice himself had died.

There was also his behaviour over Charlie Gee's injuries, although that was less widely known. There was a searing pity for Charlie. Every man understood the horror of such mutilation, and their rage at Prentice's insensitivity was a release from the fear that it could happen to them. But it was rage, nevertheless, and the medical and VAD staff also were disinclined to give any information to Joseph that might help him discover a truth they were perfectly happy to leave alone.

But Prentice had been murdered by one of the British soldiers or ambulance drivers of this division, and he was becoming increasingly afraid that it could have been Wil Sloan. He could not forget Wil's uncontrolled, almost hysterical violence towards Prentice in the casualty clearing station where he had brought

Charlie Gee in, and Prentice had been so callous. If Joseph had not stopped him, he would have beaten Prentice senseless, perhaps even killed him there and then.

Could Prentice have been idiotic enough to have returned to the subject later, in Wil's presence, and Wil had somehow followed him, or even taken him out into no man's land on the raid, perhaps on the pretext of looking for wounded? No one else seemed to have any explanation as to how Prentice had got there, or why.

The other alternative Joseph could not escape was that the murderer was one of Sam's men who was a friend of Corliss.

"Leave it alone, Joe," Sam said gravely. They were sitting in Joseph's dugout, sharing stale bread from rations, and a tin of excellent pate that Matthew had sent in a parcel from Fortnum and Mason's in London, along with various other delicacies. For dessert they would have some of the chocolate biscuits Sam's brother sent whenever he could manage to.

"I can't leave it," Joseph said, swallowing the last mouthful. "He was murdered."

Sam smiled lopsidedly. "Aren't we all!" There was a bitter edge to his voice, the betrayal of a passion he rarely allowed to show through.

"Philosophically, perhaps." Joseph looked directly at Sam, watching his dark eyes with their sharp intelligence. "But for the rest of us it will be cold, disease, accident, or the Germans, all of which are to be expected in war."

"You left out drowning," Sam reminded him. "That's to be expected too."

"Not by having your head held under." Joseph heard his own voice crack. He despised Prentice, but to think of any man choking in that filthy water, with the stench of corpses and rats and the lingering remains of the chlorine gas, was horrible. He imagined the pressure on the back of Prentice's neck, forcing him down until his lungs burst and darkness reached up and engulfed him.

Sam winced, as if the horror filled his mind as well. His face was tight, and the skin pale around his lips. "Don't think about it,

Joe," he said quietly. "Whatever happened, whoever's fault it was, they'll probably be dead too before long. Leave it alone. Look after the living."

"It's the living I am looking after," Joe replied. "The dead don't need justice. They'll get it anyway, if there's a God. And if there isn't, it hardly matters. It's we who are left who need to keep the rules for ourselves. At times it's all we have."

"You don't know the rules, Joe," Sam said quietly. "Not all of them."

"I know murder is wrong."

"Murder!" Sam said abruptly, jerking his head up, his eyes wide. "Jesus, Joe! I've seen men killed by snipers, shrapnel, mortars, explosives, bayonets, machine guns and poison gas do you want me to go on? I've skewered young Germans I've never even seen before, just because they were in front of me. And I've heard our own boys crying in their sleep because of the blood and grief and the guilt. I've seen them praying on their knees, because they know what they've done to other human beings who could be ourselves in the mirror, except they're German. Dozens of them -every day! What rules are there to protect them, or give them back their innocence, or their sanity?"

He stared at Joseph intently, his eyes unblinking, a deep sadness in them for a moment allowing his own vulnerability to show. "Granted it wasn't a good thing to do, but hunting out whoever it was won't make it any better now. Morale matters, and that's your job. We have to survive. The men here need your help, not your judgement. We need to believe in each other, and what we can win."

Joseph hesitated.

"Leave it, Joe," Sam said again. "Belief can make the difference between winning, and not."

"I know." He stared at the ground. "We all need to have something to believe, or we can't forget it all. I wish I were surer of what I believe. There aren't many absolutes, but I'm supposed to know what they are."

"Friendship," Sam answered. "The best of yourself that you can give, laughter, keeping going when it's hard, the ability to forget when you need to. Have another chocolate biscuit?" He held out the packet with the last one left.

Joseph hesitated, then took it. He knew it was meant.

The corporal with the mail arrived, and Joseph went as eagerly as anyone else to see if there was anything for him from home. There were three letters, one from Hannah with news of the village. He could feel her tension through the careful words, even though he knew she was trying to hide it.

The second was from Matthew, telling of having seen Judith, and having visited Shanley Corcoran, and what a pleasure it had been.

The only other letter was from Isobel Hughes. He was surprised she should write again but he opened it with pleasure.

It was a simple letter, quite frank and comfortable, telling him about the farm, how they were having to make do with young women on the land where they had had men before they joined up and went away. She mentioned some of their exploits, and disasters. She had a robust, self-deprecating turn of humour and he found himself laughing, the last thing he had expected to do.

She described the spring fair, the church fete, life as it had always been, but with sad and funny changes, little glimpses of personal courage, unexpectedly generous help.

He read it through twice, and then wrote back to her. Afterwards, when his letter was sealed and posted, gone beyond his recalling, he thought he had told her too much. He had written of his difficulty in trying to convince men that there was a divine order above and beyond the chaos they could see, a reason for all the senseless devastation. He felt a hypocrite saying it when he could give no reason for believing it himself. He should not have said that to her. She had made him laugh for a moment, feel clean and sane in the joy of little things, and he had rewarded her by talking of vast problems of the soul, which she could do nothing about. They would weigh her down, intrude into her grief, which she was trying so hard to control.

She would almost certainly not write again, and he would have lost something that was good.

He went to the hospital as soon as he had the chance, and asked Marie O'Day if the man Wil Sloan had brought in on the night of Prentice's death was conscious yet.

"Yes, but he's still in a lot of pain," she said guardedly. "Are you still after finding out if it really was Wil who brought him all the way?"

"Yes. I'd like to know'

"Well, don't push him! If he doesn't know, he doesn't," she warned.

But he did know, and he was happy to tell Joseph at some length how Wil had saved his life, at considerable risk, and how difficult the journey had been. His account was a little garbled, but it was clear enough to show that Wil could not have been anywhere near the length of trench known as Paradise Alley, where Prentice had gone over the top. He had been over a mile away, more like two.

Joseph left with a feeling of intense relief. Wil Sloan could not be guilty. For a moment he stood outside the casualty clearing station in the sun and felt absurdly happy. He found himself smiling, and started to walk briskly back to the supply trench again.

He was halfway along it, dry clay under his feet, rats scattering in front of him with a sound like wind in leaves, that he realized he had inevitably driven himself closer to the fear that the murderer was one of Sam's men. It was a thought he was not yet ready to face. There were other things he could learn first. One of them was how Prentice had gained permission to go so far forward, and which officer had allowed him to join the raiding party, and on whose orders.

He was in a trench known as the Old Kent Road when Scruby Andrews came limping towards him.

"Gawd, moi feet 'urt," he said with a twisted smile. "Must 'a' bin a bloody German wot made moi boots! If Oi ever foin dim Oi'll kill 'im wi' me star naked 'ands, Oi will! Sorry, Captain, but it's torture."

"Are you soaping your socks?" Joseph asked with concern. A

ioc soldier survived or not on his feet. It was an old trick to use bar soap to ease the rough parts of hard wool over the tender skin.