Shoulder the Sky wwi-2

by Anne Perry

Malta was ancient, fascinating, full of colors, eclectic architecture, and a cultural mixture that reflected every tide that had swept the Mediterranean in five hundred years, and yet was unique to itself. Explorers, merchants, and Crusaders had stopped here. Now the harbor of Valetta held British warships and the liners, the yachts, the racing skiffs were silent and unseen.

  Joseph barely saw any of it; he looked only for signs of where Mason could have gone. He asked the British seamen he met, the loaders and dockers, and eventually the harbormaster himself.

  “That would be the English gentleman from the newspapers,” the harbormaster replied. “Very fine writer. Read his stuff myself. Admire those chaps.” He said it with profound feeling. “Never afraid to go where the danger is, if they can get the truth. He took the ship out to Gibraltar this morning. I arranged it for him myself.”

  “Gibraltar!” Joseph exploded with burning frustration. “How can I get there? It’s urgent! I have dispatches for London. I have to get there in three days, at the outside!” If he did not catch him, Mason would deliver his work, with his damning descriptions of chaos and pointless death. Again so many of them were men who had volunteered, come willingly from the other side of the world, because they had felt it was the right thing to do. Their lives were squandered, uselessly and terribly.

  At least that was what Mason would write. Whitehall would try to censor him, but he had seemed sure that he had a way to evade that. And once he had published it, and it was spread by pamphlet and word of mouth, could anyone prove him wrong?

  He wasn’t wrong!

  Joseph could not explain that to anyone because he dared not use Mason’s words, they were too easily repeated with all the irreparable damage they could do. He used Matthew’s letter of authority again, arguing, pleading, hearing the panic inside him burn through.

  Finally as he stood once again on the deck of a steamer, this time bound for Gibraltar, watching the lights of Valetta fade into the soft Mediterranean night, emotional and physical exhaustion overcame him, and with it a feeling close to despair.

  Now Joseph was racing across the Mediterranean trying to catch Mason, a brilliant journalist, a man of passion and his own kind of honor. Joseph had seen the searing tenderness in him as he had done what pitifully little he could for the wounded, body hunched with tension, rage almost choking him at the waste, the disorganization, the needless vulnerability of men exposed to shellfire on all sides.

  And yet Mason’s passion and horror were irrelevant to the harm he would do if he published what he had seen. Perhaps people would rise up and try to change the government, by ordinary civil means? There would be a vote of no confidence in the House, forcing a general election. But that would leave Britain in turmoil, no one to make decisions, just as the Germans were lunging forward in Belgium, France, northern Italy, and the Balkans. It would pile chaos upon chaos. And who else was there to elect?

  It would shatter faith, the only strength left when defeat stared the armies in the face, and it offered nothing but anger and doubt in return. All those who had already died, caught in the wires, drowned, frozen or blown to pieces, choked with gas, or those shell-shocked, maimed and mutilated by war, would have suffered for nothing, a surrender because no one else would come forward to take their places when they fell.

  The thought choked him with a tearing grief for all those he had known, whose deaths he had watched, and for the countless others lost, and for those who loved them and whose lives would never be the same again. It seemed the ultimate blasphemy that their sacrifice should be thrown away. He could not bear it.

  He ate, slept fitfully, and paced the deck, shoulders tight, hands clenched, as the ship made its way across the Mediterranean at what seemed to him a snail’s pace.

  He imagined what German occupation would be like for the Belgians and the French. The laws would be changed, there would be a curfew imposed so no one could go out after dark. Travel would be restricted, you would have to have passes to go from one place to another, and explain your reasons. All newspapers would be censored. You would be told only what they wanted you to know. Food would be rationed, and all the best would go to the occupying forces, the good cheese, the fresh fruit, the meat.

  But the physical inconveniences would be small compared with the change in people. The brave would be hunted down and punished, interned in camps, perhaps like those in Africa during the Boer War, women and children as well. The collaborators would be rewarded, the betrayers and profiteers; the vulnerable, the weak, the bribable, deceivable, the terrified would drift with sheeplike obedience.

  What would Joseph tell the suffering Belgians to do, those quiet men and women he saw around Ypres and Poperinge and the sheltered villages and farms, refugees from their homes, leaving behind a broken land? Would he tell them they were beaten, and should now put up with it in peace, and that to attack the occupying forces or countries was actually murder? Turn the other cheek, or retaliation? Render unto the kaiser what is the kaiser’s? If you attack your oppressor, does it have to be the individual soldier attacking you, or do you use intelligence, and strike at the head? Use the most effective weapon you can, when and where they are not expecting it, against whom it will do the most damage?

  They were moral questions to which his instinct said one thing, and his doubts said another. He had little privacy in which to pray, but it was only convention that said you had to do it on your knees, or with your hands folded. A few minutes alone on the deck, a forced quietness of his racing mind, and he began to see more clearly, if nothing else, at least the need to stand for his own beliefs. It should be his wish to defend others, and it was certainly his duty. How could you argue with Christ who was crucified that it might hurt, or even cost you your life?

  Was there any faith at all, Christian or otherwise, that would excuse you on these grounds?

  Actually it was only three days before he saw the jagged teeth of Gibraltar on the skyline, and then by midafternoon the ship was docked in the harbor below the almost sheer rise of the great rock itself.

  He went ashore immediately. The air was close and there was hardly any breeze. It felt warm and clammy on his skin. The slurping water smelled of oil and refuse, fish, the heavy salt of the sea.

  The rock towered above him, dense black, blocking out the pale sky littered with stars. The lights of Irish Town crowded close to the shore, with its narrow streets, cobble-paved, winding upward so steeply there were flights of steps every so often. A hunting cat slithered past him, with economic, feline grace, soundless as a shadow. A laden donkey clattered up the incline, panniers on its back sticking out so far they bumped occasionally against the alley walls.

  Church bells tolled. It must be a call to evensong, or the Roman Catholic equivalent. A glance at a few streets, church towers, statues of the Virgin Mary, or Christ with the Sacred Heart, showed that Catholicism was the predominant faith, in spite of the ancient Moorish architecture of the buildings silhouetted farther up the hill.

  Ships crowded the water and Mason could be on any one of them, or he could already have gone. Joseph was frantic even to know where to begin to look. Hysteria welled up inside him and it took all his effort of will to control it and start asking sensible questions of people. He began with the assistant to the harbormaster, who told him the ships due to leave in the next twenty-four hours, and then when he produced his identification, the names of those bound for Britain that had left over the last two days. There was only one, and that had been yesterday. There was no way of knowing if Mason had been aboard.

  He spent a wretched night walking the docks asking, pleading for any kind of passage to England. Twice he was taken for a deserter, and got short shrift from men contemptuous of anything that smelled like disloyalty. They had no time for cowardice and he was lucky to escape with nothing more than verbal abuse.

  A little after midnight he found a friendly Spaniard who seemed less inclined to leap to conclusions as to what an Englishman was doing in uniform seeking t
o go home instead of toward a battle front. They sat in an alley in the warm darkness and shared a bottle of some nameless wine, and half a loaf of coarse bread not long from the oven. To Joseph it was an act of supreme kindness, and he began his search again at dawn with new heart, and a sense of urgency rather than overwhelming panic.

  He found a cargo steamer willing to take passengers, but it cost him almost all the money he had left. He found himself on the afternoon tide, once again at sea.

  They made good headway north up to the Bay of Biscay, although the weather was rougher than the Mediterranean, even though it was spring.

  There were other passengers: an elderly gentleman of Central European origin who spoke quite good English, although he discussed nothing but the weather. The other passenger Joseph saw was an adventurer who did not acknowledge any nationality. He stood on the deck alone and watched the horizon, speaking to no one. Perhaps he had no country anymore, no home where he belonged, and was loved.

  Joseph slept in a cabin no bigger than a large cupboard. He was barely able to lie with his legs out in the hammock provided, but he could have slept on the floor, had it been necessary. It was warmer and drier than a dugout in the trenches, and definitely safer. And it had the advantage of neither rats nor lice. He was less sure about fleas! But it was a luxury to lie still without the constant patter and scrabble of rodent feet.

  He had time to think. Over and over again he rehearsed in his mind what he would say to Mason when he caught up with him, and each time the power of it was beyond him to frame in words. A year ago he would have expected them to come to him. Putting the most passionate beliefs into speech was his profession, and he had thought himself good at it, at least at that part of it.

  But since then he had lost sight of intellect and became a man of emotion, which was the last thing he had intended. He was a stretcher-bearer, a digger of trenches, a carrier of rations and sometimes ammunition. He was even a medical orderly at times of extreme emergency. He had been up to his armpits in mud and water, struggling to pull out a body, or soaked in blood trying to stop a hemorrhage. There was no time for thought. It was emotion that drove him, the one thing he had intended to avoid. He had started out determined to do the best he could, to give every act or word of comfort, honor, and faith that he knew, or prayer could yield him, but keep his strength by protecting his emotions.

  He seemed to have failed pretty well everywhere.

  The passengers ate with the crew, but they spoke very little. The food was unimaginative, but perfectly palatable. By the second night he was relaxed enough to sleep quite well.

  He woke with a start to hear feet in the passage outside, then a loud banging somewhere very close. He sat up, for a moment forgetting where he was, and feeling the hammock swing, almost tipping him out. He scrambled to regain his balance as the door burst open and a crewman shouted at him.

  “Out! U-boat’s stopped us!” He was almost invisible, but his voice was sharp with fear. “We’ve got to abandon ship. Don’t hang around or you’ll go down with it. They’re giving us a chance.” He withdrew and Joseph heard his feet thudding along the short passage and then a banging on the next door.

  A U-boat! Of course. They must be well into the English Channel by now.

  The man’s feet were returning. He slammed the door open again, this time holding the lantern high and his face yellow in the glare of it. “Come on!” he ordered. “Get out! They’ll torpedo the ship. You’ll go down with it!”

  Joseph reached for his clothes and pulled them on. He was used to sleeping in them, but here he had thought he was safe. He slid into his trousers, fingers fumbling with buttons, and grabbed his jacket. He pushed his feet into his boots without bothering to do them up, and lurched out of the door and along the passage.

  It was oddly silent. It was a moment before he realized that the ship was rolling as if it were dead in the water. Of course. The engines were off.

  He went up the gangway steps clumsily, his boots slipping because they were not tied. The outside air struck him in the face, cold, wind fresh and tasting of salt.

  It was light on deck, because of searchlights from the U-boat. He could see its sleek, gray hull low in the water, only twenty yards away. There were men on the deck, just dark forms beyond the glare, maybe seven or eight of them. The sticklike silhouettes of guns were clear enough.

  The captain of the steamer was standing stiffly near the rail. His face was bleak in the yellow beam, features almost expressionless, mouth pulled a little tight. He was in his late fifties, gray-haired, thick-bodied, a little stooped in the shoulder.

  “Get your crew off, Kapitan!” The voice came drifting across the choppy water, clear, precise English with only a slight accent. “You have lifeboats!” That was a statement; they were clear enough to see in the lights.

  “We need time,” the captain answered. He had no power to bargain and he knew it. The U-boat could sink the steamer whenever it wanted to, and then the lifeboats afterward as well, if they wished.

  “You have ten minutes,” the answer came back. “Don’t waste it!”

  The captain turned around, moving awkwardly, shock slowing his movements.

  Joseph bent to tie up his boots. This was not the time to lose or fall over one’s laces. He worked quickly, his mind racing. Where were they? If they were allowed to escape in the lifeboats, which shore would they make for? Was there food? Water? How many people?

  He looked across the water toward the submarine. It was an ugly thing, but swift, strong, silent beneath the waves, a wolf of the sea. The lights sparkled on the crest of the waves. They curled over, sharp ridges white-tipped, full of bubbles.

  He stood up slowly. His body still ached from carrying the wounded on the Gallipoli beach. He turned toward the other men on the deck, and came face-to-face with Richard Mason.

  Mason smiled. His face was white, his hair wet with spray and slicked back over his head. The flesh on his high cheekbones shone in the light and his eyes were brilliantly readable. There was bitter humor in them, and a suppressed rage, a will to live, but no enmity at all. If anything, he could see the irony in their both facing a common foe in the U-boat, and possibly the sea.

  The crew were lowering the two lifeboats. The captain moved toward the open gangway. There was a shot, a loud crack, sounding different out here on the water from the way it did in the trenches. It hit something metal and ricocheted.

  The captain stopped abruptly.

  “Very noble to go down with your ship, Kapitan! But not necessary,” a voice called out. “Back to the rail, if you please.”

  The captain hesitated.

  “If you don’t, I shall shoot one of your men. Your choice.”

  The captain returned slowly. In the glaring light he looked like an old man, too stiffly upright to be able to bend.

  The lifeboats hit the water with a series of slaps as the waves banged against them with jolting sharpness. The sea must be rougher than it looked, even from the small height of the deck. They were not yet given permission to get into them.

  Joseph realized with surprise that he was cold. Neither he nor the other man had had time to bring coats. He estimated there were about a dozen of them, including Mason, and the other two passengers. The light played over their figures, as if trying to identify one from another. The quiet man who had stared at the horizon put his hand up to shelter his eyes. The mid-European was shifting impatiently from foot to foot.

  The U-boat also had launched a small boat into the water and it was now coming toward them, a hard black shape against the serrated edges of the waves, alternating light and darkness in the path of the lamp. It was easy to see two men rowing and two more standing in the bow, guns at the ready.

  No one spoke while they crossed the short distance to the side of the ship, and the two with guns climbed up and on board.

  “Kapitan.” The first one stood to attention, but not for an instant altering the aim of his gun at the captain’s chest. “Yo
u will come with us. Please bring your ship’s papers. You will be interned in Germany, unless of course you prefer to be shot.” It was not a question. He assumed the answer.

  “Let my crew go,” the captain replied. He made no mention of passengers. Perhaps that was a deliberate omission. Sailors might be treated with more respect than civilians. Had they been neutral nationals perhaps he would have said so.

  “That is already agreed,” the German told him. “Come now.” He turned to the others. “You will wait here until the captain is on board our boat, then you will get into your lifeboats and move away. If you do not, the vortex of the ship’s going down may suck you under.”

  The man in the overcoat made a wild, swinging movement with his right arm. Something in his hand shone in the light, like black metal. A shot rang out from the U-boat and he fell forward, quite slowly, as if he were folding up.

  One of the crewmen lunged forward to help him, and a volley of shots followed. The second German clutched his shoulder and spun around, sagging to one side.

  A handgun fell on the deck and slithered toward the rail. Another crewman dived for it, caught it, and fired toward the man in the boat.

  Then there was a another volley of fire, bullets cracking, ricocheting around. Joseph fell to the deck instinctively, crouching on his hands and knees behind the shelter of the housing over the hatch. People were shouting, in anger, fear, and there was more shooting. The lights were harsh, now raking over the whole boat and the sea at either end.

  Someone fired back from the deck. There was an explosion in the direction of the U-boat, and the light went out.

  Silence.

  Then the captain’s voice came very clearly. “We surrender! I’m coming over! Let my crew get into the lifeboats and they’ll leave!” Then he must have turned around to face his own deck, because his voice was louder. “Put down the gun! They’ll torpedo the ship and we’ll all be lost. Do it now!”

  Silence again.

  Joseph lifted his head very carefully to peer over the hatch. He saw in the dim starlight and the sickle moon the black shape of the U-boat against the slight shimmer of the water. A group of men were clustered around the dead light, two bent over as if working to get it mended, at least temporarily, but they were keeping low; two others stood separately, their guns trained toward the steamer.