At Some Disputed Barricade wwi-4

by Anne Perry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Geddes was silent.

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

  Geddes swore viciously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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