Shoulder the Sky wwi-2 Read online




  Shoulder the Sky

  ( World War I - 2 )

  Anne Perry

  In the firmament of great historical novelists, Anne Perry is a star of the greatest magnitude. First there were her acclaimed Victorian mysteries, sparkling with passion and suspense. Now readers have embraced this bestselling new series of World War I novels–which juxtapose the tranquil life of the English countryside with the horrors of war.

  By April of 1915, as chaplain Joseph Reavley tends to the soldiers in his care, the nightmare of trench warfare is impartially cutting down England’s youth. On one of his rescue forays into no-man’s-land, Joseph finds the body of an arrogant war correspondent, Eldon Prentice. A nephew of the respected General Owen Cullingford, Prentice was despised for his prying attempts to elicit facts that would turn public opinion against the war. Most troublesome to Joseph, Prentice has been killed not by German fire but, apparently, by one of his own compatriots. What Englishman hated Prentice enough to kill him? Joseph is afraid he may know, and his sister, Judith, who is General Cullingford’s driver and translator, harbors her own fearful suspicions.

  Meanwhile, Joseph and Judith’s brother, Matthew, an intelligence officer in London, continues his quiet search for the sinister figure they call the Peacemaker, who, like Eldon Prentice, is trying to undermine the public support for the struggle–and, as the Reavley family has good reason to believe, is in fact at the heart of a fantastic plot to reshape the entire world. An intimate of kings, the Peacemaker kills with impunity, and his dark shadow stretches from the peaceful country lanes of Cambridgeshire to the twin hells of Ypres and Gallipoli.

  In this mesmerizing series, Anne Perry has found a subject worthy of her gifts. Illuminating the murderous conflict whose violence still resounds in our consciousness–as well as the souls of men and women who lived it–Shoulder the Sky is a taut, inspiring masterpiece.

  To my stepfather,

  Major W. A. B. “Bill” Perry,

  one of the last officers to leave the beaches of Dunkirk,

  June 1940

  If here today the cloud of thunder lours

  Tomorrow it will hie on far behests;

  The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours

  Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.

  The troubles of our proud and angry dust

  Are from eternity, and shall not fail.

  Bear them we can, and if we can we must.

  Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

  —A. E. Housman

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  It was shortly after three in the afternoon. Joseph Reavley was half asleep in the April sun, his back to the pale clay wall of the trench, when he heard the angry voices.

  “They be moi boots, Tucky Nunn, an’ you know that well as Oi do! Yours be over there wi’ holes in ’em!” It was Plugger Arnold, a seasoned soldier of twenty, big-boned, a son of the village blacksmith. He had been in Flanders since the outbreak of war in August. Although he was angry, he kept his voice low. He knew it carried in the afternoon stillness when the men snatched the three or four hours of sleep they could.

  The German trenches were only seventy yards away across this stretch of the Ypres Salient. Anyone foolish enough to reach a hand up above the parapet would be likely to get it shot. The snipers seldom needed a second chance. Added to which, getting yourself injured on purpose was a court-martial offense.

  Tucky Nunn, nineteen and new this far forward, was standing on the duckboards that floored the trench. They were there to keep the men’s feet above the icy water that sloshed around, but they seldom worked. The water level was too high. Every time you thought it was drying out at last, it rained again.

  “Yeah?” Tucky said, his eyebrows raised. “Fit me perfect, they do. Didn’t see your name on ’em. Must ’ave wore off.” He grinned, making no move to bend and unlace the offending boots and hand them back.

  Plugger was sitting half sideways on the fire-step. A few yards away the sentry was standing with his back to them, staring through the periscope over the wire and mud of no-man’s-land. He could not afford to lose concentration even for a moment, regardless of what went on behind him.

  “They’s moi boots,” Plugger said between his teeth. “Take ’em off yer soddin’ feet an’ give ’em back to me, or Oi’ll take ’em off yer and give yer to the rats!”

  Tucky bounced on the balls of his feet, hunching his shoulders a little. “You want to try?” he invited.

  Doughy Ward crawled out of his dugout, fully dressed, as they all were: webbing and rifle with bayonet attached. His fair-skinned face was crumpled with annoyance at being robbed of any part of his few hours of sleep. He glared at Joseph. “ ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ Isn’t that right, Chaplain?”

  It was a demand that even here in the mud and the cold, amid boredom and sporadic violence, Joseph should do his job and stand for the values of justice that must remain, or all this would sink into a purposeless hell. Without right and wrong there was no sanity.

  “Oi didn’t steal them!” Tucky said angrily. “They were . . .” He did not finish the sentence because Plugger hit him, a rolling blow that caught the side of his jaw as he ducked and struck back.

  There was no point in shouting at them, and the sound would carry. Added to which Joseph did not want to let the whole trench know that there was a discipline problem. Both men could end up on a charge, and that was not the way for a chaplain to resolve anything. He moved forward, careful to avoid being struck himself, and grasped hold of Tucky, taking him off balance and knocking him against the uprights that held the trench wall.

  “The Germans are that way!” he said tartly, jerking his head back toward the parapet and no-man’s-land beyond.

  Plugger was up on his feet, slithering in the mud on the duckboards, his socks filthy and sodden. “Good oidea to send him over the top, Captain, where he belongs! But not in moi boots!” He was floundering toward them, arms flailing as if to carry on the fight.

  Joseph stepped between them, risking being caught by both, the worst part of which would be that then a charge would be unavoidable. “Stop it!” he ordered briskly. “Take the boots off, Nunn!”

  “Thank you, Chaplain,” Plugger responded with a smile of satisfaction.

  Tucky stood unmoving, his face set, ignoring the blood. “They ain’t his boots oither!” he said sullenly, his eyes meeting Joseph’s.

  A man appeared around the dogleg corner. No stretch of the trench was more than ten or twelve yards long, to prevent shellfire taking out a whole platoon of men—or a German raiding party making it through the wire. They were steep-sided, shored up against mud slides, and barely wide enough for two men to pass each other. The man coming was tall and lean with wide shoulders, and he walked with a certain elegance, even on the sloping duckboards. His face was dark, long-nosed, and there was a wry humor in it.

  “Early for tea, aren’t you?” he asked, his eyes going from one to another.

  Tucky and Plugger reluctantly stood to attention. “Yes, Major Wetherall,” they said almost in unison.

  Sam Wetherall glanced down at Plugger’s stockinged feet, his eyebrows raised. “Thinking of creeping up on the cook, are you? Or making a quick recce over the top first?”

  “Soon as Oi get moi boots back from that thievin’ sod, Oi’ll put ’em on again,” Plugger replied, gesturing toward Tucky.

  “I’d wash them first if I were you,” Sam advised with a smile.

  “Oi will,” Plugger agreed. “Oi don’t want to catch nothin’!”

  “I meant your feet,” Sam corrected him.

  Tucky Nunn roared with laughter, in spite of the bruise darkening on his jaw where Plugger had caught him.

/>   “Whose boots are they?” Joseph asked, smiling as well.

  “Moine!” both men said together.

  “Whose boots are they?” Joseph repeated.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Oi saw ’em first,” Plugger answered.

  “You didn’t take them,” Tucky pointed out. “If you ’ad, you’d ’ave them now, wouldn’t you!”

  “Come on, Solomon.” Sam looked at Joseph, his mouth pulled into an ironic twist.

  “Right,” Joseph said decisively. “Left boot, Nunn. Right boot, Arnold.”

  There was considerable grumbling, but Tucky took off the right boot and passed it over, reaching for one of the worn boots where Plugger had been sitting.

  “Shouldn’t have had them off now anyway,” Sam said disapprovingly. “You know better than that. What if Fritz’d made a sudden attack?”

  Plugger’s eyebrows shot up, his blue eyes wide open. “At half past three in the afternoon? It’s teatoime in a minute. They may be soddin’ Germans, but they’re not uncivilized. They still got to eat an’ sleep, same as us.”

  “You stick your head up above the parapet, and you’ll find he’s nowhere near asleep, I promise you,” Sam warned.

  Tucky was about to reply when there was a shouting about twenty yards along the line, and a moment later a young soldier lurched around the corner, his face white. He stared at Sam.

  “One of your sappers has taken half his hand off!” he said, his voice high-pitched and jerky.

  “Where is he, Charlie?” Joseph said quickly. “We’ll get him to the first-aid post.”

  Sam was rigid. “Who is it?” He started forward, pushing ahead of both of them, ignoring the rats scattering in both directions.

  Charlie Gee swiveled and went on his heels. Joseph stopped to duck into the connecting trench leading back to the second line, and pick out a first-aid pack in case they needed more than the field dressing the wounded man should be carrying himself.

  When he caught up with them Sam was bent over, one arm around a man sitting on the duckboards. The sapper was rocking back and forth, clutching the stump of his hand to his chest, scarlet blood streaming from it.

  Joseph had lost count of how many wounded and dead he had seen, but each man’s horror was new, and real, and it looked as if in this case the man might have lost a good deal of his right hand.

  Sam was ashen, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles stood out like cords. “We have to see it, Corliss!” His voice shook in spite of everything he could do to steady it. “We have to stop the bleeding!” He looked at Joseph, his eyes desperate.

  Joseph tore open the dressing and, speaking gently to the injured man, took his hand and without examining it, pressed the bandage and the lint over the streaming wound, then bound it as well as he could. He had very little idea how many fingers were left.

  “Come on, ol’ feller,” Charlie said, trying to help Corliss to his feet. “Oi’ll get you back to the doc’s and they’ll do it for you proper.”

  Sam climbed to his feet and pulled Joseph aside as Charlie and Corliss stumbled past.

  “Joe, can you go with them?” Sam said urgently. He swallowed, gulping. “Corliss is in a hell of a state. He’s been on the edge of funking it for days. I’ve got to find out what happened, put in a report, but the medics’ll ask him what caused it. . . . Answer for him, will you?” He stopped, but it was painfully apparent he wanted to say more.

  Suddenly Joseph understood. Sam was terrified the man had injured himself deliberately. Some men panicked, worn down by fear, cold, and horror, and put their hands up above the parapet precisely so a sniper would get them. A hand maimed was “a Blighty one,” and they got sent home. But if it was self-inflicted, it was considered cowardice in the face of the enemy. It warranted a court-martial, and possibly even the death sentence. Corliss’s nerves may have snapped. It happened to men sometimes. Anything could trigger a reaction: the incessant noise of bombardment, the dirt, body lice. For some it was waking in the night with rats crawling over your body—or worse, your face. The horror of talking one moment to a man you had grown up with, the next seeing him blown to bits, perhaps armless and legless but still alive, taking minutes of screaming in agony to die. It was more than some could take. For others it was the guilt of knowing that your bullet, or your bayonet, was doing the same to a German you had never met, but who was your own age, and essentially just like you. Sometimes they crept over no-man’s-land at night and swapped food. Occasionally you could even hear them singing. Different things broke different men. Corliss was a sapper. It could have been the claustrophobia of crawling inside the tunnels under the earth, the terror of being buried alive.

  “Help him,” Sam begged. “I can’t go . . . and they won’t believe me anyway.”

  “Of course.” Joseph did not hesitate. He grasped Sam’s arm for an instant, then turned and made his way back over the duckboards to the opening of the communication trench. Charlie Gee and Corliss were far enough ahead of him to be out of sight around one of the numerous dogleg bends. He hurried, his feet slithering on the wet boards. In some places chicken wire had been tacked over them to give a grip, but no one had bothered here. He must catch up with them before they reached the supply trench and someone else started asking questions.

  Morale was Joseph’s job, to keep up courage and belief, to help the injured, too often the dying. He wrote letters home for those who could not, either through injury, or inability to put to words emotions that overwhelmed them, and for which there was no common understanding. He tried to offer some meaning to pain almost beyond bearing. They were already in the ninth month of the bitterest and most all-consuming war the world had even seen.

  To begin with they had believed it would be over by Christmas, but that had been December of 1914. Now, four months later, the British Expeditionary Force of almost one hundred thousand men was wiped out, either dead or injured, and it was critical that new recruits be found. Kitchener had called for a million men, and they would be fresh, healthy, not having endured a winter in the open in the unceasing cold and rain. They would not have lice, swollen and peeling feet, or a dozen other miseries to debilitate them.

  Joseph crossed the reserve trench and saw men moving. A soldier was singing to himself, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” as he poured water out of a petrol can, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He balanced the Dixie tin over a precarious arrangement of candles to heat it. He raised a hand to Joseph and smiled without distracting his attention from his task.

  The men in this segment were from the Cambridgeshire villages around Joseph’s home of Selborne St. Giles. Most of them knew each other by their local nicknames. Joseph was thirty-five, and for the years leading up to the war had been a lecturer in biblical languages at St. John’s College in Cambridge. Before that he had been in the ministry. He knew most of these men’s families. His own youngest sister, Judith, was twenty-four, older than many of these. He thought of her with a twisting confusion of emotions. He was intensely proud of her that she had volunteered to use her one distinctive skill, driving, to come here and work wherever she could help. She had been both a joy and a menace on the roads at home, but here she coped with the mud, the breakdowns, the long hours, and the horror of wounded and dying men with a courage he had not known she possessed.

  The trench was climbing a bit, and drier. The slit of sky overhead was blue, with a thin drift of clouds, like mares’ tails.

  Joseph was afraid for Judith in many ways. The obvious danger of injury or even death was only a part of it. There was also the vulnerability of the mind and heart to the destruction around her, the drowning in pain, the loss of so many young men, and the inability of the ambulances to do more than carry them from one place to another, very often too late. He knew the questions that tormented his own mind. No sane person could be wholehearted about war, not if they had seen it. It was one thing to stand in England in the early spring with the hedgerows beginning to bud, wild birds si
nging and daffodils in the gardens and along the banks under the trees, and speak of the nobility of war. It was an idea, at times even a noble one. Most people despised the thought of surrender.

  Out here it was a reality. You froze most of the time. You were always cold and usually wet. All waking hours were occupied with monotonous routine: carrying, cleaning, digging, shoring up walls, trying to heat food and find drinkable water. You were always tired. And then there were the short interludes of horror: fear crawling in your stomach, shattering noise, and the blood and the pain, men dead, young men you had known and liked. Some would still be crippled long after the war passed into history; the nightmares would never be over for them.

  Germany had invaded Belgium, and a matter of honor rested on it. Invasion was wrong; that was the one thing about which there was no question in anyone’s mind. But the few German soldiers he had seen were in every way but uniform indistinguishable from the young Englishman beside him. They were young, tired, dirty, and confused like everyone else.

  When a successful raiding party captured someone and brought him back, Joseph had often been chosen to question him because before the war he had spent time in Germany and spoke the language not only fluently but with pleasure. Looking back on those times now was a wrenching, muddled sort of pain. He had been treated with such courtesy, laughed with them, shared their food. It was the land of Beethoven and Goethe, of science and philosophy, of vast myths and dreams. How could they now be doing this to each other?

  Joseph turned the last corner and went up a couple of steps where he caught up with Charlie Gee and Corliss, but the trench was still too narrow for him to help. Two men could barely walk side by side, let alone three.

  The main dressing station was in a tent a few yards away. At least it was dry, and no more of a target than any other structure. It was quite spacious inside. After a bad raid they had to deal with dozens of men, moving them in and out as rapidly as ambulances could take them back to proper hospitals. Just now there was a lull. There were only two men inside, gray-faced, their uniforms bloodstained, waiting to be moved.

 

    The face of a stranger Read onlineThe face of a strangerTriple Jeopardy Read onlineTriple JeopardyA Question of Betrayal Read onlineA Question of BetrayalA Christmas Gathering Read onlineA Christmas GatheringDeath in Focus Read onlineDeath in FocusA Christmas Resolution Read onlineA Christmas ResolutionA Christmas Journey Read onlineA Christmas JourneyA Christmas Garland: A Novel Read onlineA Christmas Garland: A NovelAnne Perry's Christmas Vigil Read onlineAnne Perry's Christmas VigilA Sunless Sea wm-18 Read onlineA Sunless Sea wm-18The Whitechapel Conspiracy Read onlineThe Whitechapel ConspiracyLong Spoon Lane: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel Read onlineLong Spoon Lane: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt NovelA Christmas Hope Read onlineA Christmas HopeThe Hyde Park Headsman Read onlineThe Hyde Park HeadsmanAnne Perry's Silent Nights Read onlineAnne Perry's Silent NightsA Christmas Message Read onlineA Christmas MessageA Christmas Hope: A Novel Read onlineA Christmas Hope: A NovelHyde Park Headsman Read onlineHyde Park HeadsmanNo Graves As Yet wwi-1 Read onlineNo Graves As Yet wwi-1The Sins of the Wolf Read onlineThe Sins of the WolfBlood on the Water Read onlineBlood on the WaterHighgate Rise Read onlineHighgate RiseA Christmas Revelation Read onlineA Christmas RevelationCater Street Hangman tp-1 Read onlineCater Street Hangman tp-1Cain His Brother Read onlineCain His BrotherA Breach of Promise Read onlineA Breach of PromiseRevenge in a Cold River Read onlineRevenge in a Cold RiverMidnight at Marble Arch tp-28 Read onlineMidnight at Marble Arch tp-28Shoulder the Sky wwi-2 Read onlineShoulder the Sky wwi-2The Shifting Tide Read onlineThe Shifting TideSilence in Hanover Close tp-9 Read onlineSilence in Hanover Close tp-9Long Spoon Lane Read onlineLong Spoon LaneThe Silent Cry Read onlineThe Silent CryWeighed in the Balance Read onlineWeighed in the BalanceSilence in Hanover Close Read onlineSilence in Hanover CloseDark Assassin Read onlineDark AssassinAshworth Hall Read onlineAshworth HallA Sudden, Fearful Death Read onlineA Sudden, Fearful DeathTwenty-One Days Read onlineTwenty-One DaysBethlehem Road Read onlineBethlehem RoadBuckingham Palace Gardens Read onlineBuckingham Palace GardensA Christmas Promise Read onlineA Christmas PromiseExecution Dock Read onlineExecution DockThe William Monk Mysteries Read onlineThe William Monk MysteriesAt Some Disputed Barricade wwi-4 Read onlineAt Some Disputed Barricade wwi-4Angels in the Gloom wwi-3 Read onlineAngels in the Gloom wwi-3Cardington Crescent tp-8 Read onlineCardington Crescent tp-8Dark Tide Rising Read onlineDark Tide RisingCallander Square Read onlineCallander SquareA Christmas Beginning c-5 Read onlineA Christmas Beginning c-5One Thing More Read onlineOne Thing MoreAn Anne Perry Christmas: Two Holiday Novels Read onlineAn Anne Perry Christmas: Two Holiday NovelsA Christmas Journey c-1 Read onlineA Christmas Journey c-1Treason at Lisson Grove: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel Read onlineTreason at Lisson Grove: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt NovelResurrection Row Read onlineResurrection RowA Christmas Beginning Read onlineA Christmas BeginningTreason at Lisson Grove Read onlineTreason at Lisson GroveMurder on the Serpentine Read onlineMurder on the SerpentineResurrection Row tp-4 Read onlineResurrection Row tp-4We Shall Not Sleep Read onlineWe Shall Not SleepBedford Square tp-19 Read onlineBedford Square tp-19The Angel Court Affair Read onlineThe Angel Court AffairBlind Justice wm-19 Read onlineBlind Justice wm-19Farriers' Lane Read onlineFarriers' LaneA Christmas Return Read onlineA Christmas ReturnA Christmas Guest Read onlineA Christmas GuestWhitechapel Conspiracy Read onlineWhitechapel ConspiracyThe Twisted Root Read onlineThe Twisted RootA Dangerous Mourning Read onlineA Dangerous MourningBelgrave Square Read onlineBelgrave SquareFuneral in Blue wm-12 Read onlineFuneral in Blue wm-12Slaves of Obsession wm-11 Read onlineSlaves of Obsession wm-11Tathea Read onlineTatheaShoulder the Sky Read onlineShoulder the SkyA Christmas Secret cn-4 Read onlineA Christmas Secret cn-4The Shifting Tide wm-14 Read onlineThe Shifting Tide wm-14Death On Blackheath (Thomas Pitt 29) Read onlineDeath On Blackheath (Thomas Pitt 29)Defend and Betray Read onlineDefend and BetrayMidnight at Marble Arch Read onlineMidnight at Marble ArchRutland Place tp-5 Read onlineRutland Place tp-5Dorchester Terrace Read onlineDorchester TerraceBlind Justice Read onlineBlind JusticeA Christmas Visitor Read onlineA Christmas VisitorAngels in the Gloom Read onlineAngels in the GloomThe Scroll b-1 Read onlineThe Scroll b-1Dorchester Terrace tp-27 Read onlineDorchester Terrace tp-27Paragon Walk tp-3 Read onlineParagon Walk tp-3A Christmas Secret Read onlineA Christmas SecretA Christmas Garland Read onlineA Christmas GarlandA Christmas Grace Read onlineA Christmas GraceDeath in the Devil's Acre Read onlineDeath in the Devil's AcreBetrayal at Lisson Grove Read onlineBetrayal at Lisson GroveCome Armageddon Read onlineCome ArmageddonTraitors Gate tp-15 Read onlineTraitors Gate tp-15Cater Street Hangman Read onlineCater Street HangmanAcceptable Loss wm-17 Read onlineAcceptable Loss wm-17A Christmas Homecoming Read onlineA Christmas HomecomingDeath in the Devil's Acre tp-7 Read onlineDeath in the Devil's Acre tp-7A Christmas Grace c-6 Read onlineA Christmas Grace c-6Scroll Read onlineScrollCardington Crescent Read onlineCardington CrescentSlaves of Obsession Read onlineSlaves of ObsessionAnne Perry's Silent Nights: Two Victorian Christmas Mysteries Read onlineAnne Perry's Silent Nights: Two Victorian Christmas MysteriesThe One Thing More Read onlineThe One Thing MoreNo Graves As Yet Read onlineNo Graves As YetPentecost Alley Read onlinePentecost AlleyThe Sheen on the Silk Read onlineThe Sheen on the SilkSeven Dials Read onlineSeven DialsBrunswick Gardens Read onlineBrunswick GardensParagon Walk Read onlineParagon WalkBedford Square Read onlineBedford SquarePentecost Alley tp-16 Read onlinePentecost Alley tp-16A Christmas Odyssey cn-8 Read onlineA Christmas Odyssey cn-8Highgate Rise tp-11 Read onlineHighgate Rise tp-11Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries Read onlineAnne Perry's Christmas MysteriesA Christmas Odyssey Read onlineA Christmas OdysseyAcceptable Loss: A William Monk Novel Read onlineAcceptable Loss: A William Monk NovelDeath On Blackheath tp-29 Read onlineDeath On Blackheath tp-29Betrayal at Lisson Grove tp-26 Read onlineBetrayal at Lisson Grove tp-26Half Moon Street Read onlineHalf Moon StreetA New York Christmas (Christmas Novellas 12) Read onlineA New York Christmas (Christmas Novellas 12)The Twisted Root wm-10 Read onlineThe Twisted Root wm-10Half Moon Street tp-20 Read onlineHalf Moon Street tp-20Traitors Gate Read onlineTraitors GateCallander Square tp-2 Read onlineCallander Square tp-2The Sheen of the Silk Read onlineThe Sheen of the SilkSouthampton Row Read onlineSouthampton RowA Christmas Guest c-3 Read onlineA Christmas Guest c-3Death on Blackheath Read onlineDeath on BlackheathBlind Justice: A William Monk Novel Read onlineBlind Justice: A William Monk NovelThe Scroll Read onlineThe ScrollA Sunless Sea Read onlineA Sunless SeaBuckingham Palace Gardens tp-25 Read onlineBuckingham Palace Gardens tp-25Funeral in Blue Read onlineFuneral in BlueAcceptable Loss Read onlineAcceptable LossAnne Perry's Christmas Mysteries: Two Holiday Novels Read onlineAnne Perry's Christmas Mysteries: Two Holiday Novels