Shoulder the Sky Read online

  Judith’s mind whirled. It could be! It was a cold thought, and she had not the faintest idea who the woman was, or how to find her, and trace her back to the Peacemaker. But it was a beginning, or it might be. “I suppose Nan Fardell doesn’t know who she is?”

  “No idea at all. I asked her, just out of curiosity. She’s never seen her before. Do you think it could have been she who gave Sebastian the order to . . .” She did not finish the sentence.

  Judith shivered. “Yes, it could. It’s possible. Matthew thinks the Peacemaker could be Ivor Chetwin, which is a horrible thought.”

  “It has to be someone we know,” Hannah said quietly. “It’s all horrible. Let’s go inside. It’s getting cold.”

  They turned and walked together slowly, not needing or wanting to discuss it anymore, but in Judith’s mind was a photograph of an unusually tall girl with light, clear eyes, and she was standing next to Eldon Prentice.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  Days and nights continued their routine of alternating violence and boredom. Joseph helped with digging and shoring up in the trenches, carrying food, helping the wounded or dying, writing letters for people, often just listening when men needed to talk. They swapped stories, the longer and more fantastic the better. They made bad jokes and sang music hall songs with bawdy army lyrics to them, and laughed too loudly, too close to tears.

  Little Belgian boys came by selling English newspapers, and they read voraciously to see what was happening at home. Joseph conducted the mandatory church parades, and tried to think of something to say that made sense.

  But all the time at the back of his mind was the question of why Eldon Prentice had been in no-man’s-land, and who had thrust his head under the water and held it there until he was dead. The thought was horrible, filling him with a revulsion quite different from the gut-turning pity of other deaths. There was a moral dimension to it he could grasp, a personal evil rather than the vast, mindless insanity around them all.

  Nobody wanted to talk about it. To everyone else it was the one death that did not matter. Prentice had had a letter from General Cullingford giving him permission to come and go pretty well as he pleased, and he had used it freely. There was an impulsive feeling that he had got what he deserved. Grief was saved for other men, like Chicken Hagger, and now Bibby Nunn, caught by sniper fire.

  Mail delivery was one of the best times of the day. Letters from home were the lifeline to the world that mattered, to love and sanity, the precious heart of what was worth dying for. For each man it was a little different, a different face, a different house that was familiar, but they shared them with the half dozen or so men who were their “family” here.

  As chaplain, Joseph was uniquely alone. He was an officer, and apart. He belonged to everyone and no one. The nearest he had to a family was Sam. With Sam he could share Matthew’s letters, even if they referred to the Peacemaker.

  One witheringly cold night in January, he and Sam had crouched together on the fire-step in the trench known as Shaftesbury Avenue, the wind whining in the wires across no-man’s-land, ice cracking on the mud, duckboards slick with it underfoot. Joseph had told Sam about his parents’ deaths, and a brief outline of the Peacemaker’s conspiracy, enough for Sam to understand at least the anger and the passion that drove him to seek the men who would still bring such betrayal to pass, if he could.

  He could see Sam’s face in his memory, sharply outlined for a moment in the glare of star shells.

  The smile on his lips, the heaven and hell of irony in him. He had said nothing, simply put out his freezing hand and touched Joseph for a moment.

  Now Joseph sat alone with the sheets of paper, the sun warming him in the stillness of the afternoon. Tucky Nunn and Barshey Gee were asleep a few yards away, faces at ease, their youth achingly apparent. Tucky half smiled, perhaps home again in dreams.

  Further along Reg Varcoe sat bare-chested, holding a match to the seams of his tunic. In the distance someone was singing “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”

  For a moment Joseph thought of home: grasses deep in the lanes, woods full of bluebells, may blossom in bud. In Northumberland where he used to walk with Harry Beecher, the hills would be alight with the burning gold of gorse, the perfume of it like honey and wine. Sometimes it helped to think of the sanities of life, at others it hurt too much. He missed Matthew—he missed the easy conversation of trust, the knowledge of a bond that stretched back to childhood, a safety, before pain or failure were known.

  He read Matthew’s letter three times. There was nothing particular in it, just gossip about London, a short description of the countryside when he had been home, the weather, a few jokes. It was like listening to the voice of someone you loved. What they were saying was unimportant, the message through it was I am here, and that was what you needed to know.

  There was a second letter for him, in a hand he did not know. He opened it with curiosity and read:

  Dear Captain Reavley,

  Thank you for your letter telling me of my husband’s death. I know from the casualty figures that you must have this dreadful duty to perform very often. It was generous of you to write so personally to me.

  I shall share your words with my brother-in-law who lives up in the family manor house a few miles away. Garaint was a quiet man who loved the land and the hills here. He would walk miles, even in the rain, and he sang beautifully, as so many Welshmen do. He seemed to be able to play any musical instrument if he turned his hand to it.

  I find it hard to believe he is not coming back, but then there are many other women all over the country who must feel the same. Perhaps it is worse if it is a son, someone you have known and loved all their lives. That is a grief that won’t come to me, and I am grateful for it.

  I believe that you get newspapers quite often in the trenches, so perhaps you know as much news as I do. Some of it is very grim. I think the thing that saddens me the most is the death of Rupert Brooke. He died on April 23rd, off Gallipoli somewhere. It wasn’t in action, it was blood poisoning. I feel horribly empty, because he was so wonderfully, vibrantly alive. Of course I never knew him in person, but I loved his poetry. He said all the things I wished I could. His dreams soared to the places I longed to be, passion and imagination and a fierce hunger for the intensity of life, as if you could touch it, taste it, for a moment hold it in your hands, as if you could stand in the sunset and in silence take its fire inside you.

  The lights are going out, aren’t they? What can we hold on to so that one day we can kindle them again?

  Thank you for the strength of your faith that somewhere there will be meaning to all of this, if we have the courage to hang on. It does help.

  Yours sincerely,

  Isobel Hughes

  He did not read it again. Perhaps he would later, at another time, when the words would matter. Now he was stunned and filled with loss, not for Garaint Hughes whom he had held as he died, but for a poet whose thoughts and words had woven themselves into the fabric of his own life. Rupert Brooke had been eight years younger than Joseph. He had studied at Cambridge and loved it with a passion he had made wild and beautiful in verse, to live beyond generations, let alone his own lifetime. But here in this mortal little space, they had seen the same stones and trees, the same burning sunset across the west from Harleyfield to Madingley, breathed the same air and watched the same birds in flight.

  It was almost as if Sebastian had died again, only a better, brighter version of him, a man whose heart achieved the gold that Sebastian had tarnished.

  The words of Brooke’s poetry flooded his mind, painting with bone-deep nostalgia the beauty of the land they had both loved, familiar now in the pain of memory.

  How could such hunger for life be gone, without warning? How many young men would have their promise shattered before it bloomed, their talents never more than a hope? Was it worth this price? He had told Isobel Hughes that it was, because it was what she needed to believe, but did he believ
e it himself?

  Maybe the whole thing was just as tragic and insane as the Peacemaker had thought, the suicidal delusion of men who had more courage to die than to grasp reason, and unity and life. Was there a God somewhere weeping at this gigantic error? Or was life a blind chance anyway, and purpose only a dream created by man to comfort himself in the darkness of a universe without sense?

  The soldier somewhere along the trench was still singing, a clear, true voice, caressing the melody.

  How long before he was crushed as well?

  He looked up to find Sam standing in front of him, a packet of Woodbines in his hand.

  “No, thank you,” Joseph said automatically.

  “You look terrible,” Sam observed. “Letter from home?” His voice was gentle, and for a moment there was fear in his eyes, not for his own pain but for Joseph’s.

  “No, not really. A widow I wrote to—to tell her.”

  Sam waited, squatting down in the sun, his back to the mud wall, his feet on the duckboards.

  “Rupert Brooke’s dead,” Joseph said.

  Sam did not answer, his eyes were far away, seeing something beyond the clay wall and the strip of blue sky above.

  “Blood poisoning,” Joseph added.

  “ ‘Break the high bond we made and sell love’s trust, And sacramented covenant to the dust,’ ” Sam quoted.

  This time it was Joseph who did not answer. His throat ached and his eyes stung with tears, not only for Rupert Brooke, but for all the lost, the ones he knew and had cared for, and all the others he had not. He remembered walking along the Backs at Cambridge, watching the punts on the river in the evening light, the black fretwork of the Bridge of Sighs against the blaze of the burning sky, the gold on Sebastian’s face as he spoke of all that war would destroy, not only of the flesh but of the spirit. And Sebastian was dead, too.

  “ ‘The Great Lover,’ ” Sam said aloud.

  “What?”

  “Rupert Brooke,” Sam explained. “That’s what it comes from—the lover of life. ‘Nor all my passion, all my prayers have power To hold them with me through the gates of death.’ ”

  He smiled, and there was a strange sweetness in his face. “We have to make it count now, Joe. Maybe your God will sort it out in eternity, but I think He means us to do something here and now as well. There’s enough that needs fixing for all of us to have a place.”

  “You’re right,” Joseph agreed. “Perhaps if I do something, I’ll forget how much there is I can’t do. I need a little forgetting. I can’t afford a sense of proportion; it would crush me.”

  Joseph knew what he had to do, find justice for Eldon Prentice. It was something definite that could be forced into making sense, if he could learn who had done it. He might well discover that it was someone he liked, such as Wil Sloan, but his personal feelings did not alter the morality of the issue. It would be far worse if it turned out to be someone such as Major Hadrian, who had done it on General Cullingford’s behalf. But that was unlikely. There was no motive powerful enough to prompt such an extreme action, especially since Hadrian was a staff officer, not a soldier actually carrying arms. He did not see death personally, only in numbers and reports. Joseph would need to know of something far more urgent, more visceral, than the fact that Prentice was arrogant and manipulative, and possibly something of an embarrassment to a general for whom Hadrian had a deep loyalty.

  It was with great reluctance that he went to the Casualty Clearing Station to find out exactly where Wil had been on the night of Prentice’s death. It was a warm April day. The new grass was springing up lush and green in the few untrodden patches of earth. He passed a cart pulled by four horses, who squelched in the mud as they strained to heave it toward the ammunition depot. One man at their head, urging them on, gave Joseph a wave and called out to him.

  Further along he ran into Snowy Nunn, the sun shining on his fair hair, making it look almost white. He was very grave, face tremulous, eyes confused since the death of his cousin Bibby. It was somehow different when it was so close. It was more than grief, it was as if death had touched your own body, not a grip, just a brush, which reminded you of its power.

  Joseph stopped and spoke to him. There was nothing in particular to say, and he did not seek to find anything of meaning. He had given up believing there was anything, it was simply a matter of friendship.

  Half a dozen huge black rats shot out of one of the connecting trenches, and they heard somebody swearing ferociously. Snowy’s hand went to his gun, then away again. They were not allowed to shoot rats; there was no ammunition to spare for it. Anyway, it made no difference. There were tens of thousands of them. And their rotting bodies would only add to the stench.

  Joseph reached the Casualty Clearing Station and found the American nurse, Marie O’Day, again. She seemed pleased to see him, her fair face lit with pleasure.

  “Hello, Captain Reavley, what can we do for you? It’s a bit quiet at the moment. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  He accepted, partly to give him a chance to talk to her less bluntly. He asked general questions while she boiled the kettle, then took the tin cup carefully. It was hotter than he was used to—heated over candles in a Dixie tin. It actually smelled quite good, like real tea. He thanked her for it.

  “What can I do for you, Captain?” she asked again.

  He smiled. “Am I so transparent?”

  She nodded, smiling.

  “Do you remember that awful young newspaper correspondent?” he asked.

  Her face darkened. “Of course. But if you’re going to ask me if I saw Wil Sloan hit him, no I didn’t. I know that’s a lie, Captain, but I’m perfectly happy to tell it. What Mr. Prentice did was terrible.” She bit her lip, and her eyes filled with tears. “Poor Charlie Gee died, and . . . and perhaps that was a release for him. I . . .” she swallowed hard and took a moment to compose herself. “I couldn’t wish a young man to live like that. I wish the Lord had seen fit to take him immediately, without his ever having to know what had happened to him.”

  “I’d like to be able to say something wise,” Joseph confessed. “But I don’t know anything. I don’t understand it either. It stretches faith very far. But I wasn’t going to ask you if you saw Wil Sloan hit Prentice. I would rather not know. What I would like you to remember is if you saw Wil Sloan two nights after that.”

  “Why? Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “Prentice is dead, Mrs. O’Day.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” She looked guilty rather than grieved.

  “He was a correspondent, not a soldier,” he said. “I need to find out why he was so far forward. It shouldn’t have happened. Where was Wil Sloan?”

  “You can’t think he’s concerned! Can you?” She was afraid, and he could see it in her eyes.

  “I’d like to prove that he’s not, Mrs. O’Day. You might be able to help me to, if you tell me where he was. That is, if you know?”

  “He brought a badly wounded man in here, about four in the morning,” she replied. “I don’t know where he picked him up.”

  “Where is the man now? He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said gravely. “But he isn’t conscious yet. He lost a lot of blood. He was very badly torn up by shrapnel. He wouldn’t be alive if it were not for Wil.” The warning look in her expression was trying to guide him away from pursuing the subject at all.

  He was uncertain how much to tell her. He needed her cooperation, and instinctively he liked her. He admired women like her, who left behind all that was familiar and comfortable and came thousands of miles to work in extreme hardship, for people they did not know, because they believed it right. It was a spirit of Christianity far more powerful than anything shown by most clergy who preached a faith of which they were only half convinced, accepted money and status for it, and considered themselves servants of God.

  But Prentice’s death was an absolute. He wanted to prove Wil Sloan innocent, but he could not turn away and refu
se to see it if he proved him to be guilty after all. It would be painful, deeply so for himself, and because it would hurt Judith as well. But it would have a certain cleanness to it in that no matter how Prentice had behaved, possibly beating him up was excusable, or at least an offense for which apology was sufficient. Murder was not.

  And in silence, a confession of heart, uncertain if he was right or wrong, he thanked God for Charlie Gee’s release.

  Matthew had enjoyed seeing Judith more than he expected to. He had driven home to his flat after dinner with a sense of happiness, for once forgetting the vulnerability he had been so aware of since March’s Zeppelin attacks on English east coast cities. Suddenly war had developed a new dimension. It did not require an army landing or a naval bombardment to be struck in one’s own home; bombs could rain down from the air with fire and explosion almost anywhere.

  As he pulled up outside his flat and parked his car, for a moment he envied her. Usually she would sleep wherever she got the chance to, often in the back of an ambulance. Her food would be army biscuit and tins of greasy meat. There would be terrible sights of death and violence, horror he could barely imagine. But there would also be a comradeship that was denied to him, a trust in her fellows, an inner peace he had not known since Joseph and he had found the document.

  He unlocked the door and went inside. He turned on only a small light, just sufficient to see the shadow of the bookcase, but not the individual volumes. He knew what they were, poetry, a few plays, adventures from his childhood, not there to read again, just reminders of a different, more innocent time, a link to be looked at rather than touched. And there were books on current political and social history, warfare, and economics.

  He poured himself a stiff whisky, drank it, and went to bed.