Shoulder the Sky Page 18

  In the morning he had toast and tea for breakfast, his head aching, then he looked at the newspapers. They were full of more losses in Gallipoli, and of course all along the Western Front. It was discreet, no hysteria, no rage, only the long lists of names.

  It was Churchill’s plan to capture the Dardanelles and free the Russian Grand Fleet imprisoned in the Black Sea, then take Constantinople and give it back to the czar as a prize. They would be able to form a new battle line in the Austro-Hungarian rear, forcing them to fight a second front. So far it was a chaotic failure, costing thousands of lives, French and British, and more particularly Australian and New Zealand volunteers.

  The war had also been extended to Mesopotamia, and the Indian Ocean, Italy, and southwest Africa. An Italian ship had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean, and five hundred and forty-seven people had drowned.

  He drove to work, and found a message waiting for him that Shearing wished to see him. He went immediately.

  “Good morning, Reavley,” Shearing said tersely, pointing to the chair on the other side of the desk from his own. “Sit down.” He looked so tired his skin was like paper; his eyelids drooped as if he needed all his force of will to focus. His neat, strong hands clenched and unclenched on the desk.

  Matthew obeyed, but he knew that had he taken the liberty of doing so before he was invited he would have been criticized for it. It was Shearing’s way of establishing the rules of hierarchy before he allowed himself to break them. It was not in his nature to do the expected, even now when he seemed on the edge of exhaustion.

  “The Lusitania is setting sail from New York,” he said bitterly. “The Germans have warned us that any ship flying the British flag, or that of the Allies, is liable to U-boat attack. We can’t protect it! We’re stretched too thin to protect our merchant shipping as it is. We need American steel in order to make guns. Without it we’ll lose.”

  For the first time Matthew saw a flicker of fear in Shearing’s eyes. Even the desperate battles of last autumn, the winter on the Western Front, then the gas attack at Ypres, had not stripped from him his outer composure before, and it chilled Matthew more than he would have believed. It was as if a step he thought certain had given way beneath his feet. He struggled to mask it in his face.

  “Surely they’ll never sink a ship everyone knows has American civilians on board, sir? It would force America into the war, and we know that’s the last thing Germany wants.” Or was that what they expected, a sudden and cataclysmic escalation of the war, involving all the world, like an Armageddon?

  Shearing’s face was bleak, the skin stretched across his cheekbones. “I think you are being naive, Reavley.” Now his tone was critical, impatient. “You’ve read the correspondence from President Wilson. He’s a highly moral man with no understanding whatever of European character or history. In his mind he’s still a schoolmaster who is going to arbitrate between two unruly children in the playground. He intends to be remembered as the honest broker of peace who brought Germany and the Allies together and saved the Old World from itself.”

  Matthew swore, and then apologized.

  The faintest smile curved Shearing’s lips. “Precisely,” he agreed. “But unhelpful. Chetwin believes that even if the unthinkable happens, and the Lusitania is torpedoed and goes down, Wilson will still dither in virtuous inactivity, and his advisers will remind him of the very real threat to American copper and railroad investments, by Mexico’s chaos. Their army is far too small to fight on two fronts, so their own border will naturally take priority. Unless we can persuade them of Germany’s part in their troubles—which we cannot—Wilson will do nothing.”

  Matthew did not reply. He already knew every ploy the British ambassador had used to try to move President Wilson, and failed. America would sell Pittsburgh steel to Britain, as indeed it did to Germany. Individual Americans would come to Europe to fight, and sometimes to die, because they believed in the Allied cause. But there was also a large number of German-speaking Americans, and their heritage and loyalties mattered also.

  To act upon any of the messages they had intercepted between Berlin and Washington would betray the fact that the code was known, and the Germans would instantly change it.

  “Hoist on our own petard,” Shearing said drily, as if reading Matthew’s mind.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shearing looked very steadily at Matthew. “We need something to give us victory in the naval war,” he said softly, his voice gravelly with weariness and the possibility of defeat. “German U-boats hold the Atlantic passages. We have skill, we have courage, but we are being sunk faster than we can replace men or ships. If it continues at this rate, we will be starved into submission before Christmas.”

  Matthew thought of Hannah’s husband, Archie. He imagined what it would be like for the men at sea, knowing the elements were impartially violent, battering and devouring all ships alike. But uniquely for them, the enemy could attack from any direction, even the fathomless water below their fragile hulls. One could stand staring at the empty sea stretching to the horizon in every direction, silent but for the wind and water, and the throb of the engines. Then the deck beneath you could explode in destruction, fire, and flying metal. The sea would pour in, pulling you down into its vast darkness and closing over your head.

  Shearing was talking. Matthew jerked himself to attention and listened.

  “You know Shanley Corcoran, don’t you,” Shearing said.

  Matthew was startled.

  “Yes, sir. He and my father were friends since university days. I’ve known him all my life.” He could not even say it without the old warmth returning, memories of a hundred occasions of happiness. “He’s one of the best scientists we have.”

  Shearing was watching him closely, studying his face. “Do you trust him?”

  For once Matthew did not have to think, and the pleasure of that was almost intoxicating. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  Shearing nodded. “Good. You’ll know he’s in charge of the Scientific Establishment in Cambridgeshire.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  A flicker of impatience crossed Shearing’s face. “I wasn’t asking you, Reavley! I know where you live! I don’t want to send for Corcoran, nor do I want to be seen down there myself. What I want done could win us the war, and if we are betrayed either intentionally or by carelessness, we will lose it in a space of weeks. Therefore what I say to you, you will repeat to no one else at all, in SIS or beyond it—do you understand me?”

  Matthew felt the room swim. His head was pounding. It was almost as if he were back in Sandwell’s office again, with fear of traitors within, suspicion, doubt everywhere.

  “Reavley!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, man? Are you drunk?” Shearing demanded, his frayed temper unraveling. “The situation is desperate, a lot worse than we can afford to let the country know. We need to stop the German navy, that’s where the real war is. The sea is our greatest friend, and enemy. We have to hold it to survive.”

  Matthew stared at him, mesmerized. There was a hideous truth to what he was saying, and yet it supposed defeat in France, and Europe dominated by Germany. Was he really preparing for that kind of disaster? The thought was deeply and painfully frightening. He pulled his attention together with an effort, waiting for Shearing to continue.

  Shearing had not moved his eyes from Matthew’s face. “We need something to stop the submarines, a missile that hits every time, instead of one in a score,” he stated. “Ships are made of steel, so are torpedoes, and depth charges. There must be some way; magnetism, attraction, repulsion, electricity, something that will make a missile find a target with more accuracy. Imagine it, Reavley!” His dark eyes were blazing now, wide, almost luminous. His hands described a shape in the air, delicately, fingers spread. “A torpedo that changes course, if necessary, that searches out a U-boat through the water, and explodes when it strikes! Have you ever played with magnets
on either side of a piece of paper? Move one, the other moves with it! Something like that must be possible—we just have to find the way. If any man can do it, it will be Corcoran!”

  Matthew saw the brilliant possibility of it! Then at the same instant, like the crash of ice, he saw total surrender if the Germans obtained such a weapon. Never mind before Christmas, the war could be over in weeks.

  “You see?” Shearing was leaning across the desk.

  “Yes . . .” Matthew breathed out shakily. “Yes, I see.”

  Shearing nodded slowly. “So you will go to Corcoran and brief him to put all other projects aside, reassign them to his juniors, and give this priority. He must put each part of it to different people, so no one knows the entire project. All must be sworn to absolute secrecy, even so. I will see that it is funded directly from Whitehall, nothing through the treasury or the War Office. He will report only to me, no one else at all! Is that understood—absolutely?”

  “Yes, sir.” Matthew could see it was imperative, there was no need to add any explanations. He could also see, with a wave of nausea that made his gorge rise, what it would do if Shearing were the Peacemaker. It was an irony of exquisite proportions. He could be getting England’s finest brain to create a weapon for German victory, and stealing it at the precise moment it was ready for use. And no one but Matthew Reavley would know, because he would indirectly have helped create it. The irony would be sublime; the vengeance for foiling his first plan!

  He had no alternative. His heart was pounding, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Of course I will.” He could not refuse. At all cost he must keep it in his own hands. “I’ll go tomorrow.”

  Shearing nodded. “Good.”

  Matthew drove to Cambridge, leaving London before six in the morning when the traffic was light, and he was well on the way north by the time he stopped for breakfast a little after eight. It was a bright clear day with white clouds riding the horizon and the sun bathing the landscape in an illusion of peace. Looking at the fat lambs in the fields, the cattle grazing, and the great trees towering into the air, green skirts brushing the high grasses, the whole idea of war seemed like an obscenity that belonged in the madness of dreams.

  But in the village where he stopped there were only girls and old men in the pub, and their faces were strained, their eyes lonely. They looked on a healthy young man out of uniform with suspicion.

  One old man with a black armband asked him outright. “You on leave?”

  “Yes, sir,” Matthew answered, with respect for his loss, which he judged from the band to be recent. “Sort of. I’m taking the time off for a duty, but I can’t discuss it.”

  The old man blinked back tears. There was anger as well as grief in his face, and he was ashamed of them both, but his emotion was too strong to hide. “A healthy young fellow like you ought to be doing something!” he said bitterly, ignoring his tankard of ale.

  “I know,” Matthew admitted, his voice suddenly gentle. The old man was racked by loss, the details did not matter, the pain obliterated them all, he simply railed against the unfairness of it. “But some things have to be done secretly,” he went on. “I lost both my parents. I think they were the first casualties of the intelligence war, which one can’t afford to forget. My elder brother is on the Western Front, and my younger sister drives an ambulance out there.” The moment the words were spoken he wondered why he had said them. He had never bothered to tell anyone before, and it was certainly not the first time anyone had looked at him with doubt, or even open blame. These days, coward was perhaps the ugliest word there was. One despised one’s own who stayed at home and left others to fight, bleed, perhaps die, with far more passion than one ever hated the enemy.

  Perhaps it had something to do with the pent-up despair he had seen in Shearing, or the fact that he was coming from the city and going home to the land he loved. In another hour or so he would pass along the very length of road where his parents had been killed. It would look just as it had on the hot June day when he and Joseph had first seen the gouge marks on the surface, and the broken twigs, the scars on the bark, mute witnesses of the violence that had cost so much.

  And it still hurt to go into the house in St. Giles, with its familiar hallway, the furniture he had grown up with, the way the light fell in patterns he could see even with his eyes closed. But his mother would not be in the kitchen, nor his father in the study.

  “My son,” the old man said with choking pride as he touched a gnarled hand to the black band. “Gallipoli. They buried him out there.”

  Matthew nodded. There was nothing to say. The man did not want understanding, and there was no help to give. Platitudes showed one’s own need to attempt something that was impossible.

  He finished his meal and went back to the car. He was in Selborne St. Giles by ten past nine. The main street was quiet. Children were in school. The village shop was open, newspapers outside full of the same sort of thing as always these days, the Dardanelles, the Western Front, politics; nothing he was unaware of, and certainly nothing he wanted to read.

  He turned off the main street and along the short distance to the house. It looked silent in the morning, almost unoccupied. In the imagination he still saw his father’s yellow Lanchester that Judith had sneaked the chance to drive whenever she could. Hannah had never wanted to. Before the war she had had no need, there was always someone to drive her. Now few people had vehicles. Petrol was expensive. Tradesmen did not make deliveries anymore, the men who would have performed such a service were in the army. People walked, and carried. If they lived too far out, then there were dog carts, pony traps if you were lucky. God knew how many horses were in the army, too, poor beasts!

  He switched off the engine, took his small case out of the boot, and went to the front door. It was unlocked. He hesitated before pushing it open. It was an idiotic moment, but just for an instant time telescoped and it was a year ago. Hannah would be in Portsmouth, Joseph at St. John’s in Cambridge, but everyone else would be here. His mother would be pleased to see him, thinking about what she could make for dinner that he would like.

  His father would leave his study and they would take the dog and walk around the garden together, deep in contemplation, admiring the view across the fields without ever needing to speak of it, knowing its goodness with quiet certainty, the great elms would stand deep-skirted, silent above the grass. Starlings would whirl up against the sky, and the poplars would shimmer gold in the sunset breeze.

  He pushed the door open and went in. The first thing he saw in the hall was Hannah’s daughter Jenny’s blue coat on the hook by the cloakroom door. She was eight, and possibly at school today, but it was too warm for her to have needed it.

  The dog came bounding up the hall, wagging his tail, and Matthew bent to pat him. “Hello, Henry! How are you old fellow?” He straightened up and called Hannah.

  There was a moment’s silence, then she appeared from the kitchen. Her hair was almost the same color as her mother’s had been, and she had the same wide, brown eyes. It cost him all the strength he had to make himself smile. He must love her for herself, for her griefs and joys, not because she reminded him of someone else. She was probably missing Alys even more than he was. They had been so close, and now she was in so many ways taking her place in the village, trying to pick up in the multitude of small duties, kindnesses, unseen things that Alys had done over the years. And she was living here in this house where the past was like an echo to every word, a reflection gone the moment before one glanced at the mirror.

  Her face lit with surprise and pleasure. “Matthew! You didn’t say you were coming! You just missed Judith, but I’m sure you know that!” She came toward him quickly, drying her hands on her long, white apron. She was wearing a plum pink dress with a skirt fashionably close at the ankle, but he knew enough to see that it was last year’s cut.

  He put his arms around her and hugged her closely, feeling how quickly she responded. She must miss Ar
chie dreadfully. She probably was not even allowed to know where he was. It was her duty to keep up the façade of confidence for their three children, Tom, Jenny, and Luke, and hide whatever her fears were, her loneliness or the long hours of gnawing uncertainty. And it was not only about Archie, it had to be about Judith and Joseph as well. If she had very little idea what it was actually like in the trenches, of the horror or the daily hardship, so much the better. He hoped Judith had been as discreet as she had promised.

  Hannah drew back in surprise. “You’re squashing me!” she said with a smile, but her eyes were searching his, afraid he had come with bad news. The closeness with which he had held her awoke fear.

  He smiled back broadly. “Sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just good to be home, and to find you here.” She had moved up from Portsmouth a few months ago. Archie seldom had leave, and when he did it was for long enough to come to Cambridgeshire. It was foolish to let the house lie empty and none of them had wanted to lease it to strangers.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “No, but I’d love a cup of tea.”

  She led the way to the kitchen. It looked as it always had, blue-and-white china on the Welsh dresser, the brown earthenware jugs with milk and cream on them in white, the half dozen large plates hand painted with wildflowers and grasses on the wall. She had been making pastry and the mixing bowls, white inside, ocher on the outside, were still on the big wooden table.

  She piled the coals in the stove then pulled the kettle over to the hob. For a quarter of an hour they talked of the village, and people they both knew.

  “Bibby Nunn was killed,” she said, gazing at him over the top of the cup she was holding in both hands, as if she were cold. “They heard yesterday. Mae Teversham was one of the first to go to Sarah. Ridiculous, isn’t it, that it should take a death that could have happened to either of them, to bring that stupid argument to an end. Both Mae’s boys are out there, too, and it could be her turn next. I think everyone feels that.”