We Shall Not Sleep Page 7

  Matthew was standing with a group of other men around a small fire with a Dixie can of boiling water. He was about to make tea. Joseph greeted him. He turned around, regarding Joseph with some concern. He did not ask what was the matter, but it was clear that Schenckendorff was just as much on his mind.

  “You’d better come,” Joseph added simply.

  Matthew thanked the men for the tea, leaving it behind as he fell into step with his brother single-file between the old craters. Only when they could move side by side did Joseph tell him what Hook had said.

  “I suppose he’s sure?” Matthew asked, hunching his coat collar up. “That’s going to make it harder to get Schenckendorff out, isn’t it? They’ll be pretty unhappy about German prisoners, even injured ones. And I was worrying about him dying!” He pulled his mouth down in a hard line. “I suppose the only good thing is that he was too ill to be suspected. Filthy irony of it.”

  “He wasn’t too ill to stand,” Joseph replied. “Not early in the evening, anyway. You’d be amazed what a man can do, injured almost to death.”

  “Murdering a nurse?” Matthew’s voice rose in disbelief. “What the devil for? He’s on his way to London to give up his ally, and pretty certainly to be hanged!”

  “No one in the Casualty Clearing Station knows that,” Joseph pointed out. “At least, please God, no one does. Let’s hope this Swiss priest of yours was careful.”

  Matthew hastened his stride toward the clearing station. All the men were moving forward in file toward the ever-shifting front line: the wagons of ammunition boxes, two tanks mired in mud and making heavy weather of churning it up on their huge tracks, and mule teams pulling guns forward on carriages.

  Judith Reavley pulled her ambulance into the mud as close to the Casualty Clearing Station as she could and climbed out. She was tired and stiff from driving most of the night, and more than anything she wanted a hot drink to ease the chill inside her. First she must help unload the wounded, however, then when they were safe check her engine, which was misfiring. It was early daylight now. Mist hung over the craters, softening the harsh lines of the old supply trenches and for the moment making them look more like cart tracks than the gashes in the land that they were.

  She stood, turning slowly, looking for someone to help. It was a two-man job to carry a stretcher. Someone must have seen her coming. A doctor hurried by fifty yards away, increasing his step to a run, but he took no notice of her. She started toward the Admissions tent. She was halfway there when another doctor came out whom she recognized immediately. It was Cavan, one of the best surgeons in the army, a man with whom she had worked through some of the worst nights during the battles of Ypres and Passchendaele, and in the long, desperate days since. His courage had merited him a Victoria Cross, and his rash loyalty had caused him to lose it.

  He saw her and went back to the opening, shouting something inside. Two more men appeared and ran toward the ambulance. Cavan came to her, his face grave, his eyes smudged with shadows of exhaustion. She assumed he had lost many wounded through the night. There was no point in saying anything comforting to him. They had both seen this happen so many times, the understanding needed no words, and nothing helped anyway. Even if the task had been hopeless and the men too mutilated ever to survive, death was still death.

  “Judith!” he said the moment they were out of the hearing of the wounded. “Something pretty awful has happened. Sarah Price has been killed.” He took her arm and held it, closing his hand to grip her as if afraid she might sway and overbalance.

  “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. Death was still death, but it was somehow worse that Sarah had made it this far…only to be killed in what had to be the final weeks of the war. By this time next month it could all be over. “What happened? There’s not much falling this far back now.”

  “Not shelling,” he said. “She was murdered.” He was frowning, his face furrowed with distress. “It was brutal. She was cut about with a bayonet, in the pit of the stomach, and then left out where the hospital waste is put.”

  “You mean…” She stopped. She tried to picture Sarah Price lying in the mud behind the Operating tent where they disposed of blood-soaked bandages, old swabs, litter that could not possibly be reused, sodden clothes, and the mangled, amputated limbs of the worst injured. “Who did it?” She felt her stomach churn with horror, then a hot wave of fury. She had not particularly liked Sarah. She was trivial, made fun of things that were important, laughed too loudly, flirted in a silly way, showing off. But she was also kind, and generous, always willing to share any food she had, or pretend she had not heard a joke before and find it funny all over again. “Who did it?” Her voice rose sharply, and she pulled her arm away from his.

  “We don’t know,” he replied. “One of the German prisoners, I expect.”

  “I suppose it has to be,” she agreed. “Why aren’t they keeping them guarded properly?” But even as she said it, she remembered odd moments of rage breaking through what looked like banter taken a little too far, ugly comments that stayed in the mind, petty cruelties that betrayed an underlying contempt. Please heaven it was a German, but she was not certain. “What are they doing about it?” she went on.

  “Sending for the police, I suppose,” he said with a slight shrug. “No one really knows. It must have happened sometime during the night. I hope no one gets it in the neck for not having guarded the prisoners. I reckon there are just too many of them for anyone to watch. And they came through the lines themselves, most of them. Poor devils are glad the war’s over, at least for them.” He gave a rueful gesture. “They might have thought we have more food than they do.”

  She, too, found it impossible to think of them as enemies any longer, although she was disturbed by her sense of pity. They looked so desperately like their own men. More than once her mind had turned to the Peacemaker, and she had wondered what he was like. She had even thought that if she had known him as a man rather than a power behind the murder of too many people she had loved, she might have liked him. At the very least she would have understood his dreams. Was that a disloyalty to her dead parents, and to Owen Cullingford, whom she had also loved? Every one of the dead was precious to someone. It was contemptible to imagine that those dear to you, woven into your life so that the loss of them tore it apart, were really more valuable than all the uncountable others. It was an arrogance amounting to blasphemy.

  What had happened to Sarah Price? It could as easily have happened to Judith herself, or any of the other women here. Now a hot drink was trivial, almost forgotten. Her wet skirt flapping about her legs, cold and heavy, was no more than a discomfort. She gave Cavan a smile of thanks, then walked over toward the Admissions tent and the extended tents put up to shelter the wounded Germans, as well as their own.

  She was barely inside when she saw Joseph. He turned at the sound of her footsteps on the boards. She felt a sudden pinch of anxiety at how tired he looked. He would have to deal with the grief of this new loss, and the fear and blame that followed.

  “Judith!” He excused himself from the orderly he was talking to and came over to her quickly, almost pushing her into a corner away from earshot, so that she was pressed against a pile of boxes and stretchers stacked upright. “Sarah Price has been killed—” he began.

  “I know,” she said, cutting him off. “Cavan told me. Murdered with a bayonet.” She swallowed hard, her throat tight. “It’s horrible, but I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Victory and defeat are too close to each other here, and both of them have their bitterness. War is probably the most hideous thing we do to each other, but we’ve become used to it. I don’t know about you, but I’m scared sick of going home.” She looked at him, searching his eyes and seeing understanding leap to them, and pain. They knew each other now in a way they could not have in a lifetime at home.

  “That’s not all, Judith,” he said in little more than a whisper. “Matthew’s here. I didn’t have the chance to tell you before. The Pe
acemaker’s German ally has come through the lines to give him up, before he can affect the terms of the armistice so the war starts up again within a few years.”

  “You know who he is?” She was amazed, excitement surging up inside her now, her heart suddenly pounding.

  “Not yet.” His hand tightened on her arm. “He’s here, but he doesn’t trust us enough to give us the name. He’ll travel to London to tell Lloyd George. We’ve got to keep him safe until we can leave. He’s got a badly wounded foot and was feverish the first night when I met him, but the orderly says he’s better now.”

  “Are we going?” Without giving it even a thought she included herself. “He’ll need an ambulance. Can we explain it to Colonel Hook?”

  He hesitated only a moment. Before the war he would have evaded an answer, protecting her; now he knew her strength. “No. I think Schenckendorff’s genuine, but we can’t be sure,” he said. “And even if he is, it’s possible the Peacemaker knows he’s crossed through, and there could only be one reason. He wouldn’t take the risk.”

  “Murder him, too? His own…” She stopped, realizing what she was about to say, and bit her lip. “Schenckendorff?”

  “Yes. Looks like someone already put a bayonet through his foot, more than once.”

  She drew in her breath to swear, then remembered his sensibilities and checked herself. “You said Matthew’s here?”

  “Two days ago Schenckendorff sent a message to him in London, asking where he should come through and if Matthew could be here.”

  A chill touched her more than the wet skirts around her legs. Now she understood why Joseph was afraid it was a trap, a last attempt at revenge on the Reavleys, who had thwarted him from the start.

  He must have seen the fear in her. “We’ll get him out,” he assured her. “It’ll be over soon. It’s wretched about Sarah Price’s death, but it may be solved pretty quickly. We can’t wait for it anyway. I’ll explain it to Colonel Hook if I have to. Matthew’s rank should make it pretty simple. At the moment he’s pretending to be a major to avoid attention. He’ll just have to take the chance and explain who he is.”

  She nodded. “I’ve got to see if I can fix my engine before I need it again. I’ll be lucky if it lasts the war out. I really need some new parts.”

  “Good luck!” he said drily.

  “Luck won’t do it!” she retorted. “I need a light-fingered friend willing to liberate a few spark plugs and one or two other necessities of life.”

  He had stopped bothering to warn her to be careful. He gave a very slight smile and walked away.

  Judith spent the next hour taking apart various pieces of her engine, cleaning them, and attempting to make them work again. Finally she resigned herself to the fact that without new spark plugs it was pointless. She abandoned it and went to find a mug of hot tea and something to eat, even if it was only a heel of bread and some tinned Maconachie stew.

  The clearing station was unusually tense. She passed medical orderlies moving briskly over the duckboard paths from the tent for the walking wounded to that for the lying wounded, their heads averted as if they dare not look at her. They were embarrassed because she was an ambulance driver, not so very different from a nurse. It was as if she were somehow related to the victim. She opened her mouth to speak to one she knew well, but he had passed her without meeting her eyes, and it was too late.

  She found nurses Allie Robinson and Moira Jessop in a supply tent. They were busy boiling a pot of water on a portable stove. The place was full of boxes stacked up and a half-open bale of sheets.

  “Just came in?” Moira asked Judith. She was a Scottish girl with red-brown hair and wide eyes.

  Judith shook her head. “Spark plugs are burned out,” she said resignedly. “Got enough for tea?” She looked at the pot.

  “Of course. I suppose you’ve heard about poor Sarah?” Moira asked.

  Allie Robinson gave a little grunt. “What I want to know is what she was doing there at all! Everyone’s been warned, as if we needed it. Did she think German prisoners were going to respect her and treat her like a lady?” She looked defensively at Judith, seeing her surprise. “Of course I’m sorry for her!” she snapped, the color rising in her fair skin. “Everyone is. But she flirted like mad with the Germans, led them on like a—” She stopped short of using the word that was obviously in her mind. “You have to take some sort of responsibility,” she finished. “Now everybody’s scared stiff, and all the men are going to be suspected until we can prove who it was.”

  “Why men?” Judith asked.

  Allie and Moira glanced at each other, then away again.

  “Because of how it was done,” Moira answered. “Like rape, but with a bayonet.”

  Judith imagined it, and felt sick.

  “Sorry,” Moira apologized. “But she was pretty…loose. The last time anybody saw her she was with somebody, we just don’t know who.”

  “Are you sure?” Judith was trying to deny it to herself, refusing to believe.

  “Of course we’re sure!” Allie snapped. “Stop being so naïve!”

  Judith saw the fear and anger in her face, and knew with chilling familiarity that it was Allie’s own fear speaking. She despised her facile criticism, as if any of it altered the tragedy, but she also understood it. If it were somehow Sarah’s fault—if Sarah could have avoided it by behaving differently—the rest of them could find a way to be safe.

  “No matter how silly she was, she didn’t deserve that! She was used and thrown away like so much rubbish, Allie!” Moira said with disgust.

  Allie looked away from her. “We’re all used and thrown away,” she said bitterly. “Just this time it’s against the law, that’s all. They’re getting police in. Not that they’ll find anything, but I suppose they have to try. Where do they even begin? Men are coming and going all the time, our own wounded, German prisoners, V.A.D. volunteers, doctors, people bringing supplies, even burial parties. Could have been anybody at all. Like Piccadilly Circus here.”

  “Well, obviously it was one of the German prisoners,” Moira said impatiently. “It’s just a matter of finding out which one. She flirted with all of them, stupid creature!” The pot boiled and she made three tin mugs of tea, passing one to Judith. “Sorry there’s no sort of milk, but it’s tea, more or less.”

  “Thank you.” Judith took it and sipped tentatively. She had forgotten what real tea tasted like, and this was at least hot. “I don’t suppose you know anyone who has decent spark plugs?”

  “Good luck!” Moira said ruefully.

  “You could try Toby Simmons,” Allie suggested. “He has some imaginative ways of getting hold of things. At least that’s one way you could phrase it.” Her face pinched with distaste. “Gwen Williams says she thinks he’s behind this. He was always making vulgar remarks, and Sarah wasn’t above flirting with him. Too openly, if you ask me.”

  “Nobody did ask you,” Moira told her.

  “You didn’t, because you like him!” Allie retorted. “You never thought there was anything wrong with what he did, even when he was caught in the empty theater with Erica Barton-Jones.”

  “Really?” Judith was surprised. Toby was handsome, and sometimes amusing, but Erica Barton-Jones was from a very good family and fully expected to marry into a title of some sort, or at the very least into money.

  “That’s rubbish,” Moira said quickly, her face flushed. “That was just spread around by Sarah as a piece of spite.”

  “Why would she do that?” Allie asked.

  “How do I know? Boredom, fear, loneliness, sheer stupidity,” Moira snapped. “Why do we do any of the things we do? She was lonely, and she had nothing much to go home to. Not that many of us have.”

  Allie was silent, her face filled with a sudden, overwhelming grief.

  Moira looked at Judith. “It’s as if something has sort of…broken,” she said quietly. “Yesterday we were all stiff upper lip, and today nobody knows what to say or do. I don’t know
how many of us actually liked Sarah, but she was one of us, and nobody at all should be used that way, and left…exposed like that.” She put her arms around herself, holding them folded tight, protectively. “I feel…naked too, as if every man’s looking at her but seeing me as well. I know that’s idiotic, but I can’t help it.”

  “It’ll be better once they find out who did it,” Judith said, trying to reassure her, although she feared it was a lie. Suspicions might be proved wrong, but did you ever forget that they had been there? Trust broken is not easy to mend; sometimes it is not even possible. “Thanks for the tea. I’ve got to see if I can find some spark plugs.” She put the mug down and with a small wave of her hand went outside into the cold midmorning light.

  In the empty Resuscitation tent Joseph reported to Captain Cavan to ask what he could do to help. He knew Cavan well and had an immense respect for him. After Major Northrup had been killed, it had been Joseph who had saved Cavan’s life at the court-martial, although he could not save the Victoria Cross for which he had been recommended for his extraordinary courage under fire. Naturally they did not speak of it now; a gentleman did not mention such an obligation.

  “Glad you came,” Cavan said sincerely. He was sitting on an upturned box emptying stew out of a Dixie can, and there was a mug of tea on the makeshift table. His blood-splashed white coat was slung over the back of a hard chair. “Need all the help we can get to keep control of this.” He was in his middle thirties, an angular man with fair hair and tired, heavy-lidded eyes over broad cheekbones. With long rest and regular food he would have been handsome.

  There was no need for explanations; he knew Joseph understood. “Police are here already. Damn nuisance, because nobody can leave until they get this sorted out. Means we’re piled up with German prisoners, and this fellow Jacobson won’t even let our regular ambulance crews in and out, except the women, in case it’s one of them.” He looked exhausted and thoroughly fed up. He shook his head. “God, what a bloody stupid mess. Sorry, Reavley. See what you can do to help. Jacobson’s in the first tent at the end.”