At Some Disputed Barricade (19 page)

“Sir, I did not say he was murdered,” Joseph replied as calmly as he could.

“What do you call it, then?” Northrup demanded passionately. “A dozen men with guns against one unarmed officer? Pray, what does that pass for in your terminology?”

“You obviously know more about it than I do, sir,” Joseph said stiffly. “What I heard was that the men pleaded with Major Northrup to listen to the evidence of more experienced soldiers, even though they were junior in rank. When he would not do so, and it was costing lives unnecessarily, they used force to make him listen, to save their own lives and those of their comrades. He was killed by accident, not intentionally. I don’t know how that happened, or who was involved.”

“The records of killed and injured should make that plain enough,” Northrup replied. “These men all come from the same villages, played in the same football teams or brass bands, or whatever. Even a half-wit could find out who conspired together for this, if they wanted to. Whatever it began as, it ended as murder! And I shall see justice.”

“Sir…” Hook began, but it was obvious in his face that he had already tried remonstrating with every argument he knew and had failed.

“It ended as tragedy,” Joseph corrected him. “Most things do out here, sir. I believe profoundly that it would be better for everyone if we allow it to remain an honorable tragedy. Major Northrup was an officer respected by his men, who mourn their loss. Does it serve anyone to say that he was so incompetent that his men feared for their lives, and shot him in what they believed to be self-defense?”

Northrup winced as if Joseph had struck him, but he did not retreat. “I daresay that is what you would prefer, sir, but it is not the truth,” he said hoarsely. “He was murdered by men who panicked and lost their discipline. I will find out who they are! If you will not assist me, I shall do it alone! And Headquarters will know that you endeavored to cover it up, to your eternal disgrace.”

He gulped.

“I am forced to believe it is because the surgeon, Captain Cavan, was involved, and you are jealous of your regiment’s chance of gaining a V.C. Captain Morel, who is a renegade if ever a man was, used to be your student in Cambridge, and you are deliberately shielding him. It will not be difficult to find the others, and when I do, you will have no choice but to arrest them! Sir!” He snapped to attention, saluted Hook, then pushed past Joseph and went up the steps and out into the mud.

Hook sat down and buried his head in his hands.

Joseph said nothing. He knew Cavan and Morel at least would be arrested by morning, probably all the others within another twenty-four hours. He had done everything he knew—and he had failed.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

J
udith jolted abruptly into wakefulness. She was lying on an ambulance blanket on the floor of the tent where she had fallen asleep. She had no idea how long ago that was. Day and night had blurred into one long cacophony of guns and engines, rain-soaked darkness split by star shells and the flash of explosions.

Now it seemed to be murky daylight, and comparatively quiet, just a distant rumble. She shivered because her clothes were wet and her bones ached from the hard floor.

“Is it time?” she said automatically, blinking and trying to clear her head.

Wil Sloan was bending over her, his grip still hard on her shoulder. His face was pale and slicked with rain, his hair dripping. There were bruises of exhaustion around his eyes.

“Something terrible’s happened,” he said huskily.

Fear boiled up in her like a wave of nausea. Was he going to tell her that Joseph had been killed? It was the thing she dreaded most of all. She found her throat was closed and the words wouldn’t escape her lips.

“They’ve arrested twelve men for killing Major Northrup,” Wil said. “Harrison came and told me.”

“Twelve!” She was both relieved and appalled. “Twelve?” She propped herself on one elbow. “That’s ridiculous. How could twelve…all of them?”

“Kangaroo court-martial,” he replied, just as she realized it herself.

“And shot him?” she whispered.

“That’s what they’re saying. But the thing is…Cavan was one of them.”

Now she understood his horror. “Cavan?” It was too awful to grasp. “But they can’t take our doctor away! What about the wounded? That’s…monstrous! They…they can’t!”

“They have,” he said. “And Captain Morel.”

She sat up straight, pain shooting through her muscles. “Why? How do they know it was them?”

His face was bleak. “I’m sorry, Judith. The chaplain went to Paris and found one of the men who knew, and got it out of him somehow.”

“I don’t believe it!” She refused to. Joseph would not do that. “You must be wrong,” she insisted. “Anyway, if the man confessed to a priest, you can’t use it! Joseph would never repeat a confession. He couldn’t!”

“He didn’t say who it was.” Wil shook his head. “Just that it was twelve. Northrup worked out who was angriest with the major and took it from there.”

Judith struggled to her feet. “We’ve got to do something about it. This is terrible.”

Wil stood also. “Right now we’re on duty. And we’ll have to take the wounded all the way back to the field hospital because there’ll be no one able to do much in the dressing station.”

“What a bloody nightmare.” She sighed. “We’ll have to do something about it! We can’t let this go on, Wil. The men’ll mutiny! To lock up our best surgeon over some idiot like Northrup! Are we trying to lose this war?”

“Keep your shirt on, Judith,” he said anxiously. “Don’t do anything rash. We can’t afford to get ourselves locked up, too. That won’t help. I’ll get a cup of tea. It’s going to be another bad night.”

It was. Judith drove in a daze, fighting to keep the ambulance on the shell-pocked road and not get mired in the mud on either side or break an axle in one of the craters. It took all her strength to hold the wheel, and twice she had to get out and crank the engine to life again after a particularly violent stop.

All the time her mind was wrestling with the thought of Cavan in military prison awaiting trial. She could picture him as clearly as if she were looking at him. She could hear his voice in her mind. If they found them guilty of having mutinied and shot Northrup, they would all face a firing squad. There was no possible alternative. The worst thing was that she knew that he could have done it. He cared for the wounded above all things; he would put them before anything else. He had the anger and the courage.

How could Joseph have let it happen? He must have known General Northrup was rabid for revenge. Why had he not simply said he couldn’t find out who was responsible? Even General Northrup couldn’t arrest the entire regiment.

She peered through the windshield, trying to discern what the dark shapes ahead were. The shellfire was getting heavier. The last one had landed only fifty yards away, and the debris had fallen heavily on the roof.

Maybe if she found out every stupid and dangerous thing Major Northrup had done she could widen the field of men likely to want him dead so far that they couldn’t possibly arrest all of them. There couldn’t be exactly twelve who had lost someone. How did they know they had the right twelve? Wasn’t there some legal principle about it being better to let ten guilty men go free than punish one innocent one?

Surely the general would not want his son’s name to go down in history as an officer so incompetent his men had had to kill him to save their own lives? He was refusing to believe that now, but if there was proof, he would have to. Or at least he would know that others would believe it, and that was what mattered.

They were near the front line. She slewed to a stop as a couple of soldiers ran toward her, their Red Cross armbands catching the headlights. Wil leaped out and threw the ambulance doors open. Someone was scrambling through the mud, sliding and floundering, waving his arms at stretcher bearers. Someone else was staggering across the lights, bandaged around the head and eyes, blood on his hands.

She tried to keep the engine running as she felt the weight go into the back and the balance alter. A shell exploded so close that the metal of flying shrapnel clanged on the ambulance sides. A gout of mud slapped against the window and spurted into her face.

More figures drifted across the headlights, blurred by mud and rain, and the weight jolted again.

Then Wil appeared at the door. “We’re full! You’ll have to back out, there’s water everywhere! Don’t lose the engine, you might never get it going again in this. I’ll get in when you’ve turned.” He disappeared.

It took her ten minutes, with considerable help, before she was back on the road facing in the opposite direction. She heard the door slam, and opened the throttle to push the engine as hard as she could. They lurched forward, splashing up sprays of water, hesitated a moment, then caught a purchase on the mud and gravel and moved forward.

She drove as hard as she could, knowing that because Cavan was locked up in some French farmhouse far behind the lines, they would have miles more to go before they could find help.

It was dark except for the occasional flares, and the rain became worse. They hit a deep crater in the mud, which was masked by water until it was too late. She was fortunate not to break the axle. There was no help for it but to turn off the engine and get out.

Wil came around from the back. He could see at a glance what was wrong, even if the violent lurch had not told him.

“It’s too deep,” she said desperately, wiping the rain out of her eyes. “You’ll have to get at least some of them out. We’ll have to lift it. I’ll see if there’s a piece of wood or something we can use as a lever, get it up, if someone else pushes.” She looked around to see if there was any other light or sign of movement.

Wil pushed his hand through his sodden hair and left a smear of blood on his face. “Alf Culshaw’s blinded, but he’s still got both legs and arms. If we point his hands in the right place he can lift. The others are too far gone. One poor devil will be lucky if we get him there alive.” His voice caught. “Jesus wept! This is so bloody senseless!” He turned and plowed back through the mud to the back of the ambulance and pulled the door open.

Judith started after him. It would take both of them to help the injured men out to lighten it enough to lift. They were heavy, awkward, and in desperate pain. Her hands slipped on the wet stretcher handles and her back ached unbearably as she tried to keep her balance and carry the heavy bodies to the side of the road.

“I’m sorry,” she said to them over and over. “Got to lighten it so we can lift it out.”

The first man was peacefully unconscious, blood soaking through his bandages in the rain.

“It’s not too bad,” the second said, trying to smile. “Don’t worry, miss.”

She felt the hot tears on her face as she bent to touch his hand. “Won’t be long. Just got to lift a little, then we’ll get you back.”

Together with Wil she lifted two more out, leaving only the worst injured behind. Alf Culshaw she led slowly, warning of the puddles and ruts, until he and Wil were on either side of the stuck wheel. She placed Culshaw’s hands under the edge of the frame. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked him. “I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t have to.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “Just don’t ask me to guide you where we are going.” He gave a dry, hacking laugh.

“You lift. I’ll drive,” she replied. “Better that way. I can’t lift for toffee! Thanks.” She had the wood ready—broken pieces from a dead tree and a couple of lengths of old sacking.

“Go on then,” Wil directed. “One, two, three!”

The ambulance rocked and heaved level. Judith threw the wood and sacking in and it settled down again. She ran to the driver’s seat and scrambled in. Wil moved Culshaw out of the way, then cranked the handle and they moved forward at last.

“Right!” Wil yelled, jumping backward. “Let’s get them in again!”

She left the engine on, brake tight, and scrambled back to lift the stretchers in again to a cheer, and then to help Culshaw back into the seat.

She drove without incident the rest of the way. It seemed to take hours—but it was probably not more than forty-five minutes longer. A strange doctor, white-faced and obviously harassed, took the wounded in. The last man was already dead. Judith and Wil got back into the ambulance and started for the front again, this time with Wil in the front.

“We’ll get Cavan back,” he said when they were half a mile from the dressing station. “We’ll find a way. He can’t have been the one who shot Northrup. He must be covering for someone. It’ll come out.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, glancing sideways at him, although she could see nothing more than his outline in the dark.

“We’ve got to make it!” he said grimly. “If General Northrup could find out who the twelve most likely are, then we have to be able to find out why, as well. They’d never have done it without a hell of a good reason. We’ve got to find the people who’ll swear to it.”

“And take it to Northrup?” she asked. Her stomach knotted up with fear at the thought of it.

“You game?” Wil said, touching her arm for a moment.

She swallowed and felt her heart beating in her throat. “Of course.”

On the final trip of the night she found Joseph at the field dressing station. He helped her with the last stretcher. The man was already dead from his wounds. Defeat overwhelmed her, and a sense that everything was slipping out of the last trace of control that she had.

“If we could have taken him to Cavan’s dressing station he’d have been alive!” she said furiously, tears choking her. “But those men are bleeding to death because he’s locked up in some damn farmhouse waiting to go on trial and be shot over that idiot Northrup!” She stared at him defiantly. “Why couldn’t you leave your stupid conscience out of it and just keep your mouth shut? You didn’t have to tell Colonel Hook it was a kangaroo trial! You could just have said you didn’t know! Why can’t you ever leave well enough alone?”

Joseph looked so tired his skin was gray in the early daylight, the stubble dark on his chin. There was no light in his eyes at all.

“I had to tell him something close to the truth, or he could too easily find out I was lying,” he answered her.

“Don’t tell him anything at all!” she shouted back. “Why didn’t you just say you didn’t know? He can’t force you!”

Joseph looked down at the muddy boards they were standing on. “I thought if General Northrup knew it was at least a dozen men, a court-martial, not a private murder, he’d be so ashamed he’d let it drop rather than leave his son so disgraced. It would have been better for everyone. Otherwise he could just have found the worst enmity, the man he thought unjust, and blamed him. He isn’t going to let it go.”

“He isn’t
now
!” she retorted. “He’s charged Cavan, and we’ve got to take wounded men twice as far to get them treated—and they’re dying, Joseph! They’re dying, when they don’t have to!”

“I know….”

She felt guilty for attacking him when he was so obviously blaming himself anyway, but she was too angry and too frightened to stop. “We’ve got to save Cavan. What are we going to do?” She tried to moderate her voice a little, hearing the shrill edge to it. “Does Northrup really want it to come out that his son caused all those people’s deaths? If we can prove it, find all the evidence of what a fool he was, who’s dead because of him, and why there were twelve men willing to risk their own lives in order to get rid of him, wouldn’t he want that silenced?”

They could both hear the sounds of movement inside, voices giving orders, stifled murmurs of pain.

“He wasn’t meant to be killed, only frightened,” Joseph explained.

“So who shot him?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.”