At Some Disputed Barricade (33 page)

“If you get me back, what makes you think I’ll tell the truth?” Geddes stayed where he was, but there was no ease in his body now. His back was stiff and the muscles were corded in his neck. “I could say it was you! More than that, I could tell them how we got out of that farmhouse.” His smile widened a little. “I could tell them all about that nice V.A.D. driver who rescued us and her Yank friend. Do you want to see them shot, too? And make no mistake, they would be. Can’t have V.A.D.s deciding who faces court-martial and who doesn’t!” He turned slowly to peer at Joseph in the near dark. “Isn’t that right, Chaplain? You’d better go while you can. You’re in enemy territory!”

Did he know Judith was Joseph’s sister? Probably. The enormity of the situation washed over Joseph like a cold tide. What had he been thinking to imagine they could get Geddes home and that he would simply confess rather than take as many people down with him as he could? He was desperate—a murderer, a mutineer, and now a deserter as well. He had nothing to lose. If he were to survive at all, it would have to be this side of the lines.

“Maybe you can’t see it in this light,” Joseph said quietly, hating doing it. “But we are dressed as Swiss priests. We both speak German. You don’t, and you are in German uniform. Who do you think the Germans will believe if we’re caught?”

Morel did not move. Geddes sat still on the floor.

Outside, a car engine rumbled in the distance. They were not far from the road.

Geddes cleared his throat. “You wouldn’t do that, Chaplain. Isn’t that against your oath or something?”

“You’re planning to let Cavan be shot for your crime if we don’t get back, and to betray the V.A.D. who helped you if we do. What do you think, Geddes?” he asked.

“You tell the Germans who I am, I’ll tell them who you are,” Geddes replied, sitting a little more upright

The red in the wash was fading to pink and the shadows were impenetrable.

Joseph changed direction. “Why did you kill Northrup, anyway? You’ve made it very clear you don’t give a damn about the lives of your fellows, so it can’t be that, which is almost the only thing that would be understandable. What is it? Money? Hate? Stupidity?”

“Because he deserved it!” Geddes snarled. “He was an arrogant, incompetent fool as an officer, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. Always had to do it his way, even if it cost other men’s lives.” He was facing Joseph now, ignoring Morel. “But I know more about him than you do. Scare the hell out of him, he still wouldn’t have learned.” He jerked his arm toward Morel. “They all thought you could talk sense into him. I know better. He was born that way. His father thought the sun shone out of his ass, indulged him rotten, let him do any damn thing he wanted. Lorded it over the rest of the village, ran up debts, then when he hadn’t the guts to admit it to his father, lied in his teeth.”

Joseph did not interrupt. Geddes’s voice had the bitter ring of truth—at least the truth as he saw it and felt it burning like acid inside him.

“He ruined my father that way,” Geddes went on. “My father trusted him, the more fool he. I could’ve told him Northrup was a liar and a coward, but he wouldn’t hear ill of the old general’s son. Cost him his house. Our house!”

“So Northrup dies a hero, shot by mutineers, and Cavan goes to the firing squad for it,” Joseph said with equal bitterness. “Who was it you said was the fool?”

Geddes was silent.

“You’ll not make it here,” Joseph went on. “You’ll starve, if they don’t shoot you as a spy first. Nobody likes spies. They might question you a bit first, to see what you can tell them about our positions. Or is that what you’re going to bargain with, betraying your regiment?”

Geddes swore viciously.

“Then they’ll shoot you,” Joseph went on. “They don’t regard traitors any more highly than we do. You can come back to Passchendaele and at least tell your story.”

“If you come back you’ll get revenge,” Morel added. “If you stay here, you’ll get nothing at all. Although actually I’m not going to let you stay here anyway.” Without warning he walked forward and raised his arm. He gave Geddes a hard clip on the side of the head with the butt of the gun, and Geddes crumpled over without a sound. “Do you really want to take him back?” Morel asked quietly. “On the chance that he could still betray the V.A.D. who let us out? It was your sister, you know? Maybe you didn’t realize that?”

“Yes, I know,” Joseph replied. It would be ridiculous to deny it now. “Anyone looking into it could prove it pretty easily. But we’re not going to shoot Geddes. We’re going to get him back to the lines, and then through them.”

“How?” Morel asked. “He’s out cold now. Who knows what he’ll say when he comes around again, but whatever it is, it’ll be in English, because that’s all he knows.”

“Then we’ll have to see that he doesn’t say anything,” Joseph replied. “We’ll take him as a wounded man. We’re priests. That’s reasonable. We’ll be heroes. Who knows—they might even help us. We’ll tie his head and face up, with a gag underneath the bandages, so he can’t speak. Cut him a little so there’s blood. Just hope to hell that whoever helps us isn’t a surgeon!”

“We can’t carry him that far,” Morel pointed out reasonably. “We’ve come four or five miles at least!”

“If we go back on the road we’ll find some debris. With luck, something with wheels. We can cannibalize it and make a carriage for him.”

“I realize how little I knew you at Cambridge,” Morel said drily. “I was a child!”

“We all were,” Joseph replied. “Let’s tie him up first. We don’t know how soon he’ll come around.”

They used Geddes’s own shirt to bind him for lack of anything better. They slit it with the knife he had and tore it into strips. It would be enough to hold him until they found better. Then they took turns carrying him as far as the road. He was a young man, heavy-boned and well muscled although any surplus flesh had long since gone, and he was dead weight. In fact, twice Joseph was anxious enough about him to stop and make sure he was still breathing. He was not certain how hard Morel had hit him.

They had to carry him another laborious half mile along the road before they came to a car that had been blown to bits. But no matter how they tried to imagine it, there seemed no way to take any of it apart. Reluctantly they abandoned it and again began the arduous task of carrying him.

They were still three or four miles from the nearest trenches when they were passed by a couple of soldiers who had apparently become separated from a relief column. It was a summer night, cloudless with a three-quarter moon, and light enough for Joseph to see how gaunt they were. He judged them to be veterans who had been wounded, and sent back too soon out of desperation. He had seen the same in the British ranks. In so many ways this was a mirror image of home. It tore at him with a familiarity, an acute understanding he would rather not have had.

The two men stopped. Neither looked strong enough to help carry Geddes, for which Joseph was grateful. Geddes was going home to face trial. He would never fight again, but still it would be one deceit too far.

“Looking for the nearest field station?” the taller one asked.

“Yes,” Joseph replied. “Not sure how bad he is.”

Geddes must have been conscious. He started to wriggle and become extremely awkward to hold. Had they been alone Joseph would have threatened to drop him, and done it. Geddes was trying to shout.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Morel offered. “We’re looking for something to wheel him on, if we can find anything.”

“There’s bound to be something with wheels,” the shorter man said hopefully. “Even something broken might do. We could fix it to take the weight. He’s nothing like as heavy as field artillery.”

“Nothing like as useful, either,” Morel said under his breath.

They walked together, alternating Geddes’s body from one to another. The Germans insisted on taking their turn, and there was no way to refuse them without offense.

They had gone another half mile when they came to a pony cart at the side of the road. One wheel was blown to bits and what was left of the pony’s carcass was still between the shafts. They put Geddes down, Joseph adjusting the gag to make sure it was not working loose, and also retightening the binding around his body so it was less obviously a restraint and rather more like a bandage.

The other three undid the harness and lifted the broken trap off, then hauled it up onto the road. It sat sideways because of the missing wheel.

“Got to find another wheel for it,” Morel said thoughtfully. “Even one a different size would be better than nothing. Pity we have no tools. It won’t be so easy. Have to make do with lashing things together. Still, not far to go.”

The Germans had introduced themselves as Kretschmer and Wolff. Wolff and Morel now wandered off to see what they could find. Joseph and Kretschmer set about getting the three good wheels clean from the rubbish and making sure they could turn as freely as possible.

Wolff reappeared with a small wheel from a barrow of some sort, and Morel had a length of rope and a short piece of chain. Using everything, and considerable ingenuity, they lashed together a fourth leg for the cart, with the wheel on the end. It still did not make the height exactly, but it was a great help. Pleased with themselves, they laid Geddes on it as comfortably as possible, and set off on the road, taking turns, two at a time, carrying the shafts. The wheels squeaked appallingly.

“Here,” Kretschmer said cheerfully, digging into his pocket and bringing out a small bottle. “Have some schnapps.” He offered it to Joseph.

Joseph thanked him and took a mouthful. It felt as if a fire had exploded in his stomach. He was sure he could belch flame. Coughing hard, he thanked Kretschmer and passed it on to Morel, who took it rather more easily, then offered it to Wolff.

A mile later, after a couple more changes of shift as to who was pulling, they passed the schnapps around again. Joseph realized with a smile that they were marching in time to the squeaking of the wheels. The last shreds of cloud had gone and the moonlight shone pale on the cratered road, making black skeletons of the few shattered vehicles and broken trees. In the distance they could make out the standing walls of a burned house.

Wolff began to sing a drinking song. His voice was light and pleasant. Joseph remembered a little of the tune from his visits before the war, and he joined in.

An ambulance passed them going back, and a munitions supply convoy passed going forward to the lines.

They found a second song, and a third. There were still at least two miles farther to go. Joseph started to worry about how they were going to explain leaving these two men who in some absurd way had become friends. The last drop of schnapps was gone and none of them had any food. The squeaking of the wheels was incessant, and they were all unquestionably a little drunk.

Wolff began to sing again, this time in English, and they all joined in.

“There’s a long, long trail a-winding, into the land of my dreams,

“Where the nightingales are singing and a white moon beams…”

They went through all the verses, then began again. The three-quarter moon lit the road, but the only sound apart from their voices was the squeaking of the wheels, and the guns roaring a couple of miles ahead. The odors of bodily waste and putrefying flesh were already strong, and in the distance there was the flash of red and yellow mortar fire.

Joseph had no idea how they would get through the lines, other than the same way as they had come. Additionally, they would have to untie Geddes so he could run. But first they would have to find a way of parting from Kretschmer and Wolff, who with luck, would have a specific place to report.

But for this moment, his feet hurt, and his hands were blistered from holding the cart. His back and his legs ached and he was so hungry he could have eaten a raw turnip with pleasure, if he could have found one. But he was light-headed with schnapps, singing in the moonlight, and there was a kind of happiness in it that was desperately, passionately real.

CHAPTER

TWELVE

M
ason returned to London with a heavy sense of oppression. His mind should have been crowded with thoughts of the slaughter at Passchendaele and the impending farce of the court-martial of Cavan, the only one of the twelve men who was actually in custody.

But all the way across the Channel, and then standing crowded in the troop train from Dover to London, jostled and jolted, kept upright largely by the press of other men’s bodies around him, he felt a deep and abiding misery that was almost paralyzing. There seemed no light in his inner landscape at all. Had he really imagined the court-martial would solve anything?

Rationally, perhaps the idiocy of it all, the casualty toll climbing toward a quarter million men for the gaining of one shattered town, would have been enough to make sane men call a halt to it, at whatever cost, on whatever terms. But was there any sanity left? No one looked at the whole monumental disaster. They all looked at their own little patch of it.

Perhaps it was too big for anyone to comprehend the ruin that stretched right from the Atlantic waves that swallowed men and ships off the battered shores of Britain right to the blood-soaked sands of Mesopotamia, to the snowbound graves of Russia. Europe was a charnel house. No one could count the millions of dead, let alone those maimed forever.

And yet Judith Reavley was prepared to risk her life to help eleven mutineers escape and flee to Switzerland, and Joseph was equally willing to risk his life to bring them back! In the scheme of things both actions were equally pointless, and just as likely to end in death.

Perhaps that was what hurt? Joseph had hardly any chance of succeeding, which—if he were a logical man—he would have known; but he wasn’t logical! He was an idealist, a dreamer, seeing the world he wanted more clearly than the real one.

Mason wished he did not like him so much. He had wit and imagination, courage to the point of stupidity—no, actually beyond it. And compassion, again beyond sense. You could not argue about honor with him because he did not listen. He followed his own star, even though it was an illusion; beautiful, better than the truth, but a mirage. And when he reached the place where he thought it was, he was going to discover that there was nothing there. That was what Mason hated: the disillusion he knew had to come. No one would be able to help them. What does a man do when he climbs the vast heights, struggles his way upward to heaven, and when bleeding and exhausted he gets there and finds it empty?

He was furious with Joseph for being so vulnerable, and leaving people like Mason to be wounded by his pain.

The train jolted and threw him against the man beside him, knocking him off balance. He apologized. They stopped somewhere in a siding, crowded together, hot and exhausted, legs aching.

The minutes dragged by. He was impatient, although it made little difference when he reached London. He was going to see the Peacemaker, and he would be admitted whatever time he got there. He was going to report on the court-martial and the mood of the men. The Peacemaker would not be pleased. The court-martial was not only going to be absurd, it was going to appear so. Might someone step in and prevent it even now? Was there anyone who could? If so, it would be obvious they had, and that would be absurd also.

The train started to move, lurching with a clang of couplings, then stopped again. Someone swore under his breath. There was another lurch and bang, and another. Then slowly they picked up speed.

Mason was lying to himself: It was not really the thought of Joseph that weighed him down, it was Judith. He could remember the touch of her lips, and her eyes as she looked at him when he drew away at last. He wanted to hold that forever, and he knew he was losing it already. Even if no one ever betrayed the fact that it was she and the American volunteer driver who had rescued the mutineers, she had been willing to do it. That was the division between them that was uncrossable. She was impulsive, quixotic, rushing in like a fool to do something noble without thinking of the inevitable result.

He should force himself not to care. He would only be hurt. She was not going to change. Possibly she was not even going to live through the war! That had always been a risk. Ambulance drivers did get killed, of course they did! Anyone on the battlefront ran that risk.

Why did that thought all but make him sick with despair? She was not part of his life. They had no commitment to each other. They had met only a few times, shared intense emotions of terror and hope and pity, laughed too much, to the edge of weeping, and kissed just once.

He was lying to himself again. She was part of his dreams, of the quiet places inside him that fed his strength, the things for which he struggled and climbed to his feet when he fell, the thing that gave the journey a purpose, a distinction, a place to belong.

The train was moving swiftly now, swaying with a kind of rhythm, everyone so close they held each other up, and all lost in their own thoughts.

How had he allowed himself to do something so stupid? Why could he not have chosen any of a dozen pretty, intelligent, and reasonable girls he had known? Because to persuade himself that he cared for any of them was one lie he could not get away with. There are parts of a man that will accept only the truth.

The train slowed going over the bridge, and finally pulled into Waterloo. They spilled out onto the platform—stiff, dirty, their bodies aching and so tired no one spoke. Mason pushed his way to the entrance to find a taxi, but there was a queue so long it would take hours, and many of the men standing there had injuries far worse than the few cuts and bruises he had. He went instead to the underground train, and an hour later was walking along Marchmont Street in the warm evening air. He passed a newspaper seller and ignored him. Their chief correspondent on the Western Front was a man he knew well. He could imagine what he would make of the court-martial story, and he would be bound to get it. He would make Morel look like a traitor, and Joseph Reavley like a fool.

He reached the Peacemaker’s home and was let in by the same manservant as always, and received in the upstairs sitting room. A moment later he was joined by the Peacemaker. He was wearing a smoking jacket, as if possibly he had been reading a little while, having a last cup of tea, or whisky and soda, before going to bed.

“You look tired,” he said sympathetically. “Rough crossing?” He gestured to Mason to sit down. He had already asked the manservant for sandwiches and fresh tea.

Mason sank into the familiar chair. “No. Calm as a millpond,” he replied. “But no room to sit on the train. Stood all the way from Dover. Hardly room to lift your elbows.” He was not looking forward to reporting on the state of the court-martial. He did so briefly, almost tersely, to get it over with.

“What a mess,” the Peacemaker said with little expression, surprising Mason by his control. “I assume someone helped the mutineers escape? Any idea who?”

“None at all,” Mason lied without compunction. “Could have been any of a thousand people. Nobody wants this court-martial to go ahead.”

“Any chance of capturing the escaped men?”

“One in a thousand, maybe,” Mason said, leaning back in his chair. “But I can’t see that it would improve matters. Just increase the chances of someone saying who helped them.” He spoke honestly, then felt the pain grip his heart and knot in his belly as he thought of Judith in the dock beside Cavan. It was a sense of loneliness as if the lights had gone out in the world, or in his part of it. But it was also jealousy. Judith admired Cavan, and surely he must admire her, too. They would stand side by side, ready to be crucified for loyalty to the men they served. Everyone else was shut out, especially someone like Mason who thought the whole thing was a pointless sacrifice.

He looked across at the Peacemaker, expecting his reaction to be one of fury, perhaps most of all for the waste of good men of just the kind of nobility, courage, and loyalty he himself so valued. But the Peacemaker was smiling bleakly, his eyes bright. He saw what Mason was describing, understood the words if not the heart of it, and was ready to move on to the thoughts that obviously took precedence with him. It was as if he were not really even surprised.

“Thank you,” he said aloud, crossing his legs comfortably. “It is exactly as you say: a final piece of idiocy. I wish we could prevent it, but I know of no way. I believe they are sending Faulkner to prosecute, and he will carry it to the last degree. A narrow man full of fears. He worships the letter of the law, because he has neither the courage nor the imagination to see the spirit behind it.”

Mason remained silent, not trusting himself to speak. His mind raced, skittering around, crashing into ideas in his search to think of anything at all he could say or do that could save Judith, or even save Cavan! Would he save Cavan, for her, knowing that it would exclude him forever?

That was a stupid and crassly sentimental thought. There was no
forever
. The darkness had begun in August 1914, and now, three years later, it was almost complete.

“I have more news from Russia,” the Peacemaker was saying. He was leaning forward again in his chair, fixing Mason with the intensity of his eyes. “They are on the brink of a real revolution! Not the halfhearted affair of Kerensky and his Mensheviks, but one that will change everything, sweep away all trace of the old regime. They will get rid of the tsar and all his family forever.” He made a short, jerky movement with his long hand. “Lenin is back, and he and Trotsky will lead it. It will be violent at first; there is no alternative.” His face pinched for a moment. “There will be many deaths, because the old guard is strong—they have been there for centuries and the corruption runs deep. No one gives up power unless they are forced to.” The light came back into his face. “But think of the future, Mason! Think of all that the Bolsheviks can do with their passion and ideals. A new order, started from the beginning! Unity, equality, an end to war.”

“It will drown Russia in blood.” Mason was appalled. He should have guarded his speech. He knew his protest was pointless, or—worse than that—dangerous, but the words were out in spite of himself.

“No, it won’t!” the Peacemaker argued, too excited to be angry. “It will be violent to begin with, of course it will. The tsar had warning after warning but he took no notice. What else can they do, Mason? As long as the Romanovs are alive there will always be the old nobility, the property owners, the oppressors who will try to return. They are of the old aristocracy of privilege and violence who know no social justice. They use the ordinary man as cannon fodder in a war the people of Russia have no interest in. It must stop! It is not the tsar or his supporters who are dying out there in the bitter snows of the Eastern Front—it is the ordinary man! It is the family of the ordinary man that is starving at home.”

He leaned farther forward. “Well, no more. The people will rise. They will refuse to fight. Mason, we are at the beginning of the end. By Christmas there will be peace in Europe. We can begin to rebuild, not just materially but socially as well.” His face was alight, his eyes burning.

It was a dream again. Mason had a sudden terror that he was being swept along in a fantasy in which everyone else believed, and only he could see the bitter truth. Individual ambitions would always play their part; men would build on towering visions and subsequently forget the details that would undo them.

The Peacemaker had lost sight of the individual in his sweeping plan, as if one man’s ideas could command the loyalty of millions, and their obedience.

For the first time Mason began to wonder if the Peacemaker was mad. No man had the power to do what he dreamed, and no man should.

Perhaps he had seen too many dead and become tired, his own passion exhausted. Judith would hate everything the Peacemaker had said. She would tell him it had nothing to do with reality, the way people actually were.

The Peacemaker would say her sight was too small, too ordinary.

She would say that his was too far from the human heart to see into it: too overweening, exercising not leadership but dominion.

“Mason!” the Peacemaker said sharply. “It is the beginning of the end! Can’t you see that? Peace! There need never be this abomination of war again!”

“Yes, sir,” Mason said a little flatly. “Well, not here anyway.”

The Peacemaker was not to have his spirits damped. “You’re tired. Go home and sleep. Write your article. Then go back to Passchendaele. Attend the court-martial and write the truth about it. The men deserve that. Cavan deserves it.”

Joseph and Morel, with Geddes in tow, made the crossing back through the German lines, over no-man’s-land and then through the French lines. They had great difficulty but achieved it in the same manner as they had crossed the other way: running, crawling, scrambling the moment it was dark enough between the star shells. Perhaps they had been a little less frightened, thanks to the schnapps, and for the same reason also a little clumsier.