Shoulder the Sky (41 page)

Friendship was at the root of it all, the honesty without judgement, the generosity of the spirit, the tenderness that never failed. In a way it was the end of fear, because if you were not alone, everything else was bearable.

He thought of Sam. If he and Mason didn't make the shore, then at least he would never have to go and find Sam and tell him he knew he had killed Prentice. He was surprised how much of a relief that was.

His hand slipped on the oar, as if he had already half let it go. Mason jerked around, fear in his face for an instant, until he saw Joseph tighten his grip on it again.

What would Sam have said to try to persuade Mason not to write his article on Gallipoli? What arguments were there left? Joseph had tried everything he could think of. None of it was enough. What if he failed? Finally he faced the thought he had been avoiding for the last two hours. There was only one way to be absolutely certain that Mason did not publish his piece, and that was to kill him. Could he wait until they were within sight of land, and he could manage the boat alone, then calmly take the oar and strike Mason with it, so hard it would kill him? He had no need to ask himself, he knew the answer. But was that humanity, even godliness? Or was it cowardice?

What if a ship were to see them before that, while he was still dithering, and pick them up? The decision would be taken out of his hands. No. That was dishonest. He would have left it too late, and missed his chance. Anyway, justification or excuses were pointless. If morale in England were destroyed, the reason Joseph Reavley failed to act would be utterly irrelevant.

"You would tell all of the men who might enlist and go," he said aloud. "And then many of them would change their minds. Their families would be relieved at least most of them would. How about the families of all those who are already there? Or who have died in France, or Gallipoli, or at sea? How do you suppose they would feel?"

"Probably angry enough to demand that the government answer for it," Mason replied, struggling to keep hold of the oar. "Pull, damn it!"

"We can't pull against this," Joseph replied, jerking his head at the waves. "One misjudgement and we'll be tipped over. We need to turn and go before it."

"Where to, for God's sake?" Mason demanded, his voice higher-pitched, exhaustion and panic too close to the surface. "Out into the middle of the Atlantic?"

"Better there, and above the water, than the English Channel, and under it," Joseph replied. "Even south of here we'll still be in a shipping lane. We don't have a choice."

"Can you turn the boat without capsizing it?" Mason demanded.

"I don't know," Joseph admitted. "But we can't go on like this. We can't hold it. We'll have to be fast."

"What about the wounded man? If he goes over we've lost him!"

"If the boat goes over we're all lost!" Joseph shouted back. "Together! When there's a lull. Wait for it! You lift out, I'll pull."

"A lull?" Mason yelled with disbelief.

The wind gusted, then dropped.

"Now!" Joseph bellowed, lifting his oar high, digging it round and feeling the boat turn, yaw wildly, pitch almost over as the wave slapped against the side, then as Joseph dug again, throwing his weight against it, come round with the wind and the current behind it.

Mason gasped, pushing his hair out of his face with one hand and grabbing at the oar to plunge it in the water again. Now the boat was running before the wind, but it still needed both of them with all their weight and strength to keep it from turning again.

Joseph's heart was pounding so hard he felt giddy. He had come within feet of drowning them all, Andy as well as Mason and himself. Relief left him shaking. He clung to the oar as much to regain his control as to wield and pull it. But something in him had resolved.

"I can't let you publish that piece," he said clearly. "That is, if there really is a publisher?" He had to know.

"Of course there is," Mason said without the slightest hesitation. "Some of the provincial newspaper owners believe as I do. They think people have a right to make their own decisions, knowing what they're going to face."

"Aren't they afraid of being charged with treason?" Joseph asked. "The Defence of the Realm Act is pretty powerful. Or are they going to do it anonymously, so they won't have to answer for it?"

Mason was angry. "Of course they're not going to do it anonymously!" he retorted. "What the hell kind of truth is that?"

"Are you sure?" Joseph let disbelief burn through his voice.

"Yes, I am sure!" Mason shouted. "I've known the owner all my life! He won't let the editors take the blame. He'll answer for it himself."

Joseph believed it. The certainty in Mason's face, the passion in him and his sense of honour and purpose, mistaken as it was, lit him with an intensity no lie could carry.

"I'm sorry," Joseph said, and meant it sincerely. He liked Mason indeed, admired him. "I can't let you do that."

"You can't stop me," Mason smiled. It was a warm, unaffected expression. It lit and softened his face.

Joseph shipped his oar. "Yes I can."

The boat jerked sideways until Mason lifted his oar out of the water also and the boat tossed and slapped without help at all.

"For God's sake!" Mason shrieked. "We'll sink! What the hell's the matter with you?"

"I can't kill you," Joseph answered. "But I won't help save you either." He looked at Andy. "I'm truly sorry. But if this piece Mason has written is printed it'll be picked up by other underground papers, and will get round the country like fire. Well-meaning pacifists will pass it around outside recruiting stations, and traitors, pro-Germans, will slip it through doorways and hand it out in meetings. In the end thousands of people will be affected by it. Fewer men will volunteer for the army, and our men in the trenches in France and in Gallipoli, will be left to fight alone, until they're beaten. I can't let that happen, to save my life, or yours. I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Andy said quietly. "I understand you've got to do that. And maybe we wouldn't have got home anyway. At least this is for a reason."

Mason pushed Joseph violently, knocking him off the bench, and seized his oar, pulling on both of them and righting the boat to send it in front of the wind again.

Joseph settled in the stern, next to Andy. It was a relief not to be straining his aching back against the oar any more. Drowning was supposed to be not too bad a way to die. He had heard that you lost consciousness pretty quickly. Not like being caught in the wires in no man's land and left there for hours, even days. Prentice had died comparatively easily.

Pity Sam would not know. He would have appreciated the irony! Even more of a pity that he couldn't tell Matthew where the newspaper editor was. He didn't know the name, but it would be easy enough to find. Someone Mason had known all his life, who owned several papers, and was against the violence and waste of war.

He did not want to think of Matthew, or Judith or Hannah. It was too hard, too filled with pain. It hurt with a deep, gouging ache he could not control.

"You're a fool!" Mason was shouting at him, struggling to keep the boat straight with the wind behind it. "Surrender could mean peace! A united Europe. Isn't that better than this insane carnage, and the destruction of all our heritage, the poisoning of the earth itself? Europe's becoming an abattoir! There isn't going to be anything but ruin and madness left for the victor. Can't you see that?"

"You want peace?" Joseph asked, as if it were a real and urgent question. They were being pitched sideways, one direction then the other, as Mason fought to keep control, his face sheened with water, his muscles clenched.

"Of course I want peace!" he shouted furiously.

Joseph braced himself not to land his weight on top of Andy, who was watching him intently. "And you think that surrender will bring peace?" He allowed his own disbelief ring through. "Maybe to us! But what about Belgium, which we proposed to protect? We gave our word. And what about France?"

"We didn't promise France," Mason retorted.

"What the hell has that got to do with it?" Joseph demanded. "Do we only protect people if we've got treaties that say we must? Do we only do the right thing if we are forced to?"

"The right thing?" Mason's voice rose in outrage. "It's the right thing to crucify half the youth of Europe in a quarrel about who governs which strip of land, and what language we speak?"

"Yes! If the right to have our own laws and our own heritage goes along with it. If anyone conquer us and lay down the rules for us, and bit by bit anything that makes us free and unique will be taken away."

The wind was still rising and Mason was finding it more and more difficult to hold the boat, even with the storm at his back.

"Free and unique! You're a madman! They're just dead! Bodies piled on bodies! Tread on the earth in Flanders and you're standing on human flesh! Tell them the truth, and let them choose what they want! It's an unpardonable sin to lead them blind to the slaughter." He yanked at the oar, his face contorted with the strain. "You're supposed to believe in good and evil to deny knowledge is to deny freedom that is evil. Who the hell do you think you are, you supremely arrogant bastard, to decide for the youth of Europe whether it will fight your damned war or not? Answer me, Reverend Reavley?"

Joseph's mind raced. Mason's argument was the Peacemaker's and he was so nearly right, so close to pity and humanity.

"You told me I was naive," he shouted back. "You want peace? Don't you think we all do? But not at any price, no matter how high. Belgium was invaded, and France. If we give up, do you think that's going to bring peace? Do you think the Belgian and the French people will simply lay down their arms and surrender?"

The wind tore Mason's answer from his lips.

"The government might give up, even some of the people!" Joseph went on furiously. "But do you think the army will? The men whose brothers and friends have already died in the mud and gas, on the wires and in the trenches? The men who've frozen, drowned and bled for what they loved! They've paid too much! So have we!"

Mason stared at him. His face reflected the pain of his tearing muscles as he strained against the oars. The boat bucketed and slid in the troughs. He was losing. He began to realize Joseph was going to die for his conviction, and take Andy too, if that was what it cost. The knowledge woke admiration in him, reluctant, angrily, but totally honestly.

"There'll be mutiny," Joseph went on, conviction growing in him. He was so cold now that he was not moving and he could hardly feel his legs below the knee. Andy must be beginning to suffer from exposure. It grieved Joseph to sacrifice him. "In the army, and at home," he continued. "What could the government do? Arrest all those who want to resist? Hand them over to the German occupying force? You know human nature, Mason! The brave men will flee to the hills, the forests, anywhere they can hide and regroup. Those who can't the old, the sick, women with children will pay the price. There'll be mass trials for treason, if they're lucky; if not, then just executions. There'll be collaborations, of course, and betrayals, counter betrayals groups of vigilantes, informers, and secret police .. ."

"All right!" Mason yelled. "There won't be a bloody thing if you don't help me keep this boat ahead of the wind! We'll all be dead!"

"No we won't," Joseph told him, leaning forward to make himself heard above the roar and crash of the sea. "You and I will be, and unfortunately Andy, but no one else. The other crewman is dead anyway'

Andy struggled to sit up. His face was ashen white in the cold morning light. The hard grey sea was racing around them, waves spume-topped, foam flying.

"Do you agree with him?" Mason demanded, staring at Andy. "Is this what you want, really? Because if it isn't, you'd better tell him." He jerked his hands towards Joseph. "And quickly. I can't hold this much longer."

"It's what I want," Andy answered, his eyes screwed up against the wind, but unwavering. "You've got to fight for what you believe, an' die for it, if that's the way it goes. An' you fight for your mate, same as he'd fight for you."

"And is Belgium your mate?" Mason asked savagely.

Andy gave him a crooked smile. "Yeah. S'pose he is. Your mate's whoever's beside you. The Germans've got no right to go through Belgium doing what they're doing. Nor into France neither. We'd fight if it was England. It isn't different, just 'cos it's somebody else." He said it simply, as if it were obvious.

Joseph felt a sting in his throat. It was the whole philosophy of the British "Tommy' he knew. Are you your brother's keeper? Yes, you are, at the price of your life, if that's what it takes. All his and Mason's arguments were academic, deciding for others. It was Andy, and a million men like him, whose lives were the cost.

Joseph looked at Mason's face and saw the amazement in him, and the grasp after a new understanding.

"You throw that thing overboard and swear as you won't write it again, or we'll all go down," Andy told him. "I reckoned I'd give up my life for my country, if I had to well, this is having to, that's all. Never thought it'd be to stop a traitor, but at least there's some point to that."

"For God's sake, man, I just want to stop the bloody slaughter!" Mason shouted back at him. "Do you know how many men are dead already, and the war isn't a year old yet?"