At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [106]
“Have you asked him?” Hall raised his eyebrows.
“No, sir. I realize I know nothing about Colonel Shearing except that he is an Austrian-Jewish immigrant. He arrived some thirty years ago, and none of his family is in this country, as far as we know.”
“No, they aren’t,” Hall agreed, leaning back a little and making a steeple of his fingers on the desk. He regarded Matthew over the top of them. “All his family are dead. Both his parents were killed by the Austrian police. The woman he loved—Ingrid, I believe her name was—was raped and killed in a particularly brutal incident on the Serbian border. He and his brother, Baruch Schering, escaped to England, but Baruch went back, working for British Intelligence, to see what information he could gain about political alliances in the Balkans at the time. He was especially concerned about Austrian treaties with Russia which might affect us in the future.”
His eyes were steady, the blink forgotten. “He was caught and tortured, but he died without giving away any of our other men, although he knew the names of at least a dozen of them. It is because of Baruch and our debt to him that we trusted Caleb…Calder Shearing. He has never let us down. I am prepared to stake Captain Cavan’s life, and the outcome of the court-martial in Passchendaele, on his honor in this, if not his judgment. If, indeed, he really did propose Faulkner.”
Matthew sat still, his face burning, his brain trying to accommodate all he had heard, and decide what he believed. He had come in accepting at last that Shearing was the Peacemaker. Deeply as that hurt, he no longer fought the idea. Now all was confusion again.
Hall must have seen it in his face. “I understand your concern, Reavley. On the face of it, to send Faulkner seems the worst possible choice. He may have reasons we are unaware of. Find out, and bring me the answer.”
“I have no authority with which to question him, sir,” Matthew began.
“I said find out, Reavley, not ask him,” Hall snapped. “Learn what you can about any friendship between them. Is it possible Shearing is so burdened with other issues he has been misled, careless, or used by someone else? And do it quickly. We have no time to spare. Report to me in forty-eight hours. Or less, if you find a satisfactory answer.”
Matthew stood up. “Yes, sir.” His head was swimming. He heard every tick of the clock on the desk as if it were consuming the seconds until Cavan should be shot, and the whole Western Front collapse.
Judith also had very little sleep, and even in those brief hours snatched here and there she was troubled by memories and fears. She was accustomed to physical exhaustion and the discomfort of being bruised by the constant jolting of the ambulance over rough ground, her muscles aching from floundering in mud and trying to lift stretchers awkwardly. She was also, like everyone else, accustomed to being wet most of the time, having her feet hurt as her rough shoes scraped where the leather had become twisted and hard from being soaked and caked with mud. She felt permanently filthy. Like everything along the entire Western Front, she almost certainly smelled stale and dirty. She felt about as feminine as a road navvy or railway stoker…or a soldier.
Over the last year, that had not mattered. Seeing the wounded, thinking about the war in general and this Salient in particular was all that anyone had time for; helping friends, and friends were whoever was near you. But Mason had looked at her with that tender, aching intensity, the softness in his eyes so naked it tore through her like a fire, destroying complacency and balance.
Before the war she had been beautiful. She knew it from the reflection in men’s eyes. Now they looked on her as one of the chaps, something of a mascot even: a good driver, a good sport, brave, reliable, someone to trust. And yet still not really one of them.
As she lay curled up in the back of the ambulance, she could dimly see the outline of Wil Sloan a few feet away. He was breathing evenly,