At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [12]
Cavan swung round and dived toward him, hands outstretched.
“It’s useless!” Judith shouted at him. One of the other soldiers raised his gun to aim at Cavan. She reached for the instrument tray, picked up a scalpel and drove it into the man’s neck. His bullet went through the ceiling.
Cavan was half on top of the dead soldier on the floor. He knew he could do nothing for him. It was his gun he was after. He rolled over, covered in blood, and shot the third soldier through the head.
The second one, gasping and spewing blood from his neck wound, staggered back through the tent the way he had come.
The gunfire outside never ceased.
“We have two more wounded we might save.” Cavan clambered to his feet, shaking, his face white.
“Only one now,” Judith corrected him. “Can…can we hold them off?”
“Of course we can,” he replied, his breath ragged, swaying a little. “But we’ve lost a scalpel.”
Joseph heard about it in the morning, standing in the wreckage of the forward trench, the parapet collapsed, mud up to their knees.
“It’s about the only good thing, Captain Reavley,” Barshey Gee said to him grimly as they stopped working on rebuilding the trench walls for a moment. “He’s some doc, eh, Cavan? There he was, cool as a cucumber, stitching away like there were nothing going on! An’ your sister with him. An’ that Yank ambulance driver, too.” Barshey was a tall man with thick hair. Before the war he had been slender; now he was gaunt and looked years older than twenty-four. “Got ’em out, they did. Didn’t leave a single live one behind.”
Joseph felt a wave of gratitude that Judith was still alive. It was so powerful he smiled fatuously in spite of his effort not to. He forced himself not to think about her most of the time. Everyone had friends, brothers, someone to lose. It would cripple one to think of it too much.
“I’m afraid Major Penhaligon’s dead, sir,” Barshey went on. “Pretty well half the brigade dead or wounded. The Canadians and the Aussies got it hard, too. Word is we could have lost around fifty thousand men….” His voice choked, words useless.
“This summer?” Joseph said. It was worse than he had thought.
“No, sir,” Barshey said hoarsely, the tears running down his cheeks. “Yesterday, sir.”
Joseph was numb. It could not be. He drew in his breath to say “Oh God,” but it died on his lips.
The battle of Passchendaele raged on and the rain continued, soaking the ground until it oozed mud and slime and the men staggered and sank in it.
On August 2, Major Howard Northrup arrived to replace Penhaligon. He was a slight man, stiffly upright with wide blue eyes and a precise manner.
“We’ve a hard job ahead of us, Captain Reavley,” he said when Joseph reported to him in his dugout. He did not invite Joseph to sit, even though he was obliged to bend because of the low ceiling.
“It’s your job to keep up morale,” Northrup went on. He appeared to be about twenty-five and wore his authority heavily. “Keep the men busy. Obedience must be absolute. Loyalty and obedience are the measure of a good soldier.”
“Our losses have been very heavy, sir,” Joseph pointed out. “Every man out there has lost friends….”
“That is what war is about, Captain,” Northrup cut across him. “This is a good brigade. Don’t let the standard down, Chaplain.”
Joseph’s temper flared. He had difficulty not shouting at the man. “I know it is a good brigade, sir,” he said between his teeth. “I’ve been with them since 1914.”
Northup flushed. “You are a chaplain, Captain Reavley, a noncombatant officer. Morale is your job, not tactics. I don’t wish to have to remind you of that again, or in front of the men, but I will do so if you make it necessary by questioning my orders. Thank you for your report. You are dismissed.