At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [123]
Morel was staring at him, frowning. “We have to find Geddes,” he said awkwardly, his face twisted with sudden and startling pity, so deep it gave him pain.
Joseph saw it and it took him by surprise. Morel had misunderstood, thinking he was speaking of himself. The pity was for him, and perhaps for what he had once been, in another age, in Cambridge. He realized something would be broken between them if he said the wrong thing now. The emotion must be acknowledged, then put away as if it had never happened. He looked over toward the fields and the road, away from Morel’s eyes. “You know him better than I do,” he went on, as if considering deeply. “What do you think would be his first priority?”
Morel answered after only a moment’s hesitation, and he kept his voice very nearly expressionless, as if he had known what Joseph meant from the beginning. “As far from the lines as possible,” he said, relief making his voice a little high. “He’s not a coward, but he wouldn’t look for trouble. He’s strong. He grew up in the country. If any man knows how to survive on the land, he does.”
Joseph turned to look at him for a moment, then at the fields again.
“I know.” Morel lowered his voice, almost as if in the presence of the dead. “It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? I should think if there’s anything to eat in that, the locals will have had it. Turnips, wild berries, even roots, nettles. God! What a…” His voice caught. “I don’t know. I haven’t got a word for it. Tragedy doesn’t seem big enough.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “If one man with the potential to be great is brought to his knees by a single weakness, we call it tragedy. We haven’t got a word for an entire continent committing suicide.”
“It’s mutilation, not death yet,” Joseph said softly, willing himself to believe it.
“Isn’t it?” There was little hope in Morel’s face.
Joseph started forward. “Let’s see if anyone’s encountered Geddes.”
They walked in silence for more than a mile. They passed only one person: an ancient man leading a plow horse, a dog at his heels.
Then Joseph picked up the conversation. “What are we going to say? I should be able to make them believe I’m a priest. And that I’m nearly forty. They’ll believe I’m that old.”
Morel gave him a wry look. He was in his mid-twenties, but he looked gaunt and there were deep lines in his face. “Or more,” he said drily. “But so are plenty of fighting men. I’d better think of something, and before we reach that farm.” He gestured toward a group of buildings perhaps half a mile away. One side was black from fire.
“The simplest is best,” Joseph answered, having already given the matter some consideration. “You are a priest also.”
“What happened to my collar?” Morel asked the obvious. “German priests wear them, too.”
“Swiss,” Joseph corrected him. “Your accent isn’t good enough for a native. You were helping someone and got blood all over it. You could wash yourself, but your collar and tunic were ruined. Don’t forget the tunic, nobody gets blood only on their collar. They’ll know you’re lying. Another tunic is no problem from a dead man, but he wouldn’t have a priest’s collar. You know enough from your prewar studies of biblical languages to pass as long as you don’t try to conduct a service.”
Morel smiled. “You lie better than I expected.”
“Thank you!” Joseph said sarcastically. “Geddes won’t get away with that. So what would you do in his place?”
The farm was only a hundred yards away now. It was dilapidated, mended with old boards and clearly whatever had come to hand. There obviously had been no glass to replace the shattered windows, and perhaps no putty either. It must take either courage or desperation for the inhabitants to have remained here.
“He doesn’t have more than a few words of German,” Morel said dubiously. “But he’s a fly bastard. He’ll have thought of