At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [137]
“Yes, sir.” Joseph saluted a little clumsily, and walked out into the darkness wondering if he was actually still on speaking terms with God. He had once believed that he knew the truth of doctrine, and morality, and that he could argue it with conviction.
But that was a long time ago. Now he was confused, torn by emotion, and above all afraid. He stood in the mud and looked up at the enormity of the September sky, for once glittering with stars.
“Please help me” was all that came to his lips. “Father, please help me.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Joseph’s mind was racing, and yet the words poured over his head uselessly. He was sitting in his own dugout with an army legal officer trying to help him understand the legal niceties of what he could do, or not do, in order to defend the twelve men. Outside in the distance the gunfire was sporadic, mostly sniper fire, but it was growing dark and the rain was starting again. In an hour or two some poor devils would be going over the top.
The air was heavy and close; it seemed to cling to the skin. The oil lamp on the table burned steadily with a small, yellow flame, casting highlights and shadows on the familiar objects, the few books, the picture of Dante, a tin of biscuits, the pen and paper.
They had been through the procedure three times. Joseph was feeling as if the whole trial and verdict were as inevitable as the tides of the sea, and anything he did would make as little difference as he would to them.
“Remember the difference between civilian and military law,” Major Ward said urgently, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Civilian law has the right of the individual at the front, the first concern. Military law is at least as much about the good of the unit. You’ll have soldiers in active service on the panel. The president will be a major general from a division just like this one, who’s fought along the Ypres Salient since 1914, just as you have. Give him half a chance and he’ll be on your side. Never forget that, Reavley, and you could save them.”
Joseph rubbed his hand across his brow, pushing his hair back so hard it hurt. “Why on earth did they choose me? You know the law. You’d do a far better job. I’m a priest, an ordinary soldier!”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Ward demanded, frustration and weariness sharpening his voice. “That is exactly why you might succeed! You don’t need to know the law, man! You need to know the army, the trenches, the reality of death and loyalty and what it means to be part of a regiment.”
Joseph wanted to believe him but he had no faith in his ability to overcome the unarguable facts of the law. The men were placing a trust in him that was born of faith and desperation, and possibly some hope he had given them falsely, and beyond his ability to live up to. He would have betrayed them as deeply as the whole war had. In his own way, he was as incompetent as Northrup, another man put into a job for which he had not the skills.
“Nobody wins them all,” Ward said to him drily. “But you damn well fight them all!”
An ugly suspicion flashed into Joseph’s mind that they had put him onto this case because they did not want one of their own to be seen to defend mutineers, and of course to fail.
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
Joseph got little sleep. By the following day, when the court-martial proceedings were under way with the usual declarations, and the accused men’s right to challenge all the officers was in progress, time had assumed the character of an infinitely slow nightmare.
There was a farcical element to sitting in this airless room in what was now September heat, and hearing all the prescribed questions put to each man as if somehow it were going to make any difference. As Ward had said, the president was major general Hardesty from a nearby section of the line, and the other officers were Colonel Apsted from the regiment immediately to the west, and Major Simmons from a regiment to the east. It would have been pointless to object to any of them, but the protocol had to be followed.
Throughout, Lieutenant