At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [65]
Hook heard the warning in it, the self-control fraying and coming apart. He intervened. “Chaplain, General Northrup has been speaking to the men also, and he believes that Corporal Fuller may have been involved and knows what happened. He insists that we ask him, under pressure if necessary.”
“Punch Fuller?” Joseph was startled. “I haven’t seen him for days. He must be…” he blinked, trying to hold back his emotion. “Among the dead.” He had liked Punch with his pleasantly ugly face and his inexhaustible memory for the words of every song, orthodox and otherwise.
A nerve twitched in Northrup’s cheek. “He is not dead, Chaplain! Not even wounded. Corporal Fuller is on leave in Paris, and no doubt enjoying himself. If we fight for anything, it must be for honor. If we have lost that, then there is nothing else left worth winning—or losing.” His voice thickened. “I will not bury my son the victim of a cowardly murder and keep silent about it. I do not know if you would—that is not my concern—but if you would, then I pity you, and those who love or trust you I pity even more. What use are you to your men, sir, if you have neither the courage nor the strength to uphold the truth or the honor of the God you chose to serve?”
“General…” Hook began to protest, leaning forward a little, his skin yellow now in the lamplight.
Joseph could not allow Hook to fight in a defense he was not prepared to make for himself. “General Northrup.” He turned to face him. “If Corporal Fuller knows something of Major Northrup’s death, then with Colonel Hook’s permission, I will go to Paris, find him, and learn what it is. Supposing you believe that is of more service to my men than remaining here to help them.” He stared at Northrup’s tired, wounded eyes without wavering.
Northrup blinked.
It was Hook who answered. “I think you had better try, Reavley. You could get a little sleep on the train, some dry clothes, maybe hot food. Give it a couple of days anyway.”
“Yes, sir. Immediately?”
“Might as well,” Hook replied. “If Fuller comes back and you miss him, you might not get another chance.” He gave Northrup a sidelong glance, but Northrup was impervious. He could see only justice; the near certainty of death in battle seemed not to touch him.
“Yes, sir.” Joseph saluted and left.
He was tired enough to sleep most of the journey from Ypres to Paris, jammed into a seat between other soldiers going on leave, a few staff officers, and several silent and uncomfortable civilians in cars rattling and jolting over the tracks. He was barely aware of them. Exhaustion lent him a few hours of oblivion, and when he finally disembarked at the station and pulled his thoughts together it was to consider at which of the many places the men on leave stayed in Paris he should begin to look for Punch Fuller.
He had heard many of the men joke about the music halls that were still open, the nightclubs, the cafés, and the brothels.
He stood on the platform outside the railway station looking at the street, hearing the clip of horses’ hooves and the hiss of tires on the wet cobbles, the blare of motor horns and someone singing loudly and offkey, miserably drunk. A boy with a cap too large for him was selling newspapers, black headlines counting more losses at Passchendaele, Verdun, the Somme, and right along the front. A group of sailors swung by, with trouser legs flapping around their ankles. An ambulance passed, driven by a woman.
Joseph felt an overwhelming sense of being lost, even though he had been to Paris many times, both before the war and then on leave. He had spoken French passably since school. It was not that he did not care about France, or appreciate the country’s wit, history, and culture; he just ached for the familiar, the idioms of his own people. He longed for things he did not need to think about, places his feet would find unguided. He was too tired to begin a search for one man in all this weary, grieving city that had lived the last three years with the enemy