At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [72]
Joseph waited.
“How would it be…” Punch said very slowly, “if you was to tell him that it was lots of men, dozen or more. Not one man gone mad who wanted to murder him, but a dozen who’d all had enough, and could see that more an’ more men were going to get killed if the major didn’t stop and listen to someone with experience? And it was only meant to scare some sense into him.”
“How was shooting him going to scare sense into him?” Joseph said dubiously.
“Not shoot him, Chaplain. Set up a trial, loike. Make him sit an’ listen to what a fool he was, evidence. Foind him guilty of incompetence, causing other men’s deaths, an’ pretend to shoot him. Scare the hell out of him.” He studied Joseph’s face earnestly, searching for understanding.
It was beginning to be very clear. “You mean a kangaroo court-martial?” Joseph said very softly.
“I’m only suggesting it!” Punch protested. “D’you think the general moight believe that?”
“Private soldiers court-martialing an officer?”
“Not just privates, nor corporals neither.”
“Officers?” Joseph was not really surprised. “Captain Morel?”
“An’ Captain Cavan. He were the one who had to amputate poor Matheson’s leg, just ’cos that idiot sent him to cart a bloody great field gun through the mud. Everyone told him it was dangerous!” He stared at Joseph, challenging him to argue.
Joseph sat numbly, no longer even aware of his surroundings. It was worse than he had thought. They were speaking theoretically, but both knew that what Punch was really saying was the truth. If Cavan had been involved and Northrup ever found out, it would be a court-martial that would tear apart more than just the regiment. Cavan was one of the best surgeons on the Ypres Salient, and one of the bravest men. His recommendation for the V.C. had heartened every man who knew him. If he were now court-martialed for Northrup’s murder, it might be the final grief and absurdity that would break the spirit of some, and ignite others to the mutiny that had lain just beneath the surface in men like Morel. There wouldn’t be a serving soldier on the front who wouldn’t think Cavan was worth ten of Northrup, whatever the law said.
“Captain Reavley?” Punch said anxiously.
“Yes. Yes, I see. It was designed to frighten Major Northrup. What went wrong?”
“Oi don’t know, sir. Oi swear.”
“Thank you.”
“You aren’t going to go an’ tell Colonel Hook what Oi said, are you? Oi’ll deny it, sir.” His eyes were angry and frightened.
“No, I’m not,” Joseph said sharply. “I told you I wasn’t. But I can’t find a story the general will believe if I don’t know what the truth is. This way none of the facts anyone can discover will prove it false.”
“Roight. Yes, I see. Thank you, Chaplain.”
It was dusk as Joseph left in a staff car returning to the front. The air was motionless, wet and close to the skin. The sky leached the last tones of warmth out of the waterlogged land. Thin vapors of mist provided a curious softness but hid none of the desolation: the broken trees; the bare, scorched wreckage of houses and farms; the litter of broken guns and vehicles on the roads.
The car was on a cratered road now, and he smelled the familiar stench long before they reached even the outpost farthest back. The first star shells were bursting, and gradually the sound of the heavy guns blurred one raid into another. A stray eighteen-pound shell exploded fifty yards away, jarring the earth and sending eruptions of heavy Flanders clay high and dark into the air. Most of it was far in front of the car, over the woods toward Passchendaele itself.
As he alighted, he thanked the driver who had given him a lift, glad of a few hundred yards to walk. He felt battered by the noise, as if it were a physical assault, but he needed the time for a last arrangement of thoughts in his mind.
He found Hook in his dugout. He was looking at maps, although he must have known the whole of the Ypres Salient better than he knew his own garden. The photograph of his wife had been moved to the top of the gramophone, as if both had to be forgotten for the moment.