At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [75]
“Is it time?” she said automatically, blinking and trying to clear her head.
Wil Sloan was bending over her, his grip still hard on her shoulder. His face was pale and slicked with rain, his hair dripping. There were bruises of exhaustion around his eyes.
“Something terrible’s happened,” he said huskily.
Fear boiled up in her like a wave of nausea. Was he going to tell her that Joseph had been killed? It was the thing she dreaded most of all. She found her throat was closed and the words wouldn’t escape her lips.
“They’ve arrested twelve men for killing Major Northrup,” Wil said. “Harrison came and told me.”
“Twelve!” She was both relieved and appalled. “Twelve?” She propped herself on one elbow. “That’s ridiculous. How could twelve…all of them?”
“Kangaroo court-martial,” he replied, just as she realized it herself.
“And shot him?” she whispered.
“That’s what they’re saying. But the thing is…Cavan was one of them.”
Now she understood his horror. “Cavan?” It was too awful to grasp. “But they can’t take our doctor away! What about the wounded? That’s…monstrous! They…they can’t!”
“They have,” he said. “And Captain Morel.”
She sat up straight, pain shooting through her muscles. “Why? How do they know it was them?”
His face was bleak. “I’m sorry, Judith. The chaplain went to Paris and found one of the men who knew, and got it out of him somehow.”
“I don’t believe it!” She refused to. Joseph would not do that. “You must be wrong,” she insisted. “Anyway, if the man confessed to a priest, you can’t use it! Joseph would never repeat a confession. He couldn’t!”
“He didn’t say who it was.” Wil shook his head. “Just that it was twelve. Northrup worked out who was angriest with the major and took it from there.”
Judith struggled to her feet. “We’ve got to do something about it. This is terrible.”
Wil stood also. “Right now we’re on duty. And we’ll have to take the wounded all the way back to the field hospital because there’ll be no one able to do much in the dressing station.”
“What a bloody nightmare.” She sighed. “We’ll have to do something about it! We can’t let this go on, Wil. The men’ll mutiny! To lock up our best surgeon over some idiot like Northrup! Are we trying to lose this war?”
“Keep your shirt on, Judith,” he said anxiously. “Don’t do anything rash. We can’t afford to get ourselves locked up, too. That won’t help. I’ll get a cup of tea. It’s going to be another bad night.”
It was. Judith drove in a daze, fighting to keep the ambulance on the shell-pocked road and not get mired in the mud on either side or break an axle in one of the craters. It took all her strength to hold the wheel, and twice she had to get out and crank the engine to life again after a particularly violent stop.
All the time her mind was wrestling with the thought of Cavan in military prison awaiting trial. She could picture him as clearly as if she were looking at him. She could hear his voice in her mind. If they found them guilty of having mutinied and shot Northrup, they would all face a firing squad. There was no possible alternative. The worst thing was that she knew that he could have done it. He cared for the wounded above all things; he would put them before anything else. He had the anger and the courage.
How could Joseph have let it happen? He must have known General Northrup was rabid for revenge. Why had he not simply said he couldn’t find out who was responsible? Even General Northrup couldn’t arrest the entire regiment.
She peered through the windshield, trying to discern what the dark shapes ahead were. The shellfire was getting heavier. The last one had landed only fifty yards away, and the debris had fallen heavily on the roof.
Maybe if she found out every stupid and dangerous thing Major Northrup had done she could widen the field of men likely to want him dead so far that they couldn’t possibly arrest all of them. There couldn’t be exactly twelve who had lost someone. How did they know they had the right twelve? Wasn’t there some legal principle about it being better