At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [82]
What a bloody horrible, senseless tragedy! Why on earth had they done such a thing? Had they really imagined for a moment that they would get away with it? Or were they driven by a power far beyond the capacity for thought?
He refused to decide at the moment exactly what story he would write, but possibilities crowded his mind. The one he knew the Peacemaker would want was to make Cavan the hero, betrayed by an incompetent and cowardly command. A bad officer had been put in charge, and a surgeon had had to get rid of him in order to stop even more pointless slaughter of his men. All the stories about Cavan that he was now hearing would help with that: the laughter and comradeship, the heroism in the face of madness.
He took it all down carefully, noting the name and rank of those who told him. Judith went outside and did some work on her ambulance, then returned an hour later. There was still the same suppressed excitement about her, and he began to realize that she was following a very definite plan of some sort. For a wild moment the thought flashed to him that it was the same as his and the Peacemaker’s. She had finally seen too much slaughter and was prepared to take a small step toward ending it. She was watching him now as he finished the last notes from the men. She came over toward him. She walked with grace, the weariness under such rigid control was completely hidden. He wondered when she had last slept properly in any kind of bed, or eaten a meal that wasn’t cooked in a Dixie can. She must be so tired of dirt, endless chores, and desperate jokes one hardly dared laugh at. And yet laughter and that all-consuming comradeship of those who share life and death were the only shreds of human sanity left.
“Did you get some good stories?” she asked Mason, sitting down at the other side of the small table.
“Yes, thank you. But I’d still like to hear about his stand against the German raiding party for which they’ve put him up for the V.C. You were there, weren’t you?”
She looked at him wryly.
“You know I was. Would you like me to tell you now? I’m not back on duty for an hour.” She pushed a strand of hair off her brow. “I can do it.”
“What about a chance to sleep?”
“Are you telling me I look tired?”
He studied her face. He was surprised at the strength in her, and the defensive challenge in her eyes in that question. How different she was from the girl who had worn the blue satin gown at the Savoy with such infinite femininity. She must know that, too, with a different kind of regret from his.
“Actually you look beautiful.” He said it deliberately, and yet it was totally sincere. “But reason says that, like everybody else, you must need to sleep.”
There was a moment’s confusion in her eyes, uncertainty whether to believe him or not. Then she flushed very slightly and he knew in that instant how much it mattered to her. It was a belief that if there were ever peace again she could still be the woman she was inside, before the war.
“I’ll sleep next break,” she answered. “You might have gone by then, and you need to get the story.” Without waiting for him to reply, she told him in vivid and dramatic detail exactly what the raid had been like and how Cavan’s remarkable courage had saved all their lives. He could simply take it down and rewrite it using her words, there was such a force of life in them. Never once did she hesitate or repeat herself.
As he wrote it, he began to understand at last what it was she was doing. She was re-creating in the readers’ minds the situation that had brought about Major Northrup’s death, and showing Cavan as a man