At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [89]
“I know the conditions are hard, Captain Reavley,” Northrup said with a tight little grimace. “This is not the only part of the line battered almost to breaking—although I grant you it is the worst. But it’s all the more important we keep up our standards, for the sake of morale.”
“If somebody is found to be culpable, it will be attended to.” Hook broke his long silence, rising to his feet and picking up a pile of dispatches. “Now, sir, if you will excuse me, I must go and see to some of these things.”
As soon as he had left, Northrup stared at Joseph. “This is a preposterous situation, Captain. I realize that your sympathies are with your men, and perhaps that is how you see your calling, but this cannot be ignored as if it were not a capital offense.” He stared at Joseph accusingly. “You must realize that? Now, of all times, we must stand fast to those principles we believe in, when there is the greatest temptation to give in, or to cut and run. Officers must set an example. It is what we are here for.”
Joseph drew in breath to argue, to tell him forcefully how absurd and cruel and utterly pointless he was, that he had lost all touch with reality.
Any day now they would lose the battle of Passchendaele, and the whole Western Front could buckle and break apart. The last thing on earth the army needed was an idiotic prosecution of one of its few heroes still alive.
Then suddenly he saw General Northrup as an old man, perhaps in years not more than fifty, but worn out in heart and mind, trying to keep up a belief in his son that he knew was false. He might deceive others, or they might concede to his view out of fear or respect—or more than that, pity—but in the end he would be left alone with the truth. He faced forward and he spoke of duty because it was the only road he had left in a world that was slipping away from him and taking with it all that he had believed in.
“Yes, sir,” Joseph said gently. “I think all the men are trying to do what they think is right. When you are facing death it becomes terribly important. There isn’t going to be time to try again.”
Northrup stared at him, blinking rapidly several times. “What are you saying, Captain Reavley? That there is some kind of justice other than a court-martial?”
“I am saying that the men are afraid that finding Captain Cavan and the other men guilty of murder, and having them shot, will damage morale more seriously than we can survive, sir, and may even give the Germans the chance to break through and run for Paris. We have fought too long and too hard, and lost too many of our friends, for that.”
“Take an easy way,” Northrup retorted, his eyes never leaving Joseph’s. “A wrong way, because we cannot face the enemy and stand for what we believe, for justice, and the rule of law, and each man to account for his own sins? Is that what you are saying?”
“No way is easy, sir,” Joseph answered him. “And who judges what is a sin, and who is responsible for it? It is seldom only one of us at fault over anything.”
Northrup shifted his weight slightly, his eyes hard and troubled. He seemed about to challenge what Joseph had said as soon as he found the words for it.
“War strips a man naked of all the ideas his brain was taught, but didn’t really believe,” Joseph went on. He was compelled to argue, just in case there was still a chance Northrup could plead for Cavan, and the other men if they were caught. It might be hopeless, but he could not stop trying. “These men, ultimately, were loyal to each other, and to the will to win rather than to blind obedience.”
Northrup’s lips were pressed tight. His eyes reflected his racing mind, and emotion filled his face, the confusion and pressure of anger and doubt inside him. Still he could not find the words.
“Legally, Major Northrup was in the right,” Joseph began again. “He was the senior officer, and that gave him the power to command, whether his orders were brilliant or suicidal. But it did not make him militarily right. The men who obeyed were legally correct,