At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [90]
Northrup was shivering very slightly; it was just a tic in his right temple, a tremor in his hands.
“With being an officer comes the duty to be right,” Joseph added, knowing what he was doing to the man in front of him. “To put your men’s lives before your own vanity. In peacetime you can order obedience, regardless of your own qualities, but in war you have to earn respect. Moral courage is required as well as physical—the more so of officers.”
Northrup lowered his eyes. “You have no need to labor the point, Captain. I have been obliged to accept that my son’s qualities fell short of the command he held, and that the army offered his men no recourse but to obey or rebel.” He stood almost motionless. “And I am accountable to God for whatever part of his character made him refuse to be guided by junior men who knew better from experience. If he was weak, that was my failure—perhaps more than it was his. Perhaps I allowed him to believe that being in command is a matter of rank, not of knowing your job, or that honor is what other men say of you, not what is true even when you stand alone. If that is so, then I will answer to God, and to my son, but I will not answer to you, sir.” He blinked rapidly, his face flushed and his eyes bright with tears.
Joseph ached, almost physically, to find anything to say that could comfort him. The only way to ease the pain would be to deny the truth of his part in the private tragedy of a son who had proved unequal to the final test.
“In the end it is only God’s judgment that matters for any of us,” Joseph said. “And it looks as if the end could be rather soon.”
Northrup drew in his breath sharply as if to deny it, then let it out in a sigh and said nothing. He seemed drained of everything inside himself, as if only a shell were left which kept up the façade as an act of will. If he had been wrong and, without realizing it at the time, destroyed the son he had loved, in his own way, then at least he would not now lose the only virtue of which he was certain: courage.
“I am sure you have duties, Captain. Thank you for your time.”
Joseph accepted the dismissal, saluted, and turned to leave.
Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner arrived before sunset, as he had said he would. Joseph did not see him, but he heard the comments of the men.
“Looks loike one o’ them guard dogs who can’t find his dinner,” Alf Culshaw said sourly. “Reckon we’re it!”
Barshey Gee shook his head and winced. He had a heavy bandage on his right arm, but the wound was not serious enough to send him off the front line. “Why is it they send the decent blokes up here with the guns to shoot at Jerry, poor sod, and keep the real bastards back o’ the lines to shoot at us? Who thought that up, d’you suppose?”
“Some bloke as thought up hard rations an’ Sunday drills and…” Snowy offered.
“An’ his Ma must’ve knitted moi socks!” George Atherton added with his characteristic jerky laugh. “Got more lumps in ’em than Lofty’s porridge.”
“That’s what Oi’d loike,” Barshey said longingly, his eyes dreamy. “A noice hot bowl o’ porridge, with sugar an’ the top o’ the milk on it.”
George threw a dollop of mud at him.
Bert Collins arrived to tell Joseph that Colonel Hook wanted to see him. He pulled his face into an expression of disgust. “An’ the new man, sir, Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner. You’ll know which one he is, sir, ’cos he looked like he just ate a wasp, ’cept it’s too wet for wasps. If it don’t stop soddin’ rainin’ soon we’ll all drown. What I want to know, Chaplain, is why aren’t you buildin’ an ark, eh?”
“No wood,” Joseph said with a tight smile. “And no animals to put in it.”
“An’ no women,” Barshey added. “Koind of more loike no point!”
Several of them laughed.
Joseph followed Bert Collins back to the command post, and went into the small room with its