Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [105]
He had walked this stretch of Paradise Alley so often he knew every bend and dip in the ground, where the posts and the hollows were. Every other time it had been with a sense of expectancy, even pleasure. Now he had to force himself because delay was pointless. It would change nothing.
He reached Sam’s dugout and stopped. Every scar and nail hole on the wooden surround was familiar. There was nothing on which to knock, but one did not walk into a man’s living quarters at this hour without making some attempt at courtesy.
“Sam!” His voice was rough, as if his throat were dry. “Sam!”
There was silence. Was he relieved or angry that he had to put it off after all? Perhaps Sam was at a very early breakfast? No. Stand-to had not been called yet. Maybe he was asleep. “Sam!” he shouted.
A tousled fair head appeared through the gap in the sacking. “You’re looking for Major Wetherall? Sorry. He was transferred. Some sort of emergency along the line. No idea where.”
Joseph stared at him. He could hardly grasp that this strange, blank-faced man was in Sam’s dugout. Where were all Sam’s things? How could this happen without warning?
The man blinked, recognized Joseph’s insignia of rank and calling.
“Sorry, Chaplain. Not bad news for him, I hope?”
“No,” Joseph said slowly. He took a breath. “No. No news at all, at least not now. Thank you.” He turned away, tripping over a rut in the uneven ground. This was only a respite, it changed nothing, but for the moment he did not have to face Sam and deliberately destroy the friendship that was his lifeline to the laughter, the warmth of human touch, the hand that reached out and grasped his in the inner darkness of this seemingly universal destruction.
CHAPTER
TEN
The same evening as Joseph was talking to Marie O’Day, Judith was sitting in the kitchen of the château. She had been given an excellent dinner, but separately from Cullingford and the senior French officers with whom he had been conferring. She ate the last of the crusty bread, which was still warm, and the fresh Brie, finished her wine, then thanked the cook with an enthusiasm and a gratitude she did not have to feign.
Outside in the garden afterward in the balmy evening under the trees she could hear birdsong and smell the damp earth. To the north the glare of shells was marked against the evening darkness, and the sound grew louder as the firing increased.
Cullingford found her as the last light was fading in the sky. The heavy trusses of the lilac seemed more shadow than substance but the perfume was heady, snaring the senses and wrapping one around.
“Did they give you a good dinner?” he asked quite casually.
She turned in surprise. He was a couple of yards away and she had not heard his feet on the soft grass. “Yes, thank you. Best meal I’ve had in . . . since dining with Mrs. Prentice, actually,”
“What about with your brother, Matthew?” He smiled, his face toward the light, but there was no ease in it, and she thought no happiness. Was it because she had reminded him of his sister, and Eldon Prentice’s death?
“Honestly, I hardly remember what we ate,” she admitted. She wanted to ask him if everything was all right, but that would have been intrusive.
Perhaps he saw it in her face. He put his hands in his pockets, something she had learned he did when he was thinking deeply, and oblivious of his surroundings. It was relaxed, oddly intimate. He started to walk, quite slowly, and she fell into step beside him. Apart from the sound of guns in the distance, they could have been in an English garden, with fields of corn beyond the hedges.
“I have been thinking about what you told me of your father’s death,” he said, pulling a pipe out of his pocket and stuffing it with tobacco. “June twenty-eighth last year. And you said it was because he had discovered a conspiracy, but you didn’t tell me much more.