Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [12]
Sam had brewed tea in his Dixie can, which was carefully propped over a lighted candle. He had a packet of chocolate biscuits that had come out of a parcel from home. He poured the tea, half for Joseph, and divided the biscuits.
“Thanks.” Joseph took it and bit into one of the biscuits. It was crisp and sweet. It almost made up for the taste of the tea made with brackish water and cooked in an all-purpose can. At least it was hot. “There was a new war correspondent there,” he went on. “Arrogant man. Scrubbed and ironed. Hasn’t the faintest idea what it’s like in a sap.” He had only been in one once himself, but he would never forget how he had felt. It had been all he could do to control himself from crying out as the walls seemed to close in on him, and from the sound of the dripping, the scurry of rodent feet. Every shell he heard could be the one that caved in the entrance and buried them under the earth to suffocate. He was used to the tap-tap sounds of Germans doing the same. One could hear them in dugouts, even like this. In ways the silence was worse; it could mean they were priming their fuses. The mines could blow any moment.
Sam was watching him, his eyes questioning.
There was no avoiding the truth. “He thought it might have been self-inflicted,” he admitted. “Somebody’s been telling him stories, and he was full of it.”
Sam did not answer. His curious, ironic face reflected the thoughts he refused to speak; pity for men pushed beyond their limits and the knowledge that this could have been exactly such a thing, fear of punishment for the man, and that he would not be able to protect him; and weariness of the dirt, the exhaustion and the pain of it all. He smiled very slightly, a surprisingly sweet expression. “Thanks for trying.”
Joseph took a second chocolate biscuit and finished his tea. “It’s not enough,” he said, standing up. “Watkins wasn’t going to charge him, but I’ll make absolutely sure. Corliss looked a bit shaky to me. I’ll go back to the field hospital and make sure he’s all right.”
Sam nodded, gratitude in his eyes.
Joseph smiled. “Maybe I’ll get a decent cup of tea,” he said lightly. “I’ve nothing better to do.”
He walked as far as the first-aid post, passing Bert Dazely with the mail delivery for the men in the front trenches. He had a whole sheaf of letters in his hand and was grinning broadly, showing the gap in his front teeth.
“Afternoon, Chaplain,” he said cheerfully. “Seen Charlie Gee up there? Oi got two for ’im. Oi reckon as that girl of ’is must wroite ’im every day.”
“I think she does,” Joseph agreed with a momentary twinge of envy. Eleanor had died in childbirth two years ago, and in one terrible night he had lost his wife and his son. In an act of will, he forced it out of his mind. There were things to do today, things to keep the mind and the emotions busy. “I’ve been with Major Wetherall. I don’t know where Charlie is.”
“Oi’ll find ’im,” Bert said happily, knowing he carried the most precious thing on the whole battlefield.
Joseph had only a quarter of an hour to wait before an ambulance showed up, and since the driver had only two injured to carry, he was able to beg a lift back to the Casualty Clearing Station, which was in effect a small mobile hospital. They had just recently come into full use.
He asked the first nurse he saw. She was a tall, striking-looking woman, but it was not until she spoke that he realized she was American.
“Can I help you, Captain?”
“Yes, please, nurse . . .” He hesitated.
“Marie O’Day,” she told him.
“Irish?” he said with surprise. He must have mistaken the accent.
She smiled, and it lit her face. “No, my husband’s people were, way back. He drives one of the ambulances. Who are you looking for?”
“Private Corliss, the sapper brought in with his hand crushed, yesterday.”
The light in her vanished. “Oh. It’s pretty bad. I think three of his fingers are gone. He’s not doing so well, Chaplain. He’s very low. I’m glad you’ve come to see him.