Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [140]
“He was going to write about it, tell everyone at home what a senseless slaughter it is.” He looked at Matthew’s blue eyes. “It would have been even worse than someone like Prentice going on about the gas attack at Ypres. He’s a better writer, a far bigger name. And we couldn’t help the gas. Gallipoli’s our fault.” The words choked in his throat, but they were true enough he could not swallow them. He longed for someone to trust, not just with facts and the things that words could frame easily, but with the grief inside him for all the broken men he had seen, the pain, and for the fear inside himself. He had been prepared to die in order to take Mason with him.
Had Sam felt like that, faced with Prentice, whom everyone hated? Joseph didn’t hate Mason, but he would in effect have killed him.
He felt Matthew’s hand warm and strong on his wrist, and looked up at him.
“Joe, what happened?” Matthew said insistently. “Where’s Mason now?”
He was afraid! Joseph realized it with amazement. Matthew was afraid because something in Joseph had changed irreparably. An innocence of decision had gone. Nothing was as simple as it had seemed, not Judith and Cullingford, not Sam and Prentice, not himself and Mason.
“You’re right,” he agreed quietly. “I would have drowned him rather than let him publish his piece.” He started to shake his head. “I would have let it go down.” He blinked as tears filled his eyes. “But he can’t do it now. I tried to tell him the reason for it all, explain to him, but I didn’t have the words. Andy showed him.”
“Who’s Andy?” Matthew asked.
“Tommy Atkins,” Joseph replied, then in simple, choking words he told Matthew what had happened. Matthew listened in silence, his hand held tight over Joseph’s.
“Where’s Mason now?” he said when Joseph fell silent.
“In the next room,” Joseph replied. “He was colder than I was, because he was wet. But he’s all right. He made it.”
“There’s no one in the next room,” Matthew said with a frown. “I passed it as someone was leaving. Tallish fellow, with dark hair. He looked pretty rough.”
Joseph felt himself cold again.
“You must find out who was going to print it,” he said urgently. “If the Peacemaker gets hold of him, he just might write it again. I don’t think so—but we have to be sure!
“Mason comes from Beverly in Yorkshire. When he thought we wouldn’t make it, he told me he’d known the newspaper owner all his life. The man has several papers, all in Yorkshire and Lancashire. He could kill recruiting right across the Midlands. You ought to be able to find him. Politically he’s a pacifist for a united Europe, doesn’t care at what cost, or who’s in charge.” He closed his eyes, his mind and his heart aching with understanding for Sam. He wished to God he had never told anyone at all that Prentice was murdered. “Bloody Prentice was working for him as well,” he said aloud. “Mason told me.”
“The Peacemaker?” Matthew’s eyes filled with understanding. “The original plan couldn’t work, so his plan now is to bring about British surrender because we haven’t the army to defend ourselves any more. God damn it, Joe! We have to stop him, whatever the cost!
“And you’re sure it’s not Chetwin?”
“Absolutely. It seemed so . . . inevitable. But it’s not.” He repeated to Matthew what Mynott had said about Chetwin’s German fiancée, her death and her parents’ grief and anger. “It would have been impossible for Chetwin to have any connection with the document,” he went on. “The kaiser wouldn’t let him into the palace grounds to deliver the coal, never mind to take a secret document of state to someone here to carry to the king. I think he was lucky to get out of Germany alive.”
“Father would be pleased,” Matthew said with a very slight smile. “He didn’t want to hate Chetwin. Although I don’t think he would have admired that story! Poor girl.”
“And her parents. She was their only child.” For a moment memory of Eleanor came back again. He saw in Matthew’s eyes that the same thought had come to him. His sorrow was there naked, his ache to be able to help, and the knowledge that he could not.