Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [142]
“Yes,” Mason replied. “He’s serving as a chaplain in Ypres now. He’s seen a lot of action. I watched him helping the wounded in Gallipoli. He’s done a lot of it before.”
The Peacemaker swore. He was not often wrong about men. He could not afford to be, and this was an expensive mistake. That was two brilliant pieces of propaganda, opportunities to tell the truth in its horror, that had been snatched from him. He looked steadily at Mason, trying to read beyond the weariness; the emotion that Gallipoli and the sea had stirred in him. How long had he been adrift in an open boat with a blind and suicidal chaplain? Mason was a good man, he abhorred the waste, he cared for the individual, but he could also see beyond sentimentality to the greater good, which only too evidently Joseph Reavley could not. . . . Damn Joseph Reavley! He was far more of a nuisance than could have been foreseen!
“Never mind,” he said aloud. “You can write it again. It might not have the immediacy of the battlefield, but write the truth! Say you were pursued across the Mediterranean, that you took ship in Gibraltar but it was sunk and you only just survived crossing the Channel in a lifeboat, and you lost your original draft. It will make even more compelling reading.” He went on urgently. “And it will heighten people’s awareness of how vulnerable we are at sea.”
“Possibly,” Mason agreed flatly. “But I won’t.”
“Reavley can’t . . .”
“It’s nothing to do with what Reavley would do,” Mason replied, a flare of anger in his eyes. “Or to save my life. It’s because I don’t believe it’s the right thing to do. It won’t bring peace, only a betrayal of the ordinary soldier who now believes that he’s fighting a just and necessary war. I won’t do that.”
The Peacemaker’s temper flared because he was losing control in a startling and unexpected way. It took him a supreme effort to mask it and keep his expression bland. “Even Gallipoli?” he asked. “What was it like? What happened to you there?”
“I helped the wounded,” Mason replied. His voice was filled with pain, but there was a finality in it, closing off search for detail.
The Peacemaker stared at him. His words were true, but he was concealing something deeper. He could feel it. He could also feel the emotional tension in Mason, a passion just below the surface that consumed him, but he was too frightened of it to allow it through.
The Peacemaker would have to wait, move gently. Mason was too valuable to lose. He must be won back, persuaded, whatever it needed to change his mind again. Perhaps this was not the time to raise the subject of U-boats and torpedoes anyway! He would like to have turned his attention to those plans that included undermining and ultimately destroying this government, but he was not at the moment sufficiently certain of Mason’s loyalties in that direction.
“You’ve had a grim experience,” he said with some warmth. “And perhaps you are right about some of the issues of morale.” It was difficult to say, and he saw the surprise in Mason’s face, but he would come back to it later, slowly and with greater subtlety. “There are other matters of importance,” he went on with a smile. “The situation in the United States is of the utmost interest. Mexico is in turmoil and could invade any day. Unfortunately no one there is to be relied on. They are at war with each other as much as with any outside force.”
Mason’s eyes were wide, stunned with total incomprehension. “Why in God’s name did the Germans sink the Lusitania? I thought even Wilson would go to war over that!”
The Peacemaker pushed his hands into his pockets. “It seems nothing will bring him in. The Mexican move was even more successful than we hoped. We’ll keep working on it. Let me tell you what the exact situation is now, who we have there and what is next to be done.” He indicated that Mason should sit down. “It’s detailed,” he began. “Complicated. You need to understand the people.”
Mason listened, his attention held at last, almost as if he were relieved to have something to fasten his intellect on