Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [150]
Joseph nodded. He did not want to know who they were yet. “Do you know where Major Wetherall was moved to, sir? I need to see him.”
The colonel looked surprised, then curious. He looked at Joseph’s face, and read absolute refusal to speak. “I don’t know where he went, but he’s back. Been here a few days. He’s probably in the same dugout as before. Are you going to tell me what it’s about?”
“No, sir.”
“I see. I suppose your calling allows you to do that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go on, then. If you go to the front line, take care. It’s going to be a rough night.”
“Is anyone going over on a raid?” He gulped. It was too soon. Far too soon. Yet what difference did it make? Whenever it was, it would come, and then that would be the end. The sweetness and the burden of friendship ached inside him like a physical pain. It would serve nothing to delay it.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Reavley?” Fyfe repeated.
“Yes, sir.”
The colonel nodded and made a small gesture with his hand. “Glad you’re back. The men need you. Young Rattray was wounded. Not too bad.”
“Yes, sir. Is he still here?”
“Hospital in Armentières.”
“Thank you. Good night, sir.”
“Good night, Reavley.”
Outside in the dark he walked over the mud to the beginning of the supply trench and down the steps. It must have been raining again because there was water under the duckboards and he heard the rats’ feet scuttling and the heavy plop and splash of their bodies as they slid off.
He made his way west toward Sam’s dugout. He half hoped he would not be there. It would delay what he had to do. He passed the Old Kent Road and turned along Paradise Alley. Now and then a star shell flared up, lighting the trenches ahead and then he heard the stutter of machine guns. He recognized the pattern.
He went down the familiar slope and called out.
Sam came to the door, pushing the sacking curtain back, his face in the glare alive with pleasure to see Joseph.
“Come in! Have some hot brandy and mud! I’ve got chocolate biscuits.” He held the curtain open and stepped back.
Joseph almost refused. What if he put it off another day? He knew the answer. He would make it worse, that’s all. He would have behaved like a coward, and Sam did not deserve that.
He went down the step into the small, cramped space he knew so well. The pictures were the same, the books, the windup gramophone, a few records he had heard a dozen times, and the red blanket on Sam’s bed. The hurricane lantern was lit, warm yellow, touching everything with a golden edge.
“You look like hell,” Sam said cheerfully. “I heard about Cullingford. That’s a damn shame. He was a good man. Is your sister going to be all right?”
“In time.” Joseph sat down on the pile of boxes that had always served as a visitor’s chair.
Sam was heating up tea in a Dixie can. He added a generous dash of brandy, then pulled open a box of chocolate biscuits. There were five left. He gave three to Joseph and took two himself. “And your brother?” he asked.
“Fine. I went to Gallipoli on an errand for him.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Gallipoli? No wonder you look like that. They say it’s worse than here.”
“No, it isn’t. But it’s as bad.” Joseph had to be honest. “Well, maybe the chaos is worse. They don’t seem to have thought before they ordered the attack. Poor devils didn’t even know there were cliffs there.”
Sam swore quietly, not with rage, but with pity at the waste of it.
Joseph could not turn back now. “I found a war correspondent out there. Outstanding writer, not a novice like Prentice.”
Sam’s eyes were wide. “And?”
“And he intended to write it up exactly as he saw it, no excuses, nothing softened,” Joseph replied.
Now Sam was motionless, his body stiff, his hands clenched around his mug of tea. “You say he intended to. He changed his mind?”
Joseph looked at him carefully. He could see the fear in his eyes, but he knew beyond any question that it was not for himself but for Joseph, for what he might have