Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [51]
Joseph smiled, a momentary gentleness changing his features dramatically. “Of course. And as far as the record will show, he was a man of unusual courage, risking his life in pursuit of truth.” There was an odd irony in his voice.
Cullingford picked it up. “I presume he was shot by the Germans, and you will tell her so. If he was caught on the wire, she does not need to know that.”
“That’s always how people die, sir,” Joseph answered him. “But actually Mr. Prentice was drowned.” He stopped. There was something pinched in his face, an unhappiness far more personal than the fact that he was bringing news of bereavement to someone. He was used to that.
Judith fidgeted, moving her weight, and for the first time Joseph turned to look at her. There was no smile in his eyes, only a kind of desperation. Judith felt it like something tangible in the room. She could not ask. She was merely a driver, like a servant. She was less even than a regular army private. She bit her lip, her breath hurting in her lungs. She knew Joseph too well.
Cullingford looked at her, then back at Joseph. “Is there something else, Captain Reavley?” he said softly.
“Not yet, sir.”
Cullingford stood very still. “You did not say ‘he drowned,’ Captain, you said ‘he was drowned.’ Do you mean that some German soldier found him out there, and held his head under the water?”
Joseph said nothing.
Cullingford let out his breath very slowly. “Thank you for taking the time to come and tell me personally, Captain Reavley. If you could tell me where he is buried, I should like to pay my respects, for his mother’s sake.”
“Yes, sir. It is just beyond Pilkem. I can show you, if you wish?”
“Yes, please. Then I can go on to Zillebeke. Miss Reavley, will you fetch the car.”
Judith drove, Joseph and Cullingford sat in the back. It was a bright, sharp spring day, sunlight one moment, drenching thundershowers the next, and the air was still cold with a cutting edge to the wind.
She drove in silence, aware of the crowding emotions that must be pulling Cullingford one way and then the other. She understood grief, confusion, anger, and how hard it was to fight through them without someone to listen, to help you find the reasons why you could miss someone so fiercely whom you have never missed in life.
She missed her mother. They seemed to have spent little time together, and much of that in quiet disagreement, pursuing different dreams, and yet the ache of loneliness that now she could never go back was deeper than she could have imagined. She missed all the comfortable little things that used to imprison her: time taken to cut and arrange flowers, the need to polish the silver or move the photographs when dusting the table. Now she thought of them as the cords of sanity that held her safe from the emotional violence of life. She caught herself thinking if only she could find a telephone she would hear her father’s voice. And then she remembered, and the tears choked her.
They were driving slowly along the rutted road toward Pilkem. They passed supply trucks going the other way, and long wagons drawn by horses, mostly laden with the powder shells. There was nothing to do but move as they could, wait when they had to, overtaking would be both dangerous and pointless. There were others ahead anyway, as far as she could see along the flat, straight road.
They pulled up where an ambulance had lost a wheel and men from a small column of relief troops were helping replace it, working patiently in the rain. She looked back at Cullingford in the seat behind her, half in apology for not being able to do any better. He was staring at the windscreen, his eyes unfocused. Was he thinking of his sister and how she must be feeling, and that he could not be there to say or do anything to help her? Had she been proud of her son, knowing only what he said of himself?
Alys would have been proud of Judith, and terrified for her as well. But then every mother in Britain was terrified for someone. Probably every mother in Germany, too, and so many other countries.
Cullingford