Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [75]
Joseph stopped and spoke to him. There was nothing in particular to say, and he did not seek to find anything of meaning. He had given up believing there was anything, it was simply a matter of friendship.
Half a dozen huge black rats shot out of one of the connecting trenches, and they heard somebody swearing ferociously. Snowy’s hand went to his gun, then away again. They were not allowed to shoot rats; there was no ammunition to spare for it. Anyway, it made no difference. There were tens of thousands of them. And their rotting bodies would only add to the stench.
Joseph reached the Casualty Clearing Station and found the American nurse, Marie O’Day, again. She seemed pleased to see him, her fair face lit with pleasure.
“Hello, Captain Reavley, what can we do for you? It’s a bit quiet at the moment. Would you like a cup of tea?”
He accepted, partly to give him a chance to talk to her less bluntly. He asked general questions while she boiled the kettle, then took the tin cup carefully. It was hotter than he was used to—heated over candles in a Dixie tin. It actually smelled quite good, like real tea. He thanked her for it.
“What can I do for you, Captain?” she asked again.
He smiled. “Am I so transparent?”
She nodded, smiling.
“Do you remember that awful young newspaper correspondent?” he asked.
Her face darkened. “Of course. But if you’re going to ask me if I saw Wil Sloan hit him, no I didn’t. I know that’s a lie, Captain, but I’m perfectly happy to tell it. What Mr. Prentice did was terrible.” She bit her lip, and her eyes filled with tears. “Poor Charlie Gee died, and . . . and perhaps that was a release for him. I . . .” she swallowed hard and took a moment to compose herself. “I couldn’t wish a young man to live like that. I wish the Lord had seen fit to take him immediately, without his ever having to know what had happened to him.”
“I’d like to be able to say something wise,” Joseph confessed. “But I don’t know anything. I don’t understand it either. It stretches faith very far. But I wasn’t going to ask you if you saw Wil Sloan hit Prentice. I would rather not know. What I would like you to remember is if you saw Wil Sloan two nights after that.”
“Why? Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“Prentice is dead, Mrs. O’Day.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She looked guilty rather than grieved.
“He was a correspondent, not a soldier,” he said. “I need to find out why he was so far forward. It shouldn’t have happened. Where was Wil Sloan?”
“You can’t think he’s concerned! Can you?” She was afraid, and he could see it in her eyes.
“I’d like to prove that he’s not, Mrs. O’Day. You might be able to help me to, if you tell me where he was. That is, if you know?”
“He brought a badly wounded man in here, about four in the morning,” she replied. “I don’t know where he picked him up.”
“Where is the man now? He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said gravely. “But he isn’t conscious yet. He lost a lot of blood. He was very badly torn up by shrapnel. He wouldn’t be alive if it were not for Wil.” The warning look in her expression was trying to guide him away from pursuing the subject at all.
He was uncertain how much to tell her. He needed her cooperation, and instinctively he liked her. He admired women like her, who left behind all that was familiar and comfortable and came thousands of miles to work in extreme hardship, for people they did not know, because they believed it right. It was a spirit of Christianity far more powerful than anything shown by most clergy who preached a faith of which they were only half convinced, accepted money and status for it, and considered themselves servants of God.
But Prentice’s death was an absolute. He wanted to prove Wil Sloan innocent, but he could not turn away and refuse to see it if he proved him to be guilty after all. It would be painful, deeply so for himself, and because it would hurt Judith as well. But it would have a certain cleanness to it in that no matter how Prentice had behaved, possibly beating him up was