Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [76]
And in silence, a confession of heart, uncertain if he was right or wrong, he thanked God for Charlie Gee’s release.
Matthew had enjoyed seeing Judith more than he expected to. He had driven home to his flat after dinner with a sense of happiness, for once forgetting the vulnerability he had been so aware of since March’s Zeppelin attacks on English east coast cities. Suddenly war had developed a new dimension. It did not require an army landing or a naval bombardment to be struck in one’s own home; bombs could rain down from the air with fire and explosion almost anywhere.
As he pulled up outside his flat and parked his car, for a moment he envied her. Usually she would sleep wherever she got the chance to, often in the back of an ambulance. Her food would be army biscuit and tins of greasy meat. There would be terrible sights of death and violence, horror he could barely imagine. But there would also be a comradeship that was denied to him, a trust in her fellows, an inner peace he had not known since Joseph and he had found the document.
He unlocked the door and went inside. He turned on only a small light, just sufficient to see the shadow of the bookcase, but not the individual volumes. He knew what they were, poetry, a few plays, adventures from his childhood, not there to read again, just reminders of a different, more innocent time, a link to be looked at rather than touched. And there were books on current political and social history, warfare, and economics.
He poured himself a stiff whisky, drank it, and went to bed.
In the morning he had toast and tea for breakfast, his head aching, then he looked at the newspapers. They were full of more losses in Gallipoli, and of course all along the Western Front. It was discreet, no hysteria, no rage, only the long lists of names.
It was Churchill’s plan to capture the Dardanelles and free the Russian Grand Fleet imprisoned in the Black Sea, then take Constantinople and give it back to the czar as a prize. They would be able to form a new battle line in the Austro-Hungarian rear, forcing them to fight a second front. So far it was a chaotic failure, costing thousands of lives, French and British, and more particularly Australian and New Zealand volunteers.
The war had also been extended to Mesopotamia, and the Indian Ocean, Italy, and southwest Africa. An Italian ship had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean, and five hundred and forty-seven people had drowned.
He drove to work, and found a message waiting for him that Shearing wished to see him. He went immediately.
“Good morning, Reavley,” Shearing said tersely, pointing to the chair on the other side of the desk from his own. “Sit down.” He looked so tired his skin was like paper; his eyelids drooped as if he needed all his force of will to focus. His neat, strong hands clenched and unclenched on the desk.
Matthew obeyed, but he knew that had he taken the liberty of doing so before he was invited he would have been criticized for it. It was Shearing’s way of establishing the rules of hierarchy before he allowed himself to break them. It was not in his nature to do the expected, even now when he seemed on the edge of exhaustion.
“The Lusitania is setting sail from New York,” he said bitterly. “The Germans have warned us that any ship flying the British flag, or that of the Allies, is liable to U-boat attack. We can’t protect it! We’re stretched too thin to protect our merchant shipping as it is. We need American steel in order to make guns. Without it we’ll lose.”
For the first time Matthew saw a flicker of fear in Shearing’s eyes. Even the desperate battles of last autumn, the winter on the Western Front, then the gas attack at Ypres, had not stripped from him his outer composure before, and it chilled Matthew more than he would have believed. It was as if a step he thought certain had given way beneath his feet. He struggled to mask it in his face.
“Surely they’ll never sink a ship everyone knows has American civilians