Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [85]
The other man’s face became suddenly very serious. “I know what I’m there for,” he answered. “I won’t forget it. World peace, an empire in which the creators and inventors, the artists, writers, musicians are not harnessed to the wheels of war and its insane destruction, but to the betterment of mankind!” The timbre of his voice was urgent. “In peace, order, and universal rule of law, we can build houses fit to live in, airplanes that can fly across continents and oceans without having to stop and refuel. We can conquer disease, perhaps even hunger and want. We will have the leisure to think, to develop great philosophy, write drama and poetry. . . .”
The Peacemaker felt the warmth of his enthusiasm and it refreshed the weariness in him.
The young man’s face hardened into a cold fury. “We can’t send our greatest visionaries and poets to be slaughtered like animals in a senseless waste, killing young Germans who could also give fire and skill, art and science to the world—if they weren’t lying facedown, bodies shattered, in the mud of some godforsaken shell hole.” He rose to his feet, fists clenched. “I know what I’m here for, and I’ll wait as long as it takes. You think you’re using me to further your plans? You aren’t! I’m using you, because I know what I do is right.”
The Peacemaker smiled very faintly. “Shall we agree that we use each other? I shall exercise my influence to see that you are taken very seriously in the Establishment. Report to me seldom, and with the utmost discretion. Shanley Corcoran is a brilliant man. Earn his respect and his trust, and you will succeed—when the time comes.”
The younger man smiled back, his eyes bright, his shoulders straight. “I will,” he promised.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
The ambulance jolted over the rough road and Judith woke up and straightened in her seat. She had begged a lift from a lorry carrying supplies about thirty miles back in France, where the train had stopped. Now the familiar stench was in the air and she knew she was almost up to the lines. She looked out of the window and saw the flat country stretching out on every side, pale green poplars along the roads, here and there two or three dead and bare.
“Thought that’d wake yer,” the driver said cheerfully. He was a man in his late thirties with a toothbrush mustache and a finger missing on his left hand. “Nose tell yer yer ’ome, eh?”
She smiled, pulling the corners of her mouth down. “Afraid so. It isn’t exactly that you forget what it’s like, but it has a renewed power when you’ve been away for a night or two,” she agreed ruefully.
“Was Blighty good, then?” There was a suppressed emotion in his voice, things he dared not allow too close to the surface of his mind.
She hesitated only a moment. If there was no home to return to, no ideal to fight for, what was the meaning of all this? “Wonderful,” she answered firmly. “Same old traffic jams in Piccadilly, same scandals in the newspapers, same things to talk about: weather, taxes, cricket. I even got home for a couple of nights. The villages are just the same, too: farmers complaining about the rain, as usual, too much or too little; women quarreling over who’s to arrange the flowers in church, but they always get done, and they’re always gorgeous; someone’s riding their bicycle too fast down the street; someone’s dog barks. Yes, Blighty’s just as it was, and I wouldn’t change it, even at this price.” Now she was intensely grave. “At least I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t.”
“Me neither,” he answered, looking straight ahead at the road running like a ruler between the ditches. A windmill in the distance was the only break in the tablelike flatness of it. “Where yer want ter stop off then, love?” he asked.
“Poperinge,” she answered without hesitation. “Or as near as you can get.” She was going to find Cullingford, give him Mrs. Prentice’s letter, and then