Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [91]
“I think I should make friends with him. In fact we both should.”
She had been lost in her own thoughts. “With whom?”
“I love the way you folks speak! With the general’s new driver, of course.”
“I don’t particularly want to make friends with him.”
“Oh c’mon! Let’s be nice to him. Take him out for a drink—or several. Give him some good advice. After all, he’s new to this. He needs to know a few of the tricks. Help him on his way.”
“Wil?” Had she really understood him correctly?
He was grinning. She could only see the gleam of his teeth in the fitful light.
“C’mon, sugar, you got to fight for what you want! If you don’t, that means you don’t want it enough to rate getting it! I didn’t have you pegged for a giver-upper!”
“How could we do that?” she said reasonably, but wild ideas surged up inside her. “He’d be with the general all the time. I know I was. If I wasn’t driving him somewhere, I was waiting for him.”
“That’ll make him the easier to find,” Wil responded. “Wherever the car is, he’ll be close.” He had already pulled into the side of the road, and was now busy maneuvering the ambulance back and forth to turn it to face the way they had come.
“Now?” she said, aghast. She was not ready yet, she had not thought it through, or considered all the possible consequences.
“Of course, now!” He reached for the accelerator and the ambulance lurched forward. “Tomorrow could be too late. We could be busy with army things. You gotta do things when you can!”
She drew in breath to argue, then had nothing to say. A couple of days at home in England and she had lost the urgency of the Front, the knowledge that there may be no tomorrow. The only question was, did she want to get back her job as Cullingford’s driver or not! Yes, she did.
“How much money have you got?” he asked.
“About thirty francs. Why?”
“Thirty!” His voice lifted in amazement. “What d’you think I’m going to feed him, Napoleon brandy?”
The edge of his excitement began to infect her. The ambulance was speeding along the road now, jolting over the potholes, lurching a little from left to right.
Twenty minutes later they were back in the square in Wulvergem, and they parked on the cobbles in the dark. Now the enormity of the plan struck her. She was a fool to go ahead with it! And a coward to back out. She wanted to drive Cullingford again. She would be more loyal to him than this new man could possibly be. She would see him more accurately, and believe in him more. She could feel the loneliness in him, the need to have one person to whom he could explain if he wanted, and yet to whom he did not need to.
She walked across the square after Wil. There were a few lights on in windows, a gleam here and there spilling out into the darkness. Someone else walked across the square, footsteps loud on the stones.
They were getting there much too quickly. And she was lying to herself. She wanted to be with Cullingford because she loved him. That was the first time she had admitted it. He was twice her age, and married. She was behaving like a complete fool. But what was sane in the world anymore? Was it wrong to love, if you didn’t ask for anything in return?
They were at the door of the Seven Piglets.
“Wait here,” Wil ordered abruptly. “Don’t want you seen yet.” Then he pushed the door open and disappeared inside.
Ten minutes later half a dozen soldiers came out, joking with each other, one of them laughing and staggering a little. She moved back into the shadows. They walked away and she was left alone. An old man crossed the far side of the square, pushing a handcart with something bulky in it. He moved as if he were infinitely tired. She felt a wave of pity for him, and tried to imagine how it would be if armies were camped in St. Giles, if foreign soldiers marched in the streets she had grown up in, and the peace of her own fields were shattered by shell fire, her own trees smashed. How it would hurt her if the familiar earth were gouged up and poisoned, soaked in blood, if generations ahead farmers would still plow the