Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [95]
Sam winced, as if it filled his mind as well. His face was tight, and the skin pale around his lips. “Don’t think about it, Joe,” he said quietly. “Whatever happened, whoever’s fault it was, they’ll probably be dead, too, before long. Leave it alone. Look after the living.”
“It’s the living I am looking after,” Joe replied. “The dead don’t need justice. They’ll get it anyway, if there’s a God. And if there isn’t, it hardly matters. It’s we who are left who need to keep the rules—for ourselves. At times it’s all we have.”
“You don’t know the rules, Joe,” Sam said quietly. “Not all of them.”
“I know murder is wrong.”
“Murder!” Sam said abruptly, jerking his head up, his eyes wide. “Jesus, Joe! I’ve seen men killed by snipers, shrapnel, mortars, explosives, bayonets, machine guns, and poison gas—do you want me to go on? I’ve skewered young Germans I’ve never even seen before, just because they were in front of me. And I’ve heard our own boys crying in their sleep because of the blood and grief and the guilt. I’ve seen them praying on their knees, because they know what they’ve done to other human beings, that could be ourselves in the mirror, except they’re German. Dozens of them—every day! What rules are there to protect them, or give them back their innocence, or their sanity?”
He stared at Joseph intently, his eyes unblinking, a deep sadness in them for a moment allowing his own vulnerability to show. “Granted it wasn’t a good thing to do, but hunting out whoever it was won’t make it any better now. Morale matters, and that’s your job. We have to survive. The men here need your help, not your judgment. We need to believe in each other, and that we can win.”
Joseph hesitated.
“Leave it, Joe,” Sam said again. “Belief can make the difference between winning, and not.”
“I know.” He stared at the ground. “We all need to have something to believe, or we can’t forget it all. I wish I were surer of what I believe. There aren’t many absolutes, but I’m supposed to know what they are.”
“Friendship,” Sam answered. “The best of yourself that you can give, laughter, keeping going when it’s hard, the ability to forget when you need to. Have another chocolate biscuit?” He held out the packet with the last one left.
Joseph hesitated, then took it. He knew it was meant.
The corporal with the mail arrived, and Joseph went as eagerly as anyone else to see if there was anything for him from home. There were three letters, one from Hannah with news of the village. He could feel her tension through the careful words, even though he knew she was trying to hide it.
The second was from Matthew, telling of having seen Judith, and having visited Shanley Corcoran, and what a pleasure it had been.
The only other letter was from Isobel Hughes. He was surprised she should write again but he opened it with pleasure.
It was a simple letter, quite frank and comfortable, telling him about the farm, how they were having to make do with young women on the land where they had had men before they joined up and went away. She mentioned some of their exploits, and disasters. She had a robust, self-deprecating turn of humor and he found himself laughing, the last thing he had expected to do.
She described the spring fair, the church fête, life as it had always been, but with sad and funny changes, little glimpses of personal courage, unexpectedly generous help.
He read it through twice, and then wrote back to her. Afterward, when it was sealed and posted, gone beyond his recalling, he thought he had told her too much. He had written of his difficulty in trying to convince men that there was a divine order above and beyond the chaos they could see, a reason for all the senseless devastation. He felt