Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [81]
It was the timbre of his voice that got through. An officer’s voice. Steady and assured.
For a long moment the tableau was unbroken: the furious woman, the man in the throes of a breakdown, and the outsider who had interfered.
And then it altered, dissolving into movement, the woman stepping aside, lips tightly shut and eyes worried, and Rutledge seeming to walk away, without looking back, his shoulders as ramrod straight as if he still wore a uniform.
An officer expected a soldier to obey. Unquestioned loyalty to rank was the hallmark of training. Rutledge drew on that now.
Hamish said, “He won’t follow. He’s beyond heeding!”
Rutledge had taken no more than two strides when the man moved away from the fallen bench and, with Rutledge just ahead of him, almost a shield, walked through the gauntlet of staring eyes and through the door, out into the night.
The woman, her face pale with distress, followed.
Outside, Rutledge didn’t stop until he was well away from The Pelican’s door, nearly to the quay. In the darkness of the waterside, he stood staring out to sea, not looking at the man who had stopped some little distance from him. Then he said, as if addressing a comrade, “There’s a wind coming up. But it’s a beautiful night, still.”
The man just behind him cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said roughly, as if finding it hard to speak. He hesitated. “There were too many people in there—”
Claustrophobia. Rutledge knew it all too well. . . .
“Yes.”
“Suddenly I couldn’t breathe—I thought I was dying. But I never do. Worst luck!”
There was almost a lightness in the words that belied their intensity. But Rutledge felt sure the man meant them. He had himself, on more than one occasion fraught with panic.
“In the War, were you?” It was a common enough question, but the man flinched.
“For a time,” he said. And then he walked away, unsteadily but strongly, as if wanting to be alone more than he needed human companionship.
The woman, watching the scene, said, “He was in the War. He was a sniper.”
She flung out the last word as if daring Rutledge to say anything. Daring him to condemn.
Rutledge said, “Snipers saved my life any number of times. And the lives of my men. Why should I find that so terrible?”
“Everyone else does.” Her voice was bitter. He tried to see her face, but it was hidden. The lights from The Pelican barely touched her hair, like a pale halo behind her head.
“Why?”
“He shot from ambush. It wasn’t very gallant. It was assassination, if you will. Not the thing, you know.” Her voice altered, twisting the words, as if she was quoting someone. He heard an echo, he thought, of Lord Sedgwick in them, but couldn’t be sure.
“He killed from ambush, yes, it’s true,” Rutledge answered her tersely. “Such men took out the machine gunners when we couldn’t. They could move in the night as silently as a snake or fox, waiting for their chance, then making their shot. Some of the other men weren’t too pleased about what they did. I suppose it must have seemed unsportsmanlike. But I can tell you they were life, when we expected to die.”
She said, surprised, “You’re a policeman. I expected you to condemn what he’d done as tantamount to murder.”
“Was it murder?” He looked out across the dark, silent marshes, listening for the sea. “I suppose it was,” he said tiredly. “Those men were deadly; they seldom missed. The German gunners never had a chance. A good many of our snipers were Scots, with years of stalking behind them. Others had a—knack for silence. For stealth. They were brave, very brave, to do what they did. I never judged them.”
“His own father judged Peter Henderson. Alfie Henderson was one of Father James’s failures. He never forgave his son, not even on his deathbed, even though Father James begged him to heal the breach between them. I think Alfie would have been happier if Peter had never come home from France. He believed that being a sniper had brought dishonor to the family name.”
Rutledge swore under his