We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [21]
“Not yet,” Matthew answered. “Another three or four weeks at the most. That’s not why I came.” The excitement was sharp in his voice, and he could not control it.
Joseph looked at him, searching his eyes and finding no grief in them, no holding of darkness he needed to share. “The Peacemaker? You’ve found him?” His hand tightened again on Matthew’s.
“Almost,” Matthew answered. “In a day or two we’ll know. Get these men back to help of some kind, and I’ll tell you.”
Joseph was puzzled. “Why have you come instead of writing? He can’t be out here!”
“I’ll tell you,” Matthew replied. “Get your wounded to wherever they need to be.” He was still standing in the mud, and the rain was getting harder.
Reluctantly Joseph obeyed, knowing which had the greater urgency. It was gathering dusk before they sat together in Joseph’s bunker, shivering over a Dixie can of hot, muddy tea.
“Well?” Joseph demanded.
The rattle of guns was muted, far in the distance forward, but every now and then one of the big howitzers sent over a shell the weight of three grown men, which exploded close to them, shaking the ground and sending up massive gouts of earth.
“A messenger came to see me.” Matthew swallowed and tried to conceal his distaste at the oily residue in the tea. At least the warmth of it eased the clenched muscles inside him. “A Swiss priest, or that was how he was dressed. He said the Peacemaker’s ally in Germany, Manfred von Schenckendorff, is going to come through the lines at whatever point I would suggest. I said here, of course. He’ll give himself up, so we can take him to London to expose the Peacemaker to the government. To Lloyd George personally.”
“What?” Joseph stared at him, his face almost comical with disbelief in the yellow light of the lamp. “And you believed him? Matthew…”
Suddenly Matthew’s elation vanished. Was he so hungry for justice, before it was too late, that all sense of reality had left him? “Think about it!” he said huskily, feeling the heat burn up his face. “Half of Europe is ruined. America has lost more than three hundred thousand men killed, wounded, or missing, but we’ve lost over three million! Germany’s lost twice as many, and Austria-Hungary even more. The estimates we have altogether are beyond thirty-five million. God Almighty, Joe, what man with even a shred of sanity left could ever bear to imagine that happening again?”
Joseph closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the vision.
“The Peacemaker is planning to urge a settlement that will allow Germany to rise and begin it all over again,” Matthew went on. “He hasn’t forgotten his dream of dominion that would force peace on us all, but at the cost of strangling our spirits until we have no individuality left, only police to keep the law.”
“And does this Schenckendorff believe he’ll do that?” Joseph asked. “Why now? Why did he not see that years ago, or always?”
Matthew searched his mind and answered reluctantly. “Perhaps it was a dream with some nobility in the beginning. If I had ever seen war, real war like this, I might have done almost anything to prevent it happening again.”
“Sold out your countrymen, without asking them if it was what they wanted?” Joseph’s voice was quiet, his face bleak. “Or if they understood the price?”
“Nobody understands,” Matthew replied. “You can’t imagine…this!” He swung his arm around vaguely to indicate the battlefield beyond the clay walls of the dugout. “It’s a human abattoir. I don’t know if you believe in heaven anymore, but you must believe in hell!”
Joseph smiled faintly. “I believe in summer nights with the sky pale with stars, and in the poplars at sunset, and in spring the beech woods carpeted with bluebells so dense you can’t put your foot down between them. I believe in clean water and a quiet bed, in laughter and gentleness. I believe that some men have the courage and the honor to face anything at all, and die without self-pity or complaint. I believe in the possibility of friendship, the love that never betrays. That’s as close to heaven as I can grasp at the moment.”
Matthew