We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [22]
Joseph winced. “I suppose he could. Why should anyone think themselves safe here?”
Matthew started to laugh, then stopped.
“Nothing we can do except wait.” Joseph finished his tea as if it were fit to drink.
Joseph had one of the better dugouts, and he made room for his brother in it. At least it was dry. But he slept badly that night, excited as always to have seen Matthew, wondering if he was sleeping or only pretending to. He was concerned for his welfare in the filth and danger he was unaccustomed to. Joseph lay in the dark of the familiar space, knowing where everything was, the rickety table, the one chair, the shelf with his books and the picture of Dante Alighieri, who had written so brilliantly about a different hell.
Joseph was the eldest of the four siblings. He was quite aware that worrying had become a habit with him, and had increased since his father’s death. He was not ready for the responsibility of caring for the other three, foreseeing dangers, comforting loss, finding a reason and an answer for pain. There was no answer, but you did not tell that to people you loved, and who had learned to rely on you. He was the wrong man to have chosen the church as a calling, but there was no way out now.
What if this Schenckendorff was one more trick of the Peacemaker’s? Matthew had looked so excited, so hopeful, all because some man had turned up on his doorstep in London and said he was a Swiss priest! Anyone could say that. Heaven help him, Joseph had said exactly that himself when he had been behind the German lines last year. He had been believed, too.
They wanted to find the Peacemaker so desperately, and time was running out. After the war was over, what chance would they have? Still, if he were honest, what chance had they ever had? Maybe their hunger for revenge was the Peacemaker’s final act of destruction of the Reavley family?
He drifted into half sleep and confused dreams. Then without any warning it was daylight. Cold and stiff, moving as quietly as he could, he got up, shaved, and began the long routine of paperwork, letters of condolence, and helping the wounded. He tried to comfort, advise, assist with practical things like eating or drinking with bandaged hands, or none at all, dressing with a shattered arm or leg, simple tasks that had suddenly become monumental.
Matthew woke late and excused himself to find something to eat.
There was no word of any German prisoner asking to see either Joseph or Matthew, and there were so many coming through the lines in the general area of Ypres that it was impossible to check all the names. Joseph continued with his usual duties. More often than not he was far forward of the Casualty Clearing Station, beyond even the old trench line, as the armies moved forward. British troops had just taken Messines and were advancing on Menin.
Matthew spent the days restlessly, trying to look as if he were collecting some kind of information that would justify his presence in the junior intelligence work he had told Colonel Hook he was engaged in. He spoke to German prisoners, but there was nothing of use they could tell him, and the pretense would soon wear thin.
It was the middle of the afternoon of the sixteenth when Snowy Nunn came to tell Joseph that Colonel Hook wanted to see him. “Roight now, Chaplain,” he added, his fair face puckering up with apprehension. “It’s another German prisoner. Oi don’t know what anybody done to this one. Officer an’ all, by his uniform, and the way he stands. He’s got a foot all mangled