We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [25]
Joseph smiled very slightly. “Who is the Peacemaker?” he asked.
Schenckendorff smiled back. It was a thin, painful gesture but not without both humor and comprehension. “The treaty would help,” he said, evading the question. His voice was growing weaker, as if the pain of his broken foot, the shock to the bones, the extensive loss of blood, and no doubt several days of bitter deliberation before the struggle to get through the lines had exhausted his physical and mental strength. He had risked being shot as a deserter.
Joseph debated within himself whether to tell the doctor in charge here that Schenckendorff was of special importance and to take care that he did not die of neglect to his wound. That was possible in the vast crowd of German prisoners pouring through the lines now in their tens of thousands. Not all of them would be fed, treated, and cared for. And Allied soldiers must come first, always. But he could give no reason. The doctors were harried to exhaustion. Burdening them with secrets was foolish, especially one they would not understand. The risk was higher than any advantage. He decided against it.
“I’ll have my brother here by this evening,” he said instead. “Get as much rest as you can. Sleep if possible.”
There was a flash of appreciation in Schenckendorff’s eyes that he had not indulged in platitudes. “Good night, Chaplain.”
Joseph managed to find Matthew and get the message through to him. He arrived back at the Casualty Clearing Station by sundown, but when he saw Schenckendorff, the German was feverish and in intense pain. The wound in his foot was messy, as if a bayonet rather than a bullet had caused it. He had lost a great deal of blood, and there was a fear of septicemia.
“You’d better start praying,” Matthew said grimly when he found Joseph in the storage tent. He was sorting through supplies and trying to tidy them up after the night’s casualties. “That foot looks pretty bad. Hope to hell they don’t have to amputate it. It would make him hard to move. We won’t convince anyone if we can’t get him to London.”
“Did he tell you who the Peacemaker is?” Joseph asked, turning from the table where bandages, linen, disinfectant, and suture thread were laid out.
Matthew looked back at him steadily. “No. Did he ask you if you still had the treaty Father took from the Peacemaker?”
“Yes. But I didn’t answer him.”
Matthew chewed his lip. “Joe, do you think that’s what he really wants? Is he still on the Peacemaker’s side and they need to get that treaty back before the armistice, just in case we expose it then?”
The thought had crossed Joseph’s mind with a bitter disappointment, but he could not dismiss it. “Maybe,” he said unhappily. “Perhaps we’d better not tell Judith anything until we know more. Damn it.” He swallowed hard. “Damn it! I’d begun to hope we had him.”
Matthew gripped Joseph’s shoulder hard. “Maybe we have.”
Joseph looked at him. “Have you thought what it would cost a man in Schenckendorff’s position to turn against his own like that? I can hardly imagine the courage and the moral strength to face the fact that you had dedicated your life to a cause that was fatally flawed, then give yourself to the enemy to undo your own efforts and accept whatever they choose to do to you.”
“Nor can I,” Matthew agreed. “Which is part of why I dare not believe it yet. He’s either a true hero or a very clever double dealer. Either way, he’s a brave man.” He sighed. “And he could die of that damn foot. What did it, Joseph?”
“Bayonet, by the look of it.”
“God in heaven! For what? What’s the point of that now?”
Joseph did not answer. For a man who had seen half the men he knew killed, the rage to commit such an act was easy to understand, and impossible to explain.
CHAPTER
THREE
It was