We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [30]
She found nurses Allie Robinson and Moira Jessop in a supply tent. They were busy boiling a pot of water on a portable stove. The place was full of boxes stacked up and a half-open bale of sheets.
“Just came in?” Moira asked Judith. She was a Scottish girl with red-brown hair and wide eyes.
Judith shook her head. “Spark plugs are burned out,” she said resignedly. “Got enough for tea?” She looked at the pot.
“Of course. I suppose you’ve heard about poor Sarah?” Moira asked.
Allie Robinson gave a little grunt. “What I want to know is what she was doing there at all! Everyone’s been warned, as if we needed it. Did she think German prisoners were going to respect her and treat her like a lady?” She looked defensively at Judith, seeing her surprise. “Of course I’m sorry for her!” she snapped, the color rising in her fair skin. “Everyone is. But she flirted like mad with the Germans, led them on like a—” She stopped short of using the word that was obviously in her mind. “You have to take some sort of responsibility,” she finished. “Now everybody’s scared stiff, and all the men are going to be suspected until we can prove who it was.”
“Why men?” Judith asked.
Allie and Moira glanced at each other, then away again.
“Because of how it was done,” Moira answered. “Like rape, but with a bayonet.”
Judith imagined it, and felt sick.
“Sorry,” Moira apologized. “But she was pretty…loose. The last time anybody saw her she was with somebody, we just don’t know who.”
“Are you sure?” Judith was trying to deny it to herself, refusing to believe.
“Of course we’re sure!” Allie snapped. “Stop being so naïve!”
Judith saw the fear and anger in her face, and knew with chilling familiarity that it was Allie’s own fear speaking. She despised her facile criticism, as if any of it altered the tragedy, but she also understood it. If it were somehow Sarah’s fault—if Sarah could have avoided it by behaving differently—the rest of them could find a way to be safe.
“No matter how silly she was, she didn’t deserve that! She was used and thrown away like so much rubbish, Allie!” Moira said with disgust.
Allie looked away from her. “We’re all used and thrown away,” she said bitterly. “Just this time it’s against the law, that’s all. They’re getting police in. Not that they’ll find anything, but I suppose they have to try. Where do they even begin? Men are coming and going all the time, our own wounded, German prisoners, V.A.D. volunteers, doctors, people bringing supplies, even burial parties. Could have been anybody at all. Like Piccadilly Circus here.”
“Well, obviously it was one of the German prisoners,” Moira said impatiently. “It’s just a matter of finding out which one. She flirted with all of them, stupid creature!” The pot boiled and she made three tin mugs of tea, passing one to Judith. “Sorry there’s no sort of milk, but it’s tea, more or less.”
“Thank you.” Judith took it and sipped tentatively. She had forgotten what real tea tasted like, and this was at least hot. “I don’t suppose you know anyone who has decent spark plugs?”
“Good luck!” Moira said ruefully.
“You could try Toby Simmons,” Allie suggested. “He has some imaginative ways of getting hold of things. At least that’s one way you could phrase it.” Her face pinched with distaste. “Gwen Williams says she thinks he’s behind this. He was always making vulgar remarks, and Sarah wasn’t above flirting with him. Too openly, if you ask me.”
“Nobody did ask you,” Moira told her.
“You didn’t, because you like him!” Allie retorted. “You never thought there was anything wrong with what he did, even when he was caught in the empty theater with Erica Barton-Jones.”
“Really?” Judith was surprised. Toby was handsome, and sometimes amusing, but Erica Barton-Jones was from a very good family and fully