We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [44]
“I suppose so.” Lizzie kept her face averted. There was no emotion in her voice now.
“Everybody’s stupid sometimes,” Judith went on. “You just realize why, and if it isn’t bad, you forget about it.”
“Yes.” Lizzie’s fingers were tight on a box lid. It slipped from her grasp and scattered tablets on the bench top, half a dozen on the floor. She drew in her breath sharply, as if to swear, then bit it back.
Judith bent and picked them up. She regarded them for a moment, uncertain.
Lizzie held out her hand. “Think of the amount of dirt and mud we eat. These are too precious, even off the floor, to waste and have someone perhaps die without them.” She examined the tablets, then put them separately in a small screw of paper and wrote on it what they were.
Judith looked at her more carefully. There was something remote about her, closed off and hurt, as if she was afraid. “Do you know somebody who’s been bothered?” she asked as gently as she could.
“No,” Lizzie said quickly, without looking up from what she was doing. “I don’t know that I would recognize it if I did. Sarah used to flirt like mad, and I’ve no idea how far it went, but I’m not telling Jacobson that. There are enough people saying she deserved it.” Her face was flushed and her knuckles white where she gripped the small box she was holding. Her voice was thick with anger when she spoke again. “It’s a vicious and idiotic thing to say! What happened to her was not flirting gone too far, it was violent and brutal, a man who has no decency left in him. He has descended into something less than human. Please, let’s talk about something else. I liked Sarah, silly as she was sometimes. She was only trying to survive.”
“I’m sorry,” Judith said immediately. She had forgotten for a moment that Lizzie had probably known Sarah quite well. Friendships could grow quickly out here—bad experiences shared, an act of kindness, and bonds were forged. “I’m talking too much because he made me angry and I behaved like a fool. And I’m afraid, too.”
Lizzie looked at her with a sudden smile. “We all are,” she admitted.
That evening Judith was back in her vehicle with another V.A.D. who had not been at the Casualty Clearing Station when Sarah was killed. They were driving toward the fighting, which was moving steadily farther ahead with each new assault, stretching the supply lines. She thought back to her exchange with Lizzie. Lizzie was frightened, and Judith had an increasing feeling that it was something more personal that troubled her—something she guarded not only from Jacobson but even from the other women. Was she afraid for someone in particular—a man she was fond of or, worse, who had threatened her? It was a hideous thought that there was someone here who either was guilty or looked it, and somebody else was carrying the burden of that knowledge. If so, then surely their lives could be in danger, too? They were all used to death; the place was saturated with it. It did not startle or horrify anymore.
The gunfire was growing heavier in the distance, over toward Courtrai. The roads were worse here. She could see huge craters in the intermittent light of the star shells.
Perhaps they were all pretending not to know anything for precisely that reason. How could Jacobson, or anyone else, protect a witness? There was no such thing here as safety of any sort. She wished Lizzie could have trusted her. She felt an acute awareness of failure. She should have tried harder, said different, gentler things, and been far less occupied with herself.
She was one of the fortunate ones in that she could leave the field hospital, even though Jacobson had told her not to and had refused to let Wil come with her. But the fighting was still going on, and there were more casualties that had to be brought back. The war plunged inexorably toward its last days. Individual lives had never mattered in these circumstances.
She drove eastward