We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [46]
Judith stared at him. She had thought she knew him as well as it was possible to know almost anyone. She had seen his superb courage under fire, his tireless, selfless work, never giving up on anyone no matter how mutilated or ill. She had seen him share his food, sit up all night to watch and comfort men, seen him encourage young doctors afraid to try tasks that seemed impossible, or offer solace and refrain from blame when they failed. And yet he was speaking of this horror as if it were simply one more foreseeable tragedy. He even had some pity for the man.
He looked back at her very directly. His blue eyes did not waver in the slightest, but there was regret in them now, and a very faint color in his cheeks. “We can’t teach a man to tear another man apart with a bayonet, then expect him to control his temper when he feels someone made a fool of him,” he said grimly. “When fear has reduced you to nothing in your own eyes, the contempt for yourself doesn’t heal just because someone says the war is over. Some of our men have a sanity so deep nothing can break it, but that’s not true for all.” He shook his head, his lips tight. “People can lose their belief in anything. When they see the good die hideously, some of them find they have nothing left to cling to. Let Bream get the water. Don’t go out alone. It’s arrogant to think your virtue will protect you.” He turned to Gwen Williams. “Or you,” he added coldly.
“You didn’t know Sarah,” Gwen retaliated, her cheeks pink. “She led men on. She flirted and she teased.” Her voice grew sharper. “I’m not saying she deserved it—of course she didn’t, no one does. But she did behave badly—stupidly. Nothing like this has ever happened before, or to anyone else, and that should tell you something.”
Bream shuddered. “It tells me we didn’t never ’ave German prisoners before,” he said firmly. “Leastways, not so many we couldn’t keep ’em locked up. Yer wrong, Doctor, it weren’t any of our boys who did it to poor Miss Price. They may be a bit loud at times, even a bit free with their ’ands now an’ then, but nothing more’n that. They’re gettin’ ready to go ’ome, an’ no one knows who’ll make it even now. This close, it’s kind o’ scary to think yer could still end up staying ’ere in the mud forever.”
“Nobody stays in the mud forever, Bream,” Judith told him gently. “At least…” She gave a sudden wide smile. “At least in a sense we all do, and when it comes to it, I don’t see that Flanders mud is any better or worse than London mud, or Cambridgeshire mud, for that matter. The point is, the part of you that matters goes on to eternity anyway.”
Bream was staring at her as if she had suddenly changed into a totally different animal in front of him.
Cavan smiled also, lighting his face with sudden warmth. “Chaplain’s sister, Bream. You’ll have to excuse her. She’s probably been preached at since she was born. Prayers over the porridge, no doubt.”
“Actually maths,” she corrected him.
“Prayers over the maths?” Cavan asked in disbelief.
“Maths over the porridge!” she explained. “My father was a mathematician. Don’t ask me where Joseph got religion from. I have no idea.”
Gwen looked from one to the other of them with a sense of somehow having been made light of, but she knew there was no use pursuing it. She turned somberly to Judith. “You can mock all you like, but there is a very wicked man around here who was stirred to violence by something that Sarah Price was foolish enough to do, and she paid a fearful, terrible price for it. Whether he was German or British, he’s still out there. But if you behave decently, you will be perfectly safe. I’ll prove it. I’ll go and fetch the water for Dr. Cavan.” And without waiting for anyone to argue with her, she marched out of the tent and into the darkness beyond.
Judith did not hesitate. She went straight after her, catching up within half a dozen yards.
“You don’t need to!” Gwen said loudly.
“I prefer to.” Judith kept pace with her along the