We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [87]
“It isn’t Schenckendorff,” Matthew said. “But we’re not much closer to knowing who it is.”
“I didn’t think it was him,” Joseph replied unhappily, staring across the now-gaudy mud. The sunset burned in the sky to the northwest. Perhaps it was foolish, but he had hoped for something more definite. He was weary, his body ached, and he had several gashes on his arms from old barbed wire still embedded in the clay. “Doesn’t it help with proving who did it? How are you certain?” Then he asked the question to which he would rather not have had to know the answer. “Who lied?”
Matthew’s face was almost invisible in the shadows, but his voice was pinched. “I know because one of the other women was violently raped almost a month before Schenckendorff came through the lines.”
Joseph drew in his breath, only beginning to imagine the horror of it.
“Don’t ask me who,” Matthew said quickly. “I can’t tell you. I believe it. That’s all anyone needs to know.”
“I see. Poor woman.” Joseph could understand very easily why her only chance for healing might lie in anonymity, the certainty that none of her friends or colleagues was ever aware that it had happened, still less that she was the victim. “Can you help her?” He also understood why she had chosen Matthew, a relative stranger, to tell. She might find it too difficult, too humiliating, if it were a man she knew, even the chaplain.
“I’ll try.” Matthew seemed happy to dismiss the subject, at least for the present.
Joseph saw Lizzie very briefly during the long, busy night. More wounded men arrived, none of them critical. But then a junior officer of nineteen who lost a leg was brought in, and Cavan struggled all night to save his life. The shock of the amputation, and then the long journey in the ambulance, had left him in a bad state.
Joseph was so exhausted, he was shuddering with cold by the time he sat on the floor in the empty Resuscitation tent. Cully Teversham brought him a mug of tea and two slices of quite reasonable bread.
“You need that more than anyone, Chaplain,” he said cheerfully. “Wish Oi could get you some hot Maconachie stew, but there’s none left, not till the next lot comes.” He frowned. “Is he going to make it?”
“Probably.” Joseph spoke more from hope than expectation.
“If Oi can foind anything else fit to eat, Oi’ll bring it,” Cully said with a shrug.
“Thank you,” Joseph said to acknowledge the kindness. He wanted to see Lizzie again. He wanted to hear her voice, see the smile in her eyes when she recognized him. He knew she would be too tired to talk, but they understood the same emotions too well to need more than a glance. He remembered vividly driving together in the Cambridgeshire lanes two summers ago. He had not needed to explain anything to her then. She had understood his confusion and how slowly he had been forced to face the truth of betrayal, and that it had hurt him almost more than he could face.
And here they had both spent the night fighting to save a young man’s life, knowing the searing physical pain he must be feeling. But just as deep as that they could imagine the lifelong wound of being crippled, less than whole, limping when other men ran.
Was she also afraid of returning home to an emptiness after this hideous familiarity was over with: its horror and its companionship, its silly jokes, its physical deprivation, its desperate, heart-tearing loyalties? What purpose could possibly be consuming enough to take its place?
He saw her come into the tent and forced his aching legs to support him as he rose to his feet. He walked over to her, stopping just short of where she was, very careful not to crowd her or assume too much. But he wanted to be closer, even just to reach across and put his hand near hers. He saw that it was slender, bruised where she had carried a weight too heavy for her, the nails very short, one broken.
He had no idea what to say. Nothing was profound