We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [93]
Staring out over no-man’s-land, Lizzie thought that of course Joseph would have to know. Soon her pregnancy would become obvious. Then she would either have to tell him or walk out of his life forever, without explanation, and that would surely hurt him even more.
Mason had described to her how Joseph had been in Gallipoli when he had first met him. He had tried to capture his compassion, his tireless work for the wounded no matter how exhausted he was himself, his steadiness in the unspeakable horror of it. He had said the sea was red with human blood.
Then he had told her about his long argument with Joseph in the open boat on the channel, after the U-boat had sunk their steamer and left them to find their way back to England as best they could. The others had died, leaving only Joseph, Mason, and one injured crewman. Joseph had been willing to die, if that was what it cost to prevent Mason from writing his story on Gallipoli and sabotaging morale for the recruitment needed to prevent surrender. Yes, Joseph could take disappointment, betrayal, even defeat, and survive them all.
Her eyes had moistened with tears of pride, and of happiness that Mason believed so well of Joseph. Still, she wanted to protect both Joseph and Lizzie as long as she could—and perhaps all the others here as well, except the one man who was guilty. It was the very last resort of all to tell Jacobson about the earlier rape.
Joseph was holding out a piece of paper to her with names and times and places on it. She took it and read.
“An awful lot of this doesn’t make sense,” she said at last. “For a start, I really don’t believe it could possibly have been Major Morel. I know he’s a bit odd, and I think he really would have led a mutiny last year.” She glanced at Joseph’s wry expression. “All right, he did. But I don’t believe he would rape anybody. He’s a rebel in his own way, and he’d fight for any cause he believed in, but violence against women isn’t a cause.”
“And Tiddly Wop Andrews?” Joseph asked. “He said Moira Jessop saw him in the supply tent the only time he wasn’t with the walking wounded, but she says she wasn’t there. Why would she lie?”
“I suppose she was somewhere she shouldn’t have been,” Judith answered. “Or she’s already lied to protect someone else, and she can’t go back on it. But I can’t believe it’s Tiddly Wop. We’ve known him for years! He’s good looking, but he’s as shy as…as a choirboy.”
“That’s rubbish, Judith, and you know it,” Joseph said gently. “He was shy at home. He’s been on the battlefront for four years. He’s not a boy anymore. He’s twenty-six, and a soldier.”
She was startled. “You don’t believe it could be him, do you?”
His face was tight. “I don’t want to, but we’ve all changed. The whole world’s changed. Nobody is who they used to be.” He looked at her earnestly. “It won’t only be those of us who’ve been here who are changed, or on other fronts; it’ll be the people at home, too. Read Hannah’s letters between the lines. She hates some of what is new, but she knows she can’t escape.” He gave a slight shrug. “We don’t look at anything the way we used to, socially or economically. The old rules of how to behave have been swept away. Distinctions in social class are blurred into each other more and more all the time. We’ve been forced to see the courage, intelligence, and moral value of men we used to barely even notice. They aren’t going to go home and doff the cap anymore. We know, in a way we can never forget, that we are all equal when it comes to injury and death, human need, the will to live, above all the honor and the self-sacrifice to go over the top and give your life for your friends.”
“I know,” she said softly. “But I’m so afraid that once we’ve grown used to the silence and the comfort again, we’ll sink back into the old bad things as well: the indifference, the malice, the inequalities, the stupid lies that we only believe because they’re comfortable. Will we go back to