We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [96]
“What did she do?” he asked. That was not what he had been going to say, but he was curious and disturbed by her comment.
“I told you,” she replied. “She flirted with them. Far more than looked after them or attended to their wounds.”
“Are you certain?”
She was angry now.
“If you doubt me, ask Allie Robinson,” she challenged him. “She knows it was cheap and disgusting. For heaven’s sake, these are the men who slaughtered our own boys, whose bodies are shattered by shrapnel, torn on the wires, riddled with bullets, frozen to death. Who in God’s name does she think did it to them?” Her face was white, her voice sharp and rising out of control.
“I expect she knew that, even if she forgot it for the moment,” he said gently. He could understand her anger and the fear of chaos that welled up inside her. You could become drowned in pain, desperate for any kind of right and wrong, anything at all that made sense of something too terrible to bear. The nurses dealt with the worst of it, endlessly, night after night, and they endured the same miserable rations, exhausting hours, and endless hunger, weariness, and cold as the men. Sometimes people forgot it simply because nurses were seldom shot at, and they did not have to shoot back. Their task was always one of mercy. None of them would lie awake in the night sweating with horror as the face of a dying man swam in front of them, and they knew they had killed him. Joseph had held men who wept with terror and guilt over that. The nightmares would never leave some of them.
But nurses had their own nightmares, their own drowning in helplessness. Had the women at home even the faintest idea of their courage, or strength, the steel of endurance that anchored their lives day and night?
“I don’t know anything,” Moira repeated stiffly. “I already told you.”
“Yes, you do,” he said firmly. “You know where you were, and it was not the Evacuation tent. It’s time for the truth.”
She looked startled, drawing in breath to deny it. Then she met his eyes, obviously realizing that he was not going to accept that. The resistance drained away. “I was with Private Eames,” she said very quietly. She did not explain, but it was unnecessary; her implication was perfectly clear.
“Where?” He tried to keep judgment out of his voice.
“Does it really matter?” The challenge was back, as if he were asking from some prurient curiosity.
“Yes, it does matter,” he replied. “The only hope we have of finding out where people actually were is to get as much of the truth as possible, and weed out the lies. Unfortunately you are far from the only one to say they were somewhere they weren’t.”
She blushed hotly. “I don’t know who killed her!”
“Somebody does. Where were you?”
“On the far side of the water drums.” It was almost an accusation in return, as if he were to blame for driving her to it. It was a muddy and miserable spot; they could not have been doing more than kissing at the most. Perhaps that was what she meant him to know.
“Out of sight of the Germans’ hut,” he observed aloud.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. Ten minutes, or fifteen.”
He automatically assumed it could have been more. She would err on the side that excused her, and—perhaps of greater importance—that excused Eames, who had left his post.
“I won’t report it this time, if I can avoid it,” he said to her. “But if that time is crucial to Sarah’s murder, then I might have to.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it!” she said indignantly. “Nor did Private Eames.”
“Yes, he did, Nurse Jessop. He was away from his duty, and so he cannot account for what happened around the German prisoners’ hut. One of them may have come out. Also, of course, Sergeant Benbow cannot account for himself, either. And he lied, because he said they were together.”
She was now very shaken. She had obviously not allowed her mind to travel so far. But she was angry, and she refused to apologize. He left her sitting on the cot, miserable and defensive.
He confirmed what she had said with Eames, then sought out