We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [98]
Joseph remembered the incident with a sudden glow of warmth. It had been terrifying one moment, overwhelmingly funny the next. They had discussed Arsenal’s dismal defense against Chelsea, as if it actually mattered—a moment of beautiful sanity in the middle of hell. Two Jews and a Church of England chaplain lost in a waste of mud and corpses, talking about a football game, and parting as friends.
“Yes, he is, Feldwebel,” Joseph replied. “He got a blighty one about a year ago. Lost his left foot, but he’s adjusting well. I hear from him every so often. I’ll write and tell him I saw you.”
“Tell him I lost my right ear,” Eisenmann said. “He’ll see the joke in that. He always said I couldn’t sing. By the way, I have a message for you.” He smiled, a sweet, gentle look in his eyes. “From a man called Sam. Tall fellow, dark hair. Did some work in Germany and said he’s going to stay there, at least for the time being. Asked you if you’d do him a favor and tell his brother the truth. Does that make sense? And he said, ‘Be happy.’ Tell a good joke and eat a chocolate biscuit for him.”
Joseph felt the warmth flood through him. Of all the friends the war had taken from him, he missed Sam Wetherall, a fugitive for three years now, more than any other. “Yes, the most excellent sense,” he replied. “Thank you, Feldwebel. I am much in your debt.” He turned and left before emotion overtook him. He wanted to be alone outside, to walk in the rain along the old trenches, to recapture memory and the companionships that had been the best of it. He wanted to remember the voices, the laughter, the eyes of all those he knew so well who would stay here after the rest of them had gone home, when the good and bad of war had drifted into the past and become stories told to people who had no idea what it had really been like.
Judith also was working on everything she could. The increasingly clear picture of Sarah Price that emerged was easy to understand, and to pity, but less easy to like.
“Loose,” Allie said pithily. “Heaven knows, anyone can understand falling in love. We’re all lonely, frightened, and very much aware that what we lose the chance for now we may never have again. But Sarah didn’t love. In a way you could say she was always lying, promising something she didn’t even have, much less intend to give!” Her face was bleak with anger and a consuming pain. “By being what she was, cruel and vulgar, she betrayed us all.”
“Betrayed us?” Judith repeated with confusion. She was not understanding.
Allie stared at her with frustration bordering on contempt. “The men who died out here, the wounded and broken, everyone they loved at home—we must be worthy of it. She wasn’t! She mocked them. She had no loyalty.” She looked away. There was a bitterness and a deep, harsh anger in her voice. “Over centuries men and women have given all they had to make the England we love. If we let ourselves become cheap and grubby now, we betray the dead not just of this war, but of all wars. Every sacrifice made in two thousand years is wasted. What irony if we beat the Germans, then let the prize slip out of our own hands into the mud to be trodden on.”
“You can give it away for yourself,” Judith said firmly. “You can’t give it away for others.”
Allie continued to glare at her. “Of course you can, you stupid woman! You can give it away for all the people who follow you! What are you going to teach your children? Are you going to teach them honor and chastity and how to care for others and be loyal and patient and decent? Or how to take everything you can for yourself, make sure you know all of your rights—and none of your duties?”
Judith opened her mouth to argue, then knew it was useless. And Allie had some justice on her side. A generation that forgets its beliefs cannot pass them on. It was the depth of Allie’s emotion that startled her and made her a little afraid.
Only after she had walked hunched against the wind and was back in Joseph’s bunker comparing her notes