grace and the strength to endure, the fortitude to hope, even when it made no sense at all. To be found dead at one’s post, if need be, but still facing forward. That was the answer he gave himself, and pieces of it he gave to others.
“I don’t think they have the answers any more than we do,” Joseph told him. “Major Wetherall will do everything he can for Corliss, and it doesn’t matter about Prentice anymore.” He looked up at the narrow strip of sky above the trench walls, the wind whipping mares’ tails of cloud across it. Sometimes it was all the beauty they could see, a reminder of the rest of the world and the glory and purpose they fought to hold.
“I’m glad that bastard’s dead,” Cully said, dropping the spent match in the mud and regarding his tunic skeptically. Apparently it satisfied him, because he put it back on again. “Is that wicked?” he asked anxiously.
Joseph smiled. “I hope not!”
Cully relaxed. “He was pretty damn unlucky! He must’ve run bang into the only Jerry around there, ’cos we were to the east of where ’e was and Harper’s lot were to the west. Don’t know how any Jerry got through.”
Joseph was puzzled, but he thought little more of it until later in the evening when he was helping Punch Fuller light a candle to heat tea. He overheard a conversation that made it clear there had been a patrol between the German line and where he had found Prentice.
“What time?” he asked.
“Well, I dunno, Chaplain,” Punch said, his eyes wide. “Line held, that’s all I know. We lost Bailey, and Williams got hit in the shoulder, but no one got past us. I’d stake my life on that!”
It was Prentice’s life Joseph was thinking about. “But there must have been one German got through,” he argued. There had to be. Maybe that is why Prentice was drowned rather than shot? It began to make sense. A German had been caught, probably out on a reconnaissance of the British lines, and he was alone so he couldn’t afford to make any noise at all, or he’d attract the attention of the patrol.
“Why’s that, Chaplain?” Punch asked.
“I found one of our men dead,” Joseph answered. “About twenty yards out directly in front of Paradise Alley.” He named the length of trench as it was known locally.
“Then you must have found the Jerry, too,” Punch said with certainty. “No one got back past us.”
“He must have waited till you went, and then gone.”
“We didn’t come back till dawn,” Punch assured him. “That’s how we lost Bailey. Too damn slow. If a Jerry’d got up out of the mud and gone back, he’d ’ave passed right through us. Believe me, that didn’t ’appen. We’d all ’ave seen him, us, our sentries, and theirs.” He turned to Stan Meadows beyond him. “Isn’t that right?”
Stan nodded vigorously.
“I must be mistaken,” Joseph told him, and bent his attention to the candle in the tin, and the mug of tea. He was not mistaken, but he did not want anyone else to start thinking what was now racing through his mind. It was ugly, bringing back hard, painful memories of Sebastian’s death, the surprise and suspicion, the broken trust and the knowledge he had not wanted. Death was grief enough; murder was a destruction of so many other things as well. It stripped away the protection of small, necessary privacies, and exposed weaknesses that at other times could have been guessed at, and then left to be forgotten.
Was this murder again? In the general carnage of war, had someone taken the opportunity to kill Prentice, in the belief his death would be taken for granted as just another casualty?
Who? That was something he did not even want to think about.
What would happen now if he told Colonel Fyfe what he had found? Everyone would know. The trust between men would be destroyed, the friendships that made life bearable; the bad jokes, the teasing, the willingness to listen, even to silly things, anxieties that were foolish, dreams that would never happen, simply in the act of sharing. The certainty that one man would risk his life for another was what bound them into a fighting force.
Suspicion of murder, and the questions that went with it, would poison that, and the cost here would be even greater than it had been in Cambridge. If he told Fyfe, an investigation would begin, justice might be found, or it might not, but at what price? Wil Sloan? Even Barshey Gee? Or one of the sappers who had been Corliss’s friends? And if it were not found, if they never knew, then what shadow would be over them all, perhaps endlessly?
But surely among all the things he could not help, could not even ease, this was one small certainty he could. Prentice had been killed deliberately, by one of their own. The morality of that could not be changed by the fact that Prentice had been arrogant, insensitive, even brutal. To say that it could was to set himself up as an arbiter of who could or could not be murdered with impunity!
The fact that justice was impartial was one absolute in a world descending into chaos. Truth was one certainty worth pursuing, finding, and clinging on to. Whatever the work or the pain involved, he had a purpose.
He did not speak to Colonel Fyfe. When he knew the cause and could prove it, that would be the time to act.
There were many things he needed to know. The very first was the one he dreaded most, and perhaps in his heart was the reason he had to find the truth. He could not forget Sam’s rage at the court-martial of Corliss. The whole thing had been merciless, and it would never have happened had Prentice not pushed the issue. Perhaps Corliss had lost his nerve. He would not be the first man to have been pushed beyond his limit, and for an instant cracked. Men covered for each other. The moment of terror was kept secret. There were few men who did not understand.
Corliss was Sam’s man, his to punish or to protect. That was what loyalty was about, and Corliss had trusted him, as his other men did.
How could he ask Sam? How could he now protect him? Only by proving that he could not be involved, before he began any inquiry.
Sam looked up from cleaning his rifle. “Was he?” he said without emotion.
“Yes.” Joseph sat down beside him, ignoring the mud. “I have to find out who did it.”
“Why?” Sam lit a cigarette.
“You can’t go around murdering people, just because you think they deserve it,” Joseph replied.
Sam smiled, his black eyes bright. “Better reason than because they’re German.”
Joseph did not smile back.
Sam’s face darkened. “Leave it alone, Joe,” he said quietly. “Lots of people had pretty good reasons for hating Prentice. This isn’t peacetime England. Better men than Prentice are being killed every day. We have to learn to live with it, and face the fact that tomorrow it could be our turn, or that of someone we love, someone we’d give our own lives to protect. Have you seen Barshey Gee lately? He knows what happened to Charlie. He’s his brother, for God’s sake!”
“Are you saying Barshey Gee killed Prentice?” Joseph’s mouth was dry.
“No, I’m not!” Sam snapped. “I’m saying he’ll be suspected. So will Wil Sloan, or any of my men. Or me!” He stared at Joseph unblinkingly. “I’d see him in hell, with pleasure.”
“I know.” Joseph’s voice was little more than a whisper. “That’s why I’m here. I want to prove you couldn’t have, before I begin. Where were you when Prentice went over the top?”
“Down a tunnel under the German lines,” Sam replied. “But I can’t prove it. Huddleston saw me go down, but he didn’t come with me.”
Relief washed over Joseph like a blast of warmth. He even found himself smiling. “I had to ask,” he said aloud.
“Leave it alone, Joe,” Sam repeated. “You don’t want to know!”
Joseph stood up. “Maybe I don’t want to, but I have to. It’s my job. It’s about the only certain thing I can do.”
Sam’s face was puckered.
“Hannah sent me some Dundee cake,” Joseph offered. “Come and have some after stand-to.”
Sam raised his hand in half salute, and acceptance, then went back to cleaning his rifle.
Joseph knew it would not be easy. No one else wished to know what had happened to Prentice. He had been either tolerated or positively disliked by all the men. They answered Joseph’s questions out of deference to him, but unwillingly.
“Dunno, Captain,” Tucky Nunn said bluntly. “Don’t see much out there, ’ceptin’ what Oi’m doing meself.”
