what happened. He’s a sapper, so I imagine something collapsed underground. Maybe one of the props gave way.”
The doctor’s face eased a little. “Right.” He turned back to Corliss and took him inside.
Joseph thanked Charlie Gee and watched him amble back up the connecting trench toward the front line again.
An ambulance pulled up, a square-bodied Ford model T, a bit like a delivery van. It was open at the front, with a closed part at the back that could carry up to five men, laid out in stretchers, more if they were sitting up. The driver jumped out. He was a broad-shouldered young man with short hair that sat up on the crown of his head. He saluted Joseph then looked at the more seriously injured of the two men waiting, whose right leg was heavily splinted.
“Don’t need ter carry yer,” he said cheerfully. “Reckon an arm round yer and yer’ll be fine. ’Ave yer in ’ospital in an hour, or mebbe less, if Jerry don’t make too much of a mess o’ them roads. Cut ’em up terrible around Wipers, they ’ave. An’ ’Ellfire Corner’s a right shootin’ gallery. Still, we’ll cut up a few o’ them, an’ all. Looks broke all right.” He regarded the splinted leg cheerfully. “Reckon that’s a Blighty one, at least for a while, eh?”
“Oi’ll be back!” the soldier said quietly. “Oi’ve seen a lot worse than broken legs.”
“So’ve I, mate, so’ve I.” The ambulance driver pursed his lips. “But this’ll do for now. Now let’s be ’avin’ yer.”
Joseph moved forward. “Can I help?” he offered.
“Blimey! ’E don’ need the last rites yet, Padre. It’s only ’is leg! The rest of ’im’s right as rain,” the ambulance driver said with a grin. “Still—I s’pose yer could take the other side of ’im, stop ’im fallin’ that way, like?”
Quarter of an hour later Joseph was refreshed by really quite drinkable tea. Unlike in the front trenches, there was plenty of it, almost too hot to drink, and strong enough to disguise the other tastes in the water.
He had almost finished it when a car drove up. It was a long, low-slung Aston Martin, and out of it stepped a slim, upright young man with fair hair and a fresh complexion. He wore a uniform, but with no rank. He ignored Joseph and went straight into the tent, leaving the flap open. He spoke to the surgeon, who was now tidying up his instruments. He stopped in front of him, almost at attention. “Eldon Prentice, war correspondent,” he announced.
Joseph followed him in. “Bit dangerous up here, Mr. Prentice,” he said, carefully not looking toward Corliss, who was lying on one of the palliasses, his bandaged hand already stained with blood again. “I’d go a bit further back, if I were you,” he added.
Prentice stared at him, his chin lifted a little, his blunt face smooth and perfectly certain of himself. “And who are you, sir?”
“Captain Reavley, chaplain,” Joseph replied.
“Good. You can probably give me some accurate firsthand information,” Prentice said. “Or at least secondhand.”
Joseph heard the challenge in his voice. “It’s cold, wet, and dirty,” he replied, looking at Prentice’s clean trousers and only faintly dusty boots. “And of course you’ll have to walk! And carry your rations. You do have rations, don’t you?”
Prentice looked at him curiously. “A chaplain is just the sort of man I’d like to talk to. You’d be able to give me a unique view of how the men feel, what their thoughts and their fears are.”
Joseph instinctively disliked the man. There was an arrogance in his manner that offended him. “Perhaps you haven’t heard, Mr. Prentice, but priests don’t repeat what people tell them, if it’s of any importance.”
Prentice smiled. “Yes, I imagine you have heard a great many stories of pain, fear, and horror, Captain. Some of them must be heartrending, and leave you feeling utterly helpless. After all, what can you do?” It was a rhetorical question, and yet he seemed to be waiting for an answer.
He had described Joseph’s dilemma exactly, and the emotions that most troubled him, awakening a feeling of inadequacy, even failure. There was so little he could do to help, but he was damned if he would admit it to this correspondent. It was too deep a hurt to speak of even to himself.
“Nothing that is really your concern, Mr. Prentice,” he said aloud. “A man’s troubles, whatever they are, are private to him. That is one of the few decencies we can grant.”
Prentice stood still for a moment, and then he turned slowly and looked at Corliss. “What happened to him?” he asked curiously. “Bad ammunition exploded and took off his fingers?”
“He was down the saps,” Joseph said tartly.
Prentice looked blank.
“Tunnels,” Joseph explained. “The intention is that the Germans won’t know where the tunnels are. They get within a yard or two of their trenches, then lay mines. If a mine had exploded there’d be nothing left of any of them.”
“He’s a sapper? I hear that men reaching their hands above the parapet level sometimes get hit by snipers.” Prentice was watching Joseph intently.
Joseph drew in breath to reply, and then changed his mind. Prentice was a war correspondent, like any other. They all pooled their information anyway—he knew that. He had seen them meeting together in the cafes when he had been behind the lines in one of the towns at brigade headquarters, or even further back at divisional headquarters. Nobody could see everything; the differences in their stories depended upon interpretation—what they selected and how they wrote it up.
There was movement at the entrance, and a sergeant came in. He saluted Joseph, ignored Prentice and spoke to the doctor, then went to Corliss. “What happened, soldier?”
Corliss stared up at him. “Not sure, sir. Bit of the wall fell in. Something landed on my hand.”
“What? A pick?”
“Could be, I suppose.”
“Hurts?”
“Yes, sir, but not too much. I expect I’ll be all right.”
“Sapper without ’is fingers is not much use. Looks like a Blighty one.” The sergeant pushed out his lip dubiously, but his voice was not unkind.
Joseph took a deep breath and let it out, feeling his muscles ease a little. If Corliss had been as close to the edge as Sam feared, he might have been careless, might even have been partly responsible for the accident, but that was still not a crime. If someone else had been injured he should be put on a charge, but he was the one in pain, the one who would spend the rest of his life with half a hand.
“Nasty injury,” Prentice remarked, taking a couple of steps over toward the sergeant. “Eldon Prentice. I’m press.” He looked down at Corliss where he was lying. “Looks like you’ll see home before the rest of your mates.”
Corliss gulped and the fraction of color that was in his face vanished. His teeth were chattering and he was beginning to shake. Perhaps Sam had been right and his nerves were shot.
There was a long silence. Suddenly Joseph was aware of the tent being cold. The air smelled of blood, the sweat of pain, and disinfectant. There was noise outside, someone shouting, the faint patter of rain on canvas. The light was fading.
Should he say anything, or might he only make it worse? The doctor was unhappy, it was wretchedly clear in his tired face. He was a young man himself. He had seen too many bodies broken, too much hideous injury he could not help. He was trying to dam rivers of blood with little more than his hands. The shadows under his eyes looked even more pronounced.
Joseph knew the sergeant vaguely. His name was Watkins. He was regular army. He had probably seen most of his friends killed or injured already. He believed in discipline; he knew the cost of cowardice, even one man breaking the line. He also knew what it was like to face fire, to go over the top into a hail of bullets. He had heard the screams of men caught on the wire.
Joseph turned to Prentice. “It’s a pity you won’t get to go along the saps some time,” he said, his voice drier and more brittle than he had meant it to be. “You could write a good piece about what it feels like to crawl on your hands and knees through a hole in the ground under no-man’s-land, hear the water dripping and the bits of earth falling. A bit close to the rats down there, but it can’t be helped. They’re everywhere, as I expect you’ve noticed. Thousands of the things, big as cats, some of them. They feed on the dead, especially the eyes. You want to cover your face when you’re asleep.” He felt an acute satisfaction as he saw Prentice shiver. “But then you won’t be able
