someone was singing “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”
For a moment Joseph thought of home: grasses deep in the lanes, woods full of bluebells, may blossom in bud. In Northumberland where he used to walk with Harry Beecher, the hills would be alight with the burning gold of gorse, the perfume of it like honey and wine. Sometimes it helped to think of the sanities of life, at others it hurt too much. He missed Matthew—he missed the easy conversation of trust, the knowledge of a bond that stretched back to childhood, a safety, before pain or failure were known.
He read Matthew’s letter three times. There was nothing particular in it, just gossip about London, a short description of the countryside when he had been home, the weather, a few jokes. It was like listening to the voice of someone you loved. What they were saying was unimportant, the message through it was
There was a second letter for him, in a hand he did not know. He opened it with curiosity and read:
He did not read it again. Perhaps he would later, at another time, when the words would matter. Now he was stunned and filled with loss, not for Garaint Hughes whom he had held as he died, but for a poet whose thoughts and words had woven themselves into the fabric of his own life. Rupert Brooke had been eight years younger than Joseph. He had studied at Cambridge and loved it with a passion he had made wild and beautiful in verse, to live beyond generations, let alone his own lifetime. But here in this mortal little space, they had seen the same stones and trees, the same burning sunset across the west from Harleyfield to Madingley, breathed the same air and watched the same birds in flight.
It was almost as if Sebastian had died again, only a better, brighter version of him, a man whose heart achieved the gold that Sebastian had tarnished.
The words of Brooke’s poetry flooded his mind, painting with bone-deep nostalgia the beauty of the land they had both loved, familiar now in the pain of memory.
How could such hunger for life be gone, without warning? How many young men would have their promise shattered before it bloomed, their talents never more than a hope? Was it worth this price? He had told Isobel Hughes that it was, because it was what she needed to believe, but did he believe it himself?
Maybe the whole thing was just as tragic and insane as the Peacemaker had thought, the suicidal delusion of men who had more courage to die than to grasp reason, and unity and life. Was there a God somewhere weeping at this gigantic error? Or was life a blind chance anyway, and purpose only a dream created by man to comfort himself in the darkness of a universe without sense?
The soldier somewhere along the trench was still singing, a clear, true voice, caressing the melody.
How long before he was crushed as well?
He looked up to find Sam standing in front of him, a packet of Woodbines in his hand.
“No, thank you,” Joseph said automatically.
“You look terrible,” Sam observed. “Letter from home?” His voice was gentle, and for a moment there was fear in his eyes, not for his own pain but for Joseph’s.
“No, not really. A widow I wrote to—to tell her.”
Sam waited, squatting down in the sun, his back to the mud wall, his feet on the duckboards.
“Rupert Brooke’s dead,” Joseph said.
Sam did not answer, his eyes were far away, seeing something beyond the clay wall and the strip of blue sky above.
“Blood poisoning,” Joseph added.
“ ‘Break the high bond we made and sell love’s trust, And sacramented covenant to the dust,’ ” Sam quoted.
This time it was Joseph who did not answer. His throat ached and his eyes stung with tears, not only for Rupert Brooke, but for all the lost, the ones he knew and had cared for, and all the others he had not. He remembered walking along the Backs at Cambridge, watching the punts on the river in the evening light, the black fretwork of the Bridge of Sighs against the blaze of the burning sky, the gold on Sebastian’s face as he spoke of all that war would destroy, not only of the flesh but of the spirit. And Sebastian was dead, too.
“ ‘The Great Lover,’ ” Sam said aloud.
“What?”
“Rupert Brooke,” Sam explained. “That’s what it comes from—the lover of life. ‘Nor all my passion, all my prayers have power To hold them with me through the gates of death.’ ”
He smiled, and there was a strange sweetness in his face. “We have to make it count now, Joe. Maybe your God will sort it out in eternity, but I think He means us to do something here and now as well. There’s enough that needs fixing for all of us to have a place.”
“You’re right,” Joseph agreed. “Perhaps if I do something, I’ll forget how much there is I can’t do. I need a little forgetting. I can’t afford a sense of proportion; it would crush me.”
Joseph knew what he had to do, find justice for Eldon Prentice. It was something definite that could be forced into making sense, if he could learn who had done it. He might well discover that it was someone he liked, such as Wil Sloan, but his personal feelings did not alter the morality of the issue. It would be far worse if it turned out to be someone such as Major Hadrian, who had done it on General Cullingford’s behalf. But that was unlikely. There was no motive powerful enough to prompt such an extreme action, especially since Hadrian was a staff officer, not a soldier actually carrying arms. He did not see death personally, only in numbers and reports. Joseph would need to know of something far more urgent, more visceral, than the fact that Prentice was arrogant and manipulative, and possibly something of an embarrassment to a general for whom Hadrian had a deep loyalty.
It was with great reluctance that he went to the Casualty Clearing Station to find out exactly where Wil had been on the night of Prentice’s death. It was a warm April day. The new grass was springing up lush and green in the few untrodden patches of earth. He passed a cart pulled by four horses, who squelched in the mud as they strained to heave it toward the ammunition depot. One man at their head, urging them on, gave Joseph a wave and called out to him.
Further along he ran into Snowy Nunn, the sun shining on his fair hair, making it look almost white. He was very grave, face tremulous, eyes confused since the death of his cousin Bibby. It was somehow different when it was so close. It was more than grief, it was as if death had touched your own body, not a grip, just a brush, which reminded you of its power.
Joseph stopped and spoke to him. There was nothing in particular to say, and he did not seek to find anything of meaning. He had given up believing there was anything, it was simply a matter of friendship.
