recruits, and he had already seen nearly a year of war in the trenches of the Western Front. It was better he tell them nothing. There were truths too overwhelming, too shattering to the mind and the hope, to be faced all at once. A step at a time was all the mind could bear. He thought it was not cowardice that kept him silent when he heard their laughter and their talk of heroism in battle, of honor and sacrifice and the glory of courage.
The Dardanelles were among the great legendary places of the world, a crossroad for the nations of history: Persia, Judea, Greece, Rome, Islam, and the vast empires of the East beyond. Alexander the Great had left Greece to conquer the ancient realms of India and Egypt. Xerxes had crossed the Dardanelles in his attempt to crush the rising Athens. Leander had swum the Hellespont to be with Hero, and died for love. And in the mists of time Homer’s Greeks had come that way bound for the siege of Troy: Helen, Menelaus, Achilles, and Odysseus on his long return to Ithaca.
In even older dreams, Jason and the Argonauts had pursued the Golden Fleece through these same straits up into the Black Sea.
Now he heard young Englishmen talking of it as if this were another great heroic saga, and they would return with the honor of war. He stared across the dancing blue water, and felt his eyes sting with tears. He, too, had grown up with the poetry of the wine-dark seas of Homer flowing through his dreams. He had wanted to walk the ruins of Troy in the magic light of the Mediterranean, hear in the silence of the wind in the grass the echoes of the wars between men and gods that laid the dreams of Western man and built the cities and laws, the philosophies and poems, upon which Europe had nourished its heart for two thousand years.
And he would see it, but now it would be amid the slaughter of today, and perhaps out of it he would find the truth of a betrayal he had to know, however much he did not want to.
The ship dropped anchor in the Aegean Sea, north of the Dardanelles, opposite the landing beaches of Anzac Cove. All the men crowded to the side to stare at the shore and the pale, steep hills behind, jagged right down to the shore. The bay was dotted with ships, but far out, beyond the firing range of the Turkish artillery from the fortresses and placements on the crown of the ridge above. Men crowded the beaches, hundreds of them, wounded and sick waiting to be escorted out to hospital ships. Medical orderlies were trying to help, fighting units huddled under the brief stretch of rocks and outcrops, making a slow and bloody way upward, surrounded by fire on all sides except the sea.
Joseph had told the commander that he was on Secret Intelligence Service work, backed up by the documents Matthew had given him. He was quite open that he was here to find a particular officer who might have information, but he did not give any name, until he was on the tender, making its way through the pale Aegean. The water should have been a limpid blue, but here it was turgid with sand, and blood, and the dark figures of men struggling to help the wounded into makeshift carriers of any sort, just to get them off the beach.
Above in the distance the Turkish guns occasionally raked the sea with shot, but most of the boats were just out of range, and the warships returned fire with a roar of shelling.
The score of men in the same boat with Joseph were huddled together, pale and excited, wanting to appear brave and not having any idea what to do. The fact that they wanted to do anything at all made their innocence heartbreakingly obvious. Seasoned men would have been happy to do nothing, knowing the time would come.
The prow of the boat scraped the sand and the foremost men leaped out. Joseph scrambled ashore with them. The water was warm and the sand soft under his weight. He ran through the gentle surf and floundered up to a pile of ammunition crates where a couple of medical orderlies were passing around water. One of them noticed Joseph’s uniform with its clerical collar.
“We don’t need you yet, cobber!” he said cheerfully. His accent was broad Australian, his face sunburned and lantern-jawed.
Joseph gave him a gesture of salute. “I’m looking for General Hamilton’s headquarters,” he said. “At least I’m actually looking for his ADC, Major Mynott. It’s urgent I find him.”
“Yeah?” the soldier was unimpressed. “Pass me that splint, will yer? Everything’s urgent here, including that bleedin’ water!”
Joseph reached for the canteen and handed it to him, and the splint, then looked around slowly. As far along it as he could see, the beach was crowded. Long lines of the injured stood waiting for medical attention. Others, more seriously hurt, lay in silent pain, faces crusted with blood and sand. There seemed to be flies everywhere.
Another soldier saw Joseph’s expression and sauntered over to him. “Welcome to Gallipoli, mate,” he said with a shrug. His face was round with wide blue eyes and ginger-gold hair. His smile was cheerful, as if he were determined to find something, anything, to like about the chaos around him. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after yer.” He led Joseph up the sand past the makeshift medical unit where a nurse was creating as much order as she could.
“Never mind, darlin’!” one of the men called out to her. “We love yer!”
Someone else made an extremely bawdy comment about love. There was a loud burst of laughter.
The nurse was dark-haired and slender, perhaps twenty-five. “Back of the line!” she ordered, pointing her finger at the offender.
He groaned loudly. “Aw c’mon! Don’t be such a . . .”
“Do you want to go to the back twice?” she asked ferociously.
There was more applause.
“Sorry!” the soldier yelled.
“Good!” she called back. “End of the line!”
Grudgingly he obeyed, to still another burst of clapping and catcalls.
Joseph and his guide reached a group of soldiers sitting on the grass eating rough bread and tinned bully beef. A Dixie can of tea hung over a smoldering fire.
One of them looked up. “Wot yer got there, Blue? Reinforcements from Blighty?”
There was a guffaw of laughter again from the half dozen men.
“Only if yer feelin’ like the last rites,” Blue replied, sitting cross-legged in a spare patch without too many small stones. “Sit down, mate,” he invited Joseph.
“Bleedin’ ’ell!” one of the men said, his eyes widening as he realized Joseph was a chaplain. “Are things that bad?”
Another man crossed himself elaborately. “Here we are stuck on the edge of being wiped out, and what do the Pommies send us? One bloody preacher! You going to bury the lot of us then? Or are you the real thing?”
Joseph blushed. “The real thing?”
“Part the waters and we can walk to the other side!”
There was more laughter.
“No use,” Blue said cheerfully. “We don’t want to be on the other side, dumbo!”
“Speak for yourself, mate! I’d love to be on the other side!” He turned to Joseph. “What are you here for, Rev? Maybe you can turn the stones to bread?”
“How about turning the water to wine?” another suggested.
“Actually I’m no use at all,” Joseph said candidly. “I need you to help me.”
“Too right, you do!” three of them replied in chorus.
“What’s yer problem, sport?” another asked, squinting a little at him. “Apart from that yer here, o’ course. We all got that one.” He grinned, showing a gap tooth at the front.
“You couldn’t wait to get ’ere, yer stupid bastard!” the man next to him pointed out. “ ‘We gotter go!’ yer kept sayin’—‘We gotter go!’ ”
The first man lifted his hand dismissively. “Well, we have gotter.”
“So what d’yer want then, mate?” Blue faced Joseph, his wide eyes curious.
“I’m looking for a Major Mynott, General Hamilton’s ADC,” Joseph replied. “He has important information about a traitor.” He used the word intentionally, since he knew it would burn their emotions. They were young men who had heard the need of their mother country, dropped what they were doing and come from the other side of the world, in their thousands, to shed their blood in France and on these hell-raked beaches. Surely to them there would be no uglier word?
“So you’re not a holy Joe for real?” A flicker of disappointment crossed Blue’s eyes. “You’re a spy, or whatever they’re called.”
Joseph smiled with a little grimace. “Actually I’m very much a holy Joe. My name’s Joseph Reavley, and I’m a chaplain on the Western Front. I was home on leave and the intelligence officer who was supposed to come was
