out, I’ll pull.”
“A lull?” Mason yelled with disbelief.
The wind gusted, then dropped.
“Now!” Joseph bellowed, lifting his oar high, digging it round and feeling the boat turn, yaw wildly, pitch almost over as the wave slapped against the side, then as Joseph dug again, throwing his weight against it, come round with the wind and the current behind it.
Mason gasped, pushing his hair out of his face with one hand and grabbing at the oar to plunge it in the water again. Now the boat was running before the wind, but it still needed both of them with all their weight and strength to keep it from turning again.
Joseph’s heart was pounding so hard he felt giddy. He had come within feet of drowning them all, Andy as well as Mason and himself. Relief left him shaking. He clung to the oar as much to regain his control as to wield and pull it. But something in him had resolved.
“I can’t let you publish that piece,” he said clearly. “That is, if there really is a publisher?” He had to know.
“Of course there is,” Mason said without the slightest hesitation. “Some of the provincial newspaper owners believe as I do. They think people have a right to make their own decisions, knowing what they’re going to face.”
“Aren’t they afraid of being charged with treason?” Joseph asked. “The Defense of the Realm Act is pretty powerful. Or are they going to do it anonymously, so they won’t have to answer for it?”
Mason was angry. “Of course they’re not going to do it anonymously!” he retorted. “What the hell kind of truth is that?”
“Are you sure?” Joseph let disbelief burn through his voice.
“Yes, I am sure!” Mason shouted. “I’ve known the owner all my life! He won’t let the editors take the blame, he’ll answer for it himself.”
Joseph believed it. The certainty in Mason’s face, the passion in him and his sense of honor and purpose, mistaken as it was, lit him with an intensity no lie could carry.
“I’m sorry,” Joseph said, and meant it sincerely. He liked Mason, indeed admired him. “I can’t let you do that.”
“You can’t stop me.” Mason smiled—a warm, unaffected expression.
Joseph shipped his oar. “Yes, I can.”
The boat jerked sideways until Mason lifted his oar out of the water also and the boat tossed and slapped without help at all.
“For God’s sake!” Mason shrieked. “We’ll sink! What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“I can’t kill you,” Joseph answered. “But I won’t help save you either.” He looked at Andy. “I’m truly sorry. But if this piece is printed it’ll be picked up by other underground papers, and will get round the country like fire. Well-meaning pacifists will pass it around out-side recruiting stations, and fifth columnists, pro-Germans will slip it through doorways and hand it out in meetings. In the end thousands of people will be affected by it. Fewer men will volunteer for the army, and our men in the trenches in France and in Gallipoli will be left to fight alone, until they’re beaten. I can’t let that happen, to save my life, or yours. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” Andy said quietly. “Maybe we wouldn’t have got home anyway. At least this is for a reason.”
Mason pushed Joseph violently, knocking him off the bench, and seized his oar, pulling on both of them and righting the boat to send it in front of the wind again.
Joseph settled in the stern, next to Andy. It was a relief not to be straining his aching back against the oar anymore. Drowning was supposed to be not too bad a way to die. He had heard that you lost consciousness pretty quickly. Not like being caught in the wires in no-man’s-land and left there for hours, even days. Prentice had died comparatively easily.
Pity Sam would not know. He would have appreciated the irony! Even more of a pity that he couldn’t tell Matthew where the newspaper editor was. He didn’t know the name, but it would be easy enough to find. Someone Mason had known all his life, who owned several papers, and was against the violence and waste of war.
He did not want to think of Matthew, or Judith or Hannah. It was too hard, too filled with pain. It hurt with a deep, gouging ache he could not control.
“You’re a fool!” Mason was shouting at him, struggling to keep the boat straight with the wind behind it. “Surrender could mean peace! A united Europe. Isn’t that better than this insane carnage, and the destruction of all our heritage, the poisoning of the earth itself? Europe’s becoming an abattoir! There isn’t going to be anything but ruin and madness left for the victor. Can’t you see that?”
“You want peace?” Joseph asked, as if it were a real and urgent question. They were being pitched sideways, one direction then the other as Mason fought to keep control, his face sheened with water, his muscles clenched.
“Of course I want peace!” he shouted furiously.
Joseph braced himself not to land his weight on top of Andy, who was watching him intently. “And you think that surrender will bring peace?” He allowed his own disbelief to ring through. “Maybe to us! But what about Belgium that we proposed to protect? We gave our word. And what about France?”
“We didn’t promise France,” Mason retorted.
“What the hell has that got to do with it?” Joseph demanded. “Do we only protect people if we’ve got treaties that say we must? Do we only do the right thing if we are forced to?”
“The right thing?” Mason’s voice rose in outrage. “It’s the right thing to crucify half the youth of Europe in a quarrel about who governs which strip of land, and what language we speak?”
“Yes! If the right to have our own laws and our own heritage goes along with it. If anyone conquers us and lays down the rules for us, then bit by bit anything that makes us free and unique will be taken away.”
The wind was still rising and Mason was finding it more and more difficult to hold the boat, even with the storm at his back.
“Free and unique! You’re a madman! They’re just dead! Bodies piled on bodies; tread on the earth in Flanders and you’re standing on human flesh! Tell them the truth, and let them choose what they want! It’s an unpardonable sin to lead them blind to the slaughter.” He yanked at the oar, his face contorted with the strain. “You’re supposed to believe in good and evil—to deny knowledge is to deny freedom—that is evil. Who the hell do you think you are, you supremely arrogant bastard, to decide for the youth of Europe, whether it will fight your damned war or not? Answer me, Reverend Reavley.”
Joseph’s mind raced. Mason’s argument was the Peacemaker’s, and he was so nearly right, so close to pity and humanity.
“You told me I was naive,” he shouted back. “You want peace? Don’t you think we all do? But not at any price, no matter how high. Belgium was invaded, and France. If we give up, do you think that’s going to bring peace? Do you think the Belgian and the French people will simply lay down their arms and surrender?”
The wind tore Mason’s answer from his lips.
“The government might give up, even some of the people!” Joseph went on furiously. “But do you think the army will? The men whose brothers and friends have already died in the mud and gas, on the wires and in the trenches? The men who’ve frozen, drowned, and bled for what they loved! They’ve paid too much! So have we!”
Mason stared at him. His face reflected the pain of his tearing muscles as he strained against the oars. The boat bucketed and slid in the troughs. He was losing. He began to realize Joseph was going to die for his conviction, and take Andy, too, if that was what it cost. The knowledge woke admiration in him, reluctantly, angrily, but totally honestly.
“There’ll be mutiny,” Joseph went on, conviction growing in him. He was so cold now that he was not moving and he could hardly feel his legs below the knee. Andy must be beginning to suffer from exposure. It grieved Joseph to sacrifice him. “In the army, and at home,” he went on. “What could the government do? Arrest all those who want to resist? Hand them over to the German occupying force? You know human nature, Mason! The brave men will flee to the hills, the forests, anywhere they can hide and regroup. Those who can’t—the old, the sick, women with children—will pay the price. There’ll be mass trials for treason, if they’re lucky; if not, then just executions. There’ll be collaborations, of course, and betrayals, counterbetrayals, groups of vigilantes, informers, and secret
