west.”
Mason did not reply. Silently he unshipped his oar and put it in the rowlock, then, in time with Joseph, he began to row.
It was the hardest physical work Joseph had ever done. His body ached with every pull, his hands were blistered and he was so thirsty it took an intense effort of will to keep from plunging his hands into the sea, even though it was salt, and would only make him sick. Its slick, smooth water was cold and in its own way, mesmerizingly beautiful.
Andy woke and drank his mouthful of water. The sun was so low and the fog thick enough now that the west was barely discernible, but he understood what they were doing.
“There’s no need to sit up,” Joseph told him. “We’ll just go as long as we can.”
Andy smiled.
Joseph lost count of time. It grew so dim, the light so diffused, it was hard to tell anything but the broadest directions. No one spoke.
Then suddenly Andy stiffened and pointed with his good arm.
Mason swiveled around, oar out of the water. “A ship!” he yelled. “A ship!”
Joseph turned to look as well. Out of the gloom to their left there was a high, darker shape.
Mason pulled his oar in and started to climb to his feet.
“Sit down!” Andy cried shrilly. “You’ll capsize us in their wash!” He started forward as if physically to restrain Mason, but he was too weak and fell forward onto the floorboards.
“Ahoy!” Mason bellowed, standing upright now, waving his arms. “Ahoy!”
“Sit down!” Andy screamed.
Joseph lunged for Mason just as the wash hit them. The boat bucked, the bow high and sideways. Mason lost his balance and fell just as the boat slapped down again and pitched the other way, throwing him backward. The side caught him behind the knees. He folded up, hitting his head on the gunwale, and slid into the sea.
Without waiting, Andy went in after him.
The boat swiveled and tossed on the wake and Joseph grabbed after the oars, desperately fumbling as Andy and Mason slipped astern. He got them both at last and turned the boat, heaving with all his strength, his muscles burning, to get back to them. It seemed to take forever, stroke after stroke, but it must have been no more than a minute or two before he was there. A hand came up over the side and he shipped the oars and reached to pull Mason up and on board. He was almost deadweight, streaming water, and gasping.
Then he turned for Andy. He saw him for an instant, just the pale blur of his face, then he was gone.
“Andy!” Joseph shrieked, his voice hoarse, piercing with despair. “Andy!”
But there was no break in the gray sea, nothing above the surface.
He was sobbing as he flung himself on the oars again and sent the boat lurching forward, all his weight behind each stroke. He called out again and again. He was aware of Mason clambering up and going into the bow, peering ahead, calling as well.
It was Mason who finally came back and sat down in the stern. Joseph could see no more than an outline of his body in the darkness now.
“It’s no good,” Mason said, his voice raw with pain. “He’s gone. Even if we found him now, it wouldn’t help.”
Joseph was weeping, the tears running down his face and choking his throat. There was no point in telling Mason he was a fool—he knew it. The guilt would never leave him.
“That’s what he meant,” he said, struggling to speak, even to get his breath. “You give your life for your mates—whoever they are. It’s nothing to do with them, it’s to do with you.”
Mason bent his head in his hands and wept.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Joseph lost track of time altogether. There was no point in rowing, but he was too cold and thirsty to sleep. He drifted in and out of a hazy unconsciousness, grieving for Andy, touched with guilt that it was his decision not to row with Mason that might have cost them a possible landfall, although it was unlikely.
More than that he was worried for Mason, who was not only wet, and therefore suffering far more from exposure than Joseph, but also because of the guilt that tormented him.
Joseph felt a terrible pity for him. He could not get out of his mind the memory of Mason on the beach at Gallipoli, struggling up and down the gullies with the wounded, under fire when he did not need to be, working through exhaustion when every muscle hurt, to rescue others. He worked for the Peacemaker, but he had done it because he honestly believed what he was doing was for the greater good. No man can do more than the best they understand, the utmost they believe.
But the Peacemaker was responsible for the deaths of Joseph’s parents, indirectly of Sebastian, and now of Cullingford as well.
Yet Joseph could not hate Mason personally. And alive, Mason might lead them to the Peacemaker, intentionally or not.
He sank back into a kind of sleep again, too cold to be aware of discomfort, only of thirst and a gnawing emptiness inside himself.
He woke with a jolt to feel hands lifting him and he heard voices, cheerful and urgent. Someone forced a cup between his lips and the next instant the fire of rum scalded down his throat, making him cough and then choke. He was too stiff to help them as they carried him up into the trawler and wrapped him in blankets.
“Mason?” he asked between cracked lips.
“Oh, he’ll make it!” a voice assured him. “I reckon.”
The next hours passed in a haze of the pain as circulation returned to his limbs, the blessed sensation of warmth and food, blankets at first, and then clean sheets.
When he finally awoke to sunlight shimmering through a hospital window, Matthew, white-faced, was sitting beside him. “God, you gave me a fright!” he said accusingly.
Joseph managed to smile, but his skin still hurt. “I’m all right,” he said huskily.
Matthew poured him a glass of water from the jug and lifted him up with intense gentleness to help him drink it. “What the hell happened to you?” he demanded savagely.
Joseph sipped the water, then lay back again. “Ran into a German U-boat on the way back,” he answered, his throat easier. “I found Mynott. Decent chap. He told me about Chetwin in Berlin. It wasn’t him. I’m sorry.”
“Damn!” Matthew swore. “I thought we had the bastard.” He was still regarding Joseph with profound concern. “What else? Was Gallipoli hell? Surely it couldn’t be worse than Ypres?”
“No, about the same,” Joseph replied. “But I met a journalist out there, brilliant fellow—Richard Mason, actually. Matthew, he was going to write a hell of a story about Gallipoli, tell everyone the truth of what it’s really like.” He saw Matthew’s face darken and his body tense. “I tried to persuade him what it would do to morale, but I failed before we left. I think I tipped my hand too far.” The chaotic beach was in his mind as if he had barely left it, the Australian voices, the smells of blood and creosol and wild thyme, the light across the high, wind-stippled sky and the sound of water.
“He was going to write about it, tell everyone at home what a senseless slaughter it is.” He looked at Matthew’s blue eyes. “It would have been even worse than someone like Prentice going on about the gas attack at Ypres. He’s a better writer, a far bigger name. And we couldn’t help the gas. Gallipoli’s our fault.” The words choked in his throat, but they were true enough he could not swallow them. He longed for someone to trust, not just with facts and the things that words could frame easily, but with the grief inside him for all the broken men he had seen, the pain, and for the fear inside himself. He had been prepared to die in order to take Mason with him.
Had Sam felt like that, faced with Prentice, whom everyone hated? Joseph didn’t hate Mason, but he would in effect have killed him.
He felt Matthew’s hand warm and strong on his wrist, and looked up at him.
“Joe, what happened?” Matthew said insistently. “Where’s Mason now?”
He was afraid! Joseph realized it with amazement. Matthew was afraid because something in Joseph had changed irreparably. An innocence of decision had gone. Nothing was as simple as it had seemed, not Judith and
