ration the men, even ask them to give back what they haven’t used.”
“None to waste,” Watkins answered, glaring back. “Everybody knows that, just don’t say so. If Jerry don’t know, don’t tell ’im.”
“With the odds so heavy against us, and morale so low, it must be hard to make the men get out there and fight?” Prentice raised his eyebrows, his blue eyes very wide.
“You’re talking rubbish!” Watkins said angrily, his face flushed dark red. “I got better things to do than stand ’ere listening to you rabbiting on. You get out an’ see what it’s really like, an’ leave the sick ’ere to themselves.” He turned half away.
“I thought you might have come to find out if the sapper’s wound was self-inflicted,” Prentice said very clearly.
Watkins froze, then turned back very slowly. “You what?”
Prentice repeated what he had said, his eyes challenging, his expression innocent.
Joseph’s throat tightened, his stomach churning. This was exactly what he had come to prevent. He must say something now, before it was too late.
“Mr. Prentice, you know very little about it,” he interrupted. “And military justice is not your affair. Sergeant Watkins is thoroughly familiar with his job. He’s regular army. He doesn’t need you to direct him.”
Prentice turned to Joseph and smiled, a cold, satisfied curve of the lips. “I’m sure he doesn’t,” he agreed. “He’ll do the right thing, for the good of the army as a whole, toward winning the war, whether he enjoys doing it, or it’s personally difficult for him. He mustn’t let like or dislike for a man stand in his way, or anybody else’s civilian beliefs. Nor mine.” He smiled even more widely. “Or yours, Chaplain. He’ll find the truth. But then I imagine as a man of God, you’re for the truth, too.”
Joseph knew he had lost the argument as he felt it slip out of his hands, and he saw it in Watkins’s face.
“What happens to a man who has deliberately injured himself?” Prentice went on. “You owe it to the rest of his unit to deal with it, don’t you? The one thing I’ve noticed out here, even in a few days, is the loyalty, the extraordinary depth of friendship between men, the willingness to share, to risk and even to sacrifice.” There was a note of envy in his voice, he hurried his words with an underlying edge of anger. “They are owed honor, and the loyalty of those who have the power to protect them, and the duty to lead.”
Watkins looked at him in silent misery.
Joseph searched desperately for something to say, but what was there? Marie O’Day knew that Corliss’s wound could have been self-inflicted, even Sam feared it. He had said Corliss was close to losing his nerve.
“It’s a . . .” he started to say, looking for a medical excuse.
Prentice ignored him, keeping his eyes on Watkins. “Matter of military duty to collect the evidence,” he finished the sentence. “Find the truth. There must be someone who saw it. The only reason not to speak to them is that you fear what they will say.” He smiled for an instant, then it disappeared. “I’m sure that isn’t the case . . . is it?”
“ ’Course it isn’t!” Watkins said tightly, his lips drawn into a thin line. “I’ll look into it. If there’s evidence, there’ll be a court-martial. But it’s none o’ your business, mister! You get the hell out of here. Go do your job, an’ leave us to do ours!” He swiveled on his heel and strode out past Joseph, too angry to speak, and perhaps ashamed that he had allowed himself to be trapped.
Joseph had failed. Far from protecting Corliss, he had been instrumental in allowing Prentice to force Watkins into investigating the incident, and Joseph already felt the sick fear that Corliss was guilty. People had different breaking points. A good commander could tell when it was coming. Sam had seen it and tried to protect him. It was himself Corliss had hurt, no one else. He had not left his post, or fallen asleep, or allowed anyone else to take the blame. It was one of those cases where turning a blind eye would possibly have saved him, given him time to recover at least his self-esteem, the control to build something out of what was left. Prentice had no idea what any of the men faced, let alone sappers. Joseph should have found a way to prevent this.
He went back and talked with Marie O’Day. She was furious with Prentice, but she could not help.
They could all hear the bombardment. The heavy artillery seemed to have a very good range tonight. The walls shivered and the lights swayed, casting wavering shadows on the walls. About ten o’clock the first casualties came in: some with broken arms and legs, a man with a deep shrapnel wound in the chest, another with a foot blown off. The surgeons operated in desperate haste. The smell of blood filled the air. Everybody seemed to be splashed and stained with red.
The night stretched on. The noise of the artillery stopped and started, stopped and started. Prentice was somewhere around. Joseph saw him half a dozen times; once he was carrying tea, more often he was helping a wounded man or lifting a stretcher. His clothes were now as creased and bloodstained as anyone else’s, his fair skin pale from fatigue and perhaps horror as well, his voice rasping with emotion.
Then at about four in the morning Wil Sloan came in gray-faced, carrying one end of a stretcher on which Charlie Gee lay. His skin was almost blue, eyes sunken in their sockets, and there was a great scarlet streaming wound in the pit of his belly where his genitals should have been. Wil had tried to pad it with all the bandages he could find, but everything was soaked through.
“Help him!” he cried out, his voice close to a scream. “Help him! Sweet Jesus, do something!”
The surgeon dropped the needle he was stitching with, and an orderly picked it up and carried on. Marie O’Day let out a moan of anguish and lurched forward to help the other bearer ease the stretcher onto the table.
“All right, soldier,” the surgeon said gently. “We’ll look after you. We’ll stop the worst of the pain, and stitch you up.” He barely looked at the young VAD nurse who had come down from the other operating table. “Get water, plenty of pads, instruments,” he told her.
She stepped closer and saw the wound, and in a hideous moment of realization understood it. Her face went paper-white and she staggered backward and crumpled to the floor.
Joseph saw the movement but he was too slow to save her.
Marie O’Day picked the girl up and dragged her to the corner, then went about collecting the things the surgeon had asked for.
Joseph knew Charlie had understood at least some part of the meaning of his blinding pain, and the wrenching panicky horror in other people’s faces. He tried to look at Joseph. His lips moved but he had not the strength to make any sound.
Joseph thought of the girl who wrote to him every day, and felt so sick he was afraid he might faint, just as the nurse had done. But Wil Sloan was standing almost beside him, his eyes bright with tears, gulping to find enough air to sustain him, desperate, pleading without words, praying.
What God would let this happen to a young man? He would be better dead. He will probably die anyway, from shock and loss of blood, or from infection, but couldn’t it have been without knowing what had happened to him?
Joseph put out his hand and grasped Charlie’s, holding on to it, feeling the fingers move a tiny fraction. “Hang on, Charlie,” he said hoarsely. “We’re with you.”
The surgeon was beginning to work already. The anesthetic mask was not there yet. Charlie was still conscious.
The wound was ghastly, still pumping blood, even though the first-aid station had done all they could.
Then Prentice was there, staring. “What’s happened to him?” he asked. “God in heaven! His genitals have gone! There’s nothing left!”
Charlie’s eyes filled with tears and there was a gurgle in his throat. Joseph felt his fingers curl, and then loose again as the surgeon at last put the anesthetic mask mercifully on his face.
Wil turned around and looked at Prentice. His skin was gray, his eyes wild and he gasped and gagged for breath. He teetered for a moment, as if trying to keep his balance, then he lunged forward, swinging his fists, and caught Prentice on the side of the jaw.
Prentice went staggering backward, but Wil followed him, lashing out again and again, left fist, then right, then left. Prentice crashed into the far wall, sending a tray of instruments flying off the small table. He put up his arms to shield his face, but it was useless. Wil was in a red rage and he went on striking him on any part of his body he could reach, head, shoulder, chest, stomach.
The surgeon swore. “For God’s sake, stop him! Somebody get hold of the bloody lunatic!”
Prentice fell over and slid down against the wall, half on top of the girl who had fainted. Wil grabbed his arms
