It was a strange, unnatural evening. Everyone was overwrought emotionally, uncertain what to say. One moment they were silent, the next everyone speaking together.
“Dad, what’s the worst battle you’ve ever seen?” Tom asked, his face tense, eyes unwavering.
“Was it terrible?” Luke added immediately.
Hannah drew in her breath, then changed her mind and said nothing. Her eyes also were on Archie, waiting.
Even before he spoke, Joseph knew Archie was going to evade anything like the truth, just as he would have done himself. So far he had used his injuries to deflect any such discussion.
Jenny sat next to her father, squashed up in the armchair. He had his arm around her with a gentleness that was intensely concentrated, as if in the softness of her hair and the angular grace of her young body, he touched the infinite value of life itself.
“We’re patrolling most of the time,” he answered lightly. “We meet the odd U-boat, but the main German fleet has stayed in port so far, you know.” He smiled. “I think they’re scared of us.”
Luke believed him. “Are they?” he said with pleasure. “Good, eh?”
Tom was more doubtful. “But they sink a lot of our ships, Dad. We’d be winning if they didn’t. There are a couple of boys at school whose fathers went down.”
Hannah looked quickly at Joseph, then at Archie. She needed truth, but she was afraid of it, afraid of the nightmares. She would be the one left at home to find the answers, the comfort, to make going on possible.
“Not a lot of ships,” Archie replied, considering as he spoke. “It just seems like a lot because we hear about it, and it hurts. But most of the Grand Fleet is still here. We can’t persuade the Germans to come out of harbor and face us.”
“But the U-boats do,” Tom persisted.
“Oh, yes. They’re pretty nasty, but we’ve got a few tricks of our own, and getting more all the time. And don’t ask me what they are, because it’s secret stuff, and I don’t know all of it myself. Now tell me about school. I’m much more interested in that.”
Tom gave up and dutifully answered the questions, but the enthusiasm was gone from his eyes. Half an hour later Luke and Jenny went to bed and Joseph walked alone down toward the orchard.
He did not hear Tom’s footsteps on the grass and was startled when he spoke.
“Sorry, Uncle Joseph,” Tom apologized, his voice laden with misery.
Joseph turned and saw him. His young, smooth face was solemn, his eyes shadowed in the dappled light through the trees.
“Why doesn’t Dad talk to me about anything real?” he asked quietly. “Is it because we are going to lose the war?”
Joseph had been half waiting for the question, but now that it had come it was more difficult than he had expected.
“I don’t know,” he said simply. “I don’t think so, but of course it’s possible. We won’t give up, ever, but we might be beaten.”
Tom looked startled. Joseph realized he should not have been so candid. Tom was only fourteen. Now he would have nightmares Hannah would not be able to comfort, and it was Joseph’s fault. How could he undo it?
“I don’t think we’ll be beaten,” Tom said clearly. “We won’t let it happen. But Dad was just trying to protect us, wasn’t he? A lot of people are being killed. I heard in school today that Billy Arnold’s elder brother was killed. They heard yesterday. He was twenty. That’s only six years older than I am. Did you know him, Uncle Joseph? Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you like that. I’m sorry.”
Joseph smiled. “People aren’t going to stop being killed just because I’m here on sick leave. And I knew him, but not very well. I don’t think we’ll be beaten either, actually. I just don’t want to tell you lies.”
Tom was silent for a while. They stood side by side, watching the light fade beyond the elms.
“Why won’t Dad tell me that?” Tom said at last, his voice thick with hurt. “Does he think I can’t take it?”
“We all try to protect people we love,” Joseph answered. He watched as in the distance a shire horse walked gently over the slope of the rise, the light catching on its harness. It moved slowly, head low with weariness at the end of the day. “We don’t think about it. We just do it,” he added. “It’s natural.”
“You don’t! Don’t you love me?” Tom asked.
Deliberately, Joseph did not look at him. He knew there would be tears on his face, and it was better they were private.
“Yes, I do, very much,” he answered. “But not in quite the same way. I’ve seen boys not much older than you in the trenches, and I know you can take a lot. However bad it is, not knowing is sometimes worse. At least that’s what I think. But your father may think differently.”
“I suppose so. It seems like Jenny’s the only one he’s really pleased to see!” That last was raw with hurt. “Is that because she’s a girl?”
“Probably. And too young to go and drive ambulances, like your aunt Judith.” The horse disappeared under the may blossom in the lane, and a flock of birds whirled up in the sky, startled.
“Is that dangerous?” Tom asked.
“Not most of the time, but it’s very hard work, and you see a lot of badly injured people.”
“I wouldn’t like that.”
“No, but it’s better to help them than stand around doing nothing much.”
“What do you do, Uncle Joseph? You can’t pray all the time, people don’t want that, do they? Anyway, it doesn’t work, does it!”
Joseph turned to look at him. There was pain and disillusion in his face, oddly naked in the warmth of the evening light. “What would you like God to do?” he asked.
Tom drew in his breath. “Make it stop, of course.”
“How?”
Tom blinked. “Well . . . I don’t know. Can’t God do anything He wants to?”
“He could force us, I suppose. But if you are made to do something, is it any good?” Joseph asked. “Is it worth anything, if you had no choice?”
“Well . . . well, we’ve got no choice about fighting! We have to, or get beaten—and killed.”
“I know. The only decision for us is whether we do it well or badly, whether we’re brave, and even at the worst times, remember what we believe, and the kind of people we want to be.”
Tom bit his lip. “Is that what you pray for?”
Joseph looked out over the fields again. There was nobody there anymore, just an emptiness of plowed earth and fading sky.
“Mostly. But I don’t spend a lot of time praying. Mostly I fetch and carry, dig the broken trenches along with everyone else, try to help the wounded, and write letters.”
“Is that what you got the Military Cross for?” There was sharp pride in Tom’s voice now.
“That sort of thing.” The sunset breeze smelled of the earth and in the distance the elms were little more than shadows against the sky.
“I’m going into the navy as soon as I can,” Tom said as if challenging Joseph to argue.
“Yes. I expected you would,” Joseph agreed.
Tom let out a sigh of satisfaction and they stood together silently, but now it was comfortable.
In the sitting room Hannah was glad to be alone with Archie. There was only one lamp on and the gathering darkness outside cast long shadows, leaving the glow like an island of warmth, picking out the familiar shapes of chairs, books, pictures on the wall.
Time was infinitely precious. She might never have a better chance than this to ask him about the things she needed to know.
She thought of Paul Compton, the friends who knew him, and the wife who did not. Where could she begin?
“I wish you could tell us something about your ship,” she started. “Tom is longing to know.”
“He already knows all about destroyers,” Archie answered, looking a little beyond her. “He can tell you
