but it stunned him how intensely Matthew was inextricably woven into the fabric of his life. It was as if John Reavley had died again, a large piece of him gone in a new and heart-numbing way. He had not expected that Matthew could be in any danger, even going to sea to test the prototype. The loss was too vast to take into his mind. Matthew could not be gone!
Was it like this for everyone? The world falling apart, reason and joy disintegrating into an all-engulfing darkness?
And that created the need for another decision. Could he go back to the trenches now and leave Hannah and the children alone?
He found her in front of the looking glass in her bedroom. She had an old dressing wrap on and her hair down around her shoulders. Her face was bleached of all color, every shred of blood drained away, but she looked quite composed. She just moved slowly, as if afraid her coordination would not keep her from knocking into things, or perhaps even falling over.
She looked exactly as he felt. He understood completely.
“I won’t be going back to Ypres,” he said quietly. “I expect you know that anyway, but I thought I’d tell you, just in case.”
She nodded. “We’ll tell Judith . . . but not yet. I’m . . . I’m not ready.” She looked at him curiously, her face crumpled. “Joseph, how does everybody do it, how do they keep on, how do they live? Everything I’ve said to other women who’ve lost husbands or sons is idiotic!” She frowned in amazement. “How did I dare? Were they kind to me, or just too beaten and numb to care about anything else?”
“I’m not sure that anything we say touches people in those times.” He corrected himself: “
She turned away from him quickly. “Go to bed,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m not ready to weep yet. If I do I won’t be able to stop, and I have to think how to tell the children, especially Tom. Please!”
He obeyed silently, closing the door behind him.
He slept fitfully. He heard Hannah up and down the stairs, he lost count how many times. At five o’clock he got up as well and went down to the kitchen, knowing he would find her there.
She was dressed, scrubbing out the pantry. The whole large cupboardlike room was empty, nothing left on the shelves. It was all piled on the kitchen table and on the bench above the flour and vegetable bins and the cutlery drawers. There were boxes, bags, tins, and barrels everywhere. She had her sleeves up to her elbows and an apron on over an old dress. She had not bothered to put her hair up, but it was in a loose braid, like a schoolgirl’s.
“Can I help?” he offered.
“Not really,” she replied, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m doing it, it’s just better than lying in bed.”
“Do you want a cup of tea?”
“If you can find the kettle and the tea, yes.”
Half an hour later all the shelves were scrubbed but still wet, and Joseph had made some sort of order out of the piles of groceries. They were both sitting at the kitchen table and it was broad daylight, the sun shining in through the window as if it were any other day.
The telephone rang.
Hannah gripped her cup so tightly she slopped tea over onto her dress and arm. The sight of the mess upset her, tears gleaming in her eyes, simply because it was a hair crack in the facade and cost all her strength to keep from letting go.
Joseph went into the hall and picked up the receiver. “Joseph Reavley,” he said quietly.
“Good morning, Captain Reavley,” a voice said on the other end, sounding tinny and far away. “This is Calder Shearing.”
Joseph did not want to speak to this man. He could not cope with talking of Matthew’s death, not yet.
“Mr. Shearing . . .” he began.
“I have news you will want to hear,” Shearing cut across him. “There were quite a number of survivors from the
Joseph found his voice was gone, stuck in his throat, his mouth dry.
“Captain Reavley?”
He coughed. “Yes . . . are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure,” Shearing said testily, as if some emotion had drained him as well. “Do you imagine I would have called you if I were not? The battle was appalling. We estimate casualties of over six thousand men, and at least fourteen ships. Your brother and brother-in-law will be home within two or three days.”
“Thank you . . . yes . . .” Joseph gulped. “Thank you.” He replaced the receiver and walked back to the kitchen, bumping into the jamb of the door and numbing his elbow. It should have been painful, but he was unaware of it.
Hannah stared at him. There was no fear in her face, there was nothing else left to hurt her, the worst had already happened.
“It was Shearing. . . .” he began.
She frowned. “Who is Shearing?”
“Intelligence service. Hannah, they’re alive! They saved a lot of the crew, and Archie and Matthew are among them! He’s sure! It’s no mistake, he’s absolutely certain.”
She looked at him, eyes wide. Now she was afraid again, afraid to believe, to grasp the pain of hoping, going through all the torture of love and fear and waiting and dreading. “Is he?”
“Yes! Yes he is! Absolutely!” He strode around the table and pulled her to her feet and put his arms around her, clinging onto her and feeling her cry, great gasping sobs of all the emotion, the agony she had held in, and now at last was letting go.
He was smiling, tears on his face as well. Archie was alive—above all, Matthew was alive! Matthew was alive—he was all right—he would be coming back.
And that meant, of course, that Joseph would have to return to Ypres. But not yet, not today.
There were twenty-four hours’ respite, then Joseph went to London to testify at the trial of Shanley Corcoran. He was charged with high treason. The trial was held in a closed room; the only thing to make it different from a place where any kind of business might be conducted was the situation of the chairs, the height of the windows above the ground, and the armed and uniformed men at the doors.
As with any other trial, Joseph did not hear the testimony previous to his own. He waited in an anteroom alone, pacing the floor, sitting for a short time on the hard-backed chair, then pacing again. He turned over and over in his mind what he would say, if he would simply answer what was asked of him, in a sense leave his contribution to truth or justice in someone else’s hands. That would take from him the final responsibility, the blame for Corcoran’s fall, and whatever happened to him because of it. It should not be Joseph’s decision to weigh his guilt.
The door opened and a small, quiet man in a dark suit told him it was time.
Joseph went with him.
The room was silent as he entered. He saw Corcoran immediately. There were only a dozen or so people there, no jury. This was not a trial at which any member of the public could be present. Both its evidence and its findings would remain secret. It reminded him of a court-martial.
He had not intended to meet Corcoran’s eyes, but his gaze was drawn in spite of himself. Corcoran sat at a small table with his defender beside him. He looked ashen and stiff-bodied but somehow smaller than Joseph remembered him. But then at heart he had been different from the way Joseph remembered him for a long time, perhaps always.
Now he was angry, his dark eyes brilliant, still a question, a demand in his expression—would Joseph finally measure up to the loyalty his father would have given, the loyalty to all past love and laughter, passions shared, and which he was convinced he deserved?
The prosecutor began. “Please state your name, your present occupation, and where you live,” he directed.
