“He wouldn’t have gone alone down an alley at night if he’d been aware he was followed,…sir,” the man replied.
The Peacemaker was annoyed with himself. He had allowed the failure to kill Reavley to rattle him, and now he had displayed a weakness in reasoning in front of this man, a rat of a creature who must be kept under tight control. He loathed having to use such people, and the necessity that drove him to it.
“You have failed twice,” he pointed out. “I cannot afford a third error. Leave him alone. I shall think of a way of dealing with him that does not depend upon your very dubious skills. I’ll send for you if I need you again.”
The man opened his mouth to argue, then met the Peacemaker’s eyes, and changed his mind. He left without speaking further.
The Peacemaker returned to his bed, but sleep eluded him. It required all his concentration and discipline of mind not to allow the Reavleys to dominate his thoughts and become an obsession. They were a nuisance, but peripheral to his main activities. The great cause was peace: first with Germany, then with the world. Never again would there be pointless slaughter like that going on at this moment at Passchendaele. The thought of it was enough to make humanity tremble and weep.
It was the night after that, with the air close and damp, and promising thunder, when Richard Mason returned from the Western Front and reported in the upstairs room. His face was gray with exhaustion. He had obviously shaved hastily and cut his chin. But it was the emotional tension in him, the grief in his eyes, the nervous tic at his temple that moved the Peacemaker to pity and a sense of the enormity of the horror. Mason had seen almost every battlefield of the war, not only in Europe but in Russia and the Middle East. He had never looked as haunted as he did now.
“Sit down,” the Peacemaker said quietly. “Whisky? Tea? Have you eaten? What can I get you?”
Mason smiled bleakly. It was no more than a bare curving of the lips, hardly noticeable. “Tea would be nice. I can’t afford to be light-headed. And a sandwich. Bread that isn’t moldy. And a clean cup to drink out of.”
The Peacemaker rang for the manservant. They spoke of trivialities until the food and drink came and they could close the door and be assured of privacy. He allowed Mason time to eat and drink before he approached the subject of his report.
“Thank you,” Mason said. He met the Peacemaker’s eyes. “It’s beyond description. It’s beyond human suffering. It is hell itself.”
“But you have come with something to tell me.” The Peacemaker had seen it in Mason’s patience, his assurance. He had watched the man report on one atrocity after another over years, and he knew every mood of his mind and read its reflection in his face. Mason had brooding, sensitive features, powerful and yet more expressive than perhaps he himself realized. The depth of his emotion was mirrored too easily.
Now he answered slowly, measuring his words. He described Howard Northrup and his appointment to replace the much-respected Penhaligon. With no more than a trace of anger, he told of his stubborn incompetence. Watching him intently, the Peacemaker saw in Mason not only fury but pity as well for a man placed beyond his depth both of experience and of character.
Then, still slumped in the armchair, Mason told of Northrup’s body being found with a single bullet through the brain, fired from right in front of him, and Joseph Reavley’s unsuccessful attempt to learn from the men exactly what had happened.
“Reavley, the chaplain?” The Peacemaker kept his voice devoid of emotion with the greatest effort. He had not forgotten how Mason had thrown away his article on the nightmare of Gallipoli, with all its propaganda value, because of Reavley’s sense of futile, narrow patriotism. “And what did Reavley find?”
Mason laughed. It was a jerky, painful sound that said more vividly than words how lacerated he was inside. “Nothing! Which I imagine was what he wanted, and intended. He’s learned since Prentice’s death. He’s investigating because he has to. Neither he nor the Colonel wants anyone charged. The whole army in that section is facing slaughter. It will take both genius and lunacy to keep them facing forward and over the top, God help them! And God forgive us!” He left the words brittle and sharp in the air, unsaid between them, that they could have prevented it all, if any of their plans had succeeded.
“There’s open talk of mutiny, and it won’t take much to bring it about,” he went on. “Then they’ll have to fire on their own men. They’ll have no choice.” There was absolute certainty in his eyes. “Reavley will have more sense of right and wrong, and of survival, than to find anything.”
“Write your article,” the Peacemaker said earnestly. “Write up the action in which the surgeon saved his men. In the men’s own words: all their comradeship, loyalty to each other, their courage, and how they were betrayed by arrogant and incompetent leadership. For readers far away from the battle you must write the tragedy of it, and the sacrifice. Paint the loss as you saw it.”
Mason stared at him, eyes shadowed and uncertain. “The noise, the mud, and the slaughter are unimaginable.”
“But of course,” the Peacemaker said grimly. “If we here at home knew what it was like, without the poetic words of sacrifice and honor to gild it for us, we would never allow it to go on. We would be sick with shame that we had ever tolerated it in the beginning. We sit in clean withdrawing rooms of quiet houses and weep into our handkerchiefs, and we talk to each other about glory. Write it as it is, Mason! For the love of God, write the truth!”
Mason sat still, the trouble still heavy in his face.
The Peacemaker leaned forward. “I know the figures, Mason. I know we have barely gained a few yards of mud at the price of a hundred thousand lives. It has to stop. The government won’t do it; they’ve staked too much on victory to settle for less than that now. They’re old men, dedicated to war. We need new men, with a vision of peace and the courage to pay what it costs in pride.” For an instant he thought of Wheatcroft and Corracher standing in the way, young men with old men’s vision. But they had been dealt with! Eunice Wheatcroft’s pride would see to that. “But they can’t do it without the truth,” he went on, intent upon Mason again. “Doesn’t the vast mass of our suffering people deserve to decide on truth, not lies? If not for them, then for the men you’ve seen paying the price of their folly. Is their enemy really the German soldier opposite, suffering the same hunger, the same horror and pain? Or is it the blind cowards behind them driving them forward?”
The argument died in Mason’s eyes. The Peacemaker saw it and knew he had won.
Matthew reached a decision. Detection of facts had achieved very little. All his inquiries into Eunice Wheatcroft’s connections had gained him nothing. He still had no proof who the Peacemaker was. He would carry the battle to Sandwell, and perhaps spur him to action, which would show him innocent or guilty.
He contrived to have himself invited to a dinner party Sandwell was giving at his home in order to discuss intelligence matters. As a senior minister, it was part of his responsibility. This was an elegant occasion with all the glamour and discreet good taste of the years before the war. The meal was abstemious, as became men who led a country where some of the poor actually starved. The talk was somber. There was no pretense made that victory was certain, only that surrender was unthinkable. The dead had paid too much for the living to betray them.
After the coffee and brandy had been served, Sandwell rose to his feet. He was slender, almost gaunt now, his fair hair gleaming in the subdued light from the lamps. He asked the others to excuse him, and gestured to Matthew to follow him into one of the smaller side offices.
It was tidy, gracious, and sparsely furnished. Sandwell sat down in one of the armchairs and invited Matthew to the other. He crossed his legs, his polished shoes shining for an instant as he moved. His eyes were almost electric blue, curious, amused. He waited for Matthew to speak.
Matthew began his well-rehearsed discourse. “Thank you, sir. I’ll not waste time with prevarication. I imagine you are aware of the original prosecution against Alan Wheatcroft, and now that against Tom Corracher as well?”
“Naturally,” Sandwell agreed. “Is that of interest to the intelligence service?”
“I believe so. Corracher is not guilty of any attempt to blackmail Wheatcroft. The accusation is Wheatcroft’s way of escaping the consequences of either a very naive action, or possibly a minor offense, but one with major effects upon his career, and probably more important to him, his marriage.”
Sandwell was watching Matthew intently. Matthew tried to read the emotion in the brilliant eyes, and could discern nothing. It was like looking into a mirror.
“You mean Wheatcroft laid the charge of blackmail falsely, as a way of becoming victim rather than offender?” Sandwell grasped it immediately. “I’m surprised. It shows rather more nimbleness of mind than I thought he possessed.”
