“All this old question of loyalty,” Sam said softly. “Do you violate the old standards to save your friends? Or do you keep your conscience, and let them die?”
“I used to think I was sure of lots of things,” Joseph answered ruefully. “Now I’m only sure of the values of humanity, of courage and honor and pity. Keep your word whatever it costs. Face forward, even if you’re so terrified your guts turn to water. Help someone if you can, anyone, doesn’t matter who they are or what you think they’ve done. Don’t think, just help the pain. Stay with them, don’t let go. Don’t judge.”
Sam’s eyes were very gentle.
“And what happens if you go back without finding Punch Fuller?” he asked.
“General Northrup will go on looking for whoever killed his son, and trying to prove it was murder, until one day he finds out his son was an ass and the men hated him. Then he’ll pin the blame on someone and his vengeance will be satisfied.”
“You mean he’ll settle for lies as long as he extracts the solution he wants?”
“Something like that.”
“I assume you’ve already considered blaming someone who’s dead?” Sam asked. “God knows, there must be enough of them.”
Joseph smiled, aware of the irony. “Yes, I thought of it. But I wouldn’t have much chance of getting away with it if I don’t have any idea what actually happened. Punch Fuller might be able to tell me that.”
Sam rolled his eyes very slightly. “Come on, Joe! If he does, it’ll be in the nature of a confession! You won’t be able to use it. For God’s sake, have a little sense!”
“I won’t be able to use it to prove anything,” Joseph agreed with a pained smile. “But then I really don’t want to!”
Sam’s eyebrows rose.
“Don’t you? You’ll let them get away with murdering an officer because they think he’s incompetent! God, you have changed!”
Joseph realized with a sense of amazement that in spite of the mockery, the chaffing, and the laughter, Sam wanted Joseph to cling to his belief. That he didn’t share it, or professed not to, was irrelevant. Perhaps as long as Joseph did, Sam felt there was something certain. As a last resort, something to trust. When everything else was destroyed, then perhaps it would stand.
Maybe that was what a chaplain’s job really was—not to teach others to believe, but to be seen to believe oneself. To stand not so much for a specific faith, but for the endurance of faith, for its power to outlast everything else. He must do it now, a gift for Sam, after all he had taken away from him.
“It’s a matter of weighing one loyalty against another,” he began delicately. “It’s a matter of the men’s loyalty to each other, after three years in the trenches living together, and before this is over, dying together. Weigh that against Northrup’s answering for the truth of his incompetence, and I’m not so certain whoever did it was wrong that I’d be willing to force the issue and see them hang for it. Especially now. You may not know it here in Paris, but the whole of the British line is too close to mutiny to stomach a glaring injustice like that. I don’t know if I’m right, Sam. There are a lot of things I don’t feel so sure of that I’d ask another man to pay the price of it. I’ll pay it myself. I want to know what happened. When I do, I’ll go back and tell Colonel Hook—and General Northrup, if he wants to know.”
“Are you sure the dead officer was an idiot, more than most?” Sam asked thoughtfully.
“I am. I saw some of his handiwork myself. Nigel Eardslie died as a result of it. Edgar Morel is ready to lead a mutiny, I think.”
Sam smiled and his eyes were surprisingly bright. “I apologize. You haven’t changed. Just a little more complex, that’s all. You’ll make a regular Jesuit, if you survive the war.”
“Jesuits are Catholic,” Joseph pointed out, but a tiny flicker of warmth was back inside him. “Can you help me find Punch Fuller? You must know Paris a hell of a lot better than I do. Have you got people I can ask? I haven’t much longer to look.”
Sam sat still for several moments before he answered. “Yes, there’s someone I can ask,” he said at last. “If I tell her you need to know for a good reason, she’ll help. But you’ll have to trust me, Joe. No questions, nothing reported to anyone, not to prove a point, not even to save a man’s life. There are far more lives hanging on it. Your word?”
“My word,” Joseph agreed, holding Sam’s gaze.
Sam considered the absinthe for a moment, and decided against it. He put a few coins on the counter, then stood up, and Joseph followed him out of the club and up the narrow steps into the street. It was dark and still raining very slightly, a sort of drifting mist that covered everything with a sheen that gleamed bright and wet in the few lights that were still on.
“You all right to walk?” Sam asked quietly. “It’s mostly alleys. We need to cross the river.”
“Of course I’m all right to walk!” Joseph said tartly, but without ill temper. “Carry you, if you need it!”
“We have some problems,” Sam said cheerfully, his voice on the edge of laughter in the dark. “Don’t always know who our friends are. Keep up, and say nothing.”
They went together through the old part of the city, along alleys and byways that predated Napoleon’s grand redesign—places that echoed to the footsteps of revolutionaries, and had run with blood then. Now they held the furtive whispers of different secrets, fears, and griefs.
They crossed the river to the Ile de la Cite. The rain had eased, and the water glistened in the faint moonlight. A string of barges was black on its shining surface. Everything was wet. A thin strain of a saxophone drifted and was lost. Someone laughed.
Sam spoke to someone, their voice murmuring, and a few minutes later they crossed the river at the far side onto the left bank. There were more whispered exchanges with people, sometimes no more than a few words.
It must have been after two in the morning when at last Sam led the way down steep flagged steps into a cellar. One flame burned in a glass lamp, leaving most of the room in shadows.
“Monique?” he said in little more than a whisper.
She answered him in French, only one word to acknowledge that she was there. Joseph, straining his eyes to discern through the shadows, was certain there was at least one more person there.
“We need to find a British soldier,” Sam told the woman and whoever it was beside her. “This is Chaplain Joseph Reavley. I’ve known him since ’fifteen. You can trust him.”
“Deserter?” Monique asked. “If so, I’m surprised you came. I can’t do that, and you know it. Not when he has information about German plans. Sapper, is he?”
Joseph drew in his breath to speak, then remembered he had promised Sam to remain silent.
“Knows the truth of an execution,” Sam replied. “Wants to avoid the wrong man going to the firing squad. Better right now if no one does. Man from a Cambridgeshire regiment—name of Punch Fuller. On leave in Paris right now.”
The woman turned to look very carefully at Joseph, moving the light closer, studying his face. He did not avert his gaze but looked back at her. She was beautiful, in a soft, intense way, with a strong nose, wide, gentle mouth. Her cloud of dark hair accentuated the pallor of her skin and the shadows around her eyes.
She turned back to Sam. “You swear for him?”
Sam did not hesitate. “Yes.”
Monique turned to the man beside her and for a moment the light swayed a little toward him. Joseph had a glimpse of wide, light gray eyes and a thin face of extraordinary intelligence; then Monique moved the light away and everything became indistinct again.
“If he is still in Paris, we’ll find him,” Monique answered. “Have lunch in the Cafe Parnasse at one o’clock.”
Sam thanked her and took Joseph by the elbow, leading him back up the steps into the street again. “Where are you staying?” he asked.
Joseph told him.
“I’ll take you back close enough for you to find your way. The Cafe Parnasse is in the Rue Mazarin, near the river. Be there. That’s the best I can do for you.”
“Thank you.”
Sam did not ask him what he would do if he discovered Punch Fuller was involved with the murder of Northrup. It was a delicate balance between them, understood that even if he were, Joseph would not instigate any
