cramped but comparatively safe under the ground. Gas was the worst threat because it was heavy and sank into any crater or hole. But it was unlikely to land this far back.
Just before he reached his dugout he met Major Penhaligon, his immediate commander. Penhaligon was about thirty, eight years younger than Joseph, but today he looked harassed and hollow-eyed. He had cut his cheek shaving and not had time to deal with it. A smear of dried blood marked his skin.
“Ah, Reavley,” he said, stepping in front of Joseph. “How’s Snowy Nunn? Did you see him? That was too bad. Tucky was one of the best.”
Tucky’s cheerful face was as clear in Joseph’s mind as it must have been in Snowy’s. They were alike, with blunt features and fair hair, but Tucky had had the confidence, the brash good humor, always ready to seize a chance for anything. He had been wiser than some men thought him, steadier in a crisis. He had helped Joseph more than once with a word of advice, a well-timed joke, an earthy sanity that reminded men of home, laughter, the things that were worth loving.
“Yes, sir,” Joseph replied. Death was death. It should not be harder for one than another, but it was. “Snowy’s taking it badly.”
Penhaligon had no idea what to say, and it showed in his eyes. He felt it his duty to try; both brothers were his men. He struggled through the weariness and the knowledge of the campaign ahead of them for something to say that would help.
It was Joseph’s job to break the news of loss to people, and think of a way to make it endurable when they would never really get over it, without unintentionally sounding as if he neither understood nor cared. It was his job to steady the panic, create courage out of terror, help men believe there was a purpose to all of this when none of them had any idea if there really was. He had no right to leave it to Penhaligon.
“I talked to him,” he said. “He’ll be all right. Give him a little while, but…keep him busy.” Should he say more, ask Penhaligon to give Snowy some duty that would guard him from Morel’s path?
“We’ll all be busy soon enough,” Penhaligon said with a twist of his mouth. “There’s going to be a pretty big push forward, starting in a day or so.”
“They’ve been saying that ever since the spring,” Joseph replied truthfully.
“Mean it this time,” Penhaligon told him, his eyes steady, trying to see if Joseph understood him beyond the mere words. “Afraid you’ll have a lot to do.”
The morning sun was hot already, but Joseph was chilled inside. He wanted to tell Penhaligon that the men were not ready, some of them not even willing anymore. He had no idea how many others there were like Morel.
Joseph became aware that Penhaligon was watching him, expecting him to speak. He wanted to warn him about Morel, but he had given his word that it ranked as a confession and was sacred. But Penhaligon was commanding a unit with an officer in it who was trying to subvert the entire campaign. Did what Joseph had overheard amount to mutiny? Or was it still only an exaggerated example of the kind of grumbling that was everywhere? The men were exhausted, emotionally and physically—and casualties were almost uncountable. What man of any spirit at all would not question the sanity of this, and think of rebelling against a useless death?
“Chaplain?” Penhaligon prompted him. “Is there something else?”
“No, sir,” Joseph said decisively. Morel had not spoken of any specific intent, simply complained of the violent senselessness of it all. Men had to be free to do that. Even if he thought of anything like refusing to obey an order, he was a Lancashire man born and bred, the Cambridgeshires would never follow him against other Englishmen. “Just thinking about what lies ahead, that’s all.”
Penhaligon smiled bleakly. “It’ll cost us a bit, but apparently it’ll be a real strategic advantage if we take Passchendaele. Damned if I know why. Just one more wretched hell, as far as I can see.”
Joseph did not answer.
The advance began the next morning, July 31. Judith Reavley stood with the men eating their last hot breakfast before the ration parties returned. Her stomach, like theirs, burned with hot tea and the fire of a tot of rum. At ten minutes to four, half an hour before the summer sunrise, the whistles blew and she watched in awe and misery as almost a million men moved forward over the plowed and torn-up fields, slick with mud after the occasional drizzle of the last few days. They threw up pontoons over the canals and poured across the water and up the other side. They moved on through the few still-standing copses of trees and small woods. The noise of guns was deafening and murderous fire mowed down whole platoons, tearing them apart, gouging up the earth.
By midmorning it began to rain in earnest, and a mist descended so that even four or five hundred yards away she could see that the outline of Kitchener’s Wood was no more than a smudge in the gloom.
Two hours later she was struggling to drive her ambulance over the sodden, rutted land to get it as close as she could to the makeshift first aid post to which the wounded were being carried. The road was bombed out and there was nothing but a track left. The shelling was very heavy and in the rain the mud was getting worse. The heavy clouds made it gray in spite of it being close to midday. She was afraid of being bogged down, or even tipping sideways into a crater and breaking an axle. It took all the strength she had to wrestle with the wheel and to peer through the murk to see where she was going.
Beside her was Wil Sloan, the young American who had volunteered at the beginning of the war, long before his country had joined only a matter of months ago. He had left his hometown in the Midwest and hitched a ride on the railroad to the East Coast. From there he had worked to earn his passage across the Atlantic. Once in England he had offered his time—his life, if need be—to help the troops in any way he could. He was not the only one. Judith had met several American drivers and medical orderlies like Wil, and nurses like Marie O’Day, doctors, even soldiers who had enlisted in the British Army, simply because they believed it was right.
Since January America itself had joined the Allies, but there were no American forces in this stretch of the line.
She knew there were shadows in Wil’s life. His blazing temper had run out of control more than once before, and had finally forced him to leave his home. He had never told her how serious the breach had been, but he had hinted at it. Perhaps because they were close enough friends that honesty compelled him, he could not pose to her as an unblemished hero.
Now he was sitting beside her, calling out warning and encouragement alternately as they bucked and slewed over the rough ground, trying to discern through the mist and rain where to stop for the wounded.
“There!” he shouted, pointing to what looked like a level spot slightly below a rise in the slope. There was a mound of some sort, and a man standing near it, waving his arms.
“Right!” she answered, but her voice was drowned by a shell exploding fifty yards away, sending mud and earth up like a gout of water. The debris fell on them, battering the roof and sides of the ambulance and flying in, striking both of them through the open part of the front above the windshield and the door.
She kept on with her hand on the accelerator. There was nothing to gain, or lose, by stopping before they reached the post. Finally she slithered to a halt, a few yards short of the level she had been aiming for. Almost immediately a soldier was beside her, shouting something she could barely hear, and gesticulating behind him.
Wil leaped out and splashed through the mud and rain to start helping the first wounded into the back. He would take only those too badly injured to walk. They could carry five, maybe six at the most. God only knew how many there were. He could do something to stanch bleeding—pack a wound, put on a tourniquet—but that was about all. If an artery was lacerated very often a man bled to death and there was little anyone could do about it. But if a limb was torn off completely, the artery constricted and the blood loss was far less. If they could prevent him dying of shock, there was a good chance of saving him.
Now Judith kept the engine running while Wil and several other men loaded in the wounded. As soon as they gave the signal, she could turn and begin the difficult journey back to the nearest clearing station. She had already made two trips, and she would go on as long as she could, all day and all night if necessary. She did not think that far ahead. One ambulance had been blown to pieces already today, killing everyone in it, and a crater had broken both axles of another.
Wil shouted and she felt the jolt as the door was slammed shut. She moved her hand and accelerated. The wheels spun, sending mud flying. She tried again, and again, then reversed before she could get them to grip.
The journey back was a nightmare. Twice, shells exploded close enough to them to batter them with debris. Once they got stuck, and Wil and the two injured who could stand had to get out to lighten the weight. By the time they reached the clearing station, one of the wounded men was dead. Wil had done everything he could, but it was not enough.
