he had lost all touch with reality.
Any day now they would lose the battle of Passchendaele, and the whole Western Front could buckle and break apart. The last thing on earth the army needed was an idiotic prosecution of one of its few heroes still alive.
Then suddenly he saw General Northrup as an old man, perhaps in years not more than fifty, but worn out in heart and mind, trying to keep up a belief in his son that he knew was false. He might deceive others, or they might concede to his view out of fear or respect—or more than that, pity—but in the end he would be left alone with the truth. He faced forward and he spoke of duty because it was the only road he had left in a world that was slipping away from him and taking with it all that he had believed in.
“Yes, sir,” Joseph said gently. “I think all the men are trying to do what they think is right. When you are facing death it becomes terribly important. There isn’t going to be time to try again.”
Northrup stared at him, blinking rapidly several times. “What are you saying, Captain Reavley? That there is some kind of justice other than a court-martial?”
“I am saying that the men are afraid that finding Captain Cavan and the other men guilty of murder, and having them shot, will damage morale more seriously than we can survive, sir, and may even give the Germans the chance to break through and run for Paris. We have fought too long and too hard, and lost too many of our friends, for that.”
“Take an easy way,” Northrup retorted, his eyes never leaving Joseph’s. “A wrong way, because we cannot face the enemy and stand for what we believe, for justice, and the rule of law, and each man to account for his own sins? Is that what you are saying?”
“No way is easy, sir,” Joseph answered him. “And who judges what is a sin, and who is responsible for it? It is seldom only one of us at fault over anything.”
Northrup shifted his weight slightly, his eyes hard and troubled. He seemed about to challenge what Joseph had said as soon as he found the words for it.
“War strips a man naked of all the ideas his brain was taught, but didn’t really believe,” Joseph went on. He was compelled to argue, just in case there was still a chance Northrup could plead for Cavan, and the other men if they were caught. It might be hopeless, but he could not stop trying. “These men, ultimately, were loyal to each other, and to the will to win rather than to blind obedience.”
Northrup’s lips were pressed tight. His eyes reflected his racing mind, and emotion filled his face, the confusion and pressure of anger and doubt inside him. Still he could not find the words.
“Legally, Major Northrup was in the right,” Joseph began again. “He was the senior officer, and that gave him the power to command, whether his orders were brilliant or suicidal. But it did not make him militarily right. The men who obeyed were legally correct, and then obedience caused some of them to be killed or mutilated. Those who disobeyed are alive, but it looks as if we ourselves will kill them. And in doing so we will destroy the trust and the morale of those who look to us to lead, because they have no other choice.”
Northrup was shivering very slightly; it was just a tic in his right temple, a tremor in his hands.
“With being an officer comes the duty to be right,” Joseph added, knowing what he was doing to the man in front of him. “To put your men’s lives before your own vanity. In peacetime you can order obedience, regardless of your own qualities, but in war you have to earn respect. Moral courage is required as well as physical—the more so of officers.”
Northrup lowered his eyes. “You have no need to labor the point, Captain. I have been obliged to accept that my son’s qualities fell short of the command he held, and that the army offered his men no recourse but to obey or rebel.” He stood almost motionless. “And I am accountable to God for whatever part of his character made him refuse to be guided by junior men who knew better from experience. If he was weak, that was my failure—perhaps more than it was his. Perhaps I allowed him to believe that being in command is a matter of rank, not of knowing your job, or that honor is what other men say of you, not what is true even when you stand alone. If that is so, then I will answer to God, and to my son, but I will not answer to you, sir.” He blinked rapidly, his face flushed and his eyes bright with tears.
Joseph ached, almost physically, to find anything to say that could comfort him. The only way to ease the pain would be to deny the truth of his part in the private tragedy of a son who had proved unequal to the final test.
“In the end it is only God’s judgment that matters for any of us,” Joseph said. “And it looks as if the end could be rather soon.”
Northrup drew in his breath sharply as if to deny it, then let it out in a sigh and said nothing. He seemed drained of everything inside himself, as if only a shell were left which kept up the facade as an act of will. If he had been wrong and, without realizing it at the time, destroyed the son he had loved, in his own way, then at least he would not now lose the only virtue of which he was certain: courage.
“I am sure you have duties, Captain. Thank you for your time.”
Joseph accepted the dismissal, saluted, and turned to leave.
Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner arrived before sunset, as he had said he would. Joseph did not see him, but he heard the comments of the men.
“Looks loike one o’ them guard dogs who can’t find his dinner,” Alf Culshaw said sourly. “Reckon we’re it!”
Barshey Gee shook his head and winced. He had a heavy bandage on his right arm, but the wound was not serious enough to send him off the front line. “Why is it they send the decent blokes up here with the guns to shoot at Jerry, poor sod, and keep the real bastards back o’ the lines to shoot at us? Who thought that up, d’you suppose?”
“Some bloke as thought up hard rations an’ Sunday drills and…” Snowy offered.
“An’ his Ma must’ve knitted moi socks!” George Atherton added with his characteristic jerky laugh. “Got more lumps in ’em than Lofty’s porridge.”
“That’s what Oi’d loike,” Barshey said longingly, his eyes dreamy. “A noice hot bowl o’ porridge, with sugar an’ the top o’ the milk on it.”
George threw a dollop of mud at him.
Bert Collins arrived to tell Joseph that Colonel Hook wanted to see him. He pulled his face into an expression of disgust. “An’ the new man, sir, Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner. You’ll know which one he is, sir, ’cos he looked like he just ate a wasp, ’cept it’s too wet for wasps. If it don’t stop soddin’ rainin’ soon we’ll all drown. What I want to know, Chaplain, is why aren’t you buildin’ an ark, eh?”
“No wood,” Joseph said with a tight smile. “And no animals to put in it.”
“An’ no women,” Barshey added. “Koind of more loike no point!”
Several of them laughed.
Joseph followed Bert Collins back to the command post, and went into the small room with its bare floor and sparse furniture. It smelled of damp, like everything else. He stood to attention and waited.
Hook was freshly shaved, a nick on his cheek still oozing a little blood. His uniform was comparatively clean, no more than a couple of bloodstains on the arms and mud splattered up to the thigh. He had probably worn it no more than a day.
Beside him was Faulkner. He had very short, fair hair and a thin, powerful face that seemed all brow and bone. And yet it was not a face without imagination or a degree of emotion. His uniform was immaculate, tailored to fit his square shoulders and lean body.
“Captain Reavley,” Hook began, his voice formal, a warning in his eyes. “This is Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner, who is going to be prosecuting the case against the men accused of shooting Major Northrup.”
“Yes, sir,” Joseph acknowledged.
“As you are aware, we presently have in custody only one of those men.”
Faulkner made a noise in the back of his throat. It was wordless, but his disgust was as plain as if he had spoken.
“Unless we can find those who have escaped within the next two days, we are going to have to delay the court-martial—” Hook began.
“We can try Captain Cavan,” Faulkner interrupted. “And we can try the others in absentia for desertion. There can be no question as to their guilt of that.”
“No, we will not try Captain Cavan separately,” Hook said curtly. “And we will not try the other men for
