Cavan stared at him. “I suppose you want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Where would we get blanks?” There was the faintest smile in Cavan’s eyes. “The army supplies only live ammunition.”
“You wouldn’t get it from supplies,” Joseph pointed out. “You’d use a pair of pliers to take the heads off live bullets, then crimp the casing closed again.”
“Make our own blanks. Yes, I suppose we would.”
“It would be a bit rash to leave anyone to simply to shoot wide,” Joseph said, not taking his eyes from Cavan’s. “It would be so easy for someone to make a mistake and shoot the man accidentally. You’d be lucky if you ever found out who it was—or unlucky.”
“Yes, it would be rash,” Cavan agreed. “Neither I nor Morel are rash. The two of us blanked the bullets ourselves.”
“So someone changed theirs for a live one.” It was the unavoidable answer: deliberate murder.
“Must have.”
“But you have no idea who?”
“No. Honestly, I haven’t. I don’t believe it was Morel, but I don’t know. I’m sure I didn’t, and ten of the others didn’t.”
Joseph believed him. He had never thought him guilty of anything but wanting to frighten Northrup into taking advice in order to cut down on the useless deaths. And now, of course, of refusing to betray whoever had rescued the others.
“Why didn’t you escape, when you could?” he asked curiously, shifting position a little on the hard floor.
“I couldn’t,” Cavan said with the very slightest shrug. “I’d given my word.”
Joseph understood. An officer’s word was binding. “And the others?”
“I didn’t give my word not to help anyone else escape.” Cavan smiled.
Joseph had to ask. “Morel?” He was an officer, too.
“Refused,” Cavan answered. “They put him in with the men. Six in one room, five in the other. That left me alone in here.”
“So you helped them, and stayed behind?”
“Yes.” Cavan’s face was suddenly filled with emotion, as if a crippling restraint on him had momentarily broken. “Speak for them, Captain Reavley. Northrup was a dangerous man, weak and arrogant. Even when he knew he was wrong, he wouldn’t listen. The men were at the end of their endurance. Someone had to act.” His voice was urgent, pleading. “It was only meant to frighten him into listening. They weren’t bad men, just desperate to save their friends.”
“I know,” Joseph said softly. “I come from the same village. I’ve known a lot of those men all their lives. Morel was one of my students in Cambridge.” He took a deep breath. “Judith is my sister.”
Cavan closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were bright and sad, but he said nothing.
A moment later the guard opened the door again. When he saw that Joseph’s shoulder was apparently mended, he took him back to his own room.
In the middle of the afternoon Joseph was released and escorted to Colonel Hook in his dugout.
“Sit down!” Hook said impatiently. He looked as if he had slept little since the last time they had been here. “Don’t stand at attention like a fool! Faulkner’s gone, at least for the moment.”
Joseph obeyed, sitting on an old ammunition box. “Is he still insisting on court-martialing Captain Cavan alone?”
“I’ve managed to prevent that, at least for a week or two,” Hook replied. “He thinks we can find out how they escaped.”
Joseph’s stomach clenched. Did he already suspect someone? “Really?” he said huskily. “How?”
Hook gave a little jerk upward with his hands. It was angry, a denial. “He doesn’t know the men. No one is going to tell him anything. Did you see Cavan in the farmhouse?”
“Yes. I don’t know whether he knows or not, but if he does, he certainly isn’t going to say.”
“I don’t imagine you asked him, did you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Could you have escaped?” Hook regarded him curiously.
“No…but I didn’t try.”
“I’m asking you, officially, to try now.”
“Officially?” Joseph wanted to be quite clear.
“Yes.” Hook gave a very slight smile, so small it could even have been an illusion of the light.
“Yes, sir. Of course.” Joseph stood up from the ammunition box. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”
“Oh, don’t wait that long, Reavley. Tell me in a couple of days. I’ll tell Faulkner.”
“Yes, sir.” Joseph went to the step, then with one hand on the sacking he turned back. “Only one of them is guilty, you know. There were eleven blanks and one live round.”
“We don’t have blanks,” Hook pointed out.
“They made their own. It’s simple enough. The others are innocent.”
“Not innocent,” Hook said with a grimace. “Guilty of insubordination, not murder. But I’m glad to hear that.”
“It makes a difference, sir. If they were tried and found guilty of insubordination, it might be a matter you could deal with. No need to take it higher. All inside the regiment?”
“That isn’t going to help whoever sprang them out of custody, Reavley. Faulkner will still want them court- martialed. And probably shot.”
Joseph felt the cold hurt tighten in his stomach again. “I realize that, sir. I imagine it will be very difficult indeed to find out who they are. Practically impossible.”
“Still, we must oblige Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner. Attend to it, Reavley. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir.” Joseph went out, praying that the good luck he would have would be a complete and total failure to find any proof whatsoever.
It was difficult even to find a man he could decently ask about the escape. It was not merely that no one wished to help find the men themselves; they were even less eager to add to the general misery by exposing whoever had been clever enough, and above all brave enough, to free them. Everyone was overwhelmed by the continuing battle for Passchendaele. The losses mounted, not in twos or threes but in dozens, too often scores. Sometimes the rain eased, but it always came back again until the trenches were like canals; shell craters were deep enough to drown a man and often did; and running water gouged out channels down every incline so savage they would sweep a man off his feet.
Joseph carried stretchers, when there were any, men on his back when that was all there was. As always, he did what he could for the dying and the dead. There was little enough time to think of anything else.
Still, as discreetly as he could, he began to find out where different people had been on the night of the escape. He did not begin with Judith, aware that Faulkner might follow his steps. What he could learn, so could others.
He hoped he could find that she had been miles away, with a dozen witnesses—perhaps other officers new to the area and who had no personal stake in the escape. He sensed the anger as he asked, the suspicious looks, the reluctance to answer. Men stopped talking when he approached; shaggy-dog jokes died halfway through. They did not offer him the usual tea—or Woodbines, even though they knew he did not smoke.
Most men simply said they had no idea of Judith’s whereabouts. Others had observed her in at least half a dozen different places at the time of the escape, all miles from the farmhouse. She and Wil Sloan were the only ones about whom such a variety of lies were sworn to. All other V.A.D. staff were in one place only.
These men were not very sophisticated liars. If Joseph could follow that trail so easily, so could Faulkner, once he thought where to look. Then there was only one possible end: Wil and Judith would be arrested and charged. All the lies in the world would not help, because the truth was obvious. He had thought only a little while ago that it was someone extremely clever; now he thought perhaps only supremely brave, and trusting in the loyalty of the men. The guards might even have been party to it.
