Joseph spoke to the first officer he met, a good-looking young man with dark hair brushed back off his brow, deep-set eyes, and a shy smile. At the moment he had a pipe clamped between his teeth.
“Lost, Padre?” he said, looking at Joseph’s dog collar and squinting a little in the sun. “Or are you an answer to someone’s prayer?”
“I doubt it!” Joseph answered drily. “At the moment, I’m looking to receive help rather than give it.”
The man extended his hand. “Captain Jones-Williams.”
“Captain Reavley.” Joseph shook the offered hand.
“What can we do for you, Captain Reavley? Looking for a trip up to find God?” Jones-Williams gestured into the milky blue of the sky.
“Actually I’d settle for eleven escaped prisoners,” Joseph replied with a rueful shrug. “Sounds a little disrespectful, but I’ve got a few things to do before I meet God. Not really ready for that yet.”
Jones-Williams laughed outright. “A priest who’d rather find eleven escaped prisoners than find God is worth getting to know. Will any eleven do, or do you have a particular set in mind?”
“Sorry, I have a very particular set in mind,” Joseph replied. “They were held in a farmhouse just this side of Passchendaele, and—”
Jones-Williams’s face was suddenly desperately grave. “From that poor bloody regiment that’s being slaughtered? Can’t you let ’em go? Turn a blind eye? Wouldn’t your faith allow you that much mercy?”
“They’ve been accused of mutiny and the murder of an officer, Captain.”
“Sorry, old fellow,” Jones-Williams said with a brief smile. “We’re pretty shorthanded ourselves. Lost quite a few lately. Got to keep what we have for taking a look at Jerry and what he’s up to. Can see troop movements quite well from up there. I’d give it up, if I were you.”
Joseph knew exactly why the captain was refusing, and he understood the pity and the revulsion behind it. He liked the man the more for it. “That’s not the whole picture,” he said, meeting his companion’s eyes. “They would be fugitives for the rest of their lives. Never go home again. And I think all but one of them are innocent. I want to give them the chance to come back and clear their names.”
“Of murder and mutiny?” Jones-Williams’s eyebrows rose in disbelief. “They’ll shoot them. They’ll have no choice.”
“I think the officer’s father, who is a general, might push pretty hard to get the charge withdrawn.”
“Really?” Jones-Williams still looked skeptical.
“A capital charge has to be pretty thoroughly proved,” Joseph pointed out, “and the defendants given every opportunity to put their case.”
The drone of an airplane broke the silence above, sounding like an angry insect. Automatically Joseph glanced upward as it made its way lower and sank toward the airfield, sputtering now and then.
Jones-Williams chewed his pipe stem a moment. “I’d have thought in this instance those two were rather the same. Their defense that the man was an ass, and a dangerous one at that, gives the prosecution their motive on a plate. Doesn’t excuse shooting him, though, even to save their own lives. On that score they could get rid of half the officers we’ve got!”
“Thing is,” Joseph went on thoughtfully, “General Northrup won’t enjoy having the court-martial drag out and prove each point of his son’s incompetence, and exactly how many men were maimed or killed because of it. Even the surgeon, Captain Cavan, soon to be V.C., felt no alternative but to put him on trial.”
The plane landed at last, and Joseph felt his shoulders ease with relief that it was safe.
Jones-Williams took the pipe out of his mouth. “So what do you want from us? A lift as far as possible along the line to look for them?”
“That’s exactly what I’d like. I realize it’s only a chance I’ll find them, but it’s worth a try. You’d better see my authority.” He fished in his pocket for the paper.
“What?”
Joseph smiled. “Well, I could be a deserter looking for a damn good start eastward myself!”
“No point. Your dog collar could be real or not, but at your age you could reasonably beg out anyway.”
Joseph winced. “Depends how desperate we are. You won’t have them in the R.F.C., but we have fourteen- year-olds in the army. Lied about their age, of course, but we know. Sooner or later they say something that gives them away.” He stopped abruptly.
“That was a bit tactless of me,” Jones-Williams said by way of apology. “Come on and I’ll find you someone to take you up for a look, and drop you off as near to the Swiss border as you think you want.” He turned and sauntered over toward the line of hangars beyond the smaller buildings of offices and control tower.
Joseph followed him, catching up quickly. He glanced once at the three planes drawn up on the strip, including the one just landed.
“Take you in something much bigger than those,” Jones-Williams said cheerfully. “Two-seater. One of the observation planes. Keep low much of the time. Hedgehopping, we call it. D’you know how these fellows of yours went? Got a car or anything?”
“On foot, at least to begin with,” Joseph replied.
“Won’t have got far, then. Hey, Vine!” he called to a slender young man in R.F.C. uniform, goggles and scarf around his neck, flying jacket slung over his shoulder and helmet swinging from his hand.
“Yes, sir?” Vine paused a few yards away from them, more or less to attention.
“Chaplain here is from the army,” Jones-Williams explained. “He’s looking for a hand to find a few fellows gone AWOL. He thinks if they come back they’ll have a chance of doing better than if they keep on running. Wouldn’t like to take him along the lines a bit, would you?”
“Of course,” Vine agreed obligingly, turning to look at Joseph curiously. “How far, Chaplain?”
“Until you find them. Or Switzerland,” Jones-Williams said cheerfully. “Good. All set then.” He turned to Joseph. “Come and have a cup of tea. Officers’ mess is over there. We’ll find you some decent goggles and a jacket. Chilly up there. Vine will come for you when he’s all ready.”
“Thank you.” Joseph found himself off balance with the speed of the decision, but he could not afford to question it. He thanked Vine again, and followed Jones-Williams over to the low, rather rambling buildings at the side. He felt grateful now for time to prepare himself for the flight.
But all the imagination of his life was futile compared with the reality. First there was climbing up onto the wing and into the small seat and fastening the harness to hold him in. The engine was started with a tremendous roar, then a moment later the tiny, frail craft went racing over the grass, bumping on every tussock, before lifting off jerkily. The plane bucked slightly, catching the light wind and clearing the neighboring stand of trees by what felt like no more than a few feet.
It was an appalling sensation, being out of touch with the earth—and apparently completely out of control. Joseph felt he was a prisoner.
He was sitting behind the pilot. A lightweight machine gun—a Lewis gun, to be precise—was mounted beside him. He had been told cheerfully that it was just in case they should meet any opposition.
They seemed to veer around quite badly as they gained height. Joseph had the very alarming feeling that he could be pitched out any moment and find himself falling through the air. Was he high enough up that it would kill him outright? Or might he be left broken but alive? Why on earth could he not have left well enough alone and stayed on the ground?
Then there was the question of keeping his stomach in place.
They were a few hundred feet up now and steadying. He could see nothing but trees slightly below him. The airfield and control tower were somewhere over to the left.
He steeled himself to look down, afraid of an overpowering sense of vertigo, but below him and stretching into the distance he saw a landscape that took his breath away. There was a strip of desolation a few miles wide, ruined, it would seem, beyond recall. It was cratered with shell holes that steamed in the August warmth—or perhaps it was poison gas that curled yellow-white in the hollows.
Blasted tree trunks poked up here and there. The wreckage of vehicles and guns was easy to see by outline rather than any difference in color. Everything was gray-brown, leached of life. Shape also distinguished the corpses of men and horses, too many to count. From up here the sheer enormity of it was overwhelming. So many dead, enough men to populate cities, and all destroyed.
Faint sunlight gleamed on the watery surfaces of trenches in recognizably straight lines, zigzagged to block the lines of fire. Two long stretches were waterlogged, like some gray mire, dotted with corpses.
