There was little light in the sky and it was several moments before Morel was even certain that the man they had spotted was Geddes. He waited, watching as the man looked one way then the other, preparing to settle himself for a brief rest. His face was haggard, stubble growth on his cheeks. He could easily have been what he pretended: shell-shocked, exhausted, terrified because he could not hear.
Deliberately Morel tapped his boot on the stone lintel of what was left of the house. The man spun around, facing the last of the light from the fading west. He saw only Morel’s outline in the archless doorway. There was a second when he was uncertain what to do. His movement had betrayed that he could hear. That ruse was lost to him. He could not recognize Morel, who was deliberately standing with his back to the light, and one hand near his hip where a gun would have been—had he still had one.
Joseph was at the far side, closer to Geddes. When he saw Morel nod, he moved to stand close enough to Geddes that he could push a small piece of wood into his side, like the barrel of a gun. “Don’t move, Geddes,” he said quietly. “I’d rather deal with you alive, but if need be, dead will serve.”
Geddes froze. He might not have known Joseph’s voice, but the fact that he had spoken to him in English was sufficient.
Morel strode forward and took the piece of wood. “Thank you,” he said easily. “Now I think we should all start off home while it’s still dark. It’s a long hike. But as long as we make the lines before dawn, we have as good a chance as we’ll get.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Geddes said flatly. “Shoot me if you want to.”
Morel was not in the least perturbed. “Actually I do rather want to,” he said quite lightly. “If you hadn’t shot and killed Northrup, we wouldn’t all have this present spot of bother. What the hell did you do that for? We could have made our point without hurting him.”
“Maybe you could,” Geddes said sullenly. “What about the poor bloody soldiers he was going to order into the next stupid piece of action? Wouldn’t be you, would it, Major! Your skin’s safe.”
“Not now, it isn’t,” Morel answered. “But a little testimony from you would help.”
Geddes sat down deliberately. “Too bad.” His sneer was visible in the half-light. “Because I’m staying here. Shoot me, if that’s what you want. It won’t get you anything—no testimony, no defense. Please yourself.”
“I wasn’t thinking of shooting you to death,” Morel told him. “Something rather more painful, but not fatal—at least not yet.”
Geddes was motionless. When he spoke, his voice wobbled a little. “You wouldn’t…”
“The Chaplain might not,” Morel admitted. “But I would. The way I see it, Geddes, it’s your life or mine. And not only mine, but Cavan’s and all the others’. Put like that, and you bloody bet I would!”
“If you get me back, what makes you think I’ll tell the truth?” Geddes stayed where he was, but there was no ease in his body now. His back was stiff and the muscles were corded in his neck. “I could say it was you! More than that, I could tell them how we got out of that farmhouse.” His smile widened a little. “I could tell them all about that nice V.A.D. driver who rescued us and her Yank friend. Do you want to see them shot, too? And make no mistake, they would be. Can’t have V.A.D.s deciding who faces court-martial and who doesn’t!” He turned slowly to peer at Joseph in the near dark. “Isn’t that right, Chaplain? You’d better go while you can. You’re in enemy territory!”
Did he know Judith was Joseph’s sister? Probably. The enormity of the situation washed over Joseph like a cold tide. What had he been thinking to imagine they could get Geddes home and that he would simply confess rather than take as many people down with him as he could? He was desperate—a murderer, a mutineer, and now a deserter as well. He had nothing to lose. If he were to survive at all, it would have to be this side of the lines.
“Maybe you can’t see it in this light,” Joseph said quietly, hating doing it. “But we are dressed as Swiss priests. We both speak German. You don’t, and you are in German uniform. Who do you think the Germans will believe if we’re caught?”
Morel did not move. Geddes sat still on the floor.
Outside, a car engine rumbled in the distance. They were not far from the road.
Geddes cleared his throat. “You wouldn’t do that, Chaplain. Isn’t that against your oath or something?”
“You’re planning to let Cavan be shot for your crime if we don’t get back, and to betray the V.A.D. who helped you if we do. What do you think, Geddes?” he asked.
“You tell the Germans who I am, I’ll tell them who you are,” Geddes replied, sitting a little more upright
The red in the wash was fading to pink and the shadows were impenetrable.
Joseph changed direction. “Why did you kill Northrup, anyway? You’ve made it very clear you don’t give a damn about the lives of your fellows, so it can’t be that, which is almost the only thing that would be understandable. What is it? Money? Hate? Stupidity?”
“Because he deserved it!” Geddes snarled. “He was an arrogant, incompetent fool as an officer, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. Always had to do it his way, even if it cost other men’s lives.” He was facing Joseph now, ignoring Morel. “But I know more about him than you do. Scare the hell out of him, he still wouldn’t have learned.” He jerked his arm toward Morel. “They all thought you could talk sense into him. I know better. He was born that way. His father thought the sun shone out of his ass, indulged him rotten, let him do any damn thing he wanted. Lorded it over the rest of the village, ran up debts, then when he hadn’t the guts to admit it to his father, lied in his teeth.”
Joseph did not interrupt. Geddes’s voice had the bitter ring of truth—at least the truth as he saw it and felt it burning like acid inside him.
“He ruined my father that way,” Geddes went on. “My father trusted him, the more fool he. I could’ve told him Northrup was a liar and a coward, but he wouldn’t hear ill of the old general’s son. Cost him his house. Our house!”
“So Northrup dies a hero, shot by mutineers, and Cavan goes to the firing squad for it,” Joseph said with equal bitterness. “Who was it you said was the fool?”
Geddes was silent.
“You’ll not make it here,” Joseph went on. “You’ll starve, if they don’t shoot you as a spy first. Nobody likes spies. They might question you a bit first, to see what you can tell them about our positions. Or is that what you’re going to bargain with, betraying your regiment?”
Geddes swore viciously.
“Then they’ll shoot you,” Joseph went on. “They don’t regard traitors any more highly than we do. You can come back to Passchendaele and at least tell your story.”
“If you come back you’ll get revenge,” Morel added. “If you stay here, you’ll get nothing at all. Although actually I’m not going to let you stay here anyway.” Without warning he walked forward and raised his arm. He gave Geddes a hard clip on the side of the head with the butt of the gun, and Geddes crumpled over without a sound. “Do you really want to take him back?” Morel asked quietly. “On the chance that he could still betray the V.A.D. who let us out? It was your sister, you know? Maybe you didn’t realize that?”
“Yes, I know,” Joseph replied. It would be ridiculous to deny it now. “Anyone looking into it could prove it pretty easily. But we’re not going to shoot Geddes. We’re going to get him back to the lines, and then through them.”
“How?” Morel asked. “He’s out cold now. Who knows what he’ll say when he comes around again, but whatever it is, it’ll be in English, because that’s all he knows.”
“Then we’ll have to see that he doesn’t say anything,” Joseph replied. “We’ll take him as a wounded man. We’re priests. That’s reasonable. We’ll be heroes. Who knows—they might even help us. We’ll tie his head and face up, with a gag underneath the bandages, so he can’t speak. Cut him a little so there’s blood. Just hope to hell that whoever helps us isn’t a surgeon!”
“We can’t carry him that far,” Morel pointed out reasonably. “We’ve come four or five miles at least!”
“If we go back on the road we’ll find some debris. With luck, something with wheels. We can cannibalize it and make a carriage for him.”
“I realize how little I knew you at Cambridge,” Morel said drily. “I was a child!”
“We all were,” Joseph replied. “Let’s tie him up first. We don’t know how soon he’ll come around.”
They used Geddes’s own shirt to bind him for lack of anything better. They slit it with the knife he had and tore it into strips. It would be enough to hold him until they found better. Then they took turns carrying him as far as the road. He was a young man, heavy-boned and well muscled although any surplus flesh had long since gone,
