“Positive,” she answered succinctly. “Have you ever seen a battle?”
“No.” He looked suddenly vulnerable, as if she had unwittingly obliged him to face the reality of the coming war at last.
“I’ll start in the morning,” she said simply.
Trace stood up. “God be with you. Good night, ma’am.”
It was as uncomplicated as Monk had said for Hester to join the efforts of the many women trying to assemble some help for the one assistant army surgeon to each regiment and to convey supplies nearer the battlefield, which was going to be almost thirty miles away. A little questioning, frequently interrupted by her own overwhelming sense of urgency to help what she knew was coming far better than these optimistic, good-hearted and innocent women, and at last she found herself in a yard with Merrit Alberton. They were handing up rolls of linen into a cart which would serve to carry the wounded back to the nearest place where they could set up a field hospital. It was dirty and exhaustingly hot. The air seemed too thick to breathe, clogging the lungs as if it were warm water.
It was a moment before Merrit recognized her. At first she was just another pair of arms, another woman with hair tied back, sleeves rolled up and skirts scuffed and stained with dirt from the unpaved streets.
“Mrs. Monk! You’re staying to help us!” Her expression softened. “I’m so glad.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes with a dusty hand. “I hear you have experience that will be invaluable to us. We are grateful.” She took a bundle of supplies—bandages, splints, a few small bottles of spirits—from Hester.
“We’ll need far more than this,” Hester said, avoiding the truth for a moment, although perhaps she spoke about a reality that mattered more. They were hopelessly unprepared. They had never seen war, only dreamed it, thought of great issues, causes to be fought for without the faintest idea of what the cost would be. “We’ll need far more vinegar and wine, lint, brandy, more linen to make pads to stop bleeding.”
“Wine?” Merrit asked dubiously.
“As a restorative.”
“We have enough for that.”
“For a hundred men. You may have a thousand badly wounded … or more.”
Merrit drew in her breath to argue, then perhaps she remembered something of the conversation at the dinner table in London. Her face pinched with recognition that Hester knew the enormity of what they were facing. There was no point in saying this was different from the Crimea. Certain things were always the same.
Hester could not put off her mission any longer. For a few moments they were alone as the other women moved away to begin a different task.
“There was another reason I wanted to speak to you,” she said, hating what she was about to do, the pain she would cause and the judgments she must make.
There was no shadow of premonition in Merrit’s face, which was beaded with perspiration, a smear of dust on her cheek.
Time was short. War overshadowed murder and would soon sweep it away, but for every person bereaved, their own loss was unique.
“Your father was killed the night you left home,” Hester said quietly. There was no way to make it kinder or blunt the edge of it, nor could she afford to. She, Monk and Trace would decide their actions upon what Hester judged to be Merrit’s complicity in the crime.
Merrit stood still, as if she had not understood the words, her face blank.
“I’m sorry,” Hester said slowly. “He was murdered in the yard of his warehouse in Tooley Street.”
“Murdered?” Merrit struggled for sense in what seemed incomprehensible. “What do you mean?”
Hester stared at her, watching every shadow of emotion in her face, every trace of pain, confusion and grief. It was grossly intrusive, but if they were to keep their promises to Judith Alberton, she had no choice.
“He was tied up and shot,” she said clearly. “So were the two guards. Then the whole shipment of guns and ammunition was taken—stolen.”
Merrit looked stupefied, as if a friend had struck her so hard she was breathless, gasping to fill her lungs. Her knees wobbled and she sank back and sat awkwardly on the wheel of the cart behind her, still staring at Hester, wide-eyed with horror.
Hester could not afford to show pity, not yet.
“Who … who did it?” Merrit said hoarsely. “Philo Trace? Because Papa sold the guns to Lyman after all!” She let out a long groan of misery and rage, her hands clenched tight.
Only with difficulty did Hester restrain herself from bending to her. She would have sworn to anyone, to Monk or to Judith, that Merrit believed what she was saying. But she must test it further. This chance would never come again.
“Lyman Breeland’s watch was found in the yard,” she went on. “The one he gave you and you swore you would never let out of your sight.”
Merrit’s hand unclenched and flew to her breast pocket, but it was instinctive, not thought, because the moment after, she remembered. “I changed my dress,” she said in a whisper. “I put it down.…”
“The watch was found in the mud in the yard,” Hester said again. “And there was no money paid for the guns. They were stolen.”
“No! That’s impossible!” Merrit stood up quickly, staggering a little. “Philo Trace must have done it … and I don’t know what happened to the money. But Lyman bought the guns! I was there! He would never … never steal! And … and to think he would … murder … is monstrous … it couldn’t be true, and it isn’t!” Her belief was not a matter of will; it was absolute, shining in her face. There was anger in her, and grief, but nothing that looked like guilt.
Hester could not disbelieve her. There was no judgment to make, no weighing of evidence one way or another. Breeland must have taken the watch himself and left it in the yard, either by mistake or intentionally. But why?
