Angels in the Gloom (16 page)

The French had taken Dead Man’s Hill back from the Germans, a few thousand square yards of hell. The ground, like that of Ypres, was strewn with the blood and bones of both sides. Mason could not see them as essentially different. The rotting corpse of a German soldier did not smell the same as that of an English one, or French. But it was only to do with what they ate, nothing at all with what they believed or cared about, how much they loved, their dreams or their pain.

The whole thing was an obscene parody of what life should be, like something Hieronymus Bosch would have created as a vision of damnation.

The car hit a shell hole in the road and careered to one side, the driver righting it only with difficulty. Ypres was still ten miles away. Mason had not told the man why he wanted to come here. There would be nothing different to see. It was a struggle to make his reports in any way separate from one another, or one lot of dead men unique and identifiable, except to those who had known and loved them.

He was going because here he might see Judith Reavley again, even if only for an hour or two. He had encountered her twice since their first meeting at the Savoy in London nearly a year ago. Both times had been just behind the lines in Flanders.

Once she had been at the side of the road by her ambulance, changing the wheel where one of the tires had obviously burst. He had been in a staff car going the other way and had stopped and offered to help. He had half expected to be told with asperity that she could manage perfectly well. No doubt she could, and had had to often enough. She had surprised him by accepting assistance without a murmur, and rewarding him with a smile that he still remembered warmly.

“I thought you might be offended,” he had said with a sense of relief.

They had stood together side by side on the road—he tidy, dry-footed, actually quite smart, she with her boots caked in mud, the bottom of her skirt sodden wet and blood on her sleeves. Her hair had been pinned up hastily and untidily, but her face was designed for tenderness and there was a kind of beauty in her nothing could hide.

“Then you don’t know me, Mr. Mason,” she had replied. “I am not interested in proving to you that I can change a wheel. I care only about getting these men to a hospital as quickly as possible, and two of us will do that more quickly than I can alone. Thank you.” And with another smile, cooler this time, she had climbed up into the driver’s seat. She directed him to crank the engine for her and pass her the handle, which he had done obediently.

Their second encounter had been less accidental. He had wanted to talk to injured men in one of the field dressing stations and had deliberately chosen one where he knew she would be. He had watched her working quickly, grim-faced, cleaning the inside of her ambulance from a particularly bloody trip. He could smell the vinegar and carbolic in the water she had used. Her hands were raw with it.

He had brought her a cup of tea, pretty disgusting stuff made in a Dixie can and redolent of petrol and grease, but at least fairly hot. She had thanked him and drunk it without comment. It was a telling observation that she was so accustomed to the foul tea that she did not seem to notice. He still found it revolting.

They had talked a little, even laughed at a couple of current jokes. The occasion stood out in his memory because they had not quarreled. For a while he had deluded himself it was agreement. Later, he had thought it was more likely she simply cared too much about her men, and too little about him, to expend additional energy.

That was partly why he had wanted so urgently to go back to Ypres this time. He needed to know how she would respond to him now.

Ahead of him the mist was thickening as darkness approached. He could hear the guns in the distance and the smell of the trenches was in his nose and throat. As long as he lived he would never forget or become immune to the nausea of the taste of death in the air.

He should report to the commanding officer, as a matter of courtesy. The commander would be busy. Bombardment usually increased at this time of the day and would go on all night. There would be raiding parties, possibly a serious assault, even a whole battalion going over the top. Casualties could be heavy.

Mason thought again of Judith and in his mind’s eye she was smiling. She was a moments grace in a world drowned in ugliness. Drowned was too appropriate a word. It was raining again, not hard, just a steady gray pall over everything, blurring the road, smearing headlights, shining back off the pools of muddy water everywhere around them. With the coming of darkness it was getting colder.

Star shells went up, briefly lighting the sky. The guns were louder now. They were not more than a mile from the trenches. There was a slight wind carrying the smell of the latrines.

It took him another hour to reach the brigade headquarters and report his presence. He was received with courtesy, but no one had time to do more than be civil. He had bread and hot tea tasting of oil, and tinned Machonachie stew. No one told him where he could or could not go; his reputation was his passport to anything he wished.

It was a hard night. The Germans mounted a raid and were fought off with heavy casualties. No prisoners were taken, but there were half a dozen dead, and at least three times that many wounded.

When dawn came gray and bitterly cold, the east wind slicing through the flesh as if it could strike the bone, Mason was helping wounded men from stretchers to field dressing stations and then to ambulances. He saw Wilson Sloan, the young American volunteer he had met six months ago with Judith. He looked older; his face was thinner and there was something different about his eyes. There was no time to talk, except for a moment, about the practicalities of moving men, lifting without causing further hurt, and not getting the ambulance stuck in the mud that was everywhere. Sloan worked singly, uncomplainingly, and now with considerable skill.

It was broad daylight when he saw the outline of the ambulance, dark in the fine rain, a shadow against the trunks of trees. One of the doors was blown off the back and it sat at an angle. He ran forward, a sudden surge of panic inside him, floundering in the mud. The driver in the front seemed to be unconscious, slumped over the wheel. It was not until he was level with the cab, his feet slithering, that he even realized it was a woman.

“Judith!” he shouted, his heart pounding. It was ridiculous; it could be anyone.

She sat motionless, head bowed over the wheel, resting on her arms. He was sick with the thought that she was dead, although there was no wound visible, but it was hard to see when her clothes were stained dark with rain. She must be wet to the skin, and frozen. Perhaps she had died of exposure.

He gulped air, gagging, and put out his hand to touch her arm. The muscles tensed to resist him, and the vitality poured back into him, with overwhelming relief.

“Go away,” she said expressionlessly. “There’s nothing to do.”

“Judith?” She sounded so different now he was uncertain it was her after all. With her profile hidden she did not look the same. He could not see the planes of her cheek or the line of her nose.

She ignored him. Did she not recognize his voice either?

“Judith!” He felt the panic back again, high in his throat. What if she were seriously injured? He did not know enough first aid to save her, not when it mattered so savagely! Not when it was her! “Judith!” The cry was high-pitched, strangled.

She raised her head very slowly and looked at him. Her wide blue-gray eyes held only slight expression, a mild uninterested surprise. She did not bother to speak to him.

“Judith…” he gulped. “Are you hurt?”

“Not particularly,” she answered. “There’s nobody here. They took them. There’s nothing more to do.”

“You must be freezing,” he exclaimed. “Does the engine work?”

“No.” She offered no explanation. The anger was burned out of her, and the hunger, and the hope. For an instant he felt robbed; the light he had come to find was not here. Then he saw her pale face, empty-eyed, and the sad, wounded line of her mouth, and all he could think of was how to heal her, not for himself, but for her, even if he never saw her again.

“Judith,” he said softly. “You must get out and we’ll go and find something to eat, something warm. The ambulance is no good. Someone else will come and take it away. Come on…” He held out his hand.

She did not bother to argue. She simply remained there, motionless.

The guns were firing only sporadically now. In between there was something almost like silence.

He hated being abrupt, but he had seen shell shock before, that terrible, thousand-yard stare of those who carry the horror within themselves, for whom the gunfire is in the brain.

“Judith! Do as you’re told! Give me your hand—now! You are in the way and you have to get out.”

She obeyed—probably out of habit. She moved slowly, stiff with cold, but he was relieved to see that she bore only a few bruises and one blood-stained bandage on her lower arm.

“Come on,” he insisted. “Walk.”

She hesitated, looking over her shoulder at the ambulance.

“Someone will come for it,” he told her. “You’ve got to report in.”

“What for? Because you say so, Mason? What in God’s name do you know about it? If we aren’t dead today, we will be tomorrow, or the day after.”

“It’s bad,” he agreed. “So is Verdun. But we’re not finished. And even if we are, we’re not going down moaning.”

She was walking slowly, squelching in the mud. “Perhaps you were right about war and peace, and it’s all pointless.”

He pulled her forward and she increased speed without complaining. He could have wept to see the change in her. Only now did he realize it was far more than beauty, it was the inner light of a uniquely precious belief, one person’s heart and vision, which he would miss irrevocably should it be destroyed by the terrible experience of war. That she was wrong that the war was pointless, that she was Joseph Reavley’s sister, did not matter; only that she was alive, and she was in pain.

“I never said it was pointless! I said it was…” He could not remember. Anyway, it did not matter. All that mattered was catching some passion in her, any passion at all—anger, hope, love, hate. He would have said anything to free her from the grip of despair. “I said we shouldn’t start a world war over one boundary dispute.”

She looked at him with a slight puckering of her brow. “No, you didn’t. And it wasn’t one boundary dispute. Wars never are.”

He felt a flame of exultation. She was going to argue! “Yes, it was! The kaiser crossed through Belgium. If he’d gone straight across the French frontier we would probably have stayed at home!”

“No, we wouldn’t!” She turned away sharply. “If it hadn’t been Belgium it would have been something else. I don’t know much history, but even I know enough for that. It’s bloody, it’s consuming half Europe, and it’s beginning to stain the rest of the world. Perhaps it’s even senseless now. But it wasn’t ever just a squabble about boundaries, and you can’t be stupid enough to think it was.”

Was he losing her again? He looked at the weary slope of her shoulders. She was trudging along, too exhausted in body to do more than barely pick up her feet. But it was her heart he needed to reach, her will. She needed to believe there would be something left to win, no matter how hard it was or how long it took. He was not sure that he believed it himself.

“Perhaps I’m too close to it,” he said, although it was a pointless observation.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked.

It was broad daylight now and the rain had eased off. There would soon be other traffic, even though this was not a main road and it was too badly cratered for convoy use.

“Verdun,” he answered.

She turned to look at him. “Was it bad?”

“Yes.”

“Poor devils.”

He needed to think of something else to say, but for a moment memory of Verdun drove out everything else. He did not realize that she was still looking at him.

“Don’t tell people they’re losing,” she said firmly. “It might be true for the moment, but it would be a betrayal. They need our faith.”

He stared at her incredulously.

She gave a tiny, twisted smile. “You have to have faith, even to die well,” she explained.

It was there! The old fire, just a tiny light, but the grace and the courage he loved. He seized hold of her, ignoring her bandaged arm, and hugged her, half lifting her off her feet and swinging her around. She was wet and cold, and her skin smelled of antiseptic and engine oil, but the warmth inside him was enough to make all of it sweet to him.

He put her down on the rutted road again and went forward, increasing his speed, willing to drag her if necessary. They had to reach an outpost, one of the field dressing stations, a command dugout, anyplace where she could get warm and dry and eat something.

Two hours later she was asleep and Mason had eaten the usual frontline breakfast of stale bread, beef stew, and strong tea. Then a corporal brought up the mail, and ten minutes after that the major in command of the station handed Mason a sealed letter.

He tore it open and began reading. The handwriting was clear and strong, the wording casual, as any man might use to a friend. However, the message within was anything but ordinary. It was from the man he knew as the Peacemaker and, masked by pleasantries, contained the information that he had heard about the social unrest in Russia—the vast possibilities of relieving the Eastern Front and stopping the slaughter there. Which would in turn alter the balance on the Western Front, and perhaps bring an early end to the war.