At Some Disputed Barricade (24 page)

He tried to remember the other walls as he had seen them when he came in. There had been nothing to give a firm enough hold to climb down: no outhouses attached, no woodshed or apple house or milking shed. Nothing of half the height to form a safer landing. Certainly there were no trees left within half a mile. And that meant there was also no cover to hide anyone fleeing. But then they had gone at night. Still, the distant artillery lit the sky and would have made any figure on the barren landscape as obvious as a fly on a whitewashed wall.

There had been twelve men imprisoned here, and Treffy Johnson. How had they been separated? There were not thirteen rooms in the house, so at least some had been together. There were no blankets in his room, only a straw palliasse. But then one had no blankets in trenches. And it was August. Could they have used their own clothes to make a rope to descend from the window? All of them? At the same time? Were they even in communication with one another?

The light faded outside and it began to rain again. He could hear it on the window.

He sat on the palliasse in the dark. The more he considered and weighed what he knew, the more it seemed impossible that the men had all gotten out at the same time and tied up the guards. Without help, how had they escaped over the barren land and gone sufficient distance that, by the time their absence was known, they were untraceable? The escape must have been carefully planned—and it must have been effected with a vehicle large enough to take all eleven men.

Such as an ambulance! That was the thought Joseph wanted to push out of his mind altogether, but the harder he tried the more firmly it became fixed.

He lay down at last. He was cold in spite of the warmth of the air. It was probably because he was tired and miserable, and—no matter how hard he tried to quell the thought—afraid for Judith.

If the court-martial of Cavan went ahead, and they found him guilty, there would be only one sentence: the firing squad. It would be referred right up to Field Marshal Haig.

Joseph realized that in the morning he must find a way of persuading the guard to let him see Cavan. Cavan was a doctor and Joseph was a priest! There must be some argument for one of them needing the other!

When his breakfast came, the tea was at least hot. He was grateful for that.

He disliked lying to the guard, but he could think of no better alternative. He sat hunched forward, looking wretched, trying to make one shoulder lower than the other.

“Something wrong, Chaplain?” the soldier asked.

“Think I’ve pulled a muscle,” he replied. “Thought it would be all right yesterday, but it kept me awake all night.” He gave a bleak smile. “First time I’ve had the chance to lie down for more than a couple of hours. Could you let me see Cavan? Lock us in. Room with no window. I don’t care. He might be able to put it right for me.”

The guard hesitated.

“I’m not dangerous,” Joseph went on. “For heaven’s sake, he and I aren’t going to attack anyone. And the fact that Cavan’s still here should prove he’s not trying to escape. I’m not charged with anything except not looking hard enough for the men who did escape.”

“Yeah, all right. The doc in’t no harm.” The guard shrugged. “I reckon as the whole damn thing’s a farce anyway! Lock up the doc an’ the priest, and let the lunatics run the army! Come on. Can you stand up? I’ll take you to him. Want to finish your tea first?”

“Please.” Joseph remembered to drink using his left hand, and put the mug down so he could still use his left hand to eat the bread. “Thank you,” he said when he was finished. He stood up awkwardly, careful again not to use his right arm at all.

Cavan was sitting on the floor when the soldier opened his door and pushed Joseph in ahead of him.

Cavan looked up in surprise, and—when he recognized Joseph—rose to his feet. He noticed Joseph holding his right arm awkwardly.

“Hurt your shoulder, Chaplain?” he said curiously, his eyes flicking to the guard and then back to Joseph.

“Yes. I was wondering if you could ease it back or something?” Joseph replied.

“No doctors on the outside?” Cavan said with a wry smile that barely reached his eyes. He looked tired and strained, deep lines scored into his face and a hollowness around his eyes. He must know that death was no longer a probability for him, but a certainty.

Joseph felt a sudden, blinding rage at the injustice of it. “I expect they’re good enough,” he replied, his voice trembling and sounding more strained than he had intended. “But since I’m in here and can’t get out, I hoped you would help.”

Cavan was nonplussed. “In here? You? For God’s sake, what for?”

“I was ordered to look for the escaped men,” Joseph replied. “Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner believed I was being dilatory in my duty, or even possibly intentionally obstructive.”

“That’s absurd!” Cavan said, shaking his head.

“Actually it’s perfectly fair,” Joseph told him. “If I’d fallen over them I wouldn’t have told him. Not that I did! I imagine they are miles away from here. I hope so.”

The guard cleared his throat. “I’ll leave the chaplain ’ere with you, Captain Cavan, if I may, sir? See if you can fix ’is shoulder for ’im.” He went out and closed the door. Again the heavy sound of the lock reminded them he had no intention of being held to blame for their escape.

Joseph straightened his shoulder. It was becoming painful holding it at a unnatural angle.

Cavan noticed.

“Thank you for healing it so quickly,” Joseph said with a tight smile. He walked over and sat down on the floor a few feet away from where Cavan had been sitting. “He may be back soon,” he went on. “I hope not, but you can’t rely on him. At least, I assume you can’t?”

Cavan looked confused. He sat down also, but said nothing.

“I’ve been thinking about how to escape,” Joseph went on conversationally. “The more I consider it, the less I can see any way at all, without pretty brave and well-thought-out help from at least one person outside. More likely two.”

Cavan’s face was expressionless, carefully so. “Your escaping seems pretty pointless. They haven’t got a charge against you that will stick. Faulkner’s done this in a fit of temper, that’s all.”

“Yes, I know that,” Joseph agreed. “I’m hoping they might even release me later today. That’s why I need to speak to you now.”

Cavan’s face darkened.

“If you think I’m going to try and buy some kind of leniency by telling you how the others escaped, or who helped them, then you’re a far bigger fool than I thought you. And a bigger knave as well. What kind of a traitor to my friends do you think I am?”

“I think you are a man too exhausted to think clearly,” Joseph answered. “And actually I didn’t ask you who helped them. I would very much prefer not to know. Although I have an idea, and, if I am right, then it is the last person on earth I would betray.”

Cavan blinked quickly, aware that he had given himself away. He tried to hide it by lowering his eyes. “If you don’t want to know that, what do you want?” he asked softly. “I wouldn’t tell you where the men were if I knew! And I don’t.”

“I want to know what happened at Northrup’s mock trial,” Joseph answered. “I was told that you didn’t mean to kill him. General Northrup is reasonably inclined toward having the charge reduced to insubordination and accidental death.”

“Rubbish!” Cavan lifted his head, his eyes wide. “His son is dead. Apart from wanting revenge, he’s a military martinet. Discipline is his catechism.”

“He’s a proud man,” Joseph said thoughtfully. “And limited. He has little imagination, but he is not essentially dishonest. And certainly he does not lack courage. He knows his only son was incompetent and a danger to his men, which is a very hard fact for a military father to face.”

“Why would he face it?” Cavan asked.

“He has no choice,” Joseph explained. “If this charge goes ahead as it is, then the prosecutor will need to prove a very powerful motive for twelve men to conspire to murder an officer.”

“We had one,” Cavan argued, a little impatiently. “He was getting men killed and maimed unnecessarily. He was grossly incompetent, and too proud or too stupid to be guided by the men who’d been out here for months, or even years, and knew how to avoid most of the losses.”

“Exactly.” Joseph nodded, watching Cavan to see if he understood. “Do you imagine that is something his father wishes proved beyond reasonable doubt in a court-martial?”

A flash of comprehension lit in Cavan’s eyes. “Someone has pointed that out to him? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely positive.”

Cavan bit his lip.

“I see. Why do you want to know? Do you really believe it will make any difference? I like optimism, but not unreality. Shouldn’t you be helping me to face the truth, perhaps make my peace with God? Isn’t that what you call it?”

“It’s a little early for that,” Joseph said drily. “Unless that’s an oblique way of telling me that you personally shot Northrup, intentionally and avoidably?”

“I’ve no idea who shot Northrup!” Cavan said tartly. “Except that it had to be one of the twelve of us, and it wasn’t me.”

Joseph asked the question to which he dreaded the answer.

“Were you loaded with blanks, or did you deliberately shoot wide?”

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.”