Shoulder the Sky (21 page)

When Judith was introduced Belinda's weariness vanished. "You're actually at the Front?" she said with fierce admiration, her eyes alight. "There with our men?"

Judith felt a mixture of pride and embarrassment. "I'm not actually in the trenches, although I know pretty much what they're like. We don't go further forward than the casualty clearing stations, where they bring the wounded back for us to collect."

Belinda's shoulders were tight, her face tense with her imagination. She had not yet sat down. "Is it very dreadful? I used to think of it as heroic, but Eldon said it isn't, it's filthy and degrading, and lots of the men are blown to bits without ever having a chance. He said that if we here at home had any idea what it was like, no one would join up to go there, because it's for nothing. It would be quicker to catch a bus to the local abattoir along with the cattle." She was searching Judith's face, hungry for an answer. It was easy to imagine the quarrels they had had over it her dreams, his anger. Now she was left with nothing but confusion, and no one to help her resolve the truths she needed to know for herself, not only to help her grief, but to continue now.

Judith composed her answer carefully. "It can be pretty shocking when you first get there," she said to Belinda, avoiding Mrs. Prentice's anxious eyes. "The smell is awful, he's right about that. It tears your stomach, even when you get used to it. And there are rats, lice, fleas, all sorts of unpleasant things. Casualties are high, but we save most of the wounded."

Belinda sat down slowly, her hands folded in her lap. She did not take her eyes off Judith's face.

"But what it seems he didn't tell you about is the friendship," Judith went on. "The loyalty, the knowledge that the men beside you will share everything they have with you food, warmth, shelter, jokes, laughter and pain, their lives if need be. Perhaps as a correspondent he didn't see that, but it's there in the front line. And the courage and sacrifice are there. That's not just propaganda. The difference is that it is real, not words; and no words can tell you what it's like, however passionate or clever. Maybe one poet will capture a little of it one day. Maybe the cold and the pain and the fierce, brave, kind, funny love of one man for his friends can't even be told."

There were tears on Belinda's face, and she was not ashamed of them.

"I wish he could have known that," she said, swallowing huskily. "I suppose he wasn't there long enough." Her words were brave, but her eyes betrayed her fear that it was not time but Prentice's own character that blinded him. "Are you going back?" she asked.

Judith had never even considered the possibility of not going.

"Of course! I .. ." She gave the faintest smile, but she felt her certainty burn through her like heat. "I have to. My job is out there. That's who I am. And the people I love are there too." The truth of that rang in her voice with a conviction that startled her.

Belinda did not say so, but her admiration was so intense it blazed in her eyes and in her soft, answering smile.

Dinner was served and Judith concentrated intensely, measuring every word so as to tell Prentice's family as much as she could about his life and his achievements.

She said no more about the details of trench life; there was no need for them to know. Let them sleep as easily as they could. Grief was more than enough to bear. She tried instead to say the decent things about Prentice himself. It was difficult to be specific, as if she had actually known him, without also mentioning his appalling behaviour, which had ended with Wil Sloan beating him almost senseless. She could not think quickly enough to avoid lying, so she did, with embarrassing fluency.

When they spoke of Cullingford, it was with remoteness, and she imagined how it would have hurt him had he known, and changed the subject.

"But how did Eldon get so far forward?" Belinda asked a second time. "I thought war correspondents stayed well behind the fighting. They all share the information anyway, don't they? That's what Eldon said."

"Yes, they do," Judith agreed quickly.

"Then why did Uncle Owen send Eldon out into no man's land? That's where you said he was found!"

"The general didn't send him." Judith denied it. Please God that was at least half true. Was it possible that Hadrian had heard his anguish and, in loyalty, done what Cullingford could not do for himself? The fear gripped hard and tight inside her. King Henry II had cried out, "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" and his men, in mistaken loyalty, had murdered Thomas a Becket, and Henry had paid in guilt for the rest of his life.

"How could he do that? He knew Eldon wasn't a soldier!" Mrs. Prentice demanded accusingly. She was still seeking blame; it was so much easier to explode in anger than face the appalling void of grief.

Judith swallowed. "Mr. Prentice was very keen to see things the other correspondents hadn't and to gain his own experiences," she answered. "He insisted that he be given a wider permission, and he used the general's name to gain it. No one ever intended he should go "over the top" with the raiding party." She saw the anger harden in Mrs. Prentice's face. "He was young and he was brave," Judith added hastily. "He knew the risks, and he still chose to go."

Mrs. Prentice's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you." She took a shaky breath. "It was very good of you to come."

"General Cullingford asked me to, and it was no trouble at all," Judith replied. "I'm so sorry for the reason."

Belinda smiled at her quickly, a flash of gratitude and understanding, then they turned to other subjects. It was late evening by the time Judith finally left.

She arranged to meet Matthew for dinner the following evening, and waited for him in a restaurant crowded with people all talking earnestly. She heard snatches of news about the war, but much of the conversation was about the latest play, the political news in Westminster, speculation of changes even exhibitions of art and science. Two young women were excited about a motion film starring Charlie Chaplin and Marie Dressier.

Ten minutes later she saw Matthew in the entrance. His uniform caught her eye before she recognized who he was. He was the same height as Joseph, but a little broader across the shoulders, and fair-haired. He had the same strong nose, and hint of humour around the mouth. He looked very tired, as if he also had been up too many nights and could not easily shake off the anxieties of knowing and caring more than he wanted to.

It took him a moment to see her, then he smiled and strode over to her. She stood up, eager to hug him, and feel his arms around her. It was a moment's break in a long loneliness. Friendship eased the heart and the mind, but there were times when the touch of arms around you healed an ache within that nothing else reached.

"How are you?" he asked, although he was looking at her face for the answer, and whatever she said would make no difference.

"I'm fine," she said with a slightly wry smile. She too was looking at him, trying to weigh what was merely weariness in his eyes, or the deeper lines from nose to mouth. What she saw was an underlying fear that did not vanish with comfortable words or a long night's sleep.

"Have you seen Hannah lately?" she asked. "Her letters say a lot about what she's doing, but not much about how she feels. I think that's a sign that she doesn't dare talk about it. Is it hard at home? Is everyone putting on a brave act, terrified it'll crack if they look underneath?"

"No, it's not that bad." He held her chair and she sat down again. He sat opposite her. "Some of us are afraid when we read the news because we tend to look between the lines, and dread what's worse that they aren't telling us. And, of course, pretty well everyone knows at least one person who's lost a son or a brother."

The waiter appeared. The choice of food was still surprisingly wide and they ordered roast beef and vegetables and a bottle of red wine. If there was shortages of anything it had been well disguised.

"How is Joseph?" he said when they were alone again. There was a loneliness in the question, almost an urgency.

Until this moment she had not been sure whether to tell him about Prentice or not, but now that he was here, his face, his voice, everything familiar about him reminding her of home, of the lost sweetness and safety of the past, the idea of not telling him was absurd. He would know she was lying, and fear something even worse than the truth. Also still gnawing at her mind was an anxiety that what Prentice had said about recruitment was true.

"He has a pretty rotten job," she said aloud. "Especially after the gas, trying to tell people that there's a God who's in control of everything, and he loves us. There's not much evidence of it."

"I don't think Joseph ever said God was in control," Matthew pointed out, sipping his wine even before he had tasted the food. "He doesn't control us, and we are the ones who've made the mess, not God. You'd better remind him of that." There was wry laughter in his eyes, but pity as well, and the concern was not any less than before.

"We had a young war correspondent up at the Front," Judith went on, watching him as she spoke. "Pretty rotten fellow, actually. Arrogant, intrusive, no sensitivity at all. He was General Cullingford's nephew. He's the one in charge of our stretch .. ."

"I know," Matthew smiled.

She felt herself colour a little, and went on quickly. "He persuaded the general to give him written permission to go all sorts of places other correspondents couldn't, including right into the front-line trenches."

Matthew was only mildly interested. "How on earth did he do that? I'd have thought Cullingford would have more sense, family or not." There was a thread of contempt in his voice.

Judith was stung by it. "Prentice didn't give him any choice. He was a total swine, actually. Major Hadrian, the General's ADC, was at school with him, and says he's an awful little worm. And actually I've just been to see his mother and sister, because he was killed, and took a letter to them from the general. Mrs. Prentice is his sister. Matthew, Prentice was saying that recruitment of men is dishonest, and if they had any idea of what it was really like on the Front Line, no one would go. Is that true? Are we losing heart at home?"

He heard the panic in her voice, but he did not answer with platitudes. "No. In some places there's even a renewed resolve, after the gas attack at Ypres. But I'm not sure if it'll last. Casualties are heavy, and people are beginning to realize that it isn't going to be over anything like as soon as they used to believe. Kitchener's right: we're in for a very long haul."

"Will we make it?"

He smiled, but he did not answer her.

"It's about morale, isn't it? If we think we'll lose, then we will."

"Pretty much," he agreed.

She looked away from him and concentrated on her food for a while. She could imagine the recruiting station if they heard the sort of things Prentice had apparently told Belinda.

"That isn't all," she said at last, her voice subdued, catching in her throat. "Prentice isn't just dead someone murdered him." She ignored his response. "It wasn't obvious. He went over the top nobody knows what made him do such a stupid thing, or what he went for, except bravado, but Joseph was the one who found his body in no man's land, and brought him back."

Matthew was appalled. His knife slipped out of his fingers on to his plate with a clatter. "What the hell was Joseph doing out there? He's a chaplain, for God's sake!"

"I know." Now at least she was on sure ground, filled with one moral certainty, and a hot, sweet pride. "But he takes that as part of his job searching for people and bringing them back. Sometimes they're alive, but it matters to recover even dead bodies." She saw the reflection in his face of her own emotions. "But Prentice hadn't been shot, he'd been drowned in one of the craters still full of water. And Joseph worked out that there were no Germans anywhere near them at the time. It had to have been one of our own men. He was pretty rotten to a few people .. ."

"Enough to kill over?" Matthew was incredulous.

She looked away. "Lots of people are dying, every day. Unless you really care about someone personally, you have to get used to it, or you'd go mad. This is ... different."

He reached out his hand as if to touch her, then changed his mind. It was not something he did naturally; this was born of a sudden, urgent understanding. "Are you afraid it could be the general?" he said very gently.

Lies would not do. "I don't know," she admitted, looking up at him. "And even if he didn't, I'm not sure he wouldn't be blamed for it. Not everyone likes generals."

Matthew laughed outright: a short, bitter bark of sound. He did not need words to encompass the confusion of anger and fear, torn loyalties felt by the vast mass of people who knew only what they read, and the pain of losses, the day and night struggle between pride and terror for those they loved trapped and fighting in a horror they could only imagine. It was natural to blame someone.

He refilled his glass again, and Judith felt another flicker of worry brush her, as if someone had opened an outside door on to the cold again. "Matthew, have you learned anything more about the Peacemaker?" she asked, taking the bottle from him and adding a little to her own glass, even though she had barely touched it. "I wish we could be more help to you. We're doing nothing .. ."

"There's nothing you can do," he said quickly, his face softening. "It's enough that you do your own job."