We Shall Not Sleep (13 page)

Again Jacobson prompted her, more abruptly this time. "Miss Reavley?"

She took a gamble. "I don't know where he was at midnight," she answered. "I was trying to think, but as far as I can remember, he went to the tent with the walking wounded. You'll have to ask him."

She saw the lack of interest in his face. So Sarah had been killed between three and half past four. The cold bit inside her like ice. She took the risk, certain beyond any doubt at all that Wil would have done the same for her. "The second time I had to clean the spark plugs in the ambulance. They often get dirty and then they don't work. It took us awhile to get the wounded in, and after that he got me some tea and a piece of bread and jam. Jam's rationed now, so that's not easy. Then he held the lamp for me. The engine was in a bit of a mess, and I needed two hands."

"I see." He was looking at her more closely, almost narrowly, as if he was trying to discern something about her. It made her uncomfortable. Did he know she was lying? Had Wil said something different?

"Ever had any trouble, Miss Reavley? Any unwanted attentions?" he asked.

"No!" she said, and knew she had answered too quickly.

His eyes widened. It was obvious that he did not believe her.

She felt her face color. "Nobody has behaved badly!" she said curtly. "I deal with wounded men on the battlefield, Mr. Jacobson. We all have one aim in common—to stop them from dying, and get them to the nearest medical help. Nobody has time or thought for much else." It was not his fault that he knew nothing about the front, and it was unfair that she was angry with him for it, but she was. And she was frightened, and guilty for lying, even though it was necessary. Her friends were in trouble, and he was an outsider who did not understand.

"That is clearly not true, Miss Reavley," he said steadily. "Or I would not need to be here. And while I haven't fought on the line, I've seen plenty of men under pressure. Emotions are close to the surface. It results in violence sometimes, and people close to death want to touch life and all the pleasures it offers, sometimes even the source of life." His voice dropped a little. "At those times it does not have to be someone you love; anybody will do. Please don't tell me you are unaware of that, or that it shocks you. You have seen four years of war. You cannot be blind to the realities of men's fears or needs, or the extremities of death."

Her face was blazing and she knew it. He had touched a nerve in her, and without knowing why, she felt a passionate need to defend the vulnerability she had seen so often. "Of course I'm not!" She was shouting at him, although she had not meant to. She heard herself and could not stop. "We are all..." Now she did not know what to say, and he was still staring at her.

"You do not want to betray anyone whose weakness you have seen and understood," he finished for her. "You protect one another. As well as showing loyalty, and honor to men on whose courage your life may depend, you cannot afford to antagonize them." There was gentleness in his face, even pity. "You will have to work with them in the future, and with the other women who may love them, or hate them. But I remind you, Miss Reavley, that you will also work with the other women who may become their victims in the future. I can see that you have a very terrible conflict as to where your duty lies."

"No, I don't!" she said hotly. "I don't know anything!"

He did not believe her. She could see it in his eyes, and in the slight smile touching his mouth. She must control herself or he would be even more certain that she was lying. She stood rigidly upright, her hands by her sides, touching the seam in her skirt, as a soldier would stand to attention. "If I should learn anything that would help you, Mr. Jacobson, I shall inform you of it immediately. Is that all? Because if it is, I would like to get back to my duties."

"For the moment, Miss Reavley. But please remain here. I will wish to speak to you again."

"Unless I am needed," she told him. And before he could protest, she turned and marched out. There were duties to do. Nurses were always shorthanded, and the men needed more care than they could give.

It was midmorning when she found Lizzie Blaine unpacking medical supplies. She did not know the woman well; Lizzie had moved into St. Giles with her husband after Judith had already left for France. She had heard of her from Joseph, and the one or two times they had met here she had liked her instinctively. Lizzie had a penetrating honesty that made Judith comfortable, because it not only was directed at others, but was also within herself. She made no excuses and never shifted blame, and neither her friendship nor her courage was ostentatious.

"Can I help?" Judith offered.

"Please." Lizzie pointed to an unopened box. "You'll have to check that everything is what it says. They get put in the wrong places sometimes." She glanced at Judith again, frowning a little. "You all right? You look a bit upset."

"Furious!" Judith said sharply as she bent to the box. "I've just been talking to Jacobson, the policeman. He misunderstood everything I said, and I wound up talking too much, and now he thinks I know more than I do."

"That's stupid." Lizzie turned back to the unpacking. "You'd hardly defend anyone you knew was guilty!"

"That's not what he thinks," Judith explained. "I suppose I could lie about a small incident that looked bad, but I hadn't believed it really was. The man just doesn't understand what friendship is out here, and it made me angry."

Lizzie smiled. "And then you felt guilty for that? I know what you mean."

"I suppose we all do." Judith started to unpack the box, looking at each item carefully. "But things like that don't happen out of the blue. Whoever it is must have bothered other people from time to time, even if it was only stupid remarks or being too free with his hands. Although we don't know whether he raped her or not. We're just thinking he did because rumor says it was that sort of killing."

"I suppose so." Lizzie
kept her face averted. There was no emotion in her voice now.

"Everybody's stupid sometimes," Judith went on. "You just realize why, and if it isn't bad, you forget about it."

"Yes." Lizzie’s fingers were tight on a box lid. It slipped from her grasp and scattered tablets on the bench top, half a dozen on the floor. She drew in her breath sharply, as if to swear, then bit it back.

Judith bent and picked them up. She regarded them for a moment, uncertain.

Lizzie held out her hand. "Think of the amount of dirt and mud we eat. These are too precious, even off the floor, to waste and have someone perhaps die without them." She examined the tablets, then put them separately in a small screw of paper and wrote on it what they were.

Judith looked at her more carefully. There was something remote about her, closed off and hurt, as if she was afraid. "Do you know somebody who's been bothered?" she asked as gently as she could.

"No," Lizzie said quickly, without looking up from what she was doing. "I don't know that I would recognize it if I did. Sarah used to flirt like mad, and I've no idea how far it went, but I'm not telling Jacobson that. There are enough people saying she deserved it." Her face was flushed and her knuckles white where she gripped the small box she was holding. Her voice was thick with anger when she spoke again. "It's a vicious and idiotic thing to say! What happened to her was not flirting gone too far, it was violent and brutal, a man who has no decency left in him. He has descended into something less than human. Please, let's talk about something else. I liked Sarah, silly as she was sometimes. She was only trying to survive."

"I'm sorry," Judith said immediately. She had forgotten for a moment that Lizzie had probably known Sarah quite well. Friendships could grow quickly out here—bad experiences shared, an act of kindness, and bonds were forged. "I'm talking too much because he made me angry and I behaved like a fool. And I'm afraid, too."

Lizzie looked at her with a sudden smile. "We all are," she admitted.

*    *    *

That evening Judith was back in her vehicle with another VA.D. who had not been at the Casualty Clearing Station when Sarah was killed. They were driving toward the fighting, which was moving steadily farther ahead with each new assault, stretching the supply lines. She thought back to her exchange with Lizzie. Lizzie was frightened, and Judith had an increasing feeling that it was something more personal that troubled her—something she guarded not only from Jacob-son but even from the other women. Was she afraid for someone in particular—a man she was fond of or, worse, who had threatened her? It was a hideous thought that there was someone here who either was guilty or looked it, and somebody else was carrying the burden of that knowledge. If so, then surely their lives could be in danger, too? They were all used to death; the place was saturated with it. It did not startle or horrify anymore.

The gunfire was growing heavier in the distance, over toward Courtrai. The roads were worse here. She could see huge craters in the intermittent light of the star shells.

Perhaps they were all pretending not to know anything for precisely that reason. How could Jacobson, or anyone else, protect a witness? There was no such thing here as safety of any sort. She wished Lizzie could have trusted her. She felt an acute awareness of failure. She should have tried harder, said different, gentler things, and been far less occupied with herself.

She was one of the fortunate ones in that she could leave the field hospital, even though Jacobson had told her not to and had refused to let Wil come with her. But the fighting was still going on, and there were more casualties that had to be brought back. The war plunged inexorably toward its last days. Individual lives had never mattered in these circumstances.

She drove eastward through the darkness toward the glare and the roar of guns.

German prisoners came through that night as well, some captured, several badly injured. More came willingly, with an air of desperate bewilderment. Most were passed on immediately without coming anywhere near the Casualty Clearing Station. They had been hastily bandaged, often lame or half blind, and then made to trudge on foot through the mud toward the railhead and the journey back into France. Only the wounded who could not be moved along without jeopardizing their lives were kept here.

It could not continue like this for many more days. Tension was mounting not only with overcrowding of men critically injured, and the growing expectation of peace, but above all with the endless questions by Jacobson stirring up suspicion and anger over all kinds of old loves and betrayals, fears of violation too deep to name or face. Beyond the question of who could have been guilty, the speculation of rape was more divisive than anyone had imagined.

Judith found that people she had known since the earliest years of the war, and beside whom she had fought illness, disaster, and grief, held views she could not accept. Even Cavan surprised her. She admired him intensely for his courage, both physical and moral. After the stand in the trenches for which he had been put up for the VC, and then the murder of Major Northrup, she had risked the firing squad herself last year to help him escape. The other men involved in the crime had all gone, but Cavan had chosen to remain and face trial. That decision had infuriated her, yet he had refused to be swayed. She had known it was born of supreme honor to duty, and she never forgot it in him.

Now he stood at the operating table having just amputated a man's shattered foot. He was exhausted; there was blood on his white coat and up both his sleeves. It was even splattered on the pale skin of his face, which was hollowed about the eyes by exhaustion.

"Thank you," he told Bream, the orderly. He looked at Gwen Williams, the nurse who had assisted him. "Call me if he gets feverish, but I think that should be all right."

Judith had remained to help after bringing the man in. Cavan had already complimented her for getting him there alive. "I'll fetch you some water," she said, turning to go outside.

"Yer can't go alone!" Bream waved sharply as Judith reached the tent flap. "I'll get it, after I've taken 'im to Resuscitation." He gestured at the unconscious patient.

"It's only fifty yards away," Judith countered. "I'll be perfectly safe."

Bream opened his mouth to protest. He was about twenty. A London clerk before the war, he was too flat-footed to make the infantry.

"For goodness' sake!" Gwen cut across him. "Nothing's going to happen to her."

"It can 'appen to anyone!" Bream replied, his eyes wide. "Well, any woman. We've got a madman 'round 'ere, and no one knows 'oo 'e is."

"It won't happen to anyone," Gwen contradicted, shaking her head irritably. "Some women invite disaster of one sort or another. If you behave with sense, don't lead people on and behave like a—I'm sorry, like a tart—then people won't get the wrong idea."

"The right idea being what?" Judith asked with brittle civility. She had thought she liked Gwen. Suddenly she didn't. They were strangers in culture and belief, allies only by force of extraordinary circumstance.