Free We Shall Not Sleep by Anne Perry Page A

Station by sundown, but when he saw Schenckendorff, the German was feverish and in intense pain. The wound in his foot was messy, as ifa bayonet rather than a bullet had caused it. He had lost a great deal of blood, and there was a fear of septicemia.
    "You'd better start praying," Matthew said grimly when he found Joseph in the storage tent. He was sorting through supplies and trying to tidy them up after the night's casualties. "That foot looks pretty bad. Hope to hell they don't have to amputate it. It would make him hard to move. We won't convince anyone if we can't get him to London."
    "Did he tell you who the Peacemaker is?" Joseph asked, turning from the table where bandages, linen, disinfectant, and suture thread were laid out.
    Matthew looked back at him steadily. "No. Did he ask you if you still had the treaty Father took from the Peacemaker?"
    "Yes. But I didn't answer him."
    Matthew chewed his lip. "Joe, do you think that's what he really wants? Is he still on the Peacemaker's side and they need to get that treaty back before the armistice, just in case we expose it then?"
    The thought had crossed Joseph's mind with a bitter disappointment, but he could not dismiss it. "Maybe," he said unhappily. "Perhaps we'd better not tell Judith anything until we know more. Damn it." He swallowed hard. "Damn it! I'd begun to hope we had him."
    Matthew gripped Joseph s shoulder hard. "Maybe we have."
    Joseph looked at him. "Have you thought what it would cost a man in Schenckendorff's position to turn against his own like that? I can hardly imagine the courage and the moral strength to face the fact that you had dedicated your life to a cause that was fatally flawed, then give yourself to the enemy to undo your own efforts and accept whatever they choose to do to you."
    "Nor can I," Matthew agreed. "Which is part of why I dare not believe it yet. He's either a true hero or a very clever double dealer. Either way, he's a brave man." He sighed. "And he could die of that damn foot. What did it, Joseph?"
    "Bayonet, by the look of it."
    "God in heaven!For what? What's the point of that now?"
    Joseph did not answer. For a man who had seen half the men he knew killed, the rage to commit such an act was easy to understand, and impossible to explain.
    CHAPTER THREE
    It was another long night of casualties. More German prisoners coming through the lines voluntarily, or taken in desperate, failed battles. Joseph worked between the first-aid post and the Casualty Clearing Station. He finally got a break at almost half past three in the morning and lay down in his dugout. He was exhausted and filthy, but here it was at least dry. Matthew was curled up, sound asleep, and he took care not to disturb him.
    He woke with a jolt to find Tiddly Wop Andrews bending over him. There was a thread of daylight coming down the steps. He could see that Tiddly Wop's handsome face was gaunt with weariness, and now also creased with new anxiety. "Chaplain!" Tiddly Wop said urgently. "Wake up! The colonel wants you roight away."
    Joseph struggled to the surface of comprehension, his head pounding. "Why? What is it now?" His first fear was that Schenckendorff had died. Then he realized that Hook had no idea how much that would matter. He struggled to sit up. Every bone and muscle in his body hurt. "What's happened, Tiddly?"
    Before the war Tiddly Wop's hair had been long, and when he was worried he brushed at his brow as if it still were. He did it now, un-aware of the movement. "Oidon't know, Chaplain, but it's bad. Looks loikehell, he does. Something at the clearing station, that's all Oi know. You'd better go now. That's whoi Oididn't even get you a mug of   tea. No toime."
    Joseph was suddenly ice-cold. "Have you seen Miss Reavley?" he demanded, his mouth dry. That was always his first thought.
    "Yes, an' she's foine, sir. But you'd better go," Tiddly Wop urged.
    Warmth flooded back into Joseph as if the blood had started pumping again. That was absurd.