We Shall Not Sleep by Anne Perry

Author:Anne Perry
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: World War I, Military Chaplains, 1914-1918 - Trench Warfare, England, Suspense, Historical Fiction, War Stories, 1914-1918 - Belgium, Fiction, 1914-1918, Mystery fiction, historical, 1914-1918 - England, War & Military, Chaplains, Military, 1914-1918 - France, World War, Reavley Family (Fictitious Characters), History
ISBN: 9780345456601
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Judith was not called out that night. She slept on a cot in one of the outer rooms of the hospital until four in the morning, when the first casualties came in. They were now some considerable distance from the fighting as it moved eastward toward the borders of Germany itself, and there were other casualty clearing stations far closer. This was just the excess that others could not treat.

She worked helping the orderlies, carrying stretchers, assisting those able to walk a little way the few steps from the ambulance to the waiting area, or from there into a theater.

By six o’clock the worst was over. She drank a hot mug of tea and ate a heel of bread, then she went to help the nurses. She had not their skill, but she could at least fetch and carry for them and do the simpler jobs. She was prepared to sit, with a calm face and a quiet voice, with those who were beyond all practical aid. She knew Joseph did it often enough. It was a small service, but no young man should face the final darkness alone, unnoticed, and with no one to say they cared.

By eight o’clock she was sharing rations with Lizzie and trying to think of what questions she could ask to strip bare the lies that were painting Schenckendorff as a murderer. She refused to accept that there were no loose ends anywhere, no one who knew something that would eventually unravel it all.

Moira Jessop joined them, sitting on an upturned empty box with her mug in both hands. “In a month’s time we could all be home,” she said cheerfully. “Eating proper food. Having a bath and sleeping in sheets. I’d love to be clean.” She pulled an expression of complete disgust.

Lizzie gave a slight, bleak smile.

“What’s the matter with you?” Moira asked cheerfully. “At least now we know it was a bloody Jerry who killed poor Sarah, and not one of us. We don’t need to look sideways at each other anymore. Or walk around in fear, for that matter. And don’t pretend half of us weren’t!”

Lizzie swallowed hard, but with the dryness of the bread that was not surprising. “Half of us were afraid it would turn out to be someone we knew well, or really liked,” she said, not looking at either of them.

“Were you?” Moira’s eyes opened wider. “Who do you like, then?”

Lizzie shook her head. “I am speaking generally.”

Judith looked at her, not just at her face but also the angle of her shoulders and body, the slightly awkward way she sat on the ammunition box, as if maintaining her balance with an effort. She didn’t know that Schenckendorff was important; she probably hadn’t even known his name before the evidence implicated him. Why was she not as relieved as everyone else? Surely she had not thought she knew something or suspected something about one of their own men? If so, how could she have allowed Matthew to

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