We Shall Not Sleep by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

trying to create a belief in God in the trenches. That was a dreamers errand if ever there was one.
    He turned and walked back down the hill with the cold wind in his face. A blaze of stars swept above him from horizon to horizon, so low in the clear sky that he felt as if he should have been able to gather them with his hands.
    The following morning he took the bus into Harrogate and had lunch in the Rat and Parrot with Robert Oldroyd, who had retired from teaching the year Mason had started secondary school, but Oldroyd's energy of mind and love of learning had infected Mason, as they had so many of the boys who had come to him raw and ready to be shaped. His former teacher was nearly ninety now, white-haired and bent but still interested in everything, as inquisitive and irascible in his opinions as always.
    "Read your pieces," Oldroyd said, nodding slowly and staring at Mason. They were sitting opposite each other at a small table near the window. "You did well, boy. Don't want to get your head too big for your shoulders, but you have a nice turn of phrase. Say what you mean, no nonsense, no silly pretensions of making yourself immortal. Make us feel we're there with you." He reached a gnarled hand for his glass of cider and drank deeply before continuing. "Would like to have been with you, once or twice."
    "Would you, sir?" Mason said doubtfully. He was grateful for the praise. He had admired Oldroyd intensely in his boyhood. A single word of praise from him then had been as precious as an accolade from anyone else. If Oldroyd acknowledged that you were alive, it made everything worthwhile. You became important, and your wildest dreams were possible. It was a lifetime ago, but the memory lingered with an innocence he thought he despised ... but for some reason clung to. "It was pretty grim most of the time."
    " 'Course it was," Oldroyd agreed, ignoring his lunch of bread and cheese. "Do you think I don't know that?" There was a challenge in his voice.
    That was exactly what Mason had thought, and anger at the old men who stayed at home burned hot inside him. The delusions of glory and the ignorance of what real death was like in the mud and terror of the trenches were what made wars like this possible. "Where exactly would you like to have been?" he asked, and then wished he had not. The cruelty would serve nothing. Oldroyd belonged to the past. It was pointless to try to drag him into the harsher light of the present. He would die of old age soon, still understanding nothing.
    "One place?" Oldroyd asked, thinking about it, his face pursed up, eyes almost lost in the folds of his skin. "I would like to have walked into Jerusalem last year with Allenby. I could just about imagine it from what you wrote, but you saw it, you were there. December 11. You didn't say much about his big cavalry victory at Megiddo last month. Reckon Aleppo and Damascus won't be long. But Jerusalem is different; it'll always be different. Went in as a man should, to the HolyCity." He looked at Mason. "Jaffa Gate, wasn't it, with that big, square tower above it, and the crenellated walls? Crowded with people, you said. All looking down at one Englishman, alone and on foot."
    "Did I say that?" Mason thought it sounded overemotional, sentimental, and he despised himself for it.
    Oldroyd was watching him intently now, judging. "Yes, you did. Did you lie?"
    Mason was too tired to be offended. He picked up his bread to eat it. "No. That's how it was. It just sounds ... predictable."
    "Shouldn't it?" Oldroyd asked. "Did you expect differently?"
    "I don't think I expected it to happen at all." Mason was quite honest. "After so much dust and blood it all seemed ridiculously pedestrian, exhausted and aching men doing things we have become desperately used to. No trumpets, no drumrolls, just a bald, middle-aged Englishman in an army uniform. Apart from his badges of rank, he looked like anyone else." He bit into his bread and continued with his mouth full.