CHAPTER
ONE

Joseph lay on his face in the ice-filmed mud. Earlier in thenight a score of men had gone over the top in a raid on the German trenches. They had taken a couple of prisoners, but been hit by a hail of fire on the way back. They had scrambled over the parapet wounded, bleeding, and without Doughy Ward and Tucky Nunn.

"Oi think Doughy's bought it," Barshey Gee had said miserably, his face hollow-eyed in the brief glare of a star shell. "But Tucky was still aloive."

There was no choice. Under a barrage from their own guns, three of them went to look for him. The noise of the heavy mortars was deafening, but when it eased, Joseph could hear the quick, sharper rattle of machine guns. As the flare died, he lifted his head to look again across the craters, the torn wire, and the few shattered tree stumps still left.

Something moved in the mud. Joseph crawled forward again as quickly as he could. The thin ice cracked under his weight but he could hear nothing over the guns. He must get to Tucky without sliding into any of the huge, water-filled holes. Men had drowned in them before now. He shuddered at the thought. At least they had not been gassed this week, so there were no deadly, choking fumes in the hollows.

Another flare went up and he lay still, then as it faded he moved forward as rapidly as he could, feeling his way to avoid the remnants of spent shells, the tangles of old wire and rusted weapons, the rotting bodies. As always, he had emergency first aid supplies with him, but he might need more than that. If he could carry Tucky back to the trench, there would be real medics there by now.

It was dark again. He stood up and, crouching low, ran forward. It was only a few yards to where he had seen the movement. He slithered and almost fell over him.

"Tucky!"

"Hello, Chaplain," Tucky's voice came out of the darkness, hoarse, ending in a cough.

"It's all right, I've got you." Joseph reached forward, grasped the rough khaki, and felt the weight of Tucky's body. "Where are you hurt?"

"What are you doing out here?" There was a kind of desperate humor in Tucky's voice as he tried to mask his pain. Another flare went up, briefly illuminating his snub-nosed face and the bloody wound in his shoulder.

"Just passing," Joseph replied, his own voice shaking a little. "Where else are you hit?" He dreaded the answer. If it were only the shoulder, Tucky would have made his way back.

"Moi leg, Oi think," came the reply. "Tell you the truth, Oi can't feel much. So damn cold. Don't seem they have summers here. 'Member summers at home, Chaplain? Girls all . . ." The rest of what he said was drowned in another roar of gunfire.

Joseph's heart sank. He had seen too many die, young men he had known most of their lives, including Tucky's elder brother Bibby.

"I'll get you back," he said to Tucky. "Once you're warmer you'll probably feel it like hell. Come on." He bent and half lifted Tucky onto his back. Hearing a cry of pain as he inadvertently touched the wound, he apologized.

"It's all roight, Chaplain," Tucky gasped, gagging as the pain dizzied him. "It hurts, but not too much. Oi'll be better soon."

Bent double, staggering under Tucky's weight, and trying to keep low so as not to make a target, Joseph floundered back toward the line of the trenches. Twice he slipped and fell, apologizing automatically, aware that he was banging and jolting the injured man.

He saw the parapet ahead of him, not more than a dozen yards away. He was sodden with mud and water up to the waist. His breath froze in the air and he was so cold he could hardly feel his legs.

"Nearly there," he told Tucky, although his words were lost in another barrage of shells. One exploded close to him, hurling him forward flat onto the ground. He felt a sickening pain in his left side, and then nothing.

Copyright © 2005 by Anne Perry