Lucas saw the pain in his face, and was angry with himself for having spoken without thought. He had met Pamela Howard only a dozen or so times in all the years he had known Peter. The deep friendship between Peter and Lucas had grown, first from trust and intellectual respect, then wry jokes in times of tension or defeat, and through an enormous love of certain music, especially Beethoven and Liszt. They had also shared a peace in the company of animals, plus a score of other small things over the years that told almost too much about their inner loves.
Lucas should have known that Pamela Howard would find dogs untidy, intrusive, and too demanding of her time. And also, perhaps, that Peter would show the animals a tenderness she had never awoken in him. Maybe they had hurt each other once too often. Dogs forgive, and will come back again and again. Children will, sometimes, and get hurt again. They learn only slowly to understand that some people never want the reality of love, because it always carries the possibility of pain.
Lucas did not know what
hurt existed between Peter and his wife, nor did he want to. Everyone was due a degree of privacy. Some wounds healed in the light, some could be borne only because they were hidden.
It would be impractical for Peter to have a dog because he traveled too often. He would not leave an animal in the care of someone who did not love it, talk to it, touch it.
They started to walk along the edge of the field. The grass was tall already. Four months of decent weather and it would be ripe, and in this particular field it would be grazed with scarlet poppies, casually, like a spray of blood across the gold. Vivid, beautiful, and tearing at the memory, as poppies always did, since Flanders.
Lucas knew what Howard had come for, apart from the pleasure of the walk. “Got a plan for Cordell?” he asked after fifty yards or so.
Howard continued walking slowly, hands in his pockets. The sun was bright and high. Six weeks, and it would be the longest day of the year.
Lucas did not ask what the plan was. Howard would tell him if he wished.
They walked in silence a little farther. A long way off they heard lambs bleating. Otherwise, there was only the slight whisper of wind in the grass.
“That’s only part of why I came…” Howard began.
Lucas did not say anything. Somewhere at the back of his mind he had known that the plan regarding Cordell was not the reason.
“I had a message from young Newton, from the railway station in Rome. I’ve mentioned him to you before. Just a telegram. He’s on his way to Berlin. He got intelligence that there’s a plan to assassinate Scharnhorst and blame it on the British. MI6, specifically…He’s a good man; he’s got it all in hand.”
Lucas stopped walking, and Howard stopped also, facing him now.
“You didn’t say that before,” Lucas said softly. “Why not? Are you saying you didn’t know? Scharnhorst is a pretty big fish. Maybe one of the worst close to Hitler…”
“The worst,” Howard agreed.
“No. Goebbels is the worst. If you can’t see that, you soon will. But if there was a plot against Scharnhorst, why didn’t we have any word of it?”
“I don’t know. But we do now…”
“And I suppose he’ll contact Cordell,” Lucas said.
“Bound to…” Howard replied. “Unless Newton’s information included the possibility that Cordell knew, and didn’t tell him?”
“Or is behind it?” Lucas was compelled to say it.
Howard’s jaw muscles tightened. “I thought of that, too. If I don’t hear, I may go out there myself,” he said at last. “I hate going to Germany, it’s such a bloody tragedy, but if Cordell is a traitor, we’ll have to get rid of him fast, or else use him. It’s a decision that’ll have to be made instantly.”
“I haven’t been there for a long time,” Lucas said thoughtfully. “I hear stories, but they’re always bits and pieces. Churchill’s afraid it’s all got to end in war again, or else a kind of defeat for us that’s worse than war.”
Howard turned sharply and looked at him, a question in his face.
“We become them…” Lucas answered. “We retreat and retreat, morally, until there is no meaningful difference left between us. What you see, and allow without a fight, is what you become yourself. What is the moral difference between the man who burns his neighbor to death, and the man who stands by and watches him do it?”
Howard’s face for once showed his emotion. “None,” he replied. “Or none that I could defend. But the Germans are starving; decent men are willing to work, yet there is nothing for them. Or there wasn’t. Rearming offers work, Lucas. And God knows, they are certainly doing that! We would know, if we wanted to look, but we don’t!” He hesitated a moment.
Lucas did not interrupt him. He needed to say this.
“The violence is increasing, and the oppression. They’re building camps to put prisoners in, not people who’ve committed crimes, but people who are born guilty of being Gypsies or Jews or, God help us, homosexuals. Why the hell do we care what people do in their own bedrooms? I know, I know…” He made a small gesture of dismissal, chopping the air with his hand. “They’re an instinctive target, vulnerable, and we don’t understand, so we are afraid. How many unhappy people are branded just because they look or sound different, and don’t fit in with what we feel comfortable with?”
Lucas did not bother to respond.
“Somebody to lash out at,” Howard answered himself. “They’re frightened, and fear makes people angry because they are ashamed that they can’t do anything about it. It’s easier if it’s someone’s fault. Blame the Communists, or the Jews. Get rid of them, and everything will be all right.”