Shoulder the Sky by Anne Perry

around him and he fell forward on his knees.
    "No more rum for the chaplain," Sam observed. "He'll need to stay sober for weeks to bury this many dead." He watched as the young Canadian carefully helped Joseph to sit again. "On the other hand," Sam added, 'perhaps he'll need to stay drunk to bear it! You'd better get him another, but get him something to eat at the same time." He turned to Joseph, his face suddenly tender. "Sleep it off, Joe. These poor devils deserve a priest who knows what he's saying, whether anyone believes him or not." He stood up himself, his face went ashen, and he toppled over just as the VAD caught him and eased him to the ground. "Stretcher!" he shouted, his voice rising sharply.
    Joseph rolled over and lay down on the earth. If he tried to stand again he would only cause more work. Let them put him in a corner somewhere until he came back out of the black hole of oblivion. Please God, it was a black hole, full of darkness without shape or sound no agony, no awareness at all. He hoped they would leave Sam somewhere near him.
    When Joseph opened his eyes again it was morning. He saw the sky above him, delicate blue with the light pouring through it, still touched with the cool silver of dawn. Then he moved. Every muscle in his body hurt. He felt as if he had been beaten. He was lying on the ground outside the first-aid post. He must have been injured.
    Then he remembered the gas.
    He rolled over and sat up, his head pounding, his stomach knotted. Someone came to him with a cup of water, but he brushed it aside. Where was Sam? He stared around. The earth was littered with bodies, some bandaged, some splinted, some motionless. He saw Sam's dark head. He looked to be asleep. There was a bandage around his chest, under his tunic.
    Now he remembered it all, the choking, the pall of death over everything, the struggle to save, the overwhelming failure. It came back with a taste of despair so intense he sank back to the ground, breathing hard, unable to force strength into his limbs. He was barely aware of it as somebody held the water to his lips. He drank only because it was less trouble than arguing.
    He lay there for a while. He must have drifted off into sleep again, because the next thing he was aware of was someone easing him up into a sitting position and offering him food, and hot tea with a stiff lacing of rum.
    Sam was sitting cross-legged opposite him, pulling a face of disgust at the taste of the drink in his hands.
    "I wonder what else was in the crater they got this out of!" he said sourly. "A dead horse, I should think!" He took a deep breath, coughed, and then finished the rest of it. He grinned across at Joseph. There was nothing to say, no hope or sanity, nothing wise or clever. The only thing that made it endurable was the knowledge that he was not done.
    Half an hour later Joseph was still sore, his body aching and skin torn raw where he had scratched it because of the fleas and body lice that afflicted everyone, officers and men alike. There had been no time or opportunity to try to get rid of them.
    It was now nearly midday. There was an air of anxiety even more profound than usual and Joseph became aware of it as he saw how many men there were still on the ground. Ambulances pulled up, were loaded, and drove away again, always five men or more in each. There was very little laughter; people were too stunned to joke.
    Joseph stood up slowly, realized he could keep his balance, and set off to find the surgeon and see if he needed any help. But what could he say to a dying man, or one in appalling pain? That there was a purpose to all this? What? A God who loved them? Where was He? Deaf? Occupied somewhere else? Or as helpless as Joseph himself in the face of endless, senseless, unbearable pain?
    There was nothing to say as he sat beside young, dying men. He repeated the Lord's Prayer, because it was familiar, and it was a way of letting a man already sinking into the blindness of death