I decided to become a policeman to speak for the dead. They have no one else, you see. Somewhere there's always proof of what happened, some piece of evidence that will obtain a conviction. It's important for the guilty to be brought to justice, I think. Without justice, there's chaos.
Tell me something. Why is everyone so determined to believe Wilton is innocent?" Surprised, Davies said, "He's a war hero isn't he? Admired by the King and a friend of the Prince of Wales. He's visited Sandringham, been received by Queen Mary herself! A man like that doesn't go around killing people!" With a wry downturn of his lips, Rutledge silently asked, How did he win his medals, you fool, if not by being so very damned good at killing..
There's a beauty in birds on the wing, That stirs the heart and makes earthbound creatures Long for flight, but the larks above the battlefield Are silenced by the sounds of war. I have watched birds out at sea, Catching the wind, And longed to follow them, To some safe place far from here.
Now he realized that somehow those who had served in France and elsewhere knew a world that couldn't be shared. How could he tell his sister--or even his father, if the elder Rutledge was still alive--what had been done on bloody ground far from home? It would be criminal to fill their minds with scenes that no one should have to remember. No one.
Courage is not measured by Marching bands and banners in the wind. If you have not walked The bloody lines and seen the faces, You have no right to describe it so. We die here to keep you safe at home, And what we suffer Pray you may never know.
But what kind of love? It had so many faces, so many names. Jealousy wove a thread around it, and envy, and fear. People died for love-and killed for it. And yet in itself it was indefinable, it wore whatever passions people brought to it, like a mountebank, with no reality of its own.
We walked away from all that was warm and dear and stood frightened in cold rain where the guns fired, and in the end, we died in pain, the black stinking mud our shroud, embraced at last not by living arms, but by the bones of those who before us died ...
I lost my own daughter and I'll never have another. The hurt doesn't go away, no matter what you tell yourself. It's there day and night. I'd have killed any man who touched her. Why should I stand for such talk about another man's child, if I wouldn't have stood for it about my own?
What of the hundreds of faceless men on the streets looking for work, trying to pick up the threads of family life, hoping that the dying had made a better Britain, and finding they were lost in it. Faceless men...People stepped around them now, ignored the brave boy who'd marched away to glory and now begged on the street because a one-armed man couldn't work. He thought sometimes, in the dark corners of his mind, that the dead were the lu..
No one ever stepped forward to protect me, Inspector. I wonder why I should feel any driving sense of duty to protect anyone else. Let me tell you something about love. It can be very cruel and very greedy. I've had done with it. And that has given me a freedom that I cherish.
It isn't actually a question of guilt or innocence, is it? It's a matter of what the jury believes, once we've told them what evidence there is on either side. Given the proper evidence, we could probably convict God. Without it, Lucifer himself would walk free!
Gallantry," he often told his men, "is an act of great courage under fire, of bravery beyond the call of duty. But if it kills your comrades as well or puts the battle in jeopardy, then it is arrant pride and foolishness. Learn to know the difference."
We left the flat together. I expected- dreaded- Mrs. Hennessy popping out her door and asking who my young man was. "An escaped murderer, Mrs. Hennessy; my father will be horrified." But she didn't come out her door."
You can't save the world from itself. If people are intent on destroying themselves, they will. And sometimes they don't care if they bring others down with them. That's selfish but it's human nature.
He ran out of possibilities. Still, Blevins could perhaps help him there. Or Mrs. Wainer. On the other hand-- Hamish said it for him. "I wouldna' be in haste to show it." Getting to his feet, Rutledge found a flat leather case lying in a corner of the room, a coating of dust covering it, and a cobweb linking it to the frame of the bottomless chair beside it. The grip was broken at one end, but it would do. Rutledge looked around him a last ..
For a moment the man from London and the woman in mourning considered each other in silence, each gauging temperament from the slender evidence of appearance.
Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, was well into his sixties. His wife, the Empress Elisabeth, had been assassinated years before by an anarchist, his only son had died in a murder-suicide pact, and now the Archduke, his heir, was dead. The fate of Europe might well depend on what a bitter old man decided.
It was a miracle, finding myself a father. I can't tell you. He was so small, and yet so real. He moved, he made sounds, he opened his eyes and stared into my face. His hands clutched at my fingers. It was unexpected, the depth of my feelings for him even then. I'd have done anything for him. Died for him if need be. Nothing I'd ever done to that point in my life seemed half so important.