Lovely War

by Julie Berry

  But it was better than onions. Hazel couldn’t handle onions. So Colette, who could, spared her friend and chopped the entire thirty-pound bag of onions daily. Even so, she had to wear aviator goggles, lest her eyes weep into the soup.

  After cabbages and onions, they scrubbed and cut potatoes. Sometimes there were butcher’s bones to boil down into the stock. Then the German prisoners standing in the soup line would cheer. These were the high points of life at Compiègne.

  The camp at Compiègne housed eight thousand German combatant prisoners of war. They slept in drafty barracks, breakfasted on rationed bread before dawn, then worked all day. The French government had them rebuilding roads and laying train tracks. At night, the men were famished. Hazel and Colette ladled gray soup into their bowls.

  Hazel hated seeing how thin and forlorn they were. Beaten down by war and captivity.

  Now that she saw Germans daily, with their bright blue eyes and shaggy beards, hearing their “Danke, Fräulein” for the soup, she struggled to understand why they and French and British lads had spent four years killing one another.

  Of course she knew about the German atrocities in Belgium. She knew what terrible brutality they had caused in 1914. But surely these weren’t the ones who had done it. How did one nation produce both humble souls and killers?

  They’d had mothers and sisters and sweethearts, jobs and hobbies and pets. Favorite songs and foods and books. Why must they die? Why must our boys die?

  For Colette, serving Germans each day was agony. In their faces she saw the eyes that had sighted their pistols upon her father, her brother, her friends. She could never forgive them. But she fed them. Whatever god wants to wound me more will fail, for I have nothing left to hurt, she thought. Whatever god demands forgiveness of us will have to make do with cabbage soup.

  Hazel spoke no German, but Colette did. She understood when they were cursing France and Britain under their breath.

  A few could speak English, some sounding British, and others American. They made small talk with her. She did her best to be cheerful for them. She hoped whoever had James now would do the same. She prayed that someone had him in their care. The alternative was unthinkable.

  Others ignored her, and a few were rude, or even vulgar in the way they looked at her. She didn’t know what they muttered, but it took little imagination to guess.

  After the commotion of Saint-Nazaire and the glamor of Paris, Compiègne was dull and dreary. After cleanup, they walked a short distance to the hostel where the Red Cross billeted them. They talked, wrote letters, and played cards. Eight other girls, all French, serving in various roles, nurse and typist and laundress, roomed there. They were friendly.

  Only the slow approach of spring brought any uplift. Leaves uncurled, and crocuses began to poke through the frosty ground. The breezes began to smell of rain and fresh green things that weren’t cabbage. There would almost be hope in the air, if it wasn’t for the utter lack of news of Aubrey or James.

  “This job is our penance,” Colette said one morning as they’d walked to work. “If we hadn’t allowed Aubrey into our hut, we’d be there still.”

  Hazel looked at her in astonishment. “You’re not sorry, are you?”

  Colette shook her head. “I’d do it all again. If only to spite Mrs. Davies. But Justice is blind,” she said, “and rules are rules. Now we pay. In onions and potatoes.”

  “If I ever leave this job,” Hazel said, “I will never, so long as I live, eat cabbage.” She laughed. “It’s a shame. I used to like it boiled.”

  Colette wrinkled her nose. “Ffaugh.”

  “I miss the piano,” Hazel said. “I wonder if I can even play anymore.”

  Colette looked puzzled. “Don’t be silly. Of course you can.”

  They walked on a while longer, until the kitchen buildings were almost upon them.

  “Do you think, Hazel,” Colette asked her, “that we just need to learn to forget them, and move on with our lives?”

  It frightened her to hear Colette voice the question Hazel had been asking herself.

  “Certainly not,” she cried. “Until we have firm proof otherwise, we hold out hope.”

  “For how long?”

  Hazel watched her drab shoes crunch the gravel. “Until they’re safely home again.”

  April became May, and May moved resolutely toward June. Hazel did the arithmetic one day and realized that she had chopped up something close to eight tons of cabbages. Her hands looked like her mother’s—red and raw and cracked.

  One evening, when the dinner line had finished, and all the men were seated or huddled somewhere with their bowls of soup, Colette went back to the washroom to change while Hazel consolidated all the dregs of soup from each vat into one small pan.

  “More soup, please?”

  A heavy German accent spoke the words. Hazel looked up to see a German prisoner standing in the doorway with his bowl cupped in his hands. She glanced toward the doorway where the armed guards always stood. Without fail, they would tell Germans asking for more food that there were no second helpings. But the guards were gone. Hazel was alone in the kitchen area with the German. And he looked so very hungry.

  He hung back from the serving line, so Hazel came out from behind the counter to pour soup directly into his bowl. He dropped the bowl and pinned her against the wall. One hand he pressed into her abdomen, and the other into her neck. The pan fell from her hand, and hot soup soaked into her skirt. Before she could scream, he’d covered her mouth with his.

  Hazel was so shocked, she didn’t know what to do. She fought, but he was stronger. He licked her lips and teeth with his foul tongue, then forced it inside her mouth.

  She struggled and fought, but he was much too strong. Even as he forced his face upon her, he laughed at her, a bitter, hateful sound.

  Her brain lurched into full alert, and shock and revulsion morphed into desperate fear. She could barely breathe. She fought and kicked and struggled. If no one came soon, he might—how could this be happening? Where were those guards?—when suddenly he let her go.

  Two other German prisoners had ripped him off Hazel, leaving her drooping against the wall. One slugged her attacker in the face with his fist, smashing into his eye and then his jaw. The other tackled him to the ground and sat on his chest while the first pinned his legs down.

  “Go, Fräulein,” said her first rescuer. “We are very sorry.”

  The commotion had brought the two French guards running through the doorway from wherever they’d been dawdling. Colette appeared, too, and was at Hazel’s side in an instant.

  “Did this man hurt you, Mademoiselle?” the French guards asked Hazel.

  If she said no, he might molest her again, or Colette, or any of the young ladies there. But if she said yes, the guards might take her offender somewhere from whence he might never return. International laws prevented countries holding soldiers as prisoners of war from killing them, but “accidents” happened. Some French soldiers were eager for any excuse.

  She scrubbed at her mouth with her wrist. The sight of the man on the floor, watching her through mocking eyes, made her gag. But she wasn’t ready to sign his death warrant.

  “Or were they just fighting?”

  Her heart sank. Now even her rescuers were in danger of punishment.

  She longed for hot water. A toothbrush. Something to scrub every trace of him off her.

  “He was very rude to me.” Her voice was as weak as her answer. “They defended me.”

  Colette whirled upon the solider guards with a torrent of angry French. Something about Why was my friend left alone? and She is entitled to protection at all times.

  Hazel covered her face as waves of shock and disgust and violation swept over her.

  “Get up, you three,” demanded the chief guard. “On your feet. Vite, vite.”

>   Her rescuers got off her attacker, and they all rose to their feet. Her attacker leered at her from out the corner of one eye.

  “Let’s go home, Hazel.” Colette slipped an arm around her. When they’d left the camp buildings, Colette added, “Let’s leave this dump and go back to Paris.”

  Hazel was only too glad to agree, until she returned to their room and found a letter there from her mother, featuring a clipping from the newspaper.

  HADES

  Welcome Home—May 6, 1918

  AFTER A FEW weeks at Maudsley Hospital, James was discharged in early May.

  The days had blended into a pink blur.

  There were stretches of time when he thought of nothing at all. Of the robin perched on his windowsill. Of the flowers in the vase.

  The shaking subsided. He never saw the syringe now.

  They played a gramophone in the common room, where James took meals. He played checkers with other patients. They would talk together, and sometimes they would cry.

  His parents sat on either side of him on the train ride to Chelmsford. His mother threaded her arm through his and held him close. It made him feel like a little boy.

  The sight of Maggie and Bob, holding back on the porch, then running to him, brought on tears. Bob was taller, with blemishes on his nose, and Maggie had filled out a bit, with hair frizzier than ever. When they saw him cry, they feared they were the cause. He wanted to tell them, no, no, you’ve never been so grand, but he couldn’t, so he went to his room.

  He felt thirteen again, like Bob. A dusty set of tin soldiers arranged on his bookcase was too funny to laugh at.

  Beside his bed lay a box containing his army kit, which had been found, by some miracle. The sight of it repulsed him.

  On the table beside his bed sat a stack of letters. He opened them, saving Hazel’s for last, though whether postponing pleasure or pain, he couldn’t say.

  The first was from, of all people, Private Billy Nutley.

  April 12, 1918, it read. Dear James, Our new sergeant gave me your address. We’ve been reassigned to the Third Army under the command of General Byng. We’re not much farther up the line than before, but things have quieted down. Jerry gave us a terrible beating, but he ran out of steam, and we’re holding. It was a good bit of work, but what a price. I’ve heard from Chad Browning’s family. He’s back in Wales and seems like he’s mending all right. He’ll be scarred. His folks wanted to write to you. I gave them your address. I told the new sergeant what you did, holding off the storm troopers and getting Browning to safety. We all told him to write you up for a medal. Gilchrist died, as I think you know, and Selkirk. Mason’s gone missing. The rest of us, what’s left of us, are all still here. Get better soon and come back and rejoin the regiment. Meanwhile, think of us while you’re putting your feet up. Cheerio, Bill.

  The letter shook in his hand. He quickly opened another.

  April 20, 1918. Dear Mr. Alderidge, I write to express my wife’s and my utmost gratitude for heroically assisting our poor son, Chad, with his burns, and transporting him to safety. He’s still recovering in hospital and has had several skin grafts. We remain hopeful for his recovery. He’s still our Chad underneath all the bandages. We don’t know how to thank you, but we hope that if there’s ever a way that we might assist you, you will not hesitate to ask. Sincerely, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen Browning, Tenby, Wales.

  Next was a letter from the army. He’d been awarded a Distinguished Service Medal. Enclosed was a check for twenty pounds and a notice of when the actual medal would arrive.

  The next letter bore a woman’s handwriting, and a YMCA insignia in the corner. He read the note from Mrs. Davies, accusing Hazel of immoral carryings-on with soldiers.

  Paris whirled before his eyes. Poplar. The trains. The Royal Albert Hall.

  It was impossible to believe that his piano girl could be anything like what this woman had said. It had to be a lie. But why would this woman bother to send such a letter, then?

  He had no more heart left to break, but in some hidden corner, buried beneath the war, he wept. If Hazel Windicott hadn’t been what she appeared to be, then there was nothing left in this world to believe in at all. Honor, Right, Justice—they were already out on the dust heap.

  He read the letter one more time.

  Some kind Fate made the secretary send it, he thought. To ease his pain of saying goodbye. If his lack of correspondence hadn’t already killed whatever affection she once had for him, he must kill it now. He was no more eligible for the love of any girl, good or bad. He was only a shell of a man. A shell of a boy, cringing in the small bed in his childhood bedroom in his parents’ home. Utterly unfit to be what any girl might want now.

  He tried to imagine Hazel here, now. Walking into this room.

  His skin grew cold.

  Not because the sight of her wouldn’t be his dearest desire. Because it would be.

  There might come a day when he could look back at his life, at the mauve-tinted memory of Hazel, and be glad he’d known her. That once, he’d meant something to a girl like her. That once, he’d kissed her and heard her say she loved him.

  The letter from Hazel, forwarded from the Fifth Army’s HQ, sat unopened. A large, stiff envelope was all that remained. He opened it and pulled out a black cardboard folio. In the photograph inside, he, Cupid, and Hazel, in the new coat he’d bought her, smiled at the camera.

  For the rest of the day, when his family knocked, he didn’t answer.

  ARES

  Spelling the Word “American”—May 14, 1918

  THREE AMERICAN REPORTERS searching for stories of doughboys abroad and visiting regiments of General Pershing’s American Expeditionary Forces throughout France arrived in the Champagne sector on May 14, 1918. Their names were Thomas M. Johnson (New York Evening Sun), Martin Green (New York Evening World) and, most famous of all, Irvin S. Cobb, a popular writer for the Saturday Evening Post.

  They knew colored soldiers were serving in the war, but believed them to be working as stevedores. They’d heard rumors of a black regiment in action, but had seen no official reports.

  Finally word reached their ears of a 369th US Army division, attached to French command, serving in the Champagne sector, so there they hurried to scoop the story. As Fate would have it, they arrived the morning after two privates, Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts, fought off some twenty-four Germans in a raiding party.

  Irvin Cobb, a Southerner from Kentucky, was famous for depicting black people as lazy, ignorant “darkies,” trading in stereotypes and watermelon jokes. Many black soldiers refused to greet him. But Cobb, learning of Henry Johnson’s and Needham Roberts’s heroics, and seeing the spot where the battle occurred strewn with German weapons, and a puddle of congealing blood the size of a washtub, knew a story when he saw one.

  All three reporters dispatched articles home. “Young Black Joe,” they called both Johnson and Roberts. Later features dubbed it “The Battle of Henry Johnson.” The story was a national sensation. They described the battle in vivid detail—how Roberts, shot in numerous places, lay on the ground and hurled grenades at the foe, while Johnson, also shot many times, still fought off the Germans and defended Roberts, first with his rifle, then with the butt of the rifle, then with a bolo knife. The bolo knife would make him a star from coast to coast.

  Even Cobb, who had made a living peddling in Jim Crow stereotypes, and knew it, was moved by Johnson’s heroics. He put a curious coda on his own article:

  . . . as a result of what our black soldiers are going to do in this war, a word that has been uttered billions of times in our country, sometimes in derision, sometimes in hate, sometimes in all kindliness—but which I am sure never fell on black ears but it left behind a sting for the heart—is going to have a new meaning for all of us, South and North too, and that hereafter n-i-*-*-*-r will merely be another way of spelling the word
American.

  APHRODITE

  House Call—June 1, 1918

  ON SATURDAY, the first of June, on a bright and hazy midmorning, Hazel knocked on the front door of a large home on Vicarage Road, Old Moulsham, Chelmsford, with her heart in her throat.

  A comfortable-looking woman in a calico day dress answered the door.

  “Good morning, dearie,” she said. “Who might you be?”

  “Good morning,” Hazel managed to say. “My name is Hazel Windicott. I’m looking for a Mr. James Alderidge.” She swallowed. “I’m his friend.”

  The woman’s expression changed. “Are you, now?” she said. “Come right on in, then.”

  The woman threw a plump arm around her shoulders and steered her through the entryway into a front sitting room. It was dark, paneled with stained oak. It felt more homey than elegant, which relieved Hazel.

  “Let me take your jacket. What a pretty pink! Here, make yourself comfortable.”

  A young woman of fifteen or so with the thickest sandy-brown hair Hazel had ever seen poked her nose into the front sitting room. Maggie.

  “Margaret, dear, there’s a friend of James’s here. Fetch us some tea and biscuits, will you?” She layered “friend of James’s” with the significance of “Queen of England.”

  Maggie’s eyebrows shot up. She disappeared toward the rear of the house.

  Hazel felt rather dizzy. Every aspect of her appearance, she realized, was now being studied. Was her violet-colored skirt too garish? Her Paris shoes too vain?

  “Tell me,” the woman asked, “how do you know James?”

  Is James here? Why won’t you tell me?

  “We met at a parish dance,” Hazel said. “In Poplar. Right before he left for France.”

  “A parish dance!” the woman said. “Well, isn’t he one for not telling his blessed mother anything! Though I suppose most young men are.”