Never Forget Me
Page 12
‘No.’
‘Don’t see me out.’
‘No,’ she said again, trembling with the effort to control herself.
He kissed her forehead. ‘Belle Sylvie,’ he said.
‘Robbie?’ She caught his arm as he turned away. ‘Don’t look back,’ she said. Her father’s words, and the words that had kept her safe. ‘Don’t look back.’
Chapter Four
7th November 1916
Dear Sylvie,
Ignore this if you see fit—I would not blame you—but I simply had to write to you. I find I need there to be honesty between us. It matters more and more with every passing day since the earth-shattering night we met. That’s what it felt like—for me, anyway—like an earthquake. You may laugh—how I would love to see you laugh, by the way, truly laugh—but you made me want things that I cannot have, feel things I am afraid to feel, think things I can’t bear to think about. I thought I didn’t want that. Since I came back here to this hellhole, I have discovered that I do.
I can’t say where I am, but it is an area familiar to you—not that you’d recognise it now. In Paris, the world still possesses some colour. Here, it is leached out of everything, a landscape of greys and muddy browns. The table in my dugout shudders every time a shell falls. It’s no secret that we’re about to make one last push to break through the German lines before winter sets in. We go up the line tomorrow. Over the shelling, I can hear some of my men singing. It’ll be their last rum rations for a while. Some of them will be writing letters home. Some of them will be praying. None of them want to go over the top. Sometimes I have to resort to threatening them with my revolver. My own men, Sylvie! I’ve never had to fire, thank goodness. Is it better to hope that I could, or that I could not?
I don’t believe they are cowards, those who funk it, though the army does. I’m an officer—my duty is to the army, but more and more, I find myself questioning orders. Stupid ones, like foot inspection—who wants to take their boots and socks off in all this squelching mud!!!—and others, too, that I can’t tell you because what I’m writing to you is treasonous enough. It’s strange, I don’t even know you, yet I feel I know you better than— I don’t know, stupid thing to say.
If I read this over I know I won’t send it, so I’ll send it as it is. What I wanted to tell you was that you’ve woken me from my torpor and I’m—grateful is such a tepid little word. When I left you that day, I felt as if you had turned me inside out. Or I’d turned myself inside out. Whatever, you get the picture! I wish we were not at war, but I’m beginning to see in the midst of all this suffering and mud it is not all savagery, and it’s not, as I was beginning to think, every man for himself. There is kindness here and nobility, too.
Sylvie, I am so very glad that our paths crossed.
Thank you, and take care.
Robbie
10th November 1916
Dearest Brother,
I wrote you another, very different sort of letter, a few weeks ago, but I tore it up. Listen, squirt, you must abandon this noble idea you have of joining me here, I beg of you. If one of us has to make the ultimate sacrifice, then let it be me. You know you’ve always been the apple of Mater’s eye, and frankly, I know that Glen Massan has always meant a deal more to you than me. Let’s face it, any Scotsman who prefers a good Bordeaux, as I do, to a fine malt doesn’t deserve to be laird!!!
So as your elder and better, I’m ordering you to stay put and keep your head down, for my sake, as well as the P’s.
Robbie
14th November 1916
Dear Robbie,
Your letter aroused so many emotions in me, I don’t know where to start. Relief first, because though I did not want to admit it, I did not want to contemplate never hearing from you ever again. And then fear that even now makes my pen shake. Are you safe? The appalling thing is, unless you reply I will never know.
Your letter also made me feel ashamed, because you were brave enough to say the things you felt and I—I was trying very hard to pretend I did not feel anything. It has become a habit. Like you, I felt turned inside out—I felt as if everything had been bottled up in me and you somehow triggered its release—goodness, how utterly dreadful that sounds, but you know what I mean!
Since that night, like you, I have started to see things differently. I don’t want to go back to before. Funny, but now that word has two very different meanings. Before the war. And before Robbie.
You say you don’t know me, and I hope that means you would like to, so let me tell you a little about myself.
As I told you, I am from Picardy, from a little town near Amiens. At the outbreak of the war, when it was captured by the Germans, we found ourselves behind enemy lines. Then, in September of 1914, long before you arrived in France, the French army liberated us, but we were not permitted to stay, because we were in the line of the fighting. While we were being evacuated, our convoy was shelled. My father, who was the head teacher in the local school, had gone back with my mother to help a neighbour. They were both killed. My only brother, Henri, survived but enlisted at the next town.
Henri was a man of the church, a man of God, and now he is a soldier. I saw him briefly at the start of this year. I am appalled to tell you that he had trophies from dead Germans. I barely recognised him. Revenge for the slaughter of our parents, he called it, though the truth is, we cannot even be sure it was German shells that killed them. Why is it that war kills so many who do not choose to fight?
I used to be a teacher, just like Papa. Now I work as a waitress in a nightclub full of men who think nothing of taking a life. Do you think it’s wrong, Robbie, this licensed killing? Is it different for women, for those of us who have not experienced war first-hand? We are all casualties of war, I think—you, me and Henri. Is there a right and wrong anymore?
I find I have not the heart to teach now—there seems such little hope for the future. We are alike, my brother and I, in that we have both lost our faith—his in God, mine in human nature. Henri is fighting at Verdun, I think. They say in the papers that it goes well for the French—you notice I do not say ‘us’—but as usual the casualty lists tell a different tale, and so, too, do the shortages that are starting to bite here in Paris. No butter, no oil. Still plenty of wine, though. I can see you smile—or pretend to smile—at that. I wish I could see you smile, Robbie, as you used to. Before. I think you once smiled a lot.
I was angry with you, that last day. I didn’t want to have to worry about someone else. I think I said that. I don’t remember all I said. I’m not angry now. I have been thinking about my parents and my old life a lot since you left. It hurts, but it means I’m alive. There are so many refugees here, so much worse off than me. In the nightclub, the atmosphere has changed. There is an air of desperation now. A fear that we might lose. We. You see, I told you I didn’t care, British, German or French, it was all the same to me. That was a lie.
I have said too much. I will not ask you to take care of yourself. I will not tell you that I miss you, because how can I miss a man that I have known for less than a day?
I will not beg you to reply, nor will I think about how I’ll feel if you do not.
Sylvie
20th November 1916
Dear Robbie,
I know it is too soon to expect a reply, but writing to you seems to have opened the floodgates. I have been besieged with memories of home. Shall I share them with you? You said your world was leached of colour. Would it help if I painted some in?
You told me you imported wine, before the war. In Picardy, the wine is not so good, but the cider is excellent. We drink it from little cups, like small coffee bowls. It is not sweet, more like apple champagne. If you are not careful, it can go to your head just like champagne, too. It is especially good with oysters. We always had those on Christmas Eve.
There will be no oysters in Paris this Christmas, though it is the height of the season. I suppose nothing can get through. No butter, did I tell you that?
In Picardy, we cook everything with butter. I am a good cook. Maman taught me well, though it is from Papa that I get my love of books.
I am wittering on, and all I really want to tell you is that I am missing you and praying for you. I tell myself that if I keep writing, then you will still be there to read my letters. That’s what I tell myself.
So I will keep writing.
Sylvie
21st November 1916
My dear son,
We received your telegram this morning telling us that you are safe as the hostilities go into abeyance for the winter. I must confess, my heart almost failed me when I saw the messenger at the Lodge door. To be completely honest, my heart sinks every time the doorbell rings, for fear it may be a telegram containing bad news. Your father can no longer bear to be in the room when I open them. But this time it was such wonderful news.
I know it is wrong of me, but I pray for an early and long winter to delay any further fighting. I would pray for an early victory, but that is too much to hope for after all this time. You see how dreadfully unpatriotic I have become. Even my impudent Welsh son-in-law would be impressed by the extent of my sedition!
You write so rarely, and when you do you say nothing of how you really are. I promised myself I would not chastise you, and I do not mean to. I know that I have never been the most demonstrative of parents. I was brought up to believe it was not the done thing to show one’s feelings. These days, I am awash with so many conflicting emotions that I am even upon occasion tempted to weep when I visit the latest of our people in the village to receive one of those telegrams, or when I see one of those brave boys limping past on one leg, or worse. I do not, of course, shed tears in public; one must, after all, maintain some standards when so many are slipping—for it seems to me that people are rather too eager to take advantage of the war by behaving most laxly.
Your father sends his regards. I fear this war has rather knocked the stuffing out of him. He has taken to spending even more time wandering the moors or locked in his study. I fear he misses all three of you dreadfully, though he would never say it.
There, enough of this. Flora, your frighteningly impressive sister, sends me letters full of fundraising suggestions she expects me to put into action. We have had blanket drives for the refugees, innumerable cake and jam sales in the village hall, and next month we will be holding our biggest event yet, over in the grounds of Colonel Patterson’s estate. A Christmas Fayre of the most old-fashioned type. We hope to raise enough to send at least one ambulance to France. I have purloined a case of your best vintage for the tombola, I do hope you approve. Frightening to admit it, but I am quite enjoying all this organising. Perhaps it is from me that Flora inherited that particular talent. Who would have thought it?
I find the newspapers too depressing to read these days. There seems to be a growing voice in London dissenting against this dreadful conflict and I am becoming sympathetic to that point of view, though you must know that in no way reflects on the great sacrifices my children are making. I am very, very proud of all of you.
Speaking of which, your father had a letter from Alex just this morning, telling him he had asked you to intervene on his behalf with a transfer. I beg you, Robbie, to do all you can to persuade Alex to remain where he is. As a mother, I can be forgiven for taking a little comfort in knowing my youngest is in a place where the fighting is less fierce.
One of the officers from the house has just arrived, and I must go to see what he wants since the laird is out. He is a rather shabby boy with the most dreadfully common accent. I cannot imagine that he would have been deemed officer material in peacetime—heaven knows what school he attended!
I am sending my best love. I torture myself that I said it so little to your dear face, my darling. Looking back on how we were before the war, I want to laugh at some of the things that seemed so important.
Please keep safe.
Your mother
23rd November 1916
My dear Sylvie,
I am safe, and overwhelmed to receive so many letters from you. Thank you. I would have sent you a telegram if I’d known you were so worried, though perhaps it would not have been such a good idea to have it arrive out of the blue. I know from my mother what emotions the sight of those things can do these days.
Before—before the war, long before Sylvie, you see, I think there are two befores now, as you do—a telegram usually signalled good news. I’m arriving on this train. I will meet you at this time. Even something as simple as Happy Birthday. Looking back on it now, that life seemed to consist of a string of parties and dances and picnics. Not true, of course, lest you think I was a complete dilettante, because I did work for my living. Not that I had to. As you’ve probably guessed, I come from a relatively privileged family, but I wanted to.
I’ve lost the thread of what I wanted to say. I miss you, Sylvie. Is that permitted? Too late, I’ve said it. I think about you all the time—no, that’s not true, and I’ve resolved to tell you as near to the truth as I can. Only you. I think about you all the time that I’m me, just me—in the moments that I’m Robbie and not Captain Carmichael, and believe me, they’ve been few and far between this last fortnight.
Do you want to know how it’s been? I never tell anyone. Usually, all I want to do is forget. I’m back behind the lines, another trench, another little dugout cut into the earth that I share with another captain—or I will do, when they replace the one we lost. There’s a brazier fashioned from a large metal drum, and coals to burn. There’s a lamp, and two bunks with straw mattresses. My man brings me hot water. I have no idea where he gets it from. Of course, there are rats, too, and the smell—no, no need to describe the smell. It’s eerily quiet now. No field guns, after weeks of incessant shelling. My ears are still ringing.
Later I have to go and attend to the men on charges. There are always men on charges. Tomorrow I will go up to the field hospital. Tonight I’ll be writing letters. You know the kind, all lies and brave words. I can’t believe they provide much succour for those poor families.
But I’ve still not told you how it was. It was as it always is, Sylvie. A mad rush forward, into the mist this time. We thought it was a good thing, the mist, but it worked just as well for the Germans. They couldn’t see us, we couldn’t see them, and our guns—well, you get the picture. Five days in all it went on, and I am still not sure whether we gained ground or not. The papers will say we advanced, of course. The losses were, as always, heavy.
My men went into battle bravely. I always thought it was the fear of what would happen to them if they didn’t go over the top that drove them on, but I was wrong. I watched them this time. They don’t fight for their country, not anymore—they fight for each other. You see, I was wrong when I said there was no such thing as comradeship.
Did I say that? If I didn’t, it’s what I thought, and I was wrong. I’ve seen valour and bravery and incredible sacrifice. Stretcher bearers, some of them conchies, take unbelievable risks to help hopeless cases, Sylvie. I have to write one of those letters after this one. A Corporal Bellingham. I shall say the usual stuff, but the truth is he had a horrible death, trapped for eight hours in a shell crater with his leg blown off before the stretcher bearers got to him, and conscious for most of it. He’d only been here a few months.
I hope you’ve not been fretting too much about me. Less than a day we spent together, it’s incredible, but as we said at the time, that doesn’t seem to matter. Your letters—four letters, I do not deserve such riches—have been a godsend.
I would give anything to see you, to hold you, to kiss you. Please keep writing and don’t make of any silence on my part anything but the vagaries of my duties. And of the postal system, which is really atrociously unreliable.
If I could but see you again—but that is to wish for the impossible, and I am not so changed as to do that.
Take care.
Robbie
23rd November 1916
Dear Mrs Bel
lingham,
On behalf of the officers and men of my Company, I wish to offer you our sympathy for the loss of your husband.