Children of the Siege

by Diney Costeloe

  She had been about to make a run for it down the lane, but hearing her name, said by a voice she loved, she paused, still poised for flight.

  ‘Hélène?’ he said again. ‘Is it really you?’

  ‘Marcel?’ she whispered, looking up into his face. ‘Marcel! You’re alive! We thought you were dead. Oh, Marcel!’ And bursting into tears she flung herself into his arms, clinging to him as he held her close, soothing her and stroking her hair.

  As her sobs gradually died away, he said, ‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ He produced a key from his pocket and opened the garden gate and led her to the stables.

  ‘I’ve been sleeping upstairs in Pierre’s quarters,’ he said. ‘But when I have a visitor we sit down here.’ He gestured to the straw bales and Hélène sat down.

  ‘Why don’t you live in the house?’ she asked.

  ‘The house is locked up and I think it’s better that no one realises I’m here.’

  ‘You said visitors?’ Hélène looked confused.

  ‘Only Georges,’ grinned Marcel. ‘He came looking for you and found me.’

  ‘Looking for me?’

  ‘Hélène, everyone’s looking for you. We have no idea what happened to you, you just disappeared. Papa and Pierre came home to find you missing and… And the house broken into.’ Marcel changed what he’d been about to say, not sure if his sister knew that Marie-Jeanne was dead. He reached over and took her hand. ‘Want to tell me what happened?’

  Hélène sat mute, her eyes wide with remembered fear.

  ‘Never mind,’ Marcel said gently. ‘No need now. All that matters now is that you’re safe.’

  ‘I didn’t know if it was safe to come home. He knows where I live and he might come looking for me here.’

  ‘Who might?’

  ‘The Gaston-man.’

  ‘The Gaston-man?’ echoed Marcel and his eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t worry about him, Hélène. If he shows up here, whoever he is, I’ll deal with him, I promise you.’

  ‘He’s very fierce,’ whispered Hélène.

  ‘So am I,’ Marcel said grimly. ‘Now then, are you hungry?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hélène, ‘very.’

  Marcel went up the ladder to Pierre’s rooms and returned with some bread and cheese and a couple of apples. ‘Make a start on these,’ he said, ‘and I’ll see what else I can find.’

  He moved towards the stable door but Hélène jumped to her feet. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she cried.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going far.’ He went out to the well at the end of the courtyard and winding the handle, drew up the bucket. He reached inside and took out a pitcher of milk and some dried meat. ‘It doesn’t look much,’ he said as he poured milk into a glass he’d brought down from upstairs, ‘but it’ll help fill you up.’

  Hélène certainly felt the better for some real food in her stomach and when she sat back, she started to speak. ‘They broke into the house, there were three of them…’

  Slowly, as the evening drew in and the light faded, Hélène told her brother what had happened to her.

  ‘And so they put me in St Luke’s orphanage,’ she concluded, ‘but it was awful there and today I ran away.’

  Marcel nodded, he could understand why she’d run away, but he wished she hadn’t; she was far safer living with the nuns than alone on the streets.

  ‘And this Jeannot?’ he asked.

  ‘He came and found me. We ran away, but the Gaston-man chased us. I think he caught Jeannot and I don’t know what happened to him. He shouted at me to run… and I did.’

  Marcel looked at her and shook his head. How had his little sister survived through all this? How had she kept up her spirits and finally managed to escape and come home? Thank God, he thought. Thank God I found her. How awful it would have been if she’d gone away again when we were so close and the city in such a turmoil.

  Just last week he’d been in the Place Vendôme when amid the cheers of the Communards, Napoleon I’s triumphal column had been pulled to the ground. But even as the Communards were cheering, Fort Issy, just south of the city, fell to the French army and Paris was under an even greater threat as they began to bombard the western city walls.

  Hélène’s not really safe here in the stables, Marcel thought, but at least she isn’t out alone on the streets.

  He needed to get her away to somewhere safer, away from the cannonade, for Passy could well be in the direct line of fire from both sides. He’d have to try and get her to Georges.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Georges was here looking for you too. We have to let him know that you’re safe.’

  ‘He’s in the army,’ Hélène told him. ‘That’s where you’ll find him, with his soldiers.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Marcel answered, ‘but the army aren’t in Paris any more. They’ve moved out to Versailles and I can’t reach him there. I can’t leave the city.’

  ‘Aren’t you a soldier too?’

  ‘Not in that army, no. But I will try to get a message to him. In the meantime, you must stay here. You can sleep upstairs in Pierre’s bed, and I’ll keep watch down here. I shall have to go out for provisions tomorrow, but I promise I won’t leave you here alone tonight.’

  He led the reluctant Hélène up to Pierre’s tiny bedroom and shook out the blankets for her. ‘Now you must try and sleep,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a long day. I shall be downstairs all night, I promise.’

  Hélène lay on the narrow bed, not much more comfortable than the one at St Luke’s, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but within two minutes she was deep in slumber.

  Marcel had stayed to see her sleeping before he went back down the ladder. He could hear the incessant fire of the cannon from beyond the city walls, the answering fire of the Communards from inside. The city was under siege, civil war had begun in earnest and he and Georges were on different sides. He had no idea how he could get a message to Georges… and if he could, what could Georges do? How could he protect Hélène any better than he, Marcel, could?

  He could only hope Georges would suddenly appear, as he had before, so they could decide what they were going to do with their sister. He checked that the garden gate was securely locked and settled down as comfortably as he could among the straw bales. After all, he thought as he too drifted off to sleep to the tune of gunfire, he’d slept in far worse places.

  It was pale daylight when he awoke in the morning and remembered all that Hélène had told him. The Gaston-man. He felt himself go rigid with rage as he thought of the abuse his little sister had had to endure from this man, whoever he was. There must be hundreds of men in Paris called Gaston, but this one had questioned Hélène about her family, her brothers, about him? Was it too far a stretch to think it might be Gaston Durand? If he could torch a barn full of his comrades to effect his own escape, he wouldn’t think twice about abducting and abusing a young girl. Marcel half hoped that the bastard would come looking for Hélène. He would castrate him.

  He wondered where Georges was. He doubted if he was in Paris now, but it was possible. Clearly Georges had been a government spy, he must have had a way in and out of the city, and if so perhaps he could take Hélène to safety the same way.

  But Georges did not reappear. The days passed and Marcel was at his wits’ end to know what to do to protect his sister. He had to leave Hélène for hours at a time, as he and his corps were fighting in defence of the city and he knew they were outgunned. It wouldn’t be long before the government forces broke back into the city and then all hell would be let loose. The thunder of the guns had become a steady accompaniment to the rhythm of life, almost tuned out, but great damage was occurring as the shells pounded away on the buildings and the walls, and Marcel insisted that she stay inside the stable block while he was away.

  ‘Now that I’ve found you again,’ he told her, ‘I need to know exactly where you are.’

  Marcel had done his best. He’d broken into the house and brought her some of her own clothe
s so that she could discard the dirty grey orphanage dress. He had brought out a pack of cards, some books to read, and some paper and pencils, and best of all he’d managed to keep her supplied with food. Even so, most of the time she was both lonely and bored.

  ‘I can’t stay here with you,’ he explained when Hélène begged him not to leave. ‘We’re at war. We need every man on the barricades and that includes me.’ He gave her a quick hug. ‘You can hear the guns; I have to go.’

  Hélène could hear the guns, all Paris could hear them, but they were not her greatest fear. Suppose he didn’t come back? What would happen to her if Marcel was killed?

  ‘You promise you’ll come back?’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Of course I’ll come back,’ he said, knowing it might not be a promise he could keep, but giving it anyway. Where the hell was Georges? he wondered once more. Why hadn’t he come back as he’d promised? Perhaps he’d left Paris after his last visit and now the fighting had begun, he couldn’t get back in. Perhaps he’d been caught. Perhaps he’d been killed. There were too many questions and no answers at all.

  Hélène longed to see her elder brother, too. He would know what to do. Marcel was doing his best, she knew, but Georges would take charge. She didn’t understand why her brothers seemed to be on opposite sides. They were both Frenchmen after all, both brought up in Paris, and yet…

  *

  With the resilience of youth, Jeannot made a steady recovery from his injuries. His ribs, the colour of thunder clouds, still ached if he moved quickly, but his stitched shoulder was beginning to heal up cleanly and the lump on his head had subsided, leaving only a deep scar amid his hair.

  Alphonse had sold the watch and with the proceeds he had bought food and fuel. For the next weeks they’d eaten well, rather than surviving on scraps from the market floor, and this brought the flush of good health to Jeannot’s face. After the first ten days or so, he began to go out into the streets. He told the Bergers that he was foraging for food, so that they could conserve the last of their precious cash, and indeed he often brought home extra fruit and vegetables that he’d managed to liberate from stalls without being caught by the angry stall-holders, but all the time he was out, he was looking for Hélène. Each evening he would slope past the house in the Avenue Ste Anne, hoping to see signs of life there, but it remained closed and dark. Had she got away from the warehouse? He hoped so and that she was hiding somewhere.

  He went back to his old haunts where he found Paul and the Monkey, and from them he heard that Gaston was holed up, injured, in the tenement where he’d kept Hélène prisoner.

  ‘He’s in a bad way,’ Paul told him. ‘Stuck in the leg he was, and he bled like a pig and now it’s gone bad.’

  Jeannot decided not to tell him that he was the one who had done the sticking. It was a story too good not to spread and he had no wish for Gaston or his friends to know he was still in the land of the living and come looking for revenge.

  ‘Francine looking after him?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Nah,’ Paul shook his head, ‘she ain’t there no more. Don’t know what happened to her.’

  Jeannot thought he knew, but that was another secret he wasn’t going to share with Paul. He drifted off into the city, the secret of Hélène’s escape still safe.

  The city was now under siege and that also produced opportunities for Jeannot and his like. Houses were damaged in the bombardment, and it was amazing what you could pick up when the dust settled. He returned occasionally to the Bergers with some of his pickings, but he had to be extremely careful. It would be the worse for him if he were caught looting, but with so many doing it, there was no real prospect of that. The National Guard were far too busy trying to keep the French army out, and the real danger was that every available man, woman and child was being press-ganged into building a second line of barricades. So far Jeannot had managed to avoid both, while providing himself and the Bergers with a few more comforts of life. ‘We’ll be all right,’ he told them. ‘Whoever wins this battle.’

  It was two evenings later that Jeannot was caught. He sneaked down the lane behind the St Clairs’ house and was just trying the gate when a hand grabbed him from behind, twisting his arm backwards and upwards, so that he gave a shriek of pain.

  ‘Now then, tyke,’ growled a voice. ‘Thinking of breaking in, were you?’

  ‘No,’ cried Jeannot. ‘I was just looking for someone, but it don’t matter now, she ain’t here.’ He struggled to get free but his captor raised his arm a little higher and Jeannot gave another cry of pain.

  ‘And who were you “just looking for”?’

  ‘Just the girl what lived here, but she ain’t here now. I wasn’t gonna break in, honest, I was just looking.’

  ‘Honest?’ The man gave a laugh. ‘I doubt if you’ve ever been honest in your life.’

  Keeping hold of Jeannot’s arm he reached past him, unlocked the gate and unceremoniously shoved the boy through into the garden. Jeannot stumbled as he was released but the gate closed behind him and there was no escape. At that moment the moon sailed out from behind a cloud and to his horror Jeannot found himself facing a National Guard. He cowered away, but the man simply grasped his arm again and led him towards the stables.

  Hélène heard them coming, and hid in the straw-bale cave Marcel had constructed for her in one of the loose boxes.

  ‘It’s all right, Hélène,’ he called softly. ‘It’s only me and someone who seems to be looking for you.’

  Hélène emerged from her hiding place and as Marcel lit the lantern she saw who was with him.

  ‘Jeannot!’ she cried. ‘You got away! You’re alive!’

  ‘And you,’ said Jeannot awkwardly. He glanced back fearfully at the man who had brought him in.

  ‘We’re safe here,’ Hélène told him. ‘This is my brother, Marcel.’ She turned to Marcel and smiling, said, ‘This is Jeannot, Marcel. You know I told you? It was him who rescued me from the Gaston-man.’

  The three of them sat together in the lamplight and Jeannot told them what had happened to him, how he’d been left for dead and how the Bergers had taken him in for a second time and looked after him.

  ‘I’m living with them for now,’ he said, ‘like I did in the siege.’

  ‘But s’posing the Gaston-man finds you?’ said Hélène.

  ‘He won’t,’ Jeannot assured her. ‘Paul says he’s back in his place, injured. Not good at all.’

  ‘You know where that is?’ asked Marcel. ‘Can you show me?’

  ‘I ain’t going back there,’ Jeannot said firmly.

  ‘You just have to show me,’ Marcel said. ‘Point out the place, that’s all. Just so’s I know where to find him.’

  24

  It was dark when Georges unlocked the gate and crept into the stable yard. He had only come back through the tunnel once since he had found Marcel in the stable. Then it had been for a single night to gather more first-hand information of the defences he’d seen, the numbers of National Guards, and the response of the people to the declaration of the Commune. It was information such as his, passed on by General Vinoy to his brother officers and government chief executive, Adolphe Thiers, that had suggested that the earlier attacks on the city at Neuilly, and at Courbevoie on Palm Sunday, would prove successful. That night he had had no time to visit the Avenue Ste Anne, and indeed he’d been challenged by a patrol of National Guards and was lucky to escape with his life. He wasn’t expecting there to be any news of Hélène and he was loath to meet up with Marcel again so that their loyalties should be put to the test once more. But now he was back, the city was under siege, relentlessly bombarded, and he knew he had to visit his brother once more, to try and persuade him to escape with him through the tunnel and return to his regiment.

  He emerged from the tunnel into the cellar and leaving the house under cover of darkness, made his way straight back to the Avenue Ste Anne. His role as spy and informant was doubly dangerous now that the full-sca
le attacks had begun and the streets were even more rigorously patrolled. Though he was, as always, dressed as an artisan of the people, he knew that any man found wandering the streets after dark might be shot as a spy or simply taken hostage as several prominent citizens had been; all liable to summary execution. More than once he had had to fade into the shadows as he heard the sound of marching feet and a troop of guardsmen passed by.

  The fighting had been fierce, and Georges was anxious to know if Marcel had survived the attacks. He couldn’t imagine why his brother had opted for the National Guard when he could have returned to his own regiment as a hero of Sedan, but it was a fact and he was afraid that Marcel might be killed trying to defend the city. He himself was taking no small risk; now that the battle was on for the future of Paris, would Marcel turn him in as a spy? Would they be able to speak as brothers and not as enemies?

  He opened the garden gate and locked it behind him. He waited just inside, but there was no sound from the stables. Perhaps Marcel had left him a message as promised. As he crossed the stable yard he saw a glimmer of light under the door.

  Thank God, he thought as he called his brother’s name before pushing the door open. And there she was, Hélène, sitting on a straw bale, and beside her was a street urchin pointing a pistol at him.

  ‘Hélène,’ he cried, ‘it’s me, Georges.’

  Hélène leapt to her feet and ran into his arms. Jeannot still held the pistol levelled at the newcomer, until Hélène turned and said, ‘It’s Georges, Jeannot, my other brother.’

  ‘What were you going to do with that?’ Georges asked as the boy laid the gun aside.

  ‘Shoot you,’ came the easy reply. ‘Monsieur Marcel said just point and pull the trigger.’

  ‘Well, I’m extremely glad you didn’t,’ said Georges as he walked over, picked up the pistol and stuck it into his belt. He turned back to Hélène and gave her another hug. ‘Who’s your bodyguard then?’

  ‘It’s Jeannot! Remember, Georges? I told you about going to the Prussian parade?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Georges stiffly, ‘I remember.’