She shook her head. ‘Nothing. There are witnesses who say he fell.’
‘Witnesses who attest to my dear brother being killed,’ Louis interjected.
Sophie kept her patience. ‘Not confirmed, though. His present status is missing.’
Marie considered this before pulling a face to suggest it was hardly conclusive. ‘He is missing . . . just presumed dead, then?’ Sophie nodded. ‘He could have been taken prisoner.’
‘We’ve left no stone unturned, Madame Curie,’ Louis said over his shoulder, sounding peeved.
‘No doubt you’re in contact with the Red Cross?’
‘Yes, since 1915 I’ve been badgering them. They’re tired of me, I’m sure. My brother-in-law has kindly set up a meeting for me at the Parisian headquarters tomorrow, so I hope I might be able to find out more then.’
‘I don’t want you getting your hopes up, Sophie,’ Louis said, turning back to them. ‘Please approach this meeting without anticipating too much.’
Marie took a different approach. ‘Never tire of being a nuisance. Keep pestering – they’re not infallible, and if you’ve never been to the front, I can assure you that mistakes could easily be made in the chaos of battle and rescuing the fallen and injured. Men might have lost their uniforms, or the items that connect them to who they are. I have seen the effects of shock. Some change personality. Anyway, my dear, I don’t wish to frighten you but simply to ensure you don’t give up hope.’
‘We shan’t,’ Louis said, putting a protective arm around Sophie’s shoulder. ‘Shall we, my dear? Looks like the intermission is drawing to a close. It’s been lovely talking,’ he said to Madame Curie.
Sophie squeezed Marie’s arm. ‘Come to Reims . . . please. I will keep my promise regarding the car. Thank you for tonight.’
‘Keep your hopes bright, Madame Delancré. Maybe he’s hoping you’ll find him.’
6
MARNE
May 1918
Captain Charlie Nash and his company found themselves marching through a sun-drenched landscape that, if not for their uniforms, rifles and all the other clutter of warfare, let him pretend that the world was at peace. After leaving their camp in Belgium, the 8th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment had begun their much-anticipated journey into France, towards the quieter sector near Reims. They’d marched and then boarded a train, not at all offended to be travelling in cattle trucks – the only available rolling stock in this part of France right now, they were informed – just relieved to be leaving behind the despair of Flanders. Grief from not having been able to keep Hartley alive until their rotation and retreat felt like a weight pressing on his chest, heavy as a gravestone. But since arriving in France it had begun to ease.
He’d nodded as his major observed what a little spring sunshine and blue sky could do to improve the men’s humour. ‘Enjoying that warmth on your back, Captain Nash?’
‘Appreciating it all over, sir. I think my uniform is feeling vaguely dry for the first time in months.’
The men around them had chuckled their agreement.
‘How long, sir, to the next stop?’
‘I don’t really know, to be honest, but I think our boarding at Wizernes was the last for a while. Next stop is a place I cannot pronounce.’ He spelled it out.
‘Aougny, sir.’
‘Yes, well, not all of us speak Frog like you, Nash. Anyway, it’s on foot from there.’
‘No one’s complaining, sir,’ Nash replied. ‘It feels a treat to be able to move around so freely.’
The men were as good as Charlie’s word, with not a murmur of discontent at having to march with their packs. They were treated so well by the French civilians in every village and town they marched through that Charlie began to wonder if his battalion would be able to get back into that lean, fighting frame of mind from Flanders. Not that he was particularly concerned, given the promise that the fighting in Marne was sporadic at most; he sensed they would simply be holding their positions as a deterrent. It presented a surprise opportunity for everyone’s physical wounds to begin healing, their health to improve and hopefully for the mindset to turn optimistic once again. Minds were harder to get well, though.
In mid-May, as the Tigers passed through Jonchery, Charlie was astonished to see French soldiers forming a guard of honour to show their respect and gratitude to the Englishmen for helping to keep their people – and Paris – safe from German pillage. He penned a letter to Hartley’s mother from Châlons le Vergeur when the 8th arrived at their new position, approximately ten kilometres from the front. He also finally got around to writing to his old boss at the laboratory in Lancashire. He had no one else to write to. No family, no good friend waiting on a missive . . . just a mentor he respected and still felt badly for leaving when he volunteered to join up.
Truly, Prof, at Ypres, when we were rotated into huts, we’d sleep in dust on hard floorboards and wrap our puttees around our feet for extra warmth – not that there was much to be had. Here in France, we lie naked, mainly because of the southern warmth but also because of the fleas. I don’t care about the itching because I can smell the living forest nearby, something Flanders couldn’t offer. The trees have branches and thick, beautiful leaves . . . I can hear birdsong all day and I realise I haven’t heard birds singing in more than a year. The grass is lush and long like a thick carpet, and although it’s cold, the river is clean and we all jump in to bathe. The houses in the nearby town are deserted but they’re whole. People closed their shutters and left. Everything appears intact and only the dead flowers in the window boxes give away that the place is unlived in. Mind you, if we walk a bit further to another town nearby, it’s business as usual. I was sitting at a café, for heaven’s sake, drinking pinard (that’s French plonk) as if I had nothing more important on my mind than enjoying the sunshine! I do feel guilty for the poor sods left to fight in Belgium on those flat, grey plains with the explosions all night, like stab wounds in the land, and killing where they can.
The French soldiers smile at us wherever we go and the women blow kisses. Blimey, we are being made to feel like heroes. I will say the troops are building up in this region, which is a little unsettling as we thought we were being sent here for some much-needed R&R. I also note that the enemy positions have the high ground. They can watch everything we’re doing. That said, I’ve counted six shells being fired in the ten days we’ve been here, and after the shelling we’ve endured, this is a paradise by comparison.
Enemy patrols are active but we’re onto them. The orders down the line are to fire only when fired upon, although I reckon we’ll retaliate with vigour if it should intensify. No sign of that yet and a lazy afternoon with some pinard beckons. I’m not allowed to tell you where I am but suffice to say our headquarters are on a hill, which is reassuring because it gives us some sort of view of the canal in our immediate distance and a lot of deserted trenches. The trenches here are clean enough and not required but there are insufficient latrines should they be. Again, my hope is that they are never called upon. The canal I mentioned separates us from Fritz too, which is doubly reassuring.
Hoping this finds you well. It leaves me a little lighter of heart than my last, and here’s to sharing a beer with you sometime in happier days.
Yours, Nash.
Charlie posted his letter to Professor Clunes that day. Over a small flagon of wine, his back leaning against the warmed bricks of the local café at Trigny, he considered his fortune at being here when so many good men from his unit were dead.
‘Follow orders, even if they’re stupid, and then die,’ Charlie murmured into his cheap wine.
‘Hey, soldier.’ It was a woman’s voice interrupting him. He grinned, grateful to be distracted. ‘Santé,’ she said, and he raised his glass to her.
She walked over with a hip-rolling gait, encouraged by his smile, and slipped into French. ‘Do you understand my language?’
‘I do,’ he replied in French, and watched her eyes wide
n in surprise.
‘Ah, my handsome soldier is also clever,’ she said, amused and surprised at once.
‘Only when I’m in the mood,’ he quipped, still in French, before draining his glass.
‘You impress me, Englishman. Can I call you Tommy?’
‘You may, but my name is Charlie,’ he replied, pushing off the wall and immediately missing its soothing and silent warmth.
‘Well, Charlie . . .’ He rather liked how she pronounced his name with a sh sound. ‘How about some French comfort?’ she offered with a wink, her weight shifting to one of her wide hips as she paused, blocking the sun so he didn’t have to squint to admire her attractive curves. ‘Better than that vinegar you’re drinking.’
He allowed a new and lazy smile to split across his expression; it had certainly been a long time since he’d felt the touch of a woman’s skin.
‘It is tempting,’ he offered. ‘But —’ he pointed to his shoulder and the three stars on his epaulette — ‘I am a captain, and I must take my men away from this lovely place so we can defend France and her beauties.’ He nodded at her and she appeared to give a brief quiver of delight that he was speaking about her.
‘Come with me, Captain Sharlie.’
‘What’s your name?’ he asked. She opened her mouth to reply but he added, ‘Your real name.’
Her gaze narrowed as she considered him. ‘I go by the name of Coraline.’ He waited. ‘But my real name is Fayette.’
‘That’s pretty.’
‘My mother’s choice. She was pretty.’
‘What does it mean?’
She shrugged. ‘Little fairy. My friends call me Fay.’
He felt suddenly sad for her; something about that small disclosure and the fact that he knew she was telling him the truth. ‘May I call you Fay?’
She nodded.
‘Then I shall walk with you, but I don’t have long.’
She gave him a smile of promise and led him to a tiny room over a shop which was bare of furniture save a small table, a cupboard, a bed and a small couch for two. There was a painting on the wall that looked primitive, as though conceived and executed by a child, and it hung crookedly. The room smelled of food whose aroma rose from beneath the boards; he could pick out garlic in particular.
‘They’re making garlic soup in the café,’ she explained as he sniffed the air. ‘Economical.’
It was not unpleasant and it made him hungry. When he remarked on this, she laughed.
‘Hungry for what I have, perhaps?’ she said flirtatiously.
‘Can we just talk?’ he asked, feeling ridiculous for asking.
She had been busy unbuttoning her blouse and paused now, staring at him as though he was feeble-minded. ‘I think you mean that,’ she said.
‘I do.’
‘What do you wish to talk about?’
‘Tell me about your life growing up as a little fairy.’
He led her to the sofa and she obliged, first fetching a flagon of wine and some short, thick glasses before sitting beside him, placing the wine on the stool in front of them. The sofa’s springs had long ago given up their bounce and wheezed with their weight.
‘No, Sharlie. Tell me about your childhood. Tell me what that sadness in your gaze is about.’
He’d never told anyone before, but as Fay poured him a glass of cheap wine, he began to talk as freely as if they were the closest of friends.
‘I don’t know who my parents were. The orphanage was a dreadful place for any child to grow up. I went to a good school, though, by winning a scholarship, and my eyes were blackened regularly by the fists of a bully we called Nobby.’ Charlie used gestures, balling his hands and punching, in case his French wasn’t up to conveying the story. He gave a small gust of breath at the memory. ‘He had everything – parents, a home, the best bicycle in the school, money in his pocket for sweets and penny dreadfuls.’
She frowned and he explained. ‘Cheap, printed serial stories.’
‘Ah, yes, I understand. Why did he hurt you?’ She sipped her wine and he raised his glass to her.
‘Because he could. He frightened everyone but he liked to pick on me because I was small and poor. One day I stumbled upon Nobby embracing another boy. He beat me until I was a coughing, bleeding mess – no doubt with a couple of broken ribs and bruised kidneys.’ He pointed to where he’d been injured and she frowned deeply with concern. ‘I told my schoolmasters that I’d fallen out of a tree while stealing apples from a nearby orchard. They tried several times to get the truth, but I stuck to my story. When Nobby searched me out by the school sheds, I remember putting up both hands in surrender.’ Charlie made the gesture and saw only sympathy in Fay’s face.
‘I said to him: “If you beat me up again, I’ll have to go to hospital and that will get the authorities involved.” I needed to appeal to his smart mind. Nobby asked me why I hadn’t spilled the shameful truth. And I just told him that I had no reason to share it. That it was probably hard enough without others knowing.’
He couldn’t imagine why Fay was so intrigued, but she leaned in, entranced by the story.
‘So what did this Nobby do?’ she demanded, topping up his glass, her blouse half undone, exposing small but voluptuous breasts desperate to break out of a lacy brassiere. She crossed a lean leg over his thigh in an intimate but wholly unaffected gesture; she seemed genuinely interested in what happened next.
Charlie cleared his throat as his arousal tried to take control.
‘Well, I was astonished to see Nobby reach out his hand. I was too frightened not to respond and I felt my hand being squeezed in a huge fist and shaken. He said he was going to trust me.’
‘And?’
‘I think I recall suggesting he ace his exams, go to university, be all the brilliance he could be and then enjoy the freedoms that so many of us never would.’
‘And did he?’ She leaned closer. He could feel the warmth of her leg through his uniform and the teasing beckon of her skin was intoxicating. Charlie felt drunk.
He swallowed his wine. ‘I learned that Richard Hardwick – that’s Nobby – had distinguished himself in war and died heroically on the Somme battlefield, trying to carry two injured soldiers to safety. It turned out that he had studied at Oxford – that’s one of our top universities – and had become a man of letters. He was working on his debut literary novel when he became one of the first to join up.’
‘You are proud of him, no?’
He nodded. ‘I am.’
‘I like this story, Sharlie. It is sad but it makes me feel uplifted. I am wondering why you chose this one to share?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose I’m just all too aware of how fragile life is. He could have given something to the world through his writing. We’ll never know. He represents all the potential lost through this war.’
‘I think you tell me this because Germany is Europe’s bully and you don’t like bullies.’ Fay’s legs were long and supple against him and he finally reached out his fingers to stroke the smooth skin. ‘I think you need some loving, Captain.’
His faraway gaze returned to this woman who sold her body. ‘Why do you do this, Fay?’
Charlie sensed her considering how to answer that: whether to smooth over it or lie. ‘I have a child and a sick mother. My son’s father is dead. I have no siblings, no other family. There is no work to be had in this town, but I have neighbours who help me with my child and who don’t judge me, so I can’t leave. This sort of work I do is plentiful. I can rely on it . . . I can pay rent, buy food, buy medicine for my mother, clothe my son and perhaps even look towards saving a little for his future. I am not ashamed. I am not unhappy. I don’t live here,’ she said, gesturing around the room. ‘This is where I work. I can afford to rent this room from the café below. I would prefer not to earn my living this way, but it’s my choice right now.’
‘A pragmatic little fairy.’ He smiled. ‘A smart one, too.’
She nodded. ‘The soldiers
are grateful and generous but rarely as handsome as you, Captain Sharlie. It would be my pleasure to answer your need.’ She glanced at his lap. ‘And you have the most beautiful lips I’ve ever seen on a man. I do believe I would like to kiss them.’
‘Next time, perhaps. I really must go.’
She smiled sadly with amused disappointment and watched him dig out some money.
Charlie didn’t want to hand it to her, so he placed it on the table.
‘That’s too much,’ she remarked.
‘No, it’s not. Not for how much I’ve enjoyed being with you, Fay.’
She sighed. ‘Come visit again, Captain Sharlie,’ she said.
He picked up his hat, sporting its growling tiger insignia, and settled it on his head. Charlie gave a half bow. ‘To next time, lovely fairy,’ he agreed, feeling bad for the lie, but he suspected Fay knew their paths would not cross again.
Still, he couldn’t deny how restorative these last few days had been.
Invisible demons baited him as he took the stairs behind the café two at a time, leaping the final three to go and round up his men.
How long will the good feeling, last, Charlie? Maybe tomorrow you die?
Maybe this is a glimpse of calm before the real ugliness begins?
Hey, Sharlie, another taunted. Maybe a bullet that has your name on it is being loaded now, and you’ll never feel a woman’s skin again.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, he said over in his mind to shut them out.
7
PARIS
May 1918
As a soldier in Trigny left the village with the memory of a generous woman and her smoky laugh still pleasing his thoughts, Sophie Delancré held the memory of a man with a loud laugh and smiling eyes in hers.
‘Allow me,’ Louis said, pushing open the door of the French Red Cross headquarters in Paris.
She wished he hadn’t insisted on accompanying her but in truth she was excited to be another step closer to finding out Jerome’s story. That’s how it felt, even though Louis had impressed upon her for most of the journey here that it was a blind alley, and he cautioned her strongly not to let her hopes rise. Rise they did, though. Especially now, waiting for this man to invite them into his office. She looked around at the posters and the notices, and watched the crisply busy activity of people walking up and down the corridors and opening and shutting office doors. They were all pursuing the same end; knowledge of Jerome had to be somewhere in this building.
The Champagne War Page 10