The Champagne War

by Fiona McIntosh

  Everything was still.

  The quietest time of the day.

  No haunting hoot of owls. No scurrying squirrels in her front garden. That was odd.

  Too quiet?

  Sophie checked the time on her wristwatch, which she could just see with the aid of the watery moonlight seeping in.

  It was 1 a.m. and already tomorrow.

  Gaston de Saint Just shook off his melancholy thoughts with the reminder that all was quiet and there had been almost no fighting for many weeks. He’d seen more than his fair share of the ugliness – been gassed, been wounded, watched too many of those he liked die. Now he and his Algerian Tirailleurs might just see out this war with no further losses if they remained here in the Marne region. They’d been busy cleaning and repairing trenches in the quiet time and everything seemed so orderly around his regiment’s narrow tunnels that he’d given his men the night to themselves to relax.

  He’d remained on watch because his mind was filled with gratitude for his cousin bringing the mobile X-ray machines to Reims. Now many of his wounded men could get much faster, better care and have a chance at achieving a full recovery. And if that wasn’t enough, Sophie’s latest venture was a rare event to look forward to. She had come home not only with the promise of Madame Curie but she’d also managed to persuade a number of musicians to visit and give a recital. He had no idea how she’d pulled that off, but in truth he didn’t think Sophie could fail at anything towards which she really bent her will. He hoped he might make it back into the city to spend tomorrow evening with her.

  He checked his new trench watch, sent by his sister with a sweet note that it had been made in Switzerland by only the best watchmaker. He was glad she was safe in neutral territory, away from the troubles; wished Sophie had taken up her cousin’s invitation to move to Zurich. But that had always been an empty hope; still, the two women, good friends, wrote often. A luminous hand told him it was exactly one in the morning and he should probably consider getting some sleep if he was going to —

  Gaston never did finish his thought because the world around Reims began to explode.

  No one had stayed in their beds, but Sophie – not only alert but up when the bombardment began – was one of the first to be dressed in work clothes and out in the street, clutching a shawl around her shoulders more out of fear than cold. People began to gather around her house on the furthest reach of the city to see the night sky lit with its deadly orange of war. They had an appallingly good view from her house.

  ‘It begins again,’ the mayor said, arriving with a look of dread, still fastening his belt around his trousers, his shirt tails escaping.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said, already glancing away from him. How incredible that only moments ago she’d been marvelling at the silence and its safety. That had changed in a heartbeat. She couldn’t bear to watch the fresh anxiety pinching at the faces of people she knew well. She could sense the collective worry about whether the tunnels could cope with more casualties, whether they’d have enough supplies and food should they be cut off. Some, like her, were thinking of family, friends and homes in Épernay and other surrounding towns and villages. And she suspected, like her, no one wanted to so much as allow the question into their minds regarding what might happen should the Germans breach the front line that protected Reims. That’s where Gaston was.

  This was the landscape he and his men protected. He was out there now, perhaps fighting for his life. She didn’t know enough about battlelines and trench lines or even front lines. These words were thrown around and everyone used them, but few understood the network, least of all her. She hoped all the generals did because her best friend was on one of those lines, giving orders, no doubt leading his men heroically to keep Reims safe. She couldn’t lose him. Not after Jerome.

  She watched a shell explode in the direction of her vineyard, feeling all the more wretched for being unable to do anything to help Gaston. She could stand and observe the spectacle of the battle unfolding before her or she could head into the vineyard and do what little she could to protect it.

  Action won through.

  9

  His worst fears were confirmed. Charlie felt, as much as heard, the first explosion soon after the luminous radium hand of his wristwatch confirmed that it was one hour past midnight. He started because he hadn’t heard that sound in many weeks. The men around him stirred too, groggy from real sleep, but they soon heard their captain’s voice yelling at them.

  ‘This is real, lads! Not thunder. The Germans have begun shelling.’

  It felt like chaos breaking out, but the men were well drilled and while the activity was sudden and untidy, they were upright, rifles ready, if not wholly awake.

  ‘Gas masks!’ was being howled by several people, as more than just Charlie noted the sinister cloud of gas mixing with the night’s mist and beginning to drift their way.

  ‘Yellow cross!’ Charlie yelled, his voice muffled through his mask. Chlorine. ‘Yellow cross!’ He bellowed as loudly as his throat would allow, even though he suspected there would likely be other gasses.

  In less than half an hour Charlie was informed that all communication with the various battalions had been cut.

  ‘I’ll let the line know, sir,’ his runner said, but he didn’t wait for Charlie to reply; the lad was already out of Charlie’s trench and moving towards more officers in other trenches.

  The bombardment began to intensify over the following hours and Charlie’s men were trapped, not just by their lack of knowledge or orders, but due to the low light and the gassing, as much as the devastating news from the French regiment to their right that the Germans had crossed the canal. An hour or so later, Charlie was informed by their brigade, the 110th, that no runner was getting through – but worse, the enemy had breached their sector and had crossed the canal in the region they were protecting.

  ‘What now, sir?’ Charlie asked his superior, not wishing to state the obvious that their flanks were bare. ‘It’s a maze of trenches that we can’t man.’ He squinted into the murk. ‘I reckon Fritz is taking up positions we haven’t secured and now can’t. Shall we call the retreat?’

  The major and Charlie had a good understanding; certain matters didn’t need to be openly aired, but the man giving the orders looked deeply distracted, as though he hadn’t heard the question. ‘We’ve had a pigeon that the Germans have taken Chasseurs, advancing in large numbers over open ground straight at us now.’

  Charlie kept his expression even and thus hid his fears for what this latest news meant for the Tigers.

  ‘They’re bombing their way through,’ the major said, his tone sounding hopeless.

  ‘If they cross the main road, we’re doomed, sir.’ It was out before he could censor himself, nor did he care any more. They had to move.

  The major didn’t notice his bleak tone. ‘I think our actual front line is only being held by our snipers now.’

  Charlie nodded, appreciating that the sentries usually withdrew through the night to at least four hundred yards back. He waited but there were no orders forthcoming.

  ‘We have to sit tight, Captain Nash. I have not been given further instructions. Stay watchful.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Charlie replied by rote, but he didn’t agree. He tried again. ‘Er, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’ The man sounded tetchy.

  ‘I think we should fall back, Major. If they’re running right at us and our flanks are exposed, it won’t be long before we’re encircled.’

  ‘Retreat?’ The major sounded aghast.

  ‘Fall back to a stronger position, sir,’ he reasserted. ‘We need to use the bridges across the canal before the Germans have them. A lot of the men under my command are new recruits. They’re paralysed with fear and have no experience to draw on, so let’s give the men who’ve already been to hell and back a fighting chance, sir, to help those new lads. The boys from Ypres know how to advance or stand their ground. None are cowards, sir. But we need a bit
of space between us and Fritz in order to get organised.’

  ‘We don’t know how long we’ve got,’ his superior said, sounding unsure and as though he could be persuaded.

  ‘Well, you have no orders to the contrary, sir. So let’s fall back before we’re overrun and maybe we can get ourselves relinked with the 64th so we’re in a position to defend.’

  He could see by the unknitting of the major’s brows and the relaxing of his expression that the suggestion made sense to him. ‘We can’t see anything, anyway!’ the major growled through his gas mask, disgusted.

  ‘They could be on top of us in minutes, sir,’ he agreed.

  ‘Right, Captain, your men are to fall back. If you encounter a runner, let him know and pass it on. Let everyone know we’re moving closer to the N44 but not as far as the canal.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Good luck, sir.’

  As he saluted the likeable major, Charlie would never know whether the man had smiled, replied, or even survived the massive explosion near their trench that had them all dodging or ducking. Urgent orders were then being yelled and passed down the trench.

  None came directly from the major.

  Charlie took control and urged his men back; they found themselves in a trench in what he presumed was the local area known as Le Godat. It was also the last time he would see his company as a collective again despite moving with them, hauling himself from the trench and leading them so they could drop back towards the main road that led into Reims. Every soldier began to look the same even as they became rapidly fewer in number.

  What occurred over the ensuing hours felt like being on the Somme and Flanders at once. It seemed impossible and yet here he was, running around in it. Charlie had never heard battle like it, and he’d been in some of the worst. It was as though the world itself were fracturing, and no one had control any longer. Soldiers were being catapulted into the air, limbs flying in various directions; others were simply obliterated by the force of a blast. Shells maimed, destroyed, murdered. The smoke, the flames, the vile gas and the tunnel vision of the mask he wore meant Charlie’s world was reduced to a small window.

  The explosions had raged for a couple of hours in his estimation, but Charlie noted the shift in sound that told him machine guns and rifles were taking over from larger field guns and artillery.

  ‘They’re advancing!’ and as he yelled to whichever men were left standing around him, the forward outposts of his company came running back, hurtling through the communication trenches and falling back to their second line of defence, where Charlie had brought the survivors.

  Their fearful expressions told him all he needed to know, and the retreat was called. He had to get what was left of the men he commanded back to the road at least. He checked the radium hands again, squinting to see: it was nearing 0400 hours and Charlie came to the gut-twisting realisation that no runners had likely got through, which meant no reinforcements were close. They were now likely surrounded, and this would certainly be their last stand.

  He would go down firing.

  ‘Shoot for all you’re worth, lads.’

  The order prompted a tirade of bullets and yelling but it seemed useless: even he suspected he was firing at shadows in the mist. He was trying to decide whether they should save their ammunition or just continue the rally and risk firing at ghosts until they became ghosts themselves.

  At some point in the confusion he had dragged himself onto open ground but now he felt trapped by what he couldn’t see; there were no more Tigers, nothing ahead but a wall of smoke, sudden flashes of fire that made him veer left or right, and that was when he might bump into another man. They’d tried linking arms to stay together – it was Davies, he realised only from the muffled voice – but they’d been separated when his companion fell.

  Charlie bent down. He couldn’t risk pulling off his mask, but he could see enough to know that Davies had drunk his last nip of cognac on this earth. Disgusted, enraged and filled with despair, he gulped back a sob and left the dead man behind with all the other dead Tigers hidden in the morning mist. Why Davies and not him? Why couldn’t he just die?

  The noise meant no one could hear or keep track of the others. He ran on alone, unaware of what might be a few feet in front of him. Disorientation quickly set in. Pausing with Davies meant he’d lost his direction. A fresh terror was hearing the German language being hurled all around him. The enemy was overrunning them. Grief collided with confusion like the atoms he liked to study in the abstract. There was nothing abstract about this morning, though.

  He was living it. Living the hell that had erupted. He thought he knew war, thought he’d survived the very worst it could throw at men. He was wrong. Charlie stopped running suddenly; he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he wanted to take a measure of man’s potential to destroy. His surroundings had turned a filthy, murky grey-green. No more bright summer grass like velvet, no more ancient trees in full leaf; man’s weaponry, his cleverness at science and engineering, was reducing nature. And Charlie knew he was part of that ugly machine . . . he was one of the clever men of science.

  He heard the word Flammenwerfer yelled nearby and realised at the blast of fire that the German soldiers were now using flamethrowers. Grenades began to explode among the carnage. He fell backwards into a trench and only just stopped an enemy soldier with a bayonet to the gut. The man’s mouth opened but only blood oozed from it as his eyes bulged and then his weight collapsed onto Charlie.

  He didn’t know how long he lay in the mud with a German bleeding on top of him, but he felt feet stomping over both of them, heavy German boots treading on the back of his enemy. As he found his wits again, he understood that the German soldiers were flowing towards the canal.

  Surely now he must either surrender so he could preserve the remaining precious Allied souls under his command, or make a run for the canal and try to beat the Germans to it so they could protect it. He shouted for his sergeant with the thin hope of forming a breakout party to make a stand at the canal, but he knew it was hopeless. Who could hear in this din? And through the slowly clearing mist he could see only his own dead in the trench, looking to all intents like discarded litter.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder. There was a face he recognised and then another.

  ‘There you are, sir. This is bloody hopeless,’ the man said, in one of the finest understatements that Charlie was sure he would ever hear. ‘You’re wounded, sir.’

  Charlie shook his head as if the observation was meaningless.

  ‘I’ve got Harper with me, sir.’ Their voices sounded distorted coming from behind gas masks, and they were barely able to see one another.

  ‘Good boys. Harper?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Somehow you’ve got to get a message to Battalion HQ. We are falling back all the way to the canal and we’ll make our stand there.’ He pointed. ‘I think it’s that way.’

  Harper nodded and started to run. He’d hardly made four steps before he was felled. Charlie froze in shock, feeling responsible and useless at the death of yet another man in his care. He found his voice again, and despite the gas mark’s muffle it still sounded like controlled rage. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to his remaining companion. ‘The canal is our only hope.’

  Frightening himself and his fellow soldier, he lifted off his gas mask. Perhaps there had been sufficient time for the gas to disperse. He felt no characteristic sting, and used the brief moment to smell the air and use his primeval sense to locate the stagnant canal. Dragging on his mask again, he led the way in silence, moving counterintuitively to where he had originally thought the N44 would be and thus the waterway. After half running, half staggering for several minutes, Charlie felt sure they should have reached it, but he realised they must have been running at the wrong angle, perhaps even towards the Germans. Charlie looked to his side but the soldier – he couldn’t remember his name – was no longer there. He looked around wildly in the filthy smoke and mist but could see nothing. He felt a new sti
nging pressure at his shoulder. Not pain but a fresh sense of alarm. Had he been hit? No time to consider it – sadly not dead yet, which gave him no choice but to keep moving. Change tack, Charlie, he urged himself. He turned in another direction, feeling a fresh surge of hopelessness and helplessness at once. There was no fear, although he was absently glad to acknowledge that he would most likely die in the next few moments. Come on, Death, he railed inwardly, I’m ready for you.

  He caught glimpses of staggering soldiers – a suggestion of men, nothing whole – and then they were gone. He couldn’t tell whether they were his men or the enemy. It no longer mattered. Maybe that’s what they’d become: ghosts moving on to other worlds.

  Perhaps he was already dead? He might already be a wraith.

  An enormous explosion told him otherwise.

  When Charlie regained consciousness, he had no idea how long he’d been oblivious. He blinked at his watch, struggling to make out the enamel dial, clogged with mud and useless in the hideous grey light of a strange morning that made him think of the Underworld. He kept blinking, trying to regain his wits, and gradually, like a creature emerging from hibernation, he began to feel as though he was returning from a deep sleep. How long had he been trying to retreat before he was brought down? Maybe ten minutes, perhaps fifteen? It could have been thirty for all he knew. Nothing had changed, though: the bombardment was still underway with massive, reverberating force, although the explosions were not as many. Lots of gunfire around him. He had no idea whose rifles were shooting and in which direction. He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly; his mind felt woolly. Had something happened to him? Was he hurt? He was sure he’d seen blood on himself – was it his? He couldn’t stop now to check.

  Keep moving, Charlie. ‘Stay alive, Charlie,’ he heard in Nurse Ellen’s voice. ‘You promised dancing.’ He mustn’t let her down.

  Charlie found a fresh well of strength and redoubled his efforts to move. He’d never felt more alone than in this moment, even though his life had been one of relentless loneliness.