by Anne Bennett
‘No,’ Finn conceded.
‘And they’ve set up a cookhouse,’ Christy went on. ‘The meal was at least warm. Anyway, he said that there are some mechanics here as well, and they will be working in the repair shop because it’s the major one in this area. He told me they send the broken stuff down by canal.’
‘Yeah, but I have no wish to fire a machine gun and neither of us is a mechanic,’ Finn said. ‘So what are we doing here?’
Christy shrugged. ‘Can’t answer that. The general neglected to discuss all his plans with me,’ he added with a grin. ‘Now are we going to explore the town tonight, or have you a better idea?’
‘No, not really,’ Finn said. ‘And if we are here for a bit, it would be better, I suppose, if we could find our way about.’
So, side by side, the two men left the camp and crossed over the bridge into the town, noting the strange-sounding street names. They tried pronouncing them and pointing out the little alleyways between the buildings.
‘I don’t know if this is typical of a French town or not,’ Finn commented, ‘but I bet you that it’s a thriving place in the daytime when all these shops are open.’
‘I’d agree with that,’ Christy said. ‘And I’d say half as big again as Buncrana.’
‘Rue Dunkerque,’ Finn read out the road name as they turned into it.
The night was still and quiet, and there were few people about. Their boots sounded very loud as they tramped along the cobbled streets.
‘Rue must mean road,’ Finn said. ‘God, we’ll be speaking French like natives if we stay here long enough.’
Christy laughed. ‘I doubt it. I think I’d have to get by with sign language and gestures.’
‘I know the type of gestures you’ll be making,’ Finn said, giving his friend a dig in the ribs. ‘And they do say the French girls are very willing.’
‘Have to go some way to beat those trailing around the camp just outside Folkstone, I’d say,’ Christy said.
‘Yeah, but we can have some fun finding out, can’t we?’
‘Don’t you ever think of anything else?’
‘You can talk. Are you any better?’
Christy didn’t answer because just then the road opened on to a square ringed with shops, closed for the night, and bars, which were open. There was a large building on one side of the square, looming out of the darkness, and they went forward to have a closer look. In the light from the moon they could see arched pillars holding up the second storey, and Christy said he thought he had seen a dome on top but he wasn’t sure in the darkness. The name was written in the archway over the main entrance.
‘Hôtel de Ville,’ Finn read. ‘Least I think that’s what it says.’
‘So it’s a hotel then?’
‘Maybe not,’ Finn said. ‘Probably “hôtel” means something different in French. I mean, it doesn’t look much like a hotel, does it?’
‘No,’ Christy agreed. ‘Not like any hotel I ever knew, anyway.’
‘I’d like to see it in the daylight,’ Finn said.
‘Well, until you can do that, we can always try our chances of getting a decent pint in one of those French bars,’ Christy said. ‘I have a terrible thirst all of a sudden.’
‘Don’t think you stand a chance,’ Finn said. ‘People say they drink wine in France.’
‘Not all the bloody time, surely,’ Christy said. ‘Anyway, you can please yourself but I am going to see if any of these places serves anything at all that’s drinkable Are you coming?’
‘Course I am,’ Finn said. ‘It isn’t as if I’ve had a better offer.’
The next morning, Finn and Christy were assigned as porters to help the medical corps with the wounded that came into St-Omer on the troop trains. For some of these soldiers, the town was just a clearing station and they were later sent on to the coast and taken to Britain. ‘Like the poor sods we saw off-loaded at Folkstone,’ Finn whispered to Christy.
For others, though, from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, St-Omer was the end of the road, and the sight of those wounded young men sobered Finn. For the first time he experienced the nauseous smell of blood in his nostrils, the putrid stink of scorched human flesh and the repulsive odour of festering wounds. Though the sights and smells shocked him to his very soul, he never allowed himself the luxury of being sick for too many were relying on him.
He wasn’t pleased then that after a week he and Christy were among those taken from hospital duty. They were told to report the following day to the BEF Headquarters, also in the town, where they were to be employed as temporary batmen to the officers stationed there.
‘Playing nursemaid to a crowd of toffs,’ Finn said disparagingly as they were leaving the hospital. ‘At least here I felt I was doing something useful.’
Christy was more philosophical. ‘One thing I have learned in my time here is that you do as you’re told, when you’re told. Anyway, we might find this is all right, especially if the officers are the decent sort.’
‘Huh…’ Finn began, then suddenly jabbed Christy in the ribs. ‘Will you look at that,’ he said softly, jerking his head to the other side of the street. ‘Isn’t she the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen in your life?’
There were two girls walking with a man Finn presumed to be their father. At Finn’s words, the elder raised her head and their eyes locked for an instant. Finn, his heart knocking against his ribs, lifted his cap and grinned broadly. The girl lowered her eyes, but not before Finn had seen a tentative smile touch her lips and a telltale flush flood over her cheeks.
Her father, striding in front, was not aware of this, but the younger girl sneaked a look to see what had caught her sister’s attention and smiled innocently at the smartly dressed British soldiers.
Christy watched them go and then said with a shrug, ‘She’s all right, I suppose.’
‘All right?’ Finn exclaimed. ‘She is just magnificent.’
Christy laughed. ‘Well, Finn, however you feel about her you’ll never get near her. If you want, there’s a couple of fellows billeted with us who could fix us up.’
However, just the day before the young soldiers had been warned off that sort of encounter by their sergeant major who told them camp followers were often riddled with diseases that they could and did pass on to the soldiers. ‘If you don’t believe me,’ he’d said, ‘see the men always waiting in line for the doctor.’
Finn had talked to these men and been horrified to learn what their symptoms were. Remember we were told women like that can leave you with more than you bargained for.’
‘That never bothered you before.’
‘I didn’t know before.’
‘I think that I might be willing to take a chance on that if we’re here for very long,’ Christy said.
‘You do as you please,’ Finn said. ‘But I think I will leave well alone.’
‘Oh, you good little Catholic boy,’ Christy said mockingly. ‘Wouldn’t your mother be proud of you?’
‘Shut up, you,’ Finn said, giving Christy a punch on the arm. ‘Anyway, whoever that girl is, I’d give my right arm just to talk to her. I wouldn’t think of her that way.’
Christy fairly chortled with mirth. ‘Course you would,’ he said. ‘That’s how any man thinks of a woman—and a bloody fine soldier you would be with your right arm missing.’
The next day Finn got his wish to see hôtel de ville by daylight because the BEF Headquarters were next to it. He found it even more imposing now. The arched stone columns were ornately carved and the windows on the first floor were also beautifully arched, some with stained glass. Above it all was a blue-grey dome with a clock atop that.
‘That’s far too posh to be just a hotel.’ Christy said, and Finn agreed it looked like a really important building.
‘Maybe we’ll get to find out,’ he said. ‘Just now, though, I suppose we should go and meet our new bosses.’
The two men really seemed to have fallen on their feet. Finn
’s officer was Captain Paul Hamilton. He was a tall man—half a head taller than Finn, who wasn’t considered short—and stood straight as a die. He had a full head of hair though the brown was shot through with silver, as was the moustache above his full lips, but his eyes looked kind enough and he greeted Finn and told him that he had been a soldier all his life. Christy’s officer, Captain Leo Prendagast, was a younger man, and clean shaven. Neither was a particularly hard taskmaster and both were fairly free and easy with the young soldiers.
Increasingly preoccupied with the girl that had so entranced him, Finn was all fingers and thumbs on his first day as Captain Hamilton’s batman and didn’t seem to hear when the captain spoke to him.
In the end Hamilton said with irritation, ‘Sullivan, is anything the matter? You seem very distracted.’
‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’
‘And you have such a dreamy expression on your face that I suspect you maybe in love,’ the captain continued.
Finn bent his head to hide the blush, but he was too late and Hamilton burst out, ‘By Jove, that’s it, isn’t it? I’ve hit the nail on the head. You’ve fallen for someone.’
‘Oh, no, sir. Nothing like that,’ Finn said rather forlornly. ‘I have just seen a girl I think is so very beautiful. She was with a man I presumed to be her father, but I haven’t spoken to her or anything.’
‘So you don’t know who it is you’ve lost your heart to?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Describe her to me,’ the captain commanded.
‘Oh, sir, she is just wonderful,’ Finn cried. ‘She has dark hair and it hangs down her back and it rippled and shone in the autumn sunlight, and she had a pert little nose, and her eyes set her face alight, and her blushes only make her more attractive.’
Hamilton laughed gently. ‘You have got it bad,’ he said. ‘Did you take any notice of the man?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘I took particular note of him because I couldn’t see how he had fathered such a good-looking girl.’
‘He wouldn’t win any beauty contest then?’
‘No, sir,’ said Finn with a chuckle. ‘He is quite tall and portly, and he has a fine head of hair though it is steel grey, but his face has a sort of forbidding look about it. His eyes look almost hooded, his nose is long and his mouth wide, though not much of it could be seen because he sported a large moustache that was as grey as the hair on his head.’
‘Now,’ said Hamilton, ‘a word of warning. You steer well clear of that girl and you can take that look off your face, man. I was young myself once and I know what it is to yearn after a woman who is unattainable—and believe me, Gabrielle Jobert is as unattainable as they come.’
‘Gabrielle,’ Finn breathed, thinking the name suited that lovely creature so well.
Hamilton nodded. ‘I am pretty certain that is who she is from the description that you have given me of her father. Pierre Jobert is an unpleasant and ugly kind of character and he rules those girls—even his wife, Mariette, so it’s said—with a rod of iron. I have seen that for myself. The girls are seldom out alone and what he is protecting them from are the lusty British soldier boys strutting about the place. Lay a hand on Miss Jobert, and her father, in all likelihood, would tear you from limb to limb.’
‘Believe me, sir, I mean her no harm,’ Finn muttered earnestly.
‘Of course you do, man,’ Hamilton said. ‘What you would really like to do is take her out for a tumble in the nearest available cornfield.’
‘No, sir.’ Finn was shocked.
‘Then you are not the man that I took you to be,’ Hamilton replied. ‘I recognise the feeling running through you well. The point is, Sullivan, frustration doesn’t bode well in a soldier. You have to have your wits about you on the battlefield. There is no place there for mooning over a girl you have a fantasy about.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Isn’t there another you can take up with?’
‘I was warned not to touch those girls, sir.’
‘Not the camp followers, no,’ Hamilton said. ‘But there might be others in the town not so well guarded or regarded, who might welcome a dalliance with a soldier. Believe me, when you have a real live girl in your arms you will get over this fixation on Gabrielle Jobert.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. He knew, though, no matter what he said, he wouldn’t go looking for any girl in the town. When a person has seen perfection first-hand, he is not likely to settle for second best.
‘Anyway,’ Hamilton went on after a while, ‘Jobert may be no oil painting, but I have it on good authority that he just happens to be the best baker in the town and so that is where I want you to go now. His shop is on Rue Allen and his name is above the shop, along with the word “Boulangerie”, which means baker. See, I have written it down for you, and I’ve written down what you must say too.’
‘Bonjour. Avez-vous une ficelle?’ Finn read out.
‘Not bad,’ Hamilton said approvingly. ‘Off you go then. I want that bread today, not tomorrow.’
Once out in the streets, Finn’s pulse quickened at the thought that he might see Gabrielle again. She might even serve in the shop. He deliberately hadn’t asked the captain if she did, because he guessed, by the amused smile on Hamilton’s face, that he had been waiting for him to do just that.
Gabrielle did serve in her father’s shop. Just to be near to her caused Finn’s heart to thump almost painfully against his ribs. His mouth was so dry that he wondered if he would be able to speak. He didn’t want to hand the piece of paper over as if he were a deaf mute. He had practised the sentence on the way so that he wouldn’t make an utter fool of himself and he continued to practise as he stood in the queue waiting to be served.
Though she made no sign, Gabrielle was only too aware that he was there. She couldn’t understand her attraction to the young soldier, who she could tell by his uniform served in the British Army, but she studied him surreptitiously as she served the other customers. He wasn’t as tall as her father, or as broad, but he looked fit, and his shoulders were well muscled. He wore no greatcoat that day and he looked so smart in his khaki uniform. His boots shone and his putties too were spotless.
He had removed his cap when he entered the shop and stood twisting it between his hands nervously. Gabrielle saw his hair was dark brown, his eyes were encircled with long black lashes, and his brow above them was puckered as if in concentration. Then the last customer left and the shop was empty except for Gabrielle, her mother and Finn. The mother turned to Gabrielle, said something to her and walked through to the back. Then Gabrielle faced Finn and smiled as she said, ‘Bonjour, Monsieur. Vous desirez?’
Her voice was just as melodious and charming as Finn had imagined it would be, and though he hadn’t understood what she said, he assumed that she was offering to serve him and so he replied, ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Avez-vous une ficelle?’
Gabrielle clapped her hands in delight. ‘Très bon,’ she said, and added in an accent that totally bewitched Finn, ‘Very good, but we can talk in English, soldier, if it is easier for you.’
‘That’s fantastic,’ Finn cried. ‘I am so impressed. I never expected…’
‘Most of the townspeople speak only French,’ Gabrielle said, reaching for the bread he had asked for. ‘And they have never seen the need to learn other languages, but my maternal grandmother was half-English. She lived with us until she died, and though she spoke French most of the time, she spoke in English to me and my sister, Yvette. She always said learning another language was a good thing. It has been so useful now with so many English-speaking soldiers in the town.’
‘I can well imagine that,’ Finn said, taking the bread from Gabrielle. Their fingers touched for a brief second and a tingle ran through Finn’s arm.
‘Will that be all, soldier?’ Gabrielle asked.
Finn wanted to say no, say he wanted to stay and talk, but he was mindful of the captain’s warning about the girl’s father. Also the captain would be
waiting for the bread, so he said regretfully, ‘I’m afraid it is, so I must say goodbye.’
‘Oh, not goodbye,’ Gabrielle smiled. ‘We are sure to meet again. Shall we say au revoir?’
Just the way that she said it and the way that she was looking at him was causing Finn’s heart to flip over and only willpower kept the shake out of his voice as he said, ‘Au revoir it is then.’ He left the shop and floated on air all the way back to Headquarters.
Every day that week, Hamilton sent Finn to the baker’s and every day he was increasingly charmed and bewitched by Gabrielle. He was surprised that she never seemed to hear the thump of his heart in his breast at the sight of her.
On Saturday, on his way to the baker’s, he had to weave his way through the crowded market that was held in the square in front of the hôtel de ville, which Captain Hamilton had told him was the town hall. Produce of every description was piled high on carts, barrows and trestle tables, and it reminded Finn of the Saturday market at Buncrana. It was a day such as this that he had stepped forward to enlist in the British Army, and for a moment he thought of them all at home and a wave of homesickness took him by surprise.
As he was making ready to return to his company on Saturday evening, he asked if he had leave in the morning to attend Mass.
‘Should have guessed you were a Catholic,’ Hamilton said.
‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘I didn’t get to go last week because we were just so busy transporting the wounded, but I thought—’
‘You thought that as all you are doing is attending to my creature comforts, you feel justified in leaving me to my own devices and attending to your immortal soul, is that it?’ Hamilton asked with a wry grin.
Finn wasn’t sure whether he was angry with him or not, though he knew that he was often sarcastic, so he said hesitantly. ‘Well, sir, it’s just…You see, sir…a Catholic is expected…’