‘Soissons, you say?’ Joe asked quietly. ‘You were caught up in the Mutiny?’
Bonnefoye and Varimont exchanged looks.
‘I know — I’m not supposed to know anything about that,’ said Joe. ‘But I do. I was in Military Intelligence.’
‘Then you’ll know how low morale had sunk by April of ’17?’ Marmont was pleased not to be called on for an explanation. ‘I was given a squad of boys, fresh meat, straight off the farm. One day in the front line was enough to send them mad. They couldn’t understand why we’d suffered such an assault, accepted such a stalemate for three years. They were fighting from the trenches their dead predecessors had dug and occupied three years before. Not an inch had been gained and the trench walls were revetted with the bones of French and German alike. General Nivelle had built up our hopes. One last push, he’d said. One more concentrated attack and we’ll carry the day. We went into it with spirit but months on we were bogged down, thousands dying every day. Food disgusting when we had any. No leave. Weeks sometimes in the front line with no reprieve. My lads were given suicidal orders to go over the top. Few ever came back.
‘But one lad kept coming back. Grégoire, his name was. Seemed to bear a charmed life. You see that every so often. Must have come in for all the luck allocated to his family — his brothers had all copped it. His parents were dead. No family left. I took him under my wing. Tried to advise him when he went over to the rebels. He lived long enough to get a short leave in Paris. The men were bombarded at the stations by pacifists. Bolsheviks? Patriots? I still don’t know. But Grégoire and others like him returned and spread the word. Rebellion was raging through the troops. Unpopular officers were stoned. . disappeared quietly in the night. . Trains were commandeered and driven to Paris. . Desertions increased. . Forty thousand men grounded their muskets. The lads said they’d man the trenches, hold the line, but they wouldn’t attempt to go forward another inch until they got what they wanted: peace. Someone was going to have to sign a treaty. I’ll never know why we weren’t instantly overrun by the Germans. But they never seemed to catch on to what was happening in front of their noses.’
Joe’s voice broke into his monologue, an interested fellow soldier going over a battle plan. ‘Might have something to do with the discreet though disastrous attempt by the British top brass to distract them from the French lines. They knew the dangers of the Soissons-Craonne sector. We made a feint — a push to draw the German forces away from the French and on to ourselves. And our effort to help out resulted in the appalling losses of the third battle of Ypres. You may know it as Passchendaele. We were suffering alongside you, Didier.’
Had he heard? The content of Joe’s short speech would normally have been provocative enough to stoke a whole evening’s conversation and argument. But Joe’s tone seemed to calm him. Marmont turned, his attention caught, and spoke directly to him, needing to explain himself, a link established with this friendly stranger who seemed to understand him. An elderly doctor and a young policeman were a less acceptable audience, it seemed, than a man who had survived Ypres. ‘Don’t blame them. They weren’t traitors! Poor buggers just wanted the noise to stop, to be able to go home. They wanted the war over by the fastest means. They had honour. They loved their country. They still had within them an unquenched spark of independence and the spark flared into something uncontrollable up on that ridge near Craonne.
‘And this is where our hero comes into the story.’ He indicated Thibaud who had heard not a word. ‘I expect you wonder why on earth I’m rambling on, wearying you with my memories. Where I’m going with this.’
‘Nowhere good,’ thought Joe, but he assumed an attitude of entranced listener. Not difficult as he was fascinated to hear more of Clovis from someone who had known him on the battlefield. Instinctively, he moved forward a few paces, steady and unthreatening, positioning himself in front of Varimont and Bonnefoye, focusing all Marmont’s attention on himself.
‘Top brass kept the lid on but it couldn’t last. Nivelle was sacked and Pétain was brought in to clear up the mess. Better food, more leave and promises got the men back at it again. But there was a stick as well as a carrot in this equation. We were going to be made to pay. .’
Joe felt an icy trickle of foreboding along his spine.
‘An example had to be made. Thousands of mutineers were arrested and court-martialled. Over twenty thousand were found guilty. Whole companies, every man jack of ’em. Four hundred were condemned to death. Fifty were actually executed. They say fifty. . ‘He shrugged his shoulders. ‘And the rest! Nobody ever declared the retributions carried out in fields and ditches. And the red-tabs who organized all this — not worth our spit! Becs de puces! Peaux de fesses!’ The poilu’s crude curses burst from him. ‘They made us kill our own men using firing squads made up of their fellows. “Pour encourager les autres!” they said. “Pour l'exemple!”
‘They drew lots to decide who would be punished! Can you imagine that? Can you? Lining up and shuffling forward to take your life or your death from a tin cup! Funny though — I don’t know if many noticed, but the lads who were picked out for execution had something in common. They didn’t count for much with anybody. Lads with no family to make a fuss about their execution afterwards. Lads like my Grégoire.’
Joe didn’t want to hear any more but they all listened on in awful fascination.
‘I was put in charge of the squad detailed to execute him. He took it bravely. . wouldn’t have expected anything else. I sat with him all night holding his hand and praying before that dawn. I’d done everything. Pleaded with the commanding officer. Offered a substitute. . Deaf ears. “Orders. . orders. . nothing we can do. .” You’ve heard it.
‘We fired. Of course, we all shot wide. I damn nearly swung round and put my bullet through the commanding officer who was officiating. Wish I had. Grégoire didn’t drop. He was wounded in the shoulder but not dead. And then the CO stepped forward, cursing us, and drew his pistol. It was routine. It was expected. But it still churns my guts. The swine put it to Grégoire’s head and shot him.
‘It was a pistol just like this.’
Marmont pulled a Lebel service revolver from his pocket, took a step towards Thibaud and held the gun to his temple.
‘And this was the officer.’
They waited, helplessly, for the shot, the coup de grâce so long anticipated.
Joe didn’t think Marmont was savouring the moment — there was no triumph or gleam of vengeance in the man’s face, nothing but disgust, loathing and pain. ‘I lost my rag. I rushed him and clobbered him with my rifle butt. Glad to see he bears the scars. Hope it hurt like hell. I spent the rest of the war in a punishment squad. Shouldn’t have survived. And I thought this bugger must be dead. Lieutenant Colonel Houdart. And then I saw his photograph in a newspaper a week ago.
‘There are two bullets in here. The first’s for him and the second’s for me. Gentlemen that you are, I count on you to do the decent thing and just give me time to turn the gun on myself, will you?’
They stared, unbelieving, at Clovis Houdart’s expressionless face, chlorine pale, a fragile thing against the black gun barrel. A vein throbbed in the temple and Joe wondered for how many more beats it would pulse with life. Each man knew that there was a soldier’s steady hand on the pistol, a determined finger on the trigger. The skull would shatter before a move could be made towards him.
Into the silence Joe’s voice spoke, light and conversational. ‘If that’s really what you want, then I’m sure we can do as you wish. And you will go, knowing you have our sympathy and our understanding because, Didier, we’ve heard your story. And these tears running embarrassingly down my face in an unmanly way are for Grégoire and all the other poor sods who suffered.’
For a second Marmont’s eyes flicked sideways to Joe. Joe pressed on: ‘But isn’t there another name we should be hearing? John — your grandson, John! How old is he? Six months? John.’ He repeated the name with deliberation. ‘
He too plays a part in all this.’
Marmont directed another look at him in dawning surprise. ‘Grégoire,’ Joe said again respectfully, acknowledging with a nod of the head the presence of the dead soldier in the room as an honoured guest, ‘Grégoire is remembered. He stands with us. For as long as you are with us to tell us his story. But Grégoire is the past. And John is the future. John will never hear your words of suffering — of explanation. What will he grow up knowing of his grandfather? That he was a brave soldier who gave his all for his native land, who survived against overwhelming odds to hold him in his arms and tell him stories, or — that he is a man never spoken of in the family? A man surrounded by silence and mystery until one day someone tells him his grandfather murdered a defenceless lunatic and then turned the gun on himself. Will he understand, do you think?
‘Look at your target. Take a good look at him. There’s nothing there, Didier. You might just as well fire your bullet into that pillow. Don’t sacrifice your honour, your years of suffering, your grandson’s memory of you, for this empty shell. Give me the gun. And that’s an order, mate! And, Didier, let’s make it the last order you ever take from an officer. From an officer who’s listened, understood and suffered alongside.’
Marmont made no move to lower the gun but his eyes were looking from Clovis to Joe and back again.
The first sign of indecision.
Encouraged, Joe spoke again, taking his time. ‘Look — in the circumstances, I’m supposing you haven’t made any plans for the rest of the day? Well, I have but I’ve decided to put off my departure today to take you out to dinner. My niece, on whom you seem to have made quite an impression, would insist. This calls for a bottle of the best. Not champagne perhaps but a Château Latour. And here’s a joke — we’ll put it on the expense account of the British War Office! Mean buggers! I’ll tell them it was drunk to celebrate two lives saved. Yes, a Latour. I’m sure they’ll have something good to eat with it?’
Confidently, almost casually, Joe started to cross the room.
He reeled back as the gun crashed out once and then again, deafening in that small space. Bonnefoye threw himself to the ground, drawing his pistol as he dropped. Varimont cursed loudly. Joe, shocked, found himself unable to move forward. He began to cough and sneeze and then burst into nervous laughter as he flapped at the snowstorm of feathers descending on all their heads.
The old man stayed for a moment, frozen, staring at the unseeing Thibaud. The officer’s face was only inches from the blackened pillow which had taken the blast but he registered no emotion. Marmont shook his head and looked at his gun, uncomprehending. But Joe understood. Understood that the gap between the height of emotion to which the old soldier had hauled himself and the depths of bathos to which he knew he must plunge could only be bridged by an explosive reaction. The two bullets were always going to tear their lethal way down the barrel and Joe thanked God that Didier had, in the end, had the strength to divert them by a few inches.
He handed his smoking revolver to Joe and slumped in exhaustion as the doctor hurried forward, clucking with concern and reaching for his pulse.
‘We must try not to bore her with too many old soldiers’ stories, then,’ Didier grated out at last, and added, with a wheezing grimace, ‘as we enjoy our. . ah. . what would you say to civet de lièvre à la bordelaise? Or they had a bisque de palombes aux marrons on the menu for today, I noticed.’ He shook for a moment with silent laughter. ‘Can’t say I studied today’s menu at length. Wasn’t expecting to eat again.’
‘The jugged hare would be perfect,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t think I could be tempted by wood pigeon, even accompanied by chestnuts.’
The conference broke up at four o’clock. Two hours which seemed like a lifetime to Joe. And the course of two lives had been decided in that time. Didier was still alive and a free man, Bonnefoye having gallantly offered to look the other way. ‘What’s the charge?’ he’d shrugged. ‘Killing a pillow? I’d be a laughing stock!’ And Thibaud’s identity was established beyond any possible doubt.
His wife had known it all along. He was Clovis Houdart.
And Mireille Desforges had known her man. But he was a phantom. A perhaps loving, but certainly deceitful, phantom.
‘So, let me check this,’ said Bonnefoye. ‘One last time — you are content with this, Varimont? We’re taking a considerable chance, I acknowledge that, and if there are repercussions, I’m afraid you will be the first in the firing line of public opinion. I am a French police inspector — I can extricate myself from anything. No, don’t ask! Sandilands will have taken French leave — English leave as we would say — and be well distanced from any enemy action and you, the professional in all this, and I have to say the instigator, the prodder of wasps’ nests, will bear the brunt of it. And quite right too! It’s a bit unconventional what we propose and it could all go very wrong.’
‘I’m only too conscious of that,’ said Varimont. ‘Which is why I am insisting on the inclusion in the report of so many recommendations, so many clauses. I hope I make it perfectly clear that, in these circumstances, for which I see no precedent, it is essential that no doors be closed. I have promised further reports and reviews at yearly intervals. Everyone likes that. No French official will agree to anything that is likely to blow up in his face. This way he can always find someone else to blame. Most importantly: a close monitoring of the patient and the nurse will be a condition written into the contract.’
He paused long enough to receive a nod of assent and a sigh of relief from each of his companions and took out his fountain pen. ‘Well, if we’re all agreed then,’ said Bonnefoye, ‘we can sign this recommendation and get it off to the Minister. The wheels of government moving as they do, and some of the conditions being a little out of the ordinary, it will be a few weeks before any action is taken as a result but I think we can say this is one soldier who’ll most likely be home for Christmas.’
Joe prayed they had come to the right decision.
Chapter Thirty-One
October 1926
‘Firing party, present arms!
‘Slope arms!
‘Volleys!’
From the graveside three fusillades were fired skywards in perfect unison to the vociferous astonishment of the neighbouring rookery. As the noise rolled away, a bugler of the Royal Fusiliers began to sound the Last Post. Joe, standing to attention, flanked on one side by Brigadier Sir Douglas Redmayne and on the other by Colonel Thorndon, listened to the piercing strains and felt his soul snatched up by the music and transported, solitary, to a distant place. The three men, handsome in dress uniform, saluted as one as the oak coffin began its gentle descent into the grave. Edward’s father stepped forward and scattered a spadeful of rich Sussex earth on to the coffin, then stood back.
Edward’s mother, frail, but straight and determined, approached and threw in a prayer book and, with a swift apologetic glance at her husband, added a small brown toy dog. The firing party marched off and the ranks of mourners broke up and began to mingle, offering each other comforting remarks. Mrs Thorndon made straight for Joe and placed a gloved hand on his sleeve.
‘Commander! I’m so pleased you could get here in time. We wanted to thank you for bringing the boy home. Douglas has told us of your heroic efforts, tracking him down to the Marne and digging about in the battlefield to find him and restore him to us. And to think we had imagined that the War Office had given up on our case! We should have had more faith in the Military!’
She directed a sweet, smiling apology at the Brigadier.
Sir Douglas bowed in silent acknowledgement and fixed his eyes thoughtfully on a flock of migrating swifts gathering overhead.
Mrs Thorndon looked around the quiet village graveyard, the only sounds the melancholy autumn fluting of the birds and the occasional damp plop of a falling leaf. The Sussex beeches surrounding the graveyard were aflame in a haze of red-gold, the grass still a lively green.
‘We would have been h
appy enough to leave him with his fellows in a French cemetery — it would certainly have been less complicated and less time-consuming, and they care for our boys so beautifully but. . oh, Douglas, do you blame us? I know we’ve demanded so much of your attention. . Do you think we are unbearably fussy to want him back here with us?’
‘Not at all, Emily. May all the brave lost souls have the luck to find their way home! I think every soldier deserves to be laid to rest in his native churchyard,’ was the hearty reply. Followed immediately by: ‘Where it’s possible, of course.’
As she drifted away Joe addressed a comment sideways to Sir Douglas. ‘I’ll be presenting my bill for services rendered then, sir?’
‘Bill? What bill?’
Joe was pleased to have startled him. ‘It’s a new thing. French entrepreneurial spirit. You have to admire them! They charge by the kilometre for retrieving a body from the battlefield and returning it. At the going rate you owe me. . er. . with conversion from kilometres and francs. . fifty pounds.’
Redmayne grinned. ‘Take that in champagne, will you, Sandilands? Eliminates the paperwork.’
‘Maman, I’ve brought you some camomile tea,’ said Georges Houdart brightly. ‘Very calming! Just what you need!’
He carried the tray over to Aline who was sitting in a state of excited agitation by the window of the morning room from where she had a clear view down the drive. The beech trees were still glowing pale gold in the early October sunshine and scarcely a leaf had fallen to mar the neatness of the gravel.
‘Thank you, darling. Oh, and I see you’ve brought the last of the roses,’ she said, gently stroking the rusting petal of one of the few remaining blooms to be found in the garden. ‘How clever of you to remember! These are his favourites! Stay and have some tea with me, will you, while I watch. Oh, and Georges — call on one of the men to open the gate. They’ve left it closed and I don’t want the unwelcoming sight of a closed gate to be the first thing to greet him when he arrives.’
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