The Single Soldier
George Costigan
Copyright © 2021 George Costigan
The right of George Costigan to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2017
Republished in 2021 by Bloodhound Books.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
Other than those in the public domain all characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
Print ISBN 978-1-913942-81-6
Contents
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A Prologue
Jacques
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
A note from the publisher
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Also by George Costigan
The Solider’s Home (B00k 2)
The book is my love-letter to the people of Latronquiere, who so very warmly welcomed my family and other animals when we took the risk of moving our lives there.
A Prologue
The child straightened.
Her mother worked.
Zoe picked a handful of raspberries and crushed them in her mouth.
“Hey, mademoiselle, weeding.”
“He’s late,” the child replied, searching up the lane towards the village square.
Her mother worked, back bent, trowel busy. “No.” Zoe ran to the wall. “Look.”
Sara stood long enough to see the cow take the corner. The cow pulling the cart laden with another day’s work. Stone, again.
And walking beside his work, the man, wearing horse-blinkers. His clothes grey with embedded dust, his beard and hair too.
His pace never changed. Slow. “Jacques!” Zoe called.
“Leave him.” Her mother’s tone was sharp.
Blinkered, the man kept his sight directly in front of him, though he surely heard Zoe’s whispered, “Jacques, Jacques.”
Every evening.
The metal rim of the cart wheels ground into the rough tarmac. Passed the child.
The clopping dwindled away and Zoe watched him descend the lane to the little bridge.
“Mamman?”
“Weeding.”
“What will he do when the cow dies?”
“Pull it himself I shouldn’t wonder.”
Zoe returned to their vegetable plot and fiddled at a weed. “Is he mad? He is – isn’t he?”
“No. He’s working. As you should be. And he’s sad. So there’s a difference.”
Ten minutes later when Zoe straightened again, there, silhouetted against the evening sky, walked the cow, the cart and the man now without his blinkers.
And if she woke early enough she would see him returning tomorrow morning, the cart empty and by the time he trudged past her window the blinkers would be back on.
And she would eat her breakfast and go to Maternelle.
Jacques
1
The cat scratched at the window. I must fix that volet so he can’t open it. Might get another half-hour. He rose, the dog shook itself awake. Softly, so as not to wake mother behind the thin wall, he dressed. Clogs in hand, he let the cat and the morning in and himself and the dog out.
Down the dozen stone steps and into the warm shit-stench of his barn and his meagre herd. He forked hay down to their feeders, whacked the first upright, wiped the hay from the nipples and, scraping yesterday’s drowned flies from their buckets; sat to milk. Six adults, two with calves and all female. One male next time they need coupling, please Lord. In the first of the sunlight the dog gnawed at his flank.
Half-an-hour later he had carried the warm liquid to the caves beneath the house; found the dog’s tic, crushed it, and loosed his herd for the day.
The dog led them blundering out, great clumps of manure splattering the lane and the flies would be gorging by the time he walked back. Right at the corner of the house and into the first of his three fields. One grassed, one fallow, one crops. Maize.
He stretched. Looked back.
The three farms. His, Arbel’s and Duthileul’s. Puech.
As he washed at his well the sun cleared Duthileul’s oak, and he could break his fast and his mother’s sleep. He took some kindling and two eggs and the chickens bitched, outraged, again. The dog yawned, followed. Clogs left outside. The door-latch stuck, you had to jiggle it just so.
The grey ash pile, seemingly inert, snarled yellow teeth around the kindling and he set the big pot with water and fed it the eggs. Rolled a first ciggie while he waited for it to boil.
Back in his room he pulled the sheet and blankets straight, silently. Still she slept. Took some bread from the crock, cut two slices, buttered both. Two plates, two spoons. Her tray. Salt and pepper. The water began to dance and he sat on the bench Arbel had made him and lit his cig. The first deep haul laid his back into the wall and thoughts of Arbel. And Ardelle. Married now.
The cat wound round his legs till he gave it milk.
When the fag died he spooned the eggs from the water and enjoyed the cooling them in his leathery palms. He made coffee, laid her tray, then tapped and opened his mother’s door.
Her room.
He placed the tray on the single chair whilst he opened the windows and volets and the north-facing room took the light softly and spread it along the wall, across the big armoire cupboard, the cobwebbed crucifix and down to her, a twig of steeling hair caught at the corner of her gaping mouth.
Her eyes flickered, a hand jumped and she woke. “Sleep well?”
“Dreaming. Of your grandfather.”
“Breakfast.”
“He built this house...”
“...with his own hands. Eat, the eggs’ll go cold.” They ate, mother and son.
The dog waited for crusts. “He was a fool.”
They finished and he stood, piling the tray. He turned at the door.
“It’s to be warm – you could sit in the garden.”
“Perhaps...”
He threw the dog the crusts and they left her.
The fire bothered him, he shouldn’t keep it in. But he knew she wouldn’t sit in the garden. He
fed it some of the wetter wood. “I’m in the garden, mamman.”
A late cuckoo called.
The tomatoes needed water or this spring sun could strangle them. He pulled water from the well and spread it. And would need to again tonight. He weeded. His mind drifted to Sara and the sex she shared with Jerome and that thought hardened him till he opened his trousers and pulled his tension out. Hoed it into the earth thinking, it was half a child. Half his child.
Market tomorrow, swap my bread tickets and buy candles, oil, matches.
Wash-day Friday and fishing. She’ll eat fish, mother...
His mother sat in the silence. A random spit from the fire. Her room inert but for flies. Through the window Duthileul’s farm yard bulged with ploughs, cutters, pigs, ducks, wealth. Her feet dangled short of the boards and she watched the veins fill. The rhythm of work had left her. She had raised him to run their lives alone and that was good, good for him; but now she had no forward motion.
She had lost that, and Faith, when she’d lost him, her dead man. She swung back into the bed.
He came up the stone steps, kicked off his clogs. Pick a salad for dinner, weed the vegetables, buy canes for the mange-tout tomorrow. Plough the second field, harvest the maize in the third much later. And his eyes lifted to the extent of their land, his beech-copse. And behind and beyond that – a thin strip of faraway blue – the hills of the Cantal; and behind and beyond them, as remote as the moon, The War.
A silence had taken root with the defeat, the armistice and Vichy. Shoulders had shrugged when The Requisitioning began but argument or opinions were as rare as motor vehicles. It mattered not one sous that the war would surely never come up the lousy D roads to conquer St.Cirgues – a bar, three shops, the post-office, the church – no, it was dread of collaborators that had strangled chat. The old men, hunched under their flat black berets, sat in the Café Tabac, their efforts of 14-18 wasted, The Bosche triumphant at last. The people had been told to “Wait and see – Attentisme”, and they did. When they were told that France was ‘A favoured nation in the new Europe’ some approved and some didn’t. Silently.
Everyone knew they were to report any Resistance activity, or anyone tuning their radio to De Gaulle, or any communist, unionist or Jewish activity. But everyone knew Feyt the tailor was a Jew, their Jew, and the months had passed and he still dressed the men and lived his bachelor life. Everyone knew Jerome Lacaze said he was a communist, but he still walked between his mother’s huge house and the bar to drink.
Mignon had been made the Vichy official in charge of the requisition, giving out bread-tickets when he came for meat, milk and vegetables for the Bosche. He had played full-back in the village team, but everyone knew that even if there were enough to make a side, and there wasn’t, and even if there were another team to play, which there wasn’t, he wouldn’t be picked.
In the café the official press was read and when Maréchal Petain spoke on the radio Herrisson the Gendarme stood with folded arms to ensure Patriotism was seen to be observed.
Grivault cut his meat thinner, Jauliac watered the wine just a little and the women hoarded what they could; thinned the soup and mourned their sons, dead or deported. Fabien Cantagrel wrote every month from some place called Dachau, the same letter, unchanging. The Curé rode in on his Sunday bicycle and hid behind his Latin, sticking to the scriptures like a leech.
St.Cirgues, like France, was bowed.
They sat outside the Café Tabac, the last three boys of Allibert’s class of ’33. Jerome, Jacques and Arbel. And drank.
“Your mother?” Jerome began their catechism.
“The same. Yours?” Jacques squinted in the fresh sun-light.
“A cow.”
“Still?”
“Once a cow...”
Jerome turned to Arbel. “Ardelle?”
“On form.” Arbel, nearly toothless at twenty-two, grinned and poured wine down his throat.
“Sex,” Jerome leaned back, “is obviously good for a body.”
“No no no.” Arbel wagged a forefinger sideways.
“Sex is not good?” Jerome raised an eyebrow.
“Marriage,” Arbel poured his third, “is good.”
“And the sex?”
“Well...” Arbel grinned, flushed, drank.
“Do you ever think of God watching you?” Arbel’s mouth straightened.
“Mm, there’s Arbel and Ardelle banging away. ‘Me Almighty, but that looks good.’ D’you spose he gets a stiffy? Like Jacques here?”
Arbel’s face whitened. “Don’t take His name, Jerome.”
“Only musing – no offence. You don’t think He bothers to watch? No. He’s asleep, isn’t He?”
“Don’t take His name.”
“Where is He these days, Arbel? Berlin?”
“Shh.” Jacques looked round but the old ones were slumped over their pastis like broken playing cards and only Duthileul Pére, sitting in his window seat, nodded at Jacques.
Madame Carnac, the one two generations of small boys had called The Witch, strode past to gather her wood and grass. She lived with her chickens, trading them and their eggs for everything she needed, so living outside the system of money. She ate no bread, drank no wine, never went to Mass, and it was said she was bald beneath the wigs she washed in the Lavoir on alternate weeks.
Louis cycled across the square. The village idiot who invited all the women to come mushroom picking with him. None went anymore.
“Where’s Sara?” Jacques wondered aloud.
“Talking of sex?” Jerome smirked.
Jacques frowned.
“She’s coming.”
They took another mouthful of wine. Younger playing cards.
Sara could see them from her kitchen, where Chayriguet was washing his hands.
“Does your mother know?”
“No.”
“Does his mother know?” Sara laughed.
“No.”
“Does he know?”
“Not yet.”
He dried his big hands on the towel and picked up his bag. “You’re three months gone. No charge.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you tell the Curé?” Sara looked at him,
“You know Jerome.”
“I do.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” He turned at the door.
“If you reconsider – I’m not a Catholic, Sara.”
They stood, the big oak table between them.
“I am.”
He nodded and left. She watched him drive away, stood there a second longer and looked. Jerome and Jacques and Arbel.
Thought it would be Jacques. No. Jerome. From The Big House. With his mother.
She’ll disown him.
He’ll be so happy.
What will we call her? Our secret. When was the last time I had a secret? Funny. She’s a secret now. And when she’s not a secret she’ll be a scandal. With a pagan for a father.
And how do I know it’s a girl? Because I do!
She walked across the square. Arbel and Jacques rose and kissed her welcome. Jerome lounged back and took her in again. Wide face, wide shoulders, wide grin, good hair, bad teeth. A woman since childhood. Sara. His paysanne. She was pregnant.
That was why Chayriguet had called. Oh my God, he’d done it this time...
And all those prayers, all that disgusting midnight pleading debasement at the crucifix, all that hypocrisy and feebleness – dead. Gone.
Good!
He was glad.
My mother will go mad. Or die. Or to ice. Yes, ice. Ice’ll suit her.
He reached for the big hand and the strong fingers knuckled into his, sharing the secret and its fears.
“Drink? Oh, yes, I think so.” Jerome looked round.
At Jacques, who’d become a man before he’d even been a lad. At Arbel, all bone, muscle and red wine; with his grin, His Lord and Ardelle. At Sara, my earth. Pregnant. And this café, full of fossils and Duthileul. And Russians dying a
s I sit here.
“Russians are dying as we sit here.”
“Shh.” said Sara, automatic.
“I don’t understand what my response should be.”
Jacques and Arbel, recognising this tone, reached for the tobacco. “I’m humbled.”
“Drunk, more like. Again.”
“No, Arbel. I’m excited.”
“You’re excited?” Arbel looked mockingly around.
“Yes. Here. In silent Cirgues. What do I do?”
“You? You talk. Do about what?”
“Arbel,” Jerome gripped the hard arm, “Arbel, men are dying, babies are dying, now. What is my response?”
“You? You gab.”
“Do you know – of course you don’t – do you know one thousand French Jews,” he turned briefly and lowered his voice, “...died last year? No. You didn’t. Because the papers you don’t read wouldn’t tell you. Because they died in France. In French concentration camps. Under French Government orders.”
Now all of them looked round and Duthileul Pére’s cold watery eyes rose.
“Encore.” Jerome raised the bottle.
Janon the hunchback barman shuffled out, wiped the table and stood there, puffing.
“No work to do?”
The old one had limited conversation with anyone under sixty-five.
“Raising a glass to Vichy and victory.”
The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama Page 1