The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

Silence.

  “And, I’m sorry, Jacques, Simone, but we’ve – well I’ve come here so I can say things and he won’t silence me like he would in our house.”

  Arbel, shamed, turned to Jacques. “What about you?”

  Ardelle almost laughed. “He won’t go!”

  “No, I won’t. Not willingly.”

  “Not a hope. Ha!” She turned back to her slouching man. “And what can you hope for when you’re full of dread? For a miracle? Ha! All used up.”

  “Hope for good luck, woman, what else is there?”

  “Hell.”

  This camp was in the hills between Souceyrac and St.Cirgues, a mile off the D road at the Pas D’Aubinies. High point. Clear day –see forever.

  On this New Year’s Eve as a frost started Phillipe led them 14 miles South-East to the ridge of the hills at Labastide. Through birch and pine forest, frozen fields and muddy fields, barbed wire fences, streams, bogs, great carpets of drying leaves; how do 10 men deal with that silently? They learn. Fast.

  Within sight of Labastide they came to a barn. Watertight roof, a haven. They clattered in.

  “Ten minutes. Use it well.”

  They cleaned the hunting rifles and knives, boiled water, made coffee and ate in the ten minutes before red-faced Alain, the butcher’s brother from Latronquiere, took the lead. He headed South-West.

  “The next safe house. Lavabre. We’re invisible, mes gars.”

  Simone stood on the front step.

  Clear. Stars. Wind turning to The North. Shouldn’t they all just run? Now?

  Would these Germans be any different from the ones she’d already met? No.

  Then why wait? Because I want to live and have my life. She turned. Jacques looked up.

  The Mairie bell tolled faint. “New Year in now?”

  “Yes. 1943.”

  “May we survive you.”

  “Everyone,” said Ardelle.

  “Everyone, yes.”

  As Ardelle and Arbel faced each other Simone and Jacques touched cheeks, once, twice, three times, their eyes lowered. “Happy New Year, Jacques.”

  ‘May this war never end. Whatever keeps you this near,’ he thought whilst he said, “Happy New Year, Simone.”

  Arbel and Ardelle kissed hard and almost brutal, her hands clawing at his bony shoulders.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I know. I wish I didn’t love you.”

  Jacques and Simone looked at each other.

  Two days later Herrisson cycled to every farm in the commune and ordered the people to gather in the Salle De Fetes that night.

  The place was packed like a wedding-day church. A screen had been set up, there was to be a film. Babes in arms, Zoe included, the old men, the young, all the women. Chibret, sweating even in winter, his pinched wife, Jean-Louis and Dominique Duthileul, Madame Lacaze, everyone was sitting, standing, perched somewhere.

  A man none of them knew set up the projector machine, the lights were extinguished, there were a few childish screams, mutterings of would it be Charlie Chaplin, and the film crackled into life.

  Rain.

  Pouring rain. And the camera followed the rain down onto a roof, down the roof to the guttering, along the gutters, down, down the grid into the sewers and into a colony of rats. Big rats. Ugly. Hundreds.

  Now one rat, ripping at a dead body dressed in French uniform. The Salle stirred. The rat looked up for a moment, the frame froze and its face slowly changed to an archetypal male Hassidic. Ringlets, the yarmulke, a huge nose. The picture widened and he was seen to be stealing money from the corpse. A German–uniformed paw reached into the frame and stopped his hand.

  Now the camera showed rows of such men, sitting, waiting for their noses to be measured by a German civil-servant.

  Now a lorry over-full of such men. The camera going close into their faces.

  And from that back to the tumbling sewer-rats. To the water.

  To the rain, the sky, some martial music and it was over. Someone clapped. Once.

  In the silence the commune thought of Feyt, though no-one turned to look at him. Might give him away. Who was this projectionist anyway?

  A new film began.

  A newsreel.

  Petain shaking hands with Hitler. Laval at one elbow, Goering the other.

  Now Petain being greeted by ecstatic crowds in Lyon and Simone sat upright, foolishly scanning the ant-crowds.

  “What?” Jacques whispered.

  “I was there.”

  Three people turned to look at her.

  Now a railway station. Happy young men getting into trains, kissing proud young women good-bye. The station sign. French. Men playing cards on the train. The train arrives at a German station, the Gothic writing. The men get off, shake hands with welcoming German officials. Are shown to lorries.

  A factory. A meal-time. Smiling well-fed workers.

  Then a clean, airy factory-floor. Men building trains, cars, rifles, clearly proud of their work. The same men now relaxing, playing cards, chess. Music, martial and positive, played.

  Now Laval, seated behind a desk, working. A picture on the wall behind him of Petain and Hitler. Sara’s hand almost drew blood through Jerome’s coat so fiercely did she forbid him to speak. He turned to Ardelle.

  “Laval, Ardelle.”

  “Looks like a pig.”

  “Voilà.”

  The film went back to the men, now getting ready for bed, each with a wash-stand next his single bed. Lying on their beds, writing letters home.

  Now here was Marechal Petain himself, addressing the camera. All men of working age were to report, in one week’s time, for work in Germany, where as they had seen they would be fed, clothed and housed and paid for their noble contribution to the new Europe in which France was Germany’s honoured partner.

  S.T.O. Service Travail Obligatoire.

  It would be hard for the women left behind he understood that, but this was one of the last necessary sacrifices to ensure the defeat of the twin powers of Bolshevism and English/American colonialism.

  Petain reminded them all, and himself, of their duty to France, their beautiful France and closed by wishing them all a successful conclusion to all their shared troubles in the New Year. The film ended with the Tricolour and La Marseillaise and Herrisson stood and so did the commune.

  As the last bars played their flag changed to the swastika. The lights were turned on.

  People stood, silent.

  The projectionist began to pack away his equipment. Chibret went to the door, to shake hands.

  He would stay and do the German’s office work. The commune shuffled into the streets.

  All the men looked at each other, as if printing faces in their memories.

  There was nothing to be said. There was only choice.

  Duthileul and his son drove home. The Marechal might well believe what he had been saying, but he, Jean-Louis Duthileul, would be a fool to do so. Obligatory? Duthileul had heard the tide of The War turn. Now it was a gambler’s game. All he had to do was pick the right horse and protect his own.

  Jerome kissed his daughter and his wife and her mother and went to the camp, at least until this call passed. Ardelle and Arbel walked home, her three silent paces behind him. Simone and Jacques, silent, ten yards adrift. January 1943.

  Simone watched Jacques. What will he do?

  The time left with Simone is this.

  One week.

  What do I do? Hide? How? Where? Go? Leave her willingly? No, never. Join Jerome? That’s not me.

  Leave her with the farm? That’s mad. Then what, fool?

  He found no answer in the days and woke having found nothing in sleep. He spent two days pointlessly turning over the rock-like earth where raspberries and strawberries might be planted, because it was so hard it distracted him.

  The German Commandant in Cahors took a phone-call; it was the Mayor of Cardiallac. His village was surrounded by Maquisards, shooting from the hills, approaching f
ast.

  Within forty minutes the astonished Mayor and his Mairie were surrounded by heavily armed German soldiers and officers. Clearly telling the truth, he denied all knowledge of everything, assuring them the commune of Cardiallac was Maquis-free, and they were all the victims of a hoax; but what a boon for the commune to know their protectors were so vigilant. A million thanks for your trouble. The Germans scoured the village, cheerfully terrifying, and, suspicious, left.

  Half an hour later, in their best attempts at uniform and behind

  Jerome bursting with pride with the Tricolour in his hands, Phillipe marched three groups, 58 men, into and around the village to the Monument to the dead of the First War. When the commune had gathered they sang La Marseillaise, tears everywhere, and Phillipe thanked them for their support, suggested their only obligation was to France, and marched the men away.

  A little coup de théatre.

  Simone waited four days, watching Jacques’ silence and fear solidify, and then went to see Herrisson.

  “Mademoiselle?”

  “How does Jacques avoid it?”

  “Why should he?”

  “What’s the point? His farm will rot.”

  “You’ll run it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then, yes it will rot.”

  “How does he avoid it?”

  “What do you think I can do?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “That I will do whatever I could.”

  “Whatever?”

  “Yes.”

  The afternoon Madame Herrisson went to her mother Simone and Herrisson spent in bed. It was good for no-one but Jacques. “Can I spank you?” the breathless policeman asked.

  “No.”

  And he pumped disappointed onwards, her hands round his broad hairy back, her legs wide, trying not to touch him; till he came, when she held him like a child.

  For Jacques and Ardelle the week had run laughing by. Galloping, devouring, that heartless, oblivious, bastard –Time.

  Each passing meal and hour and minute he wondered so hard why he still did nothing –why he came to no decision –why he couldn’t think –why he waited for a miracle; and suddenly the truck was coming up the lane to Puech.

  And Ardelle screaming. Jacques simply froze.

  Too late to decide. Too late to run. Too late to hope. Simone, breathing so shallow, waited for the truck to pass. It stopped. Footsteps. The dog barking.

  Herrisson at the door latch. You had to jiggle it just so.

  Simone, cold round her heart, opened it and Herrisson nodded and took Jacques’ arm.

  “Why?” was all he could stupidly offer.

  “Say ‘au revoir’, Vermande.”

  Simone had not taken her eyes from Herrisson, who looked blankly at her.

  “Mademoiselle?”

  “How is your wife?”

  “Fine. Do you want to say ‘au revoir’?”

  Simone put her arms around his neck, kissed him on both cheeks and then hard on his mouth and he was taken to the transport.

  He was gone. She was gone.

  Home, dreams, everything. That happiness, that Christmas joy, rubble.

  Simone stood.

  Alone. The dog looked at her for an explanation.

  Would she tell Madame Herrisson? Oh, yes. She would take revenge for Jacques.

  But to have slept with that man for Jacques’ sake and not to have slept with Jacques..?

  And now what?

  I don’t know. Cold fear lay in her. Empty.

  At Maurs station the men answered their names on the huge lists the Germans had and went to join a train.

  Jacques, numb, looked at his first ever German. Younger than him. He signed against his name, officially now in Germany, and as he moved down the platform looking for Arbel, Herrisson took his elbow.

  “Come with me, Vermande,” he said, loudly, officiously.

  He walked Jacques to the head of the train, jumped them both down in front of it, crossed the tracks and pointed to the bicycle against the wire fence.

  “Leave it in your barn.”

  Jacques cycled home. When he got there he saw Dominique Duthileul. It had cost his father dear – but of course he had paid. False papers. T.B. Too weak to go.

  Simone heard footsteps.

  She ran to the door and raced the dog to be first to touch him. She almost knocked them both down the steps as she hugged him home.

  “Herrisson,” said Jacques.

  “Good,” she said. “Soup?”

  His body hummed with the touch of her arms, her chest. “Why? How?”

  “Ask him.”

  “Why?”

  “Exactly,” she smiled and he smiled too.

  Simone forgot about Herrisson.

  But the kiss and the hug remained alive in him and in the house. And the thought that she had made love for him and not with him.

  St.Cirgues, stripped of its young men, pieced together a reasonably correct version of why and how Vermande and Dominique Duthileul stayed. Duthileul was easy and, they said, the first time he’d ever used money well. But the village that had nominally grieved with Jacques now resented him for his escape and for his whore.

  Only Mignon was glad. Rotting farmlands and increasing demands were his new nightmare. He had been spared the STO but it was a delay against his assassination and he knew that. Unless The Germans won. He had to hope for that. God.

  Laval issued an order that all guns, including men’s favourite and precious hunting rifles, some of them, he knew, family heirlooms, were to be handed over, lest they fall into terrorist hands. And all ammunition. Anyone found possessing either after Mignon and Herrisson called would be suspected of Resistance support and arrested. Herrisson and Mignon gathered three ancient double-barrelled rifles and some useless shot.

  Both Herrisson and Mignon were on the lists Phillipe’s men compiled. In the barns and camps they endlessly moved between. Learning their terrain, building the chain of safety. Jacques’ included. Jerome came one night and asked and for two nights ten men slept with the cows, and spent the days learning the terrain around Puech. He fed them what they could spare and was glad to do it. And the next time a month later. They didn’t ask about the guns and Jacques didn’t mention them.

  Fred, the school chef, was charged by Phillipe with organising a constant supply of food for an indefinite period at no cost and with no trail of information leaking behind it. “Ah, the easy job?”

  After that first S.T.O. round-up his task eased. More were prepared to give. And should they refuse they were to understand their names went on a list. To be judged implacably. When the time came.

  Laval legalised, named and uniformed the collaborators. The Milice. That made the vermin easier to spot.

  Pierre the bank-clerk forged papers so Phillipe could travel the canton legally as a junior official in the department of Lotoise transport, but it had to be stamped and approved. Laur Garceau walked into the German battalion headquarters in Cahors, promising information, was taken to the Commandant and hurled herself on his desk pleading to be sent to Berlin to be nearer her Fuhrer and was thrown out as a mad-woman; having stolen two stamps from the desk-top. Phillipe made contact with all the other groups, restlessly criss-crossing the department, all through late winter and spring. Talking, arguing, persuading the autonomous units of the necessity of uniting. Real Politics. For some the fear of being branded Communist, others the shame of not being branded Communist. For all the wrench of giving up the little tribe to join a bigger one. To be subsumed, to be less important. To become part of something, Phillipe urged, that would then and only then, have the power and the moral force of a Liberation Army.

  He needed them all to have radios, not only for contact to plan the larger actions when that time came, but so they could hear De Gaulle. He was their unifying force. He had Marco in Cahors print and distribute De Gaulle’s broadcasts till the radios c
ame. He brought them all word of the setting-up of the C.N.R. –the Council of National Renewal –in Algiers and of De Gaulle’s first vow: the promised purge of collaborators. He, Captain Phillipe, understood and totally supported the urge for action against the Germans but he argued that they deal with their own first. Whilst they united. Then The Hun and damn the reprisals, eh?

  For the moment –the traitors. Be sure, then eliminate them. Frenchmen.

  A civil war in a World war.

  7

  Arbel was placed in a lime-mine. The Kalkwerke Gruschka in Ludwigsdorf. After a beer each on the first night they were woken at seven, greeted by the Director and his electric “Heil Hitler” salute and put to work. Behind the professional miners at the face. A spade each. Fill wagons. Push the heavy wagons from the lime-face to the factory. There others shovelled it either into paper-bags or in the five metre-high oven.

  At mid-day potatoes, a thin meat soup and an hour’s rest.

  After lunch they swapped jobs and Arbel’s team of six were in the giant furnace building, emptying the wagons, feeding the oven. Hard, hot, hideous work. At six work stopped. Arbel registered his first word of German –“Fairhan.”

  They slept in a communal dormitory on wood beds with a single blanket each, and a tiny cupboard for their possessions. Arbel wrote home.

  “There are prisoners here from Italy, Poland, France and the Ukraine. The Ukranians are treated like scum, Ardelle, like slugs. Worse. Dupuy, from Souceyrac, is here and Claude, the boulanger from Latronquiere. Also Jean Landes, from Senaillac. We get Sundays off for Mass and can go to the local village, they say. I’ll be fine. You too, please. Arbel.”

  A first week passed.

  Landes was appointed “Vertraussman” –Trusted man.

  The work was hard. The tiredness stayed in the muscles, rooted. Rooted ache. The men played cards of an evening. Each nationality separated in the dormitory by language. And they were paid enough to drink on the Sunday. Which they did. Religiously.

  Only two Jewish children came that winter as February, dripping and grey, dribbled into March. Simone and Madame Lacaze took them and drove back and had nothing that needed saying. She went to the village once a month with her coupons –Jacques’ were cancelled, him being in Germany –for their essentials. When she walked back and saw the house, it was Home.