A Soldier's Tale

by M. K. Joseph

  Now while she was talking like this she sort of perked up, the colour came into her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. I wanted her to go on talking, because I thought if she talked it out she might come round to my way of thinking. But I was curious too—I wanted to understand how she done it, whatever she done, and what it must be like to be taken over by an enemy like the Germans. Oh, I’d read about it in the papers of course, but that’s not the same, is it? I mean, you don’t believe a lot of the things you read in the papers, they just make up a lot of it to suit themselves.

  (I’d noticed this before, the working-class scepticism and contempt towards what we now call the media. It’s a mixture of peasant tribalism with the peasant’s caution over his personal concerns, a general feeling that the urban world is a fairground where all the shills and barkers and pitchmen are out to get him, but he’s too clever for them.)

  There was Jerry fighters about somewhere, because you could hear the ack-ack, which was all pretty rare in daylight. She went on smoking and looking towards the window.

  You see, she says, they are not beaten yet.

  Tell me, I says again, what it was like. I really would like to know.

  She stubs out her fag, then she asks me for another, but doesn’t seem to enjoy it. She took the dirty dishes over to the sink and poured hot water over them from the kettle and began to wash them. I noticed that she did things like that when she wanted time to think, little things. Women do that, I suppose.

  Then she says, Well, you know what happened. We are safe there behind our great fortifications, and suddenly there are Germans in France. My father used to go out at night to talk to old friends in the café, and he came home a little more drunk each night. He would say that it was nineteen-fourteen all again and there would be another miracle of the Marne, we should see that, and Ils ne passeront pas. Did we not still have Pétain, the great old man of Verdun? And all the time the Germans they were coming and coming, and you British ran away—well, what else do you call it? No one really believed in miracles any more. When the Government left Paris and went to Bordeaux some people took to the roads and tried to escape to the south also. Many of them were family people. Old people like my father stayed and said they would not desert their posts—imagine, poor Papa, an agent for farm machinery, at his ‘post’! And young people like me and my friends, we didn’t believe in anything much, and secretly, you know, we thought it couldn’t be so bad, could it?

  All the time she was talking she was washing the blue china and drying it and putting it neatly on the dresser.

  There were lots of German aeroplanes about, no others. Then the oil-tanks were on fire, you know—Rouen is a big port on the river, and tankers came into the refinery down the river. For two days it was all dark like a storm, with black smoke from the burning tanks. The shops began to close up and there was a curfew. Papa and I stayed home. We listened to the radio and drank coffee. Poor Papa stopped talking about Verdun, he did not understand anything any more.

  We had a big apartment, did I tell you? On the second floor of an old house overlooking the courtyard. Too big really, but we stayed on there after Maman died, because we liked it and it was very cheap then. It was near a caserne, a barracks, and when I was a little girl the bugles would wake me up in the morning, so bright and clear. But not any more.

  So we drank coffee and listened to the radio and I stared at the courtyard, and there was a lot of smoke.

  Then one morning we woke up early and we could hear motors coming in very fast along the main streets. We knew it was the Germans. Later in the morning a truck came along with a haut-parleur, you know, a loud-speaker, to tell us in very good French that we should stay at home until order was restored, and we should be quite safe. So we stayed home, and there was no light, and not much food. There were more motors, and soldiers marching too, patrols on foot, and perhaps some shots, it was hard to tell.

  Next day there came again the truck with the haut-parleur but a different voice, with a German accent, to say that we could leave our houses to buy food and other necessities, and that all shops should open. So I went out with a basket, out of the courtyard and up towards the square. And I heard a music, a band. I ran up to watch, and there were other people there too. There were German soldiers marching, rrruhn-rrruhn-rrruhn-rrruhn, like toys—you know how they march. They all looked young and clean, in clean uniforms, like new toys out of a box. And there was a band, so bright and loud, it made me think of the bugles in the caserne and the music in the Easter fair. You have not seen a German band, they have a man who carries a thing they call a ‘schellenbaum’, like a little metal tree with bells—like we say a chapeau Chinois—

  (Suddenly, comically, she lifted the corners of her eyes with her fingertips, miming a stage Chinaman.)

  I know, I says, we call them ‘jingling johnnies’, they’re old-fashioned, nice—

  —Ah, you know, she says. It was all so gay, like good children at a fairground. The people who were watching, some were weeping because of the defeat. But I had stopped from being afraid. I thought, They are just young men, boys even, with clean uniforms and a good band. And I could see some other people beginning to smile, and I was smiling also.

  Well, I could see that she wanted a bit of time alone to set things to rights, as any woman would, so I thought I’d take a turn or two around the garden and see what lay on the other sides of the cottage. I carried the old sten in plain sight, for the benefit of them up the hill and anyone else who might be watching. I was just a bit wary that they might call up reinforcements and try something hard, but I didn’t really think they would somehow. And I carried my hunting-knife on my belt like I always did, but the thin one—it’s a ground-down butcher’s knife really—I keep out of sight tucked down in my boot.

  (As he described this, he took out the other knife, which he had never done before with me. It had been honed and rubbed down to a curved fang of steel little more than half an inch wide, delicate and deadly, and the light ran along the blade like quicksilver.)

  Now what she said about the Jerries set me thinking, because I used to wonder sometimes what would of happened if they’d landed in England. Of course, some people reckon they did—I expect you heard them yarns about all them burnt Jerries being washed up along the south coast. A lot of people believed that because they wanted to, but to me it was just a load of cobblers. There was old Churchill saying We’ll fight ’em on the beaches, and you can always take one with you. I reckon we’d have made it tougher for them than the Frenchies did. But they might have done it at that, and then most people would have settled down and made the best of it. And if you saw the old four-by-twos and such getting it rough, well, it’d be no skin off your nose, would it? You know, like saying Wank you Willie I’m waterproof.

  (It almost made me angry at the time to hear him say this, because I had a pretty high regard for the old Poms and the way they behaved in the war. But it wasn’t all heroic, and I suppose Saul could have been right. Certainly, in their present mood of self-abasement and self-laceration a lot of them would like to believe it. The French have made a film to show what it was really like under the Occupation, and the British, not to be outdone, have made a television programme with people saying, “Yes, we’d have been just as bad, worse, vile. We’re horrible all right.” And there was that film called It Happened Here. Only of course it didn’t, because the British still had their twenty miles of salt water, and their incredulity. If that hadn’t saved them—well, you can’t blame most people for being just born survivors. If they weren’t, we’d never have come out of the Ice Age. 16670 Maximilian Kolbe, priest and martyr, took another man’s place in the gas-chamber. He was a saint, a great dead lion. Most of us go on living as best we can, in our shabby, doggy way.)

  Round the other side of the cottage was an orchard, about an acre of it, cut off from the outside by thick hedges and a ditch, with thick grass under the apple trees, where the fruit was setting, small and green. It was very warm and
close there, shut in. The noises, gunfire and planes, sounded far away, and the bees were loud. He liked it there, it was drowsy and it smelled good, of earth and grass and the promise of fruit, and it reminded him of his grandparents’ cottage and high summer. He decided to come back and spend some time there, with her, when he knew how the land lay and felt secure against surprise.

  Through a wicket-gate he came out on the other side into another kitchen garden which looked trampled over and neglected, the beds almost stripped. Examining the heavy bootmarks stamped into the dusty soil he saw that some of his own people must have been through it and cleaned out carrots and beans and swedes for their cook-house. Or perhaps Germans before they pulled back.

  In the back of the cottage there was a Dutch door. Peering in through the upper half, which stood ajar, he had a vague impression of damp, cool air, a flagged stone floor, a waterbutt.

  Here, too, in the kitchen garden the air was still, but oppressive now, and with a different and familiar smell. Sniffing, he looked out over the further hedge on to a field with a small shed in it and a couple of dead cows. One was foully bloated, with its legs sticking up stiffly in the air. A half-hearted attempt had been made to burn the other with petrol, leaving gaunt ruined ribs black and sticking out of a mass of blackened glue. The sky was overcast. Heavy metallic blue flies swarmed and buzzed in the field but did not seem to cross the hedge on the house side, as if observing some curious territorial taboo. The familiar sight and smell did not disgust him but it had spoilt the innocent mood of the orchard, so that he quickened his steps as he came round the north side of the house and back towards the front door.

  But before he showed himself he stiffened suddenly, hearing the sound of a man’s voice. Silently he took one step beyond the corner, neither cringing nor exposing himself without need. A khaki-clad figure was lounging beside the door.

  It was one of them Yanks, Bom, said Saul, you know how we was right flank division and liaised with them Yanks. Well, this was one of them, a corporal, and he stands there in his shirt-sleeves and with his helmet loose on his head and a tommy-gun slung over his shoulder. He looked pretty tough, but I thought that I could take him if I had to, because he was off his guard, yet I’d rather not. All he was doing was chatting to my bit of stuff, slow and easy, with a drawl. He was saying, I don’t know who this other guy is, Sugar, but I can take better care of you than he can, and I can show you a better time.

  Then he must’ve got a glimpse of me, so I decided to walk on gently and treat our gallant ally in a quiet and friendly way.

  Hi there, he says.

  She is standing there, leaning against the jamb of the door. She is wearing a blue-and-white-checked short frock and has her red hair braided around her head, which gives her a sort of innocent country-girl look.

  I’m surprised there’s Yanks here, I says, I didn’t know we was that far back.

  I landed at Omaha Beach, he says, I didn’t see any Limeys there.

  Fair enough, I says. Now what do you want?

  Belle went on leaning against the door, watching us both, weighing us up. He turned back and went on talking to her as if she mattered and I didn’t.

  I’m with a liaison task force, he says, I get around, good supplies, use of transport. I could be good to you.

  I got here first, I says, and I’m taking care of her.

  You can decide this for yourself, he says, still looking at her and not at me. It’s your house, isn’t it? It’s your country?

  She didn’t move, but she says, All right, supposing I do not want either of you?

  You kidding? he says. You need someone to look after you, Sugar. This is no place for a nice kid like you, not with some of the types there are around.

  I was looking him over carefully. He was big, all right, and sort of meaty, like some Yanks are, but he looked soft underneath to me. His uniform was nice and clean, and under the tan his face had a grey smooth look from being fresh shaved, and he smelt like a whore’s bedroom. (Aftershave was almost unknown then and considered pretty pansy by people like Saul.) I thought he might be a gingerbeer, but if that was so why would he be after her?

  I didn’t like the way it was shaping, and then I looked up the hill and I had an idea. Someone was standing under the beech tree watching the cottage. I knew it was only Big Stupid, but at a quarter of a mile distance he looked pretty impressive.

  You’re in trouble, mate, I says, you’re in dead lumber.

  That made him swing round towards me, surprised-like but still grinning.

  I’m okay, fella, he says, I can’t see no trouble.

  There it is, I says, nodding towards Big Stupid. As luck would have it, just at that minute the Brat went up and said something to him, so that it looked more like a regular patrol.

  I got some good friends in the Resistance, I says. I do them favours and they keep an eye on me. You start anything and you won’t get past that front gate.

  He looked at her and then at me, then back at Big Stupid, still quite slow and easy, a big man sizing it all up. Then he made a terrible mistake. He reached into his hip pocket and took out a wallet.

  I’ll make it worth your while, he says, and takes out a couple of English fivers. I’ll buy out your share, he says.

  I looked across at her without saying anything. Her colour always came and went quickly, and she’d turned white again, but this time it was rage. She glared at him and said something in French. Then she whirled round into the cottage and banged the door shut.

  You’ve lost, I says, and now I was grinning at him. What d’you take me for, an Oxford Street ponce?

  It didn’t seem to upset him. He was the unsinkable kind of Yank, you know, who tries it on, and no hard feelings if it doesn’t work, he was so sure of himself.

  There’ll be another time, he says. You’ll be moving up Monday or Tuesday, won’t you? It’s all moving up, but I can get back any time I want.

  And I thought of what I’d said to the old Frenchie, and I says to him like I done before, When I’m gone you can do what you like with her. For nothing, I says.

  Okay, fella, he says, tell the lady I’ll be back, if I got nothing better to do.

  So I stood and watched him stroll off down the road. You know what they say about Yankee marching orders—Rifle on the shoulder put and down the road amble? Sort of comfortable, not soldierly. Then I went back into the kitchen where she was sitting.

  She was sitting there with her elbows on the table and her fists pressed hard against her eyes. I walked up to her softly and took her wrists in my hands and pulled them gently away. She let me do it and looked up at me, still white and sullen and hard-eyed. A braid of hair had worked loose and hung down across her forehead.

  You see, she says, you make me a putain, to be—to be sold, and bought. You should put up a red lamp at the door.

  He didn’t get you with his money, I says, nor with his threats.

  She was very tight with anger and for a couple of minutes she didn’t answer. I just stood looking at her, saying nothing, till she says, He does not get me, but you get me. I am like a bone, and you are the big dog that gets the bone.

  You remember, I says, there’s those other little dogs up the hill. I’m not letting them bite you.

  Until when? she says. Monday night or Tuesday. Perhaps the American first, then the maquisards. Is that all there is for me?

  And she puts her fists up to her eyes again, squeezing them hard, like a kid.

  While there’s life there’s hope, I says. We’ll think of something.

  I let her sit there for a bit, then I says, Haven’t you got friends? I says, Someone you could go to?

  No friends, she says, but she was beginning to think about it and it stopped her brooding. Her eyes were red and her face was puffy and pale, she looked almost ugly.

  Don’t you live here? I says, knowing that she didn’t.

  No, I live in Rouen, she says. My family used to live here in my grandfather’s time. There was
an old aunt who died here. Then we used to come here for weekends, holidays—in summertime. Other times we rented it. I had not seen it for years. I came to stay, to avoid the bombing—you know, your people bombed Rouen. It is an old beautiful city.

  It was the river-crossing, I expect, the bridges, I says. Anyhow, I don’t believe you came here to avoid the bombing, you wouldn’t have had time.

  Friends helped me, she says.

  Friends, I says, what kind of friends?

  German, she says. It seemed safer here. Then the invasion—your people were here, and the Germans went back.

  I had a sudden idea.

  That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? I says. Safe here behind our lines, and cut off from anyone who might be coming after you from the direction of Rouen?

  She nodded to that. I was safe until yesterday, she says, then I saw them, those three.

  Who are they? I says. You better tell me more about them. It might help.

  Well, she says, the old man is Monsieur Raoul, Raoul Lemmonier. When he was young he was a poet. Now he is a teacher at the Lycée Corneille. The big one was working there, at the Lycée, what you call a porter, I think, at the gate. And the young one was an older pupil. They were sent from Rouen to find me. I thought I was safe, but of course there were plenty of others, watching.

  Now while she was talking, she’d moved over to the window again. It seemed to fascinate her, knowing that they were there up the hill, out to get her, and here she was out of their reach, for a time. She’d stopped brooding, and I’ll say that for her, she could bounce back after a shock. I found out that she’d had a few knocks all right, and learnt how to stand them.