by Julie Berry
Jennie was silent for a time. “Nobody knows where he is,” she finally said. “He wasn’t on the list of soldiers to travel.”
Hazel nodded. Jennie seemed to be holding something back, but whatever it was, she finally laid it aside.
“Here’s what I do know.” Jennie leaned closer. “Some soldiers here are grave-diggers.”
Hazel blanched. “Grave-diggers?”
“Between the sickness and casualties, there are hundreds of graves here at Saint-Nazaire.”
Hazel feared what Jennie would say next.
“The day the band left, one of our soldiers, who’s a grave digger, told us, in confidence, that he’d been given a hush-hush assignment to bury a young black soldier.”
Hazel’s brain began to whir. She would not allow this idea in.
“He’d been murdered,” Jennie said. “Clubbed to death. Beyond recognition.”
“But . . . there are thousands of black soldiers here,” Hazel protested.
“Shh.” Jennie held a warning finger over her lips. “I know. When I first heard about it, I felt terrible, of course, but I had no reason to connect it to anyone I knew.” She looked around the room once more. “Aubrey stopped coming around when the band left. But he’d told a lot of folks that he wasn’t going on the tour.” She sighed. “So when he was nowhere to be seen, I asked his friends in K Company. Nobody knew anything.” She dropped her voice even lower. “The grave-digger told me that the body was brought in on a stretcher by Lieutenant Europe and Captain Fish.”
“The bandmaster? That Lieutenant Europe?”
Jennie nodded. “Captain Fish was Aubrey’s CO.”
Hazel pressed her hands into her temples. It couldn’t be. Aubrey was more alive than ten people combined. Killing him should be impossible. He should have more lives than a cat.
Poor Colette!
“This still isn’t proof,” Hazel said. “We might be wrong.”
Jennie said nothing. She seemed like someone who’d tried and failed to convince herself of the same thing.
“Would it be worthwhile to write to someone stationed with the band?”
Jennie pressed her lips together. “I can’t get my grave-digger friend in trouble by divulging what he said.” She looked sadly at Hazel. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
Hazel took her hand briefly. “I’m glad I met you,” she told Jennie, “though your tale is terrible to hear. But it’s clear that you care about Aubrey too.”
The young woman stiffened slightly. “He was a good friend.”
Possibly, Hazel thought, Jennie had hoped he could be more.Who could blame her?
Hazel nodded, thanked her once more, and took her leave.
APHRODITE
Treason—March 18, 1918
WHAT IS WORSE? A lover’s heart growing cold? Or losing a love to death, having doubted them?
Worst of all is being caught unknowing in the clutches of both agonies. Too many sweethearts found themselves in this nightmare during the war. When letters stopped, were they killed or captured? Dead, or drifting away? If you are humane, and Colette was, you hope they’re still alive to love again, God willing. An agonizing treason of the heart against itself.
When Hazel shared her report, the color drained from Colette, leaving her waxen. She rocked back and forth, shivering. Hazel took her hands in her own. They were cold to the touch.
“Aubrey?” Colette whispered. “You can’t be gone.”
“I’m sure he isn’t,” protested Hazel. “That could’ve been anyone.”
“His whole life before him,” Colette said faintly. “His music. His friends. His family.” Her face contorted. “It can’t be true.”
“I’m sure it isn’t,” protested Hazel.
“Some cruel Fate hates me,” Colette whispered. “It enjoys watching me suffer.”
Hazel’s heart bled. “We don’t know,” she said “I pray it wasn’t him.”
“I’m less than a pawn.” Colette’s eyes were hollow. All light had left her. “I’m a plaything to a vindictive god.” She gazed at the ceiling. “Where have I sinned?”
Hazel wrapped her arms around Colette and tried to still her shaking. “It can’t be that.”
“But it can.” Colette broke free. Her eyes were wild. “A loving god would never allow this. And if there was no god at all, surely chance would occasionally favor me, non? Probability alone might sometimes spare me?” She laughed bitterly. “But no. There is a god, a malicious one, and it despises me. My tears are its favorite sport.”
Hazel rubbed Colette’s back, and brought a cold cloth for her burning forehead.
Colette did subdue in time, but that, Hazel found, was worse. She seemed almost lifeless.
“Oh, Aubrey,” Colette whispered. “What did they do to you?”
Hazel brought her blankets and a pillow, and her camp mattress, and slept in Colette’s room that night. After Hazel had drifted off, Colette roamed Hut One in the dark, dressed in her nightgown and robe. She sat at the piano bench. She sat upon the couch.
She had sharp words for me, but I’m not offended by the bitterness of heartache. I would be unfaithful indeed if I abandoned my own when love slips through their grasp.
The Goddess of Passion understands. It is no blasphemy to blame me when a love is lost. Only to surround a heart in hatred, prejudice, greed, or pride until I can no longer find it at all.
APHRODITE
Do You Deny It?—March 19, 1918
AT SOME POINT before dawn, Colette slept. I helped; the poor child needed oblivion. Her rest was brief. A sharp knock at her bedroom door woke both Colette and Hazel. The door pushed open.
“Ah. Miss Windicott. Miss Fournier. Please report to my office.”
They dressed quickly, smoothed their hair, and went to Mrs. Davies’s study.
She wore the look of a woman who has prepared her remarks in advance.
“It has come to my attention,” she said, “that many evenings, after I had gone to bed, you entertained male soldiers in this very hut.” Mrs. Davies’s lips quivered. “Do you deny it?”
Cold water closed over Hazel’s body. She had no experience, none, with serious defiance or rebellion. Not an inkling of how to respond.
Colette wanted to laugh. She was going insane. This British busybody, on top of all else.
“It seems you believe the reports you have heard, Madame Davies,” she replied coolly.
Hazel wanted to bow to Colette. Where did she find such strength, such control?
But Mrs. Davies was having none of it. “Brazen girl!” She turned to Hazel. “What have you to say, Miss Windicott?”
Be Colette. “I say,” Hazel began, “that in light of your fixed opinion, it appears Miss Fournier and I should pack our things.” She rose.
Mrs. Davies hurried toward the door, as if she to block them from leaving.
“The Young Men’s Christian Association was formed to improve the moral character of young people. Not to corrupt it!”
“Mrs. Davies,” Hazel said, “please excuse us.” Boldness was intoxicating.
“I do not excuse you!”
“We resign,” said Colette.
“You are dismissed in disgrace,” cried Mrs. Davies. “Your families will receive letters describing your conduct. You’ll be barred from any future association with the YMCA, and you will receive no reference. Other charitable organizations will be warned not to engage you.”
Hazel yearned to tell her what she could do with her nasty blacklist letters. “Good day, Mrs. Davies,” Hazel said. “We will gather our things and go.”
They left the office. Hazel felt a pang as she looked around at the great room, the stage, the piano. So many memories here. She retrieved her music from the piano bench, then returned to the room she and Ellen shared to pack. Perhaps, H
azel thought, she could find Father Knightsbridge before she left. She wasn’t a Catholic, but at the rate she was going, she probably needed a priest to take her confession. Before she was struck by lightning and cast down to hell.
Ellen sat up in bed and watched Hazel pack through sleepy, bewildered eyes.
“What’s most shocking,” cried Mrs. Davies, who had followed them, “is that you mingled romantically with Negro soldiers.”
Rage filled Hazel. Aubrey Edwards was worth ten of Mrs. Davies. Twenty. Fifty.
“Have you no shame? No pride in your race?”
“None at the moment,” Hazel said, “but I do take pride in my friendship with a brilliant young man who was always decent, kind, and a perfect gentleman. Which is more than can be said for plenty of my own race that have passed through these doors.”
Colette had already finished her packing and emerged into the corridor. “Madame Davies,” she said sweetly, “our final pay.”
Mrs. Davies had anticipated this. “This way, and sign for it.”
“What’s going on?” Ellen whispered.
“Goodbye, Ellen,” Hazel whispered. “Colette and I are resigning. Whatever Mrs. Davies tells you, we did break a rule or two, but we did nothing wrong.”
“You’re leaving?” Ellen stumbled out of bed and gave Hazel a hug. “Must you go?”
Hazel returned the embrace. Ellen shook her head in dazed wonder. “I don’t understand. Write to me when you get home, will you?”
Home? Hazel gulped. What, exactly, would her next step be? She had no plan.
“I will.” She blew her roommate a kiss, buckled her carpetbag, grabbed her coat, signed for her pay, and, with Colette at her side, she left.
ARES
Preparations—February 20–March 20, 1918
THERE IS A SAMENESS to life during wartime. Days blur together when combat isn’t active. A raid here and there, the daily dose of shelling. Casualties, but not enough to write home about. Unless the British Army does it for you, and they sent telegrams. Very brief telegrams.
“Regret to inform you that your son, Private Such-and-Such, is reported killed in action during heavy bombardment” or “has died of wounds at a casualty clearing station.” Followed by a letter from a CO reporting, in every instance, that they passed bravely, swiftly, without much pain. They never said, “hung for hours on a barbed wire fence with his bowels hanging out, pleading for rescue, but nobody dared go for fear of hostile fire.”
The first casualty of war is the truth.
If James and his comrades in 3rd Section and 2nd Section weren’t working, they were sleeping. They slept on the ground. They slept on mounds of artillery. They slept standing up. They slept while marching. You don’t believe me. Half an hour was a long night’s rest.
When the sun went down, their supply fatigue began. Slogging through miles of narrow, congested, twisting tunnels carrying cases of food rations, water, bullets, grenades, sandbags, and wound dressings. Bales of barbed wire that cut their hands to ribbons.
The days grew longer, the nights shorter. Combat activity was quiet. Yet there they were, hauling heavy shells, hauling bales of rifles up and bales of damaged weapons back for repair. Clearly, they were gearing up. The Germans, too. Supply trains, troop trains, and spy planes. Gearing up for a massive onslaught, pointed at the Fifth Army. James’s army. The Germans would outnumber the British forces by something like three to one.
They saw it, they lived with it, they put it out of their minds. Nothing they could do about it until something happened.
The constant grist for the rumor mill, and the source of a lively small-change betting operation, was when the Big One would start. All kinds of dates were thrown into the hat. March 1. The Ides of March. St. Patrick’s Day.
When word spread of a new date, the troops were jaded. Third Section scoffed at March 21. The vernal equinox. The first day of spring. It seemed arbitrary. Superstitious, even. But captured Germans, taken in trench raids, swore that would be the day.
James wrote letters to his parents, to Maggie, and to Bob. So much he’d like to say, but how? Well, he reasoned, if you might die, you don’t worry about what others think.
On the night of March 20, James wrote Hazel a long letter full of things he’d never dared say. Hopes for the future. Hopes that included her. If he never came back from the coming battle, would her heart be more broken, or less, knowing he would’ve given his forever to her?
If it was his lot in life to die for King and Country, if that was his price to pay, it seemed not too much a recompense to ask of Fate that the girl he loved, and would have loved forever, be asked to bear to her grave the burden of knowing how he’d felt.
On the night of March 20, 1918, James Alderidge posted the letter at sunset from his position with his comrades in the support trenches, then found a dugout to lie down in and went to sleep while he still could.
APHRODITE
Regrouping—March 20, 1918
ON THE MORNING of March 20, 1918, Hazel and Colette arrived back in Paris. Colette crawled straight into bed and stayed there.
It had been a quiet train ride, but at one point Colette spoke.
“When the Germans killed my family,” she said, “nobody let me see their bodies.”
Hazel waited, heartsick.
“I asked, but they all said, ‘Non, mon enfant, you mustn’t see; the sight would kill you.’”
Hazel closed her eyes. Her own parents, slaughtered. James, lying on the ground.
“Hazel,” Colette finally said, “do you think Aubrey is dead?”
The words hit Hazel with a pang. What did she believe?
“I think,” she said slowly, “it’s too soon for that conclusion.”
Colette’s red-rimmed eyes watched for the truth. She would not be lulled by false faith, or lies dressed as encouragement.
“I think,” Hazel said, “we should hold on tightly to hope.”
Colette went back to watching farmland slide by.
ARES
Operation Michael—March 21, 1918
JAMES WOKE WITH a start. It was dark, the air thick and heavy. Noise thundered in his ears.
Shelling, but no ordinary shelling. The Germans were launching artillery shells so fast, James couldn’t make out the space between one explosion and the next. Just one continuous roar of destruction. A bombardment like a wild beast’s howl.
He groped for his helmet. The air tasted of smoke and dirt, and the faint onion smell of mustard gas. Officers ran, shouting orders. Soldiers crawled out of dugouts and found their rifles.
The ground heaved and shook like a ship in a storm. Explosion, scream. Explosion, scream. The slap of dirt raining down. They were back in the support lines, but the big guns knew it. No line in the trench network was safe from such a massive shell attack.
Third Section gathered around him in the dark. He knew them by sound, smell, height.
“You owe me two bob, Nutley,” shouted Chad Browning’s shrill voice. “I said today would be the day, but did you believe me? Nah, and it’s gonna cost you.”
“Shut it.” Billy had to shout to be heard.
“Not on your granny’s grave,” protested Browning. “Pay up. Dunno if any of us will be alive tonight, and I wouldn’t feel right picking the pockets of a dead chum, now would I?”
Mick Webber’s voice originated well below Billy Nutley’s. “Where’s McKendrick?”
“Whizz-bang!” cried Mason. They ducked. The shell exploded ten feet away.
They spread out, so one shot couldn’t get them all, and crouched low. Shells overhead shrieked. Finally their own artillery guns roared to life and belched out retaliation at the enemy.
“Lots of luck,” Mason said. “Fritz’ll be way out of range. They planned all this.”
“Is it just me,” yelled James, “or are the e
xplosions getting closer? Pushing our way?”
“Creeping barrage,” answered Mason. “They make a canopy of shellfire, and their infantry creeps out underneath it to invade our trenches under safe cover while we’re hiding from their shells. They push it forward while their men advance. Course, if they bungle it, their guns take out their own men.”
“I wish,” muttered James. “Should I get to the snipers’ nest?”
“Wait for orders,” Mason advised. “In all this smoke and blackness, there’d be nothing to see. You’re safer here.”
Explosions and screams grew nearer. Only the occasional spurt of flame gave any light. They crouched over their knees with their hands clamped hard over their ears.
But screams wiggled between James’s fingers. Were they lads from 3rd Section? Billy, Chad, Mick, Sam, Vincent, Alph?
Where was Sergeant McKendrick? Had something happened? If nobody led them to safety, they’d die out here like sitting ducks. They couldn’t abandon a post without orders.
The assaulting wall of sound overwhelmed their ears. Their rifles, as useful as toothpicks, lay slung across their thighs where they crouched. If they hid in dugouts, a shell blast could turn that dugout into a tomb. At least, in a trench, there was a chance of being dragged away.
They took each smoke-filled breath as if it was their last, and waited to be proven right.
APHRODITE
From Paris—March 21, 1918
THE BEDROOM WINDOWS rattled.
Hazel woke in the darkness in the bedroom she shared with Colette at Tante Solange’s.
The windows kept on rattling.
The clock on the bedside table said 4:45 a.m.
Her bare feet landed on the cold wooden floor. She went to the window and pulled back the blinds. Unlatching the casement, she swung it open and leaned into the early morning cold.
