The Champagne War

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘Madame?’

  ‘I’m fine, Helene . . . a headache.’

  ‘Rest, madame.’ The young woman frowned. ‘You work too hard.’ And then she was gone, none the wiser, busy at her chores, herself stretched thin, doing the work of several maids. They were all shouldering far more than one person should. No one complained.

  Sophie hauled down the timber stepladder that would allow her to escape to the gods of the house. She’d laid boards on the rafters and fashioned a haven for herself in the attic. The other six bedrooms she had turned over for visitors: everyone from political dignitaries to army officers and any one of the many men of note who worked for France and needed a private room. She was happy to extend her hospitality. She wasn’t alone – all the major houses were helping wherever they could for France’s war effort. She imagined that by moving to the attic and allowing the second floor to be used as visitor rooms, most of the ground floor might soon be turned over entirely to wounded soldiers, recuperating men or simply those being rotated and rested.

  Her world had changed in a blink. Yesterday she could plan. Today? Was there any point?

  Sophie’s shoulders had never felt heavier as she ascended the shallow steps of the ladder before hefting it up and closing the snug-fitting lid of the loft space. Alone. She reached for one of the beams and gripped it until her knuckles were leached of colour. The sobs shuddered through her, still silent, full of private pain. Hold it in, she demanded of herself. Bear it! You must. There is no choice. You are not special. You are bereaved: one of hundreds in Épernay, one of thousands in France, one of tens of thousands in Europe.

  Sophie breathed out softly, made herself inhale immediately, inflate her lungs all the way as she had advised others who had faced this challenge before her. She breathed out again, audibly this time, pursing her lips enough to allow air to come out in a tunnel of control. Channel the fear, she said in her mind. Breathe in and out . . . and again. She groaned with the final exhalation, at least slightly steadier on her feet, if not calmer within. When she felt her legs were reliable, Sophie moved to the salon chair she’d had carried up and placed by one of the gabled windows. It was one of a few luxuries from the life she had known just a year ago.

  If life before the war had been privileged, then life now had few soft edges about it. This chair, however, was one of them, and she sank into its plump cushion to rest a clammy palm on its golden walnut arm, partly padded in the same soft green embroidered fabric of its seat. She adored this chair: a small place to feel safe, or at least loved. It had been her mother’s; she used to sew from its embrace using the light flooding in from the tall picture windows downstairs. She would now have to face the telegram with light illuminating it from the dormer window. She wished it was simply sewing and she could wear that soft smile of her mother’s contentment. She tried to picture her own expression. Pale and pinched, no doubt, over a skull beginning to show its hollows. Sophie was grateful that neither of her parents had lived to experience this war, or to see her so wasted and unhappy.

  But now she would move beyond simply being too thin, too fatigued, too grief-stricken for others and for France. Now it had become deeply personal.

  She couldn’t put it off any longer and withdrew the envelope from her apron. The inevitable tears arrived. Hot and salty, stinging her eyes and warping the words on the page as she read the official notification. It was crafted with carefully chosen phrasing, but it couldn’t deflect or hide the blow.

  Jerome was lost in action. She scanned the telegram, not really absorbing it, just confirming what she had suspected. The mayor had been told more, apparently, and that would come in writing soon; witnesses had said they saw him fall. Was that two or three of them? She didn’t care. The mayor assured they had described a man, tall and broad, with dark, curling hair. He was a farmer – a grape grower, two recalled – cheerful for others, always full of optimism despite the bleakness of their days. They couldn’t have described him better.

  And so, just like that . . . in the space of a single heartbeat, the love of her life was gone.

  ‘I’ll be home for Christmas,’ he’d promised.

  Sophie breathed out her agony softly.

  ‘That was eight months ago, my darling,’ she whispered to wherever he was buried beneath the mud of France, a German bullet likely embedded in his chest. She hoped it hadn’t passed through his heart. That belonged to her.

  Sophie stood now to lean against the window and gaze at her favourite view in the hope of anchoring herself. The mayor had made a wise decision. The German soldiers had marched through their silent, cowed city and had only been able to call it theirs for a single week. Brave French fighters on its other side had sent them scuttling, scampering back through the city, this time not nearly as composed or smug. The German soldiers had been chased all the way back to the hills around Chemin des Dames. The ferocious Battle of the Marne the previous year had seen an Allied victory, but it was short-lived as the Germans had dug in deeper. The enemy was still entrenched in all but one of the semicircle of tiny medieval forts that had guarded Paris in centuries past. Sophie sighed. Épernay and Reims were not occupied but they were still prisoners . . . with Reims once more the only city standing between the Germans and the French capital.

  She looked beyond the familiar tiny clusters of rooftops pinpointing the villages of Dizy and Ay. Angling her gaze south, she squinted at the patchwork of misted vineyards that stretched up into the hillsides. Over the hill, Jerome’s precious chardonnay grapes were already bursting into bud . . . new life for them as her own life felt as though it was ending. The vines didn’t understand war or peace; they knew only the cycle of life. They had fought through the epidemic of disease that had wasted most of Europe’s grape stocks. Now, strengthened by the grafting of American vines, they were flourishing once more. They had beaten back the phylloxera virus, and in the first year of the war had known one of their best vintages. She must draw strength from Jerome’s proud vines and protect them; without her they would wither and the war – no matter which side one fought on – would win.

  In the time she’d stood here, how many men had been hit by bullets? How many men had died from artillery? Or shrapnel wounds? A new battle was now raging in Belgium. Flanders was aflame again, and the French soldiers were bogged in trenches alongside their allies. Listening to the wireless just days earlier she’d heard the horrific news of the Germans using chlorine gas in front of their trenches, waiting for the prevailing north-easterly breeze to carry the hideous greenish-yellow mist, up to four miles wide, towards their enemy’s trenches. It had happened at dusk, trapped between day and night, and the men could barely believe what they saw, according to the report. The fingers of scalding green had only had to travel half a mile to take French troops by surprise. So many had died within minutes, and those that didn’t were blinded or their lungs burned. Casualties ran into the thousands. She had wept to hear it.

  Perhaps Jerome was one of the lucky ones? Dead before he could understand what had happened. No time to contemplate his demise; no opportunity to think about the wife he worshipped and who loved him with the same fervour; no chance to feel agonising pain or sadness like the fellows on that ridge. A swift bullet that stole his heartbeat.

  Should she be grateful, then? Had he left his life bravely, honourably and in defence of the France he adored? Had he left his life? The thought kept nagging. She could accuse herself of being overly romantic but Sophie, deep in her bones, didn’t want to accept that this was it – their lives together halted. It could be stubbornness or just plain grief that refused to let her believe her husband was dead. Jerome couldn’t be found . . . he was missing but he could be injured, lost, wandering. She allowed herself to let this tiny glimmer of hope flicker.

  And so, for him and his courage she must find more of her own. He had defended France. She must defend her tiny corner of it. Her vineyards, her family’s legacy, her name and the people around her. It was no longer up to anyo
ne else. This is how it had always been destined. Her father had said she was the one. She would have to take on the burden alone.

  She was a sixth-generation champenoise. So be it. House Delancré – just like Paris – must endure. And Sophie must proceed on her own terms but not before she was sure that Jerome was dead. And she would only accept that if there was proof he no longer lived. Until then, she would advance in blind hope . . . growing his grapes, tending his vines, making her champagne and, above all, waiting for him to return.

  3

  BRITISH TRENCHES, YPRES

  1917

  He recalled being knocked backwards into the filth of his trench and regaining his wits to understand that he was in a casualty clearing station.

  ‘Hello, Captain Nash. I’m Ellen.’ She smiled brightly enough to break any man’s heart. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Blurry,’ he admitted, gauging her to be in her mid-twenties. Golden hair was tied up beneath her nurse’s cap but a lock had come loose. He wanted to touch it.

  ‘That’s due to concussion. You can hear properly?’

  He lifted a finger to poke in his ear. ‘I can still hear guns,’ he admitted. Then nodded. ‘Just a bit of ringing.’

  ‘To be expected,’ she said, cocking her head slightly and looking at him with a gaze the colour of ancient waters trapped in ice. Yet there was nothing cold about it; her eyes spoke only of heat . . . maybe a tropical current had been trapped in that prehistoric glacier. Her eyes were all warmth, like her smile. ‘You’ve got a bad head wound but we stitched you . . . I stitched you, actually.’ She shrugged her squarish, narrow shoulders, which spoke of small meals and long hours. ‘I was a seamstress before . . . ’ She frowned. ‘Well, before all of this, so I get the trickier patch-ups around here. You’ll have a handsome scar to go with your handsome face.’ She paused, but when he didn’t reply she gently touched his shoulder. ‘Oh, come on, soldier, please smile for me. You didn’t get killed out there today.’

  He attempted for her, knowing it came out lopsided. ‘I am grateful,’ he lied.

  ‘But?’ Perceptive.

  ‘To be honest, Ellen, I’m not convinced that living is worth the trouble right now, but thank you for patching me up so well.’

  ‘You know something, Charlie?’ She cocked her head again as she regarded him, and he liked that habit. ‘I spent a lot of time on you and I did an exceptionally neat job too.’ She grinned but he could see the sadness in it and needed to move her on before she started offering him the predictable wisdom on staying cheerful.

  ‘May I return to my men now?’

  ‘Yes. But may I say one more thing?’ She didn’t wait for his reply, but he saw something defiant flash in her eyes. The calm, pretty grey of her eyes was an eternity away from the bleak grey world he moved in. ‘. . . and I’ve heard soldiers make similar heartbreaking remarks as you just did, and it has a corrosive effect.’ He frowned, only just catching up with her words; she was clearly educated, and she was obviously not going to tell him to keep his chin up. ‘It infects all of us. We’re all in this. I’m not in the trench alongside you, I admit, but I’m here in the hospital and I see the effects of this war up close in all of its horror. It never gets easier but if you don’t stay strong, how can you expect your men to follow your lead?’ It landed on him like a blow. ‘How about we make a pact, Captain Nash, that I won’t give up if you won’t?’ The grey gaze glittered across him like quicksilver.

  ‘All right,’ he heard himself say, not sure if he’d been seduced or hypnotised, because he didn’t want to make that pact. As she tapped the cot in which he lay as if to say, Deal!, he added: ‘On one condition. Actually, two.’ He couldn’t let her get away with an admonishment without defending himself. Flirting was surely the only way.

  ‘Really?’ Grey amusement slid down to his lips and back up to meet his gaze head-on. He was impressed by her fearlessness, especially as lemon-lips Matron was hovering. ‘And what are those?’

  ‘If we both make it out alive, you’ll let me take you to a dance.’

  Her head tipped in the way he liked, and she smiled. He saw so much promise in it, it made him ache. ‘I’m very good at stitching – as you’ll see when you next look in a mirror – but I’m even better at dancing. Dare you take up that challenge, Captain?’

  He found it hard to believe he was smiling, even harder to believe she was flirting back. It seemed primeval drive was never entirely obliterated. He nodded. ‘I’ll let you be the judge of that.’

  ‘Then stay safe and I’ll see you some time.’ She scribbled something on a page on her clipboard. ‘Here are some tips for helping you to look after that wound, because it’s going to need re-dressing in a couple of days. I’ll organise a sphagnum-moss one because that white bandage is a dreadful target and I’m looking forward to shaking a leg with you.’ She laughed at his expression. ‘Muddy that bandage up,’ she advised as she handed him the scrap.

  ‘That will happen in seconds out there.’ Charlie glanced at the small torn-off piece of paper on which she’d scrawled. Her surname was Peterson and she was from Surrey. There was a phone number. Not a word about wound care, though; would Matron be fooled?

  ‘Take care of yourself.’ She shook his hand politely. ‘You didn’t tell me the second condition.’

  He stood gingerly and let the tent swim around him before he nodded to say he was fine to move on his own. ‘That you call me Charlie.’ He winked.

  ‘And me Ellie,’ she matched.

  Charlie raised a finger to his head in a sort of salute. ‘I’ll think of you when I shave and note your neat scar close up.’

  Her gentle smile hurt so much more than his head. ‘Stay alive, Charlie,’ she whispered.

  The memory of that whisper was only a couple of days old but it might as well have been years, given how Captain Charles Nash of the 8th Leicesters felt as the blood spattered on his face and he realised the man he had been talking with was dead.

  Only a minute earlier Royce had offered him a cigarette.

  ‘Not good for my breathing . . . or my shooting.’ Charlie had grinned without amusement.

  ‘You reckon you’ll live long enough to worry about your lungs, sir?’ Royce had observed with the typical mirthless humour of the trenches. The older man had taken two more long drags, and as he’d turned to flick the minuscule butt into the mud slime they stood in, he grinned. ‘I’ll count on your —’

  Much of Royce’s face was obliterated in that same heartbeat with the telltale whiz of a bullet.

  Charlie caught him as he fell, more of the man’s blood oozing onto his uniform. ‘Oh, Royce, you stupid bugger,’ Nash murmured, sickened by yet another close-range death. He ground his teeth, trying not to show it because that meant weakness. Even so, that German sniper across the way had to die. Word went down the line that Royce, the spotter, was dead. Charlie couldn’t look away from the ruin of the face that had been grinning at him moments ago. He rubbed his own face, trying to offset the internal agony, and as he did, he shifted the sphagnum-moss field dressing that had been applied after a piece of shrapnel sheared open his head.

  Even now, a few days on, he convinced himself he could taste the fragrance of violets that he recalled emanating from Nurse Ellie. Just for a heartbeat, the gagging smell of the latrines disappeared as he remembered her.

  ‘You all right, Nash? Are you listening?’ The major’s vexation dragged him from his thoughts to the ugly present.

  He snapped back to attention and let Ellie go. ‘Yes, sir. Look, there’s no point in keeping this position; their sniper knows where I am now,’ Charlie said, trying to keep it matter-of-fact, averting his gaze, which had rested on Royce for too long. ‘I’m going to get that bastard, sir, if just for Royce alone. Send me with the lads when the whistle blows, sir,’ he asked for the umpteenth time. ‘A captain moves and fights with his company.’

  And for the umpteenth time plus one, his commanding officer shook his head. ‘We can’t lose you,
Nash. You know that.’

  ‘Sir —’

  ‘This is not up for discussion.’

  ‘Wait, sir. Please,’ Charlie appealed, trying a new approach. ‘I left my essential services role and joined up because I wanted to do my bit,’ he said, fabricating around the truth of running away from his laboratory because he did not wish to make mass-killing gas for the Allies. Charlie had no desire to discuss the philosophy of war with his senior officer as the Germans cranked up for another morning’s artillery fire.

  ‘We all want to do our bit!’ The major was becoming testy.

  ‘By keeping me in this trench, sir, you are not letting me do what I came here to do.’

  ‘Captain Nash, this is the last time you and I will have this conversation. You are doing the duty I demand of you by killing our enemy. You achieve more death in a few hours than we can in our pointless dashes towards them. I am not prepared to lose you, no matter how it rankles here,’ he said, prodding Charlie’s chest. ‘I know you didn’t plan on becoming a makeshift sniper. But firing a rifle with that deadeye shot of yours keeps a few of these lads alive,’ he growled, pointing over Charlie’s shoulder, ‘just a little bit longer. And if you can keep doing that, some of them might just make it out of this hellish place.’ His tone told Charlie he would not tolerate further discussion. ‘Now, what about a replacement for Royce?’

  Firmly back in his place, Charlie had to look as though he was accepting. ‘How about the new youngster, Hartley, sir? He doesn’t wear glasses.’ He was a poor choice, and the major’s expression confirmed to Charlie that his superior knew this too. He pushed harder. ‘He lied about his age; he’s not seventeen for a few months. Doesn’t need to go over the top, sir. Not yet, anyway – he’s only just arrived. Looks like a startled hare.’