Now, though, as this horrendous battle raged all around him, he’d lost all that he thought he possessed: his will, his sense of self, his fellow soldiers – his whole company, it appeared – his country. Charlie was sure his desire to live had long ago been dismissed but now he sensed he was surrendering something far more important. He was giving up his faith in himself and indeed humanity. His spirit wanted to let go and drift away from all the ugliness. And still his animal drive meant he fought that urge. Even now, amid this despair, he was surprised to discover a tiny part hidden deep reminding him that if he had counted on anything in his lifetime so far, it was his instincts and personal trust. Surely this was life’s ultimate test, to live through this carnage?
Another shell exploded nearby, knocking him off his feet. He felt earth, grass, and something wet hit his face. There was a curious pressure on his arm, but he felt no pain. Perhaps he was pinned down? Charlie considered this as one might peruse a menu in a café, deciding whether to have eggs poached or fried. Nevertheless, he forced himself to shift position and concluded he was free of any burden, except that whispering desire to let go and take the easy path from this hell. But the stronger voice that lived within spoke now, demanding he strive until the last breath was squeezed from him, until the last drop of blood from his final heartbeat was pumped out of him. Don’t capitulate to a bully, it demanded.
Charlie chose. Wholly disoriented now, his rifle lost, he moved, hoping to find someone, anyone, from the 110th Brigade. They could run together, perhaps grabbing more of their regiment as they travelled. His gas mask was gone, knocked off when he fell, or maybe he’d pulled it off in his confusion. Yet it was a blessing: somehow he was sure he could smell water. He did his best to angle towards the Aisne Canal. At least then he’d have something to follow.
10
All communications were lost at the moment of the surprise German attack: precisely 0100 hours, or so the radium hand told him. Gaston looked at his field watch out of habit and imagined that men all over the region, enemy and ally, were doing the same. The sound of the guns awakening across the valley, having been so quiet that he was sure most soldiers believed they might remain silent evermore, came like a dark omen.
Was this the end for Reims? For Paris?
For Épernay? No! For Épernay, then, and the cousin he loved and the family to which he belonged and the place he was born, he would strive harder than he ever had. And he did: organising his troops and inspiring them to find the courage to be braver than they ever had before, to stop their enemy from changing the lives of the people they loved. It was easier to relate it to their homes in northern Africa and how the Germans would run rampant through their lands if they beat the French, if they were allowed to get one mile closer to Paris than they were now.
The Tirailleurs could hardly be expected to pity Parisians but he could certainly persuade them to think about important cities that their own people depended upon.
When he realised the British were retreating, his regiment’s exposure came into stark focus. Their position could be overrun; it could be a slaughter. Counterattack. It was the brave option but in Gaston’s reckoning it was the only option, or they might as well all just sit down and wait for a rain of bullets and the inevitable murderous spree that was coming.
As his watch ticked past three in the morning, he ordered the attack. The far side of the canal had been lost. If the Germans crossed, Reims would be lost, and that meant Paris was lost. Already he’d got word through a courageous messenger that some of the trenches on their side of the canal were being overrun.
‘We take them right back!’ Fighting words, but the casualties would be significant. Nevertheless, he gave the order.
Gaston called a runner, demanding the youngest in the regiment, and in the moments it took for the man to arrive he scribbled a note. ‘Here,’ he said to the youth, who was no more than seventeen. ‘To Reims. Find this woman,’ he said, pointing to her name on the paper. Grubby hands took the note and Gaston felt a moment of sadness to see mud already staining the white of his fine stationery. It summed up his life at present. ‘Into her hands only! Do you understand?’ He spoke in Arabic to be sure.
‘Yes, sir. Madame Della . . .’ He struggled.
‘Madame Sophie Delancré,’ Gaston said. ‘Delancré. Say it for me.’
The youngster repeated it.
‘Say it all the way to Reims so you don’t forget. Now run!’
The shelling had been going for almost an hour now. Night’s mantle at least disguised the war that was now at Sophie’s door again, showing itself as bright explosions and bullet tracings. The darkness on the other side of midnight was misted and acrid – the smell of heavy shelling, cordite, or perhaps more accurately picric acid that she knew the British called Lyddite and the French Melinite. She blinked at even pondering this; it didn’t matter who called it what, it smelled appallingly bad especially combined with chlorine gas and the pungent odour of gore from the men and animals it had been designed to kill. Sophie loathed the familiar, nasty bouquet travelling on the wind. The cordite brought with it a sweet taste that surely had no place in war.
Sophie needed to be busy so she didn’t dwell. Besides, the vines needed warming, and she had always intended to work in the vineyard over these cooler nights. Others might consider she was losing her perspective, but no one – perhaps only other champagne makers – understood that to not take care of the precious grape buds was akin to not taking care of one’s babies. And so she would light torches this cold evening and she would warm the buds that would bring life and fruit . . . and a good harvest if she protected them.
A handful of people had drifted up to help, to keep earning despite their fear. She nodded her thanks as she emerged from her Reims house. Trailing her were four of the helpers, one of them a teenage girl and another a young boy. Although guilt-ridden that children were part of this dangerous work gang, she had still accepted their offers of help because it was impossible for her to refuse. The teenager, Antoinette, was desperate to escape the tunnels and her mother had begged Sophie to let her help; the boy – an orphan who had lost his father in the first months of the war and his mother to a recent bout of influenza – had taken to shadowing Sophie when she visited the vineyards.
‘Henri, will you carry this for me?’ she said, keen to let him believe he had an important job. ‘This is the can of fuel that will light our torches.’
‘May I light the torches, madame?’
‘We can do it together.’
‘Will the flames keep the grape buds safe, madame?’
‘Oh, I hope so, Henri,’ she admitted, recalling that it was around this time last year that Gaston had come into the vineyards with her to perform the same task. ‘I’m glad you know what we have to do.’
‘My grandfather taught me. But he died and now my father is dead, so I will learn from you, madame. I want to be a champenois one day.’
‘Well, that’s a fine aim to have.’
‘May I work for you, Madame Delancré, when I am bigger?’
She grinned in the lowering light. ‘We are already working together. I don’t see why we won’t still be working together when you are taller than me.’
He flashed her a smile. ‘I will make you proud.’
‘How old are you, Henri?’
‘I am nine, madame, but my mother said although I am small, I am the smartest nine-year-old she knows.’ He blinked and corrected himself. ‘Knew.’
Sophie squeezed his shoulder, unsure of what she could possibly say to ease his grief. Adults were easier to comfort; children didn’t respond with the resignation or the understanding that they were not the first or the last to be bereaved. The grief of a child was total. It wasn’t less or more than an adult’s, Sophie believed; it just felt absolute because a child lived in the moment. Except Henri – here he was talking about being grown-up and working in her vineyards, learning her skills in making wine; she loved him a little for that. Maybe h
e could be the son she didn’t have . . . she had a responsibility to teach the young. He had aspirations; he had a dream he wanted to follow and that was more reassuring than anything she’d encountered in the past few years.
She would employ Henri. She would help him to learn the craft of the champenois. She would invest in a child’s life and help him to achieve the dream his grandfather had set in motion when he began teaching his grandson about protecting the precious buds that showed in April and needed protecting if the May nights remained cool.
‘We know what to do, Madame Delancré,’ a senior man assured her. ‘Would you like me to organise the work? I am told you have spent most of the day at the hospital. Me? I have had my long afternoon nap and my energy is high.’
She smiled at him. ‘Jean-Claude, you are always so gallant.’
‘My mother insisted,’ he said, lifting a cap that seemed as old as he was.
She watched him begin to organise the folk who’d come to start working the rows and turned back to her young shadow.
‘The chardonnay grapes tend to bud early, Henri, which makes them more likely to suffer the bite of a cold night. It’s not frosty but I don’t wish to risk them. The chardonnay is too important.’
‘So we tend to them first.’
‘Yes, we will do our utmost to protect them.’ She handed him some matches she’d kept in her pocket. ‘Be careful with those. Do not strike one until Jean-Claude gives permission. First take the fuel and help douse the rags on the torches.’ The lad hurried off obediently, catching up with the older man who pointed towards the far end of the field, where the others were beginning.
‘I’ll catch up, Jean-Claude; let me inspect the plants. I can see better here,’ she called, gesturing with her lantern at the vines near the entrance.
‘Madame, if you’ll forgive me, by lighting these torches we are giving the Germans a target.’
‘Yes, but I don’t believe they’re interested in us right now, Jean-Claude. The fighting is in the distance, making the way clear to Reims. If they win over there, our city is open to them anyway, but it will not come to that. I am not scared.’
‘Then neither am I, madame.’ The man hobbled away.
She smiled sadly. Despite the booming noise of shells in the distance, it felt better to be in her vineyard than below ground in the hospital. ‘At least I know what to do here,’ she murmured to herself, bending down to inspect the closest vine, holding the lantern close. Sophie became lost to her buds over the next few minutes and was so focused on how much protection might be required for the vines in this particular field that she did not notice the escalation of artillery fire around her.
It was only when she straightened and looked back up the field that Sophie became aware that the sky around her was lit up. The bombs were close . . . far too near. Their flames were turning the atmosphere a murky, unpleasantly yellow version of night. She looked for the nine or so people who’d come into the vineyard with her to call them back. This had become too dangerous; they would have to abandon their plans for tonight, regroup tomorrow, perhaps, depending on the horrible guns. The buds did need help, but they could wait another day.
She squinted into the shadows. ‘Jean-Claude?’ she called loudly.
They were already moving swiftly back towards her. No doubt the old man in his wisdom had deemed it suicidal for them to continue working, although she could shake her head at the recklessness of previous years when she would have done anything to save her vines, standing in the midst of the artillery fire, defying it to wound or kill her. Perhaps she’d found wisdom, or she’d seen too much blood on too many dying to put a plant ahead of a life.
And then came the sound they all dreaded. To Sophie it was like a steam train hurtling out of control, threatening to jump its tracks, with madmen at the helm feeding it more and more fuel to make as much steam and noise as possible.
She knew this sound from her nightmares. Everyone did.
Sophie scanned the hurrying people, now running, convinced all were accounted for as she urged them on to safety. They’d never make the city, but if they could get to the entrance of the vineyard, Sophie was sure they too would be out of range. This was not the sound of the huge field guns; her hearing had become so accustomed to the orchestra of war that she could determine that the shell surely arriving in their direction had been launched from a smaller mobile field weapon.
‘Why?’ she yelled into the night, helplessly raging at the Germans. There was no need for them to direct their explosives at innocents, or at vineyards, or at a city they’d already levelled.
The sound strained through the air towards them at speed. She waited for the shell to land or burst, but the ghostly roar of its power continued to herald its imminent arrival.
‘Run!’ she screamed impotently at those who were already running, her shrieks joining the ghostly wail of the artillery fire that wanted to devour her vineyard and everything it contained.
In her terror, she saw that the lit torches in the vineyard illuminated a yellowish burst of smoke that experience told her meant the shell had reached its apex and would now begin its descent. It was almost directly above the group. Then it announced itself, hitting the ground behind them, smashing vines, exploding to release murderous shrapnel that flew low and at tremendous velocity to cut through branches, leaves and limbs.
Sophie was knocked sideways and landed painfully on her hip. Scanning the field for her companions, she dragged herself back upright. The guns sounded muffled as though someone had stuffed wool in her ears. She felt dizzy when she stood. Nausea threatened too. Her first concussion, she thought absently as she searched desperately to see the first of the gang emerge from smoke. It was Antoinette, and she was dragging two of the women from her household with her. Others staggered towards Sophie, and although she wanted to move quickly to them, her feet felt inordinately heavy, as if the vineyard was trying to suck and hold her boots within its mud. She knew those were her outstretched arms but only because they were clothed in her garments. She could feel nothing, hear so little, and the disorientation from the smell and the smoke, the worry about gas, the sight of bloodied faces made the scene feel like a piece of theatre she was watching and not participating in.
As the women reached her, they fell into each other’s arms. The sensation snapped her senses so time catapulted back to normality. Mewls of despair arose but there was no time for tears.
‘The others?’
‘They fell,’ the girl said, gesturing helplessly over her shoulder.
Sophie ran despite the dizziness, finding it hard to focus on the count in her head. Were there three or four missing? Four, she was sure.
‘Jean-Claude!’ she called, but it came out more like a scream.
She heard a groan and ran in its direction, where she found the elderly man prone. Sophie knelt at his side. ‘Are you wounded?’
‘I can’t tell,’ he admitted, his voice raspy. ‘I thought I was dead until I heard your voice.’
Sophie helped him to sit up. She fumbled in her pocket for the other box of matches, lit one and used its brief illumination to cast a swift glance over the man. He appeared whole: no blood, no bones sticking out at odd angles.
‘Pain?’
He shrugged again. They heard other voices: it was the remaining man, helping his wife, who was bleeding. The man was hard of hearing, she recalled. He was a superb vineyard worker, one of Sophie’s favourites, and she swallowed with relief to see him.
‘Alain,’ she said in a voice that spoke only of regret, wondering if he heard her.
‘Chantal is hit,’ he bleated. There was a significant wound in the woman’s shoulder, but Sophie had seen enough in the hospital to know this would not kill her; the danger was sepsis.
‘We’ll get her to the hospital immediately,’ she assured him, all but dragging Jean-Claude to his feet.
She called to Antoinette. She came, the other women flanking her, coughing, still bending this way and th
at to check they were only bruised. The blood on their skin and clothes made no sense. They seemed whole and not injured seriously enough to account for it.
‘Henri!’ she suddenly screamed, and this time she really did run.
As bullets and artillery fire traced arcs and intermittently lit the sky, she found what remained of Henri in what at first appeared to be a ragged pile of clothes. He had been lifted off his feet by the blast, which explained the odd angle of both knees, collapsed in on themselves. He looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy waiting to be animated by its owner. It was only when she lit a match that she could see the blood still bubbling at his lips. His head was angled to one side and his eyes were downward-cast.
‘Henri,’ she whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks, her conscience burdened, the heart she’d tried so hard to heal breaking again, this time for a child.
‘I just wanted to light the first torch,’ he struggled to get out. The words were mashed but she understood.
‘I know,’ she replied, stroking his cheek. He would be dead in moments; there was no point in trying to move him to lie down. His middle was opened up by a row of shrapnel balls that had all but cut him in half. Sophie suspected he would be feeling little pain.
She sat down next to him and put her arm around his narrow shoulders. He gratefully leaned into her.
‘I will dirty your fine clothes, madame.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘I was never a fast runner,’ he ground out, resigned.
‘Perhaps, but you’re a good vineyard man. I would be proud to have you in any of my fields.’
‘Thank you, madame. That would make my parents proud.’
She wept harder but silently, hoping he couldn’t feel her shaking frame or the tears dripping onto his head.
‘I wish I had a mother to hold my hand, madame.’
‘I will hold your hand, Henri,’ she said, quickly taking his cold fingers and wrapping them up in hers.
The Champagne War Page 14
