Nell and the Girls

by Jeanne Gask

  Irene was still reluctant to carry on and she hovered ten yards behind the others. Did she have a premonition or a sixth sense?

  Finally, Betty said, ‘Let’s go back. We’ll never find the boys in this, and anyway, old Misery-Guts here’ll be happy.’

  No sooner had they reached home and closed the front door than a German SS armoured car went past. The soldiers were armed to the teeth and ready to shoot at anything that moved. They were trapped, desperate and angry.

  They disappeared up the hill and a little later there was a sound of gunfire.

  Eventually, timidly, people reappeared in the road, wondering what had happened. Had the SS met up with an advance column of Americans and, if so, had there been a battle up there on the road to Carnieres?

  A man stood at the top of the hill in the middle of the road, waving his arms frantically.

  ‘My goodness, they’re back!’ Everyone ran back indoors and looked from behind the curtains.

  A tank went by . . . and another. . . and another. There was an unfamiliar star on their sides. They looked different. They were . . .

  Betty and Irene yelled out in unison, ‘Americans!’

  The first tank had a name on its side: ‘Betty’. They all ran out, yelling and cheering. Nell called out, ‘Betty . . . Betty!’

  And there they were, their liberators. The biggest, tiredest, blackest men you’ve ever seen – only they weren’t black any more, they were grey: grey with fatigue, grey with dust from the country roads and with red-rimmed eyes. Everywhere, from one village to the next the same reception, the same ecstasy. Bottles and flowers were handed to them by the grateful villagers. The Americans looked exhausted and bewildered.

  The people clambered up onto the tanks hugging the soldiers, kissing them. They had so looked forward to this moment, dreamed of it during sleepless nights: ‘One day, one sweet day, we’ll be freed from these damned Boche!’ And that day, that moment, was here.

  Bottles of wine were exchanged: those precious bottles kept all through the war years especially for this moment. A big grinning GI stood atop his turret and threw back flowers to the people below: a prima donna taking a bow! Jeanne caught one and put it in her pocket, to press later in her Bible. The church bells rang joyfully and the villagers danced, sang, hugged and kissed. ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’

  After a while, someone approached Nell. ‘Ask them . . . ask them, have they seen the boys?’

  In a slow Alabama drawl, the tank commandant said wearily that they’d seen several bodies on the side of the road, just outside the village, and that one might be a woman.

  Nell’s voice shook with emotion as she translated.

  The jubilation stopped, switched off instantly. The mood changed in a moment.

  ‘No . . . no it can’t be the boys! There’s a mistake. It’s someone else . . . someone else’s sons . . . Let it be someone else, oh God!’

  The crowd went quiet, staring up at the commandant in disbelief as the bells rang on.

  Nell asked more questions, wanting more details. Yes, there was no doubt, there on the side of the road, the bodies of thirteen young men. The lads of the village.

  A woman screamed. A wild, animal scream.

  All around her, Nell heard people wailing. No more joy would be had this day; this day they had so looked forward to.

  ‘Oh no, no, it can’t be . . . Who went up? How many? My sister. . . how am I going to tell her?’ The villagers, with arms around one another, walked home crying. In such a close community, everyone was stricken. All had lost someone: a son, a nephew, a brother.

  Nell was approached again.

  ‘Ask if we can go up and get them,’ the man said quietly.

  Nell found herself on the tank, shouting down a field telephone to headquarters. ‘The people want to know when they can go up there, and bring the bodies home?’

  An irate American voice shouted back. ‘I can’t hear a Goddam thing! Tell them to stop those Goddam bells!’

  A boy was sent running to the church, and at last the bells stopped pealing their joyful celebration.

  Nell repeated her question and the answer came. It was not safe for anyone to go up yet. They would be told when they could go.

  Yoked together in the early evening, Bill and Ben pulled the long cart slowly up the hill, another team followed behind, as they had done so many times before. They were led by a few sad men, their shoulders hunched, hanging on to the sides of the carts.

  So the boys came home: two sets of brothers and cousins; one from the town sent to safety away from the bombs; Jean, Betty’s nineteen-year-old boyfriend, who had been taken for a girl with his blond hair and glasses; his young brother, sixteen-year-old Yves with the laughing eyes who had given Jeanne a ride home on one of his father’s horses. The youngest of them was fourteen years old. There were two fathers with them who had decided to join the boys at the last minute.

  Bill and Ben, pulling the cart with their measured, unhurried tread, passed the house, and Jeanne saw lifeless feet swaying one way then the other with the rhythm of the cart.

  When they had gone past, Nell said, ‘Come on, I think it best we go indoors. We’re strangers here, we don’t belong. Let’s leave these people to their grief.’

  Betty was nowhere to be seen. She had known all the boys and the murders had hit her hard.

  Nell came into the room and found her legs were shaking. What if Irene had not been in such a foul mood? What if they had carried on and found the boys? Would the soldiers have shot a woman and three young girls, or worse? Had Irene saved their lives? She reached for her handbag and felt around for her cigarettes with shaking hands.

  Three days later, there was a communal outdoor funeral service in the main square outside the church, the ninety-two-year-old priest officiating. People came from far and wide and the square and the road around were packed. After the mass, there was a long procession to the cemetery.

  It was at this time that two GIs turned up to collect their prisoner: the pigsty German. There he was, sitting in the back of the Jeep, helmet and bedraggled uniform still on, amidst the procession.

  A woman, one of the bereaved mothers, became incensed at the sight of him. Another of her sons was dying of tuberculosis: his bed had been brought out of the house onto the pavement so that he might see the cortege go past.

  The mother dashed up to the Jeep angry, furious and beside herself with grief. Before the GIs could restrain her, she took hold of one of their rifles and bashed it again and again on the German’s helmet, shouting over and over at him, letting out all her frustration and bitterness. ‘Take that . . . and that . . . You filthy swine! You German pig! and that . . . and that!’ She bashed at his helmet again and again with the rifle. The man’s head gradually sank into his shoulders; his neck had completely disappeared. He looked a pitiful sight. It would have been comical had it not been so tragic. The woman was pulled away and led indoors, sobbing and distraught, and the Jeep went on its way. The funeral procession reached the cemetery without further interruption and Jean and Yves were rested in the family vault, just a few yards from the graves of a New Zealand aircrew who had been shot down nearby.

  17. Heady Days

  About a fortnight later, Nell went into Cambrai. She wanted to find out whether it would be a good idea to return: if the college was re-opening and, most important of all, if there was any news of Tom waiting for her at the house. She hadn’t heard from him since August 13th when he had been talking doubtfully about repatriation. Just a rumour, he had said. He was constantly in her thoughts. Was he still in France; back in Germany, in danger maybe? Or had he been repatriated to England? She hoped there would be news of him.

  She also wanted to pick up a tin of cocoa from her diminishing store under the bed. She had promised it to the shoe mender back in Rieux. His seven-year-old daughter wasn’t growing as fast as she should and Nell felt a good daily mugful of hot chocolate might help the little girl. Also, the shoe mender had offered a much neede
d pair of shoes for Jeanne in return.

  She got a lift into Cambrai, taking Jeanne with her. They found things unchanged at the house . . . but no news of Tom. After picking up the month’s money from the Post Office, they walked up to the Grand Place, the main square.

  These were heady days. Every day, a party day. Jeeps, lorries, Sherman mine-sweeping tanks with big chains used as flails attached to the front; all these and more were unceremoniously parked in the centre of the little town and were surrounded by GIs. They stopped overnight, sat in a circle and brewed coffee, for all the world as though on a camping trip in the hills rather than in a small, respectable town in northern France.

  And always, buzzing around them like a swarm of flies, were hordes of local children clambering over the vehicles, begging for food, cigarettes, chewing gum – anything the soldiers could spare. If they were shooed away, another horde turned up immediately and the whole process started all over again.

  Nell said to Jeanne, as they walked across the square arm in arm, ‘You know, it’s lovely seeing all these Americans, but do you realise we haven’t seen one of Our Boys yet? Now that would be really nice.’

  Suddenly, Jeanne felt Nell stiffen, and her arm was squeezed. She looked up. As if on cue, there were three of ‘Our Boys’ in RAF blue, smart as paint, marching across the square. She looked up at her mother. Nell was flushed and smiling. Oh, so proud! The miserable days of war were quickly rolling away and would soon be just a memory.

  ‘Come on!’ she said suddenly. ‘Let’s go and have coffee.’

  They went into Le Cafe de la Place and sat down. There, at a table opposite, sat six or eight Tommies – British soldiers!

  Nell, bright-eyed, whispered to Jeanne, ‘Go over and ask them if they can spare some cigarettes.’

  Jeanne crossed the cafe and tugged at the sleeve of the nearest soldier. She said in her best English, ‘Ave you some cigarettes for my muzzer, she is Engleesh.’

  One of the ‘Boys’ stood up and shouted across the cafe, ‘You English?’

  ‘Yes,’ was the tearful reply.

  ‘Where you from?’

  ‘Brum.’

  ‘Me too! Come and have a drink!’

  Nell found herself sitting among ‘Her Boys’, speaking in her own language, not a foreigner any more. She was so happy, so emotional; her eyes were full of joyful tears. She told the soldiers her story and they listened intently, interrupting only when they wished to question her. At last, she said how anxious she was for Tom, not knowing where he was. She had no way of communicating with England yet. Civilian mail was not getting through.

  The Brummie, whose name was Goodall, said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll get a message through for you. I’ll write to my wife and she’ll get in touch with your father and sister. They may have news of your husband. At least the forces’ mail gets through.’

  And that’s exactly what happened. Good ol’ Goodall, as he came to be known, got in touch with his wife, who in turn got in touch with Nell’s sister Rikkie and Gramp. Some time later he called on Nell with the wonderful news that Tom was safe and well in England.

  Nell and the girls left Rieux. Back in Cambrai, the College Fenelon was reopening on the 1st of October. Irene and Jeanne weren’t returning to the makeshift college but to the beautiful purpose-built college on the other side of the town, the original one that had been requisitioned by the Germans and used as a hospital throughout the war.

  Irene and Jeanne were overawed when they returned to school on the first day of term, almost walking in on tiptoe and not sure whether they had the right to enter at all. But there stood the familiar figure of Mademoiselle Provino in the entrance hall, all in black as usual, straight-backed and beaming a genuinely happy smile to her returning pupils. She was back where she belonged and now had the space and appropriate premises from which to run a dignified ‘gels’’ college for young ladies once more.

  Jeanne, now in the first year of secondary school, was learning English. It was, at least, a subject she knew a little about.

  Although Jeanne’s English was poor, she knew enough to communicate with the soldiers. The Americans, tall, well dressed and friendly, had a seemingly endless supply of cigarettes and chewing gum. The English soldiers didn’t give you gum, but they gave tea, chocolate, cigarettes and very occasionally, if they could spare them, powdered milk and eggs.

  Most evenings, Jeanne was to be found hanging around the lorries, talking to the soldiers, American and English, in her funny, broken English. They were astonished to find this slight kid talking to them.

  ‘Say, do you mean you’ve been here all the time? Gee, ain’t that something.’

  ‘I don’t believe it, Sweetheart.’

  ‘Your mother’s English, Darling. How come she’s here? Has she had a hard time?’ Jeanne was hoisted aboard a great big British army lorry. A space was cleared for her to sit down among the smelly, untidy mess of war: shovels and picks, coils of rope, cable, wire, all neatly stowed away against the sides, and heavy-looking cardboard boxes, used as seats.

  One of the soldiers solemnly brewed some tea in a billy can and handed Jeanne a steaming mug of thick, brown liquid.

  Jeanne, aware that a lady is required to make polite conversation when invited out to tea, entertained the soldiers with lurid tales of life in Nazi occupied France. After a while, the soldiers went quiet, thoughtfully sipping their hot tea and gazing into the middle distance and thinking of the wife and kids safe back home in dear Old Blighty. They pondered on this little kid who, by a quirk of fate, had already experienced so much in her young life.

  When the tea break was over, the soldiers had to drive on. Jeanne was gently lowered to the ground as they said goodbye. ‘Here’s some tea for your ma, Love. Maybe we’ll see you on the way back, Sweetheart. Yes, look out for us!’

  Jeanne skipped home, happily clutching a precious pack of army issue tea to her chest.

  The casino in Cambrai had served exclusively as a club for the German soldiers during the occupation. Many well-known stars of stage and screen, French and German, had performed there. The French population had kept well away, apart from the prostitutes. Jazz and any form of swing music had been frowned upon by the German authorities. Viennese waltzes, accordion music and sentimental ballads had been the order of the day.

  It was now the American soldiers’ club, and the French girls they brought there heard jazzy big bands and saw GIs jitter-bugging for the first time. After the difficult years of occupation, these fun-loving young men with their different culture were as remote to the girls as men from another planet!

  Betty did not return to the college. She was just eighteen and got a job as a hostess at the casino. Late every evening, Nell would put her hat and coat on, pick up her handbag, and cross the town to pick her up from the casino. Betty had decided that she was Marie again now. She thought it sounded more foreign and exotic to American and English ears! Two or three of the GIs, all madly in love with Marie, escorted them home. They stayed and drank coffee until the small hours, enjoying speaking in their own language and soaking up the family atmosphere. They would pass around photos of the folks back home and these were admired by Nell and the girls.

  A month or so after the liberation, a victory parade was held in the streets of Cambrai. The whole population turned out in party mood, cheering themselves hoarse. Flags waved and bands played.

  The British soldiers marched in well-drilled precision, putting Jeanne in mind of the box of toy soldiers she had left behind in Calais all that time ago. The Americans had their own individual way of marching, an easy-going stroll, quite unlike anything the French people had ever seen.

  Loud cheers went up for the Free French soldiers. Exiled, they had returned and, together with the Allied forces, had helped to free their homeland. Many of the crowd wept with joy, there was so much emotion in those first few days of freedom. The loudest cheer of all went up for a small group of Resistance fighters in black trousers or skirts, white
shirts with sleeves rolled up and black berets. The crowd went wild. How could they thank these brave people, many of whom had died in the attempt to free their country?

  When the parade disbanded, the cafes filled rapidly, or people strolled around the square, examining yet again the army lorries and tanks parked there for the night. Nobody was ready to go home just yet. Tomorrow life could go back to normal, but for now the celebrations went on.

  Marie had met Charlotte Pochet who invited them to come back home.

  ‘Mum’s cooking pancakes. She said to bring you all back.’ Jeanne pricked up her ears. She loved going to Pochets, and she loved pancakes too. They accepted gladly.

  Walking down towards the shop, Irene shouted out to a group of GIs. ‘Got any gum, Chum?’ She had been told by one of Marie’s GI admirers that this was what English children shouted out at them.

  A GI turned and said, in mock despair, ‘Oh my Gaad, it’s followed us!’

  They walked through the shop and up to the flat. Yves and Claude were waiting for Jeanne and, as soon as they saw her, said, ‘Come quick, it’s brilliant! Come and have a look!’

  They took her through to the sitting room. Here the older brothers, Roger and Jean, had rigged a mic. The children, giggling, took it in turns to sing into the mic, and could be heard in the kitchen. Jeanne really enjoyed herself and insisted on singing right through every song she ever knew.

  Meanwhile, Nell and Madame Pochet were catching up on all the news. They hadn’t seen each other for several months. Nell spoke of the liberation and the massacre at Rieux. Madame Pochet then told Nell that Roger, her eldest, had been picked up by the Germans towards the end of the occupation and, being taken by lorry for an unknown destination, had jumped off the back of the lorry and had run for his life. Try as they might, the guards could not catch him; he outran them all. How were they to know that Roger was middle distance school champion runner for northern France?

  Suddenly, Madame Pochet turned to the older girls hovering in the background. ‘I’ve an idea. Why don’t you girls go out and get some soldiers? Fetch two or three, they might as well join us!’