The Child Left Behind

by Anne Bennett

  ‘The Poles fought,’ Bridgette reminded him.

  ‘Yes they did,’ Maurice conceded. ‘And they could have won. What is facing us now could have been decided then and there if the Red Army had helped them. That’s what I mean about Stalin. He held his armies back until the Poles admitted defeat. This time it will be different. You will find Hitler’s soldiers running back to Germany with their tails between their legs.’

  Bridgette hoped he was right. Maurice also had immense faith in the Maginot Line.

  ‘What is it, exactly?’ Marie asked one evening.

  ‘Five hundred steel-reinforced, heavily guarded forts erected on a hillside, that’s what,’ Maurice said. ‘You would be too young to remember, Bridgette, but France was left in a terrible state after the last war. There was so much bloodshed and we lost so many young fit men. But good farmland was churned up too, and we also lost so many buildings—homes, whole towns and villages and farms destroyed—that it was thought that we needed protection in case there was ever to be another war.’

  ‘After such tragedy,’ Marie said, ‘and so much grieving all over France, no one imagined that it might happen again.’

  ‘Well, it has,’ Maurice said emphatically. ‘So isn’t it good that people had the hindsight to build this Maginot Line to protect us?’

  ‘And you are certain it will?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Maurice confidently. ‘It stretches from the Swiss border to the Belgium one, not all the way to the coast because it doesn’t need to do that. The Ardennes forest is impassable.’

  Bridgette felt herself relax. France would be safe from invasion. The French Army and its Allies would easily repulse any German offensive and the war would soon be over.

  The men were coming home. It was mid-November and Bridgette, Lisette and Marie were in a fever of excitement. Their excitement, though, was tinged with apprehension because they all knew that the training was finished and when the leave was over, Xavier and Edmund would be making for the battlefields.

  Bridgette tried hard not to let these thoughts spoil the few days that they had together. She wasn’t totally successful, though, because they would flit unbidden across her mind and she would feel a hollow emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Xavier would see her face change, but he knew what was wrong. Their lovemaking those few days had a deeper and more ardent quality about it.

  Bridgette had already decided that however she felt, when the time came for Xavier to leave she would not make things harder for him by weeping all over him and begging him not to go. So that morning, when he swung his kitbag on to his shoulders, though she felt tears tingling behind her eyes she held them back as Xavier drew her into his arms and kissed her goodbye.

  With the men gone, the women grew closer, though they began to wonder after a few weeks if France was at war at all. Merchant ships carrying vital foodstuffs were sunk, and so things were in short supply, in the shops, but that was all. Christmas was very meagre, but they managed. The men’s letters spoke of boredom and activities to fill their off-duty hours, and the only thing they complained of was the cold, which was intense at night. They were all looking forward to the spring.

  Worry for Xavier was constantly in Bridgette’s mind, despite his claims that there was nothing for her to fret over, so at first when she didn’t get her monthly bleed, she put it down to her emotional state. It was when she started to feel nauseous in the morning that she realised she might be expecting a baby.

  Marie had been aware that there had been no linen pads disappearing from the chest for some time and she had dared to hope herself, because she knew that a child was the one thing that Bridgette and Xavier wanted. When Bridgette confided in her, she put her arms around her in delight.

  ‘It had to be now,’ Bridgette grumbled. ‘With the country at war and the child’s father not even around.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Marie, with a chuckle. ‘The one thing I have learned about babies over the years is that they seldom come at an opportune time. You take yourself off to see the doctor and make sure, and then write and tell Xavier. I know my son and, whether he is here or not, he will be delighted at the thought of becoming a father.’

  And Xavier was beside himself with joy. His concern was all for Bridgette. She had to take care of herself, eat well and healthily, and give up the work in the shop because she needed plenty of rest.

  He wrote in the same vein to his mother, but when Marie asked Bridgette if she wanted to stop working in the shop she said, ‘No, I don’t. What on earth would I do with myself all day? The baby isn’t due until August and anyway, the work is not arduous, especially as trade has dropped off considerably of late.’

  Marie was only too aware of that. The downturn had begun just after the official declaration of war, although they had had a little upsurge just before Christmas. It affected Maurice even more. Women must have also decided that a hat in wartime was too frivolous a purchase, and he had such little trade that he had let the boy go that he had taken on to train. Most of his work now was revamping old hats to give them a new lease of life. This, of course, did not pay well, and Marie was seriously concerned how much longer they could continue in business.

  Finding decent food to feed anyone, quite apart from a pregnant woman, was difficult too because of the shortages. You ate what they had in and made the best of it, or did without. Bridgette didn’t burden Xavier with those concerns, though, and just emphasised how much she was looking forward to the birth of the baby.

  Rumours about the progress of the war were flying as spring approached. In the end, Maurice went out and bought a wireless. As the warmer days took hold, the dress shop had had a little surge again as women bought pretty underwear and lighter dresses. Maurice had even sold a few new hats as Easter approached.

  Just over a fortnight after Easter, on a Thursday evening, the Laurents learned of the invasion of Denmark and Norway. Lisette had come over, as she did some evenings, her mother-in-law being only too happy to listen out for the children. The four adults, gathered around the wireless, looked at each other fearfully.

  ‘Norway had been warned by the British,’ Maurice grumbled. ‘Think they might have put up more of a fight. I mean, not to mine the fiords was madness. There were British warships in the area, according to what they said on the wireless, and they would have gone to their aid.’

  ‘I think,’ Marie said, ‘neither Denmark nor Norway was prepared for the might and precision of the German armies. It makes you wonder, is any country prepared for it?’

  The question hung in the air for a few moments and then Lisette said, ‘I wonder what Hitler’s next move will be.’

  ‘Yes,’ Maurice replied. ‘Praise God that we have the Maginot Line.’

  About four weeks later Hitler struck again. The attacks were before dawn on Friday 10 May, and the stunned French people read in their newspapers in disbelief of a German offensive that had left their country wide open. The German armies had ignored the Maginot Line and instead one company had seized first Eben-Emael, the underground fort in Belgium. It was said to be impregnable, but the Germans got around that by landing 400 paratroopers on top of it. The fort was there to protect three strategic bridges, the main defence of Belgium and Holland.

  Despite a spirited response by the surprised Allies, the fort was in German hands in twenty-four hours, allowing German soldiers, tanks and other military vehicles free access into the Low Countries. Luxembourg, with no defences to speak of, surrendered and the government fled to London.

  Another sizable company of German soldiers also ploughed their way through the Ardennes forest. The French army were fighting for their lives, the broadcaster said, although they had barely sufficient resources.

  ‘You know why, don’t you?’ Maurice said as he snapped off the wireless almost angrily. ‘They hadn’t expected any attack through that. We were told that it was a natural barrier and we believed them.’

  ‘Maybe it was, once,’ Bridgette said. ‘But modern tanks migh
t have been able to cope with it better.’

  ‘You have it, my dear,’ Maurice said. ‘We cannot hope to win a war based on tactics from a war fought twenty years ago.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘France has made a grave mistake and that mistake could be very costly.’

  Four days later, there was a massive raid on Rotterdam. According to the man on the wireless, who sounded totally stunned, it lasted for two and a half hours and it was estimated that almost 1,000 people had been killed, many many thousands more injured and 50,000 were homeless. The reporter said that Allies, moving in to help, were hampered by the streams of people trying to leave the city, and both they and the troops had been constantly strafed by machine-gun fire from the ever-circling Stukas.

  That same evening, still coming to terms with the appalling loss of life in Holland, the Laurents learned that the Germans had broken through the French defences. The invaders, who had ridden rough-shod over so many countries, were now going to march through France. In fact it was no surprise, because the family, like many, had heard the gunfire growing closer and closer and the relentless drone of planes overhead.

  ‘They’ll never hold them,’ Maurice said with pursed lips. ‘They’ll be in Paris before we know it.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Bridgette caught sight of Marie as she glared at her husband and shook her head sharply.

  ‘Don’t try to shield me, Marie,’ Bridgette said. ‘This is absolutely dreadful news, but I really need to know everything. We are all involved. I’m sure Lisette would agree.’

  ‘I would,’ Lisette said. ‘In fact, I would go further and say that now these savages are in our country, I will not come here often in the evening. My mother-in-law will be too nervous and I should hesitate to leave the children anyway. I think we know what cruelty the Germans are capable of.’

  ‘Ah, yes, my dear,’ Marie said. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

  ‘In fact,’ Lisette said. ‘I will do as Edmund suggested long ago and buy my own wireless.’

  ‘I get a cold dead feeling inside me every time I think of Xavier and Edmund out there,’ said Bridgette.

  ‘That’s perfectly natural, my dear,’ Maurice said. ‘I am worried too about both men. But I take heart in the fact that if anything happened to them, we would be informed by the military.’

  ‘I know that that is what should happen,’ Bridgette replied. ‘I just think that this isn’t a fight on some tidy battlefield, but spread out across various areas. They are under attack from soldiers on the ground, bombs and machine-gun bullets from the air.’ Her voice was becoming dangerously high. ‘Have they the least idea how many soldiers are stretched out by the roadside outside Rotterdam, shot down as they tried to help the fleeing people?’

  No one spoke, for there was nothing to say.

  No one was surprised either when the Dutch Commander-in-Chief, Queen Wilhelmina, surrendered the next day and she and her government flew to England.

  When Bridgette visited her mother, they spoke of the terrible things happening all around them.

  ‘The hardest thing in the world is waiting to hear from a loved one, as you are,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Throughout history that’s what women seem to have done.’

  ‘You can’t possibly know how the longing to hear from Xavier almost overwhelms me at times,’ Bridgette said.

  Gabrielle knew only too well, for she had experienced those feelings herself, but she blinked the tears from her eyes and swallowed deeply before saying, ‘I can imagine, Bridgette and your unhappiness is almost tangible. Try not to worry too much. You have the child to think of.’

  ‘I know, Maman,’ Bridgette said fervently. ‘And though I long for the baby to be born, I know it will be another to fret about.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Gabrielle said. ‘From the minute a child is born, it takes away a piece of your heart. I had a letter from Yvette today and they are sending their sons out of Paris to a cousin of Henri’s in the countryside.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Yvette is afraid of Raoul being sent to a labour camp, and Gerard in his turn. She feels they will be safer there for now.’

  Bridgette shook her head helplessly. ‘No one knows what to do for the best these days. All we know is that the enemy is at the gate. I fear the country I know and love is going to be destroyed before my eyes.’

  SIXTEEN

  People from the coastal towns and villages began arriving in St-Omer, driven out by the advance of the German armies. They told of meeting bedraggled lines of Allies marching towards the coast and the roads strewn with discarded vehicles of every description and even some large guns.

  There was no official news on the wireless other than that odd message on BBC World Service almost a couple of weeks before. Bridgette translated it and said it was from the Admiralty requesting all owners of self-propelled pleasure craft between thirty and a hundred foot in length to send specifications to the Admiralty within fourteen days. At the time it had made no sense.

  A couple of weeks on, Maurice was sure that Allied soldiers were in retreat, disabling equipment and vehicles en route.

  ‘But where could they retreat to?’ Bridgette said. ‘There are only the beaches.’

  ‘And no naval ships could get near them there,’ Maurice said. ‘That’s what they wanted those small boats for—to try to lift the soldiers off before the Germans curl round and encircle them. Either way, I fear it is too late now for France. Our battle is already lost.’

  ‘What d’you think they will do to any soldiers they capture?’ Bridgette said. ‘Will they take them all back to Germany as prisoners of war?’

  Maurice couldn’t meet Bridgette’s eyes as he mumbled, ‘Aye, they may well do that.’

  Marie knew Maurice didn’t believe that for an instant, and neither did she. She guessed that many on the beaches would never leave them alive, and Xavier and Edmund could easily be two of them. She could say none of this; Bridgette was agitated enough.

  ‘Don’t take on so,’ she pleaded with Bridgette. ‘Think of the baby.’

  ‘I am thinking of the baby,’ Bridgette said almost harshly. ‘And of the baby’s father, who I might never see again.’

  On 3 June there was the roar of many German planes in the air. The noise and sight of them struck fear into the townspeople, yet St-Omer was not their target and they passed over towards Paris. They heard the noise of the ensuing Blitz and trembled in fear for the people there, especially Yvette and Henri. Bridgette realised how sensible they had been to send their sons away.

  They heard on the wireless of the people streaming out of Paris, fleeing south, pursued and strafed mercilessly by the German Stukas until, it was said, the roads were lined with bodies and ran with blood. Bridgette studied the grainy newsprint pictures in the paper and saw they were bodies of the old, of women and children, and of dogs and cats, obviously family pets, and there were dead donkeys still shackled to their carts.

  She was glad when they heard that Yvette and Henri, who took shelter in a cellar, were unhurt, but she wept over the pictures of people who hadn’t been so lucky. She realised with sick horror that a nation that could attack innocent civilians in that way would have no mercy for the trapped Allies on the beaches.

  However, a few days later she heard Winston Churchill talking on the BBC World Service about Operation Dynamo, which was what they called the evacuation from the Dunkirk beaches, using small boats to ferry the men to the naval ships waiting in deeper water. She also heard that well over 300,000 Allied troops had been rescued, and that included over 140,000 French troops, and she prayed that Xavier was one of those.

  For France, however, the war was over. The President resigned and the rest of the French Government fled to Bordeaux on 11 June, and Philippe Pétain was asked to form a new government. On 16 June Italy declared war on France, attacking from the south through the Riviera, and the following day Pétain applied for an armistice with Germany. A furious General de Gaulle left Bordeaux for Britain.

  W
hile they were still digesting this distressing news, Lisette brought a letter she’d received from Edmund, written from a military hospital in Britain. He had been one of the 140,000 French men lifted from the beaches at Dunkirk and had been injured, which was why he hadn’t written sooner. However, he told them, Xavier had been killed as they stood on the makeshift pier waiting for one of the smaller boats to carry them out to the troop ships.

  Bridgette received the news in horrified silence. She had known, as the news worsened, that it was possible that Xavier hadn’t made it to safety, but she had clung to the tiniest glimmer of hope, telling herself that she would have been informed if anything had happened to him. Now that hope was gone, and she gave a cry like a wounded animal, doubling over as the acute pain in her stomach matched the one in her heart, which she felt had shattered into a million pieces.

  She continued to shout and scream and thrash out at Marie and Maurice, who were in tears themselves, and trying to hold her. Lisette took one look at her distressed friend and ran for the doctor. Before he arrived, Bridgette felt the stickiness between her legs. She looked down with horror and saw blood dripping onto the floor and pooling around her feet. Marie saw it at the same time and acted with speed. She had Bridgette in bed in minutes, packed around with towels.

  The sight of the blood and what it might mean had stopped Bridgette’s screams, but sent her into shock. She trembled all over and the desolation in her eyes, standing out in her white face, brought tears to Marie’s. But she brushed them away impatiently, sat by Bridgette’s side and held her hand tight.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ she told her. ‘The doctor will be here shortly.’

  He was just in time to deliver Bridgette’s baby. It was a little girl, small, beautiful and perfect, and quite dead.

  Bridgette couldn’t believe it. She had known it was too early for her to give birth, but for a perfect baby to be stillborn…People were speaking to her, holding her, but she was unaware of them. There was room in her mind for one thing and one thing only, and that was hatred of the Germans who had taken first her beloved husband and then her precious baby. Now she would have no part of Xavier and she knew if she lived to be a hundred she would never forgive them.