The Single Solider: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  De Gaulle, who had claimed only the soul of France, a claim which had found this passionate, proud response; De Gaulle who had lit this fire in his people, fuelled it, celebrated it, enshrined it with this promise of Revolution and the new France – he, De Gaulle, now had to trim this flame. And retain his position. Timing a limited pardon with the announcement of the trials of Laval and Petain, he retained almost all of his charisma, and lost only the zealous. Among them, Jerome.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what politics De Gaulle was playing – it was the fact of more politics. He realised only now, in his stupidity, that he had been prepared to die for a new world without this kind of politics. And now he wanted to see his family more than he wanted to sit in judgement. He had had enough of death. He wanted to see life.

  He shook hands with everyone and was driven home to St. Cirgues. Through eighty-odd kilometres of Free France.

  A kilometre from the village he stopped the driver, got out and said he’d walk home.

  “But – the mayor... he’s waiting,” said his driver.

  “He would. He can. Thanks, comrade. Bonne route.” Madame Valet.

  He had to face her.

  He would, but he would not ride into town to glory in her loss. He came in on Sara’s mother, shushed her, and tip-toed into Zoe’s room where Sara was wrestling with a nappy and two wide-awake legs.

  “You two need a man.”

  There was a second of silence.

  “Bollocks,” said Sara. She picked up their naked daughter and walked into his arms.

  “Chibret’s waiting,” she said.

  “Bollocks to Chibret, what’s for supper?”

  The Russians advanced from the East, fast and deeply furious. The Allied armies advanced through the lowlands of Belgium and the American 8th Air Force began to target German aviation fuel supplies.

  German workers were called from the factories, from anywhere and everywhere, to defend their land. The specialist miners were taken from the Kalkwerke and Arbel was selected to take their place, do their work. And to select four others.

  “I’m a farmer, not a miner.” Arbel told the Director.

  “It’s for the effort. You must.”

  “Fuck your effort,” Arbel said in French.

  “What?”

  “I said, I won’t do it. I’m not qualified. I won’t.”

  The Director looked at Arbel. He was too good a worker to lose. “Get out.”

  He set a team of Poles in Arbel’s place. Within a week one of the men had dropped the thirty kilogram drill and lost a leg. He was replaced by a Ukranian. Who was jealous of the one-legged man, sent home.

  Jacques milked the herd, took most of the milk across the road and saw what he had become. Duthileul’s farm-hand.

  Jerome was invited to Toulouse to receive a medal from De Gaulle himself. Glory Day for the survivors. Galtier spread the news round St. Cirgues. Cause for communal pride or Valet’s murderer honoured. Madame Lacaze heard. She hadn’t seen her son and he, crippled by the family pride, hadn’t seen her. Sara took his best trousers to Feyt who sewed the frayed turn-ups, invisibly mended the cigarette burns and pressed them till the creases themselves deserved honouring.

  I will not be that. I will not.

  I will not grieve and I will not slave. I will find something.

  Either she will write or I will forget.

  Jerome heard that none of the Basques, not Roger, nor the English Tommy, would be allowed to stand by his side – De Gaulle would only honour Frenchmen. He put the trousers away. Stuff the medal. This was not a New World.

  I can’t forget.

  Time to go to Janatou. For what? The winter feed for his cows he won’t take? I won’t go. He can go.

  No! I don’t want him there. I don’t want anyone there. No-one. Ever.

  Zoe was his New World.

  And Sara.

  And his mother?

  And Jacques and Ardelle – he hadn’t been to see them yet... And Madame Valet.

  It was unthinkable to knock at her door. Again.

  So he walked the village hoping to see her, but she, relieved of her teaching, had retreated into shame. Of having married Gaston, of having loved him only the little she’d managed, and most of all, of not missing him. She needed to forgive herself but the weak Curé failed to ask the hard questions that might release her, so she stayed chained to her shame. Like a goat.

  Ardelle’s desolate reason broke and she walked into the village, to La Poste, and gabbled that they had made a mistake, his letters must be here. Must. She demanded the office be searched. They refused. She accused Galtier of destroying the letters, of hating the victory and hoping Arbel was dead. Chayriguet and Chibret were called. The doctor gave her a sedative, sat her down and organised the search of the office himself. No letter was found. Chibret drove Ardelle home. He was sure Galtier was not responsible, he told her. There might be a happier explanation. There was happier news. The war was being won now, not lost. And surely, soon, Arbel would be sent back. Ardelle felt the man’s warmth but couldn’t believe a word of it.

  The moon rose, earlier each autumning evening.

  Jacques sat with Ardelle.

  “They say no news is good news. We know better.”

  They almost smiled. There is comfort in misery. There is comfort in anything shared.

  Jerome, Sara and Zoe ate and Jerome denied, to his wife and himself, that he was bored.

  “Go and see your friends,” said Sara.

  Jacques looked up, furious, as the dog barked. Not Duthileul again. The latch was jiggled, just so, and Jerome walked into the musty gloom.

  “Hello, brother.”

  He waved a bottle.

  “Jerome!”

  Two men hugging for one of them being alive.

  “The hero.”

  “Bollocks. How are you?”

  Rather than articulate an answer, or even try to, or even think about it, Jacques managed, “Tell me about it.”

  Jerome opened the bottle, poured a glass and talked.

  “The war’s over. It’s not finished but here it’s over. Patton and Montgomery and The Russians will finish it and I don’t care. I don’t care. I’m glad I lived and I hope Arbel makes it home and I hope for your sake she comes back. And I’m glad they’re alive rather than dead and I hope you do too...” He left a pause and took the silence for Jacques’ confirmation. “And I don’t know what to do now.”

  He left another silence. His friend offered nothing. He poured another glass.

  “I suppose we’re adults now or something but all I can feel is my youth’s been taken. By what I’ve seen and what I’ve done. With my youth. In my youth. And I don’t know what to do now.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  He smiled an old smile. Jacques said nothing.

  “Chibret wants to see me. Arse-licker! He’s brown-nosing a murderer.”

  “An assassin.”

  He remembered her saying that. Heard her voice saying that.

  “In the end its all death,” said Jerome, “and when you’ve done it once it doesn’t matter after that. You don’t count.”

  They sat. One of them drinking.

  “So – I’ll be a father. Like I said I wanted to be.” He looked at Jacques. “Sorry – subtlety was never my strong point, was it? But, for the rest of my life? I just don’t know... can’t see it somehow.” Jerome stood.

  Glugged the remains of the bottle. “I’m going to see Ardelle. Coming?”

  “You go.”

  “Do you see her?”

  “Yes.”

  “O.K.” He moved to the door. “You know where we are...”

  “I won’t go to the village,” said Jacques.

  “Eh?”

  “I haven’t since – and I won’t. I won’t look at them and I won’t let them look at me.”

  “They’re all old women – even the men – they always were, you know that.”r />
  “I won’t go.”

  “Your coupons?”

  “I’m in Germany. I haven’t got any. I don’t need them.”

  “Tobacco?”

  “I don’t.”

  Jag. How can two words drag so hard at the heart?

  “D’you want some?”

  “Yes.”

  “Done.” He went to the door. “Keep the faith.”

  “A Curé just said that to me...”

  “Annoying, isn’t it? They aren’t all full of shit.” And he was gone.

  She hasn’t written.

  Jerome found Ardelle aged, frozen and terrified.

  “Ardelle – he’s working for them. He’ll be fine. You know that! They’ll need him – old mule, head-down – It’s probably him keeping the bastards going single-handed...”

  “Bombers...” she muttered her new fear.

  “Bounce off his pig-head, won’t they?”

  “No. Yes.”

  He walked home in the chill night.

  Some stars – some cloud – good night for a parachute drop. Past Duthileul’s place. He’d been told how Dominique Duthileul had ‘joined up’. At the very last. The scum. Riding other people’s bloody shirt-tails. Him, a Maquisard? I’d have shot him if I’d seen him.

  He walked down through the woods. There’s something eternal here. It’s survived more than us. It knows more than us. Seen more. It dwarfs me and quite right. I am a dwarf. And a pig-headed one, too. And I’m adrift here.

  The woods ended, the road dipped and the temperature with it. Jerome opened his coat, unbuttoned his shirt and bade the icy air in. Wake me up. Make me see it clear. What, though?

  He could make out the cemetery walls now. Madame Valet – unfinished business.

  And then? I have no idea. Not one.

  He came in the door, closed it softly and Sara looked up.

  “Good gab?”

  “No – not really. I need a drink.” He went out.

  Sara sat.

  13

  Arbel took his Sunday drink to Lothar’s table. Lothar stood, leaving a piece of paper. Moved to another table.

  The paper read, “The child by the bar, he’s eight, is posted to seek out traitors. I can’t talk with you. Have a good life, eh?”

  When the other men gathered in the bar after their whorehouse ritual, Arbel said, “I’m off. You coming?”

  “Back? It’s not time.”

  “Not back there – I’m going home.”

  Arbel had gathered no reputation as a joker. “What?”

  “You heard.”

  “How? Are you mad?”

  “No. How? Walk. Bike. Ride. I don’t care. It’s finished this war. The Germans have lost – it’s time to go home now.”

  “They’ll shoot you.”

  “They won’t, they’ll understand.”

  “I’ll come,” said Claude, the once-fat Boulanger from Latronquiere.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Me.” Figeac, the garagiste from Souceyrac.

  Eight left the bar. Arbel shook hands with Lothar, wished him a future, and they left.

  “Do we have a map?”

  “No.”

  Eight men in faded denim suits walked out of the war. “Arbel?”

  “Yes?”

  “What happens when you sober up?”

  The first sign-post said the next conurbation was eight kilometres away.

  “We’ll sleep there,” he said.

  “Arbel – can you speak German?”

  “Enough, yes.”

  Jerome could not knock at Madame Valet’s door. He could not. So he sat on a bench where he could see her door. A whole day. His determination stayed. He was genuinely surprised. When night fell he went home and was back there at six the next morning. People said he’d gone mad with remorse. Like Jacques the chicken-killer.

  Madame Vigne nodded to him as she went to the Mairie. When she came home and he was still there she knocked at Madame Valet’s door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Severine.”

  The door opened. “What is it?”

  “Someone needs you.”

  “Eh?”

  Madame Vigne directed the woman’s gaze to the bench. “Lacaze?”

  “Yes.” Madame Vigne placed a hand on Madame Valet’s arm, Madame Valet closed the door and went back inside her grey world.

  Ardelle and Jacques made a first winter-warming evening fire. For the first soup they prepared.

  Arbel thought of home. Would anything be there? Had the Germans killed her, burnt his home? Don’t ask, Arbel. Don’t start thinking now! Just walk into this next village. Only 5 kms now.

  When they reached that first village Arbel found the Mayor, showed him his papers, told him the exact truth, and they were given food and beds. Arbel asked for a bike. In the morning it was there. He begged a post-card and a stamp and wrote to her.

  Ten kilometres west, the next village, they were told. Take the back roads.

  “When we get near, I’ll ride ahead and arrange things.” The eight walked home.

  Jerome sat on the bench till it was dark, went home, ate, slept and was back there every morning for three days until Madame Valet came out of the house, locked the door, and walked across the road to stand in front of him.

  “You were always a willful child.”

  Silence.

  “I only came out because I need to shop.”

  “Let’s shop then.”

  Arbel rode ahead to the next village and when the men arrived they were lodged in a school. Arbel drank with the Mayor and came back with his arms full of clothes. They burnt the prison lime-pit rags and squabbled over shoes. He took the worst pair because he would cycle. Outside it rained. Set in for the night.

  Lacaze and Madame Valet!

  Trailing round the thin shops! Then going back to her house, where they’d parted! No-one had heard them speak and that said more than enough.

  The German Mayors Arbel met were the same creatures Simone had met on her walk. Battered, baffled, defeated bureaucrats. Still they found meagre food and lodging for the men. And news, too. Of Arnhem. Montgomery, the Americans and the Poles held and repulsed by the Panzas of The Reich. Oh, God, no. Two of the men panicked and went back. Arbel wouldn’t argue with them.

  Jerome breathed easier that evening, laying with Zoe.

  “Good, husband,” said his wife.

  “Better – not ‘good’,” he said, “Can it ever be good?”

  “Give yourself a rest. And a pat on the back.”

  “They all know. They know what I did.”

  “Well if they didn’t, they do now.”

  “Good.”

  “That’s what I just said! Honestly!”

  Galtier read both post-cards, cycled up to Puech, found Jacques and Ardelle together in her kitchen, put the cards message side down on the table, shook their shaking fingers, and rode away.

  Jacques stared at a line drawing of some place called Oporto. He’d never heard of it. A wide river, a bridge and a town.

  Ardelle’s card was plain. Her name and address. The stamp was German. It’s official. This is the notification. A post-card. Lying on the table. On the other side – words to finish her life. Her living. They looked at each other. He was 26, she 25. Both felt and looked 50.

  “Stay with me no matter what it says,” she whispered.

  “I’ll try.”

  “You first?”

  They picked up the cards. Ardelle read “I’m walking home. Arbel.” He read, “Jacques, we sail tonight for America. Your son will be a Yankee. Stay Living. Simone.”

  Arbel heard, then saw a German motor-cycle and side-car patrol and they spent two hours on their bellies in a ditch. Those Germans were retreating and they, wet, muddied, bedraggled, scared, were going home too.

  America.

  Ardelle read his card. Then her own, again. America.

  Ardelle shed years.

  He tried to say something, fai
led awfully, and reeled out of her suddenly too-hot house.

  Numb.

  Numb with horror.

  Numb with shame. Jealousy. Envy. Numb with every sin but ‘iffing’. America.

  He hated the bitch he loved her bones he wanted her here he wanted her dead the mare the cow the lover the angel the thief the cunt.

  One of Arbel’s group got ill. His shoes didn’t fit, they had next to no soles, and when they levered off the ragged leather one soaking filthy night, shivering in the pig-pen they’d been billeted to, his foot was livid purple and green. Arbel went to find a doctor. Village peasants stared amazed at the foreigner dripping on their front door-step, talking pidgin German, repeating, “Doctor – pig-sty.” They told him where the vet lived – and the vet drove him to the doctor and the doctor drove the man to hospital. Five.

  Late October. They found a cart. A hand-cart. The wheels and the tyres were good. They took it.

  He found the picture of his father in the bottom of a drawer. Under a dress of his mother’s Simone had left. He put the picture to one side and gathered all he could find of Simone’s. Her few clothes, the child’s bonnet, a comb she’d used, the post-card with the dreadful words on it, the cot he’d fashioned, the rocking chair and every other moveable physical memory and cut them, ripped them, bent them and broke them. He put the remnants in his barrow with the long-handled spade and waited till dusk before he walked down to the cemetery, dug out the earth above his mother’s coffin, and buried the ruins of Simone.

  Arbel, Claude, Figeac, Jean-François and Yannick walked. Pulling their cart. Pushing Arbel’s bike. Days of mud and slush and cold, nights of ragged fires, thin vegetables and black bread. Autumn gone and winter coming.