Barbara Cleverly - Tug of War

Yves and I caught three rabbits!

Ten centimetres of snow. Very cold. This was December 1916. Joe shivered at the memory of that winter — the hardest in living memory in Champagne — and read on: Edward brought in a fir tree from the wood and we made decorations. We painted fir cones with white paint and stuck them on. I made an angel for the top. Maman let us use her old necklaces as trimmings and she let us light candles for half an hour. We sang an English song. Edward shot a partridge and we roasted it with some chestnuts over the vine trimmings. Carefully printed out on the page opposite the entry, in an adult hand, were the words to ‘Away in a manger’. The first carol every English child learns to sing.

‘Well, good for you, Edward, whoever you are,’ murmured Joe. ‘Never let a little thing like a world war interfere with Christmas.’

Clovis’s appearances were easily identified. The writing took on a weight and a flourish and the entries were marked in the margin with a star. Just as Georges had told them, they were sparse and short; the last recorded arrival was on 20th July 1917. It was followed on 22nd July by a short entry: Papa gone.

There was no more until 11th November 1918. It’s finished. I will remember , were Georges’s last words.

But there were other reminders of the war collected together in a large envelope tucked into the back. Joe tipped them out on to the desk. A boy’s magpie collection of precious mementoes spilled out. Cap badges from English regiments clattered on to the wood and Joe turned them over with keen interest. Dorcas counted out twelve. ‘These are pretty. What’s the galloping white horse?’

‘The West Yorkshire Regiment. It’s the White Horse of Hanover.’

‘And this creature? A dragon, I think?’

‘Ah, yes. That’s the emblem of the Buffs — the East Kent Regiment. And this silver bugle? It’s the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.’

‘Is there a Royal Fusiliers badge among them? Edward’s listed as a Royal Fusilier.’

‘Yes. It’s this one.’

Dorcas looked puzzled. ‘What on earth is it? It looks like a chrysanthemum.’

‘It’s meant to be a grenade. An exploding grenade. It’s a design common to all Fusilier regiments. The round bit at the bottom is the body of the grenade itself and carries the device that distinguishes it from the rest. This one has a tiny white rose in the centre, do you see? And the rose is set within the Garter and ensigned with a crown. The excrescence spouting out at the top, which you took to be petals, represents the flames issuing from the explosion. This is made of bronze so it must have belonged to an officer.’

Dorcas continued to play with them, turning them this way and that and finally counting them carefully back into their envelope. ‘I can see why he’d want to collect them. They’re very attractive.’

‘And have you seen these drawings?’ Joe put them in front of her. One was an accomplished sketch of a trench system with arrows marking out assault and defence manoeuvres, another an affectionate cartoon of Marshal Joffre, easily recognizable by his luxuriant white moustache and his corpulence. And there were cards: birthday cards and Christmas cards from England, some of recent date. There were letters. Some in English, some French, all from officers writing with good humour and happy memories to a child they had grown fond of.

Reading them, Dorcas looked up to comment on this. ‘They admired him, Joe. You’re right — he was the son they all missed or hoped one day to have.’

‘He must have been a great comfort in those terrible times,’ said Joe. ‘And, yes, hope , you say. It was hard enough to think of the world as we’d known it ever continuing. Men got very sentimental — I’ve seen exhausted, hopeless soldiers fall on their knees in the Flanders mud, crying their eyes out at the sight of a clump of snowdrops. The presence of that little boy, clever, hardworking, determined to survive, must have inspired them. He must have represented for them all that they were fighting for.’

‘Oh, look, Joe! I think this says it all.’ She passed him a pencil sketch skilfully done, a portrait of Aline sitting holding Georges in her arms, heads together, smiling.

‘A modern Madonna and child?’ Joe remarked. ‘It only lacks the haloes.’

‘Well, of course they’re idealized. Anyone can see that. This artist is drawing a mother and child he is fighting for. They aren’t his wife and child. Look — there’s a signature and it doesn’t say Clovis Houdart. But at the moment he drew it they were his. You can see that. If he and his comrades were to give way, this little family would be overwhelmed, annihilated, and this oasis poisoned. You’d jolly well go out and fight for them, wouldn’t you, Joe?’

In her emotion she’d forgotten for a moment that he had.

‘I know you’re right, Dorcas. It’s a very primitive response. Like the Athenians when they squared up to the Persians on the sea at Salamis. They’d evacuated Athens hours ahead of the Persian advance, fled to the coast and put their wives and children crowded together on a tiny island in the bay of Salamis and there, with their families at their backs and the huge Persian navy blocking the channel, the men of Athens turned and fought. It was death or slavery for those women and children if they failed. And more than that — it was the obliteration of their civilization. No men, I believe, have ever had a heavier load resting on their shoulders. Fathers, sons and brothers hauled on the oars of their galleys, rammed, destroyed, shot and slashed their way to an incredible victory.

‘It’s the most powerful motivation of all,’ he finished thoughtfully. ‘Defending your own flesh and blood.’

He fell into an awkward silence, remembering too late that Dorcas’s father had abandoned her and her brother to the doubtful care of their grandmother when he went off to spend the war years in Switzerland. Should he say anything?

She patted his hand. ‘It’s all right, Joe. I’d have been there, standing on the shore with the rest of the women and children, and I’d have whacked on the head any Persian who tried to swim on to the island.’

‘Ah! You know the story?’

She nodded. ‘I’d fight like anything if someone provoked me. Perhaps I get that from my mother. But now, Joe, speaking as my father’s daughter, I’ll tell you — I’m very impressed by this sketch. Orlando’s smart friends would sneer and call it sentimental, representational and outdated but I like it.’

‘Ah, yes. The artist. We have a signature, you say?’ Joe fought down an impulse to snatch the drawing from her fingers.

Dorcas peered at the signature in the corner. ‘Edward Thorndon. July 1917. I wonder if that’s the Edward of the Christmas tree?’

‘Time to ring Varimont,’ said Joe, beginning to pack up the sheets in their remembered order. ‘Are you ready for this?’

Dorcas settled down, ear to the telephone again as Varimont’s voice boomed out.

‘Got them! Well, one of them,’ he announced. ‘One of the orderlies, a Frédéric Lenoir by name, is actually married to a woman who was a Miss Tellancourt. There you have it! A phone call was made, he admits, to the mayor’s secretary in St Céré from where the message went out and, overnight, the family made their plans. Thomas’s mother rehearsed her lines and, word perfect, impressed you with her piety. I’ve crossed the Tellancourts off my list. And dealt with Lenoir.’

‘And the Houdart family? Any connection with them? Any possibility that Madame Houdart showed gratitude for information rendered?’

‘Gracious! You don’t let anything by, do you?’ He thought for a moment. ‘No. I honestly don’t think so. The man was a family member simply marking the card of the Tellancourts. He says he didn’t (and I believe him) tell anyone else. But at least that reduces the claimants to a manageable two. Mademoiselle Desforges and Madame Houdart. Oh, and yes, Sandilands, you were quite right. Thibaud has neat ears but they are attached to his face at the side. Look, do you want me to convey all this to Bonnefoye?’