Authors: Marcus Sedgwick
While I would like to pretend that I saved the lives of one hundred, two hundred, three hundred soldiers as the Second Army fought its way across Normandy, that I saw death daily and grew fearless of its presence, I cannot. That was perhaps the case for other men of the RAMC, but life in the Hygiene Section was a different matter. It was our job to find safe sources of drinking water, to purify it if necessary, to set up showers and dig latrines. In its own way, our work was vital, for without these things an army quickly becomes ill and unable to fight, but there’s no way of pretending it was a glamorous business.
In truth, I saw little of the wounded, and though from time to time we would run across a field hospital, I saw very little blood, which is in itself a strange thing for an officer in the RAMC to report.
Of course, I had seen enough blood during my studies; but of that, what can I say?
Maybe I should here admit to the first time I saw blood. By which I mean not a smear on a grazed knee in the playground, or a few drops from a bleeding nose on the rugby pitch, but lots of it. Blood in quantity. Which I first saw as I observed a simple operation on a man in his fifties in the theatre in Trumpington Street. I can remember that moment well. There were very few medical students in Cambridge in those days and that particular day there were just three of us who watched: an emotionless intellect named Squiers; Donald, who would become a friend of mine, and who fainted as the first drops welled under the surgeon’s knife; and me.
I watched . . . how can I describe it? It seemed to be a dream that I was in, and I watched from within it as if I was witnessing something secret. As if I was seeing something I shouldn’t; like seeing a couple making love. The colour, the sheer quantity . . . it seemed, quite literally, to be full of life, and I guess I began to understand something I have had much cause to consider since then: why it was that the ancients instinctively felt that life is in the blood. That blood is life.
None of that was clear in my mind, then. Then, I just marvelled at it, wondering if my reaction showed to those around me.
The surgeon and the nurses helping him barely stirred when Donald fainted – apparently that happened a lot – and neither did they seem to show much interest in the blood. I glanced at them briefly, reluctant to look away from the operation, and couldn’t understand why they didn’t seem to react to it, but were vaguely irritated by its presence, the awkwardness it gave to the procedure. Squiers was presumably making mental notes on the physiology, so I was left, taking in nothing medical at all, merely dreaming.
And yes, after that day, in my medical training and in France, I occasionally saw large amounts of blood. But none of the other times remains in my memory, until what I saw in a hole in the ground in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Chapter 2
Like most young people, I had always wanted to see Paris. I had never been out of England before; my parents, while they had the money to travel, were not the adventurous type, and my childhood holidays had all been on the British coast – Brighton, Norfolk, Cornwall, Ayrshire. Scurrying on to the Normandy sand amid a German bombardment was not how I had imagined my first trip abroad.
Though we were there to fight a war, there is so very much of a soldier’s time that is idle. This idleness meant that I had plenty of time to watch, to observe what I found around me. I looked closely at the villages we passed through, at their inhabitants, and I even tried to speak to them when I had the chance, though my attempts at French were timid and faltering.
For much of that time we were stationed in Plumetot, right by the Canadian Air Force base. The local people rewarded us with bottles of Calvados at almost every opportunity. Our CO, in return, attended to the medical needs of the villagers, something they were most grateful for. For the most part things were quiet. We watched the Engineers roll out a new asphalt landing strip alongside the existing grass one; we found supplies and purified drinking water. Of course, we never forgot the war; for one thing the German lines came very close to the far corner of the airstrip, from where snipers would take occasional potshots.
Once the German armies were routed in the Falaise, however, things suddenly sped up, and we decamped and began to move east rapidly.
Then, towards the end of August, we were about thirty miles to the north of Paris when we heard on the BBC that the city had been liberated. It’s hard to explain how important it seemed, a cause for great celebration, a turning point; someone on the radio said it was the greatest day for France since the fall of the Bastille, and maybe it was.
That evening, our CO, Major Greaves, called me over.
‘Ever seen Paris?’ he asked. Clearly he knew that I had not. I don’t know how old Major Greaves was. From the viewpoint of my youth I supposed he was ancient; from where I sit now I would guess he was in his late forties. I didn’t know him very well, despite the time we’d spent together since grouping before D-Day.
He was a little shorter than me, with a slightly plump face, and there was always a little look in his eyes as if he’d rather be far away, doing something else, which I could easily understand. It showed in his voice, too, not really in the words he used but in the way in which he said them. I knew he’d fought in the First War too, and he must have been young then, and not a major. He would have seen some fighting.
‘No, sir,’ I said, anticipating what was coming next.
‘Well, you’d like to?’ he said, and I of course told him I would. ‘Good. We’ll take half the unit in tomorrow, you and I will stay overnight, and the other half will go in the day after.’
He stopped and waited for me to speak, but I didn’t.
‘Well? What do you say to that?’
I couldn’t help the smile that suddenly burst out of me from nowhere.
‘I’d say that was wonderful, sir,’ I said. ‘Really wonderful.’
‘Well, we have some time to spare. We can either spend it here and stop the men from picking holes in each other, or we can give them a treat. I’ve made some arrangements. You sort out who’s going on which day.’
I did, dividing the men more or less at random, and the next day I climbed into the Major’s jeep, a private at the wheel, and we led one of our trucks with the men into the city through the Porte de Clignancourt.
It was unbelievable. Of course, I knew London well enough then, but Paris seemed something else. We rolled down from Montmartre, towards the opera house, looking for the hotel where the Major and I were to stay. The city was quiet, the streets almost empty, with very few vehicles on the roads. Occasionally we saw American or French soldiers, who seemed amazed to see our RAMC truck with its red cross on the side, and they waved at us. When I waved back, the Major kept looking straight ahead, but I could see there was a twinkle in his eye.
There were local people on the streets too, and I was amazed at them. I don’t know if I’d been expecting scenes of starvation or desolation, but we didn’t see them. Of course, the city was damaged in places, but nothing like the destruction of London. And the people had their dignity, seemed well enough fed, while the girls looked stylish to us and every one we passed attracted cheery whistles from the men, returned for the most part with equally happy smiles.
We trundled along the Seine that afternoon, seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Elysées, down which, just two days before, de Gaulle had marched triumphantly after von Choltitz’s surrender. We learned later there’d been shooting from some high windows, no one knew who it was, but de Gaulle had just kept on striding along. I think we all felt like that; that the joy of the liberation made us all immortal, immortal for a short time. It was a strange visit, as if the war had never happened, was not still happening elsewhere, and yet it so obviously had, and was.
That evening, after we’d packed the men off to the rest of the unit, the Major and I headed back up towards Montmartre to see some nightlife. A couple of American soldiers we spoke to told us to try Pig Alley, which we soon learned was what they called Pigalle.
I had never seen anything like it. Here was life! Though it was of a rough and dirty kind, that didn’t matter to us, we were simply glad to find that people were alive and having fun. Nor had I ever seen such things as the women standing on street corners and sitting in open first-floor windows, or such blatant drunkenness in the streets. Nothing had prepared me for these sights, but it only made me wonder, and the Major let a half smile spread across his face as we looked for somewhere to have a drink.
The Bal Tabarin and many of the most famous clubs were still closed, but there were plenty of smaller places open, doing good, fast business with the Americans. Once again I was struck by the strangeness of it all. A few days before, it would have been German officers who would have been here, though they must have known their time was at an end by then, felt as strange as we felt, though in a different way.
We found a bar, large enough for a small band to play in the corner, and to have people dancing. The Major bought us a bottle of wine and we sat to one side.
‘Charles, isn’t it?’ he said, pouring us both a drink.
‘Sir?’
‘None of that tonight,’ he said, looking very sternly at me. Then his face broke into a sly smile. ‘For tonight you call me Edward. Yes?’
I nodded.
He pushed my glass towards me.
‘Cheer-o,’ he said.
‘Cheers,’ I answered, and we drank.
He put his glass down, and put a serious face back on, but I could see it was a pretend one. Suddenly I was seeing a new side to the Major; playful, almost childlike.
‘I have a confession to make.’
I nodded, showing him I was waiting and willing to give absolution.
‘My concern for the men’s relaxation is only half the reason I wanted to come here. What are you doing tomorrow morning?’
The question surprised me just as much as our whole trip to Paris had. It was a question that seemed to suggest I was at home in London with a few vague plans for the weekend.
‘Nothing,’ I stumbled out. ‘Why?’
‘We should have a couple of hours before the rest of the men get here. There’s somewhere I want to visit. The Musée des Antiquités Nationales. It’s in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. I’ve always wanted to go there. They have the finest Palaeolithic collection. The Venus of Bastennes, for example.’
I must have appeared pretty ignorant, because I was.
The Major humoured me.
‘Not your subject perhaps? There are other remarkable pieces too, if something more modern’s up your street. Right up to the late Middle Ages. The museum itself is a chateau, with a long and famous history. James II lived there after his exile.’
The Major’s idea of modern was amusing, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Wondered if you fancied coming over?’
‘I’d love to,’ I said, not because I had any interest in archaeology but simply because it would mean I’d get to see more of the city.
‘Splendid,’ said the Major, and it was settled.
It meant an early start, but that didn’t stop us from staying late in the bar, talking when we had something to say, watching the dancing figures whirling to accordion, violin and piano when we didn’t. We smoked and drank, and then drank some more.
I stole glances at Edward, as I was supposed to be calling him, watching him watch the happy people. He had a gentle smile on his face that never faltered, and I found it hard to remember that he was my CO.
Finally we made our way back down towards the Opéra and crawled into bed in the small hours.
I had drunk too much, and slept badly. When I did, I dreamed, and my dreams were happy ones, holding no hint of the horror that was waiting for me, just the other side of sleep.
Chapter 3
The weather had been good to us since we’d arrived in the city; that morning was the same, and I was glad of it. The Major rapped on my door smartly at seven, and I dragged myself out of bed, hung-over, possibly even still drunk, for despite the frequent tots of Calvados at Plumetot I wasn’t used to heavy drinking.
The Major smiled at me, spoke briskly.
‘Captain Jackson? Shall we?’
I managed to nod.
‘I’ll see you outside in five minutes, then? Good.’
Our driver, the private, made a fairly blatant display of his displeasure at being up so early when he was supposed to be on leave and drove like a maniac through the empty streets, succeeding in making my hangover worse. From time to time he would briefly lurch to a stop to check a map he’d procured, and then we’d set off again with a squeal.
The Major showed no sign of noticing this; his good humour from the evening before remained, and in fact the fresh air and the sun started to help me feel much better, despite the private’s offensive driving.
I don’t know if the Major knew, but I certainly didn’t, that the Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye had been German Army headquarters during the occupation, not for the city, but for France and the Low Countries: High Command West.
It was an incredible sight – it was the first large French chateau I’d ever seen, so regal, so ornate, so elegant, perched on the hillside looking back down across the river to Paris.