Sylvie stared at him silently for a long moment, then she drew a deep, gulping breath and scrubbed frantically at her face with the end of her jacket. ‘That, I do understand. I’m sorry.’
‘You lost someone?’
She nodded, fighting the lump that rose in her throat. ‘More than one. This war, what it does to everyone, I abhor it.’
He put his arms around her. ‘It won’t always be like this.’
‘You don’t believe that any more than I do,’ she said sadly, tracing the contour of his scar. ‘Things have changed forever.’
Robbie glanced at his wristwatch and winced. ‘One thing hasn’t changed. I have to go.’
Her fingers tightened around his arms. She bit back the protest, knowing that it was pointless, determined that the last thing he remembered of her would not be that.
The last thing.
Was this really the end? ‘I can’t believe it was only last night that we met.’
‘I don’t regret it, Sylvie. I have no idea what really happened between us, but I can’t regret it, unless you do?’
‘Blame the war,’ she said, with a failed attempt at lightness. ‘That’s everyone else’s excuse.’
‘What happened between us wasn’t like everyone else,’ Robbie said fiercely.
‘I know.’ She wrapped her arms tightly around him, pressing her head against his chest. ‘I know, but it is better if we pretend that it is.’
His arms held her just as tightly. ‘I won’t say goodbye.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t see me out.’
‘No,’ she said again, trembling with the effort to control herself.
He kissed her forehead.
‘Belle Sylvie,’
he said.
‘Robbie?’ She caught his arm as he turned away. ‘Don’t look back,’ she said. Her father’s words, and the words that had kept her safe. ‘Don’t look back.’
Chapter Four
7th November 1916
Dear Sylvie,
Ignore this if you see fit—I would not blame you—but I simply had to write to you. I find I need there to be honesty between us. It matters more and more with every passing day since the earth-shattering night we met. That’s what it felt like—for me, anyway—like an earthquake. You may laugh—how I would
love
to see you laugh, by the way, truly laugh—but you made me want things that I cannot have, feel things I am afraid to feel, think things I can’t bear to think about. I thought I didn’t want that. Since I came back here to this hellhole, I have discovered that I do.
I can’t say where I am, but it is an area familiar to you—not that you’d recognise it now. In Paris, the world still possesses some colour. Here, it is leached out of everything, a landscape of greys and muddy browns. The table in my dugout shudders every time a shell falls. It’s no secret that we’re about to make one last push to break through the German lines before winter sets in. We go up the line tomorrow. Over the shelling, I can hear some of my men singing. It’ll be their last rum rations for a while. Some of them will be writing letters home. Some of them will be praying. None of them want to go over the top. Sometimes I have to resort to threatening them with my revolver. My own men, Sylvie! I’ve never had to fire, thank goodness. Is it better to hope that I could, or that I could not?
I don’t believe they are cowards, those who funk it, though the army does. I’m an officer—my duty is to the army, but more and more, I find myself questioning orders. Stupid ones, like foot inspection—who wants to take their boots and socks off in all this squelching mud!!!—and others, too, that I can’t tell you because what I’m writing to you is treasonous enough. It’s strange, I don’t even know you, yet I feel I know you better than— I don’t know, stupid thing to say.
If I read this over I know I won’t send it, so I’ll send it as it is. What I wanted to tell you was that you’ve woken me from my torpor and I’m—
grateful
is such a tepid little word. When I left you that day, I felt as if you had turned me inside out. Or I’d turned myself inside out. Whatever, you get the picture! I wish we were not at war, but I’m beginning to see in the midst of all this suffering and mud it is not all savagery, and it’s not, as I was beginning to think, every man for himself. There is kindness here and nobility, too.
Sylvie, I am so very glad that our paths crossed.
Thank you, and take care.
Robbie
10th November 1916
Dearest Brother,
I wrote you another, very different sort of letter, a few weeks ago, but I tore it up. Listen, squirt, you must abandon this noble idea you have of joining me here, I beg of you. If one of us has to make the ultimate sacrifice, then let it be me. You know you’ve always been the apple of Mater’s eye, and frankly, I know that Glen Massan has always meant a deal more to you than me. Let’s face it, any Scotsman who prefers a good Bordeaux, as I do, to a fine malt doesn’t deserve to be laird!!!
So as your elder and better, I’m ordering you to stay put and keep your head down, for my sake, as well as the P’s.
Robbie
14th November 1916
Dear Robbie,
Your letter aroused so many emotions in me, I don’t know where to start. Relief first, because though I did not want to admit it, I did not want to contemplate never hearing from you ever again. And then fear that even now makes my pen shake.
Are you safe?
The appalling thing is, unless you reply I will never know.
Your letter also made me feel ashamed, because you were brave enough to say the things you felt and I—I was trying very hard to pretend I did not feel
anything
. It has become a habit. Like you, I felt turned inside out—I felt as if everything had been bottled up in me and you somehow triggered its release—goodness, how utterly
dreadful
that sounds, but you know what I mean!
Since that night, like you, I have started to see things differently. I don’t want to go back to
before.
Funny, but now that word has two very different meanings. Before the war. And before Robbie.
You say you don’t know me, and I hope that means you would like to, so let me tell you a little about myself.
As I told you, I am from Picardy, from a little town near Amiens. At the outbreak of the war, when it was captured by the Germans, we found ourselves behind enemy lines. Then, in September of 1914, long before you arrived in France, the French army liberated us, but we were not permitted to stay, because we were in the line of the fighting. While we were being evacuated, our convoy was shelled. My father, who was the head teacher in the local school, had gone back with my mother to help a neighbour. They were both killed. My only brother, Henri, survived but enlisted at the next town.
Henri was a man of the church, a man of God, and now he is a soldier. I saw him briefly at the start of this year. I am appalled to tell you that he had trophies from dead Germans. I barely recognised him. Revenge for the slaughter of our parents, he called it, though the truth is, we cannot even be sure it was German shells that killed them. Why is it that war kills so many who do not choose to fight?
I used to be a teacher, just like Papa
.
Now I work as a waitress in a nightclub full of men who think nothing of taking a life. Do you think it’s wrong, Robbie, this licensed killing? Is it different for women, for those of us who have not experienced war first-hand? We are all casualties of war, I think—you, me and Henri. Is there a right and wrong anymore?
I find I have not the heart to teach now—there seems such little hope for the future. We are alike, my brother and I, in that we have both lost our faith—his in God, mine in human nature. Henri is fighting at Verdun, I think. They say in the papers that it goes well for the French—you notice I do not say ‘us’—but as usual the casualty lists tell a different tale, and so, too, do the shortages that are starting to bite here in Paris. No butter, no oil. Still plenty of wine, though. I can see you smile—or pretend to smile—at that. I wish I could see you smile, Robbie, as you used to. Before. I think you once smiled a lot.
I was angry with you, that last day. I didn’t want to have to worry about someone else. I think I said that. I don’t remember all I said. I’m not angry now. I have been thinking about my parents and my old life a lot since you left. It hurts, but it means I’m alive. There are so many refugees here, so much worse off than me. In the nightclub, the atmosphere has changed. There is an air of desperation now. A fear that we might lose. We. You see, I told you I didn’t care, British, German or French, it was all the same to me. That was a lie.
I have said too much. I will not ask you to take care of yourself. I will not tell you that I miss you, because how can I miss a man that I have known for less than a day?
I will not beg you to reply, nor will I think about how I’ll feel if you do not.
Sylvie
20th November 1916
Dear Robbie,
I know it is too soon to expect a reply, but writing to you seems to have opened the floodgates. I have been besieged with memories of home. Shall I share them with you? You said your world was leached of colour. Would it help if I painted some in?
You told me you imported wine, before the war. In Picardy, the wine is not so good, but the cider is excellent. We drink it from little cups, like small coffee bowls. It is not sweet, more like apple champagne. If you are not careful, it can go to your head just like champagne, too. It is especially good with oysters. We always had those on Christmas Eve.
There will be no oysters in Paris this Christmas, though it is the height of the season. I suppose nothing can get through. No butter, did I tell you that? In Picardy, we cook everything with butter. I am a good cook. Maman taught me well, though it is from Papa that I get my love of books.
I am wittering on, and all I really want to tell you is that I am missing you and praying for you. I tell myself that if I keep writing, then you will still be there to read my letters. That’s what I tell myself.
So I will keep writing.
Sylvie
21st November 1916
My dear son,
We received your telegram this morning telling us that you are safe as the hostilities go into abeyance for the winter. I must confess, my heart almost failed me when I saw the messenger at the Lodge door. To be completely honest, my heart sinks every time the doorbell rings, for fear it may be a telegram containing bad news. Your father can no longer bear to be in the room when I open them. But this time it was such wonderful news.
I know it is wrong of me, but I pray for an early and long winter to delay any further fighting. I would pray for an early victory, but that is too much to hope for after all this time. You see how dreadfully unpatriotic I have become. Even my impudent Welsh son-in-law would be impressed by the extent of my sedition!
You write so rarely, and when you do you say nothing of how you really are. I promised myself I would not chastise you, and I do not mean to. I know that I have never been the most demonstrative of parents. I was brought up to believe it was not the done thing to show one’s feelings. These days, I am awash with so many conflicting emotions that I am even upon occasion tempted to weep when I visit the latest of our people in the village to receive one of
those
telegrams, or when I see one of those brave boys limping past on one leg, or worse. I do not, of course, shed tears in public; one must, after all, maintain some standards when so many are slipping—for it seems to me that people are rather too eager to take advantage of the war by behaving most laxly.