‘
Français?
’ I said,
into the silence. Several faces looked blankly at me. I tried again.
‘
Ici
,’ said a voice
near the back. I began to make my way carefully down the length of the carriage, trying
not to disturb those who were sleeping. I heard a voice that might have been Russian. I
trod on someone’s hair, and was cursed. Finally I reached the rear of the
carriage. A shaven-headed man was looking at me. His face was scarred, as if with some
recent pox, and his cheekbones jutted from his face like those of a skull.
‘
Français?
’ he
said.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘What is
this? Where are we going?’
‘Where are we going?’ He regarded
me with astonishment, and then, when he grasped that my question was serious, laughed
mirthlessly.
‘Tours, Amiens, Lille. How would I
know? They keep us on some endless cross-country chase so that none of us knows where we
are.’
I was about to speak again when I saw the
shape on the floor. A black coat so familiar that at first I dared not look closer. I
stepped forward, past the man, and knelt down. ‘Liliane?’ I could see her
face, still bruised, under what remained of her hair. She opened one eye, as if she did
not trust her ears. ‘Liliane! It’s Sophie.’
She gazed at me. ‘Sophie,’ she
whispered. Then she lifted a hand and touched mine. ‘Édith?’ Even in
her frail state I could hear the fear in her voice.
‘She is with Hélène. She is
safe.’
The eye closed.
‘Are you sick?’ It was then I
saw the blood, dried, around her skirt. Her deathly pallor.
‘Has she been like this for
long?’
The Frenchman shrugged, as if he had seen
too many bodies like Liliane’s to feel anything as distinct as compassion now.
‘She was here some hours ago when we came aboard.’
Her lips were chapped, her eyes sunken.
‘Does anyone have water?’ I called. A few faces turned to me.
The Frenchman said pityingly, ‘You
think this is a buffet car?’
I tried again, my voice lifting. ‘Does
anyone have a sip of water?’ I could see faces turning to each other.
‘This woman risked her life to bring
information to our
town. If anyone has water, please, just a few
drops.’ A murmur went through the carriage. ‘Please! For the love of
God!’ And then, astonishingly, minutes later, an enamel bowl was passed along. It
had a half-inch of what might have been rainwater in the bottom. I called out my thanks
and lifted Liliane’s head gently, tipping the precious drops into her mouth.
The Frenchman seemed briefly animated.
‘We should hold cups, bowls, anything out of the carriage if possible, while it
rains. We do not know when we will next receive food or water.’
Liliane swallowed painfully. I positioned
myself on the floor so that she could rest against me. With a squeal and the harsh
grinding of metal on rails, the train moved off into the countryside.
I could not tell you how long we stayed on
that train. It moved slowly, stopping frequently and without obvious reason. I stared
out through the gap in the splintered boards, watching the endless movement of troops,
prisoners and civilians through my battered country, holding the dozing Liliane in my
arms. The rain grew heavier, and there were murmurs of satisfaction as the occupants
passed round water they had gleaned. I was cold, but glad of the rain and the low
temperature: I could not imagine how hellish this carriage might become in the heat when
the odours would worsen.
As the hours stretched, the Frenchman and I
talked. I asked about the number-plate on his cap, the red stripe on his jacket, and he
told me he had come from the ZAB – the
Zivilarbeiter Battalione
, prisoners who
were used for the
very worst of jobs, shipped to the front, exposed
to Allied fire. He told me of the trains he saw each week, packed with boys, women and
young girls, criss-crossing the country to the Somme, to Escaut and Ardennes, to work as
slave labour for the Germans. Tonight, he said, we would lodge in ruined barracks,
factories or schools in evacuated villages. He did not know whether we would be taken to
a prison camp or a work battalion.
‘They keep us weak through lack of
food, so that we will not try to escape. Most are now grateful merely to stay
alive.’ He asked if I had food in my bag and was disappointed when I had to say
no. I gave him a handkerchief that Hélène had packed, feeling obliged to give
him something. He looked at its laundered cotton freshness as if he were holding spun
silk. Then he handed it back. ‘Keep it,’ he said, and his face closed.
‘Use it for your friend. What did she do?’
When I told him of her bravery, the lifeline
of information she had brought to our town, he looked at her anew, as if he were no
longer seeing a body but a human being. I told him I was seeking news of my husband, and
that he had been sent to Ardennes. The Frenchman’s face was grave. ‘I spent
several weeks there. You know that there has been typhoid? I will pray for you that your
husband has survived.’ I swallowed back a lump of fear.
‘Where are the rest of your
battalion?’ I asked him, trying to change the subject. The train slowed and we
passed another column of trudging prisoners. Not a man looked up at the passing train,
as if they were each too ashamed of their enforced slavery. I scanned the face of each
one, fearful that Édouard might be among them.
It was a moment before he spoke. ‘I am
the only one left.’
Several hours after dark we drew into a
siding. The doors slid open noisily and German voices yelled at us to get out. Bodies
unfolded themselves wearily from the floor, clutching enamel bowls, and made their way
along a disused track. Our path was lined with German infantry, prodding us into line
with their guns. I felt like an animal to be herded so, as if I were no longer human. I
recalled the desperate escape of the young prisoner in St Péronne, and suddenly had
an inkling of what had made him run, despite the knowledge that he was almost certain to
fail.
I held Liliane close to me, supporting her
under the arms. She walked slowly, too slowly. A German stepped behind us and kicked at
her.
‘Leave her!’ I protested, and
his rifle butt shot out and cracked my head so that I stumbled briefly to the ground. I
felt hands pulling me up, and then I was moving forward again, dazed, my sight blurred.
When I put my hand to my temple, it came away sticky with blood.
We were shepherded into a huge, empty
factory. The floor crunched with broken glass, and a stiff night breeze whistled through
the windows. In the distance, we could hear the boom of the big guns, even see the odd
flash of an explosion. I peered out, wondering where we were, but our surroundings were
blanketed in the black of night.
‘Here,’ a voice said, and the
Frenchman was between us, supporting us, moving us towards a corner. ‘Look, there
is food.’
Soup, served by other prisoners from a long
table with
two huge urns. I had not eaten since early that morning.
It was watery, filled with indistinct shapes, but my stomach constricted with
anticipation. The Frenchman filled his enamel bowl, and a cup that Hélène had
put into my bag, and with three pieces of black bread, we sat in a corner and ate,
giving sips to Liliane (the fingers of one hand were broken so she could not use them),
wiping the bowl with our fingers to retrieve every last trace.
‘There is not always food. Perhaps our
luck is changing,’ the Frenchman said, but without conviction. He disappeared
towards the table with the urns where a crowd was already congregating in the hope of
more, and I cursed myself for not being swift enough to go. I was afraid to leave
Liliane, even for a moment. Minutes later he returned, the bowl filled. He stood beside
us, then handed it to me and pointed at Liliane. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘She
needs strength.’
Liliane lifted her head. She looked at him
as if she could not remember what it was to be treated with kindness, and my eyes filled
with tears. The Frenchman nodded at us, as if we were in another world and he was
courteously bidding us good night, then withdrew to where the men slept. I sat and I fed
Liliane Béthune, sip by sip, as I would have done a child. When she had consumed
the second bowl, she gave a shaky sigh, rested her head against me and fell asleep. I
sat there in the dark, surrounded by quietly moving bodies, some coughing, some weeping,
hearing the accents of lost Russians, Englishmen and Poles. Through the floor I felt the
occasional vibration as some distant shell hit home, a vibration that nobody else seemed
to find remarkable. I listened to the distant guns, and the murmuring of the other
prisoners,
and as the temperature dropped I began to shiver. I
pictured my home, Hélène sleeping beside me, little Édith, her hands
wound into my hair. And I wept silently in the darkness, until finally, overcome by
exhaustion, I, too, fell asleep.
I woke, and for several seconds I did not
know where I was. Édouard’s arm was around me, his weight against me. There
was a tiny crack in time, through which relief flooded –
he was here! –
before
I realized that it was not my husband pressing against me. A man’s hand, furtive
and insistent, was snaking its way inside my skirt, shielded by the dark, perhaps by his
belief in my fear and exhaustion. I lay rigid, my mind turning to cold, hard fury as I
understood what this intruder felt he could take from me. Should I scream? Would anyone
care if I did? Would the Germans take it as another excuse to punish me? As I moved my
arm slowly from its position half underneath me, my hand brushed against a shard of
glass, cold and sharp, where it had been blasted from the windows. I closed my fingers
around it and then, almost before I could consider what I was doing, I had spun on to my
side and had its jagged edge pressed against the throat of my unknown assailant.
‘Touch me again and I will run this
through you,’ I whispered. I could smell his stale breath and feel his shock. He
had not expected resistance. I was not even sure he understood my words. But he
understood that sharp edge. He lifted his hands, a gesture of surrender, perhaps of
apology. I kept the glass pressed where it was for a moment longer, a message of my
intent. In the near
pitch dark my gaze briefly met his and I saw that
he was afraid. He, too, had found himself in a world where there were no rules, no
order. If it was a world where he might assault a stranger, it was also a world where
she might slit his throat. The moment I released the pressure he scrambled to his feet.
I could just make out his shape as it stumbled across the sleeping bodies to the other
side of the factory.
I tucked the glass fragment into my skirt
pocket, sat upright, my arms shielding Liliane’s sleeping form, and waited.
It seemed I had been asleep a matter of
minutes when we were woken by shouting. German guards were moving through the middle of
the room, hitting sleepers with the butts of their rifles to rouse them, kicking with
their boots. I pushed myself upright. Pain shot through my head, and I stifled a cry.
Through blurred vision I saw the soldiers moving towards us and pulled at Liliane,
trying to get her upright before they could hit us.
In the harsh blue light of dawn, I could see
our surroundings clearly. The factory was enormous and semi-derelict, a gaping,
splintered hole at the centre of the roof, beams and windows scattered across the floor.
At the far end the trestle tables were serving something that might have been coffee,
and a hunk of black bread. I lifted Liliane – I had to get her across that vast space
before the food ran out. ‘Where are we?’ she said, peering out of the
shattered window. A distant boom told us we must be near the Front.
‘I have no idea,’ I said, filled
with relief that she felt well enough to engage in some small conversation with me.
We got the cup filled with coffee, and some
in the Frenchman’s bowl. I looked for him, anxious that we might be depriving him,
but a German officer was already dividing the men into groups, and some of them were
filing away from the factory. Liliane and I were ordered into a separate group of mainly
women, and directed towards a communal water closet. In daylight, I could see the dirt
ingrained in the other women’s skin, the grey lice that crawled freely upon their
heads. I itched, and looked down to see one on my skirt. I brushed it off with a sense
of futility. I would not escape them, I knew. It was impossible to spend so much time in
close contact with others and avoid them.
There must have been three hundred women
trying to wash and use the lavatory in a space designed for twelve people. By the time I
could get Liliane anywhere close to the cubicles, we both retched at what we found. We
cleaned ourselves at the cold-water pump as best we could, following the lead of the
other women: they barely removed their clothes to wash, and glanced about warily, as if
waiting for some subterfuge by the Germans. ‘Sometimes they burst in,’
Liliane said. ‘It is easier – and safer – to stay clothed.’
While the Germans were busy with the men, I
scouted around outside in the rubble for twigs and pieces of string, then sat with
Liliane. In the watery sunlight, I bound the broken fingers of her left hand to splints.
She was so brave, barely wincing even when I knew I must be hurting her. She had stopped
bleeding, but still walked gingerly, as if she were in pain. I dared not ask what had
happened to her.
‘It is good to see you, Sophie,’
she said, examining her hand.
Somewhere in there, I thought, there might
still be a shadow of the woman I knew in St Péronne. ‘I never was so glad to
see another human being,’ I said, wiping her face with my clean handkerchief, and
I meant it.
The men were sent on a work task. We could
see them in the distance, queuing for shovels and pickaxes, formed into columns to march
towards the infernal noise on the horizon. I said a silent prayer that our charitable
Frenchman would stay safe, then offered up another, as I always did, for Édouard.
The women, meanwhile, were directed towards a railway carriage. My heart sank at the
thought of the next lengthy, stinking journey, but then I scolded myself. I may be only
hours from Édouard, I thought. This may be the train that takes me to him.