The First of July(77)

“You’ll be off in the next group, I expect,” she said. “They need every fighting man they’ve got. We’re going to blow those Germans out of our country once and for all.”

He wondered what she thought they’d been trying to do for the last two years. Why did she think the hospitals and cemeteries were full?

It was intolerably hot, even with the tiny portholes open. Every time another motor launch passed, the barge moved slightly and a little air entered, but she fanned herself ostentatiously. He knew she was trying to see what he was writing and he tipped it away from her.

Eventually, the next time she rustled past, he reached up and tugged gently at her apron. She squatted beside him, plumped his unplumpable pillow.

“Is there someone in charge of these barges?” he said.

“Captain Allisette is the doctor here.”

“I thought I saw Captain Vignon.”

“No. Allisette. He’s on another barge—Vignon. He helps sometimes if Allisette is called away, and vice versa. I prefer Vignon, although he is melancholy.” Her voice dropped, and she said, coquettishly, “He’s very handsome, don’t you think? But then you know him from before, of course?”

He must have looked startled, because she said “Well, you suddenly arrived and he insisted on you having a bed. No space on his barge. Most men here are just being taken straight from clearing stations to Paris or Amiens. They’ve been injured a day or so before we get them. They’re not like you.” Her small hand slipped under the covers and like a hesitant small mouse moved down his body.

“You’d been at Royaumont for weeks. If anything, you should have been sent to a convalescent hospital. You were already almost in Paris. Why bring you back up here if he didn’t want to care for you himself?”

He almost told her, but he didn’t trust her to keep his secret. Her hand had reached its destination. The gentle efficiency with which she cupped her fingers around him still had something of the nurse about it.

“But there surely must be someone in charge of the whole set-up here?”

She made a face. “For heaven’s sake.” Her grasp tightened, more from irritation than trying to arouse him, he thought. “That’ll be Colonel Marzine, I suppose. He inspects us from time to time. He’s old. Finicky. But he’s a real doctor.”

“So where is he?”

“Now? Haven’t a clue. At the old asylum in Amiens, I expect. Anyway, you can’t go summoning up the colonel just on a whim.” She gave him an indulgent look and kept stroking. He was hard now and longing for her to go on.

He smiled at her to put her at her ease.

“I just wondered.” With his own hand he reached out and touched her breast which, even through layers of starched cotton, felt young and firm.

She looked behind her. There was one man propped up on an arm, in the far berth, smoking an illegal cigarette.

“Too much thinking,” she said, pulling her hand out and straightening the sheet. She always did that to end a conversation. She stood up. “We need to get you back to the front.”

That night he slept badly. The old dreams. Good times, terrible times, Godet’s head, Doré’s mouth, Émilie’s hand.

In the semi-dark, there was Vignon at the base of the ladder into the forward ward. He was a silhouette: just a cigar tip alternately glowing brightly, then fading. Jean-Baptiste could smell it and he knew it was him and knew Vignon sensed he was awake. He stayed alert until the doctor disappeared.

A bit later, the night nurse came and offered him a powder to help him settle. He took it, but the fever, pain, and nausea he’d had a week ago returned. Had Vignon prescribed this little elixir, he thought? Of course he had.

In the morning, exhausted and still feeling sick, he knew he had to get the letter to somebody in authority. He had nowhere safe to keep it. He pulled it out when he thought no one was looking and scrawled a signature with the pencil, making sure it was entirely illegible.

Vignon might be responsible for the deaths of more Frenchmen, but right now he, Jean-Baptiste, was worried about himself.

There were two nurses, Émilie and Nurse Thibault, a former nun. The nun talked little but took deep and audible breaths a lot.

“She was in a sighing order,” Émilie had giggled on one of her friendlier days.

There was Victor the orderly and, of course, Captain Allisette. Who could he ask to deliver his letter? Who could he trust? He didn’t even have an envelope. Every one of them would read it, except perhaps Captain Allisette, who would probably just throw it away unread.

He could smell and hear Amiens. The remaining casualties were to be removed one by one on the next day. He was walking now, becoming stronger than he let on, and Émilie, cheerful as her duties came to an end on this trip, agreed that he could be helped up to the deck to walk by the quayside.