the grey light of day from the far end.
Jourdan was sitting at an iron-legged garden table before French windows the constant rain had done nothing to clean. ‘Monsieur … ’ began St-Cyr.
Guiltily the revolver was tucked away. ‘It’s Sergeant, Inspector. The Fifty-Sixth Chasseurs à Pied under Driant.’
‘The Bois des Caures and a key defence at Verdun. The eastern bank of the Meuse and a forest no more than five hundred metres by a thousand.’
‘Into which the Boche poured eighty thousand artillery shells.’
‘Early on the morning of the twenty-first of February 1916, after days of rain, a little sunshine came to dry the ground and prepare it for the assault but did God really want it to dry, I wonder, though I commend you, Sergeant. We all did, all of us who were at Verdun.’
The red ribbon of the Légion d’honneur was not present and should have been, but that of the Croix de guerre was there and the yellow and green of the Médaille militaire with its rosette in the buttonhole.
‘They couldn’t kill all of us Chasseurs, could they?’ taunted Jourdan.
Falkenhayn’s Operation Judgement had met surprisingly stiff resistance when the advance had been launched after that opening barrage.
‘The tempest of fire,’ said Jourdan, watching him closely. ‘Nine out of ten of us were finished in that first barrage, myself among them. Though I’ve the Boche to thank, I’ve hated them ever since for having saved me. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from a fellow veteran?’
Jourdan was a grand mutilé and had lost the left arm at the elbow and the right leg just below the hip. The crutch that had made its sound of wood on wood had all but lost its rubber stopper and was leaning against the only other chair. He was bundled up against the cold and the damp and with writing materials, the prosthesis he used lying ready beside a neat little stack of at least seven letters waiting to be taken to the post.
‘When the ink isn’t frozen, I write to my friends,’ he said, the accent clearly of the east and Nancy. An open packet of Gauloises bleues and a scattered box of matches indicated impatience.
‘One of those fucking matches threw sparks into my face.’
They were always doing that. ‘At least you have cigarettes.’
‘I budget myself. The half, and then a few hours later, the other half.’
And the agony between. ‘Sergeant, your daughter …’
‘Yes, yes, was dismissed from the Hôtel-Dieu. Now what are we to do, eh? Am I to send her out on the streets like all those other bitches are doing? She’s young, she’s beautiful. Certainly she has the urges—what girl of that age wouldn’t—but she’s mine, Inspector. Mine, and comes from a good home. The two of us would rather starve to death than sacrifice her little capital to one of those bastards from the other side of the Rhine. Some crimes can never be forgiven or forgotten, and a woman’s having sex with the enemy is one of them.’
The black hair was thin, revealing patches of shrapnel-scarred skin, the dye job refreshed each day by that daughter, as was that of the full brush of a moustache, which hid its own scars. Others marred the left side of a face that was thin and drawn, the expression given to a wariness that could only make one uneasy.
The olive-dark eyes with their thin brows dropped as that same thought registered. Nothing could be said since pity was the last thing this one would want.
Three tubes of Veronal, one having been squeezed so often it was skeletal, lay next to the pen and ink bottle. Jourdan noticed right away that this Sûreté had seen them and would think the worst.
‘I need it, Inspector, for the stumps and the fragments of metal that are still inside me.’
The tubes had been stolen from the Hôtel-Dieu . There wasn’t any question of it, but neither he nor that daughter of his would yet have found a way of replacing them when this supply was gone: a long-acting barbiturate, of the
Jourdan was sitting at an iron-legged garden table before French windows the constant rain had done nothing to clean. ‘Monsieur … ’ began St-Cyr.
Guiltily the revolver was tucked away. ‘It’s Sergeant, Inspector. The Fifty-Sixth Chasseurs à Pied under Driant.’
‘The Bois des Caures and a key defence at Verdun. The eastern bank of the Meuse and a forest no more than five hundred metres by a thousand.’
‘Into which the Boche poured eighty thousand artillery shells.’
‘Early on the morning of the twenty-first of February 1916, after days of rain, a little sunshine came to dry the ground and prepare it for the assault but did God really want it to dry, I wonder, though I commend you, Sergeant. We all did, all of us who were at Verdun.’
The red ribbon of the Légion d’honneur was not present and should have been, but that of the Croix de guerre was there and the yellow and green of the Médaille militaire with its rosette in the buttonhole.
‘They couldn’t kill all of us Chasseurs, could they?’ taunted Jourdan.
Falkenhayn’s Operation Judgement had met surprisingly stiff resistance when the advance had been launched after that opening barrage.
‘The tempest of fire,’ said Jourdan, watching him closely. ‘Nine out of ten of us were finished in that first barrage, myself among them. Though I’ve the Boche to thank, I’ve hated them ever since for having saved me. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from a fellow veteran?’
Jourdan was a grand mutilé and had lost the left arm at the elbow and the right leg just below the hip. The crutch that had made its sound of wood on wood had all but lost its rubber stopper and was leaning against the only other chair. He was bundled up against the cold and the damp and with writing materials, the prosthesis he used lying ready beside a neat little stack of at least seven letters waiting to be taken to the post.
‘When the ink isn’t frozen, I write to my friends,’ he said, the accent clearly of the east and Nancy. An open packet of Gauloises bleues and a scattered box of matches indicated impatience.
‘One of those fucking matches threw sparks into my face.’
They were always doing that. ‘At least you have cigarettes.’
‘I budget myself. The half, and then a few hours later, the other half.’
And the agony between. ‘Sergeant, your daughter …’
‘Yes, yes, was dismissed from the Hôtel-Dieu. Now what are we to do, eh? Am I to send her out on the streets like all those other bitches are doing? She’s young, she’s beautiful. Certainly she has the urges—what girl of that age wouldn’t—but she’s mine, Inspector. Mine, and comes from a good home. The two of us would rather starve to death than sacrifice her little capital to one of those bastards from the other side of the Rhine. Some crimes can never be forgiven or forgotten, and a woman’s having sex with the enemy is one of them.’
The black hair was thin, revealing patches of shrapnel-scarred skin, the dye job refreshed each day by that daughter, as was that of the full brush of a moustache, which hid its own scars. Others marred the left side of a face that was thin and drawn, the expression given to a wariness that could only make one uneasy.
The olive-dark eyes with their thin brows dropped as that same thought registered. Nothing could be said since pity was the last thing this one would want.
Three tubes of Veronal, one having been squeezed so often it was skeletal, lay next to the pen and ink bottle. Jourdan noticed right away that this Sûreté had seen them and would think the worst.
‘I need it, Inspector, for the stumps and the fragments of metal that are still inside me.’
The tubes had been stolen from the Hôtel-Dieu . There wasn’t any question of it, but neither he nor that daughter of his would yet have found a way of replacing them when this supply was gone: a long-acting barbiturate, of the
Similar Books
