The Child Left Behind
Anne Bennett

This book is dedicated to my sister in lawKathy Flanagan, with love and in memoryof my brother Shaun, who tragically diedon 5th March 2009 RIP.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

Author’s notes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

ONE

Finn Sullivan couldn’t understand his family. They had been aware of the rumblings of an unsettled Europe and so why were they surprised when Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914? When the news filtered through to them, via the postman, in their cottage in Donegal, Finn’s eldest brother, Tom, went to Buncrana, their nearest town, and bought a paper so that they could read all about it.

‘England has declared war on Germany because they invaded two other countries,’ he said as the family sat eating their midday meal.

‘Well, if that’s about the strength of it,’ his father, Thomas John, remarked, ‘it’s a wonder that no one can see the irony.’

‘What do you mean?’ Finn’s brother Joe asked.

‘Well, isn’t that what England has done to us?’ Thomas John said. ‘They invaded us, didn’t they? Who rules Ireland now?’

‘Not the Irish, that’s for sure,’ Biddy, Finn’s mother replied. ‘It’s England has us by the throat.’

‘Aye,’ Thomas John said, ‘and that means anything that involves England automatically involves us too.’

‘You mean the war?’ Finn asked.

‘Of course I mean the war, boy. What else?’

Finn coloured in anger. He hated being called ‘boy’ by his father now he was over eighteen.

‘So you think there will be call-up here?’ Joe asked.

‘Don’t see how we will get away without it,’ Thomas John said.

‘Maybe they are hoping for volunteers,’ Tom said. ‘After all, young Englishmen are volunteering in droves. The recruiting offices are hard-pressed to cope with the numbers who want to take a pop at the Germans. So the paper says, anyway.’

‘And why would Irish boys volunteer to fight for a country that has kept them down for years and years?’ Thomas John demanded.

‘The carrot that they are holding out might have something to do with that,’ Tom said.

‘What’s that?’ Joe asked. ‘Have to be some big bloody carrot, for I would not volunteer to lift one finger to help England.’

‘The paper claims that the government will grant Ireland independence if they get Irish support in this war.’

‘Let me see that,’ Thomas John said, and Tom passed the paper to his father, who scanned in quickly. ‘That’s what it says all right, and I don’t believe a word of it. To my knowledge, England has never kept any promise it has made to Ireland and the Irish. For my money they can sink or swim on their own. We will keep our heads down and get on with our lives. It’s no good seeking trouble. In my experience it will come knocking on the door soon enough.’

Finn couldn’t believe that his father thought their dull, boring lives would go on totally unaffected by the war being fought just across a small stretch of water.

To Finn, war was new and exciting. He knew that in the army no one would look down on him because of his youth and no one there would call him ‘boy’.

He didn’t share these thoughts, but when his young sister Nuala came in from her nursemaid’s job at the Big House and was told the news later, she noted the look on Finn’s face and the zealous glint in his deep amber eyes, and she shivered and hoped that her impetuous brother wouldn’t do anything stupid.

War dominated the papers and Finn read everything he could about it. After the first weeks there were pictures of the first troops to go overseas waving out of train carriages, all happy and smiling. They would soon kick the Hun into touch, the papers said, and be home by Christmas with the job done. Finn looked at the pictures and ached to be there amongst them.

The following Saturday morning, he tripped getting up from the milking stool and spilled half a pail of milk over the straw on the floor of the byre. Thomas John, suddenly angered by the mess, gave him such a powerful cuff across the side of his head that it knocked him to the floor, although he had never raised his hand to any of his children before.

No one helped Finn to his feet and he was glad, because he would have hated his brothers to see the tears he brushed away surreptitiously.

‘Don’t worry about it, Finn,’ Tom said quietly as they walked back to the house. ‘You know Daddy’s temper flashes up out of nothing and is gone in an instant. He will be over it in no time.’

But I won’t be, Finn thought, but he said nothing.

When he set out for Buncrana later that morning with Tom and his mother, he was as angry as ever. This anger was increased as Biddy took out her purse as they pulled into the town and, dropping some coins into Finn’s hand, told him to go to the harbour and buy some fish for their dinner.

Finn never got to the harbour, however, because as he turned down Main Street he heard a military band and saw the line of soldiers at the bottom of the hill. In front of this company was a tall officer of some sort, in full regalia, and so smart, even the buttons on his uniform sparkled in the early autumn sunshine. He held a stick in his left hand.

Suddenly the band behind him began to play and the officer led the soldiers up the hill to the marching music, the beat emphasised by the young drummer boy at the front. The officer’s boots rung out on the cobbled street, the tattoo of the soldiers’ tramping feet completely in time.

Shoppers and shopkeepers alike had come to the doorways to watch the soldiers’ progress. As they drew nearer, though, Finn was unable to see the officer’s eyes, hidden as they were under the shiny peak of his cap, but his brown, curly moustache fairly bristled above the firm mouth in the slightly red and resolute face.

Finn felt excitement swell within him so that it filled his whole being. Tom, brought out of the Market Hall to see what was happening, saw the fervour filling his brother’s face and he was deeply afraid for him, but the press of people made it impossible for him to reach Finn.

And then the company stopped, and while the soldiers stood to attention the officer talked words that were like balm to Finn’s bruised and battered soul, words like ‘pride’, ‘integrity’ and ‘honour’ to serve in the British Army, whose aim was to rid the world of a nation of brutal aggressors. The army would crush the enemy who marched uninvited into other counties, harassing and persecuting innocent men, women and children, and they would deal swiftly and without mercy to any who opposed them.

Many, he said, had already answered the call and now he wished to see if young Irishmen had what it took to join this righteous fight. He wanted to see if they felt strongly enough for the poor people of Belgium and France, their fellow human beings, who were prepared to fight to the death for freedom. Any who felt this way should step forward bravely.

At the time, freedom and liberty were what many Irish people longed for, and so those words burned brightly inside Finn. And if he were to join this company, like he saw more than a few were doing, then Ireland would gain her freedom too; wasn’t that the promise given?

His feet stepped forward almost of their own volition and he joined the gaggle of young Irish men milling around, unsure what to do, until the company sergeant came forward to take them in hand.

‘Finn, what in God’s name are you doing?’ Tom cried. He had broken through the crowd at last and now had his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

Finn shook him off roughly. ‘What’s it look like?’

‘You can’t do this.’

‘Oh yes I can,’ Finn declared. ‘You heard what the man said. They need our help and if enough Irishmen do this, Ireland will be free too.’

‘This is madness, Finn…’

‘Now then,’ said the sergeant beside them. ‘What’s this?’

‘I want to enlist,’ Finn said firmly. ‘My brother is trying to prevent me, but I am eighteen years old and the decision is my own.’

‘Well said,’ the soldier told Finn admiringly. He turned to Tom. ‘As for you, fine sir, you should be ashamed at trying to turn your brother from what he sees as his duty. As he is eighteen he can decide these things for himself. It would look better if you were to join him rather than try to dissuade him.’

Finn shot Tom a look of triumph, then said rather disparagingly to the sergeant, ‘Tom can’t join just now, for he has an urgent errand to run for our mother.’ And he dropped the coins their mother had given him into Tom’s hand. ‘I’m going to be busy for a while, Tom, so you must get the fish for Mammy.’

He turned away before Tom could find the words to answer him and followed behind the sergeant to find out what he had to do to qualify to join the battles enacted on foreign fields not that far away.

If Finn were honest with himself, he had joined more for himself than for anyone else. He was fed up being pushed around, barked at to do this or that because, as the youngest boy, he was at the beck and call of everyone. Yet he couldn’t seem to do anything to anyone’s satisfaction and he never got a word of thanks.

Even if he expressed an opinion, it was often derided and mocked. His father in particular seemed have a real downer on him, and then to knock him from his feet that morning for spilling a bit of milk—it was not to be borne.

According to the army he was a man and could make a decision concerning his own future. He was pleased when he saw that his best friend, Christy Byrne, had enlisted too. They had been friends all through school and they were of like mind. Both lads wanted excitement and adventure and were sure that the army could provide it.

By tacit consent, Tom never told their mother what Finn had done. Later that day Finn looked at his family grouped around the table eating the fish Tom had bought in Buncrana. He loved his father, whose approval he had always sought and seldom got. He loved his elder brothers too. He saw Tom was nervous because he knew what Finn was going to say and he hated any sort of confrontation and unpleasantness. Joe, on the other hand, was eating his dinner with relish, totally unaware of the hammer-blow Finn was going to deliver, and Nuala was at work. He wondered how his mother would react. She was often so bad-tempered and unreasonable, about little or nothing, and sometimes no one but his father seemed able to please her.

Still, he knew he had to get the announcement over with. There was no point in beating about the bush. ‘I joined the army this morning,’ he said, as soon as there was a break in the conversation. ‘I enlisted,’ he emphasised, in case there was any doubt. ‘I’m in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and I am to report in the morning.’

Biddy and Joe sat open-mouthed with shock, but Thomas John leaped to his feet, his face puce with anger. ‘Are you, begod?’ he snapped, thumping his fist on the table. ‘Well, you are not. You will not do this. You are just a boy yet and I will accompany you tomorrow and get the matter overturned.’

‘This is the army, Daddy, not school,’ Finn said loftily. ‘And I am not a boy any more, not in the army’s eyes. I signed my name on the dotted line of my own free will and there is not a thing anyone can do about it.’

Thomas John sat back in his seat defeated, for he knew that Finn spoke the truth.

‘But why, Finn?’ Biddy cried out.

‘I am surprised that you can ask that, Mammy,’ Finn said, ‘for nothing I do pleases anyone here. And I began to ask myself why I was working my fingers to the bone anyway for a farm that one day will be Tom’s. I shall have nothing, not even a penny piece to bless myself with, because it seems to be against your religion to actually pay us anything like a wage.’

‘Finn,’ Biddy rapped out, ‘how dare you speak to me like that? Thomas John, haven’t you a word of censure for your son?’

Thomas John, however, said nothing. He knew he no longer had any jurisdiction over Finn, whom he loved so much, though he was unable to show it. Well, it was done now. The boy had stepped into a man’s world, only he had chosen a dangerous route and Thomas John knew he would worry about him constantly.

His brothers had a measure of sympathy for Finn, although Tom expressed concern for him.

‘Why worry?’ Finn said. ‘They say they fight in trenches, and a French or Belgian trench, I would imagine, is very like an Irish one, and those I am well familiar with. And if I pop off a few Germans along the way, so much the better.’

‘You don’t know the least thing about fighting.’

‘Neither do any of us,’ Finn said. ‘We’ll be trained, won’t we? And after that, I expect I’ll be as ready as the next man to have a go at the Hun. And there’s something else, Tom. They say the French girls are very willing. Know what I mean?’

‘Finn!’ Tom said, slightly shocked. ‘And how do you know, anyway? Just how many French girls do you know?’

‘God, Tom, it’s a well-known fact,’ Finn said airily. ‘Don’t get on your high horse either. A fighting man has to have some distraction.’ And Finn laughed at the expression on Tom’s face.

Much as he could reassure his brothers, though, Finn dreaded breaking the news to Nuala when she came home. He had missed her when she began work, more than he had expected and more than he would admit. She had always listened to him and often championed him. She did the same that day in front of her parents, but later she sought Fin out in the barn.

‘You will be careful, won’t you, Finn?’

‘Of course I will. I have got a whole lot of living to do yet.’

‘Will you write to me? Let me know that you’re all right?’

‘I will,’ Finn promised. ‘And I will address it to you at the Big House. That way I can write what I want, without worrying about Mammy possibly steaming it open.’

Nuala nodded. But she said plaintively, ‘Finn, I don’t think I could bear it if anything happened to you.’

Finn looked into his sister’s eyes, which were like two pools of sadness. He took hold of her shoulders. ‘Nothing will happen me. I will come back safe and sound, never fear. And it’s nice to have someone even partially on my side as I prepare to dip my toe into alien waters.’

‘I’ll always be on your side, Finn,’ Nuala said. ‘You know that.’ She put her arms around her brother’s neck and kissed his ruddy cheek. ‘Good luck, Finn and God bless you.’

The next morning, Tom told his father he was going with Finn as far as Buncrana. When Thomas John opened his mouth as if to argue the point Tom said, ‘He is not going in on his own as if he has no people belonging to him that love him and will miss him every minute till he returns.’

‘As you like,’ Thomas John said. ‘But remember that the boy made his own bed.’

‘I know that, Daddy, but it changes nothing.’

‘So be it then. Bid the boy farewell from me.’

‘I will, Daddy.’

Tom watched his father and Joe leave the cottage for the cow byre before going to see if Finn had all his things packed up.

Finn was ready and glad that Tom was going in with him and Christy, for his insides were jumping about as they set off up the lane.

‘This is real good of you, Tom,’ he said.

‘Least I could do for my kid brother,’ Tom replied easily.

Christy was waiting for them at the head of the lane and the two boys greeted each other exuberantly and then stood for a few moments to look around them at the landscape they saw every day. The September morning had barely begun. The sun had just started to peep up from behind the mountains but it was early enough for the mist to be rising from the fields. In the distance were rolling hills dotted with sheep, and here and there whitewashed cottages like their own, with curls of smoke rising from some of the chimneys, despite the early hour.

Finn knew soon the cows would be gathering in the fields to be taken down to the byres to be milked and the cockerel would be heralding the morning. Later, the hens would be let out to strut about the farmyard, pecking at the grit, waiting for the corn to be thrown to them just before the eggs were collected, and the dogs in the barn would be stretching themselves ready to begin another day.

It was all so familiar to Finn and yet wasn’t that the very thing that he railed against? Didn’t he feel himself to be stifled in that little cottage? Maybe he did, but, like Christy, he had never been further than Buncrana all the days of his life. As he felt a tug of homesickness wash over him he gave himself a mental shake

Christy was obviously feeling the same way for he gave a sigh and said, ‘I wonder how long it will be until we see those hills again?’

Finn decided being melancholy and missing your homeland before you had even left it, was no way to go on. He clapped Christy heartily on the shoulder.

‘I don’t know the answer to that, but what I do know is that joining the army is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.’

Christy caught Finn’s mood and he gave a lopsided grin. ‘I can barely wait. People say that it’s all going to be over by Christmas and all I hope is that we finish our training in time to at least take a few pot shots at the Hun before we come home again.’

‘I’d say you’d get your chance all right,’ Tom said as they began to walk towards the town. ‘And maybe before too long you’ll wish you hadn’t. War is no game.’

‘Sure, don’t we know that,’ Finn commented. ‘When we decided to join up, we knew what we were doing.’

Tom said nothing. He knew neither Finn nor Christy was prepared to listen, and maybe that was the right way to feel when such an irrevocable decision had been made. The die was cast now and it was far too late for second thoughts.

Finn and Christy were part of the 109th Brigade, 36th Division, 11th Battalion, and they began their training at Enniskillen. The recruits had all been examined by a doctor, prodded and poked and scrutinised, and both Finn and Christy were pronounced fit for the rigorous training.

They were fitted with army uniform which Finn found scratchy and uncomfortable, but the discomfort of the uniform was nothing compared to the boots. He had been wearing boots most of his life, but the army boots were heavy, stiff and difficult to break in, even though route marches were undertaken on an almost daily basis, often carrying heavy kit.

Finn couldn’t see the point to some of the things that the recruits had to do and he wrote to his family complaining.

There have to be proper hospital corners on the bed sheets each morning, as if anyone cares. And there has to be such a shine on your boots that the sergeant says you will be able to see your face in them. Now what is the use of that? Unless of course we are supposed to dazzle the enemy with our shiny boots and will have no need to fire a shot at all.

And the marching would get you down. We are at it morning, noon and night, and I have blisters on top of blisters. The tramp of boots on the parade ground can be heard constantly because we are not the only company here.

Finn was looking forward to target practice with rifles, which he anticipated being quite good at. Both he and Christy, the sons of farmers, were used to guns.

However, Finn had never fixed a bayonet to a rifle before, nor screamed in a blood-curdling way as he ran and thrust that bayonet into a dummy stuffed with straw. He did this with the same enthusiasm as the rest, though after one such session he told Christy he doubted that he could do that to another human being. ‘In war you likely don’t have time to think of things in such a rational way,’ Christy replied. ‘They’re not going to stand there obligingly, are they? They more than likely will be trying to stick their bayonets in us too.’

‘I suppose,’ Finn said. ‘God, I’d hate to die that way, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’d hate to die any bloody way,’ Christy said. ‘I intend to come back in one piece from this war, don’t you?’

‘You bet,’ Finn said. ‘And at least when we are in the thick of it, they won’t be so pernickety about the shine on our boots.’

‘Yes,’ Christy agreed, ‘and if I looked anything like our red-faced sergeant, and had that pugnacious nose and piggy eyes, I wouldn’t be that keen on seeing myself in anything at all, let alone a pair of boots.’

‘Nor will they care about the way the beds are made,’ Finn said a little bitterly, remembering how the sergeant, angry at the state of his bed one day, had scolded him with his tongue in a manner that resembled Finn’s mother in one of her tantrums. And then he had not only upended his bed, but every other person’s in the hut too and Finn had had to remake them all.

He had been so keen to join up because he was fed up being at the beck and call of his father and brothers and was never able to make his own decisions. In the army he soon found it was ten times worse and a person had practically to ask permission to wipe his nose, and he realised that he had probably jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

It soon became apparent as 1914 gave way to 1915 that this was no short skirmish, and soon, with his training over, Finn would be in the thick of it. The family always looked forward to his letters, which arrived regularly. He wrote just as he spoke so it was like having him in the room for a short time.

In early January he mentioned he had a spot of leave coming up.

I won’t make it home as it’s only for three days so I am spending it with one of my mates. They say we’re for overseas afterwards, but no one really knows. I can’t wait because it is what I joined up for. Bet we’re bound for France. Them French girls better watch out. Ooh la la.

The tone of Finn’s letter amused Tom, Joe and Nuala, but it annoyed Thomas John, who said the boy wasn’t taking the war seriously enough.

‘God, Daddy, won’t he have to get a grip on himself soon enough?’ Tom said.

Biddy pursed her lips. ‘War or no war,’ she said, ‘Finn has been brought up to be a respectable and decent Catholic boy, and I can’t believe he talks of women the way he does. Of course you get all types in these barracks. I just hope he doesn’t forget himself and the standards he was brought up with.’

Joe sighed. ‘Do you know what I wish? Just that Finn keeps his bloody head down. That’s all I want for him.’

‘Don’t speak in that disrespectable way to your mother,’ Thomas John admonished.

‘I’m sorry,’ Joe said, ‘but really, isn’t Finn’s survival the most important thing?’

‘Anyway,’ Tom put in, ‘it’s likely this is the way he copes. He’s probably a bit scared, or at least apprehensive.’

‘Doesn’t say so,’ Thomas John said, scrutinising the letter again. ‘According to this he can’t wait.’

‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Joe said. ‘That’s how he was: always claiming he wasn’t scared, even when we could see his teeth chattering.’

‘None of this matters anyway, does it?’ Nuala said, her voice husky from the tears she was holding back. ‘All this about how he feels and the words he writes in a letter. I agree with Joe. All I care about is that Finn will come home safe when all this is over.’

‘That’s all any of us care about, cutie dear,’ Thomas John said gently. ‘We just have different ways of expressing things. Didn’t know myself how much I would miss the boy until he wasn’t here. He would irritate the life out of me at times and yet I would give my eyeteeth now for him to swing into the yard this minute, back where he belongs.’

By the end of April, Finn and Christy’s training was complete, and they were ready and anxious to take on the Hun. In Belfast on 8 May they were all paraded in front of City Hall before the Lord Mayor and were warmed by the cheers from the watching people.

How proud Finn felt that morning as he donned the uniform he now felt he had a right to wear. He had got used to the scratchiness of it and thought, as he looked in the mirror, that he had seldom been so smart. His dark amber eyes were sparkling; in fact his whole face was one big beam of happiness, though his full lips had a tendency to turn up at the corners as if he were constantly amused. He had polished his buttons and belt, as well as his sparkling boots, and his peaked cap sat well on his head as his dark brown hair had been shorn by the army barber.

The whole battalion moved together as one, their boots ringing out on the cobbled streets and their arms swinging in unison. Finn could seldom remember feeling so happy.

‘This must be it now,’ he said that night to Christy. ‘Surely we will soon be on our way to France.’

However, it was July before the troops were on the move again, and though they crossed the water, once on dry land they found themselves in England, not France, just outside a seaside town called Folkestone.

The camp was called Shorncliffe, and situated on a hill, from where, on a clear day, the outline of France could be seen. One of the men lent Finn his field glasses, and Finn was startled to find he could actually pick out the French coastal towns and villages.

‘Brings it home to you just how close it is,’ he remarked to Christy. ‘Here, see for yourself.’

‘Course it’s close,’ Christy answered, taking the glasses from him. ‘We wouldn’t hear the guns if it wasn’t close.’ And Christy was right because the distant booms could be heard quite distinctly. ‘They are making sure that they won’t reach here, anyway,’ he went on. ‘Look at all the destroyers out at sea. Searching for torpedoes, they are.’

‘Aye,’ said Finn. ‘And those new flying machines are doing that too.’

‘I’d like to have a go in one of those, wouldn’t you?’ Christy asked.

‘Part of me would,’ Finn admitted. ‘It looks exciting all right, but I think that I would be too nervous. I would rather ride in an airship. They look safer somehow.’

Christy stared at him. ‘You’re a soldier and we are at war, man,’ he said, ‘in case you have forgotten or anything. You shouldn’t be bothered that much about safety.’

‘War doesn’t mean we can throw all caution to the wind,’ Finn retorted. ‘We’re here to fight the Hun, not throw our lives away.’

‘And I think fighting the Hun will be no picnic,’ Christy said. ‘Look at those poor sods being unloaded from the hospital ships in the harbour.’

Finn took a turn with the glasses and he too saw the injured soldiers and felt his stomach turn over with sympathy for them.

At last, in October, the orders to move out came. Finn was glad to go. Camp life had been boring, the only distraction the favours of the camp followers. Initially Finn and Christy had been staggered by how far the girls were prepared to go. At the socials in Buncrana, even if the girls been semi willing to do more than hold hands, they were overseen by anxious mothers, often belligerent older brothers, and of course the parish priest, who endeavoured to do all in his power to keep marauding young men and innocent young girls as far from each other as possible. That girls might be even keener to go all the way than they themselves were had been a real eye-opener to Finn and Christy. These girls often took the lead, and that again was strange, but Finn was more than grateful that they knew what to do, at least in the beginning. However, he soon got the idea and readily availed himself of what was on offer, like most of the other men.

Finn was glad to be on the move. Bedding girls, pleasant though it was, was not really what he had joined the army for. Whatever awaited them in France, he told himself as he marched alongside Christy that autumn morning, so early that it was barely light and icy damp air caught in the back of his throat, he was well enough trained to deal with it.

Despite the inclement weather and the early hour the people of Folkstone lined the way, cheering and waving, wishing all the soldiers well.

The autumn winds had set in by the time they reached the harbour. The relentless waves crashing against the sides of the troopships made them list drunkenly from side to side as the soldiers climbed aboard.

As they pulled out into the open sea, Finn looked back. ‘Look at those white cliffs,’ he said to Christy. It was a sight that neither of them had seen before.

‘That’s Dover, that is,’ one of the British Tommies remarked. ‘By God, won’t them cliffs be a great sight to feast your eyes on when we have the Krauts beat and we are on our way back home again?’

Christy agreed. Finn didn’t say anything at all because he was too busy vomiting over the side. Nor was he alone. He could only be thankful that the crossing was a short one.

TWO

Once across the Channel, Finn soon perked up. He was surprised by the landscape, which, even in the murky gloom, he could see that the fields were as green as Ireland. The region itself, however, was as unlike craggy, mountainous Donegal as it was possible to be, for the whole area was so flat that he could see for miles. Now he understood the reason for fighting in trenches.

‘At least we are in France at last,’ he said to Christy, ‘though my family probably think I have been here this long while.’

‘Why should they?’

‘Well, I thought when we were paraded in front of City Hall that time that it was embarkation for us and so did they. I could tell by the tone of the letters they wrote, urging me to keep safe, keep my head down and stuff like that.’

‘Didn’t you put them right?’

‘I tried to, but the censor cut out any reference to my location, which means most of the letter was unreadable. Point is, to tell you the truth, I feel a bit of a fraud.’

‘Why on earth should you?’

‘Well, we joined up not long after this little lot started,’ Finn said, ‘and yet, for all our training, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of the enemy. Yet look at the injured we saw getting unloaded at Folkestone.’

‘I heard they’re saving us for the Big Push.’

‘What Big Push?’ Finn cried. ‘And how do you know that when they tell us nothing?’

‘One of the chaps at Shorncliffe overheard a couple of the officers talking.’

‘And where is this Big Push to be?’

‘He didn’t catch that.’

‘Well, I hope it comes soon,’ Finn said, ‘otherwise I will feel that I have joined up for nothing.’

‘You told Tom that was the most exciting thing that had ever happened you,’ Christy reminded him.

‘It was,’ Finn said, ‘but it all falls flat when nothing happens.’

‘Well, something is happening now,’ Christy said consolingly. ‘Let’s see where we end up tonight.’

The family, back in Buncrana, did think Finn had been involved in the battles in France for some time and hadn’t been able to make head nor tail of the letter he had sent telling them where he really was. In the newspaper they read with horror of the machine guns that could rip a platoon of soldiers to bits in seconds and the new naval weapon—the submarine that floated below the water.

They’d been horrified by the bombs that had landed on innocent people in the coastal towns of England in December 1914. And that wasn’t all, for in May of 1915 they read about air raids on London from something called a Zeppelin.

Unfamiliar words and places became part of the Sullivan language as 1915 unfolded, words like Gallipoli and Ypres and the Dardanelles, and the battles in these places and the terrible casualty figures. One hundred and twenty-five thousand Irish had volunteered for war, and by the summer of 1915 some of those whose bodies had not been left behind in a foreign field began to arrive back on Irish soil. People were shocked to see many of the young, fit men who had marched off return with missing limbs, blinded, shell-shocked or wheezing like old men, their lungs eaten away with mustard gas.

Each day, Thomas John woke with a heavy weight in his heart, waiting anxiously for the letters that told them that Finn was still alive.

Finn’s letters to Tom and Joe were in a different vein altogether. Remembering his time in Folkstone he described the camp followers offering a man everything for a packet of cigarettes, and he couldn’t help boasting about it all to his brothers, who had thought him a young boy the day he had left home. This would show them he had become a man. Finn knew they would think he was talking of French girls but he couldn’t help that. He couldn’t mention where they had been for the censor would cut it out and so he just wrote,

You scoffed at me, Tom, but you wouldn’t scoff now, for these girls that hang around the camp are wild for it, if you get my meaning. God, I didn’t know what I was missing when I was in dear old Ireland and the Catholic Church had me seeing sin in even thinking about a girl. I wonder what they would do to me now, when it doesn’t stop at thought. If I was ever daft enough to confess it, I would spend the rest of my life in prayer, I think.

Tom folded up the letter with a smile. Finn was sowing his wild oats right and proper, a thing not even Joe had ever had the opportunity to do. He was glad, though, that his young brother had something else to focus his mind on sometimes, ‘distractions for the fighting man’, he had described it before he left, and God knew distraction of any sort had to be welcomed because the death toll continued to rise. It was estimated that as many as 250,000 men had died by the summer of that year. In Ireland there were many Masses said for those serving overseas, or for the repose of the souls of those who hadn’t returned, and Tom’s constant worry about Finn was like a nagging tooth.

The soldiers camped that first night at a place called Boulogne-sur-Mer, not far from the coast. However, the following morning Finn and Christy were part of a sizeable section that was detached from the original company and marched off without any indication of where they were heading or why.

Once they had set up camp beside a wide and very picturesque canal, overhung with weeping willow trees, and had a meal of sorts brought to them, which mainly consisted of bully beef and potatoes, they were free until reveille the next morning.

‘Fancy going into the town and having a look about the place?’ Christy asked Finn.

‘Hardly much point is there?’ Finn replied. ‘We might be better hitting the sack. We’ll probably be off tomorrow before it’s properly light.’

‘No, I think we’re set here for a while,’ Christy said.

‘How the hell d’you know that?’

‘Well, I was talking to one of the other men here and he told me that he had volunteered to be a machine gunner,’ Christy said. ‘Apparently this town, St-Omer, runs a school here to teach them, and I don’t suppose you learn to be one of them in five minutes.’

‘No,’ Finn conceded.

‘And they’ve set up a cookhouse,’ Christy went on. ‘The meal was at least warm. Anyway, he said that there are some mechanics here as well, and they will be working in the repair shop because it’s the major one in this area. He told me they send the broken stuff down by canal.’

‘Yeah, but I have no wish to fire a machine gun and neither of us is a mechanic,’ Finn said. ‘So what are we doing here?’

Christy shrugged. ‘Can’t answer that. The general neglected to discuss all his plans with me,’ he added with a grin. ‘Now are we going to explore the town tonight, or have you a better idea?’

‘No, not really,’ Finn said. ‘And if we are here for a bit, it would be better, I suppose, if we could find our way about.’

So, side by side, the two men left the camp and crossed over the bridge into the town, noting the strange-sounding street names. They tried pronouncing them and pointing out the little alleyways between the buildings.

‘I don’t know if this is typical of a French town or not,’ Finn commented, ‘but I bet you that it’s a thriving place in the daytime when all these shops are open.’

‘I’d agree with that,’ Christy said. ‘And I’d say half as big again as Buncrana.’

‘Rue Dunkerque,’ Finn read out the road name as they turned into it.

The night was still and quiet, and there were few people about. Their boots sounded very loud as they tramped along the cobbled streets.

‘Rue must mean road,’ Finn said. ‘God, we’ll be speaking French like natives if we stay here long enough.’

Christy laughed. ‘I doubt it. I think I’d have to get by with sign language and gestures.’

‘I know the type of gestures you’ll be making,’ Finn said, giving his friend a dig in the ribs. ‘And they do say the French girls are very willing.’

‘Have to go some way to beat those trailing around the camp just outside Folkstone, I’d say,’ Christy said.

‘Yeah, but we can have some fun finding out, can’t we?’

‘Don’t you ever think of anything else?’

‘You can talk. Are you any better?’

Christy didn’t answer because just then the road opened on to a square ringed with shops, closed for the night, and bars, which were open. There was a large building on one side of the square, looming out of the darkness, and they went forward to have a closer look. In the light from the moon they could see arched pillars holding up the second storey, and Christy said he thought he had seen a dome on top but he wasn’t sure in the darkness. The name was written in the archway over the main entrance.

‘Hôtel de Ville,’ Finn read. ‘Least I think that’s what it says.’

‘So it’s a hotel then?’

‘Maybe not,’ Finn said. ‘Probably “hôtel” means something different in French. I mean, it doesn’t look much like a hotel, does it?’

‘No,’ Christy agreed. ‘Not like any hotel I ever knew, anyway.’

‘I’d like to see it in the daylight,’ Finn said.

‘Well, until you can do that, we can always try our chances of getting a decent pint in one of those French bars,’ Christy said. ‘I have a terrible thirst all of a sudden.’

‘Don’t think you stand a chance,’ Finn said. ‘People say they drink wine in France.’

‘Not all the bloody time, surely,’ Christy said. ‘Anyway, you can please yourself but I am going to see if any of these places serves anything at all that’s drinkable Are you coming?’

‘Course I am,’ Finn said. ‘It isn’t as if I’ve had a better offer.’

The next morning, Finn and Christy were assigned as porters to help the medical corps with the wounded that came into St-Omer on the troop trains. For some of these soldiers, the town was just a clearing station and they were later sent on to the coast and taken to Britain. ‘Like the poor sods we saw off-loaded at Folkstone,’ Finn whispered to Christy.

For others, though, from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, St-Omer was the end of the road, and the sight of those wounded young men sobered Finn. For the first time he experienced the nauseous smell of blood in his nostrils, the putrid stink of scorched human flesh and the repulsive odour of festering wounds. Though the sights and smells shocked him to his very soul, he never allowed himself the luxury of being sick for too many were relying on him.

He wasn’t pleased then that after a week he and Christy were among those taken from hospital duty. They were told to report the following day to the BEF Headquarters, also in the town, where they were to be employed as temporary batmen to the officers stationed there.

‘Playing nursemaid to a crowd of toffs,’ Finn said disparagingly as they were leaving the hospital. ‘At least here I felt I was doing something useful.’

Christy was more philosophical. ‘One thing I have learned in my time here is that you do as you’re told, when you’re told. Anyway, we might find this is all right, especially if the officers are the decent sort.’

‘Huh…’ Finn began, then suddenly jabbed Christy in the ribs. ‘Will you look at that,’ he said softly, jerking his head to the other side of the street. ‘Isn’t she the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen in your life?’

There were two girls walking with a man Finn presumed to be their father. At Finn’s words, the elder raised her head and their eyes locked for an instant. Finn, his heart knocking against his ribs, lifted his cap and grinned broadly. The girl lowered her eyes, but not before Finn had seen a tentative smile touch her lips and a telltale flush flood over her cheeks.

Her father, striding in front, was not aware of this, but the younger girl sneaked a look to see what had caught her sister’s attention and smiled innocently at the smartly dressed British soldiers.

Christy watched them go and then said with a shrug, ‘She’s all right, I suppose.’

‘All right?’ Finn exclaimed. ‘She is just magnificent.’

Christy laughed. ‘Well, Finn, however you feel about her you’ll never get near her. If you want, there’s a couple of fellows billeted with us who could fix us up.’

However, just the day before the young soldiers had been warned off that sort of encounter by their sergeant major who told them camp followers were often riddled with diseases that they could and did pass on to the soldiers. ‘If you don’t believe me,’ he’d said, ‘see the men always waiting in line for the doctor.’

Finn had talked to these men and been horrified to learn what their symptoms were. Remember we were told women like that can leave you with more than you bargained for.’

‘That never bothered you before.’

‘I didn’t know before.’

‘I think that I might be willing to take a chance on that if we’re here for very long,’ Christy said.

‘You do as you please,’ Finn said. ‘But I think I will leave well alone.’

‘Oh, you good little Catholic boy,’ Christy said mockingly. ‘Wouldn’t your mother be proud of you?’

‘Shut up, you,’ Finn said, giving Christy a punch on the arm. ‘Anyway, whoever that girl is, I’d give my right arm just to talk to her. I wouldn’t think of her that way.’

Christy fairly chortled with mirth. ‘Course you would,’ he said. ‘That’s how any man thinks of a woman—and a bloody fine soldier you would be with your right arm missing.’

The next day Finn got his wish to see hôtel de ville by daylight because the BEF Headquarters were next to it. He found it even more imposing now. The arched stone columns were ornately carved and the windows on the first floor were also beautifully arched, some with stained glass. Above it all was a blue-grey dome with a clock atop that.

‘That’s far too posh to be just a hotel.’ Christy said, and Finn agreed it looked like a really important building.

‘Maybe we’ll get to find out,’ he said. ‘Just now, though, I suppose we should go and meet our new bosses.’

The two men really seemed to have fallen on their feet. Finn’s officer was Captain Paul Hamilton. He was a tall man—half a head taller than Finn, who wasn’t considered short—and stood straight as a die. He had a full head of hair though the brown was shot through with silver, as was the moustache above his full lips, but his eyes looked kind enough and he greeted Finn and told him that he had been a soldier all his life. Christy’s officer, Captain Leo Prendagast, was a younger man, and clean shaven. Neither was a particularly hard taskmaster and both were fairly free and easy with the young soldiers.

Increasingly preoccupied with the girl that had so entranced him, Finn was all fingers and thumbs on his first day as Captain Hamilton’s batman and didn’t seem to hear when the captain spoke to him.

In the end Hamilton said with irritation, ‘Sullivan, is anything the matter? You seem very distracted.’

‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’

‘And you have such a dreamy expression on your face that I suspect you maybe in love,’ the captain continued.

Finn bent his head to hide the blush, but he was too late and Hamilton burst out, ‘By Jove, that’s it, isn’t it? I’ve hit the nail on the head. You’ve fallen for someone.’

‘Oh, no, sir. Nothing like that,’ Finn said rather forlornly. ‘I have just seen a girl I think is so very beautiful. She was with a man I presumed to be her father, but I haven’t spoken to her or anything.’

‘So you don’t know who it is you’ve lost your heart to?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Describe her to me,’ the captain commanded.

‘Oh, sir, she is just wonderful,’ Finn cried. ‘She has dark hair and it hangs down her back and it rippled and shone in the autumn sunlight, and she had a pert little nose, and her eyes set her face alight, and her blushes only make her more attractive.’

Hamilton laughed gently. ‘You have got it bad,’ he said. ‘Did you take any notice of the man?’

‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘I took particular note of him because I couldn’t see how he had fathered such a good-looking girl.’

‘He wouldn’t win any beauty contest then?’

‘No, sir,’ said Finn with a chuckle. ‘He is quite tall and portly, and he has a fine head of hair though it is steel grey, but his face has a sort of forbidding look about it. His eyes look almost hooded, his nose is long and his mouth wide, though not much of it could be seen because he sported a large moustache that was as grey as the hair on his head.’

‘Now,’ said Hamilton, ‘a word of warning. You steer well clear of that girl and you can take that look off your face, man. I was young myself once and I know what it is to yearn after a woman who is unattainable—and believe me, Gabrielle Jobert is as unattainable as they come.’

‘Gabrielle,’ Finn breathed, thinking the name suited that lovely creature so well.

Hamilton nodded. ‘I am pretty certain that is who she is from the description that you have given me of her father. Pierre Jobert is an unpleasant and ugly kind of character and he rules those girls—even his wife, Mariette, so it’s said—with a rod of iron. I have seen that for myself. The girls are seldom out alone and what he is protecting them from are the lusty British soldier boys strutting about the place. Lay a hand on Miss Jobert, and her father, in all likelihood, would tear you from limb to limb.’

‘Believe me, sir, I mean her no harm,’ Finn muttered earnestly.

‘Of course you do, man,’ Hamilton said. ‘What you would really like to do is take her out for a tumble in the nearest available cornfield.’

‘No, sir.’ Finn was shocked.

‘Then you are not the man that I took you to be,’ Hamilton replied. ‘I recognise the feeling running through you well. The point is, Sullivan, frustration doesn’t bode well in a soldier. You have to have your wits about you on the battlefield. There is no place there for mooning over a girl you have a fantasy about.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Isn’t there another you can take up with?’

‘I was warned not to touch those girls, sir.’

‘Not the camp followers, no,’ Hamilton said. ‘But there might be others in the town not so well guarded or regarded, who might welcome a dalliance with a soldier. Believe me, when you have a real live girl in your arms you will get over this fixation on Gabrielle Jobert.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. He knew, though, no matter what he said, he wouldn’t go looking for any girl in the town. When a person has seen perfection first-hand, he is not likely to settle for second best.

‘Anyway,’ Hamilton went on after a while, ‘Jobert may be no oil painting, but I have it on good authority that he just happens to be the best baker in the town and so that is where I want you to go now. His shop is on Rue Allen and his name is above the shop, along with the word “Boulangerie”, which means baker. See, I have written it down for you, and I’ve written down what you must say too.’

‘Bonjour. Avez-vous une ficelle?’ Finn read out.

‘Not bad,’ Hamilton said approvingly. ‘Off you go then. I want that bread today, not tomorrow.’

Once out in the streets, Finn’s pulse quickened at the thought that he might see Gabrielle again. She might even serve in the shop. He deliberately hadn’t asked the captain if she did, because he guessed, by the amused smile on Hamilton’s face, that he had been waiting for him to do just that.

Gabrielle did serve in her father’s shop. Just to be near to her caused Finn’s heart to thump almost painfully against his ribs. His mouth was so dry that he wondered if he would be able to speak. He didn’t want to hand the piece of paper over as if he were a deaf mute. He had practised the sentence on the way so that he wouldn’t make an utter fool of himself and he continued to practise as he stood in the queue waiting to be served.

Though she made no sign, Gabrielle was only too aware that he was there. She couldn’t understand her attraction to the young soldier, who she could tell by his uniform served in the British Army, but she studied him surreptitiously as she served the other customers. He wasn’t as tall as her father, or as broad, but he looked fit, and his shoulders were well muscled. He wore no greatcoat that day and he looked so smart in his khaki uniform. His boots shone and his putties too were spotless.

He had removed his cap when he entered the shop and stood twisting it between his hands nervously. Gabrielle saw his hair was dark brown, his eyes were encircled with long black lashes, and his brow above them was puckered as if in concentration. Then the last customer left and the shop was empty except for Gabrielle, her mother and Finn. The mother turned to Gabrielle, said something to her and walked through to the back. Then Gabrielle faced Finn and smiled as she said, ‘Bonjour, Monsieur. Vous desirez?’

Her voice was just as melodious and charming as Finn had imagined it would be, and though he hadn’t understood what she said, he assumed that she was offering to serve him and so he replied, ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Avez-vous une ficelle?’

Gabrielle clapped her hands in delight. ‘Très bon,’ she said, and added in an accent that totally bewitched Finn, ‘Very good, but we can talk in English, soldier, if it is easier for you.’

‘That’s fantastic,’ Finn cried. ‘I am so impressed. I never expected…’

‘Most of the townspeople speak only French,’ Gabrielle said, reaching for the bread he had asked for. ‘And they have never seen the need to learn other languages, but my maternal grandmother was half-English. She lived with us until she died, and though she spoke French most of the time, she spoke in English to me and my sister, Yvette. She always said learning another language was a good thing. It has been so useful now with so many English-speaking soldiers in the town.’

‘I can well imagine that,’ Finn said, taking the bread from Gabrielle. Their fingers touched for a brief second and a tingle ran through Finn’s arm.

‘Will that be all, soldier?’ Gabrielle asked.

Finn wanted to say no, say he wanted to stay and talk, but he was mindful of the captain’s warning about the girl’s father. Also the captain would be waiting for the bread, so he said regretfully, ‘I’m afraid it is, so I must say goodbye.’

‘Oh, not goodbye,’ Gabrielle smiled. ‘We are sure to meet again. Shall we say au revoir?’

Just the way that she said it and the way that she was looking at him was causing Finn’s heart to flip over and only willpower kept the shake out of his voice as he said, ‘Au revoir it is then.’ He left the shop and floated on air all the way back to Headquarters.

Every day that week, Hamilton sent Finn to the baker’s and every day he was increasingly charmed and bewitched by Gabrielle. He was surprised that she never seemed to hear the thump of his heart in his breast at the sight of her.

On Saturday, on his way to the baker’s, he had to weave his way through the crowded market that was held in the square in front of the hôtel de ville, which Captain Hamilton had told him was the town hall. Produce of every description was piled high on carts, barrows and trestle tables, and it reminded Finn of the Saturday market at Buncrana. It was a day such as this that he had stepped forward to enlist in the British Army, and for a moment he thought of them all at home and a wave of homesickness took him by surprise.

As he was making ready to return to his company on Saturday evening, he asked if he had leave in the morning to attend Mass.

‘Should have guessed you were a Catholic,’ Hamilton said.

‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘I didn’t get to go last week because we were just so busy transporting the wounded, but I thought—’

‘You thought that as all you are doing is attending to my creature comforts, you feel justified in leaving me to my own devices and attending to your immortal soul, is that it?’ Hamilton asked with a wry grin.

Finn wasn’t sure whether he was angry with him or not, though he knew that he was often sarcastic, so he said hesitantly. ‘Well, sir, it’s just…You see, sir…a Catholic is expected…’

Hamilton decided that he had enjoyed Finn’s discomfort long enough. ‘I am joking, Private Finn Sullivan,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘I wouldn’t like to be held responsible for you committing a sin by missing Mass and so if you make my breakfast, then you are free for the rest of the day.’

‘The whole day, sir?’ Finn said delighted. ‘Thank you, sir.’

In their brief forays through the town, Christy and Finn had decided to attend Mass at the cathedral, Notre Dame des Miracles, which was on Rue des Tribunaux towards the edge of town, and so the following day they made their way there. The cathedral was an imposing building, built of grey brick and approached up a set of stone steps.

‘It isn’t all that big, though, is it?’ Finn said. ‘I always thought that cathedrals were bigger places.’

‘How many cathedrals have you seen, then?’

‘Well, not that many,’ Finn replied with a grin. ‘None, in fact.’

‘Exactly,’ Christy replied. ‘Anyway, things are probably different here. Let’s go and have a look anyway.’ As they ascended the steps he said, ‘One of the lads in the mess was telling me about some tale of the shoes left on top of the tomb of some saint or other in this church.’

‘A patron saint of shoes?’ Finn asked incredulously.

‘No, you dope.’ Christy said. ‘Parents who have children with walking problems pray to him and leave shoes on his tomb.’

‘Was he having you on?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Well, it’s a very odd thing to do,’ Finn said. ‘I can’t wait to see that for myself.’ He opened the door as he spoke and stepped inside.

The cathedral was very beautiful. It was held up by gigantic pillars, and many flickering candles illuminated the elaborate golden screen above the ornate altar, while autumn sunshine shone through the domed stained-glass windows bathing the interior in shafts of vibrant colour.

Finn spotted, among the tombstones set around the edges of the church, the gilded tomb of St Erkembode, a collection of shoes of all shapes and sizes lining the top. The strains of the organ began and the two soldiers hurriedly entered a pew. But then all the beauty and splendour of the cathedral mattered little to Finn as he had spotted the Jobert family just two pews in front of him.

After that, he went through the Latin responses in an almost mechanical manner, anxious to get the Mass over and done with so that he could gaze on Gabrielle’s beautiful face once more. Her family were taking Communion ahead of Finn and Christy so that they were going to the rails as she was returning. Her eyes met Finn’s and once more she gave him that shy, tentative smile before bending her head over her joined hands.

Finn felt his heart skip a beat. Her smile was so wondrous he thought as he kneeled down at the rails to receive Communion; it was just as if she had bestowed a gift on him.

When the Mass was over, Finn led Christy out of the side door, knowing that that way he would be out before the Joberts, as people would probably mill on the steps outside the front door, as they did in most churches.

Christy, who hadn’t noticed the Joberts in the congregation, was surprised by the unseemly haste in which Finn was leaving, and a bit annoyed. He wouldn’t have minded taking a look round as the church emptied, and as they reached the alleyway the side door opened on to, he said, ‘What’s your hurry, Finn?’

Finn didn’t answer but continued to move up the alleyway, from which he could see the main doors of the church without being observed himself.

‘So what are we now hanging about here for?’ Christy said. ‘We should head back, shouldn’t we?’

‘In a minute,’ Finn said, because he had seen Gabrielle framed in the doorway and his heart had started to turn somersaults.

Christy followed his gaze and sighed. So that was it. Finn and his fixation on the Jobert girl. ‘You are heading for bloody trouble, if you ask me.’

‘Well, I haven’t asked you,’ Finn said. ‘Weren’t you the one that said soldiers should take risks? And this is the time to take them, because you are a bloody long time dead.’

At that moment a group of chattering girls, running round the corner at speed, almost cannoned into him. There was a flurry of apologies before Finn realised that one of the girls was Gabrielle’s young sister. He saw that Gabrielle was now out of church and on the steps beside their parents, who were in conversation.

Yvette Jobert recognised Finn at the same time and bobbed a little curtsy. ‘Bonjour, Monsieur.’

‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle,’ Finn replied, raising his hat.

The girls giggled at Finn’s response and the sound drew Gabrielle’s attention. She turned and, spotting her sister, came towards them. When she saw Finn and Christy she coloured bright pink before turning to her sister and speaking sharply to her in French.

‘Don’t scold her,’ Finn said. ‘We only greeted one another, that was all.’

‘That is enough,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Believe me, if my father caught her near a soldier, let alone talking to one, he would be very angry.’ There was a pause and then she added, ‘Let us hope that he hasn’t noticed our absence.’ And then turning to include Christy she said, ‘I bid you au revoir, gentlemen.’

‘Au revoir, Mademoiselle,’ Finn replied, his voice slightly husky with emotion.

He watched her stride back to her parents with her chastened sister trailing behind her.

‘See. Do you want it spelled out any more clearly than that,’ Christy said. ‘Even to stand near you is a sin in their father’s eyes, so your fantasy will just have to stay a fantasy. Now let’s go back to the camp and get something to eat before I fade away completely.’

THREE

Finn was so agitated by seeing Gabrielle that he found it hard to settle down when they got back to the camp and after dinner in the mess he decided to go for a walk, though the early promise of the day being a fine one was false. The sky was now gun-metal grey, with a nip in the air that showed winter wasn’t that far away.

‘Are you coming?’ he said to Christy.

‘Might as well,’ Christy said good-naturedly. ‘Though, God knows, you are the Devil’s own company. Let’s walk into the town and see if a few drinks will put a smile on your face.’

The canal was a busy thoroughfare through the week because as well as carrying produce in from the farms, it transported broken military equipment. On Sunday, however, the water was quiet and still, and the ground the other side of it was a carpet of fallen leaves. Finn was morosely kicking them in front of him when suddenly, coming down Rue de Dunkerque, Finn saw the two Jobert girls dressed in the matching blue coats, bonnets and muffs that they had worn to Mass, and they were alone.

At Mass he hadn’t dared look at Gabrielle directly; now, as he drew nearer, he noticed just how fetching she looked in the bonnet that framed her pretty little face, and the blood ran like liquid fire in his body as he said with a smile, ‘Bonjour. May I say how very fine you both look?’

‘We cannot speak to you,’ Gabrielle said with a panicky look around her. ‘If word was to get back to my father, it would be too terrible to contemplate.’

‘We mean you no harm,’ Finn said.

Before Gabrielle was able to answer, Christy added, ‘I hope you didn’t get into trouble for speaking to us this morning.’

‘No, neither of us did, thankfully,’ Gabrielle said, ‘but only because my father was unaware of it. But to tarry here is madness, and if word got to my father, my mother would be in trouble too.’ And so saying, she pulled Finn into the relative shelter of a large weeping willow at the water’s edge.

Finn looked at her in puzzlement. ‘Why?’

‘Because Maman is supposed to guard us,’ Gabrielle said almost bitterly. ‘You see, my father retires each Sunday not long after dinner because he has to be up in the early hours to put on the ovens to bake the bread. My mother is supposed to accompany us on our walk, but she is tired from working in the shop all week.’

‘She usually has stomachache too,’ Yvette said.

‘Yes,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Our poor mother is plagued with indigestion and it is always worse after a Sunday dinner, for all she eats so little of it. Anyway, I am seventeen years old. I can look after myself, and Yvette too. My father would like us both locked up in a dungeon with him as the gaoler. But we must go now. I’m sorry.’

‘We could meet you in the jardin public,’ Yvette said. ‘We normally go there anyway when the weather is fine. We only came here today because Gabrielle thought it was going to rain.’

‘Yvette, what are you suggesting?’ her sister scolded.

‘Nothing,’ Yvette said.

‘We can just meet to walk and talk together,’ Finn said hopefully.

‘Come on, man,’ Christy said irritability. ‘You must see that this is crazy.’

Strangely it was Christy’s words that lit the small flame of defiance in Gabrielle’s soul. What was wrong with walking and talking with two respectable young soldiers far from home, and Roman Catholic soldiers, no less? Some of her old school friends were engaged to be married, despite the war that had taken many young men away. It was no shame now to walk arm in arm with a British soldier about the town and she had seen many who did. They were, after all, allies of the French, and if she was to agree to meet with them again Yvette would be with her as her chaperone.

If her father got to hear, she decided, then she would deal with it, though she felt a little icy finger of fear trickle down her spine at the thought because her father’s rages did frighten her. And yet she knew that if ever she was to have a life of her own, she had to learn to stand up to him.

‘Yvette is right. We could meet at the jardin public next Sunday, if the day is a fine one.’

‘I think you are both courting danger,’ Christy said. ‘Anyway,’ he turned to his friend, ‘doesn’t it depend on whether we have time off or not? We are in the army, unless it has escaped your notice, and our time is not our own.’

Gabrielle shrugged. ‘If you cannot come, there is no harm done,’ she said. ‘If it is fine Yvette and I will be there at about half-past two. It is what you English call a park,’ Gabrielle said, ‘and it is at the other side of the town, not far from the cathedral where you were this morning. Do you think you could find your way there?’

‘I think so.’

‘Well then, wait at the bandstand,’ Gabrielle said. ‘You will have a full view then of the main entrance. We will not come over to you or acknowledge you in anyway but make our way to the woodland further in. You wait a few minutes and join us there.’

She saw Finn’s eyes open wide in astonishment. She grabbed hold of his hands and he felt the tingle from her touch run all through his arms as she said earnestly, ‘Believe me, I am not being overdramatic. This—oh, what do you call it?—this subterfuge is necessary to protect us both.’

‘All right,’ Finn said, reading the fear in Gabrielle’s eyes. ‘It will be done just as you say.’

‘You’re a fool, Finn Sullivan,’ Christy said as the two girls left them.

‘You can only say that because you have obviously never felt this way about anyone,’ Finn said as he watched them walk away.

‘No, I haven’t,’ Christy said. ‘And I’ll take care to see that it stays that way. Seems like a mug’s game to me. Now, are we going for this drink or not?’

The following Sunday afternoon the sky was overcast, the air felt cold and there was a bristling wind. ‘I hope we’re not too late,’ Finn said to a reluctant Christy, as they hurried towards the park.

‘How could we be?’ Christy answered. ‘We set off from the camp at two o’clock sharp and it doesn’t take more that fifteen minutes to walk here—less at the pace you set.’

‘I just wanted to be sure we were on time.’

‘What you want is to have your head examined,’ Christy commented wryly. ‘But we have already gone down that road and you don’t listen to reason. Now settle yourself. If they have decided to come out today, despite the fact that it would be far more comfortable to sit by their own firesides, they’ll be along shortly. If there is no sign of them in about fifteen minutes or so, I am going to find myself a nice warm bar somewhere and have a drink, and you can please yourself.’

‘They’ll be here,’ Finn said firmly. ‘I’ve been almost daily to the shop. If Gabrielle wasn’t going to turn up for some reason then I’m sure that she would have found some way of telling me.’

He had been very careful to try to keep his excitement in check that morning when he served Captain Hamilton his breakfast, but he was unable to keep the smile from his face.

In the end, Hamilton said, ‘What the devil is pleasing you so much, Sullivan?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Something damned well is,’ Hamilton snapped. ‘You’re grinning like a Cheshire cat. Got a fancy for a woman or what?’

The blush that flooded over Finn’s face gave Hamilton his answer and he laughed. ‘So that’s it, you sly horse. Glad to see that you have taken my advice and got over Gabrielle Jobert. I hope the girl you’re seeing is a decent sort.’

‘Oh yes, sir.’

Finn knew that the captain would be singing a different tune entirely if he had been aware who he was waiting for that bleak Sunday afternoon. He might easily have him transferred back to his battalion, and in disgrace too. Gabrielle wasn’t the only one who wanted the liaison kept secret.

A few minutes later, from his vantage point on the bandstand, he saw Gabrielle and her sister cross the road and enter the park. They didn’t approach, or even look in his direction, but followed the path round, and Finn thought five minutes had never passed so slowly before he could set off to meet up with them. ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselles Jobert,’ Finn said as he approached them.

He spoke to them both, but his eyes were fastened on Gabrielle and when she blushed Finn thought she was more beautiful than ever.

Yvette laughed. ‘My name isn’t Mademoiselle Jobert. I’m just Yvette and my sister is Gabrielle.’

‘And I am Finn Sullivan,’ Finn declared, as they began to walk on through the trees. ‘And this is my friend, Christy Byrne.’

‘Well, I am very pleased to meet you both,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I was surprised to see you at Mass last Sunday and then again this morning. I don’t recall ever having seen a man from the British Army at Mass before.’

‘Well, although I am in the British Army, Christy and I are from Ireland,’ Finn said. ‘And that, like France, is a Catholic country.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I wondered what the accent was. I couldn’t quite place it.’

‘We are in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers,’ Finn explained. ‘We have a fair few Catholics in our regiment.’

‘Then I am surprised there were not more soldiers at Mass,’ Gabrielle said.

‘Well, there are other churches in the town and Mass at different times,’ Finn pointed out. ‘But probably some, now that they’re away from home, will risk their immortal souls for a few extra hours in bed.’

‘Besides, only a relative few were sent here for special duties,’ Christy said.

‘And what are those special duties, soldier boy?’ Gabrielle asked with a coy smile.

Finn gave a quiet chuckle as Christy said, ‘We look after the creature comforts of the officers at the British Headquarters, for the moment at least.’

‘And what do you both do in your spare time?’ Gabrielle asked.

‘Well, our free time is governed by the officers we are assigned to,’ Finn said. ‘When we are at the camp some of the lads might be playing football, others will be playing cards or dominoes or reading, and I would probably be cleaning my kit and especially my rifle, lying on my bed sleeping, or writing letters home. It’s pretty boring, really.’

He smiled at her and then in the bantering tone she had used, he asked with a sardonic grin, ‘And what do you do with your free time, Mademoiselle Jobert?’

‘I really don’t have much free time,’ Gabrielle said, ‘what with serving in the shop and helping my mother. Sunday is my one free day and then we love to go for a walk.’ She grinned mischievously at Finn and added, ‘I find it a most agreeable pastime.’

‘And so do I,’ said Finn.

Gabrielle’s eyes met Finn’s and she saw the yearning in them that she knew would be mirrored in her own. For a split second it was as if time had stood still and they were alone. Everyone else had ceased to exist.

Then Finn tore his gaze away. His heart was banging and his mouth felt unaccountably dry. He knew then that he loved Gabrielle Jobert heart, body and soul, although he had not touched her and he barely knew her. None of that mattered.

What did matter, though, was that he was a soldier from a country at war, who any moment could be ordered away. He wondered whether it was wise to begin any sort of relationship with this wonderful girl or whether it would be kinder to her to nip it in the bud. Yvette’s voice brought him back down to earth, saying how brave she thought all the soldiers were.

He was unable to answer straightaway and he was grateful to Christy, who said, ‘I don’t know whether either of us have earned that title or not, Yvette, for we have yet to meet the enemy, though we joined up last year and have done months of training.’

Yvette’s eyes were puzzled as she said in surprise, ‘Do you want to fight then?’

Finn had recovered himself sufficiently enough to say, ‘It’s not the fighting for fighting’s sake that I regret, but when my brothers write that there are boatloads of injured Irish boys arriving home just now, and I am here high and dry and never near a bullet, it makes me feel a bit of a fraud.’

‘I can understand you feeling that way,’ Gabrielle said, ‘but I am very glad you came here for a time.’ Again there was that attractive flush to her face that caused Finn’s heart to beat faster as she asked, ‘Do you think me very forward?’

‘Why should I?’ he asked.

‘It’s not seemly for a woman to speak of such things.’

Yvette suddenly walked ahead and Gabrielle knew that it was to give her and Finn some privacy. Christy, seeing the way the wind blew, followed Yvette.

Finn continued, ‘Of course it’s seemly. Yvette sort of suggested we meet today and if you hadn’t agreed then I would probably never have plucked up the courage to ask you myself. I would consider it too presumptuous.’

‘What is this word, presumptuous?’

‘It means not my place to do that sort of thing,’ Finn said. ‘For one thing, your father owns a shop and I am a common foot soldier, and then you are French and I am Irish, and you are still very young.’

‘And how old are you, Finn?’

‘Nineteen,’ said Finn

Gabrielle laughed, but gently. ‘Such a great age,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘And prepared to lay down your life for France and Great Britain. That you have not done this yet is not the point. You will when the time comes and in my mind that makes you a great man.’

‘There really is nothing great about me,’ Finn said. ‘I am very ordinary.’

‘In my eyes you are great and so you must indulge me in this,’ Gabrielle said. ‘This town has been flooded with soldiers for over a year now, and of all nationalities, helping to fight in this terrible war, and never have I had the slightest desire to get to know any of those soldiers better, though I had plenty to choose from. What I am trying to say is that the way I behaved towards you is not the way that I would normally behave. I would hate you to think that I have approached other soldiers, because you are the only one. That first day I saw you standing there with your friend, I don’t know what happened to me. It was just as if you had reached across the road and laid your hand upon me.’

‘Oh, Gabrielle…’ Finn breathed. He had the urge to clasp her to him and kiss her long and hard, but their relationship was too new and tenuous for such intimacy yet. So he dampened down his ardour sufficiently to be able to say, ‘I too felt that certain pull between us, but any day I may be forced to leave this place. Maybe after today it would be better if we do not meet again.’

Gabrielle stopped walking. ‘If you hadn’t been in the British Army and sent to this town then we might never have met anyway. I know that we are on borrowed time. When you are gone, the memories of what we shared, even for a short time, will warm me and I will never regret a minute of it, I promise you.’

Finn was not convinced. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I have never been surer of anything in my life.’

‘All right,’ Finn said. ‘We will do it your way. Now let’s walk on because I can see you shivering with cold.’

Gabrielle hid her smile. It would be far too bold to say that it wasn’t the cold that had made her limbs shake, but the nearness of Finn beside her, but she did walk on quicker and they caught up with Yvette and Christy.

Then Gabrielle said, ‘We must leave you here till we meet again.’

‘So soon?’

Gabrielle nodded. ‘I am afraid so. My mother could not see the attraction of coming out today at all. Last week, although the rain was only drizzling after you left us, Yvette and I were soaked by the time we reached home. All week our mother waited for us to go down with colds, or worse, and she didn’t want us to venture out at all today.’

‘She didn’t forbid you?’

‘Maman never forbids,’ Gabrielle said. ‘She says we have enough of that from our father.’

‘And we do,’ Yvette put in grimly.

‘She’s right,’ Gabrielle said with a smile. ‘Our father is a very hard man and so Maman is more gentle with us, but she did ask me not to stay out too long and so I really must go now,’

‘So, when will I see you again?’

‘As I said, Sunday afternoon is the only time that I’m free.’

‘They will be the longest seven days of my life,’ Finn said. ‘And yet my time isn’t my own either, though at the moment at least most of my evenings are free.’

‘Till we meet again then,’ Gabrielle said, and she stood on tiptoe and kissed Finn on both cheeks in the French way, and laughed at the look on his face.

Later, as he and Christy made their way into the town, Finn acknowledged that the captain was right. If he was honest with himself, what he really wanted to do with Gabrielle was roll her in the first available cornfield and show her how much he desired her. Not that he would ever even hint at such a thing. He would not debase her in that way.

He felt that he had been reborn, that his life before had been sterile and meaningless, and he knew that at that moment he wouldn’t change places with anyone in the world.

The following week, when Finn met Gabrielle in the park he went alone. Christy had to work, although he admitted to Finn that he hadn’t tried that hard to get the time off. ‘I value my hide more than you obviously value yours,’ he said. ‘Anyway, last time I was hanging about like a spare dinner.’

Finn could see his point, but there was no way he was passing up a chance to see Gabrielle and so he set out the next Sunday, which was dry and fresh, though extremely cold.

When Finn joined them in the woods, Yvette moved on ahead to give them privacy and Gabrielle smiled as she said, ‘You may hold my hand if you wish to.’

Finn was only too happy to do that. ‘But we must walk quickly lest you get cold,’ he advised.

Gabrielle hesitated. There was an urgency about their time together rather than a normal courtship, when she could invite Finn to the house and walk out openly. And so, though she wouldn’t normally have admitted such feelings on such a short acquaintance, she said in a voice barely above a whisper, ‘Don’t worry about me being cold, for I feel as if I have a furnace inside me, just because I am near you.’

Finn’s heart soared with happiness, and he pulled her closer. ‘Ah, Gabrielle, those words fill me with such joy. Now tell me about yourself. I want to know all about you.’

Gabrielle smiled as she told him about her life in the small French town not that unlike Buncrana, where Yvette went to school and she herself helped in the shop.

‘Your eyes cloud over when you speak of your father,’ Finn said. ‘Are you so afraid of him?’

‘Yes,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Sometimes I even think that I hate him because he is so intractable and stern. I can’t see when he is going to give me some freedom and allow me to live like other girls my age. Even dressing me in the same clothes as my sister is his way of controlling me further. No seventeen-year-old girl wants to dress in clothes that suit her sister, who is four years younger. We are never allowed out alone and apart from Mass the only time we go into the town is when we are being bought clothes by my father, and then he escorts us. That is where we were going that first time that you saw me in the town. We were on our way to buy winter coats and dresses.’

‘I think his character is well known amongst the townsfolk,’ Finn said. ‘My captain warned me not even to try speaking to you.’

‘Finn, he is suffocating me,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And how could we help being drawn to one another?’

‘I didn’t think things like this happened.’

‘I’ve read about it in romantic novels,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I was never allowed such books, but when I was at the school, the other girls would have them and I would smuggle them home.’

‘Your father isn’t the only one we have to be worried about, though,’ Finn said. ‘I think if the Army knew of this they’d probably post me somewhere else.’

Gabrielle shivered. ‘I know one day that this will happen anyway. But I want these stolen moments with you to last as long as possible.’

‘And I do,’ said Finn.

‘If my father was a kinder, softer man,’ Gabrielle went on, ‘I could probably feel it in my heart to feel sorry for him because he is a baker, like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather for generations. He wanted sons to follow on from him and all he got was two girls.’

‘Surely it is not too late,’ Finn said. ‘He may yet have sons.’

‘No,’ Gabrielle said. ‘My mother was damaged giving birth to Yvette. There will be no sons for my father. She feels that she has failed him.’

Finn could understand only too well what a blow that would be. Farmers felt the same about sons. They often wanted a fine rake of sons to ensure continuity on the farm and yet only the first son inherited. On the death of the father, the others, who had often grafted all their lives, had to then make their own way in the world, and yet to have no sons at all would be hard on any man.

‘My father says that Yvette and I will have to make good marriages,’ Gabrielle continued. ‘What is even scarier, he keeps hinting that he has someone in mind for me already. Isn’t that a dreadful thought?’

‘It is indeed,’ Finn said. ‘Surely your husband is your choice.’

‘He should be,’ Gabrielle said. ‘But six days a week I am either in the shop with my mother, or else in the bakery with my father. I see no one but customers, and apart from going to Mass my only outing is a walk with my sister on Sunday afternoon if the weather allows. We go to bed at half-past eight,’ she added contemptuously. ‘What sort of time is that for a girl of my age?’

‘Well,’ said Finn, ‘we don’t keep late hours in the country, with cows to milk early, but half-past eight seems ridiculous. Why have you to go to bed at such an hour?’

‘Because my father goes at that time so that he is up before dawn to light the ovens,’ Gabrielle said. ‘When he goes to bed, we all have to go to bed. Even Saturday night, when he goes into the town himself, as the bakery is closed on Sunday, he still wants us in bed at the same time. We stay up a bit later with Maman, but not too long, for she would get in trouble if he found out and we are never sure when he will be in.’

‘I can understand how frustrating you would find that,’ Finn said.

Gabrielle went on, ‘In the summer with the windows open I can often hear the sounds of merriment in the streets below and sometimes I long to join in and meet up with people my age. I could easily, for there is a tree just outside my window I could climb down. I wouldn’t dare, of course, because Father would be bound to find out. Sometimes, though, I am so restless and the room so stuffy I have climbed into the branches of the tree to feel the breeze on my face. I always wait until Yvette is asleep to do this.’

‘You must be careful that you don’t fall.’

‘Oh, no, it is a safe old tree.’

‘You must keep safe always,’ Finn said in a voice made husky with emotion. ‘I would hate anything to happen to you.’

‘My dear, darling Finn…’ Gabrielle said softly. Then she added, ‘Just think, if I hadn’t met you almost accidentally and we had set up these meetings, we would never had got to know each other.’

‘That is a dreadful thought,’ Finn said. ‘Because I am sure that I love you. If there was no war on, then I would take you away from here and we could get married.’

‘And I would go with you anywhere,’ Gabrielle said.

‘I don’t feel I have the right to ask you to wait for me till the war is over, though,’ Finn said, and a frown creased his forehead.

‘Why ever not?’ Gabrielle asked.

‘Well, you are young and—’

‘Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said?’ she demanded. ‘I know what it is to love someone and that someone is you. I will wait for you as long as it takes. All I ask is that you come back to me safe and sound and I will go to the ends of the earth with you if you ask me to.’

‘What of your father?’

‘He can plot and plan all he likes, but he cannot make me marry anyone if I refuse, and I promise you with all my heart that I will only ever marry for love, and my love is you, my darling, Finn.’

Finn kissed Gabrielle that day when they parted, but though it was on the lips it was a chaste kiss. His desire for Gabrielle was mounting daily but he knew that he had to proceed carefully. She was pure and innocent, and totally without any sexual experience. He was convinced of her love for him, though, and that was all that mattered. As long as he was stationed in St-Omer, he would let nothing come between them.

Finn had reckoned without the weather. The next day was the first of November and it arrived with torrential rain that fell in sheets day after day, driven by bone-chilling, gusty winds. Eventually, the camp field resembled a quagmire, the air they breathed seemed moisture-laden, the beds were damp and all the men found it hard to sleep deeply, however tired they were. Everyone was in low spirits, worn down by the constant grey skies, the steadfast drip, drip, drip of the relentless rain and the raging wind that hurled itself at anyone who stepped out of the minimal shelter of the drenched and billowing tents.

Those like Finn and Christy, who worked in the Headquarters all day, were considered the lucky ones. Never was Finn so glad of his greatcoat, though it was usually sodden each morning by the time he got to the Headquarters, and he would leave it steaming before the fire he made up for Captain Hamilton.

The first Sunday of November passed and then the second. Finn was desperate to see Gabrielle again though he didn’t know how it was to be achieved. It was torturous now when he went into the bakery, or caught sight of her at Mass.

The third Sunday loomed with no solution, and he knew that as the winter really took hold, the weather would probably get considerably worse before it got any better. It might be weeks before he could see Gabrielle. In fact he could be marched away before he got the chance at all. He knew he would go clean mad if that happened

Christy knew what was eating him and coming upon him one evening in the mess tent, staring miserably at a mug of tea, he said, ‘You’re mad if you have developed more than a mere fondness for Gabrielle. You’re a soldier, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I know that,’ Finn spat out. ‘I know it’s not sensible, but it just happened. And now with this bloody weather I don’t know if I will ever see her again. We need somewhere where we can be alone.’

‘Oh, is that all?’ Christy said sarcastically. ‘Ten a penny, places like that are around here.’

Finn’s eyes blazed. ‘Bugger off, Christy!’ he yelled, leaping to his feet.

‘Now where are you going?’

‘For a walk,’ Finn snapped. ‘On my own.’

‘It’s dark, man.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m not afraid of it,’ Finn said, pushing off Christy’s restraining arms, and he set off into the night.

It was like pitch, for the rain had eased to a drizzle that ensured there was no moon to light his way. Sounds from the camp trailed after him, growing fainter as he turned away from that and plunged into the darkness.

His eyes did adjust slightly, but not enough to stop him slipping in the mud underfoot. He heard the ground sucking at his boots as he slurped and slopped his way through thick and glutinous slurry, or slid into quagmires where he nearly lost his boot on more than one occasion. He went doggedly on, however, knowing that he needed no company that night and especially not people trying to cheer him up.

In the end, though, he was thoroughly chilled, wet through and more miserable than he had ever felt in his life before, and he decided to go back. And then, in front of him, rising out of the darkness he saw a building. He didn’t recognise it, but he decided to investigate and he made his way over cautiously.

It was built in a hollow, which he didn’t see in the dark night and he nearly went head over heels as he approached. He didn’t know whether the place was occupied or not. It could well be, and the people in bed. He lit one of the matches he kept in the inside pocket of his tunic and by its light could see the building was very dilapidated. But that signified nothing, he thought as the match burned down to his fingers and he dropped it. He crept around the sides until he came to the front door.

There was no sign of life at all, no irate farmer appeared to challenge him and no dog erupted barking from the barns. He risked another match and in its light he saw the single-storey building had a sort of battered, neglected look about it. The door was slightly open and hanging on one set of hinges, and Finn knew the place was deserted.

Another match showed him that the odd dark shapes in front of the house were trees, and past those he saw there was a wooden bridge over the canal, which ran by the side of the house. He wanted to jump for joy because he had found the perfect place for him to bring Gabrielle.

He turned and made for the camp as quickly as he could. He would say nothing to her until he had looked inside the house and he intended to do that as soon as possible.

That night Finn hardly slept and he was up hours before the bugle call. Everyone else slumbered on as he struggled into his damp clothes. This time he took a torch, for it was still dark.

He went quicker with the torch playing before him, but still the house was a fair way from the camp.

He pushed aside the ill-fitting door, stepped inside. He was not surprised to see the whole place was dust-laden and festooned with cobwebs, nor was he surprised to hear rats scuttling away. The air smelled musty and sour, but there was no sign of the roof leaking. He crossed to the fireplace. There were ashes in the grate and even kerosene in the lamp on the mantelshelf above it.

All right, he thought, so it isn’t a palace; it is in fact a very Spartan house, but it has four walls, a roof, and a grate where I could light a fire.

There was plenty of wood around that he could use. He would clean the place up before he let Gabrielle see it and light a fire to warm the place. He began making plans in his head. He was sure that he could wedge the door shut, and the one window, though filthy dirty, was unbroken. He would bring blankets from his own bed to cover the battered sofa and they would be totally alone for the first time.

His limbs shook at that thought and he told himself that he was no marauding beast and that just because they would be alone there was no reason to forget himself and take advantage of his beloved Gabrielle. Just to hold her in his arms properly would be enough. A thrill of excitement ran through him and he was whistling as he returned to the camp.

FOUR

Gabrielle too had been trying to think of a way that she could meet Finn secretly, but her mind drew a blank, particularly while the weather remained so foul. She knew too that even if the rain eased off, winter was setting in and if she suggested going for a walk in the freezing cold, or with snow underfoot, even her mother might be suspicious for her need to be outdoors.

It wasn’t fair to drag Yvette out with her either. She couldn’t see any way around the problem and she began to dread seeing Finn come into the shop, or glimpse him at Mass, because to see him and not be able to communicate with him in any way was terribly hard for her.

The day after Finn had checked out the farmhouse Captain Hamilton sent him to the baker’s shop again. Gabrielle was alone because her mother had been struck down with her chronic indigestion and had gone to bed. Finn, looking through the shop window, decided to risk Hamilton’s anger at his tardiness and he hung about outside until the last customer left.

Gabrielle’s eyes leaped at the sight of him and he was by her side in seconds.

‘Where’s your mother?’ he whispered urgently.

‘In bed with her old stomach problem,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Oh, Finn, how I have longed to see you.’

‘And I you, darling,’ Finn said. ‘But we might have little time to talk and the point is I have found a place we can go.’

‘Where?’ Gabrielle cried incredulously.

‘Ssh,’ Finn cautioned. He explained where the house was and the condition of it, then went on, ‘It’s far enough away from the camp to be undiscovered. Most of the service men go straight into town and not over a muddy field. It has a little copse in front of it, which means a ready supply of wood for the fire and even a plank over the canal.’

‘I know where it is,’ Gabrielle said, remembering back to a time before the war. ‘That place belonged to a taciturn old man called Bernard Reynaud. He was hardly ever seen in the town and he seemed to have no family. He died in the winter of 1913, and when war was declared the land was commandeered by the army. I’m surprised that the farmhouse is still standing.’

‘We could meet there after you are supposed to be in bed at night,’ Finn said.

Gabrielle didn’t hesitate. Her need to see Finn was greater than respectability, or even caution. ‘To get out unseen and unheard,’ she said, ‘I will have to climb down the tree.’

‘Would you be prepared to do that?’ Finn asked. ‘Wouldn’t you be frightened?’

‘I would go to the ends of the earth for you,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I thought you knew that. I will probably be a little afraid, but I would still do it if you are there to help me,’

Finn suddenly noticed a man studying the bakery shop window and he said quickly, ‘Of course I’ll be there to help you. I’ll be in the yard by the tree tonight at half-past nine.’

He was halfway back to Headquarters when he realised that he had forgotten to buy the bread and pastries he had been sent for and had to return for them. By then, though, the shop was crowded and he had no opportunity to say anything further to Gabrielle. But what do I care? he thought. I have tonight to look forward to.

Gabrielle had no chance to speak to her sister privately until they reached their bedroom that same evening and then she told her quickly about Finn’s earlier visit to the shop and the deserted farmhouse that he had found. Yvette was excited at the news initially, but then thoroughly alarmed when Gabrielle told her that she was meeting him that night and climbing down the beech tree outside their window to do so.

‘It is the only way,’ she told Yvette, seeing the worried look on her sister’s face. ‘If I tried to creep down the stairs I would be heard, you know that.’

‘But you can’t climb down a tree,’ Yvette cried. ‘And what if Papa finds out?’

‘He won’t,’ Gabrielle said confidently. ‘They sleep on the other side of the house.’

Yvette crossed to the window and looked out. ‘It’s an awfully long way down.’

‘I have climbed into that tree before,’ Gabrielle said. ‘On summer nights, when I am too hot to sleep, I will often sit out in the top branches, but I always waited until you were asleep before I did that.’

‘Yes, but I bet you have never climbed all the way down, and in the dark.’

‘No I haven’t,’ Gabrielle admitted. ‘And I won’t do it now until I hear Finn arrive in the yard below. One day you will probably meet a boy or man that you will love with all your heart and soul, and if you were kept from him, you’d feel that your life was not worth living.’

‘I can’t ever imagine my life not worth living,’ Yvette said. ‘Is that how you feel about Finn?’

‘Yes, Yvette, it is,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And remember, Finn is a soldier. Any day he could be snatched away. We must take any chance we can to be together.’

Yvette sighed. ‘I can see that you have no alternative, but you needn’t worry: even if I don’t like what you’re doing, I’ll never betray you.’

‘I know that. You are a lovely little sister and if Papa ever finds out, you must deny all knowledge and I’ll back you up.’

Before Yvette was able to reply they heard the sound of feet on the gravel in the yard below and a low whistle.

Gabrielle tied her cape around her waist, opened the window and shivered as the cold night air tumbled in.

‘Au revoir, Yvette,’ she said as she swung her legs over the sill and, catching hold of the branches, pulled herself into the tree. There was no moon or stars visible through those thick, rain-filled clouds, but the light from the bedroom lit the top of the tree and the heavy beam of Finn’s army-issue torch illuminated the lower branches.

In a moment Gabrielle was down and in Finn’s arms, and kissing him hungrily.

Though their need for each other was great, Gabrielle and Finn knew better than to linger or make any sound in the yard. They stopped only long enough for Gabrielle to rearrange her clothes and put on her cape, and then they were away, stealing through the darkened streets of St-Omer.

Yvette sighed again and closed the window, but did not fasten it so that Gabrielle could open it when she returned. Then she surveyed the room critically. Gabrielle’s bed was so obviously empty; should their mother peep in on them, as she very occasionally did, she would see that immediately.

So Yvette made a mound of clothes in Gabrielle’s bed, shaped just as if she was in it. And if she pretended to be asleep too then she didn’t think her mother would risk rousing them by taking the lamp further into the room. Yvette undressed and got into bed, but though she snuffed out the lamp she intended to stay awake until Gabrielle returned.

Finn and Gabrielle took the back roads and alleys through the town to avoid meeting people. They longed to scurry along quickly, but held back, their senses alert to any noise that would mean they should hide themselves.

However, they reached Rue Therouanna, at the very end of town, without incident. At the bottom of the road the canal was in front of them.

As they walked the deserted banks, leaving the town further behind, Finn thought they were far enough away from being overheard to whisper to Gabrielle, ‘It’s just a little further to the bridge and it comes out by the little copse of trees near the house. Take care how you cross because it’s a bit rickety.’

When Gabrielle saw the bridge, it had obviously seen better days she thought it safe enough, and the two of them crossed with no trouble. In the shelter of the trees, Finn put his arms around Gabrielle and she leaned against him with a sigh.

‘You’re shivering,’ he said. ‘Are you cold?’

‘No, said Gabrielle, not really cold. I think I’m shivering with excitement.’

‘Come on then,’ Finn said. ‘Let’s go. My insides are churning too. Good job I’ve got such a powerful torch. The ground is boggy and the potholes are filled with icy water.’

‘I’ve brought a torch too.’

‘Keep it safe for later,’ Finn advised. ‘Mine is probably more powerful and using one will give me an excuse to hold you closer.’

‘Ah, yes, please,’ Gabrielle laughed and she snuggled so close against Finn that he could feel her heart thudding.

Gabrielle was quite enchanted at the cosiness of the house. A bright fire was burning in the grate, the place was lit by the kerosene lamp and Finn had a grey army-issue blanket over the sofa.

‘Oh, Finn,’ she exclaimed, ‘I never expected it to be so nice!’

‘I have cleaned it up a bit,’ Finn admitted. ‘Take off your cape and let us sit by the fire. I so desperately want to kiss you.’

Gabrielle knew that by creeping out of the house to meet a man, let alone allowing that man to hold and kiss her, was very wicked and if she was found out she would be beyond the bounds of respectable society. And yet she had agreed to come with Finn to this lonely farmhouse because she loved him so much she was prepared to risk everything and she gave herself over to the excitement she felt when Finn’s lips met hers.

She didn’t know that the feelings running through her body were the awaking of her sexuality. In fact, the only thing she was sure of was that she loved and trusted Finn. He said he would never hurt her and she believed him.

Finn didn’t kiss her properly, fearing that it might frighten her. When he eventually pulled away before he forgot himself completely, Gabrielle groaned in disappointment, for she had wanted the kiss to go on and on.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ she said to Finn later as she lay in his arms. ‘You know about my life and I need to know about yours.’

‘Not that much to tell, to be honest,’ Finn said. ‘My life up until now has been anything but exciting.’

‘You said before that you were from Ireland.’ Gabrielle said, ‘What’s Ireland like? Did you have a farm?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Finn, and he told Gabrielle about the little cottage on the farm in Buncrana, County Donegal, where he had been born and raised. ‘As for Ireland, I can’t describe it all to you, but just the place where I was born,’ he went on. ‘Donegal is totally different countryside from this. It’s far more hilly—mountainous even, in places. The hills of Donegal are famous. People write poems and songs about them and until the day I marched away with the army I had never left it.’

‘That’s how it is, though, isn’t it?’ Gabrielle said. ‘You never leave the place of your birth in the normal way of things. I have never left St-Omer because I have never had any reason to.’

‘Have you never wondered what is beyond the town? Wanted to find out, explore?’

Gabrielle shook her head. ‘No, not really.’ Then she added, ‘I have an aunt in Paris whom I wouldn’t mind visiting. She is lovely, and promised me that when I was older I could stay with her for a holiday. She has suggested it a few times but my father has always refused.’

‘Why?’

‘He said my help was needed in the shop.’

‘Is it?’

‘Sometimes, when Maman is ill,’ Gabrielle admitted. ‘She can do little then, but my life will probably get easier when Yvette leaves school in the spring, when she will be fourteen. Apart from that I have never had any desire to go anywhere.’

‘Oh, I always wanted to find out about other places,’ Finn said. ‘I used to become irritated with my brothers sometimes, especially Tom. Though I suppose as the farm will be all his one day he has reason enough to be contented.’

‘Have many brothers have you?’

‘Two,’ Finn said. ‘Tom is the eldest and Joe is two years younger. When I was small they used to play Irish music. Tom played a violin, though we used to call it a fiddle, and Joe would play a tin whistle.’

‘What sort of music was it?’

‘Most of it was jolly enough stuff,’ Finn said, ‘tunes that have been performed for years, and my sister Aggie would dance.’

‘You have a sister too?’

‘I had two sisters,’ Finn said, ‘but the elder, Aggie was a fine dancer. Everyone said it and she was at it every spare minute.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Tom said he wouldn’t be surprised if she danced in her sleep.’

‘It all sounds so nice,’ Gabrielle smiled.

‘It was,’ Finn admitted. ‘I was sorry when it all stopped. I would hear the music through the walls when I was in bed, and the slap of Aggie’s feet on the floor.’

‘Why did it stop?’

‘Oh, that’s a long story,’ Finn said. ‘I mustn’t keep you long from your bed either because you have to get up early and my bugle call is earlier still.’

‘You mean we must go home already?’

‘Not quite,’ Finn said. ‘I haven’t been kissed enough to satisfy. And remember, my darling love, this isn’t just one stolen moment. We can come here as often as we like, though I work with a company of soldiers who would think it mighty odd if I was to disappear every night and not tell anyone where I was going, and suspicion is something that we must not raise in anyone’s mind.’

‘Oh, but—’

‘Gabrielle, listen to me,’ Finn pleaded. ‘You are so protected that you may not be aware of this, but the town is far more crowded on Friday and Saturday evenings.’

Gabrielle nodded. ‘My father goes out on Saturday evening.’

‘There you are then,’ Finn said. ‘And Friday night is just as busy. All my fellow soldiers go into town on those nights, unless they are on duty, and many locals are abroad too. It’s too risky to come here then. We could easily be spotted by someone.’

‘And tomorrow is Friday,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I will miss you.’

‘I will miss you too,’ Finn smiled. ‘But we must be careful. ‘Dream about Sunday, when we will make for here again and I will kiss you until you are breathless.’

‘Maybe we should practise that?’ Gabrielle said coquettishly.

Finn gave a gurgle of laughter as he gathered Gabrielle into his arms and wondered if a person could die through sheer happiness.

‘So, where did you slope off to last night?’ Christy asked Finn the next morning as they made their way to work.

‘That’s my business.’

‘Come on, Finn. I thought we were supposed to be mates.’

‘We are,’ Finn said. ‘Me wanting to keep certain things to myself doesn’t alter that. Let’s just say that I had bigger fish to fry last night.’

Christy looked at him in astonishment. ‘That sounds like you have found yourself a woman.’

‘Well, what if I have?’

‘You’re a bloody quick worker, that’s all I can say. For weeks you went round snapping the head off everyone because of some devotion to Gabrielle Jobert.’

‘And you thought I was crazy and told me so.’

‘I did,’ Christy said. ‘I’m glad that you have come to your senses. I don’t suppose that this new woman of yours has got any sisters or friends that you could introduce me to?’

‘I’m not introducing you to anyone,’ Finn said. ‘Get your own woman, like I did.’

‘Well, that’s a mate for you,’ Christy said, slightly affronted. ‘Anyone decent would take pity on me and put in a word.’

‘Good job then that I don’t consider myself the decent sort.’

‘What’s her name then?’

‘That really is my business,’ Finn said, as they went up the steps of the Headquarters. ‘Anyway, we’re here now. See you tonight.’

Finn was glad that, without him having to say much, his friend had jumped to the wrong conclusion about the girl that he was seeing, as Captain Hamilton had.

The captain was glad to see a smile on Finn’s face for once. ‘Good God, man,’ he said, ‘I thought your face was set in that glum expression you’ve carried around for weeks now.’

Finn had a large grin on his face as he said, ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

‘You don’t look in the slightest bit sorry,’ the captain said with a smile. ‘Did the constant rain get you down too?’

‘A bit, sir. Sometimes the clothes I put on each morning were not what you might call bone dry, and that sort of starts the day off all wrong.’

‘All well,’ the captain said, ‘the weather is the one thing that none of us can do the slightest thing about. Now, tonight I am going to a dinner with the top brass. Between you and me, something big is afoot. Anyway my dress uniform must be spotless.’

‘I’ll deal with that directly, sir,’ Finn said. ‘By the time I have finished you will be the best dressed man there, sir.’

Christy had lost no time in telling the whole camp that Finn Sullivan was seeing a girl from the town. Consequently, Finn came in for a fair bit of teasing, because he was one who had spurned the camp followers and now the dirty sod was having it away with some French piece.

‘What’s she like?’ one of Finn’s comrades asked. ‘I’ve heard these little French damsels like a little bit of the altogether.’

Finn could hardly blame him for thinking that way. He himself had thought the French girls ripe for sex. However, he had found that most of the ordinary girls in St-Omer seemed very like the ones in his home town, and just as hidebound by the Catholic Church. But he was not going to share details of his love life with his jeering fellow soldiers, though he did say, ‘You are altogether too anxious to get your leg over and the girls sense that. No wonder few of them will give you the time of day.’

There were hoots and howls of derision at Finn’s words and another man called out, ‘Now he is going to try and have us believe that all he does with his little French number is hold hands.’

Finn hid his smile for he had done little else. He knew that holding a girl in his arms and kissing her luscious lips would be considered incredibly tame by his comrades. However, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Gabrielle and so, whatever it cost him, he would respect her until he placed that very special ring on her finger. But he said none of this, and he bore the ribaldry directed his way.

Eventually, they tired of it, as he knew they would, and then he remarked quietly to Christy, ‘Do you fancy doing something together this evening?’

Christy eyed him speculatively. ‘Haven’t you got bigger fish to fry tonight?’

‘No.’

‘Had words, have you?’

‘No, we haven’t had words,’ Finn said. ‘Her parents don’t want her to go out at the weekends because there are too many marauding soldiers about.’

‘Funny then that they let her go out with you.’

‘Maybe they think that I am not the marauding type,’ Finn said.

Christy gave a wry chuckle. ‘If they really believe that, then I think they must be truly stupid, for you’re as lusty as any other man.’

Finn laughed and he clapped Christy on the back. ‘No change there then. So do you want to go out with this lustful man this evening or don’t you?’

Christy put his head on one side as if considering the proposal, then said, ‘D’you know, I don’t mind if I do.’

Finn did, however, tell at least something of his relationship with Gabrielle in his letter to his brothers, which provoked much interest and speculation between Tom and Joe.

I have to tell you both, I have met the most wonderful girl and her name is Gabrielle. She is the most beautiful girl in the whole world. She isn’t a camp follower, I don’t want you to think that, but a respectable girl from a decent Catholic family in the town. I saw her and her younger sister, Yvette, walking through the town with their father a few weeks ago. He hardly lets the two girls out of his sight and I can’t say I blame him, with the place teeming with soldiers, but I did manage to sneak a word with her and we are in love and I can’t tell you how happy I am.

‘Well, well, well,’ Joe said, folding up the letter and handing it back to Tom. ‘I thought that the purpose of our young brother going to France was to fight the Hun, not try and bed every girl in the whole country.’

‘He has never said he loved anyone before.’

‘You know what?’ Joe said. ‘All that means is that this Gabrielle has held out longer than the others.’

‘You think that’s all it is?’

‘Don’t you?’ Joe said. ‘He’s a boy. What does he know of love?’

‘Huh! What do any of us?’

‘Well, that’s true, I suppose,’ Joe conceded. ‘I expect you know when it hits you. But you need to have more experience than Finn.’

Tom laughed. ‘To judge from his letters he has had more experience than both you and me together.’

‘I still don’t see where he has the time,’ Joe grumbled.

‘Well, they have free time sometimes.’

‘In the middle of a battle? It isn’t a matter of saying to the advancing German armies, “Hold your hand, chaps, while I have a quick dalliance with a French damsel.”’

‘Sure this isn’t just sour grapes?’ Tom asked.

Joe sighed. ‘You know. Tom, you could be right. Don’t get me wrong. I know war is a serious business and I do miss Finn and worry about him, and I know he can tell us very few details, but he does seem to be leading the life of Riley at the moment.’

Nuala knew that her brother was in love, because in his letter to her he had poured out his heart, knowing that she wouldn’t laugh at him. She would be sixteen in the spring of 1916 and it thrilled her that her brother Finn, who she loved dearly, was beginning his very own love story.

She guessed he would not have said face to face what he committed to paper, for he spoke about his limbs trembling when he was near Gabrielle, the way his heart turned over when she smiled at him and the tingle that ran between them when they held hands. Her romantic soul drank it in eagerly and she wrote a supportive letter back to him.

Nuala would have liked to have discussed Finn’s letter and his declaration of love for Gabrielle with her brothers. She wouldn’t have divulged all the romantic things that she guessed were for her eyes only, but it was difficult to talk to them about anything without her mother hearing and it would never do for her to learn about Finn’s romance. That would be the very last thing Finn would want.

It wasn’t that they never talked of Finn; sometimes Nuala thought they talked of little else, for her mother would almost dissect every word he wrote to her and they would talk about him as a happy young child. They remembered that he usually went about the place with a smile on his face and his laughter often used to echo around the yard.

‘He would talk nonstop sometimes,’ Thomas John said one night. ‘And plague me to death with questions wanting to know the whys and wherefores of every damned thing. I would often tell him to stop his blether and give me some peace, but what I’d give now to hear him chuntering away.’

They all knew what Thomas John meant. They missed Finn and when he had been gone some months Thomas John began to look forward to the end of the war and Finn coming home. He’d say things like, ‘When Finn is back where he belongs, I’ll look to getting a few more cows.’ Or, ‘When the lad’s back home, I’ve a mind to till that top field that’s lying fallow just now.’

The end of the war seemed as far away as ever as 1915 drew to a close. Finn and Gabrielle’s lovemaking grew more ardent as the days and then weeks passed. If they met in the park, they were as respectable as they had been in the beginning. It was different in the confines of the farmhouse though December was halfway through before Finn kissed Gabrielle properly.

She was astounded at first, and quite perturbed by the strange yearnings coursing through her body and the moan she let slip. When she felt Finn feeling her clothed body, it felt so right, so good that she let him continue.

Afterwards, in her bed, she remembered what Finn had done and how it had made her feel, and she grew hot with shame. Yet she knew she would do it all again, for when she was with him all form of reason, even what was wrong or right, didn’t seem to matter any more. Further than this, though, Finn refused to go. He was more experienced than Gabrielle and knew just how easy it was to lose control, but he was aware that it got more difficult and frustrating every time he pulled away.

Finn often talked of his family and Gabrielle loved hearing of them all.

One night, as they snuggled together, Gabrielle said, ‘You told me all about your sister Aggie a while ago. You said everyone had a good time with the music and everything. Why did it stop?’

‘Well,’ said Finn, ‘that was a mystery and a half. You see, one day Aggie just disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Aye,’ Finn said. ‘She was fifteen and they say she ran away with the gypsies. I was only five and I was scared of gypsies for some time after that. But as I grew up, I was less and less sure, because it would be such an odd thing for her to do. Tom never believed that story either, and he and Aggie were close. Not that we could talk about it openly, because our mother disowned her and we were forbidden to speak her name, but I would sometimes hear my brothers talking about her when they didn’t know I was there.’

‘So what do you think did happen to her?’

Finn shook his head. ‘I don’t know, and likely never will.’

‘That is awful,’ Gabrielle said. ‘She was only two years younger than I am now, and to just disappear like that…’

‘I know,’ Finn said. ‘I remember the Guards coming and all, and no trace could be found of her. The point was she had nowhere to go. She had apparently taken clothes, not that any of us had many, but she had no money at all.’

‘What a terribly sad story.’

‘Aye,’ Finn said. ‘Aggie brought me up nearly as much as my mother did and was very much nicer and kinder altogether, and I remember crying for days. I kept getting into trouble because I kept forgetting we weren’t supposed to mention her name.’

‘But you were only a little boy.’

‘That didn’t matter to my mother,’ Finn said. ‘She used to fly into the most terrifying rages. I tell you, Gabrielle, they would scare the stoutest of hearts. We are all scared of her, Tom most of all, and she has a cane hanging up by the fire that we have felt the sting of. She beat me with it one day when I mentioned Aggies’s name by mistake, but my father put a stop to it when he found out.’

‘So he was kinder?’

Finn considered this. ‘I suppose,’ he said at last. ‘Fairer, maybe. He is the only one Mammy listens to, but except for Nuala, hugs and kisses were just never part of our growing up.’

‘No, they wouldn’t have been in mine if my father had had his way,’ Gabrielle said. ‘But in that at least my mother defied him. My life seems so dull in comparison to yours, though. Is that the end of the story?’

‘Almost,’ Finn said. ‘In Ireland many people can make a story out of nothing and memories are kept alive by being spoken about from one to another, often for years. Aggie’s disappearance, though, and the speculation surrounding it was overshadowed, because only a few days afterwards, a man called McAllister, who taught the boys to play the tunes and the girls the dancing, was found dead.’

‘Was that a mystery too?’

‘No,’ Finn said. ‘He was apparently thrown from his horse. It was spoken about and discussed, and was quite the news for a while.’

‘What of your other sister?’ Gabrielle asked. ‘The one you said got all the hugs and kisses. Is there a story about her too?’

‘Not much of a one,’ said Finn, smiling at the thought of Nuala. ‘Maybe because she is the youngest my parents spoiled her terribly. She is four years younger than me and pretty as a picture and, despite my parents, she has a lovely nature. She is nursemaid to the children of the big Protestant family beside us and loving every minute of it.’ He looked at Gabrielle and smiled. ‘She knows all about you, for I write and tell her, and I would love you to meet her.’

‘I would like to meet them all,’ Gabrielle said.

‘And so you shall, my darling,’ Finn said. ‘Just as soon as the war is over, I am out of the army and the world is a safer place.’

FIVE

Gabrielle’s Parisian relatives were coming to spend the festive season with the Joberts, as they had done many times before.

‘They are nice,’ Gabrielle told Finn. ‘Really nice. Uncle Raoul is a dear, and Aunt Bernadette is such fun. She’s always up to the minute with fashion though she is older than Maman.’

‘When are they due to arrive?’

‘Christmas Eve,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And they usually stay until New Year. The thing is, it will be almost impossible to see you while they are here.’

‘Why?’ Finn cried.

‘Well, for one thing, my aunt thinks it’s quite monstrous that Yvette and I should be expected to go to bed at half-past eight in the evening. It doesn’t happen when she is here, because she always says she wants to see more of her nieces, and after the evening meal we all sit and talk or even play games. Anyway, I couldn’t risk my slipping out because the guest bedroom is on the same side of the house as our room, and Aunt Bernadette is always saying what a light sleeper she is.’

Finn resigned himself to not seeing Gabrielle for the rest of the year, but he tried to keep any resentment out of his voice or his manner; it wasn’t Gabrielle’s fault.

He’d bought her a silver locket for Christmas. It had cost him a great deal of money, especially as he had had it engraved ‘F loves G Christmas 1915’. He had no photograph to put in it so instead enclosed a lock of his hair, and he gave it to Gabrielle as they sat on the sofa in front of the fire in the farmhouse the evening before Christmas Eve.

She was surprised and enchanted with her present. It was beautiful and she knew Finn must have had to save up for it because soldiers were not highly paid.

‘Don’t worry about the cost of it,’ Finn said when she expressed concern about him spending so much. ‘That’s not how to receive a present. You are worth more than fifty thousand lockets, and if I had the means I would shower you with jewellery.’

Gabrielle smiled. ‘I should not want that. I am content with this locket bought with such love. Thank you so much. I will wear it beneath my clothes always,’ she promised as Finn fastened the chain around her neck. ‘It will lie against my heart. I am only so sorry that I have nothing to give you in return.’

‘You don’t give a present to expect one back,’ Finn said. ‘Just thinking of you wearing the locket is present enough for me. It will remind you of me when I am gone from this place.’

‘I don’t like to think of that time,’ Gabrielle said, her voice forlorn. ‘I know one day it will come, but when it does I shall have no need of any locket to remind me of you. You are ingrained in my heart and you will take a sizeable piece of it when you leave. Have you any idea when it will be?’

‘Nothing official,’ Finn said. ‘They don’t tell soldiers useful things like that, but I am concerned for you because you told me that your father would want a good marriage for you and your sister because he has no sons.’

‘It is not my fault that my father has no sons,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And I told you already that I would only ever marry for love, and the only man I love is you.’

‘It might be ages before I am able to return for you,’ Finn told her. ‘Years even, because there’s no time limit on war.’

‘I will wait for you for however long it takes,’ Gabrielle said simply. ‘I love you with all my heart and soul, and that will never change.’

Finn felt a lump rise in his throat. He took Gabrielle into his arms and when she snuggled tight against him he felt that his heart would burst for love of this beautiful girl. When his tongue slid into her mouth between her opened lips, he heard her gasp of pleasure. He let his tongue dart backwards and forwards until Gabrielle was unable to stop herself groaning in desire.

That night, maybe the thought they wouldn’t see each other for days, or the gift of the locket and their declaration of their love for one another, conspired to make Gabrielle ready for more. Finn could feel it in every line of her body. When he began stroking her clothed body she moaned with the sheer pleasure of his touch. He began to open the buttons on her blouse, thinking any moment that she would stop him, but instead she helped him. He slipped his trembling hands inside and when he cupped his hands around her plump, firm breasts for the first time she gave a sigh of contentment.

Finn felt as if he was on fire, and when Gabrielle arched her back to make it easier for him to reach every part of her, he knew that she was ready. He could take her here and she would do nothing to stop him.

But how could he do that to the woman he loved and then leave her unprotected and unsupported? The effort it took for Finn to pull back was immense, especially when Gabrielle clung on to him.

‘Stop, Gabrielle!’ he cried, disentangling himself with difficulty.

‘I don’t want to stop.’

Finn sighed. ‘Neither do I,’ he admitted.

‘Then…’

‘Gabrielle, you don’t know what you’re saying.’ Finn said. He pulled away from her slightly; to touch her again now would be madness. ‘I love you and desire you so much and yet I know I must show you respect because I can offer you nothing. But if we go on with this much longer, then there will come a point when I will be unable to stop. Do you understand what I am telling you, Gabrielle?’

‘I think so,’ Gabrielle said, but really she was ignorant of the sexual act and only knew that she had thoroughly enjoyed what Finn had been doing to her and had wanted it to go on much longer.

Finn saw her confused face and suppressed a smile as he leaped to his feet and pulled her up with him. ‘Come on,’ he said, as he fastened her blouse. ‘Let’s get you home before I forget all about my principles and ravish you totally.’

Gabrielle wasn’t sure what ravish meant, but she was sure that she wouldn’t mind if it was Finn doing it, and so she smiled demurely and said, ‘Yes, please,’ and Finn’s laughter rang around the room.

Despite missing Finn, Gabrielle enjoyed her aunt and uncle’s visit. The minute they stepped over the threshold, the air in the house seemed lighter. She couldn’t remember having a happier Christmas Day. What really made an impression on Gabrielle that year was the laughter around the table as they all tucked into a truly sumptuous meal, and the silly party games they played afterwards.

She realised, possibly for the first time, that pleasure wasn’t a sin and that life didn’t always have to be the austere, sterile one demanded by her father and followed blindly by her downtrodden mother. Her life would not be like that, she resolved. When I marry Finn our life together will be full of happiness. I shall see to it that it is.

She got ready for Mass the first Sunday after Christmas, knowing that, surrounded as she would be by her aunt and uncle as well as her parents, she would dare not even sneak a look at Finn. It had been the same on Christmas Day, and so she felt rather than saw the melancholy surrounding him, but could do nothing to ease it.

The following morning Gabrielle dressed to go into the shop, because never before had her father allowed the visit of her aunt and uncle to upset her work at all. She had no idea that her aunt had decided to try to do something about this.

Bernadette went straight into the bakery kitchen where Pierre was working. He looked up in surprise, for she had never done such a thing before.

‘Is anything the matter, Bernadette? he asked. ‘Are you all right?’

Bernadette was a carbon copy of his wife, Mariette, though her features were firmer somehow. She and Pierre had always got on well, so she smiled as she said, ‘I am perfectly well, thank you, Pierre. But I feel I do need to speak to you about your daughters.’

‘What about them?’

‘Well, the girls should be allowed to go into town sometimes,’ Bernadette said. ‘What can happen to them in their own town in broad daylight?’

‘You don’t know the worry of trying to rear daughters decently these days,’ Pierre said morosely. ‘More especially now that the town is teeming with soldiers and some of the girls’ morals very lax because of it. Anyway, Gabrielle has her duties in the shop and Yvette is at school all day.’

‘Ah, that is something else I need to talk to you about,’ Bernadette said. ‘Surely Gabrielle deserves time off sometimes, and isn’t Yvette on holiday now?’

‘Gabrielle’s help is needed,’ Pierre said doggedly.

‘Surely not all day and every day,’ Bernadette said. ‘While we are here at least, Raoul can give you a hand, and if Mariette would take a turn in the shop it would free Gabrielle for a few hours. The girls, and especially Gabrielle, need some fun in their lives.’

‘Life is not one long entertainment, Bernadette, whatever you think,’ Pierre growled, and his eyebrows puckered in annoyance. ‘And did you not hear me tell you about the soldiers?’

‘Of course I heard you,’ Bernadette said. ‘I would have to be deaf not to hear you, but do you really think that some soldier is going to leap on them as soon as they leave the shop, especially as they will be in my charge?’

‘No,’ Pierre had to admit. ‘I suppose if you were with them it might be all right.’

‘I would like their company,’ Bernadette said. ‘You don’t know how I envy your two fine girls like that.’

Pierre thought daughters were all very well, but sons would have done him far better. Bernadette and Raoul, however, had neither a chick nor child to call their own and he acknowledged that that must be hard.

‘All right,’ he said with a sigh. ‘You win. While you are here, Bernadette, Gabrielle will have lighter duties and you may take her out now and again, and Yvette too.’

‘Thank you, Pierre,’ said Bernadette. She thought it was a start at least, and she scurried off to tell the girls the news.

She found Gabrielle fully dressed, but still in the bedroom, sitting on the bed and staring fixedly out of the window. She was so preoccupied that Bernadette stood for a few moments on the threshold and Gabrielle was unaware of her. ‘Gabrielle,’ she said softly and then, as the girl turned towards her, she was staggered by the bleak look in her eyes before she recovered herself and replaced her sadness with a smile of welcome.

Bernadette told her what had transpired between her and Pierre. Even as she did so she wondered if Mariette or Pierre had ever really looked at their elder daughter. It was obvious to her aunt that the girl was burdened over something. Small wonder, Bernadette thought, when she was almost a prisoner in her own home.

Gabrielle wished that she could have confided in her aunt, but much as she loved her and her uncle Raoul, a large and jovial man, she knew she couldn’t. However, she was very pleased at the thought of time away from the shop and outings with her aunt, and she began to get ready while Bernadette went off to find Yvette.

Finn, of course, did not know this, so when the captain dispatched him for bread on Monday morning, he went eagerly. He thought if Gabrielle was alone he might manage a word or two with her at least. However, Gabrielle was nowhere to be seen, and though Finn hung about outside for as long as he dared, eventually he had to buy the captain’s loaves from her mother.

The next day was the same. But returning to the Headquarters, he spotted Gabrielle with her sister and a woman he presumed to be her aunt. They were ambling through the town, laughing and joking together, and looked as if they hadn’t a care in the world, while he felt as if his heart was breaking.

Captain Hamilton took one look at him when he returned and said, ‘Good God, man, what the hell’s the matter with you? You look as if you’ve lost a pound and found a penny.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘Tell you the truth, sir, I feel a bit like that.’

‘Woman troubles again, I suppose?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Finn said. ‘Sort of, anyway.’

‘Ah, well, no doubt it will resolve itself,’ the captain said. ‘And if it doesn’t, well, you’re not going to be here much longer so it will hardly matter.’

Although Finn had known that the day would come when he would leave St-Omer, he suddenly felt sick to the pit of his stomach. He didn’t expect to be told anything, but he asked, ‘Have you any news of when, sir?’

‘Nothing definite,’ the captain said. ‘I know that some units are moving out by the end of January. You won’t be going then, because you won’t move until we go, but I reckon we will all be left here by the spring.’

He caught sight of the woebegone look on Finn’s face at his words and he laughed. ‘Now what’s up with you?’ he demanded. ‘You knew it was only a matter of time until it came to this. You are here to fight a war, and while a carnal liaison with a young French maid is a great attraction, it must be no more than that for a soldier going to war. You don’t need me to tell you this, do you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well then, let’s have no more long faces and heartfelt sighs,’ the captain said. ‘You get on with the job you came to do and in this instance that means brewing me up some tea.’

‘Right away, sir,’ Finn said.

Finn tried, but his heart felt heavy, and at the turn of the year he looked forward to 1916 with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

Bernadette and Raoul were to return to Paris on Monday 3 January.

The day before, as they tucked into their large Sunday dinner after Mass, Bernadette said to Gabrielle, ‘If your parents are agreeable, how would you like to return to Paris with me and your uncle? We would love to have your company for a while.’

‘We would indeed,’ Raoul put in. ‘A pretty young woman about the house is just the thing for chasing away the winter blues.’

‘And you would see all the sights of Paris. What do you say?’

Before she had given her heart to a soldier that she loved and longed to see again with every thread of her being, Gabrielle would have thought she had died and gone to Heaven to receive such an offer, but now it was too late. She couldn’t leave. She honestly thought if she didn’t see Finn soon she would die of a broken heart.

She could see by her father’s heavily furrowed brow and his eyes full of indignation that he was seriously displeased by the bombshell that Bernadette had dropped and before she was able to voice any sort of opinion her father snapped out, ‘I would have thought it good manners, Bernadette, to discuss this with me and ask my permission, before voicing it in front of Gabrielle.’

‘It only occurred to Raoul and me as we walked home from Mass,’ Bernadette said. ‘Mariette had no objection and so I thought I would see what Gabrielle thinks about it. I have so enjoyed her company, and that of Yvette too, this holiday.’

‘And what do you think, my dear?’ Raoul said. ‘You haven’t said a word yet.’

Gabrielle knew that she had to be careful. To refuse this offer point-blank or show the slightest disinclination at all would probably evoke suspicion, as well as hurting the feelings of her aunt and uncle, and so she said carefully, ‘it is awfully kind of you and I would love to do this, but I feel my father would miss me in the shop just now. If my parents are agreeable I could perhaps go to Paris in the spring when the weather will be warmer. By then, Yvette will have left school and can take my place in the shop.’

‘I still don’t want my daughters being trailed across the country,’ Pierre said. ‘They are far better at home and then I rest easier in my bed. You must put this ridiculous notion out of your head.’

Mariette seldom argued with her husband—she was well used to his autocratic ways—but she had seen the disappointment flash across her sister’s face and so she said, ‘I don’t see how you can say the idea’s ridiculous, Pierre. Bernadette and Raoul will look after our daughter as if she was their own. And it would be good for the girl to see more of life before she settles down. I don’t see what harm it will do, though Gabrielle spoke good sense when she said that waiting until the spring would be better.’

Pierre was dumbfounded that his wife had questioned his authority.

‘Is a man not to be master in his own home now?’ he spluttered eventually.

‘Of course,’ Mariette said rather impatiently, ‘and I’m sure if you think this through you will see it is the best solution all round.’

Pierre looked around the table and saw them all ranged against him, though Gabrielle didn’t look as pleased as he thought she would. Maybe she didn’t want to get her hopes up in case he forbade the trip. However, he acknowledged that she was a good girl, she worked hard and had never given them a minute’s bother, and as long as Bernadette and Raoul looked after her like a hawk, he really couldn’t see what he had to worry about.

He thought too that it might bring the bloom back to Gabrielle’s cheeks because she had looked decidedly pasty for days. ‘All right,’ he said at last after the silence had stretched out between them. He looked at Bernadette and Raoul. ‘Gabrielle can visit you in Paris in the springtime and I trust that you will look after her well.’

‘You have my solemn word on that,’ Raoul said, and stood up to shake Pierre’s hand.

Bernadette and Raoul returned to Paris and Gabrielle took her place behind the counter in the shop. Finn was hardly able to believe the evidence of his own eyes when he saw her standing there. He felt as if his heart had actually stopped beating because he had wondered if Gabrielle’s love for him had waned. He approached hesitantly.

‘Hello, Gabrielle,’ he whispered and he raised his eyes and met her love-filled ones. The ache in his heart disappeared and was replaced by joy that seemed to fill every part of him. He needed no further words to know how Gabrielle still felt about him. It was written all over her face.

‘I couldn’t get away sooner,’ Gabrielle said. ‘But my uncle and aunt are gone now and so I could meet you this evening,’

‘Oh, yes, my darling. I can barely wait that long.’

‘Nor I.’ Gabrielle gave a gasp as Finn reached over and took her hands from the counter and kissed her fingers. Shafts of desire ran down her spine and she bit on her lip to suppress the groan.

‘Till tonight, my darling,’ Finn said, and Gabrielle hoped the hours would speed by until she could be in Finn’s arms again.

But they dragged as they do for anyone in such circumstances, and by the time the Joberts sat down to their evening meal, she was on tenterhooks. She was unable to eat, for she wasn’t hungry for food.

‘Are you upset because your aunt and uncle are gone?’ Mariette asked.

‘Not really,’ Gabrielle said.

‘Well, something is wrong with you,’ Pierre said. ‘For you have been unable to settle all day.’

Gabrielle was desperate to get away from her parents and their watchful eyes and so she said, ‘I am just so tired. I’m not used to late hours and I am feeling very weary. I think I will seek my bed before long.’

‘You do right, if that is how you feel,’ Pierre said. ‘Bed is surely the place for tired people, and I will probably do the same thing myself soon.’

Gabrielle, though, wasn’t in the least bit tired. She had never felt more awake. She lay on the bed and tried to wait patiently until it was time to climb down the tree into her beloved’s arms.

‘You’re meeting Finn tonight, aren’t you?’ Yvette said when she came up to bed not long after Gabrielle.

Gabrielle nodded. ‘Is it so obvious?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘Even Papa noticed.’

‘I can’t help it,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I haven’t seen Finn alone for ten days.’

Yvette asked, ‘What are you going to do when he leaves, because he can’t stay here for ever?’

‘I truly don’t know,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I suppose I will cope as well as anyone else if I have to.’

Yvette doubted that. She remembered her sister’s behaviour throughout the festive period and that it had been tempered slightly only because of the presence of her aunt and uncle. But it was a problem that Gabrielle had to deal with on her own and so Yvette said nothing more.

As usual, Finn was waiting for her beneath the tree, his arms outstretched, and she snuggled into them. As they kissed Finn felt Gabrielle’s body yielding against his and he felt himself harden as his own desire rose. Eventually he pulled away from her and as they began walking through the alleyways of the town, he knew he would have to be very strong that night—maybe strong enough for both of them if he wanted to protect Gabrielle.

To take his mind off his own emotions he asked her about her uncle and aunt, and their visit.

‘Ooh, it was lovely,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Their visits before were sometimes curtailed because Uncle Raoul was busy running his business in Paris, but he sold that last year. He has a weak heart and said he wasn’t killing himself for a business that would die with him anyway.’

‘Have they no children to hand it on to?’

‘No,’ Gabrielle said. ‘That’s why they think so much of Yvette and me. I do love them very much, but all through their visit all I could think of was how much I was missing you. As I said, Aunt Bernadette said that it was ridiculous for us to be sent to bed at eight thirty, but if my father didn’t insist on that, then I would never have been able to sneak out and see you at all.’

‘No, that’s true enough,’ Finn agreed. ‘The way he goes on, though, is not fair to you. You go nowhere. Even back home in Buncrana, my brother Joe and I used to go to the socials run by the Church on a Saturday evening. Mind you,’ he said, with a rueful grin, ‘I had to fight for the right to do that. Mammy couldn’t believe that I wanted to go when I turned sixteen. But sometimes you have to fight for what you want in this life. I told my young sister the same, for she used to sway like the wind, do whatever Mammy wanted. She stood against her too in the end, because she wanted to be nursemaid to the people in the Big House.’

‘I never defy my father.’ Gabrielle said. ‘I do whatever he wants and so does everyone else in the house.’

‘That worries me a little,’ Finn admitted. ‘You have said that your father wants you to make a good marriage and I am afraid that—’

Gabrielle came to a sudden stop and, facing Finn, took his face between her hands. ‘Listen to me, Finn,’ she said. ‘I love you with all my heart and soul. My life is nothing without you and if I cannot have you then I will have no one.’

‘But if your father—’

‘If I ever felt that I couldn’t stand against my father, then I would go to my aunt and uncle in Paris,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I know they would help me.’

‘I saw you with your aunt in the town a couple of times.’ Finn said. ‘You looked so carefree.’

Gabrielle was a little irritated by what Finn said. ‘How shallow you must think me,’ she answered. ‘That carefreeness was an act I was putting on; to behave any other way would have been unkind to my aunt and uncle, and also would make my parents angry and suspicious.’ She looked at Finn and cried, ‘My throat was so constricted with love of you I could barely eat.’

‘You’re not crying?’ Finn said, appalled.

‘I’m trying not to,’ Gabrielle said brokenly. She gave a sigh and went on, ‘But I’m hurt that you could think so little of me.’

They had reached the farmhouse and Finn kicked the door open and pulled Gabrielle inside.

‘Oh, my darling, I’m so sorry,’ he said, unfastening Gabrielle’s cape as he spoke. He let it fall to the floor as he kissed the tears from her face. He couldn’t believe he had made his beloved cry and he didn’t know how he could make it up to her. He drew her towards the sofa before the fire and lit the lamp. ‘I deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered for upsetting you so,’ he said.

‘You have no reason to distrust me,’ Gabrielle said. ‘My uncle and aunt were all for taking me back to Paris with them. Before I met you I would have loved to go, but all I could envisage were more weeks before I could see you and I knew that I couldn’t have borne that.’

‘How did you get out of it?’

‘I told them that it would be better for me to go in the spring when Yvette has left school and will be able to take my place in the shop.’

‘Captain Hamilton says that we will be gone from here by the spring,’ Finn said. ‘Some are moving out at the end of January, but I’ll not leave until the officers do. So it might be a good thing for you to go to Paris for a while.’

Gabrielle fell as if a tight band was squeezing her heart at the thought that in a few short months Finn would be gone. What was Paris to that?

She knew when he went from here it would be as if he had disappeared from her life, for there was no way that they could communicate, and she knew that that would be really hard for her, for them both; she didn’t imagine that it would be any easier for Finn to bear. She tried to bite back the sob, but Finn heard it and he held her even tighter as she said forlornly, ‘Every moment must count from now, my darling, because these are what I must commit to memory until you come back to claim me.’

Finn too felt a lump in his throat as he bent to kiss Gabrielle, and that kiss unlocked fires of passion in both of them. The poignancy of their situation and the threat of parting so soon—and maybe for years—were in their minds, and Finn felt as though desire was almost consuming him.

Gabrielle made no move to stop him as he kissed her neck and throat. Her sobs turned to little gasps of pleasure as he unbuttoned the bodice of her dress and fondled her breasts. Even when he eased her bloomers from her and slid his hands between her legs while his lips fastened on her nipples she wanted him to go on and on, and do something to still the feelings coursing through her. She wasn’t afraid, because she was with Finn and she knew he would never harm her.

There was a sudden sharp pain as Finn entered her and then the rapturous feeling as they moved together as if they were one person. She felt enveloped in total bliss that rose higher and higher in waves of exquisite joy, so that she cried out again and again.

Eventually their movements slowed and then stopped. Finn slipped off Gabrielle and on to the floor beside her, and she lay back on the sofa in sated satisfaction with her eyes closed.

Suddenly she realised that Finn was crying. ‘My darling! What is it?’

Finn turned a tear-washed face to her. ‘Gabrielle, do you know what we have just done?’

Gabrielle nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure that you have done what you threatened to do to me before.’

‘What was that?’

‘Ravish me,’ Gabrielle said, smiling at Finn, who looked so ashamed of himself.

‘Yes,’ said Finn. ‘Dear God, I deserve horsewhipping. How could I have been so stupid?’

‘Don’t,’ Gabrielle said. ‘It’s the most wonderful experience I have ever had.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Finn said. ‘I wanted to protect you. My feelings for you just overwhelmed me. I am so sorry.’

‘It isn’t all your fault,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I could have put a stop to it if I had wanted to. Maybe when two people love as we love, it’s impossible to wait.’

Finn got up and began to dress. What if she was to have a child? That would be the very worst thing to happen to an unmarried woman. And it wasn’t as if he would be there to share the burden with her. That thought brought him out in a cold sweat.

Gabrielle seemed not in the least bit worried about that and she looked into Finn’s eyes as she said, ‘With or without marriage I now belong totally to you, Finn Sullivan. My lover and my very own British soldier.’

Finn felt his stomach give a lurch as the passion rose in him at Gabrielle’s words. He knew, however, that he must never let himself be overcome in that way again, and he pushed her from him gently and said, ‘Get dressed, my darling, before you catch your death of cold.’

SIX

Gabrielle knew that Finn’s family would worry about him as much as she did when he left, but they at least would have letters to sustain them. Maybe, she thought, she could write to them for news of Finn. His parents might not be that understanding, but his sister or brothers were probably more approachable. So one evening she said, ‘What are your brothers like? The only thing I know about Tom is that you consider him to be a plodder.’

‘He is,’ Finn insisted, ‘and he would be the first to admit that there is little else to say about him. He doesn’t mind in the least that each day is like the one before it and he knows that tomorrow will be just the same. The only thing that disturbs him is the milk yield being down. Yet he is the kindest man that walked the earth and it would be very hard to dislike him. It’s just that he won’t stir himself to do anything, not even to come to the socials with me and Joe.’

‘So Joe is not like Tom?’

‘No,’ Finn said, ‘he is more like me, though maybe not as determined. He has been saying for a few years now that he doesn’t want to stay in Buncrana all his life. Once he told me that he wouldn’t mind trying his hand in America. I suppose the war has put paid to that, but I sometimes wonder if he will ever leave the farm. Yet after my father’s day, everything will go to Tom.’

‘Joe would do well to leave then,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Otherwise he will be left with nothing, though it hardly seems fair.’

‘I suppose not,’ Finn agreed. ‘Though in this case it seems so, because Tom suits the work much better than Joe or me. Particularly me. My father always said I was too impatient to be a good farmer. I didn’t care about that because I didn’t want to be a farmer all my life, but I tried my damnedest just the same because I loved my father dearly.’

‘More than your mother?’

‘I’m not sure what I feel about my mother,’ Finn admitted. ‘I was afraid of her for so long.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘I suppose that I have tried to respect her, but, hand on heart, I can’t say I love her. Biddy Sullivan, I would say, is a hard woman to love.’

‘What a shame,’ Gabrielle said, and then added, ‘Biddy is a strange name. Is it Irish?’

‘I suppose it is,’ Fin said. ‘Her full name isn’t Biddy, of course, it’s Bridget.’

‘Bridgette,’ Gabrielle said. ‘That is like the French name Brigitte, and it is a shame to shorten it to Biddy.’

Finn laughed. ‘It’s lovely the way you say it.’

‘And isn’t it a tragedy for people who never experience love in their lives?’ Gabrielle went on. ‘My father is the same. Somehow, I cannot imagine my mother ever loving him.’

‘From what you say,’ Finn said with a broad grin, ‘I imagine that my mother and your father would suit one another. Maybe we should maroon the two of them on a desert island somewhere.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Gabrielle giggled. ‘Maybe your mother loves your father, though. You said before that he is the only one that she listens to.’

‘That’s right, but I don’t know whether that is love or not. My father is a good man, and one I always tried to please, and yet nothing I did was quite good enough. In a way it is my father’s fault I enlisted.’

‘Did he want you to?’

Finn laughed. ‘Just the opposite. I did it, in a way, to spite him.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘No,’ Finn said, putting his arms around Gabrielle as they sat on the sofa, ‘though I did think that a soldier’s life is more exciting than it is. I also thought I might get treated more like a man, after being at the beck and call of my father and brothers, only to find that in the army I am at the beck and call of all and sundry. But then I came to St-Omer and I met you, and my life was turned upside down because I love you with everything in me.’

‘I am the same,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Without you my life is worth nothing.’ She lifted her face as she spoke and their eyes locked for a moment, then their lips met in a kiss that left Gabrielle gasping for more.

Since they had made love that one time, their lovemaking had got more daring so that as January gave way to February and then March—coming in like the proverbial lion, gusting through the streets of St-Omer—not only did Finn know every area of Gabrielle’s body, she had began to explore his too. Finn had wanted her to do this and she had begun tentatively and timidly, hardly able to believe that she was actually touching the most private parts of a man.

In the cold light of day afterwards, just the thought of doing so had embarrassed her so much she grew hot with shame. In the heat of passion, though, it was different, and anyway, when she saw how much pleasure she gave Finn, she persevered. Her one desire in life was to please him. They did come dangerously close to making love again a few times, but Finn always made sure they stopped short of it and although this made him as frustrated as hell, he would not go any further.

Gabrielle, however, was still remarkably naïve about how babies were conceived, or how they got out once they were inside a woman, because she had been told nothing. She didn’t have the advantage of girls reared on a farm who might see the animals mating and, later, the birth of the babies, and she had no friend with a confiding married sister or young aunt who could have put her right about things.

She knew the Church had said it was wrong to go with a man until a woman was married, but no one had told her what that actually meant. She had no doubt, though, that they would say what she and Finn was doing was a sin, because the Church semed to see sin in everything enjoyable and she certainly had no intention of telling in the confessional anything she and Finn were doing. How could you explain things like that to a man, even if he was a priest?

She didn’t know either why the bleeding that used to happen every month had stopped. When it had begun two years before and she had thought she was dying, her mother just told her that it was something that happened to women. It wasn’t to be discussed, and certainly not with men, and there was no need to make a fuss about it. She hadn’t been told that it had anything to do with fertility, and so when she didn’t have a monthly show of blood, she didn’t automatically associate it with what she and Finn had been doing.

Neither did Mariette, who knew nothing of her daughter’s nocturnal sojourn with a British soldier. She did know, however, that there had been no bloodied rags in the bucket she had left ready and she said to Gabrielle, ‘Funny that your monthlies should have stopped. Do you feel all right?’

‘Yes,’ Gabrielle said. ‘In fact I have never felt better.’

‘Well, you certainly look all right,’ Mariette said.

And Gabrielle did. She had developed a bloom on her skin that had not been there before because she was thoroughly loved by a man she loved in return. Even her not very observant parents noticed in the end and remarked on it, and many of the customers said the same, while Finn thought she had never looked more beautiful.

‘We’ll leave it for now then,’ her mother said, ‘but if they don’t return then I will ask the doctor to have a look at you. Just as well to be on the safe side.’

However, other matters took precedence. At the end of March, Yvette was fourteen and would be leaving school at Easter. In early April, Aunt Bernadette wrote to Gabrielle, repeating the invitation she had made at Christmas.

‘I don’t really know how I can refuse this time,’ Gabrielle confessed to Finn.

‘When are they arriving?’ Finn asked.

‘After the schools are closed, and that is less than two weeks away.’

‘Darling, I might be gone before then,’ Finn said. ‘The camp is on high alert. Any day we expect orders to move out.’

‘Oh, Finn…’

‘Go on with your uncle and aunt to Paris,’ Finn urged. ‘It might make it easier for you.’

Gabrielle tossed her head impatiently. ‘Nothing will make the loss of you easier.’

Finn put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. ‘My darling,’ he said, ‘in many ways I wish you and I had not met and fallen in love because it will be harder for us to part. But part we must and our lives must take different paths for some time. When the Army says “March”, then I must march.’

Distressed though Gabrielle was, she knew Finn spoke the truth, and she wished she could hold back time, even for just a little while. Once Finn left St-Omer she would be desperately worried about him. As so many soldiers had already left, he and Christy had been drafted in to help with the wounded again. She was aware that more and more came every day and the hospitals were filled to breaking point.

The talk around the Jobert table at night, and often in the shop too, was of the number of Allied soldiers, and especially British, that had been killed or injured on the battlefield so far, of the disbanded camp, and more and more troops going off to join the carnage being enacted in many areas of France.

Gabrielle never contributed in such discussions. In fact, if she could have done so she would have stopped up her ears so that she didn’t hear such things. She wasn’t stupid, and knew that when Finn left here he would probably soon be in danger, and could well become one of the casualties, but her love was so deep and all consuming that she imagined he could fold it around him like a cloak and it would protect him from any German onslaught.

Bernadette and Raoul arrived in the middle of April, and wished to return the following day. That shook Gabrielle, who thought that she might have another few days’ grace and, despite the risks, she had to see Finn one more time. She communicated this to him in a note that she gave him with his change in the bakery that morning.

It was late that night when Gabrielle went to bed. Yvette was already asleep and Gabrielle forced herself to lie and wait until she heard everyone settle for the night and the house grow quiet.

Then she opened the window carefully. She knew Finn would be waiting for her, though she couldn’t see him for she dare not turn on her torch, her aunt and uncle’s bedroom being only a few feet away. She had never before climbed down the tree with such care, especially as she had the cape in a bundle under her arm.

In the bakery yard Finn had waited so long that he was worried that something had happened to prevent Gabrielle meeting him. He had begun wondering how long he should stay before returning to camp when he heard the distinct rustle of the tree.

Then she was above him, and the next minute in his arms and kissing him, and the next fastening her cape about her. Not a word was spoken until they were in an alleyway well away from the bakery.

Then Gabrielle said, ‘Oh, Finn, have you had to wait a long time?’

‘No matter. You are here now,’ he said.

‘I didn’t think they would ever stop talking and go to bed,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I had already—’

‘Hush,’ said Finn. ‘It is of no consequence. I would wait for you till the end of time. Don’t you know that? Now, let’s hurry. I can barely wait to hold your body close to mine.’

Once inside the farmhouse there was no hesitation. They didn’t light the lamp and so they only had the flickering light of the fire. As Finn began to caress Gabrielle, she helped him remove all her clothes for the very first time. Finn tore off his uniform, and when he too stood naked Gabrielle gasped as even in the dim firelight she could see how aroused he was.

Finn pushed her gently back on the sofa and lay on top of her, skin to skin. She shivered in delicious anticipation, and Finn knew he wanted Gabrielle more than he had ever wanted her before. Yet when she said, ‘Love me, Finn,’ he shook his head.

‘I mustn’t; I dare not,’ he said, though his hands continued to stroke her gently.

‘I will go mad if you do not make love to me tonight,’ Gabrielle said. ‘How can you be so cruel? Can’t you leave me one beautiful memory of you to hold against my heart, until you return for me?’

‘Gabrielle, you know I can’t,’ Finn said huskily.

‘You can, you must,’ Gabrielle said frantically. ‘I tell you, I will die if you do not make love to me tonight.’

‘And I,’ Finn might have said, because he felt as if he was burning up inside, such was the intensity of his desire. He was also well aware that this was the last time, perhaps for years, that he would hold this girl in his arms.

His fingers and hands stroking, caressing and gently kneading were followed by his lips kissing and nuzzling all over Gabrielle’s body. She felt as if she were being consumed by lust for this wondrous man she loved with all her heart, and when he kissed her lips, his tongue darting in and out, her need was so great that she felt as if her body was melting under his touch.

And then came unbidden into Finn’s mind a vision of him marching away and Gabrielle behind and alone, carrying his child in her belly. It took every ounce of his willpower to pull back.

‘What is it?’ Gabrielle said, her voice still husky with desire.

‘Gabrielle,’ Finn said, ‘I do love you so much. Far too much to do this to you.’

‘Oh, no, my darling Finn. Please?’ Gabrielle pleaded.

Finn hesitated. How he wanted to do as Gabrielle was begging him. Shafts of acute desire were pulsating through him, and Gabrielle’s body was all of a tremble. She cried out to Finn again and the picture he had had danced before his eyes again. Then his hands lay still on her body, and he pulled his mouth from hers and he got to his feet, staggering slightly.

‘Don’t you love me any more, Finn?’ Gabrielle asked, and there were tears in her eyes.

‘Love you?’ Finn repeated incredulously. ‘You might as well ask me if the sun never shines. I love you so much that I cannot risk leaving you with a child.’

‘I would love to carry your child,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I would be honoured.’

‘And you will, my darling,’ Finn said. ‘When this war is finally over and we are married. We will have the rest of our lives to make love and each day we will love each other more. Think on that, my darling, darling Gabrielle. Now please, get dressed before I forget myself entirely.’

Gabrielle was still a little upset and very frustrated, but in her heart of hearts she knew that Finn was thinking of her and so she began to put on her clothes.

It was as they were walking back towards the town that she mentioned something that had been worrying her, talking in little above a whisper for sounds carry further in the night.

‘Finn, I hate to think of anything happening to you and that is why I have said nothing until now, but it may, for I know war is no game. But how would I ever know? Would it be all right if I write to your family—if not your parents then your brothers, or your sister?’

Finn could just imagine how such a letter would be received, especially by his mother, and that would probably colour her opinion when he brought Gabrielle home after the war. If she refused to accept her then he would take her somewhere else, but he would hate to be estranged from his father, his brothers and Nuala, and he knew that could so easily happen if his mother took umbrage.

‘My parents know nothing about us as yet,’ he said.

‘Wouldn’t they approve either?’

‘As I said, my mother really is one on her own,’ Finn said. ‘And in all honesty, she finds it hard to approve of anything. As I said, I have told Nuala all about you and my brothers too know a little, but if you wrote to them at the cottage my mother would not be above steaming open the letters.’

‘My father would do that too,’ Gabrielle said.

‘I would have to think very carefully about a letter to my parents telling them about us,’ Finn said. ‘And I think the first approach must come from me, but I will ask the priest.’ Lowering his voice still further as they approached the bakery yard, he went on, ‘Father Clifford was assigned to our battalion as soon as we passed out last spring in Belfast. He is fairly young and one of the worldliest priests I have ever met. I am sure if anything happens to me, he will get word to you, but maybe you will still be in Paris.’

‘I doubt that,’ Gabrielle said. ‘My father says I can stay one month, but no longer, and you haven’t had orders to go anywhere yet, have you?’

‘Not yet.’ Finn whispered as he put his finger to his lips. ‘Now, not another sound. We’re getting too close.’

They crept along holding hands, and once in the yard underneath the tree, Finn drew Gabrielle into his arms.

She felt tears start in her eyes. She knew this was goodbye. She wasn’t sure that she could exist without Finn, but she knew the forces pulling them apart were stronger than they were. As she kissed Finn with such intensity it seemed to come from the very essence of her being, and she couldn’t help the little moans that escaped from her mouth. Then, very gently, Finn lifted her into the tree.

Her aunt Bernadette didn’t sleep very well or deeply, and at that moment she was lying in her bed wide awake and imagining the treats in store for her niece. As for her just saying a month, she would stay as long as Bernadette wanted. There was nothing Pierre could do about it. He could hardly leave his precious bakery and come to fetch her.

Telling herself that she would never sleep with all these thoughts running around in her head, she tried to clear her mind and relax, and that was when she heard the sound in the yard below. She listened intently. There were no further sounds, and Bernadette told herself she had imagined it. She knew if she got out of bed to look she would be thoroughly wakened. She closed her eyes, but a few minutes later she heard rustling coming from outside. She lit the lamp beside the bed and saw that it was past two in the morning.

She waited a few more minutes to ascertain that she wasn’t imagining it and then, thoroughly alarmed because she thought someone might be trying to break into the room where the girls were sleeping, she got out of bed. She wondered for a moment if she should try rousing Raoul, but he could be difficult to wake, and anyway, she wanted to satisfy herself first that there was something worth shouting about.

However, Gabrielle was now adept at climbing the tree, and by the time her aunt got to the window the girl was not only in her room but almost undressed.

Bernadette returned to her bed, smiling to herself. She had became really citified if she allowed a rustling tree to worry her, she thought, and was glad she hadn’t woken Raoul and she cuddled against him and went fast asleep.

Gabrielle was also trying to sleep as she knew that they had an early start in the morning, but all she was aware of was the ache in her heart that grew bigger and bigger. Whether she was in Paris or St-Omer she knew she would miss Finn every waking minute. In fact she was missing him already, and as the tears started in her eyes she muffled her face in the pillow.

The following day, as he walked with Christy in to work, Finn felt it hard to lift his mood and yet he knew he must. It might be months, even years, before he would see Gabrielle again and he had to deal with that just as she had to do.

Christy cast a glance at his morose face and, risking a rebuff, he said to him, ‘What’s up, mate? You look as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.’

Finn sighed. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘At least nothing that anyone can do anything about. Last night I bid my girlfriend goodbye, that’s all.’

‘Well, I suppose it was as well,’ Christy said. ‘To delay only puts off the inevitable.’

‘I know,’ Finn agreed. ‘Anyway, she was going to relatives in Paris for a while, so it seemed the right time. It would suit me now though if we started moving out. It would be something positive to do.’

‘Can’t be too long now,’ Christy said. ‘I overheard yesterday that we are part of the New Army held back for something special.’

‘Well, I for one can’t wait,’ Finn said.

However, day after day passed on with no further orders, and by the time Gabrielle had been gone over a week there was still no sign of the company moving on. Meanwhile, thoughts of her filled Finn’s mind by day and disturbed his sleep at night. He didn’t think it was possible to miss anyone as much as he missed Gabrielle, and without her he was often so sunk in melancholy that he didn’t hear if someone spoke to him.

This had caused Captain Hamilton to yell at him a few times, and in the end he had said, ‘I don’t know what ails you, Finn Sullivan, but I will give you a word of advice. Snap out of it. Before long you will be on the battlefield and then you’ll need to focus your mind on the enemy and keep your wits about you or you will be blown to kingdom come, or else end your life on the tip of a German bayonet. Do I make myself clear?’

He did, of course, and yet still Finn found it hard to lift his despondency.

‘Can’t you write to her or something?’ Christy said, one morning as he and Finn set out for Headquarters, and then slapped his head as he added, ‘Oh, that’s stupid of me. How can you write to a French girl? It’s hardly likely she could read English.’

‘She can read and speak as good English as you and me, though with a really lovely accent,’ Finn told Christy. ‘But writing to her has never been an option’

‘Why not?’

‘It just isn’t.’

‘Why?’ Christy said. ‘And who is she, for God’s sake?’

There was no need to keep her name a secret any more and so Finn shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose it matters now. Her name is Gabrielle Jobert.’

Christy stopped dead on the road. He looked at Finn incredulously as he said, ‘You are joking? Tell me that you are joking?’

‘It’s no joke,’ Finn said. ‘It’s the truth.’

‘I bet her father doesn’t know that you were seeing his daughter,’ Christy said, ‘and that’s why you can’t write to her.’

‘That’s it exactly,’ Finn said, as the two men strode on again.

‘But, I’ve seen you at Mass,’ Christy said, ‘and the whole family has been there, and you haven’t even looked at her. I spotted more than one hopeful young Frenchman lusting after her, but I never thought you felt that way too.’

‘Well,’ Finn said, ‘d’you think I should have carried a banner advertising the fact that I love Gabrielle Jobert?’

‘No, but—’

‘It wasn’t just her father we had to worry about either,’ Finn said. ‘It was the army. When I admitted at first how I felt about her to the captain he warned me away from her. He said the town was full of girls more than willing, with fathers not as formidable as Pierre Jobert, but when you have your eye on the main prize you don’t settle for second best. We both knew, though, that if the army got a hint of any sort of romance between us, I could be whisked away to join the rest of the company before I had time to draw breath.’

‘Well,’ Christy said, ‘if it was all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, where the hell did you meet? You could hardly be out of doors in the depths of winter, however hot with passion you were.’

‘If I tell you that, then you are not to mention it to another soul,’ Finn said. ‘It would sort of spoil it then.’

‘Don’t see why it should,’ Christy said, ‘now your affair is over and your bird flown away to Paris.’

‘We didn’t have an affair,’ Finn retorted. ‘And it isn’t over. Although I will probably have left here by the time she returns from Paris, she has said she will wait for me.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Christy said sneeringly. ‘Were you born yesterday or what? Her father probably has some person he feels suitable for her to marry and he will have a fair choice, for the girl is a looker and set to inherit the bakery, I suppose, as she is the eldest.’

Finn remembered Gabrielle saying her father wanted her and her sister to make what she termed ‘good’ marriages, and her reaction to that. ‘Maybe her father will have some ideas that way, but Gabrielle has sworn to me that she will only marry for love, and that she loves me, and that she will wait.’

Christy looked at his friend pityingly, certain that he was heading for one massive disappointment if he thought that was actually going to happen, but what he said was, ‘All right then, where did you conduct this great love affair? And you are all right, I shan’t tell a soul where your love nest was.’

‘A farmhouse I stumbled on one night,’ Finn said. ‘It is quite a way from the camp though some of the land the camp is on belonged to the owner, but Gabrielle said when he died there was no one to inherit and so the house is lying empty. I cleaned it up because it was filthy, and we used to have the fire alight, and it was real cosy. I even brought a blanket from my own bed.’

‘But how did she get out of her father’s house?’

‘She climbed out of the bedroom window and down a convenient tree there,’ Finn said. ‘Because her father has to get up so early, the whole house retires at eight thirty every night. She would wait until it was all quiet and creep out. Her sister was the only one to know because they shared a room.’

‘God!’ Christy breathed. ‘I wouldn’t have said she had enough gumption.’

‘Oh, she has gumption enough, believe me.’

‘And did you…you know?’ Christy said, nudging Finn with his elbow.

‘That’s none of your bloody business.’

‘Maybe not,’ Christy said, ‘but I bet you didn’t go to all that trouble to bloody well hold hands.’

They had reached the Headquarters and as they went up the steps Christy caught sight of Finn’s face, with a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Suddenly he knew with absolute conviction that Finn Sullivan had lain with Gabrielle Jobert and was remembering their nights of passion. Oh, how he envied him. He would have sold his soul for such an experience himself.

SEVEN

With the casualty lists rising in Ireland and no sign of the promised Home Rule, an insurrection began in Dublin on Easter Monday. The postman told Biddy about it the following morning and when the men came in for breakfast they could scarcely believe what she related.

‘Surely not,’ Thomas John said. ‘They would not be so stupid as to take on the might of the British Army.’

‘I don’t know so much,’ Joe said. ‘There are plenty of stupid fellows in that Irish Republican Brotherhood, or whatever they call themselves these days.’

‘Well, I think we need to know what is happening in our own country,’ Thomas John said decidedly. ‘Someone of us must go to Buncrana and buy a paper.’

Tom went in on the old horse, and when he got home, regardless of the jobs awaiting attention on the farm, Thomas John spread the paper on the table.

‘Just a thousand of them,’ he said in disgust. ‘What on earth can a scant thousand men achieve? Connolly and Pearse are leading them to be slaughtered.’

‘They have both sides of the Liffey covered, though,’ Joe put in, impressed despite himself. ‘And taken over the GPO in Sackville Street like the postman was after telling Mammy.’

‘Hoisted up the tricolour flag too,’ Tom said. ‘It might be ill timed, stupid or whatever you want to call it, Daddy, but isn’t it a fine sight to see the tricolour flying in Ireland again?’

‘Aye it is, son,’ Thomas John said rather sadly. ‘And take joy in it, because it won’t flutter there for long. It wouldn’t hurt to get a paper each day though and keep abreast of things.’

That night Tom wrote to Finn telling him all about the uprising.

The worst thing is, there are so few of them pitted against the might of the disciplined British Army. Daddy thinks the whole thing is doomed to failure and I am inclined to agree with him. In fact the rebels might have hindered, not helped, the peace process.

Finn tried to be concerned, but the uprising seemed far removed from the war in France. It was as if Buncrana was in his distant past, almost another life, a life that hadn’t Gabrielle in it.

The day that he received Tom’s letter he met Father Clifford in St-Omer. He was really pleased to see him and he greeted him warmly. ‘But what are you doing here, Father?’ he asked.

‘I am here to tend to the injured in the hospital,’ the priest replied. ‘Father Kenny has been taken ill himself and I offered to take his place for a while.’

‘So have you left our battalion then, Father?’

‘No, not at all,’ Father Clifford said. ‘This is just temporary. I am moving out with you.’

‘No one knows when that will be yet?’

‘The next forty-eight hours, I heard,’ Father Clifford said.

Finn knew that once he moved from St-Omer there would be no way that Gabrielle could find him. In his reply to Tom that night he mentioned not one word about the uprising, but said that the whole company was on the move, no one knew where, and he was heartbroken at leaving behind his beloved Gabrielle.

Before Tom even received Finn’s reply the rebellion was over. Britain’s response had been immediate. Thousands of troops had arrived in Dublin, field guns were installed, and by Wednesday a gunship had sailed up the Liffey and began shelling the place to bits. And as Dublin began to burn all those shops not shelled or burned to the ground were closed up. The Dublin people were starving, and looting became commonplace, with the British Army shooting anything that moved.

By Saturday, it was all over and the rebels marched off to Kilmainham Gaol, apart from de Valera, who had an American passport and was taken to Richmond Barracks. Tom didn’t tell Finn any of this. Instead he wrote back to him in conciliatory tone, though he wasn’t too worried about his brother. He was young and impetuous and, though he seemed very fond of the French girl, it was likely that he would fall in love many times before wanting to settle down

In Paris, Bernadette was seriously concerned about her niece, who seemed filled with sadness. In an effort to amuse her, her aunt and uncle had taken her to concerts and theatres, as well as private parties and soirees. Her aunt had taken her shopping and bought her beautiful gowns, and they paraded the streets of Paris dressed in their finery, stopping to talk to this one and that, or taking a break at a café for coffee and cake, or a reviving glass of wine, which Gabrielle had never tasted in her life before.

She thanked them for their kindness, was polite and solicitous to her aunt’s friends, and answered their many questions without a hint of annoyance. Bernadette noted, though, that Gabrielle’s smile never reached her eyes and she never saw them dance with delight as they had once used to. Even her movements seemed slow and heavy and she held herself stiffly, even when she submitted to her aunt’s embraces. And that was the word—submitted.

‘It’s almost as if she’s frozen inside,’ Bernadette said to her husband as they made ready for bed. ‘I remember how she used to hug and kiss us both when she was a child, and even last year she was the same. I have never seen such a change in a girl before.’

‘I have noticed it myself,’ Raoul said. ‘Why don’t you send a note in the morning to ask the doctor to call to look at the girl? What if there is something radically wrong and we haven’t sought medical advice?’

‘You’re right, Raoul,’ Bernadette said. ‘I’ll see to it.’

The following morning after breakfast, Gabrielle retired to her room with a book, but she didn’t even attempt to read. She knew by now something was the matter with her and it occupied all her thoughts.

She hadn’t seen her monthly bleed since before Christmas, and she had noticed the other night that her nipples were brown when they had once been pink. She had let her nightdress fall from her, and studied herself in the mirror. She saw that her breasts had definitely changed. They looked slightly larger, though she wasn’t sure about that, but they definitely had blue lines on them that she had never noticed before.

She knew what she and Finn had done just that one time could have resulted in a baby because Finn had said so and that had been why he had refused to do it again, though when she remembered how he had made her feel inside, she couldn’t wholly regret it. In fact, if Finn had transplanted a seed inside her that would grow into a child, his child, whom she would rear and nurture until he came back from the war, she would leap up and down with delight, but she knew that no one else would see her situation in the same light. Most people would consider it just about the worst sin that a girl could commit. She dreaded telling her father, yet if she was right, there was no way she could get out of telling him.

This was her mood then when her aunt knocked on Gabrielle’s door.

‘Ah,’ Bernadette smiled. ‘Here you are.’

‘Do you want me, Aunt?’

‘No, my dear,’ Bernadette said. ‘But it’s just that the doctor has called to have a look at you, for you are not yourself, are you?’ Bernadette met her niece’s eyes.

Gabrielle knew she wasn’t, and she shook her head. Now it was all out of her hands and there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. So when her aunt said, ‘Shall I ask him to come in?’ she nodded her head and said glumly, ‘You may as well.’

Downstairs, waiting to hear what the doctor had to say, Bernadette ran through in her mind the symptoms that Gabrielle had displayed almost since the day she had brought her to Paris, and came up with all manner of ailments that Gabrielle could be suffering from, except the right one. She castigated herself for not contacting the doctor sooner, but she had thought it was some sickness of mind, some form of depression, due partly to the way that she had been raised, and she’d been convinced that the freedom and gaiety of Paris would soon sort her out. It hadn’t, however, and so she waited anxiously for the doctor’s verdict.

The doctor had been the Dufours’ physician for many years and they had become friends, and so he came down the stairs with a heavy tread. He knew that he was about to deliver a hammer blow to these good people. Bernadette had made it clear over many years the feeling she had for her sister’s children, and especially the elder, Gabrielle, who truly was a very beautiful girl. He wondered how she would feel about her when he delivered his news.

Bernadette came hurrying to him when she saw him descending the stairs, wringing her hands with anxiety. ‘What’s the matter with her, Doctor?’ she asked. ‘I blame myself for not consulting you sooner.’

‘Calm yourself, dear lady,’ the doctor said. ‘My diagnosis would have been the same in any case, and I am afraid that you must prepare yourself for a shock.’ He saw Bernadette’s eyes open wide in concern and confusion as he continued, gently, ‘I am very much afraid that your niece is expecting a baby.’

Bernadette stared at him almost in disbelief. Her mouth opened but no sound came out, and she staggered in shock. The doctor steadied her and he led her into her sitting room to the sofa. Then Raoul poured them each a glass of wine with hands that shook.

Bernadette sipped the wine gratefully as she looked steadily at the doctor. ‘Are you sure of this, André?’

‘I am, Bernadette,’ the doctor said. ‘And I wish from the bottom of my heart that it wasn’t true, but Gabrielle is more than three months pregnant.’

‘But her father is like a gaoler with the girls,’ Raoul said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I’m sorry, and I don’t doubt you for a minute, but it seems incredible. The girl goes nowhere and sees no one, and she is sent to bed at eight thirty each night. Remember we have spoken about it before with your wife?’

The doctor nodded. ‘There is someone special in her life, though.’

‘I don’t see how there can be,’ Bernadette said.

‘Ah yes, this much she has told me,’ the doctor told her. ‘Only she wouldn’t say who the man was. You see, all will not be lost if there is some arrangement between them. They can be married speedily and the problem solved.’

Bernadette shook her head. ‘St-Omer, like Paris, has few young men left. They are mostly enlisted in the army, and she has been given no opportunity to meet anyone, though the town has plenty of British soldiers.’

‘She would never have been given the opportunity to meet any of those, though,’ Raoul said.

‘Well, she met someone,’ the doctor said. ‘And it needs only one to put her in the state she’s in.’

‘Then I intend to find out who the man is,’ Bernadette said, ‘and, if possible, take the girl back to St-Omer and see if the man will do the decent thing by her. That little lady,’ she added grimly, ‘has some explaining to do.’

Gabrielle was sitting on her bed waiting for a visitation by her aunt, and when she saw her framed in the doorway, her face so full of sadness and disappointment, she cried, ‘Oh, Aunt Bernadette, I am so sorry.’

Bernadette crossed the room. ‘What possessed you, child?’

‘Auntie, we couldn’t help ourselves.’

‘Tell me, was it one or several men you lay with?’

Gabrielle was truly shocked. ‘One man only, Aunt, and one I love with all my heart and soul. What sort of girl do you take me for?’

‘You know, Gabrielle, a year ago that wouldn’t have been a hard question to answer,’ Bernadette said, disappointment being replaced by anger. ‘But now I don’t know what sort of girl you have turned out to be. A girl who lies down and offers herself like some repulsive harlot is not the sort of person I would wish to be related to.’

Gabrielle recoiled from the harsh words, and yet she tried to defend herself. ‘It wasn’t like that, truly it wasn’t!’ she cried desperately, yet she knew that is how everyone would view it. The love she and Finn had shared in the farmhouse would be tainted and spoiled, and she could almost feel a coldness between her and her aunt that had never been there before.

‘And who is the boy or man who took you down in such a manner? Was he from the town?’

‘No,’ Gabrielle said, and when she saw the look of repugnance sweep over Bernadette’s face, she lifted her head higher. ‘His name is Finn Sullivan and he is an Irishman in the British Army.’

‘A common soldier!’ Bernadette cried. ‘How could you lower yourself like that?’

‘He wasn’t. He isn’t!’ Gabrielle exclaimed. ‘You don’t know him. I don’t care what you say either because I love him and he loves me.’

‘And what would you know about love?’ Bernadette sneered.

‘I know how I feel.’

‘I know how you felt as well,’ Bernadette said. ‘Full of wantonness. How did you meet this common soldier you say you love?’

There was little point in concealment. It would all come out in the end, but when Gabrielle began explaining how she climbed down the tree, even she was aware how sordid it sounded.

Bernadette suddenly remembered the sound of rustling she had heard outside her room the night before she and Raoul had left for Paris, and she said, ‘You even crept out to see him the night before we brought you here, didn’t you?’

Gabrielle nodded. ‘I had to do that,’ she whispered. ‘It was to say goodbye. I don’t know when I will ever see him again.’

Bernadette’s face was full of disgust. ‘You shouldn’t have seen him in the first place, you stupid girl. You behaved little better than a common tramp, Gabrielle. To think I felt sorry for you, cooped up in that house. I see now that your father was right. He must have known that he had a slut for a daughter.’

‘I am no slut,’ Gabrielle cried. ‘We didn’t intend this to happen and it happened the once only when we forgot ourselves. Finn is a fine man and will marry me willingly, I know, and he is a Roman Catholic.’

‘Then that is the only good thing about all this,’ Bernadette said. ‘At least it is not some heathen you will be married to.’

‘And we should be grateful to him and men like him because he is fighting for France,’ Gabrielle said, lifting her chin in the air. ‘I’m proud of what he is doing.’

‘You can take that haughty look off your face before I take it off for you,’ Bernadette said sharply. ‘You have nothing to be so high and mighty about, and the idea that he and his kind are fighting for France is nonsense. They are fighting for themselves. But that is neither here nor there. He has got you in the family way and he must be made to marry you.’

‘We wanted to marry,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I said I would wait for him, but he might not be at St-Omer now.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they were awaiting orders for moving out when I came to Paris.’

‘Well, if they are gone someone will know where. He will have to be found and made to do his duty,’ Bernadette said. ‘We must make plans to return as soon as possible. Raoul will go to find out when the next train is and we must send a telegram to your parents so that they will expect us.’

A shudder went right through Gabrielle’s body and she said to her aunt, ‘I’m afraid of facing Papa.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Bernadette said. ‘You have done your best to shame him—shame the whole family, in fact—but you should have thought of that sooner.’ As she got up she looked at Gabrielle disparagingly. ‘I will tell my maid that there is sickness in the family and you are needed at home, and send her in to help you pack. And we won’t bother taking any of the fancy gowns I bought for you. You will hardly fit into them for much longer anyway.’

They travelled to St-Omer that same day and arrived in the evening. The Joberts had already eaten, but when Mariette offered to make them a meal, Bernadette shook her head.

‘We had something before we left and I have news that cannot wait,’ she said.

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