Authors: Matthew Plampin
‘Er, yes,’ Clem added. ‘Where indeed. Show us, major, if you’d be so kind. We’d like to see where the Frenchies advanced, poor devils.’
Hempf led them to the northern edge of town, past bare backstreets, burned-out houses, a ruined church and some of the most gob-smacking artillery Clem had ever laid eyes on. The black guns seemed otherworldly – engines of hell transported to the outskirts of Paris. The shells alone were the size of beer barrels. He slowed, gaping; it took several sharp prods from Besson to move him on. Those Prussian soldiers not at the guns or in the trenches were sitting around fires, feeding on fried eggs and mutton cutlets. Clem watched them enviously, a loud growl rising from within the doctor’s green waistcoat. There was nothing like that where they were headed.
Paris and her forts were hidden in the morning mist. The fields before the city were dotted with figures and carts, trailing around with little visible purpose. Besson tugged Clem’s sleeve, offering him a pencil to remind him who and what he was supposed to be. Gamely, Clem attempted to make an entry in the notebook, but his hand was not quite his own. His letters resembled those of a small child, huge and misshapen. Hempf looked over; he quickly turned the page.
‘The fabled
franc-tireurs
tried to get by us there,’ the major told him, pointing eastwards, ‘down by the river. Their abilities, we found, have been rather exaggerated. Come, I will show you.’
They left the main roads, starting along a mean, rutted lane. Besson was hanging back a step or two; something was about to happen. Clem felt sick behind his amiable smile. Hempf was chatting away about the progress of the siege, how it couldn’t possibly go on for much longer now and the men were hoping that they would be home by the year’s end – and then he was groaning on the ground, his cap knocked off, writhing in the frozen mud. Besson crouched over him, a brick in his hand, striking him again at the top of his neck. There was a wet crunch; Hempf’s movements stopped abruptly.
The
aérostier
took Clem’s arm and dragged him across a rubble-filled yard, out through a gate, towards the sloping bank of the Seine. Above was a raised section of railway, running parallel to the river. They passed underneath it, going to the waterside.
‘What – what did you do?’ Clem stammered. ‘Did you kill him?’
‘He was a Prussian. My enemy.’
‘Yes. I know that. He just – seemed like a decent sort …’
‘Do not waste any more thought on it. You did well,’ Besson glanced around, ‘given the circumstances.’
Clem was about to thank him when he slipped, flopping through leathery reeds into a bed of silt. It was soft as custard and not at all cold; its rich, rotten odour rushed up his nostrils as he floundered onto his back. He began to laugh.
Shouts came from Choisy-le-Roi; the alarm was being raised. Major Hempf had been discovered.
Besson’s hands hooked under his shoulders. ‘Come on, Pardy,’ the
aérostier
hissed as he started to pull. ‘Come
on
.’
The Grand’s heavy glass doors had been replaced with canvas curtains, in order to assist the constant passage of stretchers. The lobby beyond, that luxurious lobby with its columns and glass dome and patterned marble, was a gaslit abattoir, glaringly bright after the dull boulevard; the screams, the pleading, the sound of bloody
sawing
, was past nightmares. Clem went directly to the stairs, Besson half a stride behind him.
They reached the sixth floor and crossed the landing to Elizabeth’s suite. Clem paused to recover his breath. The narcotic glow imparted by the doctor’s solution was almost gone. Textures had changed; that which had been smooth and shiny was now coarse as a whetstone. Greyness was seeping into everything. Pain bloomed once more in the seat of his skull, gripping the stem of his brain and buzzing in his ears. His clothes, so comfortable that morning, were like ill-fitting sackcloth, encrusted with mud that reeked of the river.
Besson was regarding him with concern. ‘Are you well?’ he asked. ‘Do you—’
‘Wait here, old man,’ Clem muttered. ‘I’ll be out again as soon as I know what’s what.’
Elizabeth’s sitting room was dark. Only a single candle had been lit against the evening, standing on a round table between the two windows. His mother sat on one side of the tiny flame; and on the other was Jean-Jacques Allix, huge and still, dressed as usual in one of his spotless black suits. Their hands were linked, resting before the candle. Clem saw that Elizabeth had been weeping. He didn’t know whether she’d heard he was leaving in the
Aphrodite
, but she showed no surprise at his return. She sat up straight, attending to a loose curl. Without releasing Allix’s fingers, she turned a part of the way towards him, her face directed at the carpet.
‘Clement,’ she said in a voice three hundred years old, ‘your sister is dead.’
Laure had got herself a small handcart from somewhere, of the sort used by flower-girls or lemonade sellers, upon which she’d mounted a cask of brandy. In a basket underneath were a dozen loaves of indigestible municipal-issue bread; God only knew how she’d managed to get her hands on so much of the stuff. It was a symbol, this cart – a demonstration of Laure’s commitment to the 197th. Hannah found it equally admirable and irritating. The wheels were a touch narrow, designed for short shunts along the Champs-Elysées rather than cross-city marches. The cart kept coming to jarring halts against even the lowest kerbstones; and then, no more than a hundred yards or so from the Porte de Charenton, it became firmly wedged in a drain grate. The battle-group, now part of a column of National Guardsmen several thousand strong, carried on into the earthworks of the Bois de Vincennes. Their
vivandières
were being left behind.
‘Here,’ said Hannah, going to the cart’s other side, ‘let me help.’
Laure didn’t look at her. ‘If I needed any damned
help
I’d ask someone else.’
Hannah put her hands on her hips. ‘And who else is there, precisely? The battalion’s marching out the damned gate!’
Laure fought with the cart for a second, but to no avail. She turned around. ‘Well, how about this fine gentleman?’ she cried, suddenly friendly. ‘How about it, colonel? Lend a girl those strong arms of yours, will you?’
Chomet was walking towards them. He did not reply or smile. Unlike the majority of his men, the 197th’s colonel was completely sober; his wide face was ashen and his voice, when he spoke, was tissue-thin. He looked exactly like a man who three months ago had stood behind the counter of an apothecary’s shop – yet this morning somehow found himself going out to face the Prussian army.
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, ‘but you must wait for us here, inside the wall. Word has just arrived – General Ducrot’s specific orders. A condition of the National Guard participating in the sortie. No women on the field of battle.’
Laure slammed down the handles of her cart. ‘Now they say!
Now they damned well say!
Look at this here – all this bread! Do you think it dropped from a damned cloud? Do you, Chomet, you fat worm?’
She’s overdoing it, Hannah thought; in truth she’s relieved. ‘What about our friends, colonel? We haven’t even wished them goodbye.’
‘It’s not my decision, Mademoiselle Pardy. There’s nothing I can do.’ Chomet started after his troops. ‘Be thankful. Believe me, it’s a real piece of luck.’
This was no comfort. What point would there be to staying safe and well if Jean-Jacques was to receive another crippling injury, or to die? He was at the head of the National Guard column, dressed in black: the deadly Leopard of Montmartre. During the march he’d walked back to see how Hannah was faring. There had been a short conversation; an arrangement to meet at the shed later; the briefest touch of hands. That, she supposed, would have to serve as their farewell. She remembered the night in the windmill – the way he’d deflected her declaration of love. Jean-Jacques would hardly want an emotional leave-taking. Besides, he didn’t share Chomet’s apprehension about the coming battle. He’d told Hannah that the Prussian positions to the south-east were scattered, undermanned and uncoordinated; he’d patrolled around there extensively and was confident that a path could even be found
between
them, with a bit of good fortune. The fighting of which so much was being made would not be very severe.
Hannah had tried to be reassured, but the militia force now disappearing through the Porte de Charenton had made this impossible. None of them had slept the previous night; almost all were steaming drunk. The red guardsmen frequently fell out of line, laughing as they tripped over their own boots. Greatcoats hung open; cross-belts were removed and left in the road; kepis sat awry on overgrown, unwashed hair. The Montmartre
mairie
had managed to obtain the 197th’s battle-group a full supply of American Remington rifles. These were dropped on toes, waved around wildly or lifted into shoulders for mock pot-shots at the sergeants. Watching from the rear, Hannah had heard Émile Besson, as clearly as if he’d been standing beside her:
All a sortie will achieve is more dead men
. The doubts she’d felt in the Moulin de la Galette had returned, had multiplied many times, but what could she do? It was too late.
Field artillery was coming up behind the National Guard column. Ignoring Laure’s protestations, Hannah took hold of the cart and yanked it free. Together they wheeled it to a doorway close to the gate. The artillerymen whistled as they passed; Laure found it in her to blow them a kiss.
For the better part of an hour, the two
vivandières
stood silently at opposite ends of the cart, listening to the rolling crash of cannon-fire and doing their best to ignore one another. The morning sun struck the fortifications, a bright band advancing down the inside of the wall. National Guard, men from the bourgeois arrondissements who had declined to volunteer for battle, began to assemble in the surrounding streets. Several approached the cart, spying the brandy barrel; Hannah and Laure united temporarily to drive them back, telling them that their provisions were for the warriors of France, not gutless, bragging cowards.
A carnival atmosphere developed despite the cold. Hundreds of civilians joined the bourgeois guardsmen, many in their Sunday best as if to attend a grand public display. A boiler-cart selling hot
sirops
arrived and did a roaring trade; men with telescopes set up on the embankment of the circular railway, charging a sou for a peek at the Prussians. The loyalist militia smoked and drank, dancing polkas as if the ferocious cannonades that shook the city were nothing but the timpani of an enormous dance hall orchestra. There was a cheer from further along the wall as a postal balloon drifted by. Hannah hurried to catch a glimpse of it, hoping that this might be the craft Clem was flying out in, that he might be waving over the side, but could see only rooftops and empty sky. She’d wanted to go to him the morning after the Moulin de la Galette, to find out how he was and apologise for deserting him on the Pont d’Arcole. Jean-Jacques had discouraged her.
‘Seeing you might convince him to stay,’ he’d said. ‘The situation in Paris looks set to escalate. You must be honest with yourself, Hannah: your brother is not a serious man. It is better that he leaves.’
Runners passed through on their way to the Louvre and Hôtel de Ville, bringing word that Ducrot had crossed the Marne without significant loss. The mood around the Porte de Charenton grew positively jubilant, the crowd convinced of the sortie’s impending success. Their liberation was at hand; Paris had set her disputes aside and was taking the bold steps that her destiny required. There was much talk of French nobility, their superior civilisation, and the barbarism of the German states. We are sublime, the people agreed; we are valorous. We must prevail.
Laure smoked cigarettes, scanning the street as if on the fringes of a huge party. Other
vivandières
had appeared, along with an assortment of nurses and female orderlies. A fair number were drawn from the demi-monde – cocottes who’d lived in debauched plenty during the Empire, only to be left to fend for themselves when their rich protectors fled the city. Like Laure, they’d gravitated towards the militia, finding ready accommodation caring for the guardsmen. She seemed to know most of them, in fact; boredom soon overrode her enmity and she began to talk, listing names and exploits. One arrival in particular aroused her interest.
‘Cora Pearl,’ she said, pointing with her cigarette. ‘Lord, she’s looking thin.’
This notorious courtesan hailed from Plymouth; joking comparisons with her had been the bane of Hannah’s first couple of months in Paris. Small and slender, she was strolling beside a dainty ambulance drawn by two white stallions. These were the healthiest, fleshiest horses Hannah had seen in weeks; those they trotted by eyed their haunches covetously, no doubt imagining them roasting on a spit. The courtesan’s outfit was like a saucy, ostentatious version of the Lady with the Lamp, all sable trim and décolletage; her hair was of an unnatural hue, a fiery auburn that could only have been the result of chemical experimentation. So much jewellery dripped from her person that she glinted and glittered with every movement.
‘Princes and barons have grovelled at those feet,’ Laure said. ‘They say the emperor himself once sent her a van-load of orchids – which she had strewn across the floor so she could dance a can-can on them. A can-can, on the emperor’s orchids!’ The cocotte sighed. ‘She may be an
Anglaise
, but she’s definitely got style. A friend of mine once—’
‘
Vive la France!
’ cried the crowds. ‘
Vive la République!
’
The first injured were being brought in through the gate – soldiers of the line, struck by bullets in their arms and shoulders. They were given over immediately to the courtesan’s ambulance. One of the bourgeois militia declared that he’d gladly shoot himself to earn a place alongside them. His comrades laughingly agreed.