Authors: Matthew Plampin
‘Here’s a way to get in an ambulance, if that’s really what you want,’ Laure shouted. ‘Get off your arses, go through that gate there and
fight our damned enemy!
’
The ambulance undertook a laborious turn, Cora Pearl appealing in mannered, harshly accented French for her dear friends to clear the way. As Hannah looked on she noticed Elizabeth edging along the rue de Charenton, followed by the bearded Mr Inglis. Her mother was dressed for action in a heavy black cloak and a flat-topped hat tied around with red ribbon; she’d be aiming to get outside the wall and have a perilous experience on the battlefield. This was her method, part of her mythology almost: the fearless Mrs Pardy chancing life and limb, then fashioning the experience into a heart-pounding narrative. Hannah gauged the depth of the doorway behind her, wondering if there was room enough for her to hide.
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Laure advised. ‘The old trout’s looking for you.’
It was true. Elizabeth was paying special attention to the
vivandières
as she neared the gate, checking each one. Hannah went to the front of the cart, accepting her fate. Her mother didn’t hurry over. An expression that hinted at maternal warmth flitted across her face; but then her grey eyes darkened, expecting something that could not be delivered.
‘Where is my portrait, Hannah?’ she asked, in English. ‘I will need it, you know, within the next fortnight.’
A tearing, metallic sound came from beyond the wall, distant but very loud. Much of the street turned in its direction.
‘That’ll be the mitrailleuses,’ said Mr Inglis, attempting a surreptitious leer at Laure – who’d lit a fresh cigarette and was considering the pair with guarded contempt. ‘The French army’s rapid-firing field-gun, don’t y’know – in German hands as well by now, of course. Thirty-seven rifles bundled together and worked like a barrel-organ. An impressive contraption, to ordnance enthusiasts at least. They say—’
The indifference with which Elizabeth spoke over him revealed at once that an affair was underway, the poor newspaperman being led by the nose. ‘After this battle,’ she said, ‘Jean-Jacques Allix will be a great hero of France, and the appetite for a volume will be keen. We must act. I know you don’t care a fig for
my
fortunes, Hannah, but think at least of yourself. This will make you. Think straight for once.’
Hannah met Elizabeth’s gaze. ‘I have nothing. Nothing whatsoever.’ Saying this, seeing her mother’s dismay, brought her a furtive satisfaction. ‘I can’t seem to find him.’
‘
Find him
? What in heaven’s name are you talking about, girl? Did he not sit for you?’
‘You know my meaning, Elizabeth. In my painting. He – there isn’t anything there. It’s empty.’
Elizabeth’s remonstrations were halted by the arrival of more casualties. It was not a couple of stretchers this time but a veritable train, Zoaves from the look of them; the blackened, shredded state of their uniforms made identification difficult. Hannah had seen her share of wounded around the city, at ambulances in squares and parks, or limping around on the arms of nurses and doctors. She’d never encountered anything like this, though: splashing, spurting injuries, the colours simultaneously raw and rotten, lurid and charred, revealed in all their horror as the men they’d been inflicted upon sobbed and screamed and wailed for their mothers. The crowd’s cheers faltered. A few rushed forward, searching for relatives and friends or to ask questions about the fighting.
‘This is the beginning of it, Lizzie,’ said Mr Inglis gravely. ‘This is all that can happen today. Unless those Prussian outposts are actual fakes, that is – cardboard cannon manned by tailors’ dummies in
Pickelhauben
. Which doesn’t strike me as very likely.’
Elizabeth pursed her lips, taking a pencil from under her cloak. She was wearing a new-looking dress, Hannah noticed: a durable garment in a deep brick-red, with a light bustle and black piping. Mrs Pardy was one of very few in Paris who was enlarging their wardrobe for the winter.
‘Mont, will you please be quiet? You’ve trotted out these dire predictions of yours many times before.
Paris will save Paris
. These brave men here believe that – they went into battle believing that. Your beloved emperor isn’t coming back, you know. The people of this city are going to show their worth. It is the noblest of causes and you are naught but a sceptical Imperialist fiend.’ She requested her notebook – which he’d been carrying for her in an outside pocket of his coat – and began to write, effectively ending the discussion.
Hannah’s unease grew. Elizabeth was using the same line of argument that she had with Émile Besson back in the Gare du Nord. Now, though, on the day of the sortie, it struck her as markedly inadequate – a position based on faith rather than reason and evidence. It wouldn’t be enough.
The wounded kept coming: fifty, sixty. Some had obviously died on their stretchers. Hannah spotted a National Guardsman, pasty and still, missing his right foot. The number on his kepi revealed that he was from the 254th, a Belleville battalion – one of those the 197th had been merged with. Jean-Jacques was fighting. Men around him were falling to Prussian shells. It was more than she could bear.
‘I’m going forward,’ she said to Laure. ‘I can’t wait here.’
Laure wasn’t surprised. She looked around her queasily, as if hoping that a way out would reveal itself. ‘They won’t let you on the battlefield. You heard Chomet.’
‘Forget Chomet! I can’t just stand about doing nothing. Our friends are under fire, Laure. They’re being injured. Don’t you understand?’
‘I don’t see what we—’
Hannah picked up her
vivandière
’s bag from the doorway. ‘I’m going to the Marne at least, so that I can get a better idea of what’s happening. It’s no use. I have to know.’
Laure muttered something, threw away her cigarette and got behind the cart. She stared at Hannah, hiding her fear behind an indignant pout.
‘Help us push then, will you?’
Together the two women crossed the Bois de Vincennes, moving as fast as the handcart would permit them. They passed drained ornamental lakes laced with muddy snow; entire woods reduced to foot-high stumps; a steeplechase track being used as a camping ground. The soldiers manning the Porte de Charenton had let them through for a tot of Laure’s brandy, happy enough to disregard General Ducrot’s orders concerning
vivandières
. Elizabeth and Mr Inglis had not been so fortunate when they’d tried to follow. All civilians, they’d been told, had to remain within the city walls.
‘Be careful, girl,’ Elizabeth had shouted after Hannah. ‘I’ll want a
full account
, do you hear?’
A fort came into view on the right, over the Marne, spikes of red fire darting from its guns. The noise of battle was now truly horrific; Hannah felt as if she was creeping onto the floor of an infernal factory, its rasping, clanking, booming machines all working out of time. They reached a crossroads on the borders of the park, past a set of rusting iron gates. The fighting had consumed the entire landscape in sparks and smoke; ambulances were moving off in every direction, their attendants hurriedly swapping information about concentrations of casualties.
‘Which way?’ asked Laure, wincing a little at the pinch of her bottines.
‘Straight ahead. Towards Saint-Maur.’
Jean-Jacques had spoken of this, explaining the loop and thrust of the main French attack. They would march down into a bulge of open land encircled by the river, cross via the pontoons, then sweep up through the hillside town of Champigny to the Villiers Plateau. Ducrot’s regulars were going to lead the assault, but the National Guard would be there as well, in support, showing their worth – Jean-Jacques would see to it.
Saint-Maur, like most of the villages outside Paris, was now a ragged cluster of ruins, the buildings burned and blasted beyond any hope of repair. A couple of hundred French infantrymen had taken cover in the shattered houses. Every eye was fixed on Champigny, now visible across the Marne, spreading from the valley floor to the heights. A frenzied fight filled its streets, bleeding into the paddocks and gardens along its northern edge. Banks of smoke rose and drifted off, glaring white in the sunshine. Beneath them, Hannah could see soldiers swarming through gates, into outbuildings, over fences. She heard the rising crackle of a rifle fusillade; a bugle-call halting abruptly mid-bar; the nerve-rending grind of the mitrailleuses. Each instant brought a dozen more deaths. Hannah watched men stumble and disappear under the boots of those behind. She stopped walking. Something was being piled onto her, it seemed, in great shovelfuls; she was being suffocated, slowly buried alive.
‘Wake
up
, Mademoiselle Pardy!’ Laure yelled.
Inhaling sharply, gripping the handcart for balance, Hannah forced her attention back to the road. The pontoon crossings were close. They’d been moored beside the old stone bridge of Champigny, using it as a shield against the Prussian artillery fire. This was much needed – shells whistled down constantly from the plateau, their paths marked by arcing trails, cracking against the bridge’s granite flank. Non-combatants were being held on the southern bank until word came through that the town had been captured. Hannah and Laure joined a queue of ambulances and ammunition wagons waiting in the remains of a farmyard. The drivers were discussing a diversionary attack that had been made towards Choisy-le-Roi a while earlier – an absolute disaster, apparently, hundreds upon hundreds killed with nothing whatsoever to show for it.
Half an hour later the bugles started playing a new refrain, and semaphore flags appeared amongst the rubble: Champigny was under French control. There were no cheers or patriotic exclamations at this news. All it meant out here was that the army would now have to attack Villiers. The battle would continue into the afternoon and evening. Many more would fall.
Cleared to advance, the ambulances and wagons formed two lines and started across the pontoon bridges. Under their weight the floating platforms sank down almost to the surface of the still-bloated Marne; the Prussian artillery picked up, sending splinters from the bridge splashing in the water. Hannah led the handcart onto the right-hand crossing, closest to the cover of the bridge. Laure was virtually dragged behind, tottering on her bottines, swearing loudly with each tremble and rock of the boards.
A number of the ambulances parked on the Marne’s opposite bank, discovering an immediate supply of wounded. It was unclear whether these men had been brought back from the town or had simply fallen moments after stepping from the pontoons. The suffering was beyond comprehension. Hannah and Laure focused on negotiating the handcart over the churned ground.
Soon they reached the outskirts of the town. Officers, regular army types in smart jackets and red trousers, were striding about, searching for their men – hauling them from shelter, trying to assemble them for the next stage in the advance. The two
vivandières
attracted the odd curious glance, but no one had the time either to answer their questions or ask any back. They were moving along the broad street that formed the spine of Champigny when a small hotel not thirty yards from them took a direct artillery hit, exploding into a stretching star of powdered plaster, brick and glass. Hannah felt an unbelievable wrench, both her arms whipping away from the blast and wetness flicking across her cheek. For a petrifying split-second she thought she’d been caught by shrapnel, but no: it was the handcart. A fragment of either shell or hotel had bashed it to bits, blowing Laure’s bread hoard apart, splattering them both with brandy and leaving them holding only broken lumps of wood. Laure was too stunned even to curse. She dropped the pieces in her hands, blinking; the next instant she’d scampered across the road into a deep gutter.
‘I don’t even
like you
,’ she screamed at Hannah, curling into a ball, ‘I
never
have
. Why’d you make me do this?
Why
? It is
insanity
, the most ridiculous, the most stupid damned thing I have ever … have ever …’
Hannah’s body seemed horribly light, made of hay, as if the breeze alone might knock her down and send her skittering along the pavement. A bullet zipped by, smashing a shop window, reflected light flashing crazily over the cobbles as the shards fell; and she was down with Laure, wrapped tightly around her, face pressed against the cocotte’s greasy copper plait.
How long they lay like this Hannah couldn’t say. Laure’s limbs shivered next to hers, her breaths heaving and huge; she was mumbling some kind of incantation or prayer. The vinous stench of brandy filled Hannah’s nostrils. She shifted her head a little. A rivulet of blood was running thickly beneath them, half an inch from their pantaloons, dripping into the drain.
Eventually Champigny grew a little quieter. The fight had moved on, further up the hill. Hannah got them both to their feet and looked around. They were the only people standing upright in the entire street. Recovered from her shrieking fit, Laure set about salvaging what bread she could, filling her pockets with dirty crusts.
The two women made their way towards the town’s upper edge, climbing through lanes littered with snapped-off rifle stocks, bent blades and bits of bloody uniform. A number of houses and shops were occupied, rifles jutting from windows and holes knocked through roofs. Runners dashed past, taking reports back from the front; several Zoaves sat slumped against a wall, hands clamped hopelessly over mortal wounds. They reached a modest square set out around a dry-stone well. Beneath a row of cherry trees, a chaplain was attempting to tend to twenty or so of the badly injured, the dying men clawing at his robes as they begged him to hear their confessions. The battlefield was close; the din of heavy gunfire was shaking streams of dust from between the stones of the buildings. Bugles sounded beyond the rooftops, followed by cheers and a howl of agony.
‘There’s a whole damned army out there,’ Laure said, her voice hoarse, ‘
two
damned armies, and all mixed up. We’ll never find them.’