‘Thank you, Jean. I am Ronnie. You are my guardian angel,’ Ronnie said, smiling.
Jean looked puzzled at this reply. ‘It means, I owe you my life,’ Ronnie added.
‘Not home safe, yet,’ Jean replied. ‘The journey back is hard.’
* * *
Just before dawn, they set out for the coast. They hadn’t gone very far when they could see a checkpoint in the distance. There was a well-armed German patrol checking the papers of those wishing to travel onwards.
‘This is as far as we go on the road. Simon will take the car back. We must go on foot. Here, take this pack, it holds food and water and you’ll need this,’ Jean said, passing Ronnie a revolver. ‘You know how to use one of these, don’t you?’ he asked.
‘I’ve fired one, if that’s what you mean but I’ve never had to use one on another human being,’ Ronnie replied.
‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Jean said.
They shouldered their rucksacks and moved into the woods out of sight. Luckily for them, the checkpoint guards were so busy brutally searching and assaulting the French travellers that they were not focused on what was happening behind them.
The path through the woods was not clear and there were times when they had to battle the brambles and dense undergrowth. Periodically they stopped and consulted their compass to ensure they were travelling in the right direction.
‘This is going to take longer than I thought,’ Jean said. ‘We have to avoid Ypres — too many patrols.’
The ground beneath their feet undulated. There were troughs and heaps of earth as if the ground had been disturbedlong ago and never completely recovered. When they crossed fields where a crop was growing, Jean urged Ronnie to walk in the plough lines.
‘There are still unexploded mines here left from the first war,’ Jean said. ‘Farmers are still digging up shells too and . . . what’s left of bodies.’
Ronnie shuddered. They navigated open areas as quickly as they could and when they reached the next area of woodland, they stopped to rest.
‘What you said, about bodies,’ Ronnie said. ‘Imagine what it must be like for those families back at home. Somewhere under our feet, someone’s brother, son, father or husband lies, never to return home.’
Tears welled in Ronnie’s eyes as he imagined his mother watching the postman arrive on his bike. All women dreaded the post and were relieved when it wasn’t the telegram that no one wanted to receive. Suddenly and inexplicably, the tears started running down Ronnie’s face. Why was he so moved by being in this place?
Jean looked at him. ‘Did your family lose someone in the first war?’ he asked. ‘This was a terrible battleground. The Battle of the Somme, Passchendaele. So many men slaughtered like cattle.’
Ronnie nodded. ‘I didn’t know him, though. I was born after he was killed in the Battle of the Somme. This is where he would have died. Perhaps on this very spot.’
Ronnie couldn’t explain why he was so upset. Perhaps this was it. He was feeling the past. It was as if Fred was here beside him, helping him on his way. Perhaps he had more than one guardian angel? He felt some deep connection to the earth, to the French soil that he was walking on now. It was if his blood was seeping down into it and joining with the blood spilled by so many young men. He knew very little about the first war. Hisfather hadn’t talked about it. He had come home. One of the few that had. Ronnie sat on a bank and moved his fingers through the damp grass. If a shell was to land on them now, who would know? His body would join all the unnamed others.
‘This is Ypres, you say?’ Ronnie asked.
‘Yes,’ Jean replied. ‘As I said, the Battle of the Somme was fought here. You would think that we would learn from the huge number of men who lost their lives fighting over this patch of land, but here we are again.
‘There is a female poet,’ he continued, ‘who explains the madness of war very well. Whenever I need reassuring that I am not the only one who has lost my sense of reason, I read her poetry. It has the power to lift my spirits and speaks from the heart. She is someone who is capable of seeing the reality of war and expresses it so wonderfully in words. Her name is Adrienne Blanc-Péridier. There is one poem of hers in particular that evokes the true power of war. I can’t remember it word for word, but she likens war to a seductress, tempting young men to follow her and go to their deaths. They touch her toxic lips and abandon their girlfriends, to surrender to her fatal powers.’
‘That certainly is brilliant writing, Jean. I can see why you admire her. She puts her finger right on the pulse of the intoxication young men feel before they sign up. I like to think that I remained level-headed. That I was clear about why I was joining, but now I see this war for the blood bath it is. The huge loss of life. The death of civilians and innocent children. I have become part of the slaughter. We all have.’
‘But what else could we have done?’ Jean asked. ‘Would you rather we stood by and watched while the Germans took over our sovereign nations? Could you, in all conscience, have refused to fight? I know I couldn’t.’
Ronnie was about to agree, when the air was full of the sound of guns. The familiar ‘ack,ack,ack’ of machine gunsstopped them both dead in their tracks. Their bodies took over as if something immediately switched in their brains. They shouldered their packs and without any particular plan, just clambered to their feet.
‘Follow me,’ Jean yelled.
Ronnie hardly had time to get going before a shell landed too close for comfort, leaving a ringing sound in his ears. He looked to Jean for some guidance but Jean was swinging wildly, first in one direction and then another. Each way they turned, they were met by another barrage. Where could they hide? They seemed to be surrounded.
Jean was saying something, but Ronnie couldn’t make it out. He just stumbled on blindly, pushing his way through the undergrowth, brambles whipping his face, mud dragging him down. His only thought was to run and keep running until they could find some place to give them greater protection. Jean was a faster runner and Ronnie had a sudden sick feeling in his stomach that he might end up abandoned here, alone, with no way home. God save him from being taken as a prisoner of war.
In his panic he lost sight of Jean and stopped dead in his tracks. Then he noticed what looked like a woodman’s hut among the trees. Jean must have headed for that. It looked a bit broken-down but it was better than being in the open. He yanked open the door and threw himself over the threshold.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he shouted, when he saw Jean slumped in a corner.
