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‘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.
