True Love a short story by Charles Roberts

 

Pousser, (Push) the midwife told her, she felt a movement inside her and pushed, feeling the excruciating pain rip through her young body.  Respirez comme je vous l’ai appris, (Breathe like I taught you,) the midwife scolded.  Colette panted like a dog on a hot summer’s day.  Maintenant, detandez-vous pendant un certain temps, (Now relax for a while,) she was told, she lay back against the pillows and reflected on how she had ended up like this.

She had gone to the town for two reasons, one to find work, there wasn’t any work for a girl of sixteen in the village, and two to visit with her Aunt and cousins.  She had taken the omnibus into town and had to walk passed the train station to reach her Aunt’s house.  As she was passing the station she could hear shouting, then men in smart uniforms began to emerge through the station doors, they all carried shiny new rifles and all the gear they had on was new and pristine.  Colette stopped and watched as men with stripes on their arms shouted at the British soldiers, soon they were all in neat lines, the shiny rifles and shiny young faces all in their green, crisp, uniforms who had come to rid her beloved France of the Boshe.

That is when she saw him, he seemed to stand out from the rest, to her eyes anyway.  He looked younger than the rest of the men, in fact he look more like a young boy than a man.  He noticed that she was looking at him and smiled at her, then the one with stripes on his arms shouted something and all the men stamped their feet in unison as they came to attention; then stamped once more as they turned to the left as one.  More shouts followed and the soldiers set off marching down the street away from the station, their hob-nailed boots crashing against the cobbled street; filling the air with a deafening sound.  He smiled at her as he passed, she smiled back.

It was two days later, when one of her cousin’s took her to a dance that she met the young English Tommy she had seen outside the station.  He seemed to shine out from the crowd, and as soon as he saw her he went to her and asked for the dance.  He seemed clumsy in his hob-nailed boots dancing, and although he didn’t step on her toes he kept apologising, at least that’s what she thought.  She didn’t speak English and he didn’t speak French, but they got by using a simple form of sign language.  Somehow he managed to tell her that his name was Tom and he was sixteen; that he had worked in a mill, and had lied about his age in order to join up with all his mates.  By the end of the night she didn’t want to let him go, and he didn’t want to leave her, although they couldn’t speak it they let each other know of their love for each other.

They spent as much time as they could together, and he taught her English, and she, him French.  At the end of the first week they could at least tell each other their feelings, and swore their undying love of each other under the full moon.  She secured a job at the English Army headquarters as an interpreter and clerk, Tom had taught her enough English to manage, he was a good teacher.  After the dance one night they made love in a hay barn on the outskirts of town, they gave themselves to each other freely and cemented their love as often as they could in that barn.  Then one day she heard that the soldiers were moving out and going somewhere called Verdun, working at British headquarters had its advantages.  They managed to meet for an hour before the regiment left town and he swore that he would return and they would be married.  Colette told him not to be a hero and come back safely to her arms, she told him that she would wait for him to come back and give herself to no one else.

Tommy wrote to her every single day, repeating his words of love and devotion for her, and she wrote back and begged him to stay safe and return to her aching arms.  After ten days the letters stopped coming, she wondered why, but a friend told her that he was probably in action and was too busy to write.

Tommy stood with all his companions in the bottom of the muddy trench, the butterflies in his stomach feeling like eagles, his hands shook with the anticipation, or was it fear, of going over the top for the first time.  His Captain was walking up and down the line of men giving reassuring nods or pats on the arm as he went.  The call went up to fix bayonets.  Tommy fumbled getting his out of its scabbard, hanging from his belt, and almost dropped it, he felt a hand on his shoulder and a soft voice telling him to calm down as there was plenty of time.  He look up into the eyes of his Captain, took a deep breath and then fitted his bayonet to the end of his rifle barrel and touched the left breast pocket where he kept the letters from Colette.  The officer nodded his approval and moved a little further down the line.

Tommy watched the officer as he slowly removed his pocket watch and looked at the time, on putting his watch away the Captain pulled a whistle, on a lanyard, out from his tunic, then looking up and down the line of waiting troops placed the whistle to his lips and blew hard.  Tommy could hear whistles being blown all along the trenches.  Pulling his revolver out the Captain rushed up the short ladder in front of him, and followed by his men went ‘over the top’.  Tommy heard all the men shout as they rushed up the small ladders as they followed the Captain, Tommy took two rungs at a time as he too rushed to go ‘over the top,’ his short life was cut short in a hail of machine gun bullets.

About a week later a friend of Colette’s walked slowly up to her desk and, with tears in her eyes, placed a small package down in front of her, I am so sorry Colette she said.  Colette looked at the package and asked her friend what it was, her friend just wept.  Colette pulled the package towards her and opened it slowly, it took some time for what she saw to sink in.  In the package were her letters to Tommy.  They had been wet and then dried as if someone had tried to wash something off them, but they had failed, Colette could still see the blood spattering the envelopes.  She burst into tears and ran from the room.

Two months later, Colette discovered that she was pregnant, her Aunt thought it best if she went home to have the baby.  Although her parents weren’t happy about it they accepted her back under their roof.  As soon as her father’s brother heard he just told them to say that she married him and he was killed in the war, so many young men were going that way.  Well part of it is true, her father thought.

She felt something move again inside her, pousser (push,) shouted the midwife, Colette pushed with all her might, the excruciating pain ripping through her young body, she screamed.  Downstairs her father poured another glass of wine, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head, then drained the glass and wiping a drop from his chin, refilled it.

Pousser (Push!)  She heard, pousser fort je peux vuir sa tete. (push hard, I can see its head.)