The Somme Stations

only seem to get in the afternoons. It was like the half-formed idea of snow, and the place was freezing. Still, they had the tables set out in front of the cafes, and there were people sitting at them too – usually greatcoated soldiers with pretty, muffled-up women. I saw a man smoking, and then passing the cigarette to the woman. I’d never seen that done in Britain. Women seemed to be a speciality of Amiens – beautiful ones, I mean and we saw some real peaches.

‘They’ve got everything here,’ said Tinsley, ‘women, proper buildings that stand up, tablecloths on the tables.’

We came upon the cathedral, and the size came as a shock – every part of it trying to be higher than the other part. The Germans had been in Amiens at the start of the war. How come they hadn’t wrecked it?

‘This is Gothic,’ I said to Tinsley when we were inside. ‘Like York Minster… I think.’

It was like York Minster, only more so. Tinsley put some change into a box marked, ‘For the Poor of Amiens’ – rewarding the town for being normal. Watching him wandering about in there, I thought of the bullet that had landed in The Count of Monte Cristo. I had taken it to one of the Royal Artillery blokes at the Dump, and without saying where I’d found it, I’d asked whether he thought it came from a British or a German weapon. He said it was too misshapen to say, but most likely German. As regards the book itself, I’d asked Oamer if I might keep it, and he’d agreed, saying, ‘It’s not going to save my life again, is it?’ I would now be able to give it back to Harry with the best possible excuse for not having read it, and I decided that as far as the lad was concerned, it might as well have saved my life as Oamer’s.

Behind the cathedral was an area of narrow canals running between ancient-looking houses connected by wooden bridges. It was a beautiful spot, but I looked into the waters of the canals expecting to see dead men floating there, and when I looked into the sky it appeared to be unnaturally empty and silent as though something had lately been taken away. As we drifted about, the light fell, and the buildings became distinct by virtue of the different colours of light showing from them. About half of them turned out to be pubs or restaurants, and this quarter was evidently a big draw for the Tommies. We had three or four glasses of beer apiece, then went into a little restaurant and ordered what turned out to be a quarter of a chicken apiece with herbs and fried potato – and gravy. There was no gravy at Burton Dump, never had been and never would be. The owner of the place came up to us and asked ‘Bon?’

‘Tres bon,’ I said, but that only encouraged the bloke to say something else in French that I didn’t get, but that I fancied might be, ‘Thank you for fighting the war – I hope you win it.’

‘You know, I could live in France,’ said Tinsley, as we were fishing out our francs to pay the bill.

‘You are doing,’ I said.

‘After the war, I mean,’ he said, and I was struck by his confidence in using that expression.

‘If you lived in France you couldn’t be a train driver in York,’ I said.

‘I know,’ said Tinsley, ‘that’s the trouble.’

He must have been a bit squiffed because he started in about how the locomotives were more exciting over here, the carriages wider-bodied, the stations bigger. They had bigger ideas about everything in France. Only he couldn’t live without tea, and they didn’t run to that. When we left the restaurant, the owner said, ‘Bonne journee.’

‘That means “Have a good journey”,’ said Tinsley. ‘It’s the politeness of the French for you.’

After our supper there was a bit more drifting, but it struck me that, while Tinsley’s body might be wandering aimlessly in the maze of little houses and canals, his mind was not.

‘What are you after?’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said, and he coloured up. ‘Something Bernie Dawson told me about ages ago.’

‘A pub?’ I said.

‘Not exactly a pub,’ said Tinsley.

‘I think you want to be over that way,’ I said, indicating a quarter where the lights in the windows burned lower and redder. He’d missed his chance in Albert, so here was another opportunity.

‘Fancy coming with me?’ Tinsley enquired, looking in the direction indicated, and not at me. ‘I think you should.’

Towards the end of one particular cobbled street, the only people on view were women, mostly sitting on the first-floor windowsills, and looking at the blokes walking past – the uniformed ones especially. Tinsley stopped, and eyed one back, going crimson in the process. I was sure it would have been the longest he’d ever looked directly at a woman – about three seconds. It was enough though, and she jumped down off the window ledge, indicating that he should follow her into the house.

‘I might just go in here for a glass of beer,’ Tinsley said, turning to me.

‘Afterwards,’ I said, ‘wash it.’

‘What?’ he said, with a strange sort of grin, ‘the beer glass?’

The woman had left the door half open, disclosing an ordinary sort of living room of a good size with two soldiers – sergeants – sitting in it, smoking cigars, having either just finished their business there, or smoking in anticipation of it. I removed my cap, and watched from the doorway as a woman – an older version of the one who’d been on the windowsill – came into this room from a smaller one to the rear, and spoke to Tinsley. She used some word like ‘assignation’. Wasn’t her friend a pretty lady? An assignation was possible for seven francs, so Tinsley fished about in his pockets for a while, before announcing to the woman, ‘I’ve only got five.’ She didn’t understand, or pretended not to. Tinsley turned and looked at me, his face redder than I would have thought it possible to be, and I handed him two francs.

‘Thanks, old man,’ he said, ‘I’ll pay you back,’ and he added in an under-breath. ‘You know, I’m more shaky than I was on the first day of the Somme battle…’

But he hadn’t been shaky at all before that show, as far as I could see.

‘Per favore,’ he said, turning and handing over the coin to the woman.

‘That’s Italian,’ I said from behind him. ‘You’re in France.’

But it made no difference. While the two sergeants smoked on, he was being escorted into the rear room.

‘I’ll see you in the goat bar!’ I called out. (This was an estaminet with a painting of a goat over the door. We’d walked past it a couple of times.)

I was fishing for cigarettes prior to quitting the house when the madame returned with another woman, about of an age with the one of the windowsill, and a first-class belter it had to be admitted, being small, dark, and dancerish, with an amused expression.

The madame stood her in front of me, and told me the name of the girl was Francoise, so I put out my hand, and we shook hands, at which Francoise laughed a little, but only a little. (I looked sidelong at the sergeants to see if they thought this a funny going-on, but they just continued with their own talk.) Francoise eyed me steadily as the madame gave an account of all the points in favour of her. This was done mainly in French, but sometimes an English expression would break in, such as, ‘You will like her’, at which I thought: I already do. I believe the idea was that I would interrupt this speech, pay over the money and go off with Francoise, but seeing I was making no move, the madame came to halt with the question:

‘Oui ou non?’

This was a clever stroke. Even I could understand the enquiry, and to say ‘Non’ would surely appear rude to Francoise… Only I kept thinking of the wife going all that way to Naburn in the rain for me, and I knew I would have to get out of it. I wished I knew the words for ‘I’m sorry but I have another appointment’, and I was trying to think of something along those lines when Francoise took a step towards me, put her hand delicately on the back of my head and, standing on tip-toe, whispered something into my ear. It sounded like the greatest secret ever told – in French. They both stood back and watched me, and then a brainwave came to me in the form of a single word. I recollected it from the time of the battalion’s arrival in France: the word that Captain Quinn would be ever-likely to say if he were French.

‘Malheureusement…’ I said.

Well, it did the job in an instant. Francoise fairly spun away from me and sat down with the two smoking sergeants, who she seemed to know of old. I made the remainder of my excuses to thin air, turned and quit the establishment. Ten minutes later, in the countrified-looking estaminet with the goat painted over the door, I was wondering whether I might in all conscience have gone with Francoise, only with the request: ‘Par main’. It was rather annoying that the phrase had only come to me at that moment.