Quill Pen Scratchings

Chapter 8

The drive back was faster since he was not in line behind other trucks and troops heading to the front.  He did get passed by an occasional ambulance and he also had to stop for gasoline at one of the makeshift gas stations set up by the French army.  As he was stopped and gas was being pumped into the truck, a couple of the mechanics noticed the damage to the truck, and asked him questions in rapid-fire French, of which he only picked out a couple of words.  Edmund just nodded and shrugged and pointed with his thumb towards the north and the front lines.  The men stared at him strangely for a moment and looked him up and down, and then said something else to him.  He just looked back and then the men went away.  He signed for the gas and proceeded on to the south. 

He began to get hungry as he drove and he rummaged through the knapsack that Tino had put in the truck, but it was empty. He guessed that Tino had been counting on the meat pies for the return journey.  His canteen was also empty.  He drove on for several more hours and finally made his way into Bar le Duc.  Judging by the sun, it was late afternoon. Edmund was famished and exhausted.  He drove by one of the sidewalk cafés that he had seen full of soldiers that morning, and it was now occupied solely by an elderly man and woman, dining on a small fish that sat on a platter between them.  Edmund was staring at the couple, who ate and sat in silence, and then he stared at the fish.  He had to jerk the truck back into the middle of the road when he realized he had been heading for the sidewalk.  He turned into a small side street and pulled the truck up as close as he could to another building so that he wasn’t blocking the road.  He turned the engine off and sat in the silence for a moment.  The blood and the noise and the dirt and the wind had drained him.  He sat gripping the wheel and staring out of the front of the truck, listening to the clinking metal of the cooling engine. 

Soon, his sanctuary was broken by noises coming from an open door at the back of the café.  He looked over at it and listened to the sound of pots and pans banging onto stoves and the sound of something being chopped rapidly.  A yellow dog sauntered up the street.  Edmund stared as the dog stopped and peed on the back corner of the café and then walked up to the door and poked his head in, sniffing the smells that were emanating from the kitchen.  He stood for a moment, and then his whole body jolted as Edmund heard a woman yell threateningly and heard what sounded like two pans clanging together.  The dog turned quickly away from the door and scampered back the way he had come, turning into another street and out of sight.

Edmund didn’t know how long he had sat there.  His stomach began groaning hungrily at the aroma coming out of the kitchen.  He opened the door and slowly climbed out of the truck.  His legs were very stiff, and it took him several steps before he could walk in a way that he thought looked normal. He lifted his hat and smoothed his hair underneath it and put it back on.  He slid into his overcoat that had served as Tino’s pillow before walking to the front of the café.  There was a small fence around the tables with an opening at the sidewalk that led to the front door.  A large tree on the corner overhung the whole front of the café.  The old man who was eating with his wife had been raising his wine glass to his lips, and then stopped mid-way as he stared at Edmund.  The old woman seeing this, turned in her chair and stared at him also.  Edmund nodded at them and continued up to the door, stepping inside the café and removing his hat. 

A woman in a white apron was wiping down a table.  There were no other people inside.  She glanced up at Edmund and said, “Nous ne sommes pas encore ouverts.”  She started to rub again and then looked at Edmund more closely.  “Ce qui ne va pas avec vous?”

Edmund looked down at his coat.  His hands and his coat sleeves were stained with Tino’s blood, and there was a splatter of blood across his front.  The German’s, he thought.  “I’m sorry.  I’m very hungry.” The woman continued to stare at him.  “Do you have any food?  I can pay.”

“Are you one of the American pilots?” the woman asked with accented but proficient English.  Edmund didn’t answer.  “Your face…” the woman said.

Edmund reached up and felt the side of his face.  It burned when he touched it.  The tree branch.

The woman seemed to assess Edmund for a moment and then said, “Certainement.”  She then stood up and called through a doorway in the back of the small dining room.  “Clemence!”  The woman walked back toward the doorway.  A new, younger woman appeared at the door also wearing a white apron and holding flour covered hands out away from her.  The first woman had a quiet conversation with the woman who had come out of the kitchen.  He could see her looking over the first woman’s shoulder at him.  In a moment the first woman turned back to Edmund.  “I will have something ready for you in a few moments.  Clemence,” she gestured towards the woman in the door, “will help you get cleaned up.”  The woman who had come from the kitchen retreated back into it.  Edmund half nodded and followed through the door. 

He entered a small kitchen where several pots were piping away on the stove, and many herbs and spices were suspended from the ceiling.  He saw the door off to the side where he had seen the dog.  The younger woman with the flour covered hands was standing over at a large sink.  She was running water over her hand, testing the temperature and rinsing off the flour. 

“Are you hurt?” she asked.  Her English was heavily accented. 

“No, not really.” 

“So much blood.”

“Most of it isn’t mine.”

The woman stopped and looked at him for a moment, focusing on his sleeve and the spatter on his coat.  “But your face.”

Edmund reached up and felt the gash where the tree branch had ripped at him.  He could feel the dried blood on his cheek.  It felt strangely stiff and taut on the surface of his skin.  The woman took a white cloth hanging from a rack over the sink and ran it under the water. 

“I’ll try not to hurt you.”  She gently dabbed the cloth, starting under his jaw line and then working up towards the cut.  Edmund stared at her face as she did this.  She avoided his eyes, looking at the side of his face and the wound.  She stopped and rinsed out the cloth under the water and put it back up to his face, working her way very near the cut.  She glanced quickly into his eyes, then looked back at what she was doing.  Edmund suddenly felt very exposed and began staring over her shoulder at a spot where the white plaster wall met the wooden floor.

“This may, um, sting a bit, I think,” Clemence said, as she dabbed gently at the cut.  It did hurt, but Edmund tried very much not to move or to show the pain.  She took the cloth away and held it under the running water.  It was soaked in brown and red.  Dirt and blood.  She rinsed the cloth out and refolded it, and wiped off his forehead and the other side of his face.  She raised her arms and stepped in slightly as she did this and Edmund could smell her warmth.  He continued to stare at the wall.  She refolded the cloth and lightly re-wiped his whole face, “There, good as new.”  She turned and laid the cloth over the side of the sink.  It stood out dark and filthy against the white porcelain.  She reached up and took a dark brown bottle off the shelf and picked up a new cloth.  “This,” she said, uncapping the bottle and pouring a bit into the cloth, “will also sting.”

She held the cloth up to the cut, and Edmund felt a burning pain.  He stood as still as he could and tried not to react, but the eye closest to the cut began to water. 

“I’m sorry.  I know it hurts.”

“It’s okay.” 

“All done.”  She turned and took that cloth, which now had bright pink and red streaks in it, and also picked up the dirty and bloody one and began to rinse them under the water.  Edmund could see that she was looking at his coat.  At his sleeve and the blood on the front.  She turned back to the sink.  “Whose blood is it?”

Edmund hesitated for a moment.  “This,” he held up his sleeve slightly, “is the blood of my friend.”  He then held out the front of his coat and looked down at it.  “And this, I think, is the blood of the German who was trying to kill us.”  She stopped rinsing the cloths and turned and stared at the German’s blood. 

After a moment she said, “Well, give me your coat.  I will see if I can get the blood out.”  Edmund slipped his arms out of the coat and Clemence took it, holding it away from her body.  When Edmund saw it in her hands, he could see how bad it looked, and how bad he must have looked when he had walked in the door.  It was splattered in mud around the bottom and had been soaked where he knelt down next to Tino.  And then there was the blood of Tino and the German.  Clemence took the coat over to a hook by the door and hung it, being careful not to brush it up against herself. 

“I must have looked a sight when I walked in here.”  Edmund said.

“Well, you did give me a start when I first saw you.  You must have been through something bad?”  Clemence asked, not looking at Edmund. 

“Yes.  My friend is on his way to the hospital with a bullet in his side.  The German who shot him is dead.”

“Did you kill him?”  Clemence asked, still not looking at him.  She walked back over to the sink to rinse off her hands.  Edmund watched her as the water flowed over her hands.

“Yes.”

Clemence shook the water off and turned off the knob.  She reached up and took another towel from the rack of several that hung to the left of the sink.  She draped the towel over her shoulder.  “Then this is for you.”  She reached up and gently put her hands on each side of Edmund’s neck, and pulled him forward and kissed him on the forehead.  She lowered her head and walked over to a large oven.  “Go and find Mother in the dining room.  Your food will be ready in a few moments.”  She didn’t look back at him. 

“Okay.”  He paused.  “Thank you.”

She turned her head and nodded quickly at him and turned away again.  Edmund walked back into the front dining room of the café. 

Clemence’s mother seated him at a table in the front corner. She told Edmund that he looked like a new man now.  The food came, along with a bottle of red wine, which Edmund drank half of before starting to eat.  He watched the café door for Clemence, but she did not come out of the kitchen.  Other people came into the café, elderly people from the town, a few soldiers, and two groups of younger women.  No one seemed to notice Edmund.  As soon as he finished his food, Clemence’s mother walked over to the table after Edmund had finished and told him that the food was on the house.  Edmund thanked her and stood to go and then hesitated.  The woman told him that if he could come back in three days, they would give his coat back to him, clean and as good as new.  She then made a joke about hoping the weather wouldn’t be too difficult for Edmund without his coat.  Edmund thanked her again and walked out of the café and over to the alley where he had left the truck.

He climbed up behind the wheel of the truck and fished through Tino’s knapsack and found a small pewter flask.  He took off the cap and drank deeply and felt the burning down the back of his throat.  Evening had set in while he ate, and he looked through the deepening dusk at the lighted open door of the café where he had seen the dog.  He heard plates and cooking utensils clattering and heard Clemence’s mother talking but did not hear Clemence. 

After a moment, he started the truck’s engine and backed out of the alley into the street.  He would have to drive very carefully.  He had drunk too much.

He drove the short distance to the front gate of Behonne.  The sentry at the gate either didn’t notice the part of the windshield missing on the passenger side or just didn’t remark on it.  Edmund wasn’t sure.  He drove the truck over to the depot area where the other base vehicles were parked.  The offices were dark.  He picked up his and Tino’s knapsacks and canteens and the Lebel rifle and stepped out of the truck and shut the door.  Rain began to fall as he walked back over to his tent. 

It was still raining quite hard the next morning.  Edmund arose and dressed and walked back over to the administration building to report what had happened to Tino.  The office clerk spoke some English, and between that and Edmund’s growing command of French, he managed to tell the man that they had to get off the main road for gasoline.  Edmund showed him on a map about where he thought it had happened, though in truth he really had no idea where they had been.  He just picked a spot not too far off the Sacred Way, past the last town he remembered seeing a sign for.  He and the clerk walked out to the truck and Edmund quickly showed him the broken window and the bullet holes in the seat back, and then the two men went back in the office out of the rain.

“Did you see who shot at you?” the clerk asked.

Edmund wasn’t sure whether to tell him or not.  He wasn’t sure where Tino had gotten the Lebel and if he was supposed to have it or not.  He thought for a moment and then decided.  “Yes.  We chased him into the woods and I shot him.”

The clerk looked at him for a moment.  “Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

The clerk seemed to consider this for a moment and then nodded approvingly.  “Maybe they will give you a medal for this,” he said.  This man clearly knew and liked Tino. “Had to get off the road for gas, eh?”  He winked at Edmund.

“Yes.”

“You say that Tino was okay when they took him in the ambulance?” 

“He had lost a lot of blood, but he was still alive.  He spoke to me before they took him away.”

“Hmmm. Probably took him to Lyon.  I will make some inquiries.  I will also let Sergeant Knox know that he needs to find a new mechanic.”  Edmund didn’t know where Lyon was.  He told Edmund that he would write a report for headquarters about the incident and give it to Edmund later in the day to read over and sign.  Edmund thanked him and then ran through the rain over to the canteen and quickly drank two cups of black coffee and ate a piece of bread.  He had just begun to dry off when he left the building and stopped by his tent and took the Lebel from under his cot and ran toward the hangar. 

Edmund and Tino had cleaned and serviced Knox’s plane after his last mission three days ago.  He had not sustained any damage, so there wasn’t that much to do.  So the plane sat with its cockpit covered in canvas to guard against pigeon droppings.  Edmund noticed a couple of spots on the plane that he would have to clean off before the next mission.  As it was raining very hard there was not much activity in the hangar.  Edmund walked over to Knox’s equipment locker and took out the gun oil and cleaning brushes and sat down on a stool and thoroughly cleaned the Lebel and then stored it in the locker.  He then spent the next hour cleaning off the pigeon spots and, not knowing what else to do, rechecking all the work that he and Tino had already done.

In a few hours, well after lunch, a young French boy found him in the hangar.  He had a file folder which he gave to Edmund.  It contained the report, which was in French, and also a note from Knox.

            Edmund,

Sorry to hear the news of Tino.  I’m sure we will have his wily self back soon! In the meantime, I will rely on you to hold down the fort and keep my bird flying.  I will find you an assistant in the meantime.  Let me know if there are any problems.  We are lucky this isn’t flying weather, eh?

                                                S. Knox, Sgt, E.A.

Edmund took the report out of the folder and then noticed that there was an envelope that looked well-traveled behind it.  It was addressed to him in his mother’s handwriting.  Edmund looked at the front and back of the envelope.  He then walked over to where a small crate lay behind the airplane and sat down on it.  He turned the envelope around in his hands again and dropped the folder with the report in it on the ground.  He looked outside.  The rain was coming down harder than it had been earlier.  Puddles formed in the grass on the ends of the runway. 

Edmund slid his finger under the flap of the envelope and gently tore it open, trying not to tear the part where his mother had written.  It was one sheet of paper, and he could see his mother’s neat handwriting on one side.

Dear Edmund,

I hope this note finds you well.  I actually am fearful that it won’t find you at all!  France is so far away.  And with the war, I am so afraid for you, and I pray for you every night.  So does your father.  He talks about you all of the time.  He didn’t at first, of course, but now you are all he speaks of.  He misses you so much, as do I.  We read every newspaper we can find for news about the war.  It just scares me so much that you are right in the middle of it.  Your father showed me on a map where Bar le Duc is, and how close it is to Verdun where all of the terrible fighting is going on.  And in this town, you know that we hear lots of Navy people talking about when the United States might enter the war.  They seem very eager!  I hope we do soon so that we can end this and you can come home.  The news stories of Penny’s death have pretty much stopped.

Edmund froze and re-read the last sentence.  The pit of his stomach began to burn.

I have only seen the Tate’s once since you left, but I don’t think they saw me.  I think their son Thad has already graduated from the Academy and it at sea somewhere.

Your friend Lloyd stopped by the house last week with his pretty fiancé to inquire about you. I always liked him, he is such a gentleman, though I must say that he and she were very familiar with each other.  They act as if they are already married!  I’m not sure her parents would approve.  Anyway, he was just in town to see her, and asked me to give you his best.  He has been in Philadelphia working for his father, but I think he said that he would be returning to school in the fall, which is actually just right around the corner!

It was, Edmund realized.  He would not be there.

That is just about all of the news from home.  Your father has seemed so down and tired since you left.  A letter from you would do him wonders.  I had actually hoped to get a letter from you before now so I would know where to write to you.  Your father had to make inquires of the Knox family to know where to send letters! 

My dearest son, I do hope this letter finds you in good health, and in good spirits.  No matter what has happened, please know that your father and I love you, and it is my dearest wish that you will return home to us safe and sound as soon as it is proper to do so.  Please write and let us know that you are okay!  My nights are filled with fear for you, but I suppose that it is my right as a mother to fret!

                                                With all of my love,

                                                            Mother

Edmund lowered the letter and leaned back against the wooden post that was behind him.  He looked out again at the rain coming down.  All the other mechanics and crewmen had left the hangar and he was alone.  He held up the letter again and looked at his mother’s handwriting but not reading the words.  He just looked at the form and the shape of the letters. Then he held up the typed report again and skimmed over the two pages.  He stood up and put Knox’s note and the report inside the locker.  He would read it over again more carefully and sign it later. 

He put his mother’s note inside his shirt and then dashed out into the rain and mud back to his tent.  He was very wet by the time he reached it.  What a time to be without his overcoat, he thought.  He reached in his shirt and pulled out the letter again.  It had gotten a bit wet in two spots and as he unfolded it, he could see that the ink had run.  He opened his trunk and pulled out the bundle of letters and the photograph of Penny.  He laid down on the cot and read all her notes, which didn’t take very long, and then stared at her photograph.  He looked into her eyes and tried to imagine they were staring back at him.  Then he looked at the curve of her lips.  The lips he had kissed.  He laid the photograph face down on his chest and closed his eyes. 

He was running through the woods.  Branches were scratching his face and tearing at his clothes.  He was being chased, but he couldn’t turn his head to see who or what was chasing him.  He broke through a tree line into a clearing and the ground turned to sand and small rocks.  He was running along a shoreline. He passed a large bonfire and it was night all around him.  Edmund ran beyond the fire and then turned his head when he knew his pursuer would be beside the fire so that he could see who was chasing him.  It was the German soldier.  He was running after Edmund with his rifle raised and pointed at Edmund’s back.  Edmund looked down at his body looking for the Lebel rifle, but he did not have it. The German was getting closer to him.  He tried to run faster, but he felt as if his legs were being held together and he could not move them quickly.  Across the water, the moon was high in the sky, casting an ethereal glow on the rippling surface.  He turned away from the beach and ran toward a line of trees.  Why hadn’t the German shot him?  He could still hear him back there, his boots crunching on the sand and gravel. 

Edmund made it into the trees, but this time there was a clear path ahead and he could run faster.  He listened hard, but the German did not seem to be behind him.  He could see a clearing ahead and he ran toward it.  As he broke through the trees into a field he could see Tino standing in the field holding the Lebel rifle out to him.  Tino had a big smile on his face.  Behind Tino, Edmund could see the German standing, his rifle raised to his shoulder aiming at Tino. “Move! Move!” Edmund shouted at him, but Tino just stood their smiling at him.  He could see the German soldier slowly load a bullet into the chamber of his rifle.  “Dammit Tino, get down!”  But Tino didn’t get down.  With a loud boom, the end of the German’s rifle burst into flame and Tino’s head exploded into a shower of blood that splattered across Edmund’s face and body.  But the rest of Tino didn’t move. He still stood, holding out the rifle to Edmund.  Edmund ran faster, but he didn’t seem to be getting any closer.  He could see the German sliding the bolt on his rifle and again he fired.  Tino’s left leg disappeared, but the rest of him still stood.  Edmund finally reached him when the German fired again, and the rest of Tino’s body exploded into a wave of blood that covered Edmund. The Lebel flew through the air and Edmund caught it.  The German soldier was now pointing his rifle at Edmund and putting another bullet into the firing chamber.  Edmund pulled back the bolt on the Lebel as he ran, but it wouldn’t go back into place.  It was jammed.  Edmund stopped running and tried to force the bolt back into place.  He could see the German soldier slide the bolt home and then raise his rifle again and point it at Edmund.  The end of the barrel looked huge.  He shoved on the bolt and finally it slid into place.  He raised the rifle.  There was a flash from the German’s rifle, and then Edmund squeezed the trigger, feeling the jolt of the recoil against his shoulder.  He heard the two shots at the same time as he was loading another round.  He fired again and so did the German.  He reloaded and fired again and was also fired upon.  He wondered why he wasn’t hit.  He tried to feel for a wound, but he felt nothing.  They kept firing at each other until the cadence matched the sound of the Lewis gun on the Nieuport.  Edmund thought he must be running out of bullets soon, but he kept squeezing the trigger, sliding the bolt back and forth and firing again and again.  The German soldier kept doing the same and, because of the smoke from the two rifles, Edmund couldn’t see the soldier anymore.  He could just see the flash from the end of his muzzle.  Finally, Edmund sensed that he was down to his last bullet and knew that he had to make this shot count.  He waited for a moment, until through the whirling smoke he could see the soldier’s head and torso.  The soldier was continuing to fire but wasn’t hitting Edmund.  Edmund looked through his sights, aimed at the man’s heart and pulled the trigger.  The shot was louder than all the rest and it shoved Edmund back, but the man’s chest exploded and his body fall backward into the mist. 

Edmund ran toward him, dropping the Lebel and falling to his knees beside the man.  He was laying just as the real soldier that Edmund had shot had been laying.  Edmund wondered if all dead men lay in just this way.  He looked up into the soldier’s face.  He eyes were open, only they were soft, and looked lovingly at him.  They were Penny’s eyes, and Penny’s nose, and the lips that Edmund had kissed.  Her hair lay strewn in the mud and blood.  Her flowing white dress had flown up and her legs lay mangled and lifeless.  One shoe was missing.  And in the middle, Edmund’s shot had torn away one of her breasts, and he could see her broken ribs and her unbeating heart, lying in a pool of blood.

Not again, he thought. He looked back at her face, and her lips were parted in a warm smile.  Edmund picked her up and hugged her tightly to him.  As he did so, her head rolled backward, but the expression on her face, her eyes and the slight smile, did not change.  Edmund gently put his hand behind her head and leaned it against his neck.  He felt the blood from her chest run down his own chest and pool in his lap.  He held her until her body began to turn cold.

Edmund sat with Penny and didn’t move until he heard the snap of a twig behind him.  He turned his head.  The German soldier stood a few feet away, pointing his rifle at Edmund.  Edmund didn’t say anything.  The soldier lifted his head slightly from the rifle and Edmund could see his face.  Edmund’s father stared down the barrel of the rifle at him. 

“You killed her,” he said. 

Edmund didn’t say anything.  Edmund’s father put his head back down and Edmund could see his father’s eye through the sight.  His finger tightened on the trigger.

“Wait!” Edmund said, trying to stand.  He could feel Penny’s stiffening body fall away from him.  Then the end of the barrel exploded in a flash of light and noise and Edmund’s body exploded into pain.

Edmund shot up in the cot, leaned over the side and vomited on the floor.  He lay on his side for a moment until the nausea passed.  He felt for Penny’s photograph, and it was wrinkled underneath him. 

He looked outside and darkness had fallen.  It was still raining.