The Girl You Left Behind

laundered cotton freshness as if he were holding spun
     silk. Then he handed it back. ‘Keep it,’ he said, and his face closed.
     ‘Use it for your friend. What did she do?’
    When I told him of her bravery, the lifeline
     of information she had brought to our town, he looked at her anew, as if he were no
     longer seeing a body but a human being. I told him I was seeking news of my husband, and
     that he had been sent to Ardennes. The Frenchman’s face was grave. ‘I spent
     several weeks there. You know that there has been typhoid? I will pray for you that your
     husband has survived.’ I swallowed back a lump of fear.
    ‘Where are the rest of your
     battalion?’ I asked him, trying to change the subject. The train slowed and we
     passed another column of trudging prisoners. Not a man looked up at the passing train,
     as if they were each too ashamed of their enforced slavery. I scanned the face of each
     one, fearful that Édouard might be among them.
    It was a moment before he spoke. ‘I am
     the only one left.’
    Several hours after dark we drew into a
     siding. The doors slid open noisily and German voices yelled at us to get out. Bodies
     unfolded themselves wearily from the floor, clutching enamel bowls, and made their way
     along a disused track. Our path was lined with German infantry, prodding us into line
     with their guns. I felt like an animal to be herded so, as if I were no longer human. I
     recalled the desperate escape of the young prisoner in St Péronne, and suddenly had
     an inkling of what had made him run, despite the knowledge that he was almost certain to
     fail.
    I held Liliane close to me, supporting her
     under the arms. She walked slowly, too slowly. A German stepped behind us and kicked at
     her.
    ‘Leave her!’ I protested, and
     his rifle butt shot out and cracked my head so that I stumbled briefly to the ground. I
     felt hands pulling me up, and then I was moving forward again, dazed, my sight blurred.
     When I put my hand to my temple, it came away sticky with blood.
    We were shepherded into a huge, empty
     factory. The floor crunched with broken glass, and a stiff night breeze whistled through
     the windows. In the distance, we could hear the boom of the big guns, even see the odd
     flash of an explosion. I peered out, wondering where we were, but our surroundings were
     blanketed in the black of night.
    ‘Here,’ a voice said, and the
     Frenchman was between us, supporting us, moving us towards a corner. ‘Look, there
     is food.’
    Soup, served by other prisoners from a long
     table withtwo huge urns. I had not eaten since early that morning.
     It was watery, filled with indistinct shapes, but my stomach constricted with
     anticipation. The Frenchman filled his enamel bowl, and a cup that Hélène had
     put into my bag, and with three pieces of black bread, we sat in a corner and ate,
     giving sips to Liliane (the fingers of one hand were broken so she could not use them),
     wiping the bowl with our fingers to retrieve every last trace.
    ‘There is not always food. Perhaps our
     luck is changing,’ the Frenchman said, but without conviction. He disappeared
     towards the table with the urns where a crowd was already congregating in the hope of
     more, and I cursed myself for not being swift enough to go. I was afraid to leave
     Liliane, even for a moment. Minutes later he returned, the bowl filled. He stood beside
     us, then handed it to me and pointed at Liliane. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘She
     needs strength.’
    Liliane lifted her head. She looked at him
     as if she could not remember what it was to be treated with kindness, and my eyes filled
     with tears. The Frenchman nodded at us, as if we were in another world and he was
     courteously bidding us good night, then withdrew to where the men slept. I sat and I fed
     Liliane Béthune, sip by sip, as I would have done a child. When she had consumed
     the second bowl, she gave a shaky sigh, rested her head against me and fell asleep. I
     sat there in the dark, surrounded by quietly moving bodies, some coughing, some weeping,
     hearing the accents of lost Russians, Englishmen and Poles. Through the floor I felt the
     occasional vibration as some distant shell hit home, a vibration that nobody else seemed
     to find remarkable. I listened to the distant guns, and the murmuring of the other
     prisoners,and as the temperature dropped I began to shiver. I
     pictured my home, Hélène sleeping beside me, little Édith,