Sunset Ridge (3 page)

 

 

 

Chessy farmhouse,
ten miles from Saint-Omer,
northern France
April 1916

Madame Marie Chessy sidestepped the wooden box housing her best-laying hen. The hen spent much of its life indoors, under Madame's watchful gaze and safe from errant foxes. The woman crossed the flagstone floor and drew the thick bolt closed on the farmhouse door. Pressing an ear against the wood, she concentrated. The sound was muffled, indecipherable. It could be anything, she decided; that was the problem. Still unused to spending so much time alone, she was attuned to the slightest irregularity and her nerves occasionally overtook commonsense. Having expected her twin boys, Francois and Antoine, to be home before this, their delay added to her concern. Lifting the corner of the curtain, she peered out into the fading light. The soft lines of the willow trees that fringed the small stream beyond the farmhouse clearing remained visible, their branches dipping into the water at their feet. Beyond the willows, gently undulating countryside displayed a patchwork of green and yellow fields.

The noise sounded again. Madame Chessy smoothed a dark wave of hair across her forehead. Initially the noise resembled a cough, then a rustling, scratching sound. Perhaps it was the fox. The animal had taken two of her hens during winter, forcing her to board up the fence surrounding their pen so that the poor birds were literally boxed in at night. She glanced at the wooden rolling pin on the table and then at the sturdy chair near the fire. She missed her husband. She would always miss Marcel. ‘This is ridiculous,' she murmured. Who or what did she think was outside? A hungry fox or the German army? Two wooden crucifixes flanked the stove's flue. Others hung above her bedroom door and the twins' shared alcove. Madame Chessy crossed herself, noticing not for the first time that the crosses hanging above the oven were cracked from the heat of the fire. Jesus's suffering, it seemed, was ongoing.

A high-pitched whistle broke the silence. The widow sighed with relief at the familiar signal as the hen clucked in annoyance and then resettled in its box against the far wall. Voices could be heard. Her sons. The seventeen-year-old twins were returning from the fields beyond the stream. Throwing a thick woollen shawl about her shoulders, she drew the bolt on the door. The clearing was devoid of movement. The remaining hens and rooster were penned securely for the night, and the pigs and two cows were in the stone barn. A warbler sang in one of the birch trees behind the clutch of buildings, and in an hour or so an owl would take up residence in the branches above the barn. The natural cycle of the world had remained unchanged for eighteen years, since her arrival here. Even her body had settled into the seasons' rhythms. At thirty-five, her bones were adept at warning when a cool change or rain was coming. It was the way it should be for a farm woman, although her beloved mother had once wished for her a better life.

The night air had a bite to it. She rubbed her work-roughened hands together as a smile settled into the care lines etching her mouth. Francois was tall, brown-haired and lean like his father and had inherited the same tendency towards conservatism and learning, while Antoine favoured her family, his stockier build and darker looks complemented by a level of optimism undimmed by the war being waged in their country. Their bobbing heads rose and fell against the paling sky as they jumped the narrow stream. She imagined their feet springing on the soft turf, her daydreams taking her back to another time, seventeen years ago, when she and Marcel had sat in that same spot in the dwindling light, the twins a bulge in her belly. No one else would ever remember her as she was back then: a pretty, high-spirited girl.

The woman could hear Antoine's laughter and the cajoling tone that inevitably meant he was trying to convince his older brother (by two minutes) of some new scheme. His last adventure, before winter, had led them some three miles into the village of Tatinghem. Unbeknown to her, Antoine had tried to barter some of their excess eggs in exchange for a packet of cigarettes. His plan proved unsuccessful and instead he and Francois returned home with the dozen eggs and ten soldiers and a British officer, who quickly informed Madame Chessy that his men were to be billeted on her small holding for a week. Although she was happy to oblige, she made a point of taking several minutes to reflect on the officer's request before answering. Demanding, instead of asking politely, was never an attitude she had taken to.

The Chessy farmhouse had been noted by the Allies as a potential billet for troops in early 1915, however their use of the farm had been limited to date. The ancient town of Saint-Omer, the current Allied headquarters, was ten miles away and the surrounding villages absorbed the majority of troops. Yet a small stream of soldiers on leave from the front found peace and a semblance of rejuvenation at the farm during the bitter winter. And it was through them the widow learned of the true extent of the war. Although firmly situated on French soil, she expected a difficult year ahead. The Germans, with their huge army, were aggressive in their attempts at invasion and a long thin line of defence on a map was all that protected her beloved country. The West Flanders city of Ypres lay to the north and was something of a defining line for the British Empire. Madame knew only too well that Ypres stood in the path of Germany's planned sweep across the rest of Belgium and into France, and would also give the invading army access to the French port cities bordering the Channel.

‘Mama.'

She waved in response to the boys' greeting, their features still indistinct.

Ypres. How she wished she had never heard of the place. It was to this battleground that her beloved husband, Marcel, was forced to travel in 1915. When she objected to him leaving, he argued that if the British were prepared to make a stand and join the war in 1914 having guaranteed Belgium neutrality, then he too would proudly accept the call for his beloved France. How she hated conscription.

As the distance closed between her sons and the farmhouse, Madame Chessy noticed a third shape, an animal of some sort, a –

‘No, no, no,' she lamented, checking worriedly on her hen before firmly closing the farmhouse door. The dog was large and ungainly looking, a wolf-like mongrel if ever she had seen one.

‘Please, Mama.' Antoine's cheek dimpled. ‘Can't we keep him?'

Francois did his customary shrug, as if the events of the day were beyond him. He was so like his father.

‘He has been with us in the field since noon,' Francois explained as the lumbering animal covered a kneeling Antoine's face with slobber.

The animal was shaggy-haired, its colouring white, black and grey, which spoke of a mismatch of breeds. Madame Chessy could hardly imagine what it would take to feed such a giant of a dog.

‘He came from the north, Mama,' Antoine stated, the words causing the three of them to look in that direction. It was the place the boys' father had gone to, and from where he had never returned.

‘Ypres?' Madame Chessy murmured, the question hanging in the air. The dog was sitting, his brown eyes fixed on hers.

‘He has no home,' Antoine pursued quietly.

‘Many have no home, Antoine,' she snapped. She did not want a dog. There were chickens and pigs to mind, and cows and fields to tend, and any number of other chores to fill her days. Besides which, she knew that it would be impossible to instil a modicum of obedience in a dog clearly so devoid of breeding.

‘He may well be attached to a battalion,' Francois suggested. ‘They are using any number of different breeds at the front.'

Their mother blew a puff of air out through her lips. ‘I have never heard such rot.'

‘But it's true, Mama,' Antoine agreed. ‘They have dogs that run messages, dogs to deliver cigarettes to the men in the front-line, and others that locate injured soldiers.'

Madame Chessy did not want to continue this ridiculous talk, yet such extraordinary tales regarding all manner of strange and wondrous things had spread through the French countryside since the war's beginning that at times she was unsure where fact ended and fiction began.

‘They say the German mercy dogs are trained to ignore the dead and approach only the injured,' Antoine continued, ‘and they carry water or alcohol around their necks or strapped to their chests.'

The dog placed a wide paw on Madame's sturdy lace-up boots and, as if cued, gave a low plaintive whine. The widow furrowed her brow. The noise was not unfamiliar; indeed, she had heard it not twenty minutes ago. She compressed her lips. Here was her fox. ‘I doubt this stray has held such a lauded position.'

‘He has no identification,' Antoine told his brother. ‘Which means we can keep him.'

‘Perhaps,' Francois began cautiously, ‘he would be a good guard dog.'

Madame Chessy carefully pulled her shoe free of the animal's heavy paw. ‘We shall see.'

Antoine smiled broadly, dragged the dog to his side and hugged him.

 

They sat at the table; behind them the wood fire heated a pot of stream water to wash the plates after their meal. Antoine and Francois were ravenous. The small quantity of bread and soft cheese consumed at noon had long been forgotten. Their mother listened as their stomachs rumbled.

‘Slow down,' she chastised, ‘you will both be ill.'

Francois paused, a chunk of bread in one hand, a mess of egg on his plate ready to be piled on the dough. Antoine's mouth was crammed with butter-fried wedges of potato and still he tried to place more into his mouth. Only the soft whine of the dog outside the farmhouse steadied both boys while eating.

‘The first and second Australian divisions are being billeted in the Saint-Omer–Aire–Hazebrouck region.' Francois' eyes glittered. ‘That's good news, I think.'

Madame Chessy did not know much about the Australians, but word had spread of their imminent arrival and that it was a volunteer force. ‘It's a long way for them to come. Australia is at the bottom of the world.'

‘And yet they come,' Antoine said with fervour, ‘to this war to end all wars.'

His mother huffed. ‘I've told you to stop listening to the propaganda, Antoine. I pity the Australian women and their families sending their men to the other side of the world to these, these –' she searched for a word that summed up her feelings, ‘
killing
fields. They have no idea what they are sending them to.'

Her son's cheeks reddened. The pain of their father's death remained raw.

The fire crackled. Antoine poured water from a ceramic jug as the dog barked outside. The noise broke the strained mood about the table. ‘What shall we call him?' Antoine asked, his head swivelling towards the door.

Madame Chessy rose to lift the pot of now-boiling water from the fire. Sitting it on the hearth, she sipped her wine thoughtfully. There were only twelve bottles left in the cellar and she savoured her single nightly glass. ‘I don't think we can keep the dog.' She dunked her plate in the pot of hot water. ‘If what you say about these Australians arriving is correct, then we can only assume the war is nowhere near ending. We must prepare ourselves for food prices to rise again, and no doubt the shortages will grow worse.' She swished a dishcloth absently across the plate. ‘We must tend to the soldiers protecting France and our own needs first. With only boys, women and old men left to mind our farms I doubt our ability to produce enough extra food. This dog, I think, will take much to feed.' The woman rested her plate in the drying rack on the hearth.

‘I don't agree,' Antoine stated, his voice bold. ‘More troops could see an earlier end to the war and then things will get back to normal.'

Francois pushed his empty plate aside. ‘Mama, we cannot turn out a defenceless animal.'

Madame Chessy wiped her hands on her apron and rejoined her boys at the table. In the glow of the fire and candlelight the twins looked older than their seventeen years. She had heard terrible tales of fourteen-year-old German boys being sent to the Ypres battleground, and she prayed daily for the war to be over before the authorities came for her sons. It was only a matter of time. Once they were of age they would automatically be conscripted, if they didn't join up sooner. Her countrymen were dying in the pursuit of freedom, and the niggling thought of her only children wanting to prove themselves in battle, to follow in the footsteps of their dead father, was becoming more difficult to ignore. She plied the soft skin of her palm with her fingers.