At the Edge of Summer

I should have guessed that the army would be like boarding school all over again. The rows of narrow beds. The tall boys swaggering around the courtyard, looking for someone else to do their dirty work. The uniforms. The pranks. The occasional opportunities to stand in a line, shivering, in only your underwear and socks. The “Yes, sirs” and “No, sirs” and “Thank you for setting me straight, sirs.” It was as though those university years in Paris, pretending to be a grown-up, had never happened.

I had high hopes when I arrived. Watching all of the other conscripts milling around outside the barracks, looking so serious with their jackets and suitcases, I told myself times had changed. We weren’t twelve years old anymore. We were soldiers. Well nearly, anyhow.

Soldiers we may have looked after being given our uniforms—as ill-fitting as the getups might have been—soldiers we may have looked after all lining up along the foot of our beds for evening call—exhausted, bewildered, but upright—yet there was still a touch of twelve-year-old boy there. The second-years, seasoned and nudging, had warned us that in order to make it between the tightly tucked sheets of our beds, we had to do it in one smooth motion of a dive over the headboard. I gamely tried, to find that my bed had been apple-pied. My optimistically impressive dive turned into an ungraceful tumble to the floor with my whole person tangled in my bedclothes. The rest watched me carefully and dismantled their beds before climbing in. Me, I had to remake the bed to army standards, in the dark, and went to sleep in a glower.

The next day wasn’t any better. From six-thirty in the morning until eight at night, we were busy with drills and marches and gymnastic exercises in the courtyard, but mostly with lectures. In rows of desks, like unruly schoolboys, we were treated to what was promised to be the first of many lectures on the history of the French army, from Charles VII onward. We had lectures on “The Moral Duty of a Citizen” and on “The Evils of Disobedience.” Only two hours within all of that to eat—soup at midday; Papa would be pleased—and then two hours between the last drill and “Lights out.” I fell asleep with my boots on, only to be awoken with a crash, upside down, pinned between my bed frame and the center partition of the room. A long rope wrapped around the frame, mattress, and my poor feet, then tossed up over the partition, was to thank for this. “Sending you heavenward, recruit,” they told me between laughs. By the end of the day I didn’t feel any more soldierly, but I did feel more inclined to bayonet someone.

I found solace in the camp canteen, where for a few sous I could get a glass of passable brandy. The canteen was packed shoulder-to-shoulder and reeked of burnt garlic, spilled wine, and cut-rate tobacco, but the drinks were cheap and plentiful. I found a corner to wedge myself in and think about Paris and the countryside. About Clare and the months that had gone by without a letter. About anything but the roomful of men and coarse jokes and whatever it was that I was stepping in on the canteen floor. I already knew the next few years were going to crawl.

The quiet in my little corner, however, was short-lived. Very short-lived. A sip in, a bright-eyed fellow in a too-big tunic squeezed himself onto the bench next to me. His hair was the color of butter and in sore need of a trim. He waved over a glass of brandy for himself and, raising the grimy glass, said, “Merci.”

I looked around, but he was grinning at me. “For what?”

He slipped his kepi off and pushed hair from his eyes. “For buying me a drink.”

He nodded to the waiter, who was waiting with hand outstretched.

“It’s the height of bad manners to drink alone. Faire Suisse, they say. You buy me a drink in punishment.” He took a slurping gulp. “Shall I order another?”

Grumbling, I dug for a few more coins. “Nice to meet you.”

He reached around his glass to extend a hand. “Michel Chaffre. I have the bed next to yours, remember?”

I couldn’t tell him what color my blanket was, much less who slept next to me.

Chaffre took another noisy slurp of the brandy. He wasn’t one to talk about manners. “You look like a fellow who likes to be left to himself.”

“Yes, please.” I pointedly took a book out from where it was tucked in my jacket.

He laughed. “You don’t think anyone will let you read that here. Are you trying to get a pounding?”

“Who said I was reading?” I extracted a square of stationery and smoothed it on top.

“Writing in a café? How very Proust.”

“This is hardly a café.”

Chaffre wrinkled his nose. “Smells like one.”

“What sort of cafés do you eat in?”

“Ones that make this place look like Fouquet’s.”

I fished around my pocket for my gold pen. Chaffre whistled when he saw it.

“Looks like I picked the right chap. With a pen like that, you can afford better cafés. I hear the officers’ canteen has brandy that costs three sous.”

“And yet here I am.”

He hitched up the sleeves of his jacket. “You’re really going to write a letter in this slophole?”

“Some of us like to remind our mothers we’re still alive.”

“ ‘Dear Clare’? What an odd way to address one’s maman.”

I covered the greeting with my thumb. “Don’t you have some brandy that needs your attention?”

A boot came hurtling past, narrowly missing me but taking out both of our glasses.

“Not anymore,” Chaffre said cheerfully. “Listen, if we stick together, maybe no one will notice that we’re really just trying to be alone. No faire Suisse to worry about.”

I couldn’t tell if he was in earnest or hoping to get another drink out of me. He didn’t look nearly old enough to be there.

“We could watch out for each other. For boots and all that. I don’t know a soul here.”

A damp balled sock followed, landing in a heap on our table. “I don’t either.”

A recruit with shoulders like sawhorses stalked over. “That doesn’t belong to you,” he growled, and snatched the sock up from the table, spitting within a centimeter of my foot. “I don’t like thieves.”

Chaffre exhaled as the soldier left in search of his boot. “It would be good to have someone in this place to depend on.” He sat straight and easy, but his hands curled protectively around his now empty glass. “What do you say?”

I gestured for two more brandies. “Deal.”

Chaffre was true to his word. He was as persistent as a burr. With him sitting on my bed, polishing boots and keeping watch, I could read or write letters without fears that my mattress would be tipped or my head doused with water from over the center partition.

Though I hadn’t heard from Clare since that last letter in the spring, the one where she talked about the expedition to Mauritania, I still wrote, as often as I could. Not knowing where else to send them, I addressed them to the general post office in Laghouat, the last address I had. She’d make her way out of wilderness at some point. She’d find my letters waiting.

Lundi, de 20 octobre 1913

Dear Clare,

And to think I found school a slog. It has nothing on the army. I know by now you must be tired of hearing my epistolary complaints, but egads!

Despite the drills twice a day, our bunch is still trying to master “right” and “left.” Instead of a corporal, they need a dancing master. We might make more progress. But marching may be all that we can do. The rest of our soldiering, we’ve thus far learned from a series of books and pamphlets, which I think half of the recruits can’t read a word of. And those are the practical books. Did you know, yesterday we had a lecture on civic duty and, tomorrow, we’re to have one on mushroom farming? France had better hope that no one challenges us to battle. We may only be able to respond with a volley of morals and morels.

Must go…they are tossing Chaffre in a blanket again.

Yours,

Luc

I was always retrieving Chaffre. After those first few pranks, the others left me largely alone. But poor Chaffre, they waited for him when he stepped out to use the latrine. They lurked right inside the barracks with a wool blanket outstretched, and caught up my hapless friend when he came in. It was usually only after my shouted promises to buy jugs of wine for all the next day that they’d unfurl him. That may have been their intent to begin with. Uncle Jules’s inheritance was coming in handy.

Chaffre always shrugged it off with a smile and a “no hard feelings.” He was a funny kid.

Dimanche, le 23 novembre 1913

Dear Clare,

After a month, I think I’ve finally broken in my uniform. It’s really a ridiculous getup. The jacket comes down nearly to my calves and, underneath, the trousers are pulled up to my armpits (excuse the indelicacy). But just imagine, those trousers are as bright red as a cherry. The jacket and cap are dark blue. Is the plan to make us look too patriotic to shoot? Yet another reason why I could never be a real soldier. I’d never be able to attack. I’d be laughing too hard at myself to aim.

I do admit, though, that there is something comforting in all of the wool this time of year. It’s been icy. However, our uniforms would be far more comforting if the other seventy-nine men in my barrack would, on occasion, launder them.

Speaking of, the others have hidden Chaffre’s trousers again. I must go help him. Au revoir!

Luc

Chaffre sat on a bed next to me, mending his rescued trousers. “Thanks so much for helping me, old man.” His cheeks were pink. “Pass over yours and I’ll fix that rip you have in the seat.”

“You really don’t need to,” I said, folding the letter to Clare.

“You don’t want to be pulled out of line during roll call over a hole that will take me a few minutes to stitch.” He grinned. “I’ll keep you out of trouble. You’d do the same for me.”

Apart from finding his trousers and keeping him from the blanket tossing, I’m not sure I was as useful as all that. I didn’t want to turn their attention to me instead. But I passed over my trousers with a “Thank you.” I was all thumbs with a needle and thread.

He poked a finger through the hole, then smoothed it down with a finger. “Who is it that you’re always writing?”

“Clare. A friend.” I stretched out on my bed. “She’ll never be in the army. I have to keep her informed.”

“Of course you do.” He looked up and smiled. A balled-up pair of socks hit him in the side of the head.

“Mend these too, mam’selle!” followed.

Chaffre’s smile tightened, but he bent and retrieved the socks from under my bed. “No problem.”

Jeudi, le 15 janvier 1914

Dear Clare,

We’re beginning to learn topography, and to that I say, at long last, something useful. Now, when the French army is out foraging for mushrooms, we’ll be able to find our way back to the battle.

We have our first set of examinations coming up, though what they’ll be testing us on, I’m not sure. We’ve had recent lectures on mutual associations and beekeeping. Perhaps that? Poor Chaffre has been flipping through all of our books, worried that he’ll get some crucial question wrong and disgrace his family forever and ever. I keep having to reassure him that as long as we can walk in a straight line and can spout off the tenets of the Republic, we’ll be fine.

I tell you, Clare, I’m glad that this is all rather ridiculous. I’m not made to be a soldier. As a boy I was nervous just standing in front of the class to give a recitation. To stand and face someone across from a field of battle, to know that it’s kill or be killed, I can’t even imagine that. It’s much easier to relegate worries like that to the dustbin now that I’m training to be a very patriotic mushroom farmer instead.

Luc

I found Chaffre out by the stables, sitting with his back against the wall. Blood trickled from his nose and an ugly bruise was already starting to spread up into his yellow hair.

“What happened, man?” I broke an icicle from the overhang of the roof and wrapped it in my handkerchief. “Who did this?”

He took the icy handkerchief with a grateful smile and pressed it to his head. “It’s nothing. Honest. You should see the other guy.”

“I will. Just tell me his name.” I’d never thrown a punch in my life, but I would.

He straightened from his slouch and sighed. “I’m supposed to keep you from getting in trouble. I’m not going to send you into a fight.”

“Oh, you’re not sending me anywhere.” I hoped I sounded confident. I was furious. “Look, you tell either me or the sergeant-of-the-week.” I got an arm under him and pulled him to his feet.

He lurched against me.

I tightened my grip on his arm. “Steady there.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly. He exhaled. “It was Martel.”

I left him on the bench outside and went up to our quarters, taking the stairs two at a time.

Martel was a mean, wiry fellow from the streets of Paris. He was probably also a full head taller than me. When I flew across the barracks at him, though, I didn’t even think of that.

I managed a lucky punch before he realized what was going on, a punch that split his lip and made him yelp. Startled, I had no idea what to do next. I didn’t expect to actually land a blow. He leapt up from his bed and I went the other direction. I wouldn’t get another lucky shot.

The others, though, blocked my exit. They bunched in front of the doorway, cheering. Behind me I could hear the hobnails from Martel’s shoes. I closed my eyes.

“What’s all this?” someone bellowed. The sergeant-of-the-week pushed his way through the crowd at the door. “Line up!”

The shouts cut off as seventy-eight boys raced to stand at the foot of their beds, me included. Martel still stood in the middle of the room, blood dripping off his chin.

The sergeant sent a glare around the room before fixing on Martel. “What happened to you?”

Martel, the rat, lifted his face. “I was attacked, sir.”

“By who?”

I bit the inside of my cheek but Martel stayed quiet.

The sergeant set his feet more firmly on the ground and crossed his arms.

Martel shifted.

“I asked you a question, private.”

From behind came, “It was me.” Chaffre stepped into the room, holding his side. “Sir.”

“You?” The sergeant looked little Chaffre up and down. The boy tossed in blankets, the one they couldn’t lay off pranking. “You hit him?”

“What can I say?” Chaffre cracked a smile. “Clearly it was a lucky shot.”

We all had to stand and listen to a lecture about respect and discipline and our moral duty to our fellow soldier. Chaffre didn’t seem to mind; he wore that sly little smile. Martel looked like he swallowed a lemon. In the end, Chaffre was hauled off for a week in the camp’s Salle de Prison, but not before he threw me a wink.