At 10.30, the regiment with which Younger was serving began ferociously shelling German positions across no-man's-land. In an officer's dugout, Younger shouted to a second lieutenant he knew, asking what on earth was happening.
'We're attacking,' said the second lieutenant.
'What?' yelled Younger, refusing to believe he had heard correctly. Then he saw infantrymen filing through the network of intersecting trenches, faces taut, armed and packed for assault. From the direction of the front, he heard commands shouted and machine guns firing – from the German side, meaning that Allied soldiers were already scrambling out over the top.
'This is madness,' said Younger.
The lieutenant shrugged: 'Orders,' he replied.
At 10.56, the command went out to halt the Allied attack. It took approximately two minutes for that order to disseminate from field headquarters to radio command posts to captains in the field. At 10.58, the last Allied guns fell silent. At 10.59, the rain of German artillery let up. An ethereal, fragile silence hung in the air.
Twelve seconds later, Younger heard the whistle of one last incoming shell – by the sound of it, a volley from a long-range 75-millimeter gun. The shot hit close by; the ground shook beneath him, and plugs of dirt fell from the walls. Possibly the shell had found a dugout, perhaps even an inhabited one. All waited with suspended breath. Then they heard the eruption of three Allied howitzers, presumably aimed.it the German gun that had launched the last shell.
'No,' whispered Younger.
Naturally the Germans reciprocated. Soon the air was screaming and shaking again with a full-scale bombardment. The onslaught went on uninhibited for hours. It even featured the explosion of signal flares in the sky, pointless in daytime and harmless in effect. Neither side appeared to have an objective, unless it was to expend every last piece of ammunition in its arsenal.
Eleven thousand men were killed or wounded on November 11, 1918, in fighting that took place after all their commanding officers knew the war was over.
Younger was attached after the armistice to the Allied army of occupation. The border crossing into Germany was a revelation: in enemy country, there were green fields well tended, roofs and chimneys undamaged, cattle fat with sweet grass, farmers' wives round with plentiful harvests. The Allied soldiers – the French especially, but not only they – looked on in disgust, after the ruination of France.
In Bitburg, Younger had hospital duty. He didn't like it. The work was too regular and, if he had to be frank, too safe. One lunchtime in January of the new year, Younger was taken by surprise when an orderly tapped him on the shoulder, told him he had a visitor, and gestured to the refectory doorway, where he saw Colette in her usual wool sweater and long skirt.
He wiped his mouth, went to her. They neither shook hands nor embraced. Soldiers pushed by Younger to enter the huge, raucous mess hall.
'You're alive,' she said.
'So it seems. You're causing a commotion, Miss Rousseau.'
Several of the soldiers rushing through the doorway had skidded to an abrupt stop, causing the ones behind to trip over them, with a chaotic pileup the result, all because of the improbably lovely French girl standing in the doorway.
'On your way, you men – on your way,' said Younger, helping one up from the floor and giving him a shove. 'What brings you to Bitburg?'
'I'm trying to find the German army liaison office. I recognized your company colors outside. I thought I would-' She looked down. 'I wanted to apologize for that night. It was my fault.'
'Your fault?' he said.
She frowned. 'I flirted with you.'
'Yes. My happiest recollection from the war. I know what kind of man you're looking for.'
Her frown grew severer. 'You do?'
'One you can trust,' said Younger. 'You trusted me, and I failed you. I believe I may regret it for the rest of my life. Come on – I'll take you to the liaison office.'
'No. It's all right.'
'Let me,' said Younger. 'They'll treat you better if you're with an American.'
The exterior of the hospital was silent and gray, as were the streets of Bitburg, as was its sky, which seemed perpetually to announce a snowfall that never came. He led her to a squat brick building where a small staff of Germans operated a kind of lost-and-found – not for objects, but for soldiers. A queue of at least a hundred civilians stretched from its front door down the street. Colette, seeing the line, told Younger he should go back. Then someone at the door called out and waved them to the front. The line was for civilians, not army officers.
At the counter, with Younger translating, Colette said she was looking for a soldier named Gruber – Hans Gruber.
The stolid, thick-set German woman behind the counter eyed the French girl without sympathy. 'Reason?' she asked.
Colette explained that she had served in a hospital for flu victims near Paris in the last months of the war. Among the dying was a German prisoner – Hans Gruber. 'He was very sad and very devout. He said his company didn't even know what had happened to him. I promised to try to return his dog tag and belongings to his parents after the war.'
'Give me the tag,' said the woman. 'It is the property of the German state.'
'I didn't bring it,' Colette replied. 'I'm sorry.'
The woman made an expression of contempt. 'Regimental information?'
Colette provided it. She was instructed to come back in seven days. 'Hut I can't,' she said. 'I have a job and – a little brother.'
The woman shrugged and called for the next in line.
'I'll come back, Miss Nightingale,' Younger said to Colette when they were outside.
The reference made no impression on her: 'No, I'll find a way,' she replied.
A sort of mush "began to fall – not snow; more like clumps of congealed rain. 'You have a new job?' he asked.
'Yes,' she said more brightly. 'It starts in March. You were right: the Sorbonne turned me down. But it doesn't matter. I'll get in next year. Anyway, God took pity on me. Madame has offered me a position as a technician at the Radium Institute. I'll learn more there than I would have even at university.'
'God works in mysterious ways.'
She looked at him: 'You don't believe?'
'Why wouldn't I believe? What an outrage – these people who hold up the deaths of a hundred thousand children from the flu and blame it on God. It's not His fault.'
'It's not.' She turned away. Her voice felclass="underline" 'They've taken Luc. To a school for recalcitrant children. He was living with me in the basement of the institute. Madame is letting me stay there until my position opens up. It's perfectly nice. There are bathrooms, and books, and hot plates I cook on. But someone reported us to the authorities.'
'Fools,' said Younger. 'What is recalcitrant supposed to mean?'
'The other children are thieves and imbeciles. It's criminal. Luc learns nothing and receives no treatment.'
'He doesn't need treatment. He needs to live.'
'How do you know?' she asked. 'Are you a psychologist?'
He didn't answer.
'You could have helped him get the best treatment in the world,' she said. 'You remember how he used to write notes sometimes? He doesn't even do that anymore. He hasn't communicated with anyone for two months. Oh, why am I telling you this? Why am I here? I hate this country. I have to go – my train is coming.'
She ran away.
He expected to see her the following week. After ten days, he went to the liaison office to find out if she had come back. She hadn't. Younger lit a cigarette and gazed up at Bitburg's perpetually gray sky.