'Of the war?'
'Of being alone with a stranger.'
'No,' she said.
'You're trusting.'
'I never trust men,' she answered. 'That's why I'm not afraid of them.'
'Sound policy,' said Younger. He looked up at the twinkling canopy above. 'I saw something today I'll never forget. An American marine sergeant was ordering his platoon out of a trench. They were outgunned, outmanned, but the sergeant decided to attack. His marines were too afraid to come out. The sergeant said to them — well, it involves a term that shouldn't be used in polite company. Shall I say it?'
'Are you joking?' asked Colette.
'The sergeant yelled, "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" His men came out. It was a bloodbath.'
'Did he live, the sergeant?'
'Yes, he did.'
A sound like a banshee's scream was followed by another explosion. This time the blast was closer. The ground shook, and they could see fires burning perhaps a thousand yards away.
'You should get out,' said Younger. 'Tonight. If the Germans break through, they'll be here before morning. They may do worse to a French girl than your soldiers did.'
She said nothing. Younger reshouldered his gear and set off for the woods again — in the direction of the explosions.
It was July, 1918, before he saw her again. Germany had commenced a series of ferocious offensives in France, determined to seize victory before the United States could fully mobilize. Hundreds of thousands of seasoned German troops were pouring in from the east, where Russia's new Bolshevik rulers had surrendered, releasing the Kaiser's armies from the Eastern Front. By the end of May, Germany had pressed the French forces back to the Marne, only fifty miles from Paris.
But there, at Belleau, at Vaux, at Chateau-Thierry, Americans blocked the German advance, charging to their deaths with an abandon unseen in Allied troops since 1914. United States newspapers trumpeted the Yankee victories, wildly exaggerating their importance. The question was whether the new line would hold.
For forty days, the two sides threw wave after wave of firepower and young men into brutal, indecisive combat. Slowly the fighting ground to a halt, reduced to the exchange of blistering shell attacks from well-fortified entrenchments. The pause was ominous. The Germans appeared to be reinforcing again, massing yet more divisions.
In this quiet before the storm, a produce market of dubious legality had sprung up in the village of Crйzancy, overlooked by the huge, glinting American guns planted high up on the Moulin Ruinй. Bent and wizened French farmers sold whatever goods they had managed to keep back from government requisitioners.
It was Luc whom Younger saw first. He recognized at once the little boy buying cheese and milk, wordlessly shaking his head at some exorbitant demand and consenting to pay only after receiving an acceptable price. Younger greeted the boy warmly. In a burst of inspiration, he pulled from his pocket a sealed jar crawling with maggots. Luc's eyes opened wide.
'They're larvae,' said Younger in French. 'In a short time, each of these fellows will wrap himself up in a cocoon. A week or two later, the cocoon will break open, and out will crawl — do you know what will crawl out?'
The boy shook his head.
'A fly. A common, bluebottle blowfly.'
This information appeared to boost the boy's already high estimation of the seething mass inside the jar.
'Would you like to know why they're such good friends to wounded men? Because they eat only dead tissue. Living cells have no appeal to them. Here, take the jar. I have more. Very few young men have pet maggots.'
The boy accepted the present and drew something from his own pocket, offering it in exchange.
Younger raised an eyebrow. 'A grenade.'
Luc nodded.
'It's not live, is it?' asked Younger.
Setting down the grubs, Luc engaged the grenade's pin, unscrewed its cap, withdrew the spring, removed the pin, unhinged the nozzle, and held it up in the air.
Younger leaned down, smelled the dry powder within. 'I see. Excellent. Live indeed.'
The boy reversed the process, deftly reassembling the grenade, and offered it again to Younger, who accepted the gift quite carefully. He was thanking Luc when a girl's voice spoke sternly behind him.
'Did you let him touch that?' she asked.
Younger turned to see the boy's sister.
'You want him to think grenades are toys?' she went on angrily. 'So the next time he sees one on the ground, he'll pick it up and play with it?'
Younger glanced at Luc, who plainly didn't want his sister to know he'd been carrying a live grenade around. 'Quite right, Mademoiselle,' said Younger, pocketing the weapon. 'I don't know what I was thinking. Luc, a grenade is not a toy, do you hear me? Only someone completely familiar with how they work should ever touch one.'
'I'm sorry,' she said to Younger, mollified. 'He likes to play with guns and ammunition. He's forever scaring me.'
'I heard you went back to Paris,' Younger answered.
She frowned. Luc tugged her skirt. The girl excused herself, bent toward him, and the boy made hand gestures between their faces — some kind of sign language. Her answer to him was strict: 'Absolutely not. What's the matter with you?' To Younger she explained, 'Now he wants to go to the front with you.'
'I'm afraid that's impossible, given your age, young man,' said Younger. 'Although the way this war is going, you may yet have your chance. But perhaps you'd like to see an American base?'
The boy nodded.
Younger spoke to the girclass="underline" 'It would be a great service to us if you came to our base with your truck. We have an X-ray machine, but compared to yours it's primitive. There are many men I could help.'
'All right,' she said. 'I can come this afternoon. But I still — I don't know your name.'
For the next several days, Colette's truck pulled into Younger's field hospital every evening, rumbling up the dirt road in a cloud of dust. With Younger seated beside her, they would set off to various encampments as far away as Lucy-le-Bocage. Dozens of men, wounded but reinserted into their platoons, had not regained their health as they should have. Younger wanted to reexamine them all. Usually the X-rays uncovered nothing, but every now and then, as Younger suspected, the ghostly skeletons showed a minuscule fragment of shell previously missed.
The first time this happened, Colette cried out in triumph. Younger smiled. As they worked at close quarters in the back of the truck, her fingers would frequently touch his when exchanging an instrument. Or her body would brush against him. On every such occasion, she would quickly separate herself, yet Younger had the notion that the contact might have been deliberate.
With the wounded or sickly, Colette was kind, but not particularly gentle or compassionate. With the healthy, she was flint. In part, Younger could see, this brusqueness was self-protection; she was too pretty to interact with soldiers on other terms. But there was more to it. Younger wondered what it would take to soften her.
One evening when Colette was busy with her computations, Younger took advantage of the lull to work by flashlight on some equations of his own. He became conscious after a while that Luc was standing by his side.
The boy handed Younger a book. It was in English, published the previous year. The author was one Toynbee; the title was The German Terror in France. The short volume had been well-thumbed; was it possible the boy could read English?
Younger began paging through the book. It was then that the boy handed him a note saying he hated the dead — the first time Luc had ever communicated to him in this fashion. After that the boy sat down against a tire of the truck, playing with an old toy.
'Where did you get that?' asked Colette suddenly, seeing the book in Younger's hands.
'Your brother gave it to me.'
'Oh.' Her body relaxed. 'He wants me to tell you what happened to our family.'