Good Hope Road: A Novel (53 page)

James clear his throat, tearin’ that bonnet from his head and even without lookin’ at him, I know that the Yankee, he goin’ all shades of red. Old soldier tradition, I tell the kid. When we ’bout to pick up no ’count little runaway kids like him, that when we play dress-up in women’s clothes.

‘
Mais
—’

‘Enough with the questions. Where did you learn to speak English?’ James want to know, headin’ off the conversation before it go any further.

Well, that how he known we were friendlies, he explain, when he heard us in the chateau, talkin’. The old lady, she had friends from London who visited the chateau each summer. Before the war, that is.

‘Big Ben! London Bridge!’ he say, grinnin’ cheeky as a monkey.

‘That’s all very well,’ James say, tryin’ to look all serious, but there a twinkle in his eyes, ‘but we’ve got to figure out what to do with you.’ He hoist the mirror back on the wall. ‘Come along now, let’s get you – yes, yes, and Gaston – out of here.’

The legionnaires gather around, exclaimin’ over the kid. Gaston get plenty attention too. That cayoodle, he been born for a circus, so happy he is to play to an audience. Henri call out a command in between stuffin’ hisself with his sandwich, and Gaston offer a paw.

‘Sit!’ and he crouch, the torn-up leg stickin’ stiff out to one side.

‘Play dead!’ ‘Roll over!’

Everyone so impressed with the show that all sorts of treats come out. Gaston take them all happily, his tail waggin’ so fast, it just a white blur. It make us laugh and that only make him wag it all the more.

‘Alright, alright,’ James say, ‘we need to change his dressing. Here boy,’ he click his fingers. ‘
Viens, Gaston, ici
.’ Gaston hop over on three paws.

‘
Assieds-toi
.’ Gaston listen, droppin’ first on to his behind then stretchin’ out his front legs. His tongue hang from jaws open so wide it look like he grinnin’. ‘
Bon chien
, good boy . . .’ James press a gentle hand on the animal’s ribs and he obey again, topplin’ over on to his side. He start cuttin’ away the dirty bandage and Gaston let out a small yelp. ‘Good boy, good boy.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I tell the kid who startin’ to look a bit anxious, ‘we do this all the time.’ It ain’t just the kid who anxious. All sort of butchery I’ve seen in this here war, all kind of terrible wounds, and yet here I am, feelin’ all faint over a rough-haired cayoodle. Goin’ by the sudden silence, I ain’t the only one either. Gaston whine again, thump his tail weakly against the ground. A mutterin’ of sympathy rise from the crowd.

James glance at us, amused. A quick mop of the wound, a dustin’ with antiseptic powder, a clean new dressin’, and
voilà
! Gaston stand up slow and tender, to cries of ‘
Bon chien
!
Bon Gaston
!’ from us all.

Henri whoop out loud, and throw his arms around James as he thank him. The Yankee look taken aback. He smile then, pattin’ the kid awkward like on his head.

We stuff Henri and Gaston full of food till both can’t eat no more. Best to send the kid to local headquarters with the evenin’ motorcycle dispatch, James decide. They’ll know what to do with him.

‘No! I’m not leaving,’ the kid protest. He not a child, he say, just a few years older and he could’ve been at the Front, fightin’ right by his father’s side. He want to stay here, he insist, with us.

‘Well, judging by the way the war’s dragging on, I’ll be sure to put in a good word in a few years, when you’re old enough to enlist,’ James say amused. ‘However, until then—’

‘I’ll run away,’ Henri threaten angrily.

‘You’ll do no such thing.’

‘It’s Gaston, he needs to rest,’ the kid plead, changin’ tactics.

‘You can show his leg to the doctors at the dressing post,’ James point out calmly.

Henri look at me for support, but James, he right. This ain’t no place for no kid.

‘I’m not a child!’ the kid say again, so mad now that he all but stampin’ his feet. Jim lift him in one arm, the dog in the other, and set them both down in the motorcycle carrier.

‘It’s for your own good,’ he say. He ruffle Henri’s hair. ‘
Au revoir
, kid.’

Henri still hollerin’ as the motorcycle roar away.

Ain’t even noon the next day but who do we see teeter-totterin’ up the road that lead to the village, but the kid, Gaston in his arms.

‘It was Gaston,’ he say quickly, before either James or I can get in a word. ‘He ran away, and well, what choice did I have but to follow him?’

I’m tryin’ real hard not to grin, but James, he ain’t amused. ‘He ran away,’ he repeat disbelievingly. ‘Gaston.’ The cayoodle prick his ears at the sound of his name, tail goin’ wag, wag, wag.

Henri set him down. ‘Yes, so fast that I could hardly keep up,’ he say, without a hint of shame.

That cayoodle done ran so fast, so far, he claim, that by the time he caught him, it made more sense to head for the village than turn back for the dressin’ post. They hitchhiked over, plenty dispatch couriers on the road . . .

‘Here boy!’ James snap his fingers and the cayoodle do his three-leg hop. He put his bum leg down a moment, rest it on the ground then lift it up real quick again.

‘Oh, he’s just tired now, from all the running he done since this morning,’ the kid explain. He grin. ‘Is there any food?’

Two more time we send him away. Both time he find a way to come back. His pappy waitin’ for him at the village, he lie to the first dispatch courier. He come to the dressin’ post to get his pet’s leg looked at, he explain, and now he need a ride to get home.

He signed up with the Legion, he tell the second, who chuckle at that but drop him off all the same.

‘Jackasses,’ say James, annoyed. ‘They should know better, what business does a child have here?’

‘You’re going back,’ he tell the kid firmly.

Henri cross his arms and stick out his lower lip. ‘You send me away, and I’ll just make my way here once more,’ he vow.

They stand there, glarin’ at each other. It make me want bad to laugh to see them: full-grown Yankee and little French tyke, each mule-headed as can be.

The matter of the kid, it go up to the officers. Messages go between them and local headquarters. Ain’t nobody sure what to do with him. The Captain order Henri to be brought to him, along with James and myself, seein’ as we the ones who found the kid in the first place.

‘You know you’re not supposed to be here,’ he say to the kid in French.

‘But I want to join the Legion,’ he reply.

The Captain grin. ‘Join the Legion, eh? You know what we do with soldiers who disobey orders? We throw them in the
boîte
.’

‘I will never,’ the kid promise, ‘disobey a single order from you,
mon generale
.’

The Captain burst out laughin’. ‘
Capitaine
,’ he say, amused, ‘
capitaine
.’

‘Maybe he stay?’ I suggest as we foot it back to our billets. ‘Only for a bit,’ I quickly add, at the look on James’ face.

‘The village was evacuated for a reason.’

‘Shellin’ gotten less over the past week,’ I point out. ‘The Boche, they’ve let up some.’

‘Sure they have,’ he agree, ‘and that’s probably because there’s a full-blown offensive in the works.’

‘Maybe they figure to leave this part of the sector alone.’ I pull out my ace card. ‘Besides, odds of the kid gettin’ hurt here with us to look out for him sure lower than if he go trampin’ ’bout out there alone.’

The talk ’bout the odds gotten him, just as I known it would. James glare at the kid, and at the cayoodle, who promptly hold out a paw.

‘Fine.’ James shake his head, knowin’ when he licked. ‘Fine. The kid stays. Yes, and Gaston,’ he confirm, even as the question formin’ on my lips. ‘They both stay until we’re sent back to reserve, and then we take them to wherever it is that they can be kept out of trouble.’

The kid tryin’ hard to follow what we sayin’, screwin’ his eyebrows together as he try to make out all the English. ‘You’re stayin’,’ I translate for him, shakin’ Gaston’s paw. ‘For a bit, till we can take you someplace safe ourselves.’

He jump to attention, and throwin’ a right smart salute, ‘
Vive la France
!
Vive
New York
!’ he whoop.

‘Vermont,’ James mutter, the same time as I correct – ‘Louisiana.’

We glance at one another, look away.

‘
Vive La Amerique
,’ we say then, together, as Gaston bark excitedly, waggin’ his behind. ‘
Vive La France
,
Vive Liberté
,
Vive La Legion
!’

It feel like the most we said to each other, James and I, in months.

he next couple of weeks pass slow and easy. Shelling’s still light, sometimes a whole day goin’ by without a single one sent our way. Summer lie fatly on tree and meadow, the sky clear and worry-free. When we drill in the park, there’s birds singin’, and flowers in the uncut grass.

It do us good to have the kid around, even if it only goin’ to be for a bit. Henri act real tough, but he just a little boy, still unspoiled. That innocence, it make us all ’member another world. A better world, the one we left behind, the world that still be turnin’ out there beyond this war.

And Gaston – even the most ornery among us plenty taken with the cayoodle. His leg mendin’ real nice too. He set it down more and more when he walk, and even taken off right across the park a couple of times, chasin’ squirrels. Someone gotten the idea to twist ribbons found in one of them houses into a thick collar for him. Red and green, the same colours as the
fourragère
braid that was presented to the regiment after the offensive at Belloy Santerre this July. A star tied to the middle of the collar, the sort that go on Christmas trees, all sparkly and made from tinsel, big as both my fists together.

James frown. ‘Talk about giving the snipers a target. You may as well paint a bullseye on his back.’

‘Ain’t been no sniper hearabouts, not since we came,’ I point out.

He mutter somethin’ ’bout there surely being an attack in the works, the Boche been just too damned quiet, but he let it go.

The kid, he taken to followin’ James and me just ’bout everywhere, even wakin’ with the reveille. He copy us when we drill, helpin’ much as he can with the diggin’ of trenches and strengthenin’ the barricade. He become a bridge of sorts between James and me. We still ain’t talkin’ that much, but havin’ Henri with us give us an excuse to fall into the old patterns of patrollin’ together, even billet in’ next to each other at night.

Through it all, Henri, he got questions, questions, and more questions.

What America like? Which one bigger, London or America? We seen Big Ben yet? What Paris like? No, he ain’t been there, not yet anyhow. Do you get
chocolat
in America? How do you get from here to there – could you swim? He learned to, in the village pond. Oh. Well, how old you got to be to get work on a ship? Do they allow dogs?

Damn but the kid sure can talk. I want bad to laugh each time I catch sight of James’ face. Like a cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs with no way out he look, as the kid go on and on, but all the same, Yankee James answer. Pretty much one or two words is all he answer with, or a grunt when gruntin’ will do, but every single one of the kid’s questions to him, he answer.

He still replyin’, weary like, as we foot it up the narrow slope of road that lead to the chateau. The battalion scoutin’ for bomb shelters, and when the kid hear, he tell ’bout the cellar attached to the chateau. Room enough for a hundred, even two hundred men, he claim. That where Gaston and he hid when the rest of the village left.

We goin’ over to check it out. It give me a turn to walk through them gateposts. We ain’t been back here since that first day, and it give me the willies, just thinkin’ of all that mournin’ net and that black voodoo mirror inside.

Nicer out here in the grounds. The sun in the trees, bouncin’ from the iron gate. James, he perk up at the sight of the fruit trees in the garden. Now he the one firin’ questions at the kid.

Those trees, why they planted alongside the wall? Is that all the support they given? How old that one? And that? How much water they need? What the soil like in these parts? Do they need manure? How much the trees be yieldin’ each year, does the kid know?