Good Hope Road: A Novel (12 page)

He let go
. Gaillard’s fist swing back like a piston, straight into his own face. He knock hisself so hard in the jaw, he fly clean off the stool.

My mouth is hangin’ open, there’s a dead silence around the table. All eyes on Gaillard, who sit up real slow, a stunned expression on his face. ‘
Merde
,’ he say softly, as he register the joke that James just played on him. ‘
Merde
!’

The Yankee in for it proper, I think, and me along with him. I’m fixin’ to put up my fists when Gaillard, he start to laugh. He hold his already swellin’ jaw and hoot with laughter. He wave a fat finger in James’ face and clap him on the shoulder, and now all of us laughin’ and cheerin’.

‘Drinks all around,’ Gaillard yell, and takin’ his winnings, slam them on to the bar.

Gaillard become real fond of us after that. He stop by our table later and sling those huge arms ’bout our shoulders. His jaw turnin’ a ripe colour. I try not to look at it.

‘You are both from America, yes?’ he ask. ‘I have a cousin, also Gaillard, in Buenos Aires. Perhaps you know him?’

‘That’s in
South
Am—,’ James begin.

‘No,’ I interrupt. ‘No, we ain’t met him, not as yet anyhow.’

Gaillard rub his jaw tenderly. ‘I read a book on America once,’ he say thoughtfully. James look so shook at the notion of the
ancien
with a book, it makes me want bad to laugh.

‘
Le Dernier des Mohicans
,’ Gaillard continues. ‘Maybe you know it?’

Can’t say that I do, but James is noddin’. ‘
The Last of the Mohicans
.’

‘I liked it,’ Gaillard say stoutly. ‘Took me a few years to get through it all, but I liked it. All those names they had for each other. Hawk Eye. Long Rifle. Subtle Fox. Do they still do that in America?’

‘Sure thing,’ James say with a straight face. ‘You just make one up, accordin’ to the man. Obadaiah, for instance, he’d be—’

‘Hawk Eye,’ I suggest.

‘– he’d be Chief Talk-A-Lot.’

‘And James here, his name would be Brother Jackass Damn Fool.’

Gaillard grins. ‘And my name?’ he ask, goin’ along with the game.

‘Mighty Heart,’ James say, just as I say: ‘Strong Oak.’

‘Strong Heart Mighty Oak,’ James suggests, mixin’ the two.

Gaillard repeat the words, testin’ them slow like on his tongue. ‘Brother Strong Heart Mighty Oak,’ he agree delightedly, and thumpin’ us on our backs, yells to the innkeeper for another round.

It’s a right good time we havin’, but as curfew draw close, James start to straighten hisself up. ‘The
boîte
,’ he point out. ‘Foolish to get thrown into the barracks prison for being drunk.’

‘We ain’t goin’ to.’ I wave my glass towards Gaillard and the other
anciens
who been here at the inn even longer than we have. ‘We just go in behind them.’

James look unsure. ‘Safety in numbers? That would work, I suppose.’

That ain’t what I meant, but I figure he goin’ to see for hisself soon enough. When we finally tumble out from the café, it’s a beautiful thing is what it is, to stagger back to the barracks behind the
anciens
. If us lot is drunk, they so pickled, they weavin’, zigzaggin’ from side to side as they walk. They singin’ too, or what pass for it, at the top of their voices. Right rude songs and sailor ditties, ’bout the comely chers of Toulouse, their sisters and mothers too. When a window open and a shoe come flyin’ through, Gaillard mistake it for praise. He catch that shoe, mighty touched, and bowin’ real handsome from the waist towards his unseen admirer, start to sing even more loud.

So it go, until ’bout twenty yards before the barrack gates the magic happens, like it do every time. It like a magician’s wand been suddenly waved over the
anciens
. Their singin’ stops mid-song, they straighten their shoulders as if on dress parade, and march in perfect silence, givin’ a right smart salute to the sentry as they pass.

Behind them, us
jeunes
automatically do the same.

I grin at James. ‘See? We just follow them in.’

Soon as everybody of us are safely inside, the
anciens
start roarin’ their songs out loud again. All of us join in, Yankee James too, beltin’ out the words.

October 1914

e still coolin’ our heels in Toulouse as more and more recruits sign up. We rubbin’ wax into our leather belts and polishin’ our gear one mornin’ when someone so strange come walkin’ in that we all stop to look. Dressed from head to toe in English khaki he is, complete with leggings and a trench coat. A spyglass hangin’ around his neck and what looks like a brand-new rifle over his shoulder. He got a map in one hand, a canteen in the other, and such a don’t-care look on his face that the two
anciens
escortin’ him in, rifles drawn, they look almost embarrassed.

He was goin’ around Toulouse enquirin’ ’bout our camp, they tell the Captain, and well –
look
at him, they say, they weren’t certain if he were a spy or what.

‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ the stranger say in a foreign accent. ‘I am Karan Singh, and I would like to offer my services, such as they are, to the Legion. I was acquiring an education in Cambridge – literature, the ancient classics primarily,’ he explains, ‘when the dashed war broke out.’ He tells that when he sent a tele graph back home to his folks in India ’bout wantin’ to enlist, his father told him not to be a fool. Karan lift a khaki-covered shoulder. ‘Well, I couldn’t just wait around and do nothing, could I?’

No point joinin’ the British Army, his father would’ve just pulled strings to see that his son got nothin’ more than a desk job, sittin’ pretty for the rest of the war. Only thing to do was to run away, quick as he could, and make his way over to France in search of the Legion.

Only one small problem; his father, soon as he heard, or maybe, expectin’ it, gone and frozen his bank accounts. Karan pull out a fistful of hundred-franc notes from his pocket. ‘Once these are gone . . .’ He shrug. ‘I’m sure we’ll be done fighting by then anyway. Or my mother will make him come around. It’ll all be fine.’ He spend freely that evenin’, buyin’ round after round for just ’bout anyone who asks.

For all his high-flyin’ ways, Karan’s real quick to settle into the Legion. He learn the ropes of System D right away and he use it far better than any of us done so far.

When he hear ’bout our
cafard
-brained ornery old cook, Karan start to loiter casual like ’bout the camp kitchens. The cook come rushin’ out, wavin’ his rollin’ pin and bent on makin’ sure Karan ain’t stealin’ none of the supplies when – ‘Why, if it isn’t King George!’ Karan exclaim.

That stop the cook cold. George hold in his stomach, haulin’ hisself up to his full height.

‘Such an incredible likeness, why, it’s as if you have both been drawn by the same hand!’

George blush like a little girl. ‘We are alike,
n’est ce pas
?’

‘Alike! Why, you are His Majesty’s very twin.’ Karan shakes his head wonderin’ like. ‘You
must
be related.’

The thought ain’t occurred to George before, but now that he thinks ’bout it, it make complete sense.

‘You
have
to be,’ Karan continues. ‘A long-lost cousin, a court intrigue perhaps, a royal bloodline lost forever.’

‘
C’est possible
,
c’est bien possible
!’ George nod. ‘And you,
jeune
legionnaire?’ He point the rollin’ pin like it a sword in his hand and Karan, a knight he especially like. ‘Where are you from?’

Karan sighs. ‘Like you, I’ve been disavowed by fortune. The second son, when the eldest must inherit all. And so –’ a dramatic sweep of his arm – ‘I’ve stepped out to seek my fortune. My father, born a king, and I a prince by birth, and yet here I am, making my humble way through the Legion.’

George, he right moved by this. ‘Wait here,’ he order, and disappear inside. When he come out, he got half a roast chicken in his hands. ‘Here. Say nothing of this to any of the others, mind you.’

‘Come again,’ he call as Karan takes his leave. ‘Come tomorrow. You and I, we will talk ’bout our kingdoms.’ He raise a finger to his lips. ‘
Mais
, say nothing to anyone else.’

From that day on, Karan always got an extra bottle or two of wine in his
musette
, a hunk of meat, a round of cheese, all gifts from good King George. Funny thing is, Karan, he don’t seem to eat or drink all that much hisself. What he gets, he freely shares; sittin’ back, smokin’ a cigarette and smilin’ while the rest of us dig in.

Soon after, they ask for volunteers for an advance to the Front. I look at Gaillard out the corner of my eye, but since there don’t seem to be no dirty latrines waitin’ this time, I quickly raise my hand, along with everyone else there. There’s so many volunteers that the officers, they figure to pick the most experienced soldiers of us lot. They ask what battlefield experience we got prior, and it downright astonishmakin’, the number of campaigns that come up. The sort that ain’t nobody ever heard of before. Central America, South America, the Mexican Army, with Karan rattlin’ off the tongue-trippin’ names of fully a dozen wars back in India.

A curious thing, the Captain say – all these wars we been in, all this experience we gotten prior, it sure ain’t seemed to have improved our drillin’ any.

‘
Vous
?’ he ask as James step forward.

‘Five years,’ James say gravely.

‘Yes, yes, but where? Mexico, I suppose, along with all your other brothers here?’

James shake his head. ‘Five years,’ he say poker-faced, ‘with the Salvation Army.’

They let us all through.

Lucky for us, those rickety-crack, first-issue rifles goin’ to be swapped out before we leave. Only, they being replaced with salvage from the Front.

We watch as the trucks rumble in through the barrack gates, a long line of dusty metal. One of the drivers set his fingers to his mouth and whistle sharply, hollerin’ for us to come help unload. We drag our heels goin’ over – there’s a raw stink ’bout the insides of them trucks. Under the tarp covers, their bellies loaded with bayonets, spare ammo and boots, laced together and blooded around the toes and heels. Pickin’s from the dead. The war, it gotten real close all of a sudden.

Us
jeunes
given fatigue duty, to clean the boots proper. For once, ain’t none of us got anythin’ to say; there’s no smart mouthin’, no cussin’ – we work at those stains with scrubbin’ brushes and water in silence.

When they issue the overhauled bayonets, I pick mine up and the blade, it feel both hot and cold to the touch. I try not to think of the legionnaire in whose hands it once been, or what become of him. Still, as I turn it this way and that, checkin’ out the tip and grip, I feel as if there’s another man there, at my shoulder. I catch sight of him in the blade. I see his peaked cap and coat, with the buttons all muddied, not like ours here in the barracks, proper brassed up and shined. Feel like a dream as I bend closer, tryin’ to make out his face, but the lines, they all start to run into one another. Only the eyes remain, dark as two pools of rainwater, raisin’ the gooseflesh on my arms.

I turn away sharp like, when I catch James lookin’ my way. He must think I’m spooked, the way I’ve been bent over the thing.

He clear his throat. ‘These are hardy weapons,’ he offer. He open a tin of chaw tobacco and cut a plug. ‘A foot and nine inches long, four grooves, a half-inch diameter in the hilt. Eight-chamber rifle.’ He nod like he approve. ‘They’re sturdy,’ he say, tuckin’ the chaw in his mouth.

I’m still kind of embarrassed and lookin’ to change the subject. ‘Why’d you join the Legion anyhow?’ I ask, for somethin’ to say.

He look surprised. ‘My grandfather was in the Civil War.’ He shrug, as if this explain everythin’.

‘My pappy liked to spend his time in a school house,’ I point out, ‘but you don’t see me standin’ before no chalkboard.’

He frown. ‘The Canadians are here, as are the British. It’s the right thing to do. If nothin’ else, for all that France has done for America in the past. For Lafayette, for 1776, for the munitions and men she gave us when we needed them the most.’ He look at me. ‘How could I not?’