Paris: The Novel (100 page)

“Exactly so. The whole business is top secret. All the papers are being
classified and will be under embargo. With luck, nobody is going to have any access to the truth for fifty years. Meanwhile, we are going to have to tread very carefully, or there won’t be an army at all. If the Germans find out …”

“I understand.”

“We have to do two things. One is to reassert military discipline. Many senior officers believe we should have immediate, large and summary executions. Pétain does not think that is wise, nor does the prime minister. What do you think?”

“My opinion is altered by what you have just told me about the size of the mutiny. I think the numbers should be as small as possible.”

“Good. When we’ve got them all rounded up, we shall have trials and give the death sentence to very few. Then we shall shoot fewer than that. Probably fewer than a hundred.” He paused. “For the second thing we have to do, even more important, is to restore morale. Each time you reach a regiment or division—some are up at the front line, many are farther back—you are to ensure that when the officers and NCOs select the men to be sent for trial, that they send troublemakers, that is, people who may start up this business again, and if possible, men who are not too popular with their comrades. We want as few martyrs as possible, and we don’t want to damage morale. Use your judgment.” He gave Roland a firm look. “Now you see that I am paying you a compliment by entrusting this mission to you.”

Roland understood. But it didn’t mean he liked the mission any better.

They met in the officers’ tent. The colonel of the regiment was there, a short, bristling man, together with a captain and three lieutenants.

“We’ve got ten men for you,” said the colonel. “Though I could let you have at least fifty who deserve to be shot.”

“I’d rather have five,” said Roland. “This wasn’t a very large disturbance.” Then he explained what Pétain was trying to achieve. “The minimum that will preserve discipline while encouraging morale.”

“If we chose only the men who first initiated the mutiny, the ones who refused a direct order, then I think it would be five,” suggested the captain.

“And that devil Le Sourd,” said the colonel. “That makes six.”

Roland noticed that the captain and one of the lieutenants looked awkward.

“Describe this Le Sourd to me,” said Roland.

“He’s a big fellow,” said the captain. “He must have been over the age limit when he volunteered. The troops call him Papa.”

“He’s a communist agitator, a revolutionary,” the colonel said furiously. “He had a red flag up, told the men they’d march on Paris and take down the government. He deserves to be shot more than any of them.”

“Black hair, and eyes wide apart?” asked Roland.

“That’s the man. Do you know him, sir?”

“He may be a fellow I came across once. The politics sound like him.” Roland thought for a moment. “You say the men call him Papa. Does that mean they like him?”

“Yes,” said the captain. “He helps them with their letters, you know, that sort of thing. He’s a good soldier,” he added, with an uncertain glance at the colonel. “Just believes in world revolution, that’s all.”

The colonel gave a snort of disgust.

“I need to know one thing,” said Roland. Did he commit an overt act of mutiny? Did he refuse an order to fight?”

“Not really,” said the captain, with another apologetic look at the colonel. “His advocacy of revolution came after the mutiny began.”

“What the devil does that matter?” cried the colonel.

“He committed an act of revolution, but not of mutiny,” said Roland.

“Are you mad?” cried the colonel.

“There are men in the government at this moment,” Roland said quietly, “who probably believe in world revolution. And after the war,
mon colonel
, if you wish to take up arms against them, I will fight at your side. I am the Vicomte de Cygne, and I am a royalist. But the instructions I have, which come directly from Pétain, oblige me to counsel you that this Le Sourd is not a mutineer—at least, not the kind we want at present.” He looked at them all severely. “I shall leave you for a short while now, messieurs, and when I return, I shall expect to receive from you the names of the men we are to take for court-martial.”

He walked away from the tent. He wasn’t sorry to be alone. This was the first time that his mission had taken him to the front line. The officers’ tent was just behind a small stand of trees. He walked through them. A short way in front of him he saw some breastwork made of mud and
wicker. There was no one there. He could see an observation post thrust somewhat farther along the line.

He looked over the breastwork. It was strange to think that the enemy lay only a few hundred yards away, presumably quite unaware of the crisis taking place across the no-man’s-land between them. He stared ahead gloomily.

War had always been bloody, he thought. Nothing new there. But this war was different. Was there really a place for a man like himself—or for any human being, come to that—in this terrible world of machine guns, barbed wire, shell hole and trench?

Men used to speak of the glory of war. Perhaps that had been a lie. They’d spoken of honor. Perhaps that was only vanity. They’d spoken of grief. Yet there was hardly even grief anymore. Grief had been numbed.

For war was industrial now, like a great iron-wheeled engine of destruction that compressed flesh and broken bone alike into the endless mud of the killing fields. And for what purpose? He could scarcely remember.

So if ordinary men said that he and his kind had brought them to this nightmare, to this meaningless wasteland, he would have to acknowledge that they were right. And that perhaps their mutiny, for which they were to be shot, was the only sane act of the last four years.

And when it was all done, what story would be told? He did not know. Would tales of glory be invented? Or would there be a great silence? Men who have been tortured do not wish to speak of it. They close the memory in a lead-lined box and leave it in the cellar of the mind. Perhaps it would be like that. Or perhaps there would be a revolution.

He heard the sound of a rifle bolt behind him. Then a voice.

“If you reach for your revolver, I shall fire.”

He turned slowly.

“Le Sourd. I heard you were here.”

“We are quite alone. Did you know that there is a German sniper out there? I thought I would shoot you before he did.”

“I should have thought of that. It has been a long time. Aren’t you running some risk yourself?”

“I could say I went forward to warn you about the sniper, but that he got you. Then I could shoot some rounds toward the German lines.”

“You might get away with it. You might not.”

“I shan’t bother. They’re going to shoot me anyway as a mutineer, so I have nothing to lose.”

“Perhaps they will not charge you with mutiny.”

“I think they will.”

Roland de Cygne gazed at Le Sourd. He could have told him that he wasn’t going to be charged, but that would have looked as if he were trying to curry favor, a weakness for which Le Sourd would have rightly despised him. Roland was too proud for that.

“Perhaps,” he said calmly, “when you have shot me—and I advise you to stick with the story of the sniper, it’s worth a try—you will do me a small favor. In my pocket, you will find a lighter that a trooper once made for me. It’s just a little thing. You can send it to my son, and tell him that I asked you to do so. I should like him to know that I was thinking of him. That is all.”

“You are asking me to do you a favor?”

“Why not? With my death you have avenged your father. Matters between us are settled. You have no reason to refuse a small kindness to my son.”

Le Sourd gazed at him.

“Even in death, the aristocratic pose. I am not impressed, Monsieur le Vicomte. You are merely playing a role. Here in the middle of this desert of the spirit, you act out a part that belongs to …”—he searched for words—“a great illusion. It’s absurd. Perhaps you imagine that, in the afterlife, God is going to tip His hat to you in courteous recognition, like the Roi Soleil.”

Roland de Cygne said nothing. Even if he had agreed with Le Sourd, he would not have told him.

Le Sourd aimed. Roland waited.

“Merde,”
said Le Sourd. And instead of firing, he turned and walked away through the trees.

•  1918  •

James Fox looked thoughtfully at the young woman who sat across the desk from him.

It was a November day. As usual, the offices of Fox and Martineau, of which he was now the senior partner, maintained an almost sepulchral quiet. Occasionally a sound from the narrow alley off Chancery Lane intruded through the window, but seldom enough to challenge the soft hiss of the coal fire in the grate.

The young lady had arrived a little while before, without appointment, and asked to see the senior partner. He had no meeting at that moment, and when he’d heard her name, and realized who she must be, he’d told his clerk to usher her in.

She was quietly, almost severely dressed—a white shirt, a simple pearl choker, dark gray coat and skirt, her dark hair swept up and pinned under a sensible hat. Appropriate, for the country was still at war. But the material was expensive. One could tell that she came from the well-to-do upper-middle class.

Her face was rather beautiful, he thought. Her eyes large, almost violet in color. There was a certain elegance in her movements. Was there something French about her, or did he just imagine it because of what he knew? Her name was Louise.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

“You are the family lawyers,” said Louise. “I believe you always have been.”

“That is certainly true. It began with my own father and your grandfather.”

“So if I were adopted you would know.”

He did not move a muscle of his face.

“We might, or might not, I should say.”

“I think you know.”

He did not answer.

“My mother told me I was adopted. She told me when I was sixteen.”

“Did she?”

“She didn’t want to tell me, even then. I never had any idea until one day I overheard two of my parents’ friends talking about our family, and one of them said that I was adopted but that I didn’t know. What do you think of that, Mr. Fox?”

“If clients ask us, we generally recommend that they should tell children when they are adopted. Some do not. But even if you had been adopted, I don’t know why you’d come to see me.”

“When I asked my mother about it, and I told her what I’d heard, she wasn’t very pleased. Then she told me that she and my father had adopted me because they loved me, but that my real parents didn’t love me, and didn’t want me. I was quite upset by what she said at the time. It was a new thought for me, you see, that my real parents had rejected me. But now I think my mother said it because she wanted me to love her, and not the parents I never knew.”

“I believe you have had a happy childhood and a good home. Is that correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And your parents loved you as they should?”

“Yes, they did.”

“Parents need to be loved too, you know. Even if everything you say is correct, I think you should consider your mother. Perhaps she was afraid you would love her less. You surely do not wish to hurt her.”

“But I’d like to know if she was telling me the truth.”

“Quite often people have children that they can’t look after, for all sorts of reasons. It’s not lack of love, but circumstances that force them to act. Whoever your parents were—assuming you are correct—it’s clear that they went to great lengths to ensure that you had a wonderful home and upbringing, probably one they could never have given you.”

“Shouldn’t one always want to know the truth?”

“Speaking as a family lawyer of thirty years’ experience”—he smiled—“sometimes I wish people knew the truth, and sometimes I wish they didn’t. So if you have come to me for advice, then I advise you to be kind to the parents who gave you a home, and to forget the rest.”

“I didn’t come to you for advice.” She looked at him steadily. “I asked my mother who my real parents were, but she wouldn’t tell me. Then a bit later, I overheard my parents talking. And I heard my father say, ‘Only Foxes know.’ The only Foxes I could think of were your firm, the family lawyers. And it seemed logical that the family lawyers might know, wouldn’t you say?”

“I can see you might have thought so. Do you always listen at doors?”

“No, but I did that day. Hardly surprising.”

Fox considered. “If I have understood you correctly, this conversation must have taken place some years ago. Why the long wait before coming to see me?”

“I couldn’t very well come waltzing into your office at the age of sixteen, could I?” Louise paused. “There’s another reason. You know the terms of my father’s will. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you for anything. He has told me that he intends to provide a dowry for me when I marry, but that the rest of his money will be used to provide for my mother, and that after that, the residue will go to some blood cousins. So being adopted isn’t quite the same, you see. The point is that I’m not an heiress.”