Chapter Thirty-Seven
I had waited at the station for the train carrying troops from Calais.
Some were green and would stay in étaples until they’d been broken in by the Bull Ring; others, like Jack (already broken) were going straight back to the front.
You could tell who was who, not just by the state of their uniforms, but by how much they spoke and the expressions on their faces.
The men who stayed on the train were largely quiet, their faces blank.
Jack, as he stepped off to say hello, made an adjustment.
‘All they wanted to do was t-t-talk,’ he said, when I asked after Rosie, his nan, Helen’s girls, ‘but I had nothing to say.’
‘And Maude?’ I asked.
He didn’t smile, exactly, but his face relaxed. ‘Maude is comfortable with silence,’ he said. ‘We played a lot of ch-chess.’
The whistle sounded and he jumped. Steam enveloped us.
‘You have to go,’ I said.
Jack nodded and returned to his carriage. Neither of us said goodbye.
I waited until the train was out of sight then walked along the platform to where Iso was waiting.
Germans were labouring, repairing the platform with new paving.
Redcaps were supervising. They shouted occasionally, in English and German, though as I approached, I could not see the reason.
The prisoners all seemed bent to their tasks; no one was slouching.
Only the Redcaps looked relaxed. One took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, offered it to the other, lit his friend’s then his own.
I saw the ribbon of smoke rise straight up.
It was such a still morning, cool under a clear sky.
The day would be bright and I thought about the walk in the woods that Iso had planned, the glimmering green of beech trees filtering light through new leaves.
There’d be narcissus, snowdrops, lilies-of-the-valley.
I wondered if Iso would paint them but suspected she wouldn’t.
The Redcaps smoked while the Germans worked.
I watched as one shovelled sand into a barrow then wheeled it to another who was on his knees by the partially built platform.
He tipped the sand out so it could be spread to hold brick pavers, then returned for another load.
Apart from the odd command, the Redcaps showed little vigilance; there was no need.
The Germans had nowhere to run and if anyone had asked me, I would have said they were happy to be where they were.
In their prisoner garb – their white tops emblazoned with PG – they looked a little like schoolboys at a working bee.
Then a Redcap barked and I realised that one of the boys had laughed.
Yes, they were happy. Of course they were.
They were out of the trenches. Their feet were dry and they were being fed.
They were no different to all the other boys in that wretched camp.
Though perhaps they were luckier – I was thinking of Jack – they would not be sent back to the hell they had left.
They could weather a few harsh words from a Redcap.
Iso was sitting with her back to me, facing the Germans, her little folding stool hidden beneath her skirt.
Her head bobbed up and down and I knew she had her sketchpad resting on her lap, that she was trying to capture the scene.
A box of pastels was spilled on the ground beside her.
I looked over her shoulder. It was all sketched out: the Redcaps and Germans in the foreground, Australians in the distance, their triangular tents stretched in military formation to the edge of the page.
She hadn’t lived in that country for decades, but she loved their presence in that place.
Already there was some colour in this drawing, the blue of a German’s trousers and cap, the red cap of the military police.
She would finish it later or perhaps return tomorrow, though no one had asked her to draw this place and tomorrow might demand something else of her.
The picture might never be more than a sketch, never finished and never seen.
I put my hand on her shoulder and she looked up and smiled.
She turned back to the picture and drew a border around the scene, then she noted the details along the bottom: German prisoners working on étaples station platform – part of Australian camp in background.
RTO hut centre. I watched her sign it. ISO RAE, éTAPLES, APRIL 1917.
All in capitals so there was no doubt about who and where and when.
This quiet woman, I wrote in the journal, wants to shout.