Over There - Dieu et la Nuit

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Allen set his pencil down and pondered what he had written. Was the letter to his wife too negative? Or perhaps not affectionate enough? He wasn't good at writing letters but he had promised to write often. He was trying hard, but the effort left him annoyed.

After Mexico she had complained that he didn't write her, she was left to hear the rumors that the other wives might have heard. She had been angry with him and had made no efforts to hide it.

She seemed to ignore the fact that after being wounded in a small skirmish on the border, he had been in the hospital most of the time, fighting to stay alive. Not for her sake, or the children, but because he desperately wanted to live.

Looking back at those days, he wondered why.

The Philippines had been easier, when they weren't in desperate combat with the Moros. He had struck up a liaison with an attractive native woman, she treated him like a king. Something he wasn't used to.

His mother had been a harsh woman, she had no doubt inherited that trait from her own mother. That lady had seen the worst of the Federal army when it had marched through Georgia on the way to the sea. Her husband, his grandfather, was no longer in the army when the Bummers¹ came through. It didn't matter that the man had lost a leg at Sharpsburg, all they saw was the hated gray uniform.

Their farm had been poor even before the war, there wasn't much there to plunder, but the Yankees did anyway. When his grandfather had protested, they'd hanged him from the oak tree which stood next to the barn. And still did.

"Thank the Good Lord your Grandmother isn't alive to see you in that damned uniform." He remembered his mother saying after his graduation from West Point. She'd loved the gray of the cadet uniforms, but now the reality of Federal service seemed to upset her more than ever.

Love and affection wasn't something he'd grown up with, the Philippines had shown him that life could be good, with the right person by your side.

"Tell us, Henri, how are the Americans?"

Capitaine Petit thought for a moment, sipped his wine, then answered.

"They are enthusiastic, they hurry about their duties as if they are being graded for a school exam. Clumsy in some ways, but they are persistent. They will repeat an exercise over and over until they get it right."

"They are big fellows, aren't they?" An older lieutenant asked that question.

"No bigger than our boys from the country. Most of these men are from farms in their upper Midwest. They have big appetites and a strong work ethic. If the Germans are smart, they won't engage them hand to hand. The Amis seem to relish fighting with their fists."

"When are you moving up to the lines?"

"Two days from now. The Colonel wants another battalion to go through the training course as soon as possible. The Maréchal² wants to intermix American units with French units, all under French command of course, in order to bolster our own lines with fresh troops. He wants them fully ready for conditions at the front."

"I understand that their Général Pershing wants the Americans to fight under their own commanders, have their own army covering a sector of the front."

"Yes, but they're not ready to face les Boches on their own, not yet."

Allen saw the small church near the center of the village, on a whim, he wandered in. It smelled of candle wax and wet wool, he sensed that the church was old, very old. He sat in a pew near the back of the church.

He had no idea what had compelled him to come here. But it was quiet and for some reason, it gave him a sense of peace. Something he'd been sorely lacking as of late. He kept having a premonition, that he would never leave France. That he would die here.

He'd been in battle before, he'd been badly wounded twice and had nearly been given up for dead at one point. But somehow he had survived. But now, this war? This war had been raging for over three years now with no end in sight. Thousands had fallen, what chance did he stand?

"Es-tu ici pour te confesser, mon fils?"

Allen had not heard the priest come up behind him.

"I'm sorry, Father, I don't speak French."

"Pas de problème, my son, I speak English very well."

And he did, though with a rather heavy French accent.

"Are you here for confession, my son?"

"No Father, I'm not Catholic, it just seemed that your church was a quiet and peaceful place to sit and think, before going back to my men."

"Well, I like to think it is a place where one might find peace. You are an American officer I see."

'Yes, Father, a captain of infantry. My unit is only just arrived." As he spoke, Allen wondered why he was so open with this man. What if he was a spy?

"Where is Eberbach?" The staff captain was unknown to Bauer, he seemed rather abrupt.

"Herr Hauptmann, he has gone to the rear to fetch the company's rations. Perhaps I can help you, Sir?"

The man looked around, he seemed disgusted by the state of the trench. "Is it always this filthy here?"

Bauer suppressed the urge to say that the war had interrupted their maid service, but the man seemed to have no sense of humor at all.

"It's the rain and the artillery, Sir, tends to tear things up. We just haven't had a chance to tidy things up today. The enemy keeps interfering."

The man snorted in disgust, then reached into his map case, pulling out an envelope.

"Give Eberbach this, his brother has been killed in action. Tell him that in quieter times there would be home leave. But not these days."

The well-dressed captain stomped off, grunting in disgust as mud splashed his greatcoat.

Bauer shook his head, as he recalled, Kurt's brother was a pilot, rather, had been a pilot. Sad that. Though tempted to open the envelope, he didn't, he'd respect Kurt's privacy. Though from the look of things, the army censors had not.

Allen felt drawn to this French priest. Though he hadn't been raised in any particular Protestant denomination, his mother was a Baptist, his father an on and off Lutheran, he had attended church services as often as he could, usually of whatever flavor the army post he was at offered.

He personally had nothing against Catholics, he'd met a lot of good ones in his service, but his wife and her family hated them as if they were the spawn of Satan. Something he'd actually heard one of his wife's uncles call them.

"Why are you really here, my son?"

"Really Father, no specific reason. But I've had a sense of unease ever since boarding the ship for France. This is my third war, and I fear it is my last."

Father Alphonse Ducheine nodded. He realized that what this American meant wasn't that he would not be able to go to war after this one, it was that he wasn't going to survive this one.

"Have you had such premonitions before?"

"Once, in Mexico. We had been ambushed by Villa's men, it looked as though we were going to be wiped out. But I suppose that's natural, fear of death while actually in combat. But this is the first time I've felt this way before ever going into action."

"How old are you, my son?"

Allen thought that an odd question, which he answered anyway, "I'll be forty-two next spring. I'm old for a captain."

Father Ducheine nodded, "Yes, of course. Sometimes as we age, we begin to ponder our own mortality. The young think they will live forever, I've seen dying soldiers think they will somehow recover, even as their life departs. They seem, what is the word? Yes, surprised, they are surprised that they are dying. But as you know, as we get older, we realize that death isn't only a possibility, it is a certainty. It is only the time and manner of dying which is a mystery."

"Were you in the army?" Allen asked, surprised.

"Yes, but not in this war. I'm a bit old for that. I was chaplain to an army unit in the War of 1870."

Allen nodded, he hesitated a moment, then asked, "Would you mind if I come and see you again, Father?"

"I would like that, mon Capitaine."

¹ Bummers was the nickname given to the foragers in William Tecumseh Sherman's army on the March to the Sea. They were hated by the southerners as they looted and vandalized many homes.

² Phillipe Pétain. A brilliant soldier in World War One, a traitor in World War Two.