WE #5 TM Margot's Orders

Okay, I have a disclaimer. It is true what they say—too much Wikipedia can be a dangerous thing. Parts of the below short story are based on actual accounts of events during World War I. However I have taken artistic license with certain names—except for General Nivelle. He was a real person, and he made the real mistakes I show here, according to what I’ve read. And just as a side note, France had lost 20% of it’s entire young male population to this war—far higher a percentage than any other allied country. Their war was the longest fought, and the most devastating to their country. *Keep in mind, I am not a historian, so forgive me my inconsistencies.

 Margot's Orders

                       

            I held the flimsy telegraph paper— my orders—in my shaking, cold hands. The men around me were quiet, waiting with terrible patience. They knew that every minute that ticked by was another minute they weren’t out of the trench and stumbling across the killing field. If I had any mercy for them, I would take all day to read the order over, perhaps even into dinner time.

            But the NCO (non-commissioned officer) would be by soon, and if we were all still entrenched, there would be blood shed of another sort. Swallowing back bile, I stared at the smudged ink. Was there honor in such a death? We would become part of the countless, the buried nameless at the bottom of a ditch. To listen to the lunatics on the hill—the faceless names that refused to look us in the eye before dealing out our final instruction—felt like insanity. True insanity of the suicidal kind.

            General Nivelle’s signature on the bottom drew my eye. It was the hand writing of a murderer. It was strange to know this about him while staring at such a clear and personal sign of his existence. The curl in the ‘N’, a flourish that was written in the blood of countless dead poilu*. It tried to be whimsical. I knew it was the pen stroke of a madman. 

            “What does it say, Captain? Rain’s starting to fill my boots standing here…”

            Their fate and mine, hand-in-hand. Perhaps they were not so patient to know whether, by the end of this mud and blood day, they would be here in this hell or in the arms of their creator.

            But none of them, not one of them, not even General Nivelle, knew about Margot.

            “You know what it says, Dadure.”

            They answered me with silence. They wanted to be certain—after all, I was delivering a death sentence to most of them. Hat brims made dark shadows of their faces as they turned to each other, whispering in the dark rain.

            “It says the same thing it said yesterday. The same orders that the 13^th Battalion received three nights before.”

            Muttering could be heard through the rain now, through the squelch of boots in mud, through the muted sound of artillery going off over the hill to our West. Germany would never let us sleep, their war beast ever hungry for French cuisine.

            Margot would hate it here, I thought. She would scrunch her nose up at the smell of 150 unwashed French soldiers, made after wallowing in the mud and blood and waste of our trenches for weeks. Her gloved hands would stay firmly clasped in front of her; polite but unwilling to touch anything. Her heart would strain in her chest to see such despair on all the faces. Her stomach would turn over to see the bodies laying on the east-facing side of the trench, their blood mingling with the rain to run in rivulets down to our feet. Margot would turn her blue eyes to me, tear-filled, her sunset lips would quiver, all of her being would beg me to take her away from this place without saying a word.

            The men were now staring at me. Not so tender as a young woman coasting on a promise of marriage after the desecration of the enemy had been achieved, no. But they were begging something of me just the same.

            My own answer was burning now in the back of my mind. When a man’s choices are Death or Death… the answer becomes increasingly clear. I had come to this service in strength and loyalty and determination. I had come convinced that my country was worth protecting, that the enemy would be squashed beneath our shiny boots, that Germany would be limping back home, licking its wounds within a month, maybe two or three at the most. Their vision of European dominance was ludicrous, their attitude one of absurdity.

            That had been three years ago. War has a way of changing a man’s perspective. Something in me had broken long ago, and now, looking at the men before me, I knew they had broken, too. Death or Death? The third choice, the hidden choice—shameful, disloyal, unspoken—was my only salvation.

            “We are faced with a decision. I speak to you now not as your commanding officer, but as your brother in arms. Man to men. You have all heard the rumors by now, of Cauldere’s troupe—” A voice bounced back at me through the shadows, strain and panic edging his words.

            “They were all shot, monsieur! Every last one—at least if we go against the Germans, there’s a chance some of us—”

            “Yes, they didn’t have the advantage of our position! If we can just put the river to our backs—”

            “Haven’t you all seen the empty trenches, the way they’ve dug in so far in the field? They were expecting us! And if they know we’re coming…”

            Back and forth the men voiced their views, their fears, trying desperately to grasp at some reason in a situation devoid of all reasoning. General Nivelle had been heard talking about our maneuvers, our positioning, at a brothel pub. The entire Western Front had been given up by a vain psychotic’s drunken boasting. It was such a simple, stupid thing, that a German spy had overheard and reported back to his commander the rantings of an inebriated blow-hard. Why did they not think that the outburst had been a ruse? A poorly disguised decoy? A diversion, not even well hidden, to pull troops to the north? They must have wondered in some warm, dry Belgium control room. Still, to disregard the news altogether…

            Simple. Stupid. And effective. The Germans had taken advantage of the information, had taken the chance that this was somehow a real leak in classified information, and just that simply, just that stupidly, thousands of loyal French infantrymen had perished. They ran out into the fields of Aisne, and never, ever came back.

            Margot would not approve of my indignant anger at the Germans. To hate them, yes, but to throw my life and the lives of my men at their feet, to throw myself in front of their artillery fire? All because a masochistic General refused – quelle surprise!—to admit that he had sold out his information for a bottle of champagne and a whore! Margot had given me her own set of instructions that day on the train platform. She had whispered against my neck upon our final embrace, her breath warm, causing the hair there to stand on end. Her words had burned into my mind.

            “Sometimes it is just as brave to know when to stop. Come back to me, mon amour, any way that you dare.”

            I knew in my heart it was time to head her words.

            “Listen...” Their din had risen, their panic evident. Caught between the rock of Gibraltar and a hard place, they squirmed. “Écouter!”

            The squabbling came to a halt.

            “If we are caught, I will place the blame on myself. This trench leads north, we can follow the river back to Varanesse, and from there, we will make our way back—”

            “—Way back to where, monsieur Captain? Wherever we will go, we will be captured, prosecuted, perhaps shot!”

            There was a small amount of agreement, but the majority of the men could see the blaze of hope in my plans. The Americans would soon arrive, fresh and arrogant and thirsty for German blood. They had finally heard the call, had decided to move with the allies, and would take over the Front. We had put in our time. We had seen too much, had asked too much of ourselves, surrendered too much of our souls.

            General Nivelle was careless as a child with a doll, tossing our lives about as reward for the hell we had survived. I was no longer interested in entertaining such a spoiled, insolent child. Margot was waiting for me, and we would have a child of our own.

            “I am done. Those that are also finished with this fiasco of command are welcome to join me. Those that stay…I commend your loyalty, though I may doubt your sound judgment. We leave tonight. Those that are willing to go with me, meet here in one hour, and pack lightly.”

            Almost all of them came back. I was proud of their resilience, and their ability to see hope beyond all hope lost. I would make it my new dedication, to see them all back behind the lines, back to their villages and families, back in the arms of those they loved. Out of the hands of the military leaders that did not even care to know our names or faces.

            As for myself, I would be back with my Margot, as per her personal orders.

           

* ‘poilu’ is a nickname given to the French infantrymen during World War I, meaning ‘The bearded ones’, referring to the majority of the infantry soldiers at the time coming from villages and family settings.