Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)- March 1918
5th mar, 1918
news that reaches us is not so good. more ships being sunk, planes being shot down. nothing too near to us, not yet.
there is an uneasy feeling in the air. things are changing, pieces are moving, bits of universal clockwork are sliding into place, but none of the effects can yet be known.
we are sitting ducks.
russia has had her revolution, and all of eastern europe holds its breath. the germans are coming, and the only question is when.
11th mar, 1918
père louis gave a talk this morning, going over evacuation procedures. the news came in a few days back; russia has signed with deutschland und austria, and has removed herself from the war.
what does this mean for us? nothing good, of that we are all certain.
the sisters have packed what little food we have left so that it might be carried if we must evacuate quickly. the doctors have packed their cases, père louis his communion set. I keep my letters in my pocket now, my necessities in a bag by the door.
the most important thing i would take sits across the room and watches me, his face clear and brave.
i don’t think about it. this thing i have said to père louis . i let it sit. it is its own thing, larger than i had ever realized.
i think of clichés. mushrooms in the dark, vast hidden reefs in shallow waters. things never seen until too late.
there are no words for this feeling.
15th mar, 1918
finland has joined with germany. not that finland makes so great a difference, but one never finds it reassuring to hear that someone else has joined with their enemy.
there are rumors of canons, canons so large that they can fire a projectile for a hundred miles. i have no faith in the miracles of chemical ignition, but i will not lie and say that i am unaware of the proximity of the nearest german line.
messengers think it will begin any day now. we keep all the patients ready to run.
wait. wait. wait.
19th mar, 1918
père louis regards me with questioning eyes. did you? have you? will you?
no. i have not.
what would i say? even if i dared the wrath of God and the church, what would i even say?
by the way, i love you? i’m in love with you? i’m so in love with you i can barely breathe for wanting to touch, to smell, to hold, to…
no.
no.
no. i will not.
The shelling begins at just before dawn, the steady percussion rumbling across the river valleys. Chris is up and out of his bed before he’s fully conscious, shoving a stockinged foot into a boot and pulling his jacket over his shoulders. Zach is already gone; he was to take over ward duties at matins, and must be in the church proper.
Well, Chris thinks, this is it.
He tugs on the other boot, shoving his blanket into the pack that waits at the foot of his bed and clucking to Mathilde. He’s been training her for this, in spite of the general amusement, and this morning it pays off- she settles into the top of the pack and curls up, hanging on as he pulls the drawstring loosely closed and heaves the straps over his shoulders.
He nearly collides with Marc as they head for the door, and Chris pulls the door open, waving the other man through before taking a lingering look around the room. He may never see it again, he knows, and he touches the lintel one last time before hurrying down the steps toward the chapel.
Zach is in his element, and Chris pauses just a moment in the dim recesses of the massive stone columns to admire him as he works; he’s quick, but deliberate, never missing a beat in the choreographed chaos of a medical evacuation. A strand of hair falls across his forehead, accenting the translucent lines of his brow, his nose, his cheek. He is talking quickly to Pere Louis, his face glowing in the pre-dawn light while his hands wrap a patient’s arm in a sling, coaxing him to sit and swing his legs off the bed and grasp a cane with his good arm.
Chris loves him like this, when he’s able to release the inner tension that keeps him wound so tight and lose himself instead in the work at hand, in tending to others with the skill and compassion that come so readily. He bites his lip at the catch in his throat, and steps forward, flinging himself into the commotion without a backward look.
Chris is helping a one-legged Tommy into the sacristy wheelbarrow, the last of the evacuees, and trying to be mindful of the man’s newly sutured stump, when he catches a glimpse of Marc pulling Zach aside, a look of intent on his face. Chris maneuvers the cart over to the side of the church, surreptitiously leaning in to catch the muttered conversation. The Tommy looks around, confused, until he catches a glimpse of Zach, and then he grimaces mildly. Chris spares a moment to be vaguely annoyed that apparently everyone has an opinion on their friendship before cocking an unobtrusive ear to the conversation.
“Zach, you heard what the runner said.”
“What, that the soldiers are less than three miles away? It can’t be true.”
A shell explodes in the distance, and Chris tries desperately not to think about all the little outlying farm houses.
“C’est possible, Zach, you know this. Here, listen to me.” Marc grabs Zach by the arm, looking him hard in the face. “Chris, if he gets caught again, it’s all over for him. You know that.” Zach’s face whitens visibly, but his face is calm. “These patients…” Marc gestures broadly, “we are doing what we can for them. C’est le mieux to get them to the river, put them on the hospital boat. The Germans, they will not bomb this. But you…” He pauses, leaning in. “You need to run. The soldiers are coming, and it will not be long. The boat will be too full for civilians, and if it is searched, you will both be suspect. Take Christopher, and run. Run until you are far, far away, and do not stop.” Marc pulls away, and Chris can see the stunned look on Zach’s face.
“But…”
“Non, Zach, this is how it must be. Take him, now, and go.” He slaps Zach firmly between the shoulderblades and gives him a shove toward Chris. “ Allez! Allez! Now, Zach, go!”
Chris puts his hands to the handles of the wheelbarrow, leaning into the weight, only to have his arm pulled away. He turns to Zach, his face open and questioning. “But…”
Zach looks helpless, confused, and urgent.
“I know. I know. But Marc says, go, and he says now.”
He meets Chris’ eyes for a moment, his face pleading, and suddenly Marc’s hands are replacing his on the barrow handles, elbowing him aside roughly and beginning to push the cart away. Marc casts one last look over his shoulder, his lips forming the word “go,” and that’s all the catalyst Chris needs to pull them into running, chasing down the cobbled streets like chaff on a wave as the air ignites over their heads.
Chris hauls him into a doorway as a chunk of masonry plummets to earth in front of them, the plaster brains of a falling angel ricocheting off the hard stone streets. He knows it’s fake, knows it was never more than fragments of clay and glue, but feels his stomach turn over at the sight in defiance of intellectual abstraction.
The bombing is still a distance away, but the reverberations are rattling the buildings of the old town, raining shingles and stones and bits of molding down into the streets. Chris reaches back a hand to stroke Mathilde, winding the fingers of one hand into her fur as he winds the fingers of the other into Zach’s.
Zach startles, looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but Chris ignores him, and he doesn’t pull away.
It takes only minutes for them to get out of the town itself, dodging debris and skirting abandoned buildings. Soissons is not large; most of the townsfolk have already left, while the rest have holed up in basements and root cellars, hiding and praying in the face of German wrath. Chris spares a moment to fling a mental Ave Maria in the general direction of the hospital boat, then tugs Zach along with him past the last row of stone buildings and into the wide expanse of field that surrounds the town on all the sides that are not the river. He can see puffs on the horizon, the airborne detritus of the bombing impact craters, and hear the whine of planes overhead, and suddenly it’s overwhelming, and he’s back where he was three months ago, fleeing frantically across the open plane, an unmistakable prize to any who chose to look.
He feels the impress of the packed dirt of the path on his elbows before he realizes he’s fallen; it’s not until he hears Mathilde yowl in protest that he figures out that he has hauled himself off the path into the bordering wheatfield.
“Chirs! Chris!” Zach’s voice is frantic, and Chris takes a moment to appreciate the humor of realizing he’s never before heard Zach panic as he forces himself to continue breathing.
A warm hand grips his upper arm, and he feels the solid heat of Zach’s body come to rest around him, curling around him in protective sheilding. Zach is sitting behind him, legs and arms wrapped around him as he shivers, and Chris giggles haltingly at Mathilde as she begins to purr, pleased with being sandwiched between her two favorite people.
“Breathe, Chris. Slowly. In and out.”
“It’s just… it’s … it’s…” he gasps quietly, trying with increasing desperation to calm his breathing. “It’s so big. And open. And they can see us, Zach, they can see us…”
A hand presses against his sternum, and he feels something release and draws in a deep shuddering breath.
“I just… I don’t know if I can… what if…” He lets the thought trail off. It’s an unendable sentence simply because there are too many potential endings. What if the Germans catch them? What if a bomb hits them? What if a local mistkes them for kraut troops and shoots? What if one of them breaks a leg? What if? What if? What…?
Zach’s thumbs push firmly into the muscles of his neck, making him groan. “Again. In and out.”
Chris complies, focusing on the chill of the oxygen entering his lungs, the moist push of exhalation, then repeat. It’s a minute, maybe five, he’s not sure, and then he feels Zach’s arms begin to fall away and shivers.
“Chris…”
“I know. We have to move.”
The tension in the body behind him is evident, but there’s no way around it, and they both know it’s true.
“Yes. We have to move.”
Zach uncurls himself, standing stiffly and taking a wary glance up and down the road. He reaches a hand down, grasping Chris firmly by the forearm and pulling him carefully upright. His dark eyes search Chris’ face for the space of a heartbeat before he laces their fingers together and looks away.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
It’s nearly dark when Chris finally judges them to be out of immediate danger, and they slow from the haphazard jog they have maintained on and off for hours to a firm walk, continuing on for another hour before stepping off the road and heading for a darkened barn a few hundred yards away.
They’ve been heading south and west in alternate turns, passing other fleeing refugees on the road, all heading south. The sun and the movement had kept them warm enough all day, but now that night is settling in the temperature is dropping rapidly, and hypothermia is quickly becoming a more real threat than the advancing troops.
“In here.”
Chris gestures, waving Zach through the barn door into pitch darkness. Chris stands for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust past the point where all he can see are spinning colors until he can vaguely make out the shape of a ladder leading to an exceptionally convenient hayloft. He heads for it, pulling his exhausted body up rung by rung and crawling across hay-strewn planks to curl into the angle of the roof. He loosens his pack and Mathilde hops down excitedly, mouth open as she sniffs the air. He would worry about her running off, but there’s nothing he can do if she does, and besides, he trusts her. Better to let her go, and hunt, and come back, than to attempt to keep her here.
Zach hauls a blanket out of his pack, wrapping it around himself as he wiggles further into the piles of hay under the eaves, working the pile around him so that he is impossible to see to anyone at the top of the ladder. Chris crawls over, removing his pack and shuffling straw, working to conceal them as best he can.
Zach’s asleep by the time Chris curls around him, pulling Zach against his chest and wrapping him in his arms.
1) C’est le mieux- it’s the best thing
next
news that reaches us is not so good. more ships being sunk, planes being shot down. nothing too near to us, not yet.
there is an uneasy feeling in the air. things are changing, pieces are moving, bits of universal clockwork are sliding into place, but none of the effects can yet be known.
we are sitting ducks.
russia has had her revolution, and all of eastern europe holds its breath. the germans are coming, and the only question is when.
11th mar, 1918
père louis gave a talk this morning, going over evacuation procedures. the news came in a few days back; russia has signed with deutschland und austria, and has removed herself from the war.
what does this mean for us? nothing good, of that we are all certain.
the sisters have packed what little food we have left so that it might be carried if we must evacuate quickly. the doctors have packed their cases, père louis his communion set. I keep my letters in my pocket now, my necessities in a bag by the door.
the most important thing i would take sits across the room and watches me, his face clear and brave.
i don’t think about it. this thing i have said to père louis . i let it sit. it is its own thing, larger than i had ever realized.
i think of clichés. mushrooms in the dark, vast hidden reefs in shallow waters. things never seen until too late.
there are no words for this feeling.
15th mar, 1918
finland has joined with germany. not that finland makes so great a difference, but one never finds it reassuring to hear that someone else has joined with their enemy.
there are rumors of canons, canons so large that they can fire a projectile for a hundred miles. i have no faith in the miracles of chemical ignition, but i will not lie and say that i am unaware of the proximity of the nearest german line.
messengers think it will begin any day now. we keep all the patients ready to run.
wait. wait. wait.
19th mar, 1918
père louis regards me with questioning eyes. did you? have you? will you?
no. i have not.
what would i say? even if i dared the wrath of God and the church, what would i even say?
by the way, i love you? i’m in love with you? i’m so in love with you i can barely breathe for wanting to touch, to smell, to hold, to…
no.
no.
no. i will not.
The shelling begins at just before dawn, the steady percussion rumbling across the river valleys. Chris is up and out of his bed before he’s fully conscious, shoving a stockinged foot into a boot and pulling his jacket over his shoulders. Zach is already gone; he was to take over ward duties at matins, and must be in the church proper.
Well, Chris thinks, this is it.
He tugs on the other boot, shoving his blanket into the pack that waits at the foot of his bed and clucking to Mathilde. He’s been training her for this, in spite of the general amusement, and this morning it pays off- she settles into the top of the pack and curls up, hanging on as he pulls the drawstring loosely closed and heaves the straps over his shoulders.
He nearly collides with Marc as they head for the door, and Chris pulls the door open, waving the other man through before taking a lingering look around the room. He may never see it again, he knows, and he touches the lintel one last time before hurrying down the steps toward the chapel.
Zach is in his element, and Chris pauses just a moment in the dim recesses of the massive stone columns to admire him as he works; he’s quick, but deliberate, never missing a beat in the choreographed chaos of a medical evacuation. A strand of hair falls across his forehead, accenting the translucent lines of his brow, his nose, his cheek. He is talking quickly to Pere Louis, his face glowing in the pre-dawn light while his hands wrap a patient’s arm in a sling, coaxing him to sit and swing his legs off the bed and grasp a cane with his good arm.
Chris loves him like this, when he’s able to release the inner tension that keeps him wound so tight and lose himself instead in the work at hand, in tending to others with the skill and compassion that come so readily. He bites his lip at the catch in his throat, and steps forward, flinging himself into the commotion without a backward look.
Chris is helping a one-legged Tommy into the sacristy wheelbarrow, the last of the evacuees, and trying to be mindful of the man’s newly sutured stump, when he catches a glimpse of Marc pulling Zach aside, a look of intent on his face. Chris maneuvers the cart over to the side of the church, surreptitiously leaning in to catch the muttered conversation. The Tommy looks around, confused, until he catches a glimpse of Zach, and then he grimaces mildly. Chris spares a moment to be vaguely annoyed that apparently everyone has an opinion on their friendship before cocking an unobtrusive ear to the conversation.
“Zach, you heard what the runner said.”
“What, that the soldiers are less than three miles away? It can’t be true.”
A shell explodes in the distance, and Chris tries desperately not to think about all the little outlying farm houses.
“C’est possible, Zach, you know this. Here, listen to me.” Marc grabs Zach by the arm, looking him hard in the face. “Chris, if he gets caught again, it’s all over for him. You know that.” Zach’s face whitens visibly, but his face is calm. “These patients…” Marc gestures broadly, “we are doing what we can for them. C’est le mieux to get them to the river, put them on the hospital boat. The Germans, they will not bomb this. But you…” He pauses, leaning in. “You need to run. The soldiers are coming, and it will not be long. The boat will be too full for civilians, and if it is searched, you will both be suspect. Take Christopher, and run. Run until you are far, far away, and do not stop.” Marc pulls away, and Chris can see the stunned look on Zach’s face.
“But…”
“Non, Zach, this is how it must be. Take him, now, and go.” He slaps Zach firmly between the shoulderblades and gives him a shove toward Chris. “ Allez! Allez! Now, Zach, go!”
Chris puts his hands to the handles of the wheelbarrow, leaning into the weight, only to have his arm pulled away. He turns to Zach, his face open and questioning. “But…”
Zach looks helpless, confused, and urgent.
“I know. I know. But Marc says, go, and he says now.”
He meets Chris’ eyes for a moment, his face pleading, and suddenly Marc’s hands are replacing his on the barrow handles, elbowing him aside roughly and beginning to push the cart away. Marc casts one last look over his shoulder, his lips forming the word “go,” and that’s all the catalyst Chris needs to pull them into running, chasing down the cobbled streets like chaff on a wave as the air ignites over their heads.
Chris hauls him into a doorway as a chunk of masonry plummets to earth in front of them, the plaster brains of a falling angel ricocheting off the hard stone streets. He knows it’s fake, knows it was never more than fragments of clay and glue, but feels his stomach turn over at the sight in defiance of intellectual abstraction.
The bombing is still a distance away, but the reverberations are rattling the buildings of the old town, raining shingles and stones and bits of molding down into the streets. Chris reaches back a hand to stroke Mathilde, winding the fingers of one hand into her fur as he winds the fingers of the other into Zach’s.
Zach startles, looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but Chris ignores him, and he doesn’t pull away.
It takes only minutes for them to get out of the town itself, dodging debris and skirting abandoned buildings. Soissons is not large; most of the townsfolk have already left, while the rest have holed up in basements and root cellars, hiding and praying in the face of German wrath. Chris spares a moment to fling a mental Ave Maria in the general direction of the hospital boat, then tugs Zach along with him past the last row of stone buildings and into the wide expanse of field that surrounds the town on all the sides that are not the river. He can see puffs on the horizon, the airborne detritus of the bombing impact craters, and hear the whine of planes overhead, and suddenly it’s overwhelming, and he’s back where he was three months ago, fleeing frantically across the open plane, an unmistakable prize to any who chose to look.
He feels the impress of the packed dirt of the path on his elbows before he realizes he’s fallen; it’s not until he hears Mathilde yowl in protest that he figures out that he has hauled himself off the path into the bordering wheatfield.
“Chirs! Chris!” Zach’s voice is frantic, and Chris takes a moment to appreciate the humor of realizing he’s never before heard Zach panic as he forces himself to continue breathing.
A warm hand grips his upper arm, and he feels the solid heat of Zach’s body come to rest around him, curling around him in protective sheilding. Zach is sitting behind him, legs and arms wrapped around him as he shivers, and Chris giggles haltingly at Mathilde as she begins to purr, pleased with being sandwiched between her two favorite people.
“Breathe, Chris. Slowly. In and out.”
“It’s just… it’s … it’s…” he gasps quietly, trying with increasing desperation to calm his breathing. “It’s so big. And open. And they can see us, Zach, they can see us…”
A hand presses against his sternum, and he feels something release and draws in a deep shuddering breath.
“I just… I don’t know if I can… what if…” He lets the thought trail off. It’s an unendable sentence simply because there are too many potential endings. What if the Germans catch them? What if a bomb hits them? What if a local mistkes them for kraut troops and shoots? What if one of them breaks a leg? What if? What if? What…?
Zach’s thumbs push firmly into the muscles of his neck, making him groan. “Again. In and out.”
Chris complies, focusing on the chill of the oxygen entering his lungs, the moist push of exhalation, then repeat. It’s a minute, maybe five, he’s not sure, and then he feels Zach’s arms begin to fall away and shivers.
“Chris…”
“I know. We have to move.”
The tension in the body behind him is evident, but there’s no way around it, and they both know it’s true.
“Yes. We have to move.”
Zach uncurls himself, standing stiffly and taking a wary glance up and down the road. He reaches a hand down, grasping Chris firmly by the forearm and pulling him carefully upright. His dark eyes search Chris’ face for the space of a heartbeat before he laces their fingers together and looks away.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
It’s nearly dark when Chris finally judges them to be out of immediate danger, and they slow from the haphazard jog they have maintained on and off for hours to a firm walk, continuing on for another hour before stepping off the road and heading for a darkened barn a few hundred yards away.
They’ve been heading south and west in alternate turns, passing other fleeing refugees on the road, all heading south. The sun and the movement had kept them warm enough all day, but now that night is settling in the temperature is dropping rapidly, and hypothermia is quickly becoming a more real threat than the advancing troops.
“In here.”
Chris gestures, waving Zach through the barn door into pitch darkness. Chris stands for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust past the point where all he can see are spinning colors until he can vaguely make out the shape of a ladder leading to an exceptionally convenient hayloft. He heads for it, pulling his exhausted body up rung by rung and crawling across hay-strewn planks to curl into the angle of the roof. He loosens his pack and Mathilde hops down excitedly, mouth open as she sniffs the air. He would worry about her running off, but there’s nothing he can do if she does, and besides, he trusts her. Better to let her go, and hunt, and come back, than to attempt to keep her here.
Zach hauls a blanket out of his pack, wrapping it around himself as he wiggles further into the piles of hay under the eaves, working the pile around him so that he is impossible to see to anyone at the top of the ladder. Chris crawls over, removing his pack and shuffling straw, working to conceal them as best he can.
Zach’s asleep by the time Chris curls around him, pulling Zach against his chest and wrapping him in his arms.
1) C’est le mieux- it’s the best thing
next