A Red-letter Day by Alison Carter

Artur had someone eagerly awaiting the day he would return home from war . . .

AUGUST 2, 1918. Artur, I don’t know if this letter will reach you. I never know when letters will get through, and it vexes me.

It is hot here in SaintLoup, but you know that because you were born here like I was and still belong to the village, body and soul.

I have to say, Artur, my love, that the village lacks a good joiner since you went away to fight, and when you come home on leave – which is rare enough – there’s barely time for you to mend a chair.

Not that we would have you doing that sort of work when you arrive here so very tired and dirty and in need of comfort. But let me just say that Marie’s son – that layabout Guillaume Perard – is hopeless with a plane. He could never replace you, so don’t be troubled on that account.

What I am writing to say is this. When can we expect you back for the last and final time?

I think you said that this tour (do they call it a tour of duty?) would be finished this summer, and the summer is passing away. The tomatoes out front are nearly all eaten.

I don’t make demands, Artur, as you know, but I have waited from 1914 to 1918 for a wedding, and I’m not getting any younger. Nor are you, handsome great thing though you are.

Let me know a date if you can, and then I can let Mme Bourreau in town know that she can at least make a start on my dress. Thank the Lord I didn’t have a dress made in 1914, for I’m thinner now, and what a waste it would have been.

Do say when you will be back.

Your very own and devoted,

Noelie.

****

August 15, 1918. Noelie,

I got your letter. Thank you, my beautiful girl. I cannot believe you are thinner and I hope not with all my heart.

The boys here all agree, and shake their heads at the thought of a thin woman. But this is not what I ought to begin a letter with, so I will start again.

Reading your letter takes me a little while, as you know, for I was always better with a chisel than paper. You do have the nicest handwriting out of any of the girls who write to the Front, though.

It is hot here, too. They say the war will be over soon, which is a great blessing and we pray for it.

I can come home soon, but there is one last job that keeps me. Go and see about your dress, and make it neat in the waist.

I miss you and your pretty lips.

Your Artur.

****

September 1, 1918. Artur,

How happy I was to get your letter, however short it was.

Thank you for your kind comments about my handwriting. I took pains at school with my pen, and believe that when you and I run the joinery business together, I will undertake all the writing work.

One last job? How you annoy me so by writing these things in a single sentence at the end of a letter as though they are nothing! What last job is this?

Are you tasked with murdering the Kaiser? Have they ordered you to fill in all the trenches with earth?

Artur, my love, be more specific! When will I see your beloved form again?

Your Noelie.

****

September 18, 1918. Noelie,

I am sorry. You know I am a slow scribe, and that writing a long letter makes my head hurt. Some of the boys here get an officer to write to their girls for them, so you do better than some.

I have to do some work on a train. That information will have to be enough for you, because my commanding officer says I may not talk about what we do.

He says this filthy war will soon be over, yes, and that it will end in triumph for us soldiers after so long and

after so much destruction.

But until then I must not, Capitaine Hervé says, reveal our actions to my girl or anybody. I have to go to Compiègne, and that is all I will say.

Send socks if you can. Even in summer our socks wear out quickly.

You are a good fiancée, Noelie, and will make the best of all wives.

Artur.

****

September 30, 1918. Artur,

I enclose some socks. I do not know what kind of wife I will make. It is hard for me to imagine that state of being, because I have been a fiancée for such a long time.

Odette’s Pierre has been home for three months now, and they had a wedding in May, which is a very good time to be married as everyone knows. But I will speak no more of that.

A train. Well, that is very nice for you. I suppose you will learn new skills, working on a train.

I don’t suppose the train will bring you back to Saint-loup, for we haven’t a train track anywhere near.

I don’t know where Compiègne is, and cannot hope, of course, that you will tell me. I am just your girl.

You will tell me nothing, Artur. I have been speaking to Odette, who you know is a very good friend of mine, though she is married now and expecting her first baby, and Odette says she worries.

She says that a man who is not open and honest, Artur, is a man that a woman should worry about. I do not want to think that you are one of those men, my darling.

This train cannot be so important. I don’t think a war was ever won using a train, was it?

I believe that wars are fought with horses, and with these ugly tanks that I hear about.

Artur, can you perhaps tell your commanding officer that there is a lady at home waiting for you, and that she is watching hundreds of soldiers returning to all the villages of the Seine-et-marne

département, but not my soldier?

It’s nearly October. How long does a train take to mend, and can’t they find an engineer to do it?

Noelie.

****

October 19, 1918. Artur,

I hear nothing but silence from this place you call Compiègne, where you told me to send my letters. Are you angry with me, my love?

Odette wonders if I have been too harsh in my letters to you, and that you hate me. She says I am becoming a bitter woman.

I think Odette enjoys breaking other lovers apart, and it’s a shame for a young woman to be so spiteful when she has everything she could ever want.

I never really liked Odette, ever since our school days, and now all she talks about is the baby that she will have in the spring, as though nobody has ever had a baby before.

Perhaps one day I will have a baby that will look exactly like my Artur. Do not be angry with me – it is just that I miss you, and wonder what you can be doing on the train that is so important.

Now it is nearly the end of October, and Saint-loup is all mud, what with the rain. I know that I should not mention this to you, a brave soldier of France who has seen more mud than I can ever know. But it would cheer me to know you are coming back.

Your own Noelie.

****

November 12, 1918. Noelie,

It is November 12, my CO says. He knows things like dates because he went to school for a great long time.

It is getting cold here now. I have a hole in the underarm of my Armyissue coat, which lets in the cold. But, as you will perhaps have heard already, it’s all over now. The war, I mean.

All that fun and games happened yesterday, then a bottle of wine was given to us by an officer for a little celebration. Wine which was far better than any of the rough stuff we’ve been drinking since it all began.

I am only writing this letter because I have time on my hands. We must wait two days for our transport south.

Regarding the train: I can tell you now. We had to make a dining car into an office. We had to refit one single wagon of a train.

My Noelie, I can see you now, staring at my letter and thinking that I have gone mad! But here is the truth: it was a private train owned by Maréchal Foch himself, commander of everything!

It was made in 1914 in Saint-denis for dining in. When I was given orders to go to Compiègne and do work on this wagon, and I saw red velvet hangings and the finest walnut tables, I thought it a shame to be refitting such a smart new thing.

But I followed orders because I am a soldier of the French Army.

Compiègne, my sweet Noelie, is between Paris and the Front, and you may hear more of that place if your father brings a newspaper home from town. Because it was here that the actual bit of paper that ended the war was signed by a great many men in grey coats and black coats with shiny buttons.

But I must tell you what I, Artur Courbis, had to do.

I had three lads, and we were given orders to make this wagon into an office. I suppose a Maréchal needs somewhere impressive to sit down with the most important men of France, and sign what they call an armistice.

We did a fine job, and made a great desk that would not move with the movement of the train, tooled in crimson leather, and a cabinet with a roll top below the windows, such a cabinet as you never saw.

So now I can come home, and France is at peace, and this letter will be the end of all my letters, which is such a joy to me.

I am bad at writing, but I am very good at holding my sweetheart in my arms. ■

“I don’t think a war was ever won using a train”