About a fortnight later, Nell went into Cambrai. She wanted to find out whether it would be a good idea to return: if the college was re-opening and, most important of all, if there was any news of Tom waiting for her at the house. She hadn’t heard from him since August 13th when he had been talking doubtfully about repatriation. Just a rumour, he had said. He was constantly in her thoughts. Was he still in France; back in Germany, in danger maybe? Or had he been repatriated to England? She hoped there would be news of him.
She also wanted to pick up a tin of cocoa from her diminishing store under the bed. She had promised it to the shoe mender back in Rieux. His seven-year-old daughter wasn’t growing as fast as she should and Nell felt a good daily mugful of hot chocolate might help the little girl. Also, the shoe mender had offered a much needed pair of shoes for Jeanne in return.
She got a lift into Cambrai, taking Jeanne with her. They found things unchanged at the house . . . but no news of Tom. After picking up the month’s money from the Post Office, they walked up to the Grand Place, the main square.
These were heady days. Every day, a party day. Jeeps, lorries, Sherman mine-sweeping tanks with big chains used as flails attached to the front; all these and more were unceremoniously parked in the centre of the little town and were surrounded by GIs. They stopped overnight, sat in a circle and brewed coffee, for all the world as though on a camping trip in the hills rather than in a small, respectable town in northern France.
And always, buzzing around them like a swarm of flies, were hordes of local children clambering over the vehicles, begging for food, cigarettes, chewing gum – anything the soldiers could spare. If they were shooed away, another horde turned up immediately and the whole process started all over again.
Nell said to Jeanne, as they walked across the square arm in arm, ‘You know, it’s lovely seeing all these Americans, but do you realise we haven’t seen one of Our Boys yet? Now that would be really nice.’
Suddenly, Jeanne felt Nell stiffen, and her arm was squeezed. She looked up. As if on cue, there were three of ‘Our Boys’ in RAF blue, smart as paint, marching across the square. She looked up at her mother. Nell was flushed and smiling. Oh, so proud! The miserable days of war were quickly rolling away and would soon be just a memory.
‘Come on!’ she said suddenly. ‘Let’s go and have coffee.’
They went into Le Cafe de la Place and sat down. There, at a table opposite, sat six or eight Tommies – British soldiers!
Nell, bright-eyed, whispered to Jeanne, ‘Go over and ask them if they can spare some cigarettes.’
Jeanne crossed the cafe and tugged at the sleeve of the nearest soldier. She said in her best English, ‘Ave you some cigarettes for my muzzer, she is Engleesh.’
One of the ‘Boys’ stood up and shouted across the cafe, ‘You English?’
‘Yes,’ was the tearful reply.
‘Where you from?’
‘Brum.’
‘Me too! Come and have a drink!’
Nell found herself sitting among ‘Her Boys’, speaking in her own language, not a foreigner any more. She was so happy, so emotional; her eyes were full of joyful tears. She told the soldiers her story and they listened intently, interrupting only when they wished to question her. At last, she said how anxious she was for Tom, not knowing where he was. She had no way of communicating with England yet. Civilian mail was not getting through.
The Brummie, whose name was Goodall, said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll get a message through for you. I’ll write to my wife and she’ll get in touch with your father and sister. They may have news of your husband. At least the forces’ mail gets through.’
And that’s exactly what happened. Good ol’ Goodall, as he came to be known, got in touch with his wife, who in turn got in touch with Nell’s sister Rikkie and Gramp. Some time later he called on Nell with the wonderful news that Tom was safe and well in England.
Nell and the girls left Rieux. Back in Cambrai, the College Fenelon was reopening on the 1st of October. Irene and Jeanne weren’t returning to the makeshift college but to the beautiful purpose-built college on the other side of the town, the original one that had been requisitioned by the Germans and used as a hospital throughout the war.
Irene and Jeanne were overawed when they returned to school on the first day of term, almost walking in on tiptoe and not sure whether they had the right to enter at all. But there stood the familiar figure of Mademoiselle Provino in the entrance hall, all in black as usual, straight-backed and beaming a genuinely happy smile to her returning pupils. She was back where she belonged and now had the space and appropriate premises from which to run a dignified ‘gels’’ college for young ladies once more.
Jeanne, now in the first year of secondary school, was learning English. It was, at least, a subject she knew a little about.
Although Jeanne’s English was poor, she knew enough to communicate with the soldiers. The Americans, tall, well dressed and friendly, had a seemingly endless supply of cigarettes and chewing gum. The English soldiers didn’t give you gum, but they gave tea, chocolate, cigarettes and very occasionally, if they could spare them, powdered milk and eggs.
Most evenings, Jeanne was to be found hanging around the lorries, talking to the soldiers, American and English, in her funny, broken English. They were astonished to find this slight kid talking to them.
‘Say, do you mean you’ve been here all the time? Gee, ain’t that something.’
‘I don’t believe it, Sweetheart.’
‘Your mother’s English, Darling. How come she’s here? Has she had a hard time?’ Jeanne was hoisted aboard a great big British army lorry. A space was cleared for her to sit down among the smelly, untidy mess of war: shovels and picks, coils of rope, cable, wire, all neatly stowed away against the sides, and heavy-looking cardboard boxes, used as seats.
One of the soldiers solemnly brewed some tea in a billy can and handed Jeanne a steaming mug of thick, brown liquid.
Jeanne, aware that a lady is required to make polite conversation when invited out to tea, entertained the soldiers with lurid tales of life in Nazi occupied France. After a while, the soldiers went quiet, thoughtfully sipping their hot tea and gazing into the middle distance and thinking of the wife and kids safe back home in dear Old Blighty. They pondered on this little kid who, by a quirk of fate, had already experienced so much in her young life.
When the tea break was over, the soldiers had to drive on. Jeanne was gently lowered to the ground as they said goodbye. ‘Here’s some tea for your ma, Love. Maybe we’ll see you on the way back, Sweetheart. Yes, look out for us!’
Jeanne skipped home, happily clutching a precious pack of army issue tea to her chest.
The casino in Cambrai had served exclusively as a club for the German soldiers during the occupation. Many well-known stars of stage and screen, French and German, had performed there. The French population had kept well away, apart from the prostitutes. Jazz and any form of swing music had been frowned upon by the German authorities. Viennese waltzes, accordion music and sentimental ballads had been the order of the day.
It was now the American soldiers’ club, and the French girls they brought there heard jazzy big bands and saw GIs jitter-bugging for the first time. After the difficult years of occupation, these fun-loving young men with their different culture were as remote to the girls as men from another planet!
Betty did not return to the college. She was just eighteen and got a job as a hostess at the casino. Late every evening, Nell would put her hat and coat on, pick up her handbag, and cross the town to pick her up from the casino. Betty had decided that she was Marie again now. She thought it sounded more foreign and exotic to American and English ears! Two or three of the GIs, all madly in love with Marie, escorted them home. They stayed and drank coffee until the small hours, enjoying speaking in their own language and soaking up the family atmosphere. They would pass around photos of the folks back home and these were admired by Nell and the girls.
A month or so after the liberation, a victory parade was held in the streets of Cambrai. The whole population turned out in party mood, cheering themselves hoarse. Flags waved and bands played.
The British soldiers marched in well-drilled precision, putting Jeanne in mind of the box of toy soldiers she had left behind in Calais all that time ago. The Americans had their own individual way of marching, an easy-going stroll, quite unlike anything the French people had ever seen.
Loud cheers went up for the Free French soldiers. Exiled, they had returned and, together with the Allied forces, had helped to free their homeland. Many of the crowd wept with joy, there was so much emotion in those first few days of freedom. The loudest cheer of all went up for a small group of Resistance fighters in black trousers or skirts, white shirts with sleeves rolled up and black berets. The crowd went wild. How could they thank these brave people, many of whom had died in the attempt to free their country?
When the parade disbanded, the cafes filled rapidly, or people strolled around the square, examining yet again the army lorries and tanks parked there for the night. Nobody was ready to go home just yet. Tomorrow life could go back to normal, but for now the celebrations went on.
Marie had met Charlotte Pochet who invited them to come back home.
‘Mum’s cooking pancakes. She said to bring you all back.’ Jeanne pricked up her ears. She loved going to Pochets, and she loved pancakes too. They accepted gladly.
Walking down towards the shop, Irene shouted out to a group of GIs. ‘Got any gum, Chum?’ She had been told by one of Marie’s GI admirers that this was what English children shouted out at them.
A GI turned and said, in mock despair, ‘Oh my Gaad, it’s followed us!’
They walked through the shop and up to the flat. Yves and Claude were waiting for Jeanne and, as soon as they saw her, said, ‘Come quick, it’s brilliant! Come and have a look!’
They took her through to the sitting room. Here the older brothers, Roger and Jean, had rigged a mic. The children, giggling, took it in turns to sing into the mic, and could be heard in the kitchen. Jeanne really enjoyed herself and insisted on singing right through every song she ever knew.
Meanwhile, Nell and Madame Pochet were catching up on all the news. They hadn’t seen each other for several months. Nell spoke of the liberation and the massacre at Rieux. Madame Pochet then told Nell that Roger, her eldest, had been picked up by the Germans towards the end of the occupation and, being taken by lorry for an unknown destination, had jumped off the back of the lorry and had run for his life. Try as they might, the guards could not catch him; he outran them all. How were they to know that Roger was middle distance school champion runner for northern France?
Suddenly, Madame Pochet turned to the older girls hovering in the background. ‘I’ve an idea. Why don’t you girls go out and get some soldiers? Fetch two or three, they might as well join us!’
Charlotte, Marie and Irene ran down the stairs into the street. Yves, Claude and Jeanne ran to the windows and hung out of them, egging the girls on by shouting instructions to them. ‘Over there, look! There’re three Americans, they’ll do!’
They watched the girls run up to them and, with much laughing and giggling, took them by the hand and dragged them towards the shop saying, ‘Come on, come on . . . we’re having a party . . . don’t say no . . . come on . . . this way . . .!’ It took a little while for the soldiers to understand just what was going on, but eventually they good-humouredly allowed themselves to be led by the hand through the shop, up the stairs and into the large kitchen, where a woman was making pancakes, which were being eaten as fast as she could make them. Three younger children were running about excitedly. It was impossible to tell who was related to whom, they all looked the same, like peas in a pod. At the table sat an Englishwoman, drinking coffee and smoking.
The soldiers introduced themselves: a US army doctor and two orderlies. They sat down, accepted coffee and pancakes and chatted. Roger and Jean joined in too.
But the young people didn’t want a lot of boring chat; they wanted a party. They took turns at the mic in the sitting room, singing all the hits of the day: Lily Marlene – in French of course – and C’est la barque du reve (when my dreamboat comes home), as well as Music Maestro, please. These were all English language songs that had inexplicably crossed over to occupied France and were claimed as French.
Then the younger children wanted to do party tricks. Jeanne remembered one she was particularly keen on. She and the boys locked themselves up in the bathroom, lit a candle and, holding the flame up under a saucer, blackened it with the flame. They then filled it and another saucer with water.
Jeanne went up to one of the soldiers, the one they called Poppy, a big friendly man, and said solemnly, ‘I want to hypnotise you.’ Sitting on chairs opposite each other, Jeanne gave him the blackened saucer and said, in a deep serious voice, ‘Do as I do.’ Dipping a finger first in the water, then making circles with her finger under the saucer and drawing patterns down her face, she chanted, ‘I am hypnotising you, do as I do and you will sleep . . . sleep . . .’ Poppy’s face was gradually getting streaked with black fingermarks. It was so funny, and Jeanne, trying not to giggle, heard the boys laughing behind her. Eventually Poppy was allowed to look in the mirror and see what all the laughter was about.
Then Irene told a story: the one about an old lady who has a crooked mouth and can’t blow her candle out. Irene could usually spin it out for a quarter-of-an-hour or so, bringing in the husband, also with a crooked mouth going the other way, and the two sons, one blowing upwards and one blowing downwards. Eventually the neighbour is called in and puts the candle out with moistened fingers. But this time Irene had to tell the story in two languages and it went on forever!
When the party eventually broke up, everyone agreed they had had a wonderful time. The doctor promised Nell much-needed medical supplies, so difficult to get hold of in the early days of the liberation. She knew where they were wanted most.
Jeanne sat in Ralph Jones’s jeep, parked in the Grand Place. She was chewing gum and was getting to be quite a chewing-gum expert. This one was a new flavour to her. Rather than sweet, it tasted of spice.
Ralph was a pleasant quiet American who bore a fleeting resemblance to Bing Crosby. He thought he was Bing Crosby and was always humming Bing’s latest hits under his breath. He turned to Jeanne and said, ‘Was there much barrel around here?’
‘Much what?’ Jeanne by now understood most English accents, but this one was different.
‘Barrel . . . barrel . . . B-A-T-T-L-E . . . barrel.’
‘Oh, battle! I see what you mean.’
Another lesson learned. She was catching on fast.
Ralph became a good friend of the family. He would visit whenever he had a few hours and leave them laden with gifts. Jeanne particularly liked the doughnuts he brought with a hole in the middle. They were quite delicious, and Ralph always brought a boxful. He also brought his best friend along, Tom Mahoney. Tom was a very tall, lanky Irish-American, a real joker. He had a beaky nose and a prominent Adam’s apple. He looked for all the world like a friendly turkey. He was always full of fun and laughter.
The Americans based in Cambrai were giving a show for the schoolchildren of the town, and it was to be held in the Familia cinema, the large picture house down the main street that had been requisitioned during the occupation.
The children, walking in crocodiles, arrived from all corners of the town. They entered in hushed tones, marvelling at the sumptuous surroundings and the Art Deco statues around the walls of the foyer. Most were too young to remember when they had last been there. The pre-war days were so long ago.
Two GIs stood either side of the door into the auditorium and handed out an orange and a bag of sweets to each child as they went in. An orange, think of it! Jeanne sat down with her school friends in a comfortable, velvety seat, and ran her fingers along the surface of the shiny, bumpy fruit. She dug her thumbnail into the skin, and a smell reached up and tickled her nose. It was a long-ago smell of Christmas mornings and the joy and excitement of finding a stocking, full to bursting, hanging on the end of her bed.
There was a tremendous air of anticipation in the cinema. This was a real treat for the children: many had not seen shows in the last few years, and certainly not in such splendid surroundings. Jeanne was so excited she thought she would burst.
The curtains parted, and there on the stage, was the US Ninth Air Force Big Band playing so loudly Jeanne was nearly knocked off her seat. And such music! Music that had never been heard in Cambrai. The band first played a Glenn Miller hit American Patrol. The bandsmen, in Air Force uniform, had a stand in front of each of them, with ‘Ninth Air Force’ painted on it in silver against a pale-blue background. The bandleader stood facing them, back to the audience, beating in time to the music with his right hand. They presented a polished, well-rehearsed group.
At first the children in the audience sat open-mouthed. Spellbound, they had never seen anything like it. The glamour and glitz of Hollywood was here in their town. Not on some impersonal cinema screen, but right here where they could reach out and touch it. At the end of the first number the children clapped politely. Then the band struck up In the Mood and the audience, shyly at first, started clapping in time to the music, looking left and right to their friends, smiling, nodding, some even giggling. This was music they could relate to: a young, vibrant music, especially for them. At the end of the number, they erupted into cheers and whistles.
A sergeant stepped forward to the mic and sang, ‘A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H. . . I’ve got a girl in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo.’ Then came a new Bing Crosby song: Swinging on a Star. Jeanne just made out the words, something about a mule, and a pig, and a fish. She thought the songs were brilliant. She had to ask Ralph to teach her the words next time she saw him and then she could write them down in her notebook, the one she still had with all the holiday songs in it. And next . . . well, Jeanne couldn’t believe her eyes. There was Tom Mahoney on the stage doing a mime routine of The Lady Getting in the Bath. He took off imaginary, delicate clothes and laid them gently on an imaginary chair, patting them down and carefully removing stockings one by one. He became annoyed when he snagged one of them on a nail. He felt the bath temperature with an elbow and scalded himself. Then he turned the imaginary cold water tap on, felt the water again until it was to his satisfaction and finally got in. Tall, gawky Tom, no one’s idea of a genteel lady, brought the house down. There was a strong smell, a pungent, heady smell of orange peel and wet knickers in the auditorium.
Jeanne was beside herself. She stood up and shouted, ‘I know him . . . he’s my friend . . . he’s my friend!’ She first informed the children around her, her classmates. Then the rows around her, at the front, behind and upstairs in the balcony. Soon the whole cinema knew this, indeed, was Jeanne’s friend.
Next came a couple of comedy numbers: men dressed as women, singing in falsetto voices and with well-padded bosoms to the fore. The audience loved them and laughed until they cried.
The concert ended with a couple of fast numbers. Two couples, with the girls in short skirts and bobby-sox, gave a jitterbug demonstration, the girls hurled through the air by their partners. The band finished with another Glenn Miller number: String of Pearls. Or rather, they should have finished, but the children wouldn’t let them stop, shouting, ‘En-core . . . En-core . . .!’ The sergeant stepped to the mic once more and sang Don’t Fence Me In, and then the concert was well and truly over. The show had been an unqualified success. The Ninth Air Force Big Band had never played to such an appreciative audience.