by Daniel Correa

Blazing shells of piercing iron carved fatal arcs across the lucid heavens, punching craters once they landed leaving pockmarks in the poppy fields. The citizens of Deuxnoud-sur-Meuse, a local commune in the region of Champagne with only nine thousand inhabitants, were evacuated only three weeks earlier as the German army dug its way south toward Paris. Leaving any extraneity too burdensome to carry, exile brought them to the huddled streets of nearby Reims. Having parted with their familiar treasures to pay for bed and safety, the citizens occupied their time with imaginings of their homes being pulverized by gunfire and ravaged by the onslaught of German soldiers. The commune was empty, and far away the sounds of war could be heard like a thunderclap. In those times, it was only a question of when the scavengers would arrive.

The sun had nearly risen when the first of them arrived; Pierre Coleau, the son of an engraver, nineteen years of age. With youthful ignorance, he had sought out life as a looter, chasing battles from a distance. And in the aftermath, he would burrow through the rubble for any abandoned thing of value. He had heard of the abandonment of Deuxnoud-sur-Meuse from a fellow thief. If what was said was true, then it could only come from the wildest dreams of burglars. But the call of fortune was too enticing, and so he hurried to Champagne, dodging many guardsmen and the gendarmerie. By night he had crossed the Meuse on a raft, bringing with him a set of lockpicking tools, four empty rucksacks, a stolen mule he called Mimi, and a pocket full of spare change amounting to six francs, all that remained of his boozing and gambling.

So as he followed the dirt road that led into the abandoned city, he could hear the palpitations of the artillery fire ebbing into silence, and the world returned to its serenity and natural ambiance of lifelessness. He reckoned that the German troops, now finished with their bombardment, would make their charge soon. If they took the French position, he estimated that they would make their way to the city in less than three hours. He kept that timely restriction in mind as he observed the storefronts and tenements growing closer and larger in his periphery, and he heard the hooves of his mule begin to rap on urban cobblestone footing.

As he rode into the town square he observed a water fountain bearing the inscription “ERECTED BY OUR GLORIOUS EMPEROR, NAPOLEON III, TO VANQUISH THE THIRST OF THE CITIZENS OF DEUXNOUD-SUR-MEUS MDCCLXV.” The fountain still dispensed its water to a populace now scattered and distant. Coleau disembarked his mule and sauntered toward the fountain lifting from his shoulders a bota bag: the only thing he had acquired with honest money. He dipped it into the fountain waters, watching it gurgle the cool liquid down its leather stomach. Then once refilled he kissed the nuzzle and sucked the water out till his thirst was vanquished. He whooped and hollered, tearing off his meager garments, and jumped into the fountain; laughing, splashing water onto himself, and enjoying the tranquility he had disrupted. 

The mule approached the fountain and began to drink from the water. Coleau reached out and caressed its prickly brown fur, staining it dark with his wet palms, before splashing off to the other side of the fountain. After some time spent floating in the shallow water, Coleau decided that once the war was over he might consider migrating to such a place as this. His thoughts returned to that of the German advance and their proximity, so lifting himself over the fountain’s edge and onto the dry floor, he dried himself with one of his sacks. He dressed and tied Mimi to a nearby lamppost before wandering off with two rucksacks, leaving the rest with his mule as he searched for a place suitable for pilfering.

Roaming through the narrow and desolate streets, Coleau let his eyes peel across his surroundings and on occasion halted in front of a window to examine the interiors occulted with a dull penumbra. Eventually, he came upon a store sign overhanging a building that had written upon it in green lettering the name, “Gaston’s Silver Emporium.” Grasping at the opportunity of fortune, Coleau made quick work with his lockpick. After a moment of quiet struggle, Coleau unlocked the door but was unable to open it; it was bolted from the inside. He damned the shopkeep for his foresight and decided to resort to more forceful means of entrance. He wandered into an alleyway where he searched for something of weight and substance. In a desecrated corner of a rackety building, he found weathered and half-fractured brick. He took it with him to the storefront and with a jubilant alacrity threw it at the window shattering it. The brick landed inside with a thud and scraped across the wooden floor till it hit the edge of a table halting its movement and trembling the table. 

Peering into the small, jagged entrance, Coleau made an effort to avoid the cutting teeth of glass as he squeezed his way inside. His shoes landed on the floor of cracked glass grinding the shards into granules that shined in the dark. As his eyes adjusted to the half-light, he could see the triumph of silver hidden behind glass displays. It seemed to him that the silversmith had left in such a hurry that locking the displays was thought to be enough protection from robbery. Coleau was wiser and began to probe the locks with his tools.

…

With a sharp sound of unlatching metal, the shop door flung open. Carrying with him his treasures of despotic gain buried inside rucksack wombs, Coleau slouched his way through the quiet. He made it to his mare and loaded the fat sacks of silver which crashed against the mule’s back causing it to adjust its posture against the new weight. Once tied to the saddle, Coleau grabbed the two remaining rucksacks and returned toward the empty streets. His mind tranced through thoughts of wealth, and he estimated that he could fence at least a hundred francs from selling the silver; enough wealth to purchase the laxity towards bankruptcy that the rich could afford. 

But then he stopped, at the turning of the street a figure appeared from behind the bend. The figure ceased all movement once it noticed Coleau, and for a time incalculable the two stood petrified in fear. Coleau could see from his distance that it was a soldier, German. His leather-strapped rifle was carried behind his shoulder, and his bayonet gleamed above his head like a guardian angel of steel. Coleau’s feet began to inch backward as his very soul was wretched with fear. Then without a second’s hesitation, Coleau scampered down the street clutching his rucksacks with his armpits. He could hear a cry from the soldier but he never stopped. Dashing to his mule, he undid the hitches, and then without pause, he clambered onto the saddle as he heard the crack of gunfire and a bullet buzz above his head. He screamed at his mule to go and she trotted as fast as she could carrying with her a burden of silver and flesh. 

The first shell screamed above him and landed a block away and he heard the crash of a tenement building collapsing inwards like a castle of matchsticks as plumes of fire escaped the wreckage into the sky. The German Army had arrived, and he had to make it out of the city alive. He felt the cut of the bullet before he heard the bang of the barrage, and he reached for his left ear and felt the lobe as a torn gash of bleeding cartilage. Another shell landed as he turned roundabout the fountain, and he saw it hit a courthouse turning the marble facade of justice into rubble. As he rode through the streets retracing his way out of the Deuxnoud-sur-Meuse he began to scream but never heard himself through the sound and fury.

 The commune of Deuxnoud-sur-Meuse appeared like a burning diorama, a landscape of fire as the barrage of shells ceased and the Germans began to force themselves upon the ravaged city. Coleau stood watching on a hill, far from it all, blood seeping down his pale-flushed cheeks. He clenched his lips close together to prevent the vomit from clambering up the walls of his throat. His eyes were drowned in tears, but he could not pinpoint the movements of his soul. 

Beneath him, the mule sniffed at the grass beneath it for victual comfort. Its lazy eyes drifted through the blades till it spotted a little red poppy. It gestured its head at the sight of the scarlet wildflower and peered at it for a moment, almost grasping the beauty of its black mecca. With a snort that ejaculated snot on the meadow, the mule ate the flower; its crimson petals falling to the ground between its mastications.