This is not written as a 'proper' chapter, just a soft of 'filler'. Thought I should point that out before you decide this is lazy writing and stop reading. (It's not lazy, it's just I'm too un-creative to figure out a proper way to go about it in the time limit I have set myself.
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Chapter 4- Weeks
And trouble she was in. It was a good half an hour of shouting from the courtyard before the old man trudged off to the fields and Marie stomped inside. She busied herself with gathering the soldier's now empty porridge bowls and taking them over to the sink. She all but threw the strawberries out of the way, having a small moment of panic when they almost fell off the bench. But after she steadied them, she was straight back into her temper-fuelled rush, scrubbing the bowls at a remarkable speed. The men at the table remained silent, afraid to utter a word in case she directed her fury to one of them. It was obvious by now that this woman had a temper, a mammoth one at that. The second the last bowl was cleaned and slammed down on the bench she turned to them, eyes blazing with rage.
"Stand." She said harshly. They all stood quickly, even Jamie, not wanting to anger the woman further (although they were unwilling to admit it, they were absolutely terrified of her). She continued speaking just as harshly, gesturing to the door as she did so. "Out."
They all shuffled out. A new sort of fear was filling Jamie. Was she kicking them out? Although she had done so much for the already, Jamie couldn't help but feel it was unfair. It was stupid, but mostly founded on the fact he didn't know where the English cavalry camp was. It had probably packed up by now, news of their failure had mostly likely reached them (Jamie hoped, prayed, that it had. They need to get out of there). If she kicked them out now, there was no way they could find their way back to… well… anywhere. He remained panicking as they gathered outside the door nervously. But then Marie trudged outside with a look that could kill.
"Follow." She barked, making her way towards the barn. Jamie looked out to the field, seeing the little black and blue figure of Grandfather plodding around in a vaguely angry manner (really must run in the family).
They walked through the open door of the barn, the smell of hay and wood hitting them like a brick. They saw their horses, now clean, brushed and gleaming, dozing off. The seven army horses were shoved into three stalls, whilst Maybell was, once again, by herself. A straw-covered Emilie was standing next to an awake, but exhausted looking Joey, stroking his neck gently. Her eyes followed them as they walked up towards the back of the barn. Jamie spotted his horse, head hanging low and snoring slightly. He wanted to go to Topthorn, but Marie herded them up a ladder and into a (yet another) hay loft. This one, though, was unlike the one they had spent the night in. This one had bales and bales of hay stacked up to the roof, with loose pieces scattered over the floor. There was no rotting or broken wood here, just a few coils or fraying rope around the place. She led them towards the very back corner of the loft, where there was a gap between the wall and another pile of hay. When the boys shuffled out of the way, and was shocked to see a small door.
It was half the size of the average door, and made of dark wood. The door was open, revealing a small, dark room inside. No windows, just the light from the doorway. There were bales of hay, lined up in pairs, one on every wall and in the centre of room. Faded sheets covered the bales, cascading over the sides and spilling over the floor. Atop of those, were pillows stuffed with more lose straw.
Beds. They were beds.
"Ziz was my sister's pièce secrete." Marie spoke, anger mostly gone from her voice, leaving only the slightest amount of irritation. "But it iz yours, for now."
So, this was where they would be sleeping. The younger men filed in slowly into the room, Marie shoving a lantern and matches into their hands. But Jamie stayed outside, standing beside Marie. She looked sad. She was watching the boys move their straw pillows around and fold their sheets.
"He said it was dangerous to help you. Zat I should not have." She said quietly, accent almost non-existent in her softness. Her straight back was now hunched, and she seemed deflated. Jamie looked at her, confused and not sure what she was going on about. Marie looked to him and saw his expression. She straightened up quickly, harsh look returning to her face, and gesture for him to enter the little room.
She turned and marched back towards the ladder, skirt trailing out behind her. Jamie stared after her a moment, even more confused as her thought her words over, before joining the other soldiers in examining their new 'home'.
The rest of the day was mostly dancing around each other and the delicate matters of them being here. Very few talked to Jamie at first. In fact, the only person to talk to him was Marie, in a brief, rushed, but polite conversation about nothing of particular importance (just weather or something equally as forced and quaint). The soldiers didn't talk to him. No. They did not utter a word to him. But he did stand near them enough to hear them, thus learning their names.
Freddy. Charles. Jack. George.
He learnt their names by listening to them, not talking to them. They never talked to him.
Freddy was the blonde boy with the chubby, rosy cheeks. He had revealed to the other soldiers, when he had thought Jamie was not listening, that he was sixteen, not the necessary eighteen years of age for enlisting for the army. He was not very strong or brave. His father was the one who had signed him up for the Calvary, not the boy himself. But for what he lacked in strength, he made up for in heart. He was kind, courageous and very emotional. He smiled kindly to Emilie when she bounded around them, and agreed to help Grandfather make jam when asked (the others had sniggered and called the job a boring waste of time).
Charles was the older brown haired boy. He had not uttered a word to Jamie, but he seemed to talk around the other men. He had shaper, more defined features then the rest of the boys, but was nothing next to Marie and her cheekbones. He also seemed to have this completely unfounded annoyance for Emilie.
Jack. Jamie could use one word to describe the little ginger- haired brat. Annoying. As soon as Marie or the Grandfather turned their back after giving an instruction or making a request, he would mimic their accent. Jamie didn't know what infuriated him more. The fact Jack did it or that the other boys laughed. (Jamie called them boys because the eldest, Charles, was twenty, barley a match for Jamie's twenty-eight).
George was the smaller of the brown-haired boys. Jamie didn't think much of him. Not in a bad way, but more to the fact that the lad seemed to fade into the background when in a conversation with the others, only laughing or throwing in a comment when absolutely necessary. He seemed like the sort of person to work alone, yet he was always next to at least one of the other soldiers whilst doing some of the little chores Grandpére was already asking of them.
Jamie sighed. With nothing to do and the horses now resting, thoughts were begin consuming him. Horrid, guilty thoughts. The image of bodies littered across the ground flashed in front of his eyes every few minutes, reminding him where he had been only a day before (god, it only one day). He could do nothing to pass the time efficiently, since the boys had taken over the chores, his mind was now beginning to wonder. He needed a distraction. He needed to get away from the thoughts in his own head.
And he found a distraction later that afternoon. The sun was setting, bathing the courtyard in an orange light and throwing the shadows around. The distraction came in the form of a little girl in a white, flower print dress, jumping up and down in attempts to reach the clothes on the clothes line. She was having extremely hard time reaching the piece of rope (which was extremely, ridiculously high up), and was starting to tire.
This was a good distraction.
He began to walk towards her, determination perhaps too evident on his face, for when she looked up to him, fear suddenly coated her features. He tried to seem less intimidating as he continued to walk towards her. She had stopped jumping up to rope, just staring at him as he gained on her. When he was in front of her, just staring at her a moment. They looked at each other, timid look on her face, until he reached up and took hold of the clothes line and pulling it down to Emilie's level. She stared a moment, before smiling brightly and beginning to pluck the clothes off of the line.
"Merci, Monsieur!" she was smiling brightly, pulling the pieces of fabric off in a happy hurry. 'Merci' meant 'thank-you', Jamie knew that much. He stared at the clothes for a moment, the clean pieces of fabric making him envious. He felt suffocated in his dirty (balancing on the line of filthy) uniform, it suddenly feeling tight on him. He didn't think Emilie spoke English, for he had not heard her utter a word of his language. So, he answered in words he didn't think she wouldn't understand.
"You are quite welcome, little Miss." He spoke happily. She may not have understood him, but it was refreshing to finally have someone talk to him. The tense, awkward silence had been following him all day and it was well on its way to exhausting him, was slowly fizzing out. But then she had paused, a look of sheer concentration covered her features as she mouthed his words slightly. He realised then she understood his words, just not immediately. She looked like she was slowly figuring the words out. It was very clear the moment she did.
"I am not petit!" she half shouted, but there was a large smile on her face. She giggled, before pulling down another item of clothing -a shirt- off of the line. He found himself smiling back, refreshed by her childishness. He helped her pull the clothing off while conversing in faulty, halted English (a good half of her sentences were made up of French).
Marie paused in the door way of the barn, staring at the soldier and her sister. They were both laughing and smiling, he pulling the clothes line down for her to reach. Marie smiled for a moment, before frowning and walking back into the barn.
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It was Marie who was the arty, crafty member of the family. The knitting in the basket and sewing equipment on the table belonged to her. They realised this when the soldiers timidly walked into the kitchen the next morning to find her half asleep at the table with five small, neatly folded pieces of cloth. She had clumsily handed a pile of fabric to the each of them, eyes almost fully closed and half-way to unconscious. There was a fire lit, warming to room and making it harder for her to remain awake.
It was upon a further inspection that they all realised that folded cloth was, in fact, She had spent the whole night sewing.
She had given a harsh instruction to go and change clothes quickly and to bring their now filthy uniforms back, all except for the boots. They did as they were told, trudging back to the barn to change (Jack, of course, threw in an imitation of tired Marie once they were out of ear shot, causing to younger men to laugh. But not Jamie). The changing part was awkward, all having to find a piece of wall they could stare at without seeing each other.
Jamie had a pair of grey trousers and a white shirt much like the Grandfather's. In fact, he guessed that they were either some of the man's clothes that were modified, or Maire made the family's clothes. The other boys had much the same style of clothes; only differences were small things such as colour and buttons.
They bought their uniforms back to the farm house and placed them in front of the dozing Marie. She jolted awake sniffing and blinking for a moment before stretching and looking through the bundle of clothes on the table (Jamie was the only one who had folded his uniform). After making sure that every piece of their uniform was there (save for their boots of course, which they were wearing), she gathered them in her hands, turned in her seat at the head of the table, and threw them into the fire.
The boys shouted, not words but more strangled sounds. They were distraught that the things that had bought them honour and pride at home, burn as though it were simply tinder. Jamie, on the other hand, was over the moon to see the things get destroyed. He would have done the same sooner or later, in hopes of repressing the memories of his mistakes. But he knew it would never really happen.
"Silence!" Marie whisper shouted, efficiently shutting them up. But Marie seemed to launch into some sort of rant, anger fuelling her words, accent distorting her words. "I have risked my life for you. I have risked my family's lives for you. If ze Germon armie findz your uniforms, we are all dead - mort!"
The boys remain silent as she turned, averting her glare from them, and poking the fire and burning clothes with a metal rod.
Jamie was happy to see them be reduced to nothing but black ash.
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"Ne la touchez pas!" Marie cried, arms thrown out in Jamie's direction and fear clear in her voice. His hand was hovering near Maybell's neck, intending to give her a gentle stroke but stopped dead before he could due to her panicked voice.
There was a moment of silence. It was only Jamie's second day at the farm. Marie had come up to him after an awkward breakfast and asked (demanded) that he help her with caring for the horses.
"Do not touch her." She translated, much calmer than she had been just a moment ago. Jamie quickly pulled his hand away from the small horse. It was a good thing he did, because a moment later, the pale pony's head shot out and she tried to land a bite on him.
He stuck to caring for the soldier's horses.
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Marie wasn't particularly fond of the soldiers, but nor did she dislike them. She accepted that they were there, but she didn't talk politely like Grandpére or laugh with them like Emilie. She just accepted their presence and went on with her work. But sometimes they could not be ignored. This was one of those times.
She needed to go back into town. The little village was almost deserted now, since the war was creeping closer and almost all the men were fighting in said war. The little French family were pretty self-sustaining, but still need some of the basic necessities (it turned out she was on her way into town when she had run into the Germans and freed them). For example, the reason for this trip was the fact that the three chickens had died (a fox had come and killed them in the early morning. It murdered all three, but only carried away one when a furious and hysterical Maire chased it from the tiny hen house behind the barn).
That is why she sat atop her little horse (who had arched her neck and was currently chewing at the bit between her teeth), one leg on either side of the saddle, as usual. Jamie was no longer bothered by seeing her ride like this, for he had seen it many times as she rode around in the mornings. But the other men, it seemed, were not as accustomed to it as Jaime. Jack, in fact, proceeded to state his opinion rather loudly.
"Are you not going to ride properly?" He said rudely, not even throwing in the slightest politeness. Jamie cringed slightly, feeling momentarily sorry for him before realising he deserved every insult he was about to cop from Marie.
She turned to him angrily, now infamous glare plastered back on her face.
"If ze world was a reasonable place, men would be the one riding side saddle!" she growled, nudging Maybell in to a spritely walk, walking quickly away from the soldiers and the farm. The men were shocked into silence. What she had said was scandalous, so much so most of the soldiers began to feel disgusted. But not Jamie. He felt… happy. He responded to her words quickly.
"Look at it this way, gentlemen." Jamie said, trying to keep the strange sudden smugness out of his voice. These were some of the first words he had spoken to them, on accounts most of his conversations took place with Marie, Grandfather and Emilie (he and the girl had formed a nice little bond). "If she didn't ride astride, we would all probably be in the German's hands."
It was true. Although he had seen a few women speed along whilst riding side saddle, it was still clear that sitting atop the horse was still a faster way of traveling. And then he saw it.
Marie was only a few lengths away from them, and she must have heard what Jamie had said. Her head turned slightly, revealing the smallest of smiles before she urged Maybell into a trot, then a canter, before disappearing down the dirt road and behind the small hills.
She did not return of three days.
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Boom de yada, boom de yada, that sucked like pina colada. …WTF is a pina colada… (turns out it's an alcoholic drink. Joy). I just said it 'cause it rhymed in my head.
So yeah. That sucked. He he. Yeah, review because I'm lonely. And have social life. Which would explain me trying to rhyme boom de yada and pina colada. I'm a bit of a sad loser.
The more I read this, the less I'm happy with it.
I just memorized 'Gatsby believed in the green light' for the fun of it. I am a sad human being if that's what I do for fun.
