Passion by Jeanette Winterson Read Free Book Online

road to Heaven was first the road to Boulogne. No one was exempt from conscription. It was up to the recruiting officers to decide who should stay and who must go. By Christmas, the camp had swelled to over 100,000 men and more were expected. We ran with packs that weighed around 40 lbs, waded in and out of the sea, fought one another hand to hand and used all die available farming land to feed ourselves. Even so, it was not enough and, in spite of Napoleon's dislike of supply contractors, we got most of our meat from nameless regions and I suspect from animals that Adam would not recognise. Two pounds of bread, 4 oz of meat and 4 oz of vegetables were rationed to us daily. We stole what we could, spent our wages, when we had them, on tavern food and wreaked havoc on the communities who lived quietly round about. Napoleon himself ordered vivandieres to be sent to special camps. Vrvandiere is an optimistic army word. He sent tarts who had no reason to be vivant about anything. Their food was often worse than ours, they had us as many hours of the day as we could stand and the pay was poor. The well-padded town tarts took pity on them and were often to be seen visiting the camps with blankets and loaves of bread. The vivandieres were runaways, strays, younger daughters of too-large families, servant girls who'd got tired of giving it away to drunken masters, and fat old dames who couldn't ply their trade anywhere else. On arrival they were each given a set of underclothes and a dress that chilled their bosoms in the icy sea-salt days. Shawls were distributed too, but any woman found covering herself on duty could be reported and fined. Fined meant no money that week instead of hardly any money. Unlike the town tarts, who protected themselves and charged what they liked and certainly charged individually, the vwants were expected to service as many men as asked diem day or night. One woman I met crawling home after an officer's party said she'd lost count at thirty-nine.
    Christ lost consciousness at thirty-nine.
    Most of us that winter got great sores where the salt and wind had rubbed down our skin. Sores between our toes and on our top lips were the most common. A moustache didn't help, the hairs aggravated the rawness.
    At Christmas, though the vivandieres had no time off, we did, and we sat around our fires with extra logs toasting the Emperor with our extra brandy. Patrick and I feasted on a goose I stole, cooking and eating it in guilty joy on top of his pillar. We should have shared it, but as it was we were still hungry. He told me stories about Ireland, about the peat fires and the goblins that live under every hill.
    'Sure and Pve had my own boots made the size of a thumbnail by the little people.'
    He said he'd been out poaching, that it was a fine night in July, just dark, with the moon up and a great stretch of stars. As he came through the wood he saw a ring of green fire burning as tall as a man. In the middle of the ring were three goblins. He knew they were goblins and not elves by their shovels and beards. 'So I kept as quiet as the church bell on a Saturday night and crept up to them as you would a pheasant.'
    He had heard them discussing their treasure, stolen from the fairies and buried under the ground within the ring of fire. Suddenly one of the goblins had put his nose to the air and sniffed suspiciously.
    'I smell a man,' he said. 'A dirty man with mud on his boots.' Another laughed. 'What does it matter? No one with mud on his boots can enter our secret chamber.'
    'Take no chances, let's be off,' said the first and in a wink they were gone, ring of fire with them. For a few moments Patrick lay still among the leaves turning over what he had heard. Then, checking he was alone, he took off his boots and crept to where the ring of fire had been. On the ground there was no sign of burning but the soles of his feet tingled.
    'So I knew I was in a magic place.'
    He had dug all night and in the morning found