Northern France, August 1914 — the war has just begun. The summer air still smells of lavender and harvest, but beneath it, there’s smoke.

⸻

The morning the war reached them, the bells of Saint-Claire did not ring for Mass, but for the wounded.

The sound tore through the fields like cannonfire, scattering flocks of birds into a gray sky. Down in the village, doors burst open—women in nightgowns ran barefoot into the streets, skirts flying, their faces pale with disbelief. Children followed close behind, clutching rags, tin cups, anything that might be useful. By midday, the first carts rolled in from the front. Blood dripped between the wooden planks, pooling onto the dirt road.

“Clear the nave!” someone shouted. Benches were overturned, the altar stripped bare. The church became a hospital in minutes—candles melted beside morphine vials, the air heavy with incense and sweat. A young nun, no older than twenty, pressed linen to a soldier’s chest. His uniform was torn open, the color of his regiment still visible beneath the grime. “Hold still,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Inhale… Dieu, not so fast-” He gasped, eyes wide, and went still.

Outside, children waited with baskets of bread, watching as stretcher after stretcher disappeared through the arched doors. One girl, no taller than the table beside her, carried her father’s old boots in her arms, as if he’d forgot them.

Across the street, the tavern had changed too. Its windows shuttered, its doors guarded by men who no longer smiled. Inside, perfume fought to mask the scent of blood. Women painted their lips in cracked mirrors, trying to look alive, their laughter sharp and nervous. A gramophone played something fast, and soldiers drank until the walls spun.

“Name?” a woman asked one of them, but he didn’t answer. He only kissed her hand like a gentleman and handed her his dog tag instead. In the background, the piano player hit the wrong note, cursed, and started again.

Further down the road, an old man poured petrol onto his field and set it alight, watching as the flames swallowed his crops. He wouldn’t let the Germans take his harvest. The smoke curled toward the heavens, dark and defiant. “Those bastards.”

The sky dimmed. The earth shook. Somewhere beyond the ridge, artillery screamed—raw, metallic, endless. Innocent men died, either German or French, nuns crossed themselves every time stretcher-bearers came running in with more injured soldiers, and children cried after their fathers, being deployed.