One Sunday in Picardy

Abstract

“One Sunday in Picardy” is a work of fiction set in northern France during The First World War. Jack, an Australian doctor, returns to see his young fiancée Georgette in a French village on his way to the second Battle of the Somme. After assisting the wounded at the front for two years, he is unable to remember events during one fierce battle for which he was decorated; his thoughts are plagued by images and sensations related to the battlefield. Georgette, now nearly eighteen, finds Jack changed and is uneasy as the likelihood grows of an enemy attack, threatening the château which is her family home. To keep up the battalion’s spirits, Solaine, the matriarch of the family, hosts a sports day in the grounds and a grand dinner in the evening for the officers. Jack’s batman Pat, a childhood friend who is interested in Georgette’s sister Élise, goes to check on his brother Tom in the woods near the front. At the same time the body of the ace pilot Manfred von Richthofen, shot down nearby, is secretly brought to the château to be washed. The stories of these characters unfold as the bombardment builds up around them.