I suppose that those who are familiar with bedbugs are becoming more and more rare. The destruction of slum properties has very much reduced their habitat. I learned about them the hard way when stationed in London during the war. We were being taught at the London Hospital to deal with casualties and were billeted in the student's hostel where the accommodation was limited. I was part of the overflow who had to make use of the few slum properties, which remained, alongside the new hostel. They were just walls and roof but we constructed two-tier bunks, which were quite adequate. The very first night produced very itchy evidence that we were sharing the houses with considerable insect life.
We thought at first that our tormentors were fleas or mosquitoes but our torches in the night soon showed us that we had larger and nastier creatures to contend with. The bedbug attacks by crawling over the ceiling and when the temperature shows that they are over a living body they drop down. They arrive with an unmistakable plop on to the sheet or pillow, and worst of all - they smell! There are not usually very many in one room and the smell is not particularly strong but once identified there is no mistaking their presence. They are about the size of an aspirin tablet. I am sure my readers are thinking that aspirin tablets vary in size but so do bedbugs and you will recognise one when you see it. They are black or dark brown and when the unmistakable plop is heard there is no option but to switch on all the lights available and, armed with a shoe, try very hard to hit the creature with the heel. The bugs do not move very fast, but quite fast enough to keep several people busy for some time. Not my favourite occupation at about 1am in the morning.
When we complained about our sufferings we were told not to be so fussy, there was a war on and we were not going to be there for long. The doctor gave us some ointment but it was clear that he thought we would find better remedies by asking some of the people in the local pub who had probably lived in the houses involved. Those we asked made it plain that it was a huge joke and that if we stayed long enough we might gain immunity. When we asked how long that was they produced a very old man who had lived there for sixty years and he only got bitten now in very hot weather.
This description of life with bedbugs is leading up to the main part of my story which took place after the liberation of Paris but before we had approached the western foothills of the Vosges mountains. We were enjoying a particularly long R & R (Rest and Recuperation) and our small group (four of us) was billeted in a tiny village. The village possessed a very good bakery, which was unusual in that it became the area brothel in more normal times. The baker’s wife, an extremely attractive woman, was the 'Madame' who combined her cake making activities with running the very discrete "maison". The girls who staffed both bakery and brothel were her three equally attractive daughters. All the rest of the staff were dispersed because of the war and the baker himself was in a prisoner-of-war camp somewhere in Germany.
One of the advantages of being in a very small village was that everybody in the village very soon knew everything about us. This is an essential part of a "Madame's" job - knowing everything about everybody and our lady was no exception. At one point I wondered if she managed to read our letters from home before we got them! One result of this total knowledge of the circumstances of all of us was that the ladies knew that I had been married shortly before sailing overseas. This meant that I was not subjected to quite the almost overwhelming attentions of 'Madame' and her three daughters. However, the youngest girl, (she was about sixteen I think) was determined to show her mother and sisters that when it came to attracting men she could outclass them all.
We were all by this time fairly used to the position of "Glamorous saviours of France" injected into a society pretty well totally deprived of men. In my case I was unable to play the right part for that scenario because during the day I was occupied driving, from immediately after a very early breakfast until long after my bed-time. I usually came back to a solitary meal left out for me before bed and instant sleep from which I was woken by the smell of coffee the next morning.
One evening I was joined at supper by one of my colleagues whose day had also been far removed from rest and recuperation. We were being waited upon by the youngest daughter whose name was Marie. When she finally left us with our coffee and brandy my colleague said "That girl has got a "thing" about you". I had not noticed but I was far too tired to notice much anyway. The next day was another one where the hours were simply not enough for all the jobs I needed to fit into it. I ate supper by myself but waited upon by a smiling Marie. I asked her to join me with the coffee but she said she still had a lot to do, and in any case my letters from home had just arrived and obviously l wanted to read them.
By the time I finally staggered upstairs I was practically out on my feet. I tossed off my clothes and fell into bed only to find, as one might have guessed, that I was not alone. Marie, looking very much older than her sixteen years, her practically non-existent clothes, and general make-up being in a style that might be called "pre-war Hollywood". It would have been anything but tactful to take a firm line and in any case l was not in a particularly resistant mood. Tiredness and brandy do not combine to produce a firm line about anything. I sank back and hoped to be able to carry off whatever I was in for.
It was not at all what either of us expected or wanted; it arrived with a totally characteristic "plonk" on to the pillow between us. "Ah, une punaise" said Marie. Memory is a very strange thing - I can very clearly remember thinking at that moment "Aha, another interesting word for my French vocabulary."
However, I can think of little else so completely destructive of an erotic atmosphere than a large smelly bedbug on the pillow between two people. Perhaps James Bond's spider might have been as effective but I doubt it.
Marie was as familiar with the bedbug attack as I was, and in seconds we were whacking away at it with slippers. In fact it escaped down one of the cracks in the skirting boards, but the noise we made produced another erotic destroyer. We were suddenly joined by several others including Madame and Marie's sisters. This made it fairly clear to me that I had been set up as a test case for the cold-blooded Englishman. I think probably the verdict would be, in all honesty, one of "not proven".
There could not be a repeat test case because we were whisked away very soon afterwards. Even if Marie is still alive it is extremely unlikely that she will ever read this, but it would be nice for her to know that I still remember both her and the bug!
Dennis Woodcock
March 2003