Entering Cote 304

May 3: Finding my way to Cote 304

I could see the approach of Cote 304 because a grove of Australian pines was nearing. The worst areas devastated by the war were reforested in the 1930s with Australian pines. It would take over three to four centuries for nature to fully recover the area. That evidence was clear wherever I went from Fort Vaux to Le Mort Homme where the artillery had broken the ground and shattered the subsoil.

The car turned onto a narrow lane that meandered through a forest of green conifers, which held back the sun and cast darkness onto the wood line floor. We approached the summit and circled around a tall monolith memorial. Marc and I got out of the car and I walked over to the woods at Cote 304. The ground was pocked and cratered by the bombs and ammunition that had blasted devastation into the ground. There was a dirt road cutting into the wood line. The stronger voice inside me whispered, “Go there.” I walked into the wood line aware of the magnitude of death that saturated the soil, knowing each step I took at Cote 304 was on the battleground where the living had fallen dead.

I stood there, feeling like a living sacrifice, with my hand up near my face. I could feel my breath on my hand. I could feel my face against my hand. I needed this sensory connection to life. As I stood there, the wind whispered through the pines. My eyes noticed the ground was blanketed in pine needles. Green moss grew in patches. Weeds grew in other places. There was life on the wood line floor. Although it looked dark from the road, I realized there were shafts of light streaming in the wood line. The wood line wasn’t filled with death. I stood on the ground of Cote 304. I wanted to remember and feared that my memory would forget. I took two pictures, and then regretted the noise from the shutter clicks. The woods deserved silence. I decided not to make any more noise on the ground where so many thousands of soldiers had died.

The unknown soldiers of World War I had led me here. This ground was more than a battleground. With a quick knee jerk reaction, it would be easy to call it hallowed because that’s how battlefields are often categorized. But the darkness of war and death are not the elements that create hallowed ground. It is life, and the spark of life that creates hallowed ground. Each Unknown Soldier who died on this ground had once carried a spark of life. The spark held potential, and each spark had been extinguished here at Cote 304. 10,000 lives in one day. This was the ground of remembrance. The purpose was not to remember the war, but to remember life. The unknown soldiers had lived and loved.

I left the wood line, and joined Marc on the level asphalt road. We both looked back for a final glimpse at the woods before heading to the car. There was fog in the wood line that seemed to be moving toward us. What was once clear in the woods was now becoming veiled. It was another surreal scene at Verdun and we stood on the road watching it. (If there was such a thing as “an energy of the departed,” then that fog was an energy of the soldiers who had died there.) The fog appeared suddenly. It was a looming presence that held the great loss and emptiness. I knew I didn’t want to get caught in it. As it moved closer, we returned to the car. Due to the silence, I didn’t ask Marc if he saw it but the timing of our departure coincided with my own readiness to leave. I stared out at the fog and broken trees in the wood line as we traveled down the lonely lane. I had traveled to Cote 304 to remember them, and it seemed the unknown soldiers had appeared in their own way.

Read more about Cote 304: History Lesson

Exploring Montfaucon and Beyond

Locked doors

Marc stopped at Fleury as I had requested earlier. Fleury was another village that was completely annihilated by the war. The mini-van tour passed it on Saturday but we didn’t stop, and I wanted to visit the chapel. One of the films I had seen on Saturday mentioned the chapel of reconciliation. This was the only time Marc stayed at his car “to rest,” he said. I walked up to the chapel but the doors were locked. I couldn’t enter the chapel of reconciliation. The ground around the chapel was landscaped with flowers and plants, but beyond was the familiar cratered ground and struggling trees. I returned to Marc and told him I was ready to head back to the hotel.

Marc drove past the street to Hostellerie Coq Hardi, past the Cathedral and straight into the courtyard that I had visited earlier that morning. He drove to this location without any prompting from me.

“This is the World Center for Peace.”
“Oh, wow.” I said surprised to be driven right into the courtyard. “I was wondering what this building was. I couldn’t find a sign or anything.”
“It used to be the former Bishops Palace but now it’s a museum. You should visit the Center for Peace. I think you’ll like it. Do you see that cathedral?”
“Yes, I was there earlier this morning.”
“I was married there.”
We chatted about the cathedral. Marc put the car in reverse and he backed out of the courtyard with gutsy precision, and then drove to my hotel. I thanked him, tipped him, and we said good-bye.

I returned to my room of harvest gold roses but realized I was hungry. I headed back outside to pick up something for dinner and discovered the charcuterie that I had scouted earlier in the morning was closed. The back-up charcuterie was closed, too. The patisserie shops were closed. Then I realized it was Sunday at 6 o’clock. Of course everything was closed. I headed back to the hotel and decided to eat a fixed meal in the hotel’s café. Since they were serving dinner at 7:15 pm, I went up to my room to relax and refresh.

While waiting for dinner, I picked up one of the books I brought with me, “Seasons in Your Heart” by Macrina Wiederkehr. I dipped into the book, and opened it randomly to this page:

An Ode to Life
Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?
(1 Corinthians 15:55)

What happened to death?
How terribly gone it is!
All the world is filled with Life today
For someone stepped on death
and Resurrection happened!

Someone stepped on death
and Life
  leaped out
  leaped up
  leaped in
A friend named Life walked in!

Welcome Life!
It’s been a long, hard winter,
  and a crucifying Lent.
The welcome that you feel is real.

We call you Life
Oh what a gift you are!
You breathe in us and make us new
You stroll among our doubts
You walk amid the pain
Even sin cannot destroy you.

As you stand beside us
with resurrection eyes
death itself, now, dies.
Patience, Life!
One secret at a time.
Too much beauty we can’t manage
Too much mystery overwhelms us.
  Go gently then
  as you touch us with your breath
  a little more each day
  and then again some more
  until we’re new
  and full of you.

Then,
we can be
life-giving
too!

I sat on my bed nearly spellbound by the reading. I knew that I had achieved my objective of entering the wood line at Cote 304 although the reason why wasn’t clear at that moment. It was a mystery just like the fog that stood among the crosses at the Ossuary and rolled outward from the woods at Cote 304. I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I had never walked across so much ground that held the wounds of war and death. My mind couldn’t stretch any further to ponder the passages although the message from Macrina Wiederkehr’s poem was clear. It was life.

The only question I had was, “Where was Jimmy?” I had been certain I was going to meet him in Verdun. I thought I would meet a manifestation of his character somewhere near Cote 304.