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diff --git a/4380.txt b/4380.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2499ecf --- /dev/null +++ b/4380.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13310 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Under Fire, by Henri Barbusse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Under Fire + The Story of a Squad + +Author: Henri Barbusse + +Translator: Fitzwater Wray + +Posting Date: August 1, 2009 [EBook #4380] +Release Date: August, 2003 +First Posted: January 20, 2002 +[Last updated: January 25, 2016] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER FIRE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +Under Fire + +The Story of a Squad + + +By + +Henri Barbusse + +(1874-1935) + + + +Translated by Fitzwater Wray + + + + To + the memory of + the comrades who fell by my side + at Crouy and on Hill 119 + + January, May, and September 1915 + + + + + +Contents + + + I. The Vision + II. In the Earth + III. The Return + IV. Volpatte and Fouillade + V. Sanctuary + VI. Habits + VII. Entraining + VIII. On Leave + IX. The Anger of Volpatte + X. Argoval + XI. The Dog + XII. The Doorway + XIII. The Big Words + XIV. Of Burdens + XV. The Egg + XVI. An Idyll + XVII. The Sap + XVIII. A Box of Matches + XIX. Bombardment + XX. Under Fire + XXI. The Refuge + XXII. Going About + XXIII. The Fatigue-Party + XXIV. The Dawn + + + + +UNDER FIRE + + + +I + +The Vision + + +MONT BLANC, the Dent du Midi, and the Aiguille Verte look across at the +bloodless faces that show above the blankets along the gallery of the +sanatorium. This roofed-in gallery of rustic wood-work on the first +floor of the palatial hospital is isolated in Space and overlooks the +world. The blankets of fine wool--red, green, brown, or white--from +which those wasted cheeks and shining eyes protrude are quite still. No +sound comes from the long couches except when some one coughs, or that +of the pages of a book turned over at long and regular intervals, or +the undertone of question and quiet answer between neighbors, or now +and again the crescendo disturbance of a daring crow, escaped to the +balcony from those flocks that seem threaded across the immense +transparency like chaplets of black pearls. + +Silence is obligatory. Besides, the rich and high-placed who have come +here from all the ends of the earth, smitten by the same evil, have +lost the habit of talking. They have withdrawn into themselves, to +think of their life and of their death. + +A servant appears in the balcony, dressed in white and walking softly. +She brings newspapers and hands them about. + +"It's decided," says the first to unfold his paper. "War is declared." + +Expected as the news is, its effect is almost dazing, for this audience +feels that its portent is without measure or limit. These men of +culture and intelligence, detached from the affairs of the world and +almost from the world itself, whose faculties are deepened by suffering +and meditation, as far remote from their fellow men as if they were +already of the Future--these men look deeply into the distance, towards +the unknowable land of the living and the insane. + +"Austria's act is a crime," says the Austrian. + +"France must win," says the Englishman. + +"I hope Germany will be beaten," says the German. + +They settle down again under the blankets and on the pillows, looking +to heaven and the high peaks. But in spite of that vast purity, the +silence is filled with the dire disclosure of a moment before. + +War! + +Some of the invalids break the silence, and say the word again under +their breath, reflecting that this is the greatest happening of the +age, and perhaps of all ages. Even on the lucid landscape at which they +gaze the news casts something like a vague and somber mirage. + +The tranquil expanses of the valley, adorned with soft and smooth +pastures and hamlets rosy as the rose, with the sable shadow-stains of +the majestic mountains and the black lace and white of pines and +eternal snow, become alive with the movements of men, whose multitudes +swarm in distinct masses. Attacks develop, wave by wave, across the +fields and then stand still. Houses are eviscerated like human beings +and towns like houses. Villages appear in crumpled whiteness as though +fallen from heaven to earth. The very shape of the plain is changed by +the frightful heaps of wounded and slain. + +Each country whose frontiers are consumed by carnage is seen tearing +from its heart ever more warriors of full blood and force. One's eyes +follow the flow of these living tributaries to the River of Death. To +north and south and west afar there are battles on every side. Turn +where you will, there is war in every corner of that vastness. + +One of the pale-faced clairvoyants lifts himself on his elbow, reckons +and numbers the fighters present and to come--thirty millions of +soldiers. Another stammers, his eyes full of slaughter, "Two armies at +death-grips--that is one great army committing suicide." + +"It should not have been," says the deep and hollow voice of the first +in the line. But another says, "It is the French Revolution beginning +again." "Let thrones beware!" says another's undertone. + +The third adds, "Perhaps it is the last war of all." A silence follows, +then some heads are shaken in dissent whose faces have been blanched +anew by the stale tragedy of sleepless night--"Stop war? Stop war? +Impossible! There is no cure for the world's disease." + +Some one coughs, and then the Vision is swallowed up in the huge sunlit +peace of the lush meadows. In the rich colors of the glowing kine, the +black forests, the green fields and the blue distance, dies the +reflection of the fire where the old world burns and breaks. Infinite +silence engulfs the uproar of hate and pain from the dark swarmings of +mankind. They who have spoken retire one by one within themselves, +absorbed once more in their own mysterious malady. + +But when evening is ready to descend within the valley, a storm breaks +over the mass of Mont Blanc. One may not go forth in such peril, for +the last waves of the storm-wind roll even to the great veranda, to +that harbor where they have taken refuge; and these victims of a great +internal wound encompass with their gaze the elemental convulsion. + +They watch how the explosions of thunder on the mountain upheave the +level clouds like a stormy sea, how each one hurls a shaft of fire and +a column of cloud together into the twilight; and they turn their wan +and sunken faces to follow the flight of the eagles that wheel in the +sky and look from their supreme height down through the wreathing +mists, down to earth. + +"Put an end to war?" say the watchers.--"Forbid the Storm!" + +Cleansed from the passions of party and faction, liberated from +prejudice and infatuation and the tyranny of tradition, these watchers +on the threshold of another world are vaguely conscious of the +simplicity of the present and the yawning possibilities of the future. + +The man at the end of the rank cries, "I can see crawling things down +there"--"Yes, as though they were alive"--"Some sort of plant, +perhaps"--"Some kind of men"-- + +And there amid the baleful glimmers of the storm, below the dark +disorder of the clouds that extend and unfurl over the earth like evil +spirits, they seem to see a great livid plain unrolled, which to their +seeing is made of mud and water, while figures appear and fast fix +themselves to the surface of it, all blinded and borne down with filth, +like the dreadful castaways of shipwreck. And it seems to them that +these are soldiers. + +The streaming plain, seamed and seared with long parallel canals and +scooped into water-holes, is an immensity, and these castaways who +strive to exhume themselves from it are legion. But the thirty million +slaves, hurled upon one another in the mud of war by guilt and error, +uplift their human faces and reveal at last a bourgeoning Will. The +future is in the hands of these slaves, and it is clearly certain that +the alliance to be cemented some day by those whose number and whose +misery alike are infinite will transform the old world. + + + + +II + +In the Earth + + +THE great pale sky is alive with thunderclaps. Each detonation reveals +together a shaft of red falling fire in what is left of the night, and +a column of smoke in what has dawned of the day. Up there--so high and +so far that they are heard unseen--a flight of dreadful birds goes +circling up with strong and palpitating cries to look down upon the +earth. + +The earth! It is a vast and water-logged desert that begins to take +shape under the long-drawn desolation of daybreak. There are pools and +gullies where the bitter breath of earliest morning nips the water and +sets it a-shiver; tracks traced by the troops and the convoys of the +night in these barren fields, the lines of ruts that glisten in the +weak light like steel rails, mud-masses with broken stakes protruding +from them, ruined trestles, and bushes of wire in tangled coils. With +its slime-beds and puddles, the plain might be an endless gray sheet +that floats on the sea and has here and there gone under. Though no +rain is falling, all is drenched, oozing, washed out and drowned, and +even the wan light seems to flow. + +Now you can make out a network of long ditches where the lave of the +night still lingers. It is the trench. It is carpeted at bottom with a +layer of slime that liberates the foot at each step with a sticky +sound; and by each dug-out it smells of the night's excretions. The +holes themselves, as you stoop to peer in, are foul of breath. + +I see shadows coming from these sidelong pits and moving about, huge +and misshapen lumps, bear-like, that flounder and growl. They are "us." +We are muffled like Eskimos. Fleeces and blankets and sacking wrap us +up, weigh us down, magnify us strangely. Some stretch themselves, +yawning profoundly. Faces appear, ruddy or leaden, dirt-disfigured, +pierced by the little lamps of dull and heavy-lidded eyes, matted with +uncut beards and foul with forgotten hair. + +Crack! Crack! Boom!--rifle fire and cannonade. Above us and all around, +it crackles and rolls, in long gusts or separate explosions. The +flaming and melancholy storm never, never ends. For more than fifteen +months, for five hundred days in this part of the world where we are, +the rifles and the big guns have gone on from morning to night and from +night to morning. We are buried deep in an everlasting battlefield; but +like the ticking of the clocks at home in the days gone by--in the now +almost legendary Past--you only hear the noise when you listen. + +A babyish face with puffy eyelids, and cheek-bones as lurid as if +lozenge-shaped bits of crimson paper had been stuck on, comes out of +the ground, opens one eye, then the other. It is Paradis. The skin of +his fat cheeks is scored with the marks of the folds in the tent-cloth +that has served him for night-cap. The glance of his little eye wanders +all round me; he sees me, nods, and says--"Another night gone, old +chap." + +"Yes, sonny; how many more like it still?" + +He raises his two plump arms skywards. He has managed to scrape out by +the steps of the dug-out and is beside me. After stumbling over the dim +obstacle of a man who sits in the shadows, fervently scratches himself +and sighs hoarsely, Paradis makes off--lamely splashing like a penguin +through the flooded picture. + +One by one the men appear from the depths. In the corners, heavy +shadows are seen forming--human clouds that move and break up. One by +one they become recognizable. There is one who comes out hooded with +his blanket--a savage, you would say, or rather, the tent of a savage, +which walks and sways from side to side. Near by, and heavily framed in +knitted wool, a square face is disclosed, yellow-brown as though +iodized, and patterned with blackish patches, the nose broken, the eyes +of Chinese restriction and red-circled, a little coarse and moist +mustache like a greasing-brush. + +"There's Volpatte. How goes it, Firmin?" + +"It goes, it goes, and it comes," says Volpatte. His heavy and drawling +voice is aggravated by hoarseness. He coughs--"My number's up, this +time. Say, did you hear it last night, the attack? My boy, talk about a +bombardment--something very choice in the way of mixtures!" He sniffles +and passes his sleeve under his concave nose. His hand gropes within +his greatcoat and his jacket till it finds the skin, and scratches. +"I've killed thirty of them in the candle," he growls; "in the big +dug-out by the tunnel, mon vieux, there are some like crumbs of metal +bread. You can see them running about in the straw like I'm telling +you." + +"Who's been attacking? The Boches?" + +"The Boches and us too--out Vimy way--a counterattack--didn't you hear +it?" + +"No," the big Lamuse, the ox-man, replies on my account; "I was +snoring; but I was on fatigue all night the night before." + +"I heard it," declares the little Breton, Biquet; "I slept badly, or +rather, didn't sleep. I've got a doss-house all to myself. Look, see, +there it is--the damned thing." He points to a trough on the ground +level, where on a meager mattress of muck, there is just body-room for +one. "Talk about home in a nutshell!" he declares, wagging the rough +and rock-hard little head that looks as if it had never been finished. +"I hardly snoozed. I'd just got off, but was woke up by the relief of +the 129th that went by--not by the noise, but the smell. Ah, all those +chaps with their feet on the level with my nose! It woke me up, it gave +me nose-ache so." + +I knew it. I have often been wakened in the trench myself by the trail +of heavy smell in the wake of marching men. + +"It was all right, at least, if it killed the vermin," said Tirette. + +"On the contrary, it excites them," says Lamuse; "the worse you smell, +the more you have of 'em." + +"And it's lucky," Biquet went on, "that their stink woke me up. As I +was telling that great tub just now, I got my peepers open just in time +to seize the tent-cloth that shut my hole up--one of those muck-heaps +was going to pinch it off me." + +"Dirty devils, the 129th." The human form from which the words came +could now be distinguished down below at our feet, where the morning +had not yet reached it. Grasping his abundant clothing by handsful, he +squatted and wriggled. It was Papa Blaire. His little eyes blinked +among the dust that luxuriated on his face. Above the gap of his +toothless mouth, his mustache made a heavy sallow lump. His hands were +horribly black, the top of them shaggy with dirt, the palms plastered +in gray relief. Himself, shriveled and dirtbedight, exhaled the scent +of an ancient stewpan. Though busily scratching, he chatted with big +Barque, who leaned towards him from a little way off. + +"I wasn't as mucky as this when I was a civvy," he said. + +"Well, my poor friend, it's a dirty change for the worse," said Barque. + +"Lucky for you," says Tirette, going one better; "when it comes to +kids, you'll present madame with some little niggers!" + +Blaire took offense, and gathering gloom wrinkled his brow. "What have +you got to give me lip about, you? What next? It's war-time. As for +you, bean-face, you think perhaps the war hasn't changed your phizog +and your manners? Look at yourself, monkey-snout, buttock-skin! A man +must be a beast to talk as you do." He passed his hand over the dark +deposit on his face, which the rains of those days had proved finally +indelible, and added, "Besides, if I am as I am, it's my own choosing. +To begin with, I have no teeth. The major said to me a long time ago, +'You haven't a single tooth. It's not enough. At your next rest,' he +says, 'take a turn round to the estomalogical ambulance.'" + +"The tomatological ambulance," corrected Barque. + +"Stomatological," Bertrand amended. + +"You have all the making of an army cook--you ought to have been one," +said Barque. + +"My idea, too," retorted Blaire innocently. Some one laughed. The black +man got up at the insult. "You give me belly-ache," he said with scorn. +"I'm off to the latrines." + +When his doubly dark silhouette had vanished, the others scrutinized +once more the great truth that down here in the earth the cooks are the +dirtiest of men. + +"If you see a chap with his skin and toggery so smeared and stained +that you wouldn't touch him with a barge-pole, you can say to yourself, +'Probably he's a cook.' And the dirtier he is, the more likely to be a +cook." + +"It's true, and true again," said Marthereau. + +"Tiens, there's Tirloir! Hey, Tirloir!" + +He comes up busily, peering this way and that, on an eager scent. His +insignificant head, pale as chlorine, hops centrally about in the +cushioning collar of a greatcoat that is much too heavy and big for +him. His chin is pointed, and his upper teeth protrude. A wrinkle round +his mouth is so deep with dirt that it looks like a muzzle. As usual, +he is angry, and as usual, he rages aloud. + +"Some one cut my pouch in two last night!" + +"It was the relief of the 129th. Where had you put it?" + +He indicates a bayonet stuck in the wall of the trench close to the +mouth of a funk-hole--"There, hanging on the toothpick there." + +"Ass!" comes the chorus. "Within reach of passing soldiers! Not dotty, +are you?" + +"It's hard lines all the same," wails Tirloir. Then suddenly a fit of +rage seizes him, his face crumples, his little fists clench in fury, he +tightens them like knots in string and waves them about. "Alors quoi? +Ah, if I had hold of the mongrel that did it! Talk about breaking his +jaw--I'd stave in his bread-pan, I'd--there was a whole Camembert in +there, I'll go and look for it." He massages his stomach with the +little sharp taps of a guitar player, and plunges into the gray of the +morning, grinning yet dignified, with his awkward outlines of an +invalid in a dressing-gown. We hear him grumbling until he disappears. + +"Strange man, that," says Pepin; the others chuckle. "He's daft and +crazy," declares Marthereau, who is in the habit of fortifying the +expression of his thought by using two synonyms at once. + + * * * * * + +"Tiens, old man," says Tulacque, as he comes up. "Look at this." + +Tulacque is magnificent. He is wearing a lemon-yellow coat made out of +an oilskin sleeping-sack. He has arranged a hole in the middle to get +his head through, and compelled his shoulder-straps and belt to go over +it. He is tall and bony. He holds his face in advance as he walks, a +forceful face, with eyes that squint. He has something in his hand. "I +found this while digging last night at the end of the new gallery to +change the rotten gratings. It took my fancy off-hand, that +knick-knack. It's an old pattern of hatchet." + +It was indeed an old pattern, a sharpened flint hafted with an old +brown bone--quite a prehistoric tool in appearance. + +"Very handy," said Tulacque, fingering it. "Yes, not badly thought out. +Better balanced than the regulation ax. That'll be useful to me, you'll +see." As he brandishes that ax of Post-Tertiary Man, he would himself +pass for an ape-man, decked out with rags and lurking in the bowels of +the earth. + +One by one we gathered, we of Bertrand's squad and the half-section, at +an elbow of the trench. Just here it is a little wider than in the +straight part where when you meet another and have to pass you must +throw yourself against the side, rub your back in the earth and your +stomach against the stomach of the other. + +Our company occupies, in reserve, a second line parallel. No night +watchman works here. At night we are ready for making earthworks in +front, but as long as the day lasts we have nothing to do. Huddled up +together and linked arm in arm, it only remains to await the evening as +best we can. + +Daylight has at last crept into the interminable crevices that furrow +this part of the earth, and now it finds the threshold of our holes. It +is the melancholy light of the North Country, of a restricted and muddy +sky, a sky which itself, one would say, is heavy with the smoke and +smell of factories. In this leaden light, the uncouth array of these +dwellers in the depths reveals the stark reality of the huge and +hopeless misery that brought it into being. But that is like the rattle +of rifles and the verberation of artillery. The drama in which we are +actors has lasted much too long for us to be surprised any more, either +at the stubbornness we have evolved or the garb we have devised against +the rain that comes from above, against the mud that comes from +beneath, and against the cold--that sort of infinity that is +everywhere. The skins of animals, bundles of blankets, Balaklava +helmets, woolen caps, furs, bulging mufflers (sometimes worn +turban-wise), paddings and quiltings, knittings and double-knittings, +coverings and roofings and cowls, tarred or oiled or rubbered, black or +all the colors (once upon a time) of the rainbow--all these things mask +and magnify the men, and wipe out their uniforms almost as effectively +as their skins. One has fastened on his back a square of linoleum, with +a big draught-board pattern in white and red, that he found in the +middle of the dining-room of some temporary refuge. That is Pepin. We +know him afar off by his harlequin placard sooner even than by his pale +Apache face. Here is Barque's bulging chest-protector, carven from an +eiderdown quilt, formerly pink, but now fantastically bleached and +mottled by dust and rain. There, Lamuse the Huge rises like a ruined +tower to which tattered posters still cling. A cuirass of moleskin, +with the fur inside, adorns little Eudore with the burnished back of a +beetle; while the golden corselet of Tulacque the Big Chief surpasses +all. + +The "tin hat" gives a certain sameness to the highest points of the +beings that are there, but even then the divers ways of wearing it--on +the regulation cap like Biquet, over a Balaklava like Cadilhac, or on a +cotton cap like Barque--produce a complicated diversity of appearance. + +And our legs! I went down just now, bent double, into our dug-out, the +little low cave that smells musty and damp, where one stumbles over +empty jam-pots and dirty rags, where two long lumps lay asleep, while +in the corner a kneeling shape rummaged a pouch by candle-light. As I +climbed out, the rectangle of entry afforded me a revelation of our +legs. Flat on the ground, vertically in the air, or aslant; spread +about, doubled up, or mixed together; blocking the fairway and cursed +by passers-by, they present a collection of many colors and many +shapes--gaiters, leggings black or yellow, long or short, in leather, +in tawny cloth, in any sort of waterproof stuff; puttees in dark blue, +light blue, black, sage green, khaki, and beige. Alone of all his kind, +Volpatte has retained the modest gaiters of mobilization. Mesnil Andre +has displayed for a fortnight a pair of thick woolen stockings, ribbed +and green; and Tirette has always been known by his gray cloth puttees +with white stripes, commandeered from a pair of civilian trousers that +was hanging goodness knows where at the beginning of the war. As for +Marthereau's puttees, they are not both of the same hue, for he failed +to find two fag-ends of greatcoat equally worn and equally dirty, to be +cut up into strips. + +There are legs wrapped up in rags, too, and even in newspapers, which +are kept in place with spirals of thread or--much more +practical--telephone wire. Pepin fascinated his friends and the +passers-by with a pair of fawn gaiters, borrowed from a corpse. Barque, +who poses as a resourceful man, full of ideas--and Heaven knows what a +bore it makes of him at times!--has white calves, for he wrapped +surgical bandages round his leg-cloths to preserve them, a snowy +souvenir at his latter end of the cotton cap at the other, which +protrudes below his helmet and is left behind in its turn by a saucy +red tassel. Poterloo has been walking about for a month in the boots of +a German soldier, nearly new, and with horseshoes on the heels. Caron +entrusted them to Poterloo when he was sent back on account of his arm. +Caron had taken them himself from a Bavarian machine-gunner, knocked +out near the Pylones road. I can hear Caron telling about it yet-- + +"Old man, he was there, his buttocks in a hole, doubled up, gaping at +the sky with his legs in the air, and his pumps offered themselves to +me with an air that meant they were worth my while. 'A tight fit,' says +I. But you talk about a job to bring those beetle-crushers of his away! +I worked on top of him, tugging, twisting and shaking, for half an hour +and no lie about it. With his feet gone quite stiff, the patient didn't +help me a bit. Then at last the legs of it--they'd been pulled about +so--came unstuck at the knees, and his breeks tore away, and all the +lot came, flop! There was me, all of a sudden, with a full boot in each +fist. The legs and feet had to be emptied out." + +"You're going it a bit strong!" + +"Ask Euterpe the cyclist if it isn't true. I tell you he did it along +of me, too. We shoved our arms inside the boots and pulled out of 'em +some bones and bits of sock and bits of feet. But look if they weren't +worth while!" + +So, until Caron returns, Poterloo continues on his behalf the wearing +of the Bavarian machine-gunner's boots. + +Thus do they exercise their wits, according to their intelligence, +their vivacity, their resources, and their boldness, in the struggle +with the terrible discomfort. Each one seems to make the revealing +declaration, "This is all that I knew, all I was able, all that I dared +to do in the great misery which has befallen me." + + * * * * * + +Mesnil Joseph drowses; Blaire yawns; Marthereau smokes, "eyes front." +Lamuse scratches himself like a gorilla, and Eudore like a marmoset. +Volpatte coughs, and says, "I'm kicking the bucket." Mesnil Andre has +got out his mirror and comb and is tending his fine chestnut beard as +though it were a rare plant. The monotonous calm is disturbed here and +there by the outbreaks of ferocious resentment provoked by the presence +of parasites--endemic, chronic, and contagious. + +Barque, who is an observant man, sends an itinerant glance around, +takes his pipe from his mouth, spits, winks, and says--"I say, we don't +resemble each other much." + +"Why should we?" says Lamuse. "It would be a miracle if we did." + + * * * * * + +Our ages? We are of all ages. Ours is a regiment in reserve which +successive reinforcements have renewed partly with fighting units and +partly with Territorials. In our half-section there are reservists of +the Territorial Army, new recruits, and demi-poils. Fouillade is forty; +Blaire might be the father of Biquet, who is a gosling of Class 1913. +The corporal calls Marthereau "Grandpa" or "Old Rubbish-heap," +according as in jest or in earnest. Mesnil Joseph would be at the +barracks if there were no war. It is a comical effect when we are in +charge of Sergeant Vigile, a nice little boy, with a dab on his lip by +way of mustache. When we were in quarters the other day, he played at +skipping-rope with the kiddies. In our ill-assorted flock, in this +family without kindred, this home without a hearth at which we gather, +there are three generations side by side, living, waiting, standing +still, like unfinished statues, like posts. + +Our races? We are of all races; we come from everywhere. I look at the +two men beside me. Poterloo, the miner from the Calonne pit, is pink; +his eyebrows are the color of straw, his eyes flax-blue. His great +golden head involved a long search in the stores to find the vast +steel-blue tureen that bonnets him. Fouillade, the boatman from Cette, +rolls his wicked eyes in the long, lean face of a musketeer, with +sunken cheeks and his skin the color of a violin. In good sooth, my two +neighbors are as unlike as day and night. + +Cocon, no less, a slight and desiccated person in spectacles, whose +tint tells of corrosion in the chemical vapors of great towns, +contrasts with Biquet, a Breton in the rough, whose skin is gray and +his jaw like a paving-stone; and Mesnil Andre, the comfortable chemist +from a country town in Normandy, who has such a handsome and silky +beard and who talks so much and so well--he has little in common with +Lamuse, the fat peasant of Poitou, whose cheeks and neck are like +underdone beef. The suburban accent of Barque, whose long legs have +scoured the streets of Paris in all directions, alternates with the +semi-Belgian cadence of those Northerners who came from the 8th +Territorial; with the sonorous speech, rolling on the syllables as if +over cobblestone, that the 144th pours out upon us; with the dialect +blown from those ant-like clusters that the Auvergnats so obstinately +form among the rest. I remember the first words of that wag, Tirette, +when he arrived--"I, mes enfants, I am from Clichy-la-Garenne! Can any +one beat that?"--and the first grievance that Paradis brought to me, +"They don't give a damn for me, because I'm from Morvan!" + + * * * * * + +Our callings? A little of all--in the lump. In those departed days when +we had a social status, before we came to immure our destiny in the +molehills that we must always build up again as fast as rain and +scrap-iron beat them down, what were we? Sons of the soil and artisans +mostly. Lamuse was a farm-servant, Paradis a carter. Cadilhac, whose +helmet rides loosely on his pointed head, though it is a juvenile +size--like a dome on a steeple, says Tirette--owns land. Papa Blaire +was a small farmer in La Brie. Barque, porter and messenger, performed +acrobatic tricks with his carrier-tricycle among the trains and taxis +of Paris, with solemn abuse (so they say) for the pedestrians, fleeing +like bewildered hens across the big streets and squares. Corporal +Bertrand, who keeps himself always a little aloof, correct, erect, and +silent, with a strong and handsome face and forthright gaze, was +foreman in a case-factory. Tirloir daubed carts with paint--and without +grumbling, they say. Tulacque was barman at the Throne Tavern in the +suburbs; and Eudore of the pale and pleasant face kept a roadside cafe +not very far from the front lines. It has been ill-used by the +shells--naturally, for we all know that Eudore has no luck. Mesnil +Andre, who still retains a trace of well-kept distinction, sold +bicarbonate and infallible remedies at his pharmacy in a Grande Place. +His brother Joseph was selling papers and illustrated story-books in a +station on the State Railways at the same time that, in far-off Lyons, +Cocon, the man of spectacles and statistics, dressed in a black smock, +busied himself behind the counters of an ironmongery, his hands +glittering with plumbago; while the lamps of Becuwe Adolphe and +Poterloo, risen with the dawn, trailed about the coalpits of the North +like weakling Will-o'-th'-wisps. + +And there are others amongst us whose occupations one can never recall, +whom one confuses with one another; and the rural nondescripts who +peddled ten trades at once in their packs, without counting the dubious +Pepin, who can have had none at all. (While at the depot after sick +leave, three months ago, they say, he got married--to secure the +separation allowance.) + +The liberal professions are not represented among those around me. Some +teachers are subalterns in the company or Red Cross men. In the +regiment a Marist Brother is sergeant in the Service de Sante; a +professional tenor is cyclist dispatch-rider to the Major; a "gentleman +of independent means" is mess corporal to the C.H.R. But here there is +nothing of all that. We are fighting men, we others, and we include +hardly any intellectuals, or men of the arts or of wealth, who during +this war will have risked their faces only at the loopholes, unless in +passing by, or under gold-laced caps. + +Yes, we are truly and deeply different from each other. But we are +alike all the same. In spite of this diversity of age, of country, of +education, of position, of everything possible, in spite of the former +gulfs that kept us apart, we are in the main alike. Under the same +uncouth outlines we conceal and reveal the same ways and habits, the +same simple nature of men who have reverted to the state primeval. + +The same language, compounded of dialect and the slang of workshop and +barracks, seasoned with the latest inventions, blends us in the sauce +of speech with the massed multitudes of men who (for seasons now) have +emptied France and crowded together in the North-East. + +Here, too, linked by a fate from which there is no escape, swept +willy-nilly by the vast adventure into one rank, we have no choice but +to go as the weeks and months go--alike. The terrible narrowness of the +common life binds us close, adapts us, merges us one in the other. It +is a sort of fatal contagion. Nor need you, to see how alike we +soldiers are, be afar off--at that distance, say, when we are only +specks of the dust-clouds that roll across the plain. + +We are waiting. Weary of sitting, we get up, our joints creaking like +warping wood or old hinges. Damp rusts men as it rusts rifles; more +slowly, but deeper. And we begin again, but not in the same way, to +wait. In a state of war, one is always waiting. We have become +waiting-machines. For the moment it is food we are waiting for. Then it +will be the post. But each in its turn. When we have done with dinner +we will think about the letters. After that, we shall set ourselves to +wait for something else. + +Hunger and thirst are urgent instincts which formidably excite the +temper of my companions. As the meal gets later they become grumblesome +and angry. Their need of food and drink snarls from their lips--"That's +eight o'clock. Now, why the hell doesn't it come?" + +"Just so, and me that's been pining since noon yesterday," sulks +Lamuse, whose eyes are moist with longing, while his cheeks seem to +carry great daubs of wine-colored grease-paint. + +Discontent grows more acute every minute. + +"I'll bet Plumet has poured down his own gullet my wine ration that +he's supposed to have, and others with it, and he's lying drunk over +there somewhere." + +"It's sure and certain"--Marthereau seconds the proposition. + +"Ah, the rotters, the vermin, these fatigue men!" Tirloir bellows. "An +abominable race--all of 'em--mucky-nosed idlers! They roll over each +other all day long at the rear, and they'll be damned before they'll be +in time. Ah, if I were boss, they should damn quick take our places in +the trenches, and they'd have to work for a change. To begin with, I +should say, 'Every man in the section will carry grease and soup in +turns.' Those who were willing, of course--" + +"I'm confident," cries Cocon, "it's that Pepere that's keeping the +others back. He does it on purpose, firstly, and then, too, he can't +finish plucking himself in the morning, poor lad. He wants ten hours +for his flea-hunt, he's so finicking; and if he can't get 'em, monsieur +has the pip all day." + +"Be damned to him," growls Lamuse. "I'd shift him out of bed if only I +was there! I'd wake him up with boot-toe, I'd--" + +"I was reckoning, the other day," Cocon went on; "it took him seven +hours forty-seven minutes to come from thirty-one dug-out. It should +take him five good hours, but no longer." + +Cocon is the Man of Figures. He has a deep affection, amounting to +rapacity, for accuracy in recorded computation. On any subject at all, +he goes burrowing after statistics, gathers them with the industry of +an insect, and serves them up on any one who will listen. Just now, +while he wields his figures like weapons, the sharp ridges and angles +and triangles that make up the paltry face where perch the double discs +of his glasses, are contracted with vexation. He climbs to the +firing-step (made in the days when this was the first line), and raises +his head angrily over the parapet. The light touch of a little shaft of +cold sunlight that lingers on the land sets a-glitter both his glasses +and the diamond that hangs from his nose. + +"And that Pepere, too, talk about a drinking-cup with the bottom out! +You'd never believe the weight of stuff he can let drop on a single +journey." + +With his pipe in the corner, Papa Blaire fumes in two senses. You can +see his heavy mustache trembling. It is like a comb made of bone, +whitish and drooping. + +"Do you want to know what I think? These dinner men, they're the +dirtiest dogs of all. It's 'Blast this' and 'Blast that'--John Blast +and Co., I call 'em." + +"They have all the elements of a dunghill about them," says Eudore, +with a sigh of conviction. He is prone on the ground, with his mouth +half-open and the air of a martyr. With one fading eye he follows the +movements of Pepin, who prowls to and fro like a hyaena. + +Their spiteful exasperation with the loiterers mounts higher and +higher. Tirloir the Grumbler takes the lead and expands. This is where +he comes in. With his little pointed gesticulations he goads and spurs +the anger all around him. + +"Ah, the devils, what? The sort of meat they threw at us yesterday! +Talk about whetstones! Beef from an ox, that? Beef from a bicycle, yes +rather! I said to the boys, 'Look here, you chaps, don't you chew it +too quick, or you'll break your front teeth on the nails!'" + +Tirloir's harangue--he was manager of a traveling cinema, it +seems--would have made us laugh at other times, but in the present +temper it is only echoed by a circulating growl. + +"Another time, so that you won't grumble about the toughness, they send +you something soft and flabby that passes for meat, something with the +look and the taste of a sponge--or a poultice. When you chew that, it's +the same as a cup of water, no more and no less." + +"Tout ca," says Lamuse, "has no substance; it gets no grip on your +guts. You think you're full, but at the bottom of your tank you're +empty. So, bit by bit, you turn your eyes up, poisoned for want of +sustenance." + +"The next time," Biquet exclaims in desperation, "I shall ask to see +the old man, and I shall say, 'Mon capitaine'--" + +"And I," says Barque, "shall make myself look sick, and I shall say, +'Monsieur le major'--" + +"And get nix or the kick-out--they're all alike--all in a band to take +it out of the poor private." + +"I tell you, they'd like to get the very skin off us!" + +"And the brandy, too! We have a right to get it brought to the +trenches--as long as it's been decided somewhere--I don't know when or +where, but I know it--and in the three days that we've been here, +there's three days that the brandy's been dealt out to us on the end of +a fork!" + +"Ah, malheur!" + + * * * * * + +"There's the grub!" announces a poilu [note 1] who was on the look-out +at the corner. + +"Time, too!" + +And the storm of revilings ceases as if by magic. Wrath is changed into +sudden contentment. + +Three breathless fatigue men, their faces streaming with tears of +sweat, put down on the ground some large tins, a paraffin can, two +canvas buckets, and a file of loaves, skewered on a stick. Leaning +against the wall of the trench, they mop their faces with their +handkerchiefs or sleeves. And I see Cocon go up to Pepere with a smile, +and forgetful of the abuse he had been heaping on the other's +reputation, he stretches out a cordial hand towards one of the cans in +the collection that swells the circumference of Pepere, after the +manner of a life-belt. + +"What is there to eat?" + +"It's there," is the evasive reply of the second fatigue man, whom +experience has taught that a proclamation of the menu always evokes the +bitterness of disillusion. So they set themselves to panting abuse of +the length and the difficulties of the trip they have just +accomplished: "Some crowds about, everywhere! It's a tough job to get +along--got to disguise yourself as a cigarette paper, sometimes."--"And +there are people who say they're shirkers in the kitchens!" As for him, +he would a hundred thousand times rather be with the company in the +trenches, to mount guard and dig, than earn his keep by such a job, +twice a day during the night! + +Paradis, having lifted the lids of the jars, surveys the recipients and +announces, "Kidney beans in oil, bully, pudding, and coffee--that's +all." + +"Nom de Dieu!" bawls Tulacque. "And wine?" He summons the crowd: "Come +and look here, all of you! That--that's the limit! We're done out of +our wine!" + +Athirst and grimacing, they hurry up; and from the profoundest depths +of their being wells up the chorus of despair and disappointment, "Oh, +Hell!" + +"Then what's that in there?" says the fatigue man, still ruddily +sweating, and using his foot to point at a bucket. + +"Yes," says Paradis, "my mistake, there is some." + +The fatigue man shrugs his shoulders, and hurls at Paradis a look of +unspeakable scorn--"Now you're beginning! Get your gig-lamps on, if +your sight's bad." He adds, "One cup each--rather less perhaps--some +chucklehead bumped against me, coming through the Boyau du Bois, and a +drop got spilled." "Ah!" he hastens to add, raising his voice, "if I +hadn't been loaded up, talk about the boot-toe he'd have got in the +rump! But he hopped it on his top gear, the brute!" + +In spite of this confident assurance, the fatigue man makes off +himself, curses overtaking him as he goes, maledictions charged with +offensive reflections on his honesty and temperance, imprecations +inspired by this revelation of a ration reduced. + +All the same, they throw themselves on the food, and eat it standing, +squatting, kneeling, sitting on tins, or on haversacks pulled out of +the holes where they sleep--or even prone, their backs on the ground, +disturbed by passers-by, cursed at and cursing. Apart from these +fleeting insults and jests, they say nothing, the primary and universal +interest being but to swallow, with their mouths and the circumference +thereof as greasy as a rifle-breech. Contentment is theirs. + +At the earliest cessation of their jaw-bones' activity, they serve up +the most ribald of raillery. They knock each other about, and clamor in +riotous rivalry to have their say. One sees even Farfadet smiling, the +frail municipal clerk who in the early days kept himself so decent and +clean amongst us all that he was taken for a foreigner or a +convalescent. One sees the tomato-like mouth of Lamuse dilate and +divide, and his delight ooze out in tears. Poterloo's face, like a pink +peony, opens out wider and wider. Papa Blaire's wrinkles flicker with +frivolity as he stands up, pokes his head forward, and gesticulates +with the abbreviated body that serves as a handle for his huge drooping +mustache. Even the corrugations of Cocon's poor little face are lighted +up. + +Becuwe goes in search of firewood to warm the coffee. While we wait for +our drink, we roll cigarettes and fill pipes. Pouches are pulled out. +Some of us have shop-acquired pouches in leather or rubber, but they +are a minority. Biquet extracts his tobacco from a sock, of which the +mouth is drawn tight with string. Most of the others use the bags for +anti-gas pads, made of some waterproof material which is an excellent +preservative of shag, be it coarse or fine; and there are those who +simply fumble for it in the bottom of their greatcoat pockets. + +The smokers spit in a circle, just at the mouth of the dug-out which +most of the half-section inhabit, and flood with tobacco-stained saliva +the place where they put their hands and feet when they flatten +themselves to get in or out. + +But who notices such a detail? + + * * * * * + +Now, a propos of a letter to Marthereau from his wife, they discuss +produce. + +"La mere Marthereau has written," he says. "That fat pig we've got at +home, a fine specimen, guess how much she's worth now?" + +But the subject of domestic economy degenerates suddenly into a fierce +altercation between Pepin and Tulacque. Words of quite unmistakable +significance are exchanged. Then--"I don't care a what you say or what +you don't say! Shut it up!"--"I shall shut it when I want, midden!"--"A +seven-pound thump would shut it up quick enough!"--"Who from? Who'll +give it me?"--"Come and find out!" + +They grind their teeth and approach each other in a foaming rage. +Tulacque grasps his prehistoric ax, and his squinting eyes are +flashing. The other is pale and his eyes have a greenish glint; you can +see in his blackguard face that his thoughts are with his knife. + +But between the two, as they grip each other in looks and mangle in +words, Lamuse intervenes with his huge pacific head, like a baby's, and +his face of sanguinary hue: "Allons, allons! You're not going to cut +yourselves up! Can't be allowed!" + +The others also interpose, and the antagonists are separated, but they +continue to hurl murderous looks at each other across the barrier of +their comrades. Pepin mutters a residue of slander in tones that quiver +with malice-- + +"The hooligan, the ruffian, the blackguard! But wait a bit! I'll see +him later about this!" + +On the other side, Tulacque confides in the poilu who is beside him: +"That crab-louse! Non, but you know what he is! You know--there's no +more to be said. Here, we've got to rub along with a lot of people that +we don't know from Adam. We know 'em and yet we don't know 'em; but +that man, if he thinks he can mess me about, he'll find himself up the +wrong street! You wait a bit. I'll smash him up one of these days, +you'll see!" + +Meanwhile the general conversation is resumed, drowning the last twin +echoes of the quarrel. + +"It's every day alike, alors!" says Paradis to me; "yesterday it was +Plaisance who wanted to let Fumex have it heavy on the jaw, about God +knows what--a matter of opium pills, I think. First it's one and then +it's another that talks of doing some one in. Are we getting to be a +lot of wild animals because we look like 'em?" + +"Mustn't take them too seriously, these men," Lamuse declares; "they're +only kids." + +"True enough, seeing that they're men." + + * * * * * + +The day matures. A little more light has trickled through the mists +that enclose the earth. But the sky has remained overcast, and now it +dissolves in rain; With a slowness which itself disheartens, the wind +brings back its great wet void upon us. The rain-haze makes everything +clammy and dull--even the Turkey red of Lamuse's cheeks, and even the +orange armor that caparisons Tulacque. The water penetrates to the deep +joy with which dinner endowed us, and puts it out. Space itself +shrinks; and the sky, which is a field of melancholy, comes closely +down upon the earth, which is a field of death. + +We are still there, implanted and idle. It will be hard to-day to reach +the end of it, to get rid of the afternoon. We shiver in discomfort, +and keep shifting our positions, like cattle enclosed. + +Cocon is explaining to his neighbor the arrangement and intricacy of +our trenches. He has seen a military map and made some calculations. In +the sector occupied by our regiment there are fifteen lines of French +trenches. Some are abandoned, invaded by grass, and half leveled; the +others solidly upkept and bristling with men. These parallels are +joined up by innumerable galleries which hook and crook themselves like +ancient streets. The system is much more dense than we believe who live +inside it. On the twenty-five kilometers' width that form the army +front, one must count on a thousand kilometers of hollowed +lines--trenches and saps of all sorts. And the French Army consists of +ten such armies. There are then, on the French side, about 10,000 +kilometers [note 2] of trenches, and as much again on the German side. +And the French front is only about one-eighth of the whole war-front of +the world. + +Thus speaks Cocon, and he ends by saying to his neighbor, "In all that +lot, you see what we are, us chaps?" + +Poor Barque's head droops. His face, bloodless as a slum child's, is +underlined by a red goatee that punctuates his hair like an apostrophe: +"Yes, it's true, when you come to think of it. What's a soldier, or +even several soldiers?--Nothing, and less than nothing, in the whole +crowd; and so we see ourselves lost, drowned, like the few drops of +blood that we are among all this flood of men and things." + +Barque sighs and is silent, and the end of his discourse gives a chance +of hearing to a bit of jingling narrative, told in an undertone: "He +was coming along with two horses--Fs-s-s--a shell; and he's only one +horse left." + +"You get fed up with it," says Volpatte. + +"But you stick it," growls Barque. + +"You've got to," says Paradis. + +"Why?" asks Marthereau, without conviction. + +"No need for a reason, as long as we've got to." + +"There is no reason," Lamuse avers. + +"Yes, there is," says Cocon. "It's--or rather, there are several." + +"Shut it up! Much better to have no reason, as long as we've got to +stick it." + +"All the same," comes the hollow voice of Blaire, who lets no chance +slip of airing his pet phrase--"All the same, they'd like to steal the +very skin off us!" + +"At the beginning of it," says Tirette, "I used to think about a heap +of things. I considered and calculated. Now, I don't think any more." + +"Nor me either." + +"Nor me." + +"I've never tried to." + +"You're not such a fool as you look, flea-face," says the shrill and +jeering voice of Mesnil Andre. Obscurely flattered, the other develops +his theme-- + +"To begin with, you can't know anything about anything." + +Says Corporal Bertrand, "There's only one thing you need know, and it's +this; that the Boches are here in front of us, deep dug in, and we've +got to see that they don't get through, and we've got to put 'em out, +one day or another--as soon as possible." + +"Oui, oui, they've got to leg it, and no mistake about it. What else is +there? Not worth while to worry your head thinking about anything else. +But it's a long job." + +An explosion of profane assent comes from Fouillade, and he adds, +"That's what it is!" + +"I've given up grousing," says Barque. "At the beginning of it, I +played hell with everybody--with the people at the rear, with the +civilians, with the natives, with the shirkers. Yes, I played hell; but +that was at the beginning of the war--I was young. Now, I take things +better." + +"There's only one way of taking 'em--as they come!" + +"Of course! Otherwise, you'd go crazy. We're dotty enough already, eh, +Firmin?" + +Volpatte assents with a nod of profound conviction. He spits, and then +contemplates his missile with a fixed and unseeing eye. + +"You were saying?" insists Barque. + +"Here, you haven't got to look too far in front. You must live from day +to day and from hour to hour, as well as you can." + +"Certain sure, monkey-face. We've got to do what they tell us to do, +until they tell us to go away." + +"That's all," yawns Mesnil Joseph. + +Silence follows the recorded opinions that proceed from these dried and +tanned faces, inlaid with dust. This, evidently, is the credo of the +men who, a year and a half ago, left all the corners of the land to +mass themselves on the frontier: Give up trying to understand, and give +up trying to be yourself. Hope that you will not die, and fight for +life as well as you can. + +"Do what you've got to do, oui, but get out of your own messes +yourself," says Barque, as he slowly stirs the mud to and fro. + +"No choice"--Tulacque backs him up. "If you don't get out of 'em +yourself, no one'll do it for you." + +"He's not yet quite extinct, the man that bothers about the other +fellow." + +"Every man for himself, in war!" + +"That's so, that's so." + +Silence. Then from the depth of their destitution, these men summon +sweet souvenirs--"All that," Barque goes on, "isn't worth much, +compared with the good times we had at Soissons." + +"Ah, the Devil!" + +A gleam of Paradise lost lights up their eyes and seems even to redden +their cold faces. + +"Talk about a festival!" sighs Tirloir, as he leaves off scratching +himself, and looks pensively far away over Trenchland. + +"Ah, nom de Dieu! All that town, nearly abandoned, that used to be +ours! The houses and the beds--" + +"And the cupboards!" + +"And the cellars!" + +Lamuse's eyes are wet, his face like a nosegay, his heart full. + +"Were you there long?" asks Cadilhac, who came here later, with the +drafts from Auvergne. + +"Several months." + +The conversation had almost died out, but it flames up again fiercely +at this vision of the days of plenty. + +"We used to see," said Paradis dreamily, "the poilus pouring along and +behind the houses on the way back to camp with fowls hung round their +middles, and a rabbit under each arm, borrowed from some good fellow or +woman that they hadn't seen and won't ever see again." + +We reflect on the far-off flavor of chicken and rabbit. "There were +things that we paid for, too. The spondu-licks just danced about. We +held all the aces in those days." + +"A hundred thousand francs went rolling round the shops." + +"Millions, oui. All the day, just a squandering that you've no idea of, +a sort of devil's delight." + +"Believe me or not," said Blaire to Cadilhac, "but in the middle of it +all, what we had the least of was fires, just like here and everywhere +else you go. You had to chase it and find it and stick to it. Ah, mon +vieux, how we did run after the kindlings!" + +"Well, we were in the camp of the C.H.R. The cook there was the great +Martin Cesar. He was the man for finding wood!" + +"Ah, oui, oui! He was the ace of trumps! He got what he wanted without +twisting himself." + +"Always some fire in his kitchen, young fellow. You saw cooks chasing +and gabbling about the streets in all directions, blubbering because +they had no coal or wood. But he'd got a fire. When he hadn't any, he +said, 'Don't worry, I'll see you through.' And he wasn't long about it, +either." + +"He went a bit too far, even. The first time I saw him in his kitchen, +you'd never guess what he'd got the stew going with! With a violin that +he'd found in the house!" + +"Rotten, all the same," says Mesnil Andre. "One knows well enough that +a violin isn't worth much when it comes to utility, but all the same--" + +"Other times, he used billiard cues. Zizi just succeeded in pinching +one for a cane, but the rest--into the fire! Then the arm-chairs in the +drawing-room went by degrees--mahogany, they were. He did 'em in and +cut them up by night, case some N.C.O. had something to say about it." + +"He knew his way about," said Pepin. "As for us, we got busy with an +old suite of furniture that lasted us a fortnight." + +"And what for should we be without? You've got to make dinner, and +there's no wood or coal. After the grub's served out, there you are +with your jaws empty, with a pile of meat in front of you, and in the +middle of a lot of pals that chaff and bullyrag you!" + +"It's the War Office's doing, it isn't ours." + +"Hadn't the officers a lot to say about the pinching?" + +"They damn well did it themselves, I give you my word! Desmaisons, do +you remember Lieutenant Virvin's trick, breaking down a cellar door +with an ax? And when a poilu saw him at it, he gave him the door for +firewood, so that he wouldn't spread it about." + +"And poor old Saladin, the transport officer. He was found coming out +of a basement in the dusk with two bottles of white wine in each arm, +the sport, like a nurse with two pairs of twins. When he was spotted, +they made him go back down to the wine-cellar, and serve out bottles +for everybody. But Corporal Bertrand, who is a man of scruples, +wouldn't have any. Ah, you remember that, do you, sausage-foot!" + +"Where's that cook now that always found wood?" asks Cadilhac. + +"He's dead. A bomb fell in his stove. He didn't get it, but he's dead +all the same--died of shock when he saw his macaroni with its legs in +the air. Heart seizure, so the doc' said. His heart was weak--he was +only strong on wood. They gave him a proper funeral--made him a coffin +out of the bedroom floor, and got the picture nails out of the walls to +fasten 'em together, and used bricks to drive 'em in. While they were +carrying him off, I thought to myself, 'Good thing for him he's dead. +If he saw that, he'd never be able to forgive himself for not having +thought of the bedroom floor for his fire.'--Ah, what the devil are you +doing, son of a pig?" + +Volpatte offers philosophy on the rude intrusion of a passing fatigue +party: "The private gets along on the back of his pals. When you spin +your yarns in front of a fatigue gang, or when you take the best bit or +the best place, it's the others that suffer." + +"I've often," says Lamuse, "put up dodges so as not to go into the +trenches, and it's come off no end of times. I own up to that. But when +my pals are in danger, I'm not a dodger any more. I forget discipline +and everything else. I see men, and I go. But otherwise, my boy, I look +after my little self." + +Lamuse's claims are not idle words. He is an admitted expert at +loafing, but all the same he has brought wounded in under fire and +saved their lives. Without any brag, he relates the deed-- + +"We were all lying on the grass, and having a hot time. Crack, crack! +Whizz, whizz! When I saw them downed, I got up, though they yelled at +me, 'Get down!' Couldn't leave 'em like that. Nothing to make a song +about, seeing I couldn't do anything else." + +Nearly all the boys of the squad have some high deed of arms to their +credit, and the Croix de Guerre has been successively set upon their +breasts. + +"I haven't saved any Frenchmen," says Biquet, "but I've given some +Boches the bitter pill." In the May attacks, he ran off in advance and +was seen to disappear in the distance, but came back with four fine +fellows in helmets. + +"I, too," says Tulacque, "I've killed some." Two months ago, with +quaint vanity, he laid out nine in a straight row, in front of the +taken trench. "But," he adds, "it's always the Boche officer that I'm +after." + +"Ah, the beasts!" The curse comes from several men at once and from the +bottom of their hearts. + +"Ah, mon vieux," says Tirloir, "we talk about the dirty Boche race; but +as for the common soldier, I don't know if it's true or whether we're +codded about that as well, and if at bottom they're not men pretty much +like us." + +"Probably they're men like us," says Eudore. + +"Perhaps!" cries Cocon, "and perhaps not." + +"Anyway," Tirloir goes on, "we've not got a dead set on the men, but on +the German officers; non, non, non, they're not men, they're monsters. +I tell you, they're really a specially filthy sort o' vermin. One might +say that they're the microbes of the war. You ought to see them close +to--the infernal great stiff-backs, thin as nails, though they've got +calf-heads." + +"And snouts like snakes." + +Tirloir continues: "I saw one once, a prisoner, as I came back from +liaison. The beastly bastard! A Prussian colonel, that wore a prince's +crown, so they told me, and a gold coat-of-arms. He was mad because we +took leave to graze against him when they were bringing him back along +the communication trench, and he looked down on everybody--like that. I +said to myself, 'Wait a bit, old cock, I'll make you rattle directly!' +I took my time and squared up behind him, and kicked into his tailpiece +with all my might. I tell you, he fell down half-strangled." + +"Strangled?" + +"Yes, with rage, when it dawned on him that the rump of an officer and +nobleman had been bust in by the hobnailed socks of a poor private! He +went off chattering like a woman and wriggling like an epileptic--" + +"I'm not spiteful myself," says Blaire, "I've got kiddies. And it +worries me, too, at home, when I've got to kill a pig that I know--but +those, I shall run 'em through--Bing!--full in the linen-cupboard." + +"I, too." + +"Not to mention," says Pepin, "that they've got silver hats, and +pistols that you can get four quid for whenever you like, and +field-glasses that simply haven't got a price. Ah, bad luck, what a lot +of chances I let slip in the early part of the campaign! I was too much +of a beginner then, and it serves me right. But don't worry, I shall +get a silver hat. Mark my words, I swear I'll have one. I must have not +only the skin of one of Wilhelm's red-tabs, but his togs as well. Don't +fret yourself; I'll fasten on to that before the war ends." + +"You think it'll have an end, then?" asks some one. + +"Don't worry!" replies the other. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, a hubbub has arisen to the right of us, and suddenly a +moving and buzzing group appears, in which dark and bright forms mingle. + +"What's all that?" + +Biquet has ventured on a reconnaissance, and returns contemptuously +pointing with his thumb towards the motley mass: "Eh, boys! Come and +have a squint at them! Some people!" + +"Some people?" + +"Oui, some gentlemen, look you. Civvies, with Staff officers." + +"Civilians! Let's hope they'll stick it!" [note 3] + +It is the sacramental saying and evokes laughter, although we have +heard it a hundred times, and although the soldier has rightly or +wrongly perverted the original meaning and regards it as an ironical +reflection on his life of privations and peril. + +Two Somebodies come up; two Somebodies with overcoats and canes. +Another is dressed in a sporting suit, adorned with a plush hat and +binoculars. Pale blue tunics, with shining belts of fawn color or +patent leather, follow and steer the civilians. + +With an arm where a brassard glitters in gold-edged silk and golden +ornament, a captain indicates the firing-step in front of an old +emplacement and invites the visitors to get up and try it. The +gentleman in the touring suit clambers up with the aid of his umbrella. + +Says Barque, "You've seen the station-master at the Gare du Nord, all +in his Sunday best, and opening the door of a first-class compartment +for a rich sportsman on the first day of the shooting? With his +'Montez, monsieur le Propritaire!'--you know, when the toffs are all +togged up in brand-new outfits and leathers and ironmongery, and +showing off with all their paraphernalia for killing poor little +animals!" + +Three or four poilus who were quite without their accouterments have +disappeared underground. The others sit as though paralyzed. Even the +pipes go out, and nothing is heard but the babble of talk exchanged by +the officers and their guests. + +"Trench tourists," says Barque in an undertone, and then louder--"This +way, mesdames et messieurs"--in the manner of the moment. + +"Chuck it!" whispers Farfadet, fearing that Barque's malicious tongue +will draw the attention of the potent personages. + +Some heads in the group are now turned our way. One gentleman who +detaches himself and comes up wears a soft hat and a loose tie. He has +a white billy-goat beard, and might be an artiste. Another follows him, +wearing a black overcoat, a black bowler hat, a black beard, a white +tie and an eyeglass. + +"Ah, ah! There are some poilus," says the first gentleman. "These are +real poilus, indeed." + +He comes up to our party a little timidly, as though in the Zoological +Gardens, and offers his hand to the one who is nearest to him--not +without awkwardness, as one offers a piece of bread to the elephant. + +"He, he! They are drinking coffee," he remarks. + +"They call it 'the juice,'" corrects the magpie-man. + +"Is it good, my friends?" The soldier, abashed in his turn by this +alien and unusual visitation, grunts, giggles, and reddens, and the +gentleman says, "He, he!" Then, with a slight motion of the head, he +withdraws backwards. + +The assemblage, with its neutral shades of civilian cloth and its +sprinkling of bright military hues--like geraniums and hortensias in +the dark soil of a flowerbed--oscillates, then passes, and moves off +the opposite way it came. One of the officers was heard to say, "We +have yet much to see, messieurs les journalistes." + +When the radiant spectacle has faded away, we look at each other. Those +who had fled into the funk-holes now gradually and head first disinter +themselves. The group recovers itself and shrugs its shoulders. + +"They're journalists," says Tirette. + +"Journalists?" + +"Why, yes, the individuals that lay the newspapers. You don't seem to +catch on, fathead. Newspapers must have chaps to write 'em." + +"Then it's those that stuff up our craniums?" says Marthereau. + +Barque assumes a shrill treble, and pretending that he has a newspaper +in front of his nose, recites--"'The Crown Prince is mad, after having +been killed at the beginning of the campaign, and meanwhile he has all +the diseases you can name. William will die this evening, and again +to-morrow. The Germans have no more munitions and are chewing wood. +They cannot hold out, according to the most authoritative calculations, +beyond the end of the week. We can have them when we like, with their +rifles slung. If one can wait a few days longer, there will be no +desire to forsake the life of the trenches. One is so comfortable +there, with water and gas laid on, and shower-baths at every step. The +only drawback is that it is rather too hot in winter. As for the +Austrians, they gave in a long time since and are only pretending.' For +fifteen months now it's been like that, and you can hear the editor +saying to his scribes, 'Now, boys, get into it! Find some way of +brushing that up again for me in five secs, and make it spin out all +over those four damned white sheets that we've got to mucky.'" + +"Ah, yes!" says Fouillade. + +"Look here, corporal; you're making fun of it--isn't it true what I +said?" + +"There's a little truth in it, but you're too slashing on the poor +boys, and you'd be the first to make a song about it if you had to go +without papers. Oui, when the paper-man's going by, why do you all +shout, 'Here, here'?" + +"And what good can you get out of them all?" cries Papa Blaire. "Read +'em by the tubful if you like, but do the same as me--don't believe +'em!" + +"Oui, oui, that's enough about them. Turn the page over, donkey-nose." + +The conversation is breaking up; interest in it follows suit and is +scattered. Four poilus join in a game of manille, that will last until +night blacks out the cards. Volpatte is trying to catch a leaf of +cigarette paper that has escaped his fingers and goes hopping and +dodging in the wind along the wall of the trench like a fragile +butterfly. + +Cocon and Tirette are recalling their memories of barrack-life. The +impressions left upon their minds by those years of military training +are ineffaceable. Into that fund of abundant souvenirs, of abiding +color and instant service, they have been wont to dip for their +subjects of conversation for ten, fifteen, or twenty years. So that +they still frequent it, even after a year and a half of actual war in +all its forms. + +I can hear some of the talk and guess the rest of it. For it is +everlastingly the same sort of tale that they get out of their military +past;--the narrator once shut up a bad-tempered N.C.O. with words of +extreme appropriateness and daring. He wasn't afraid, he spoke out loud +and strong! Some scraps of it reach my ears-- + +"Alors, d'you think I flinched when Nenoeil said that to me? Not a bit, +my boy. All the pals kept their jaws shut but me; I spoke up, 'Mon +adjudant,' I says, 'it's possible, but--'" A sentence follows that I +cannot secure--"Oh, tu sais, just like that, I said it. He didn't get +shirty; 'Good, that's good,' he says as he hops it, and afterwards he +was as good as all that, with me." + +"Just like me, with Dodore, 'jutant of the 13th, when I was on leave--a +mongrel. Now he's at the Pantheon, as caretaker. He'd got it in for me, +so--" + +So each unpacks his own little load of historical anecdote. They are +all alike, and not one of them but says, "As for me, I am not like the +others." + + * * * * * + +The post-orderly! He is a tall and broad man with fat calves; +comfortable looking, and as neat and tidy as a policeman. He is in a +bad temper. There are new orders, and now he has to go every day as far +as Battalion Headquarters. He abuses the order as if it had been +directed exclusively against himself; and he continues to complain even +while he calls up the corporals for the post and maintains his +customary chat en passant with this man and that. And in spite of his +spleen he does not keep to himself all the information with which he +comes provided. While removing the string from the letter-packets he +dispenses his verbal news, and announces first, that according to +rumor, there is a very explicit ban on the wearing of hoods. + +"Hear that?" says Tirette to Tirloir. "Got to chuck your fine hood +away!" + +"Not likely! I'm not on. That's nothing to do with me," replies the +hooded one, whose pride no less than his comfort is at stake. + +"Order of the General Commanding the Army." + +"Then let the General give an order that it's not to rain any more. I +want to know nothing about it." + +The majority of Orders, even when less peculiar than this one, are +always received in this way--and then carried out. + +"There's a reported order as well," says the man of letters, "that +beards have got to be trimmed and hair got to be clipped close." + +"Talk on, my lad," says Barque, on whose head the threatened order +directly falls; "you didn't see me! You can draw the curtains!" + +"I'm telling you. Do it or don't do it--doesn't matter a damn to me." + +Besides what is real and written, there is bigger news, but still more +dubious and imaginative--the division is going to be relieved, and sent +either to rest--real rest, for six weeks--or to Morocco, or perhaps to +Egypt. + +Divers exclamations. They listen, and let themselves be tempted by the +fascination of the new, the wonderful. + +But some one questions the post-orderly: "Who told you that?" + +"The adjutant commanding the Territorial detachment that fatigues for +the H.Q. of the A.C." + +"For the what?" + +"For Headquarters of the Army Corps, and he's not the only one that +says it. There's--you know him--I've forgotten his name--he's like +Galle, but he isn't Galle--there's some one in his family who is Some +One. Anyway, he knows all about it." + +"Then what?" With hungry eyes they form a circle around the +story-teller. + +"Egypt, you say, we shall go to? Don't know it. I know there were +Pharaohs there at the time when I was a kid and went to school, but +since--" + +"To Egypt!" The idea finds unconscious anchorage in their minds. + +"Ah, non," says Blaire, "for I get sea-sick. Still, it doesn't last, +sea-sickness. Oui, but what would my good lady say?" + +"What about it? She'll get used to it. You see niggers, and streets +full of big birds, like we see sparrows here." + +"But haven't we to go to Alsace?" + +"Yes," says the post-orderly, "there are some who think so at the +Pay-office." + +"That'd do me well enough." + +But common sense and acquired experience regain the upper hand and put +the visions to flight. We have been told so often that we were going a +long way off, so often have we believed it, so often been undeceived! +So, as if at a moment arranged, we wake up. + +"It's all my eye--they've done it on us too often. Wait before +believing--and don't count a crumb's worth on it." + +We reoccupy our corner. Here and there a man bears in his hand the +light momentous burden of a letter. + +"Ah," says Tirloir, "I must be writing. Can't go eight days without +writing." + +"Me too," says Eudore, "I must write to my p'tit' femme." + +"Is she all right, Mariette?" + +"Oui, oui, don't fret about Mariette." + +A few have already settled themselves for correspondence. Barque is +standing up. He stoops over a sheet of paper flattened on a note-book +upon a jutting crag in the trench wall. Apparently in the grip of an +inspiration, he writes on and on, with his eyes in bondage and the +concentrated expression of a horseman at full gallop. + +When once Lamuse--who lacks imagination--has sat down, placed his +little writing-block on the padded summit of his knees, and moistened +his copying-ink pencil, he passes the time in reading again the last +letters received, in wondering what he can say that he has not already +said, and in fostering a grim determination to say something else. + +A sentimental gentleness seems to have overspread little Eudore, who is +curled up in a sort of niche in the ground. He is lost in meditation, +pencil in hand, eyes on paper. Dreaming, he looks and stares and sees. +It is another sky that lends him light, another to which his vision +reaches. He has gone home. + +In this time of letter-writing, the men reveal the most and the best +that they ever were. Several others surrender to the past, and its +first expression is to talk once more of fleshly comforts. + +Through their outer crust of coarseness and concealment, other hearts +venture upon murmured memories, and the rekindling of bygone +brightness: the summer morning, when the green freshness of the garden +steals in upon the purity of the country bedroom; or when the wind in +the wheat of the level lands sets it slowly stirring or deeply waving, +and shakes the square of oats hard by into quick little feminine +tremors; or the winter evening, with women and their gentleness around +the shaded luster of the lamp. + +But Papa Blaire resumes work upon the ring he has begun. He has +threaded the still formless disc of aluminium over a bit of rounded +wood, and rubs it with the file. As he applies himself to the job, two +wrinkles of mighty meditation deepen upon his forehead. Anon he stops, +straightens himself, and looks tenderly at the trifle, as though she +also were looking at it. + +"You know," he said to me once, speaking of another ring, "it's not a +question of doing it well or not well. The point is that I've done it +for my wife, d'you see? When I had nothing to do but scratch myself, I +used to have a look at this photo"--he showed me a photograph of a big, +chubby-faced woman--"and then it was quite easy to set about this +damned ring. You might say that we've made it together, see? The proof +of that is that it was company for me, and that I said Adieu to it when +I sent it off to Mother Blaire." + +He is making another just now, and this one will have copper in it, +too. He works eagerly. His heart would fain express itself to the best +advantage in this the sort of penmanship upon which he is so +tenaciously bent. + +As they stoop reverently, in their naked earth-holes, over the slender +rudimentary trinkets--so tiny that the great hide-bound hands hold them +with difficulty or let them fall--these men seem still more wild, more +primitive, and more human, than at all other times. + +You are set thinking of the first inventor, the father of all +craftsmen, who sought to invest enduring materials with the shapes of +what he saw and the spirit of what he felt. + + * * * * * + +"People coming along," announces Biquet the mobile, who acts as +hall-porter to our section of the trench--"buckets of 'em." Immediately +an adjutant appears, with straps round his belly and his chin, and +brandishing his sword-scabbard. + +"Out of the way, you! Out of the way, I tell you! You loafers there, +out of it! Let me see you quit, hey!" We make way indolently. Those at +the sides push back into the earth by slow degrees. + +It is a company of Territorials, deputed to our sector for the +fortification of the second line and the upkeep of its communication +trenches. They come into view--miserable bundles of implements, and +dragging their feet. + +We watch them, one by one, as they come up, pass, and disappear. They +are stunted and elderly, with dusty faces, or big and broken-winded, +tightly enfolded in greatcoats stained and over-worn, that yawn at the +toothless gaps where the buttons are missing. + +Tirette and Barque, the twin wags, leaning close together against the +wall, stare at them, at first in silence. Then they begin to smile. + +"March past of the Broom Brigade," says Tirette. + +"We'll have a bit of fun for three minutes," announces Barque. + +Some of the old toilers are comical. This one whom the file brings up +has bottle-shaped shoulders. Although extremely narrow-chested and +spindle-shanked, he is big-bellied. He is too much for Barque. "Hullo, +Sir Canteen!" he says. + +When a more outrageously patched-up greatcoat appears than all the +others can show, Tirette questions the veteran recruit. "Hey, Father +Samples! Hey, you there!" he insists. + +The other turns and looks at him, open-mouthed. + +"Say there, papa, if you will be so kind as to give me the address of +your tailor in London!" + +A chuckle comes from the antiquated and wrinkle-scrawled face, and then +the poilu, checked for an instant by Barque's command, is jostled by +the following flood and swept away. + +When some less striking figures have gone past, a new victim is +provided for the jokers. On his red and wrinkled neck luxuriates some +dirty sheep's-wool. With knees bent, his body forward, his back bowed, +this Territorial's carriage is the worst. + +"Tiens!" bawls Tirette, with pointed finger, "the famous +concertina-man! It would cost you something to see him at the +fair--here, he's free gratis!" + +The victim stammers responsive insults amid the scattered laughter that +arises. + +No more than that laughter is required to excite the two comrades. It +is the ambition to have their jests voted funny by their easy audience +that stimulates them to mock the peculiarities of their old +comrades-in-arms, of those who toil night and day on the brink of the +great war to make ready and make good the fields of battle. + +And even the other watchers join in. Miserable themselves, they scoff +at the still more miserable. + +"Look at that one! And that, look!" + +"Non, but take me a snapshot of that little rump-end! Hey, earth-worm!" + +"And that one that has no ending! Talk about a sky-scratcher! Tiens, +la, he takes the biscuit. Yes, you take it, old chap!" + +This man goes with little steps, and holds his pickax up in front like +a candle; his face is withered, and his body borne down by the blows of +lumbago. + +"Like a penny, gran'pa?" Barque asks him, as he passes within reach of +a tap on the shoulder. + +The broken-down poilu replies with a great oath of annoyance, and +provokes the harsh rejoinder of Barque: "Come now, you might be polite, +filthy-face, old muck-mill!" + +Turning right round in fury, the old one defies his tormentor. + +"Hullo!" cries Barque, laughing, "He's showing fight; the ruin! He's +warlike, look you, and he might be mischievous if only he were sixty +years younger!" + +"And if he wasn't alone," wantonly adds Pepin, whose eye is in quest of +other targets among the flow of new arrivals. + +The hollow chest of the last straggler appears, and then his distorted +back disappears. + +The march past of the worn-out and trench-foul veterans comes to an end +among the ironical and almost malevolent faces of these sinister +troglodytes, whom their caverns of mud but half reveal. + +Meanwhile, the hours slip away, and evening begins to veil the sky and +darken the things of earth. It comes to blend itself at once with the +blind fate and the ignorant dark minds of the multitude there +enshrouded. + +Through the twilight comes the rolling hum of tramping men, and another +throng rubs its way through. + +"Africans!" + +They march past with faces red-brown, yellow or chestnut, their beards +scanty and fine or thick and frizzled, their greatcoats +yellowish-green, and their muddy helmets sporting the crescent in place +of our grenade. Their eyes are like balls of ivory or onyx, that shine +from faces like new pennies, flattened or angular. Now and again comes +swaying along above the line the coal-black mask of a Senegalese +sharpshooter. Behind the company goes a red flag with a green hand in +the center. + +We watch them in silence. These are asked no questions. They command +respect, and even a little fear. + +All the same, these Africans seem jolly and in high spirits. They are +going, of course, to the first line. That is their place, and their +passing is the sign of an imminent attack. They are made for the +offensive. + +"Those and the 75 gun we can take our hats off to. They're everywhere +sent ahead at big moments, the Moroccan Division." + +"They can't quite fit in with us. They go too fast--and there's no way +of stopping them." + +Some of these diabolical images in yellow wood or bronze or ebony are +serious of mien, uneasy, and taciturn. Their faces have the disquieting +and secret look of the snare suddenly discovered. The others laugh with +a laugh that jangles like fantastic foreign instruments of music, a +laugh that bares the teeth. + +We talk over the characteristics of these Africans; their ferocity in +attack, their devouring passion to be in with the bayonet, their +predilection for "no quarter." We recall those tales that they +themselves willingly tell, all in much the same words and with the same +gestures. They raise their arms over their heads--"Kam'rad, Kam'rad!" +"Non, pas Kam'rad!" And in pantomime they drive a bayonet forward, at +belly-height, drawing it back then with the help of a foot. + +One of the sharpshooters overhears our talk as he passes. He looks upon +us, laughs abundantly in his helmeted turban, and repeats our words +with significant shakes of his head: "Pas Kam'rad, non pas Kam'rad, +never! Cut head off!" + +"No doubt they're a different race from us, with their tent-cloth +skin," Barque confesses, though he does not know himself what "cold +feet" are. "It worries them to rest, you know; they only live for the +minute when the officer puts his watch back in his pocket and says, +'Off you go!'" + +"In fact, they're real soldiers." + +"We are not soldiers," says big Lamuse, "we're men." Though the evening +has grown darker now, that plain true saying sheds something like a +glimmering light on the men who are waiting here, waiting since the +morning, waiting since months ago. + +They are men, good fellows of all kinds, rudely torn away from the joy +of life. Like any other men whom you take in the mass, they are +ignorant and of narrow outlook, full of a sound common sense--which +some-times gets off the rails--disposed to be led and to do as they are +bid, enduring under hardships, long-suffering. + +They are simple men further simplified, in whom the merely primitive +instincts have been accentuated by the force of circumstances--the +instinct of self-preservation, the hard-gripped hope of living through, +the joy of food, of drink, and of sleep. And at intervals they are +cries and dark shudders of humanity that issue from the silence and the +shadows of their great human hearts. + +When we can no longer see clearly, we hear down there the murmur of a +command, which comes nearer and rings loud--"Second half-section! +Muster!" We fall in; it is the call. + +"Gee up!" says the corporal. We are set in motion. In front of the +tool-depot there is a halt and trampling. To each is given a spade or +pickax. An N.C.O. presents the handles in the gloom: "You, a spade; +there, hop it! You a spade, too; you a pick. Allons, hurry up and get +off." + +We leave by the communication trench at right angles to our own, and +straight ahead towards the changeful frontier, now alive and terrible. + +Up in the somber sky, the strong staccato panting of an invisible +aeroplane circles in wide descending coils and fills infinity. In +front, to right and left, everywhere, thunderclaps roll with great +glimpses of short-lived light in the dark-blue sky. + +------------ + +[note 1:] The popular and international name for a French soldier. Its +literal meaning is "hairy, shaggy," but the word has conveyed for over +a century the idea of the virility of a Samson, whose strength lay in +his locks.--Tr. + +[note 2:] 6250 miles. + +[note 3:] Pourvu que les civils tiennent. In the early days of the war +it was a common French saying that victory was certain--"if the +civilians hold out."--Tr. + + + + +III + +The Return + + +RELUCTANTLY the ashen dawn is bleaching the still dark and formless +landscape. Between the declining road on the right that falls into the +gloom, and the black cloud of the Alleux Wood--where we hear the convoy +teams assembling and getting under way--a field extends. We have +reached it, we of the 6th Battalion, at the end of the night. We have +piled arms, and now, in the center of this circle of uncertain light, +our feet in the mist and mud, we stand in dark clusters (that yet are +hardly blue), or as solitary phantoms; and the heads of all are turned +towards the road that comes from "down there." We are waiting for the +rest of the regiment, the 5th Battalion, who were in the first line and +left the trenches after us. + +Noises; "There they are!" A long and shapeless mass appears in the west +and comes down out of the night upon the dawning road. + +At last! It is ended, the accursed shift that began at six o'clock +yesterday evening and has lasted all night, and now the last man has +stepped from the last communication trench. + +This time it has been an awful sojourn in the trenches. The 18th +company was foremost and has been cut up, eighteen killed and fifty +wounded--one in three less in four days. And this without attack--by +bombardment alone. + +This is known to us, and as the mutilated battalion approaches down +there, and we join them in trampling the muddy field and exchanging +nods of recognition, we cry, "What about the 18th?" We are thinking as +we put the question, "If it goes on like this, what is to become of all +of us? What will become of me?" + +The 17th, the 19th, and the 20th arrive in turn and pile arms. "There's +the 18th!" It arrives after all the others; having held the first +trench, it has been last relieved. + +The light is a little cleaner, and the world is paling. We can make +out, as he comes down the road, the company's captain, ahead of his men +and alone. He helps himself along with a stick, and walks with +difficulty, by reason of his old wound of the Marne battle that +rheumatism is troubling; and there are other pangs, too. He lowers his +hooded head, and might be attending a funeral. We can see that in his +mind he is indeed following the dead, and his thoughts are with them. + +Here is the company, debouching in dire disorder, and our hearts are +heavy. It is obviously shorter than the other three, in the march past +of the battalion. + +I reach the road, and confront the descending mass of the 18th. The +uniforms of these survivors are all earth-yellowed alike, so that they +appear to be clad in khaki. The cloth is stiff with the ochreous mud +that has dried underneath. The skirts of their greatcoats are like +lumps of wood, jumping about on the yellow crust that reaches to their +knees. Their faces are drawn and blackened; dust and dirt have wrinkled +them anew; their eyes are big and fevered. And from these soldiers whom +the depths of horror have given back there rises a deafening din. They +talk all at once, and loudly; they gesticulate, they laugh and sing. +You would think, to see them, that it was a holiday crowd pouring over +the road! + +These are the second section and its big sub-lieutenant, whose +greatcoat is tightened and strapped around a body as stiff as a rolled +umbrella. I elbow my way along the marching crowd as far as Marchal's +squad, the most sorely tried of all. Out of eleven comrades that they +were, and had been without a break for a year and a half, there were +three men only with Corporal Marchal. + +He sees me--with a glad exclamation and a broad smile. He lets go his +rifle-sling and offers me his hands, from one of which hangs his trench +stick--"Eh, vieux frere, still going strong? What's become of you +lately?" + +I turn my head away and say, almost under my breath, "So, old chap, +it's happened badly." + +His smile dies at once, and he is serious: "Eh, oui, old man; it can't +be helped; it was awful this time. Barbier is killed." + +"They told us--Barbier!" + +"Saturday night it was, at eleven o'clock. He had the top of his back +taken away by a shell," says Marchal, "cut off like a razor. Besse got +a bit of shell that went clean through his belly and stomach. Barthlemy +and Baubex got it in the head and neck. We passed the night skedaddling +up and down the trench at full speed, to dodge the showers. And little +Godefroy--did you know him?--middle of his body blown away. He was +emptied of blood on the spot in an instant, like a bucket kicked over. +Little as he was, it was remarkable how much blood he had, it made a +stream at least fifty meters long. Gougnard got his legs cut up by one +explosion. They picked him up not quite dead. That was at the listening +post. I was there on duty with them. But when that shell fell I had +gone into the trench to ask the time. I found my rifle, that I'd left +in my place, bent double, as if some one had folded it in his hands, +the barrel like a corkscrew, and half of the stock in sawdust. The +smell of fresh blood was enough to bring your heart up." + +"And Mondain--him, too?" + +"Mondain--that was the day after, yesterday in fact, in a dug-out that +a shell smashed in. He was lying down, and his chest was crushed. Have +they told you about Franco, who was alongside Mondain? The fall of +earth broke his spine. He spoke again after they'd got him out and set +him down. He said, with his head falling to one side, 'I'm dying,' and +he was gone. Vigile was with them, too; his body wasn't touched, but +they found him with his head completely flattened out, flat as a +pancake, and huge-as big as that. To see it spread out on the ground, +black and distorted, it made you think of his shadow--the shadow one +gets on the ground sometimes when one walks with a lantern at night." + +"Vigile--only Class 1913--a child! And Mondain and Franco--such good +sorts, in spite of their stripes. We're so many old special pals the +less, mon vieux Marchal." + +"Yes," says Marchal. But he is swallowed up in a crowd of his friends, +who worry and catechise him. He bandies jests with them, and answers +their raillery, and all hustle each other, and laugh. + +I look from face to face. They are merry, and in spite of the +contractions of weariness, and the earth-stains, they look triumphant. + +What does it mean? If wine had been possible during their stay in the +first line, I should have said, "All these men are drunk." + +I single out one of the survivors, who hums as he goes, and steps in +time with it flippantly, as hussars of the stage do. It is Vanderborn, +the drummer. + +"Hullo, Vanderborn, you look pleased with yourself!" Vanderborn, who is +sedate in the ordinary, cries, "It's not me yet, you see! Here I am!" +With a mad gesticulation he serves me a thump on the shoulder. I +understand. + +If these men are happy in spite of all, as they come out of hell, it is +because they are coming out of it. They are returning, they are spared. +Once again the Death that was there has passed them over. Each company +in its turn goes to the front once in six weeks. Six weeks! In both +great and minor matters, fighting soldiers manifest the philosophy of +the child. They never look afar, either ahead or around. Their thought +strays hardly farther than from day to day. To-day, every one of those +men is confident that he will live yet a little while. + +And that is why, in spite of the weariness that weighs them down and +the new slaughter with which they are still bespattered, though each +has seen his brothers torn away from his side, in spite of all and in +spite of themselves, they are celebrating the Feast of the Survivors. +The boundless glory in which they rejoice is this--they still stand +straight. + + + + +IV + +Volpatte and Fouillade + + +AS we reached quarters again, some one cried: "But where's +Volpatte?"--"And Fouillade, where's he?" + +They had been requisitioned and taken off to the front line by the 5th +Battalion. No doubt we should find them somewhere in quarters. No +success. Two men of the squad lost! + +"That's what comes of lending men," said the sergeant with a great +oath. The captain, when apprised of the loss, also cursed and swore and +said, "I must have those men. Let them be found at once. Allez!" + +Farfadet and I are summoned by Corporal Bertrand from the barn where at +full length we have already immobilized ourselves, and are growing +torpid: "You must go and look for Volpatte and Fouillade." + +Quickly we got up, and set off with a shiver of uneasiness. Our two +comrades have been taken by the 5th and carried off to that infernal +shift. Who knows where they are and what they may be by now! + +We climb up the hill again. Again we begin, but in the opposite +direction, the journey done since the dawn and the night. Though we are +without our heavy stuff, and only carry rifles and accouterments, we +feel idle, sleepy, and stiff; and the country is sad, and the sky all +wisped with mist. Farfadet is soon panting. He talked a little at +first, till fatigue enforced silence on him. He is brave enough, but +frail, and during all his prewar life, shut up in the Town Hall office +where he scribbled since the days of his "first sacrament" between a +stove and some ageing cardboard files, he hardly learned the use of his +legs. + +Just as we emerge from the wood, slipping and floundering, to penetrate +the region of communication trenches, two faint shadows are outlined in +front. Two soldiers are coming up. We can see the protuberance of their +burdens and the sharp lines of their rifles. The swaying double shape +becomes distinct--"It's them!" + +One of the shadows has a great white head, all swathed--"One of them's +wounded! It's Volpatte!" + +We run up to the specters, our feet making the sounds of sinking in +sponge and of sticky withdrawal, and our shaken cartridges rattle in +their pouches. They stand still and wait for us. When we are close up, +"It's about time!" cries Volpatte. + +"You're wounded, old chap?"--"What?" he says; the manifold bandages all +round his head make him deaf, and we must shout to get through them. So +we go close and shout. Then he replies, "That's nothing; we're coming +from the hole where the 5th Battalion put us on Thursday." + +"You've stayed there--ever since?" yells Farfadet, whose shrill and +almost feminine voice goes easily through the quilting that protects +Volpatte's ears. + +"Of course we stayed there, you blithering idiot!" says Fouillade. "You +don't suppose we'd got wings to fly away with, and still less that we +should have legged it without orders?" + +Both of them let themselves drop to a sitting position on the ground. +Volpatte's head--enveloped in rags with a big knot on the top and the +same dark yellowish stains as his face--looks like a bundle of dirty +linen. + +"They forgot you, then, poor devils?" + +"Rather!" cries Fouillade, "I should say they did. Four days and four +nights in a shell-hole, with bullets raining down, a hole that stunk +like a cesspool." + +"That's right," says Volpatte. "It wasn't an ordinary listening-post +hole, where one comes and goes regularly. It was just a shell-hole, +like any other old shell-hole, neither more nor less. They said to us +on Thursday, 'Station yourselves in there and keep on firing,' they +said. Next day, a liaison chap of the 5th Battalion came and showed his +neb: 'What the hell are you doing there?'--'Why, we're firing. They +told us to fire, so we're firing,' I says. 'If they told us to do it, +there must be some reason at the back of it. We're wanting for them to +tell us to do something else.' The chap made tracks. He looked a bit +uneasy, and suffering from the effects of being bombed. 'It's 22,' he +says." + +"To us two," says Fouillade, "there was a loaf of bread and a bucket of +wine that the 18th gave us when they planted us there, and a whole case +of cartridges, my boy. We fired off the cartridges and drank the booze, +but we had sense to keep a few cartridges and a hunch of bread, though +we didn't keep any wine." + +"That's where we went wrong," says Volpatte, "seeing that it was a +thirsty job. Say, boys, you haven't got any gargle?" + +"I've still nearly half a pint of wine," replies Farfadet. "Give it to +him," says Fouillade, pointing to Volpatte, "seeing that he's been +losing blood. I'm only thirsty." + +Volpatte was shivering, and his little strapped-up eyes burned with +fever in the enormous dump of rags set upon his shoulders. "That's +good," he says, drinking. + +"Ah! And then, too," he added, emptying--as politeness requires--the +drop of wine that remained at the bottom of Farfadet's cup, "we got two +Boches. They were crawling about outside, and fell into our holes, as +blindly as moles into a spring snare, those chaps did. We tied 'em up. +And see us then--after firing for thirty-six hours, we'd no more +ammunition. So we filled our magazines with the last, and waited, in +front of the parcels of Boche. The liaison chap forgot to tell his +people that we were there. You, the 6th, forgot to ask for us; the 18th +forgot us, too; and as we weren't in a listening-post where you're +relieved as regular as if at H.Q., I could almost see us staying there +till the regiment came back. In the long run, it was the loafers of the +204th, come to skulk about looking for fuses, that mentioned us. So +then we got the order to fall back--immediately, they said. That +'immediately' was a good joke, and we got into harness at once. We +untied the legs of the Boches, led them off and handed them over to the +204th, and here we are." + +"We even fished out, in passing, a sergeant who was piled up in a hole +and didn't dare come out, seeing he was shell-shocked. We slanged him, +and that set him up a bit, and he thanked us. Sergeant Sacerdote he +called himself." + +"But your wound, old chap?" + +"It's my ears. Two shells, a little one and a big one, my lad--went off +while you're saying it. My head came between the two bursts, as you +might say, but only just; a very close shave, and my lugs got it." + +"You should have seen him," says Fouillade, "it was disgusting, those +two ears hanging down. We had two packets of bandages, and the +stretcher-men fired us one in. That makes three packets he's got rolled +round his nut." + +"Give us your traps, we're going back." + +Farfadet and I divide Volpatte's equipment between us. Fouillade, +sullen with thirst and racked by stiff joints, growls, and insists +obstinately on keeping his weapons and bundles. + +We stroll back, finding diversion--as always--in walking without ranks. +It is so uncommon that one finds it surprising and profitable. So it is +a breach of liberty which soon enlivens all four of us. We are in the +country as though for the pleasure of it. + +"We are pedestrians!" says Volpatte proudly. When we reach the turning +at the top of the hill, he relapses upon rosy visions: "Old man, it's a +good wound, after all. I shall be sent back, no mistake about it." + +His eyes wink and sparkle in the huge white clump that dithers on his +shoulders--a clump reddish on each side, where the ears were. + +From the depth where the village lies we hear ten o'clock strike. "To +hell with the time," says Volpatte "it doesn't matter to me any more +what time it is." + +He becomes loquacious. It is a low fever that inspires his +dissertation, and condenses it to the slow swing of our walk, in which +his step is already jaunty. + +"They'll stick a red label on my greatcoat, you'll see, and take me to +the rear. I shall be bossed this time by a very polite sort of chap, +who'll say to me, 'That's one side, now turn the other way--so, my poor +fellow.' Then the ambulance, and then the sick-train, with the pretty +little ways of the Red Cross ladies all the way along, like they did to +Crapelet Jules, then the base hospital. Beds with white sheets, a stove +that snores in the middle of us all, people with the special job of +looking after you, and that you watch doing it, regulation +slippers--sloppy and comfortable--and a chamber-cupboard. Furniture! +And it's in those big hospitals that you're all right for grub! I shall +have good feeds, and baths. I shall take all I can get hold of. And +there'll be presents--that you can enjoy without having to fight the +others for them and get yourself into a bloody mess. I shall have my +two hands on the counterpane, and they'll do damn well nothing, like +things to look at--like toys, what? And under the sheets my legs'll be +white-hot all the way through, and my trotters'll be expanding like +bunches of violets." + +Volpatte pauses, fumbles about, and pulls out of his pocket, along with +his famous pair of Soissons scissors, something that he shows to me: +"Tiens, have you seen this?" + +It is a photograph of his wife and two children. He has already shown +it to me many a time. I look at it and express appreciation. + +"I shall go on sick-leave," says Volpatte, "and while my ears are +sticking themselves on again, the wife and the little ones will look at +me, and I shall look at them. And while they're growing again like +lettuces, my friends, the war, it'll make progress--the Russians--one +doesn't know, what?" He is thinking aloud, lulling himself with happy +anticipations, already alone with his private festival in the midst of +us. + +"Robber!" Feuillade shouts at him. "You've too much luck, by God!" + +How could we not envy him? He would be going away for one, two, or +three months; and all that time, instead of our wretched privations, he +would be transformed into a man of means! + +"At the beginning," says Farfadet, "it sounded comic when I heard them +wish for a 'good wound.' But all the same, and whatever can be said +about it, I understand now that it's the only thing a poor soldier can +hope for if he isn't daft." + + * * * * * + +We were drawing near to the village and passing round the wood. At its +corner, the sudden shape of a woman arose against the sportive sunbeams +that outlined her with light. Alertly erect she stood, before the +faintly violet background of the wood's marge and the crosshatched +trees. She was slender, her head all afire with fair hair, and in her +pale face we could see the night-dark caverns of great eyes. The +resplendent being gazed fixedly upon us, trembling, then plunged +abruptly into the undergrowth and disappeared like a torch. + +The apparition and its flight so impressed Volpatte that he lost the +thread of his discourse. + +"She's something like, that woman there!" + +"No," said Fouillade, who had misunderstood, "she's called Eudoxie. I +knew her because I've seen her before. A refugee. I don't know where +she comes from, but she's at Gamblin, in a family there." + +"She's thin and beautiful," Volpatte certified; "one would like to make +her a little present--she's good enough to eat--tender as a chicken. +And look at the eyes she's got!" + +"She's queer," says Fouillade. "You don't know when you've got her. You +see her here, there, with her fair hair on top, then--off! Nobody +about. And you know, she doesn't know what danger is; marching about, +sometimes, almost in the front line, and she's been seen knocking about +in No Man's Land. She's queer." + +"Look! There she is again. The spook! She's keeping an eye on us. +What's she after?" + +The shadow-figure, traced in lines of light, this time adorned the +other end of the spinney's edge. + +"To hell with women," Volpatte declared, whom the idea of his +deliverance has completely recaptured. + +"There's one in the squad, anyway, that wants her pretty badly. +See--when you speak of the wolf--" + +"You see its tail--" + +"Not yet, but almost--look!" From some bushes on our right we saw the +red snout of Lamuse appear peeping, like a wild boar's. + +He was on the woman's trail. He had seen the alluring vision, dropped +to the crouch of a setting dog, and made his spring. But in that spring +he fell upon us. + +Recognizing Volpatte and Fouillade, big Lamuse gave shouts of delight. +At once he had no other thought than to get possession of the bags, +rifles, and haversacks--"Give me all of it--I'm resting--come on, give +it up." + +He must carry everything. Farfadet and I willingly gave up Volpatte's +equipment; and Fouillade, now at the end of his strength, agreed to +surrender his pouches and his rifle. + +Lamuse became a moving heap. Under the huge burden he disappeared, bent +double, and made progress only with shortened steps. + +But we felt that he was still under the sway of a certain project, and +his glances went sideways. He was seeking the woman after whom he had +hurled himself. Every time he halted, the better to trim some detail of +the load, or puffingly to mop the greasy flow of perspiration, he +furtively surveyed all the corners of the horizon and scrutinized the +edges of the wood. He did not see her again. + +I did see her again, and got a distinct impression this time that it +was one of us she was after. She half arose on our left from the green +shadows of the undergrowth. Steadying herself with one hand on a +branch, she leaned forward and revealed the night-dark eyes and pale +face, which showed--so brightly lighted was one whole side of it--like +a crescent moon. + +I saw that she was smiling. And following the course of the look that +smiled, I saw Farfadet a little way behind us, and he was smiling too. +Then she slipped away into the dark foliage, carrying the twin smile +with her. + +Thus was the understanding revealed to me between this lissom and +dainty gypsy, who was like no one at all, and Farfadet, conspicuous +among us all--slender, pliant and sensitive as lilac. Evidently--! + +Lamuse saw nothing, blinded and borne down as he was by the load he had +taken from Farfadet and me, occupied in the poise of them, and in +finding where his laden and leaden feet might tread. + +But he looks unhappy; he groans. A weighty and mournful obsession is +stifling him. In his harsh breathing it seems to me that I can hear his +heart beating and muttering. Looking at Volpatte, hooded in bandages, +and then at the strong man, muscular and full-blooded, with that +profound and eternal yearning whose sharpness he alone can gauge, I say +to myself that the worst wounded man is not he whom we think. + +We go down at last to the village. "Let's have a drink," says +Fouillade. "I'm going to be sent back," says Volpatte. Lamuse puffs and +groans. + +Our comrades shout and come running, and we gather in the little square +where the church stands with its twin towers--so thoroughly mutilated +by a shell that one can no longer look it in the face. + + + + +V + +Sanctuary + + +THE dim road which rises through the middle of the night-bound wood is +so strangely full of obstructing shadows that the deep darkness of the +forest itself might by some magic have overflowed upon it. It is the +regiment on the march, in quest of a new home. + +The weighty ranks of the shadows, burdened both high and broad, hustle +each other blindly. Each wave, pushed by the following, stumbles upon +the one in front, while alongside and detached are the evolutions of +those less bulky ghosts, the N.C.O.'s. A clamor of confusion, compound +of exclamations, of scraps of chat, of words of command, of spasms of +coughing and of song, goes up from the dense mob enclosed between the +banks. To the vocal commotion is added the tramping of feet, the +jingling of bayonets in their scabbards, of cans and drinking-cups, the +rumbling and hammering of the sixty vehicles of the two +convoys--fighting and regimental--that follow the two battalions. And +such a thing is it that trudges and spreads itself over the climbing +road that, in spite of the unbounded dome of night, one welters in the +odor of a den of lions. + +In the ranks one sees nothing. Sometimes, when one can lift his nose +up, by grace of an eddy in the tide, one cannot help seeing the +whiteness of a mess-tin, the blue steel of a helmet, the black steel of +a rifle. Anon, by the dazzling jet of sparks that flies from a pocket +flint-and-steel, or the red flame that expands upon the lilliputian +stem of a match, one can see beyond the vivid near relief of hands and +faces to the silhouetted and disordered groups of helmeted shoulders, +swaying like surges that would storm the sable stronghold of the night. +Then, all goes out, and while each tramping soldier's legs swing to and +fro, his eye is fixed inflexibly upon the conjectural situation of the +back that dwells in front of him. + +After several halts, when we have allowed ourselves to collapse on our +haversacks at the foot of the stacked rifles--stacks that form on the +call of the whistle with feverish haste and exasperating delay, through +our blindness in that atmosphere of ink-dawn reveals itself, extends, +and acquires the domain of Space. The walls of the Shadow crumble in +vague ruin. Once more we pass under the grand panorama of the day's +unfolding upon the ever-wandering horde that we are. + +We emerge at last from this night of marching, across concentric +circles as it seems, of darkness less dark, then of half-shadow, then +of gloomy light. Legs have a wooden stiffness, backs are benumbed, +shoulders bruised. Faces are still so gray or so black, one would say +they had but half rid themselves of the night. Now, indeed, one never +throws it off altogether. + +It is into new quarters that the great company is going--this time to +rest. What will the place be like that we have to live in for eight +days? It is called, they say--but nobody is certain of +anything--Gauchin-l'Abbe. We have heard wonders about it--"It appears +to be just it." + +In the ranks of the companies whose forms and features one begins to +make out in the birth of morning, and to distinguish the lowered heads +and yawning mouths, some voices are heard in still higher praise. +"There never were such quarters. The Brigade's there, and the +court-martial. You can get anything in the shops."--"If the Brigade's +there, we're all right."-- + +"Think we can find a table for the squad?"--"Everything you want, I +tell you." + +A pessimist prophet shakes his head: "What these quarters'll be like +where we've never been, I don't know," he says. "What I do know is that +it'll be like the others." + +But we don't believe him, and emerging from the fevered turmoil of the +night, it seems to all that it is a sort of Promised Land we are +approaching by degrees as the light brings us out of the east and the icy +air towards the unknown village. + +At the foot of a bill in the half-light, we reach some houses, still +slumbering and wrapped in heavy grayness. + +"There it is!" + +Poof! We've done twenty-eight kilometers in the night. But what of +that? There is no halt. We go past the houses, and they sink back again +into their vague vapors and their mysterious shroud. + +"Seems we've got to march a long time yet. It's always there, there, +there!" + +We march like machines, our limbs invaded by a sort of petrified +torpor; our joints cry aloud, and force us to make echo. + +Day comes slowly, for a blanket of mist covers the earth. It is so cold +that the men dare not sit down during the halts, though overborne by +weariness, and they pace to and fro in the damp obscurity like ghosts. +The besom of a biting wintry wind whips our skin, sweeps away and +scatters our words and our sighs. + +At last the sun pierces the reek that spreads over us and soaks what it +touches, and something like a fairy glade opens out in the midst of +this gloom terrestrial. The regiment stretches itself and wakes up in +truth, with slow-lifted faces to the gilded silver of the earliest +rays. Quickly, then, the sun grows fiery, and now it is too hot. In the +ranks we pant and sweat, and our grumbling is louder even than just +now, when our teeth were chattering and the fog wet-sponged our hands +and faces. + +It is a chalk country through which we are passing on this torrid +forenoon--"They mend this road with lime, the dirty devils!" The road +has become blinding--a long-drawn cloud of dessicated chalk and dust +that rises high above our columns and powders us as we go. Faces turn +red, and shine as though varnished; some of the full-blooded ones might +be plastered with vaseline. Cheeks and foreheads are coated with a +rusty paste which agglutinates and cracks. Feet lose their dubious +likeness to feet and might have paddled in a mason's mortar-trough. +Haversacks and rifles are powdered in white, and our legion leaves to +left and right a long milky track on the bordering grass. And to crown +all--"To the right! A convoy!" + +We bear to the right, hurriedly, and not without bumpings. The convoy +of lorries, a long chain of foursquare and huge projectiles, rolling up +with diabolical din, hurls itself along the road. Curse it! One after +another, they gather up the thick carpet of white powder that +upholsters the ground and send it broadcast over our shoulders! Now we +are garbed in a stuff of light gray and our faces are pallid masks, +thickest on the eyebrows and mustaches, on beards, and the cracks of +wrinkles. Though still ourselves, we look like strange old men. + +"When we're old buffers, we shall be as ugly as this," says Tirette. + +"Tu craches blanc," declares Biquet. [note 1] + +When a halt puts us out of action, you might take us for rows of +plaster statues, with some dirty indications of humanity showing +through. + +We move again, silent and chagrined. Every step becomes hard to +complete. Our faces assume congealed and fixed grimaces under the wan +leprosy of dust. The unending effort contracts us and quite fills us +with dismal weariness and disgust. + +We espy at last the long-sought oasis. Beyond a hill, on a still higher +one, some slated roofs peep from clusters of foliage as brightly green +as a salad. The village is there, and our looks embrace it, but we are +not there yet. For a long time it seems to recede as fast as the +regiment crawls towards it. + +At long last, on the stroke of noon, we reach the quarters that had +begun to appear a pretense and a legend. In regular step and with +rifles on shoulders, the regiment floods the street of Gauchin-l'Abbe +right to its edges. Most of the villages of the Pas du Calais are +composed of a single street, but such a street! It is often several +kilometers long. In this one, the street divides in front of the mairie +and forms two others, so that the hamlet becomes a big Y, brokenly +bordered by low-built dwellings. + +The cyclists, the officers, the orderlies, break away from the long +moving mass. Then, as they come up, a few of the men at a time are +swallowed up by the barns, the still available houses being reserved +for officers and departments. Our half-company is led at first to the +end of the village, and then--by some misunderstanding among the +quartermasters--back to the other end, the one by which we entered. +This oscillation takes up time, and the squad, dragged thus from north +to south and from south to north, heavily fatigued and irritated by +wasted walking, evinces feverish impatience. For it is supremely +important to be installed and set free as early as possible if we are +to carry out the plan we have cherished so long--to find a native with +some little place to let, and a table where the squad can have its +meals. We have talked a good deal about this idea and its delightful +advantages. We have taken counsel, subscribed to a common fund, and +decided that this time we will take the header into the additional +outlay. + +But will it be possible? Very many places are already snapped up. We +are not the only ones to bring our dream of comfort here, and it will +be a race for that table. Three companies are coming in after ours, but +four were here before us, and there are the officers, the cooks of the +hospital staff for the Section, and the clerks, the drivers, the +orderlies and others, official cooks of the sergeants' mess, and I +don't know how many more. All these men are more influential than the +soldiers of the line, they have more mobility and more money, and can +bring off their schemes beforehand. Already, while we march four +abreast towards the barn assigned to the squad, we see some of these +jokers across the conquered thresholds, domestically busy. + +Tirette imitates the sounds of lowing and bleating--"There's our +cattle-shed." A fairly big barn. The chopped straw smells of +night-soil, and our feet stir up clouds of dust. But it is almost +enclosed. We choose our places and cast off our equipment. + +Those who dreamed yet once again of a special sort of Paradise sing +low--yet once again. "Look now, it seems as ugly as the other +places."--"It's something like the same."--"Naturally." + +But there is no time to waste in talking. The thing is to get clear and +be after the others with all strength and speed. We hurry out. In spite +of broken backs and aching feet, we set ourselves savagely to this last +effort on which the comfort of a week depends. + +The squad divides into two patrols and sets off at the double, one to +left and one to right along the street, which is already obstructed by +busy questing poilus; and all the groups see and watch each other--and +hurry. In places there are collisions, jostlings, and abuse. + +"Let's begin down there at once, or our goose'll be cooked!" I have an +impression of a kind of fierce battle between all the soldiers, in the +streets of the village they have just occupied. "For us," says +Marthereau, "war is always struggling and fighting--always, always." + +We knock at door after door, we show ourselves timidly, we offer +ourselves like undesirable goods. A voice arises among us, "You haven't +a bit of a corner, madame, for some soldiers? We would pay." + +"No--you see, I've got officers--under-officers, that is--you see, it's +the mess for the band, and the secretaries, and the gentlemen of the +ambulance--" + +Vexation after vexation. We close again, one after the other, all the +doors we had half-opened, and look at each other, on the wrong side of +the threshold, with dwindling hope in our eyes. + +"Bon Dieu! You'll see that we shan't find anything," growls Barque. +"Damn those chaps that got on the midden before us!" + +The human flood reaches high-water mark everywhere. The three streets +are all growing dark as each overflows into another. Some natives cross +our path, old men or ill-shapen, contorted in their walk, stunted in +the face; and even young people, too, over whom hovers the mystery of +secret disorders or political connections. As for the petticoats, there +are old women and many young ones--fat, with well-padded cheeks, and +equal to geese in their whiteness. + +Suddenly, in an alley between two houses, I have a fleeting vision of a +woman who crossed the shadowy gap--Eudoxie! Eudoxie, the fairy woman +whom Lamuse hunted like a satyr, away back in the country, that morning +we brought back Volpatte wounded, and Fouillade, the woman I saw +leaning from the spinney's edge and bound to Farfadet in a mutual +smile. It is she whom I just glimpsed like a gleam of sunshine in that +alley. But the gleam was eclipsed by the tail of a wall, and the place +thereof relapsed upon gloom. She here, already! Then she has followed +our long and painful trek! She is attracted--? + +And she looks like one allured, too. Brief glimpse though it was of her +face and its crown of fair hair, plainly I saw that she was serious, +thoughtful, absentminded. + +Lamuse, following close on my heels, saw nothing, and I do not tell +him. He will discover quite soon enough the bright presence of that +lovely flame where he would fain cast himself bodily, though it evades +him like a Will-o'-th'-wisp. For the moment, besides, we are on +business bent. The coveted corner must be won. We resume the hunt with +the energy of despair. Barque leads us on; he has taken the matter to +heart. He is trembling--you can see it in his dusty scalp. He guides +us, nose to the wind. He suggests that we make an attempt on that +yellow door over there. Forward! + +Near the yellow door, we encounter a shape down-bent. Blaire, his foot +on a milestone, is reducing the bulk of his boot with his knife, and +plaster-like debris is falling fast. He might be engaged in sculpture. + +"You never had your feet so white before," jeers Barque. "Rotting +apart," says Blaire, "you don't know where it is, that special van?" He +goes on to explain: "I've got to look up the dentist-van, so they can +grapple with my ivories, and strip off the old grinders that's left. +Oui, seems it's stationed here, the chop-caravan." + +He folds up his knife, pockets it, and goes off alongside the wall, +possessed by the thought of his jaw-bones' new lease of life. + +Once more we put up our beggars' petition: "Good-day, madame; you +haven't got a little corner where we could feed? We would pay, of +course, we would pay--" + +Through the glass of the low window we see lifted the face of an old +man--like a fish in a bowl, it looks--a face curiously flat, and lined +with parallel wrinkles, like a page of old manuscript. + +"You've the little shed there." + +"There's no room in the shed, and when the washing's done there--" + +Barque seizes the chance. "It'll do very likely. May we see it?" + +"We do the washing there," mutters the woman, continuing to wield her +broom. + +"You know," says Barque, with a smile and an engaging air, "we're not +like those disagreeable people who get drunk and make themselves a +nuisance. May we have a look?" + +The woman has let her broom rest. She is thin and inconspicuous. Her +jacket hangs from her shoulders as from a valise. Her face is like +cardboard, stiff and without expression. She looks at us and hesitates, +then grudgingly leads the way into a very dark little place, made of +beaten earth and piled with dirty linen. + +"It's splendid," cries Lamuse, in all honesty. + +"Isn't she a darling, the little kiddie!" says Barque, as he pats the +round cheek, like painted india-rubber, of a little girl who is staring +at us with her dirty little nose uplifted in the gloom. "Is she yours, +madame?" + +"And that one, too?" risks Marthereau, as he espies an over-ripe infant +on whose bladder-like cheeks are shining deposits of jam, for the +ensnaring of the dust in the air. He offers a half-hearted caress in +the direction of the moist and bedaubed countenance. The woman does not +deign an answer. + +So there we are, trifling and grinning, like beggars whose plea still +hangs fire. + +Lamuse whispers to me, in a torment of fear and cupidity, "Let's hope +she'll catch on, the filthy old slut. It's grand here, and, you know, +everything else is pinched!" + +"There's no table," the woman says at last. + +"Don't worry about the table," Barque exclaims. "Tenez! there, put away +in that corner, the old door; that would make us a table." + +"You're not going to trail me about and upset all my work!" replies the +cardboard woman suspiciously, and with obvious regret that she had not +chased us away immediately. + +"Don't worry, I tell you. Look, I'll show you. Hey, Lamuse, old cock, +give me a hand." + +Under the displeased glances of the virago we place the old door on a +couple of barrels. + +"With a bit of a rub-down," says I, "that will be perfect." + +"Eh, oui, maman, a flick with a brush'll do us instead of tablecloth." + +The woman hardly knows what to say; she watches us spitefully: "There's +only two stools, and how many are there of you?" + +"About a dozen." + +"A dozen. Jesus Maria!" + +"What does it matter? That'll be all right, seeing there's a plank +here--and that's a bench ready-made, eh, Lamuse?" + +"Course," says Lamuse. + +"I want that plank," says the woman. "Some soldiers that were here +before you have tried already to take it away." + +"But us, we're not thieves," suggests Lamuse gently, so as not to +irritate the creature that has our comfort at her disposal. + +"I don't say you are, but soldiers, vous savez, they smash everything +up. Oh, the misery of this war!" + +"Well then, how much'll it be, to hire the table, and to heat up a +thing or two on the stove?" + +"It'll be twenty sous a day," announces the hostess with restraint, as +though we were wringing that amount from her. + +"It's dear," says Lamuse. + +"It's what the others gave me that were here, and they were very kind, +too, those gentlemen, and it was worth my while to cook for them. I +know it's not difficult for soldiers. If you think it's too much, it's +no job to find other customers for this room and this table and the +stove, and who wouldn't be in twelves. They're coming along all the +time, and they'd pay still more, if I wanted. A dozen!--" + +Lamuse hastens to add, "I said 'It's dear,' but still, it'll do, eh, +you others?" On this downright question we record our votes. + +"We could do well with a drop to drink," says Lamuse. "Do you sell +wine?" + +"No," said the woman, but added, shaking with anger, "You see, the +military authority forces them that's got wine to sell it at fifteen +sous! Fifteen sous! The misery of this cursed war! One loses at it, at +fifteen sous, monsieur. So I don't sell any wine. I've got plenty for +ourselves. I don't say but sometimes, and just to oblige, I don't allow +some to people that one knows, people that knows what things are, but +of course, messieurs, not at fifteen sous." + +Lamuse is one of those people "that knows what things are." He grabs at +his water-bottle, which is hanging as usual on his hip. "Give me a +liter of it. That'll be what?" + +"That'll be twenty-two sous, same as it cost me. But you know it's just +to oblige you, because you're soldiers." + +Barque, losing patience, mutters an aside. The woman throws him a surly +glance, and makes as if to hand Lamuse's bottle back to him. But +Lamuse, launched upon the hope of drinking wine at last, so that his +cheeks redden as if the draught already pervaded them with its grateful +hue, hastens to intervene-- + +"Don't be afraid--it's between ourselves, la mere, we won't give you +away." + +She raves on, rigid and bitter, against the limited price on wine; and, +overcome by his lusty thirst, Lamuse extends the humiliation and +surrender of conscience so far as to say, "No help for it, madame! It's +a military order, so it's no use trying to understand it." + +She leads us into the store-room. Three fat barrels occupy it in +impressive rotundity. "Is this your little private store?" + +"She knows her way about, the old lady," growls Barque. + +The shrew turns on her heel, truculent: "Would you have me ruin myself +by this miserable war? I've about enough of losing money all ways at +once." + +"How?" insists Barque. + +"I can see you're not going to risk your money!" + +"That's right--we only risk our skins." + +We intervene, disturbed by the tone of menace for our present concern +that the conversation has assumed. But the door of the wine-cellar is +shaken, and a man's voice comes through. "Hey, Palmyra!" it calls. + +The woman hobbles away, discreetly leaving the door open. "That's all +right--we've taken root!" Lamuse says. + +"What dirty devils these, people are!" murmurs Barque, who finds his +reception hard to stomach. + +"It's shameful and sickening," says Marthereau. + +"One would think it was the first time you'd had any of it!" + +"And you, old gabbler," chides Barque, "that says prettily to the +wine-robber, 'Can't be helped, it's a military order'! Gad, old man, +you're not short of cheek!" + +"What else could I do or say? We should have had to go into mourning +for our table and our wine. She could make us pay forty sous for the +wine, and we should have had it all the same, shouldn't we? Very well, +then, got to think ourselves jolly lucky. I'll admit I'd no confidence, +and I was afraid it was no go." + +"I know; it's the same tale everywhere and always, but all the same--" + +"Damn the thieving natives, ah, oui! Some of 'em must be making +fortunes. Everybody can't go and get killed." + +"Ah, the gallant people of the East!" + +"Yes, and the gallant people of the North!" + +"Who welcome us with open arms!" + +"With open hands, yes--" + +"I tell you," Marthereau says again, "it's a shame and it's sickening." + +"Shut it up--there's the she-beast coming back." We took a turn round +to quarters to announce our success, and then went shopping. When we +returned to our new dining-room, we were hustled by the preparations +for lunch. Barque had been to the rations distribution, and had +managed, thanks to personal relations with the cook (who was a +conscientious objector to fractional divisions), to secure the potatoes +and meat that formed the rations for all the fifteen men of the squad. +He had bought some lard--a little lump for fourteen sous--and some one +was frying. He had also acquired some green peas in tins, four tins. +Mesnil Andre's tin of veal in jelly would be a hors-d'oeuvre. + +"And not a dirty thing in all the lot!" said Lamuse, enchanted. + + * * * * * + +We inspected the kitchen. Barque was moving cheerfully about the iron +Dutch oven whose hot and steaming bulk furnished all one side of the +room. + +"I've added a stewpan on the quiet for the soup," he whispered to me. +Lifting the lid of the stove--"Fire isn't too hot. It's half an hour +since I chucked the meat in, and the water's clean yet." + +A minute later we heard some one arguing with the hostess. This extra +stove was the matter in dispute. There was no more room left for her on +her stove. They had told her they would only need a casserole, and she +had believed them. If she had known they were going to make trouble she +would not have let the room to them. Barque, the good fellow, replied +jokingly, and succeeded in soothing the monster. + +One by one the others arrived. They winked and rubbed their hands +together, full of toothsome anticipation, like the guests at a +wedding-breakfast. As they break away from the dazzling light outside +and penetrate this cube of darkness, they are blinded, and stand like +bewildered owls for several minutes. + +"It's not too brilliant in here," says Mesnil Joseph. "Come, old chap, +what do you want?" The others exclaim in chorus, "We're damned well off +here." And I can see heads nodding assent in the cavern's twilight. + +An incident: Farfadet having by accident rubbed against the damp and +dirty wall, his shoulder has brought away from it a smudge so big and +black that it can be seen even here. Farfadet, so careful of his +appearance, growls, and in avoiding a second contact with the wall, +knocks the table so that his spoon drops to the ground. Stooping, he +fumbles among the loose earth, where dust and spiders' webs for years +have silently fallen. When he recovers his spoon it is almost black, +and webby threads hang from it. Evidently it is disastrous to let +anything fall on the ground. One must live here with great care. + +Lamuse brings down his fat hand, like a pork-pie, between two of the +places at table. "Allons, a table!" We fall to. The meal is abundant +and of excellent quality. The sound of conversation mingles with those +of emptying bottles and filling jaws. While we taste the joy of eating +at a table, a glimmer of light trickles through a vent-hole, and wraps +in dusty dawn a piece of the atmosphere and a patch of the table, while +its reflex lights up a plate, a cap's peak, an eye. Secretly I take +stock of this gloomy little celebration that overflows with gayety. +Biquet is telling about his suppliant sorrows in quest of a washerwoman +who would agree to do him the good turn of washing some linen, but "it +was too damned dear." Tulacque describes the queue outside the +grocer's. One might not go in; customers were herded outside, like +sheep. "And although you were outside, if you weren't satisfied, and +groused too much, they chased you off." + +Any news yet? It is said that severe penalties have been imposed on +those who plunder the population, and there is already a list of +convictions. Volpatte has been sent down. Men of Class '93 are going to +be sent to the rear, and Pepere is one of them. + +When Barque brings in the harvest of the fry-pan, he announces that our +hostess has soldiers at her table--ambulance men of the machine-guns. +"They thought they were the best off, but it's us that's that," says +Fouillade with decision, lolling grandly in the darkness of the narrow +and tainted hole where we are just as confusedly heaped together as in +a dug-out. But who would think of making the comparison? + +"Vous savez pas," says Pepin, "the chaps of the 9th, they're in clover! +An old woman has taken them in for nothing, because of her old man +that's been dead fifty years and was a rifleman once on a time. Seems +she's even given them a rabbit for nix, and they're just worrying it +jugged." + +"There's good sorts everywhere. But the boys of the 9th had famous luck +to fall into the only shop of good sorts in the whole village." + +Palmyra comes with the coffee, which she supplies. She thaws a little, +listens to us, and even asks questions in a supercilious way: "Why do +you call the adjutant 'le juteux'?" + +Barque replies sententiously, "'Twas ever thus." + +When she has disappeared, we criticize our coffee. "Talk about clear! +You can see the sugar ambling round the bottom of the glass."--"She +charges six sous for it."--"It's filtered water." + +The door half opens, and admits a streak of light. The face of a little +boy is defined in it. We entice him in like a kitten and give him a bit +of chocolate. + +Then, "My name's Charlie," chirps the child. "Our house, that's close +by. We've got soldiers, too. We always had them, we had. We sell them +everything they want. Only, voila, sometimes they get drunk." + +"Tell me, little one, come here a bit," says Cocon, taking the boy +between his knees. "Listen now. Your papa, he says, doesn't he, 'Let's +hope the war goes on,' eh?" [note 2] + +"Of course," says the child, tossing his head, "because we're getting +rich. He says, by the end of May, we shall have got fifty thousand +francs." + +"Fifty thousand francs! Impossible!" + +"Yes, yes!" the child insists, stamping, "he said it to mamma. Papa +wished it could be always like that. Mamma, sometimes, she isn't sure, +because my brother Adolphe is at the front. But we're going to get him +sent to the rear, and then the war can go on." + +These confidences are disturbed by sharp cries, coming from the rooms +of our hosts. Biquet the mobile goes to inquire. "It's nothing," says +he, coming back; "it's the good man slanging the woman because she +doesn't know how to do things, he says, because she's made the mustard +in a tumbler, and he never heard of such a thing, he says." + +We get up, and leave the strong odor of pipes, wine, and stale coffee +in our cave. As soon as we have crossed the threshold, a heaviness of +heat puffs in our faces, fortified by the mustiness of frying that +dwells in the kitchen and emerges every time the door is opened. We +pass through legions of flies which, massed on the walls in black +hordes, fly abroad in buzzing swarms as we pass: "It's beginning again +like last year! Flies outside, lice inside.--" + +"And microbes still farther inside!" + +In a corner of this dirty little house and its litter of old rubbish, +its dusty debris of last year and the relics of so many summers gone +by, among the furniture and household gear, something is moving. It is +an old simpleton with a long bald neck, pink and rough, making you +think of a fowl's neck which has prematurely molted through disease. +His profile is that of a hen, too--no chin and a long nose. A gray +overlay of beard felts his receded cheek, and you see his heavy +eyelids, rounded and horny, move up and down like shutters on the dull +beads of his eyes. + +Barque has already noticed him: "Watch him--he's a treasure-seeker. He +says there's one somewhere in this hovel that he's stepfather to. +You'll see him directly go on all-fours and push his old phizog in +every corner there is. Tiens, watch him." + +With the aid of his stick, the old man proceeded to take methodical +soundings. He tapped along the foot of the walls and on the +floor-tiles.. He was hustled by the coming and going of the occupants +of the house, by callers, and by the swing of Palmyra's broom; but she +let him alone and said nothing, thinking to herself, no doubt, that the +exploitation of the national calamity is a more profitable treasure +than problematical caskets. + +Two gossips are standing in a recess and exchanging confidences in low +voices, hard by an old map of Russia that is peopled with flies. "Oui, +but it's with the Picon bitters that you've got to be careful. If you +haven't got a light touch, you can't get your sixteen glasses out of a +bottle, and so you lose too much profit. I don't say but what one's all +right in one's purse, even so, but one doesn't make enough. To guard +against that, the retailers ought to agree among themselves, but the +understanding's so difficult to bring off, even when it's in the +general interest." + +Outside there is torrid sunshine, riddled with flies. The little +beasts, quite scarce but a few days ago, multiply everywhere the murmur +of their minute and innumerable engines. I go out in the company of +Lamuse; we are going for a saunter. One can be at peace today--it is +complete rest, by reason of the overnight march. We might sleep, but it +suits us much better to use the rest for an extensive promenade. +To-morrow, the exercise and fatigues will get us again. There are some, +less lucky than we, who are already caught in the cogwheels of fatigue. +To Lamuse, who invites him to come and stroll with us, Corvisart +replies, screwing up the little round nose that is laid flatly on his +oblong face like a cork, "Can't--I'm on manure!" He points to the +shovel and broom by whose help he is performing his task of scavenger +and night-soil man. + +We walk languidly. The afternoon lies heavy on the drowsy land and on +stomachs richly provided and embellished with food. The remarks we +exchange are infrequent. + +Over there, we hear noises. Barque has fallen a victim to a menagerie +of housewives; and the scene is pointed by a pale little girl, her hair +tied behind in a pencil of tow and her mouth embroidered with fever +spots, and by women who are busy with some unsavory job of washing in +the meager shade before their doors. + +Six men go by, led by a quartermaster corporal. They carry heaps of new +greatcoats and bundles of boots. Lamuse regards his bloated and horny +feet--"I must have some new sheds, and no mistake; a bit more and +you'll see my splay-feet through these ones. Can't go marching on the +skin of my tongs, eh?" + +An aeroplane booms overhead. We follow its evolutions with our faces +skyward, our necks twisted, our eyes watering at the piercing +brightness of the sky. + +Lamuse declares to me, when we have brought our gaze back to earth, +"Those machines'll never become practical, never." + +"How can you say that? Look at the progress they've made already, and +the speed of it." + +"Yes, but they'll stop there. They'll never do any better, never." + +This time I do not challenge the dull and obstinate denial that +ignorance opposes to the promise of progress, and I let my big comrade +alone in his stubborn belief that the wonderful effort of science and +industry has been suddenly cut short. + +Having thus begun to reveal to me his inmost thoughts, Lamuse +continues. Coming nearer and lowering his head, he says to me, "You +know she's here--Eudoxie?" + +"Ah!" said I. + +"Yes, old chap. You never notice anything, you don't, but I noticed," +and Lamuse smiles at me indulgently. "Now, do you catch on? If she's +come here, it's because we interest her, eh? She's followed us for one +of us, and don't you forget it." + +He gets going again. "My boy, d'you want to know what I say? She's come +after me." + +"Are you sure of it, old chap?" + +"Yes," says the ox-man, in a hollow voice. "First, I want her. Then, +twice, old man, I've found her exactly in my path, in mine, d'you +understand? You may tell me that she ran away; that's because she's +timid, that, yes--" + +He stopped dead in the middle of the street and looked straight at me. +The heavy face, greasily moist on the cheeks and nose, was serious. His +rotund fist went up to the dark yellow mustache, so carefully pointed, +and smoothed it tenderly. Then he continued to lay bare his heart to me +"I want her; but, you know, I shall marry her all right, I shall. She's +called Eudoxie Dumail. At first, I wasn't thinking of marrying her. But +since I've got to know her family name, it seems to me that it's +different, and I should get on all right. Ah, nom de Dieu! She's so +pretty, that woman! And it's not only that she's pretty--ah!" + +The huge child was overflowing with sentiment and emotion, and trying +to make them speak to me. "Ah, my boy, there are times when I've just +got to hold myself back with a hook," came the strained and gloomy +tones, while the blood flushed to the fleshy parts of his cheeks and +neck. "She's so beautiful, she's--and me I'm--she's so unlike--you'll +have noticed it, surely, you that notices--she's a country girl, oui; +eh bien, she's got a God knows what that's better than a Parisienne, +even a toffed-up and stylish Parisienne, pas? She--as for me, I--" + +He puckered his red eyebrows. He would have liked to tell me all the +splendor of his thoughts, but he knew not the art of expressing +himself, so he was silent. He remained alone in his voiceless emotion, +as always alone. + +We went forward side by side between the rows of houses. In front of +the doors, drays laden with casks were drawn up. The front windows +blossomed with many-hued heaps of jam-pots, stacks of tinder +pipe-lighters--everything that the soldier is compelled to buy. Nearly +all the natives had gone into grocery. Business had been getting out of +gear locally for a long time, but now it was booming. Every one, +smitten with the fever of sum-totals and dazzled by the multiplication +table, plunged into trade. + +Bells tolled, and the procession of a military funeral came out. A +forage wagon, driven by a transport man, carried a coffin wrapped in a +flag. Following, were a detachment of men, an adjutant, a padre, and a +civilian. + +"The poor little funeral with its tail lopped off!" said Lamuse. "Ah, +those that are dead are very happy. But only sometimes, not +always--voila!" + +We have passed the last of the houses. In the country, beyond the end +of the street, the fighting convoy and the regimental convoy have +settled themselves, the traveling kitchens and jingling carts that +follow them with odds and ends of equipment, the Red Cross wagons, the +motor lorries, the forage carts, the baggage-master's gig. The tents of +drivers and conductors swarm around the vehicles. On the open spaces +horses lift their metallic eyes to the sky's emptiness, with their feet +on barren earth. Four poilus are setting up a table. The open-air +smithy is smoking. This heterogeneous and swarming city, planted in +ruined fields whose straight or winding ruts are stiffening in the +heat, is already broadly valanced with rubbish and dung. + +On the edge of the camp a big, white-painted van stands out from the +others in its tidy cleanliness. Had it been in the middle of a fair, +one would have said it was the stylish show where one pays more than at +the others. + +This is the celebrated "stomatological" van that Blaire was asking +about. In point of fact, Blaire is there in front, looking at it. For +some long time, no doubt, he has been going round it and gazing. +Field-hospital orderly Sambremeuse, of the Division, returning from +errands, is climbing the portable stair of painted wood which leads to +the van door. In his arms he carries a bulky box of biscuits, a loaf of +fancy bread, and a bottle of champagne. Blaire questions him--"Tell me, +Sir Rump, this horse-box--is it the dentist's?" + +"It's written up there," replies Sambremeuse--a little corpulent man, +clean, close-shaven, and his chin starch-white. "If you can't see it, +you don't want the dentist to look after your grinders, you want the +vet to clean your eyesight." + +Blaire comes nearer and scrutinizes the establishment. "It's a queer +shop," he says. He goes nearer yet, draws back, hesitates to risk his +gums in that carriage. At last he decides, puts a foot on the stair, +and disappears inside the caravan. + +We continue our walk, and turn into a footpath where are high, dusty +bushes and the noises are subdued. The sunshine blazes everywhere; it +heats and roasts the hollow of the way, spreading blinding and burning +whiteness in patches, and shimmers in the sky of faultless blue. + +At the first turning, almost before we had heard the light grating of a +footstep, we are face to face with Eudoxie! + +Lamuse utters a deep exclamation. Perhaps he fancies once more that she +is looking for him, and believes that she is the gift of his destiny. +He goes up to her--all the bulk of him. + +She looks at him and stops, framed by the hawthorn. Her strangely +slight and pale face is apprehensive, the lids tremble on her +magnificent eyes. She is bareheaded, and in the hollowed neck of her +linen corsage there is the dawning of her flesh. So near, she is truly +enticing in the sunshine, this woman crowned with gold, and one's +glance is impelled and astonished by the moon-like purity of her skin. +Her eyes sparkle; her teeth, too, glisten white in the living wound of +her half-open mouth, red as her heart. + +"Tell me--I am going to tell you," pants Lamuse. "I like you so much--" +He outstretches his arm towards the motionless, beloved wayfarer. + +She starts, and replies to him, "Leave me alone--you disgust me!" + +The man's hand is thrown over one of her little ones. She tries to draw +it back, and shakes it to free herself. Her intensely fair hair falls +loose, flaming. He draws her to him. His head bends towards her, and +his lips are ready. His desire--the wish of all his strength and all +his life--is to caress her. He would die that he might touch her with +his lips. But she struggles, and utters a choking cry. She is +trembling, and her beautiful face is disfigured with abhorrence. + +I go up and put my hand on my friend's shoulder, but my intervention is +not needed. Lamuse recoils and growls, vanquished. + +"Are you taken that way often?" cries Eudoxie. + +"No!" groans the miserable man, baffled, overwhelmed, bewildered. + +"Don't do it again, vous savez!" she says, and goes off panting, and he +does not even watch her go. He stands with his arms hanging, gazing at +the place whence she has gone, tormented to the quick, torn from his +dreams of her, and nothing left him to desire. + +I lead him away and he comes in dumb agitation, sniffling and out of +breath, as though he had run a long way. The mass of his big head is +bent. In the pitiless light of eternal spring, he is like the poor +Cyclops who roamed the shores of ancient Sicily in the beginnings of +time--like a huge toy, a thing of derision, that a child's shining +strength could subdue. + +The itinerant wine-seller, whose barrow is hunchbacked with a barrel, +has sold several liters to the men on guard duty. He disappears round +the bend in the road, with his face flat and yellow as a Camembert, his +scanty, thin hair frayed into dusty flakes, and so emaciated himself +that one could fancy his feet were fastened to his trunk by strings +through his flopping trousers. + +And among the idle poilus of the guard-room at the end of the place, +under the wing of the shaking and rattling signboard which serves as +advertisement of the village, [note 3] a conversation is set up on the +subject of this wandering buffoon. + +"He has a dirty neb," says Bigornot; "and I'll tell you what I +think--they've no business to let civvies mess about at the front with +their pretty ringlets, and especially individuals that you don't know +where they come from." + +"You're quite crushing, you portable louse," replies Cornet. + +"Never mind, shoe-sole face," Bigornot insists; "we trust 'em too much. +I know what I'm saying when I open it." + +"You don't," says Canard. "Pepere's going to the rear." + +"The women here," murmurs La Mollette, "they're ugly; they're a lot of +frights." + +The other men on guard, their concentrated gaze roaming in space, watch +two enemy aeroplanes and the intricate skeins they are spinning. Around +the stiff mechanical birds up there that appear now black like crows +and now white like gulls, according to the play of the light, clouds of +bursting shrapnel stipple the azure, and seem like a long flight of +snowflakes in the sunshine. + +As we are going back, two strollers come up--Carassus and Cheyssier. +They announce that mess-man Pepere is going to the rear, to be sent to +a Territorial regiment, having come under the operation of the Dalbiez +Act. + +"That's a hint for Blaire," says Carassus, who has a funny big nose in +the middle of his face that suits him ill. + +In the village groups of poilus go by, or in twos, joined by the +crossing bonds of converse. We see the solitary ones unite in couples, +separate, then come together again with a new inspiration of talk, +drawn to each other as if magnetized. + +In the middle of an excited crowd white papers are waving. It is the +newspaper hawker, who is selling for two sous papers which should be +one sou. Fouillade is standing in the middle of the road, thin as the +legs of a hare. At the corner of a house Paradis shows to the sun face +pink as ham. + +Biquet joins us again, in undress, with a jacket and cap of the police. +He is licking his chops: "I met some pals and we've had a drink. You +see, to-morrow one starts scratching again, and cleaning his old rags +and his catapult. But my greatcoat!--going to be some job to filter +that! It isn't a greatcoat any longer--it's armor-plate." + +Montreuil, a clerk at the office, appears and hails Biquet: "Hey, +riff-raff! A letter! Been chasing you an hour. You're never to be +found, rotter!" + +"Can't be both here and there, looney. Give us a squint." He examines +the letter, balances it in his hand, and announces as he tears the +envelope, "It's from the old woman." + +We slacken our pace. As he reads, he follows the lines with his finger, +wagging his head with an air of conviction, and his lips moving like a +woman's in prayer. + +The throng increases the nearer we draw to the middle of the village. +We salute the commandant and the black-skirted padre who walks by the +other's side like his nurse. We are questioned by Pigeon, Guenon, young +Escutenaire, and Chasseur Clodore. Lamuse appears blind and deaf, and +concerned only to walk. + +Bizouarne, Chanrion, and Roquette arrive excitedly to announce big +news--"D'you know, Pepere's going to the rear." + +"Funny," says Biquet, raising his nose from his letter, "how people kid +themselves. The old woman's bothered about me!" He shows me a passage +in the maternal epistle: "'When you get my letter,'" he spells out, +"'no doubt you will be in the cold and mud, deprived of everything, mon +pauvre Eugene'" He laughs: "It's ten days since she put that down for +me, and she's clean off it. We're not cold, 'cos it's been fine since +this morning; and we're not miserable, because we've got a room that's +good enough. We've had hard times, but we're all right now." + +As we reach the kennel in which we are lodgers, we are thinking that +sentence over. Its touching simplicity affects me, shows me a soul--a +host of souls. Because the sun has shown himself, because we have felt +a gleam and a similitude of comfort, suffering exists no longer, either +of the past or the terrible future. "We're all right now." There is no +more to say. + +Biquet establishes himself at the table, like a gentleman, to write a +reply. Carefully he lays abroad his pen ink, and paper, and examines +each, then smilingly traces the strictly regular lines of his big +handwriting across the meager page. + +"You'd laugh," he says, "if you knew what I've written to the old +woman." He reads his letter again, fondles it, and smiles to himself. + +------------ + +[note 1:] Pity to spoil this jest by translation, but Biquet's primary +meaning was "You're cross because you've a throat like a lime-kiln." +His secondary or literal meaning is obvious.--Tr. + +[note 2:] See p. 34 ante; [chapter 5, note 3] another reference to the +famous phrase. "Pourvu que les civils tiennent."--Tr. + +[note 3:] Every French village has a plaque attached to the first house +on each road of approach, giving its name and the distance to the +next.--Tr. + + + + +VI + +Habits + + +WE are enthroned in the back yard. The big hen, white as a cream +cheese, is brooding in the depths of a basket near the coop whose +imprisoned occupant is rummaging about. But the black hen is free to +travel. She erects and withdraws her elastic neck in jerks, and +advances with a large and affected gait. One can just see her profile +and its twinkling spangle, and her talk appears to proceed from a metal +spring. She marches, glistening black and glossy like the love-locks of +a gypsy; and as she marches, she unfolds here and there upon the ground +a faint trail of chickens. + +These trifling little yellow balls, kept always by a whispering +instinct on the ebb-tide to safety, hurry along under the maternal +march in short, sharp jerks, pecking as they go. Now the train comes to +a full stop, for two of the chickens are thoughtful and immobile, +careless of the parental clucking. + +"A bad sign," says Paradis; "the hen that reflects is ill." And Paradis +uncrosses and recrosses his legs. Beside him on the bench, Blaire +extends his own, lets loose a great yawn that he maintains in placid +duration, and sets himself again to observe, for of all of us he most +delights in watching fowls during the brief life when they are in such +a hurry to eat. + +And we watch them in unison, not forgetting the shabby old cock, worn +threadbare. Where his feathers have fallen appears the naked +india-rubber leg, lurid as a grilled cutlet. He approaches the white +sitter, which first turns her head away in tart denial, with several +"No's" in a muffled rattle, and then watches him with the little blue +enamel dials of her eyes. + +"We're all right," says Barque. + +"Watch the little ducks," says Blaire, "going along the communication +trench." + +We watch a single file of all-golden ducklings go past--still almost +eggs on feet--their big heads pulling their little lame bodies along by +the string of their necks, and that quickly. From his corner, the big +dog follows them also with his deeply dark eye, on which the slanting +sun has shaped a fine tawny ring. + +Beyond this rustic yard and over the scalloping of the low wall, the +orchard reveals itself, where a green carpet, moist and thick, covers +the rich soil and is topped by a screen of foliage with a garniture of +blossom, some white as statuary, others pied and glossy as knots in +neckties. Beyond again is the meadow, where the shadowed poplars throw +shafts of dark or golden green. Still farther again is a square patch +of upstanding hops, followed by a patch of cabbages, sitting on the +ground and dressed in line. In the sunshine of air and of earth we hear +the bees, as they work and make music (in deference to the poets), and +the cricket which, in defiance of the fable, sings with no humility and +fills Space by himself. + +Over yonder, there falls eddying from a poplar's peak a magpie--half +white, half black, like a shred of partly-burned paper. + +The soldiers outstretch themselves luxuriously on the stone bench, +their eyes half closed, and bask in the sunshine that warms the basin +of the big yard till it is like a bath. + +"That's seventeen days we've been here! After thinking we were going +away day after day!" + +"One never knows," said Paradis, wagging his head and smacking his lips. + +Through the yard gate that opens on to the road we see a group of +poilus strolling, nose in air, devouring the sunshine; and then, all +alone, Tellurure. In the middle of the street he oscillates the +prosperous abdomen of which he is proprietor, and rocking on legs +arched like basket-handles, he expectorates in wide abundance all +around him. + +"We thought, too, that we should be as badly off here as in the other +quarters. But this time it's real rest, both in the time it lasts and +the kind it is." + +"You're not given too many exercises and fatigues." + +"And between whiles you come in here to loll about." + +The old man huddled up at the end of the seat--no other than the +treasure-seeking grandfather whom we saw the day of our arrival--came +nearer and lifted his finger. "When I was a young man, I was thought a +lot of by women," he asserted, shaking his head. "I have led young +ladies astray!" + +"Ah!" said we, heedless, our attention taken away from his senile +prattle by the timely noise of a cart that was passing, laden and +laboring. + +"Nowadays," the old man went on, "I only think about money." + +"Ah, oui, the treasure you're looking for, papa." + +"That's it," said the old rustic, though he felt the skepticism around +him. He tapped his cranium with his forefinger, which he then extended +towards the house. "Take that insect there," he said, indicating a +little beast that ran along the plaster. "What does it say? It says, 'I +am the spider that spins the Virgin's thread.'" And the archaic +simpleton added, "One must never judge what people do, for one can +never tell what may happen." + +"That's true," replied Paradis politely. "He's funny," said Mesnil +Andre, between his teeth, while he sought the mirror in his pocket to +look at the facial benefit of fine weather. "He's crazy," murmured +Barque in his ecstasy. + +"I leave you," said the old man, yielding in annoyance. + +He got up to go and look for his treasure again, entered the house that +supported our backs, and left the door open, where beside the huge +fireplace in the room we saw a little girl, so seriously playing with a +doll that Blaire fell considering, and said, "She's right." + +The games of children are a momentous preoccupation. Only the grown-ups +play. + +After we have watched the animals and the strollers go by, we watch the +time go by, we watch everything. + +We are seeing the life of things, we are present with Nature, blended +with climates, mingled even with the sky, colored by the seasons. We +have attached ourselves to this corner of the land where chance has +held us back from our endless wanderings in longer and deeper peace +than elsewhere; and this closer intercourse makes us sensible of all +its traits and habits. September--the morrow of August and eve of +October, most affecting of months--is already sprinkling the fine days +with subtle warnings. Already one knows the meaning of the dead leaves +that flit about the flat stones like a flock of sparrows. + +In truth we have got used to each other's company, we and this place. +So often transplanted, we are taking root here, and we no longer +actually think of going away, even when we talk about it. + +"The 11th Division jolly well stayed a month and a half resting," says +Blaire. + +"And the 375th, too, nine weeks!" replies Barque, in a tone of +challenge. + +"I think we shall stay here at least as long--at least, I say." + +"We could finish the war here all right." + +Barque is affected by the words, nor very far from believing them. +"After all, it will finish some day, what!" + +"After all!" repeat the others. + +"To be sure, one never knows," says Paradis. He says this weakly, +without deep conviction. It is, however, a saying which leaves no room +for reply. We say it over again, softly, lulling ourselves with it as +with an old song. + + * * * * * + +Farfadet rejoined us a moment ago. He took his place near us, but a +little withdrawn all the same, and sits on an overturned tub, his chin +on his fists. + +This man is more solidly happy than we are. We know it well, and he +knows it well. Lifting his head he has looked in turn, with the same +distant gaze, at the back of the old man who went to seek his treasure, +and at the group that talks of going away no more. There shines over +our sensitive and sentimental comrade a sort of personal glamour, which +makes of him a being apart, which gilds him and isolates him from us, +in spite of himself, as though an officer's tabs had fallen on him from +the sky. + +His idyll with Eudoxie has continued here. We have had the proofs; and +once, indeed, he spoke of it. She is not very far away, and they are +very near to each other. Did I not see her the other evening, passing +along the wall of the parsonage, her hair but half quenched by a +mantilla, as she went obviously to a rendezvous? Did I not see that she +began to hurry and to lean forward, already smiling? Although there is +no more between them yet than promises and assurances, she is his, and +he is the man who will hold her in his arms. + +Then, too, he is going to leave us, called to the rear, to Brigade +H.Q., where they want a weakling who can work a typewriter. It is +official; it is in writing; he is saved. That gloomy future at which we +others dare not look is definite and bright for him. + +He looks at an open window and the dark gap behind it of some room or +other over there, a shadowy room that bemuses him. His life is twofold +in hope; he is happy, for the imminent happiness that does not yet +exist is the only real happiness down here. + +So a scanty spirit of envy grows around him. "One never knows," murmurs +Paradis again, but with no more confidence than when before, in the +straitened scene of our life to-day, he uttered those immeasurable +words. + + + + +VII + +Entraining + + +THE next day, Barque began to address us, and said: "I'll just explain +to you what it is. There are some i--" + +A ferocious whistle cut his explanation off short, on the syllable. We +were in a railway station, on a platform. A night alarm had torn us +from our sleep in the village and we had marched here. The rest was +over; our sector was being changed; they were throwing us somewhere +else. We had disappeared from Gauchin under cover of darkness without +seeing either the place or the people, without bidding them good-by +even in a look, without bringing away a last impression. + +A locomotive was shunting, near enough to elbow us, and screaming +full-lunged. I saw Barque's mouth, stoppered by the clamor of our huge +neighbor, pronounce an oath, and I saw the other faces grimacing in +deafened impotence, faces helmeted and chin-strapped, for we were +sentries in the station. + +"After you!" yelled Barque furiously, addressing the white-plumed +whistle. But the terrible mechanism continued more imperiously than +ever to drive his words back in his throat. When it ceased, and only +its echo rang in our ears, the thread of the discourse was broken for +ever, and Barque contented himself with the brief conclusion, "Oui." + +Then we looked around us. We were lost in a sort of town. Interminable +strings of trucks, trains of forty to sixty carriages, were taking +shape like rows of dark-fronted houses, low built, all alike, and +divided by alleys. Before us, alongside the collection of moving +houses, was the main line, the limitless street where the white rails +disappeared at both ends, swallowed up in distance. Sections of trains +and complete trains were staggering in great horizontal columns, +leaving their places, then taking them again. On every side one heard +the regular hammering on the armored ground, piercing whistles, the +ringing of warning bells, the solid metallic crash of the colossal +cubes telescoping their steel stumps, with the counter-blows of chains +and the rattle of the long carcases' vertebrae. On the ground floor of +the building that arises in the middle of the station like a town hall, +the hurried bell of telegraph and telephone was at work, punctuated by +vocal noises. All about on the dusty ground were the goods sheds, the +low stores through whose doors one could dimly see the stacked +interiors--the pointsmen's cabins, the bristling switches, the +hydrants, the latticed iron posts whose wires ruled the sky like +music-paper; here and there the signals, and rising naked over this +flat and gloomy city, two steam cranes, like steeples. + +Farther away, on waste ground and vacant sites in the environs of the +labyrinth of platforms and buildings, military carts and lorries were +standing idle, and rows of horses, drawn out farther than one could see. + +"Talk about the job this is going to be!"--"A whole army corps +beginning to entrain this evening!"--"Tiens, they're coming now!" + +A cloud which overspread a noisy vibration of wheels and the rumble of +horses' hoofs was coming near and getting bigger in the approach to the +station formed by converging buildings. + +"There are already some guns on board." On some flat trucks down there, +between two long pyramidal dumps of chests, we saw indeed the outline +of wheels, and some slender muzzles. Ammunition wagons, guns and wheels +were streaked and blotched with yellow, brown, and green. + +"They're camoufles. [note 1] Down there, there are even horses painted. +Look! spot that one, there, with the big feet as if he had trousers on. +Well, he was white, and they've slapped some paint on to change his +color." + +The horse in question was standing apart from the others, which seemed +to mistrust it, and displayed a grayish yellow tone, obviously with +intent to deceive. "Poor devil!" said Tulacque. + +"You see," said Paradis, "we not only take 'em to get killed, but mess +them about first!" + +"It's for their good, any way!" + +"Eh oui, and us too, it's for our good!" + +Towards evening soldiers arrived. From all sides they flowed towards +the station. Deep-voiced non-coms. ran in front of the files. They were +stemming the tide of men and massing them along the barriers or in +railed squares--pretty well everywhere. The men piled their arms, +dropped their knapsacks, and not being free to go out, waited, buried +side by side in shadow. + +The arrivals followed each other in volume that grew as the twilight +deepened. Along with the troops, the motors flowed up, and soon there +was an unbroken roar. Limousines glided through an enormous sea of +lorries, little, middling, and big. All these cleared aside, wedged +themselves in, subsided in their appointed places. A vast hum of voices +and mingled noises arose from the ocean of men and vehicles that beat +upon the approaches to the station and began in places to filter +through. + +"That's nothing yet," said Cocon, The Man of Figures. "At Army Corps +Headquarters alone there are thirty officers' motors; and you don't +know," he added, "how many trains of fifty trucks it takes to entrain +all the Corpsmen and all the box of tricks--except, of course, the +lorries, that'll join the new sector on their feet? Don't guess, +flat-face. It takes ninety." + +"Great Scott! And there are thirty-three Corps?" + +"There are thirty-nine, lousy one!" + +The turmoil increases; the station becomes still more populous. As far +as the eye can make out a shape or the ghost of a shape, there is a +hurly-burly of movement as lively as a panic. All the hierarchy of the +non-coms. expand themselves and go into action, pass and repass like +meteors, wave their bright-striped arms, and multiply the commands and +counter-commands that are carried by the worming orderlies and +cyclists, the former tardy, the latter maneuvering in quick dashes, +like fish in water. + +Here now is evening, definitely. The blots made by the uniforms of the +poilus grouped about the hillocks of rifles become indistinct, and +blend with the ground; and then their mass is betrayed only by the glow +of pipes and cigarettes. In some places on the edge of the clusters, +the little bright points festoon the gloom like illuminated streamers +in a merry-making street. + +Over this confused and heaving expanse an amalgam of voices rises like +the sea breaking on the shore: and above this unending murmur, renewed +commands, shouts, the din of a shot load or of one transferred, the +crash of steam-hammers redoubling their dull endeavors, and the roaring +of boilers. + +In the immense obscurity, surcharged with men and with all things, +lights begin everywhere to appear. These are the flash-lamps of +officers and detachment leaders, and the cyclists' acetylene lamps, +whose intensely white points zigzag hither and thither and reveal an +outer zone of pallid resurrection. + +An acetylene searchlight blazes blindingly out and depicts a dome of +daylight. Other beams pierce and rend the universal gray. + +Then does the station assume a fantastic air. Mysterious shapes spring +up and adhere to the sky's dark blue. Mountains come into view, +rough-modeled, and vast as the ruins of a town. One can see the +beginning of unending rows of objects, finally plunged in night. One +guesses what the great bulks may be whose outermost outlines flash +forth from a black abyss of the unknown. + +On our left, detachments of cavalry and infantry move ever forward like +a ponderous flood. We hear the diffused obscurity of voices. We see +some ranks delineated by a flash of phosphorescent light or a ruddy +glimmering, and we listen to long-drawn trails of noise. + +Up the gangways of the vans whose gray trunks and black mouths one sees +by the dancing and smoking flame of torches, artillerymen are leading +horses. There are appeals and shouts, a frantic trampling of conflict, +and the angry kicking of some restive animal--insulted by its +guide--against the panels of the van where he is cloistered. + +Not far away, they are putting wagons on to railway trucks. Swarming +humanity surrounds a hill of trusses of fodder. A scattered multitude +furiously attacks great strata of bales. + +"That's three hours we've been on our pins," sighs Paradis. + +"And those, there, what are they?" In some snatches of light we see a +group of goblins, surrounded by glowworms and carrying strange +instruments, come out and then disappear. + +"That's the searchlight section," says Cocon. + +"You've got your considering cap on, camarade; what's it about?" + +"There are four Divisions, at present, in an Army Corps," replies +Cocon; "the number changes, sometimes it is three, sometimes five. Just +now, it's four. And each of our Divisions," continues the mathematical +one, whom our squad glories in owning, "includes three R.I.--regiments +of infantry; two B.C.P.--battalions of chasseurs pied; one +R.T.I.--regiment of territorial infantry--without counting the special +regiments, Artillery, Engineers, Transport, etc., and not counting +either Headquarters of the D.I. and the departments not brigaded but +attached directly to the D.I. A regiment of the line of three +battalions occupies four trains, one for H.Q., the machine-gun company, +and the C.H.R. (compagnie hors rang [note 2]), and one to each +battalion. All the troops won't entrain here. They'll entrain in +echelons along the line according to the position of the quarters and +the period of reliefs." + +"I'm tired," says Tulacque. "We don't get enough solids to eat, mark +you. We stand up because it's the fashion, but we've no longer either +force or freshness." + +"I've been getting information," Cocon goes on; "the troops--the real +troops--will only entrain as from midnight. They are still mustered +here and there in the villages ten kilometers round about. All the +departments of the Army Corps will first set off, and the +E.N.E.--elements non endivisionnes," Cocon obligingly explains, "that +is, attached directly to the A.C. Among the E.N.E. you won't see the +Balloon Department nor the Squadron--they're too big goods, and they +navigate on their own, with their staff and officers and hospitals. The +chasseurs regiment is another of these E.N.E." + +"There's no regiment of chasseurs," says Barque, thoughtlessly, "it's +battalions. One says 'such and such a battalion of chasseurs.'" + +We can see Cocon shrugging his shoulders in the shadows, and his +glasses cast a scornful gleam. "Think so, duck-neb? Then I'll tell you, +since you're so clever, there are two--foot chasseurs and horse +chasseurs." + +"Gad! I forgot the horsemen," says Barque. + +"Only them!" Cocon said. "In the E.N.E. of the Army Corps, there's the +Corps Artillery, that is to say, the central artillery that's +additional to that of the divisions. It includes the H.A.--heavy +artillery; the T.A.--trench artillery; the A.D.--artillery depot, the +armored cars, the anti-aircraft batteries--do I know, or don't I? +There's the Engineers; the Military Police--to wit, the service of cops +on foot and slops on horseback; the Medical Department; the Veterinary +ditto; a squadron of the Draught Corps; a Territorial regiment for the +guards and fatigues at H.Q.--Headquarters; the Service de l'Intendance, +[note 3] and the supply column. There's also the drove of cattle, the +Remount Depot, the Motor Department--talk about the swarm of soft jobs +I could tell you about in an hour if I wanted to!--the Paymaster that +controls the pay-offices and the Post, the Council of War, the +Telegraphists, and all the electrical lot. All those have chiefs, +commandants, sections and sub-sections, and they're rotten with clerks +and orderlies of sorts, and all the bally box of tricks. You can see +from here the sort of job the C.O. of a Corp's got!" + +At this moment we were surrounded by a party of soldiers carrying boxes +in addition to their equipment, and parcels tied up in paper that they +bore reluctantly and anon placed on the ground, puffing. + +"Those are the Staff secretaries. They are a part of the +H.Q.--Headquarters--that is to say, a sort of General's suite. When +they're flitting, they lug about their chests of records, their tables, +their registers, and all the dirty oddments they need for their +writing. Tiens! see that, there; it's a typewriter those two are +carrying, the old papa and the little sausage, with a rifle threaded +through the parcel. They're in three offices, and there's also the +dispatch-riders' section, the Chancellerie, the A.C.T.S.--Army Corps +Topographical Section--that distributes maps to the Divisions, and +makes maps and plans from the aviators and the observers and the +prisoners. It's the officers of all the departments who, under the +orders of two colonels, form the Staff of the Army Corps. But the H.Q., +properly so called, which also includes orderlies, cooks, storekeepers, +workpeople, electricians, police, and the horsemen of the Escort, is +bossed by a commandant." + +At this moment we receive collectively a tremendous bump. "Hey, look +out! Out of the way!" cries a man, by way of apology, who is being +assisted by several others to push a cart towards the wagons. The work +is hard, for the ground slopes up, and so soon as they cease to +buttress themselves against the cart and adhere to the wheels, it slips +back. The sullen men crush themselves against it in the depth of the +gloom, grinding their teeth and growling, as though they fell upon some +monster. + +Barque, all the while rubbing his back, questions one of the frantic +gang: "Think you're going to do it, old duckfoot?" + +"Nom de Dieu!" roars he, engrossed in his job, "mind these setts! +You're going to wreck the show!" With a sudden movement he jostles +Barque again, and this time turns round on him: "What are you doing +there, dung-guts, numskull?" + +"Non, it can't be that you're drunk?" Barque retorts. "'What am I doing +here?' It's good, that! Tell me, you lousy gang, wouldn't you like to +do it too!" + +"Out of the way!" cries a new voice, which precedes some men doubled up +under burdens incongruous, but apparently overwhelming. + +One can no longer remain anywhere. Everywhere we are in the way. We go +forward, we scatter, we retire in the turmoil. + +"In addition, I tell you," continues Cocon, tranquil as a scientist, +"there are the Divisions, each organized pretty much like an Army +Corps--" + +"Oui, we know it; miss the deal!" + +"He makes a fine to-do about it all, that mountebank in the horse-box +on casters. What a mother-in-law he'd make!" + +"I'll bet that's the Major's wrong-headed horse, the one that the vet +said was a calf in process of becoming a cow." + +"It's well organized, all the same, all that, no doubt about it," says +Lamuse admiringly, forced back by a wave of artillerymen carrying boxes. + +"That's true," Marthereau admits; "to get all this lot on the way, +you've not got to be a lot of turnip-heads nor a lot of custards--Bon +Dieu, look where you're putting your damned boots, you black-livered +beast!" + +"Talk about a flitting! When I went to live at Marcoussis with my +family, there was less fuss than this. But then I'm not built that way +myself." + +We are silent; and then we hear Cocon saying, "For the whole French +Army that holds the lines to go by--I'm not speaking of those who are +fixed up at the rear, where there are twice as many men again, and +services like the ambulance that cost nine million francs and can clear +you seven thousand cases a day--to see them go by in trains of sixty +coaches each, following each other without stopping, at intervals of a +quarter of an hour, it would take forty days and forty nights." + +"Ah!" they say. It is too much effort for their imagination; they lose +interest and sicken of the magnitude of these figures. They yawn, and +with watering eyes they follow, in the confusion of haste and shouts +and smoke, of roars and gleams and flashes, the terrible line of the +armored train that moves in the distance, with fire in the sky behind +it. + +------------ + +[note 1:] The word is likely to become of international usage. It +stands for the use of paint in blotches of different colors, and of +branches and other things to disguise almost any object that may be +visible to hostile aircraft.--Tr. + +[note 2:] Non-combatant.--Tr. + +[note 3:] Akin to the British A.S.C.--Tr. + + + + +VIII + +On Leave + + +EUDORE sat down awhile, there by the roadside well, before taking the +path over the fields that led to the trenches, his hands crossed over +one knee, his pale face uplifted. He had no mustache under his +nose--only a little flat smear over each corner of his mouth. He +whistled, and then yawned in the face of the morning till the tears +came. + +An artilleryman who was quartered on the edge of the wood--over there +where a line of horses and carts looked like a gypsies' bivouac--came +up, with the well in his mind, and two canvas buckets that danced at +the end of his arms in time with his feet. In front of the sleepy +unarmed soldier with a bulging bag he stood fast. + +"On leave?" + +"Yes," said Eudore; "just back." + +"Good for you," said the gunner as he made off. + +"You've nothing to grumble at--with six days' leave in your +water-bottle!" + +And here, see, are four more men coming down the road, their gait heavy +and slow, their boots turned into enormous caricatures of boots by +reason of the mud. As one man they stopped on espying the profile of +Eudore. + +"There's Eudore! Hello, Eudore! hello, the old sport! You're back +then!" they cried together, as they hurried up and offered him hands as +big and ruddy as if they were hidden in woolen gloves. + +"Morning, boys," said Eudore. + +"Had a good time? What have you got to tell us, my boy?" + +"Yes," replied Eudore, "not so bad." + +"We've been on wine fatigue, and we've finished. Let's go back +together, pas?" + +In single file they went down the embankment of the road--arm in arm +they crossed the field of gray mud, where their feet fell with the +sound of dough being mixed in the kneading-trough. + +"Well, you've seen your wife, your little Mariette--the only girl for +you--that you could never open your jaw without telling us a tale about +her, eh?" + +Eudore's wan face winced. + +"My wife? Yes, I saw her, sure enough, but only for a little +while--there was no way of doing any better--but no luck, I admit, and +that's all about it." + +"How's that?" + +"How? You know that we live at Villers-l'Abbaye, a hamlet of four +houses neither more nor less, astraddle over the road. One of those +houses is our cafe, and she runs it, or rather she is running it again +since they gave up shelling the village. + +"Now then, with my leave coming along, she asked for a permit to +Mont-St-Eloi, where my old folks are, and my permit was for +Mont-St-Eloi too. See the move? + +"Being a little woman with a head-piece, you know, she had applied for +her permit long before the date when my leave was expected. All the +same, my leave came before her permit. Spite o' that I set off--for one +doesn't let his turn in the company go by, eh? So I stayed with the old +people, and waited. I like 'em well enough, but I got down in the mouth +all the same. As for them, it was enough that they could see me, and it +worried them that I was bored by their company-how else could it be? At +the end of the sixth day--at the finish of my leave, and the very +evening before returning--a young man on a bicycle, son of the Florence +family, brings me a letter from Mariette to say that her permit had not +yet come--" + +"Ah, rotten luck," cried the audience. + +"And that," continued Eudore, "there was only one thing to do.--I was +to get leave from the mayor of Mont-St-Eloi, who would get it from the +military, and go myself at full speed to see her at Villers." + +"You should have done that the first day, not the sixth!" + +"So it seems, but I was afraid we should cross and me miss her--y'see, +as soon as I landed, I was expecting her all the time, and every minute +I fancied I could see her at the open door. So I did as she told me." + +"After all, you saw her?" + +"Just one day--or rather, just one night." + +"Quite sufficient!" merrily said Lamuse, and Eudore the pale and +serious shook his head under the shower of pointed and perilous jests +that followed. + +"Shut your great mouths for five minutes, chaps." + +"Get on with it, petit." + +"There isn't a great lot of it," said Eudore. + +"Well, then, you were saying you had got a hump with your old people?" + +"Ah, yes. They had tried their best to make up for Mariette--with +lovely rashers of our own ham, and plum brandy, and patching up my +linen, and all sorts of little spoiled-kid tricks--and I noticed they +were still slanging each other in the old familiar way! But you talk +about a difference! I always had my eye on the door to see if some time +or other it wouldn't get a move on and turn into a woman. So I went and +saw the mayor, and set off, yesterday, towards two in the +afternoon--towards fourteen o'clock I might well say, seeing that I had +been counting the hours since the day before! I had just one day of my +leave left then. + +"As we drew near in the dusk, through the carriage window of the little +railway that still keeps going down there on some fag-ends of line, I +recognized half the country, and the other half I didn't. Here and +there I got the sense of it, all at once, and it came back all fresh to +me, and melted away again, just as if it was talking to me. Then it +shut up. In the end we got out, and I found--the limit, that was--that +we had to pad the hoof to the last station. + +"Never, old man, have I been in such weather. It had rained for six +days. For six days the sky washed the earth and then washed it again. +The earth was softening and shifting, and filling up the holes and +making new ones." + +"Same here--it only stopped raining this morning." + +"It was just my luck. And everywhere there were swollen new streams, +washing away the borders of the fields as though they were lines on +paper. There were hills that ran with water from top to bottom. Gusts +of wind sent the rain in great clouds flying and whirling about, and +lashing our hands and faces and necks. + +"So you bet, when I had tramped to the station, if some one had pulled +a really ugly face at me, it would have been enough to make me turn +back. + +"But when we did get to the place, there were several of us--some more +men on leave--they weren't bound for Villers, but they had to go +through it to get somewhere else. So it happened that we got there in a +lump--five old cronies that didn't know each other. + +"I could make out nothing of anything. They've been worse shelled over +there than here, and then there was the water everywhere, and it was +getting dark. + +"I told you there are only four houses in the little place, only +they're a good bit off from each other. You come to the lower end of a +slope. I didn't know too well where I was, no more than my pals did, +though they belonged to the district and had some notion of the lay of +it--and all the less because of the rain falling in bucketsful. + +"It got so bad that we couldn't keep from hurrying and began to run. We +passed by the farm of the Alleux--that's the first of the houses--and +it looked like a sort of stone ghost. Bits of walls like splintered +pillars standing up out of the water; the house was shipwrecked. The +other farm, a little further, was as good as drowned dead. + +"Our house is the third. It's on the edge of the road that runs along +the top of the slope. We climbed up, facing the rain that beat on us in +the dusk and began to blind us--the cold and wet fairly smacked us in +the eye, flop!--and broke our ranks like machine-guns. + +"The house! I ran like a greyhound--like an African attacking. +Mariette! I could see her with her arms raised high in the doorway +behind that fine curtain of night and rain--of rain so fierce that it +drove her back and kept her shrinking between the doorposts like a +statue of the Virgin in its niche. I just threw myself forward, but +remembered to give my pals the sign to follow me. The house swallowed +the lot of us. Mariette laughed a little to see me, with a tear in her +eye. She waited till we were alone together and then laughed and cried +all at once. I told the boys to make themselves at home and sit down, +some on the chairs and the rest on the table. + +"'Where are they going, ces messieurs?' asked Manette. + +"'We are going to Vauvelles.' + +"'Jesus!' she said, 'you'll never get there. You can't do those two +miles and more in the night, with the roads washed away, and swamps +everywhere. You mustn't even try to.' + +"'Well, we'll go on to-morrow, then; only we must find somewhere to +pass the night.' + +"'I'll go with you,' I said, 'as far as the Pendu farm--they're not +short of room in that shop. You'll snore in there all right, and you +can start at daybreak.' + +"'Right! let's get a move on so far.' + +"We went out again. What a downpour! We were wet past bearing. The +water poured into our socks through the boot-soles and by the trouser +bottoms, and they too were soaked through and through up to the knees. +Before we got to this Pendu, we meet a shadow in a big black cloak, +with a lantern. The lantern is raised, and we see a gold stripe on the +sleeve, and then an angry face. + +"'What the hell are you doing there?' says the shadow, drawing back a +little and putting one fist on his hip, while the rain rattled like +hail on his hood. + +"'They're men on leave for Vauvelles--they can't set off again +to-night--they would like to sleep in the Pendu farm.' + +"'What do you say? Sleep here?--This is the police station--I am the +officer on guard and there are Boche prisoners in the buildings.' And +I'll tell you what he said as well--'I must see you hop it from here in +less than two seconds. Bonsoir.' + +"So we right about face and started back again--stumbling as if we were +boozed, slipping, puffing, splashing and bespattering ourselves. One of +the boys cried to me through the wind and rain, 'We'll go back with you +as far as your home, all the same. If we haven't a house we've time +enough.' + +"'Where will you sleep?' + +"'Oh, we'll find somewhere, don't worry, for the little time we have to +kill here.' + +"'Yes, we'll find somewhere, all right,' I said. 'Come in again for a +minute meanwhile--I won't take no--and Mariette sees us enter once more +in single file, all five of us soaked like bread in soup. + +"So there we all were, with only one little room to go round in and go +round again--the only room in the house, seeing that it isn't a palace. + +"'Tell me, madame,' says one of our friends, 'isn't there a cellar +here?' + +"'There's water in it,' says Mariette; 'you can't see the bottom step +and it's only got two.' + +"'Damn,' says the man, 'for I see there's no loft, either.' + +"After a minute or two he gets up: 'Good-night, old pal,' he says to +me, and they get their hats on. + +"'What, are you going off in weather like this, boys?' + +"'Do you think,' says the old sport, 'that we're going to spoil your +stay with your wife?' + +"'But, my good man--' + +"'But me no buts. It's nine o'clock, and you've got to take your hook +before day. So good-night. Coming, you others?' + +"'Rather,' say the boys. 'Good-night all.' + +"There they are at the door and opening it. Mariette and me, we look at +each other--but we don't move. Once more we look at each other, and +then we sprang at them. I grabbed the skirt of a coat and she a +belt--all wet enough to wring out. + +"'Never! We won't let you go--it can't be done.' + +"'But--' + +"'But me no buts,' I reply, while she locks the door." + +"Then what?" asked Lamuse. + +"Then? Nothing at all," replied Eudore. "We just stayed like that, very +discreetly--all the night--sitting, propped up in the corners, +yawning--like the watchers over a dead man. We made a bit of talk at +first. From time to time some one said, 'Is it still raining?' and went +and had a look, and said, 'It's still raining'--we could hear it, by +the way. A big chap who had a mustache like a Bulgarian fought against +sleeping like a wild man. Sometimes one or two among the crowd slept, +but there was always one to yawn and keep an eye open for politeness, +who stretched himself or half got up so that he could settle more +comfortably. + +"Mariette and me, we never slept. We looked at each other, but we +looked at the others as well, and they looked at us, and there you are. + +"Morning came and cleaned the window. I got up to go and look outside. +The rain was hardly less. In the room I could see dark forms that began +to stir and breathe hard. Mariette's eyes were red with looking at me +all night. Between her and me a soldier was filling his pipe and +shivering. + +"Some one beats a tattoo on the window, and I half open it. A +silhouette with a streaming hat appears, as though carried and driven +there by the terrible force of the blast that came with it, and asks-- + +"'Hey, in the cafe there! Is there any coffee to be had?' + +"'Coming, sir, coming,' cried Mariette. + +"She gets up from her chair, a little benumbed. Without a word she +looks at her self in our bit of a mirror, touches her hair lightly, and +says quite simply, the good lass-- + +"'I am going to make coffee for everybody.' + +"When that was drunk off, we had all of us to go. Besides, customers +turned up every minute. + +"'Hey, la p'tite mere,' they cried, shoving their noses in at the +half-open window, 'let's have a coffee--or three--or four'--'and two +more again,' says another voice. + +"We go up to Mariette to say good-by. They knew they had played +gooseberry that night most damnably, but I could see plainly that they +didn't know if it would be the thing to say something about it or just +let it drop altogether. + +"Then the Bulgarian made up his mind: 'We've made a hell of a mess of +it for you, eh, ma p'tite dame?' + +"He said that to show he'd been well brought up, the old sport. + +"Mariette thanks him and offers him her hand--'That's nothing at all, +sir. I hope you'll enjoy your leave.' + +"And me, I held her tight in my arms and kissed her as long as I +could--half a minute--discontented--my God, there was reason to be--but +glad that Mariette had not driven the boys out like dogs, and I felt +sure she liked me too for not doing it. + +"'But that isn't all,' said one of the leave men, lifting the skirt of +his cape and fumbling in his coat pocket; 'that's not all. What do we +owe you for the coffees?' + +"'Nothing, for you stayed the night with me; you are my guests.' + +"'Oh, madame, we can't have that!' + +"And how they set to to make protests and compliments in front of each +other! Old man, you can say what you like--we may be only poor devils, +but it was astonishing, that little palaver of good manners. + +"'Come along! Let's be hopping it, eh?' + +"They go out one by one. I stay till the last. Just then another +passer-by begins to knock on the window--another who was dying for a +mouthful of coffee. Mariette by the open door leaned forward and cried, +'One second!' + +"Then she put into my arms a parcel that she had ready. 'I had bought a +knuckle of ham--it was for supper--for us--for us two--and a liter of +good wine. But, ma foi! when I saw there were five of you, I didn't +want to divide it out so much, and I want still less now. There's the +ham, the bread, and the wine. I give them to you so that you can enjoy +them by yourself, my boy. As for them, we have given them enough,' she +says. + +"Poor Mariette," sighs Eudore. "Fifteen months since I'd seen her. And +when shall I see her again? Ever?--It was jolly, that idea of hers. She +crammed all that stuff into my bag--" + +He half opens his brown canvas pouch. + +"Look, here they are! The ham here, and the bread, and there's the +booze. Well, seeing it's there, you don't know what we're going to do +with it? We're going to share it out between us, eh, old pals?" + + + + +IX + +The Anger of Volpatte + + +WHEN Volpatte arrived from his sick-leave, after two months' absence, +we surrounded him. But he was sullen and silent, and tried to get away. + +"Well, what about it? Volpatte, have you nothing to tell us?" + +"Tell us all about the hospital and the sick-leave, old cock, from the +day when you set off in your bandages, with your snout in parenthesis! +You must have seen something of the official shops. Speak then, nome de +Dieu!" + +"I don't want to say anything at all about it," said Volpatte. + +"What's that? What are you talking about?" + +"I'm fed up--that's what I am! The people back there, I'm sick of +them--they make me spew, and you can tell 'em so!" + +"What have they done to you?" + +"A lot of sods, they are!" says Volpatte. + +There he was, with his head as of yore, his ears "stuck on again" and +his Mongolian cheekbones--stubbornly set in the middle of the puzzled +circle that besieged him; and we felt that the mouth fast closed on +ominous silence meant high pressure of seething exasperation in the +depth of him. + +Some words overflowed from him at last. He turned round--facing towards +the rear and the bases--and shook his fist at infinite space. "There +are too many of them," he said between his teeth, "there are too many!" +He seemed to be threatening and repelling a rising sea of phantoms. + +A little later, we questioned him again, knowing well that his anger +could not thus be retained within, and that the savage silence would +explode at the first chance. + +It was in a deep communication trench, away back, where we had come +together for a meal after a morning spent in digging. Torrential rain +was falling. We were muddled and drenched and hustled by the flood, and +we ate standing in single file, without shelter, under the dissolving +sky. Only by feats of skill could we protect the bread and bully from +the spouts that flowed from every point in space; and while we ate we +put our hands and faces as much as possible under our cowls. The rain +rattled and bounced and streamed on our limp woven armor, and worked +with open brutality or sly secrecy into ourselves and our food. Our +feet were sinking farther and farther, taking deep root in the stream +that flowed along the clayey bottom of the trench. Some faces were +laughing, though their mustaches dripped. Others grimaced at the spongy +bread and flabby meat, or at the missiles which attacked their skin +from all sides at every defect in their heavy and miry armor-plate. + +Barque, who was hugging his mess-tin to his heart, bawled at Volpatte: +"Well then, a lot of sods, you say, that you've seen down there where +you've been?" + +"For instance?" cried Blaire, while a redoubled squall shook and +scattered his words; "what have you seen in the way of sods?" + +"There are--" Volpatte began, "and then--there are too many of them, +nom de Dieu! There are--" + +He tried to say what was the matter with him, but could only repeat, +"There are too many of them!" oppressed and panting. He swallowed a +pulpy mouthful of bread as if there went with it the disordered and +suffocating mass of his memories. + +"Is it the shirkers you want to talk about?" + +"By God!" He had thrown the rest of his beef over the parapet, and this +cry, this gasp, escaped violently from his mouth as if from a valve. + +"Don't worry about the soft-job brigade, old cross-patch," advised +Barque, banteringly, but not without some bitterness. "What good does +it do?" + +Concealed and huddled up under the fragile and unsteady roof of his +oiled hood, while the water poured down its shining slopes, and holding +his empty mess-tin out for the rain to clean it, Volpatte snarled, "I'm +not daft--not a bit of it--and I know very well there've got to be +these individuals at the rear. Let them have their dead-heads for all I +care--but there's too many of them, and they're all alike, and all +rotters, voila!" + +Relieved by this affirmation, which shed a little light on the gloomy +farrago of fury he was loosing among us, Volpatte began to speak in +fragments across the relentless sheets of rain-- + +"At the very first village they sent me to, I saw duds, and duds +galore, and they began to get on my nerves. All sorts of departments +and sub-departments and managements and centers and offices and +committees--you're no sooner there than you meet swarms of fools, +swarms of different services that are only different in name--enough to +turn your brain. I tell you, the man that invented the names of all +those committees, he was wrong in his head. + +"So could I help but be sick of it? Ah, mon vieux," said our comrade, +musing, "all those individuals fiddle-faddling and making believe down +there, all spruced up with their fine caps and officers' coats and +shameful boots, that gulp dainties and can put a dram of best brandy +down their gullets whenever they want, and wash themselves oftener +twice than once, and go to church, and never stop smoking, and pack +themselves up in feathers at night to read the newspaper--and then they +say afterwards, 'I've been in the war!'" + +One point above all had got hold of Volpatte and emerged from his +confused and impassioned vision: "All those soldiers, they haven't to +run away with their table-tools and get a bite any old way--they've got +to be at their ease--they'd rather go and sit themselves down with some +tart in the district, at a special reserved table, and guzzle +vegetables, and the fine lady puts their crockery out all square for +them on the dining-table, and their pots of jam and every other blasted +thing to eat; in short, the advantages of riches and peace in that +doubly-damned hell they call the Rear!" + +Volpatte's neighbor shook his head under the torrents that fell from +heaven and said, "So much the better for them." + +"I'm not crazy--" Volpatte began again. + +"P'raps, but you're not fair." + +Volpatte felt himself insulted by the word. He started, and raised his +head furiously, and the rain, that was waiting for the chance, took him +plump in the face. "Not fair--me? Not fair--to those dung-hills?" + +"Exactly, monsieur," the neighbor replied; "I tell you that you play +hell with them and yet you'd jolly well like to be in the rotters' +place." + +"Very likely--but what does that prove, rump-face? To begin with, we, +we've been in danger, and it ought to be our turn for the other. But +they're always the same, I tell you; and then there's young men there, +strong as bulls and poised like wrestlers, and then--there are too many +of them! D'you hear? It's always too many, I say, because it is so." + +"Too many? What do you know about it, vilain? These departments and +committees, do you know what they are?" + +"I don't know what they are," Volpatte set off again, "but I know--" + +"Don't you think they need a crowd to keep all the army's affairs +going?" + +"I don't care a damn, but--" + +"But you wish it was you, eh?" chaffed the invisible neighbor, who +concealed in the depth of the hood on which the reservoirs of space +were emptying either a supreme indifference or a cruel desire to take a +rise out of Volpatte. + +"I can't help it," said the other, simply. + +"There's those that can help it for you," interposed the shrill voice +of Barque; "I knew one of 'em--" + +"I, too, I've seen 'em!" Volpatte yelled with a desperate effort +through the storm. "Tiens! not far from the front, don't know where +exactly, where there's an ambulance clearing-station and a +sous-intendance--I met the reptile there." + +The wind, as it passed over us, tossed him the question, "What was it?" + +At that moment there was a lull, and the weather allowed Volpatte to +talk after a fashion. He said: "He took me round all the jumble of the +depot as if it was a fair, although he was one of the sights of the +place. He led me along the passages and into the dining-rooms of houses +and supplementary barracks. He half opened doors with labels on them, +and said, 'Look here, and here too--look!' I went inspecting with him, +but he didn't go back, like I did, to the trenches, don't fret +yourself, and he wasn't coming back from them either, don't worry! The +reptile, the first time I saw him he was walking nice and leisurely in +the yard--'I'm in the Expenses Department,' he says. We talked a bit, +and the next day he got an orderly job so as to dodge getting sent +away, seeing it was his turn to go since the beginning of the war. + +"On the step of the door where he'd laid all night on a feather bed, he +was polishing the pumps of his monkey master--beautiful yellow +pumps--rubbing 'em with paste, fairly glazing 'em, my boy. I stopped to +watch him, and the chap told me all about himself. Mon vieux, I don't +remember much more of the stuffing that came out of his crafty skull +than I remember of the History of France and the dates we whined at +school. Never, I tell you, had he been sent to the front, although he +was Class 1903, [note 1] and a lusty devil at that, he was. Danger and +dog-tiredness and all the ugliness of war--not for him, but for the +others, oui. He knew damned well that if he set foot in the +firing-line, the line would see that the beast got it, so he ran like +hell from it, and stopped where he was. He said they'd tried all ways +to get him, but he'd given the slip to all the captains, all the +colonels, all the majors, and they were all damnably mad with him. He +told me about it. How did he work it? He'd sit down all of a sudden, +put on a stupid look, do the scrim-shanker stunt, and flop like a +bundle of dirty linen. 'I've got a sort of general fatigue,' he'd +blubber. They didn't know how to take him, and after a bit they just +let him drop--everybody was fit to spew on him. And he changed his +tricks according to the circumstances, d'you catch on? Sometimes he had +something wrong with his foot--he was damned clever with his feet. And +then he contrived things, and he knew one head from another, and how to +take his opportunities. He knew what's what, he did. You could see him +go and slip in like a pretty poilu among the depot chaps, where the +soft jobs were, and stay there; and then he'd put himself out no end to +be useful to the pals. He'd get up at three o'clock in the morning to +make the juice, go and fetch the water while the others were getting +their grub. At last, he'd wormed himself in everywhere, he came to be +one of the family, the rotter, the carrion. He did it so he wouldn't +have to do it. He seemed to me like an individual that would have +earned five quid honestly with the same work and bother that he puts +into forging a one-pound note. But there, he'll get his skin out of it +all right, he will. At the front he'd be lost sight of in the throng of +it, but he's not so stupid. Be damned to them, he says, that take their +grub on the ground, and be damned to them still more when they're under +it. When we've all done with fighting, he'll go back home and he'll say +to his friends and neighbors, 'Here I am safe and sound,' and his +pals'll be glad, because be's a good sort, with engaging manners, +contemptible creature that he is, and--and this is the most stupid +thing of all--but he takes you in and you swallow him whole, the son of +a bug. + +"And then, those sort of beings, don't you believe there's only one of +them. There are barrels of 'em in every depot, that hang on and writhe +when their time comes to go, and they say, 'I'm not going,' and they +don't go, and they never succeed in driving them as far as the front." + +"Nothing new in all that," said Barque, "we know it, we know it!" + +"Then there are the offices," Volpatte went on, engrossed in his story +of travel; "whole houses and streets and districts. I saw that my +little corner in the rear was only a speck, and I had full view of +them. Non, I'd never have believed there'd be so many men on chairs +while war was going on--" + +A hand protruded from the rank and made trial of space--"No more sauce +falling"--"Then we're going out, bet your life on it." So "March!" was +the cry. + +The storm held its peace. We filed off in the long narrow swamp +stagnating in the bottom of the trench where the moment before it had +shaken under slabs of rain. Volpatte's grumbling began again amidst our +sorry stroll and the eddies of floundering feet. I listened to him as I +watched the shoulders of a poverty-stricken overcoat swaying in front +of me, drenched through and through. This time Volpatte was on the +track of the police-- + +"The farther you go from the front the more you see of them." + +"Their battlefield is not the same as ours." + +Tulacque had an ancient grudge against them. "Look," he said, "how the +bobbies spread themselves about to get good lodgings and good food, and +then, after the drinking regulations, they dropped on the secret +wine-sellers. You saw them lying in wait, with a corner of an eye on +the shop-doors, to see if there weren't any poilus slipping quietly +out, two-faced that they are, leering to left and to right and licking +their mustaches." + +"There are good ones among 'em. I knew one in my country, the Cote +d'Or, where I--" + +"Shut up!" was Tulacque's peremptory interruption; "they're all alike. +There isn't one that can put another right." + +"Yes, they're lucky," said Volpatte, "but do you think they're +contented? Not a bit; they grouse. At least," he corrected himself, +"there was one I met, and he was a grouser. He was devilish bothered by +the drill-manual. 'It isn't worth while to learn the drill +instruction,' he said, 'they're always changing it. F'r instance, take +the department of military police; well, as soon as you've got the gist +of it, it's something else. Ah, when will this war be over?' he says." + +"They do what they're told to do, those chaps," ventured Eudore. + +"Surely. It isn't their fault at all. It doesn't alter the fact that +these professional soldiers, pensioned and decorated in the time when +we're only civvies, will have made war in a damned funny way." + +"That reminds me of a forester that I saw as well," said Volpatte, "who +played hell about the fatigues they put him to. 'It's disgusting,' the +fellow said to me, 'what they do with us. We're old non-coms., soldiers +that have done four years of service at least. We're paid on the higher +scale, it's true, but what of that? We are Officials, and yet they +humiliate us. At H.Q. they set us to cleaning, and carrying the dung +away. The civilians see the treatment they inflict on us, and they look +down on us. And if you look like grousing, they'll actually talk about +sending you off to the trenches, like foot-soldiers! What's going to +become of our prestige? When we go back to the parishes as rangers +after the war--if we do come back from it--the people of the villages +and forests will say, "Ah, it was you that was sweeping the streets at +X--!" To get back our prestige, compromised by human injustice and +ingratitude, I know well,' he says, 'that we shall have to make +complaints, and make complaints and make 'em with all our might, to the +rich and to the influential!' he says." + +"I knew a gendarme who was all right," said Lamuse. "'The police are +temperate enough in general,' he says, 'but there are always dirty +devils everywhere, pas? The civilian is really afraid of the gendarme,' +says he, 'and that's a fact; and so, I admit it, there are some who +take advantage of it, and those ones--the tag-rag of the +gendarmerie--know where to get a glass or two. If I was Chief or +Brigadier, I'd screw 'em down; not half I wouldn't,' he says; 'for +public opinion,' he says again, 'lays the blame on the whole force when +a single one with a grievance makes a complaint.'" + +"As for me," says Paradis, "one of the worst days of my life was once +when I saluted a gendarme, taking him for a lieutenant, with his white +stripes. Fortunately--I don't say it to console myself, but because +it's probably true--fortunately, I don't think he saw me." + +A silence. "Oui, 'vidently," the men murmured; "but what about it? No +need to worry." + + * * * * * + +A little later, when we were seated along a wall, with our backs to the +stones, and our feet plunged and planted in the ground, Volpatte +continued unloading his impressions. + +"I went into a big room that was a Depot office--bookkeeping +department, I believe. It swarmed with tables, and people in it like in +a market. Clouds of talk. All along the walls on each side and in the +middle, personages sitting in front of their spread-out goods like +waste-paper merchants. I put in a request to be put back into my +regiment, and they said to me, 'Take your damned hook, and get busy +with it.' I lit on a sergeant, a little chap with airs, spick as a +daisy, with a gold-rimmed spy-glass--eye-glasses with a tape on them. +He was young, but being a re-enlisted soldier, he had the right not to +go to the front. I said to him, 'Sergeant!' But he didn't hear me, +being busy slanging a secretary--it's unfortunate, mon garcon,' he was +saying; 'I've told you twenty times that you must send one notice of it +to be carried out by the Squadron Commander, Provost of the C.A., and +one by way of advice, without signature, but making mention of the +signature, to the Provost of the Force Publique d'Amiens and of the +centers of the district, of which you have the list--in envelopes, of +course, of the general commanding the district. It's very simple,' he +says. + +"I'd drawn back three paces to wait till he'd done with jawing. Five +minutes after, I went up to the sergeant. He said to me, 'My dear sir, +I have not the time to bother with you; I have many other matters to +attend to.' As a matter of fact, he was all in a flummox in front of +his typewriter, the chump, because he'd forgotten, he said, to press on +the capital-letter lever, and so, instead of underlining the heading of +his page, he'd damn well scored a line of 8's in the middle of the top. +So he couldn't hear anything, and he played hell with the Americans, +seeing the machine came from there. + +"After that, he growled against another woolly-leg, because on the +memorandum of the distribution of maps they hadn't put the names of the +Ration Department, the Cattle Department, and the Administrative Convoy +of the 328th D.I. + +"Alongside, a fool was obstinately trying to pull more circulars off a +jellygraph than it would print, doing his damnedest to produce a lot of +ghosts that you could hardly read. Others were talking: 'Where are the +Parisian fasteners?' asked a toff. And they don't call things by their +proper names: 'Tell me now, if you please, what are the elements +quartered at X--?' The elements! What's all that sort of babble?" asked +Volpatte. + +"At the end of the big table where these fellows were that I've +mentioned and that I'd been to, and the sergeant floundering about +behind a hillock of papers at the top of it and giving orders, a +simpleton was doing nothing but tap on his blotting-pad with his hands. +His job, the mug, was the department of leave-papers, and as the big +push had begun and all leave was stopped, he hadn't anything to +do--'Capital!' he says. + +"And all that, that's one table in one room in one department in one +depot. I've seen more, and then more, and more and more again. I don't +know, but it's enough to drive you off your nut, I tell you." + +"Have they got brisques?" [note 2] + +"Not many there, but in the department of the second line every one had +'em. You had museums of 'em there--whole Zoological Gardens of stripes." + +"Prettiest thing I've seen in the way of stripes," said Tulacque, "was +a motorist, dressed in cloth that you'd have said was satin, with new +stripes, and the leathers of an English officer, though a second-class +soldier as he was. With his finger on his cheek, he leaned with his +elbows on that fine carriage adorned with windows that he was the valet +de chambre of. He'd have made you sick, the dainty beast. He was just +exactly the poilu that you see pictures of in the ladies' papers--the +pretty little naughty papers." + +Each has now his memories, his tirade on this much-excogitated subject +of the shirkers, and all begin to overflow and to talk at once. A +hubbub surrounds the foot of the mean wall where we are heaped like +bundles, with a gray, muddy, and trampled spectacle lying before us, +laid waste by rain. + +"--orderly in waiting to the Road Department, then at the Bakery, then +cyclist to the Revictualing Department of the Eleventh Battery." + +"--every morning he had a note to take to the Service de l'Intendance, +to the Gunnery School, to the Bridges Department, and in the evening to +the A.D. and the A.T.--that was all." + +"--when I was coming back from leave,' said that orderly, 'the women +cheered us at all the level-crossing gates that the train passed.' +'They took you for soldiers,' I said." + +"--'Ah,' I said, 'you're called up, then, are you?' 'Certainly,' he +says to me, 'considering that I've been a round of meetings in America +with a Ministerial deputation. P'raps it's not exactly being called up, +that? Anyway, mon ami,' he says, 'I don't pay any rent, so I must be +called up.' 'And me--'" + +"To finish," cries Volpatte, silencing the hum with his authority of a +traveler returned from "down there," "to finish, I saw a whole legion +of 'em all together at a blow-out. For two days I was a sort of helper +in the kitchen of one of the centers of the C.O.A., 'cos they couldn't +let me do nothing while waiting for my reply, which didn't hurry, +seeing they'd sent another inquiry and a super-inquiry after it, and +the reply had too many halts to make in each office, going and coming. + +"In short, I was cook in the shop. Once I waited at table, seeing that +the head cook had just got back from leave for the fourth time and was +tired. I saw and I heard those people every time I went into the +dining-room, that was in the Prefecture, and all that hot and +illuminated row got into my head. They were only auxiliaries in there, +but there were plenty of the armed service among the number, too. They +were almost all old men, with a few young ones besides, sitting here +and there. + +"I'd begun to get about enough of it when one of the broomsticks said, +'The shutters must be closed; it's more prudent.' My boy, they were a +lump of a hundred and twenty-five miles from the firing-line, but that +pock-marked puppy he wanted to make believe there was danger of +bombardment by aircraft--" + +"And there's my cousin," said Tulacque, fumbling, "who wrote to +me--Look, here's what he says: 'Mon cher Adolphe, here I am definitely +settled in Paris as attache to Guard-Room 60. While you are down there. +I must stay in the capital at the mercy of a Taube or a Zeppelin!'" + +The phrase sheds a tranquil delight abroad, and we assimilate it like a +tit-bit, laughing. + +"After that," Volpatte went on, "those layers of soft-jobbers fed me up +still more. As a dinner it was all right--cod, seeing it was Friday, +but prepared like soles a la Marguerite--I know all about it. But the +talk!--" + +"They call the bayonet Rosalie, don't they?" + +"Yes, the padded luneys. But during dinner these gentlemen talked above +all about themselves. Every one, so as to explain why he wasn't +somewhere else, as good as said (but all the while saying something +else and gorging like an ogre), 'I'm ill, I'm feeble, look at me, ruin +that I am. Me, I'm in my dotage.' They were all seeking inside +themselves to find diseases to wrap themselves up in--'I wanted to go +to the war, but I've a rupture, two ruptures, three ruptures.' Ah, non, +that feast!--'The orders that speak of sending everybody away,' +explained a funny man, 'they're like the comedies,' he explained, +'there's always a last act to clear up all the jobbery of the others. +That third act is this paragraph, "Unless the requirements of the +Departments stand in the way."' There was one that told this tale, 'I +had three friends that I counted on to give me a lift up. I was going +to apply to them; but, one after another, a little before I put my +request, they were killed by the enemy; look at that,' he says, 'I've +no luck!' Another was explaining to another that, as for him, he would +very much have liked to go, but the surgeon-major had taken him round +the waist to keep him by force in the depot with the auxiliary. 'Eh +bien,' he says, 'I resigned myself. After all, I shall be of greater +value in putting my intellect to the service of the country than in +carrying a knapsack.' And him that was alongside said, 'Oui,' with his +headpiece feathered on top. He'd jolly well consented to go to Bordeaux +at the time when the Boches were getting near Paris, and then Bordeaux +became the stylish place; but afterwards he returned firmly to the +front--to Paris--and said something like this, 'My ability is of value +to France; it is absolutely necessary that I guard it for France.' + +"They talked about other people that weren't there--of the commandant +who was getting an impossible temper, and they explained that the more +imbecile he got the harsher he got; and the General that made +unexpected inspections with the idea of kicking all the soft-jobbers +out, but who'd been laid up for eight days, very ill--'he's certainly +going to die; his condition no longer gives rise to any uneasiness,' +they said, smoking the cigarettes that Society swells send to the +depots for the soldiers at the front. 'D'you know,' they said, 'little +Frazy, who is such a nice boy, the cherub, he's at last found an excuse +for staying behind. They wanted some cattle slaughterers for the +abattoir, and he's enlisted himself in there for protection, although +he's got a University degree and in spite of being an attorney's clerk. +As for Flandrin's son, he's succeeded in getting himself attached to +the roadmenders.--Roadmender, him? Do you think they'll let him stop +so?' 'Certain sure,' replies one of the cowardly milksops. 'A +road-mender's job is for a long time.' + +"Talk about idiots," Marthereau growls. + +"And they were all jealous, I don't know why, of a chap called Bourin. +Formerly he moved in the best Parisian circles. He lunched and dined in +the city. He made eighteen calls a day, and fluttered about the +drawing-rooms from afternoon tea till daybreak. He was indefatigable in +leading cotillons, organizing festivities, swallowing theatrical shows, +without counting the motoring parties, and all the lot running with +champagne. Then the war came. So he's no longer capable, the poor boy, +of staying on the look-out a bit late at an embrasure, or of cutting +wire. He must stay peacefully in the warm. And then, him, a Parisian, +to go into the provinces and bury himself in the trenches! Never in +this world! 'I realize, too,' replied an individual, 'that at +thirty-seven I've arrived at the age when I must take care of myself!' +And while the fellow was saying that, I was thinking of Dumont the +gamekeeper, who was forty-two, and was done in close to me on Hill 132, +so near that after he got the handful of bullets in his head, my body +shook with the trembling of his." + +"And what were they like with you, these thieves?" + +"To hell with me, it was, but they didn't show it too much, only now +and again when they couldn't hold themselves in. They looked at me out +of the corner of their eyes, and took damn good care not to touch me in +passing, for I was still war-mucky. + +"It disgusted me a bit to be in the middle of that heap of +good-for-nothings, but I said to myself, 'Come, it's only for a bit, +Firmin.' There was just one time that I very near broke out with the +itch, and that was when one of 'em said, 'Later, when we return, if we +do return.'--NO! He had no right to say that. Sayings like that, before +you let them out of your gob, you've got to earn them; it's like a +decoration. Let them get cushy jobs, if they like, but not play at +being men in the open when they've damned well run away. And you hear +'em discussing the battles, for they're in closer touch than you with +the big bugs and with the way the war's managed; and afterwards, when +you return, if you do return, it's you that'll be wrong in the middle +of all that crowd of humbugs, with the poor little truth that you've +got. + +"Ah, that evening, I tell you, all those heads in the reek of the +light, the foolery of those people enjoying life and profiting by +peace! It was like a ballet at the theater or the make-believe of a +magic lantern. There were--there were--there are a hundred thousand +more of them," Volpatte at last concluded in confusion. + +But the men who were paying for the safety of the others with their +strength and their lives enjoyed the wrath that choked him, that +brought him to bay in his corner, and overwhelmed him with the +apparitions of shirkers. + +"Lucky he doesn't start talking about the factory hands who've served +their apprenticeship in the war, and all those who've stayed at home +under the excuse of National Defense, that was put on its feet in five +secs!" murmured Tirette; "he'd keep us going with them till Doomsday." + +"You say there are a hundred thousand of them, flea-bite," chaffed +Barque. "Well, in 1914--do you hear me?--Millerand, the War Minister, +said to the M.P.'s, 'There are no shirkers.'" + +"Millerand!" growled Volpatte. "I tell you, I don't know the man; but +if he said that, he's a dirty sloven, sure enough!" + + * * * * * + +"One is always," said Bertrand, "a shirker to some one else." + +"That's true; no matter what you call yourself, you'll +always--always--find worse blackguards and better blackguards than +yourself." + +"All those that never go up to the trenches, or those who never go into +the first line, and even those who only go there now and then, they're +shirkers, if you like to call 'em so, and you'd see how many there are +if they only gave stripes to the real fighters." + +"There are two hundred and fifty to each regiment of two battalions," +said Cocon. + +"There are the orderlies, and a bit since there were even the servants +of the adjutants."--"The cooks and the under-cooks."--"The +sergeant-majors, and the quartermaster-sergeants, as often as +not."--"The mess corporals and the mess fatigues."--"Some office-props +and the guard of the colors."--"The baggage-masters." "The drivers, the +laborers, and all the section, with all its non-coms., and even the +sappers."--"The cyclists." "Not all of them."--"Nearly all the Red +Cross service."--"Not the stretcher-bearers, of course; for they've not +only got a devilish rotten job, but they live with the companies, and +when attacks are on they charge with their stretchers; but the hospital +attendants." + +"Nearly all parsons, especially at the rear. For, you know, parsons +with knapsacks on, I haven't seen a devil of a lot of 'em, have you?" + +"Nor me either. In the papers, but not here." + +"There are some, it seems."--"Ah!" + +"Anyway, the common soldier's taken something on in this war." + +"There are others that are in the open. We're not the only ones." + +"We are!" said Tulacque, sharply; "we're almost the only ones!" + +He added, "You may say--I know well enough what you'll tell me--that it +was the motor lorries and the heavy artillery that brought it off at +Verdun. It's true, but they've got a soft job all the same by the side +of us. We're always in danger, against their once, and we've got the +bullets and the bombs, too, that they haven't. The heavy artillery +reared rabbits near their dug-outs, and they've been making themselves +omelettes for eighteen months. We are really in danger. Those that only +get a bit of it, or only once, aren't in it at all. Otherwise, +everybody would be. The nursemaid strolling the streets of Paris would +be, too, since there are the Taubes and the Zeppelins, as that +pudding-head said that the pal was talking about just now." + +"In the first expedition to the Dardanelles, there was actually a +chemist wounded by a shell. You don't believe me, but it's true all the +same--an officer with green facings, wounded!" + +"That's chance, as I wrote to Mangouste, driver of a remount horse for +the section, that got wounded--but it was done by a motor lorry." + +"That's it, it's like that. After all, a bomb can tumble down on a +pavement, in Paris or in Bordeaux." + +"Oui, oui; so it's too easy to say, 'Don't let's make distinctions in +danger!' Wait a bit. Since the beginning, there are some of those +others who've got killed by an unlucky chance; among us there are some +that are still alive by a lucky chance. It isn't the same thing, that, +seeing that when you're dead, it's for a long time." + +"Yes," says Tirette, "but you're getting too venomous with your stories +of shirkers. As long as we can't help it, it's time to turn over. I'm +thinking of a retired forest-ranger at Cherey, where we were last +month, who went about the streets of the town spying everywhere to rout +out some civilian of military age, and he smelled out the dodgers like +a mastiff. Behold him pulling up in front of a sturdy goodwife that had +a mustache, and he only sees her mustache, so he bullyrags her--'Why +aren't you at the front, you?'" + +"For my part," says Pepin, "I don't fret myself about the shirkers or +the semi-shirkers, it's wasting one's time; but where they get on my +nerves, it's when they swank. I'm of Volpatte's opinion. Let 'em shirk, +good, that's human nature; but afterwards they shouldn't say, 'I've +been a soldier.' Take the engages, [note 3] for instance--" + +"That depends on the engages. Those who have offered for the infantry +without conditions, I look up to those men as much as to those that +have got killed; but the engages in the departments or special arms, +even in the heavy artillery, they begin to get my back up. We know 'em! +When they're doing the agreeable in their social circle, they'll say, +'I've offered for the war.'--'Ah, what a fine thing you have done; of +your own free will you have defied the machine-guns! '--'Well, yes, +madame la marquise, I'm built like that!' Eh, get out of it, humbug!" + +"Oui, it's always the same tale. They wouldn't be able to say in the +drawing-rooms afterwards, 'Tenez, here I am; look at me for a voluntary +engage!'" + +"I know a gentleman who enlisted in the aerodromes. He had a fine +uniform--he'd have done better to offer for the Opera-Comique. What am +I saying--'he'd have done better?' He'd have done a damn sight better, +oui. At least he'd have made other people laugh honestly, instead of +making them laugh with the spleen in it." + +"They're a lot of cheap china, fresh painted, and plastered with +ornaments and all sorts of falderals, but they don't go under fire." + +"If there'd only been people like those, the Boches would be at +Bayonne." + +"When war's on, one must risk his skin, eh, corporal?" + +"Yes," said Bertrand, "there are some times when duty and danger are +exactly the same thing; when the country, when justice and liberty are +in danger, it isn't in taking shelter that you defend them. On the +contrary, war means danger of death and sacrifice of life for +everybody, for everybody; no one is sacred. One must go for it, +upright, right to the end, and not pretend to do it in a fanciful +uniform. These services at the bases, and they're necessary, must be +automatically guaranteed by the really weak and the really old." + +"Besides, there are too many rich and influential people who have +shouted, 'Let us save France!--and begin by saving ourselves!' On the +declaration of war, there was a big rush to get out of it, that's what +there was, and the strongest succeeded. I noticed myself, in my little +corner, it was especially those that jawed most about patriotism +previously. Anyway, as the others were saying just now, if they get +into a funk-hole, the worst filthiness they can do is to make people +believe they've run risks. 'Cos those that have really run risks, they +deserve the same respect as the dead." + +"Well, what then? It's always like that, old man; you can't change +human nature." + +"It can't be helped. Grouse, complain? Tiens! talking about +complaining, did you know Margoulin?" + +"Margoulin? The good sort that was with us, that they left to die at le +Crassier because they thought he was dead?" + +"Well, he wanted to make a complaint. Every day he talked about +protesting against all those things to the captain and the commandant. +He'd say after breakfast, 'I'll go and say it as sure as that pint of +wine's there.' And a minute later, 'If I don't speak, there's never a +pint of wine there at all.' And if you were passing later you'd hear +him again, 'Tiens! is that a pint of wine there? Well, you'll see if I +don't speak! Result--he said nothing at all. You'll say, 'But he got +killed.' True, but previously he had God's own time to do it two +thousand times if he'd dared." + +"All that, it makes me ill," growled Blaire, sullen, but with a flash +of fury. + +"We others, we've seen nothing--seeing that we don't see anything--but +if we did see--!" + +"Old chap," Volpatte cried, "those depots--take notice of what I +say--you'd have to turn the Seine, the Garonne, the Rhone and the Loire +into them to clean them. In the interval, they're living, and they live +well, and they go to doze peacefully every night, every night!" + +The soldier held his peace. In the distance he saw the night as they +would pass it--cramped up, trembling with vigilance in the deep +darkness, at the bottom of the listening-hole whose ragged jaws showed +in black outline all around whenever a gun hurled its dawn into the sky. + +Bitterly said Cocon: "All that, it doesn't give you any desire to die." + +"Yes, it does," some one replies tranquilly. "Yes, it does. Don't +exaggerate, old kipper-skin." + +------------ + +[note 1:] Thirty or thirty-one years old in 1914.--Tr. + +[note 2:] A-shape badges worn on the left arm to indicate the duration +of service at the front.--Tr. + +[note 3:] Soldiers voluntarily enlisted in ordinary times for three, +four, or five years. Those enlisted for four or five year' have the +right to choose their arm of the service, subject to conditions.--Tr. + + + + +X + +Argoval + + +THE twilight of evening was coming near from the direction of the +country, and a gentle breeze, soft as a whisper, came with it. + +In the houses alongside this rural way--a main road, garbed for a few +paces like a main street--the rooms whose pallid windows no longer fed +them with the limpidity of space found their own light from lamps and +candles, so that the evening left them and went outside, and one saw +light and darkness gradually changing places. + +On the edge of the village, towards the fields, some unladen soldiers +were wandering, facing the breeze. We were ending the day in peace, and +enjoying that idle ease whose happiness one only realizes when one is +really weary. It was fine weather, we were at the beginning of rest, +and dreaming about it. Evening seemed to make our faces bigger before +it darkened them, and they shone with the serenity of nature. + +Sergeant Suilhard came to me, took my arm, and led me away. "Come," he +said, "and I'll show you something." + +The approaches to the village abounded in rows of tall and tranquil +trees, and we followed them along. Under the pressure of the breeze +their vast verdure yielded from time to time in slow majestic movements. + +Suilhard went in front of me. He led me into a deep lane, which twisted +about between high banks; and on each side grew a border of bushes, +whose tops met each other. For some moments we walked in a bower of +tender green. A last gleam of light, falling aslant across the lane, +made points of bright yellow among the foliage, and round as gold +coins. "This is pretty," I said. + +He said nothing, but looked aside and hard. Then he stopped. "It must +be there." + +He made me climb up a bit of a track to a field, a great quadrangle +within tall trees, and full of the scent of hay. + +"Tiens!" I said, looking at the ground, "it's all trampled here; +there's been something to do." + +"Come," said Suilhard to me. He led me into the field, not far from its +gate. There was a group of soldiers there, talking in low voices. My +companion stretched out his hand. "It's there," he said. + +A very short post, hardly a yard high, was implanted a few paces from +the hedge, composed just there of young trees. "It was there," he said, +"that they shot a soldier of the 204th this morning. They planted that +post in the night. They brought the chap here at dawn, and these are +the fellows of his squad who killed him. He tried to dodge the +trenches. During relief he stayed behind, and then went quietly off to +quarters. He did nothing else; they meant, no doubt, to make an example +of him." + +We came near to the conversation of the others. "No, no, not at all," +said one. "He wasn't a ruffian, he wasn't one of those toughs that we +all know. We all enlisted together. He was a decent sort, like +ourselves, no more, no less--a bit funky, that's all. He was in the +front line from the beginning, he was, and I've never seen him boozed, +I haven't." + +"Yes, but all must be told. Unfortunately for him, there was a +'previous conviction.' There were two, you know, that did the +trick--the other got two years. But Cajard, [note 1] because of the +sentence he got in civil life couldn't benefit by extenuating +circumstances. He'd done some giddy-goat trick in civil life, when he +was drunk." + +"You can see a little blood on the ground if you look," said a stooping +soldier. + +"There was the whole ceremonial," another went on, "from A to Z--the +colonel on horseback, the degradation; then they tied him to the little +post, the cattle-stoup. He had to be forced to kneel or sit on the +ground with a similar post." + +"It's past understanding," said a third, after a silence, "if it wasn't +for the example the sergeant spoke about." + +On the post the soldiers had scrawled inscriptions and protests. A +croix de guerre, cut clumsily of wood, was nailed to it, and read: "A. +Cajard, mobilized in August, 1914, in gratitude to France." + +Returning to quarters I met Volpatte, still surrounded and talking. He +was relating some new anecdotes of his journey among the happy ones. + +------------ + +[note 1:] I have altered the name of this soldier as well as that of +the village.--H. B. + + + + +XI + +The Dog + + +THE weather was appalling. Water and wind attacked the passers-by; +riddled, flooded, and upheaved the roads. + +I was returning from fatigue to our quarters at the far end of the +village. The landscape that morning showed dirty yellow through the +solid rain, and the sky was dark as a slated roof. The downpour flogged +the horse-trough as with birchen rods. Along the walls, human shapes +went in shrinking files, stooping, abashed, splashing. + +In spite of the rain and the cold and bitter wind, a crowd had gathered +in front of the door of the barn where we were lodging. All close +together and back to back, the men seemed from a distance like a great +moving sponge. Those who could see, over shoulders and between heads, +opened their eyes wide and said, "He has a nerve, the boy!" Then the +inquisitive ones broke away, with red noses and streaming faces, into +the down-pour that lashed and the blast that bit, and letting the hands +fall that they had upraised in surprise, they plunged them in their +pockets. + +In the center, and running with rain, abode the cause of the +gathering--Fouillade, bare to the waist and washing himself in abundant +water. Thin as an insect, working his long slender arms in riotous +frenzy, he soaped and splashed his head, neck, and chest, down to the +upstanding gridirons of his sides. Over his funnel-shaped cheeks the +brisk activity had spread a flaky beard like snow, and piled on the top +of his head a greasy fleece that the rain was puncturing with little +holes. + +By way of a tub, the patient was using three mess-tins which he had +filled with water--no one knew how--in a village where there was none; +and as there was no clean spot anywhere to put anything down in that +universal streaming of earth and sky, he thrust his towel into the +waistband of his trousers, while the soap went back into his pocket +every time he used it. + +They who still remained wondered at this heroic gesticulation in the +face of adversity, and said again, as they wagged their heads, "It's a +disease of cleanliness he's got." + +"You know he's going to be carpeted, they say, for that affair of the +shell-hole with Volpatte." And they mixed the two exploits together in +a muddled way, that of the shell-hole, and the present, and looked on +him as the hero of the moment, while he puffed, sniffled, grunted, +spat, and tried to dry himself under the celestial shower-bath with +rapid rubbing and as a measure of deception; then at last he resumed +his clothes. + + * * * * * + +After his wash, Fouillade feels cold. He turns about and stands in the +doorway of the barn that shelters us. The arctic blast discolors and +disparages his long face, so hollow and sunburned; it draws tears from +his eyes, and scatters them on the cheeks once scorched by the mistral; +his nose, too, weeps increasingly. + +Yielding to the ceaseless bite of the wind that grips his ears in spite +of the muffler knotted round his head, and his calves in spite of the +yellow puttees with which his cockerel legs are enwound, he reenters +the barn, but comes out of it again at once, rolling ferocious eyes, +and muttering oaths with the accent one hears in that corner of the +land, over six hundred miles from here, whence he was driven by war. + +So he stands outside, erect, more truly excited than ever before in +these northern scenes. And the wind comes and steals into him, and +comes again roughly, shaking and maltreating his scarecrow's slight and +flesh-less figure. + +Ye gods! It is almost uninhabitable, the barn they have assigned to us +to live in during this period of rest. It is a collapsing refuge, +gloomy and leaky, confined as a well. One half of it is under water--we +see rats swimming in it--and the men are crowded in the other half. The +walls, composed of laths stuck together with dried mud, are cracked, +sunken, holed in all their circuit, and extensively broken through +above. The night we got here--until the morning--we plugged as well as +we could the openings within reach, by inserting leafy branches and +hurdles. But the higher holes, and those in the roof, still gaped and +always. When dawn hovers there, weakling and early, the wind for +contrast rushes in and blows round every side with all its strength, +and the squad endures the hustling of an everlasting draught. + +When we are there, we remain upright in the ruined obscurity, groping, +shivering, complaining. + +Fouillade, who has come in once more, goaded by the cold, regrets his +ablutions. He has pains in his loins and back. He wants something to +do, but what? + +Sit down? Impossible; it is too dirty inside there. The ground and the +paving-stones are plastered with mud; the straw scattered for our +sleeping is soaked through, by the water that comes through the holes +and by the boots that wipe themselves with it. Besides, if you sit +down, you freeze; and if you lie on the straw, you are troubled by the +smell of manure, and sickened by the vapors of ammonia. Fouillade +contents himself by looking at his place, and yawning wide enough to +dislocate his long jaw, further lengthened by a goatee beard where you +would see white hairs if the daylight were really daylight. + +"The other pals and boys," said Marthereau, "they're no better off than +we are. After breakfast I went to see a jail-bird of the 11th on the +farm near the hospital. You've to clamber over a wall by a ladder +that's too short--talk about a scissor-cut!" says Marthereau, who is +short in the leg; "and when once you're in the hen-run and rabbit-hutch +you're shoved and poked by everybody and a nuisance to 'em all. You +don't know where to put your pasties down. I vamoosed from there, and +sharp." + +"For my part," says Cocon, "I wanted to go to the blacksmith's when +we'd got quit of grubbing, to imbibe something hot, and pay for it. +Yesterday he was selling coffee, but some bobbies called there this +morning, so the good man's got the shakes, and he's locked his door." + +Lamuse has tried to clean his rifle. But one cannot clean his rifle +here, even if he squats on the ground near the door, nor even if he +takes away the sodden tent-cloth, hard and icy, which hangs across the +doorway like a stalactite; it is too dark. "And then, old chap, if you +let a screw fall, you may as well hang yourself as try to find it, +'specially when your fists are frozen silly." + +"As for me, I ought to be sewing some things, but--what cheer!" + +One alternative remains--to stretch oneself on the straw, covering the +head with handkerchief or towel to isolate it from the searching stench +of fermenting straw, and sleep. Fouillade, master of his time to-day, +being on neither guard nor fatigues, decides. He lights a taper to seek +among his belongings, and unwinds the coils of his comforter, and we +see his emaciated shape, sculptured in black relief, folding and +refolding it. + +"Potato fatigue, inside there, my little lambs!" a sonorous voice +bellows at the door. The hooded shape from which it comes is Sergeant +Henriot. He is a malignant sort of simpleton, and though all the while +joking in clumsy sympathy he supervises the evacuation of quarters with +a sharp eye for the evasive malingerer. + +Outside, on the streaming road in the perpetual rain, the second +section is scattered, also summoned and driven to work by the adjutant. +The two sections mingle together. We climb the street and the hillock +of clayey soil where the traveling kitchen is smoking. + +"Now then, my lads, get on with it; it isn't a long job when everybody +sets to--Come--what have you got to grumble about, you? That does no +good." + +Twenty minutes later we return at a trot. As we grope about in the +barn, we cannot touch anything but what is sodden and cold, and the +sour smell of wet animals is added to the vapor of the liquid manure +that our beds contain. + +We gather again, standing, around the props that hold the barn up, and +around the rills that fall vertically from the holes in the roof--faint +columns which rest on vague bases of splashing water. "Here we are +again!" we cry. + +Two lumps in turn block the doorway, soaked with the rain that drains +from them--Lamuse and Barque, who have been in quest of a brasier, and +now return from the expedition empty-handed, sullen and vicious. "Not a +shadow of a fire-bucket, and what's more, no wood or coal either, not +for a fortune." It is impossible to have any fire. "If I can't get any, +no one can," says Barque, with a pride which a hundred exploits justify. + +We stay motionless, or move slowly in the little space we have, aghast +at so much misery. "Whose is the paper?" + +"It's mine," says Becuwe. + +"What does it say? Ah, zut, one can't read in this darkness!" + +"It says they've done everything necessary now for the soldiers, to +keep them warm in the trenches. They've got all they want, and blankets +and shirts and brasiers and fire-buckets and bucketsful of coal; and +that it's like that in the first-line trenches." + +"Ah, damnation!" growl some of the poor prisoners of the barn, and they +shake their fists at the emptiness without and at the newspaper itself. + +But Fouillade has lost interest in what they say. He has bent his long +Don Quixote carcase down in the shadow, and outstretched the lean neck +that looks as if it were braided with violin strings. There is +something on the ground that attracts him. + +It is Labri, the other squad's dog, an uncertain sort of mongrel +sheep-dog, with a lopped tail, curled up on a tiny litter of +straw-dust. Fouillade looks at Labri, and Labri at him. Becuwe comes up +and says, with the intonation of the Lille district, "He won't eat his +food; the dog isn't well. Hey, Labri, what's the matter with you? +There's your bread and meat; eat it up; it's good when it's in your +bucket. He's poorly. One of these mornings we shall find him dead." + +Labri is not happy. The soldier to whom he is entrusted is hard on him, +and usually ill-treats him--when he takes any notice of him at all. The +animal is tied up all day. He is cold and ill and left to himself. He +only exists. From time to time, when there is movement going on around +him, he has hopes of going out, rises and stretches himself, and +bestirs his tail to incipient demonstration. But he is disillusioned, +and lies down again, gazing past his nearly full mess-tin. + +He is weary, and disgusted with life. Even if he has escaped the bullet +or bomb to which he is as much exposed as we, he will end by dying +here. Fouillade puts his thin hand on the dog's head, and it gazes at +him again. Their two glances are alike--the only difference is that one +comes from above and the other from below. + +Fouillade sits down also--the worse for him!--in a corner, his hands +covered by the folds of his greatcoat, his long legs doubled up like a +folding bed. He is dreaming, his eyes closed under their bluish lids; +there is something that he sees again. It is one of those moments when +the country from which he is divided assumes in the distance the charms +of reality--the perfumes and colors of l'Herault, the streets of Cette. +He sees so plainly and so near that he hears the noise of the shallops +in the Canal du Midi, and the unloading at the docks; and their call to +him is distinctly clear. + +Above the road where the scent of thyme and immortelles is so strong +that it is almost a taste in the mouth, in the heart of the sunshine +whose winging shafts stir the air into a warmed and scented breeze, on +Mont St. Clair, blossoms and flourishes the home of his folks. Up +there, one can see with the same glance where the Lake of Thau, which +is green like glass, joins hands with the Mediterranean Sea, which is +azure; and sometimes one can make out as well, in the depths of the +indigo sky, the carven phantoms of the Pyrenees. + +There was he born, there he grew up, happy and free. There he played, +on the golden or ruddy ground; played--even--at soldiers. The eager joy +of wielding a wooden saber flushed the cheeks now sunken and seamed. He +opens his eyes, looks about him, shakes his head, and falls upon regret +for the days when glory and war to him were pure, lofty, and sunny +things. + +The man puts his hand over his eyes, to retain the vision within. +Nowadays, it is different. + +It was up there in the same place, later, that he came to know +Clemence. She was just passing, the first time, sumptuous with +sunshine, and so fair that the loose sheaf of straw she carried in her +arms seemed to him nut-brown by contrast. The second time, she had a +friend with her, and they both stopped to watch him. He heard them +whispering, and turned towards them. Seeing themselves discovered, the +two young women made off, with a sibilance of skirts, and giggles like +the cry of a partridge. + +And it was there, too, that he and she together set up their home. Over +its front travels a vine, which he coddled under a straw hat, whatever +the season. By the garden gate stands the rose-tree that he knows so +well--it never used its thorns except to try to hold him back a little +as he went by. + +Will he return again to it all? Ah, he has looked too deeply into the +profundity of the past not to see the future in appalling accuracy. He +thinks of the regiment, decimated at each shift; of the big knocks and +hard he has had and will have, of sickness, and of wear-- + +He gets up and snorts, as though to shake off what was and what will +be. He is back in the middle of the gloom, and is frozen and swept by +the wind, among the scattered and dejected men who blindly await the +evening. He is back in the present, and he is shivering still. + +Two paces of his long legs make him butt into a group that is +talking--by way of diversion or consolation--of good cheer. + +"At my place," says one, "they make enormous loaves, round ones, big as +cart-wheels they are!" And the man amuses himself by opening his eyes +wide, so that he can see the loaves of the homeland. + +"Where I come from," interposes the poor Southerner, "holiday feasts +last so long that the bread that's new at the beginning is stale at the +end!" + +"There's a jolly wine--it doesn't look much, that little wine where I +come from; but if it hasn't fifteen degrees of alcohol it hasn't +anything!" + +Fouillade speaks then of a red wine which is almost violet, which +stands dilution as well as if it had been brought into the world to +that end. + +"We've got the jurancon wine," said a Bearnais, "the real thing, not +what they sell you for jurancon, which comes from Paris; indeed, I know +one of the makers." + +"If it comes to that," said Fouillade, "in our country we've got +muscatels of every sort, all the colors of the rainbow, like patterns +of silk stuff. You come home with me some time, and every day you shall +taste a nonsuch, my boy." + +"Sounds like a wedding feast," said the grateful soldier. + +So it comes about that Fouillade is agitated by the vinous memories +into which he has plunged, which recall to him as well the dear perfume +of garlic on that far-off table. The vapors of the blue wine in big +bottles, and the liqueur wines so delicately varied, mount to his head +amid the sluggish and mournful storm that fills the barn. + +Suddenly he calls to mind that there is settled in the village where +they are quartered a tavern-keeper who is a native of Beziers, called +Magnac. Magnac had said to him, "Come and see me, mon camarade, one of +these mornings, and we'll drink some wine from down there, we will! +I've several bottles of it, and you shall tell me what you think of it." + +This sudden prospect dazzles Fouillade. Through all his length runs a +thrill of delight, as though he had found the way of salvation. Drink +the wine of the South--of his own particular South, even--drink much of +it--it would be so good to see life rosy again, if only for a day! Ah +yes, he wants wine; and he gets drunk in a dream. + +But as he goes out he collides at the entry with Corporal Broyer, who +is running down the street like a peddler, and shouting at every +opening, "Morning parade!" + +The company assembles and forms in squares on the sticky mound where +the traveling kitchen is sending soot into the rain. "I'll go and have +a drink after parade," says Fouillade to himself. + +And he listens listlessly, full of his plan, to the reading of the +report. But carelessly as he listens, he hears the officer read, "It is +absolutely forbidden to leave quarters before 5 p.m. and after 8 p.m.," +and he hears the captain, without noticing the murmur that runs round +the poilus, add this comment on the order: "This is Divisional +Headquarters. However many there are of you, don't show yourselves. +Keep under cover. If the General sees you in the street, he will have +you put to fatigues at once. He must not see a single soldier. Stay +where you are all day in your quarters. Do what you like as long as no +one sees you--no one!" + +We go back into the barn. + + * * * * * + +Two o'clock. It is three hours yet, and then it will be totally dark, +before one may risk going outside without being punished. + +Shall we sleep while waiting? Fouillade is sleepy no longer; the hope +of wine has shaken him up. And then, if one sleeps in the day, he will +not sleep at night. No! To lie with your eyes open is worse than a +nightmare. The weather gets worse; wind and rain increase, without and +within. + +Then what? If one may not stand still, nor sit down, nor lie down, nor +go for a stroll, nor work--what? + +Deepening misery settles on the party of benumbed and tired soldiers. +They suffer to the bone, nor know what to do with their bodies. "Nom de +Dieu, we're badly off!" is the cry of the derelicts--a lamentation, an +appeal for help. + +Then by instinct they give themselves up to the only occupation +possible to them in there--to walk up and down on the spot, and thus +ward off anchylosis. + +So they begin to walk quickly to and fro in the scanty place that three +strides might compass; they turn about and cross and brush each other, +bent forward, hands pocketed--tramp, tramp. These human beings whom the +blast cuts even among their straw are like a crowd of the wretched +wrecks of cities who await, under the lowering sky of winter, the +opening of some charitable institution. But no door will open for +them--unless it be four days hence, one evening at the end of the rest, +to return to the trenches. + +Alone in a corner, Cocon cowers. He is tormented by lice; but weakened +by the cold and wet he has not the pluck to change his linen; and he +sits there sullen, unmoving--and devoured. + +As five o'clock draws near, in spite of all, Fouillade begins again to +intoxicate himself with his dream of wine, and he waits, with its gleam +in his soul. What time is it?--A quarter to five.--Five minutes to +five.--Now! + +He is outside in black night. With great splashing skips he makes his +way towards the tavern of Magnac, the generous and communicative +Biterrois. Only with great trouble does he find the door in the dark +and the inky rain. By God, there is no light! Great God again, it is +closed! The gleam of a match that his great lean hand covers like a +lamp-shade shows him the fateful notice--"Out of Bounds." Magnac, +guilty of some transgression, has been banished into gloom and idleness! + +Fouillade turns his back on the tavern that has become the prison of +its lonely keeper. He will not give up his dream. He will go somewhere +else and have vin ordinaire, and pay for it, that's all. He puts his +hand in his pocket to sound his purse; it is there. There ought to be +thirty-seven sous in it, which will not run to the wine of Prou, but-- + +But suddenly he starts, stops dead, and smites himself on the forehead. +His long-drawn face is contracted in a frightful grimace, masked by the +night. No, he no longer has thirty-seven sous, fool that he is! He has +forgotten the tin of sardines that he bought the night before--so +disgusting did he find the dark macaroni of the soldiers' mess--and the +drinks he stood to the cobbler who put him some nails in his boots. + +Misery! There could not be more than thirteen sous left! + +To get as elevated as one ought, and to avenge himself on the life of +the moment, he would certainly need--damn'ation--a liter and a half, In +this place, a liter of red ordinary costs twenty-one sous. It won't go. + +His eyes wander around him in the darkness, looking for some one. +Perhaps there is a pal somewhere who will lend him money, or stand him +a liter. + +But who--who? Not Becuwe, he has only a marraine [note 1:] who sends +him tobacco and note-paper every fortnight. Not Barque, who would not +toe the line; nor Blaire, the miser--he wouldn't understand. Not +Biquet, who seems to have something against him; nor Pepin who himself +begs, and never pays, even when he is host. Ah, if Volpatte were there! +There is Mesnil Andre, but he is actually in debt to Fouillade on +account of several drinks round. Corporal Bertrand? Following on a +remark of Fouillade's, Bertrand told him to go to the devil, and now +they look at each other sideways. Farfadet? Fouillade hardly speaks a +word to him in the ordinary way. No, he feels that he cannot ask this +of Farfadet. And then--a thousand thunders!--what is the use of seeking +saviors in one's imagination? Where are they, all these people, at this +hour? + +Slowly he goes back towards the barn. Then mechanically he turns and +goes forward again, with hesitating steps. He will try, all the same. +Perhaps he can find convivial comrades. He approaches the central part +of the village just when night has buried the earth. + +The lighted doors and windows of the taverns shine again in the mud of +the main street. There are taverns every twenty paces. One dimly sees +the heavy specters of soldiers, mostly in groups, descending the +street. When a motor-car comes along, they draw aside to let it pass, +dazzled by the head-lights, and bespattered by the liquid mud that the +wheels hurl over the whole width of the road. + +The taverns are full. Through the steamy windows one can see they are +packed with compact clouds of helmeted men. Fouillade goes into one or +two, on chance. Once over the threshold, the dram-shop's tepid breath, +the light, the smell and the hubbub, affect him with longing. This +gathering at tables is at least a fragment of the past in the present. + +He looks from table to table, and disturbs the groups as he goes up to +scrutinize all the merrymakers in the room. Alas, he knows no one! +Elsewhere, it is the same; he has no luck. In vain he has extended his +neck and sent his desperate glances in search of a familiar head among +the uniformed men who in clumps or couples drink and talk or in +solitude write. He has the air of a cadger, and no one pays him heed. + +Finding no soul to come to his relief, he decides to invest at least +what he has in his pocket. He slips up to the counter. "A pint of +wine--and good." + +"White?" + +"Eh, oui." + +"You, mon garcon, you're from the South," says the landlady, handing +him a little full bottle and a glass, and gathering his twelve sous. + +He places himself at the corner of a table already overcrowded by four +drinkers who are united in a game of cards. He fills the glass to the +brim and empties it, then fills it again. + +"Hey, good health to you! Don't drink the tumbler!" yelps in his face a +man who arrives in the dirty blue jumper of fatigues, and displays a +heavy cross-bar of eyebrows across his pale face, a conical head, and +half a pound's weight of ears. It is Harlingue, the armorer. + +It is not very glorious to be seated alone before a pint in the +presence of a comrade who gives signs of thirst. But Fouillade pretends +not to understand the requirements of the gentleman who dallies in +front of him with an engaging smile, and he hurriedly empties his +glass. The other turns his back, not without grumbling that "they're +not very generous, but on the contrary greedy, these Southerners." + +Fouillade has put his chin on his fists, and looks unseeing at a corner +of the room where the crowded poilus elbow, squeeze, and jostle each +other to get by. + +It was pretty good, that swig of white wine, but of what use are those +few drops in the Sahara of Fouillade? The blues did not far recede, and +now they return. + +The Southerner rises and goes out, with his two glasses of wine in his +stomach and one sou in his pocket. He plucks up courage to visit one +more tavern, to plumb it with his eyes, and by way of excuse to mutter, +as he leaves the place, "Curse him! He's never there, the animal!" + +Then he returns to the barn, which still--as always--whistles with wind +and water. Fouillade lights his candle, and by the glimmer of the flame +that struggles desperately to take wing and fly away, he sees Labri. He +stoops low, with his light over the miserable dog--perhaps it will die +first. Labri is sleeping, but feebly, for he opens an eye at once, and +his tail moves. + +The Southerner strokes him, and says to him in a low voice, "It can't +be helped, it--" He will not say more to sadden him, but the dog +signifies appreciation by jerking his head before closing his eyes +again. Fouillade rises stiffly, by reason of his rusty joints, and +makes for his couch. For only one thing more he is now hoping--to +sleep, that the dismal day may die, that wasted day, like so many +others that there will be to endure stoically and to overcome, before +the last day arrives of the war or of his life. + +------------ + +[note 1:] French soldiers have extensively developed a system of +corresponding with French women whom they do not know from Eve and +whose acquaintance they usually make through newspaper advertisements. +As typical of the latter I copy the following: "Officier artilleur, 30 +ans, desire correspondance discrete avec jeune marraine, femme du +monde. Ecrire," etc. The "lonely soldier" movement in this country is +similar.--Tr. + + + + +XII + +The Doorway + + +"IT's foggy. Would you like to go?" + +It is Poterloo who asks, as he turns towards me and shows eyes so blue +that they make his fine, fair head seem transparent. + +Poterloo comes from Souchez, and now that the Chasseurs have at last +retaken it, he wants to see again the village where he lived happily in +the days when he was only a man. + +It is a pilgrimage of peril; not that we should have far to go--Souchez +is just there. For six months we have lived and worked in the trenches +almost within hail of the village. We have only to climb straight from +here on to the Bethune road along which the trench creeps, the road +honeycombed underneath by our shelters, and descend it for four or five +hundred yards as it dips down towards Souchez. But all that ground is +under regular and terrible attention. Since their recoil, the Germans +have constantly sent huge shells into it. Their thunder shakes us in +our caverns from time to time, and we see, high above the scarps, now +here now there, the great black geysers of earth and rubbish, and the +piled columns of smoke, as high as churches. Why do they bombard +Souchez? One cannot say why, for there is no longer anybody or anything +in the village so often taken and retaken, that we have so fiercely +wrested from each other. + +But this morning a dense fog enfolds us, and by favor of the great +curtain that the sky throws over the earth one might risk it. We are +sure at least of not being seen. The fog hermetically closes the +perfected retina of the Sausage that must be somewhere up there, +enshrouded in the white wadding that raises its vast wall of partition +between our lines and those observation posts of Lens and Angres, +whence the enemy spies upon us. + +"Right you are!" I say to Poterloo. + +Adjutant Barthe, informed of our project, wags his head up and down, +and lowers his eyelids in token that he does not see. + +We hoist ourselves out of the trench, and behold us both, upright, on +the Bethune road! + +It is the first time I have walked there during the day. I have never +seen it, except from afar, the terrible road that we have so often +traveled or crossed in leaps, bowed down in the darkness, and under the +whistling of missiles. + +"Well, are you coming, old man?" + +After some paces, Poterloo has stopped in the middle of the road, where +the fog like cotton-wool unravels itself into pendent fragments, and +there he dilates his sky-blue eyes and half opens his scarlet mouth. + +"Ah, la, la! Ah, la, la!" he murmurs. When I turn to him he points to +the road, shakes his head and says, "This is it, Bon Dieu, to think +this is it! This bit where we are, I know it so well that if I shut my +eyes I can see it as it was, exactly. Old chap, it's awful to see it +again like that. It was a beautiful road, planted all the way along +with big trees. + +"And now, what is it? Look at it--a sort of long thing without a +soul--sad, sad. Look at these two trenches on each side, alive; this +ripped-up paving, bored with funnels; these trees uprooted, split, +scorched, broken like faggots, thrown all ways, pierced by +bullets--look, this pock-marked pestilence, here! Ah, my boy, my boy, +you can't imagine how it is disfigured, this road!" And he goes +forward, seeing some new amazement at every step. + +It is a fantastic road enough, in truth. On both sides of it are +crouching armies, and their missiles have mingled on it for a year and +a half. It is a great disheveled highway, traveled only by bullets and +by ranks and files of shells, that have furrowed and upheaved it, +covered it with the earth of the fields, scooped it and laid bare its +bones. It might be under a curse; it is a way of no color, burned and +old, sinister and awful to see. + +"If you'd only known it--how clean and smooth it was!" says Poterloo. +"All sorts of trees were there, and leaves, and colors--like +butterflies; and there was always some one passing on it to give +good-day to some good woman rocking between two baskets, or people +shouting [note 1] to each other in a chaise, with the good wind +ballooning their smocks. Ah, how happy life was once on a time!" + +He dives down to the banks of the misty stream that follows the roadway +towards the land of parapets. Stooping, he stops by some faint +swellings of the ground on which crosses are fixed--tombs, recessed at +intervals into the wall of fog, like the Stations of the Cross in a +church. + +I call him--we shall never get there at such a funeral pace. Allons! + +We come to a wide depression in the land, I in front and Poterloo +lagging behind, his head confused and heavy with thought as he tries in +vain to exchange with inanimate things his glances of recognition. Just +there the road is lower, a fold secretes it from the side towards the +north. On this sheltered ground there is a little traffic. + +Along the hazy, filthy, and unwholesome space, where withered grass is +embedded in black mud, there are rows of dead. They are carried there +when the trenches or the plain are cleared during the night. They are +waiting--some of them have waited long--to be taken back to the +cemeteries after dark. + +We approach them slowly. They are close against each other, and each +one indicates with arms or legs some different posture of stiffened +agony. There are some with half-moldy faces, the skin rusted, or yellow +with dark spots. Of several the faces are black as tar, the lips hugely +distended--the heads of negroes blown out in goldbeaters' skin. Between +two bodies, protruding uncertainly from one or the other, is a severed +wrist, ending with a cluster of strings. + +Others are shapeless larvae of pollution, with dubious items of +equipment pricking up, or bits of bone. Farther on, a corpse has been +brought in in such a state that they have been obliged--so as not to +lose it on the way--to pile it on a lattice of wire which was then +fastened to the two ends of a stake. Thus was it carried in the hollow +of its metal hammock, and laid there. You cannot make out either end of +the body; alone, in the heap that it makes, one recognizes the gape of +a trouser-pocket. An insect goes in and out of it. + +Around the dead flutter letters that have escaped from pockets or +cartridge pouches while they were being placed on the ground. Over one +of these bits of white paper, whose wings still beat though the mud +ensnares them, I stoop slightly and read a sentence--"My dear Henry, +what a fine day it is for your birthday!" The man is on his belly; his +loins are rent from hip to hip by a deep furrow; his head is half +turned round; we see a sunken eye; and on temples, cheek and neck a +kind of green moss is growing. + +A sickening atmosphere roams with the wind around these dead and the +heaped-up debris, that lies about them--tent-cloth or clothing in +stained tatters, stiff with dried blood, charred by the scorch of the +shell, hardened, earthy and already rotting, quick with swarming and +questing things. It troubles us. We look at each other and shake our +heads, nor dare admit aloud that the place smells bad. All the same, we +go away slowly. + +Now come breaking out of the fog the bowed backs of men who are joined +together by something they are carrying. They are Territorial +stretcher-bearers with a new corpse. They come up with their old wan +faces, toiling, sweating, and grimacing with the effort. To carry a +dead man in the lateral trenches when they are muddy is a work almost +beyond human power. They put down the body, which is dressed in new +clothes. + +"It's not long since, now, that he was standing," says one of the +bearers. "It's two hours since he got his bullet in the head for going +to look for a Boche rifle in the plain. He was going on leave on +Wednesday and wanted to take a rifle home with him. He is a sergeant of +the 405th, Class 1914. A nice lad, too." + +He takes away the handkerchief that is over the face. It is quite +young, and seems to sleep, except that an eyeball has gone, the cheek +looks waxen, and a rosy liquid has run over the nostrils, mouth, and +eyes. + +The body strikes a note of cleanliness in the charnel-house, this still +pliant body that lolls its head aside when it is moved as if to lie +better; it gives a childish illusion of being less dead than the +others. But being less disfigured, it seems more pathetic, nearer to +one, more intimate, as we look. And had we said anything in the +presence of all that heap of beings destroyed, it would have been "Poor +boy!" + +We take the road again, which at this point begins to slope down to the +depth where Souchez lies. Under our feet in the whiteness of the fog it +appears like a valley of frightful misery. The piles of rubbish, of +remains and of filthiness accumulate on the shattered spine of the +road's paving and on its miry borders in final confusion. The trees +bestrew the ground or have disappeared, torn away, their stumps +mangled. The banks of the road are overturned and overthrown by +shell-fire. All the way along, on both sides of this highway where only +the crosses remain standing, are trenches twenty times blown in and +re-hollowed, cavities--some with passages into them--hurdles on +quagmires. + +The more we go forward, the more is everything turned terribly inside +out, full of putrefaction, cataclysmic. We walk on a surface of shell +fragments, and the foot trips on them at every step. We go among them +as if they were snares, and stumble in the medley of broken weapons or +bits of kitchen utensils, of water-bottles, fire-buckets, +sewing-machines, among the bundles of electrical wiring, the French and +German accouterments all mutilated and encrusted in dried mud, and +among the sinister piles of clothing, stuck together with a +reddish-brown cement. And one must look out, too, for the unexploded +shells, which everywhere protrude their noses or reveal their flanks or +their bases, painted red, blue, and tawny brown. + +"That's the old Boche trench, that they cleared out of in the end." It +is choked up in some places, in others riddled with shell-holes. The +sandbags have been torn asunder and gutted; they are crumbled, emptied, +scattered to the wind. The wooden props and beams arc splintered, and +point all ways. The dug-outs are filled to the brim with earth and +with--no one knows what. It is all like the dried bed of a river, +smashed, extended, slimy, that both water and men have abandoned. In +one place the trench has been simply wiped out by the guns. The wide +fosse is blocked, and remains no more than a field of new-turned earth, +made of holes symmetrically bored side by side, in length and in +breadth. + +I point out to Poterloo this extraordinary field, that would seem to +have been traversed by a giant plow. But he is absorbed to his very +vitals in the metamorphosis of the country's face. + +He indicates a space in the plain with his finger, and with a stupefied +air, as though he came out of a dream--"The Red Tavern!" It is a flat +field, carpeted with broken bricks. + +And what is that, there? A milestone? No, it is not a milestone. It is +a head, a black head, tanned and polished. The mouth is all askew, and +you can see something of the mustache bristling on each side--the great +head of a carbonized cat. The corpse--it is German--is underneath, +buried upright. + +"And that?" It is a ghastly collection containing an entirely white +skull, and then, six feet away, a pair of boots, and between the two a +heap of frayed leather and of rags, cemented by brown mud. + +"Come on, there's less fog already. We must hurry." + +A hundred yards in front of us, among the more transparent waves of fog +that are changing places with us and hide us less and less, a shell +whistles and bursts. It has fallen in the spot we are just nearing. We +are descending, and the gradient is less steep. We go side by side. My +companion says nothing, but looks to right and to left. Then he stops +again, as he did at the top of the road. I hear his faltering voice, +almost inaudible--"What's this! We're there--this is it--" + +In point of fact we have not left the plain, the vast plain, seared and +barren--but we are in Souchez! + +The village has disappeared, nor have I seen a village go so +completely. Ablain-Saint-Nazaire, and Carency, these still retained +some shape of a place, with their collapsed and truncated houses, their +yards heaped high with plaster and tiles. Here, within the framework of +slaughtered trees that surrounds us as a spectral background in the +fog, there is no longer any shape. There is not even an end of wall, +fence, or porch that remains standing; and it amazes one to discover +that there are paving-stones under the tangle of beams, stones, and +scrap-iron. This--here--was a street. + +It might have been a dirty and boggy waste near a big town, whose +rubbish of demolished buildings and its domestic refuse had been shot +here for years, till no spot was empty. We plunge into a uniform layer +of dung and debris, and make but slow and difficult progress. The +bombardment has so changed the face of things that it has diverted the +course of the millstream, which now runs haphazard and forms a pond on +the remains of the little place where the cross stood. + +Here are several shell-holes where swollen horses are rotting; in +others the remains of what were once human beings are scattered, +distorted by the monstrous injury of shells. + +Here, athwart the track we are following, that we ascend as through an +avalanche or inundation of ruin, under the unbroken melancholy of the +sky, here is a man stretched out as if he slept, but he has that close +flattening against the ground which distinguishes a dead man from a +sleeper. He is a dinner-fatigue man, with a chaplet of loaves threaded +over a belt, and a bunch of his comrades' water-bottles slung on his +shoulder by a skein of straps. It must have been only last night that +the fragment of a shell caught him in the back. No doubt we are the +first to find him, this unknown soldier secretly dead. Perhaps he will +be scattered before others find him, so we look for his identity +disc--it is stuck in the clotted blood where his right hand stagnates. +I copy down the name that is written in letters of blood. + +Poterloo lets me do it by myself--he is like a sleepwalker. He looks, +and looks in despair, everywhere. He seeks endlessly among those +evanished and eviscerated things; through the void he gazes to the haze +of the horizon. Then he sits down on a beam, having first sent flying +with a kick a saucepan that lay on it, and I sit by his side. A light +drizzle is falling. The fog's moisture is resolving in little drops +that cover everything with a slight gloss. He murmurs, "Ah, la, la!" + +He wipes his forehead and raises imploring eyes to me. He is trying to +make out and take in the destruction of all this corner of the earth, +and the mournfulness of it. He stammers disjointed remarks and +interjections. He takes off his great helmet and his head is smoking. +Then he says to me with difficulty, "Old man, you cannot imagine, you +cannot, you cannot--" + +He whispers: "The Red Tavern, where that--where that Boche's head is, +and litters of beastliness all around, that sort of cesspool--it was on +the edge of the road, a brick house and two out-buildings +alongside--how many times, old man, on the very spot where we stood, +how many times, there, the good woman who joked with me on her +doorstep, I've given her good-day as I wiped my mouth and looked +towards Souchez that I was going back to! And then, after a few steps, +I've turned round to shout some nonsense to her! Oh, you cannot +imagine! But that, now, that!" He makes an inclusive gesture to +indicate all the emptiness that surrounds him. + +"We mustn't stay here too long, old chap. The fog's lifting, you know." + +He stands up with an effort--"Allons." + +The most serious part is yet to come. His house-- + +He hesitates, turns towards the east, goes. "It's there--no, I've +passed it. It's not there. I don't know where it is--or where it was. +Ah, misery, misery!" He wrings his hands in despair and staggers in the +middle of the medley of plaster and bricks. Then, bewildered by this +encumbered plain of lost landmarks, he looks questioningly about in the +air, like a thoughtless child, like a madman. He is looking for the +intimacy of the bedrooms scattered in infinite space, for their inner +form and their twilight now cast upon the winds! + +After several goings and comings, he stops at one spot and draws back a +little--"It was there, I'm right. Look--it's that stone there that I +knew it by. There was a vent-hole there, you can see the mark of the +bar of iron that was over the hole before it disappeared." + +Sniffling he reflects, and gently shaking his head as though he could +not stop it: "It is when you no longer have anything that you +understand how happy you were. Ah, how happy we were!" + +He comes up to me and laughs nervously: "It's out of the common, that, +eh? I'm sure you've never seen yourself like it--can't find the house +where you've always lived since--since always--" + +He turns about, and it is he who leads me away: + +"Well, let's leg it, since there is nothing. Why spend a whole hour +looking at places where things were? Let's be off, old man." + +We depart--the only two living beings to be seen in that unreal and +miasmal place, that village which bestrews the earth and lies under our +feet. + +We climb again. The weather is clearing and the fog scattering quickly. +My silent comrade, who is making great strides with lowered head, +points out a field: "The cemetery," he says; "it was there before it +was everywhere, before it laid hold on everything without end, like a +plague." + +Half-way, we go more slowly, and Poterloo comes close to me-"You know, +it's too much, all that. It's wiped out too much--all my life up to +now. It makes me afraid--it is so completely wiped out." + +"Come; your wife's in good health, you know; your little girl, too." + +He looks at me comically: "My wife--I'll tell you something; my wife--" + +"Well?" + +"Well, old chap, I've seen her again." + +"You've seen her? I thought she was in the occupied country?" + +"Yes, she's at Lens, with my relations. Well, I've seen her--ah, and +then, after all, zut!--I'll tell you all about it. Well, I was at Lens, +three weeks ago. It was the eleventh; that's twenty days since." + +I look at him, astounded. But he looks like one who is speaking the +truth. He talks in sputters at my side, as we walk in the increasing +light-- + +"They told us--you remember, perhaps--but you weren't there, I +believe--they told us the wire had got to be strengthened in front of +the Billard Trench. You know what that means, eh? They hadn't been able +to do it till then. As soon as one gets out of the trench he's on a +downward slope, that's got a funny name." + +"The Toboggan." + +"Yes, that's it; and the place is as bad by night or in fog as in broad +daylight, because of the rifles trained on it before hand on trestles, +and the machine-guns that they point during the day. When they can't +see any more, the Boches sprinkle the lot. + +"They took the pioneers of the C.H.R., but there were some missing, and +they replaced 'em with a few poilus. I was one of 'em. Good. We climb +out. Not a single rifle-shot! 'What does it mean?' we says, and behold, +we see a Boche, two Boches, three Boches, coming out of the ground--the +gray devils!--and they make signs to us and shout 'Kamarad!' 'We're +Alsatians,' they says, coming more and more out of their communication +trench--the International. 'They won't fire on you, up there,' they +says; 'don't be afraid, friends. Just let us bury our dead.' And behold +us working aside of each other, and even talking together since they +were from Alsace. And to tell the truth, they groused about the war and +about their officers. Our sergeant knew all right that it was forbidden +to talk with the enemy, and they'd even read it out to us that we were +only to talk to them with our rifles. But the sergeant he says to +himself that this is God's own chance to strengthen the wire, and as +long as they were letting us work against them, we'd just got to take +advantage of it. + +"Then behold one of the Boches that says, 'There isn't perhaps one of +you that comes from the invaded country and would like news of his +family?' + +"Old chap, that was a bit too much for me. Without thinking if I did +right or wrong, I went up to him and I said, 'Yes, there's me.' The +Boche asks me questions. I tell him my wife's at Lens with her +relations, and the little one, too. He asks where she's staying. I +explain to him, and he says he can see it from there. 'Listen,' he +says, 'I'll take her a letter, and not only that, but I'll bring you an +answer.' Then all of a sudden he taps his forehead, the Boche, and +comes close to me--'Listen, my friend, to a lot better still. If you +like to do what I say, you shall see your wife, and your kids as well, +and all the lot, sure as I see you.' He tells me, to do it, I've only +got to go with him at a certain time with a Boche greatcoat and a shako +that he'll have for me. He'd mix me up in a coal-fatigue in Lens, and +we'd go to our house. I could go and have a look on condition that I +laid low and didn't show myself, and he'd be responsible for the chaps +of the fatigue, but there were non-coms. in the house that he wouldn't +answer for--and, old chap, I agreed!" + +"That was serious." + +"Yes, for sure, it was serious. I decided all at once, without thinking +and without wishing to think, seeing I was dazzled with the idea of +seeing my people again; and if I got shot afterwards, well, so much the +worse--but give and take. The supply of law and demand they call it, +don't they? + +"My boy, it all went swimmingly. The only hitch was they had such hard +work to find a shako big enough, for, as you know, I'm well off for +head. But even that was fixed up. They raked me out in the end a +lousebox big enough to hold my head. I've already some Boche +boots--those that were Caron's, you know. So, behold us setting off in +the Boche trenches--and they're most damnably like ours--with these +good sorts of Boche comrades, who told me in very good French--same as +I'm speaking--not to fret myself. + +"There was no alarm, nothing. Getting there came off all right. +Everything went off so sweet and simple that I fancied I must be a +defaulting Boche. We got to Lens at nightfall. I remember we passed in +front of La Perche and went down the Rue du Quatorze-Juillet. I saw +some of the townsfolk walking about in the streets like they do in our +quarters. I didn't recognize them because of the evening, nor them me, +because of the evening too, and because of the seriousness of things. +It was so dark you couldn't put your finger into your eye when I +reached my folk's garden. + +"My heart was going top speed. I was all trembling from head to foot as +if I were only a sort of heart myself. And I had to hold myself back +from carrying on aloud, and in French too, I was so happy and upset. +The Kamarad says to me, 'You go, pass once, then another time, and look +in at the door and the window. Don't look as if you were looking. Be +careful.' So I get hold of myself again, and swallow my feelings all at +a gulp. Not a bad sort, that devil, seeing he'd have had a hell of a +time if I'd got nailed. + +"At our place, you know, same as everywhere in the Pas de Calais, the +outside doors of the houses are cut in two. At the bottom, it's a sort +of barrier, half-way up your body; and above, you might call it a +shutter. So you can shut the bottom half and be one-half private. + +"The top half was open, and the room, that's the dining-room, and the +kitchen as well, of course, was lighted up and I heard voices. + +"I went by with my neck twisted sideways. There were heads of men and +women with a rosy light on them, round the round table and the lamp. My +eyes fell on her, on Clotilde. I saw her plainly. She was sitting +between two chaps, non-coms., I believe, and they were talking to her. +And what was she doing? Nothing; she was smiling, and her face was +prettily bent forward and surrounded with a light little framework of +fair hair, and the lamp gave it a bit of a golden look. + +"She was smiling. She was contented. She had a look of being well off, +by the side of the Boche officer, and the lamp, and the fire that +puffed an unfamiliar warmth out on me. I passed, and then I turned +round, and passed again. I saw her again, and she was always smiling. +Not a forced smile, not a debtor's smile, non, a real smile that came +from her, that she gave. And during that time of illumination that I +passed in two senses, I could see my baby as well, stretching her hands +out to a great striped simpleton and trying to climb on his knee; and +then, just by, who do you think I recognized? Madeleine Vandaert, +Vandaert's wife, my pal of the 19th, that was killed at the Maine, at +Montyon. + +"She knew he'd been killed because she was in mourning. And she, she +was having good fun, and laughing outright, I tell you--and she looked +at one and the other as much as to say, 'I'm all right here!' + +"Ah, my boy, I cleared out of that, and butted into the Kamarads that +were waiting to take me back. How I got back I couldn't tell you. I was +knocked out. I went stumbling like a man under a curse, and if any-body +had said a wrong word to me just then--! I should have shouted out +loud; I should have made a row, so as to get killed and be done with +this filthy life! + +"Do you catch on? She was smiling, my wife, my Clotilde, at this time +in the war! And why? Have we only got to be away for a time for us not +to count any more? You take your damned hook from home to go to the +war, and everything seems finished with; and they worry for a while +that you're gone, but bit by bit you become as if you didn't exist, +they can do without you to be as happy as they were before, and to +smile. Ah, Christ! I'm not talking of the other woman that was +laughing, but my Clotilde, mine, who at that chance moment when I saw +her, whatever you may say, was getting on damned well without me! + +"And then, if she'd been with friends or relations; but no, actually +with Boche officers! Tell me, shouldn't I have had good reason to jump +into the room, fetch her a couple of swipes, and wring the neck of the +other old hen in mourning? + +"Yes, yes; I thought of doing it. I know all right I was getting +violent, I was getting out of control. + +"Mark me. I don't want to say more about it than I have said. She's a +good lass, Clotilde. I know her, and I've confidence in her. I'm not +far wrong, you know. If I were done in, she'd cry all the tears in her +body to begin with. She thinks I'm alive, I admit, but that isn't the +point. She can't prevent herself from being; well off, and contented, +and letting herself go, when she's a good fire, a good lamp, and +company, whether I'm there or not--" + +I led Poterloo away: "You exaggerate, old chap; you're getting absurd +notions, come." We had walked very slowly and were still at the foot of +the hill. The fog was becoming like silver as it prepared for +departure. Sunshine was very near. + + * * * * * + +Poterloo looked up and said, "We'll go round by the Carency road and go +in at the back." We struck off at an angle into the fields. At the end +of a few minutes he said to me, "I exaggerate, you think? You say that +I exaggerate?" He reflected. "Ah!" Then he added, with the shaking of +the head that had hardly left him all the morning, "What about it? All +the same, it's a fact--" + +We climbed the slope. The cold had become tepidity. Arrived on a little +plateau--"Let's sit here again before going in," he proposed. He sat +down, heavy with the world of thought that entangled him. His forehead +was wrinkled. Then he turned towards me with an awkward air, as if he +were going to beg some favor: "Tell me, mate, I'm wondering if I'm +right." + +But after looking at me, he looked at everything else, as though he +would rather consult them than me. + +A transformation was taking place in the sky and on the earth. The fog +was hardly more than a fancy. Distances revealed themselves. The narrow +plain, gloomy and gray, was getting bigger, chasing its shadows away, +and assuming color. The light was passing over it from east to west +like sails. + +And down there at our very feet, by the grace of distance and of light, +we saw Souchez among the trees--the little place arose again before our +eyes, new-born in the sunshine! + +"Am I right?" repeated Poterloo, more faltering, more dubious. + +Before I could speak he replied to himself, at first almost in a +whisper, as the light fell on him--"She's quite young, you know; she's +twenty-six. She can't hold her youth in, it's coming out of her all +over, and when she's resting in the lamp-light and the warmth, she's +got to smile; and even if she burst out laughing, it would just simply +be her youth, singing in her throat. It isn't on account of others, if +truth were told; it's on account of herself. It's life. She lives. Ah, +yes, she lives, and that's all. It isn't her fault if she lives. You +wouldn't have her die? Very well, what do you want her to do? Cry all +day on account of me and the Boches? Grouse? One can't cry all the +time, nor grouse for eighteen months. Can't be done. It's too long, I +tell you. That's all there is to it." + +He stops speaking to look at the view of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, now +wholly illuminated. + +"Same with the kid; when she found herself alongside a simpleton that +doesn't tell her to go and play with herself, she ends by wanting to +get on his knee. Perhaps she'd prefer that it was her uncle or a friend +or her father--perhaps--but she tries it on all the same with the only +man that's always there, even if it's a great hog in spectacles. + +"Ah," he cries, as he gets up and comes gesticulating before me. +"There's a good answer one could give me. If I didn't come back from +the war, I should say, 'My lad, you've gone to smash, no more Clotilde, +no more love! You'll be replaced in her heart sooner or later; no +getting round it; your memory, the portrait of you that she carries in +her, that'll fade bit by bit and another'll come on top of it, and +she'll begin another life again.' Ah, if I didn't come back!" + +He laughs heartily. "But I mean to come back. Ah, yes! One must be +there. Otherwise--I must be there, look you," he says again more +seriously; "otherwise, if you're not there, even if you're dealing with +saints and angels, you'll be at fault in the end. That's life. But I am +there." He laughs. "Well, I'm a little there, as one might say!" + +I get up too, and tap him on the shoulder. "You're right, old pal, +it'll all come to an end." + +He rubs his hands and goes on talking. "Yes, by God! it'll all finish, +don't worry. Oh, I know well there'll be hard graft before it's +finished, and still more after. We've got to work, and I don't only +mean work with the arms. + +"It'll be necessary to make everything over again. Very well, we'll do +it. The house? Gone. The garden? Nowhere. All right, we'll rebuild the +house, we'll remake the garden. The less there is the more we'll make +over again. After all, it's life, and we're made to remake, eh? And +we'll remake our life together, and happiness. We'll make the days +again; we'll remake the nights. + +"And the other side, too. They'll make their world again. Do you know +what I say?--perhaps it won't be as long as one thinks--" + +"Tiens! I can see Madeleine Vandaert marrying another chap. She's a +widow; but, old man, she's been a widow eighteen months. Do you think +it's not a big slice, that, eighteen months? They even leave off +wearing mourning, I believe, about that time! People don't remember +that when they say 'What a strumpet she is,' and when, in effect, they +ask her to commit suicide. But mon vieux, one forgets. One is forced to +forget. It isn't the people that make you forget; you do it yourself; +it's just forgetfulness, mind you. I find Madeleine again all of a +sudden, and to see her frivvling there it broke me up as much as if her +husband had been killed yesterday--it's natural. But it's a devil of a +long time since he got spiked, poor lad. It's a long time since, it's +too long since. People are no longer the same. But, mark you, one must +come back, one must be there! We shall be there, and we shall be busy +with beginning again!" + +On the way, he looks and winks, cheered up by finding a peg on which to +hang his ideas. He says--"I can see it from here, after the war, all +the Souchez people setting themselves again to work and to life--what a +business! Tiens, Papa Ponce, for example, the back-number! He was so +pernickety that you could see him sweeping the grass in his garden with +a horsehair brush, or kneeling on his lawn and trimming the turf with a +pair of scissors. Very well, he'll treat himself to that again! And +Madame Imaginaire, that lived in one of the last houses towards the +Chateau de Carleul, a large woman who seemed to roll along the ground +as if she'd got casters under her big circular petticoats. She had a +child every year, regular, punctual--a proper machine-gun of kids. Very +well, she'll take that occupation up again with all her might." + +He stops and ponders, and smiles a very little--almost within himself: +"Tiens, I'll tell you; I noticed--it isn't very important, this," he +insists, as though suddenly embarrassed by the triviality of this +parenthesis--"but I noticed (you notice it in a glance when you're +noticing something else) that it was cleaner in our house than in my +time--" + +We come on some little rails in the ground, climbing almost hidden in +the withered grass underfoot. Poterloo points out with his foot this +bit of abandoned track, and smiles; "That, that's our railway. It was a +cripple, as you may say; that means something that doesn't move. It +didn't work very quickly. A snail could have kept pace with it. We +shall remake it. But certainly it won't go any quicker. That can't be +allowed!" + +When we reached the top of the hill, Poterloo turned round and threw a +last look over the slaughtered places that we had just visited. Even +more than a minute ago, distance recreated the village across the +remains of trees shortened and sliced that now looked like young +saplings. Better even than just now, the sun shed on that white and red +accumulation of mingled material an appearance of life and even an +illusion of meditation. Its very stones seemed to feel the vernal +revival. The beauty of sunshine heralded what would be, and revealed +the future. The face of the watching soldier, too, shone with a glamour +of reincarnation, and the smile on it was born of the springtime and of +hope. His rosy cheeks and blue eyes seemed brighter than ever. + +We go down into the communication trench and there is sunshine there. +The trench is yellow, dry, and resounding. I admire its finely +geometrical depth, its shovel-smoothed and shining flanks; and I find +it enjoyable to hear the clean sharp sound of our feet on the hard +ground or on the caillebotis--little gratings of wood, placed end to +end and forming a plankway. + +I look at my watch. It tells me that it is nine o'clock, and it shows +me, too, a dial of delicate color where the sky is reflected in +rose-pink and blue, and the fine fret-work of bushes that are planted +there above the marges of the trench. + +And Poterloo and I look at each other with a kind of confused delight. +We are glad to see each other, as though we were meeting after absence! +He speaks to me, and though I am quite familiar with the singsong +accent of the North, I discover that he is singing. + +We have had bad days and tragic nights in the cold and the rain and the +mud. Now, although it is still winter, the first fine morning shows and +convinces us that it will soon be spring once more. Already the top of +the trench is graced by green young grass, and amid its new-born +quivering some flowers are awakening. It means the end of contracted +and constricted days. Spring is coming from above and from below. We +inhale with joyful hearts; we are uplifted. + +Yes, the bad days are ending. The war will end, too, que diable! And no +doubt it will end in the beautiful season that is coming, that already +illumines us, whose zephyrs already caress us. + +A whistling sound--tiens, a spent bullet! A bullet? Nonsense--it's a +blackbird! Curious how similar the sound was! The blackbirds and the +birds of softer song, the countryside and the pageant of the seasons, +the intimacy of dwelling-rooms, arrayed in light--Oh! the war will end +soon; we shall go back for good to our own; wife, children, or to her +who is at once wife and child, and we smile towards them in this young +glory that already unites us again. + +At the forking of the two trenches, in the open and on the edge, here +is something like a doorway. Two posts lean one upon the other, with a +confusion of electric wires between them, hanging down like tropical +creepers. It looks well. You would say it was a theatrical contrivance +or scene. A slender climbing plant twines round one of the posts, and +as you follow it with your glance, you see that it already dares to +pass from one to the other. + +Soon, passing along this trench whose grassy slopes quiver like the +flanks of a fine horse, we come out into our own trench on the Bethune +road, and here is our place. Our comrades are there, in clusters. They +are eating, and enjoying the goodly temperature. + +The meal finished, we clean our aluminium mess-tins or plates with a +morsel of bread. "Tiens, the sun's going!" It is true; a cloud has +passed over and hidden it. "It's going to splash, my little lads," says +Lamuse "that's our luck all over! Just as we are going off!" + +"A damned country!" says Fouillade. In truth this Northern climate is +not worth much. It drizzles and mizzles, reeks and rains. And when +there is any sun it soon disappears in the middle of this great damp +sky. + +Our four days in the trenches are finished, and the relief will +commence at nightfall. Leisurely we get ready for leaving. We fill and +put aside the knapsacks and bags. We give a rub to the rifles and wrap +them up. + +It is already four o'clock. Darkness is falling quickly, and we grow +indistinct to each other. "Damnation. Here's the rain!" A few drops and +then the downpour. Oh, la, la, la! We don our capes and tent-cloths. We +go back unto the dug-out, dabbling, and gathering mud on our knees, +hands, and elbows, for the bottom of the trench is getting sticky. Once +inside, we have hardly time to light a candle, stuck on a bit of stone, +and to shiver all round--"Come on, en route!" + +We hoist ourselves into the wet and windy darkness outside. I can dimly +see Poterloo's powerful shoulders; in the ranks we are always side by +side. When we get going I call to him, "Are you there, old +chap?"--"Yes, in front of you," he cries to me, turning round. As he +turns he gets a buffet in the face from wind and rain, but he laughs. +His happy face of the morning abides with him. No downpour shall rob +him of the content that he carries in his strong and steadfast heart; +no evil night put out the sunshine that I saw possess his thoughts some +hours ago. + +We march, and jostle each other, and stumble. The rain is continuous, +and water runs in the bottom of the trench. The floor-gratings yield as +the soil becomes soaked; some of them slope to right or left and we +skid on them. In the dark, too, one cannot see them, so we miss them at +the turnings and put our feet into holes full of water. + +Even in the grayness of the night I will not lose sight of the slaty +shine of Poterloo's helmet, which streams like a roof under the +torrent, nor of the broad back that is adorned with a square of +glistening oilskin. I lock my step in his, and from time to time I +question him and he answers me--always in good humor, always serene and +strong. + +When there are no more of the wooden floor-gratings, we tramp in the +thick mud. It is dark now. There is a sudden halt and I am thrown on +Poterloo. Up higher we hear half-angry reproaches--"What the devil, +will you get on? We shall get broken up!" + +"I can't get my trotters unstuck!" replies a pitiful voice. + +The engulfed one gets clear at last, and we have to run to overtake the +rest of the company. We begin to pant and complain, and bluster against +those who are leading. Our feet go down haphazard; we stumble and hold +ourselves up by the walls, so that our hands are plastered with mud. +The march becomes a stampede, full of the noise of metal things and of +oaths. + +In redoubled rain there is a second halt; some one has fallen, and the +hubbub is general. He picks himself up and we are off again. I exert +myself to follow Poterloo's helmet closely that gleams feebly in the +night before my eyes, and I shout from time to time, "All +right?"--"Yes, yes, all right," he replies, puffing and blowing, and +his voice always singsong and resonant. + +Our knapsacks, tossed in this rolling race under the assault of the +elements, drag and hurt our shoulders. + +The trench is blocked by a recent landslide, and we plunge unto it. We +have to tear our feet out of the soft and clinging earth, lifting them +high at each step. Then, when this crossing is laboriously +accomplished, we topple down again into the slippery stream, in the +bottom of which are two narrow ruts, boot-worn, which hold one's foot +like a vice, and there are pools into which it goes with a great +splash. In one place we must stoop very low to pass under a heavy and +glutinous bridge that crosses the trench, and we only get through with +difficulty. It obliges us to kneel in the mud, to flatten ourselves on +the ground, and to crawl on all fours for a few paces. A little farther +there are evolutions to perform as we grasp a post that the sinking of +the ground has set aslope across the middle of the fairway. + +We come to a trench-crossing. "Allons, forward! Look out for +yourselves, boys!" says the adjutant, who has flattened himself in a +corner to let us pass and to speak to us. "This is a bad spot." + +"We're done up," shouts a voice so hoarse that I cannot identify the +speaker. + +"Damn! I've enough of it, I'm stopping here," groans another, at the +end of his wind and his muscle. + +"What do you want me to do?" replies the adjutant, "No fault of mine, +eh? Allons, get a move on, it's a bad spot--it was shelled at the last +relief!" + +We go on through the tempest of wind and water. We seem to be going +ever down and down, as in a pit. We slip and tumble, butt into the wall +of the trench, into which we drive our elbows hard, so as to throw +ourselves upright again. Our going is a sort of long slide, on which we +keep up just how and where we can. What matters is to stumble only +forward, and as straight as possible. + +Where are we? I lift my head, in spite of the billows of rain, out of +this gulf where we are struggling. Against the hardly discernible +background of the buried sky, I can make out the rim of the trench; and +there, rising before my eyes all at once and towering over that rim, is +something like a sinister doorway, made of two black posts that lean +one upon the other, with something hanging from the middle like a +torn-off scalp. It is the doorway. + +"Forward! Forward!" + +I lower my head and see no more; but again I hear the feet that sink in +the mud and come out again, the rattle of the bayonets, the heavy +exclamations, and the rapid breathing. + +Once more there is a violent back-eddy. We pull up sharply, and again I +am thrown upon Poterloo and lean on his back, his strong back and +solid, like the trunk of a tree, like healthfulness and like hope. He +cries to me, "Cheer up, old man, we're there!" + +We are standing still. It is necessary to go back a little--<i>Nom de +Dieu!</i>--no, we are moving on again! + +Suddenly a fearful explosion falls on us. I tremble to my skull; a +metallic reverberation fills my head; a scorching and suffocating smell +of sulphur pierces my nostrils. The earth has opened in front of me. I +feel myself lifted and hurled aside--doubled up, choked, and half +blinded by this lightning and thunder. But still my recollection is +clear; and in that moment when I looked wildly and desperately for my +comrade-in-arms, I saw his body go up, erect and black, both his arms +outstretched to their limit, and a flame in the place of his head! + +------------ + +[note 1:] All these high roads are stone-paved, and traffic is +noisy.--Tr. + + + + +XIII + +The Big Words + + +BARQUE notices that I am writing. He comes towards me on all fours +through the straw and lifts his intelligent face to me, with its +reddish forelock and the little quick eyes over which circumflex +accents fold and unfold them-selves. His mouth is twisting in all +directions, by reason of a tablet of chocolate that he crunches and +chews, while he holds the moist stump of it in his fist. + +With his mouth full, and wafting me the odor of a sweetshop, he +stammers--"Tell me, you writing chap, you'll be writing later about +soldiers, you'll be speaking of us, eh?" + +"Why yes, sonny, I shall talk about you, and about the boys, and about +our life." + +"Tell me, then"--he indicates with a nod the papers on which I have +been making notes. With hovering pencil I watch and listen to him. He +has a question to put to me--"Tell me, then, though you needn't if you +don't want--there's something I want to ask you. This is it; if you +make the common soldiers talk in your book, are you going to make them +talk like they do talk, or shall you put it all straight--into pretty +talk? It's about the big words that we use. For after all, now, besides +falling out sometimes and blackguarding each other, you'll never hear +two poilus open their heads for a minute without saying and repeating +things that the printers wouldn't much like to print. Then what? If you +don't say 'em, your portrait won't be a lifelike one it's as if you +were going to paint them and then left out one of the gaudiest colors +wherever you found it. All the same, it isn't usually done." + +"I shall put the big words in their place, dadda, for they're the +truth." + +"But tell me, if you put 'em in, won't the people of your sort say +you're swine, without worrying about the truth?" + +"Very likely, but I shall do it all the same, without worrying about +those people." + +"Do you want my opinion? Although I know nothing about books, it's +brave to do that, because it isn't usually done, and it'll be spicy if +you dare do it--but you'll find it hard when it comes to it, you're too +polite. That's just one of the faults I've found in you since we've +known each other; that, and also that dirty habit you've got, when +they're serving brandy out to us, you pretend it'll do you harm, and +instead of giving your share to a pal, you go and pour it on your head +to wash your scalp." + + + + +XIV + +Of Burdens + + +AT the end of the yard of the Muets farm, among the outbuildings, the +barn gapes like a cavern. It is always caverns for us, even in houses! +When you have crossed the yard, where the manure yields underfoot with +a spongy sound or have gone round it instead on the narrow paved path +of difficult equilibrium, and when you have arrived at the entrance to +the barn, you can see nothing at all. + +Then, if you persist, you make out a misty hollow where equally misty +and dark lumps are asquat or prone or wandering from one corner to +another. At the back, on the right and on the left, the pale gleams of +two candles, each with the round halo of a distant moon allow you at +last to make out the human shape of these masses, whose mouths emit +either steam or thick smoke. + +Our hazy retreat, which I allow carefully to swallow me whole, is a +scene of excitement this evening. We leave for the trenches to-morrow +morning, and the nebulous tenants of the barn are beginning to pack up. + +Although darkness falls on my eyes and chokes them as I come in from +the pallid evening, I still dodge the snares spread over the ground by +water-bottles, mess-tins and weapons, but I butt full into the loaves +that are packed together exactly in the middle, like the paving of a +yard. I reach my corner. Something alive is there with a huge back, +fleecy and rounded, squatting and stooping over a collection of little +things that glitter on the ground, and I tap the shoulder upholstered +in sheepskin. The being turns round, and by the dull and fitful gleam +of a candle which a bayonet stuck in the ground upholds, I see one half +of a face, an eye, the end of a mustache, and the corner of a half-open +mouth. It growls in a friendly way, and resumes the inspection of its +possessions. + +"What are you doing there?" + +"I'm fixing things, and clearing up." + +The quasi-brigand who appears to be checking his booty, is my comrade +Volpatte. He has folded his tent-cloth in four and placed it on his +bed--that is, on the truss of straw assigned to him--and on this carpet +he has emptied and displayed the contents of his pockets. + +And it is quite a shop that he broods over with a housewife's +solicitous eyes, watchful and jealous, lest some one walks over him. +With my eye I tick off his copious exhibition. + +Alongside his handkerchief, pipe, tobacco-pouch (which also contains a +note-book), knife, purse, and pocket pipe-lighter, which comprise the +necessary and indispensable groundwork, here are two leather laces +twisted like earthworms round a watch enclosed in a case of transparent +celluloid, which has curiously dulled and blanched with age. Then a +little round mirror, and another square one; this last, though broken, +is of better quality, and bevel-edged. A flask of essence of +turpentine, a flask of mineral oil nearly empty, and a third flask, +empty. A German belt-plate, bearing the device, "Gott mit uns"; a +dragoon's tassel of similar origin; half wrapped in paper, an aviator's +arrow in the form of a steel pencil and pointed like a needle; folding +scissors and a combined knife and fork of similar pliancy; a stump of +pencil and one of candle; a tube of aspirin, also containing opium +tablets, and several tin boxes. + +Observing that my inspection of his personal possessions is detailed, +Volpatte helps me to identify certain items-- + +"That, that's a leather officer's glove. I cut the fingers off to stop +up the mouth of my blunderbuss with; that, that's telephone wire, the +only thing to fasten buttons on your greatcoat with if you want 'em to +stay there; and here, inside here, d'you know what that is? White +thread, good stuff, not what you're put off with when they give you new +things, a sort of macaroni au fromage that you pull out with a fork; +and there's a set of needles on a post-card. The safety-pins, they're +there, separate." + +"And here, that's the paper department. Quite a library." + +There is indeed a surprising collection of papers among the things +disgorged by Volpatte's pockets--the violet packet of writing-paper, +whose unworthy printed envelope is out at heels; an Army squad-book, of +which the dirty and desiccated binding, like the skin of an old tramp, +has perished and shrunk all over: a note-book with a chafed moleskin +cover, and packed with papers and photographs, those of his wife and +children enthroned in the middle. + +Out of this bundle of yellowed and darkened papers Volpatte extracts +this photograph and shows it to me once more. I renew acquaintance with +Madame Volpatte and her generous bosom, her mild and mellow features; +and with the two little boys in white collars, the elder slender, the +younger round as a ball. + +"I've only got photos of old people," says Biquet, who is twenty years +old. He shows us a portrait holding it close to the candle, of two aged +people who look at us with the same well-behaved air as Volpatte's +children. + +"I've got mine with me, too," says another; "I always stick to the +photo of the nestlings." + +"Course! Every man carries his crowd along," adds another. + +"It's funny," Barque declares, "a portrait wears itself out just with +being looked at. You haven't got to gape at it too often, or be too +long about it; in the long run, I don't know what happens, but the +likeness mizzles." + +"You're right," says Blaire, "I've found it like that too, exactly.'' + +"I've got a map of the district as well, among my papers," Volpatte +continues. He unfolds it to the light. Illegible and transparent at the +creases, it looks like one of those window-blinds made of squares sewn +together. + +"I've some newspaper too"--he unfolds a newspaper article upon +poilus--"and a book"--a twopence-half-penny novel, called Twice a +Maid--"Tiens, another newspaper cutting from the Etampes Bee. Don't +know why I've kept that, but there must be a reason somewhere. I'll +think about it when I have time. And then, my pack of cards, and a set +of draughts, with a paper board and the pieces made of sealing-wax." + +Barque comes up, regards the scene, and says, "I've a lot more things +than that in my pockets." He addresses himself to Volpatte. "Have you +got a Boche pay-book, louse-head, some phials of iodine, and a +Browning? I've all that, and two knives." + +"I've no revolver," says Volpatte, "nor a Boche pay-book, but I could +have had two knives or even ten knives; but I only need one." + +"That depends," says Barque. "And have you any mechanical buttons, +fathead?" + +"I haven't any," cries Becuwe. + +"The private can't do without 'em," Lamuse asserts. "Without them, to +make your braces stick to your breeches, the game's up." + +"And I've always got in my pocket," says Blaire, "so's they're within +reach, my case of rings." He brings it cut, wrapped up in a gas-mask +bag, and shakes it. The files ring inside, and we hear the jingle of +aluminium rings in the rough. + +"I've always got string," says Biquet, "that's the useful stuff!" + +"Not so useful as nails," says Pepin, and he shows three in his hand, +big, little, and average. + +One by one the others come to join in the conversation, to chaffer and +cadge. We are getting used to the half-darkness. But Corporal Salavert, +who has a well-earned reputation for dexterity, makes a hanging lamp +with a candle and a tray, the latter contrived from a Camembert box and +some wire. We light up, and around its illumination each man tells what +he has in his pockets, with parental preferences and bias. + +"To begin with, how many have we?" + +"How many pockets? Eighteen," says some one--Cocon, of course, the man +of figures. + +"Eighteen pockets! You're codding, rat-nose," says big Lamuse. + +"Exactly eighteen," replies Cocon. "Count them, if you're as clever as +all that." + +Lamuse is willing to be guided by reason in the matter, and putting his +two hands near the light so as to count accurately, he tells off his +great brick-red fingers: Two pockets in the back of the greatcoat; one +for the first-aid packet, which is used for tobacco; two inside the +greatcoat in front; two outside it on each side, with flaps; three in +the trousers, and even three and a half, counting the little one in +front. + +"I'll bet a compass on it," says Farfadet. + +"And I, my bits of tinder." + +"I," says Tirloir, "I'll bet a teeny whistle that my wife sent me when +she said, 'If you're wounded in the battle you must whistle, so that +your comrades will come and save your life.'" + +We laugh at the artless words. Tulacque intervenes, and says +indulgently to Tiloir, "They don't know what war is back there; and if +you started talking about the rear, it'd be you that'd talk rot." + +"We won't count that pocket," says Salavert, "it's too small. That +makes ten." + +"In the jacket, four. That only makes fourteen after all." + +"There are the two cartridge pockets, the two new ones that fasten with +straps." + +"Sixteen," says Salavert. + +"Now, blockhead and son of misery, turn my jacket back. You haven't +counted those two pockets. Now then, what more do you want? And yet +they're just in the usual place. They're your civilian pockets, where +you shoved your nose-rag, your tobacco, and the address where you'd got +to deliver your parcel when you were a messenger." + +"Eighteen!" says Salavert, as grave as a judge. "There are eighteen, +and no mistake; that's done it." + +At this point in the conversation, some one makes a series of noisy +stumbles on the stones of the threshold with the sound of a horse +pawing the ground--and blaspheming. Then, after a silence, the barking +of a sonorous and authoritative voice--"Hey, inside there! Getting +ready? Everything must be fixed up this evening and packed tight and +solid, you know. Going into the first line this time, and we may have a +hot time of it." + +"Right you are, right you are, mon adjutant," heedless voices answer. + +"How do you write 'Arnesse'?" asks Benech, who is on all fours, at work +with a pencil and an envelope. While Cocon spells "Ernest" for him and +the voice of the vanished adjutant is heard afar repeating his +harangue, Blaire picks up the thread, and says-- + +"You should always, my children--listen to what I'm telling you--put +your drinking-cup in your pocket. I've tried to stick it everywhere +else, but only the pocket's really practical, you take my word. If +you're in marching order, or if you've doffed your kit to navigate the +trenches either, you've always got it under your fist when chances +come, like when a pal who's got some gargle, and feels good towards you +says, 'Lend us your cup,' or a peddling wine-seller, either. My young +bucks, listen to what I tell you; you'll always find it good--put your +cup in your pocket." + +"No fear," says Lamuse, "you won't see me put my cup in my pocket; +damned silly idea, no more or less. I'd a sight sooner sling it on a +strap with a hook." + +"Fasten it on a greatcoat button, like the gas-helmet bag, that's a lot +better; for suppose you take off your accouterments and there's any +wine passing, you look soft." + +"I've got a Boche drinking-cup," says Barque; "it's flat, so it goes +into a side pocket if you like, or it goes very well into a +cartridge-pouch, once you've fired the damn things off or pitched them +into a bag." + +"A Boche cup's nothing special," says Pepin; "it won't stand up, it's +just lumber." + +"You wait and see, maggot-snout," says Tirette, who is something of a +psychologist. "If we attack this time, same as the adjutant seemed to +hint, perhaps you'll find a Boche cup, and then it'll be something +special!" + +"The adjutant may have said that," Eudore observes, "but he doesn't +know." + +"It holds more than a half-pint, the Boche cup," remarks Cocon, "seeing +that the exact capacity of the half-pint is marked in the cup +three-quarters way up; and it's always good for you to have a big one, +for if you've got a cup that only just holds a half-pint, then so that +you can get your half-pint of coffee or wine or holy water or what not, +it's get to be filled right up, and they don't ever do it at +serving-out, and if they do, you spill it." + +"I believe you that they don't fill it," says Paradis, exasperated by +the recollection of that ceremony. "The quartermaster-sergeant, he +pours it with his blasted finger in your cup and gives it two raps on +its bottom. Result, you get a third, and your cup's in mourning with +three black bands on top of each other." + +"Yes," says Barque, "that's true; but you shouldn't have a cup too big +either, because the chap that's pouring it out for you, he suspects +you, and let's it go in damned drops, and so as not to give you more +than your measure he gives you less, and you can whistle for it, with +your tureen in your fists." + +Volpatte puts back in his pockets, one by one, the items of his +display. When he came to the purse, he looked at it with an air of deep +compassion. + +"He's damnably flat, poor chap!" He counted the contents. "Three +francs! My boy, I must set about feathering this nest again or I shall +be stony when we get back." + +"You're not the only one that's broken-backed in the treasury." + +"The soldier spends more than he earns, and don't you forget it. I +wonder what'd become of a man that only had his pay?" + +Paradis replies with concise simplicity, "He'd kick the bucket." + +"And see here, look what I've got in my pocket and never let go +of"--Pepin, with merry eyes, shows us some silver table-things. "They +belonged," he says, "to the ugly trollop where we were quartered at +Grand-Rozoy." + +"Perhaps they still belong to her?" + +Pepin made an uncertain gesture, in which pride mingled with modesty; +then, growing bolder, he smiled and said, "I knew her, the old sneak. +Certainly, she'll spend the rest of her life looking in every corner +for her silver things." + +"For my part," says Volpatte, "I've never been able to rake in more +than a pair of scissors. Some people have the luck. I haven't. So +naturally I watch 'em close, though I admit I've no use for 'em." + +"I've pinched a few bits of things here and there, but what of it? The +sappers have always left me behind in the matter of pinching; so what +about it?" + +"You can do what you like, you're always got at by some one in your +turn, eh, my boy? Don't fret about it." + +"I keep my wife's letters," says Blaire. + +"And I send mine back to her." + +"And I keep them, too. Here they are." Eudore exposes a packet of worn +and shiny paper, whose grimy condition the twilight modestly veils. "I +keep them. Sometimes I read them again. When I'm cold and humpy, I read +'em again. It doesn't actually warm you up, but it seems to." + +There must be a deep significance in the curious expression, for +several men raise their heads and say, "Yes, that's so." + +By fits and starts the conversation goes on in the bosom of this +fantastic barn and the great moving shadows that cross it; night is +heaped up in its corners, and pointed by a few scattered and sickly +candles. + +I watch these busy and burdened flitters come and go, outline +themselves strangely, then stoop and slide down to the ground; they +talk to themselves and to each other, their feet are encumbered by the +litter. They are showing their riches to each other. "Tiens, +look!"--"Great!" they reply enviously. + +What they have not got they want. There are treasures among the squad +long coveted by all; the two-liter water-bottle, for instance, +preserved by Barque, that a skillful rifle-shot with a blank cartridge +has stretched to the capacity of two and a half liters; and Bertrand's +famous great knife with the horn handle. + +Among the heaving swarm there are sidelong glances that skim these +curiosities, and then each man resumes "eyes right," devotes himself to +his belongings, and concentrates upon getting it in order. + +They are mournful belongings, indeed. Everything made for the soldier +is commonplace, ugly, and of bad quality; from his cardboard boots, +attached to the uppers by a criss-cross of worthless thread, to his +badly cut, badly shaped, and badly sewn clothes, made of shoddy and +transparent cloth--blotting-paper--that one day of sunshine fades and +an hour of rain wets through, to his emaciated leathers, brittle as +shavings and torn by the buckle spikes, to his flannel underwear that +is thinner than cotton, to his straw-like tobacco. + +Marthereau is beside me, and he points to our comrades: "Look at them, +these poor chaps gaping into their bags o' tricks. You'd say it was a +mothers' meeting, ogling their kids. Hark to 'em. They're calling for +their knick-knacks. Tiens, that one, the times he says 'My knife!' same +as if he was calling 'Lon,' or 'Charles,' or 'Dolphus.' And you know +it's impossible for them to make their load any less. Can't be did. It +isn't that they don't want--our job isn't one that makes us any +stronger, eh? But they can't. Too proud of 'em." + +The burdens to be borne are formidable, and one knows well enough, +parbleu, that every item makes them more severe, each little addition +is one bruise more. + +For it is not merely a matter of what one buries in his pockets and +pouches. To complete the burden there is what one carries on his back. +The knapsack is the trunk and even the cupboard; and the old soldier is +familiar with the art of enlarging it almost miraculously by the +judicious disposal of his household goods and provisions. Besides the +regulation and obligatory contents--two tins of pressed beef, a dozen +biscuits, two tablets of coffee and two packets of dried soup, the bag +of sugar, fatigue smock, and spare boots--we find a way of getting in +some pots of jam, tobacco, chocolate, candles, soft-soled shoes; and +even soap, a spirit lamp, some solidified spirit, and some woolen +things. With the blanket, sheet, tentcloth, trenching-tool, +water-bottle, and an item of the field-cooking kit, [note 1] the burden +gets heavier and taller and wider, monumental and crushing. And my +neighbor says truly that every time he reaches his goal after some +miles of highway and communication trenches, the poilu swears hard that +the next time he'll leave a heap of things behind and give his +shoulders a little relief from the yoke of the knapsack. But every time +he is preparing for departure, he assumes again the same overbearing +and almost superhuman load; he never lets it go, though he curses it +always. + +"There are some bad boys," says Lamuse, "among the shirkers, that find +a way of keeping something in the company wagon or the medical van. I +know one that's got two shirts and a pair of drawers in an adjutant's +canteen [note 2]--but, you see, there's two hundred and fifty chaps in +the company, and they're all up to the dodge and not many of 'em can +profit by it; it's chiefly the non-coms.; the more stripes they've got, +the easier it is to plant their luggage, not forgetting that the +commandant visits the wagons sometimes without warning and fires your +things into the middle of the road if he finds 'em in a horse-box where +they've no business--Be off with you!--not to mention the bully-ragging +and the clink." + +"In the early days it was all right, my boy. There were some +chaps--I've seen 'em--who stuck their bags and even their knapsacks in +baby-carts and pushed 'em along the road." + +"Ah, not half! Those were the good times of the war. But all that's +changed." + +Volpatte, deaf to all the talk, muffled in his blanket as if in a shawl +which makes him look like an old witch, revolves round an object that +lies on the ground. "I'm wondering," he says, addressing no one, +"whether to take away this damned tin stove. It's the only one in the +squad and I've always carried it. Oui, but it leaks like a cullender." +He cannot decide, and makes a really pathetic picture of separation. + +Barque watches him obliquely, and makes fun of him. We hear him say, +"Senile dodderer!" But he pauses in his chaffing to say, "After all, if +we were in his shoes we should be equally fatheaded." + +Volpatte postpones his decision till later. "I'll see about it in the +morning, when I'm loading the camel's back." + +After the inspection and recharging of pockets, it is the turn of the +bags, and then of the cartridge-pouches, and Barque holds forth on the +way to make the regulation two hundred cartridges go into the three +pouches. In the lump it is impossible. They must be unpacked and placed +side by side upright, head against foot. Thus can one cram each pouch +without leaving any space, and make himself a waistband that weighs +over twelve pounds. + +Rifles have been cleaned already. One looks to the swathing of the +breech and the plugging of the muzzle, precautions which trench-dirt +renders indispensable. + +How every rifle can easily be recognized is discussed. "I've made some +nicks in the sling. See, I've cut into the edge." + +"I've twisted a bootlace round the top of the sling, and that way, I +can tell it by touch as well as seeing." + +"I use a mechanical button. No mistake about that. In the dark I can +find it at once and say, 'That's my pea-shooter. Because, you know, +there are some boys that don't bother themselves; they just roll around +while the pals are cleaning theirs, and then they're devilish quick at +putting a quiet fist on a popgun that's been cleaned; and then after +they've even the cheek to go and say, 'Mon capitaine, I've got a rifle +that's a bit of all right.' I'm not on in that act. It's the D system, +my old wonder--a damned dirty dodge, and there are times when I'm fed +up with it, and more." + +And thus, though their rifles are all alike, they are as different as +their handwriting. + + * * * * * + +"It's curious and funny," says Marthereau to me "we're going up to the +trenches to-morrow, and there's nobody drunk yet, nor that way +inclined. Ah, I don't say," he concedes at once, "but what those two +there aren't a bit fresh, nor a little elevated; without being +absolutely blind, they're somewhat boozed, pr'aps--" + +"It's Poitron and Poilpot, of Broyer's squad." + +They are lying down and talking in a low voice. We can make out the +round nose of one, which stands out equally with his mouth, close by a +candle, and with his hand, whose lifted finger makes little explanatory +signs, faithfully followed by the shadow it casts. + +"I know how to light a fire, but I don't know how to light it again +when it's gone out," declares Poitron. + +"Ass!" says Poilpot, "if you know how to light it you know how to +relight it, seeing that if you light it, it's because it's gone out, +and you might say that you're relighting it when you're lighting it." + +"That's all rot. I'm not mathematical, and to hell with the gibberish +you talk. I tell you and I tell you again that when it comes to +lighting a fire, I'm there, but to light it again when it's gone out, +I'm no good. I can't speak any straighter than that." + +I do not catch the insistent retort of Poilpot, but--"But, you damned +numskull," gurgles Poitron, "haven't I told you thirty times that I +can't? You must have a pig's head, anyway!" + +Marthereau confides to me, "I've heard about enough of that." Obviously +he spoke too soon just now. + +A sort of fever, provoked by farewell libations, prevails in the +wretched straw-spread hole where our tribe--some upright and hesitant, +others kneeling and hammering like colliers--is mending, stacking, and +subduing its provisions, clothes, and tools. There is a wordy growling, +a riot of gesture. From the smoky glimmers, rubicund faces start forth +in relief, and dark hands move about in the shadows like marionettes. +In the barn next to ours, and separated from it only by a wall of a +man's height, arise tipsy shouts. Two men in there have fallen upon +each other with fierce violence and anger. The air is vibrant with the +coarsest expressions the human ear ever hears. But one of the +disputants, a stranger from another squad, is ejected by the tenants, +and the flow of curses from the other grows feebler and expires. + +"Same as us," says Marthereau with a certain pride, "they hold +themselves in!" + +It is true. Thanks to Bertrand, who is possessed by a hatred of +drunkenness, of the fatal poison that gambles with multitudes, our +squad is one of the least befouled by wine and brandy. + +They are shouting and singing and talking all around. And they laugh +endlessly, for in the human mechanism laughter is the sound of wheels +that work, of deeds that are done. + +One tries to fathom certain faces that show up in provocative relief +among this menagerie of shadows, this aviary of reflections. But one +cannot. They are visible, but you can see nothing in the depth of them. + + * * * * * + +"Ten o'clock already, friends," says Bertrand. "We'll finish the +camel's humps off to-morrow. Time for by-by." Each one then slowly +retires to rest, but the jabbering hardly pauses. Man takes all things +easily when he is under no obligation to hurry. The men go to and fro, +each with some object in his hand, and along the wall I watch Eudore's +huge shadow gliding, as he passes in front of a candle with two little +bags of camphor hanging from the end of his fingers. + +Lamuse is throwing himself about in search of a good position; he seems +ill at ease. To-day, obviously, and whatever his capacity may be, he +has eaten too much. + +"Some of us want to sleep! Shut them up, you lot of louts!" cries +Mesnil Joseph from his litter. + +This entreaty has a subduing effect for a moment, but does not stop the +burble of voices nor the passing to and fro. + +"We're going up to-morrow, it's true," says Paradis, "and in the +evening we shall go into the first line. But nobody's thinking about +it. We know it, and that's all." + +Gradually each has regained his place. I have stretched myself on the +straw, and Marthereau wraps himself up by my side. + +Enter an enormous bulk, taking great pains not to make a noise. It is +the field-hospital sergeant, a Marist Brother, a huge bearded simpleton +in spectacles. When he has taken off his greatcoat and appears in his +jacket, you are conscious that he feels awkward about showing his legs. +We see that it hurries discreetly, this silhouette of a bearded +hippopotamus. He blows, sighs, and mutters. + +Marthereau indicates him with a nod of his head, and says to me, "Look +at him. Those chaps have always got to be talking fudge. When we ask +him what he does in civil life, he won't say 'I'm a school teacher' he +says, leering at you from under his specs with the half of his eyes, +'I'm a professor.' When he gets up very early to go to mass, he says, +'I've got belly-ache, I must go and take a turn round the corner and no +mistake.'" + +A little farther off, Papa Ramure is talking of his homeland: "Where I +live, it's just a bit of a hamlet, no great shakes. There's my old man +there, seasoning pipes all day long; whether he's working or resting, +he blows his smoke up to the sky or into the smoke of the stove." + +I listen to this rural idyll, and it takes suddenly a specialized and +technical character: "That's why he makes a paillon. D'you know what a +paillon is? You take a stalk of green corn and peel it. You split it in +two and then in two again, and you have different sizes. Then with a +thread and the four slips of straw, he goes round the stem of his +pipe--" + +The lesson ceases abruptly, there being no apparent audience. + +There are only two candles alight. A wide wing of darkness overspreads +the prostrate collection of men. + +Private conversation still flickers along the primitive dormitory, and +some fragments of it reach my ears. Just now, Papa Ramure is abusing +the commandant. + +"The commandant, old man, with his four bits of gold string, I've +noticed he don't know how to smoke. He sucks all out at his pipes, and +he burns 'em. It isn't a mouth he's got in his head, it's a snout. The +wood splits and scorches, and instead of being wood, it's coal. Clay +pipes, they'll stick it better, but he roasts 'em brown all the same. +Talk about a snout! So, old man, mind what I'm telling you, he'll come +to what doesn't ever happen often; through being forced to get +white-hot and baked to the marrow, his pipe'll explode in his nose +before everybody. You'll see." + +Little by little, peace, silence, and darkness take possession of the +barn and enshroud the hopes and the sighs of its occupants. The lines +of identical bundles formed by these beings rolled up side by side in +their blankets seem a sort of huge organ, which sends forth diversified +snoring. + +With his nose already in his blanket, I hear Marthereau talking to me +about himself: "I'm a buyer of rags, you know," he says, "or to put it +better, a rag merchant. But me, I'm wholesale; I buy from the little +rag-and-bone men of the streets, and I have a shop--a warehouse mind +you!--which I use as a depot. I deal in all kinds of rags, from linen +to jam-pots, but principally brush-handles, sacks, and old shoes; and +naturally, I make a specialty of rabbit-skins." + +And a little later I still hear him: "As for me, little and +queer-shaped as I am, all the same I can carry a bin of two hundred +pounds' weight to the warehouse, up the steps, and my feet in sabots. +Once I had a to-do with a person--" + +"What I can't abide," cries Fouillade, all of a sudden, "is the +exercises and marches they give us when we're resting. My back's +mincemeat, and I can't get a snooze even, I'm that cramped." + +There is a metallic noise in Volpatte's direction. He has decided to +take the stove, though he chides it constantly for the fatal fault of +its perforations. + +One who is but half asleep groans, "Oh, la, la! When will this war +finish!" + +A cry of stubborn and mysterious rebellion bursts forth--"They'd take +the very skin off us!" + +There follows a single, "Don't fret yourself!" as darkly inconsequent +as the cry of revolt. + +I wake up a long time afterwards, as two o'clock is striking; and in a +pallor of light which doubtless comes from the moon, I see the agitated +silhouette of Pinegal. A cock has crowed afar. Pinegal raises himself +halfway to a sitting position, and I hear his husky voice: "Well now, +it's the middle of the night, and there's a cock loosing his jaw. He's +blind drunk, that cock." He laughs, and repeats, "He's blind, that +cock," and he twists himself again into the woolens, and resumes his +slumber with a gurgle in which snores are mingled with merriment. + +Cocon has been wakened by Pinegal. The man of figures therefore thinks +aloud, and says: "The squad had seventeen men when it set off for the +war. It has seventeen also at present, with the stop-gaps. Each man has +already worn out four greatcoats, one of the original blue, and three +cigar-smoke blue, two pairs of trousers and six pairs of boots. One +must count two rifles to each man, but one can't count the overalls. +Our emergency rations have been renewed twenty-three times. Among us +seventeen, we've been mentioned fourteen times in Army Orders, of which +two were to the Brigade, four to the Division, and one to the Army. +Once we stayed sixteen days in the trenches without relief. We've been +quartered and lodged in forty-seven different villages up to now. Since +the beginning of the campaign, twelve thousand men have passed through +the regiment, which consists of two thousand." + +A strange lisping noise interrupts him. It comes from Blaire, whose new +ivories prevent him from talking as they also prevent him from eating. +But he puts them in every evening, and retains them all night with +fierce determination, for he was promised that in the end he would grow +accustomed to the object they have put into his head. + +I raise myself on my elbow, as on a battlefield, and look once more on +the beings whom the scenes and happenings of the times have rolled up +all together. I look at them all, plunged in the abyss of passive +oblivion, some of them seeming still to be absorbed in their pitiful +anxieties, their childish instincts, and their slave-like ignorance. + +The intoxication of sleep masters me. But I recall what they have done +and what they will do; and with that consummate picture of a sorry +human night before me, a shroud that fills our cavern with darkness, I +dream of some great unknown light. + +------------ + +[note 1] There is a complete set for each squad--stoves, canvas +buckets, coffee-mill, pan, etc--and each man carries some item on +march.--Tr. + +[note 2] Cantine vivres, chest containing two days' rations and cooking +utensils for four or five officers.--Tr. + + + + +XV + +The Egg + + +WE were badly off, hungry and thirsty; and in these wretched quarters +there was nothing! + +Something had gone wrong with the revictualing department and our wants +were becoming acute. Where the sorry place surrounded them, with its +empty doors, its bones of houses, and its bald-headed telegraph posts, +a crowd of hungry men were grinding their teeth and confirming the +absence of everything:--"The juice has sloped and the wine's up the +spout, and the bully's zero. Cheese? Nix. Napoo jam, napoo butter on +skewers." + +"We've nothing, and no error, nothing; and play hell as you like, it +doesn't help." + +"Talk about rotten quarters! Three houses with nothing inside but +draughts and damp." + +"No good having any of the filthy here, you might as well have only the +skin of a bob in your purse, as long as there's nothing to buy." + +"You might be a Rothschild, or even a military tailor, but what use'd +your brass be?" + +"Yesterday there was a bit of a cat mewing round where the 7th are. I +feel sure they've eaten it." + +"Yes, there was; you could see its ribs like rocks on the sea-shore." + +"There were some chaps," says Blaire, "who bustled about when they got +here and managed to find a few bottles of common wine at the bacca-shop +at the corner of the street." + +"Ah, the swine! Lucky devils to be sliding that down their necks." + +"It was muck, all the same, it'd make your cup as black as your +baccy-pipe." + +"There are some, they say, who've swallowed a fowl." + +"Damn," says Fouillade. + +"I've hardly had a bite. I had a sardine left, and a little tea in the +bottom of a bag that I chewed up with some sugar." + +"You can't even have a bit of a drunk--it's off the map." + +"And that isn't enough either, even when you're not a big eater and +you're got a communication trench as flat as a pancake." + +"One meal in two days--a yellow mess, shining like gold, no broth and +no meat--everything left behind." + +"And worst of all we've nothing to light a pipe with." + +"True, and that's misery. I haven't a single match. I had several bits +of ends, but they've gone. I've hunted in vain through all the pockets +of my flea-case--nix. As for buying them it's hopeless, as you say." + +"I've got the head of a match that I'm keeping." It is a real hardship +indeed, and the sight is pitiful of the poilus who cannot light pipe or +cigarette but put them away in their pockets and stroll in resignation. +By good fortune, Tirloir has his petrol pipe-lighter and it still +contains a little spirit. Those who are aware of it gather round him, +bringing their pipes packed and cold. There is not even any paper to +light, and the flame itself must be used until the remaining spirit in +its tiny insect's belly is burned. + +As for me, I've been lucky, and I see Paradis wandering about, his +kindly face to the wind, grumbling and chewing a bit of wood. "Tiens," +I say to him, "take this." + +"A box of matches!" he exclaims amazed, looking at it as one looks at a +jewel. "Egad! That's capital! Matches!" + +A moment later we see him lighting his pipe, his face saucily sideways +and splendidly crimsoned by the reflected flame, and everybody shouts, +"Paradis' got some matches!" + +Towards evening I meet Paradis near the ruined triangle of a +house-front at the corner of the two streets of this most miserable +among villages. + +He beckons to me. "Hist!" He has a curious and rather awkward air. + +"I say," he says to me affectionately, but looking at his feet, "a bit +since, you chucked me a box of flamers. Well, you're going to get a bit +of your own back for it. Here!" + +He puts something in my hand. "Be careful!" he whispers, "it's fragile!" + +Dazzled by the resplendent purity of his present, hardly even daring to +believe my eyes, I see--an egg! + + + + +XVI + +An Idyll + + +"REALLY and truly," said Paradis, my neighbor in the ranks, "believe me +or not, I'm knocked out--I've never before been so paid on a march as I +have been with this one, this evening." + +His feet were dragging, and his square shoulders bowed under the burden +of the knapsack, whose height and big irregular outline seemed almost +fantastic. Twice he tripped and stumbled. + +Paradis is tough. But he had been running up and down the trench all +night as liaison man while the others were sleeping, so he had good +reason to be exhausted and to growl "Quoi? These kilometers must be +made of india-rubber, there's no way out of it." + +Every three steps he hoisted his knapsack roughly up with a hitch of +his hips, and panted under its dragging; and all the heap that he made +with his bundles tossed and creaked like an overloaded wagon. + +"We're there," said a non-com. + +Non-coms. always say that, on every occasion. But--in spite of the +non-com.'s declaration--we were really arriving in a twilight village +which seemed to be drawn in white chalk and heavy strokes of black upon +the blue paper of the sky, where the sable silhouette of the church--a +pointed tower flanked by two turrets more slender and more sharp--was +that of a tall cypress. + +But the soldier, even when he enters the village where he is to be +quartered, has not reached the end of his troubles. It rarely happens +that either the squad or the section actually lodges in the place +assigned to them, and this by reason of misunderstandings and cross +purposes which tangle and disentangle themselves on the spot; and it is +only after several quarter-hours of tribulation that each man is led to +his actual shelter of the moment. + +So after the usual wanderings we were admitted to our night's +lodging--a roof supported by four posts, and with the four quarters of +the compass for its walls. But it was a good roof--an advantage which +we could appreciate. It was already sheltering a cart and a plow, and +we settled ourselves by them. Paradis, who had fumed and complained +without ceasing during the hour we had spent in tramping to and fro, +threw down his knapsack and then himself, and stayed there awhile, +weary to the utmost, protesting that his limbs were benumbed, that the +soles of his feet were painful, and indeed all the rest of him. + +But now the house to which our hanging roof was subject, the house +which stood just in front of us, was lighted up. Nothing attracts a +soldier in the gray monotony of evening so much as a window whence +beams the star of a lamp. + +"Shall we have a squint?" proposed Volpatte. + +"So be it," said Paradis. He gets up gradually, and hobbling with +weariness, steers himself towards the golden window that has appeared +in the gloom, and then towards the door. Volpatte follows him, and I +Volpatte. + +We enter, and ask the old man who has let us in and whose twinkling +head is as threadbare as an old hat, if he has any wine to sell. + +"No," replies the old man, shaking his head, where a little white fluff +crops out in places. + +"No beer? No coffee? Anything at all--" + +"No, mes amis, nothing of anything. We don't belong here; we're +refugees, you know." + +"Then seeing there's nothing, we'll be off." We right-about face. At +least we have enjoyed for a moment the warmth which pervades the house +and a sight of the lamp. Already Volpatte has gained the threshold and +his back is disappearing in the darkness. + +But I espy an old woman, sunk in the depths of a chair in the other +corner of the kitchen, who appears to have some busy occupation. + +I pinch Paradis' arm. "There's the belle of the house. Shall we pay our +addresses to her?" + +Paradis makes a gesture of lordly indifference. He has lost interest in +women--all those he has seen for a year and a half were not for him; +and moreover, even when they would like to be his, he is equally +uninterested. + +"Young or old--pooh!" he says to me, beginning to yawn. For want of +something to do and to lengthen the leaving, he goes up to the +goodwife. "Good-evening, gran'ma," he mumbles, finishing his yawn. + +"Good-evening, mes enfants," quavers the old dame. So near, we see her +in detail. She is shriveled, bent and bowed in her old bones, and the +whole of her face is white as the dial of a clock. + +And what is she doing? Wedged between her chair and the edge of the +table she is trying to clean some boots. It is a heavy task for her +infantile hands; their movements are uncertain, and her strokes with +the brush sometimes go astray. The boots, too, are very dirty indeed. + +Seeing that we are watching her, she whispers to us that she must +polish them well, and this evening too, for they are her little girl's +boots, who is a dressmaker in the town and goes off first thing in the +morning. + +Paradis has stooped to look at the boots more closely, and suddenly he +puts his hand out towards them. "Drop it, gran'ma; I'll spruce up your +lass's trotter-cases for you in three secs." + +The old woman lodges an objection by shaking her head and her +shoulders. But Paradis takes the boots with authority, while the +grandmother, paralyzed by her weakness, argues the question and opposes +us with shadowy protest. + +Paradis has taken a boot in each hand; he holds them gingerly and looks +at them for a moment, and you would even say that he was squeezing them +a little. + +"Aren't they small!" he says in a voice which is not what we hear in +the usual way. + +He has secured the brushes as well, and sets himself to wielding them +with zealous carefulness. I notice that he is smiling, with his eyes +fixed on his work. + +Then, when the mud has gone from the boots, he takes some polish on the +end of the double-pointed brush and caresses them with it intently. + +They are dainty boots--quite those of a stylish young lady; rows of +little buttons shine on them. + +"Not a single button missing," he whispers to me, and there is pride in +his tone. + +He is no longer sleepy; he yawns no more. On the contrary, his lips are +tightly closed; a gleam of youth and spring-time lights up his face; +and he who was on the point of going to sleep seems just to have woke +up. + +And where the polish has bestowed a beautiful black his fingers move +over the body of the boot, which opens widely in the upper part and +betrays--ever such a little--the lower curves of the leg. His fingers, +so skilled in polishing, are rather awkward all the same as they turn +the boots over and turn them again, as he smiles at them and +ponders--profoundly and afar--while the old woman lifts her arms in the +air and calls me to witness "What a very kind soldier!" he is. + +It is finished. The boots are cleaned and finished off in style; they +are like mirrors. Nothing is left to do. + +He puts them on the edge of the table, very carefully, as if they were +saintly relics; then at last his hands let them go. But his eyes do not +at once leave them. He looks at them, and then lowering his head, he +looks at his own boots. I remember that while he made this comparison +the great lad--a hero by destiny, a Bohemian, a monk--smiled once more +with all his heart. + +The old woman was showing signs of activity in the depths of her chair; +she had an idea. "I'll tell her! She shall thank you herself, monsieur! +Hey, Josephine!" she cried, turning towards a door. + +But Paradis stopped her with an expansive gesture which I thought +magnificent. "No, it's not worth while, gran'ma; leave her where she +is. We're going. We won't trouble her, allez!" + +Such decision sounded in his voice that it carried authority, and the +old woman obediently sank into inactivity and held her peace. + +We went away to our bed under the wall-less roof, between the arms of +the plow that was waiting for us. And then Paradis began again to yawn; +but by the light of the candle in our crib, a full minute later, I saw +that the happy smile remained yet on his face. + + + + +XVII + +In the Sap + + +IN the excitement of a distribution of letters from which the squad +were returning--some with the delight of a letter, some with the +semi-delight of a postcard, and others with a new load (speedily +reassumed) of expectation and hope--a comrade comes with a brandished +newspaper to tell us an amazing story--"Tu sais, the weasel-faced +ancient at Gauchin?" + +"The old boy who was treasure-seeking?" + +"Well, he's found it!" + +"Gerraway!" + +"It's just as I tell you, you great lump! What would you like me to say +to you? Mass? Don't know it. Anyway, the yard of his place has been +bombed, and a chest full of money was turned up out of the ground near +a wall. He got his treasure full on the back. And now the parson's +quietly cut in and talks about claiming credit for the miracle." + +We listen open-mouthed. "A treasure--well! well! The old bald-head!" + +The sudden revelation plunges us in an abyss of reflection. "And to +think how damned sick we were of the old cackler when he made such a +song about his treasure and dinned it into our ears!" + +"We were right enough down there, you remember, when we were saying +'One never knows.' Didn't guess how near we were to being right, +either." + +"All the same, there are some things you can be sure of," says +Farfadet, who as soon as Gauchin was mentioned had remained dreaming +and distant, as though a lovely face was smiling on him. "But as for +this," he added, "I'd never have believed it either! Shan't I find him +stuck up, the old ruin, when I go back there after the war!" + + * * * * * + +"They want a willing man to help the sappers with a job," says the big +adjutant. + +"Not likely!" growl the men, without moving. + +"It'll be of use in relieving the boys," the adjutant goes on. + +With that the grumbling ceases, and several heads are raised. "Here!" +says Lamuse. + +"Get into your harness, big 'un, and come with me." Lamuse buckles on +his knapsack, rolls up his blanket, and fetters his pouches. Since his +seizure of unlucky affection was allayed, he has become more melancholy +than before, and although a sort of fatality makes him continually +stouter, he has become engrossed and isolated, and rarely speaks. + +In the evening something comes along the trench, rising and falling +according to the lumps and holes in the ground; a shape that seems in +the shadows to be swimming, that outspreads its arms sometimes, as +though appealing for help. It is Lamuse. + +He is among us again, covered with mold and mud. He trembles and +streams with sweat, as one who is afraid. His lips stir, and he gasps, +before they can shape a word. + +"Well, what is there?" we ask him vainly. + +He collapses in a corner among us and prostrates himself. We offer him +wine, and he refuses it with a sign. Then he turns towards me and +beckons me with a movement of his head. + +When I am by him he whispers to me, very low, and as if in church, "I +have seen Eudoxie again." He gasps for breath, his chest wheezes, and +with his eyeballs fast fixed upon a nightmare, he says, "She was +putrid." + +"It was the place we'd lost," Lamuse went on, "and that the Colonials +took again with the bayonet ten days ago. + +"First we made a hole for the sap, and I was in at it, since I was +scooping more than the others I found myself in front. The others were +widening and making solid behind. But behold I find a jumble of beams. +I'd lit on an old trench, caved in, 'vidently; half caved in--there was +some space and room. In the middle of those stumps of wood all mixed +together that I was lifting away one by one from in front of me, there +was something like a big sandbag in height, upright, and something on +the top of it hanging down. + +"And behold a plank gives way, and the queer sack falls on me, with its +weight on top. I was pegged down, and the smell of a corpse filled my +throat--on the top of the bundle there was a head, and it was the hair +that I'd seen hanging down. + +"You understand, one couldn't see very well; but I recognized the hair +'cause there isn't any other like it in the world, and then the rest of +the face, all stove in and moldy, the neck pulped, and all the lot dead +for a month perhaps. It was Eudoxie, I tell you. + +"Yes, it was the woman I could never go near before, you know--that I +only saw a long way off and couldn't ever touch, same as diamonds. She +used to run about everywhere, you know. She used even to wander in the +lines. One day she must have stopped a bullet, and stayed there, dead +and lost, until the chance of this sap. + +"You clinch the position? I was forced to hold her up with one arm as +well as I could, and work with the other. She was trying to fall on me +with all her weight. Old man, she wanted to kiss me, and I didn't +want--it was terrible. She seemed to be saying to me, 'You wanted to +kiss me, well then, come, come now!' She had on her--she had there, +fastened on, the remains of a bunch of flowers, and that was rotten, +too, and the posy stank in my nose like the corpse of some little beast. + +"I had to take her in my arms, in both of them, and turn gently round +so that I could put her down on the other side. The place was so narrow +and pinched that as we turned, for a moment, I hugged her to my breast +and couldn't help it. With all my strength, old chap, as I should have +hugged her once on a time if she'd have let me. + +"I've been half an hour cleaning myself from the touch of her and the +smell that she breathed on me in spite of me and in spite of herself. +Ah, lucky for me that I'm as done up as a wretched cart-horse!" + +He turns over on his belly, clenches his fists, and slumbers, with his +face buried in the ground and his dubious dream of passion and +corruption. + + + + +XVIII + +A Box of Matches + + +IT is five o'clock in the evening. Three men are seen moving in the +bottom of the gloomy trench. Around their extinguished fire in the +dirty excavation they are frightful to see, black and sinister. Rain +and negligence have put their fire out, and the four cooks are looking +at the corpses of brands that are shrouded in ashes and the stumps of +wood whence the flame has flown. + +Volpatte staggers up to the group and throws down the black mass that +he had on his shoulder. "I've pulled it out of a dug-out where it won't +show much." + +"We have wood," says Blaire, "but we've got to light it. Otherwise, how +are we going to cook this cab-horse?" + +"It's a fine piece," wails a dark-faced man, "thin flank. In my belief, +that's the best bit of the beast, the flank." + +"Fire?" Volpatte objects, "there are no more matches, no more anything." + +"We must have fire," growls Poupardin, whose indistinct bulk has the +proportions of a bear as he rolls and sways in the dark depths of our +cage. + +"No two ways about it, we've got to have it," Pepin agrees. He is +coming out of a dug-out like a sweep out of a chimney. His gray mass +emerges and appears, like night upon evening. + +"Don't worry; I shall get some," declares Blaire in a concentrated tone +of angry decision. He has not been cook long, and is keen to show +himself quite equal to adverse conditions in the exercise of his +functions. + +He spoke as Martin Cesar used to speak when he was alive. His aim is to +resemble the great legendary figure of the cook who always found ways +for a fire, just as others, among the non-coms., would fain imitate +Napoleon. + +"I shall go if it's necessary and fetch every bit of wood there is at +Battalion H.Q. I shall go and requisition the colonel's matches--I +shall go--" + +"Let's go and forage." Poupardin leads the way. His face is like the +bottom of a saucepan that the fire has gradually befouled. As it is +cruelly cold, he is wrapped up all over. He wears a cape which is half +goatskin and half sheepskin, half brown and half whitish, and this +twofold skin of tints geometrically cut makes him like some strange +occult animal. + +Pepin has a cotton cap so soiled and so shiny with grease that it might +be made of black silk. Volpatte, inside his Balaklava and his fleeces, +resembles a walking tree-trunk. A square opening betrays a yellow face +at the top of the thick and heavy bark of the mass he makes, which is +bifurcated by a couple of legs. + +"Let's look up the 10th. They've always got the needful. They're on the +Pylones road, beyond the Boyau-Neuf." + +The four alarming objects get under way, cloud-shape, in the trench +that unwinds itself sinuously before them like a blind alley, unsafe, +unlighted, and unpaved. It is uninhabited, too, in this part, being a +gangway between the second lines and the first lines. + +In the dusty twilight two Moroccans meet the fire-questing cooks. One +has the skin of a black boot and the other of a yellow shoe. Hope +gleams in the depths of the cooks' hearts. + +"Matches, boys?" + +"Napoo," replies the black one, and his smile reveals his long +crockery-like teeth in his cigar-colored mouth of moroccan leather. + +In his turn the yellow one advances and asks, "Tobacco? A bit of +tobacco?" And he holds out his greenish sleeve and his great hard paw, +in which the cracks are full of brown dirt, and the nails purplish. + +Pepin growls, rummages in his clothes, and pulls out a pinch of +tobacco, mixed with dust, which he hands to the sharpshooter. + +A little farther they meet a sentry who is half asleep--in the middle +of the evening--on a heap of loose earth. The drowsy soldier says, +"It's to the right, and then again to the right, and then straight +forward. Don't go wrong about it." + +They march--for a long time. "We must have come a long way," says +Volpatte, after half an hour of fruitless paces and encloistered +loneliness. + +"I say, we're going downhill a hell of a lot, don't you think?" asks +Blaire. + +"Don't worry, old duffer," scoffs Pepin, "but if you've got cold feet +you can leave us to it." + +Still we tramp on in the falling night. The ever-empty trench--a desert +of terrible length--has taken a shabby and singular appearance. The +parapets are in ruins; earthslides have made the ground undulate in +hillocks. + +An indefinite uneasiness lays hold of the four huge fire-hunters, and +increases as night overwhelms them in this monstrous road. + +Pepin, who is leading just now, stands fast and holds up his hand as a +signal to halt. "Footsteps," they say in a sobered tone. + +Then, and in the heart of them, they are afraid. It was a mistake for +them all to leave their shelter for so long. They are to blame. And one +never knows. + +"Get in there, quick, quick!" says Pepin, pointing to a right-angled +cranny on the ground level. + +By the test of a hand, the rectangular shadow is proved to be the entry +to a funk-hole. They crawl in singly; and the last one, impatient, +pushes the others; they become an involuntary carpet in the dense +darkness of the hole. + +A sound of steps and of voices becomes distinct and draws nearer. From +the mass of the four men who tightly hung up the burrow, tentative +hands are put out at a venture. All at once Pepin murmurs in a stifled +voice, "What's this?" + +"What?" ask the others, pressed and wedged against him. + +"Clips!" says Pepin under his breath, "Boche cartridge-clips on the +shelf! We're in the Boche trench!" + +"Let's hop it." Three men make a jump to get out. + +"Look out, bon Dieu! Don't stir!--footsteps--" + +They hear some one walking, with the quick step of a solitary man. They +keep still and hold their breath. With their eyes fixed on the ground +level, they see the darkness moving on the right, and then a shadow +with legs detaches itself, approaches, and passes. The shadow assumes +an outline. It is topped by a helmet covered with a cloth and rising to +a point. There is no other sound than that of his passing feet. + +Hardly has the German gone by when the four cooks, with no concerted +plan and with a single movement, burst forth, jostling each other, run +like madmen, and hurl themselves on him. + +"Kamerad, messieurs!" he says. + +But the blade of a knife gleams and disappears. The man collapses as if +he would plunge into the ground. Pepin seizes the helmet as the Boche +is failing and keeps it in his hand. + +"Let's leg it," growls the voice of Poupardin. + +"Got to search him first!" + +They lift him and turn him over, and set the soft, damp and warm body +up again. Suddenly he coughs. + +"He isn't dead!"--"Yes, he is dead; that's the air." + +They shake him by the pockets; with hasty breathing the four black men +stoop over their task. "The helmet's mine," says Pepin. "It was me that +knifed him, I want the helmet." + +They tear from the body its pocket-book of still warm papers, its +field-glass, purse, and leggings. + +"Matches!" shouts Blaire, shaking a box, "he's got some!" + +"Ah, the fool that you are!" hisses Volpatte. + +"Now let's be off like hell." They pile the body in a corner and break +into a run, prey to a sort of panic, and regardless of the row their +disordered flight makes. + +"It's this way!--This way!--Hurry, lads--for all you're worth!" + +Without speaking they dash across the maze of the strangely empty +trench that seems to have no end. + +"My wind's gone," says Blaire, "I'm--" He staggers and stops. + +"Come on, buck up, old chap," gasps Pepin, hoarse and breathless. He +takes him by the sleeve and drags him forward like a stubborn +shaft-horse. + +"We're right!" says Poupardin suddenly. "Yes, I remember that tree. +It's the Pylones road!" + +"Ah!" wails Blaire, whose breathing is shaking him like an engine. He +throws himself forward with a last impulse--and sits down on the ground. + +"Halt!" cries a sentry--"Good Lord!" he stammers as he sees the four +poilus. "Where the--where are you coming from, that way?" + +They laugh, jump about like puppets, full-blooded and streaming with +perspiration, blacker than ever in the night. The German officer's +helmet is gleaming in the hands of Pepin. "Oh, Christ!" murmurs the +sentry, with gaping mouth, "but what's been up?" + +An exuberant reaction excites and bewitches them. All talk at once. In +haste and confusion they act again the drama which hardly yet they +realize is over. They had gone wrong when they left the sleepy sentry +and had taken the International Trench, of which a part is ours and +another part German. Between the French and German sections there is no +barricade or division. There is merely a sort of neutral zone, at the +two ends of which sentries watch ceaselessly. No doubt the German +watcher was not at his post, or likely he hid himself when he saw the +four shadows, or perhaps be doubled back and had not time to bring up +reinforcements. Or perhaps, too, the German officer had strayed too far +ahead in the neutral zone. In short, one understands what happened +without understanding it. + +"The funny part of it," says Pepin, "is that we knew all about that, +and never thought to be careful about it when we set off." + +"We were looking for matches," says Volpatte. + +"And we've got some!" cries Pepin. "You've not lost the flamers, old +broomstick?" + +"No damned fear!" says Blaire; "Boche matches are better stuff than +ours. Besides, they're all we've got to light our fire! Lose my box? +Let any one try to pinch it off me!" + +"We're behind time--the soup-water'll be freezing. Hurry up, so far. +Afterwards there'll be a good yarn to tell in the sewer where the boys +are, about what we did to the Boches." + + + + +XIX + +Bombardment + + +WE are in the flat country, a vast mistiness, but above it is dark +blue. The end of the night is marked by a little falling snow which +powders our shoulders and the folds in our sleeves. We are marching in +fours, hooded. We seem in the turbid twilight to be the wandering +survivors of one Northern district who are trekking to another. + +We have followed a road and have crossed the ruins of +Ablain-Saint-Nazaire. We have had confused glimpses of its whitish +heaps of houses and the dim spider-webs of its suspended roofs. The +village is so long that although full night buried us in it we saw its +last buildings beginning to pale in the frost of dawn. Through the +grating of a cellar on the edge of this petrified ocean's waves, we +made out the fire kept going by the custodians of the dead town. We +have paddled in swampy fields, lost ourselves in silent places where +the mud seized us by the feet, we have dubiously regained our balance +and our bearings again on another road, the one which leads from +Carency to Souchez. The tall bordering poplars are shivered and their +trunks mangled; in one place the road is an enormous colonnade of trees +destroyed. Then, marching with us on both sides, we see through the +shadows ghostly dwarfs of trees, wide-cloven like spreading palms; +botched and jumbled into round blocks or long strips; doubled upon +themselves, as if they knelt. From time to time our march is disordered +and bustled by the yielding of a swamp. The road becomes a marsh which +we cross on our heels, while our feet make the sound of sculling. +Planks have been laid in it here and there. Where they have so far sunk +in the mud as to proffer their edges to us we slip on them. Sometimes +there is enough water to float them, and then under the weight of a man +they splash and go under, and the man stumbles or falls, with frenzied +imprecations. + +It must be five o'clock. The stark and affrighting scene unfolds itself +to our eyes, but it is still encircled by a great fantastic ring of +mist and of darkness. We go on and on without pause, and come to a +place where we can make out a dark hillock, at the foot of which there +seems to be some lively movement of human beings. + +"Advance by twos," says the leader of the detachment. "Let each team of +two take alternately a plank and a hurdle." We load ourselves up. One +of the two in each couple assumes the rifle of his partner as well as +his own. The other with difficulty shifts and pulls out from the pile a +long plank, muddy and slippery, which weighs full eighty pounds, or a +hurdle of leafy branches as big as a door, which he can only just keep +on his back as he bends forward with his hands aloft and grips its +edges. + +We resume our march, very slowly and very ponderously, scattered over +the now graying road, with complaints and heavy curses which the effort +strangles in our throats. After about a hundred yards, the two men of +each team exchange loads, so that after two hundred yards, in spite of +the bitter blenching breeze of early morning, all but the non-coms. are +running with sweat. + +Suddenly a vivid star expands down yonder in the uncertain direction +that we are taking--a rocket. Widely it lights a part of the sky with +its milky nimbus, blots out the stars, and then falls gracefully, +fairy-like. + +There is a swift light opposite us over there; a flash and a +detonation. It is a shell! By the flat reflection that the explosion +instantaneously spreads over the lower sky we see a ridge clearly +outlined in front of us from east to west, perhaps half a mile away. + +That ridge is ours--so much of it as we can see from here and up to the +top of it, where our troops are. On the other slope, a hundred yards +from our first line, is the first German line. The shell fell on the +summit, in our lines; it is the others who are firing. Another shell +another and yet another plant trees of faintly violet light on the top +of the rise, and each of them dully illumines the whole of the horizon. + +Soon there is a sparkling of brilliant stars and a sudden jungle of +fiery plumes on the hill; and a fairy mirage of blue and white hangs +lightly before our eyes in the full gulf of night. + +Those among us who must devote the whole buttressed power of their arms +and legs to prevent their greasy loads from sliding off their backs and +to prevent themselves from sliding to the ground, these neither see nor +hear anything. The others, sniffing and shivering with cold, wiping +their noses with limp and sodden handkerchiefs, watch and remark, +cursing the obstacles in the way with fragments of profanity. "It's +like watching fireworks," they say. + +And to complete the illusion of a great operatic scene, fairy-like but +sinister, before which our bent and black party crawls and splashes, +behold a red star, and then a green; then a sheaf of red fire, very +much tardier. In our ranks, as the available half of our pairs of eyes +watch the display, we cannot help murmuring in idle tones of popular +admiration, "Ah, a red one!"--"Look, a green one!" It is the Germans +who are sending up signals, and our men as well who are asking for +artillery support. + +Our road turns and climbs again as the day at last decides to appear. +Everything looks dirty. A layer of stickiness, pearl-gray and white, +covers the road, and around it the real world makes a mournful +appearance. Behind us we leave ruined Souchez, whose houses are only +flat heaps of rubbish and her trees but humps of bramble-like slivers. +We plunge into a hole on our left, the entrance to the communication +trench. We let our loads fall in a circular enclosure prepared for +them, and both hot and frozen we settled in the trench and wait our +hands abraded, wet, and stiff with cramp. + +Buried in our holes up to the chin, our chests heaving against the +solid bulk of the ground that protects us, we watch the dazzling and +deepening drama develop. The bombardment is redoubled. The trees of +light on the ridge have melted into hazy parachutes in the pallor of +dawn, sickly heads of Medusae with points of fire; then, more sharply +defined as the day expands, they become bunches of smoke-feathers, +ostrich feathers white and gray, which come suddenly to life on the +jumbled and melancholy soil of Hill 119, five or six hundred yards in +front of us, and then slowly fade away. They are truly the pillar of +fire and the pillar of cloud, circling as one and thundering together. +On the flank of the hill we see a party of men running to earth. One by +one they disappear, swallowed up in the adjoining anthills. + +Now, one can better make out the form of our "guests." At each shot a +tuft of sulphurous white underlined in black forms sixty yards up in +the air, unfolds and mottles itself, and we catch in the explosion the +whistling of the charge of bullets that the yellow cloud hurls angrily +to the ground. It bursts in sixfold squalls, one after another--bang, +bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. It is the 77 mm. gun. + +We disdain the 77 mm. shrapnel, in spite of the fact that Blesbois was +killed by one of them three days ago. They nearly always burst too +high. Barque explains it to us, although we know it well: "One's +chamber-pot protects one's nut well enough against the bullets. So they +can destroy your shoulder and damn well knock you down, but they don't +spread you about. Naturally, you've got to be fly, all the same. Got to +be careful you don't lift your neb in the air as long as they're +buzzing about, nor put your hand out to see if it's raining. Now, our +75 mm.--" + +"There aren't only the 77's," Mesnil Andre broke in, "there's all +damned sorts. Spell those out for me--" Those are shrill and cutting +whistles, trembling or rattling; and clouds of all shapes gather on the +slopes yonder whose vastness shows through them, slopes where our men +are in the depths of the dug-outs. Gigantic plumes of faint fire mingle +with huge tassels of steam, tufts that throw out straight filaments, +smoky feathers that expand as they fall--quite white or greenish-gray, +black or copper with gleams of gold, or as if blotched with ink. + +The two last explosions are quite near. Above the battered ground they +take shape like vast balls of black and tawny dust; and as they deploy +and leisurely depart at the wind's will, having finished their task, +they have the outline of fabled dragons. + +Our line of faces on the level of the ground turns that way, and we +follow them with our eyes from the bottom of the trench in the middle +of this country peopled by blazing and ferocious apparitions, these +fields that the sky has crushed. + +"Those, they're the 150 mm. howitzers."--"They're the 210's, +calf-head."--"There go the regular guns, too; the hogs! Look at that +one!" It was a shell that burst on the ground and threw up earth and +debris in a fan-shaped cloud of darkness. Across the cloven land it +looked like the frightful spitting of some volcano, piled up in the +bowels of the earth. + +A diabolical uproar surrounds us. We are conscious of a sustained +crescendo, an incessant multiplication of the universal frenzy. A +hurricane of hoarse and hollow banging, of raging clamor, of piercing +and beast-like screams, fastens furiously with tatters of smoke upon +the earth where we are buried up to our necks, and the wind of the +shells seems to set it heaving and pitching. + +"Look at that," bawls Barque, "and me that said they were short of +munitions!" + +"Oh, la, la! We know all about that! That and the other fudge the +newspapers squirt all over us!" + +A dull crackle makes itself audible amidst the babel of noise. That +slow rattle is of all the sounds of war the one that most quickens the +heart. + +"The coffee-mill! [note 1] One of ours, listen. The shots come +regularly, while the Boches' haven't got the same length of time +between the shots; they go +crack--crack-crack-crack--crack-crack--crack--" + +"Don't cod yourself, crack-pate; it isn't an unsewing-machine at all; +it's a motor-cycle on the road to 31 dugout, away yonder." + +"Well, I think it's a chap up aloft there, having a look round from his +broomstick," chuckles Pepin, as he raises his nose and sweeps the +firmament in search of an aeroplane. + +A discussion arises, but one cannot say what the noise is, and that's +all. One tries in vain to become familiar with all those diverse +disturbances. It even happened the other day in the wood that a whole +section mistook for the hoarse howl of a shell the first notes of a +neighboring mule as he began his whinnying bray. + +"I say, there's a good show of sausages in the air this morning," says +Lamuse. Lifting our eyes, we count them. + +"There are eight sausages on our side and eight on the Boches'," says +Cocon, who has already counted them. + +There are, in fact, at regular intervals along the horizon, opposite +the distance-dwindled group of captive enemy balloons, the eight long +hovering eyes of the army, buoyant and sensitive, and joined to the +various headquarters by living threads. + +"They see us as we see them. How the devil can one escape from that row +of God Almighties up there?" + +There's our reply! + +Suddenly, behind our backs, there bursts the sharp and deafening +stridor of the 75's. Their increasing crackling thunder arouses and +elates us. We shout with our guns, and look at each other without +hearing our shouts--except for the curiously piercing voice that comes +from Barque's great mouth--amid the rolling of that fantastic drum +whose every note is the report of a cannon. + +Then we turn our eyes ahead and outstretch our necks, and on the top of +the hill we see the still higher silhouette of a row of black infernal +trees whose terrible roots are striking down into the invisible slope +where the enemy cowers. + +While the "75" battery continues its barking a hundred yards behind +us--the sharp anvil-blows of a huge hammer, followed by a dizzy scream +of force and fury--a gigantic gurgling dominates the devilish oratorio; +that, also, is coming from our side. "It's a gran'pa, that one!" + +The shell cleaves the air at perhaps a thousand yards above us; the +voice of its gun covers all as with a pavilion of resonance. The sound +of its travel is sluggish, and one divines a projectile bigger-boweled, +more enormous than the others. We can hear it passing and declining in +front with the ponderous and increasing vibration of a train that +enters a station under brakes; then, its heavy whine sounds fainter. We +watch the hill opposite, and after several seconds it is covered by a +salmon-pink cloud that the wind spreads over one-half of the horizon. +"It's a 220 mm." + +"One can see them," declares Volpatte, "those shells, when they come +out of the gun. If you're in the right line, you can even see them a +good long away from the gun." + +Another follows: "There! Look, look! Did you see that one? You didn't +look quick enough, you missed it. Get a move on! Look, another! Did you +see it?" + +"I did not see it."--"Ass! Got to be a bedstead for you to see it! +Look, quick, that one, there! Did you see it, unlucky +good-for-nothing?"--"I saw it; is that all?" + +Some have made out a small black object, slender and pointed as a +blackbird with folded wings, pricking a wide curve down from the zenith. + +"That weighs 240 lb., that one, my old bug," says Volpatte proudly, +"and when that drops on a funk-hole it kills everybody inside it. Those +that aren't picked off by the explosion are struck dead by the wind of +it, or they're gas-poisoned before they can say 'ouf!'" + +"The 270 mm. shell can be seen very well, too--talk about a bit of +iron--when the howitzer sends it up--allez, off you go!" + +"And the 155 Rimailho, too; but you can't see that one because it goes +too straight and too far; the more you look for it the more it vanishes +before your eyes." + +In a stench of sulphur amid black powder, of burned stuffs and calcined +earth which roams in sheets about the country, all the menagerie is let +loose and gives battle. Bellowings, roarings, growlings, strange and +savage; feline caterwaulings that fiercely rend your ears and search +your belly, or the long-drawn piercing hoot like the siren of a ship in +distress. At times, even, something like shouts cross each other in the +air-currents, with curious variation of tone that make the sound human. +The country is bodily lifted in places and falls back again. From one +end of the horizon to the other it seems to us that the earth itself is +raging with storm and tempest. + +And the greatest guns, far away and still farther, diffuse growls much +subdued and smothered, but you know the strength of them by the +displacement of air which comes and raps you on the ear. + +Now, behold a heavy mass of woolly green which expands and hovers over +the bombarded region and draws out in every direction. This touch of +strangely incongruous color in the picture summons attention, and all +we encaged prisoners turn our faces towards the hideous outcrop. + +"Gas, probably. Let's have our masks ready."--"The hogs!" + +"They're unfair tricks, those," says Farfadet. + +"They're what?" asks Barque jeeringly. + +"Why, yes, they're dirty dodges, those gases--" + +"You make me tired," retorts Barque, "with your fair ways and your +unfair ways. When you've seen men squashed, cut in two, or divided from +top to bottom, blown into showers by an ordinary shell, bellies turned +inside out and scattered anyhow, skulls forced bodily into the chest as +if by a blow with a club, and in place of the head a bit of neck, +oozing currant jam of brains all over the chest and back--you've seen +that and yet you can say 'There are clean ways!'" + +"Doesn't alter the fact that the shell is allowed, it's recognized--" + +"Ah, la, la! I'll tell you what--you make me blubber just as much as +you make me laugh!" And he turns his back. + +"Hey, look out, boys!" + +We strain our eyes, and one of us has thrown himself flat on the +ground; others look instinctively and frowning towards the shelter that +we have not time to reach, and during these two seconds each one bends +his head. It is a grating noise as of huge scissors which comes near +and nearer to us, and ends at last with a ringing crash of unloaded +iron. + +That ore fell not far from us--two hundred yards away, perhaps. We +crouch in the bottom of the trench and remain doubled up while the +place where we are is lashed by a shower of little fragments. + +"Don't want this in my tummy, even from that distance," says Paradis, +extracting from the earth of the trench wall a morsel that has just +lodged there. It is like a bit of coke, bristling with edged and +pointed facets, and he dances it in his hand so as not to burn himself. + +There is a hissing noise. Paradis sharply bows his head and we follow +suit. "The fuse!--it has gone over." The shrapnel fuse goes up and then +comes down vertically; but that of the percussion shell detaches itself +from the broken mass after the explosion and usually abides buried at +the point of contact, but at other times it flies off at random like a +big red-hot pebble. One must beware of it. It may hurl itself on you a +very long time after the detonation and by incredible paths, passing +over the embankment and plunging into the cavities. + +"Nothing so piggish as a fuse. It happened to me once--" + +"There's worse things," broke in Bags of the 11th, "The Austrian +shells, the 130's and the 74's. I'm afraid of them. They're +nickel-plated, they say, but what I do know, seeing I've been there, is +they come so quick you can't do anything to dodge them. You no sooner +hear em snoring than they burst on you. + +"The German 105's, neither, you haven't hardly the time to flatten +yourself. I once got the gunners to tell me all about them." + +"I tell you, the shells from the naval guns, you haven't the time to +hear 'em. Got to pack yourself up before they come." + +"And there's that new shell, a dirty devil, that breaks wind after it's +dodged into the earth and out of it again two or three times in the +space of six yards. When I know there's one of them about, I want to go +round the corner. I remember one time--" + +"That's all nothing, my lads," said the new sergeant, stopping on his +way past, "you ought to see what they chucked us at Verdun, where I've +come from. Nothing but whoppers, 380's and 420's and 244's. When you've +been shelled down there you know all about it--the woods are sliced +down like cornfields, the dug-outs marked and burst in even when +they've three thicknesses of beams, all the road-crossings sprinkled, +the roads blown into the air and changed into long heaps of smashed +convoys and wrecked guns, corpses twisted together as though shoveled +up. You could see thirty chaps laid out by one shot at the cross-roads; +you could see fellows whirling around as they went up, always about +fifteen yards, and bits of trousers caught and stuck on the tops of the +trees that were left. You could see one of these 380's go into a house +at Verdun by the roof, bore through two or three floors, and burst at +the bottom, and all the damn lot's got to go aloft; and in the fields +whole battalions would scatter and lie flat under the shower like poor +little defenseless rabbits. At every step on the ground in the fields +you'd got lumps as thick as your arm and as wide as that, and it'd take +four poilus to lift the lump of iron. The fields looked as if they were +full of rocks. And that went on without a halt for months on end, +months on end!" the sergeant repeated as he passed on, no doubt to tell +again the story of his souvenirs somewhere else. + +"Look, look, corporal, those chaps over there--are they soft in the +head?" On the bombarded position we saw dots of human beings emerge +hurriedly and run towards the explosions. + +"They're gunners," said Bertrand; "as soon as a shell's burst they +sprint and rummage for the fuse in the hole, for the position of the +fuse gives the direction of its battery, you see, by the way it's dug +itself in; and as for the distance, you've only got to read it--it's +shown on the range-figures cut on the time-fuse which is set just +before firing." + +"No matter--they're off their onions to go out under such shelling." + +"Gunners, my boy," says a man of another company who was strolling in +the trench, "are either quite good or quite bad. Either they're trumps +or they're trash. I tell you--" + +"That's true of all privates, what you're saying." + +"Possibly; but I'm not talking to you about all privates; I'm talking +to you about gunners, and I tell you too that--" + +"Hey, my lads! Better find a hole to dump yourselves in, before you get +one on the snitch!" + +The strolling stranger carried his story away, and Cocon, who was in a +perverse mood, declared: "We can be doing our hair in the dug-out, +seeing it's rather boring outside." + +"Look, they're sending torpedoes over there!" said Paradis, pointing. +Torpedoes go straight up, or very nearly so, like larks, fluttering and +rustling; then they stop, hesitate, and come straight down again, +heralding their fall in its last seconds by a "baby-cry" that we know +well. From here, the inhabitants of the ridge seem like invisible +players, lined up for a game with a ball. + +"In the Argonne," says Lamuse, "my brother says in a letter that they +get turtle-doves, as he calls them. They're big heavy things, fired off +very close. They come in cooing, really they do, he says, and when they +break wind they don't half make a shindy, he says." + +"There's nothing worse than the mortar-toad, that seems to chase after +you and jump over the top of you, and it bursts in the very trench, +just scraping over the bank." + +"Tiens, tiens, did you hear it?" A whistling was approaching us when +suddenly it ceased. The contrivance has not burst. "It's a shell that +cried off," Paradis asserts. And we strain our ears for the +satisfaction of hearing--or of not hearing--others. + +Lamuse says: "All the fields and the roads and the villages about here, +they're covered with dud shells of all sizes--ours as well, to say +truth. The ground must be full of 'em, that you can't see. I wonder how +they'll go on, later, when the time comes to say, 'That's enough of it, +let's start work again.'" + +And all the time, in a monotony of madness, the avalanche of fire and +iron goes on; shrapnel with its whistling explosion and its overcharged +heart of furious metal and the great percussion shells, whose thunder +is that of the railway engine which crashes suddenly into a wall, the +thunder of loaded rails or steel beams, toppling down a declivity. The +air is now glutted and viewless, it is crossed and recrossed by heavy +blasts, and the murder of the earth continues all around, deeply and +more deeply, to the limit of completion. + +There are even other guns which now join in--they are ours. Their +report is like that of the 75's, but louder, and it has a prolonged and +resounding echo, like thunder reverberating among mountains. + +"They're the long 120's. They're on the edge of the wood half a mile +away. Fine guns, old man, like gray-hounds. They're slender and +fine-nosed, those guns--you want to call them 'Madame.' They're not +like the 220's--they're all snout, like coal-scuttles, and spit their +shells out from the bottom upwards. The 120's get there just the same, +but among the teams of artillery they look like kids in bassinettes." + +Conversation languishes; here and there are yawns. The dimensions and +weight of this outbreak of the guns fatigue the mind. Our voices +flounder in it and are drowned. + +"I've never seen anything like this for a bombardment," shouts Barque. + +"We always say that," replies Paradis. + +"Just so," bawls Volpatte. "There's been talk of an attack lately; I +should say this is the beginning of something." + +The others say simply, "Ah!" + +Volpatte displays an intention of snatching a wink of sleep. He settles +himself on the ground with his back against one wall of the trench and +his feet buttressed against the other wall. + +We converse together on divers subjects. Biquet tells the story of a +rat he has seen: "He was cheeky and comical, you know. I'd taken off my +trotter-cases, and that rat, he chewed all the edge of the uppers into +embroidery. Of course, I'd greased 'em." + +Volpatte, who is now definitely out of action, moves and says, "I can't +get to sleep for your gabbling." + +"You can't make me believe, old fraud," says Marthereau, "that you can +raise a single snore with a shindy like this all round you." + +Volpatte replies with one. + + * * * * * + +Fall in! March! + +We are changing our spot. Where are they taking us to? We have no idea. +The most we know is that we are in reserve, and that they may take us +round to strengthen certain points in succession, or to clear the +communication trenches, in which the regulation of passing troops is as +complicated a job, if blocks and collisions are to be avoided, as it is +of the trains in a busy station. It is impossible to make out the +meaning of the immense maneuver in which the rolling of our regiment is +only that of a little wheel, nor what is going on in all the huge area +of the sector. But, lost in the network of deeps where we go and come +without end, weary, harassed and stiff-jointed by prolonged halts, +stupefied by noise and delay, poisoned by smoke, we make out that our +artillery is becoming more and more active; the offensive seems to have +changed places. + + * * * * * + +Halt! A fire of intense and incredible fury was threshing the parapets +of the trench where we were halted at the moment: "Fritz is going it +strong; he's afraid of an attack, he's going dotty. Ah, isn't he +letting fly!" + +A heavy hail was pouring over us, hacking terribly at atmosphere and +sky, scraping and skimming all the plain. + +I looked through a loophole and saw a swift and strange vision. In +front of us, a dozen yards away at most, there were motionless forms +outstretched side by side--a row of mown-down soldiers--and the +countless projectiles that hurtled from all sides were riddling this +rank of the dead! + +The bullets that flayed the soil in straight streaks amid raised +slender stems of cloud were perforating and ripping the bodies so +rigidly close to the ground, breaking the stiffened limbs, plunging +into the wan and vacant faces, bursting and bespattering the liquefied +eyes; and even did that file of corpses stir and budge out of line +under the avalanche. + +We could hear the blunt sound of the dizzy copper points as they +pierced cloth and flesh, the sound of a furious stroke with a knife, +the harsh blow of a stick upon clothing. Above us rushed jets of shrill +whistling, with the declining and far more serious hum of ricochets. +And we bent our heads under the enormous flight of noises and voices. + +"Trench must be cleared--Gee up!" We leave this most infamous corner of +the battlefield where even the dead are torn, wounded, and slain anew. + +We turn towards the right and towards the rear. The communication +trench rises, and at the top of the gully we pass in front of a +telephone station and a group of artillery officers and gunners. Here +there is a further halt. We mark time, and hear the artillery observer +shout his commands, which the telephonist buried beside him picks up +and repeats: "First gun, same sight; two-tenths to left; three a +minute!" + +Some of us have risked our heads over the edge of the bank and have +glimpsed for the space of the lightning's flash all the field of battle +round which our company has uncertainly wandered since the morning. I +saw a limitless gray plain, across whose width the wind seemed to be +driving faint and thin waves of dust, pierced in places by a more +pointed billow of smoke. + +Where the sun and the clouds trail patches of black and of white, the +immense space sparkles dully from point to point where our batteries +are firing, and I saw it one moment entirely spangled with short-lived +flashes. Another minute, part of the field grew dark under a steamy and +whitish film, a sort of hurricane of snow. + +Afar, on the evil, endless, and half-ruined fields, caverned like +cemeteries, we see the slender skeleton of a church, like a bit of torn +paper; and from one margin of the picture to the other, dim rows of +vertical marks, close together and underlined, like the straight +strokes of a written page--these are the roads and their trees. +Delicate meandering lines streak the plain backward and forward and +rule it in squares, and these windings are stippled with men. + +We can make out some fragments of lines made up of these human points +who have emerged from the hollowed streaks and are moving on the plain +in the horrible face of the flying firmament. It is difficult to +believe that each of those tiny spots is a living thing with fragile +and quivering flesh, infinitely unarmed in space, full of deep +thoughts, full of far memories and crowded pictures. One is fascinated +by this scattered dust of men as small as the stars in the sky. + +Poor unknowns, poor fellow-men, it is your turn to give battle. Another +time it will be ours. Perhaps to-morrow it will be ours to feel the +heavens burst over our heads or the earth open under our feet, to be +assailed by the prodigious plague of projectiles, to be swept away by +the blasts of a tornado a hundred thousand times stronger than the +tornado. + +They urge us into the rearward shelters. For our eyes the field of +death vanishes. To our ears the thunder is deadened on the great anvil +of the clouds. The sound of universal destruction is still. The squad +surrounds itself with the familiar noises of life, and sinks into the +fondling littleness of the dug-outs. + +------------ + +[note 1] Military slang for machine-gun--Tr. + + + + +XX + +Under Fire + + +RUDELY awakened in the dark, I open my eyes: "What? What's up?" + +"Your turn on guard--it's two o'clock in the morning," says Corporal +Bertrand at the opening into the hole where I am prostrate on the +floor. I hear him without seeing him. + +"I'm coming," I growl, and shake myself, and yawn in the little +sepulchral shelter. I stretch my arms, and my hands touch the soft and +cold clay. Then I cleave the heavy odor that fills the dug-out and +crawl out in the middle of the dense gloom between the collapsed bodies +of the sleepers. After several stumbles and entanglements among +accouterments, knapsacks and limbs stretched out in all directions, I +put my hand on my rifle and find myself upright in the open air, half +awake and dubiously balanced, assailed by the black and bitter breeze. + +Shivering, I follow the corporal; he plunges in between the dark +embankments whose lower ends press strangely and closely on our march. +He stops; the place is here. I make out a heavy mass half-way up the +ghostly wall which comes loose and descends from it with a whinnying +yawn, and I hoist myself into the niche which it had occupied. + +The moon is hidden by mist, but a very weak and uncertain light +overspreads the scene, and one's sight gropes its way. Then a wide +strip of darkness, hovering and gliding up aloft, puts it out. Even +after touching the breastwork and the loophole in front of my face I +can hardly make them out, and my inquiring hand discovers, among an +ordered deposit of things, a mass of grenade handles. + +"Keep your eye skinned, old chap," says Bertrand in a low voice. "Don't +forget that our listening-post is in front there on the left. Allons, +so long." His steps die away, followed by those of the sleepy sentry +whom I am relieving. + +Rifle-shots crackle all round. Abruptly a bullet smacks the earth of +the wall against which I am leaning. I peer through the loophole. Our +line runs along the top of the ravine, and the land slopes downward in +front of me, plunging into an abyss of darkness where one can see +nothing. One's sight ends always by picking out the regular lines of +the stakes of our wire entanglements, planted on the shore of the waves +of night, and here and there the circular funnel-like wounds of shells, +little, larger, or enormous, and some of the nearest occupied by +mysterious lumber. The wind blows in my face, and nothing else is +stirring save the vast moisture that drain from it. It is cold enough +to set one shivering in perpetual motion. I look upwards, this way and +that; everything is borne down by dreadful gloom. I might be derelict +and alone in the middle of a world destroyed by a cataclysm. + +There is a swift illumination up above--a rocket. The scene in which I +am stranded is picked out in sketchy incipience around me. The crest of +our trench stands forth, jagged and dishevelled, and I see, stuck to +the outer wall every five paces like upright caterpillars, the shadows +of the watchers. Their rifles are revealed beside them by a few spots +of light. The trench is shored with sandbags. It is widened everywhere, +and in many places ripped up by landslides. The sandbags, piled up and +dislodged, appear in the starlike light of the rocket like the great +dismantled stones of ancient ruined buildings. I look through the +loophole, and discern in the misty and pallid atmosphere expanded by +the meteor the rows of stakes and even the thin lines of barbed wire +which cross and recross between the posts. To my seeing they are like +strokes of a pen scratched upon the pale and perforated ground. Lower +down, the ravine is filled with the motionless silence of the ocean of +night. + +I come down from my look-out and steer at a guess towards my neighbor +in vigil, and come upon him with outstretched hand. "Is that you?" I +say to him in a subdued voice, though I don't know him. + +"Yes," he replies, equally ignorant who I am, blind like myself. "It's +quiet at this time," he adds "A bit since I thought they were going to +attack, and they may have tried it on, on the right, where they chucked +over a lot of bombs. There's been a barrage of 75's--vrrrran, +vrrrran--Old man, I said to myself, 'Those 75's, p'raps they've good +reason for firing. If they did come out, the Boches, they must have +found something.' Tiens, listen, down there, the bullets buffing +themselves!" + +He opens his flask and takes a draught, and his last words, still +subdued, smell of wine: "Ah, la, la! Talk about a filthy war! Don't you +think we should be a lot better at home!--Hullo! What's the matter with +the ass?" A rifle has rung out beside us, making a brief and sudden +flash of phosphorescence. Others go off here and there along our line. +Rifle-shots are catching after dark. + +We go to inquire of one of the shooters, guessing our way through the +solid blackness that has fallen again upon us like a roof. Stumbling, +and thrown anon on each other, we reach the man and touch him--"Well, +what's up?" + +He thought he saw something moving, but there is nothing more. We +return through the density, my unknown neighbor and I, unsteady, and +laboring along the narrow way of slippery mud, doubled up as if we each +carried a crushing burden. At one point of the horizon and then at +another all around, a gun sounds, and its heavy din blends with the +volleys of rifle-fire, redoubled one minute and dying out the next, and +with the clusters of grenade-reports, of deeper sound than the crack of +Lebel or Mauser, and nearly like the voice of the old classical rifles. +The wind has again increased; it is so strong that one must protect +himself against it in the darkness; masses of huge cloud are passing in +front of the moon. + +So there we are, this man and I, jostling without knowing each other, +revealed and then hidden from each other in sudden jerks by the flashes +of the guns, oppressed by the opacity, the center of a huge circle of +fires that appear and disappear in the devilish landscape. + +"We're under a curse," says the man. + +We separate, and go each to his own loophole, to weary our eyes upon +invisibility. Is some frightful and dismal storm about to break? But +that night it did not. At the end of my long wait, with the first +streaks of day, there was even a lull. + +Again I saw, when the dawn came down on us like a stormy evening, the +steep banks of our crumbling trench as they came to life again under +the sooty scarf of the low-hanging clouds, a trench dismal and dirty, +infinitely dirty, humped with debris and filthiness. Under the livid +sky the sandbags are taking the same hue, and their vaguely shining and +rounded shapes are like the bowels and viscera of giants, nakedly +exposed upon the earth. + +In the trench-wall behind me, in a hollowed recess, there is a heap of +horizontal things like logs. Tree-trunks? No, they are corpses. + + * * * * * + +As the call of birds goes up from the furrowed ground, as the shadowy +fields are renewed, and the light breaks and adorns each blade of +grass, I look towards the ravine. Below the quickening field and its +high surges of earth and burned hollows, beyond the bristling of +stakes, there is still a lifeless lake of shadow, and in front of the +opposite slope a wall of night still stands. + +Then I turn again and look upon these dead men whom the day is +gradually exhuming, revealing their stained and stiffened forms. There +are four of them. They are our comrades, Lamuse, Barque, Biquet, and +little Eudore. They rot there quite near us, blocking one half of the +wide, twisting, and muddy furrow that the living must still defend. + +They have been laid there as well as may be, supporting and crushing +each other. The topmost is wrapped in a tent-cloth. Handkerchiefs had +been placed on the faces of the others; but in brushing against them in +the dark without seeing them, or even in the daytime without noticing +them, the handkerchiefs have fallen, and we are living face to face +with these dead, heaped up there like a wood-pile. + + * * * * * + +It was four nights ago that they were all killed together. I remember +the night myself indistinctly--it is like a dream. We were on +patrol--they, I, Mesnil Andre, and Corporal Bertrand; and our business +was to identify a new German listening-post marked by the artillery +observers. We left the trench towards midnight and crept down the slope +in line, three or four paces from each other. Thus we descended far +into the ravine, and saw, lying before our eyes, the embankment of +their International Trench. After we had verified that there was no +listening-post in this slice of the ground we climbed back, with +infinite care. Dimly I saw my neighbors to right and left, like sacks +of shadow, crawling, slowly sliding, undulating and rocking in the mud +and the murk, with the projecting needle in front of a rifle. Some +bullets whistled above us, but they did not know we were there, they +were not looking for us. When we got within sight of the mound of our +line, we took a breather for a moment; one of us let a sigh go, another +spoke. Another turned round bodily, and the sheath of his bayonet rang +out against a stone. Instantly a rocket shot redly up from the +International Trench. We threw ourselves flat on the ground, closely, +desperately, and waited there motionless, with the terrible star +hanging over us and flooding us with daylight, twenty-five or thirty +yards from our trench. Then a machine-gun on the other side of the +ravine swept the zone where we were. Corporal Bertrand and I had had +the luck to find in front of us, just as the red rocket went up and +before it burst into light, a shell-hole, where a broken trestle was +steeped in the mud. We flattened ourselves against the edge of the +hole, buried ourselves in the mud as much as possible, and the poor +skeleton of rotten wood concealed us. The jet of the machine-gun +crossed several times. We heard a piercing whistle in the middle of +each report, the sharp and violent sound of bullets that went into the +earth, and dull and soft blows as well, followed by groans, by a little +cry, and suddenly by a sound like the heavy snoring of a sleeper, a +sound which slowly ebbed. Bertrand and I waited, grazed by the +horizontal hail of bullets that traced a network of death an inch or so +above us and sometimes scraped our clothes, driving us still deeper +into the mud, nor dared we risk a movement which might have lifted a +little some part of our bodies. The machine-gun at last held its peace +in an enormous silence. A quarter of an hour later we two slid out of +the shell-hole, and crawling on our elbows we fell at last like bundles +into our listening-post. It was high time, too, for at that moment the +moon shone out. We were obliged to stay in the bottom of the trench +till morning, and then till evening, for the machine-gun swept the +approaches without pause. We could not see the prostrate bodies through +the loop-holes of the post, by reason of the steepness of the +ground--except, just on the level of our field of vision, a lump which +appeared to be the back of one of them. In the evening, a sap was dug +to reach the place where they had fallen. The work could not be +finished in one night and was resumed by the pioneers the following +night, for, overwhelmed with fatigue, we could no longer keep from +falling asleep. + +Awaking from a leaden sleep, I saw the four corpses that the sappers +had reached from underneath, hooking and then hauling them into the sap +with ropes. Each of them had several adjoining wounds, bullet-holes an +inch or so apart--the mitrailleuse had fired fast. The body of Mesnil +Andre was not found, and his brother Joseph did some mad escapades in +search of it. He went out quite alone into No Man's Land, where the +crossed fire of machine-guns swept it three ways at once and +constantly. In the morning, dragging himself along like a slug, he +showed over the bank a face black with mud and horribly wasted. They +pulled him in again, with his face scratched by barbed wire, his hands +bleeding, with heavy clods of mud in the folds of his clothes, and +stinking of death. Like an idiot be kept on saying, "He's nowhere." He +buried himself in a corner with his rifle, which he set himself to +clean without hearing what was said to him, and only repeating "He's +nowhere." + +It is four nights ago since that night, and as the dawn comes once +again to cleanse the earthly Gehenna, the bodies are becoming +definitely distinct. + +Barque in his rigidity seems immoderately long, his arms lie closely to +the body, his chest has sunk, his belly is hollow as a basin. With his +head upraised by a lump of mud, he looks over his feet at those who +come up on the left; his face is dark and polluted by the clammy stains +of disordered hair, and his wide and scalded eyes are heavily encrusted +with blackened blood. Eudore seems very small by contrast, and his +little face is completely white, so white as to remind you of the +be-flowered face of a pierrot, and it is touching to see that little +circle of white paper among the gray and bluish tints of the corpses. +The Breton Biquet, squat and square as a flagstone, appears to be under +the stress of a huge effort; he might be trying to uplift the misty +darkness; and the extreme exertion overflows upon the protruding +cheek-bones and forehead of his grimacing face, contorts it hideously, +sets the dried and dusty hair bristling, divides his jaws in a spectral +cry, and spreads wide the eyelids from his lightless troubled eyes, his +flinty eyes; and his hands are contracted in a clutch upon empty air. + +Barque and Biquet were shot in the belly; Eudore in the throat. In the +dragging and carrying they were further injured. Big Lamuse, at last +bloodless, had a puffed and creased face, and the eyes were gradually +sinking in their sockets, one more than the other. They have wrapped +him in a tent-cloth, and it shows a dark stain where the neck is. His +right shoulder has been mangled by several bullets, and the arm is held +on only by strips of the sleeve and by threads that they have put in +since. The first night he was placed there, this arm hung outside the +heap of dead, and the yellow hand, curled up on a lump of earth, +touched passers-by in the face; so they pinned the arm to the greatcoat. + +A pestilential vapor begins to hover about the remains of these beings +with whom we lived so intimately and suffered so long. + +When we see them we say, "They are dead, all four"; but they are too +far disfigured for us to say truly, "It is they," and one must turn +away from the motionless monsters to feel the void they have left among +us and the familiar things that have been wrenched away. + +Men of other companies or regiments, strangers who come this way by +day--by night one leans unconsciously on everything within reach of the +hand, dead or alive-give a start when faced by these corpses flattened +one on the other in the open trench. Sometimes they are angry--"What +are they thinking about to leave those stiffs there?"--"It's shameful." +Then they add, "It's true they can't be taken away from there." And +they were only buried in the night. + +Morning has come. Opposite us we see the other slope of the ravine, +Hill 119, an eminence scraped, stripped, and scratched, veined with +shaken trenches and lined with parallel cuttings that vividly reveal +the clay and the chalky soil. Nothing is stirring there; and our shells +that burst in places with wide spouts of foam like huge billows seem to +deliver their resounding blows upon a great breakwater, ruined and +abandoned. + +My spell of vigil is finished, and the other sentinels, enveloped in +damp and trickling tent-cloths, with their stripes and plasters of mud +and their livid jaws, disengage themselves from the soil wherein they +are molded, bestir themselves, and come down. For us, it is rest until +evening. + +We yawn and stroll. We see a comrade pass and then another. Officers go +to and fro, armed with periscopes and telescopes. We feel our feet +again, and begin once more to live. The customary remarks cross and +clash; and were it not for the dilapidated outlook, the sunken lines of +the trench that buries us on the hillside, and the veto on our voices, +we might fancy ourselves in the rear lines. But lassitude weighs upon +all of us, our faces are jaundiced and the eyelids reddened; through +long watching we look as if we had been weeping. For several days now +we have all of us been sagging and growing old. + +One after another the men of my squad have made a confluence at a curve +in the trench. They pile themselves where the soil is only chalky, and +where, above the crust that bristles with severed roots, the +excavations have exposed some beds of white stones that had lain in the +darkness for over a hundred thousand years. + +There in the widened fairway, Bertrand's squad beaches itself. It is +much reduced this time, for beyond the losses of the other night, we no +longer have Poterloo, killed in a relief, nor Cadilhac, wounded in the +leg by a splinter the same evening as Poterloo, nor Tirioir nor +Tulacque who have been sent back, the one for dysentery, and the other +for pneumonia, which is taking an ugly turn--as he says in the +postcards which he sends us as a pastime from the base hospital where +he is vegetating. + +Once more I see gathered and grouped, soiled by contact with the earth +and dirty smoke, the familiar faces and poses of those who have not +been separated since the beginning, chained and riveted together in +fraternity. But there is less dissimilarity than at the beginning in +the appearance of the cave-men. + +Papa Blaire displays in his well-worn mouth a set of new teeth, so +resplendent that one can see nothing in all his poor face except those +gayly-dight jaws. The great event of these foreign teeth's +establishment, which he is taming by degrees and sometimes uses for +eating, has profoundly modified his character and his manners. He is +rarely besmeared with grime, he is hardly slovenly. Now that he has +become handsome he feels it necessary to become elegant. For the moment +he is dejected, because--a miracle--he cannot wash himself. Deeply sunk +in a corner, he half opens a lack-luster eye, bites and masticates his +old soldier's mustache--not long ago the only ornament on his face--and +from time to time spits out a hair. + +Fouillade is shivering, cold-smitten, or yawns, depressed and shabby. +Marthereau has not changed at all. He is still as always well-bearded, +his eye round and blue, and his legs so short that his trousers seem to +be slipping continually from his waist and dropping to his feet. Cocon +is always Cocon by the dried and parchment-like head wherein sums are +working; but a recurrence of lice, the ravages of which we see +overflowing on to his neck and wrists, has isolated him for a week now +in protracted tussles which leave him surly when he returns among us. +Paradis retains unimpaired the same quantum of good color and good +temper; he is unchanging, perennial. We smile when he appears in the +distance, placarded on the background of sandbags like a new poster. +Nothing has changed in Pepin either, whom we can just see taking a +stroll--we can tell him behind by his red-and-white squares of an +oilcloth draught-board, and in front by his blade-like face and the +gleam of a knife in his cold gray look. Nor has Volpatte changed, with +his leggings, his shouldered blanket, and his face of a Mongolian +tatooed with dirt; nor Tirette, although he has been worried for some +time by blood-red streaks in his eyes--for some unknown and mysterious +reason. Farfadet keeps himself aloof, in pensive expectation. When the +post is being given out he awakes from his reverie to go so far, and +then retires into himself. His clerkly hands indite numerous and +careful postcards. He does not know of Eudoxie's end. Lamuse said no +more to any one of the ultimate and awful embrace in which he clasped +her body. He regretted--I knew it--his whispered confidence to me that +evening, and up to his death he kept the horrible affair sacred to +himself, with tenacious bashfulness. So we see Farfadet continuing to +live his airy existence with the living likeness of that fair hair, +which he only leaves for the scarce monosyllables of his contact with +us. Corporal Bertrand has still the same soldierly and serious mien +among us; he is always ready with his tranquil smile to answer all +questions with lucid explanations, to help each of us to do his duty. + +We are chatting as of yore, as not long since. But the necessity of +speaking in low tones distinguishes our remarks and imposes on them a +lugubrious tranquillity. + + * * * * * + +Something unusual has happened. For the last three months the sojourn +of each unit in the first-line trenches has been four days. Yet we have +now been five days here and there is no mention of relief. Some rumors +of early attack are going about, brought by the liaison men and those +of the fatigue-party that renews our rations every other night--without +regularity or guarantee. Other portents are adding themselves to the +whispers of offensive--the stopping of leave, the failure of the post, +the obvious change in the officers, who are serious and closer to us. +But talk on this subject always ends with a shrug of the shoulders; the +soldier is never warned what is to be done with him; they put a bandage +on his eyes, and only remove it at the last minute. So, "We shall +see."--"We can only wait." + +We detach ourselves from the tragic event foreboded. Is this because of +the impossibility of a complete understanding, or a despondent +unwillingness to decipher those orders that are sealed letters to us, +or a lively faith that one will pass through the peril once more? +Always, in spite of the premonitory signs and the prophecies that seem +to be coming true, we fall back automatically upon the cares of the +moment and absorb ourselves in them--hunger, thirst, the lice whose +crushing ensanguines all our nails, the great weariness that saps us +all. + +"Seen Joseph this morning?" says Volpatte. "He doesn't look very grand, +poor lad." + +"He'll do something daft, certain sure. He's as good as a goner, that +lad, mind you. First chance he has he'll jump in front of a bullet. I +can see he will." + +"It'd give any one the pip for the rest of his natural. There were six +brothers of 'em, you know; four of 'em killed; two in Alsace, one in +Champagne, one in Argonne. If Andre's killed he's the fifth." + +"If he'd been killed they'd have found his body--they'd have seen it +from the observation-post; you can't lose the rump and the thighs. My +idea is that the night they went on patrol he went astray coming +back--crawled right round, poor devil, and fell right into the Boche +lines." + +"Perhaps he got sewn up in their wire." + +"I tell you they'd have found him if he'd been done in; you know jolly +well the Boches wouldn't have brought the body in. And we looked +everywhere. As long as he's not been found you can take it from me that +he's got away somewhere on his feet, wounded or unwounded." + +This so logical theory finds favor, and now it is known that Mesnil +Andre is a prisoner there is less interest in him. But his brother +continues to be a pitiable object--"Poor old chap, he's so young!" And +the men of the squad look at him secretly. + +"I've got a twist!" says Cocon suddenly. The hour of dinner has gone +past and we are demanding it. There appears to be only the remains of +what was brought the night before. + +"What's the corporal thinking of to starve us? There he is--I'll go and +get hold of him. Hey, corporal! Why can't you get us something to +eat?"--"Yes, yes--something to eat!" re-echoes the destiny of these +eternally hungry men. + +"I'm coming," says bustling Bertrand, who keeps going both day and +night. + +"What then?" says Pepin, always hot-headed. "I don't feel like chewing +macaroni again; I shall open a tin of meat in less than two secs?" The +daily comedy of dinner steps to the front again in this drama. + +"Don't touch your reserve rations!" says Bertrand; "as soon as I'm back +from seeing the captain I'll get you something." + +When he returns he brings and distributes a salad of potatoes and +onions, and as mastication proceeds our features relax and our eyes +become composed. + +For the ceremony of eating, Paradis has hoisted a policeman's hat. It +is hardly the right place or time for it, but the hat is quite new, and +the tailor, who promised it for three months ago, only delivered it the +day we came up. The pliant two-cornered hat of bright blue cloth on his +flourishing round head gives him the look of a pasteboard gendarme with +red-painted cheeks. Nevertheless, all the while he is eating, Paradis +looks at me steadily. I go up to him. "You've a funny old face." + +"Don't worry about it," he replies. "I want a chat with you. Come with +me and see something." + +His hand goes out to his half-full cup placed beside his dinner things; +he hesitates, and then decides to put his wine in a safe place down his +gullet, and the cup in his pocket. He moves off and I follow him. + +In passing he picks up his helmet that gapes on the earthen bench. +After a dozen paces he comes close to me and says in a low voice and +with a queer air, without looking at me--as he does when he is +upset--"I know where Mesnil Andre is. Would you like to see him? Come, +then." + +So saying, he takes off his police hat, folds and pockets it. and puts +on his helmet. He sets off again and I follow him without a word. + +He leads me fifty yards farther, towards the place where our common +dug-out is, and the footbridge of sandbags under which one always +slides with the impression that the muddy arch will collapse on one's +back. After the footbridge, a hollow appears in the wall of the trench, +with a step made of a hurdle stuck fast in the clay. Paradis climbs +there, and motions to me to follow him on to the narrow and slippery +platform. There was recently a sentry's loophole here, and it has been +destroyed and made again lower down with a couple of bullet-screens. +One is obliged to stoop low lest his head rise above the contrivance. + +Paradis says to me, still in the same low voice, "It's me that fixed up +those two shields, so as to see--for I'd got an idea, and I wanted to +see. Put your eye to this--" + +"I don't see anything; the hole's stopped up. What's that lump of +cloth?" + +"It's him," says Paradis. + +Ah! It was a corpse, a corpse sitting in a hole, and horribly near-- + +Having flattened my face against the steel plate and glued my eye to +the hole in the bullet-screen, I saw all of it. He was squatting, the +head hanging forward between the legs, both arms placed on his knees, +his hands hooked and half closed. He was easily identifiable--so near, +so near!--in spite of his squinting and lightless eyes, by the mass of +his muddy beard and the distorted mouth that revealed the teeth. He +looked as if he were both smiling and grimacing at his rifle, stuck +straight up in the mud before him. His outstretched hands were quite +blue above and scarlet underneath, crimsoned by a damp and hellish +reflection. + +It was he, rain-washed and besmeared with a sort of scum, polluted and +dreadfully pale, four days dead, and close up to our embankment into +which the shell-hole where he had burrowed had bitten. We had not found +him because he was too near! + +Between this derelict dead in its unnatural solitude and the men who +inhabited the dug-out there was only a slender partition of earth, and +I realize that the place in it where I lay my head corresponds to the +spot buttressed by this dreadful body. + +I withdraw my face from the peep-hole and Paradis and I exchange +glances. "Mustn't tell him yet," my companion whispers. "No, we +mustn't, not at once--" "I spoke to the captain about rooting him out, +and he said, too, 'we mustn't mention it now to the lad.'" A light +breath of wind goes by. "I can smell it!"--"Rather!" The odor enters +our thoughts and capsizes our very hearts. + +"So now," says Paradis, "Joseph's left alone, out of six brothers. And +I'll tell you what--I don't think he'll stop long. The lad won't take +care of himself--he'll get himself done in. A lucky wound's got to drop +on him from the sky, otherwise he's corpsed. Six brothers--it's too +bad, that! Don't you think it's too bad?" He added, "It's astonishing +that he was so near us." + +"His arm's just against the spot where I put my head." + +"Yes," says Paradis, "his right arm, where there's a wrist-watch." + +The watch--I stop short--is it a fancy, a dream? It seems to me--yes, I +am sure now--that three days ago, the night when we were so tired out, +before I went to sleep I heard what sounded like the ticking of a watch +and even wondered where it could come from. + +"It was very likely that watch you heard all the same, through the +earth," says Paradis, whom I have told some of my thoughts; "they go on +thinking and turning round even when the chap stops. Damn, your own +ticker doesn't know you--it just goes quietly on making little circles." + +I asked, "There's blood on his hands; but where was he hit?" + +"Don't know; in the belly, I think; I thought there was something dark +underneath him. Or perhaps in the face--did you notice the little stain +on the cheek?" + +I recall the hairy and greenish face of the dead man. "Yes, there was +something on the cheek. Yes, perhaps it went in there--" + +"Look out!" says Paradis hurriedly, "there he is! We ought not to have +stayed here." + +But we stay all the same, irresolutely wavering, as Mesnil Joseph comes +straight up to us. Never did he seem so frail to us. We can see his +pallor afar off, his oppressed and unnatural expression; he is bowed as +he walks, and goes slowly, borne down by endless fatigue and his +immovable notion. + +"What's the matter with your face?" he asks me--he has seen me point +out to Paradis the possible entry of the bullet. I pretend not to +understand and then make some kind of evasive reply. All at once I have +a torturing idea--the smell! It is there, and there is no mistaking it. +It reveals a corpse; and perhaps he will guess rightly. + +It seems to me that he has suddenly smelt the sign--the pathetic, +lamentable appeal of the dead. But he says nothing, continues his +solitary walk, and disappears round the corner. + +"Yesterday," says Paradis to me, "he came just here, with his mess-tin +full of rice that he didn't want to eat. Just as if he knew what he was +doing, the fool stops here and talks of pitching the rest of his food +over the bank, just on the spot where--where the other was. I couldn't +stick that, old chap. I grabbed his arm just as he chucked the rice +into the air, and it flopped down here in the trench. Old man, he +turned round on me in a rage and all red in the face, 'What the hell's +up with you now?' he says. I looked as fat-headed as I could, and +mumbled some rot about not doing it on purpose. He shrugs his +shoulders, and looks at me same as if I was dirt. He goes off, saying +to himself, 'Did you see him, the blockhead?' He's bad-tempered, you +know, the poor chap, and I couldn't complain. 'All right, all right,' +he kept saying; and I didn't like it, you know, because I did wrong all +the time, although I was right." + +We go back together in silence and re-enter the dugout where the others +are gathered. It is an old headquarters post, and spacious. Just as we +slide in, Paradis listens. "Our batteries have been playing extra hell +for the last hour, don't you think?" + +I know what he means, and reply with an empty gesture, "We shall see, +old man, we shall see all right!" + +In the dug-out, to an audience of three, Tirette is again pouring out +his barrack-life tales. Marthereau is snoring in a corner; he is close +to the entry, and to get down we have to stride over his short legs, +which seem to have gone back into his trunk. A group of kneeling men +around a folded blanket are playing with cards-- + +"My turn!"--"40, 42--48--49!--Good!" + +"Isn't he lucky, that game-bird; it's imposs', I've got stumped three +times I want nothing more to do with you. You're skinning me this +evening, and you robbed me the other day, too, you infernal +fritter!"--"What did you revoke for, mugwump?"--"I'd only the king, +nothing else." + +"All the same," murmurs some one who is eating in a corner, "this +Camembert, it cost twenty-five sous, but you talk about muck! Outside +there's a layer of sticky glue, and inside it's plaster that breaks." + +Meanwhile Tirette relates the outrages inflicted on him during his +twenty-one days of training owing to the quarrelsome temper of a +certain major: "A great hog he was, my boy, everything rotten on this +earth. All the lot of us looked foul when he went by or when we saw him +in the officers' room spread out on a chair that you couldn't see +underneath him, with his vast belly and huge cap, and circled round +with stripes from top to bottom, like a barrel--he was hard on the +private! They called him Loeb--a Boche, you see!" + +"I knew him!" cried Paradis; "when war started he was declared unfit +for active service, naturally. While I was doing my term he was a +dodger already--but he dodged round all the street corners to pinch +you--you got a day's clink for an unbuttoned button, and he gave it you +over and above if there was some bit of a thing about you that wasn't +quite O.K.--and everybody laughed. He thought they were laughing at +you, and you knew they were laughing at him, but you knew it in vain, +you were in it up to your head for the clink." + +"He had a wife," Tirette goes on, "the old--" + +"I remember her, too," Paradis exclaimed. "You talk about a bitch!" + +"Some of 'em drag a little pug-dog about with 'em, but him, he trailed +that yellow minx about everywhere, with her broom-handle hips and her +wicked look. It was her that worked the old sod up against us. He was +more stupid than wicked, but as soon as she was there he got more +wicked than stupid. So you bet they were some nuisance--" + +Just then, Marthereau wakes up from his sleep by the entry with a +half-groan. He straightens himself up, sitting on his straw like a +gaol-bird, and we see his bearded silhouette take the vague outline of +a Chinese, while his round eye rolls and turns in the shadows. He is +looking at his dreams of a moment ago. Then he passes his hand over his +eyes and--as if it had some connection with his dream--recalls the +scene that night when we came up to the trenches--"For all that," he +says, in a voice weighty with slumber and reflection, "there were some +half-seas-over that night! Ah, what a night! All those troops, +companies and whole regiments, yelling and surging all the way up the +road! In the thinnest of the dark you could see the jumble of poilus +that went on and up--like the sea itself, you'd say--and carrying on +across all the convoys of artillery and ambulance wagons that we met +that night. I've never seen so many, so many convoys in the night, +never!" Then he deals himself a thump on the chest, settles down again +in self-possession, groans, and says no more. + +Blaire's voice rises, giving expression to the haunting thought that +wakes in the depths of the men: "It's four o'clock. It's too late for +there to be anything from our side." + +One of the gamesters in the other corner yelps a question at another: +"Now then? Are you going to play or aren't you, worm-face?" + +Tirette continues the story of his major: "Behold one day they'd served +us at the barracks with some suetty soup. Old man, a disease, it was! +So a chap asks to speak to the captain, and holds his mess-tin up to +his nose." + +"Numskull!" some one shouts in the other corner. "Why didn't you trump, +then?" + +"'Ah, damn it,' said the captain, 'take it away from my nose, it +positively stinks.'" + +"It wasn't my game," quavers a discontented but unconvinced voice. + +"And the captain, he makes a report to the major. But behold the major, +mad as the devil, he butts in shaking the paper in his paw: 'What's +this?' he says. 'Where's the soup that has caused this rebellion, that +I may taste it?' They bring him some in a clean mess-tin and he sniffs +it. 'What now!' he says, 'it smells good. They damned well shan't have +it then, rich soup like this!'" + +"Not your game! And he was leading, too! Bungler! It's unlucky, you +know." + +"Then at five o'clock as we were coming out of barracks, our two +marvels butt in again and plank themselves in front of the swaddies +coming out, trying to spot some little thing not quite so, and he said, +'Ah, my bucks, you thought you'd score off me by complaining of this +excellent soup that I have consumed myself along with my partner here; +just wait and see if I don't get even with you. Hey, you with the long +hair, the tall artist, come here a minute!' And all the time the beast +was jawing, his bag-o'-bones--as straight and thin as a post--went +'oui, oui' with her head." + +"That depends; if he hadn't a trump, it's another matter." + +"But all of a sudden we see her go white as a sheet, she puts her fist +on her tummy and she shakes like all that, and then suddenly, in front +of all the fellows that filled the square, she drops her umbrella and +starts spewing!" + +"Hey, listen!" says Paradis, sharply, "they're shouting in the trench. +Don't you hear? Isn't it 'alarm!' they're shouting?" + +"Alarm? Are you mad?" + +The words were hardly said when a shadow comes in through the low +doorway of our dug-out and cries--"Alarm, 22nd! Stand to arms!" + +A moment of silence and then several exclamations. "I knew it," murmurs +Paradis between his teeth, and he goes on his knees towards the opening +into the molehill that shelters us. Speech then ceases and we seem to +be struck dumb. Stooping or kneeling we bestir ourselves; we buckle on +our waist-belts; shadowy arms dart from one side to another; pockets +are rummaged. And we issue forth pell-mell, dragging our knapsacks +behind us by the straps, our blankets and pouches. + +Outside we are deafened. The roar of gunfire has increased a +hundredfold, to left, to right, and in front of us. Our batteries give +voice without ceasing. + +"Do you think they're attacking?" ventures a man. "How should I know?" +replies another voice with irritated brevity. + +Our jaws are set and we swallow our thoughts, hurrying, bustling, +colliding, and grumbling without words. + +A command goes forth--"Shoulder your packs."--"There's a +counter-command--" shouts an officer who runs down the trench with +great strides, working his elbows, and the rest of his sentence +disappears with him. A counter-command! A visible tremor has run +through the files, a start which uplifts our heads and holds us all in +extreme expectation. + +But no; the counter-order only concerns the knapsacks. No pack; but the +blanket rolled round the body, and the trenching-tool at the waist. We +unbuckle our blankets, tear them open and roll them up. Still no word +is spoken; each has a steadfast eye and the mouth forcefully shut. The +corporals and sergeants go here and there, feverishly spurring the +silent haste in which the men are bowed: "Now then, hurry up! Come, +come, what the hell are you doing? Will you hurry, yes or no?" + +A detachment of soldiers with a badge of crossed axes on their sleeves +clear themselves a fairway and swiftly delve holes in the wall of the +trench. We watch them sideways as we don our equipment. + +"What are they doing, those chaps?"--"It's to climb up by." + +We are ready. The men marshal themselves, still silently, their +blankets crosswise, the helmet-strap on the chin, leaning on their +rifles. I look at their pale, contracted, and reflective faces. They +are not soldiers, they are men. They are not adventurers, or warriors, +or made for human slaughter, neither butchers nor cattle. They are +laborers and artisans whom one recognizes in their uniforms. They are +civilians uprooted, and they are ready. They await the signal for death +or murder; but you may see, looking at their faces between the vertical +gleams of their bayonets, that they are simply men. + +Each one knows that he is going to take his head, his chest, his belly, +his whole body, and all naked, up to the rifles pointed forward, to the +shells, to the bombs piled and ready, and above all to the methodical +and almost infallible machine-guns--to all that is waiting for him +yonder and is now so frightfully silent--before he reaches the other +soldiers that he must kill. They are not careless of their lives, like +brigands, nor blinded by passion like savages. In spite of the +doctrines with which they have been cultivated they are not inflamed. +They are above instinctive excesses. They are not drunk, either +physically or morally. It is in full consciousness, as in full health +and full strength, that they are massed there to hurl themselves once +more into that sort of madman's part imposed on all men by the madness +of the human race. One sees the thought and the fear and the farewell +that there is in their silence, their stillness, in the mask of +tranquillity which unnaturally grips their faces. They are not the kind +of hero one thinks of, but their sacrifice has greater worth than they +who have not seen them will ever be able to understand. + +They are waiting; a waiting that extends and seems eternal. Now and +then one or another starts a little when a bullet, fired from the other +side, skims the forward embankment that shields us and plunges into the +flabby flesh of the rear wall. + +The end of the day is spreading a sublime but melancholy light on that +strong unbroken mass of beings of whom some only will live to see the +night. It is raining--there is always rain in my memories of all the +tragedies of the great war. The evening is making ready, along with a +vague and chilling menace; it is about to set for men that snare that +is as wide as the world. + + * * * * * + +New orders are peddled from mouth to mouth. Bombs strung on wire hoops +are distributed--"Let each man take two bombs!" + +The major goes by. He is restrained in his gestures, in undress, +girded, undecorated. We hear him say, "There's something good, mes +enfants, the Boches are clearing out. You'll get along all right, eh?" + +News passes among us like a breeze. "The Moroccans and the 21st Company +are in front of us. The attack is launched on our right." + +The corporals are summoned to the captain, and return with armsful of +steel things. Bertrand is fingering me; he hooks something on to a +button of my greatcoat. It is a kitchen knife. "I'm putting this on to +your coat," he says. + +"Me too!" says Pepin. + +"No," says Bertrand, "it's forbidden to take volunteers for these +things." + +"Be damned to you!" growls Pepin. + +We wait, in the great rainy and shot-hammered space that has no other +boundary than the distant and tremendous cannonade. Bertrand has +finished his distribution and returns. Several soldiers have sat down, +and some of them are yawning. + +The cyclist Billette slips through in front of us, carrying an +officer's waterproof on his arm and obviously averting his face. +"Hullo, aren't you going too?" Cocon cries to him. + +"No, I'm not going," says the other. "I'm in the 17th. The Fifth +Battalion's not attacking!" + +"Ah, they've always got the luck, the Fifth. They've never got to fight +like we have!" Billette is already in the distance, and a few grimaces +follow his disappearance. + +A man arrives running, and speaks to Bertrand, and then Bertrand turns +to us-- + +"Up you go," he says, "it's our turn." + +All move at once. We put our feet on the steps made by the sappers, +raise ourselves, elbow to elbow, beyond the shelter of the trench, and +climb on to the parapet. + + * * * * * + +Bertrand is out on the sloping ground. He covers us with a quick +glance, and when we are all there he says, "Allons, forward!" + +Our voices have a curious resonance. The start has been made very +quickly, unexpectedly almost, as in a dream. There is no whistling +sound in the air. Among the vast uproar of the guns we discern very +clearly this surprising silence of bullets around us-- + +We descend over the rough and slippery ground with involuntary +gestures, helping ourselves sometimes with the rifle. Mechanically the +eye fastens on some detail of the declivity, of the ruined ground, on +the sparse and shattered stakes pricking up, at the wreckage in the +holes. It is unbelievable that we are upright in full daylight on this +slope where several survivors remember sliding along in the darkness +with such care, and where the others have only hazarded furtive glances +through the loopholes. No, there is no firing against us. The wide +exodus of the battalion out of the ground seems to have passed +unnoticed! This truce is full of an increasing menace, increasing. The +pale light confuses us. + +On all sides the slope is covered by men who, like us, are bent on the +descent. On the right the outline is defined of a company that is +reaching the ravine by Trench 97--an old German work in ruins. We cross +our wire by openings. Still no one fires on us. Some awkward ones who +have made false steps are getting up again. We form up on the farther +side of the entanglements and then set ourselves to topple down the +slope rather faster--there is an instinctive acceleration in the +movement. Several bullets arrive at last among us. Bertrand shouts to +us to reserve our bombs and wait till the last moment. + +But the sound of his voice is carried away. Abruptly, across all the +width of the opposite slope, lurid flames burst forth that strike the +air with terrible detonations. In line from left to right fires emerge +from the sky and explosions from the ground. It is a frightful curtain +which divides us from the world, which divides us from the past and +from the future. We stop, fixed to the ground, stupefied by the sudden +host that thunders from every side; then a simultaneous effort uplifts +our mass again and throws it swiftly forward. We stumble and impede +each other in the great waves of smoke. With harsh crashes and +whirlwinds of pulverized earth, towards the profundity into which we +hurl ourselves pell-mell, we see craters opened here and there, side by +side, and merging in each other. Then one knows no longer where the +discharges fall. Volleys are let loose so monstrously resounding that +one feels himself annihilated by the mere sound of the downpoured +thunder of these great constellations of destruction that form in the +sky. One sees and one feels the fragments passing close to one's head +with their hiss of red-hot iron plunged in water. The blast of one +explosion so burns my hands that I let my rifle fall. I pick it up +again, reeling, and set off in the tawny-gleaming tempest with lowered +head, lashed by spirits of dust and soot in a crushing downpour like +volcanic lava. The stridor of the bursting shells hurts your ears, +beats you on the neck, goes through your temples, and you cannot endure +it without a cry. The gusts of death drive us on, lift us up, rock us +to and fro. We leap, and do not know whither we go. Our eyes are +blinking and weeping and obscured. The view before us is blocked by a +flashing avalanche that fills space. + +It is the barrage fire. We have to go through that whirlwind of fire +and those fearful showers that vertically fall. We are passing through. +We are through it, by chance. Here and there I have seen forms that +spun round and were lifted up and laid down, illumined by a brief +reflection from over yonder. I have glimpsed strange faces that uttered +some sort of cry--you could see them without hearing them in the roar +of annihilation. A brasier full of red and black masses huge and +furious fell about me, excavating the ground, tearing it from under my +feet, throwing me aside like a bouncing toy. I remember that I strode +over a smoldering corpse, quite black, with a tissue of rosy blood +shriveling on him; and I remember, too, that the skirts of the +greatcoat flying next to me had caught fire, and left a trail of smoke +behind. On our right, all along Trench 97, our glances were drawn and +dazzled by a rank of frightful flames, closely crowded against each +other like men. + +Forward! + +Now, we are nearly running. I see some who fall solidly flat, face +forward, and others who founder meekly, as though they would sit down +on the ground. We step aside abruptly to avoid the prostrate dead, +quiet and rigid, or else offensive, and also--more perilous +snares!--the wounded that hook on to you, struggling. + +The International Trench! We are there. The wire entanglements have +been torn up into long roots and creepers, thrown afar and coiled up, +swept away and piled in great drifts by the guns. Between these big +bushes of rain-damped steel the ground is open and free. + +The trench is not defended. The Germans have abandoned it, or else a +first wave has already passed over it. Its interior bristles with +rifles placed against the bank. In the bottom are scattered corpses. +From the jumbled litter of the long trench, hands emerge that protrude +from gray sleeves with red facings, and booted legs. In places the +embankment is destroyed and its woodwork splintered--all the flank of +the trench collapsed and fallen into an indescribable mixture. In other +places, round pits are yawning. And of all that moment I have best +retained the vision of a whimsical trench covered with many-colored +rags and tatters. For the making of their sandbags the Germans had used +cotton and woolen stuffs of motley design pillaged from some +house-furnisher's shop; and all this hotch-potch of colored remnants, +mangled and frayed, floats and flaps and dances in our faces. + +We have spread out in the trench. The lieutenant, who has jumped to the +other side, is stooping and summoning us with signs and shouts--"Don't +stay there; forward, forward!" + +We climb the wall of the trench with the help of the sacks, of weapons, +and of the backs that are piled up there. In the bottom of the ravine +the soil is shot-churned, crowded with jetsam, swarming with prostrate +bodies. Some are motionless as blocks of wood; others move slowly or +convulsively. The barrage fire continues to increase its infernal +discharge behind us on the ground that we have crossed. But where we +are at the foot of the rise it is a dead point for the artillery. + +A short and uncertain calm follows. We are less deafened and look at +each other. There is fever in the eyes, and the cheek-bones are +blood-red. Our breathing snores and our hearts drum in our bodies. + +In haste and confusion we recognize each other, as if we had met again +face to face in a nightmare on the uttermost shores of death. Some +hurried words are cast upon this glade in hell--"It's you! "--"Where's +Cocon?"--"Don't know."--"Have you seen the captain? "--"No."--"Going +strong?"--"Yes." + +The bottom of the ravine is crossed and the other slope rises opposite. +We climb in Indian file by a stairway rough-hewn in the ground: "Look +out!" The shout means that a soldier half-way up the steps has been +struck in the loins by a shell-fragment; he falls with his arms +forward, bareheaded, like the diving swimmer. We can see the shapeless +silhouette of the mass as it plunges into the gulf. I can almost see +the detail of his blown hair over the black profile of his face. + +We debouch upon the height. A great colorless emptiness is outspread +before us. At first one can see nothing but a chalky and stony plain, +yellow and gray to the limit of sight. No human wave is preceding ours; +in front of us there is no living soul, but the ground is peopled with +dead--recent corpses that still mimic agony or sleep, and old remains +already bleached and scattered to the wind, half assimilated by the +earth. + +As soon as our pushing and jolted file emerges, two men close to me are +hit, two shadows are hurled to the ground and roll under our feet, one +with a sharp cry, and the other silently, as a felled ox. Another +disappears with the caper of a lunatic, as if he had been snatched +away. Instinctively we close up as we hustle forward--always +forward--and the wound in our line closes of its own accord. The +adjutant stops, raises his sword, lets it fall, and drops to his knees. +His kneeling body slopes backward in jerks, his helmet drops on his +heels, and he remains there, bareheaded, face to the sky. Hurriedly the +rush of the rank has split open to respect his immobility. + +But we cannot see the lieutenant. No more leaders then--Hesitation +checks the wave of humanity that begins to beat on the plateau. Above +the trampling one hears the hoarse effort of our lungs. "Forward!" +cries some soldier, and then all resume the onward race to perdition +with increasing speed. + + * * * * * + +"Where's Bertrand?" comes the laborious complaint of one of the +foremost runners. "There! Here!" He had stooped in passing over a +wounded man, but he leaves him quickly, and the man extends his arms +towards him and seems to sob. + +It is just at the moment when he rejoins us that we hear in front of +us, coming from a sort of ground swelling, the crackle of a +machine-gun. It is a moment of agony--more serious even than when we +were passing through the flaming earthquake of the barrage. That +familiar voice speaks to us across the plain, sharp and horrible. But +we no longer stop. "Go on, go on!" + +Our panting becomes hoarse groaning, yet still we hurl ourselves toward +the horizon. + +"The Boches! I see them!" a man says suddenly. "Yes--their heads, +there--above the trench--it's there, the trench, that line. It's close, +Ah, the hogs!" + +We can indeed make out little round gray caps which rise and then drop +on the ground level, fifty yards away, beyond a belt of dark earth, +furrowed and humped. Encouraged they spring forward, they who now form +the group where I am. So near the goal, so far unscathed, shall we not +reach it? Yes, we will reach it! We make great strides and no longer +hear anything. Each man plunges straight ahead, fascinated by the +terrible trench, bent rigidly forward, almost incapable of turning his +head to right or to left. I have a notion that many of us missed their +footing and fell to the ground. I jump sideways to miss the suddenly +erect bayonet of a toppling rifle. Quite close to me, Farfadet jostles +me with his face bleeding, throws himself on Volpatte who is beside me +and clings to him. Volpatte doubles up without slackening his rush and +drags him along some paces, then shakes him off without looking at him +and without knowing who he is, and shouts at him in a breaking voice +almost choked with exertion: "Let me go, let me go, nom de Dieu! +They'll pick you up directly--don't worry." + +The other man sinks to the ground, and his face, plastered with a +scarlet mask and void of all expression, turns in every direction; +while Volpatte, already in the distance, automatically repeats between +his teeth, "Don't worry," with a steady forward gaze on the line. + +A shower of bullets spirts around me, increasing the number of those +who suddenly halt, who collapse slowly, defiant and gesticulating, of +those who dive forward solidly with all the body's burden, of the +shouts, deep, furious, and desperate, and even of that hollow and +terrible gasp when a man's life goes bodily forth in a breath. And we +who are not yet stricken, we look ahead, we walk and we run, among the +frolics of the death that strikes at random into our flesh. + +The wire entanglements--and there is one stretch of them intact. We go +along to where it has been gutted into a wide and deep opening. This is +a colossal funnel-hole, formed of smaller funnels placed together, a +fantastic volcanic crater, scooped there by the guns. + +The sight of this convulsion is stupefying; truly it seems that it must +have come from the center of the earth. Such a rending of virgin strata +puts new edge on our attacking fury, and none of us can keep from +shouting with a solemn shake of the head--even just now when words are +but painfully torn from our throats--"Ah, Christ! Look what hell we've +given 'em there! Ah, look!" + +Driven as if by the wind, we mount or descend at the will of the +hollows and the earthy mounds in the gigantic fissure dug and blackened +and burned by furious flames. The soil clings to the feet and we tear +them out angrily. The accouterments and stuffs that cover the soft +soil, the linen that is scattered about from sundered knapsacks, +prevent us from sticking fast in it, and we are careful to plant our +feet in this debris when we jump into the holes or climb the hillocks. + +Behind us voices urge us--"Forward, boys, forward, nome de Dieu!" + +"All the regiment is behind us!" they cry. We do not turn round to see, +but the assurance electrifies our rush once more. + +No more caps are visible behind the embankment of the trench we are +nearing. Some German dead are crumbling in front of it, in pinnacled +heaps or extended lines. We are there. The parapet takes definite and +sinister shape and detail; the loopholes--we are prodigiously, +incredibly close! + +Something falls in front of us. It is a bomb. With a kick Corporal +Bertrand returns it so well that it rises and bursts just over the +trench. + +With that fortunate deed the squad reaches the trench. + +Pepin has hurled himself flat on the ground and is involved with a +corpse. He reaches the edge and plunges in--the first to enter. +Fouillade, with great gestures and shouts, jumps into the pit almost at +the same moment that Pepin rolls down it. Indistinctly I see--in the +time of the lightning's flash--a whole row of black demons stooping and +squatting for the descent, on the ridge of the embankment, on the edge +of the dark ambush. + +A terrible volley bursts point-blank in our faces, flinging in front of +us a sudden row of flames the whole length of the earthen verge. After +the stunning shock we shake ourselves and burst into devilish +laughter--the discharge has passed too high. And at once, with shouts +and roars of salvation, we slide and roll and fall alive into the belly +of the trench! + + * * * * * + +We are submerged in a mysterious smoke, and at first I can only see +blue uniforms in the stifling gulf. We go one way and then another, +driven by each other, snarling and searching. We turn about, and with +our hands encumbered by knife, bombs, and rifle, we do not know at +first what to do. + +"They're in their funk-holes, the swine!" is the cry. Heavy explosions +are shaking the earth--underground, in the dug-outs. We are all at once +divided by huge clouds of smoke so thick that we are masked and can see +nothing more. We struggle like drowning men through the acrid darkness +of a fallen fragment of night. One stumbles against barriers of +cowering clustered beings who bleed and howl in the bottom. Hardly can +one make out the trench walls, straight up just here and made of white +sandbags, which are everywhere torn like paper. At one time the heavy +adhesive reek sways and lifts, and one sees again the swarming mob of +the attackers. Torn out of the dusty picture, the silhouette of a +hand-to-hand struggle is drawn in fog on the wall, it droops and sinks +to the bottom. I hear several shrill cries of "Kamarad!" proceeding +from a pale-faced and gray-clad group in the huge corner made by a +rending shell. Under the inky cloud the tempest of men flows back, +climbs towards the right, eddying, pitching and falling, along the dark +and ruined mole. + + * * * * * + +And suddenly one feels that it is over. We see and hear and understand +that our wave, rolling here through the barrage fire, has not +encountered an equal breaker. They have fallen back on our approach. +The battle has dissolved in front of us. The slender curtain of +defenders has crumbled into the holes, where they are caught like rats +or killed. There is no more resistance, but a void, a great void. We +advance in crowds like a terrible array of spectators. + +And here the trench seems all lightning-struck. With its tumbled white +walls it might be just here the soft and slimy bed of a vanished river +that has left stony bluffs, with here and there the flat round hole of +a pool, also dried up; and on the edges, on the sloping banks and in +the bottom, there is a long trailing glacier of corpses--a dead river +that is filled again to overflowing by the new tide and the breaking +wave of our company. In the smoke vomited by dug-outs and the shaking +wind of subterranean explosions, I come upon a compact mass of men +hooked onto each other who are describing a wide circle. Just as we +reach them the entire mass breaks up to make a residue of furious +battle. I see Blaire break away, his helmet hanging on his neck by the +chin-strap and his face flayed, and uttering a savage yell. I stumble +upon a man who is crouching at the entry to a dug-out. Drawing back +from the black hatchway, yawning and treacherous, he steadies himself +with his left hand on a beam. In his right hand and for several seconds +he holds a bomb which is on the point of exploding. It disappears in +the hole, bursts immediately, and a horrible human echo answers him +from the bowels of the earth. The man seizes another bomb. + +Another man strikes and shatters the posts at the mouth of another +dug-out with a pickax he has found there, causing a landslide, and the +entry is blocked. I see several shadows trampling and gesticulating +over the tomb. + +Of the living ragged band that has got so far and has reached this +long-sought trench after dashing against the storm of invincible shells +and bullets launched to meet them, I can hardly recognize those whom I +know, just as though all that had gone before of our lives had suddenly +become very distant. There is some change working in them. A frenzied +excitement is driving them all out of themselves. + +"What are we stopping here for?" says one, grinding his teeth. + +"Why don't we go on to the next?" a second asks me in fury. "Now we're +here, we'd be there in a few jumps!' + +"I, too, I want to go on."--"Me, too. Ah, the hogs!" They shake +themselves like banners. They carry the luck of their survival as it +were glory; they are implacable, uncontrolled, intoxicated with +themselves. + +We wait and stamp about in the captured work, this strange demolished +way that winds along the plain and goes from the unknown to the unknown. + +Advance to the right! + +We begin to flow again in one direction. No doubt it is a movement +planned up there, back yonder, by the chiefs. We trample soft bodies +underfoot, some of which are moving and slowly altering their position; +rivulets and cries come from them. Like posts and heaps of rubbish, +corpses are piled anyhow on the wounded, and press them down, suffocate +them, strangle them. So that I can get by, I must push at a slaughtered +trunk of which the neck is a spring of gurgling blood. + +In the cataclysm of earth and of massive wreckage blown up and blown +out, above the hordes of wounded and dead that stir together, athwart +the moving forest of smoke implanted in the trench and in all its +environs, one no longer sees any face but what is inflamed, blood-red +with sweat, eyes flashing. Some groups seem to be dancing as they +brandish their knives. They are elated, immensely confident, ferocious. + +The battle dies down imperceptibly. A soldier says, "Well, what's to be +done now?" it flares up again suddenly at one point. Twenty yards away +in the plain, in the direction of a circle that the gray embankment +makes, a cluster of rifle-shots crackles and hurls its scattered +missiles around a hidden machine-gun, that spits intermittently and +seems to be in difficulties. + +Under the shadowy wing of a sort of yellow and bluish nimbus I see men +encircling the flashing machine and closing in on it. Near to me I make +out the silhouette of Mesnil Joseph, who is steering straight and with +no effort of concealment for the spot whence the barking explosions +come in jerky sequence. + +A flash shoots out from a corner of the trench between us two. Joseph +halts, sways, stoops, and drops on one knee. I run to him and he +watches me coming. "It's nothing--my thigh. I can crawl along by +myself." He seems to have become quiet, childish, docile; and sways +slowly towards the trench. + +I have still in my eyes the exact spot whence rang the shot that hit +him, and I slip round there by the left, making a detour. No one there. +I only meet another of our squad on the same errand--Paradis. + +We are bustled by men who are carrying on their shoulders pieces of +iron of all shapes. They block up the trench and separate us. "The +machine-gun's taken by the 7th," they shout, "it won't bark any more. +It was a mad devil--filthy beast! Filthy beast!" + +"What's there to do now?"--"Nothing." + +We stay there, jumbled together, and sit down. The living have ceased +to gasp for breath, the dying have rattled their last, surrounded by +smoke and lights and the din of the guns that rolls to all the ends of +the earth. We no longer know where we are. There is neither earth nor +sky--nothing but a sort of cloud. The first period of inaction is +forming in the chaotic drama, and there is a general slackening in the +movement and the uproar. The cannonade grows less; it still shakes the +sky as a cough shakes a man, but it is farther off now. Enthusiasm is +allayed, and there remains only the infinite fatigue that rises and +overwhelms us, and the infinite waiting that begins over again. + + * * * * * + +Where is the enemy? He has left his dead everywhere, and we have seen +rows of prisoners. Yonder again there is one, drab, ill-defined and +smoky, outlined against the dirty sky. But the bulk seem to have +dispersed afar. A few shells come to us here and there blunderingly, +and we ridicule them. We are saved, we are quiet, we are alone, in this +desert where an immensity of corpses adjoins a line of the living. + +Night has come. The dust has flown away, but has yielded place to +shadow and darkness over the long-drawn multitude's disorder. Men +approach each other, sit down, get up again and walk about, leaning on +each other or hooked together. Between the dug-outs, which are blocked +by the mingled dead, we gather in groups and squat. Some have laid +their rifles on the ground and wander on the rim of the trench with +their arms balancing; and when they come near we can see that they are +blackened and scorched, their eyes are red and slashed with mud. We +speak seldom, but are beginning to think. + +We see the stretcher-bearers, whose sharp silhouettes stoop and grope; +they advance linked two and two together by their long burdens. Yonder +on our right one hears the blows of pick and shovel. + +I wander into the middle of this gloomy turmoil. In a place where the +bombardment has crushed the embankment of the trench into a gentle +slope, some one is seated. A faint light still prevails. The tranquil +attitude of this man as he looks reflectively in front of him is +sculptural and striking. Stooping, I recognize him as Corporal +Bertrand. He turns his face towards me, and I feel that he is looking +at me through the shadows with his thoughtful smile. + +"I was coming to look for you," he says; "they're organizing a guard +for the trench until we've got news of what the others have done and +what's going on in front. I'm going to put you on double sentry with +Paradis, in a listening-post that the sappers have just dug." + +We watch the shadows of the passers-by and of those who are seated, +outlined in inky blots, bowed and bent in diverse attitudes under the +gray sky, all along the ruined parapet. Dwarfed to the size of insects +and worms, they make a strange and secret stirring among these +shadow-hidden lands where for two years war has caused cities of +soldiers to wander or stagnate over deep and boundless cemeteries. + +Two obscure forms pass in the dark, several paces from us; they are +talking together in low voices--"You bet, old chap, instead of +listening to him, I shoved my bayonet into his belly so that I couldn't +haul it out." + +"There were four in the bottom of the hole. I called to 'em to come +out, and as soon as one came out I stuck him. Blood ran down me up to +the elbow and stuck up my sleeves." + +"Ah!" the first speaker went on, "when we are telling all about it +later, if we get back, to the other people at home, by the stove and +the candle, who's going to believe it? It's a pity, isn't it?" + +"I don't care a damn about that, as long as we do get back," said the +other; "I want the end quickly, and only that." + +Bertrand was used to speak very little ordinarily, and never of +himself. But he said, "I've got three of them on my hands. I struck +like a madman. Ah, we were all like beasts when we got here!" + +He raised his voice and there was a restrained tremor in it: "it was +necessary," he said, "it was necessary, for the future's sake." + +He crossed his arms and tossed his head: "The future!" he cried all at +once as a prophet might. "How will they regard this slaughter, they +who'll live after us, to whom progress--which comes as sure as +fate--will at last restore the poise of their conscience? How will they +regard these exploits which even we who perform them don't know whether +one should compare them with those of Plutarch's and Corneille's heroes +or with those of hooligans and apaches? + +"And for all that, mind you," Bertrand went on, "there is one figure +that has risen above the war and will blaze with the beauty and +strength of his courage--" + +I listened, leaning on a stick and towards him, drinking in the voice +that came in the twilight silence from the lips that so rarely spoke. +He cried with a clear voice--"Liebknecht!" + +He stood up with his arms still crossed. His face, as profoundly +serious as a statue's, drooped upon his chest. But he emerged once +again from his marble muteness to repeat, "The future, the future! The +work of the future will be to wipe out the present, to wipe it out more +than we can imagine, to wipe it out like something abominable and +shameful. And yet--this present--it had to be, it had to be! Shame on +military glory, shame on armies, shame on the soldier's calling, that +changes men by turns into stupid victims or ignoble brutes. Yes, shame. +That's the true word, but it's too true; it's true in eternity, but +it's not yet true for us. It will be true when there is a Bible that is +entirely true, when it is found written among the other truths that a +purified mind will at the same time let us understand. We are still +lost, still exiled far from that time. In our time of to-day, in these +moments, this truth is hardly more than a fallacy, this sacred saying +is only blasphemy!" + +A kind of laugh came from him, full of echoing dreams--"To think I once +told them I believed in prophecies, just to kid them!" + +I sat down by Bertrand's side. This soldier who had always done more +than was required of him and survived notwithstanding, stood at that +moment in my eyes for those who incarnate a lofty moral conception, who +have the strength to detach themselves from the hustle of +circumstances, and who are destined, however little their path may run +through a splendor of events, to dominate their time. + +"I have always thought all those things," I murmured. + +"Ah!" said Bertrand. We looked at each other without a word, with a +little surprised self-communion. After this full silence he spoke +again. "It's time to start duty; take your rifle and come." + + * * * * * + +From our listening-post we see towards the east a light spreading like +a conflagration, but bluer and sadder than buildings on fire. It +streaks the sky above a long black cloud which extends suspended like +the smoke of an extinguished fire, like an immense stain on the world. +It is the returning morning. + +It is so cold that we cannot stand still in spite of our fettering +fatigue. We tremble and shiver and shed tears, and our teeth chatter. +Little by little, with dispiriting tardiness, day escapes from the sky +into the slender framework of the black clouds. All is frozen, +colorless and empty; a deathly silence reigns everywhere. There is rime +and snow under a burden of mist. Everything is white. Paradis moves--a +heavy pallid ghost, for we two also are all white. I had placed my +shoulder-bag on the other side of the parapet, and it looks as if +wrapped in paper. In the bottom of the hole a little snow floats, +fretted and gray in the black foot-bath. Outside the hole, on the +piled-up things, in the excavations, upon the crowded dead, snow rests +like muslin. + +Two stooping protuberant masses are crayoned on the mist; they grow +darker as they approach and hail us. They are the men who come to +relieve us. Their faces are ruddy and tearful with cold, their +cheek-bones like enameled tiles; but their greatcoats are not +snow-powdered, for they have slept underground. + +Paradis hoists himself out. Over the plain I follow his Father +Christmas back and the duck-like waddle of the boots that pick up +white-felted soles. Bending deeply forward we regain the trench; the +footsteps of those who replaced us are marked in black on the scanty +whiteness that covers the ground. + +Watchers are standing at intervals in the trench, over which tarpaulins +are stretched on posts here and there, figured in white velvet or +mottled with rime, and forming great irregular tents; and between the +watchers are squatting forms who grumble and try to fight against the +cold, to exclude it from the meager fireside of their own chests, or +who are simply frozen. A dead man has slid down, upright and hardly +askew, with his feet in the trench and his chest and arms resting on +the bank. He was clasping the earth when life left him. His face is +turned skyward and is covered with a leprosy of ice, the eyelids are +white as the eyes, the mustache caked with hard slime. Other bodies are +sleeping, less white than that one; the snowy stratum is only intact on +lifeless things. + +"We must sleep." Paradis and I are looking for shelter, a hole where we +may hide ourselves and shut our eyes. "It can't be helped if there are +stiffs in the dugouts," mutters Paradis; "in a cold like this they'll +keep, they won't be too bad." We go forward, so weary that we can only +see the ground. + +I am alone. Where is Paradis? He must have lain down in some hole, and +perhaps I did not hear his call. I meet Marthereau. "I'm looking where +I can sleep, I've been on guard," he says. + +"I, too; let's look together." + +"What's all the row and to-do?" says Marthereau. A mingled hubbub of +trampling and voices overflows from the communication trench that goes +off here. "The communication trenches are full of men. Who are you?" + +One of those with whom we are suddenly mixed up replies, "We're the +Fifth Battalion." The newcomers stop. They are in marching order. The +one that spoke sits down for a breathing space on the curves of a +sand-bag that protrudes from the line. He wipes his nose with the back +of his sleeve. + +"What are you doing here? Have they told you to come?" + +"Not half they haven't told us. We're coming to attack. We're going +yonder, right up." With his head he indicates the north. The curiosity +with which we look at them fastens on to a detail. "You've carried +everything with you?"--"We chose to keep it, that's all." + +"Forward!" they are ordered. They rise and proceed, incompletely awake, +their eyes puffy, their wrinkles underlined. There are young men among +them with thin necks and vacuous eyes, and old men; and in the middle, +ordinary ones. They march with a commonplace and pacific step. What +they are going to do seems to us, who did it last night, beyond human +strength. But still they go away towards the north. + +"The revally of the damned," says Marthereau. + +We make way for them with a sort of admiration and a sort of terror. +When they have passed, Marthereau wags his head and murmurs, "There are +some getting ready, too, on the other side, with their gray uniforms. +Do you think those chaps are feeling it about the attack? Then why have +they come? It's not their doing, I know, but it's theirs all the same, +seeing they're here.--I know, I know, but it's odd, all of it." + +The sight of a passer-by alters the course of his ideas: "Tiens, +there's Truc, the big one, d'you know him? Isn't he immense and +pointed, that chap! As for me, I know I'm not quite hardly big enough; +but him, he goes too far. He always knows what's going on, that +two-yarder! For savvying everything, there's nobody going to give him +the go-by! I'll go and chivvy him about a funk-hole." + +"If there's a rabbit-hole anywhere?" replies the elongated passer-by, +leaning on Marthereau like a poplar tree, "for sure, my old Caparthe, +certainly. Tiens, there"--and unbending his elbow he makes an +indicative gesture like a flag-signaler--"'Villa von Hindenburg.' and +there, 'Villa Glucks auf.' If that doesn't satisfy you, you gentlemen +are hard to please. P'raps there's a few lodgers in the basement, but +not noisy lodgers, and you can talk out aloud in front of them, you +know!" + +"Ah, nom de Dieu!" cried Marthereau a quarter of an hour after we had +established ourselves in one of these square-cut graves, "there's +lodgers he didn't tell us about, that frightful great lightning-rod, +that infinity!" His eyelids were just closing, but they opened again +and he scratched his arms and thighs: "I want a snooze! It appears it's +out of the question. Can't resist these things." + +We settled ourselves to yawning and sighing, and finally we lighted a +stump of candle, wet enough to resist us although covered with our +hands; and we watched each other yawn. + +The German dug-out consisted of several rooms. We were against a +partition of ill-fitting planks; and on the other side, in Cave No. 2, +some men were also awake. We saw light trickle through the crannies +between the planks and heard rumbling voices. "It's the other section," +said Marthereau. + +Then we listened, mechanically. "When I was off on leave," boomed an +invisible talker, "we had the hump at first, because we were thinking +of my poor brother who was missing in March--dead, no doubt--and of my +poor little Julien, of Class 1915, killed in the October attacks. And +then bit by bit, her and me, we settled down to be happy at being +together again, you see. Our little kid, the last, a five-year-old, +entertained us a treat. He wanted to play soldiers with me, and I made +a little gun for him. I explained the trenches to him; and he, all +fluttering with delight like a bird, he was shooting at me and yelling. +Ah, the damned young gentleman, he did it properly! He'll make a famous +poilu later! I tell you, he's quite got the military spirit!" + +A silence; then an obscure murmur of talk, in the midst of which we +catch the name of Napoleon; then another voice, or the same, saying, +"Wilhelm, he's a stinking beast to have brought this war on. But +Napoleon, he was a great man!" + +Marthereau is kneeling in front of me in the feeble and scanty rays of +our candle, in the bottom of this dark ill-enclosed hole where the cold +shudders through at intervals, where vermin swarm and where the sorry +crowd of living men endures the faint but musty savor of a tomb; and +Marthereau looks at me. He still hears, as I do, the unknown soldier +who said, "Wilhelm is a stinking beast, but Napoleon was a great man," +and who extolled the martial ardor of the little boy still left to him. +Marthereau droops his arms and wags his weary head--and the shadow of +the double gesture is thrown on the partition by the lean light in a +sudden caricature. + +"Ah!" says my humble companion, "we're all of us not bad sorts, and +we're unlucky, and we're poor devils as well. But we're too stupid, +we're too stupid!" + +Again he turns his eyes on me. In his bewhiskered and poodle-like face +I see his fine eyes shining in wondering and still confused +contemplation of things which he is setting himself to understand in +the innocence of his obscurity. + +We come out of the uninhabitable shelter; the weather has bettered a +little; the snow has melted, and all is soiled anew. "The wind's licked +up the sugar," says Marthereau. + +* * * * * + +I am deputed to accompany Mesnil Joseph to the refuge on the Pylones +road. Sergeant Henriot gives me charge of the wounded man and hands me +his clearing order. "If you meet Bertrand on the way," says Henriot, +"tell him to look sharp and get busy, will you?" Bertrand went away on +liaison duty last night and they have been waiting for him for an hour; +the captain is getting impatient and threatens to lose his temper. + +I get under way with Joseph, who walks very slowly, a little paler than +usual, and still taciturn. Now and again he halts, and his face +twitches. We follow the communication trenches, and a comrade appears +suddenly. It is Volpatte, and he says, "I'm going with you to the foot +of the hill." As he is off duty, he is wielding a magnificent twisted +walking-stick, and he shakes in his hand like castanets the precious +pair of scissors that never leaves him. + +All three of us come out of the communication trench when the slope of +the land allows us to do it without danger of bullets--the guns are not +firing. As soon as we are outside we stumble upon a gathering of men. +It is raining. Between the heavy legs planted there like little trees +on the gray plain in the mist we see a dead man. Volpatte edges his way +in to the horizontal form upon which these upright ones are waiting; +then he turns round violently and shouts to us, "It's Pepin!" + +"Ah!" says Joseph, who is already almost fainting. He leans on me and +we draw near. Pepin is full length, his feet and hands bent and +shriveled, and his rain-washed face is swollen and horribly gray. + +A man who holds a pickax and whose sweating face is full of little +black trenches, recounts to us the death of Pepin: "He'd gone into a +funk-hole where the Boches had planked themselves, and behold no one +knew he was there and they smoked the hole to make sure of cleaning it +out, and the poor lad, they found him after the operation, corpsed, and +all pulled out like a cat's innards in the middle of the Boche cold +meat that he'd stuck--and very nicely stuck too, I may say, seeing I +was in business as a butcher in the suburbs of Paris." + +"One less to the squad!" says Volpatte as we go away. + +We are now on the edge of the ravine at the spot where the plateau +begins that our desperate charge traversed last evening, and we cannot +recognize it. This plain, which had then seemed to me quite level, +though it really slopes, is an amazing charnel-house. It swarms with +corpses, and might be a cemetery of which the top has been taken away. + +Groups of men are moving about it, identifying the dead of last evening +and last night, turning the remains over, recognizing them by some +detail in spite of their faces. One of these searchers, kneeling, draws +from a dead hand an effaced and mangled photograph--a portrait killed. + +In the distance, black shell-smoke goes up in scrolls, then detonates +over the horizon. The wide and stippled flight of an army of crows +sweeps the sky. + +Down below among the motionless multitude, and identifiable by their +wasting and disfigurement, there are zouaves, tirailleurs, and Foreign +Legionaries from the May attack. The extreme end of our lines was then +on Berthonval Wood, five or six kilometers from here. In that attack, +which was one of the most terrible of the war or of any war, those men +got here in a single rush. They thus formed a point too far advanced in +the wave of attack, and were caught on the flanks between the +machine-guns posted to right and to left on the lines they had +overshot. It is some months now since death hollowed their eyes and +consumed their cheeks, but even in those storm-scattered and dissolving +remains one can identify the havoc of the machine-guns that destroyed +them, piercing their backs and loins and severing them in the middle. +By the side of heads black and waxen as Egyptian mummies, clotted with +grubs and the wreckage of insects, where white teeth still gleam in +some cavities, by the side of poor darkening stumps that abound like a +field of old roots laid bare, one discovers naked yellow skulls wearing +the red cloth fez, whose gray cover has crumbled like paper. Some +thigh-bones protrude from the heaps of rags stuck together with reddish +mud; and from the holes filled with clothes shredded and daubed with a +sort of tar, a spinal fragment emerges. Some ribs are scattered on the +soil like old cages broken; and close by, blackened leathers are +afloat, with water-bottles and drinking-cups pierced and flattened. +About a cloven knapsack, on the top of some bones and a cluster of bits +of cloth and accouterments, some white points are evenly scattered; by +stooping one can see that they are the finger and toe constructions of +what was once a corpse. + +Sometimes only a rag emerges from long mounds to indicate that some +human being was there destroyed, for all these unburied dead end by +entering the soil. + +The Germans, who were here yesterday, abandoned their soldiers by the +side of ours without interring them--as witness these three putrefied +corpses on the top of each other, in each other, with their round gray +caps whose red edge is hidden with a gray band, their yellow-gray +jackets, and their green faces. I look for the features of one of them. +From the depth of his neck up to the tufts of hair that stick to the +brim of his cap is just an earthy mass, the face become an anthill, and +two rotten berries in place of the eyes. Another is a dried emptiness +flat on its belly, the back in tatters that almost flutter, the hands, +feet, and face enrooted in the soil. + +"Look! It's a new one, this--" + +In the middle of the plateau and in the depth of the rainy and bitter +air, on the ghastly morrow of this debauch of slaughter, there is a +head planted in the ground, a wet and bloodless head, with a heavy +beard. + +It is one of ours, and the helmet is beside it. The distended eyelids +permit a little to be seen of the dull porcelain of his eyes, and one +lip shines like a slug in the shapeless beard. No doubt he fell into a +shell-hole, which was filled up by another shell, burying him up to the +neck like the cat's-head German of the Red Tavern at Souchez. + +"I don't know him," says Joseph, who has come up very slowly and speaks +with difficulty. + +"I recognize him," replies Volpatte. + +"That bearded man?" says Joseph. + +"He has no beard. Look--" Stooping, Volpatte passes the end of his +stick under the chin of the corpse and breaks off a sort of slab of mud +in which the head was set, a slab that looked like a beard. Then he +picks up the dead man's helmet and puts it on his head, and for a +moment holds before the eyes the round handles of his famous scissors +so as to imitate spectacles. + +"Ah!" we all cried together, "it's Cocon!" + +When you hear of or see the death of one of those who fought by your +side and lived exactly the same life, you receive a direct blow in the +flesh before even understanding. It is truly as if one heard of his own +destruction. It is only later that one begins to mourn. + +We look at the hideous head that is murder's jest, the murdered head +already and cruelly effacing our memories of Cocon. Another comrade +less. We remain there around him, afraid. + +"He was--" + +We should like to speak a little, but do not know what to say that +would be sufficiently serious or telling or true. + +"Come," says Joseph, with an effort, wholly engrossed by his severe +suffering, "I haven't strength enough to be stopping all the time." + +We leave poor Cocon, the ex-statistician, with a last look, a look too +short and almost vacant. + +"One cannot imagine--" says Volpatte. + +No, one cannot imagine. All these disappearances at once surpass the +imagination. There are not enough survivors now. But we have vague idea +of the grandeur of these dead. They have given all; by degrees they +have given all their strength, and finally they have given themselves, +en bloc. They have outpaced life, and their effort has something of +superhuman perfection. + + * * * * * + +"Tiens, he's just been wounded, that one, and yet--" A fresh wound is +moistening the neck of a body that is almost a skeleton. + +"It's a rat," says Volpatte. "The stiffs are old ones, but the rats +talk to 'em. You see some rats laid out--poisoned, p'raps--near every +body or under it. Tiens, this poor old chap shall show us his." He +lifts up the foot of the collapsed remains and reveals two dead rats. + +"I should like to find Farfadet again," says Volpatte. "I told him to +wait just when we started running and he clipped hold of me. Poor lad, +let's hope he waited!" + +So he goes to and fro, attracted towards the dead by a strange +curiosity; and these, indifferent, bandy him about from one to another, +and at each step he looks on the ground. Suddenly he utters a cry of +distress. With his hand he beckons us as he kneels to a dead man. + +Bertrand! + +Acute emotion grips us. He has been killed; he, too, like the rest, he +who most towered over us by his energy and intelligence. By virtue of +always doing his duty, he has at last got killed. He has at last found +death where indeed it was. + +We look at him, and then turn away from the sight and look upon each +other. + +The shock of his loss is aggravated by the spectacle that his remains +present, for they are abominable to see. Death has bestowed a grotesque +look and attitude on the man who was so comely and so tranquil. With +his hair scattered over his eyes, his mustache trailing in his mouth, +and his face swollen--he is laughing. One eye is widely open, the other +shut, and the tongue lolls out. His arms are outstretched in the form +of a cross: the hands open, the fingers separated. The right leg is +straight. The left, whence flowed the hemorrhage that made him die, has +been broken by a shell; it is twisted into a circle, dislocated, slack, +invertebrate. A mournful irony has invested the last writhe of his +agony with the appearance of a clown's antic. + +We arrange him, and lay him straight, and tranquillize the horrible +masks. Volpatte has taken a pocket-book from him and places it +reverently among his own papers, by the side of the portrait of his own +wife and children. That done, he shakes his head: "He--he was truly a +good sort, old man. When he said anything, that was the proof that it +was true. Ah, we needed him badly!" + +"Yes," I said, "we had need of him always." + +"Ah, la, la!" murmurs Volpatte, and he trembles. Joseph repeats in a +weak voice, "Ah, nom de Dieu! Ah, nom de Dieu!" + +The plateau is as covered with people as a public square; +fatigue-parties in detachments, and isolated men. Here and there, the +stretcher-bearers are beginning (patiently and in a small way) their +huge and endless task. + +Volpatte leaves us, to return to the trench and announce our new +losses, and above all the great gap left by Bertrand. He says to +Joseph, "We shan't lose sight of you, eh? Write us a line now and +again--just, 'All goes well; signed, Camembert,' eh?" He disappears +among the people who cross each other's path in the expanse now +completely possessed by a mournful and endless rain. + +Joseph leans on me and we go down into the ravine. The slope by which +we descend is known as the Zouaves' Cells. In the May attack, the +Zouaves had all begun to dig themselves individual shelters, and round +these they were exterminated. Some are still seen, prone on the brim of +an incipient hole, with their trenching-tools in their fleshless hands +or looking at them with the cavernous hollows where shrivel the +entrails of eyes. The ground is so full of dead that the earth-falls +uncover places that bristle with feet, with half-clothed skeletons, and +with ossuaries of skulls placed side by side on the steep slope like +porcelain globe-jars. + +In the ground here there are several strata of dead and in many places +the delving of the shells has brought out the oldest and set them out +in display on the top of the new ones. The bottom of the ravine is +completely carpeted with debris of weapons, clothing, and implements. +One tramples shell fragments, old iron, loaves and even biscuits that +have fallen from knapsacks and are not yet dissolved by the rain. +Mess-tins, pots of jam, and helmets are pierced and riddled by +bullets--the scrapings and scum of a hell-broth; and the dislocated +posts that survive are stippled with holes. + +The trenches that run in this valley have a look of earthquake +crevasses, and as if whole tombs of uncouth things had been emptied on +the ruins of the earth's convulsion. And there, where no dead are, the +very earth is cadaverous. + +We follow the International Trench, still fluttering with rainbow +rags--a shapeless trench which the confusion of torn stuffs invests +with an air of a trench assassinated--to a place where the irregular +and winding ditch forms an elbow. All the way along, as far as an +earthwork barricade that blocks the way, German corpses are entangled +and knotted as in a torrent of the damned, some of them emerging from +muddy caves in the middle of a bewildering conglomerate of beams, +ropes, creepers of iron, trench-rollers, hurdles, and bullet-screens. +At the barrier itself, one corpse stands upright, fixed in the other +dead, while another, planted in the same spot, stands obliquely in the +dismal place, the whole arrangement looking like part of a big wheel +embedded in the mud, or the shattered sail of a windmill. And over all +this, this catastrophe of flesh and filthiness, religious images are +broadcast, post-cards, pious pamphlets, leaflets on which prayers are +written in Gothic lettering--they have scattered themselves in waves +from gutted clothing. The paper words seem to bedeck with blossom these +shores of pestilence, this Valley of Death, with their countless +pallors of barren lies. + +I seek a solid footway to guide Joseph in--his wound is paralyzing him +by degrees, and he feels it extending throughout his body. While I +support him, and he is looking at nothing, I look upon the ghastly +upheaval through which we are escaping. + +A German sergeant is seated, here where we tread, supported by the +riven timbers that once formed the shelter of a sentry. There is a +little hole under his eye; the thrust of a bayonet has nailed him to +the planks through his face. In front of him, also sitting, with his +elbows on his knees and his fists on his chin, there is a man who has +all the top of his skull taken off like a boiled egg. Beside them--an +awful watchman!--the half of a man is standing, a man sliced in two +from scalp to stomach, upright against the earthen wall. I do not know +where the other half of this human post may be, whose eye hangs down +above and whose bluish viscera curl spirally round his leg. + +Down below, one's foot detaches itself from a matrix of blood, +stiffened with French bayonets that have been bent, doubled, and +twisted by the force of the blow. Through a gap in the mutilated wall +one espies a recess where the bodies of soldiers of the Prussian Guard +seem to kneel in the pose of suppliants, run through from behind, with +blood-stained gaps, impaled. Out of this group they have pulled to its +edge a huge Senegalese tirailleur, who, petrified in the contorted +position where death seized him, leans upon empty air and holds fast by +his feet, staring at his two severed wrists. No doubt a bomb had +exploded in his hands; and since all his face is alive, he seems to be +gnawing maggots. + +"It was here," says a passing soldier of an Alpine regiment, "that they +did the white flag trick; and as they'd got Africans to deal with, you +bet they got it hot!--Tiens, there's the white flag itself that these +dunghills used." + +He seizes and shakes a long handle that lies there. A square of white +stuff is nailed to it, and unfolds itself innocently. + +A procession of shovel-bearers advances along the battered trench. They +have an order to shovel the earth into the relics of the trenches, to +stop everything up, so that the bodies may be buried on the spot. Thus +these helmeted warriors will here perform the work of the redresser of +wrongs as they restore their full shape to the fields and make level +the cavities already half filled by cargoes of invaders. + + * * * * * + +Some one calls me from the other side of the trench, a man sitting on +the ground and leaning against a stake. It is Papa Ramure. Through his +unbuttoned greatcoat and jacket I see bandages around his chest. "The +ambulance men have been to tuck me up," he says, in a weak and +stertorous voice, "but they can't take me away from here before +evening. But I know all right that I'm petering out every minute." + +He jerks his head. "Stay a bit," he asks me. He is much moved, and the +tears are flowing. He offers his hand and holds mine. He wants to say a +lot of things to me and almost to make confession. "I was a straight +man before the war," he says, with trickling tears; "I worked from +morning to night to feed my little lot. And then I came here to kill +Boches. And now, I've got killed. Listen, listen, listen, don't go +away, listen to me--" + +"I must take Joseph back--he's at the end of his strength. I'll come +back afterwards." + +Ramure lifted his streaming eyes to the wounded man. "Not only living, +but wounded! Escaped from death! Ah, some women and children are lucky! +All right, take him, take him, and come back--I hope I shall be waiting +for you--" + +Now we must climb the other slope of the ravine, and we enter the +deformed and maltreated ditch of the old Trench 97. + +Suddenly a frantic whistling tears the air and there is a shower of +shrapnel above us. Meteorites flash and scatter in fearful flight in +the heart of the yellow clouds. Revolving missiles rush through the +heavens to break and burn upon the bill, to ransack it and exhume the +old bones of men; and the thundering flames multiply themselves along +an even line. + +It is the barrage fire beginning again. Like children we cry, "Enough, +enough!" + +In this fury of fatal engines, this mechanical cataclysm that pursues +us through space, there is something that surpasses human strength and +will, something supernatural. Joseph, standing with his hand in mine, +looks over his shoulder at the storm of rending explosions. He bows his +head like an imprisoned beast, distracted: "What, again! Always, then!" +he growls; "after all we've done and all we've seen--and now it begins +again! Ah, non, non!" + +He falls on his knees, gasps for breath, and throws a futile look of +full hatred before him and behind him. He repeats, "It's never +finished, never!" + +I take him by the arm and raise him. "Come; it'll be finished for you." + +We must dally there awhile before climbing, so I will go and bring back +Ramure in extremis, who is waiting for me. But Joseph clings to me, and +then I notice a movement of men about the spot where I left the dying +man. I can guess what it means; it is no longer worth while to go there. + +The ground of the ravine where we two are closely clustered to abide +the tempest is quivering, and at each shot we feel the deep simoom of +the shells. But in the hole where we are there is scarcely any risk of +being hit. At the first lull, some of the men who were also waiting +detach themselves and begin to go up; stretcher-bearers redouble their +huge efforts to carry a body and climb, making one think of stubborn +ants pushed back by successive grains of sand; wounded men and liaison +men move again. + +"Let's go on," says Joseph, with sagging shoulders, as he measures the +hill with his eye--the last stage of his Gethsemane. + +There are trees here; a row of excoriated willow trunks, some of wide +countenance, and others hollowed and yawning, like coffins on end. The +scene through which we are struggling is rent and convulsed, with hills +and chasms, and with such somber swellings as if all the clouds of +storm had rolled down here. Above the tortured earth, this stampeded +file of trunks stands forth against a striped brown sky, milky in +places and obscurely sparkling--a sky of agate. + +Across the entry to Trench 97 a felled oak twists his great body, and a +corpse stops up the trench. Its head and legs are buried in the ground. +The dirty water that trickles in the trench has covered it with a sandy +glaze, and through the moist deposit the chest and belly bulge forth, +clad in a shirt. We stride over the frigid remains, slimy and pale, +that suggest the belly of a stranded crocodile; and it is difficult to +do so, by reason of the soft and slippery ground. We have to plunge our +hands up to the wrists in the mud of the wall. + +At this moment an infernal whistle falls on us and we bend like bushes. +The shell bursts in the air in front of us, deafening and blinding, and +buries us under a horribly sibilant mountain of dark smoke. A climbing +soldier has churned the air with his arms and disappeared, hurled into +some hole. Shouts have gone up and fallen again like rubbish. While we +are looking, through the great black veil that the wind tears from the +ground and dismisses into the sky, at the bearers who are putting down +a stretcher, running to the place of the explosion and picking up +something inert--I recall the unforgettable scene when my +brother-in-arms, Poterloo, whose heart was so full of hope, vanished +with his arms outstretched in the flame of a shell. + +We arrive at last on the summit, which is marked as with a signal by a +wounded and frightful man. He is upright in the wind, shaken but +upright, enrooted there. In his uplifted and wind-tossed cape we see a +yelling and convulsive face. We pass by him, and he is like a sort of +screaming tree. + + * * * * * + +We have arrived at our old first line, the one from which we set off +for the attack. We sit down on a firing-step with our backs to the +holes cut for our exodus at the last minute by the sappers. Euterpe, +the cyclist, passes and gives us good-day. Then he turns in his tracks +and draws from the cuff of his coat-sleeve an envelope, whose +protruding edge had conferred a white stripe on him. + +"It's you, isn't it," he says to me, "that takes Biquet's letters +that's dead?"--"Yes."--"Here's a returned one; the address has hopped +it." + +The envelope was exposed, no doubt, to rain on the top of a packet, and +the address is no longer legible among the violet mottlings on the +dried and frayed paper. Alone there survives in a corner the address of +the sender. I pull the letter out gently--"My dear mother"--Ah, I +remember! Biquet, now lying in the open air in the very trench where we +are halted, wrote that letter not long ago in our quarters at +Gauchin-l'Abbe, one flaming and splendid afternoon, in reply to a +letter from his mother, whose fears for him had proved groundless and +made him laugh--"You think I'm in the cold and rain and danger. Not at +all; on the contrary, all that's finished. It's hot, we're sweating, +and we've nothing to do only to stroll about in the sunshine. I laughed +to read your letter--" + +I return to the frail and damaged envelope the letter which, if chance +had not averted this new irony, would have been read by the old peasant +woman at the moment when the body of her son is a wet nothing in the +cold and the storm, a nothing that trickles and flows like a dark +spring on the wall of the trench. + +Joseph has leaned his head backwards. His eyes close for a moment, his +mouth half opens, and his breathing is fitful. + +"Courage!" I say to him, and he opens his eyes again. + +"Ah!" he replies, "it isn't to me you should say that. Look at those +chaps, there, they're going back yonder, and you too, you're going +back. It all has to go on for you others. Ah, one must be really strong +to go on, to go on!" + + + + +XXI + +The Refuge + + +FROM this point onwards we are in sight of the enemy observation-posts, +and must no longer leave the communication trenches. First we follow +that of the Pylones road. The trench is cut along the side of the road, +and the road itself is wiped out; so are its trees. Half of it, all the +way along, has been chewed and swallowed by the trench; and what is +left of it has been invaded by the earth and the grass, and mingled +with the fields in the fullness of time. At some places in the +trench--there, where a sandbag has burst and left only a muddy +cell--you may see again on the level of your eyes the stony ballast of +the ex-road, cut to the quick, or even the roots of the bordering trees +that have been cut down to embody in the trench wall. The latter is as +slashed and uneven as if it were a wave of earth and rubbish and dark +scum that the immense plain has spat out and pushed against the edge of +the trench. + +We arrive at a junction of trenches, and on the top of the maltreated +hillock which is outlined on the cloudy grayness, a mournful signboard +stands crookedly in the wind. The trench system becomes still more +cramped and close, and the men who are flowing towards the +clearing-station from all parts of the sector multiply and throng in +the deep-dug ways. + +These lamentable lanes are staked out with corpses. At uneven intervals +their walls are broken into by quite recent gaps, extending to their +full depth, by funnelholes of fresh earth which trespass upon the +unwholesome land beyond, where earthy bodies are squatting with their +chins on their knees or leaning against the wall as straight and silent +as the rifles which wait beside them. Some of these standing dead turn +their blood-bespattered faces towards the survivors; others exchange +their looks with the sky's emptiness. + +Joseph halts to take breath. I say to him as to a child, "We're nearly +there, we're nearly there." + +The sinister ramparts of this way of desolation contract still more. +They impel a feeling of suffocation, of a nightmare of falling which +oppresses and strangles: and in these depths where the walls seem to be +coming nearer and closing in, you are forced to halt, to wriggle a path +for yourself, to vex and disturb the dead, to be pushed about by the +endless disorder of the files that flow along these hinder trenches, +files made up of messengers, of the maimed, of men who groan and who +cry aloud, who hurry frantically, crimsoned by fever or pallid and +visibly shaken by pain. + + * * * * * + +All this throng at last pulls up and gathers and groans at the +crossways where the burrows of the Refuge open out. + +A doctor is trying with shouts and gesticulations to keep a little +space clear from the rising tide that beats upon the threshold of the +shelter, where he applies summary bandages in the open air; they say he +has not ceased to do it, nor his helpers either, all the night and all +the day, that he is accomplishing a superhuman task. + +When they leave his hands, some of the wounded are swallowed up by the +black hole of the Refuge; others are sent back to the bigger +clearing-station contrived in the trench on the Bethune road. + +In this confined cavity formed by the crossing of the ditches, in the +bottom of a sort of robbers' den, we waited two hours, buffeted, +squeezed, choked and blinded, climbing over each other like cattle, in +an odor of blood and butchery. There are faces that become more +distorted and emaciated from minute to minute. One of the patients can +no longer hold back his tears; they come in floods, and as he shakes +his head he sprinkles his neighbors. Another, bleeding like a fountain, +shouts, "Hey, there! have a look at me!" A young man with burning eyes +yells like a soul in hell, "I'm on fire!" and he roars and blows like a +furnace. + + * * * * * + +Joseph is bandaged. He thrusts a way through to me and holds out his +hand: "It isn't serious, it seems; good-by," he says. + +At once we are separated in the mob. With my last glance I see his +wasted face and the vacant absorption in his trouble as he is meekly +led away by a Divisional stretcher-bearer whose hand is on his +shoulder; and suddenly I see him no more. In war, life separates us +just as death does, without our having even the time to think about it. + +They tell me not to stay there, but to go down into the Refuge to rest +before returning. There are two entries, very low and very narrow, on +the level of the ground. This one is flush with the mouth of a sloping +gallery, narrow as the conduit of a sewer. In order to penetrate the +Refuge, one must first turn round and work backwards with bent body +into the shrunken pipe, and here the feet discover steps. Every three +paces there is a deep step. + +Once inside you have a first impression of being trapped--that there is +not room enough either to descend or climb out. As you go on burying +yourself in the gulf, the nightmare of suffocation continues that you +progressively endured as you advanced along the bowels of the trenches +before foundering in here. On all sides you bump and scrape yourself, +you are clutched by the tightness of the passage, you are wedged and +stuck. I have to change the position of my cartridge pouches by sliding +them round the belt and to take my bags in my arms against my chest. At +the fourth step the suffocation increases still more and one has a +moment of agony; little as one may lift his knee for the rearward step, +his back strikes the roof. In this spot it is necessary to go on all +fours, still backwards. As you go down into the depth, a pestilent +atmosphere and heavy as earth buries you. Your hands touch only the +cold, sticky and sepulchral clay of the wall, which bears you down on +all sides and enshrouds you in a dismal solitude; its blind and moldy +breath touches your face. On the last steps, reached after long labor, +one is assailed by a hot, unearthly clamor that rises from the hole as +from a sort of kitchen. + +When you reach at last the bottom of this laddered sap that elbows and +compresses you at every step, the evil dream is not ended, for you find +yourself in a lone but very narrow cavern where gloom reigns, a mere +corridor not more than five feet high. If you cease to stoop and to +walk with bended knees, your head violently strikes the planks that +roof the Refuge, and the newcomers are heard to growl--more or less +forcefully, according to their temper and condition--"Ah, lucky I've +got my tin hat on:" + +One makes out the gesture of some one who is squatting in an angle. It +is an ambulance man on guard, whose monotone says to each arrival, +"Take the mud off your boots before going in." So you stumble into an +accumulating pile of mud; it entangles you at the foot of the steps on +this threshold of hell. + +In the hubbub of lamentation and groaning, in the strong smell of a +countless concentration of wounds, in this blinking cavern of confused +and unintelligible life, I try first to get my bearings. Some weak +candle flames are shining along the Refuge, but they only relieve the +darkness in the spots where they pierce it. At the farthest end faint +daylight appears, as it might to a dungeon prisoner at the bottom of an +oubliette. This obscure vent-hole allows one to make out some big +objects ranged along the corridor; they are low stretchers, like +coffins. Around and above them one then dimly discerns the movement of +broken and drooping shadows, and the stirring of ranks and groups of +specters against the walls. + +I turn round. At the end opposite that where the faraway light leaks +through, a mob is gathered in front of a tent-cloth which reaches from +the ceiling to the ground, and thus forms an apartment, whose +illumination shines through the oily yellow material. In this retreat, +anti-tetanus injections are going on by the light of an acetylene lamp. +When the cloth is lifted to allow some one to enter or leave, the glare +brutally besplashes the disordered rags of the wounded stationed in +front to await their treatment. Bowed by the ceiling, seated, kneeling +or groveling, they push each other in the desire not to lose their turn +or to steal some other's, and they bark like dogs, "My +turn!"--"Me!"--"Me!" In this corner of modified conflict the tepid +stinks of acetylene and bleeding men are horrible to swallow. + +I turn away from it and seek elsewhere to find a place where I may sit +down. I go forward a little, groping, still stooping and curled up, and +my hands in front. + +By grace of the flame which a smoker holds over his pipe I see a bench +before me, full of beings. My eyes are growing accustomed to the gloom +that stagnates in the cave, and I can make out pretty well this row of +people whose bandages and swathings dimly whiten their heads and limbs. +Crippled, gashed, deformed, motionless or restless, fast fixed in this +kind of barge, they present an incongruous collection of suffering and +misery. + +One of them cries out suddenly, half rises, and then sits down again. +His neighbor, whose greatcoat is torn and his head bare, looks at him +and says to him--"What's the use of worrying?" + +And he repeats the sentence several times at random, gazing straight in +front of him, his hands on his knees. A young man in the middle of the +seat is talking to himself. He says that he is an aviator. There are +burns down one side of his body and on his face. In his fever he is +still burning; it seems to him that he is still gnawed by the pointed +flames that leaped from his engine. He is muttering, "Gott mit uns!" +and then, "God is with us!" + +A zouave with his arm in a sling, who sits awry and seems to carry his +shoulder like a torturing burden, speaks to him: "You're the aviator +that fell, aren't you?" + +"I've seen--things," replies the flying-man laboriously. + +"I too, I've seen some!" the soldier interrupts; "some people couldn't +stick it, to see what I've seen." + +"Come and sit here," says one of the men on the seat to me, making room +as he speaks. "Are you wounded?" + +"No; I brought a wounded man here, and I'm going back." + +"You're worse than wounded then; come and sit down." + +"I was mayor in my place," explains one of the sufferers, "but when I +go back no one will know me again, it's so long now that I've been in +misery." + +"Four hours now have I been stuck on this bench," groans a sort of +mendicant, whose shaking hand holds his helmet on his knees like an +alms-bowl, whose head is lowered and his back rounded. + +"We're waiting to be cleared, you know," I am informed by a big man who +pants and sweats--all the bulk of him seems to be boiling. His mustache +hangs as if it had come half unstuck through the moisture of his face. +He turns two big and lightless eyes on me, and his wound is not visible. + +"That's so," says another; "all the wounded of the Brigade come and +pile themselves up here one after another, without counting them from +other places. Yes, look at it now; this hole here, it's the midden for +the whole Brigade." + +"I'm gangrened, I'm smashed, I'm all in bits inside," droned one who +sat with his head in his hands and spoke through his fingers; "yet up +to last week I was young and I was clean. They've changed me. Now, I've +got nothing but a dirty old decomposed body to drag along." + +"Yesterday," says another, "I was twenty-six years old. And now how old +am I?" He tries to get up, so as to show us his shaking and faded face, +worn out in a night, to show us the emaciation, the depression of +cheeks and eye-sockets, and the dying flicker of light in his greasy +eye. + +"It hurts!" humbly says some one invisible. + +"What's the use of worrying?" repeats the other mechanically. + +There was a silence, and then the aviator cried, "The padres were +trying on both sides to hide their voices." + +"What's that mean?" said the astonished zouave. + +"Are you taking leave of 'em, old chap?" asked a chasseur wounded in +the hand and with one arm bound to his body, as his eyes left the +mummified limb for a moment to glance at the flying-man. + +The latter's looks were distraught; he was trying to interpret a +mysterious picture which everywhere he saw before his eyes--"Up there, +from the sky, you don't see much, you know. Among the squares of the +fields and the little heaps of the villages the roads run like white +cotton. You can make out, too, some hollow threads that look as if +they'd been traced with a pin-point and scratched through fine sand. +These nets that festoon the plain with regularly wavy marks, they're +the trenches. Last Sunday morning I was flying over the firing-line. +Between our first lines and their first lines, between their extreme +edges, between the fringes of the two huge armies that are up against +each other, looking at each other and not seeing, and waiting--it's not +very far; sometimes forty yards, sometimes sixty. To me it looked about +a stride, at the great height where I was planing. And behold I could +make out two crowds, one among the Boches, and one of ours, in these +parallel lines that seemed to touch each other; each was a solid, +lively lump, and all around 'em were dots like grains of black sand +scattered on gray sand, and these hardly budged--it didn't look like an +alarm! So I went down several turns to investigate. + +"Then I understood. It was Sunday, and there were two religious +services being held under my eyes--the altar, the padre, and all the +crowd of chaps. The more I went down the more I could see that the two +things were alike--so exactly alike that it looked silly. One of the +services--whichever you like--was a reflection of the other, and I +wondered if I was seeing double. I went down lower; they didn't fire at +me. Why? I don't know at all. Then I could hear. I heard one murmur, +one only. I could only gather a single prayer that came up to me en +bloc, the sound of a single chant that passed by me on its way to +heaven. I went to and fro in space to listen to this faint mixture of +hymns that blended together just the same although they were one +against the other; and the more they tried to get on top of each other, +the more they were blended together up in the heights of the sky where +I was floating. + +"I got some shrapnel just at the moment when, very low down, I made out +the two voices from the earth that made up the one--'Gott mit uns!' and +'God is with us!'--and I flew away." + +The young man shook his bandage-covered head; he seemed deranged by the +recollection. "I said to myself at the moment, 'I must be mad!'" + +"It's the truth of things that's mad," said the zouave. + +With his eyes shining in delirium, the narrator sought to express and +convey the deep disturbing idea that was besieging him, that he was +struggling against. + +"Now think of it!" he said. "Fancy those two identical crowds yelling +things that are identical and yet opposite, these identical enemy +cries! What must the good God think about it all? I know well enough +that He knows everything, but even if He knows everything, He won't +know what to make of it." + +"Rot!" cried the zouave. + +"He doesn't care a damn for us, don't fret yourself." + +"Anyway, what is there funny about it? That doesn't prevent people from +quarreling with each other--and don't they! And rifle-shots speak jolly +well the same language, don't they?" + +"Yes," said the aviator, "but there's only one God. It isn't the +departure of prayers that I don't understand; it's their arrival." + +The conversation dropped. + +"There's a crowd of wounded laid out in there," the man with the dull +eyes said to me, "and I'm wondering all ways how they got 'em down +here. It must have been a terrible job, tumbling them in here." + +Two Colonials, hard and lean, supporting each other like tipsy men, +butted into us and recoiled, looking on the ground for some place to +fall on. + +"Old chap, in that trench I'm telling you of," the hoarse voice of one +was relating, "we were three days without rations, three full days +without anything--anything. Willy-nilly, we had to drink our own water, +and no help for it." + +The other explained that once on a time he had cholera. "Ah, that's a +dirty business--fever, vomiting, colics; old man, I was ill with that +lot!" + +"And then, too," suddenly growled the flying-man, still fierce to +pursue the answer to the gigantic conundrum, "what is this God thinking +of to let everybody believe like that that He's with them? Why does He +let us all--all of us--shout out side by side, like idiots and brutes, +'God is with us!'--'No, not at all, you're wrong; God is with us'?" + +A groan arose from a stretcher, and for a moment fluttered lonely in +the silence as if it were an answer. + + * * * * * + +Then, "I don't believe in God," said a pain-racked voice; "I know He +doesn't exist--because of the suffering there is. They can tell us all +the clap-trap they like, and trim up all the words they can find and +all they can make up, but to say that all this innocent suffering could +come from a perfect God, it's damned skull-stuffing." + +"For my part," another of the men on the seat goes on, "I don't believe +in God because of the cold. I've seen men become corpses bit by bit, +just simply with cold. If there was a God of goodness, there wouldn't +be any cold. You can't get away from that." + +"Before you can believe in God, you've got to do away with everything +there is. So we've got a long way to go!" + +Several mutilated men, without seeing each other, combine in +head-shakes of dissent "You're right," says another, "you're right." + +These men in ruins, vanquished in victory, isolated and scattered, have +the beginnings of a revelation. There come moments in the tragedy of +these events when men are not only sincere, but truth-telling, moments +when you see that they and the truth are face to face. + +"As for me," said a new speaker, "if I don't believe in God, it's--" A +fit of coughing terribly continued his sentence. + +When the fit passed and his cheeks were purple and wet with tears, some +one asked him, "Where are you wounded?" + +"I'm not wounded; I'm ill." + +"Oh, I see!" they said, in a tone which meant "You're not interesting." + +He understood, and pleaded the cause of his illness: + +"I'm done in, I spit blood. I've no strength left, and it doesn't come +back, you know, when it goes away like that." + +"Ah, ah!" murmured the comrades--wavering, but secretly convinced all +the same of the inferiority of civilian ailments to wounds. + +In resignation he lowered his head and repeated to himself very +quietly, "I can't walk any more; where would you have me go?" + + * * * * * + +A commotion is arising for some unknown reason in the horizontal gulf +which lengthens as it contracts from stretcher to stretcher as far as +the eye can see, as far as the pallid peep of daylight, in this +confused corridor where the poor winking flames of candles redden and +seem feverish, and winged shadows cast themselves. The odds and ends of +heads and limbs are agitated, appeals and cries arouse each other and +increase in number like invisible ghosts. The prostrate bodies +undulate, double up, and turn over. + +In the heart of this den of captives, debased and punished by pain, I +make out the big mass of a hospital attendant whose heavy shoulders +rise and fall like a knapsack carried crosswise, and whose stentorian +voice reverberates at speed through the cave. "You've been meddling +with your bandage again, you son of a lubber, you varmint!" he +thunders. "I'll do it up again for you, as long as it's you, my chick, +but if you touch it again, you'll see what I'll do to you!" + +Behold him then in the obscurity, twisting a bandage round the cranium +of a very little man who is almost upright, who has bristling hair and +a beard which puffs out in front. With dangling arms, he submits in +silence. But the attendant abandons him, looks on the ground and +exclaims sonorously, "What the--? Eh, come now, my friend, are you +cracked? There's manners for you, to lie down on the top of a patient!" +And his capacious hand disengages a second limp body on which the first +had extended himself as on a mattress; while the mannikin with the +bandaged head alongside, as soon as he is let alone, puts his hands to +his head without saying a word and tries once more to remove the +encircling lint. + +There is an uproar, too, among some shadows that are visible against a +luminous background; they seem to be wildly agitated in the gloom of +the crypt. The light of a candle shows us several men shaken with their +efforts to hold a wounded soldier down on his stretcher. It is a man +whose feet are gone. At the end of his legs are terrible bandages, with +tourniquets to restrain the hemorrhage. His stumps have bled into the +linen wrappings, and he seems to wear red breeches. His face is +devilish, shining and sullen, and he is raving. They are pressing down +on his shoulders and knees, for this man without feet would fain jump +from the stretcher and go away. + +"Let me go!" he rattles in breathless, quavering rage. His voice is +low, with sudden sonorities, like a trumpet that one tries to blow too +softly. "By God, let me go, I tell you! Do you think I'm going to stop +here? Allons, let me be, or I'll jump over you on my hands!" + +So violently he contracts and extends himself that he pulls to and fro +those who are trying to restrain him by their gripping weight, and I +can see the zigzags of the candle held by a kneeling man whose other +arm engirdles the mutilated maniac, who shouts so fiercely that he +wakes up the sleepers and dispels the drowsiness of the rest. On all +sides they turn towards him; half rising, they listen to the incoherent +lamentations which end by dying in the dark. At the same moment, in +another corner, two prostrate wounded, crucified on the ground, so +curse each other that one of them has to be removed before the frantic +dialogue is broken up. + +I go farther away, towards the point where the light from outside comes +through among the tangled beams as through a broken grating, and stride +over the interminable stretchers that take up all the width of the +underground alley whose oppressive confinement chokes me. The human +forms prone on the stretchers are now hardly stirring under the +Jack-o'-lanterns of the candles; they stagnate in their rattling breath +and heavy groans. + +On the edge of a stretcher a man is sitting, leaning against the wall. +His clothes are torn apart, and in the middle of their darkness appears +the white, emaciated breast of a martyr. His head is bent quite back +and veiled in shadow, but I can see the beating of his heart. + +The daylight that is trickling through at the end, drop by drop, comes +in by an earth-fall. Several shells, falling on the same spot, have +broken through the heavy earthen roof of the Refuge. + +Here, some pale reflections are cast on the blue of the greatcoats, on +the shoulders and along the folds. Almost paralyzed by the darkness and +their own weakness, a group of men is pressing towards the gap, like +dead men half awaking, to taste a little of the pallid air and detach +themselves from the sepulcher. This corner at the extremity of the +gloom offers itself as a way of escape, an oasis where one may stand +upright, where one is lightly, angelically touched by the light of +heaven. + +"There were some chaps there that were blown to bits when the shells +burst," said some one to me who was waiting there in the sickly ray of +entombed light. "You talk about a mess! Look, there's the padre hooking +down what was blown up." + +The huge Red Cross sergeant, in a hunter's chestnut waistcoat which +gives him the chest of a gorilla, is detaching the pendent entrails +twisted among the beams of the shattered woodwork. For the purpose he +is using a rifle with fixed bayonet, since he could not find a stick +long enough; and the heavy giant, bald, bearded and asthmatic, wields +the weapon awkwardly. He has a mild face, meek and unhappy, and while +he tries to catch the remains of intestines in the corners, he mutters +a string of "Oh's!" like sighs. His eyes are masked by blue glasses; +his breathing is noisy. The top of his head is of puny dimensions, and +the huge thickness of his neck has a conical shape. To see him thus +pricking and unhanging from the air strips of viscera and rags of +flesh, you could take him for a butcher at some fiendish task. + +But I let myself fall in a corner with my eyes half closed, seeing +hardly anything of the spectacle that lies and palpitates and falls +around me. Indistinctly I gather some fragments of sentences--still the +horrible monotony of the story of wounds: "Nom de Dieu! In that place I +should think the bullets were touching each other."--"His head was +bored through from one temple to the other. You could have passed a +thread through." + +"Those beggars were an hour before they lifted their fire and stopped +peppering us." Nearer to me some one gabbles at the end of his story, +"When I'm sleeping I dream that I'm killing him over again!" + +Other memories are called up and buzz about among the buried wounded; +it is like the purring of countless gear-wheels in a machine that turns +and turns. And I hear afar him who repeats from his seat, "What's the +use of worrying?" in all possible tones, commanding a pitiful, +sometimes like a prophet and anon like one shipwrecked; he metrifies +with his cry the chorus of choking and plaintive voices that try so +terribly to extol their suffering. + +Some one comes forward, blindly feeling the wall with his stick, and +reaches me. It is Farfadet! I call him, and he turns nearly towards me +to tell me that one eye is gone, and the other is bandaged as well. I +give him my place, take him by the shoulders and make him sit down. He +submits, and seated at the base of the wall waits patiently, with the +resignation of his clerkly calling, as if in a waiting-room. + +I come to anchor a little farther away, in an empty space where two +prostrate men are talking to each other in low voices; they are so near +to me that I hear them without listening. They are two soldiers of the +Foreign Legion; their helmets and greatcoats are dark yellow. + +"It's not worth while to make-believe about it," says one of them +banteringly. "I'm staying here this time. It's finished--my bowels are +shot through. If I were in a hospital, in a town, they'd operate on me +in time, and it might stick up again. But here! It was yesterday I got +it. We're two or three hours from the Bethune road, aren't we? And how +many hours, think you, from the road to an ambulance where they can +operate? And then, when are they going to pick us up? It's nobody's +fault, I dare say; but you've got to look facts in the face. Oh, I know +it isn't going to be any worse from now than it is, but it can't be +long, seeing I've a hole all the way through my parcel of guts. You, +your foot'll get all right, or they'll put you another one on. But I'm +going to die." + +"Ah!" said the other, convinced by the reasoning of his neighbor. The +latter goes on--"Listen, Dominique. You've led a bad life. You cribbed +things, and you were quarrelsome when drunk. You've dirtied your ticket +in the police register, properly." + +"I can't say it isn't true, because it is," says the other; "but what +have you got to do with it?" + +"You'll lead a bad life again after the war, inevitably; and then +you'll have bother about that affair of the cooper." + +The other becomes fierce and aggressive. "What the hell's it to do with +you? Shut your jaw!" + +"As for me, I've no more family than you have. I've nobody, except +Louise--and she isn't a relation of mine, seeing we're not married. And +there are no convictions against me, beyond a few little military jobs. +There's nothing on my name." + +"Well, what about it? I don't care a damn." + +"I'm going to tell you. Take my name. Take it--I give it you; as long +as neither of us has any family." + +"Your name?" + +"Yes; you'll call yourself Leonard Carlotti, that's all. 'Tisn't a big +job. What harm can it do you? Straight off, you've no more convictions. +They won't hunt you out, and you can be as happy as I should have been +if this bullet hadn't gone through my magazine." + +"Oh Christ!" said the other, "you'd do that? You'd--that--well, old +chap, that beats all!" + +"Take it. It's there in my pocket-book in my greatcoat. Go on, take it, +and hand yours over to me--so that I can carry it all away with me. +You'll be able to live where you like, except where I come from, where +I'm known a bit, at Longueville in Tunis. You'll remember that? And +anyway, it's written down. You must read it, the pocket-book. I shan't +blab to anybody. To bring the trick off properly, mum's the word, +absolutely." + +He ponders a moment, and then says with a shiver "I'll p'raps tell +Louise, so's she'll find I've done the right thing, and think the +better of me, when I write to her to say good-by." + +But he thinks better of it, and shakes his head with an heroic effort. +"No--I shan't let on, even to her. She's her, of course, but women are +such chatterers!" + +The other man looks at him, and repeats, "Ah, nome de Dieu!" + +Without being noticed by the two men I leave the drama narrowly +developing in this lamentable corner and its jostling and traffic and +hubbub. + +Now I touch the composed and convalescent chat of two poor +wretches--"Ah, my boy, the affection he had for that vine of his! You +couldn't find anything wrong among the branches of it--" + +"That little nipper, that wee little kid, when I went out with him, +holding his tiny fist, it felt as if I'd got hold of the little warm +neck of a swallow, you know." + +And alongside this sentimental avowal, here is the passing revelation +of another mind: "Don't I know the 547th! Rather! Listen, it's a funny +regiment. They've got a poilu in it who's called Petitjean, another +called Petitpierre, and another called Petitlouis. Old man, it's as I'm +telling you; that's the kind of regiment it is." + +As I begin to pick out a way with a view to leaving the cavern, there +is a great noise down yonder of a fall and a chorus of exclamations. It +is the hospital sergeant who has fallen. Through the breach that he was +clearing of its soft and bloody relics, a bullet has taken him in the +throat, and he is spread out full length on the ground. His great +bewildered eyes are rolling and his breath comes foaming. His mouth and +the lower part of his face are quickly covered with a cloud of rosy +bubbles. They place his head on a bag of bandages, and the bag is +instantly soaked with blood. An attendant cries that the packets of +lint will be spoiled, and they are needed. Something else is sought on +which to put the head that ceaselessly makes a light and discolored +froth. Only a loaf can be found, and it is slid under the spongy hair. + +While they hold the sergeant's hand and question him, he only slavers +new heaps of bubbles, and we see his great black-bearded head across +this rosy cloud. Laid out like that, he might be a deep-breathing +marine monster, and the transparent red foam gathers and creeps up to +his great hazy eyes, no longer spectacled. + +Then his throat rattles. It is a childish rattle, and he dies moving +his head to right and to left as though he were trying very gently to +say "No." + +Looking on the enormous inert mass, I reflect that he was a good man. +He had an innocent and impressionable heart. How I reproach myself that +I sometimes abused him for the ingenuous narrowness of his views, and +for a certain clerical impertinence that he always had! And how glad I +am in this distressing scene--yes, happy enough to tremble with +joy--that I restrained myself from an angry protest when I found him +stealthily reading a letter I was writing, a protest that would +unjustly have wounded him! I remember the time when he exasperated me +so much by his dissertation on France and the Virgin Mary. It seemed +impossible to me that he could utter those thoughts sincerely. Why +should he not have been sincere? Has he not been really killed today? I +remember, too, certain deeds of devotion, the kindly patience of the +great man, exiled in war as in life--and the rest does not matter. His +ideas themselves are only trivial details compared with his +heart--which is there on the ground in ruins in this corner of Hell. +With what intensity I lamented this man who was so far asunder from me +in everything! + +Then fell the thunder on us! We were thrown violently on each other by +the frightful shaking of the ground and the walls. It was as if the +overhanging earth had burst and hurled itself down. Part of the +armor-plate of beams collapsed, enlarging the hole that already pierced +the cavern. Another shock--another pulverized span fell in roaring +destruction. The corpse of the great Red Cross sergeant went rolling +against the wall like the trunk of a tree. All the timber in the long +frame-work of the cave, those heavy black vertebrae, cracked with an +ear-splitting noise, and all the prisoners in the dungeon shouted +together in horror. + +Blow after blow, the explosions resound and drive us in all directions +as the bombardment mangles and devours the sanctuary of pierced and +diminished refuge. As the hissing flight of shells hammers and crushes +the gaping end of the cave with its thunderbolts, daylight streams in +through the clefts. More sharply now, and more unnaturally, one sees +the flushed faces and those pallid with death, the eyes which fade in +agony or burn with fever, the patched-up white-bound bodies, the +monstrous bandages. All that was hidden rises again into daylight. +Haggard, blinking and distorted, in face of the flood of iron and +embers that the hurricanes of light bring with them, the wounded arise +and scatter and try to take flight. All the terror-struck inhabitants +roll about in compact masses across the miserable tunnel, as if in the +pitching hold of a great ship that strikes the rocks. + +The aviator, as upright as he can get and with his neck on the ceiling, +waves his arms and appeals to God, asks Him what He is called, what is +His real name. Overthrown by the blast and cast upon the others, I see +him who, bare of breast and his clothes gaping like a wound, reveals +the heart of a Christ. The greatcoat of the man who still monotonously +repeats, "What's the use of worrying?" now shows itself all green, +bright green, the effect of the picric acid no doubt released by the +explosion that has staggered his brain. Others--the rest, +indeed--helpless and maimed, move and creep and cringe, worm themselves +into the corners. They are like moles, poor, defenseless beasts, hunted +by the hellish hounds of the guns. + +The bombardment slackens, and ends in a cloud of smoke that still +echoes the crashes, in a quivering and burning after-damp. I pass out +through the breach; and still surrounded and entwined in the clamor of +despair, I arrive under the free sky, in the soft earth where mingled +planks and legs are sunk. I catch myself on some wreckage; it is the +embankment of the trench. At the moment when I plunge into the +communication trenches they are visible a long way; they are still +gloomily stirring, still filled by the crowd that overflows from the +trenches and flows without end towards the refuges. For whole days, for +whole nights, you will see the long rolling streams of men plucked from +the fields of battle, from the plain over there that also has feelings +of its own, though it bleeds and rots without end. + + + + +XXII + +Going About + + +WE have been along the Boulevard de la Republique and then the Avenue +Gambetta, and now we are debouching into the Place du Commerce. The +nails in our polished boots ring on the pavements of the capital. It is +fine weather, and the shining sky glistens and flashes as if we saw it +through the frames of a greenhouse; it sets a-sparkle all the +shop-fronts in the square. The skirts of our well-brushed greatcoats +have been let down, and as they are usually fastened back, you can see +two squares on the floating lappets where the cloth is bluer. + +Our sauntering party halts and hesitates for a moment in front of the +Cafe de la Sous-Prefecture, also called the Grand-Cafe. + +"We have the right to go in!" says Volpatte. + +"Too many officers in there," replies Blaire, who has lifted his chin +over the guipure curtains in which the establishment is dressed up and +risked a glance through the window between its golden letters. + +"Besides," says Paradis, "we haven't seen enough yet." + +We resume our walk and, simple soldiers that we are, we survey the +sumptuous shops that encircle the Place du Commerce; the drapers, the +stationers, the chemists, and--like a General's decorated uniform--the +display of the jeweler. We have put forth our smiles like ornaments, +for we are exempt from all duty until the evening, we are free, we are +masters of our own time. Our steps are gentle and sedate; our empty and +swinging hands are also promenading, to and fro. + +"No doubt about it, you get some good out of this rest," remarks +Paradis. + +It is an abundantly impressive city which expands before our steps. One +is in touch with life, with the life of the people, the life of the +Rear, the normal life. How we used to think, down yonder, that we +should never get here! + +We see gentlemen, ladies, English officers, aviators-recognizable afar +by their slim elegance and their decorations--soldiers who are parading +their scraped clothes and scrubbed skins and the solitary ornament of +their engraved identity discs, flashing in the sunshine on their +greatcoats; and these last risk themselves carefully in the beautiful +scene that is clear of all nightmares. + +We make exclamations as they do who come from afar: "Talk about a +crowd!" says Tirette in wonder. "Ah, it's a wealthy town!" says Blaire. + +A work-girl passes and looks at us. Volpatte gives me a jog with his +elbow and swallows her with his eyes, then points out to me two other +women farther away who are coming up, and with beaming eye he certifies +that the town is rich in femininity--"Old man, they are plump!" A +moment ago Paradis had a certain timidity to overcome before he could +approach a cluster of cakes of luxurious lodging, and touch and eat +them; and every minute we are obliged to halt in the middle of the +pavement and wait for Blaire, who is attracted and detained by the +displays of fancy jumpers and caps, neck-ties in pale blue drill, +slippers as red and shiny as mahogany. Blaire has reached the final +height of his transformation. He who held the record for negligence and +grime is certainly the best groomed of us all, especially since the +further complication of his ivories, which were broken in the attack +and had to be remade. He affects an off-hand demeanor. "He looks young +and youthful," says Marthereau. + +We find ourselves suddenly face to face with a toothless creature who +smiles to the depth of her throat. Some black hair bristles round her +hat. Her big, unpleasant features, riddled with pock-marks, recalls the +ill-painted faces that one sees on the coarse canvas of a traveling +show. 'She's beautiful,' says Volpatte. Marthereau, at whom she smiled, +is dumb with shock. + +Thus do the poilus converse who are suddenly placed under the spell of +a town. More and more they rejoice in the beautiful scene, so neat and +incredibly clean. They resume possession of life tranquil and peaceful, +of that conception of comfort and even of happiness for which in the +main houses were built. + +"We should easily get used to it again, you know, old man, after all!" + +Meanwhile a crowd is gathered around an outfitter's shop-window where +the proprietor has contrived, with the aid of mannikins in wood and +wax, a ridiculous tableau. On a groundwork of little pebbles like those +in an aquarium, there is a kneeling German, in a suit so new that the +creases are definite, and punctuated with an Iron Cross in cardboard. +He holds up his two wooden pink hands to a French officer, whose curly +wig makes a cushion for a juvenile cap, who has bulging, crimson +cheeks, and whose infantile eye of adamant looks somewhere else. Beside +the two personages lies a rifle barrowed from the odd trophies of a +box of toys. A card gives the title of the animated group--"Kamarad!" + +"Ah, damn it, look!" + +We shrug our shoulders at sight of the puerile contrivance, the only +thing here that recalls to us the gigantic war raging somewhere under +the sky. We begin to laugh bitterly, offended and even wounded to the +quick in our new impressions. Tirette collects himself, and some +abusive sarcasm rises to his lips; but the protest lingers and is mute +by reason of our total transportation, the amazement of being somewhere +else. + +Our group is then espied by a very stylish and rustling lady, radiant +in violet and black silk and enveloped in perfumes. She puts out her +little gloved hand and touches Volpatte's sleeve and then Blaire's +shoulder, and they instantly halt, gorgonized by this direct contact +with the fairy-like being. + +"Tell me, messieurs, you who are real soldiers from the front, you have +seen that in the trenches, haven't you?" + +"Er--yes--yes," reply the two poor fellows, horribly frightened and +gloriously gratified. + +"Ah!" the crowd murmurs, "did you hear? And they've been there, they +have!" + +When we find ourselves alone again on the flagged perfection of the +pavement, Volpatte and Blaire look at each other and shake their heads. + +"After all," says Volpatte, "it is pretty much like that you know!" + +"Why, yes, of course!" + +And these were their first words of false swearing that day. + + * * * * * + +We go into the Cafe de l'Industrie et des Fleurs. A roadway of matting +clothes the middle of the floor. Painted all the way along the walls, +all the way up the square pillars that support the roof, and on the +front of the counter, there is purple convolvulus among great scarlet +poppies and roses like red cabbages. + +"No doubt about it, we've got good taste in France," says Tirette. + +"The chap that did all that had a cartload of patience," Blaire +declares as he looks at the rainbow embellishments. + +"In these places," Volpatte adds, "the pleasure of drinking isn't the +only one." + +Paradis informs us that he knows all about cafes. On Sundays formerly, +he frequented cafes as beautiful as this one and even more beautiful. +Only, he explains, that was a long time ago, and he has lost the flavor +that they've got. He indicates a little enameled wash-hand basin +hanging on the wall and decorated with flowers: "There's where one can +wash his hands." We steer politely towards the basin. Volpatte signs to +Paradis to turn the tap, and says, "Set the waterworks going!" + +Then all six of us enter the saloon, whose circumference is already +adorned with customers, and install ourselves at a table. + +"We'll have six currant-vermouths, shall we?" + +"We could very easily get used to it again, after all," they repeat. + +Some civilians leave their places and come near us. They whisper, +"They've all got the Croix de Guerre, Adolphe, you see---"--"Those are +real poilus!" + +Our comrades overhear, and now they only talk among themselves +abstractedly, with their ears elsewhere, and an unconscious air of +importance appears. + +A moment later, the man and woman from whom the remarks proceeded lean +towards us with their elbows on the white marble and question us: "Life +in the trenches, it's very rough, isn't it?" + +"Er--yes--well, of course, it isn't always pleasant." + +"What splendid physical and moral endurance you have! In the end you +get used to the life, don't you?" + +"Why, yes, of course, one gets used to it--one gets used to it all +right." + +"All the same, it's a terrible existence--and the suffering!" murmurs +the lady, turning over the leaves of an illustrated paper which +displays gloomy pictures of destruction. "They ought not to publish +these things, Adolphe, about the dirt and the vermin and the fatigues! +Brave as you are, you must be unhappy?" + +Volpatte, to whom she speaks, blushes. He is ashamed of the misery +whence he comes, whither he must return. He lowers his head and lies, +perhaps without realizing the extent of his mendacity: "No, after all, +we're not unhappy, it isn't so terrible as all that!" + +The lady is of the same opinion. "I know," she says, "there are +compensations! How superb a charge must be, eh? All those masses of men +advancing like they do in a holiday procession, and the trumpets +playing a rousing air in the fields! And the dear little soldiers that +can't be held back and shouting, 'Vive la France!' and even laughing as +they die! Ah! we others, we're not in honor's way like you are. My +husband is a clerk at the Prefecture, and just now he's got a holiday +to treat his rheumatism." + +"I should very much have liked to be a soldier," said the gentleman, +"but I've no luck. The head of my office can't get on without me." + +People go and come, elbowing and disappearing behind each other. The +waiters worm their way through with their fragile and sparkling +burdens--green, red or bright yellow, with a white border. The grating +of feet on the sanded floor mingles with the exclamations of the +regular customers as they recognize each other, some standing, others +leaning on their elbows, amid the sound of glasses and dominoes pushed +along the tables. In the background, around the seductive shock of +ivory balls, a crowding circle of spectators emits classical +pleasantries. + +"Every man to his trade, mon brave," says a man at the other end of the +table whose face is adorned with powerful colors, addressing Tirette +directly; "you are heroes. On our side, we are working in the economic +life of the country. It is a struggle like yours. I am useful--I don't +say more useful than you, but equally so." + +And I see Tirette through the cigar-smoke making round eyes, and in the +hubbub I can hardly hear the reply of his humble and dumbfounded +voice--Tirette, the funny man of the squad!--"Yes, that's true; every +man to his trade." + +Furtively we stole away. + + * * * * * + +We are almost silent as we leave the Cafe des Fleurs. It seems as if we +no longer know how to talk. Something like discontent irritates my +comrades and knits their brows. They look as if they are becoming aware +that they have not done their duty at an important juncture. + +"Fine lot of gibberish they've talked to us, the beasts!" Tirette +growls at last with a rancor that gathers strength the more we unite +and collect ourselves again. + +"We ought to have got beastly drunk to-day!" replies Paradis brutally. + +We walk without a word spoken. Then, after a time, "They're a lot of +idiots, filthy idiots," Tirette goes on; "they tried to cod us, but I'm +not on; if I see them again," he says, with a crescendo of anger, "I +shall know what to say to them!" + +"We shan't see them again," says Blaire. + +"In eight days from now, p'raps we shall be laid out," says Volpatte. + +In the approaches to the square we run into a mob of people flowing out +from the Hotel de Ville and from another big public building which +displays the columns of a temple supporting a pediment. Offices are +closing, and pouring forth civilians of all sorts and all ages, and +military men both young and old, who seem at a distance to be dressed +pretty much like us; but when nearer they stand revealed as the +shirkers and deserters of the war, in spite of being disguised as +soldiers, in spite of their brisques. [note 1] + +Women and children are waiting for them, in pretty and happy clusters. +The commercial people are shutting up their shops with complacent +content and a smile for both the day ended and for the morrow, elated +by the lively and constant thrills of profits increased, by the growing +jingle of the cash-box. They have stayed behind in the heart of their +own firesides; they have only to stoop to caress their children. We see +them beaming in the first starlights of the street, all these rich folk +who are becoming richer, all these tranquil people whose tranquillity +increases every day, people who are full, you feel, and in spite of +all, of an unconfessable prayer. They all go slowly, by grace of the +fine evening, and settle themselves in perfected homes, or in cafes +where they are waited upon. Couples are forming, too, young women and +young men, civilians or soldiers, with some badge of their preservation +embroidered on their collars. They make haste into the shadows of +security where the others go, where the dawn of lighted rooms awaits +them; they hurry towards the night of rest and caresses. + +And as we pass quite close to a ground-floor window which is half open, +we see the breeze gently inflate the lace curtain and lend it the light +and delicious form of lingerie--and the advancing throng drives us +back, poor strangers that we are! + +We wander along the pavement, all through the twilight that begins to +glow with gold--for in towns Night adorns herself with jewels. The +sight of this world has revealed a great truth to us at last, nor could +we avoid it: a Difference which becomes evident between human beings, a +Difference far deeper than that of nations and with defensive trenches +more impregnable; the clean-cut and truly unpardonable division that +there is in a country's inhabitants between those who gain and those +who grieve, those who are required to sacrifice all, all, to give their +numbers and strength and suffering to the last limit, those upon whom +the others walk and advance, smile and succeed. + +Some items of mourning attire make blots in the crowd and have their +message for us, but the rest is of merriment, not mourning. + +"It isn't one single country, that's not possible," suddenly says +Volpatte with singular precision, "there are two. We're divided into +two foreign countries. The Front, over there, where there are too many +unhappy, and the Rear, here, where there are too many happy." + +"How can you help it? It serves its end--it's the background--but +afterwards--" + +"Yes, I know; but all the same, all the same, there are too many of +them, and they're too happy, and they're always the same ones, and +there's no reason--" + +"What can you do?" says Tirette. + +"So much the worse," adds Blaire, still more simply. + +"In eight days from now p'raps we shall have snuffed it!" Volpatte is +content to repeat as we go away with lowered heads. + +------------ + +[note 1] See p. 117. + + + + +XXIII + +The Fatigue-Party + + +EVENING is falling upon the trench. All through the day it has been +drawing near, invisible as fate, and now it encroaches on the banks of +the long ditches like the lips of a wound infinitely great. + +We have talked, eaten, slept, and written in the bottom of the trench +since the morning. Now that evening is here, an eddying springs up in +the boundless crevice; it stirs and unifies the torpid disorder of the +scattered men. It is the hour when we arise and work. + +Volpatte and Tirette approach each other. "Another day gone by, another +like the rest of 'em," says Volpatte, looking at the darkening sky. + +"You're off it; our day isn't finished," replies Tirette, whose long +experience of calamity has taught him that one must not jump to +conclusions, where we are, even in regard to the modest future of a +commonplace evening that has already begun. + +"Allons! Muster!" We join up with the laggard inattention of custom. +With himself each man brings his rifle, his pouches of cartridges, his +water-bottle, and a pouch that contains a lump of bread. Volpatte is +still eating, with protruding and palpitating cheek. Paradis, with +purple nose and chattering teeth, growls. Fouillade trails his rifle +along like a broom. Marthereau looks at a mournful handkerchief, +rumpled and stiff, and puts it back in his pocket. A cold drizzle is +falling, and everybody shivers. + +Down yonder we hear a droning chant--"Two shovels, one pick, two +shovels, one pick----" The file trickles along to the tool-store, +stagnates at the door, and departs, bristling with implements. + +"Everybody here? Gee up!" says the sergeant. Downward and rolling, we +go forward. We know not where we go. We know nothing, except that the +night and the earth are blending in the same abyss. + +As we emerge into the nude twilight from the trench, we see it already +black as the crater of a dead volcano. Great gray clouds, +storm-charged, hang from the sky. The plain, too, is gray in the pallid +light; the grass is muddy, and all slashed with water. The things which +here and there seem only distorted limbs are denuded trees. We cannot +see far around us in the damp reek; besides, we only look downwards at +the mud in which we slide--"Porridge!" + +Going across country we knead and pound a sticky paste which spreads +out and flows back from every step--"Chocolate cream--coffee creams!" + +On the stony parts, the wiped-out ruins of roads that have become +barren as the fields, the marching troop breaks through a layer of +slime into a flinty conglomerate that grates and gives way under our +iron-shod soles--"Seems as if we were walking on buttered toast!" + +On the slope of a knoll sometimes, the mud is black and thick and +deep-rutted, like that which forms around the horse-ponds in villages, +and in these ruts there are lakes and puddles and ponds, whose edges +seem to be in rags. + +The pleasantries of the wags, who in the early freshness of the journey +had cried, "Quack, quack," when they went through the water, are now +becoming rare and gloomy; gradually the jokers are damped down. The +rain begins to fall heavily. The daylight dwindles, and the confusion +that is space contracts. The last lingering light welters on the ground +and in the water. + +A steaming silhouette of men like monks appears through the rain in the +west. It is a company of the 204th, wrapped in tent-cloths. As we go by +we see the pale and shrunken faces and the dark noses of these dripping +prowlers before they disappear. The track we are following through the +faint grass of the fields is itself a sticky field streaked with +countless parallel ruts, all plowed in the same line by the feet and +the wheels of those who go to the front and those who go to the rear. + +We have to jump over gaping trenches, and this is not always easy, for +the edges have become soft and slippery, and earth-falls have widened +them. Fatigue, too, begins to bear upon our shoulders. Vehicles cross +our path with a great noise and splashing. Artillery limbers prance by +and spray us heavily. The motor lorries are borne on whirling circles +of water around the wheels, with spirting tumultuous spokes. + +As the darkness increases, the jolted vehicles and the horses' necks +and the profiles of the riders with their floating cloaks and slung +carbines stand out still more fantastically against the misty floods +from the sky. Here, there is a block of ammunition carts of the +artillery. The horses are standing and trampling as we go by. We hear +the creaking of axles, shouts, disputes, commands which collide, and +the roar of the ocean of rain. Over the confused scuffle we can see +steam rising from the buttocks of the teams and the cloaks of the +horsemen. + +"Look out!" Something is laid out on the ground on our right--a row of +dead. As we go by, our feet instinctively avoid them and our eyes +search them. We see upright boot-soles, outstretched necks, the hollows +of uncertain faces, hands half clenched in the air over the dark medley. + +We march and march, over fields still ghostly and foot-worn, under a +sky where ragged clouds unfurl themselves upon the blackening +expanse--which seems to have befouled itself by prolonged contact with +so many multitudes of sorry humanity. + +Then we go down again into the communication trenches. To reach them we +make a wide circuit, so that the rearguard can see the whole company, a +hundred yards away, deployed in the gloom, little obscure figures +sticking to the slopes and following each other in loose order, with +their tools amid their rifles pricking up on each side of their heads, +a slender trivial line that plunges in and raises its arms as if in +entreaty. + +These trenches--still of the second lines--are populous. On the +thresholds of the dug-outs, where cart-cloths and skins of animals hang +and flap, squatting and bearded men watch our passing with +expressionless eyes, as if they were looking at nothing. From beneath +other cloths, drawn down to the ground, feet are projected, and snores. + +"Nom de Dieu! It's a long way!" the trampers begin to grumble. There is +an eddy and recoil in the flow. + +"Halt!" The stop is to let others go by. We pile ourselves up, cursing, +on the walls of the trench. It is a company of machine-gunners with +their curious burdens. + +There seems to be no end to it, and the long halts are wearying. +Muscles are beginning to stretch. The everlasting march is overwhelming +us. We have hardly got going again when we have to recoil once more +into a traverse to let the relief of the telephonists go by. We back +like awkward cattle, and restart more heavily. + +"Look out for the wire!" The telephone wire undulates above the trench, +and crosses it in places between two posts. When it is too slack, its +curve sags into the trench and catches the rifles of passing men, and +the ensnared ones struggle, and abuse the engineers who don't know how +to fix up their threads. + +Then, as the drooping entanglement of precious wires increases, we +shoulder our rifles with the butt in the air, carry the shovels under +our arms, and go forward with lowered heads. + + * * * * * + +Our progress now is suddenly checked, and we only advance step by step, +locked in each other. The head of the column must be in difficult case. +We reach a spot where failing ground leads to a yawning hole--the +Covered Trench. The others have disappeared through the low doorway. +"We've got to go into this blackpudding, then?" + +Every man hesitates before ingulfing himself in the narrow underground +darkness, and it is the total of these hesitations and lingerings that +is reflected in the rear sections of the column in the form of +wavering, obstruction, and sometimes abrupt shocks. + +From our first steps in the Covered Trench, a heavy darkness settles on +us and divides us from each other. The damp odor of a swamped cave +steals into us. In the ceiling of the earthen corridor that contains +us, we can make out a few streaks and holes of pallor--the chinks and +rents in the overhead planks. Little streams of water flow freely +through them in places, and in spite of tentative groping we stumble on +heaped-up timber. Alongside, our knocks discover the dim vertical +presence of the supporting beams. + +The air in this interminable tunnel is vibrating heavily. It is the +searchlight engine that is installed there--we have to pass in front of +it. + +After we have felt our deep-drowned way for a quarter of an hour, some +one who is overborne by the darkness and the wet, and tired of bumping +into unknown people, growls, "I don't care--I'm going to light up." + +The brilliant beam of a little electric lamp flashes out, and instantly +the sergeant bellows, "Ye gods! Who's the complete ass that's making a +light? Are you daft? Don't you know it can be seen, you scab, through +the roof?" + +The flash-lamp, after revealing some dark and oozing walls in its cone +of light, retires into the night. "Not much you can't see it!" jeers +the man, "and anyway we're not in the first lines." "Ah, that can't be +seen!" + +The sergeant, wedged into the file and continuing to advance, appears +to be turning round as he goes and attempting some forceful +observations--"You gallows-bird! You damned dodger!" But suddenly he +starts a new roar--"What! Another man smoking now! Holy hell!" This +time he tries to halt, but in vain he rears himself against the wall +and struggles to stick to it. He is forced precipitately to go with the +stream and is carried away among his own shouts, which return and +swallow him up, while the cigarette, the cause of his rage, disappears +in silence. + + * * * * * + +The jerky beat of the engine grows louder, and an increasing heat +surrounds us. The overcharged air of the trench vibrates more and more +as we go forward. The engine's jarring note soon hammers our ears and +shakes us through. Still it gets hotter; it is like some great animal +breathing in our faces. The buried trench seems to be leading us down +and down into the tumult of some infernal workshop, whose dark-red glow +is sketching out our huge and curving shadows in purple on the walls. + +In a diabolical crescendo of din, of hot wind and of lights, we flow +deafened towards the furnace. One would think that the engine itself +was hurling itself through the tunnel to meet us, like a frantic +motor-cyclist drawing dizzily near with his headlight and destruction. + +Scorched and half blinded, we pass in front of the red furnace and the +black engine, whose flywheel roars like a hurricane, and we have hardly +time to make out the movements of men around it. We shut our eyes, +choked by the contact of this glaring white-hot breath. + +Now, the noise and the heat are raging behind us and growing feebler, +and my neighbor mutters in his beard, "And that idiot that said my lamp +would be seen!" + +And here is the free air! The sky is a very dark blue, of the same +color as the earth and little lighter. The rain becomes worse and +worse, and walking is laborious in the heavy slime. The whole boot +sinks in, and it is a labor of acute pain to withdraw the foot every +time. Hardly anything is left visible in the night, but at the exit +from the hole we see a disorder of beams which flounder in the widened +trench--some demolished dugout. + +Just at this moment, a searchlight's unearthly arm that was swinging +through space stops and falls on us, and we find that the tangle of +uprooted and sunken posts and shattered framing is populous with dead +soldiers. Quite close to me, the head of a kneeling body hangs on its +back by an uncertain thread; a black veneer, edged with clotted drops, +covers the cheek. Another body so clasps a post in its arms that it has +only half fallen. Another, lying in the form of a circle, has been +stripped by the shell, and his back and belly are laid bare. Another, +outstretched on the edge of the heap, has thrown his hand across our +path; and in this place where there no traffic except by night--for the +trench is blocked just there by the earth-fall and inaccessible by +day--every one treads on that hand. By the searchlight's shaft I saw it +clearly, fleshless and worn, a sort of withered fin. + +The rain is raging and the sound of its streaming dominates +everything--a horror of desolation. We feel the water on our flesh as +if the deluge had washed our clothes away. + +We enter the open trench, and the embrace of night and storm resumes +the sole possession of this confusion of corpses, stranded and cramped +on a square of earth as on a raft. + +The wind freezes the drops of sweat on our foreheads. It is near +midnight. For six hours now we have marched in the increasing burden of +the mud. This is the time when the Paris theaters are constellated with +electroliers and blossoming with lamps; when they are filled with +luxurious excitement, with the rustle of skirts, with merrymaking and +warmth; when a fragrant and radiant multitude, chatting, laughing, +smiling, applauding, expanding, feels itself pleasantly affected by the +cleverly graduated emotions which the comedy evokes, and lolls in +contented enjoyment of the rich and splendid pageants of military +glorification that crowd the stage of the music-hall. + +"Aren't we there? Nom de Dieu, shan't we ever get there?" The groan is +breathed by the long procession that tosses about in these crevices of +the earth, carrying rifles and shovels and pickaxes under the eternal +torrent. We march and march. We are drunk with fatigue, and roll to +this side and that. Stupefied and soaked, we strike with our shoulders +a substance as sodden as ourselves. + +"Halt!"--"Are we there?"--"Ah, yes, we're there!" + +For the moment a heavy recoil presses us back and then a murmur runs +along: "We've lost ourselves." The truth dawns on the confusion of the +wandering horde. We have taken the wrong turn at some fork, and it will +be the deuce of a job to find the right way again. + +Then, too, a rumor passes from mouth to mouth that a fighting company +on its way to the lines is coming up behind us. The way by which we +have come is stopped up with men. It is the block absolute. + +At all costs we must try to regain the lost trench--which is alleged to +be on our left--by trickling through some sap or other. Utterly wearied +and unnerved, the men break into gesticulations and violent reproaches. +They trudge awhile, then drop their tools and halt. Here and there are +compact groups--you can glimpse them by the light of the +star-shells--who have let themselves fall to the ground. Scattered afar +from south to north, the troop waits in the merciless rain. + +The lieutenant who is in charge and has led us astray, wriggles his way +along the men in quest of some lateral exit. A little trench appears, +shallow and narrow. + +"We must go that way, no doubt about it," the officer hastens to say. +"Come, forward, boys." + +Each man sulkily picks up his burden. But a chorus of oaths and curses +rises from the first who enter the little sap: "It's a latrine!" + +A disgusting smell escapes from the trench, and those inside halt butt +into each other, and refuse to advance. We are all jammed against each +other and block up the threshold. + +"I'd rather climb out and go in the open!" cries a man. But there are +flashes rending the sky above the embankments on all sides, and the +sight is so fearsome of these jets of resounding flame that overhang +our pit and its swarming shadows that no one responds to the madman's +saying. + +Willing or unwilling, since we cannot go back, we must even take that +way. "Forward into the filth!" cries the leader of the troop. We plunge +in, tense with repulsion. Bullets are whistling over. "Lower your +heads!" The trench has little depth; one must stoop very low to avoid +being hit, and the stench becomes intolerable. At last we emerge into +the communication trench that we left in error. We begin again to +march. Though we march without end we arrive nowhere. + +While we wander on, dumb and vacant, in the dizzy stupefaction of +fatigue, the stream which is running in the bottom of the trench +cleanses our befouled feet. + +The roars of the artillery succeed each other faster and faster, till +they make but a single roar upon all the earth. From all sides the +gunfire and the bursting shells hurl their swift shafts of light and +stripe confusedly the black sky over our heads. The bombardment then +becomes so intense that its illumination has no break. In the +continuous chain of thunderbolts we can see each other clearly--our +helmets streaming like the bodies of fishes, our sodden leathers, the +shovel-blades black and glistening; we can even see the pale drops of +the unending rain. Never have I seen the like of it; in very truth it +is moonlight made by gunfire. + +Together there mounts from our lines and from the enemy's such a cloud +of rockets that they unite and mingle in constellations; at one moment, +to light us on our hideous way, there was a Great Bear of star-shells +in the valley of the sky that we could see between the parapets. + + * * * * * + +We are lost again, and this time we must be close to the first lines; +but a depression in this part of the plain forms a sort of basin, +overrun by shadows. We have marched along a sap and then back again. In +the phosphorescent vibration of the guns, shimmering like a +cinematograph, we make out above the parapet two stretcher-bearers +trying to cross the trench with their laden stretcher. + +The lieutenant, who at least knows the place where he should guide the +team of workers, questions them, "Where is the New Trench?"--"Don't +know." From the ranks another question is put to them, "How far are we +from the Boches?" They make no reply, as they are talking among +themselves. + +"I'm stopping," says the man in front; "I'm too tired." + +"Come, get on with you, nom de Dieu!" says the other in a surly tone +and floundering heavily, his arms extended by the stretcher. "We can't +stop and rust here." + +They put the stretcher down on the parapet, the edge of it overhanging +the trench, and as we pass underneath we can see the prostrate man's +feet. The rain which falls on the stretcher drains from it darkened. + +"Wounded?" some one asks down below. + +"No, a stiff," growls the bearer this time, "and he weighs twelve stone +at least. Wounded I don't mind--for two days and two nights we haven't +left off carrying 'em--but it's rotten, breaking yourself up with +lugging dead men about." And the bearer, upright on the edge of the +bank, drops a foot to the base of the opposite bank across the cavity, +and with his legs wide apart, laboriously balanced, he grips the +stretcher and begins to draw it across, calling on his companion to +help him. + +A little farther we see the stooping form of a hooded officer, and as +he raises his hand to his face we see two gold lines on his sleeve. He, +surely, will tell us the way. But he addresses us, and asks if we have +not seen the battery he is looking for. We shall never get there! + +But we do, all the same. We finish up in a field of blackness where a +few lean posts are bristling. We climb up to it, and spread out in +silence. This is the spot. + +The placing of us is an undertaking. Four separate times we go forward +and then retire, before the company is regularly echeloned along the +length of the trench to be dug, before an equal interval is left +between each team of one striker and two shovelers. "Incline three +paces more--too much--one pace to the rear. Come, one pace to the +rear--are you deaf?--Halt! There!" + +This adjustment is done by the lieutenant and a noncom. of the +Engineers who has sprung up out of the ground. Together or separately +they run along the file and give their muttered orders into the men's +ears as they take them by the arm, sometimes, to guide them. Though +begun in an orderly way, the arrangement degenerates, thanks to the ill +temper of the exhausted men, who must continually be uprooting +themselves from the spot where the undulating mob is stranded. + +"We're in front of the first lines," they whisper round me. "No." +murmur other voices, "we're just behind." + +No one knows. The rain still falls, though less fiercely than at some +moments on the march. But what matters the rain! We have spread +ourselves out on the ground. Now that our backs and limbs rest in the +yielding mud, we are so comfortable that we are unconcerned about the +rain that pricks our faces and drives through to our flesh, indifferent +to the saturation of the bed that contains us. + +But we get hardly time enough to draw breath. They are not so imprudent +as to let us bury ourselves in sleep. We must set ourselves to +incessant labor. It is two o'clock of the morning; in four hours more +it will be too light for us to stay here. There is not a minute to lose. + +"Every man," they say to us, "must dig five feet in length, two and a +half feet in width, and two and three-quarter feet in depth. That makes +fifteen feet in length for each team. And I advise you to get into it; +the sooner it's done, the sooner you'll leave." + +We know the pious claptrap. It is not recorded in the annals of the +regiment that a trenching fatigue-party ever once got away before the +moment when it became absolutely necessary to quit the neighborhood if +they were not to be seen, marked and destroyed along with the work of +their hands. + +We murmur, "Yes, yes--all right; it's not worth saying. Go easy." + +But everybody applies himself to the job courageously, except for some +invincible sleepers whose nap will involve them later in superhuman +efforts. + +We attack the first layer of the new line--little mounds of earth, +stringy with grass. The ease and speed with which the work begins--like +all entrenching work in free soil--foster the illusion that it will +soon be finished, that we shall be able to sleep in the cavities we +have scooped: and thus a certain eagerness revives. + +But whether by reason of the noise of the shovels, or because some men +are chatting almost aloud, in spite of reproofs, our activity wakes up +a rocket, whose flaming vertical line rattles suddenly on our right. + +"Lie down!" Every man flattens himself, and the rocket balances and +parades its huge pallor over a sort of field of the dead. + +As soon as it is out one hears the men, in places and then all along, +detach themselves from their secretive stillness, get up, and resume +the task with more discretion. + +Soon another star-shell tosses aloft its long golden stalk, and still +more brightly illuminates the flat and motionless line of trenchmakers. +Then another and another. + +Bullets rend the air around us, and we hear a cry, "Some one wounded!" +He passes, supported by comrades. We can just see the group of men who +are going away, dragging one of their number. + +The place becomes unwholesome. We stoop and crouch, and some are +scratching at the earth on their knees. Others are working full length; +they toil, and turn, and turn again, like men in nightmares. The earth, +whose first layer was light to lift, becomes muddy and sticky; it is +hard to handle, and clings to the tool like glue. After every shovelful +the blade must be scraped. + +Already a thin heap of earth is winding along, and each man has the +idea of reinforcing the incipient breastwork with his pouch and his +rolled-up greatcoat, and he hoods himself behind the slender pile of +shadow when a volley comes-- + +While we work we sweat, and as soon as we stop working we are pierced +through by the cold. A spell seems to be cast on us, paralyzing our +arms. The rockets torment and pursue us, and allow us but little +movement. After every one of them that petrifies us with its light we +have to struggle against a task still more stubborn. The hole only +deepens into the darkness with painful and despairing tardiness. + +The ground gets softer; each shovelful drips and flows, and spreads +from the blade with a flabby sound. At last some one cries, "Water!" +The repeated cry travels all along the row of diggers--"Water--that's +done it!" + +"Melusson's team's dug deeper, and there's water. They've struck a +swamp."--"No help for it." + +We stop in confusion. In the bosom of the night we hear the sound of +shovels and picks thrown down like empty weapons. The non-coms. go +gropingly after the officer to get instructions. Here and there, with +no desire for anything better, some men are going deliciously to sleep +under the caress of the rain, under the radiant rockets. + + * * * * * + +It was very nearly at this minute, as far as I can remember, that the +bombardment began again. The first shell fell with a terrible splitting +of the air, which seemed to tear itself in two; and other whistles were +already converging upon us when its explosion uplifted the ground at +the head of the detachment in the heart of the magnitude of night and +rain, revealing gesticulations upon a sudden screen of red. + +No doubt they had seen us, thanks to the rockets, and had trained their +fire on us. + +The men hurled and rolled themselves towards the little flooded ditch +that they had dug, wedging, burying, and immersing themselves in it, +and placed the blades of the shovels over their heads. To right, to +left, in front and behind, shells burst so near that every one of them +shook us in our bed of clay; and it became soon one continuous quaking +that seized the wretched gutter, crowded with men and scaly with +shovels, under the strata of smoke and the falling fire. The splinters +and debris crossed in all directions with a network of noise over the +dazzling field. No second passed but we all thought what some stammered +with their faces in the earth, "We're done, this time!" + +A little in front of the place where I am, a shape has arisen and +cried, "Let's be off!" Prone bodies half rose out of the shroud of mud +that dripped in tails and liquid rags from their limbs, and these +deathful apparitions cried also, "Let's go!" They were on their knees, +on all-fours, crawling towards the way of retreat: "Get on, allez, get +on!" + +But the long file stayed motionless, and the frenzied complaints were +in vain. They who were down there at the end would not budge, and their +inactivity immobilized the rest. Some wounded passed over the others, +crawling over them as over debris, and sprinkling the whole company +with their blood. + +We discovered at last the cause of the maddening inactivity of the +detachment's tail--"There's a barrage fire beyond." + +A weird imprisoned panic seized upon the men with cries inarticulate +and gestures stillborn. They writhed upon the spot. But little shelter +as the incipient trench afforded, no one dared leave the ditch that +saved us from protruding above the level of the ground, no one dared +fly from death towards the traverse that should be down there. Great +were the risks of the wounded who had managed to crawl over the others, +and every moment some were struck and went down again. + +Fire and water fell blended everywhere. Profoundly entangled in the +supernatural din, we shook from neck to heels. The most hideous of +deaths was falling and bounding and plunging all around us in waves of +light, its crashing snatched our fearfulness in all directions--our +flesh prepared itself for the monstrous sacrifice! In that tense moment +of imminent destruction, we could only remember just then how often we +had already experienced it, how often undergone this outpouring of +iron, and the burning roar of it, and the stench. It is only during a +bombardment that one really recalls those he has already endured. + +And still, without ceasing, newly-wounded men crept over us, fleeing at +any price. In the fear that their contact evoked we groaned again, "We +shan't get out of this; nobody will get out of it." + +Suddenly a gap appeared in the compressed humanity, and those behind +breathed again, for we were on the move. + +We began by crawling, then we ran, bowed low in the mud and water that +mirrored the flashes and the crimson gleams, stumbling and falling over +submerged obstructions, ourselves resembling heavy splashing +projectiles, thunder-hurled along the ground. We arrive at the +starting-place of the trench we had begun to dig. + +"There's no trench--there's nothing." + +In truth the eye could discern no shelter in the plain where our work +had begun. Even by the stormy flash of the rockets we could only see +the plain, a huge and raging desert. The trench could not be far away, +for it had brought us here. But which way must we steer to find it? + +The rain redoubled. We lingered a moment in mournful disappointment, +gathered on a lightning-smitten and unknown shore--and then the +stampede. + +Some bore to the left, some to the right, some went straight +forward--tiny groups that one only saw for a second in the heart of the +thundering rain before they were separated by sable avalanches and +curtains of flaming smoke. + + * * * * * + +The bombardment over our heads grew less; it was chiefly over the place +where we had been that it was increasing. But it might any minute +isolate everything and destroy it. + +The rain became more and more torrential--a deluge in the night. The +darkness was so deep that the star-shells only lit up slices of +water-seamed obscurity, in the depths of which fleeing phantoms came +and went and ran round in circles. + +I cannot say how long I wandered with the group with which I had +remained. We went into morasses. We strained our sight forward in quest +of the embankment and the trench of salvation, towards the ditch that +was somewhere there, as towards a harbor. + +A cry of consolation was heard at last through the vapors of war and +the elements--"A trench!" But the embankment of that trench was moving; +it was made of men mingled in confusion, who seemed to be coming out +and abandoning it. + +"Don't stay there, mates!" cried the fugitives; "clear off, don't come +near. It's hell--everything's collapsing--the trenches are legging it +and the dug-outs are bunged up--the mud's pouring in everywhere. There +won't be any trenches by the morning--it's all up with them about here!" + +They disappeared. Where? We forgot to ask for some little direction +from these men whose streaming shapes had no sooner appeared than they +were swallowed up in the dark. + +Even our little group crumbled away among the devastation, no longer +knowing where they were. Now one, now another, faded into the night, +disappearing towards his chance of escape. + +We climbed slopes and descended them. I saw dimly in front of me men +bowed and hunchbacked, mounting a slippery incline where mud held them +back, and the wind and rain repelled them under a dome of cloudy lights. + +Then we flowed back, and plunged into a marsh up to our knees. So high +must we lift our feet that we walked with a sound of swimming. Each +forward stride was an enormous effort which slackened in agony. + +It was there that we felt death drawing near. But we beached ourselves +at last on a sort of clay embankment that divided the swamp. As we +followed the slippery back of this slender island along, I remember +that once we had to stoop and steer ourselves by touching some +half-buried corpses, so that we should not be thrown down from the soft +and sinuous ridge. My hand discovered shoulders and hard backs, a face +cold as a helmet, and a pipe still desperately bitten by dead jaws. + +As we emerged and raised our heads at a venture we heard the sound of +voices not far away. "Voices! Ah, voices!" They sounded tranquil to us, +as though they called us by our names, and we all came close together +to approach this fraternal murmuring of men. + +The words became distinct. They were quite near--in the hillock that we +could dimly see like an oasis: and yet we could not hear what they +said. The sounds were muddled, and we did not understand them. + +"What are they saying?" asked one of us in a curious tone. + +Instinctively we stopped trying to find a way in. A doubt, a painful +idea was seizing us. Then, clearly enunciated, there rang out these +words--"Achtung!--Zweites Geschutz--Schuss--" Farther back, the report +of a gun answered the telephonic command. + +Horror and stupefaction nailed us to the spot at first--"Where are we? +Oh, Christ, where are we?" Turning right about face, slowly in spite of +all, borne down anew by exhaustion and dismay, we took flight, as +overwhelmed by weariness as if we had many wounds, pulled back by the +mud towards the enemy country, and retaining only just enough energy to +repel the thought of the sweetness it would have been to let ourselves +die. + +We came to a sort of great plain. We halted and threw ourselves on the +ground on the side of a mound, and leaned back upon it, unable to make +another step. + +And we moved no more, my shadowy comrades nor I. The rain splashed in +our faces, streamed down our backs and chests, ran down from our knees +and filled our boots. + +We should perhaps be killed or taken prisoners when day came. But we +thought no more of anything. We could do no more; we knew no more. + + + + +XXIV + +The Dawn + + +WE are waiting for daylight in the place where we sank to the ground. +Sinister and slow it comes, chilling and dismal, and expands upon the +livid landscape. + +The rain has ceased to fall--there is none left in the sky. The leaden +plain and its mirrors of sullied water seem to issue not only from the +night but from the sea. + +Drowsy or half asleep, sometimes opening our eyes only to close them +again, we attend the incredible renewal of light, paralyzed with cold +and broken with fatigue. + +Where are the trenches? + +We see lakes, and between the lakes there are lines of milky and +motionless water. There is more water even than we had thought. It has +taken everything and spread everywhere, and the prophecy of the men in +the night has come true. There are no more trenches; those canals are +the trenches enshrouded. It is a universal flood. The battlefield is +not sleeping; it is dead. Life may be going on down yonder perhaps, but +we cannot see so far. + +Swaying painfully, like a sick man, in the terrible encumbering clasp +of my greatcoat, I half raise myself to look at it all. There are three +monstrously shapeless forms beside me. One of them--it is Paradis, in +an amazing armor of mud, with a swelling at the waist that stands for +his cartridge pouches--gets up also. The others are asleep, and make no +movement. + +And what is this silence, too, this prodigious silence? There is no +sound, except when from time to time a lump of earth slips into the +water, in the middle of this fantastic paralysis of the world. No one +is firing. There are no shells, for they would not burst. There are no +bullets, either, for the men-- + +Ah, the men! Where are the men? + +We see them gradually. Not far from us there are some stranded and +sleeping hulks so molded in mud from head to foot that they are almost +transformed into inanimate objects. + +Some distance away I can make out others, curled up and clinging like +snails all along a rounded embankment, from which they have partly +slipped back into the water. It is a motionless rank of clumsy lumps, +of bundles placed side by side, dripping water and mud, and of the same +color as the soil with which they are blended. + +I make an effort to break the silence. To Paradis, who also is looking +that way, I say, "Are they dead?" + +"We'll go and see presently," he says in a low voice; "stop here a bit +yet. We shall have the heart to go there by and by." + +We look at each other, and our eyes fall also on the others who came +and fell down here. Their faces spell such weariness that they are no +longer faces so much as something dirty, disfigured and bruised, with +blood-shot eyes. Since the beginning we have seen each other in all +manner of shapes and appearances, and yet--we do not know each other. + +Paradis turns his head and looks elsewhere. + +Suddenly I see him seized with trembling. He extends an arm enormously +caked in mud. "There--there--" he says. + +On the water which overflows from a stretch particularly cross-seamed +and gullied, some lumps are floating, some round-backed reefs. + +We drag ourselves to the spot. They are drowned men. Their arms and +heads are submerged. On the surface of the plastery liquid appear their +backs and the straps of their accouterments. Their blue cloth trousers +are inflated, with the feet attached askew upon the ballooning legs, +like the black wooden feet on the shapeless legs of marionettes. From +one sunken head the hair stands straight up like water-weeds. Here is a +face which the water only lightly touches; the head is beached on the +marge, and the body disappears in its turbid tomb. The face is lifted +skyward. The eyes are two white holes; the mouth is a black hole. The +mask's yellow and puffed-up skin appears soft and creased, like dough +gone cold. + +They are the men who were watching there, and could not extricate +themselves from the mud. All their efforts to escape over the sticky +escarpment of the trench that was slowly and fatally filling with water +only dragged them still more into the depth. They died clinging to the +yielding support of the earth. + +There, our first lines are; and there, the first German lines, equally +silent and flooded. On our way to these flaccid ruins we pass through +the middle of what yesterday was the zone of terror, the awful space on +whose threshold the fierce rush of our last attack was forced to stop, +the No Man's Land which bullets and shells had not ceased to furrow for +a year and a half, where their crossed fire during these latter days +had furiously swept the ground from one horizon to the other. + +Now, it is a field of rest. The ground is everywhere dotted with beings +who sleep or who are on the way to die, slowly moving, lifting an arm, +lifting the head. + +The enemy trench is completing the process of foundering into itself, +among great marshy undulations and funnel-holes, shaggy with mud: it +forms among them a line of pools and wells. Here and there we can see +the still overhanging banks begin to move, crumble, and fall down. In +one place we can lean against it. + +In this bewildering circle of filth there are no bodies. But there, +worse than a body, a solitary arm protrudes, bare and white as a stone, +from a hole which dimly shows on the other side of the water. The man +has been buried in his dug-out and has had only the time to thrust out +his arm. + +Quite near, we notice that some mounds of earth aligned along the +ruined ramparts of this deep-drowned ditch are human. Are they dead--or +asleep? We do not know; in any case, they rest. + +Are they German or French? We do not know. One of them has opened his +eyes, and looks at us with swaying head. We say to him, "French?"--and +then, "Deutsch?" He makes no reply, but shuts his eyes again and +relapses into oblivion. We never knew what he was. + +We cannot decide the identity of these beings, either by their clothes, +thickly covered with filth, or by their head-dress, for they are +bareheaded or swathed in woolens under their liquid and offensive +cowls; or by their weapons, for they either have no rifles or their +hands rest lightly on something they have dragged along, a shapeless +and sticky mass, like to a sort of fish. + +All these men of corpse-like faces who are before us and behind us, at +the limit of their strength, void of speech as of will, all these +earth-charged men who you would say were carrying their own +winding-sheets, are as much alike as if they were naked. Out of the +horror of the night apparitions are issuing from this side and that who +are clad in exactly the same uniform of misery and mud. + +It is the end of all. For the moment it is the prodigious finish, the +epic cessation of the war. + +I once used to think that the worst hell in war was the flame of +shells; and then for long I thought it was the suffocation of the +caverns which eternally confine us. But it is neither of these. Hell is +water. + +The wind is rising, and its icy breath goes through our flesh. On the +wrecked and dissolving plain, flecked with bodies between its +worm-shaped chasms of water, among the islands of motionless men stuck +together like reptiles, in this flattening and sinking chaos there are +some slight indications of movement. We see slowly stirring groups and +fragments of groups, composed of beings who bow under the weight of +their coats and aprons of mud, who trail themselves along, disperse, +and crawl about in the depths of the sky's tarnished light. The dawn is +so foul that one would say the day was already done. + +These survivors are migrating across the desolated steppe, pursued by +an unspeakable evil which exhausts and bewilders them. They are +lamentable objects; and some, when they are fully seen, are +dramatically ludicrous, for the whelming mud from which they still take +flight has half unclothed them. + +As they pass by their glances go widely around. They look at us, and +discovering men in us they cry through the wind, "It's worse down +yonder than it is here. The chaps are falling into the holes, and you +can't pull them out. All them that trod on the edge of a shell-hole +last night, they're dead. Down there where we're coming from you can +see a head in the ground, working its arms, embedded. There's a +hurdle-path that's given way in places and the hurdles have sunk into +holes, and it's a man-trap. Where there's no more hurdles there's two +yards deep of water. Your rifle? You couldn't pull it out again when +you'd stuck it in. Look at those men, there. They've cut off all the +bottom half of their great-coats--hard lines on the pockets--to help +'em get clear, and also because they hadn't strength to drag a weight +like that. Dumas' coat, we were able to pull it off him, and it weighed +a good eighty pounds; we could just lift it, two of us, with both our +hands. Look--him with the bare legs; it's taken everything off him, his +trousers, his drawers, his boots, all dragged off by the mud. One's +never seen that, never." + +Scattered and straggling, the herd takes flight in a fever of fear, +their feet pulling huge stumps of mud out of the ground. We watch the +human flotsam fade away, and the lumps of them diminish, immured in +enormous clothes. + +We get up, and at once the icy wind makes us tremble like trees. Slowly +we veer towards the mass formed by two men curiously joined, leaning +shoulder to shoulder, and each with an arm round the neck of the other. +Is it the hand-to-hand fight of two soldiers who have overpowered each +other in death and still hold their own, who can never again lose their +grip? No; they are two men who recline upon each other so as to sleep. +As they might not spread themselves on the falling earth that was ready +to spread itself on them, they have supported each other, clasping each +other's shoulder; and thus plunged in the ground up to their knees, +they have gone to sleep. + +We respect their stillness, and withdraw from the twin statue of human +wretchedness. + +Soon we must halt ourselves. We have expected too much of our strength +and can go no farther. It is not yet ended. We collapse once more in a +churned corner, with a noise as if one shot a load of dung. + +From time to time we open our eyes. Some men are steering for us, +reeling. They lean over us and speak in low and weary tones. One of +them says, "Sie sind todt. Wir bleiben hier." (They're dead. We'll stay +here.) The other says, "Ja," like a sigh. + +But they see us move, and at once they sink in front of us. The man +with the toneless voice says to us in French, "We surrender," and they +do not move. Then they give way entirely, as if this was the relief, +the end of their torture; and one of them whose face is patterned in +mud like a savage tattooed, smiles slightly. + +"Stay there," says Paradis, without moving the head that he leans +backward upon a hillock; "presently you shall go with us if you want." + +"Yes," says the German, "I've had enough." We make no reply, and he +says, "And the others too?" + +"Yes," says Paradis, "let them stop too, if they like." There are four +of them outstretched on the ground. The death-rattle has got one of +them. It is like a sobbing song that rises from him. The others then +half straighten themselves, kneeling round him, and roll great eyes in +their muck-mottled faces. We get up and watch the scene. But the rattle +dies out, and the blackened throat which alone in all the big body +pulsed like a little bird, is still. + +"Er ist todt!" (He's dead) says one of the men, beginning to cry. The +others settle themselves again to sleep. The weeper goes to sleep as he +weeps. + +Other soldiers have come, stumbling, gripped in sudden halts like tipsy +men, or gliding along like worms, to take sanctuary here; and we sleep +all jumbled together in the common grave. + + * * * * * + +Waking, Paradis and I look at each other, and remember. We return to +life and daylight as in a nightmare. In front of us the calamitous +plain is resurrected, where hummocks vaguely appear from their +immersion, the steel-like plain that is rusty in places and shines with +lines and pools of water, while bodies are strewn here and there in the +vastness like foul rubbish, prone bodies that breathe or rot. + +Paradis says to me, "That's war." + +"Yes, that's it," he repeats in a far-away voice, "that's war. It's not +anything else." + +He means--and I am with him in his meaning--"More than attacks that are +like ceremonial reviews, more than visible battles unfurled like +banners, more even than the hand-to-hand encounters of shouting strife, +War is frightful and unnatural weariness, water up to the belly, mud +and dung and infamous filth. It is befouled faces and tattered flesh, +it is the corpses that are no longer like corpses even, floating on the +ravenous earth. It is that, that endless monotony of misery, broken, by +poignant tragedies; it is that, and not the bayonet glittering like +silver, nor the bugle's chanticleer call to the sun!" + +Paradis was so full of this thought that he ruminated a memory, and +growled, "D'you remember the woman in the town where we went about a +bit not so very long ago? She talked some drivel about attacks, and +said, 'How beautiful they must be to see!'" + +A chasseur who was full length on his belly, flattened out like a +cloak, raised his head out of the filthy background in which it was +sunk, and cried, "Beautiful? Oh, hell! It's just as if an ox were to +say, 'What a fine sight it must be, all those droves of cattle driven +forward to the slaughter-house!'" He spat out mud from his besmeared +mouth, and his unburied face was like a beast's. + +"Let them say, 'It must be,'" he sputtered in a strange jerky voice, +grating and ragged; "that's all right. But beautiful! Oh, hell!" + +Writhing under the idea, he added passionately, "It's when they say +things like that that they hit us hardest of all!" He spat again, but +exhausted by his effort he fell back in his bath of mud, and laid his +head in his spittle. + + * * * * * + +Paradis, possessed by his notion, waved his hand towards the wide +unspeakable landscape, and looking steadily on it repeated his +sentence, "War is that. It is that everywhere. What are we, we chaps, +and what's all this here? Nothing at all. All we can see is only a +speck. You've got to remember that this morning there's three thousand +kilometers of equal evils, or nearly equal, or worse." + +"And then," said the comrade at our side, whom we could not recognize +even by his voice, "to-morrow it begins again. It began again the day +before yesterday, and all the days before that!" + +With an effort as if he was tearing the ground, the chasseur dragged +his body out of the earth where he had molded a depression like an +oozing coffin, and sat in the hole. He blinked his eyes and tried to +shake the balance of mud from his face, and said, "We shall come out of +it again this time. And who knows, p'raps we shall come out of it again +to-morrow! Who knows?" + +Paradis, with his back bent under mats of earth and clay, was trying to +convey his idea that the war cannot be imagined or measured in terms of +time and space. "When one speaks of the whole war," he said, thinking +aloud, "it's as if you said nothing at all--the words are strangled. +We're here, and we look at it all like blind men." + +A bass voice rolled to us from a little farther away, "No, one cannot +imagine it." + +At these words a burst of harsh laughter tore itself from some one. +"How could you imagine it, to begin with, if you hadn't been there?" + +"You'd have to be mad," said the chasseur. + +Paradis leaned over a sprawling outspread mass beside him and said, +"Are you asleep?" + +"No, but I'm not going to budge." The smothered and terror-struck +mutter issued instantly from the mass that was covered with a thick and +slimy horse-cloth, so indented that it seemed to have been trampled. +"I'll tell you why. I believe my belly's shot through. But I'm not +sure, and I daren't find out." + +"Let's see--" + +"No, not yet," says the man. "I'd rather stop on a bit like this." + +The others, dragging themselves on their elbows, began to make +splashing movements, by way of casting off the clammy infernal covering +that weighed them down. The paralysis of cold was passing away from the +knot of sufferers, though the light no longer made any progress over +the great irregular marsh of the lower plain. The desolation proceeded, +but not the day. + +Then he who spoke sorrowfully, like a bell, said. "It'll be no good +telling about it, eh? They wouldn't believe you; not out of malice or +through liking to pull your leg, but because they couldn't. When you +say to 'em later, if you live to say it, 'We were on a night job and we +got shelled and we were very nearly drowned in mud,' they'll say, 'Ah!' +And p'raps they'll say. 'You didn't have a very spicy time on the job.' +And that's all. No one can know it. Only us." + +"No, not even us, not even us!" some one cried. + +"That's what I say, too. We shall forget--we're forgetting already, my +boy!" + +"We've seen too much to remember." + +"And everything we've seen was too much. We're not made to hold it all. +It takes its damned hook in all directions. We're too little to hold +it." + +"You're right, we shall forget! Not only the length of the big misery, +which can't be calculated, as you say, ever since the beginning, but +the marches that turn up the ground and turn it again, lacerating your +feet and wearing out your bones under a load that seems to grow bigger +in the sky, the exhaustion until you don't know your own name any more, +the tramping and the inaction that grind you, the digging jobs that +exceed your strength, the endless vigils when you fight against sleep +and watch for an enemy who is everywhere in the night, the pillows of +dung and lice--we shall forget not only those, but even the foul wounds +of shells and machine-guns, the mines, the gas, and the +counter-attacks. At those moments you're full of the excitement of +reality, and you've some satisfaction. But all that wears off and goes +away, you don't know how and you don't know where, and there's only the +names left, only the words of it, like in a dispatch." + +"That's true what he says," remarks a man, without moving his head in +its pillory of mud. "When I was on leave, I found I'd already jolly +well forgotten what had happened to me before. There were some letters +from me that I read over again just as if they were a book I was +opening. And yet in spite of that, I've forgotten also all the pain +I've had in the war. We're forgetting-machines. Men are things that +think a little but chiefly forget. That's what we are." + +"Then neither the other side nor us'll remember! So much misery all +wasted!" + +This point of view added to the abasement of these beings on the shore +of the flood, like news of a greater disaster, and humiliated them +still more. + +"Ah, if one did remember!" cried some one. + +"If we remembered," said another, "there wouldn't be any more war." + +A third added grandly, "Yes, if we remembered, war would be less +useless than it is." + +But suddenly one of the prone survivors rose to his knees, dark as a +great bat ensnared, and as the mud dripped from his waving arms he +cried in a hollow voice, "There must be no more war after this!" + +In that miry corner where, still feeble unto impotence, we were beset +by blasts of wind which laid hold on us with such rude strength that +the very ground seemed to sway like sea-drift, the cry of the man who +looked as if he were trying to fly away evoked other like cries: "There +must be no more war after this!" + +The sullen or furious exclamations of these men fettered to the earth, +incarnate of earth, arose and slid away on the wind like beating wings-- + +"No more war! No more war! Enough of it!" + +"It's too stupid--it's too stupid," they mumbled. + +"What does it mean, at the bottom of it, all this?--all this that you +can't even give a name to?" + +They snarled and growled like wild beasts on that sort of ice-floe +contended for by the elements, in their dismal disguise of ragged mud. +So huge was the protest thus rousing them in revolt that it choked them. + +"We're made to live, not to be done in like this!" + +"Men are made to be husbands, fathers--men, what the devil!--not beasts +that hunt each other and cut each other's throats and make themselves +stink like all that." + +"And yet, everywhere--everywhere--there are beasts, savage beasts or +smashed beasts. Look, look!" + +I shall never forget the look of those limitless lands wherefrom the +water had corroded all color and form, whose contours crumbled on all +sides under the assault of the liquid putrescence that flowed across +the broken bones of stakes and wire and framing; nor, rising above +those things amid the sullen Stygian immensity, can I ever forget the +vision of the thrill of reason, logic and simplicity that suddenly +shook these men like a fit of madness. + +I could see them agitated by this idea--that to try to live one's life +on earth and to be happy is not only a right but a duty, and even an +ideal and a virtue; that the only end of social life is to make easy +the inner life of every one. + +"To live!"--"All of us!"--"You!"--"Me!" + +"No more war--ah, no!--it's too stupid--worse than that, it's too--" + +For a finishing echo to their half-formed thought a saying came to the +mangled and miscarried murmur of the mob from a filth-crowned face that +I saw arise from the level of the earth--"Two armies fighting each +other--that's like one great army committing suicide!" + + * * * * * + +"And likewise, what have we been for two years now? Incredibly pitiful +wretches, and savages as well, brutes, robbers, and dirty devils." + +"Worse than that!" mutters he whose only phrase it is. + +"Yes, I admit it!" + +In their troubled truce of the morning, these men whom fatigue had +tormented, whom rain had scourged, whom night-long lightning had +convulsed, these survivors of volcanoes and flood began not only to see +dimly how war, as hideous morally as physically, outrages common sense, +debases noble ideas and dictates all kind of crime, but they remembered +how it had enlarged in them and about them every evil instinct save +none, mischief developed into lustful cruelty, selfishness into +ferocity, the hunger for enjoyment into a mania. + +They are picturing all this before their eyes as just now they +confusedly pictured their misery. They are crammed with a curse which +strives to find a way out and to come to light in words, a curse which +makes them to groan and wail. It is as if they toiled to emerge from +the delusion and ignorance which soil them as the mud soils them; as if +they will at last know why they are scourged. + +"Well then?" clamors one. + +"Ay, what then?" the other repeats, still more grandly. The wind sets +the flooded flats a-tremble to our eyes, and falling furiously on the +human masses lying or kneeling and fixed like flagstones and +grave-slabs, it wrings new shivering from them. + +"There will be no more war," growls a soldier, "when there is no more +Germany." + +"That's not the right thing to say!" cries another. "It isn't enough. +There'll be no more war when the spirit of war is defeated." The +roaring of the wind half smothered his words, so he lifted his head and +repeated them. + +"Germany and militarism"--some one in his anger precipitately cut +in--"they're the same thing. They wanted the war and they'd planned it +beforehand. They are militarism." + +"Militarism--" a soldier began again. + +"What is it?" some one asked. + +"It's--it's brute force that's ready prepared, and that lets fly +suddenly, any minute." + +"Yes. To-day militarism is called Germany." + +"Yes, but what will it be called to-morrow?" + +"I don't know," said a voice serious as a prophet's. + +"If the spirit of war isn't killed, you'll have struggle all through +the ages." + +"We must--one's got to--" + +"We must fight!" gurgled the hoarse voice of a man who had lain stiff +in the devouring mud ever since our awakening; "we've got to!" His body +turned heavily over. "We've got to give all we have, our strength and +our skins and our hearts, all our life and what pleasures are left us. +The life of prisoners as we are, we've got to take it in both hands. +You've got to endure everything, even injustice--and that's the king +that's reigning now--and the shameful and disgusting sights we see, so +as to come out on top, and win. But if we've got to make such a +sacrifice," adds the shapeless man, turning over again, "it's because +we're fighting for progress, not for a country; against error, not +against a country." + +"War must be killed," said the first speaker, "war must be killed in +the belly of Germany!" + +"Anyway," said one of those who sat enrooted there like a sort of +shrub, "anyway, we're beginning to understand why we've got to march +away." + +"All the same," grumbled the squatting chasseur in his turn, "there are +some that fight with quite another idea than that in their heads. I've +seen some of 'em, young men, who said, 'To hell with humanitarian +ideas'; what mattered to them was nationality and nothing else, and the +war was a question of fatherlands--let every man make a shine about his +own. They were fighting, those chaps, and they were fighting well." + +"They're young, the lads you're talking about; they're young, and we +must excuse 'em." + +"You can do a thing well without knowing what you are doing." + +"Men are mad, that's true. You'll never say that often enough." + +"The Jingoes--they're vermin," growled a shadow. + +Several times they repeated, as though feeling their way, "War must be +killed; war itself." + +"That's all silly talk. What diff does it make whether you think this +or that? We've got to be winners, that's all." + +But the others had begun to cast about. They wanted to know and to see +farther than to-day. They throbbed with the effort to beget in +themselves some light of wisdom and of will. Some sparse convictions +whirled in their minds, and jumbled scraps of creeds issued from their +lips. + +"Of course--yes--but we must look at facts--you've got to think about +the object, old chap." + +"The object? To be winners in this war," the pillar-man insisted, +"isn't that an object?" + +Two there were who replied together, "No!" + + * * * * * + +At this moment there was a dull noise; cries broke out around us, and +we shuddered. A length of earth had detached itself from the hillock on +which--after a fashion--we were leaning back, and had completely +exhumed in the middle of us a sitting corpse, with its legs out full +length. The collapse burst a pool that had gathered on the top of the +mound, and the water spread like a cascade over the body and laved it +as we looked. + +Some one cried, "His face is all black!" + +"What is that face?" gasped a voice. + +Those who were able drew near in a circle, like frogs. We could not +gaze upon the head that showed in low relief upon the trench-wall that +the landslide had laid bare. "His face? It isn't his face!" In place of +the face we found the hair, and then we saw that the corpse which had +seemed to be sitting was broken, and folded the wrong way. In dreadful +silence we looked on the vertical back of the dislocated dead, upon the +hanging arms, backward curved, and the two outstretched legs that +rested on the sinking soil by the points of the toes. Then the +discussion began again, revived by this fearful sleeper. As though the +corpse was listening they clamored--"No! To win isn't the object. It +isn't those others we've got to get at--it's war." + +"Can't you see that we've got to finish with war? If we've got to begin +again some day, all that's been done is no good. Look at it there!--and +it would be in vain. It would be two or three years or more of wasted +catastrophe." + + * * * * * + +"Ah, my boy, if all we've gone through wasn't the end of this great +calamity! I value my life; I've got my wife, my family, my home around +them; I've got schemes for my life afterwards, mind you. Well, all the +same, if this wasn't the end of it, I'd rather die." + +"I'm going to die." The echo came at that moment exactly from Paradis' +neighbor, who no doubt had examined the wound in his belly. "I'm sorry +on account of my children." + +"It's on account of my children that I'm not sorry," came a murmur from +somewhere else. "I'm dying, so I know what I'm saying, and I say to +myself, 'They'll have peace.'" + +"Perhaps I shan't die," said another, with a quiver of hope that he +could not restrain even in the presence of the doomed, "but I shall +suffer. Well, I say, 'more's the pity,' and I even say 'that's all +right'; and I shall know how to stick more suffering if I know it's for +something." + +"Then we'll have to go on fighting after the war?" + +"Yes, p'raps--" + +"You want more of it, do you?" + +"Yes, because I want no more of it," the voice grunted. "And p'raps +it'll not be foreigners that we've got to fight?" + +"P'raps, yes--" + +A still more violent blast of wind shut our eyes and choked us. When it +had passed, and we saw the volley take flight across the plain, seizing +and shaking its muddy plunder and furrowing the water in the long +gaping trenches--long as the grave of an army--we began again. + +"After all, what is it that makes the mass and the horror of war?" + +"It's the mass of the people." + +"But the people--that's us!" + +He who had said it looked at me inquiringly. + +"Yes," I said to him, "yes, old boy, that's true! It's with us only +that they make battles. It is we who are the material of war. War is +made up of the flesh and the souls of common soldiers only. It is we +who make the plains of dead and the rivers of blood, all of us, and +each of us is invisible and silent because of the immensity of our +numbers. The emptied towns and the villages destroyed, they are a +wilderness of our making. Yes, war is all of us, and all of us +together." + +"Yes, that's true. It's the people who are war; without them, there +would be nothing, nothing but some wrangling, a long way off. But it +isn't they who decide on it; it's the masters who steer them." + +"The people are struggling to-day to have no more masters that steer +them. This war, it's like the French Revolution continuing." + +"Well then, if that's so, we're working for the Prussians too?" + +"It's to be hoped so," said one of the wretches of the plain. + +"Oh, hell!" said the chasseur, grinding his teeth. But he shook his +head and added no more. + +"We want to look after ourselves! You shouldn't meddle in other +people's business," mumbled the obstinate snarler. + +"Yes, you should! Because what you call 'other people,' that's just +what they're not--they're the same!" + +"Why is it always us that has to march away for everybody?" + +"That's it!" said a man, and he repeated the words he had used a moment +before. "More's the pity, or so much the better." + +"The people--they're nothing, though they ought to be everything," then +said the man who had questioned me, recalling, though he did not know +it, an historic sentence of more than a century ago, but investing it +at last with its great universal significance. Escaped from torment, on +all fours in the deep grease of the ground, he lifted his leper-like +face and looked hungrily before him into infinity. + +He looked and looked. He was trying to open the gates of heaven. + + * * * * * + +"The peoples of the world ought to come to an understanding, through +the hides and on the bodies of those who exploit them one way or +another. All the masses ought to agree together." + +"All men ought to be equal." + +The word seems to come to us like a rescue. + +"Equal--yes--yes--there are some great meanings for justice and truth. +There are some things one believes in, that one turns to and clings to +as if they were a sort of light. There's equality, above all." + +"There's liberty and fraternity, too." + +"But principally equality!" + +I tell them that fraternity is a dream, an obscure and uncertain +sentiment; that while it is unnatural for a man to hate one whom he +does not know, it is equally unnatural to love him. You can build +nothing on fraternity. Nor on liberty, either; it is too relative a +thing in a society where all the elements subdivide each other by force. + +But equality is always the same. Liberty and fraternity are words while +equality is a fact. Equality should be the great human formula--social +equality, for while individuals have varying values, each must have an +equal share in the social life; and that is only just, because the life +of one human being is equal to the life of another. That formula is of +prodigious importance. The principle of the equal rights of every +living being and the sacred will of the majority is infallible and must +be invincible; all progress will be brought about by it, all, with a +force truly divine. It will bring first the smooth bed-rock of all +progress--the settling of quarrels by that justice which is exactly the +same thing as the general advantage. + +And these men of the people, dimly seeing some unknown Revolution +greater than the other, a revolution springing from themselves and +already rising, rising in their throats, repeat "Equality!" + +It seems as if they were spelling the word and then reading it +distinctly on all sides--that there is not upon the earth any +privilege, prejudice or injustice that does not collapse in contact +with it. It is an answer to all, a word of sublimity. They revolve the +idea over and over, and find a kind of perfection in it. They see +errors and abuses burning in a brilliant light. + +"That would be fine!" said one. + +"Too fine to be true!" said another. + +But the third said, "It's because it's true that it's fine. It has no +other beauty, mind! And it's not because it's fine that it will come. +Fineness is not in vogue, any more than love is. It's because it's true +that it has to be." + +"Then, since justice is wanted by the people, and the people have the +power, let them do it." + +"They're beginning already!" said some obscure lips. + +"It's the way things are running," declared another. + +"When all men have made themselves equal, we shall be forced to unite." + +"And there'll no longer be appalling things done in the face of heaven +by thirty million men who don't wish them." + +It is true, and there is nothing to reply to it. What pretended +argument or shadow of an answer dare one oppose to it--"There'll no +longer be the things done in the face of heaven by thirty millions of +men who don't want to do them!" + +Such is the logic that I hear and follow of the words, spoken by these +pitiful fellows cast upon the field of affliction, the words which +spring from their bruises and pains, the words which bleed from them. + +Now, the sky is all overcast. Low down it is armored in steely blue by +great clouds. Above, in a weakly luminous silvering, it is crossed by +enormous sweepings of wet mist. The weather is worsening, and more rain +on the way. The end of the tempest and the long trouble is not yet. + +"We shall say to ourselves," says one, "'After all, why do we make +war?' We don't know at all why, but we can say who we make it for. We +shall be forced to see that if every nation every day brings the fresh +bodies of fifteen hundred young men to the God of War to be lacerated, +it's for the pleasure of a few ringleaders that we could easily count; +that if whole nations go to slaughter marshaled in armies in order that +the gold-striped caste may write their princely names in history, so +that other gilded people of the same rank can contrive more business, +and expand in the way of employees and shops--and we shall see, as soon +as we open our eyes, that the divisions between mankind are not what we +thought, and those one did believe in are not divisions." + +"Listen!" some one broke in suddenly. + +We hold our peace, and hear afar the sound of guns. Yonder, the +growling is agitating the gray strata of the sky, and the distant +violence breaks feebly on our buried ears. All around us, the waters +continue to sap the earth and by degrees to ensnare its heights. + +"It's beginning again." + +Then one of us says, "Ah, look what we've got against us!" + +Already there is uneasy hesitation in these castaways' discussion of +their tragedy, in the huge masterpiece of destiny that they are roughly +sketching. It is not only the peril and pain, the misery of the moment, +whose endless beginning they see again. It is the enmity of +circumstances and people against the truth, the accumulation of +privilege and ignorance, of deafness and unwillingness, the taken +sides, the savage conditions accepted, the immovable masses, the +tangled lines. + +And the dream of fumbling thought is continued in another vision, in +which everlasting enemies emerge from the shadows of the past and stand +forth in the stormy darkness of to-day. + + * * * * * + +Here they are. We seem to see them silhouetted against the sky, above +the crests of the storm that beglooms the world--a cavalcade of +warriors, prancing and flashing, the charges that carry armor and +plumes and gold ornament, crowns and swords. They are burdened with +weapons; they send forth gleams of light; magnificent they roll. The +antiquated movements of the warlike ride divide the clouds like the +painted fierceness of a theatrical scene. + +And far above the fevered gaze of them who are upon the ground, whose +bodies are layered with the dregs of the earth and the wasted fields, +the phantom cohort flows from the four corners of the horizon, drives +back the sky's infinity and hides its blue deeps. + +And they are legion. They are not only the warrior caste who shout as +they fight and have joy of it, not only those whom universal slavery +has clothed in magic power, the mighty by birth, who tower here and +there above the prostration of the human race and will take their +sudden stand by the scales of justice when they think they see great +profit to gain; not only these, but whole multitudes who minister +consciously or unconsciously to their fearful privilege. + +"There are those who say," now cries one of the somber and compelling +talkers, extending his hand as though he could see the pageant, "there +are those who say, 'How fine they are!'" + +"And those who say, 'The nations hate each other!'" + +"And those who say, 'I get fat on war, and my belly matures on it!'" + +"And those who say, 'There has always been war, so there always will +be!'" + +"There are those who say, 'I can't see farther than the end of my nose, +and I forbid others to see farther!'" + +"There are those who say, 'Babies come into the world with either red +or blue breeches on!'" + +"There are those," growled a hoarse voice, "who say, 'Bow your head and +trust in God!'" + + * * * * * + +Ah, you are right, poor countless workmen of the battles, you who have +made with your hands all of the Great War, you whose omnipotence is not +yet used for well-doing, you human host whose every face is a world of +sorrows, you who dream bowed under the yoke of a thought beneath that +sky where long black clouds rend themselves and expand in disheveled +lengths like evil angels--yes, you are right. There are all those +things against you. Against you and your great common interests which +as you dimly saw are the same thing in effect as justice, there are not +only the sword-wavers, the profiteers, and the intriguers. + +There is not only the prodigious opposition of interested +parties--financiers, speculators great and small, armorplated in their +banks and houses, who live on war and live in peace during war, with +their brows stubbornly set upon a secret doctrine and their faces shut +up like safes. + +There are those who admire the exchange of flashing blows, who hail +like women the bright colors of uniforms; those whom military music and +the martial ballads poured upon the public intoxicate as with brandy; +the dizzy-brained, the feeble-minded, the superstitious, the savages. + +There are those who bury themselves in the past, on whose lips are the +sayings only of bygone days, the traditionalists for whom an injustice +has legal force because it is perpetuated, who aspire to be guided by +the dead, who strive to subordinate progress and the future and all +their palpitating passion to the realm of ghosts and nursery-tales. + +With them are all the parsons, who seek to excite you and to lull you +to sleep with the morphine of their Paradise, so that nothing may +change. There are the lawyers, the economists, the historians--and how +many more?--who befog you with the rigmarole of theory, who declare the +inter-antagonism of nationalities at a time when the only unity +possessed by each nation of to-day is in the arbitrary map-made lines +of her frontiers, while she is inhabited by an artificial amalgam of +races; there are the worm-eaten genealogists, who forge for the +ambitious of conquest and plunder false certificates of philosophy and +imaginary titles of nobility. The infirmity of human intelligence is +short sight. In too many cases, the wiseacres are dunces of a sort, who +lose sight of the simplicity of things, and stifle and obscure it with +formulae and trivialities. It is the small things that one learns from +books, not the great ones. + +And even while they are saying that they do not wish for war they are +doing all they can to perpetuate it. They nourish national vanity and +the love of supremacy by force. "We alone," they say, each behind his +shelter, "we alone are the guardians of courage and loyalty, of ability +and good taste!" Out of the greatness and richness of a country they +make something like a consuming disease. Out of patriotism--which can +be respected as long as it remains in the domain of sentiment and art +on exactly the same footing as the sense of family and local pride, all +equally sacred--out of patriotism they make a Utopian and impracticable +idea, unbalancing the world, a sort of cancer which drains all the +living force, spreads everywhere and crushes life, a contagious cancer +which culminates either in the crash of war or in the exhaustion and +suffocation of armed peace. + +They pervert the most admirable of moral principles. How many are the +crimes of which they have made virtues merely by dowering them with the +word "national"? They distort even truth itself. For the truth which is +eternally the same they substitute each their national truth. So many +nations, so many truths; and thus they falsify and twist the truth. + +Those are your enemies. All those people whose childish and odiously +ridiculous disputes you hear snarling above you--"It wasn't me that +began, it was you!"--"No, it wasn't me, it was you!"--"Hit me +then!"--"No, you hit me!"--those puerilities that perpetuate the +world's huge wound, for the disputants are not the people truly +concerned, but quite the contrary, nor do they desire to have done with +it; all those people who cannot or will not make peace on earth; all +those who for one reason or another cling to the ancient state of +things and find or invent excuses for it--they are your enemies! + +They are your enemies as much as those German soldiers are to-day who +are prostrate here between you in the mud, who are only poor dupes +hatefully deceived and brutalized, domestic beasts. They are your +enemies, wherever they were born, however they pronounce their names, +whatever the language in which they lie. Look at them, in the heaven +and on the earth. Look at them, everywhere! Identify them once for all, +and be mindful for ever! + + * * * * * + +"They will say to you," growled a kneeling man who stooped with his two +hands in the earth and shook his shoulders like a mastiff, 'My friend, +you have been a wonderful hero!' I don't want them to say it! + +"Heroes? Some sort of extraordinary being? Idols? Rot! We've been +murderers. We have respectably followed the trade of hangmen. We shall +do it again with all our might, because it's of great importance to +follow that trade, so as to punish war and smother it. The act of +slaughter is always ignoble; sometimes necessary, but always ignoble. +Yes, hard and persistent murderers, that's what we've been. But don't +talk to me about military virtue because I've killed Germans." + +"Nor to me," cried another in so loud a voice that no one could have +replied to him even had he dared; "nor to me, because I've saved the +lives of Frenchmen! Why, we might as well set fire to houses for the +sake of the excellence of life-saving!" + +"It would be a crime to exhibit the fine side of war, even if there +were one!" murmured one of the somber soldiers. + +The first man continued. "They'll say those things to us by way of +paying us with glory, and to pay themselves, too, for what they haven't +done. But military glory--it isn't even true for us common soldiers. +It's for some, but outside those elect the soldier's glory is a lie, +like every other fine-looking thing in war. In reality, the soldier's +sacrifice is obscurely concealed. The multitudes that make up the waves +of attack have no reward. They run to hurl themselves into a frightful +inglorious nothing. You cannot even heap up their names, their poor +little names of nobodies." + +"To hell with it all," replies a man, "we've got other things to think +about." + +"But all that," hiccupped a face which the mud concealed like a hideous +hand, "may you even say it? You'd be cursed, and 'shot at dawn'! +They've made around a Marshal's plumes a religion as bad and stupid and +malignant as the other!" + +The man raised himself, fell down, and rose again. The wound that he +had under his armor of filth was staining the ground, and when he had +spoken, his wide-open eyes looked down at all the blood he had given +for the healing of the world. + + * * * * * + +The others, one by one, straighten themselves. The storm is falling +more heavily on the expanse of flayed and martyred fields. The day is +full of night. It is as if new enemy shapes of men and groups of men +are rising unceasingly on the crest of the mountain-chain of clouds, +round about the barbaric outlines of crosses, eagles, churches, royal +and military palaces and temples. They seem to multiply there, shutting +out the stars that are fewer than mankind; it seems even as if these +apparitions are moving in all directions in the excavated ground, here, +there, among the real beings who are thrown there at random, half +buried in the earth like grains of corn. + +My still living companions have at last got up. Standing with +difficulty on the foundered soil, enclosed in their bemired garb, laid +out in strange upright coffins of mud, raising their huge simplicity +out of the earth's depths--a profoundity like that of ignorance--they +move and cry out, with their gaze, their arms and their fists extended +towards the sky whence fall daylight and storm. They are struggling +against victorious specters, like the Cyranos and Don Quixotes that +they still are. + +One sees their shadows stirring on the shining sad expanse of the +plain, and reflected in the pallid stagnant surface of the old +trenches, which now only the infinite void of space inhabits and +purifies, in the center of a polar desert whose horizons fume. + +But their eyes are opened. They are beginning to make out the boundless +simplicity of things. And Truth not only invests them with a dawn of +hope, but raises on it a renewal of strength and courage. + +"That's enough talk about those others!" one of the men commanded; "all +the worse for them!--Us! Us all!" The understanding between +democracies, the entente among the multitudes, the uplifting of the +people of the world, the bluntly simple faith! All the rest, aye, all +the rest, in the past, the present and the future, matters nothing at +all. + +And a soldier ventures to add this sentence, though he begins it with +lowered voice, "If the present war has advanced progress by one step, +its miseries and slaughter will count for little." + +And while we get ready to rejoin the others and begin war again, the +dark and storm-choked sky slowly opens above our heads. Between two +masses of gloomy cloud a tranquil gleam emerges; and that line of +light, so blackedged and beset, brings even so its proof that the sun +is there. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Under Fire, by Henri Barbusse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER FIRE *** + +***** This file should be named 4380.txt or 4380.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/8/4380/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo. 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