He spat everywhere; he was so angry that his voice was no longer
human--it was hoarse, ragged and torn. In spite of his insufferable
temper, I actually felt pity for the old man.
Back he goes to the office, I following close at his heels. Dashing to
his papers and documents, he shuffles them about like a spaniel in the
mud. Then, shouting angrily, he says:
“Here you are!--1236 came in; 561 have gone out. Do you understand?
Six remain at present. That’s it: one is missing, and it must be the
one. And nobody knows who he is! We are in a mess! We are in a mess!”
I confess that M. Poisson’s assurance made a great impression on me.
Especially was I surprised at the accuracy of his figures. It is
wonderful, sir, to note the efficiency of military organisation. We
learn, for instance, that twenty-three stretchers out of a hundred have
been lost--not one more, not one less; or 1000 wounded were brought in;
50 died; therefore 950 are still alive. To maintain this mathematical
order, it is therefore clearly well worth while taking the trouble to
make a list of everything that comes in and goes out. Listening to
M. Poisson making his calculation, I saw, too clearly, how my poor
unfortunate corpse was one too many.
The doctor repeated, “We are in a mess,” and added, “Now, you there!
Come along with me.”
M. Poisson bustled off again in all directions, to the left and to the
right. I followed him, my head lowered, having been gradually seized by
the fever that tortured him. He stopped all the officers.
“I’m fed up with this job! Go and see if the body wasn’t sent out from
your huts.”
He entered the operating theatres and asked the surgeons:
“You didn’t send me an unidentified dead body?”
And every time he took out his rumpled piece of paper and added a
cross, a number, with his pencil.
Towards evening he fixed me with another look. There were red patches
underneath his eyes as highly coloured as raw ham.
“You!--go back to the mortuary! You’ll hear more of me yet!”
I went back, and sat down, feeling very wretched. Three fresh corpses
had been brought in. Tanquerelle was hoisting them into coffins with
the help of the carpenter.
On the table, temporarily shrouded in tent material, the unknown dead
man was waiting his fate. Tanquerelle was completely drunk and was
singing “The Missouri,”--not exactly the thing to do in the midst of
corpses. I went and drew aside the shroud and looked at the ice-cold
body. His smashed face was covered with linen bandages. A few locks of
fair hair could be seen. As for the rest, just an ordinary body, like
yours or mine, sir.
Night had fallen. The door opened and M. Poisson, accompanied by
another officer, appeared with a lantern. He seemed calm and replete,
like a man who has dined well.
“You are an idiot,” he said to me. “Why couldn’t you see that this was
the body of Cuirassier Cuvelier?”
“But, sir----”
“Oh, shut up! It’s Cuirassier Cuvelier.”
Coming up to the table, he noted the size of the corpse and exclaimed:
“Of course! He’s tall enough to be a cuirassier. You see, Perrin,
Cuvelier was brought in the day before yesterday. According to the
register, he was not taken out. As he is no longer under treatment, he
is dead, and this must be he. That’s clear.”
“Obviously,” said Perrin, “it’s he right enough.”
“Yes; don’t you agree?” replied M. Poisson. “It’s Cuvelier; that is
quite plain. Poor devil! Now we can go to bed....”
Then he turned towards me:
“You!--you will put him in the coffin, and stick on the lid: ‘Cuvelier,
Edouard, 9th Cuirassiers.’ And then, you mind! no more pranks of this
kind.”
When the officers had gone, I put Cuirassier Cuvelier in a coffin, and
then I lay down for a few hours on my mattress.
* * * * *
The next morning I was preparing to nail down the coffin of Edouard
Cuvelier, when I saw M. Poisson coming up once again. His face was not
so calm as on the previous evening.
“Wait; don’t bury that man yet,” he said.
He walked round the coffin, and nibbled the end of a cigarette; he
appeared indeed so uneasy that I knew at once he had not yet decided
to thrust Cuvelier out into the abyss. It was not going to be done:
the dead body was getting in the way and refused to be swallowed up. I
don’t know whether M. Poisson had a high idea of his duty, or merely
was afraid of complications; whatever it was, I sympathised greatly
with him at that moment.
He turned towards me and, as he did not like to be alone, “Come along
with me,” he said.
Off we went again, making the round of the huts.
“Hut No. 8?” began M. Poisson. “The seriously wounded are here, aren’t
they? Is Cuirassier Cuvelier here?”
The men there made inquiries, and replied “No.”
We went on to the next.