It was not exactly what one expects from a man wearing the _Medaille
Militaire_ and the _Croix de Guerre_ with two palms. There was a
certain implication in it. It sounded as though he meant that any man
not in military uniform was a curiosity seeker or a sensation monger.
I said something to that effect.
"No," he said hastily. "Not at all. Not at all. I only meant you could
understand now, perhaps what it is that moves men in this, what makes
them take part in it."
"Most of the men are conscripts," I said. "You are, I suppose."
"No," he answered. "I am a volunteer. I might be at the rear; I might
even be writing for some paper."
It was a fine answer to my brutality.
"I beg your pardon," I said. "You are a volunteer. Tell me why you are
here."
"I will tell you my name first," he said. "It is Léon Barbèsse. I was
a schoolteacher in the centre of France, married, and with a boy four
years old. The war came and I was called to the colors, as every one
was called. But I was sent home. My lungs, you know. They are all
right now, though. A few months of this life and your lungs kill you or
they get all right. Mine are all right."
He struck himself a heavy blow on the chest and grinned.
"I could not have done that in 1914," he said. "I would have coughed
for half an hour."
"So I was sent back," he continued, "and I was glad of it. I can't tell
you how glad. I did not want to go to war. I was afraid. That is the
truth. I was afraid. And when the doctor said I would not do, I could
have cheered. The doctor was sorry for me, and I pretended to be sorry,
also, but not too sorry, for he might have passed me.
"I went home. I was safe. I did not have to fight. I did not have to
be killed. I did not have to be ashamed, for the doctors had turned me
back. Well, I was ashamed. My country was in danger. The Germans were
in France. And I was at home. But I was afraid. There you have it, I
was ashamed because I would not fight for my country, my country that
needed me, and I was afraid to fight. I was afraid to be hurt. I was
afraid to die.
"Do you remember when they called the 1917 class a year ahead of time?
I went then. I volunteered. God, what a struggle that was! I walked
the road to the _caserne_ with the sweat running off me. For a year I
had dreamed nightly of the shells. I had heard them. They had fallen
around me. I had been wounded. I had felt the impact of the steel on my
yielding flesh. For a year I had spent my days trying to hide my terror
from my wife, my friends and my neighbors. And all the time my country
had called. Fear and shame! Fear and shame! My country called and I was
afraid to go!
"For a man who loves his country, there is nothing harder than to be
a coward and know it. I went at last because I could not stand the
torture of failing to do my duty. No one else knew. I had been sent
back by the doctors. I was blameless before the community. But I knew
it was because I was afraid to be hurt, afraid to die. So when they
called the class 1917 I went.
"They sent me to Verdun. Can you imagine what that meant to me? It was
in the very midst of the German attack on the left bank of the Meuse. I
had been drafted into a veteran regiment with a lot of others to help
fill up the gaps, and I joined just in time to go into the front line.
"You know how the papers were filled at that time with the terrors of
the Verdun fighting. It was not of the bravery of our troops that I
read, but of the terrors. I don't know how I ever got into line on the
day we marched from the rear to go to the front. Everything I did was
mechanical. We were called before daylight; we had a cup of coffee; we
were marching along the road.
"I had managed it up to then without giving myself away. True, I talked
little to my comrades, and probably that saved me. But the morning we
marched to the front, what saved me then I don't know, except possibly
because I said nothing. I was unable to speak. I was numb with fear.
I was sick. My stomach turned. I walked with my head down and my feet
dragged like great weights.
"You know, at that time you could always hear at Verdun the pounding
of the big guns. I had heard it for days, while my regiment was in
repose. I used to go out in the woods by myself and listen to it and
terrify myself by thinking what it would be like to be under that rain
of shells. A foolish thing to do, but for more than a year, nearly two
years, I had been under the obsession of my fear. I could no longer
control it."