It is comforting to hear them talk about their superior officers, as a
soldier of the 149th Infantry has just talked to me about his captain.
"Oh, I can tell you, my captain had plenty of good blood in his veins.
There was nothing suspicious about him. I saw him standing straight
up among the whistling bullets, giving his orders without flinching,
without recoiling one inch, as if he were sitting at his desk and only
flies were buzzing round his head. And so gentle, too. Good to the men
and always jolly. We were in luck to have him over us."
I asked him questions about his campaign, and he talked freely, having
only good things to tell. The taciturn ones are those who have sad
memories to conceal.
"We were the ones told off to take the village of S----," he said,
"where the enemy was. My captain, who acted as chief of battalion, got
us all together, and said to us:
"'There seem to be two or three Boches down there. We must get them
out, eh?'
"Everybody knew very well what that meant, but we laughed and went to
it in good part. What fights those were! Two days of bloody battles in
the streets. Finally the village was ours. We had one night's rest in
a farmhouse, three-quarters of which had been destroyed. When we got
there we spied an unfortunate porker in a corner. He had taken refuge
there, frightened by the firing. He came in very handy, I can tell you,
for our stomachs were hollow.
"'Charge again on that Boche, there,' said the Captain. When he had
eaten and slept and assembled again next day, he said:
"Well, well, my lads, we're in danger of getting too soft here. Suppose
we go on a little further and see what's happening.'
"We marched on further, but the enemy, who were in force, began to
shoot at us all at once from below. My Captain didn't expose us
needlessly. He made us lie down in the deserted trenches. There were
corpses there and dead horses, and water, water everywhere. It rained
without stopping. We spent the night up to our waists in water. It was
enough to make one laugh."
To laugh--this word turns up all the time in their recitals, and in the
most unexpected manner. Oh, this French courage, which faces not only
the bitter struggle with danger, but disdains and mocks it, too; that
elegant courage of our fathers that has been born again amongst us.
My foot-soldier, Number 149, was seized with quite a touching emotion
when I told him that I knew his Captain's lady.
"Tell her she may be proud," he said, "and that I'd willingly go back
down there; for my country's sake, of course, but also and a good deal,
on my Captain's account."
Then I let him know something that I'd kept till the end of our
interview, that his Captain, young as he was, had just been promoted to
the rank of battalion chief; that the Cross of the Legion of Honour had
been given him, and that, thanks to him, no doubt, the entire regiment
had been mentioned in the order of the day. I won't attempt to picture
the little soldier's moving and disinterested joy.
Near Number 3's bed I caught sight of a peasant woman from the Cher, in
a white head-dress, and an old man, who wore a medallion of 1870 on his
breast.
"They are his parents," Sister Gabrielle explained to me. "I had word
sent to them. The poor lad is in grave danger. Luckily I've got the
management's permission to let the mother pass the nights here."
In this way I became acquainted with the Mèchins, French peasants
of the old order, unalterably attached to the soil. They hope, nay,
they are sure, that their son is going to get well. The sick man says
nothing. They're all like that, our soldiers--no foolish tenderness,
no pain given to their parents. Who knows, besides, how much their
desire to live may have dwindled down after their tragic voyages to the
frontier? The soul must possess new powers of detachment when it has
risen to the heights of absolute self-sacrifice. The little soldier
does not deceive himself, Sister Gabrielle has told me, and when I
expressed my admiration for the strange moral force that he gave proof
of, she answered me proudly:
"But they are all like that."
Just as I was going to leave the room the sick man summoned me with his
eyes. I went up to him and bent over him.
"Do you want anything?" I asked.
He made a sign of No, and with a great effort raised his hand outside
the bed and reached it toward me, murmuring: "Thanks."
I understood. It was his good-bye. He thought that he should perhaps
not be there in the morning when I came back.