detachment.
“To Fort Orff, two leagues from here, towards the north. You will find
there a thousand of your compatriots.”
“Are you keeping the men of the red cross as prisoners?”
“So it seems. I can’t understand it. At Fort Orff there are certainly
quite a hundred _Sanitäter_.”
“These are fine spoil!”
This _Feldwebel_ was a tall, ruddy young man, trim of figure, gentle and
shy. His name, he told me, was Conrad Kilian, and he was a schoolmaster
from Upper Franconia. He stationed me at the rear of the column, beside
himself, to act as interpreter. He was greatly concerned about those of
my comrades who were too obviously exhausted. “How on earth will they be
able to walk uphill for ten kilometres?” This impotent kindness of heart
was touching. The setting sun cast its rosy light over the Danube and the
ancient city, bristling with church spires and surrounded by Gothic walls
with massive towers. We passed through it under a deluge of cries of
“Death!” And what a litany of _kaputs_![11] “Paris _kaput_! Manonviller
_kaput_! Verdun _kaput_!” One might have imagined that the whole world
was _kaput_! The gentler-minded among the townsfolk flashed electric
torches in our faces, saying modestly: “You know that our armies are but
a few leagues from Paris?” The better educated regaled us with French.
“La foilà,” they said mockingly, “la grande nation!” People streamed out
of the public-houses as we went by. On the threshold the calm and paunchy
drinkers waved their mugs and vented their guffaws. The whole city was
agog beneath the great royal and imperial standards. It was really
ludicrous, all this fuss about fifty field hospital orderlies.
It was quite clear that the German nation was the martyr of Europe. “As
for us,” said my friend the _Feldwebel_, “our conscience is quite at
ease!” Yes, we, the French, were the aggressors; we were the _apaches_
who had come furtively (_sicut fur in nocte_) to disturb the dignified
repose of these excellent people, full of humanity, thoughtful and
gentle! It was unquestionably the anger of an offended conscience, the
holy joy of justice at length avenged, which found expression in this
tumult. How easy it is to distort facts, to cook public opinion! I looked
on and listened with greater interest than at the most exciting of plays.
From the casements, graceful beneath their Gothic gables and bright with
window-gardens, imprecations rained down on us. And the gestures of the
silhouetted figures standing in the front of these lighted interiors
sufficed to show those among us who could not understand Swabian the
significance of the volleys of homeric abuse.
I was not in the least humiliated by the hubbub. My condition was one
of strange exaltation. I was very sad and yet fascinated—sad at the
spectacle of mankind, and yet fascinated at the chance of seeing man as
he really is. Tacitus, Machiavelli, Stendhal, Ferrero—not one of these
writers had succeeded in giving me so strong an impression of human
reality. But I will defer my comments. Thoughts conceived under the spur
of hunger and in a sort of physical dementia are not likely to be just.
Besides, it is difficult to keep one’s head cool when the whole world is
crumbling around one. I fear lest I may have to laugh some day at the
partiality of this simple and matter-of-fact story, written for some one
whom I love, and in which I faithfully desire to use no colours but those
of truth.
Of our arrival at the fort I can recall nothing but the memory of a great
iron gate which groaned on its hinges when it was opened, of a few
lanterns held by sentinels running hither and thither in the darkness,
of a gloomy and nauseous staircase where I stumbled and where my nailed
boots made a clatter that aroused distant echoes, and of a casemate,
this casemate, with cemented floor, bare, without even straw, its arches
sweating damp. I threw myself on the floor, my cheek on my knapsack. My
head was throbbing with fever. I spent a sleepless night, not thinking,
but a prey to delirium.
FEVER AND LOW SPIRITS
_September 16, 1914._
The casemate is empty. My comrades have gone up to the nine o’clock
roll-call. I am still “confined to my room by illness.” I am happy to be
alone. It is cold. Wrapping my rug closely round me, I lie listening to
the bitter wind. I am alone; I am free. It seems to me that the current
of life has swept me away to the end of the world, depositing me amid
dumb deserts of infinite vastness.
The straw upon which I have been lying for a fortnight is reduced to
powder. I roll myself in it as if it were a dust bath for chickens. How
thin is my rug! My limbs shake with the cold of fever. Yesterday for a
quarter of an hour I dragged myself along in the east court, but I was
unable to get as far as the first glacis. When I was coming downstairs on
the way back, my legs seemed heavier than hand grenades. I am very cold.
Through the upper part of the two screened windows I catch a glimpse
of a strip of sky, grey and heavy, crushing down on the slope, on the
portcullis on the top of the slope, on the wild rose bush which breaks
the straight line of the portcullis. On the steep slope I see the long
grass bending before the gusts.
I am alone. How delightful! What wealth! What a privilege! Here we are
never alone.
We sleep, we dress, we eat, we amuse ourselves, we walk about, we hunt
for lice, we attend to the calls of nature, we dream, we are filled
with indignation, we soften, we caress the dear relics hidden in our
knapsacks, we retire into ourselves—we do all this in public.
How well do I understand the phrase of St. Bernard, the phrase of a monk,
_O beata solitudo, sola beatitudo_! Sometimes in the morning, when we
awaken, this awakening devoid of dignity, full of oaths, when the same
voices gabble the same platitudes, in the same eternal access of sterile
boredom, makes me feel positively sick. How long will it continue, this
life in a herd? It seems to me that the effluvium of the crowd, of the
sweat of human cattle, has penetrated into all the interstices of my soul.
No, it is useless; the effort to pull myself together and to become what
I was before these days in prison is too much for my poor strength. I
am shivering with cold. To throw off this torpor I should need to eat
three or four times as much as we are allowed. Alas! the wretched half
loaf of the first few days has been reduced to a third of a loaf, for the
German authorities are methodically restricting our rations. Even the
dullest of the soldiers, heavy, good-natured fellows, those who never
think and consequently waste very little energy, find it difficult to
keep going. Poor mothers, could you but catch a glimpse of your sons,
your fine lads, those whom you used to pet so tenderly! On the slopes and
in the dry ditches of the fort you would see them gloomy and slow, with
drawn features, with a yellow and dirty skin, almost always crouching on
the ground. They look like shades in Purgatory. Are these the youths of
France?
* * * * *
Sergeant Bertrand is the first to come down. Without saying a word, he
throws himself on his heap of straw beside me. Then, one behind the
other, come dreamily in Sergeant Boude and Guido, my terrible and dear
Guido. Soon all the rest of the section enters, a stamping and noisy rout.
Bertrand does not move. Leaning against his knapsack, pipe in mouth—a
pipe carved by Boude—he looks straight in front of him. He is in a fine
fit of the blues, our “agent de change,” as he is nicknamed by his
comrades from Marseilles. If his fiancée could see him thus, his fiancée
of Ciotat!
At the end of the room, beneath the windows, two groups are playing cards
for pfennig stakes. Beyond them, leaning against the bars, Sabatier,
grave and mute like a bonze, is plaiting a horsehair watch-chain. Over
there, from every mouth, from all the Bavarian pipes hanging over the
players’ stomachs, there mount thick clouds of smoke.
In our corner, spoken of as the “club” by the men of the “fond” (the
window end), every one is silent. Bertrand is in Ciotat. Guido, hunched
against the wall, his képi pulled down over his eyes, seems to be turning
over thoughts even more disconsolate than those of the _Imitation_ or of
_Ecclesiastes_. Boude, the good Boude, with the soul of an artist who has
lost his way in everyday life, stands up, looking at our trio.
All of a sudden, Bertrand, with a yawn, murmurs, “I would sell my life
for a penny.”
Boude smiles at his _alter ego_. “For my part, old chap, I brought with
me from Marseilles a certain store of philosophy.”
“That also gets used up, Sergeant Boude,” says Guido, “just as certainly
as the cigar that you are smoking. And once your cigar is finished, in
these times of dearth, you may find it difficult to get another.” Then,
turning to me, and lowering his harsh voice: “Richeris,” he says, “is the
happiest of us all. For him there is nothing but God. If God wills it, he
is satisfied; if God does not will it, he is equally satisfied.”
Silence for a time.
Then Boude remarks quietly: “I’m going to visit big Boétti. His dreams
seem to come true. On the 19th, the night before our capture, he had a
red dream. Perhaps last night he may have had a blue one.”
“Oh,” observes Guido, with a laugh, “I too have, not dreams, but
presentiments which come true. The day of Boétti’s dream, when we had
left Bourdonnaye and were in the marshy wood just before you get to
Dieuze, I said to myself, ‘This time it’s all up with you, old chap,
absolutely all up!’ You see, it _is_ all up, and for a good long time!”
Then Boude, “Oh, Guido, you see everything in dark colours.”
“Quite true, I see everything in dark colours. I leave it to you others
to gaze through the rose-tinted window. I keep to the gloomy outlook.
Until a day or two ago I had hopes of freedom in October. But since Riou
has read us the news, what he calls ‘good news,’ I hope no longer.”
“All the same, I’m going to see Boétti,” declares Sergeant Boude, opening
the door.
The club relapses into silence. Bertrand dreams. Guido, his faith in
original sin thoroughly re-established, meditates upon misfortune and
upon human malice.
* * * * *
Oh, how empty and sterile life is. My head swims.
Lambert, who sees that I am shaking with cold, little Lambert, kindly and
gentle as a good grandfather, comes and wraps his rug round my shoulders.
He gives me a cheerful smile, but says nothing. Returning to his place
opposite mine, he devotes himself once more to the study of the civil
code. The comrades at the other end of the room noisily continue their
game of cards. Sabatier, hard at work, is standing up. It is raining, and
the windows have been closed. Young Soulier, stretched at full length
on his back, his hands beneath his head, staring at vacancy, whistles
an unending succession of operatic airs, music-hall songs, waltzes, and
tangos. I listen. Gradually this flow of sounds wearies me, and ends by
exasperating me. What shall I do? Faces of those I love, how in this pit
of fever and weariness I endeavour to revive you in memory. Where are you
now? If one could only write. Very likely they think we are dead. Has
the Ministry of War notified them of our imprisonment? Does the Ministry
itself know?
Lambert’s rug has made me feel warmer. I have taken from my haversack
the manual of French-German conversation the commandant has lent me. I
read the dialogue which deals with agricultural life. _Wiese_, _Wald_,
_Gebüsch_, _Saatfeld_, _Ackerfurche_, _Herde_, _Mühle_, _Landhaus_. These
humble words seem friendly. I read them again. I murmur them to myself
half aloud. Laying the book on my knee, I repeat them slowly by heart.
Is there some magic charm in these simple vocables? Called up by the
sounds, images of freshness, so soothing to my fever, come to keep me
company. I forget Soulier and his music. I no longer hear the wrangles
of the card-players. The misery of being nothing better than a poor
sick mole at the bottom of a crypt is gradually effaced from my mind.
The magic of words! Yet these words are the words of the enemy. My
brain finds relief. My eyes are caressed by pure colours. My ears are
delighted with the supple cadences of melodies which recall the scent
of hay and pastoral quietude. It seems to me that I am in a sun-kissed
village. In front of the pillared porch of the white church, dazzling
white against the limpid blue sky, apple-cheeked girls are playing games.
How charming is the aspect of their flaxen plaits against their mauve
aprons! How graceful their movements! How angelic the clear ring of their
voices! They smile in a comradely way as they look at me. But you are the
daughters of the enemy, little sisters singing so sweetly, little sisters
whom I love.…
DINNER
_September 20, 1914._
It is exactly a month since we were taken prisoner. Here is the great
event of this day of jubilee. It is a culinary event. None but the
famished could appreciate it.
I dressed hastily, for I had to be upon the upper slopes at seven
o’clock. I had an appointment with a peasant woman, small, thin, with
scanty hair, who comes here from time to time to cut the grass. Yesterday
she brought me two pounds of sugar. The price was sixty pfennig. I gave
her a mark, telling her to keep the change for her two girls. These
latter, working bare foot in the damp grass, rewarded me with a profusion
of reiterated _Danke schön_, and I had said to myself that they were good
folk. Acting on this impression, I commissioned them to buy chocolate
to the value of three marks, to be delivered next day at seven o’clock.
_Morgen früh, sieben Uhr._ This matter having been settled, I took
possession of the wheelbarrow, heavy with damp grass, and, as fast as I
could, followed by the three breathless Bavarians, I trundled my load as
far as the guardhouse, nearly slipping a dozen times on the smooth slopes.
Here I am then at seven o’clock to keep the appointment. From this spot
there is a view over the entire fort and the huge plain of Ingolstadt. A
thin haze limits the horizon. White vapours rise from the Danube. Some
factory chimneys behind the town are slowly vomiting their black plumes
straight up into the foggy sky. Not a stir in the air. The houses on the
plain have a liliputian aspect, seeming lost in the immensity.
There was no one in the upper courts, no one on the slopes. How pleasant
it was in this damp solitude. Church bells in the neighbouring villages
were ringing for mass. It was raining steadily—a gentle, quiet rain. I
took shelter beneath a parapet and waited. Close at hand a poor little
acacia was softly dripping. Since I left for the war, this was the first
time I had begun the day quite alone. The “Our Father” mounted to my
lips. I prayed for France, for all the soldiers of the _Völkerkrieg_. I
prayed for my own dear ones … God, France, Andrée.…
Still the woman did not come. My coat was drenched. I was hungry. I made
up my mind to abandon my fruitless errand.
In the casemate it was just like any other morning. Each one of us
pushes back against the wall the truss of straw which the previous night
he had spread out to make his bed, arranging it to form a rectangle,
and covering it with a Bavarian rug. Thus, round the “square” we have
two rows of low couches, greyish brown in colour, provided by way
of cushions with our knapsacks padded with our French rugs. The two
chambermaids—to-day they are Sabatier and Ancey—sweep the floor and trim
the lamp. When the work is finished our casemate looks almost coquettish.
Now Guido returns from mass. Standing silent in the draughty doorway, he
smokes his first cigarette. I instantly perceive that he has an idea, and
ask for information. He thinks of nothing less than commemorating the
melancholy jubilee of our capture by a cup of chocolate. A great thought,
but difficult to realize! I hesitate. But Guido, egged on by hunger,
is resolute. Knowing that I am on good terms with the kitchen, without
further discussion he gives me a mess-tin and a few sticks of Suchard,
saying, “You can manage it all right.” Doubtfully I make my way to the
_Küche_. I open the door. A cloud of steam and smoke rushes out, enwraps
me, and almost chokes me. In this fog I knock up against a Norman from
the Auge valley—“Marie, the scullerymaid.” Without explanation I hand
over what I am carrying. “That’s all right!” he says. I return to the
casemate. “All well?” asks Guido. “All well,” I answer. In a few minutes
Marie, alias Auguste, appears. He has the mien of a conspirator! Beneath
his stained and greasy tunic he conceals as well as he can the hot
vessel. With a secret air he says: “Here it is!” “Bravo!” I exclaim. But
can this be my mess-tin? It is quite black, like the bottom of a cooking
pot. The tin has melted and run into warty drops half-way up. Yes, it is
really my mess-tin; but what a baptism of fire it must have experienced!
Never mind. In a trice Guido makes a cunning hole in the straw to keep it
hot and to conceal the windfall. Hurrah! everything is ready.
In the casemate, stretched out on our blankets, we all await the
dinner-hour.
“Room 17!” comes the cry from without. We leap to our feet. Two by two,
as is the custom in German barracks, we make our way to the kitchen—a
long procession of individuals who chatter impatiently in the dark and
evil-smelling passages. When we reach the happy door we are arrested
by the order, “Halt.” We have to wait until those of room 16 have been
served and dismissed. Now comes the moment. “Seventeen, enter!” orders
Dutrex. We defile in front of the cauldron, and each man in turn holds
out his bowl to the cook. This last, Davit, an Angevin, wearied of doing
the same thing five hundred times in succession, handles the great ladle
mechanically, absorbed in his own thoughts. His arms and shoulders are
bare, and one cannot doubt that he has the torso of the Farnese Hercules.
One by one, hastily and yet cautiously, we return to the casemate.
Reclining in Roman fashion, seated or squatting, we crumble into the
clear liquid, faintly sweetened, a little of our rye and barley bread,
of the consistency of putty, and forming a pappy mass in the soup. The
silence is religious. Eating is a solemn function in these days of
scarcity. For a lengthy interval nothing is to be heard in the “square”
but the rattling of spoons upon tin.
In our corner, where two friends sitting very close together sip steaming
chocolate, the fervour is even greater than among those who are taking
what we good-humouredly speak of as “café-au-lait.” Our mothers would
consider our brew extremely crude. No milk! No sugar! But the palate of
a prisoner of war differs from that of a pampered child. Bending over
our joint mess-tin, Guido and I are silently and sadly happy. Poor joys
of the famished, how one makes the most of you with a greedy and simple
soul!
FONTAINEBLEAU
_September 21, 1914._
You remember that Andromache, made captive when Troy fell and allotted
to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, rebaptized with Trojan names the
streams and the hills of the Epirot capital, adorning the gloomy present
with glorious memories. As at Troy, she had her Scamander. In this way,
on clear nights, when she walked beside the river in the solitary fever
of insomnia, it was sometimes possible for her to forget Neoptolemus and
the hatred of the Greeks, and to dream of herself still living beside
Hector as queen, wife, and happy mother.
All prisoners are alike, be they epic heroines or soldiers of the third
republic. I, too, have my Scamander in Epirus.
On the slopes of the fort there are a few poor trees. I do not know how
they manage to grow there, for very thin is the layer of grass-clad earth
which covers the cemented arches. The rain runs off as from a tiled roof,
and the weakest sun scorches the humus. Nevertheless, on the northern
spur there is a squad of small acacias with two or three stunted
poplars, sheltering beneath their scanty shade a humble growth of mosses,
dwarf gentians, scabiouses, and thyme.
When the réveillé sounds, before the fort is overrun by the other
prisoners, I visit this little “grove.” The habit, somewhat
undisciplined, is of recent growth. I have known my Thebaïd for two days
only; I am there for the third time this morning to revive my memories,
not of Ilium, but of Fontainebleau.
Fontainebleau!
Do you remember last May, during the week when the great poplars of the
Allée Sully were scattering their down on the water of the pond? There
was some of it in your hair the morning when I spoke to you. You looked
straight in front of you, as in a vision. You were walking without saying
a word, bending backwards, restraining the impatience of the enleashed
Katia and Douchka.
In the evening we walked together on the fringe of the forest. The night
was warm and fine, and the petals rained gently on us as we went. Our
acacias were in flower. We looked at the moon through the slender network
formed by their white clusters.
My poor Fontainebleau of Ingolstadt!
AN OLD CAMPAIGNER
_September 22, 1914._
There are more than a thousand of them squatting on the grass. The sun
rages down on this quadrilateral, as big as the Place des Victoires,
enclosed by the steep slopes of the scarp. Every one is nodding. The
German flag and the Bavarian flag hang inertly along their twin staves.
This frippery has been hoisted to celebrate the taking of ⸺. There is
not a breath of wind. The heat is stifling. Sentinels pace to and fro.
What is going on behind the forbidden slopes? Above the parapets crowned
with flowers we can see nothing but the sky—a wide sky, barely blue. Some
prisoners are chatting as they sit on a pyramid of grenades.
“How short our campaign was!” exclaims Sergeant Foch of the 10th
Chasseurs, a fine fellow who seems modelled in bronze. His dark,
golden-speckled eyes seem to devour you. He speaks harshly, and one feels
that his wrath is intense. He spits out his phrases, with long intervals
of silence.
“And all this happened through an idiot who led us straight to
Raon-l’Etape, a regular Boche ambush!…
“As for me, tonnerre de Dieu, I could not help thinking of our captain.
Captain B.! He was a soldier, if you like—first man of his year in the
Ecole de Guerre, certain to become a general. One day he showed us the
photo of his children, seven children, all in a row. He had tears in his
eyes. He was a man! He could do what he liked with us. He was brave and
prudent, and we had nothing to do but to follow where he led. One felt
safe with him. There was a man who knew how to take care of his company.
“I wish you’d seen what happened at Vallerystal! Such a rain of shells
we had there. I counted five hundred on my own section alone. I lost
my two chums there. One of them came from my own village, and he and I
were like brothers—always together. All of a sudden there came a pig
of a melinite shell. There was a hell of a noise and a lot of smoke. I
was knocked out of time, bowled over and over. Then I got up and dusted
myself. Absolutely unhurt! Oh, how that black smoke stank! And on either
side of me my two chums, blown to bits, their guts bulging out all over
the place. Cré nom de nom! My knapsack did me good service that time! It
stopped a shell splinter which set the collar of my coat on fire behind.
Just look.
“While this was going on, what do you think our captain was doing? He was
walking quietly up and down, pipe in mouth, in front of our rifles.
“‘Better lie down, captain,’ we said to him.
“‘What’s the use? One’s just as likely to be hit lying down as standing.’
“By the evening he had a wound in the head and a torn biceps. Do you
think he left us on that account? His wounds were temporarily dressed.
“‘You must go to the field hospital,’ said the surgeon. But he did not
go! There’s a fellow for you. If they were all like this B.…”
“Did it do well, your section?” asked Piétri, a red-haired
sergeant-major, sturdy, with bloodshot eyes, a Corsican with the trick of
staring you in the face, seeming to listen with his eyes, greedily, like
a deaf man.
“Did they do well? I believe you! My reservists were splendid. ‘The
beasts!’ they cried. They were spoiling for the fight; they clenched
their fists. The 10th battalion was proverbial. ‘The men at Provenchères
are devils,’ said the Boches; it was we.