fellows to bother us! We never have a moment’s peace.” Then, “Who is
there?” he shouts in a forbidding tone. Two ingratiating voices make
answer, those of little Corporal Véron and of Boisdin, a sergeant of
engineers, long as a lamp-post. “It’s us!” Dutrex opens the door, and the
two non-commissioned officers of room No. 3 display their bowl, wherein
are heaped, not neat slices à la Devèse, but fragments of every possible
shape, square and rectangular, thin and thick, with no rind or all rind,
tapering, pyramidal, and concave.
“Dutrex, old fellow,” says Véron, “we’re sorry to bother you, but our
men are on strike. They’re not having any of these leavings. Now, just
look at this piece.” He points out a well cut slice. “This is what the
‘poilus’ are receiving from kitchen No. 53.”
“My good chap,” Dutrex answers quietly, “what do you expect me to do?
I give what is given me. I know that Sarrazin’s kitchen is specially
favoured—it is the kitchen of the Germans. For the hundred and fifty-two
men it has to supply, which includes himself and the twenty-four
Bavarians of the guard, the quartermaster delivers almost as much as for
us who are four hundred and eighty. Go and make your complaint to him.
He’ll give you a reception. You will find out how amiable he is. For my
part, I have given up trying to argue with this tête de Boche, who is as
obstinate as a hundred Spanish mules rolled into one, and who detests the
French. It is true that the contents of your dish do not look very grand.
As you see, I have had to get on without Devèse. His substitute is quite
a novice. Besides, your room was the last served, and naturally you got
the remnants. But I assure you that your full allowance is there. Durupt
allotted each ration in little heaps with his usual conscientiousness. If
your men don’t like it, well, let’s settle the matter among ourselves.
You’d better go and consult our own medical officers. I can do no more.”
Five minutes later the door opens. “Attention!” It is the
surgeon-in-chief, Monsieur Langlois, the major with four stripes, who
came here yesterday from fort No. 8 with three colleagues, so that, with
our two other medical officers, MM. Cavaillé and Lœbre, we have now six
doctors. He is short and fat; his hair is pepper and salt, with more
salt than pepper; his gestures are lively; his head resembles that of
Poincaré; his eyes sparkle mischievously. He takes from the hands of
Véron the allowance of No. 3. “You are nineteen?” he asks. He quietly
repeats the work of Durupt. Upon the table, encumbered with our hunks of
bread and our rations of gruyère, he arranges the bowlful of “leavings”
in nineteen small heaps, being careful to make them as equal as possible.
He then says: “Do you know that your room No. 3 is specially favoured?
I have seen what has been allotted to the other rooms. I assure you,
sergeant, that yours is one of the best served. Call your men.” The men
of No. 3 are waiting outside, and, judging from the noise which comes
through the door, it would seem that there are others in the corridor
besides the men of No. 3.
“Men of No. 3, enter,” orders Dutrex. The nineteen defile in front of
the table and M. Langlois points out to each man his own little heap.
When they have withdrawn, Dutrex, in the presence of Boisdin and Véron,
tells the surgeon-in-chief about Devèse’s illness and the misdeeds of the
quartermaster; how he favours kitchen No. 53 because it is the kitchen
of the Germans; and how he takes a large “squeeze” from the supplies.
“M. le Major, I was in the guardroom yesterday. By chance I came across
his store-book, and I found that he had entered thirty kilogrammes of
rice when he had certainly not distributed more than twelve kilos at the
outside. It is just the same with coffee, sugar, milk, and meat. I am
absolutely certain that he is a cheat!”
M. Langlois listens. He listens attentively. He has no wish to assert
himself prematurely. He is not here to play the officer. He is a friend,
an elder brother, frank and simple. He looks behind words, and endeavours
to grasp the secret essence of the soldier who is speaking to him. He
must be a man of intelligence, good and just.
“We will discuss the matter again,” he says as he leaves. “Meanwhile,
keep a record of the quantities delivered to you. If you can manage it,
make a steelyard. For my part, I will sound the commandant. I believe
him to be well disposed. Perhaps he will be willing to listen to a
courteously worded complaint against his quartermaster. But if we make a
complaint we must be extremely careful that we have strong evidence to
back it up. And when all is said and done, I am under no illusions as to
my power with the German authorities. We are at war. All the conventions
have been violated. Notwithstanding the armlet I wear, I am a prisoner
just like the rest of you.”
The kitchen staff sits down a second time. Every one is enchanted with
the surgeon-in-chief.
In the passages there is an unusual movement. Ordinarily, when supper
is over, most of the men lie down upon their straw. The roll-call finds
them nearly all asleep. During these two hours there is no life in the
fort, except in the kitchens and in the consulting room, which are, after
a fashion, clubs where the few intellectuals assemble to enjoy their
tobacco in company, to read the paper, or to drink the beer which the
most diplomatic among the circle has secured at a high price from the
guardroom—all these actions being utterly contrary to regulations.
It sometimes happens, however, that in their casemates the Bretons of
the 19th and the 118th of the line, suffering from home-sickness, are
day-dreaming as they lie motionless on their couches. If, now, one of
them begins to hum softly to himself, his comrades, silent men for the
most part, will little by little take up the strain. Most of them have
clear, tender, somewhat bleating voices. They drag at the end of the
verses. The movement is heavy and lachrymose. It sounds like the desolate
psalmody of a religion of despair unillumined by a single gleam of hope.
Or again, in rooms No. 16 and No. 17, two fragments translated from
Provence, one hears on certain evenings, voiced with a glad pulsation,
_Magali_, _Galanto Chatouno_, and other love-songs of old Languedoc,
that country of leisure and passion. The round coming to call the roll
stops sometimes outside the door to listen for a moment to these graceful
melodies, so different from the German _Choral_ and the German _Lied_.
But the thick crypts and walls muffle these concerts. The fort is not
disturbed by them. Even the nearest casemate will only become aware at
intervals, and remotely, of the sound of melody. The long corridors,
to which the sun never penetrates, are already as quiet, as mournfully
quiet, as they are during the heaviest hours before the dawn.
* * * * *
The unusual activity in the passages astonishes the cooks. The
conversation outside becomes livelier, and rises to the intensity of a
real tumult. It draws nearer. It is at the door of No. 22. Now come blows
on the door, shouts and execrations. “Resign, resign! Fritters! Legs of
mutton!” Some of the rioters positively bellow with indignation. The
blows on the door become more violent. “Come out, if you dare!”
This goes on for quite two minutes. The slender repast is finished.
It is time to fetch some coal. Pailloux and Bouquet, the head cook,
take up the coal-box, open the door, and say firmly: “Make way for us,
by thunder!” They pass out. But through the door, which is left ajar,
fists are shaken, and vociferations rain in. “Food snatchers!” Durupt,
shrugging his shoulders, shuts the door in the shouters’ faces. The
demonstration becomes still more lively. The noise must be heard a
long way off, for suddenly there comes a terrible growling, raucous
and determined: “_Zurück mit dem Pöbel!_”[23] In an instant the crowd,
numbering about fifty, disperses like a flight of sparrows. A single man,
Georg, the commandant’s boot-polisher, has broken the back of the riot.
He disappears. The corridors relapse into silence, the mournful silence
of a cellar.…
* * * * *
We are invited to No. 41, to visit Juramy and Roy, chasseurs alpins,
together with Foch, d’Arnoult, and Brissot. We go out. A man of the
guard, with fixed bayonet, slowly walks by the kitchen. He smiles and
greets us.
“_Grüss Gott!_”
“_Gute Nacht!_”
On the staircases and in the upper corridors the “ministers” encounter
glances of anger and surprise. At No. 41 the comrades, seated upon the
twin straw piles of Roy and Juramy, receive them with marked friendliness.
“Well!” says Sergeant Foch, the sturdiest soldier in the fort, chief
of the second kitchen, “so it’s your turn this time. You have had your
revolt! It seems to have been better organized than mine. But it means
nothing. We business men, Brissot and I, know all about the caprices
of the crowd. Suddenly, without knowing why, it rages against friends
or against foes, haphazard. These good fellows are governed by pure
instinct. In my opinion this particular revolt has been mainly the work
of the exploiters whose usurious traffic was relentlessly suppressed
by Dutrex and Durupt. It’s bad policy to be savage with the strong and
gentle with the weak, for the strong avenge themselves. Now they are
posing as defenders of the collective stomach. If you only knew all that
they are saying, and all that they are leading others to say! I’ve had my
eye on them for a long time. This evening they really believed they were
going to do something—that to-morrow they would usurp your places. They
were already licking their chops. It was a case of trust against trust. I
shall laugh if the trust of virtue proves, for once in a way, victorious.”
Dutrex is taciturn.
“Before the roll is called,” he says, “I shall hand in my resignation to
M. Langlois.”
“That’s right,” says Brissot approvingly. “Otherwise you will seem to be
clinging to a fat position.”
“What are you thinking about?” protests Durupt. “You will seem to justify
the enemy; you will accept defeat. The sharp practitioners who, under
pretext of serving their comrades, were buying for sixpence from the
guard commodities worth about twopence, and selling them at a profit
of a shilling, thus realizing as much as a pound a day—these fellows
whom you saw through, who would have liked to blarney you, but whom you
summoned to the table, whom you shook as one shakes a plum-tree, whom you
threatened with the cells (some of them even non-commissioned officers),
whom you treated in that cutting way which you know how to assume—these
sneak-thieves, who are almost as repulsive as the body strippers, do you
want with your own hand to put them in your place in the kitchen? I don’t
understand you. I stand firm. If there be a trust of virtue, I promise
you it shall checkmate the trust of the lick-cheeses.”
“Meanwhile,” says Foch light-heartedly, “let us drink. Here’s a big jug
of beer which I brought from the guardroom under my coat. For your sake I
made myself look like a woman in the family way! What, old Riou, are you
still in the dumps? Haven’t you got a thirst this evening?”
“My dear Foch, I admit that I do not feel myself to be designed for the
government of men. One who wishes to rule men must make up his mind
to despise them and to come to terms with their rascality. Now (you
will laugh), I respect them. I am even rather fond of them. And it is
my weakness to wish them to be fond of me. These hostile cries, these
angry glances, which we have just had to endure—I find them difficult of
digestion.”
“Digest them as quickly as you can, you big baby! It’s a stage in your
education. You need to lose a few illusions. Men are rather a poor
lot. You Christians believe that men are brothers. That’s nothing but
religious tosh. Men are no good. Brothers?—not a bit of it. They are
venomously jealous of any one who has a straighter nose or a prettier
wife than their own, of any one with greater talent or more charm. No
doubt the worst of them have their good days. When the weather is fine,
when their bellies are well lined, when they have done a good stroke of
business, they are pleased with every one. They are all smiles. But what
does that amount to? A momentary intoxication. The instant they fancy
that their neighbour’s belly is fuller than their own, or that he has had
better luck in business, there is very little smile about them, and don’t
you forget it. It is true that some men are the salt of the earth. These
are worth loving, for they are scarce. But most people pass their whole
lives in being envious. When it’s their turn to become stiffs, it’s envy
that finishes them off!
“If they had any sense, these fellows, I shouldn’t mind so much. But they
swallow all the gossip that comes their way. Morning after morning a
flight of canards settles upon the fort, and the prisoners spend the rest
of the day in roasting them. Do you know what they are all telling one
another in the casemates? They declare that the major with four stripes
made a raid upon kitchen No. 22, and that he found fifty chops, seventy
steaks, a leg of mutton, a lot of fritters, a store of cheese—all pinched
by Durupt from the men’s rations. Whereupon the major sent you to the
cells under guard of four bayonets! Now you know why these rascals looked
at you with angry surprise as you passed along the passage.
“When such fellows are really famished, as they are here, seeing that
they are jealous and stupid, and, above all, driven out of their senses
by starvation, how can you expect them to be anything but idiots? All
at once, they see red, and must instantly have a victim. But they are
incapable of finding one for themselves. Always some cunning rogues among
them point out the victims, indicating as if by chance the men of whom
they are jealous, and whom they long to replace. Don’t take it so much to
heart. In ten years from now it will all seem to you perfectly natural.”
This profession of social faith gives me no pleasure, although to-night
the temptation to approve it is only too strong. What an affair! It
is precisely the kitchen run by Dutrex and Durupt, men of principle,
men who may be said to be scrupulous to excess, before which a noisy
demonstration is made, whilst no one attempts to interfere with kitchen
No. 53, notoriously privileged by the quartermaster. How mean! And it
is Frenchmen, men of intelligence, men quite capable of recognizing the
real causes of things, who, inspired by envy and revenge, have directed
against No. 22 the vague wrath of hungry stomachs! _Fames malesuada._
Yes, this is what it means, the ambition of a few turning to profit the
hunger of all.
It is strange, but a clear recognition of the motives that have brought
about this storm in a teacup produces in my mind a sort of philosophic
disillusionment. My thoughts pass quite beyond the present affair. I
find myself dreading all at once lest the great social movements, those
I most admire, those I see on the horizon of history, sublime, heroic,
superhuman like the Marseillaise of the Arc de Triomphe, may not resemble
this trifling affair, which aimed, beneath the standard of justice,
at introducing a set of rogues into the heart of the temple of their
thoughts, the kitchen.
If we look at matters without prejudice, a little thing is just as
significant as are many events which are regarded as grand simply
because the trumpeters of a faction or of a nation have magnified
their importance. Indeed, this attempted revolution concerning a piece
of cheese suddenly renders all revolutions suspect to me. The little
revolution seems to spoil the great revolution, and to lessen the stature
of humanity. Is it possible that, in the last analysis, clamours for
justice are nothing more than the growls of envy?
Dutrex left us early. I stayed in No. 41 until the roll-call. I was
genuinely unhappy.
It need hardly be said that M. Langlois absolutely refused to accept any
resignations.
* * * * *
To-day I was out walking before dawn. My thoughts were gloomy. The sun
rose in a calm sky, a sky that was greenish-blue, clear, and magnificent,
with a flotilla of tiny clouds, white tipped with gold, and melting away
at the edges.
When I began work just now I was well content, content to be here, among
the placidly gurgling cauldrons, and away from the company of men. But
this sudden access of misanthropy is probably the sequel of my fit of the
blues. I am “fortorffish,” as the prisoners say. The paroxysm will soon
pass.
A CHANCE CATERER
_November 6, 1914._
The weather is sombre. The winter is coming on apace. On the grass,
rusted by the frost, the leaves fallen from the willows have already
rotted. This morning a gentle, damp wind was blowing, increasing at times
to vent long sighs. The whole sky was bistre. Towards France, however, an
islet of light was visible. On the Austrian side, the dawn had the ardent
flushes of sunset. Skimming the ground, great flights of noisy crows were
settling down on the freshly turned ploughs.
Things are going badly in the fort. Not that there is any fear of defeat.
Durupt has been at pains to translate the _Deutschland über alles_ of the
German military march into a sonorous _Alles über Deutschland_ filled
with hope. But even Durupt, our Déroulède, is depressed. He had promised
us liberty before All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, declaring it
certain that we should celebrate these festivals at home. But All Saints’
Day has passed without the faintest murmur of peace. Yesterday evening
the revictualling officer said to Foch: “The war will last two years.”
This prophecy has gone the round of the casemates, disseminating gloom.
Every one’s patience is exhausted.
Our dietary is still further reduced. To-day we had some horrible little
prunes, two years old and as hard as wood, in lieu of meat. Henceforward
our five companies are to supply every day a gang of a hundred men to
work five miles from here on the military hutments. Ten miles march,
eight hours’ work, and to make up for this fatigue duty, a sausage of
about the size of your finger. The German ganger, a tailor by trade,
and a man with the finest beard you ever saw, is by no means a bad
fellow. During fifteen years he has made the seat of his trousers shiny
in the tailors’ workrooms of Paris. He has no hatred for the French.
As he passes from group to group with his eternal, “Allons, messieurs,
travaillons un peu, n’est-ce pas?”[24] he modulates his voice in such
alluring intonations, that one would say he was a salesman in the rue
Blanche tempting a fair customer to inspect his wares. But the customers
of our tailor-ganger are proof against temptation.
Yesterday, Brissot was with the gang as interpreter. The work is going
on as slowly as usual, twenty men getting in one another’s way where two
would suffice, when, towards four o’clock, the chief engineer-officer,
the _Baurat_, arrives on the scene. His tone is rough, and he makes
impatient gestures. He accuses the men of slacking, whereupon Brissot
makes answer, in his cold and cutting manner: “_Herr Major_, what can
you expect them to do when their stomachs are empty? They can’t work
any harder. Look at them! Their eyelids and the wings of their nostrils
are blue. Do you see that fellow in the trench? He eats every earthworm
that he turns up with his spade! At home in France, _Herr Major_, I am
an employer of labour, and I expect my men to work hard. But I pay good
wages, and they get plenty to eat. Can I honestly ask these poor devils,
who are starving, to do any real work?”
At this unexpected reply, the officer bridles as if he had been flicked
with a switch. It is too much for him that a common soldier, a Frenchman,
a prisoner, can speak so boldly to him, the great _Major_, the master.
Thunderstruck, half in mind to strike the presumptuous fellow, he
suddenly turns on his heel, and, cursing loudly, he flings himself into
his Mercédès, spits out a command, and drives in hot haste to Fort Orff,
where he issues orders that Brissot is never to accompany the gang again.
Having got wind of this affair, I sought out the eater of earthworms. He
was a reservist of the 211th regiment, from Montauban. He was didactic,
and explained to me that worms are no longer edible when you dig too
deeply. Those more than two feet from the surface have a bitter taste.
“They look all right; they are large and fat; but they are nothing but
earth!” The quaint thing is that this little fellow, sturdy, hairy, and
bronzed, by no means looks starved. It seems that the earthworm must be
nutritious.
Nor is this the only culinary discovery inspired by the regimen of
famine. When Brissot is eating his piece of Münster cheese on Tuesday
and Saturday evenings, a comrade stands at gaze, rubbing his hands. At
length he says: “You mustn’t squander the rind.” Brissot hands over
the rind, which he has purposely cut rather thick. The man then adds:
“But you mustn’t squander the paper either.”—“What will you do with
this dirty, stinking piece of paper?”—“I shall boil it with some potato
peelings under the birch-trees. It’s splendid seasoning. Don’t you see
that it is soaked with cheese-fat?” This same prisoner, a nice lad,
always good-humoured, well set up, hunts rats in the grass. His most
famous dish, one he prepared a fortnight ago, was a stew of apple parings
with rats. He secured the apple parings from the participants in a sort
of “banquet,” a clandestine “feast” partaken of one evening by a large
group of friends after an unusually liberal consignment had been received
through the instrumentality of Georg.
It was dusk. Brissot and I were strolling along the slopes discussing,
apropos of Bergson, the relationships between philosophy and life. I was
surprised that, instead of pushing straight ahead, he turned about. I
like to walk quickly, but he insisted upon pacing gently to and fro on
the top of the slope looking towards Hepperg. Hands in pockets, wearing
the close-fitting tunic of the chasseurs alpins, little Brissot was
scanning the horizon from time to time, when two men whom I had not
noticed before, Loux, a colonial infantryman, and Vernes, a linesman
of the 1910 class, a compositor on _Le Journal_, who were stationed at
the two angles of the eastern escarp, simultaneously exclaimed: “There
he is!”—“Hullo!” says Brissot, “he’s got a big load this evening.” I
look. From behind the recently felled pine-trees bordering the Hepperg
road appears a man carrying a box under one arm and a large sack under
the other. He crosses the ploughed fields and comes straight in our
direction. His progress is slow. He stumbles over the ridges. He looks
utterly exhausted. From time to time he stops and deposits his two
burdens on the ground. After he has reached the foot of the battery,
we lose sight of him for some minutes. Then he reappears upon the
advanced glacis, among the wild rose bushes. I recognize Georg Doppel,
the baron’s orderly, his face grey and dripping with sweat. He is in
full dress, looking very smart in the light blue Bavarian uniform with
its red cuff-facings. He wears a fancy cap similar to that of his _Herr
Major_. But here comes the sentinel making his rounds! “Twenty-two,” call
out Vernes and Loux. Brissot takes off his cap; it is a signal. Georg
lies down among the bushes. The sentinel, pipe in mouth, his threadbare
_Mütze_ drawn down over his eyes, walks carelessly by, looking like a
country bumpkin. His rifle, hanging to the sling, knocks against his
thighs. He passes on to the northern wall and disappears. Brissot puts
on his cap again. “Get to the rope, quick!” says he to Loux, “and you,
Vernes, to the ditch!” Georg has placed his sack and his box on the
masonry of the counterscarp. He ties them to a rope and allows them to
glide down into the great ditch. There Vernes receives the goods, sets
them against the wall of the escarp, and ties them successively to the
rope which the colonial infantryman lowers to him from the top of the
wall. Two hauls, and the food is inside the fort. It is now quite dark,
and Vernes and Loux hurry off to get them safely housed in No. 34,
Brissot’s room.