Over the trampled roadway, newspapers, post-cards and letters flutter.
I pick up a photograph on the back of which a woman has written a few
lines:
"My Peter, it is a long time since we received any news from you and
we are naturally very anxious. I think, however, that very shortly
you will be able to tell us of still further victories and that you
will return in glory to Toelz. What a fête you shall have then...."
And then further on: "The little one has grown and is becoming quite
strong. You could never imagine what a little treasure he is. Do not
be too long in returning, or he will not be able to recognize you."
Sad enough, indeed, is it not? Whose, however, is the fault? Remember
our dead of a short while ago; remember the captain flung almost
across the road. What has he done, of what is he capable, this Peter,
this German whose photograph shows him with lowered face, cold eyes,
heavy-jawed, resting his hand on the back of a chair on which his wife
is seated, smiling but negligible? Pity at such a moment would shame
us. Let us harden our hearts and keep them hard until the end comes.
* * * * *
And so in memory I live again through bad days, nightmare days--the
_réveil_ in the furious, stinging rain; the arrival at Louvemont,
that indescribable village little better than a sewer. I had gone
over to the quarters of the adjoining section because before their
barn a little chimney-piece had been erected with some paving stones.
There had been a fire of flaming logs, hissing and spluttering. We
had stripped ourselves to the waist to let the grateful warmth of the
flames play on our chests and backs and shoulders. Sitting on a bundle
of straw we had found an old, white-bearded soldier, dreaming. I had
gone up to him and said:
"Hallo, M----! So you are better! Beginning to feel alive once again,
eh?"
"Oh, yes, Lieutenant. But it has been a hard pull, a very hard pull!..."
And he had repeated in a low voice, as though experiencing again
hardships still recent: "Very hard!"
Poor old man! He had gone through the campaign of '70 as a volunteer,
and since those days had lived outside France. For thirty years, I
believe, he acted as a notary in California, until the very day, in
fact, which had brought this war upon us. Then, when France was once
more attacked and menaced, he had flung everything aside and had come
back to shoulder his rifle. He had described himself as being robust,
smart and well able to endure any hardships. They had accepted his
statement and sent him up to face the Boches with the first batch of
reinforcements. He had joined up with us in the woods at the very
moment we were setting out for those nightmarish advance posts; those
two succeeding days were the first of his service. Poor old man!--and
he was sixty-four years of age!
* * * * *
We had crossed the line from Verdun to Conflans, marching ankle-deep
in wet coal-dust. Before a smoke-blackened house at the barrier some
enormous girasols thrust forth their yellow and black corollæ, their
colours rendered more brilliant by the recent rain. We passed some
quads of territorials with their tools on their shoulders, artillerymen
from the big fortresses, slow-moving country wagons laden with forage,
tree-trunks and wine casks. Wooden huts had been erected along the
roadside, each of which had a name inscribed on it, such as: Happy
Villa; The Good Children's Castle; Villa Piccolo, etc. Verses adorned
some of them, not of high poetical attainment, but something after this
fashion:
"You never see us weeping here--
Often you'll see us drinking beer.
War may not be the best of fun,
But we'll stick it till we've smashed the Hun!"
* * * * *
An interruption. A woman appears, thin and dirty, pushing before her a
little yellow-haired girl, whose eyes are red-rimmed and tear-stained.
The doctor having been consulted, prescribes for colic.
"And what do I owe you for that, doctor?" asks the woman.
"Nothing at all, madam."
But she draws from beneath her apron a dusty bottle. "I must
'recompinse' you somehow. There is not very much in it, but what there
is tastes good. It is good: oh, but indeed it is!"
It is Toul wine, dry, thin and somewhat sharp. A brawn, turned out on
to a plate, gives us an excellent lunch.
In the afternoon we pass to the observation trench. We overtake a group
of lame men, without weapons, coats open, almost all of them limping
along with a stick. Among them I recognize a friend of pre-war days.
We shake hands and speak eagerly and with pleasure of common memories,
before approaching the inevitable regrets. As he belonged to a regiment
which was compelled to give way before the Boches, I asked him how it
had come about. He shrugged his shoulders despondently.
"Masses of infantry; an endless hail of shell; not a gun to support us
... don't let's talk about it, old man."
* * * * *
The thunder of the 75's almost splits our ears. Occasionally a German
shell flies past us with a shrill whistle and peppers the trees with
a volley of shrapnel. Into the midst of this tumult we march and take
up position. My section occupies about fifty yards of a trench already
full of corpses.
"Out with your tools," I say to my men, "and dig for all you are worth."