"Where the devil are the stretcher-bearers!"
... (Censored.) ...
"They are like fleas--you can never find them when you look for them."
And before us the whole plain wrapped in darkness seems to shiver from
the agony of those undressed wounds.
Voices soft, weary from having cried so long:
"... (Censored.) ...
....?"
"Mother, oh, mother!"
"Jeanne, little Jeanne.... Oh! say that you hear me, my Jeanne!"
"I am thirsty.... I am thirsty.... I am thirsty.... I am thirsty...."
Voices in anguish, panting and gasping:
"I won't die here like a rat!"
"Stretcher-bearers! Stretcher-bearers!... Stretcher-bearers!!!"
"... (Censored.) ...
....?"
"You fellows, finish me off, for God's sake! Ah!..."
A German not more than twenty yards away, cries out incessantly:
"Kamerad! Franzose! Kamerad! Kamerad! Franzose!"
And in a lower voice:
"Hilfe! Hilfe!"
His voice wavers and breaks into a wailing as of a crying child; then
his teeth snap fiercely; then he shatters the night stillness with a
beast's cry, like the howling of a dog baying at the moon.
Terrible beyond the power of words, that night. Every minute either
Porchon or myself were jumping to our feet. The whole time we were
under fire and the cold was truly cursed.
The nearer we approach the village, the more numerous become the
wounded men returning from the fight. They come in groups, carefully
selecting the shorter grass to walk over, seeking the shade to avoid
the burning sun, which makes their wounds smart intolerably. There are
a few Germans mingled with our men; one big-built man, fair, ruddy and
with blue eyes, is assisting a little French infantryman, who limps
along jesting and laughing and displaying all his teeth. With a wicked
glance towards us, he cries aloud to the Boche:
"Is it not true, you pig, that you are a good pig?"
"I understand," exclaims the German gutturally. "Pig, good pig! I
understand!"
And an unctuous laugh spreads all over his greasy face, happy at this
display of camaraderie which promises so well for him, as vile and
loathsome as are all Boches when at the mercy of a conqueror....
In the clear, cool night, to the accompaniment of many voices, the
sections assemble and line up, and the companies are reformed. How
attenuated, how mutilated they look!
My poor battalion! To-day's fight has once again cost us dearly. The
5th, which was so terribly cut up two weeks ago in the trenches at
Vauxmarie, has also suffered cruelly again.
As for my own men, I know only too well those who are missing. Lauche,
my sergeant, the only one left to me since Vauxmarie--it is always
Vauxmarie!--I had seen him, as Vauthier put it, clawing the grass at
the bottom of the ditch; I knew he was gone already. There was big
Brunet also, and several others struck down at my side. And when I told
the corporals to step forward and call out the rolls of their squads,
voices responded which were not theirs. In each case a man of the
"first class" or old soldier stepped forward to say:
"Corporal Regnard, wounded."
Or:
"Corporal Henry, killed."
"And Morand?"
"Corporal Morand, wounded," said an old soldier.
* * * * *
Not one sergeant! Not even a corporal! All those squads which become
after a time a well-beloved family to those in charge of them, a family
not to be parted from without sorrow and regret--here they are deprived
of their leaders, to whom they look up constantly, who watch over them,
who sustain them through long and difficult hours by the mere magic
of their presence. I had known each one of them so well, those I had
lost to-day! They were the men of my choice, men for whom a single word
from me was sufficient, men who had never sought to shirk their duties,
accepting their task whatever it was, and fulfilling it to the very
best of their powers.
* * * * *
Through the field behind us men are moving. We can hear the rustling of
the dried leaves they are gathering; the falling flakes of earth from
the roots they pull up; they have discovered some turnips. We remember
then that so far we have eaten nothing.
It is cold. We shiver. We remain silent.
(The young French Lieutenant continues in his book, "'Neath Verdun"
these tremendous experiences in which he shows the self-abnegation of
the French soldiers. His comrade, Porchon, was killed at Les Eparges
on February 20th, 1915. M. Genevoix himself was wounded--but his love
for France and his spirit of exaltation lives on. The last chapter in
his book, "The Armies Go to Earth" is a vision of the reality of these
days when the world is being reconstructed.)