compounded of skim-milk, rats, perspiration, and other indescribable
things. It is sharp and nauseous, and quite turns me. What on earth
can smell so vilely? All at once the stench revives an old memory;
brings back to my mind the picture of one of the Boche "assistant's"
rooms at the Lakanal Lyceum. I used to go there from time to time to
wile away an hour or so, and, at the same time, to acquire fluency in
his language. This was in the course of a remarkably hot summer, and
he used to take off his coat and vest and put himself at his ease, so
that when I opened the door that same stench struck me in the face,
seized me by the throat, as it were. He used to grin, half of his
fatuous face hidden by tortoise-shell spectacles and greet me with his
heavy, guttural tones:
"_Mon Ongle Penchamin!_ Splendeed, splendeed! And so teepigally
Vrench!"
I remember I used to push my chair as far back as possible, until, in
fact, my back was against the wall, and finish up by saying:
"Let us go out into the park, shall we? We shall be able to breathe
better out there than here."
Ah, well! Destiny decrees that I shall now sleep amidst this
oppressive smell of Germans, stretched out on the hay in which they
have sheltered. Bah!... It's a dear price to pay for recovery of
possession!
"Pannechon! What on earth's this?"
I seize the corner of a piece of cloth protruding from the straw. I
pull it out and find it to be a greyish-green mantle with a red
collar.
"Pannechon, pitch that outside!"
I stretch myself out, cover myself with my greatcoat and close my
eyes. Hullo! What is this poking my side!
I thrust my hand into the hay and feel something hard with many
corners. Patient investigation reveals a lacquered toilet-box with a
mirror under the lid, a cheap and nasty gewgaw.
"Pannechon! Pitch that out too."
Sleep now. No, not yet! Just one more find--a tin of metal polish.
Happily it is the last. I draw my greatcoat well up over my eyes and
stretch myself out luxuriously. It is warm, it is good, and there is
nothing at all to grumble at. Until to-morrow, and then the Boches!
_Monday, September 14th._
It is raining, of course. The march beneath this sad and watery sky is
going to be a detestable one. I resign myself in advance to a day of
saturation.
Resignation indeed is difficult of attainment when one knows, as we
do, the increase of our sufferings the rain involves: the heavy
clothes; the coldness which penetrates with the water; the hardened
leather of our boots; trousers flapping against the legs and hindering
each stride; the linen at the bottom of the knapsack--that precious
linen, the feel of which against one's skin is a sheer delight--hopelessly
stained, transformed little by little into a sodden mass on which
papers and bottles of pickles have left their stain; the mud that
spurts into one's face and covers one's hands; the confused arrival;
the night all too short for sleep passed beneath a coat that freezes
instead of warming; the whole body stiff, joints without suppleness,
painful; and the departure with boots of wood which crush the feet
like the torture-shoe. Hard, indeed, is resignation!
As yesterday we march between two lines of French corpses. They seem
to be dressed in new clothes, so much rain has fallen on them. It is
perhaps a week since they fell. Their flesh, swollen by decomposition,
has attained enormous dimensions; they have legs and arms of
tremendous size, yet curiously short, and their clothes are stretched
to bursting over their inflated bodies. Men of line regiments, then
Colonials. The dead we passed previously were lying face downward;
these have been raised and propped against the slope facing the road,
as though to watch us pass. Their faces are blackened, their lips
large and swollen. Many of our men, taking them to be negroes,
exclaim: "Hullo! These are Turcos."
I have a particularly vivid recollection of one of those poor dead by
the roadside. He was a captain of the Colonials. They had made him
kneel on the grass by forcibly bending his legs beneath him; one of
his legs had gradually bent back and was stretched out in front of
him, giving one the impression that the man was about to throw himself
forward, as if in some erratic dance. His body was turned sideways,
but his head craned rigidly forward, and his eyes were fixed on the
road in a vacant stare. But what struck me most was his moustache,
light and curly and altogether charming. Beneath it the mouth was no
more than two purple pads of flesh. That fair ladies'-love moustache
on a putrefying face was a heartrending spectacle.
Come! Head erect and fists clenched! No more of that weakness that a
moment ago assailed me. We must look unmoved on these poor dead and
seek from them the inspiration of hate. It was the Boche in his flight
who dragged these sorry things to the side of the road, who arranged
this horrid spectacle for our express benefit, and we must never rest
until the brute has drunk our cup of vengeance to the dregs.
Impotent and childish is the fury that only inspires us with rage and
the passion for vengeance instead of fear, as our foe hopes and
believes.
Besides, every step forward now presents us with eloquent testimony of
the completeness of the defeat they have suffered--helmets torn and
pierced by our bullets, crushed and shattered by our shells; rusty
bayonets; broken cartridge-belts, still full. To the left of the road
in the fields are some overturned ammunition wagons and gun-carriages
in pieces, the horses lying dead in a heap. In the ditch is the
carriage of a shattered machine-gun; one can see the hole made by the
shell--a 75. What a state the gun on that carriage must have been in!
And the machine-gunners? At the bottom of the hole! Ammunition belts
of coarse white canvas lie coiled in puddles.
We pick up some boots full of rain-water. I wonder whether the men
from whom we took them walked barefooted through the mud merely for
pleasure? In another hole we find the men themselves. Further on again
we encounter crosses bearing German inscriptions. Here then are the
Ottos, the Friedrichs, the Karls, and the Hermans! Each cross bears
four, five and even six names. The Germans were in a hurry; they
buried their men in bunches.
A cross higher than the others attracts and holds our attention; it
bears no more than three words deeply carved in big capitals:
ZWEI DEUTSCHE KRIEGER.
Is there still another challenge hidden behind this? If so, it is
obscure. For who killed you, you two German soldiers?
Over the trampled roadway, newspapers, postcards 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.
_Saint-André._ On a hillock just beyond the village we come upon
the remains of a dressing-station. The site is marked by a fine
confusion. Red-haired cowhide cases scattered about, all yawning and
emptied of their contents; bayonets in their black sheaths; severed
cartridge-belts; helmets without their spikes; linen torn and stained
with mud and blood; packages of dressings by the hundred; pieces of
cotton wool saturated by the rain lying in the middle of tiny
blood-stained pools. The great trees rising above the hillock seem to
be contemplating this sad chaos, while the rain drips from their
branches softly and unceasingly.
We pass before Souilly. A windmill for raising water spreads its giant
sails fanwise over a huge grey metal armature. Some silent houses
which have escaped the shells: the melancholy of deserted houses which
is almost as poignant as the sadness that clings to ruins.
A halt under the rain and quarters at Sivry-la-Perche, in a barn with
green doors like all those on the Meuse. Rifles are piled on the
threshing-floor, knapsacks hung on the pegs. The granary dominates the
neighbourhood and is full of hay and straw. So lofty is it, that the
walls become lost to sight in the darkness before meeting the rafters.
_September 15th-17th._
Yet one more long march, this time straight across the entrenched camp
of Verdun. Thierville is our nearest point to the citadel. Beneath a
rainy sky, crossed by light clouds, lies Verdun, marked by its
barracks with their roofs of coloured tiles, and the aviation field
with its white hangars, and the towers of its cathedral rising high
above trees and houses.
All the surrounding villages are alive with troops. Many questions are
flung about as we pass through. Many of the men rush to the public
fountains whose water flows into a stone basin, swallow a quart or so
in long gulps, and fill their flasks. The weight of my own flask at my
belt gives me a sense of comfort--it is a German flask which Pannechon
brought me yesterday, and which I have duly appropriated.
The Meuse. Cattle in the meadows. Then Bras and afterwards Vachérauville.
Three weeks only have elapsed since I passed along this self-same
road. Is it credible? It is a fact, nevertheless, although I find it
difficult to convince myself of the reality of it. For what have I not
experienced in the way of new and intense sensations, what a richness
of impressions I have acquired, what dangers run? How altogether
undreamed of has that life been! Confusion about me and within me;
then habit swiftly succeeding the chaos of the early days. Three weeks
only since I passed along this road, a very raw recruit, and now here
am I a seasoned soldier.
We rested the night at Louvemont, a dirtier village than all the dirty
villages we have come across so far. We are able to obtain milk, white
cheese and a few small pots of honey. These things at least aid us to
digest the anathemas Captain C---- has showered upon us since our
arrival, because we have dared openly to display one or two signs of
weariness.
We spend a doubtful, uncertain day at Louvemont. Some heavy batteries
behind the village keep firing at regular intervals, sending their
heavy shells whizzing high above our heads. The Germans do not reply.
For several hours we were in the fields--no one knew why--engaged
in apparently aimless manoeuvres in open formation as if under
curtain-fire. Did a cautious prudence dictate this course, or were our
actions consequent upon certain information received? One thing at
least is certain, and that is that in the evening, shortly after we
had returned to the village, a dozen or so 'crumps' were sent over to
us. One of them struck a house on the opposite side of the road at the
moment we were sitting down to dinner. It smashed the roof--one could
hear that distinctly--passed into the house, smashed a chair on which
the regimental doctor had placed his tunic, and finally embedded
itself in the wall without exploding. The doctor was not in the house
at the time; but when he returned it was to find the copper fuse of a
large 150 directly pointing towards his bed. He went out and sought
more comfortable quarters.
We left the village this morning. In the first place we took up a
position in line of sections of four among some stunted acacias
covering the side of a stony ravine.
I was seated near Porchon, so exhausted and weary that from time to
time I sank involuntarily against his shoulder. My brain seemed to
have become pap, and my inability to think caused me almost physical
pain. A single tenacious impression remained in my mind--the pursuit
was ended; somewhere near here the Boches had turned, and now I must
fight once more, notwithstanding this breakdown of body and mind. I
felt most miserably lonely, which loneliness brought in its train a
black despair I simply could not resist. Not a letter had I received
from my people since the day I first set out, not a word of affection,
nothing, nothing at all. And they, too, what could they know of me?
Had they received the cards, scribbled in haste between the
bombardments, or at the side of the road during a halt, or written in
the evening in the barn, by the light of a flickering candle? They did
not know in what part of the world to look for me. I had been in the
battle, but they remained completely ignorant as to what had occurred
to me in that battle. Anxiety would have racked them throughout these
long and interminable days; and I, who would prefer death a thousand
times to complete solitude, was deprived of their affectionate news so
essential to my well-being.
That evening we were told off for outpost duty at the edge of a wood,
and before me lay two atrocious days of suffering and discouragement;
two days the memory of which I hope will fortify me against any future
trials, seeing that I had sufficient strength on that occasion to hold
on and not disgrace myself.
_Saturday, September 19th._
Forty hours we pass in a ditch full of water. The improvised roof of
branches and straw soon lets all the rain through. Since then we live
in the midst of a torrent.
Motionless, and packed tight together in cramped and painful
attitudes, we shiver in silence. Our sodden clothes freeze our skin;
our saturated caps bear down on our temples with slow and painful
pressure. We raise our feet as high as we can before us, but often it
occurs that our frozen fingers give way, letting our feet slip down
into the muddy torrent rushing along the bottom of the trench. Already
our knapsacks have slipped into the water, while the tails of our
greatcoats trail in it.
The slightest movement causes pain. I couldn't get up if I wanted to.
A short while ago the adjutant attempted to do so; the effort wrung a
cry from him, so keen were the pains in his knees and back; and then
he sank down on top of us before slipping back into the hole in the
mud his body had made, and resuming his former huddled attitude, which
had caused his ankles to stiffen.
Nowadays I find it difficult to recall all that befell in the course
of those two days; memory is veiled and dim. It is as though I had
lived in an atmosphere of numbness in which all light and beauty were
but dead things. An intense pain about my heart, never moving,
rendered me almost delirious.
I remember that we remained for a long time hidden in a large thicket.
My section was stationed near the battalion horses, which had been
picketed together. Every time they moved, branches broke and fell. And
most certainly it was raining, there could be no doubt of that; for
long afterwards the eternal pitter-patter of rain on the leaves
remained in my ears. Afterwards, I do not know how long, we set out on
the march.
Almost insensibly a depressing evening settled down over fields and
woods. Before us were extended the columns of infantry, clinging like
ants on the side of the bare slope. Above us, the smoke balls of
shrapnel, soft and pale, hung in the air. This shrapnel gave no
warning of its approach, and shells burst with an abrupt snap which
found no echo over the dull countryside. A deserted farm to the left
had been stripped of its reddish tiles, which lay smashed to pieces on
the earth. A horseman was moving slowly towards this farm, his head
covered by the hood of his cloak; his horse seemed merely to glide
onwards, strangely silent. The stillness was portentous, almost
tangible.
We passed a night in another trench in reserve, where we are at
present. Five or six of us in a bunch hung over a few damp pieces of
wood we had collected in the hope of being able to make a fire; the
sticks smoked but refused to burst into flame. I recollect that I was
obsessed by a feverish and loquacious gaiety; I scorned my own sad
condition and laboured tremendously to prevent myself giving way to
the fever running riot in my veins. This lasted some time, and so
nervous was I, so disordered was my speech, that those about me
watched me queerly and significantly. The moment came when my
ill-timed jests became an insult to the general depression. I fell
silent then, and resignedly delivered myself up to that dumb despair
which had been dogging my heels for days, waiting only the opportunity
to enter into its kingdom.
The monotonous, incessant tapping of the rain on the leaves of the
trees was in itself maddening. The sticks in the brazier hissed and
spluttered. There was a single spark, a faint glow among the cinders,
which I watched desperately.
In the morning firing was heard in the direction of the outposts. The
Captain sent me with two sections to reinforce them. We marched in
single file, slipping on the greasy clay, falling every few steps;
laboriously climbing on hands and knees a little ascent which, but for
the mud, I could have taken in a couple of strides.
Arriving at our destination, we were compelled to seek shelter behind
the trunks of trees, for all along the edge of the wood bullets were
whistling. There were no trenches and the men were lining a ditch,
standing in the water with their knapsacks before them.
The rain did not cease. It flooded the vast ploughed lands, where here
and there groups of walnut trees seemed to huddle shiveringly
together. Two German vedettes posted before a wood facing ours seemed
like two stone statues. Shortly afterwards infantry emerged from the
wood and advanced over open ground, as dark as the soil itself, and
scarcely visible. We killed several of them and they went back
hastily, abandoning their dead.
Still the bullets continued to whistle. From time to time a cry burst
from one of the men in the ditch, and he would come into the wood
towards us, both hands pressed against his chest or staring at the
blood dripping from his fingertips with wide, terrified eyes. At last
the firing ceased and calmness reigned.
We returned into reserve, carrying one of my corporals who was wounded
in the groin by a bullet that had passed right through it. That was a
difficult journey over the muddy roads! The wounded man groaned
feebly, his arms passed around the necks of two of his comrades, his
head swaying, his face livid. Once the men carrying him slipped and
fell to their knees, and the agonized cry which broke from the
sufferer echoed in my ears long after it had died to silence.
The night was like the preceding one; a silent, palpitating wait, the
minutes as long drawn as hours; incessantly yearning for the dawn
which never appeared. I grew gradually drowsy, and at length fell
asleep in a heap on a comrade. He violently thrust me off, swearing
savagely; I did my best to express my resentment. A little later,
sudden anguish caused me to jump to my feet. I had upset the brazier,
by this time almost extinct, and I had placed my hand on a few still
glowing fragments of wood.
The rain continues to fall.
It is daylight now. We have just eaten a morsel or two of cold meat,
wet and stale, as well as a few green potatoes found in one of the
fields and partially cooked in patches beneath the cinders. We have
been promised relief in the evening, but I am in such a condition now
that I hope for nothing. Things have become very vague and
ill-defined. I imagine that we must have been where we are at present
for a very, very long time. We have been sent here; we have been
commanded to remain here; and we have been forgotten. It is quite
simple. No one will come. No one could come to replace us at the edge
of this wood, in this ditch, beneath this rain. Never again shall we
see snug houses with a bright fire in the grate, or well-built barns
filled with hay which never gets wet. Never again shall we undress to
stretch our cramped limbs and rid them of this terrible iciness. And
what good would it be if we could? My clothes, stiff with mud, the
puttees crushing my legs, my hardened boots, the straps of my
equipment, have not all these things become part of me and of my
sufferings? They are me! The water which first saturated my skin runs
now in my very veins. What am I indeed but a muddied mass swamped with
water, cold to the very heart, cold as the straw which covers us, cold
as the trees on which each leaf rustles and shivers, cold as the very
earth of the fields, which little by little is dissolving beneath the
flooding rains?
Yesterday perhaps there was still time. Then we could have regained
grip of ourselves, compelled our wills to resist. But to-day the evil
has gone too far, has progressed beyond all hope of reparation. It is
too late. It is not even worth the trouble of hoping for....
_Sunday, September 20th._
"By the way, old man, when will you have finished with the whole of
the blanket?"
Since we got into bed that is the third time Porchon has passed that
same remark. I ignore him, most properly, striving hard to make my
feigned snores sound regular and natural.
"Here, you blockhead, here! When the deuce will you stop bagging all
the blanket?"
The beast persists! He is asking for it and gets it!
"Dry up--you're a nuisance! Take your beastly blanket, roll yourself
in it, swelter in it, take it all for yourself, only leave me alone to
sleep in peace!"
Porchon contrives to remain silent for at least a minute; then, in a
sleepy voice:
"I say!"
"Well, what is it now?"
"It is a bit better here than in the Haumont Wood, what?"
"Rather!"
"Better even than the barn at Louvemont, don't you think?"
"Naturally!... But say, old man, don't you think we had better go to
sleep?"
Two minutes later and Porchon is snoring. But no longer is there sleep
for me. Scenes and memories have been evoked and flit across my mind
to keep me constantly wakeful. What devil of mischief prompted the
idiot to mention those things? He has set the machine working and now
there is no stopping it!
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 terrible succeeding days were the first of his service. Poor old
man!--and he was sixty-four years of age!
The following night Pannechon had made me up a deep and fragrant bed
of hay, just before I set out for mess. Dinner ended, I returned to
the barn, humming softly to myself, and enjoying in anticipation a
night of warmth and slumber. I entered the barn and stumbled in the
dark. Good, here's the ladder!... One, two, three steps--the bed
should be here! Groping about, I felt my revolver case and linen bag;
then my hands encountered not the hay bed, soft and rounded, but a
firm, extended and rather rough surface. What in the name of the
mysteries could this be? A voice, muffled by the hay, enlightened me
with disconcerting abruptness:
"Eh, my friend! when you have quite finished exploring my back,
perhaps you will tell me what it is you want!"