his shoulder, but he does not move. I shake him, more and more
violently, and all unprotestingly he permits me to do so. How the
fellow sleeps! Then I bring my face so close that I touch his. Ugh!...
A skin clammy and cold, over a deadly soft flesh. This is a corpse!
The ghastliness of the encounter sends a clutching to my heart.
Carefully I step over the body and advance a few paces, calling
softly. After a time a voice replies. I walk towards it, my feet
rustling the straw; near me I hear invisible movements--now at least I
am in the midst of the living!
"What section is this?" I ask.
"The third section, Lieutenant."
"I require a man to lead me to the Adjutant."
"Present! Letertre."
"Good! Let us get out of the trench or we'll never make progress. I
will follow you."
While we march along, whipped by clusters of leaves, torn by embracing
thorns, Letertre questions me:
"You did not stumble over a dead body before you chanced on us, did
you?... Yes! Ah, well! That is number one point they have marked.
There are plenty of other bodies further along between the 6th and us;
but coming from the clearing and descending into the trench, you fall
directly on top of that one, who is the last of our file. You should
then turn carefully to the right. Count thirty or thirty-five
steps.... Having done so, you will find a shirt we have spread on the
ground. That represents the second marked point and means that you
should take a half-turn to the left. Just there the line advances a
little. Walking straight ahead from that point, you would enter the
wood and lose yourself. Hallo! Here is the shirt."
A faint white blot lay at our feet; had the blackness been less
opaque, it might have been a ray of veiled moonlight filtering through
the trees. Letertre continued:
"You are following me, are you not, Lieutenant? Now twenty-five more
steps bring us to a second body. The journey is almost ended then,
provided one does not stray away to the right. Ten yards or so alone
separate us from the second section. By daylight, of course, it is all
very simple, and one can walk boldly ahead; but if these little
precautions are neglected by night, one may lose oneself a hundred
times over in the cursed forest.... Now where is that body? It is
impossible to pass it without knowing. You understand?... It is
difficult to see. Ah, there it is! This way a little or you will tread
right on it--he is lying all over the place. All right?... Good! We
must keep well to the right here or we shall find ourselves up to the
eyes in those brambles, which appear to be nothing from here, but
which, nevertheless, rise higher than your head. And now, Lieutenant,
we have reached our destination. I will go back again if you have no
further need of me.... Good night!"
I find the Adjutant still buried in the straw. Faithful Lebret, who
cooks for him and never leaves his side, has thrown over him a
covering found at the bottom of a cupboard back in Mouilly. I can
distinguish the vague whiteness of it in the trench.
"I am sorry you should have come all the way up to relieve me," says
the Adjutant. "It was careless of me not to explain to you the marks
and signs to keep you on the proper road when you were here earlier.
But I was in such a rotten condition, I did not think of it. Moreover,
you know, I was no longer expecting you."
While addressing me, he is shivering with fever and the cold. All the
time he talks his teeth chatter audibly.
"Just get your men ready," I reply. "I am going to fetch mine up
immediately. With the best will in the world, however, I can't place
them in five minutes."
"Listen!" he says, in the same shaky voice. "I would much prefer you
to wait for daybreak. The night is drawing on; I have made all
dispositions, and, after all, one place is about as good as another. I
would rather remain here a few hours longer than go through the muddle
and upset which it will be impossible to avoid if we arrange the
relief now. And I am sure my men are one with me in this."
"I agree most willingly. But it is your turn to pass into reserve, you
know!"
"Bah! Everything is quiet. The Boches won't come out of their holes.
Pristi! What a night! Darker than the throat of a wolf.... Until the
morning then, Lieutenant?"
"I shall be back shortly before daybreak, Roux."
_Monday, September 28th._
Before the dawn this morning, the whole battalion was relieved. We
retired to the second line a mile to the rear. We are still close to
the Boches, however, so close in fact that this cannot be regarded as
a real rest; in case of attack we must sustain the shock together with
the first line. Although, however, it cannot justly be described as
more than a half-rest, it is, none the less, not to be despised.
Hidden deep in the forest, we are invisible even to reconnoitring
aeroplanes; we can come and go freely, lounge outside the trench,
return to it only in case of an alarm.
Whistling, my hands in my pockets, I stroll as far as a neighbouring
cross-road. I find the Captain there, smoking his eternal cigarettes
rolled in extraordinarily long cigarette-papers. He points out to me a
dead German stretched out lower down the slope. Someone has covered
the man's face with a handkerchief, neatly folded his great-coat and
placed it beside him. The man's unbuttoned waistcoat reveals a
bloodstained shirt. His hands, very white now, still seem to be supple
and living: they have but just relaxed after the final death struggle;
they are not the stiff and rigid hands of those who have been dead
many hours and are already turning to dust.
"He has just died?" I ask.
"Five minutes ago! He was found in the woods and brought here just as
we arrived. He fell in an assault three days ago, and his men were
unable to take him back with them. Three days and three nights lying
between the lines! He was dying as much from cold and exhaustion as
from his wounds when one of our patrols found him at daybreak. A fine,
big fellow, isn't he?"
He was indeed, and well groomed, too. I had not noticed that at first.
His uniform was a shade darker than that of an ordinary private; his
trousers were fastened at the knees; his high, soft leather boots
revealed a pair of muscular legs.
"An officer?" I ventured.
"Lieutenant of reserve, and probably commanding a company. But I
hadn't either the time or inclination to question him. He had asked in
French for an officer speaking German. They brought me. When I came
up, he was lying beside the trench, eyes filming, lips blue, dying
then but perfectly clear in his mind. He entrusted to my care some
personal papers and letters which he requested me to forward to his
people, advising them of his death through the intermediary of the Red
Cross. He dictated their address and thanked me; then he let his head
fall and was dead without even a sigh. A real man, that!"
I regained my trench sunk in melancholy thought. No longer did I see
the forest about me, beautiful in its last and most splendid garb.
Here is the trench, a narrow ditch between two vertical walls of
earth. A few scattered men are fast asleep at the bottom of it. The
night will see it peopled from end to end. And away beyond the edge of
the wood there are more and still more trenches like this, one and all
filled with soldiers. Further away, over the plain, are other
trenches, but they are filled with soldiers who are not like ours. We
dig, but over there, where the men in the spiked helmets teem, they
too dig, and more and better than we do. I have watched them at work,
these human moles. Along the Cuisy valley, I one day watched them
through my glasses for hours, and saw them handling pick and shovel
with a vigour that knew no pause or slackening. As soon as they can
safely call a halt, the Boches instantly dig their holes and take
refuge in them. If they advance, they entrench themselves, to ensure
continued possession of the ground they have won. If they retreat, yet
again they entrench in order the better to repulse the assaults hurled
against them. And day by day I see, facing our lines, these
entrenchments grow and extend, escalating hills, plunging into
valleys, crossing plains; deep trenches with their parapets stark and
clear against the sun, with their meshed miles of barbed wire rising
high before the machine-gun emplacements.
First we checked them, then we rolled them back. In the ensuing pause,
both armies are now regaining their breath. Panting from their recent
exertions, too weary yet once again to hurl themselves against the
barrier we present and pass onwards over our bodies, they have set
themselves down on the soil of France, which they still occupy.
And that they may remain in greater security and comfort, they have
set up their barriers against us. Ingeniously, methodically, they
accumulate and multiply the obstacles. Nothing is left to chance;
every yard of ground they hold will have its guard of rifles; behind
each hilltop there will be big guns. There is no gap, no weak point.
From Flanders to Alsace, from the North Sea to the frontiers of
Switzerland, one immense, stupendous fort is being created, which we
must shatter before we can pass.
When may we hope to pass it? October is already here; very shortly now
we shall have the storms, the snows, the rains, all those elements
that combine to discount mobility. If we are to hold on, we must dig
as they do; must learn to construct shelters of branches with
sand-bagged roofs. We must teach ourselves to wait without weariness
through the long, grey days and the black, cold, endless nights. It is
going to be a hard business! When one is hungry, one can tighten one's
belt; when idle, write letters or dream; when cold, light a fire, or
stamp one's feet, or thrust hands into pockets, or breathe on one's
fingers. But when the heart, growing heavy, begins to sink into one of
those unfathomable seas of despondency and despair; when one's
sufferings arise not from things physical but from oneself, where may
one look for succour then? How escape those black hours? The close of
a lugubrious day represents the last word in depression. Is not the
dying away of a day, of one more day, always sad, with the light
fading regretfully as though pregnant with memory of so many long
hours of light?
Pondering these things, I forget the Boches dug in opposite us, the
watch we should keep, the bloody struggle that must inevitably ensue
sooner or later when we shall have acquired both the will and the
strength to overthrow them and trample them to the dust. For a great
trial is descending upon me, and it is one I cannot escape--the
tremendous struggle against the perils and lurking evils of idleness.
On the very threshold, I already tremble at what lies ahead. May I
always be on my guard against the insidious ambushes before my
footsteps, and find myself on the return of the hour of action with
all my strength and courage undiminished!
Two shells falling shatter my reflections. A man drops on to his back
crying: "M----!" There is something for me to do here, and no mistake.
Towards the cross-roads some horses burst into shrill neighs of fear,
their drivers swearing and loudly cracking their whips. Then two grey
wagons appear, tilting on to two wheels as they swing towards the
trench, the drivers lashing the spume-whitened horses with all their
might. Into the woods they plunge, wheels thundering, creaking,
rattling. They are the supply wagons, galloping madly for safety. The
fatigue party will have several miles further to walk to-night!
"Everyone take cover in the trench!"
These shells descend upon us without warning. I was watching one of my
men ramming the tobacco into his pipe at a moment when two more burst
right on top of us: the hissing shell, the grimace of the man and the
plunge he made, the hail of bullets amid the branches, combined to
create a single impression of an attack evil and unforeseen. It is too
swift; the instinctive reflex action one's body makes to protect
itself occurs too late. The shell which comes with a shriek to herald
its approach is a very different thing; that which explodes
immediately over your head without the faintest sign of warning is
both more dangerous and nerve-shaking; for a long time following these
unexpected explosions the hands continue to tremble.
There they go again! Is the visitation going to endure the whole day?
Every ten minutes or so we are being sprinkled with shrapnel, followed
by high-explosive shells, which make the earth tremble and quiver. And
they are all 77's. The firing too is direct, as a rifle is aimed, and
therefore almost unbearable. Judging by the tremendous speed at which
their shells arrive, they must be fired from very close at hand; the
Boches must have brought a couple of guns up into their first line and
are operating beneath our very noses as it were. I would not mind
betting, indeed, that they have planted the two ugly little beasts
right in Saint Rémy itself! Our outposts will have marked and ranged
them at the very first shot, however. And so, thanks to a superb and
perfected system of communication, it will not be long before they are
either demolished or muzzled. Meanwhile, I know quite well their
savage barking will continue until the Boche gunners become tired of
the game. That is a thorn in our flesh of which we cannot for the
moment rid ourselves, and so we must remain until nightfall, huddled
up in the trench, our knees up to our chins, denied the liberty and
freedom that lie beneath the trees.
When night does arrive at last, it finds us completely
exhausted--backs aching, legs incredibly stiff. Porchon and I have
been tightly jammed together at the bottom of the trench--a place not
remarkable for spaciousness, and made more uncomfortable by the sharp
stones littering the ground. My revolver stuck in my ribs; my flask in
my hip; one of Porchon's knees was in my stomach. To sleep on the hard
ground, good! We have been well broken in to that. But here the
accumulation of discomforts becomes almost unendurable. An involuntary
movement and Porchon groans woefully, for now he has both my knees in
his stomach. What a posture to be in! What a hole to find oneself in!
As soon as one moves, one crushes one's neighbour; as soon as he
moves, he crushes you. Leave the trench and lie down on the dead
leaves? But there are the shells, and there is the cold to penetrate
to your very marrow, and keep you always conscious of your own misery!
I have never before, however, encountered any trench quite as bad as
this one. The time draws on; I woo sleep and call myself a fool for my
pains. Still, of many evils choose the least and pay the shot as
cheerfully as possible. So I wedge all my equipment, including my
revolver, flask, glasses, map-case, between my stomach and my thighs,
and in this way relieve the strain on my back. Afterwards I extract
the stones which project unreasonably and fling them carefully over
the parapet. Things are slightly improved by these manoeuvres, and,
affectionately clasping my miscellaneous collection to my bosom, I
fall into a doze.
_Tuesday, September 29th._
The aforesaid two filthy little guns have been harassing us nearly all
day. This evening, however, we evacuated that shell-riddled and
particularly undesirable corner of the landscape. Already Mouilly is
behind us, and here is Moulin-Bas, the stream filled with rushes, the
sea of slender trees, the large farmhouse with the tiled roof near the
cross-roads. A sunset crimson, but cold, marking the end of a glorious
winter's day. The lines of the heights are cut stark and clear against
a soft sky, darkening little by little, as though under protest. At
the end of the road a spire uplifts its delicate silhouette; in a
field are some 75's, which, in contrast with the houses, seem no more
dangerous than pretty little playthings.
Halt at the approach to the village, while commands pass down the
lines.
"Dress by the right!... Ground arms!..."
Some of the men sneer a little. At the end of the section preceding
us, a fair little man with crimson cheeks, whose puttees, very badly
rolled, sag over his boots, taps his pipe lightly against the stock of
his rifle, places it in his pocket, spits a last time, and growls:
"There you are! We are certainly going to sign peace to-morrow! We
might be re-entering barracks after a march. Tighten straps! Heads
erect! Fasten your eyes on the clock tower! All, but joking apart ...
we are at war!"
The corps commander in person appears on horseback, and he is not well
pleased with things:
"No smartness about them ... slovenly ... nothing military...."
With arms ported and marching as if on parade we enter at last into
the promised land. As we pass each corner of a road, a company
debouches and hurries off to its quarter. The 7th turns to the left
and goes off towards Rupt.
The men are pleased with their billets, and say so. The barns are
spacious and warm and full of hay. The pork-butcher's wife who sells
the pig's-head brawns, those brawns covered with a golden jelly which
positively glide down one's throat, has her shop in the middle of our
domain. And twenty yards beyond the last house, the stream spreads out
to form a peaceful pond, preserved and kept clean by a mere trickle.
Could one ask for anything better in which to wash one's linen?
We are already installed, rifles racked along the sides of the barn,
when the battalion adjutant thrusts his face and pipe around our door.
I shall not attempt to set down the language that ensued; but,
briefly, we had to un-install ourselves. Farewell, thou golden-jellied
brawn, farewell!
We are set down for duty in the vicinity of a sawmill. Logs of timber
of equal lengths, planks already sawn, are piled outside the sheds. We
have to set a sentry, bayonet fixed, to help the cooks preserve the
timber from the depredations of those frail mortals who might be
tempted to help themselves and merrily burn the mill's stock. A
temptation not difficult to understand!
"And now," says Porchon to me, "we have got to fit ourselves out
again! There must surely be some precious things about here; but
perhaps in an hour or so they will carry them off."
There ensues the usual chase for rations. For that business one should
possess the scent of a hound to worry out obscure corners; and
diplomacy, to reach the hearts of these peasants and overcome their
hesitation--for they always hesitate, never freely parting with
whatever they may have for sale, hoping that another purchaser may
come along and offer more than you are offering.
A freemasonry which tends to mutual benefit exists among campaigning
comrades:
"Look here! Down that lane, the third house to the left, the one with
the green shutters, there is an old woman who sells eggs...."
Let us go and investigate! The old woman, horrible to look upon, dry
as the seared vine, toothless, filthy, untidy strands of grey hair
hanging about her face, raises her arm to the sky and calls upon the
Holy Virgin to witness that she has nothing, nothing at all.... We
mention a price, a ridiculous, extortionate figure. It is plain magic;
the arm drops instantly; her voice descends an octave; and then the
old miser glides along a passage-way thick with fowl-droppings, bends
her body to pass through a low doorway, emerges with caution, carrying
something in her apron. And when she approaches again, half a dozen
eggs are clutched in her claw-like hands--they are white as milk in
contrast with her dirty, lined palms. They are still warm when she
drops them into our pockets. In a lowered voice, with lips stiffly
drawn over her bare gums, she says:
"Do not tell anyone about it. Perhaps I shall have some more for you
when my hens have laid. But don't breathe a word about it. Mind, not a
word!"
Porchon has discovered some plum jam. Jam?--it is rather a compound of
quinces scarcely sweetened.
"I paid seven sous a quarter for this mixture," he informs me. "The
pigs who sold it to me had two enormous copper cans full of it on
their counter, and they emptied them in half an hour at the same
price."
The robbers! Before the war, these quinces were left to ferment in
hogsheads. Each hogshead gave a few pints of brandy at forty sous, and
the pulp of the fruit was then thrown into the fire. It is not an
augury of good times ahead!
We dine with an old Alsatian woman, a neat clean old woman, rosy and
well preserved. She wears a bonnet, round and very white, so white
that never before in the whole Meuse district have I seen one quite so
chic and prepossessing. A doorway of bricks, newly washed, clean and
as red as one's face after a wash in cold water; furniture which
shines as does the top of the table covered with brown oilcloth. Above
the sink a brass bracket reflects the light of our lamp and sends a
pencil of light through the darkness.
"Cabbage soup!" announces Presle, "and after that we have roast fowl."
Oh! that roast fowl! A consumptive hen, a lamentable thing, lying on
its back in the middle of an immense dish. To the head with its closed
eyes was attached a body about as big as a fig, and the claws, which
Presle had neglected to remove, were crisp, black and contracted as
though in agony.
"It is certainly not a Bresse fowl," explains Presle in
self-extenuation. "And, at the same time, I believe that her
flirtations must have made a long-distance walker of her before I
wrung her neck. All the same, it is fowl."
After dining, I inspect a collection of shoes which the cyclist has
picked up, I know not where. It is difficult to make a selection:
these are too broad, those are too long; some are already worn;
others, which fit exactly and appear on first sight to be made of soft
yet solid leather, unexpectedly reveal a long cut. At length I choose
a pair with welted soles, newly clumped, of which the cyclist says:
"I guarantee them for six months without repair, Lieutenant. They will
carry you to the end of the campaign, of that you can be certain."
"Amen!" I replied.
We go out arm in arm, Porchon and myself. The night is not very dark.
The piles of planks near the sheds rise in dark, geometrical masses.
The village to the right is lightless and still; away to the left,
towards the cemetery, a pale mist broods over the fields. An
undulating line of willows marks the course of the stream which they
veil. The line continues to the foot of an abrupt slope, rising to the
south-east like a gigantic wall.
"Where are you taking me?" asks Porchon.
"Just wait a little and you will see."
We walk in silence, occasionally burying our feet in heaps of soft
ashes, which mark the spots where braziers have burnt.
"Point of direction, that isolated house," I explain, after a time.
"There are some steps and an iron railing. Hold on to me, old man! You
are going to see what you are going to see."
I take the stone steps in three jumps and knock at the door.
Children's voices die abruptly to silence, a step sounds over the
floor, the latch clicks, and the door opening wraps us in a gust of
warm air.
We are in a smoky kitchen, dimly lit by a single candle placed on the
table. From a line across the room hang stockings, handkerchiefs,
swaddling clothes, drying above a stove. The chairs, scattered here
and there, are all encumbered with a heterogeneous collection of
things--a wash hand basin, a pair of pants, dirty dishes. Beneath
one's feet one crushes certain soft things, remains of food probably,
or chewed tobacco.
Our host is still a young man, sickly, pale, thin as a skeleton, his
moustache and hair light-coloured. He offers us his hand with a tired
gesture; it is a feverish hand, in which one can discover no bones,
but only cartilages; and which, when you release it, leaves some of
its moisture on your palm.
"We have been awaiting you," says the man. "My wife has prepared beds
for you in that corner there, against those sacks of bran."
The woman, who is also a blonde, but swollen and paunched, leaves her
chair near the stove, shakes off three or four urchins hanging to her
skirts, and raises the candle from the table.
We can see clearly now. Along the sides of the plastered wall sacks
are stacked. In these sacks the miller has placed a plentiful litter
of straw, and, what is still more important, of an even depth all
over. On the top of the straw she has placed a feather mattress,
blankets and sheets. To-night we're going to have sheets, a real bed,
a complete bed. We're going to undress ourselves, to instal ourselves
between two sheets, wearing nothing but our shirts. I steal a glance
at Porchon from the corner of my eye; his face plainly expresses his
unfeigned delight and joy. Suddenly he turns towards me, places his
hand on my shoulder, and regarding me with warm, affectionate eyes,
says:
"You brick!"