Chapter I: Have a Palliasse 145 (2)

I tended them. By day and by night, a thousand times I ministered to their needs. There were but two basins for seven hundred and twenty wounded. I made part of a shell serve me for a third. I watched the dying; I gave what consolation I could; I buried the dead. Always guarded by two Pomeranian soldiers, I went through the village begging soup for the poor lads. The inhabitants were utterly terrorized. Some of the women, one of them lame and one but a girl of twelve, astonished me by their persistent kindness. Under the eyes of the Germans as they were, the ardour they displayed, simply Christian in character, was truly heroic. Often, however, I had to make up for the lack of rations by a gay speech, overflowing with hope. Continually it was necessary to remake the straw pillows under the heads of the wounded, to rearrange their bedding, to help them to move. Always, beneath the low canvas roof, was to be heard the same orchestra of cries, hollow sighs, death rattles, and lamentations. Occasionally, during the long, cold night, lacking strength to carry the body of some comrade who had just died all the way across the meadow to the burial pit, dropping the dead man, I would fall beside him and go to sleep there.

On the 20th, when our field hospital was already in fair order, a Prussian captain came by with his company. He stopped, commandeered the horse of our surgeon-in-chief, M. Bergé, and promptly mounted it. Then, in grating and sonorous French, he called out: “Fear nothing, wounded. I know that in your newspapers—I read them, the _Figaro_, the _Temps_—they term us barbarians. We are not barbarians. For my part, I bear a French name; I am the descendant of French refugees. My name is Charles de Beaulieu. I swear to you that you will be well cared for in Germany. Germany respects the red cross.”

At noon on the 28th, having sent away those fit for transport and also those unfit, having performed a last amputation, and having buried the rest of the dead, we set out, with empty stomachs. What was our destination? The innocents, of whom I was one, had no doubt that we should be sent back to France by way of Switzerland. The others, those who had seen the wounded being finished off, especially the wounded officers, declared: “The German military authorities are unrelenting, even though the rankers are good fellows. The patrols who finished off the officers and some of the sergeant-majors were acting on strict orders. If they had been inspired by personal ill-feeling, do you think it likely that they would give coffee and brandy to the wounded as they do often enough? Would they stop to tend them? It is the high command which is responsible for this base practice. Do you think those who set so little store upon the lives of the wounded will respect the red cross?”

Thus it was that, while we were on our way to Dieuze, carefully escorted, the members of our little troop were debating the question: “Are we merely detained for a time, or are we prisoners?” At Dieuze we were marched round the town. This was not necessary in order to reach the railway station, and our capture hardly seemed to afford adequate ground for a triumphal procession. But it was evidently considered desirable to show us off to the inhabitants, who made no sign.

A week earlier, when we had entered Dieuze as conquerors, the shopkeepers had filled our pockets with chocolate and sweetmeats; the publicans had given us free drinks. “Above all,” said the people of Dieuze in plain terms, “take care that they never set foot here again!” Wishing for a French-German dictionary, I begged a townsman to get me one. “I don’t use the article,” he said; “I know no German.” He called his daughter and she brought me her own dictionary. “Pay yourself,” I said, offering her my purse. “Oh, monsieur,” she answered, “I could not take money from a French soldier!” On the sideboard there stood a goblet, and she filled it for me with Moselle.

Throughout the little Lorraine town there was the lively commotion of a feast day. The army and the populace were exchanging cheerful brotherly greetings. This delight at seeing one another again seemed so natural. Night fell. The weather was clear and warm. The noise of firing reached us from the vine-clad hills. The regiments were drawn up in line of battle in the streets. A hundred yards from the houses, behind the stooks, a French battery was shooting towards Vargaville. Having walked out to this battery, I enjoyed the only sight of beauty I had during my campaign.

In the calm air, the smoke plumes of the German shrapnel looked like fireworks. Near by, one of our regiments, spread out like a fan, was advancing through the oats. The men had spent the night in the barracks of the light horse. Further on, in the stubble and the green fields, under a rain of shells, the Alpinists were at work with their rifles, in cheerful mood. In good order they mounted the northern slope of the smiling basin between Dieuze and Vargaville. It looked like one of Van der Meulen’s pictures. The sun was setting. The perfumed air was filled with shafts of light. After each discharge, the song of the birds and the humming of the insects was audible. Then, the limbers having been attached, the battery went off at the trot to another position.

On the 28th, on the contrary, Dieuze was like a city of the dead. No one appeared at the windows. Huge flags, celebrating the fall of Manonviller, had been hoisted by German orders. There was a gloomy silence, like that of a deserted inn, like that of Paris at four in the morning; but instead of the carts of the market gardeners and of the dustmen, there were heaps of empty knapsacks, broken rifles, rags soiled with blood and clay, which had been carted in from the battlefield. We marched quickly, keeping the French step, so that our guards were out of breath. Grey-clad regiments passed us without a word. When our progress was arrested by a number of forage wagons filled with wounded, a tall Prussian colonel, on horseback, wearing an eyeglass, accosted us in French, saying: “Fous n’afez pas honte, fous la témocratie française, d’être les alliés des Russes, ces Parpares?”[7] Not one of us made answer. We did not even look at him. He sat there motionless. However, showing him my armlet, I inquired, “Are we detained, or are we prisoners?”

“Prisoners! You fire on our field hospitals!”

“Allow me to say, monsieur, that I do not believe it.” Then we resumed our march.

The station; the long wait; the block of carts filled with wounded; a light cavalryman on foot, with bandaged head, advancing towards us, hatred in his eyes, threatening us with his revolver; the search of our knapsacks; the confiscation of our maps, knives, forks, razors, punches—everything which could be used for cutting or piercing. Then we entrained.

I am so foolish as to believe in the good faith of humanity. It seemed to me incredible that a civilized nation would not respect the red cross. “Unquestionably,” I said, “they will send us to Switzerland.”—“We shall see,” answered Riffard, “whether our journey leads us southwards.” Were we going south? This was the great question in dispute. Every one looked at his watch and examined the position of the sun. Since the railway line made zigzags, running sometimes to the south and sometimes to the north, we became divided into two camps, the “southerners” and the “northerners,” the light of heart and the foreboders of evil. At times the dispute between the two factions waxed lively.

After a run northward, the train passed through Bensdorf, and at nightfall we found ourselves in the great station of Strasburg. There we were ordered to get out. We were shut up in a room on the landing, below the level of the railway, giving on the street. Through the grated door the passers-by gazed in on us. I was kept awake by the cold and my recent memories of the town. After some hours came the order _Vorwärts_, and a fresh entrainment. What was our destination? The first glimmer of dawn showed us the green hills of Alsace covered with plum-trees. Alas, we were going northward. Saargemünd. Rhenish Prussia. Saarbrück. Oh, Saarbrück! What a reception we had from the women of Saarbrück! My ears still tingle with their execrations. Then came the Palatinate, then Philippsburg. Good-bye to hope! I did not see the Rhine, for we crossed it in the middle of the night, and I was sleeping on the floor between the seats.

It was obvious when we awoke that we were going down hill. We crossed the duchy of Baden, traversed Würtemberg by way of Stuttgart and the Swabian Jura, with its green valleys, its woods, and its sparkling rivulets; at length, after crossing monotonous plains, at the bottom of a hill we reached Ulm, nestling on the Danube beneath its graceful Gothic cathedral. Our halt was made at Neu-Ulm, the first town we came to in Bavaria, and a town which I shall never forget, for it was there that we made the second meal of our journey. It consisted of a bowl of vermicelli soup in which a gobbet of meat was swimming. The previous day, at Zweibrücken (otherwise known as Deux-Ponts), we had been given a slice of _Leberwurst_. This pittance seemed heavenly to us, for we were starving after a three days’ fast. Be blessed among all the towns of Germany, Neu-Ulm and Zweibrücken!

For the third time since our departure from Dieuze night fell. The train continued its journey, and its direction was now south-south-east. The southern faction was on the increase, and the wind was setting in the direction of hope. In the course of an animated discussion, rendered lively by hunger and by the doubts which Guido expressed as to the likeliness of our liberation, I fell asleep. At two o’clock in the morning the train stopped. I did not wake up. Abbé Guido, tough and rugged like the mountain district in which he toiled, one of those peasant priests who wed the church with fanatical asperity, just as they would have wedded their land, Guido was not asleep. He was sitting all of a heap in the corner of the carriage, wearing his képi wrong side before, smoking cigarettes. From time to time the sardonic fold of his lips was rendered yet more bitter by a sigh as he said: “Ah! vidasse! qué vidasse!”[8] He must have given vent to the apostrophe, which showed his utter weariness of life, twenty times at least, when, morning having come, I awakened to the sound of this malediction.

It was an oppressive day. The sun was fierce; the sky leaden, without soul, without life. In the carriage it was stifling.

“Where are we?”

“At Ingolstadt.”

Ingolstadt! The “forty propositions,” Luther, Father Eck, the celebrated attempt to unite the two churches, the great “disputations” of the sixteenth century. But the sight of the bayonets of the Bavarian guard on the platform dispersed my train of reminiscences.

My stomach was complaining loudly. We were told that the stop was for six hours. The sergeant of the guard assured us that we were to be sent to Switzerland. Then a medical officer, thick-lipped and hook-nosed, with small, laughing eyes, a man who waddled continually with a sort of conceited good-nature, passed through the carriage, and said in a nasal accent: “Pas te malades? Pas te fièvres tes gôlônies?”[9] This Judaico-Swabian French revived our spirits. But the gnawing in our stomachs continued. Would they not give us a slice of _Wurst_ or a plate of soup with a gobbet of meat in it? But they brought us nothing. The six hours had passed. The midday heat made the blood boil in our veins.

It happened but yesterday, and yet it has aged me by a century. I say it without hatred, without the shadow of a desire for vengeance. Under the ancien régime the crowd was amenable without restriction to talliage and to the corvée; now that it reigns, the crowd is gullible without restriction; it is nothing better than an unstable puff of vapour at the mercy of the winds. My heart is filled with pity for the crowd.

“Where are we going?” I asked of the _Feldwebel_[10] in command of the detachment.

“To Fort Orff, two leagues from here, towards the north. You will find there a thousand of your compatriots.”

“Are you keeping the men of the red cross as prisoners?”

“So it seems. I can’t understand it. At Fort Orff there are certainly quite a hundred _Sanitäter_.”

“These are fine spoil!”

This _Feldwebel_ was a tall, ruddy young man, trim of figure, gentle and shy. His name, he told me, was Conrad Kilian, and he was a schoolmaster from Upper Franconia. He stationed me at the rear of the column, beside himself, to act as interpreter. He was greatly concerned about those of my comrades who were too obviously exhausted. “How on earth will they be able to walk uphill for ten kilometres?” This impotent kindness of heart was touching. The setting sun cast its rosy light over the Danube and the ancient city, bristling with church spires and surrounded by Gothic walls with massive towers. We passed through it under a deluge of cries of “Death!” And what a litany of _kaputs_![11] “Paris _kaput_! Manonviller _kaput_! Verdun _kaput_!” One might have imagined that the whole world was _kaput_! The gentler-minded among the townsfolk flashed electric torches in our faces, saying modestly: “You know that our armies are but a few leagues from Paris?” The better educated regaled us with French. “La foilà,” they said mockingly, “la grande nation!” People streamed out of the public-houses as we went by. On the threshold the calm and paunchy drinkers waved their mugs and vented their guffaws. The whole city was agog beneath the great royal and imperial standards. It was really ludicrous, all this fuss about fifty field hospital orderlies.

It was quite clear that the German nation was the martyr of Europe. “As for us,” said my friend the _Feldwebel_, “our conscience is quite at ease!” Yes, we, the French, were the aggressors; we were the _apaches_ who had come furtively (_sicut fur in nocte_) to disturb the dignified repose of these excellent people, full of humanity, thoughtful and gentle! It was unquestionably the anger of an offended conscience, the holy joy of justice at length avenged, which found expression in this tumult. How easy it is to distort facts, to cook public opinion! I looked on and listened with greater interest than at the most exciting of plays. From the casements, graceful beneath their Gothic gables and bright with window-gardens, imprecations rained down on us. And the gestures of the silhouetted figures standing in the front of these lighted interiors sufficed to show those among us who could not understand Swabian the significance of the volleys of homeric abuse.

I was not in the least humiliated by the hubbub. My condition was one of strange exaltation. I was very sad and yet fascinated—sad at the spectacle of mankind, and yet fascinated at the chance of seeing man as he really is. Tacitus, Machiavelli, Stendhal, Ferrero—not one of these writers had succeeded in giving me so strong an impression of human reality. But I will defer my comments. Thoughts conceived under the spur of hunger and in a sort of physical dementia are not likely to be just. Besides, it is difficult to keep one’s head cool when the whole world is crumbling around one. I fear lest I may have to laugh some day at the partiality of this simple and matter-of-fact story, written for some one whom I love, and in which I faithfully desire to use no colours but those of truth.

Of our arrival at the fort I can recall nothing but the memory of a great iron gate which groaned on its hinges when it was opened, of a few lanterns held by sentinels running hither and thither in the darkness, of a gloomy and nauseous staircase where I stumbled and where my nailed boots made a clatter that aroused distant echoes, and of a casemate, this casemate, with cemented floor, bare, without even straw, its arches sweating damp. I threw myself on the floor, my cheek on my knapsack. My head was throbbing with fever. I spent a sleepless night, not thinking, but a prey to delirium.

FEVER AND LOW SPIRITS

_September 16, 1914._

The casemate is empty. My comrades have gone up to the nine o’clock roll-call. I am still “confined to my room by illness.” I am happy to be alone. It is cold. Wrapping my rug closely round me, I lie listening to the bitter wind. I am alone; I am free. It seems to me that the current of life has swept me away to the end of the world, depositing me amid dumb deserts of infinite vastness.

The straw upon which I have been lying for a fortnight is reduced to powder. I roll myself in it as if it were a dust bath for chickens. How thin is my rug! My limbs shake with the cold of fever. Yesterday for a quarter of an hour I dragged myself along in the east court, but I was unable to get as far as the first glacis. When I was coming downstairs on the way back, my legs seemed heavier than hand grenades. I am very cold. Through the upper part of the two screened windows I catch a glimpse of a strip of sky, grey and heavy, crushing down on the slope, on the portcullis on the top of the slope, on the wild rose bush which breaks the straight line of the portcullis. On the steep slope I see the long grass bending before the gusts.

I am alone. How delightful! What wealth! What a privilege! Here we are never alone.

We sleep, we dress, we eat, we amuse ourselves, we walk about, we hunt for lice, we attend to the calls of nature, we dream, we are filled with indignation, we soften, we caress the dear relics hidden in our knapsacks, we retire into ourselves—we do all this in public.

How well do I understand the phrase of St. Bernard, the phrase of a monk, _O beata solitudo, sola beatitudo_! Sometimes in the morning, when we awaken, this awakening devoid of dignity, full of oaths, when the same voices gabble the same platitudes, in the same eternal access of sterile boredom, makes me feel positively sick. How long will it continue, this life in a herd? It seems to me that the effluvium of the crowd, of the sweat of human cattle, has penetrated into all the interstices of my soul.

No, it is useless; the effort to pull myself together and to become what I was before these days in prison is too much for my poor strength. I am shivering with cold. To throw off this torpor I should need to eat three or four times as much as we are allowed. Alas! the wretched half loaf of the first few days has been reduced to a third of a loaf, for the German authorities are methodically restricting our rations. Even the dullest of the soldiers, heavy, good-natured fellows, those who never think and consequently waste very little energy, find it difficult to keep going. Poor mothers, could you but catch a glimpse of your sons, your fine lads, those whom you used to pet so tenderly! On the slopes and in the dry ditches of the fort you would see them gloomy and slow, with drawn features, with a yellow and dirty skin, almost always crouching on the ground. They look like shades in Purgatory. Are these the youths of France?

* * * * *

Sergeant Bertrand is the first to come down. Without saying a word, he throws himself on his heap of straw beside me. Then, one behind the other, come dreamily in Sergeant Boude and Guido, my terrible and dear Guido. Soon all the rest of the section enters, a stamping and noisy rout.

Bertrand does not move. Leaning against his knapsack, pipe in mouth—a pipe carved by Boude—he looks straight in front of him. He is in a fine fit of the blues, our “agent de change,” as he is nicknamed by his comrades from Marseilles. If his fiancée could see him thus, his fiancée of Ciotat!

At the end of the room, beneath the windows, two groups are playing cards for pfennig stakes. Beyond them, leaning against the bars, Sabatier, grave and mute like a bonze, is plaiting a horsehair watch-chain. Over there, from every mouth, from all the Bavarian pipes hanging over the players’ stomachs, there mount thick clouds of smoke.

In our corner, spoken of as the “club” by the men of the “fond” (the window end), every one is silent. Bertrand is in Ciotat. Guido, hunched against the wall, his képi pulled down over his eyes, seems to be turning over thoughts even more disconsolate than those of the _Imitation_ or of _Ecclesiastes_. Boude, the good Boude, with the soul of an artist who has lost his way in everyday life, stands up, looking at our trio.

All of a sudden, Bertrand, with a yawn, murmurs, “I would sell my life for a penny.”

Boude smiles at his _alter ego_. “For my part, old chap, I brought with me from Marseilles a certain store of philosophy.”

“That also gets used up, Sergeant Boude,” says Guido, “just as certainly as the cigar that you are smoking. And once your cigar is finished, in these times of dearth, you may find it difficult to get another.” Then, turning to me, and lowering his harsh voice: “Richeris,” he says, “is the happiest of us all. For him there is nothing but God. If God wills it, he is satisfied; if God does not will it, he is equally satisfied.”

Silence for a time.

Then Boude remarks quietly: “I’m going to visit big Boétti. His dreams seem to come true. On the 19th, the night before our capture, he had a red dream. Perhaps last night he may have had a blue one.”

“Oh,” observes Guido, with a laugh, “I too have, not dreams, but presentiments which come true. The day of Boétti’s dream, when we had left Bourdonnaye and were in the marshy wood just before you get to Dieuze, I said to myself, ‘This time it’s all up with you, old chap, absolutely all up!’ You see, it _is_ all up, and for a good long time!”

Then Boude, “Oh, Guido, you see everything in dark colours.”

“Quite true, I see everything in dark colours. I leave it to you others to gaze through the rose-tinted window. I keep to the gloomy outlook. Until a day or two ago I had hopes of freedom in October. But since Riou has read us the news, what he calls ‘good news,’ I hope no longer.”

“All the same, I’m going to see Boétti,” declares Sergeant Boude, opening the door.

The club relapses into silence. Bertrand dreams. Guido, his faith in original sin thoroughly re-established, meditates upon misfortune and upon human malice.

* * * * *

Oh, how empty and sterile life is. My head swims.

Lambert, who sees that I am shaking with cold, little Lambert, kindly and gentle as a good grandfather, comes and wraps his rug round my shoulders. He gives me a cheerful smile, but says nothing. Returning to his place opposite mine, he devotes himself once more to the study of the civil code. The comrades at the other end of the room noisily continue their game of cards. Sabatier, hard at work, is standing up. It is raining, and the windows have been closed. Young Soulier, stretched at full length on his back, his hands beneath his head, staring at vacancy, whistles an unending succession of operatic airs, music-hall songs, waltzes, and tangos. I listen. Gradually this flow of sounds wearies me, and ends by exasperating me. What shall I do? Faces of those I love, how in this pit of fever and weariness I endeavour to revive you in memory. Where are you now? If one could only write. Very likely they think we are dead. Has the Ministry of War notified them of our imprisonment? Does the Ministry itself know?

Lambert’s rug has made me feel warmer. I have taken from my haversack the manual of French-German conversation the commandant has lent me. I read the dialogue which deals with agricultural life. _Wiese_, _Wald_, _Gebüsch_, _Saatfeld_, _Ackerfurche_, _Herde_, _Mühle_, _Landhaus_. These humble words seem friendly. I read them again. I murmur them to myself half aloud. Laying the book on my knee, I repeat them slowly by heart.

Is there some magic charm in these simple vocables? Called up by the sounds, images of freshness, so soothing to my fever, come to keep me company. I forget Soulier and his music. I no longer hear the wrangles of the card-players. The misery of being nothing better than a poor sick mole at the bottom of a crypt is gradually effaced from my mind. The magic of words! Yet these words are the words of the enemy. My brain finds relief. My eyes are caressed by pure colours. My ears are delighted with the supple cadences of melodies which recall the scent of hay and pastoral quietude. It seems to me that I am in a sun-kissed village. In front of the pillared porch of the white church, dazzling white against the limpid blue sky, apple-cheeked girls are playing games. How charming is the aspect of their flaxen plaits against their mauve aprons! How graceful their movements! How angelic the clear ring of their voices! They smile in a comradely way as they look at me. But you are the daughters of the enemy, little sisters singing so sweetly, little sisters whom I love.…

DINNER

_September 20, 1914._

It is exactly a month since we were taken prisoner. Here is the great event of this day of jubilee. It is a culinary event. None but the famished could appreciate it.

I dressed hastily, for I had to be upon the upper slopes at seven o’clock. I had an appointment with a peasant woman, small, thin, with scanty hair, who comes here from time to time to cut the grass. Yesterday she brought me two pounds of sugar. The price was sixty pfennig. I gave her a mark, telling her to keep the change for her two girls. These latter, working bare foot in the damp grass, rewarded me with a profusion of reiterated _Danke schön_, and I had said to myself that they were good folk. Acting on this impression, I commissioned them to buy chocolate to the value of three marks, to be delivered next day at seven o’clock. _Morgen früh, sieben Uhr._ This matter having been settled, I took possession of the wheelbarrow, heavy with damp grass, and, as fast as I could, followed by the three breathless Bavarians, I trundled my load as far as the guardhouse, nearly slipping a dozen times on the smooth slopes.

Here I am then at seven o’clock to keep the appointment. From this spot there is a view over the entire fort and the huge plain of Ingolstadt. A thin haze limits the horizon. White vapours rise from the Danube. Some factory chimneys behind the town are slowly vomiting their black plumes straight up into the foggy sky. Not a stir in the air. The houses on the plain have a liliputian aspect, seeming lost in the immensity.

There was no one in the upper courts, no one on the slopes. How pleasant it was in this damp solitude. Church bells in the neighbouring villages were ringing for mass. It was raining steadily—a gentle, quiet rain. I took shelter beneath a parapet and waited. Close at hand a poor little acacia was softly dripping. Since I left for the war, this was the first time I had begun the day quite alone. The “Our Father” mounted to my lips. I prayed for France, for all the soldiers of the _Völkerkrieg_. I prayed for my own dear ones … God, France, Andrée.…

Still the woman did not come. My coat was drenched. I was hungry. I made up my mind to abandon my fruitless errand.

In the casemate it was just like any other morning. Each one of us pushes back against the wall the truss of straw which the previous night he had spread out to make his bed, arranging it to form a rectangle, and covering it with a Bavarian rug. Thus, round the “square” we have two rows of low couches, greyish brown in colour, provided by way of cushions with our knapsacks padded with our French rugs. The two chambermaids—to-day they are Sabatier and Ancey—sweep the floor and trim the lamp. When the work is finished our casemate looks almost coquettish.

Now Guido returns from mass. Standing silent in the draughty doorway, he smokes his first cigarette. I instantly perceive that he has an idea, and ask for information. He thinks of nothing less than commemorating the melancholy jubilee of our capture by a cup of chocolate. A great thought, but difficult to realize! I hesitate. But Guido, egged on by hunger, is resolute. Knowing that I am on good terms with the kitchen, without further discussion he gives me a mess-tin and a few sticks of Suchard, saying, “You can manage it all right.” Doubtfully I make my way to the _Küche_. I open the door. A cloud of steam and smoke rushes out, enwraps me, and almost chokes me. In this fog I knock up against a Norman from the Auge valley—“Marie, the scullerymaid.” Without explanation I hand over what I am carrying. “That’s all right!” he says. I return to the casemate. “All well?” asks Guido. “All well,” I answer. In a few minutes Marie, alias Auguste, appears. He has the mien of a conspirator! Beneath his stained and greasy tunic he conceals as well as he can the hot vessel. With a secret air he says: “Here it is!” “Bravo!” I exclaim. But can this be my mess-tin? It is quite black, like the bottom of a cooking pot. The tin has melted and run into warty drops half-way up. Yes, it is really my mess-tin; but what a baptism of fire it must have experienced! Never mind. In a trice Guido makes a cunning hole in the straw to keep it hot and to conceal the windfall. Hurrah! everything is ready.

In the casemate, stretched out on our blankets, we all await the dinner-hour.

“Room 17!” comes the cry from without. We leap to our feet. Two by two, as is the custom in German barracks, we make our way to the kitchen—a long procession of individuals who chatter impatiently in the dark and evil-smelling passages. When we reach the happy door we are arrested by the order, “Halt.” We have to wait until those of room 16 have been served and dismissed. Now comes the moment. “Seventeen, enter!” orders Dutrex. We defile in front of the cauldron, and each man in turn holds out his bowl to the cook. This last, Davit, an Angevin, wearied of doing the same thing five hundred times in succession, handles the great ladle mechanically, absorbed in his own thoughts. His arms and shoulders are bare, and one cannot doubt that he has the torso of the Farnese Hercules.

One by one, hastily and yet cautiously, we return to the casemate. Reclining in Roman fashion, seated or squatting, we crumble into the clear liquid, faintly sweetened, a little of our rye and barley bread, of the consistency of putty, and forming a pappy mass in the soup. The silence is religious. Eating is a solemn function in these days of scarcity. For a lengthy interval nothing is to be heard in the “square” but the rattling of spoons upon tin.

In our corner, where two friends sitting very close together sip steaming chocolate, the fervour is even greater than among those who are taking what we good-humouredly speak of as “café-au-lait.” Our mothers would consider our brew extremely crude. No milk! No sugar! But the palate of a prisoner of war differs from that of a pampered child. Bending over our joint mess-tin, Guido and I are silently and sadly happy. Poor joys of the famished, how one makes the most of you with a greedy and simple soul!

FONTAINEBLEAU

_September 21, 1914._

You remember that Andromache, made captive when Troy fell and allotted to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, rebaptized with Trojan names the streams and the hills of the Epirot capital, adorning the gloomy present with glorious memories. As at Troy, she had her Scamander. In this way, on clear nights, when she walked beside the river in the solitary fever of insomnia, it was sometimes possible for her to forget Neoptolemus and the hatred of the Greeks, and to dream of herself still living beside Hector as queen, wife, and happy mother.

All prisoners are alike, be they epic heroines or soldiers of the third republic. I, too, have my Scamander in Epirus.

On the slopes of the fort there are a few poor trees. I do not know how they manage to grow there, for very thin is the layer of grass-clad earth which covers the cemented arches. The rain runs off as from a tiled roof, and the weakest sun scorches the humus. Nevertheless, on the northern spur there is a squad of small acacias with two or three stunted poplars, sheltering beneath their scanty shade a humble growth of mosses, dwarf gentians, scabiouses, and thyme.

When the réveillé sounds, before the fort is overrun by the other prisoners, I visit this little “grove.” The habit, somewhat undisciplined, is of recent growth. I have known my Thebaïd for two days only; I am there for the third time this morning to revive my memories, not of Ilium, but of Fontainebleau.

Fontainebleau!

Do you remember last May, during the week when the great poplars of the Allée Sully were scattering their down on the water of the pond? There was some of it in your hair the morning when I spoke to you. You looked straight in front of you, as in a vision. You were walking without saying a word, bending backwards, restraining the impatience of the enleashed Katia and Douchka.

In the evening we walked together on the fringe of the forest. The night was warm and fine, and the petals rained gently on us as we went. Our acacias were in flower. We looked at the moon through the slender network formed by their white clusters.

My poor Fontainebleau of Ingolstadt!

AN OLD CAMPAIGNER

_September 22, 1914._

There are more than a thousand of them squatting on the grass. The sun rages down on this quadrilateral, as big as the Place des Victoires, enclosed by the steep slopes of the scarp. Every one is nodding. The German flag and the Bavarian flag hang inertly along their twin staves. This frippery has been hoisted to celebrate the taking of ⸺. There is not a breath of wind. The heat is stifling. Sentinels pace to and fro. What is going on behind the forbidden slopes? Above the parapets crowned with flowers we can see nothing but the sky—a wide sky, barely blue. Some prisoners are chatting as they sit on a pyramid of grenades.

“How short our campaign was!” exclaims Sergeant Foch of the 10th Chasseurs, a fine fellow who seems modelled in bronze. His dark, golden-speckled eyes seem to devour you. He speaks harshly, and one feels that his wrath is intense. He spits out his phrases, with long intervals of silence.

“And all this happened through an idiot who led us straight to Raon-l’Etape, a regular Boche ambush!…

“As for me, tonnerre de Dieu, I could not help thinking of our captain. Captain B.! He was a soldier, if you like—first man of his year in the Ecole de Guerre, certain to become a general. One day he showed us the photo of his children, seven children, all in a row. He had tears in his eyes. He was a man! He could do what he liked with us. He was brave and prudent, and we had nothing to do but to follow where he led. One felt safe with him. There was a man who knew how to take care of his company.

“I wish you’d seen what happened at Vallerystal! Such a rain of shells we had there. I counted five hundred on my own section alone. I lost my two chums there. One of them came from my own village, and he and I were like brothers—always together. All of a sudden there came a pig of a melinite shell. There was a hell of a noise and a lot of smoke. I was knocked out of time, bowled over and over. Then I got up and dusted myself. Absolutely unhurt! Oh, how that black smoke stank! And on either side of me my two chums, blown to bits, their guts bulging out all over the place. Cré nom de nom! My knapsack did me good service that time! It stopped a shell splinter which set the collar of my coat on fire behind. Just look.

“While this was going on, what do you think our captain was doing? He was walking quietly up and down, pipe in mouth, in front of our rifles.

“‘Better lie down, captain,’ we said to him.

“‘What’s the use? One’s just as likely to be hit lying down as standing.’

“By the evening he had a wound in the head and a torn biceps. Do you think he left us on that account? His wounds were temporarily dressed.

“‘You must go to the field hospital,’ said the surgeon. But he did not go! There’s a fellow for you. If they were all like this B.…”

“Did it do well, your section?” asked Piétri, a red-haired sergeant-major, sturdy, with bloodshot eyes, a Corsican with the trick of staring you in the face, seeming to listen with his eyes, greedily, like a deaf man.

“Did they do well? I believe you! My reservists were splendid. ‘The beasts!’ they cried. They were spoiling for the fight; they clenched their fists. The 10th battalion was proverbial. ‘The men at Provenchères are devils,’ said the Boches; it was we.

“At the start it was like playing at soldiers. The Uhlans were coming on in little groups, their gloves spotless with pipeclay, wheeling to right and to left, as if on parade. Bram! Bram! Down goes one of them. The others perform a fantasia of retreat. We pursue. They dismount. I say to my men: ‘Lie down!’ Not a bit of it! They kneel to take better aim. ‘Fire!’ A lieutenant is killed; there are six dead or wounded. Another time, four Uhlans are trotting quietly along the road, as if on scouting duty. ‘Fire!’ Ten shots: patrol gone! Yes, it was funny at first. One might have imagined oneself at the summer manœuvres. But from the 10th to the 25th, oh Lord! Nothing but artillery fire. It rained! It rained, I tell you!”

“Did you kill any Boches yourself?” asks big Corporal Durupt, compared in the 2nd to a buffalo’s head on a pikestaff. “In my section at Mesnil, near Senones, I handed my rifle to the bugler, a record shot. In a quarter of an hour, at two hundred yards, he brought down ten.”

“I did my share,” answers Foch. “But the shot of which I am proudest was one which I fired at twelve hundred yards, just for a lark, at a Uhlan patrol. There were three of them; I bowled one of them over. But I will tell you about a shot of which my old comrade Kaiser was especially proud. An Alsatian like myself. I always gave him his orders in German. I don’t know if he’s still alive. I have not seen him since August 25th, when we were under machine gun fire in Bertrichamps wood.

“In my section we had one odd sort of beast who was always in a blue funk. I kept him by my side as I led my section. The captain says to me: ‘Foch, see if you can’t stop this machine gun which is worrying us.’ Off we go, and soon the bullets are flying thickly. I meet an old territorial. He has his handkerchief pressed to a bleeding wound. I want to dress it for him. ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘don’t bother about me. Go ahead with your brave fellows!’ All at once my trembler falls down, crying out:

“‘Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!’

“‘Are you wounded?’

“‘No, a sprain!’

“‘Don’t you try to gammon me; up with you!’ He gets up; he can walk all right. ‘You see,’ I tell him, ‘I beat God Himself. I’ve cured you in half a tick.’ But now, at two hundred yards, I see the German section with the machine gun. I fire, once, twice; I pick off two of them. Then, close at hand, on the right, appears a bunch of Germans. The devil! I call Kaiser, who is acting as my orderly. A Boche advances on him. ‘Look out!’ I cry. The Boche shoulders his rifle and fires. Down goes Kaiser. The Boche advances, but Kaiser is only shamming dead. Suddenly he rises on his knee. Bram! Head over heels goes the other, and Kaiser hurls himself on the Boche. ‘I’ve got him all right,’ he shouts, as pleased as Punch.

“The German squad retreats. My section sends them some parting shots. Two wounded Germans come to us, and I dress their wounds. One of them wants to kiss me, but I’m not having any.

“I say to my funker, ‘Get behind that little ridge. You will be close to me.’ I have hardly spoken when he begins to bleat: ‘Wounded! I am wounded! I’ve been shot in my behind. Let’s escape!’ Next minute, ‘Mon Dieu! hit again! Let’s escape!’ Two bullets in his behind; oh dear! He did not know what to do with himself; he had not enough hands to stop the holes. He let go of one leg in order to seize the other. We who looked on were screaming with laughter. I’ve never laughed so much in my life. And all this was under fire! Girard was laughing with the rest. Then, suddenly, ‘I am hit,’ he says; ‘lend a hand!’—‘You must wait a moment, old boy; the fire is too hot.’ The blood was pouring from his wound, making a lather like soapsuds. Two minutes later the bugle sounds ‘Cease firing.’ But they don’t want to cease firing. They simply will not stop. I have to get up and shout at them, to brandish my arms. At length they assemble around me. And here is my funker, who gets up quite easily, notwithstanding the two bullets in his behind. The firing continued from the German side, and the leaves were falling on us from the trees, for the aim was too high. We were able to withdraw with our eight wounded.

“Ah, it was a fine time, but oh, how tired I was! Had it not been for ⸺ I should have gone through the war till the last shot was fired. I no longer gave a thought to my wife or my children.”