Chapter XI: The Touch of Death 200 (5)

We could see the earth tossed high like a geyser when a shell struck. We breathed the pungent odor of the battle. We were getting into it now. Most of the houses were demolished. The buildings still standing all bore the marks of war, with great ragged holes in walls and roof, with stains of powder and fire. Enough of them remained in close rows to indicate the streets leading into the town. We crossed the Meuse and found ourselves in the city. It appeared deserted. We looked curiously up and down the streets, without finding any sign of life whatever, except an occasional hurrying soldier, a cyclist, or an automobile racing at full speed between the silent houses. We made some détours, crossed squares, and skirted gardens. The whole city lay open to our view; and above the roofs the massive silhouette of the citadel spread its protecting wings.

The locking of wheels gave us a jolt: we had arrived. Glad to tread the ground once more, we leaped down and entered an abandoned factory, where we were to camp. The windows had long since lost their glass, but the roof remained. It was a fragile protection against shells, but quite adequate against wind and rain. Along the walls was stacked dirty straw, broken to crumbs by the many sleeping troops. That was our bed. It would be for many their last sleep before the sleep of death, for the orders came immediately: we would mount to the first lines at nightfall.

The march into the battle was at first simple. We advanced in the descending shadows, we left the town behind. Before us the heavens were streaked with the light of explosives. We marched by sections, in silence. We marched straight ahead, with heart beating quickly, mouth dry, brain a blank. In spite of myself, I set my teeth and gripped my hands. We could not distinguish the road we trod, but were dimly aware sometimes of trees stripped bare, of low ruins, of puddles of water, of general débris. We simply followed the man in front, scarcely turning the head when a flock of shells fell at the right, or left, or ahead. We only knew we were in the zone where they fell. We heard the hoarse shriek of the projectiles high in the air, and the chorus of cannon re-echoed in each breast. We no longer felt the chill of the night air. We knew not if we breathed. The farther we went, the more difficult did the walking become. We stumbled over the uneven ground, ploughed up by the shells; but we were not yet in the place of torment, and the missiles spared us. We passed many moving shadows: couriers, orderlies, estafettes, officers, wounded, we knew not what. They were only dark objects moving about in the night, outlined by the glow of the projectiles; instantly swallowed again by the shadows and giving place to others. We knew nothing about them. We knew only one great fact: that we were always advancing toward the fire; we were approaching the first lines, where the conflagration raged at white heat.

Then--we were in the midst of the shells. The frenzy was on. The wounded cried out. We held together the best we could. We entered chaos. Whirlwinds of explosives enveloped us. They were above, around, beneath. The very earth leaped up and lashed our faces and hands. Violent gusts of hot wind shook us. We ran. We joined some other comrades. We could not proceed in lines, but moved in groups. There were no longer any usable trenches. They were torn open, crushed in, filled up, making any advance in them impossible. Therefore we marched in the open, and we advanced. We would leap into a shell-crater, catch our breath for a second, look out for another hole, and hurl ourselves into it as quickly as possible. The rain of steel enveloped everything, in a tumult unbelievable. We scarcely knew if we lived; we certainly thought no more about death. The fixed, absolute, imperious idea, the only surviving thing in our consciousness, was to arrive at our destination, where we could give our service. We felt that we were near the spot and must attain it.

We often lost our way. The officers looked for the road, asked the direction, shouted orders. We understood as best we could. We ran at full speed, threw ourselves flat on the ground, sprang up and ran again. We knew only one thing: we _must_ succeed in reaching our appointed post, we must reach the firing-line: we could not stop, we could not rest, until we found the location of the regiment we were sent to relieve.

For three hours we plunged across the jagged fields. The ground rose and fell and rose again. Sometimes, behind a pile of earth, we found some men. We shouted some questions. They knew nothing to tell us, as they were not of the regiment which we sought. They were out of breath, like ourselves; or they were wounded, or they had just been relieved, or they had just arrived and were themselves seeking their post, or they were hopelessly lost and joined in with us. If they were officers, they questioned us:

“What regiment?” “Where are you going?” “What division?” “What army?” “Have you seen such and such a regiment?” “No.” “Yes, at the right.” “Over at the left.” “Make room there!”

Some ambulances charged past. We saw some first-aid stations in full operation, with wounded shrieking all about. Some couriers, out of breath, shouted instructions: “Go straight on. Your regiment is two hundred metres from here, near the canal.”

Finally we arrived, under such a hail of bullets, machine fire, and shrapnel that we were not even conscious of danger. We found some men, half buried in holes, who went away and left us. They melted into the night.

We had reached our post on the firing-line, in an unknown plain, which seemed to be flooded with dead bodies, as a fallow field is a riot of corn-flowers and nettles. We had no idea how we had succeeded in reaching the spot.

There was nothing more to do but fight and in our turn, wait for the Relief, or for Death.

XI

THE TOUCH OF DEATH

I have no intention, in writing this work, to describe the entire war. It would be an impossible task, and I do not suppose that any author who is a contemporary of the immense tragedy would have the presumption to attempt it. To undertake such a task with success, it would be necessary to wait until many years had effaced the secondary details, leaving in the foreground only the principal facts. Then, too, each person sees the war in his own way, from his own point of view, and can relate neither the ensemble nor the particular detail after the same fashion as his neighbor. It is all a question of individuality in handling such a subject. That which one is able to tell is merely a résumé of certain brief instants lived in the furnace; in long waits, which are told by a few words, but which lasted for months. We must, then, leave to the future historians the literary task of enclosing in a single book the story of the events which have upset and transformed the world; as Homer’s Iliad in its brief pages narrates the War of Troy, which lasted ten years. All that the writer of the present day may depict are separate minutes of the time in which we lived, and the sensations of a man who is only one of the hundred millions of combatants. Therefore I cannot add much to what I have told concerning Verdun.

We remained there four days. So short a time! and yet in this brief space a regiment melted away as the iron melts in the crucible. Four days under fire, and two battalions disappeared. When our relief came, scarcely one-third of our number survived; and of that third not one could tell clearly just what had passed. We had lived, though we knew not how, under the rain of steel, of flames, of flying earth, of splintering shells, of breaking stones; knocked about, thrown to the earth, rising only to fall again; eating little, drinking less; without sleep, without rest, battered and torn, but still clinging to our post.

Automobiles had brought us, automobiles took us away. We were gray with dust when we came; we went away looking like blocks of earth. Nothing about our uniforms was recognizable. Mud and clay blotched our faces and hands, matted our hair and beards, stiffened our shirts, weighed down our clothing. We had all grown old. Our eyes were sunken, our features drawn, our lassitude was extreme. Nevertheless, we almost ran when permitted to go away. We knew that the danger pursued us, and we mustered enough energy to escape. Again we ascended the hills, descended the slopes; again we saw the same spectacles we had seen in coming. It was our turn to cry to the arriving troops: “Count your bones, boys, it is getting hot!”

Yes, it was getting hot! The surging flood of Germans beat upon the French fortress like sea-breakers upon a rocky coast. The uproar increased. It seemed that the utmost limits of the possible must be reached, but each day those limits receded. Each day more cannon crashed; each day the explosions were faster and more furious; each day the storm augmented. One made his escape as from a horrible nightmare. Our ears hummed. Our nerves, strained to the breaking-point, vibrated and quivered like the strings of a violin. We could have dropped in our tracks from suffering and weakness.

However, an immense pride sustained our waning physical force. Mud-bespattered, thin, repulsive, we resummoned our stamina when we heard a command, at the edge of a ruined village; a general was looking at us. Instantly, backs straightened, heads lifted; bayonets were fixed on gun-barrels. Our troop, panting with exhaustion, but proud, impeccable, filed past that man, our chief, whose clear eyes were fixed upon us. We understood each other. Without words, without speech, our faces told him, “We have given our lives; ‘They’ have not passed!” and, without a word, his look responded: “I know it.”

We had our reward. Somehow our physical pains disappeared. Our effort, our sacrifices, our fears, our wounds, had been of service; the baffled enemy was stumbling without progressing, was crumbling away. Verdun held, and behind her protecting arm France still lived.

Just the same, the time had come to seek the automobiles. We could not hold control of ourselves except when on our feet. The instant we stopped moving about, the instant we were seated, or reclining, no matter in what position we relaxed for a single second, we were asleep. Neither jolts, nor knocks, nor sudden stops interrupted our giant sleep. We slept without a remnant of physical sensation. We slept violently, as heavy and inert as dead men. We slept with all our body, all our heart and soul; fists clinched, mouths open; shaken about, wholly unconscious, carried away less like men than like parcels of cloth, earth, flesh, and accoutrement. We no longer had names or personality. We were nothing but clods, utterly at the end of our vitality.

Thus we crossed the country, passing bivouacs where troops were encamped, roads where convoys were mounting toward the battle-line, forests where cavalry were awaiting their call. The noise of the cannon diminished to a distant rumble, became faint, and was lost. We slept on. Occasionally, a man stretched himself, changed position, and plunged again into oblivion like the rest. Some, in their dreams, cried out disconnected words, mumbled, or wept. A madman in my carriage suddenly leaped out and plunged into the blackness of the night. He was not missed until the next day. Three camions had passed over him, leaving him nothing but a mangled rag on the road.

At last we reached our destination, and came to life again. A camp was ready to receive us--a camp so new and fresh we thought it almost elegant. There were Adrian barracks[G] of unpainted spruce, with water for drinking and water for washing; with coffee prepared, fresh bread, hot soup, and abundance of clean straw. We knew that the horrible inferno was at an end for us; at evening a train would take us each to his own family to enjoy a furlough.

To come out of the abyss of hell and arrive at his own hearthside is an emotion too deep for a mortal man. He knows not if he is living in reality or in a dream. He goes on mechanically. He is hairy, barbarous, dirty, hideous. He is black, and torn, and bruised, and ragged. He reeks of powder, blood, and earth. He trembles. He is conscious of a sensation of joy--he feels it without comprehending it.

Before long the train will be in the station. His wife will be there with his mother, his father, and others who are dear. They will take him in their arms. They will hold him, they will press him to their hearts. He will feel the sweet thrill of their touch; he will receive their caresses, will hear the familiar voices. His heart beats fast. A feeling of faintness sweeps over him; he puts his hand before his eyes. He speaks to his neighbor. He laughs. He drinks a little, he smokes. He suddenly feels smothered. It must be his great-coat which bothers him; he pulls it off. He holds imaginary conversations with himself. He gesticulates. He recounts what he has seen, what he has done, what he has said; the death of his comrades, the frightful wounds of his dearest friends. He strives to classify his recollections; he yawns, he gives it up. The battle still crowds his brain, obsesses him, holds him, fills his entire consciousness. The other men are like himself. Some laugh, some sing, some sleep.

The special train rolls away--passes stations, traverses pleasant country, arrives at towns, whistles, snorts, runs smoothly, flies over the rails, carries him on and on. The man is dumb with amazement: a field where reapers are binding the grain enchants him; a glimpse of a garden where a woman is hanging up washing moves him to tenderness. A house intact astonishes him. The panorama passes before his window, is gone, is repeated. It is not yet the country, the province, where he was born, but that is approaching. Familiar names are seen at the stopping-places along the track. In an hour the train will reach his station. He can no longer sit still. He rises, fusses with his clothing, sits down, gets up again. The train no longer is going fast enough. It is stopping. What for? Now it goes again. Good. There it is stopping again! This is deadly. Villainous train! Villainous trip! Villainous life!

At last it is his own country, his own town, his own station ... and the train is stopping! Yes, the family are all there, running to meet him. The man leaves the carriage; he falls into their arms; he leans on their shoulders. Tears are on his cheeks; his mind is benumbed, he can only look. There is father, there is mother, there is wife and child.

“Well, well! How are you?”

“Ah, yes, all right,”--somewhat abstractedly.

He pulls himself together, recovers his strength and composure. He stands erect, proudly. He is bruised, stained, and dirty; a dreadful object, at once repulsive and sublime. He is in the midst of his doting, distracted family, who forget all the questions they had planned to ask about himself and the war, and can only ask: “Are you hungry? are you thirsty? are you warm?” He does not know if he is or not. He feels no need of anything. He goes with them. He recognizes the land, the road, the trees, and the houses. He breathes deeply. What delicious air! He is hurried along. As he passes the neighbors exclaim:

“There he is!”

He is safe and whole, he is brave and noble. He wears on his breast the Croix de Guerre. He is petted. He is washed and cleaned and mended and taken out for a promenade. He tries to tell his story, but he tells it badly: he has not the words for it. He knows not how to express all the misery endured, the bodily suffering, the horror of the battle. He tells little fragments of stories, and already he is forgetting the most terrible features. The struggle which was beyond all comprehension seems small when he tries to recount it. It becomes nothing more than a local fight with grenades, a patch of ground occupied in the night, a brook crossed--a thing of shadow and of mystery. It is no longer grandiose. It really was a catastrophe: it becomes a mere fist fight. However, they listen, they ask questions. He must repeat and go into detail. And he, who has escaped the jaws of death, who by a miracle has come out of the destruction, who feels with strangeness the new pulses of life, he runs about to see his friends, he shakes the burden from his thought, he amuses himself--and finally is aware that the time has passed like a flash of lightning and he must again depart. Then the anguish again lays hold upon him; for that which he could not tell clearly he knows only too well. No fibre of his being has forgotten it. His flesh creeps at the thought of entering again the bath of blood, of noise, of war; the long vigils in the trench, the whistle of the shells, the infantry attack.

He goes to join his regiment. He is loaded with delicacies, tobacco, and presents. He has new socks on his feet and a new sweater on his back. He is made over, he is a man again. He is sad, but he goes: there is no other way.

Once more he is at the front with all its horrors. He is in a sector of great commotion, where ruins pile upon ruins; where the very earth under his feet explodes; where a fresh drive is being pushed; where no minute is without its danger. There is the patrol toward the enemy’s lines, the life underground, the sky shot with airplanes, the shrapnel overhead and the mine under feet. There is the torpedo coming with its ugly growl; there are all the changing forms in which death beckons--the Grim Monster which prowls and shrieks; there is the agony renewed.

The attack is resumed. The attack, yes. “C’est la Guerre.” There is no longer, as in former days, a battle of a single day, wherein one is either victor or vanquished, where the outcome is decisive. The attack of to-day is one of the rôles in the drama of life, like being a soldier. Yes, it is life itself.

We made an attack, then, on a certain day, toward Mont Cornillet, which stood out before us like a volcano of chalk. The German and French artillery were crossing their shell-fire. Below, the French were holding. The position was hardly tenable after it was gained, and we were trying to enlarge and strengthen it a bit. My regiment, entirely reformed and equipped, formed a part of the advancing force. Each man, grown wise from his experience in war, could estimate the distance, and the effect of the firing. It was going well. It was hard, but the firing was good. Perhaps we would suffer less this time than on former occasions. Perhaps once more we would return alive. But then, what matter? One is a fatalist in such moments. Destiny will decide. A man is nothing, can do nothing. He is a mere atom, a drop of water in the ocean, a grain of sand in the desert. He goes where the wind drives him. If he is lucky, he comes back alive; if he is unlucky, he returns to the bosom of the earth. It is all very simple, clear, and clean-cut. The sacrifice was made long since. Once for all, the very first time, he has said: “What will come, will come.” He has left his home, he has marched, he has fought, he has suffered. Some men have been killed, others only await their turn. Infinite Fatality holds them in her hand. Those who believe in God, and that God brings solace, have their comfort always with them. They piously attend religious service when they can, wherever the chaplain sets up his altar: in a crushed-in chapel of a demolished village, or in a barn without a roof, or in the trench itself. The man who believes in nothing has no greater fear of death.

Certainly, were it not for the war, one would have lived otherwise. One would have lived in a world of work, with its pains and pleasures, founding a family and rearing his children. One would have lived as lived his father; one would have had a wife like his mother; one would have pursued happiness. But this dream is one of peace. Now, “C’est la Guerre.” The giant struggle passes the control of men, and its unknown end is still far off. One no longer fights merely for his home, his land, his own well-being. One feels that these things have become dwarfed in the tremendous world tragedy, and that at the foundation it has to do with great principles, ideals, and human destiny.

The soldier in action does not see so far. The immediate, the concrete, demand his close scrutiny; but he feels that the war is waged for all the human race, and that his blood will not flow in vain. Emancipation is coming. Man is throwing aside autocratic authority; he has reached his age of majority and wishes to be free. Society impels and guides him. He is no longer the soldier of a people, he is the soldier of a principle. He fights for the triumph of ideals that are noble, ideals that are just, ideals that are free. He assists at the ghastly death-throes of an autocracy which can live only through his enslavement. He knows the price of a revolution: some men must die that others may live. He accepts it. He knows not just how great must be his sacrifice. He knows only that he is resigned.

I saw all this among my comrades. I gathered it in their discussions: for we talk, at the front. The squad argues, reads the newspapers, makes its comments, follows the trend of events when it can. But--when the “Coup de Chien” comes; when the unit enters an engagement; when one fills his cartridge-box or receives his case of grenades; when one goes over the top, to storm the enemy’s parapets and rush to the assault, all else disappears, is wiped out. There remains only exaltation and the act of the moment--a sacrament.

The zero hour is passed from one to another in advance. The attack will be at ten o’clock. A half-hour before, each man is in his place. The artillery fire is redoubled. The German knows that his last minutes have come. As for ourselves, we are attentive and impatient. The anguish of the drive puts our nerves on a tension; eyes take on a hard look, hands grip convulsively. One wishes he could start, leap to the surface, cross No Man’s Land on the run, and drop into the opposite trench. The half-hour drags on slowly.

The hour strikes. With one leap, furiously, the first wave bounds forward, spreads, and crosses the intervening space. The second line follows. We of the next line look and listen. They cry out--they go on--they are running--they arrive! We start. The others are already upon the German. The grenades crackle and snap. The machine-guns spit, the airplanes hum, the shells burst. Forward, forward! We run at full speed. Each knows his rôle. Each knows his act, his allotted piece of work. Each is strangely lucid. The movement is admirable. All is going well, everything is working out with precision. We will gain our point. With an infallible glance the soldier knows the outcome, and in that moment he judges his chief without error, without appeal.

The trench is taken. The shelters are crushed in, the dead are lying all about. Pale and haggard prisoners run toward us, huddled together with up-lifted arms to give themselves up:

“Gut Franzose! Kamarad! Polones, Polones!”

They are Poles: big and little, tall and short; a whole troop. They shrink, now. They would like to run. They are anxious to get away from the place, for the miserable creatures cling to life and fear the shells, their own shells, the German shells, which follow each other in gusts. We drive them on. They go as captives. Three pass, a Frenchman follows, then three more prisoners and another Frenchman, with gun ready. The procession follows the wrecked trench, leaps over the débris, reaches the open space between our lines. Now there is less danger. The prisoners are parcelled off by twenties and are led to the rear. They stop at the first post where wounded are cared for. The stretchers are taken up and carried by the same men who made the wounds, by these men now quite docile, who, dressed in dirty gray made still more dirty by the ground, march with their burden, fearful, but at heart happy: for them the war is over.

It will continue for their conquerors who still live. Death has once more made her choice. The prisoners are safe. Those others who took them will die perhaps to-morrow, on this same ground or on another. Satiated to-day, the Grim Monster is reserving them: they are kept for a coming feast of death.

How well they know it! but they care not at all. They are tired and happy. They wander about the captured trench and gather up little nothings: fragments of clothing, pieces of arms, splinters of cartridges. They go to and fro; or, impassive, they choose a corner and go to sleep, indifferent to the shells, to the battle which is dying out; indifferent to to-day and to-morrow.

They know their task is accomplished.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The trial of Mme. Caillaux for the murder of the editor of _Le Figaro_.--TRANSLATOR.

[B] “Les compagnons--ceux avec qui on rompt le pain.”

[C] The banquette is about eighteen inches above the pathway at the bottom of the trench. The men stand here when firing or when on guard.--TRANSLATORS’ NOTE.

[D] The trenches were about seven feet deep. On the forward side was a step, or ledge, on which the men could stand when shooting.--TRANSLATORS’ NOTE.

[E] It has been found that water must not touch the skin for many hours after suffering a gas attack. The chemical action of the water rots the flesh. For the same reason the “poilu” is now clean-shaven: the poison of gas remains in a beard for days, and perspiration adds to the dangers of inhalation.--TRANSLATOR.

[F] Literally, “I am gnawing them away.”

[G] Adrian barracks are made in sections, which enables them to be put up or taken down quickly.--TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.