Heaven knows whether we expected to have to charge from the beginning to the end of that interminable day. The captain and the subaltern had warned us. The cannonade raged in front of us and all round us. The German fire was concentrated against a village below us, on our right. If we were occupying it, what losses it would mean to us! To begin with we could see each explosion and the resultant crumbling of the buildings. Towards midday a thick pall of smoke rose and shrouded everything. The fusillade and the machine-guns joined in the concert. Who would guess what they reminded me of? The mock symphony with which Miquel had amused at the Globe Café.
It will be seen that I was far from feeling the same enervation as I had the other week. I had become a fatalist.... We knew all about being under fire. We had already been through it.
I should certainly have been badly bored without Guillaumin's precious and almost continual society. We began by discussing the situation at length. He maintained that it was not serious.
He passed on some of his serenity to me. His eyes shone when he said:
[Pg 289]
"And our poilus, what!"
"Admirable!"
He added:
"What a fine race they are!"
I wondered whether he was speaking of the French or the Beaucerons.
What should he do a little later on, but set about extolling the treasures lying dormant at the heart of these soldiers.
"Most of them are married! They nearly all have kids! They never stop thinking of those who have stayed behind—of their family. That supports them. It's a case of morale!"
"Steady on! Don't exaggerate!"
They were good fellows, the majority, I admitted, and fond of their families, but the chief point about them was their resignation and passivity. A worthy herd!
He insisted.
"I assure you that they have their own personality and feelings, and often a very generous share of them. They are certainly no phrase-makers; it is even very difficult to get them to talk. They mistrust you and themselves. You would think that they realised that they would spoil their feelings by trying to express them in their peasant jargon."
"Well?"
"Look how they find a way of writing every or almost every day! Some of the men in the platoon have asked me to write the addresses, so that they should be readable. Others, even, to wield the pen while they dictated the text. Oh, just dull commonplace formulas, but what a tender longing in them to reassure and cheer. That all declare, whatever[Pg 290] happens, that they are resting, far away from the Bosches, that everything is going excellently. 'Don't you worry!' is what they say. What philosophy!"
"And I'll quote some examples of delicacy; for instance, your Corporal, Donnadieu, who was hit...."
I opened my mouth to tell him of the man's trick, a villainy which had remained unknown.
"Well," he continued, "I've got a man from his part of the world, from Neuville. He wrote a letter to the wife, who is just starting a new baby, to tell her that her husband had been pinked—in case he had not been able to let her know—but that it was nothing serious, and that he would keep her informed!"
Guillaumin now described the arrival of the baggage-master, in the farmyard the other day (I had missed this scene), and the distribution of the letters and cards. Some of them had wept. Others hid themselves to kiss the humble note-paper.
What a singular state of mind! I considered these men around me lying about like a lot of animals, their filthy faces, and obtuse foreheads and dull looks. Bouillon, Gaudéreaux, Judsi, did they dream? Yes.... Perhaps there were visions of children and wives wandering behind the brute-like masks! For the first time I was drawn to them by a brotherly instinct.
I hazarded: "And yet it must be sad to leave some one behind...."
That started Guillaumin off; he was in an eloquent mood. He recognised the agonising character of these wars, which involved in the struggle, not mercenaries, as in olden days, nor even soldiers by profession, volunteers free of all ties, but the living substance of the nations, this youth incapable of breaking the chains of blood and of love at parting. For each[Pg 291] man in danger here, how many alarms there would be yonder in the hearts of wives and mothers! What reverberation of despair involved in each agony!
But also what consolation to feel that one was not fighting uniquely for pay or for glory, but for the safety of one's country! For what was one's country but places and people, all that one held dear? Woman above everything! Woman! All that was contained in that word! The sublime exchange of encouragement. Betrothed and wives, they all understood their r?le equally well. This cause was theirs. They had sobbed at the departure of their loved ones, but most of them had made no effort to keep them, but had only prayed Heaven to bring them back victorious.
He warmed to his subject. I listened, and approved. What a noble character he was, and what an hour in which to work upon these thoughts! The din of the battle redoubled. We caught sight of some wounded not very far away dragging themselves to the high road. Henriot signed to us. Shells were falling on a little wood less than a kilometre away from us. We were going to be engaged. I paid homage to a dear vision within me....
Guillaumin cited some examples: Poor little Frémont. He had talked to him a long time, the day before Mangiennes, about Fran?oise, his sweet Fran?oise. It was to her that he offered all the privation and weariness, for her sake that he gave proof of such a confident, charming spirit. And De Valpic! Guillaumin suspected him of holding out............