Sunday, 15th November.

The feelings of utter exhaustion which come over us from time to time do not last long. You think yourself at the last gasp, and yet the following day you are as fresh as possible.

This morning we are taken in charge by Madame Gillot, who lodged us on the 9th October. We receive a warm welcome—

"What, you are all alive!"

Milliard, the postman, brings us over twenty parcels; we are admirably revictualled both in food and in warm clothing.

Monday, 16th November.

Reymond\'s birthday; he is thirty years of age. To celebrate the occasion, we organize a special lunch.

In the afternoon the lieutenant reviews each man\'s supplies of food: his haversack, spread open at his feet, must exhibit to the officer\'s vigilant eye two tins of corned beef, a dozen biscuits, two little bags containing sugar, coffee, and two tablets of condensed soup.

[Pg 159]

One of our men has neither biscuits nor corned beef. Questioning glance of the lieutenant. Evasive gesture of the man, who immediately stands at attention.

"Have you eaten your two tins of corned beef?"

A sign of assent.

"Your biscuits too, naturally?"

Another sign of assent.

"Ah! And why did you eat your tins of corned beef?"

"Mon lieutenant, one evening I was hungry...."

"Better and better! If the men begin to eat their reserve supplies whenever they are hungry, there will be no army left!"

That evening we laughingly relate the incident to Belin. Being an old soldier, he cannot get over it.

"Eat one\'s reserve supplies without orders! If he had been in the Foreign Legion he would have received eight days\' prison for every biscuit missing. The lieutenant was right.... You have your dozen biscuits and two tins, at all events?"

"Of course, don\'t make such a fuss."

Belin makes a friendly review to assure himself of the fact.

Thin and sharp-featured, his capote well brushed and stretched, and the lower part of his trousers rolled inside his leggings, Belin exhibits subtle poisings of his body and impressive movements of his arm as he points to the sky. He knows[Pg 160] how to shout out the "H? Mohamed!" the rallying cry intended to reach the ears of the comrade who has gone astray.

The ways and manners of civilians in warfare baffle him considerably. Roberty would say to him—

"Strange how much you lack understanding of Parisian humour and fun."

Belin, however, is a brave fellow, he has travelled, read, and fought a great deal. Though we pay him a certain deference, we are very fond of him.

Tuesday, 17th November.

As we are resting we become somewhat like civilians, and await the news with an anxiety unknown at the front, where one\'s horizon is limited to a field of beetroots.

The papers bring fresh details of the frightful battles of the Yser. The German offensive seems to have been broken. What will they attempt now?

This morning our attack of the 12th is honoured by the following communiqué: "We have made slight progress between Crouy and Vregny." Multum in parvo. Here\'s something to make us proud, but more especially something to make us modest and patient when we think of what those men are going through who are fighting in the North, living and dying in the thick of it all. It is they who are the real heroes.

From the letters we receive it is manifest that[Pg 161] we also are regarded as heroes; people will insist on considering as a gigantic struggle our life as navvies and troglodytes! How absurd! Such lavish use should not be made of these fine expressions, so well deserved by those who have fought at Ypres, Nieuport, and Dixmude.

Here, too, we may deserve them some day. Meanwhile, let us do a little gardening.

Wednesday, 18th November.

We leave Acy to return to the trenches. Madame Gillot stands lamenting at her door.

"Ah! my poor men, I wonder if I shall ever see you again?"

"Very good of you to think of us, Madame Gillot."

The company occupies a new sector in the front line. No dug-outs here, the ground is too hard to do anything. We take sentry duty in the middle of the beetroots, in a sort of trough dug in the ground, twenty yards in front of the trench. It is snowing.

Thursday, 19th November.

At dawn hoar-frost covers the whole field. A little beyond the barbed wire are three small mounds, covered with snow: the bodies of those of the 24th who died. It is freezing hard, so we stamp our feet on the ground. Red faces emerge from passe-montagnes. I carefully press my nose between my woollen-gloved fingers; the sensation of feeling the warmth come gently back is[Pg 162] delicious. A few cannon shots from time to time, as though to explain our presence here.

The day is spent in walking as quickly as possible between the two frozen walls of the trench. When I cross Reymond, each of us, before turning round, gravely salutes the other and says: "Buon di! Buon di!" like the grotesque doctors in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac.

The company, returning to the grotto to sleep, brings back the bodies of eight men, killed on the 12th and picked up between the lines, thanks to the heroism of an auxiliary doctor named Wallon.

Yesterday I received a sleeping-bag made of a kind of soft oil-cloth, lined with flannel: a notable event in a soldier\'s life. This evening, wrapped in my cover, I enter my sleeping-bag and pull down the edges over my head.

Friday, 20th November.

The trees are now entirely stripped of leaves. The country looks cold and dismal.

The eight bodies are laid out in a line in front of the grotto: the second time we have had such a sight before our eyes. This one is Mallet, who was on guard with us in the train which brought us to the depot. He was a little stout fellow, quiet and taciturn, with a brown beard. War was not at all his vocation, and he would frequently remark with a sigh: "I am certain I shall be killed."

Ill-omened words which should never be spoken.

[Pg 163]

Mallet wore a medallion on his breast.... The night before the attack he had said quietly to a friend—

"If I die, send this medallion to my wife."

The friend now tenderly unclasps it from his capote. As this latter is being removed from the body, the cloth, covered with frozen mud, is as stiff as cardboard.

After a prolonged examination we recognize Corporal Lion, whose good-natured face has been rendered unrecognizable by a wound. He is another who, speaking of his young wife and children and his past happiness, had imprudently said: "It\'s all over with me.... I shall never come back!..." There is some difficulty in taking from his shrivelled finger the wedding-ring, the gold of which still shines a little beneath the enveloping mud.

Our nerves are now too hardened for such a sight to affect them. Emotion has become calm and considerate, and each of us thinks—

"Well, if I were in his place, would there be around my body nothing but this cold and gloom of winter?"

The sergeant summons me along with Reymond and Maxence to go on cemetery duty—

"Take a shovel or a pick and go down to Bucy."

In the old cemetery surrounding the church, a lieutenant indicates the spot where we must dig a grave for eight men.

We set to work.

[Pg 164]

Shortly afterwards a tumbrel brings along the bodies. Two attendants lay them out in a line. Meanwhile, the hole is growing larger. Our shovels encounter old rust-coloured bones, and even an entire skull, which is deposited on the edge of the grave.

At eleven o\'clock the work is finished; we return to the grotto for lunch. Above Bucy a duel is being fought between a French and a German aeroplane; the rapid sharp cracks of a mitrailleuse reach our ears. Suddenly a jet of flame streams from the German machine, which makes straight for the north, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. It is hit; the French machine, after circling around, follows after.

On reaching the grotto we learn that the enemy bird fell within our lines on the Maubeuge road. The pilot has succeeded in making good his escape, but our 75\'s have opened fire upon the machine, which is still burning.

At five in the evening the section is guarding the telephone at Pont-Rouge, on the Bucy road. The light infantry have constructed a hut, which will just hold ten men. Three very comfortable bedsteads, and in one corner a rustic-looking chimney-place, where a magnificent fire sheds its genial warmth. Here we come to roast ourselves in turn, in the intervals of sentry duty.

The cold is bitter; the mud of the beaten track is frozen hard. The roads themselves bristle with clods of frozen earth.

The Pont-Rouge road, which leads direct to the[Pg 165] enemy, who is entrenched three hundred yards away, is blocked by a rampart of sand-bags. These bags are covered with blood. It was here that the 5th Battalion, on the 12th of this month, deposited their wounded and dead. A few broken rifles heaped up along the copse, pêle-mêle with various military equipment.

Balls whistle in our ears; sometimes they ricochet on the frozen ground and glance off with a singing sound.

Saturday, 21st November.

To-night the thermometer is 13° Centigrade below zero. I have slept very well, in the open air, rolled in canvas wrappings at the bottom of the trench. On waking I see Jacquard\'s hirsute beard, kind innocent eyes and red nose. The rest of his face is swathed in chestnut-coloured wool. Quick, my bottle and a good mouthful of brandy. Just in time, for the cold has surprised us during the night and frozen me to the very bones. I pick up my can, which I had laid aside during sleep: it is full of icicles. The coffee is frozen.

The cold has brought out a number of fantastic costumes. One of my comrades looks like a bashi-bazouk, another like a chorus singer in Boris Godounow. To write a letter I put on great red woollen gloves, a grey muffler, and a blue passe-montagne. I also wear trousers of green velvet; the effect being quite good.

All the same, it must not be imagined that we look disguised. At muster, the blue uniform re[Pg 166]appears and the usual military aspect of things; we remain soldiers beneath our fantastic accoutrement, having all become so without an effort of will. Adaptation to the drudgery and difficulties of the profession comes about insensibly.

Luckily, the wind is not blowing in the direction of the trench; but the enemy\'s bullets pour in a raking fire. Maxence, who is extremely tall and too careless to bend down, just misses being killed on two occasions. His calm is most exasperating. We shriek at him—

"Sale rosse! I suppose you\'ll be happy when you\'ve got a bullet through your head. And you think it will be a joke for us to carry you away dead, a giant like you?"

"He weighs at least a hundred and eighty pounds," growls Jacquard, who is a dwarf in comparison.

After all, frost is better than rain and mud.

Sunday, 22nd November.

The squadron\'s new quarters at Bucy are not very luxurious: an abandoned building, considerably broken up, windows smashed, doors and casements torn away. Along a narrow flight of stairs, we gain access to two square rooms.

Fortunately the people next door are willing to lodge us. Inside the wide street-door is a little yard; to the right, a rabbit-hutch which is empty; to the left, a ground-floor room with cellar and loft. Doubtless the house is protected from enfilade firing, for it has remained standing, though[Pg 167] a 77 has made a slight breach in it, above a sign-post on which we read: "Achain, mattress-maker."

We enter, meeting with a cordial reception.

"It\'s a poor place," says the woman, whose round face is framed in a black shawl, "but we will give you every attention."

Poor, indeed! Nothing of the kind. The windows are unbroken, the roof intact, the doors will shut, and there is a fire in the stove. In a small room a couple of beds and a mattress laid on the floor are to be placed at our disposal.

The owners of the house sleep in the cellar. The consequence is that we are masters for the time being, one of the advantages-perhaps the only one—of the bombardment.

Numbers of parcels arrive. Beneath the stupefied gaze of the Achains, we unpack tins of preserved food, which Jules arranges on a sideboard. Jules explains that we belong to the most refined and select classes of society. It is a mania of his to proclaim everywhere that we are persons of distinction. We make our appearance, tired to death and covered with mud, bundled up in mufflers, with shaggy cadaverous faces, carrying rifles, haversacks, pipes, mud, and making a horrible clatter. Our hosts, troubled by such an invasion, at first manifest a certain degree of reserve, but Jules speedily finds reassuring words; he exhorts us to mend our manners, and pays court to the ladies. A most valuable fellow, Jules!

He is a native of Franche-Comté. Evidently[Pg 168] this district does not produce thin sorry-looking specimens of humanity. Jules possesses the frame and physique of a wrestler. His big shining face, flanked with enormous ears, is illumined by two small eyes which give the impression that he may be a very difficult person to deal with.

Jules is a born orderly. He has far more opportunities for exercising his subtlety behind the trenches than on the line; his vocation is to supply us with stores from outside the recognized limits. When on this quest, he fears no one and will go anywhere.

In September he had not been a couple of hours on duty before giving proof of his abilities: he found Roberty\'s canteen, which had gone astray during the retreat, replenished our store of tobacco, and brought back with him a rabbit, a fowl, three litres of wine and a bottle of spirits.

"You can put this latter into your coffee," he said; "it will then be worth drinking."

On the day we enticed him away, Jules, having lost his lieutenant, had also lost his position as orderly, and forfeiting his privileges occupied a lower position in the ranks. The adjutant, whose offers he had scorned, told him dryly that he would return to the squadron without any position at all. Jules did not like disputes, and pretended to submit to his destiny. He resumed his place in the squadron, though only to occupy himself with our personal affairs, in spite of officials, roll-calls and laws.

The personal affairs of six soldiers in the second[Pg 169] class do not seem a very serious matter, especially in such busy times. Still, it took all Jules\' activity to attend to them.

"I say, old fellow, we are coming down from the outposts this evening and sleeping in the village. Run along and find us a house."

Jules pretends to be considerably embarrassed. He raises his arms, takes his képi between his first finger and thumb, and scratching his head with his other three fingers, says—

"That\'s just your way! Jules, find me this, or Jules, find me that! This very morning, Jules cut the roll-call to do your messages, and the corporal marked him absent."

"Come! come! not so much talk. We shall be in the village by nightfall. You must get there before us. We rely on you for beds and dinner."

"What if I am caught by the gendarmes? Or suppose I meet the colonel?"

Then we appeal to his vanity—

"You can easily outwit all the gendarmes in the place. And a fellow like you is clever enough to make up some plausible tale that will satisfy the colonel."

An appeal is also made to his interests. Nothing further is needed, and when, five minutes afterwards, some one calls for Jules, he has disappeared.

The lodging is found and dinner in full swing. Jules confides to the company in general—

"At first the mistress refused to lodge six[Pg 170] soldiers. But I talked her round. Besides, I gave her to understand that you were real gentlemen."

The natives of the South of France may be braggarts; anyhow, this one from the Franche-Comté could easily give them points. If mention is made of a farmer\'s wife or even of some lady of the manor within a radius of ten leagues, Jules begins to cluck like a hen, to slap his hands on his thighs, and with appropriate gestures he gives us to understand that he knows the lady in question very well indeed.

In his own district he was attached to a farm, and in his leisure hours he most certainly gave himself up to poaching.

Not on account of the war will he abandon his petty occupations. No, indeed, something must be done to break the monotony of trench life.

From time to time, in spite of gendarmes and regulations, Jules trips over to Soissons. He returns with an entire bazaar in his musettes.

"I sell it all again, you know, at cost price," he explains. "There are times when I lose."

"Of course!"

The other day he brought back a small hunting carbine. He also managed to procure the whole paraphernalia required for making snares and traps.

He is away for hours at a time, prowling about the woods, risking a court-martial a score of times, all to bring back a few tom-tits. On his return, blood and feathers are sticking to his fingers.

[Pg 171]

"You savage!" exclaims Verrier. "Doesn\'t war provide you with sufficient opportunities to satisfy your bloodthirsty instincts? Why should you go and kill tiny birds like these?"

"Don\'t cry over it; I am going to cook them for you, along with a few slices of bacon...."

To-day, thanks to Jules, we are en famille with the Achains. The little girl, ten years of age, has pretty blue eyes and light hair, confined in a black shawl, like her mother\'s. She looks at haversacks, rifles, and musettes, and asks in drawling accents—

"Do you really carry all these things on your back?"

Indeed, the haversacks do look of a respectable size: on the top the cover, rolled in the sleeping-bag; to the left, a tent canvas; to the right, a rubber mantle; in the middle, a cooking utensil; inside, linen and tobacco, a thread and needle-case, slippers, a large packet of letters, and reserve provisions. The whole weighs nearly thirty-five pounds. The musettes, too, are of enormous bulk, swollen with provisions, toilet utensils, a ball of bread, evidently so called because it is flat, spirit-flask, knife, fork, and spoon, a tin plate, and lastly a few packets of cartridges. At the bottom is a confused mass of tobacco and matches, bread-crumbs, and earth.

Sergeant Chaboy announces en passant—

"Be ready at five o\'clock, my boys. It is the section\'s turn to act as artillery support at the Montagne farm."

[Pg 172]

The Germans are beginning to fire upon the village. At four o\'clock the bombardment is at its height. Impossible to remain in the streets.

The light begins to fade, and the projectiles become fewer and fewer. The section musters.

The Montagne farm is isolated right in the centre of a plain which overlooks Bucy, and on which several batteries of our 75\'s have been installed.

Every day the Germans pour showers of projectiles on to the position. This evening their shells set fire to a straw-rick. The flames illumine the whole summit, throw into relief the desolate outlines of the trees, and project their lurid reflections on to the surrounding buildings. We hear the crackling of the straw as the flaming sprays are carried away in the distance. The section slowly advances towards the farm in columns of twos. We halt on reaching a stable, where we find a quantity of thick litter. All the better, for it is bitterly cold; several degrees below zero.

At midnight I am on guard with Reymond in front of the door. It is a clear, starry night. We hide ourselves in a corner against one of the pillars of the doorway, to obtain shelter from the icy north wind. Here we stand for a couple of hours. What is there for us to do? We begin by expressing, as Anatole France says: "most innocent thoughts in most crude terms."

Away in the distance the dull roar of a cannon. The shrieking sound draws nearer.

[Pg 173]

"Appears as though it were meant for us!"

The shell whirls past and bursts a hundred yards from the door.

A grunt of satisfaction on finding that the explosion has taken place at a safe distance.

One observation: the shrieking of shells almost at the end of their course reminds one of the howl of a dog baying the moon.

Shots follow one another. Every minute the distant "boom," then the hissing sound, which gradually grows more intense, and finally the explosion, a rending crash close at hand, followed by vibrations and the noise of broken branches. Not the slightest refuge for us.

"Not often have I been annoyed as I am this evening," remarks one of us.

"Nor I either!" remarks the other.

"They might have waited till we had finished sentry duty before bombarding us."

Renewed explosions. The door slightly opens, and the head of Corporal Chevalier appears.

"Is the bombardment pretty violent?"

"Bah! Nothing extraordinary."

"The fact is—the lieutenant has sent me to say that, if things begin to look too serious, you may return. Useless to get killed for nothing."

We would gladly have profited by the permission. Chevalier, however, does not belong to our squadron. Consequently we politely reply—

"All right, corporal, our best thanks to the lieutenant. We may as well finish our watch."

[Pg 174]

Chevalier\'s head disappears. The door shuts. Fresh shells.

"How stupid of us to swagger in this way!" we reflect.

On coming to relieve us, the two following sentries, after muffling themselves up by lantern light, ask—

"A pretty heavy bombardment just now, eh?"

I have the audacity to reply—

"Ah! We did not even pay attention to it, we were talking."

And so, "La tempeste finie, Panurge faict le bon compaignon," as Rabelais said.

Monday, 23rd November.

The lieutenant appears at the door and calls out—

"Everybody under shelter, to the grottoes. The bombardment is beginning again."

At that moment, indeed, a projectile dashes down upon one of the farm buildings, smashing in the stable roof. To reach the grottoes we have to run a hundred yards through the darkness. We are in the open. Those who have candles light them. Tableau. The grotto has been transformed into a sheep-fold. Several hundreds of sheep are moving to and fro, bleating all the time in stupid fashion.

Meanwhile, the German artillery is raining upon the farm and its outhouses. A fowl is killed on a dunghill by a shrapnel ball. What with the boom of the cannon and the bleating of the sheep,[Pg 175] the hours pass very slowly. Reymond, however, pilots us over the grotto as though it were a gallery of Roman catacombs. Provided with a piece of candle, he mumbles away like a sexton: "Questo è la tomba di santa Cecilia; tutto marmo antico!" When the cannonade stops, out in the yard he organizes a fancy bullfight, in which each of us, supplied with the necessary accessories, in turn impersonates the bull, the espada, the banderillero, the picador, or the disembowelled steed.

We play like schoolboys at recreation time, until we are quite out of breath with laughter and exertion, and then sit down on the very spot around which shells have so recently been falling.

The Prussians have fired forty thousand francs\' worth of munitions and have killed a fowl, which, by the way, our own gunners have eaten!

On the section returning to Bucy, the general impression is summed up in the remark—

"After all, it has been rare sport!"

Tuesday, 24th November.

Snow is falling, and so we remain indoors. The postman\'s visit forms our only distraction. After yesterday\'s uproar the guns are quiet to-day. No set of men are ever so capricious as gunners. The inhabitants of Bucy, who have spent a day and a night crouching in their cellars, walk about the streets this afternoon as though everything were once more normal. There is little damage[Pg 176] done to the streets, since the Germans mainly fired with their 77\'s.

Wednesday, 25th November.

A lieutenant is chatting at the hospital door with the major. All of a sudden he falls to the ground. We gather round him, and find that he has received a bullet in the abdomen. The street opposite the hospital being perpendicular to the German trenches, spent bullets sometimes take it in enfilade, and an accident happens.

During roll-call, which takes place in the main street, a shrapnel explodes on a neighbouring house. Broken tiles rain down upon us. Instinctively we "form a carapace." The lieutenant has not stirred a muscle. "Surely," he remarks, "you are not going to get excited over a little falling dirt. Attention!" We all line up and stand at attention. The next moment the ranks are broken, and each man returns to his quarters, laughing and joking at the incident.

After all, we make a jest of everything. This is the secret of that dash and enthusiasm boasted of in the official communiqués, and about which civilians must have the most vague ideas. The good humour that has stood a campaign of four months must be in the grain; at all............