Fear (19 page)

Which leaves, then, the pleasures of the heart. The term is too romantic. Let’s be accurate: a woman. I have known a few well, in various ways. But they were young and not very free. The first difficulty is to find them again, and then to revive their feelings for me, feelings that I have not exactly helped to sustain, for they spoke of eternal, absolute emotions and at the age of twenty, caught in the war, I could not sign an emotional pact binding for the whole future. I was thinking ahead, as often happens when you try too hard to act in good faith. So those possible lovers must have taken their hearts elsewhere. A woman’s heart cannot remain unoccupied for long. The younger the hearts, the more demanding, and the more rights they claim. I didn’t want to make any promises. Promising nothing, and being far away, I fear I’ve lost them all. Love is a transaction, at least of emotions in the rarest cases: you love to get something in return. Since I wasn’t there, I couldn’t give anything. And now I can only give seven days of an infantryman, whose life is at risk. Whose career has not begun and whose heart, it must be said, is unreliable. What woman would want me? To accept this gift, she would at least have to have known me before, kept a different image of me than the one I offer in the pathetic uniform that I was given at the hospital.

That leaves the pleasure that you buy, of inferior quality but pleasure nonetheless if you can afford the luxury version. Unfortunately I have very little money, enough to buy only cut-price pleasure, the pleasure of the poor, as loathsome as eating in a cheap café. What I need is a week of opulence and all I have ahead of me is a week of scrimping.

I take my chances; I go out.

I head straight for the places where, before the war, I was sure to find friends. I look in the cafés, go up and down the same streets over and over again. Everything that made this landscape familiar has gone, my city no longer knows me, and I feel alone. Once, in clothes of my own choice, I possessed a degree of confidence that my uniform has taken away. Women turn naturally to what is glamorous and elegant: all the officers, members of the General Staff, employees from military headquarters, in their fancy outfits, who can guarantee something lasting. I am afraid to approach a woman! Soldiers must go with soldiers’ girls, and everyone knows it . . .

I wander around, at a loose end, and without much hope. I’m beginning to realise that life here has taken on a new rhythm, from which we’re excluded and which leaves no place for one of those adventures I’m dreaming of. The women are beautiful, and have a more determined look than they used to; no trace on their faces of any secret sorrow. So where are all those lovers brought to despair by the separations of war?

I have the address of one of the young women I spent some time with in 1914. I decide to go and wait near the place where she lives in the hope of catching her coming in or going out. It’s a slim chance but I have no better way of finding her.

I met Germaine D . . . yesterday evening, the fifth day of my leave. About time! I paced up and down the shop windows of a gloomy street which I knew was on her regular route home. And suddenly there she was, illuminated by a gas light. In spite of the new cut of her clothes, I recognised her walk or the way she held herself, something at least which told me it was definitely her. I watched her stranger’s face coming closer, unaware of my presence, a pensive, inscrutable face which became distinct as she approached. I stepped out into the light. She stepped back indignantly – then blushed: it was her turn to recognise me. Without any reproaches, without showing any great surprise, she simply promised me an afternoon, this afternoon. Perhaps I could even see her tomorrow, too, but – ‘Not for long, we’ve got people at home, and I can’t do what I want.’

I took her to a pied-à-terre that someone had offered me. She was gracious enough not to look too closely at this makeshift flat, nor to criticise its dubious character and anonymity. She was gracious enough, despite my neglect, to give herself without hesitation, with that air of abandon and pleasure (at last!) of sensual women, grateful for what they are experiencing. By mixing our memories with the present, she had the skill immediately to re-establish an intimacy between us that cancelled out our year apart and naturally acquired the tone of our former rendezvous. And she had the generosity not to distract us from this precious time by complaining about my silence. She accepted me as she found me and saw me as she had before. It was that above all that I sought: someone for whom I was no longer a soldier. She left me with my little bouquet pinned to her coat. ‘I am very proud of my medal!’ she said.

I am in debt to charming, unaffected Germaine for the greatest joy I experienced during my leave: a few hours of forgetting spent in her company. In future, I will write to her.

Even the worst upheavals cannot change people’s characters. This seven-day leave proved to me that my father’s narrow-minded stubbornness would never alter, whatever I was doing. And what more could I do, today, than be a soldier? Being one, was I not completely satisfying public opinion and thus raising the standing of my family?

It is true to say that I’m a malcontent hero. If I am asked about the events of the war, I have the bad and unsociable habit of describing them as I found them. This liking for truth is incompatible with civilised behaviour. Those milieus where I was received and welcomed expected me to vindicate their smug passivity by my own optimism, expected me to display that scorn for the enemy, for hardship and danger, that good humour and spirit of enterprise that are legendary and so characteristic of French soldiers, the ones you see on the covers of almanacs, debonair and smiling in a hail of bullets. Civilians like to see the war as a fine adventure, an excellent distraction for young men, an adventure that of course has its dangers but compensates for them with the joys it offers: glory, romantic encounters, freedom from everyday cares. This convenient image tranquilised consciences, legitimised profits, and also allowed people to say, ‘our hearts bleed’ while living like pigs in clover. I have little faith in those hearts which feel the suffering of others so deeply. They must be made of some very rare material. You only truly suffer in your own flesh: in the ‘flesh of your flesh’ that suffering is already a lot less, except in the case of unusually sensitive souls.

I was well aware that it would have been polite, when offered a fine meal in a luxurious establishment, to put everyone at ease by declaring that we were on our way to victory and everything at the front was going along splendidly. In return for which they would have poured me a second glass of cognac, offered me a second cigar, while saying, in that indulgent tone that is reserved for soldiers: ‘Come on now, a
poilu
like you, you won’t get cigars like this in the trenches, so don’t be shy!’ In other words: you see, nothing is refused you!

But I did not tell of exploits where the Germans got a good hammering, I froze the most lively conversations. I was ill-mannered, I made myself unbearable, and people are glad to see the back of me.

My father has insisted on accompanying me to the station this evening. We don’t have much to say to each other. We walk along the draughty platform, waiting for the train. My father is afraid of draughts, he’s turned up his coat collar and I can tell he’s impatient.

‘Don’t wait. Why catch cold for a few minutes that won’t change anything?’ I say.

‘No, no, I’ll wait!’ he answers gruffly, like a man who has decided to set an example, to do his duty to the end, whatever the personal cost.

So we exchange a few unimportant words, and I notice that he keeps glancing furtively at the station clock. My departure is at an awkward time. I am aware that if my father leaves me soon and jumps on a tram, he can still meet up with his friends at the brasserie: Friday is their day. This is surely on his mind. Naturally I cannot mention the meeting without making him angry. We are standing side by side but our thoughts are far apart. A father and son? Yes, of course. But also, especially, a man going to the front and a civilian . . . The whole war separates us, a war that I know and he does not.

At long last the train arrives, one of those squalid, noisy army trains. Again I advise my father to go, on the pretext that it will take me some time to find a seat. He accepts a compromise:

‘Yes, you’re right, you’ll be better off with your pals!’

We embrace. He stays standing in front of me for a moment, indecisively. From the way he’s drumming his fingers in the air, I can tell he has something on his mind. He shares it with me:

‘Do try to get yourself a stripe or two!’

‘I’ll try!’ I say, being conciliatory.

‘So, farewell, see you soon, I hope . . . And don’t do anything reckless out there!’ he says, without much warmth.

We embrace again. He turns and heads off quickly. Perhaps to hide his emotion . . . Before going down the steps into the underground passageway, he waves me goodbye a final time, waves in the air, a vigorous wave: the gesture of a free man . . .

I stand alone on the platform, by the train. I’m alone, with my haversack with food for two days, my water bottle, my blanket, my wallet with a bit of money close to my chest, my watch on my left wrist, my knife in the right pocket of my trousers, secured by a chain, my pocket scissors – all my worldly goods . . . I haven’t forgotten anything.

I see the great, quiet city, sleeping – the city full of people who are not in danger, happy people and elegant, vivacious young women, who are not for soldiers. I can make out the streams of light of the main avenues of the city centre, where people are having fun as if nothing abnormal was happening.

The locomotive lets out steam and I can hear the guards’ whistles. So I jump on the train quickly, into the nearest carriage. Its foul, warm breath hits me in the face, the breath of a drunkard. I step over bodies and people grumble as I try to find a place for myself. I’m back in the war . . .

DUG-IN

‘The common soldier entertains no thoughts of becoming known, and dies unnoticed, among many others; he lived very much in the same way, but still he was alive; this is one of the chief causes of the want of courage in people of low and servile condition.’

La Bruyère
(from
The ‘Characters’ of Jean de la Bruyère
, translated by Henri Van Laun, London, 188?)

1. QUIET SECTORS

‘EIGHTEEN DEGREES,’
shouts Baboin.

‘Twenty-five paces,’ I reply.

We note down the figures on a sheet of paper, then walk round a traverse. I count my strides until the next elbow in the trench, and push my stick into the ground. It has a red thread tied to it. Baboin looks through the viewfinder cut out of cardboard attached to his compass and tells me the degrees of deviation from true north; I tell him the distance. We are making a map of the sector. This entirely safe activity fills the afternoon, when we’re free, and we intend to make it last as long as possible.

Baboin, a highway engineer in civilian life, is the batman for the lieutenant commanding our company. He’s a small man with a beard and short legs, quiet and meticulous, who accepted this servant role to avoid the disadvantages of the front line. He’s attached to the lieutenant’s command post, where he more or less has the role of housekeeper: sweeping, emptying dirty water, warming up the meals, doing the dishes, washing underwear and cleaning clothes. He rarely leaves the shelter of the command post unless he’s forced to. His only pride is his small, careful handwriting, which is a perfect copy of the models of calligraphy. His script reveals a natural submissiveness and a lack of imagination which goes with his character: he follows orders with the respect of a petty bureaucrat. He explained his position to me, which is a wise one, though I don’t think I would be capable of such wisdom if it made me perform a role like his: ‘Here it’s a matter of not trying to be clever and getting home alive.’ I have pretty much the same plan, but I know that in my case it can suddenly be compromised by an outburst of temper, that some instruction that I find offensive will make me quickly lose patience, even if it endangers my life. But I don’t blame Baboin for the path he has chosen. He doesn’t seem to find it degrading, or if he does he hides it carefully. I am grateful for his friendship, which is that of an equal, and which shows itself through gifts in kind, coffee and tobacco, of which he gets a copious supply from the kitchens. He holds me in esteem because I ask him for professional advice.

When I got back to the front I was lucky enough to find a job which I owe to my social status, something that had already gained me the attention of the nurses in the hospital. I also owe it to the skeletal state of the company to which I was attached. We are reinforcements, sent to fill the holes in a regiment that has returned from Verdun, where it suffered great losses. To restore the regiment’s structure, they drew on the new arrivals, relying on the information contained in the regimental roll. The lieutenant summoned me to check that I matched my profession, and made me a runner.

Being is a runner is far better than being an ordinary squad soldier, which is ‘the lowest of trades’. Every man’s ambition is to get out of the squad. There are only two ways: get some stripes or get a job. In the middle of 1916 it’s too late to try to move up through the ranks and the only chance of rapid promotion is in the attack units, where NCOs and officers are quickly decimated. But in units like these, being an NCO or junior officer does nothing to reduce the risks and offers few advantages. And anyway we’re all civilians, only temporary soldiers, and whatever rank we may reach, our intention is to go home when the war is over – soon, we hope. The ambition that might have driven a sergeant in 1800 is denied us: field-marshals don’t come from the ranks any more. This war brings no distinction, no advancement to those who risk their lives, it doesn’t pay. For all these reasons, jobs are more sought-after than stripes. A cook is considered better off than the leader of a battalion in a great many cases and a company commandant can envy a colonel’s secretary. A man who leaves for divisional headquarters is considered saved, without any doubt. He may still get killed, but it would be accidentally, by fate, like civilians can get run over or die in an earthquake. The problem for soldiers was how to get away from the front line, from the parapets and loopholes, how to avoid lookout duty, grenades, bullets, shells, to find a way back through the lines to the rear. You do this, and get a degree of safety, by becoming a telephonist, a signaller, a carrier pigeon handler, cyclist, observer, secretary, cook, interpreter, stretcher-bearer, sapper, etc. Those who got such jobs, ‘cushy numbers’, were called
dug-ins
[
25
] by the men of the forward pickets beyond the front lines. As soon as you leave the front line, you belong to the dug-ins, a category with many branches extending right up to the Ministry of War and General Army HQ. Once you’ve been ‘dug in’ your greatest dread is to be sent back to the squad.