Fear (20 page)

So I am, to an extent, a dug-in. And therefore, unless something unexpected happens, my days as a bomber are over. I thank my lucky stars, because my unfortunate initiation the previous year has put me off fighting with hand grenades for good.

There are four runners (one per platoon), always at the beck and call of the company commandant, either to accompany him or to take his orders to the front line and bring back information. I am also secretary and topographer, when needed. These extra duties got me dispensation from fatigues.

Every evening at about six o’clock I go to battalion HQ to make a copy of the day’s report for the company logbook. It’s a twenty-minute walk through a deserted zone.

I return later along a pleasant path known as the
Reaper Trench
. There’s nothing grim about this reaper – the name comes from an old piece of farm machinery half-buried in the ground. The trench isn’t deep and on one side you have a view across a broad meadow covered in wild flowers; in this month of June you can breathe in the sweet scent of the countryside. Mountain breezes make the grass ripple and wave like corn before harvest in peacetime. On the horizon the sun goes down over the dark pine forests like a hot-air balloon in flames on a holiday evening. On the other side of the trench the war is slumbering, but the sleeper can awake at any moment and treacherously dispatch the bucolic calm of the sunset, like a sentry caught unawares, crowning our positions with fire. This constant menace adds to the solemnity of the dusk.

We are occupying a rest sector in the Vosges where there was a lot of fighting a few months ago for possession of a few ridges that we now hold. This battle has lent a tragic aspect to the landscape, with piles of broken, twisted equipment and collapsed shelters, mysterious and silent like ancient burial grounds, dark and damp as catacombs. But still the men have got a bit of peace, and vegetation has reconquered the land, covering it with creepers and shoots and pistils and colours, spreading its blanket of perfumes that have driven out the smell of corpses, bringing its train of insects, butterflies, birds and lizards to dart and dance across this now benevolent battlefield.

Along the trenches overhanging plants brush our faces, and on the right of the sector, well back from the lines, I’ve found a place where no one goes, a place so green it dazzles you. The wind murmurs in the leaves of tall trees, still standing, and a pure stream cascades merrily over the rocks, before disappearing into the brush. It is there I live out the hours I steal from the war.

Down in the valley a road runs between the German trenches and ours, a distance of three hundred metres, a pretty, country road, bordered with spindly plane trees and covered with the fallen leaves from last autumn, a road forbidden on pain of death.

This empty highway has great charm and though men cannot venture on to it, their thoughts can wander there. As the mist of morning clears, the ploughmen in their look-out posts must be waiting for the crack of whips and clanking of harnesses as the horses are led to the fields. In the evening it can become a forsaken avenue leading to some mysterious castle, where ancient shades roam in the twilight beneath the trees. What makes this road so striking is that it leads nowhere, if not to the unreal, to peaceful places that now exist only in memory. Between the two armies, the phantom road offers a silent path for dreams.

At a desolate crossroads, I found an old metal Christ-figure, stained with rust like dried blood. On its stone plinth, scarred by bullets, a clumsy hand had scrawled: ‘evacuate to rear’. I do not think there was anything blasphemous in it, no allusion to the divinity of the subject. The soldier wanted to say that the man on the cross had already paid his debt and had no further reason to remain at the front. Or perhaps he had wanted to show that, to have the right to be evacuated, you must have suffered agony, like the agony of Christ, in all your limbs, in your body and your heart.

Our front line runs along the foot of the mountain whose heights we control. Battalion and company HQs are spread out on the plateau, and a reserve company is stationed behind, in the forest. We overlook the German trenches that run round the ruins of the hamlet of Launois. Our over-extended sector is defended by sentries provided by the platoons to cover the flanks, posted at fifty to hundred-metre intervals. Very little artillery fire comes our way. Once a week, four German guns sprinkle us with about thirty shells. Once that’s over, we can be sure we will be undisturbed for another week. Our own shelling is more random. From our second lines that snake round the cornice, I sometimes see shells from our 75s hitting the German earthworks or bursting in the countryside. But neither side is trying desperately hard; the gunners are simply carrying out exercises, because it is still a war and in war you fire guns. Nonetheless, one has to watch out for an unlucky shell: ‘Those stupid bastards are quite capable of blowing you up for a laugh!’ And recently we were almost victims of our own stupid carelessness for scorning these periodic bombardments: a 77 burst in the wall of the trench, three metres from where we were standing.

As for the infantry, it does its best to avoid disturbing such a peaceful and pleasantly rural sector. Any provocations won’t come from us, unless orders from the rear force us to be aggressive. Activity is limited to rigorous sentry duty, fairly relaxed in the daytime, more attentive at night. We have got used to this sector and all we want is to stay here.

Every two days, a cyclist goes down to get supplies in the village of Saint-Dié. The following day he tours the shelters with his packs like a travelling salesman, distributing shoelaces, pipes, mirrors, combs, soap, toothpaste, notepaper, postcards, tobacco, and jotting down new orders like a proper tradesman.

Each group sends a man laden with water bottles to the canteen and he comes back after a three-hour walk, with thirty or forty kilos of wine hanging from his belt and shoulders. These devoted comrades are usually drunkards and one can be sure that generous sampling en route has lightened their load. ‘Reckon we can hold out here all right!’ say the men.

My duties allow me considerable freedom. In the mornings I sleep in, after staying up late, and by the time I’ve finished washing in a bowl, breakfast arrives. In the afternoons I set off with Baboin. And in the evenings, back at battalion HQ, I work alongside the lieutenant drawing up a map of the sector, using our notes and measurements. Around eleven I take my cane, a revolver and a gas mask, and make a tour of the trenches to find out what’s happening and gather accounts of the day’s events. If any grenades are going off ahead of us or if there is machine-gunning (they use enfilade fire against some communication trenches), I wake up a comrade. If it’s a calm night – as it usually is – I walk alone. I go along the front lines, identifying myself to sentries who recognise my steps and my voice in the darkness, and exchange a few words with them. When I’m not in a hurry, I may stop and keep one of them company for a moment. Sitting on the fire-step, our heads above the parapet, we look out at the night, listen for sounds. I have discussions with the platoon leaders, who wait for me at agreed times. An hour later I wake up our company commandant, a primary school teacher who treats his men cordially and his staff with a hint of camaraderie: ‘Nothing to report, sir!’ ‘All quiet around the 3rd platoon?’ ‘Completely quiet, sir!’ When it rains, I heat up the last of the coffee on Baboin’s spirit lamp. I bid goodnight to the lookout who has his post ten metres from there, and I return to our shelter where my three comrades are snoring.

One night I woke with a start; someone was shaking me roughly. I groaned, eyes still shut. A voice quivering with rage said: ‘Jump to it, for christ’s sake!’

It was the voice of Beaucierge, the runner for the 1st platoon, a good lad, rough and ready, who did not usually speak to me like that.

‘What’s got into you?’ I demanded, crossly.

‘The Boche are at the front line . . . We’ve got to go and see what’s happening.’

What? . . . I understood: his voice wasn’t quivering with rage but with panic. Still befuddled by sleep, I got my kit together mechanically, in silence. Outside, the night air was cool on my forehead and eyelids. There were no sounds of fighting. Had the enemy already occupied the forward trench?

‘Where are these Boche?’

‘No one knows. We got to go and look.’

‘Who said we must go and look?’

‘The lieutenant.’

Dirty business! I remember the embankment in Artois. I slip some grenades in my pockets, tighten my chinstrap, cock my pistol which I keep in my hand . . . who’s going first?

‘You know the trenches better,’ claims Beaucierge.

Behind me I hear him sliding the bolt on his rifle, which he holds in one hand like they do in the colonial infantry.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Putting a round in the chamber.’

‘Oh no, old pal, I don’t want to get a bullet in my arse! In that case, you go in front . . .’

He prefers to remove the bullet. I move forward slowly, to give myself time to think: we have a choice of three routes to reach the front lines. I finally make up my mind:

‘We’ll take the covered trench.’

It’s an old underground trench, constructed by the Germans, and comes out by the shelter of the leader of the 2nd platoon. If we are at all uncertain we can use our torches to see what’s happening. We advance nervously, trying not to make a sound. The silence of the night is more terrifying than the sound of a grenade fight, which would at least tell us where the danger was. All of a sudden the underground trench opens up in front of us like a trapdoor. We go down a few steps, we lose sight of the sky which guided us, we descend into darkness. Holding one hand out in front of us, feeling the trench wall, we step forward one foot at a time, not putting any weight down until we are sure the ground is solid. It’s fifty metres to the first elbow in the trench, after that it descends straight ahead. It takes us an infinitely long time to cover this distance. All we can hear is our breathing and our heartbeats. Beaucierge (clumsy as ever, the dolt!) bangs into something with his rifle. We freeze in terror, and stay stock still for a minute, dreading the flashes of fire that may be about to pierce the blackness.

But now here we are at the curve . . . Further down, some sixty metres ahead, a faint light glimmers, and we can make out the murmur of voices. What voices? I stop my companion with my hand.

‘We’ll call out.’

‘What if it’s the Boche?’

‘Then we’ll know it. Better than walking straight into them.’

I call and the answer comes: ‘Who goes there?’

‘France!’

Soon the beam of my torch reveals a man who is one of ours. Phew! . . . We run up to him in relief. Down in the shelter, everyone is on the alert.

‘So what happened to the Boche?’

‘They’ve left again.’

We learn that three Germans jumped into our trench and attacked a lone sentry who, though taken by surprise, managed to shout the alarm. Luckily, not far to his right, Chassignole was still awake, and he is a man who doesn’t easily lose his nerve. Chassignole is the one who claims that the damp gets into grenades and half of them don’t work. After striking the exterior percussion cap he would hold the grenade up to his ear to make sure that the fuse was burning properly inside: a method of verification that could take your head off! If you pointed out his recklessness, he’d say: ‘You’ve got five seconds, plenty of time!’ So Chassignole started running at the Boches, throwing his famous grenades, his favourite weapon. The attackers took fright, jumped back over the parapet, and disappeared into the night.

The sentry is in a corner of the shelter, still dazed from a blow from a revolver butt that cut his head. We congratulate him for raising the alarm and not letting himself be taken prisoner. It’s agreed that the raid was well planned and could have succeeded, that the Germans had found the weak point in our positions. It seems likely that their patrols had been observing the movements of our reliefs for several nights. And we are careless: sentries make a noise and light cigarettes without any precautions. Always hiding doesn’t suit our temperament.

This was the first event to disturb the calm of the sector for a month. From now on, we will also patrol in front of our lines.

We have decided to celebrate the Fourteenth of July. The Republic has already given the troops one cigar and one orange each, and a bottle of sparkling wine for every four men, but we would hope for something a bit better in the way of festivities than this meagre generosity. The lieutenant had the idea of organising a fireworks display for that night, using flares; he had to abandon the idea of coloured flares in case it alerted the artillery. A conspicuous spot was chosen, in an abandoned trench, and the runners went to tell the platoons so that they could enjoy the show, and also keep on the alert in case the enemy reacted. In the end, it isn’t so much a display of patriotism as a means to break the monotony of our lives for a few short moments.

A little before the event is due to start the lieutenant leaves his shelter accompanied by his runner, his batman, some quartermasters and observers. A dozen flares are arranged in a semicircle next to the parapet. At exactly ten o’clock we light the touch-papers. The flares whistle up into the night, and turn into twelve flickering light bulbs, spreading a pale, luminous dome beneath them. A few flares answer us from the opposite lines. We stare in wonder at this new lunar landscape, and, after counting three, we all shout ‘Vive la France!’ But our shouts are lost in the ring of mountains looming in the darkness and have no echo. The flares die, and our artificial joy goes out with them. No sound come from the German trenches, silence and darkness reclaim the land. We’re disappointed. The party’s over . . .

The only onslaught in this sector is of paperwork. The men at the rear bombard us with notes, and not a day goes by without the company having to provide the battalion, always as a matter of urgency, with reports and inventories, on stocks of food and munitions, on supplies of clothing, on specialists suitable for one task or another, on fathers of a certain number of children, etc. So much, indeed, that the runners are always dashing about to keep up with all the nonsense.