Fear (22 page)

They approach the terrible conflict with a simple logic. The following exchange can give some idea of this. I had gone to get information from a sentry in a forward post. It was raining hard. The man was standing in the mud, dripping wet.

‘There’ll never be an end to this shit!’ he grumbled.

‘Yes there will, old pal, it can’t go on forever.’

‘Oh jesus! . . . If they stuck old Joffre here in my hole, and old Hindenburg opposite, with the lads on both sides cheering the bastards on, they’d soon sort out their bloody war!’

If you think about it, this reasoning isn’t as simplistic as it seems. Indeed it’s full of human truth, a truth that the
poilus
also express like this:
It’s always the same ones that get themselves killed!

The idea of duty varies according to one’s place in the hierarchy, one’s rank, and the dangers one faces. Among soldiers it comes down to a simple solidarity between men, in a shell-hole or a trench, a solidarity that doesn’t consider the campaign as a whole or its aims, and isn’t inspired by what we like to call ideals, but by the needs of the moment. As such, it can lead to self-sacrifice, and men risk their lives to help their comrades. The further one gets from the front, the more the idea of duty is separated from risk. In the highest ranks, it is entirely theoretical, a pure intellectual game. It merges with concern for one’s responsibilities, reputation, and advancement, unites personal success with national success, which are in opposition for those doing the fighting. And it is used against subordinates just as much as the enemy. A particular conception of duty among men who possess unlimited power and not a trace of sensitivity to temper their doctrines can lead to vile abuses, both military and disciplinary. Such as this one, a decision made by a certain General N— worthy of Robespierre in its glacial ruthlessness, described to me by a corporal-telephonist sitting in front of his switchboard.

He had just been transmitting messages, his headphones over his ears, and I was asking him how the equipment worked.

‘Can you hear what people are saying?’

‘At a central exchange, yes. I just have to arrange the plugs on the board in a certain way.’

‘Have you ever overheard any unusual conversations, ones that might reveal something useful about the war?’

‘You learn more about people than events on the telephone. Important orders, unless they’re very urgent, are sent in writing . . . But yes, sure, I remember one short, and tragic conversation. This was back in autumn ’14, when I was telephonist for the division, before we were withdrawn. First you need to know that a soldier had been court-martialled. He had gone to the quartermaster to ask for new trousers to replace his, which were ripped. Clothing was in very short supply. The quartermaster gives him trousers that had belonged to a dead soldier, still bloodstained. Naturally enough, the chap is disgusted. “Take them, that’s an order,” says the quartermaster. He refuses. An officer turns up and tells the quartermaster to charge him with disobeying an order. Court martial straight away . . . Now, back to my telephone call. The colonel of the regiment asks to be connected to the general. I put him through, and listen in without thinking: “This is colonel X . . . Sir, the court martial has issued its judgement in the matter that you already know about, but I need to consult you because it seems to me that there are extenuating circumstances . . . The court martial has sentenced him to death. Don’t you think, sir, that a death sentence is really too harsh, and that it should be reconsidered? . . . ” Now listen to the general’s answer:
“Yes, you’re right, it’s harsh, very harsh
. . . [There’s a pause, long enough to count to fifteen.]
So, the execution will take place tomorrow morning, do the necessary.
” Not another word.’

‘They shot him?’

‘They shot him!’

I know of course that General N— was only thinking of the national interest, the maintenance of discipline, the solidity of the army. I know that he acted in the name of the highest principles. But when the ordinary soldier here at the front considers the fact that in the name of the very same principles, with the same inhuman rigour, the same dogmatic certainty, this same general will take similar military decisions affecting thousands of individuals, then he can only shake with fear!

There is a man in the company who was at the Butte de Vauquois, the centre of the infamous ‘mine war’. He tells of how in 1915 he witnessed an attack with flame-throwers aimed at capturing this disputed hill. The Paris fire brigade were brought to set it up. Tanks for the inflammable liquid were placed in a gully and pipes laid along trenches connecting them to the flame-throwers. The enterprise might have succeeded had it not been for the stubbornness of general S— who forced the fire-brigade captain to launch the attack on a day when the wind was uncertain. All went well to start with. The Germans fled in terror from the flames. But a sudden change in the wind direction blew the fire back at us, and our sector, in its turn, went up in flames. The installation of the equipment, which had cost us a great deal of effort, was completely destroyed, and we did not take the hill that day.

This same man, who is called Martin, also tells of how his company had been led by a young lieutenant, a graduate of Saint-Cyr, who had been trepanned and had also lost the fingers of both hands, and yet had returned to the front as a volunteer. This officer came from a wealthy family and every week his mother would send a big parcel of food for her son’s men. All this had made a great impression on Martin, who declared:

‘You never know. There are sometimes even posh types who’ve got guts!’

‘That’s for sure,’ agreed another. ‘There are some who really believe in what they’re doing.’

‘Yeah, old pal,’ says a third, ‘and they’re the most dangerous. Without them we wouldn’t be here. They got ’em in Boche-land too, believe you me!’

‘More than likely!’

‘It ain’t the same. Boche officers treat their lads a lot fucking worse than ours do.’

‘That’s what you hear but I reckon it’s just the same as with us, they’ve got all kinds.’

‘It ain’t so much that our lot are all bastards. But when it comes to loonies, we take the fucking biscuit.’

‘You remember that commandant we had in Besançon before the war, the old bloke who was completely barmy? What was he called, the wanker? Giffard, yeah, that’s right, Giffard. He used to come and wash his underwear in the barracks with us. And when he was cross with his horse he’d make it sleep in the guardroom, I kid you not, the guardroom. You ask Rochat. Mad as a bloody hatter!’

‘Biggest arsehole I ever knew was a captain who went around with a thing in his pocket that he used to measure the length of your hair. If it was too long, you’d catch it. In another pocket he had a pair of hair-clippers. He’d whack you across the nose with it, bang!, when you were presenting arms. So as soon as you had enough hair on your bonce for a parting, you had to get yourself to the barber.’

‘Me, the worst was old Floconnet, the commandant we had in Champagne. He spent his time hunting turds that had been dropped in the wrong place. The
poilus
used to go for a crap on a path on the edge of the village, and the old bloke never failed to come and have a good prowl round, every morning. He’d come up with this amazing scheme. He had a cane with a metal tip and he’d use it to pick up the paper on the ground and then he’d take it all to the adjutant and tell him: “Here, take this, see what it says, sort it out for me and give each of those dirty beasts four days in the glasshouse.” Now, since the
poilus
all used envelopes to wipe their arses, by now it was brown paper! But it had belonged to someone, and their name was on it. In the end we used envelopes on which we’d put the address of the old bastard himself . . .’

‘You ever hear about that adjutant they used to call Tapioca?’

Once they start a discussion like this it can go on forever. Everyone has his own store of tales to contribute and barracks life provides a large supply of them. It’s strange to see how often these memories, that one would think were a bit out of date, keep coming up in conversations at the front.
Poilus
like to recall the days of their training (now seen as ‘the good old days’ in comparison to the present) and the reproach they always make to the new recruits among their comrades, young lads who are generally undisciplined, is the following: ‘You can see that you’ve never done
active
service!’ Another thing is that most of their memories are coarse ones. That’s not because they choose those especially – it’s because they do not have any others. Military life has always offered them far more vulgarity than nobility, and they would be hard put to find any ideal role models – whether corporals or adjutants, those above them are their oppressors, not necessarily evil but always as ridiculous as they are ignorant. And as for the senior ranks, apart from line officers who share their dangers to a certain extent, they are all upper-crust types whose follies are frequent, dangerous and protected by divine right.

Still in the Vosges, we are now in a new sector, tougher than the last one, on the summit of a mountain whose ridges we also hold. Throughout this region the two sides have fought to control the mountain tops, which provide commanding views, and bombardments have left many bald patches on the pine-covered slopes. The names of these peaks have all earned mentions in dispatches: Hartmann, Syudel, Linge, Metzeral, La Fontenelle, Teischaker, etc. We are above the valley of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines.

The battalion HQ and the reserve company are stationed on the reverse slope of the mountain, in camps along the road running up from the valley on the French side of the border. The line companies hold two adjacent sectors, one on the high point of the mountain, the other which follows the descending contours of the terrain and runs off towards the German lines. This second sector, which is ours, is more dangerous because the position has no depth. An attack which advances 150 metres would push us back into the gulley right behind us. At the bottom of this gulley we would be at the mercy of enfilade fire from the German machine guns, and no fallback position has been created on the opposite slope. Fortunately, the sector is quiet. But if there was a surprise attack, our situation would be terribly precarious.

The ground has been pulverised hundreds of times by trench mortars. Nothing remains of the forest but a few tree trunks stripped of their bark that look like fence posts. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could. The platoons have a few covered saps in the front line. Further back, shelters are rare, rickety, and uncomfortable. In general, our shelters aren’t as good as the German ones. This is probably because we thought we would be on the offensive. Our troops always believed they were holding their trenches temporarily and so it wasn’t worth the effort of undertaking major work.

I have started my nightly rounds again. This time they are rather more exciting since the German lines are very close to ours – around twenty or thirty metres away. And at one point the gap is only eight metres. This proximity prevents the construction of any solid defences. So, given the way our sentries are spread out, I find myself alone in the darkness, closer to the Germans than the French. The watchers opposite can hear me walking and at any moment I could be seized by men positioned by their parapet, who would only have to reach out their arm to grab me. I hold my revolver at the ready and I’ve got a couple of grenades in my pockets. Any confidence these weapons give me is completely illusory; they would be of no help at all against several assailants, leaping out of the shadows, able to get back to their trenches in a few steps, taking me with them, before our lads had the time to intervene. In any case, our front line is guarded by eight double sentry posts, that is, sixteen men in all, spread out over five or six hundred metres. Before running to my aid they would first have to alert their comrades, always slow to get going after being woken up.

On very dark nights, when I have to feel my way along the trenches, there are occasionally heart-stopping moments when something makes a noise in the blackness. Night distorts things, makes them bigger, lends them shapes that can be disturbing or menacing; the least breath of air can bring them to life. Objects take on enemy silhouettes, and I imagine soldiers holding their breath all around me, eyes peering to seek me out, fingers on triggers; at any second I expect the blinding flash of a gunshot. They could kill me for the sheer pleasure of killing. I know this sector quite well but I keep stopping, wondering if I haven’t got lost, and everything around me is strange, shifting, oneiric. A distance that I covered the day before without noticing now goes on forever, to the point where I begin to think our trenches are empty. But I am not here to be prey to childish fears: I try to laugh myself out of it . . . And at long last I find our sentries and go down into the warmth of an underground shelter where a candle is flickering and sleepers snore and splutter. I wake up the platoon leader, who signs my papers and gives me his. We exchange a few words and then here I am again facing the traps in the silent shadows. I stride off into the gloom, walking noisily, whistling a marching tune in the Germans’ direction, hoping that my confidence will impress any enemies who are waiting to ambush me. I make my presence known before reaching the point where the lines almost touch:
I’m fooling them
. . . All this noise, I’m thinking, must surely make the enemies who are there, a few metres way, think that those who are advancing are unafraid, and it would not be a very good idea to attack them. I think the noise is multiplying me, making me seem like a crowd . . .

Back at HQ, the lieutenant greets me normally, seemingly unaware that I have just fought a terrible battle with the phantoms of the night and my imagination, and my heart is still pounding in my chest . . . And I smile cheerfully as if I’ve come back from a pleasant stroll in the country. But one day I may well not come back. I may not have had any trouble on my rounds so far, but nonetheless I only survive them thanks to the goodwill of the Germans. Still, I don’t seriously think I am going to get killed. And when it’s a fine night, and my path is illuminated only by the searchlight of the moon, that friendly and vigilant sentry, then this walk has a certain charm, along the side of these silent, disdainful mountains.