Fear (28 page)

Alone, knees pulled up, hands clenched on my stomach, eyes shut, I am struggling with all my might, making a superhuman effort. I am writhing, sweating, holding back my cries. I’ve never endured anything like this. And it’s not stopping . . . Can I hold out? I must, I must hang on . . .

‘But just go and do what you’ve got to do!’ I see myself coming back normally, the deed done, freed of my burden, intact and proud, as if I’d just accomplished some heroic act (and would it not be one?). I see myself, my face calm, my body purged, thinking: he who dares . . . ‘But you know very well that you won’t go.’ No, I will not go . . .

This bombardment will never end . . .

I am weakening. The band of muscles is stretching, the safety valves will not hold. My joints are all knotted up by the effort, like an attack of rheumatism. I have to get out of here!

I extricate myself slowly, stand up, make my way across this mournful crypt, bent almost double, holding my leaden stomach which is making my legs give way, feeling for the walls, looking for space to put my feet in between the sleeping men. I keep stopping to hold back violent contractions, hopping about on the spot.

Once you leave the central area of the cave and turn right there is a long sloping passage leading to the surface. I am breathing cooler air now but it is acrid, and the explosions are becoming sharper. I can distinguish the slow glug-glug of the 210s, which have a very long range, and the way some speed up when they fall into the ravine. Short bursts of machine-gun fire. A faint crackling sound that must come from grenades. Trench mortars battering away, exploding slowly like mines in a quarry . . .

A sudden shaft of light, which seems to come from an air vent, illuminates the shelter and shows the entrance, the end of the tunnel, fifteen metres away. Then there is a strange kind of moonlight, a flare going off. This sight makes me freeze in the shadows and I begin to question myself like a patient hesitating at the door to the dentist’s surgery. I think I feel a bit better. Yes, I definitely feel better, it was a good idea to walk . . . But the spasms start up again. I go a bit further on and in the darkness I bump into the two lookouts, who have come inside to shelter.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To the latrines.’

‘You ain’t exactly picked the best of moments to drop your trousers! Just listen to it out there. It’s still hammering down.’

‘Yes . . . you could be right.’

I squat down on a box. Being so close to all the flares and flashes is giving me more strength to resist. The lookouts continue:

‘You can be sure the Boche have picked out the spot from aerial photos. They’re chucking it down at us, the bastards! But anyway it’s daft to let lads go outside, since you can’t see a bloody thing. Everything’s going up, you don’t even know where the front lines are any more.’

The incoming shells are more distinct now, longer gaps between them. I’m going to try my luck.

‘Get yourself ready,’ they say. ‘Better be quick!’

I’m out, trousers undone, bent over. I find the plank and let myself go, eyes shut. All my faculties are concentrated in my ears on which I depend to warn of any danger, decipher the sounds.

Vouououou . . . I rush back to the entrance, holding my trousers up with my hand. The mortar shell bursts very close by, its storm whistles over me, shrapnel slams into the ground.

‘Not hit?’ shout the anxious lookouts.

‘No,’ I say, coming inside.

‘You can bet that would have stopped you in mid-flow! Pity you can’t even take a shit in peace round here!’

I have to go again . . . I wait for a bit. Silence and darkness are returning to the night. The din of gunfire is no longer constant, the pauses are longer. Now’s the time. My second visit lasts longer, and no shell disturbs me.

I make it back to the shelter and rest for a while with the lookouts, worn out and preparing myself for another attack of this treacherous colic. My body is empty and weak and the morning chill makes me shiver. My suffering has been pointless and ridiculous. My companions are complaining:

‘How much longer are they going to leave us here?’

For long enough, I fear. That is, for a few more days. But the days last forever in this sector of condemned men, whom only luck can pardon.

The artillery’s fury continues to intensify. Day and night we have no peace of mind. Day and night the shells, like a host of madmen with pickaxes, are smashing their way through to us, digging ever deeper. Day and night the projectiles doggedly rain down on this scrap of land that we have to defend. We know that an attack is in preparation, that there must be a denouement to these days of wrath. We know that the general staffs of two nations have begun a struggle over these plateaus in which their vanity and military reputations are at stake, that the result of this will raise one up and bring disgrace to the other, that this bitter, relentless battle which brings only despair to the soldiers who are fighting it is an ambitious calculation on the part of a few German generals who measure on the map every day how many centimetres still lie between them and the objective they brag of attaining, that they are vexed at the obstacles and delays we put in their way and blame these on the lack of courage of their own troops. We know that it will take deaths and more deaths on both sides for the one who launched the battle to be frightened by their losses and stop their campaign. But we also know that it takes an awful lot of victims to frighten a general, and the one stubbornly opposing us is nowhere near giving up yet.

The great offensives on the Western Front, which have all come to a standstill, make available a vast quantity of weaponry which is making local actions extremely bloody. Since Verdun, artillery barrages have become standard. The most minor assault is preceded by a bombardment aimed at flattening the enemy defences, and decimating and terrifying the garrisons. When firing is well aimed, those men who escape only do so because it is impossible to hit every single bit of land with shells. Those who are spared start to lose their reason.

Nothing I know has such a devastating effect on the morale of men in the depths of a shelter. The price they pay for their safety is nerves shaken and shattered to a terrible extent. I know of nothing more demoralising than this stealthy pounding, which hunts you down underground, which buries you in a stinking tunnel which may become your tomb. Going back to the surface requires an effort so great that you cannot force yourself to do it unless you overcome your terror at the start. You have to struggle with fear as soon as you have the first symptoms otherwise it will possess you and then you are lost, dragged into a breakdown that your imagination precipitates with its own, terrifying inventions. Your nerve centres, once they’ve been shattered, send out the wrong messages; even your instinctual self-preservation can be undermined by their absurd decisions. The greatest horror, aggravating the breakdown, is that fear still leaves men with the capacity to judge themselves. So you see yourself in the depths of ignominy and cannot regain your self-esteem, cannot justify yourself in your own eyes.

That is where I am . . .

I have fallen to the bottom of the abyss of my self, to the bottom of those dungeons where the soul’s greatest secrets lie hidden, and it is a vile cesspit, a place of viscous darkness. Here is what I have been without knowing it, what I am: a fellow who is afraid, with an insurmountable fear, a cringing fear, that is crushing him . . . It would take brute force to drive me out of there. But I think I would rather die here than climb up those steps . . . I am so afraid that I have lost my attachment to life. And I disgust myself. I depended on my self-esteem to keep me going and I’ve lost it. How could I still display any confidence, knowing what I know about myself, how could I ever put myself forward, ever shine, after what I’ve discovered? I could fool others perhaps, but I would know I was lying, and this sham sickens me. I think of how I pitied Charlet in the hospital. I have fallen just as low as him.

I have stopped eating, my stomach is knotted and everything disgusts me. I drink nothing but coffee, and I smoke. In this perpetual night I no longer know one day from the next. I just sit in front of my little table, leaning over papers; I write, I draw, and take my turn as lookout for part of each night. Men I would rather not see pass by and sometimes bump into me; the wounded cry out in the corner where they have been left temporarily. I concentrate on pointless tasks. But I only hear the shells. The whole of the Chemin des Dames is shaking, and inside I am shaking with it.

I believe that if I had sufficient willpower to go out and go through a bombardment, it would free me from my obsession, like a highly dangerous vaccine can temporarily immunise those who can tolerate it. But I do not have that willpower and if I did I would not be so prostrate. And even then I’d have to revive it day after day.

I have even suspended my bodily functions: I no longer need to go to the latrines. I spend my free time out of sight in my little cubbyhole, listening to the noise outside. Every explosion of the bombardment hits me in the chest. I am ashamed of the sick animal wallowing in filth that I have become, but all my strings have snapped. My fear is abject. It makes me want to spit on myself.

In my cowardice, I rejoice at the fact that I have found an empty litre bottle complete with cork under the sandbags of my bedding. Periodically I turn on my side and piss in it, in short bursts, so that no one will catch me at my shameful little ruse. I am careful to empty the urine slowly throughout the day, so that it soaks into the ground. What a swine I have become!

Death would be preferable to this degrading torment . . . Yes, if this must continue much longer, I would rather die.

My mind is torturing me:

‘You’re just as much of a coward as the commandant!’

‘But I’m not the commandant . . .’

‘And if you were?’

‘Then my self-respect would triumph.’

‘And how about your self-respect as a soldier, what happened to that?’

‘It wasn’t a role I chose freely. And I’m not an example that anyone is supposed to follow.’

‘And your dignity, dog?’

‘Why, oh why are you asking all these questions?’

‘Because the war is in these questions, in this internal conflict. The more you can think, the more you must suffer!’

And so mental suffering, which saps a man’s morale and diminishes him, is added to physical suffering: ‘It’s your choice: degradation or shells.’

We must endure both . . .

‘Secret.

Attachments: Operations order and map.

From Colonel Bail, commandant of the 903rd Infantry Regiment, to battalion leader Tranquard, commandant of the 3rd battalion of the 903rd.

Battalion leader Tranquard to make immediate preparations for attack. Two companies to join the attack. Reserve company to assemble in “Franconia” trench and be ready to reinforce assault troops.

Objective: “Helmets” trench, from point A to point B as indicated on map.

Zero hour: 5.15 a.m.

Units to be in place at 4.30 a.m. Artillery fire to begin at 5 a.m.

Battalion leader Tranquard to follow instructions detailed in operations order regarding lateral liaison, signalling, ammunition supply, evacuation of wounded, etc. But he is to take all measures necessitated by the nature of the terrain or special circumstances which he judges will contribute to success of operation.

Battalion leader Tranquard to keep Colonel Bail informed on his preparations and to confirm to him at 4.30 a.m. by agreed signals that his unit is ready for action.

Colonel commandant of the 903rd Infantry Regiment.

Signed: Bail.’

And, in the colonel’s hand:
‘The objective must be taken, the regimental division expects nothing less. I am counting on the 3rd battalion.’

It’s ten o’clock at night. We are bending over the adjutant’s shoulder to read the terrible document he has just received from the commandant.

The death sentence, the death sentence for many of us . . . We look at each other and our looks reveal our distress. We have not the courage to say a word. The runners set off, bearers of the tragic news.

The news soon travels through the cave, wakes the sleepers, fills the shadows with whispers, makes those lying down jump to their feet with a start, like men who know they are doomed.

‘We’re going to attack!’

And then there is a heavy silence. The men fall still again, take refuge in the darkness to hide the agony on their faces.

Everyone is stunned, knocked senseless, throats squeezed by a noose of anguish: we’re going to attack! Everyone retreats into his own forebodings and despair, tries to reassure, to control his unwilling, indignant, rebellious body, battles against hideous visions, images of corpses . . . The grim vigil begins.

‘Quickly, take down the orders!’

I write. I write what the adjutant dictates, the words that prepare the massacre of my comrades, perhaps of me.

I feel like an accomplice. I also carefully copy several maps for the company commandants, drawing a line in red pencil to mark the objective. Like some staff officer at HQ . . . But I am part of this . . .

The orders are sent off. Now there is nothing to distract me. I imagine zero hour. For us, too, the day will be hard. There is no doubt we’ll also be moving to the front.

Soldiers are going to attack; soldiers are going to perish. Would I give my life for the ‘Helmets’ trench? No! And the others? No! And yet dozens of men will give their lives, of necessity. Hundreds of men, who are so unwilling to fight, are going to attack.

We have no more illusions about combat . . . One single hope holds me up: perhaps I will not be compelled to fight. A shameful hope, a human hope!

I manage to get a little sleep.

The battalion adjutant calls us together and we can tell from his troubled manner that this is something very grave.

‘The runners will march too!’ he blurts out.