Fear (38 page)

After several trying days in the rain and cold, we have now assembled on the highest summit of the Champagne mountains, looking down over the vast plain where the Ardennes begin.

It is afternoon, and the sun is shining. Two or three German batteries are harassing us, but fortunately their shells are landing behind a little trench that shields us from the shrapnel.

We hear a faint humming, which rapidly increases in volume, becoming so loud that it even drowns out the explosions. It comes from the sky . . . Soon afterwards a whole wing of bombers, bearing our colours, flies overhead. We count more than two hundred machines in triangular formation, covered by fighters, at about two thousand metres. Their mass, flanked by hundreds of machine guns on the fighters, gives the impression of an irresistible force, unaffected by enemy gunfire which causes no visible damage. The armada disappears from sight into the clear sky. Later on we hear the echoes of a string of explosions that shake the earth: the aeroplanes are flattening a village, destroying an assembly point.

At twilight, the artillery has gone quiet. We descend the slopes in small groups. Fog comes down, spreading its veil over the distant landscape. All we can still see are a few shining patches: rivers and lakes that reflect the last light of the day. Then they too disappear.

I have taken command of a stray group of a dozen men, including two American runners who have been attached to us since the start of the offensive. One carries a shovel and the other a pick, and both have large packs of blankets. They have chucked away all their weapons, considering them useless, keeping only items of protection and comfort. Such a precise grasp of the needs of the present fills us with admiration.

We spend the night in a crater caused by one of our 270s, big enough to hold a platoon.

The following morning, we see two American officers approaching. One of them asks us questions and I manage to pick out a few words:

‘I am . . . Colonel . . . Have you seen? . . .’

I realise that we are in the presence of an American colonel who, baton in hand, is looking for his regiment. Using sign language I explain that I don’t know any more than he does. Or rather I cannot express to him what I do know. Which is that through complete inexperience his regiment has lost three quarters of its strength in six days. (Did he not notice the bunches of men in khaki strewn across the plateaus, slowly turning from their natural brown to the green of decomposition?) The other quarter, with some disgust at this war whose results they have seen, must have gone and pitched their tent well away from the fighting, somewhere near the canteens and supplies. Deeply upset, the colonel headed off in the direction of rifle shots. The notion of this colonel who had lost his regiment kept us amused for the rest of the day, which we passed very peacefully eating tinned food and smoking. Shells were falling a long way behind us, and there was little danger from bullets.

Unfortunately the battalion was reassembled in the evening, so we can’t go it alone any more. During the night we march forward again, a very hesitant march, broken by interminable pauses. Morning finds us on a fine open road, where our column is all too visible. The battalion digs in on the ditch on the right and we camouflage ourselves as best we can with foliage and tent canvas.

At about one o’clock a German aeroplane circles over us, banking round several times to have a good look at what is happening below. He must find the area much changed . . . Someone is shooting somewhere but the bullets don’t come near us.

The day ends badly. Around five o’clock we are directly targeted by shellfire. A battery of 150s and another of 88s catch us in an enfilade. The firing is precisely aimed at the length and breadth of the battalion. At the very moment when it was furthest from our minds, terror seizes us by the throat, and the guts. We are pinned down under a systematic bombardment. Once again our lives are at stake and we are powerless to protect ourselves. We are lying in the ditch, flat as corpses, squeezed together to make ourselves smaller, welded into a single strange reptile of three hundred shuddering bodies and pounding chests. The experience of shelling is always the same: a crushing, relentless savagery, hunting us down. You feel individually targeted, singled out from those around you. You are alone, eyes shut, struggling in your own darkness in a coma of fear. You feel exposed, feel that the shells are looking for you, and you hide among the jumble of legs and stomachs, try to cover yourself and also to protect yourself from the other bodies that are writhing like tortured animals. All we can see are hallucinations of the horrible images that we have come to know through years of war.

The projectiles bracket our position. Almost all of them are hitting the road and the field to our right, behind a hedge. There are wounded men ten metres ahead of us, and more further off. Our victorious battalion is now begging for mercy, humiliated by some brute beast. I am thinking that today is the second of October 1918, and that this war is near its end . . . and I must not, I must not get killed!

This one has my name on it! . . . Ssss . . . First the crash so loud that it shakes your head almost off your shoulders, leaves you dizzy . . . and then the enveloping smoke that burns your eyes and nose and fills your chest with its unbreathable stench. We’re coughing and spitting, our eyes are streaming. The shell came down on the road two metres away. If you stretch out your arm you can touch the edge of the crater . . .

Behind us an explosion of a 150 is followed by screams. Someone says Lieutenant Larcher has been wounded: Larcher the invulnerable, who had been in the thick of every fight for the last two years. And now he is stupidly wounded in a roadside ditch by a retreating enemy which has at most ten field guns! It is ridiculous and unfair! And if Larcher can be hit then surely none of us can avoid the same stroke of fate!

Every new burst of fire leaves us gasping for breath. And where is our own artillery, for christ’s sake? We lie prostrate for an hour suspended between luck and death until the two German batteries run out of shells.

Night falls. The stretcher-bearers set off into twilight heavy with the smell of gunpowder, leaving in their wake the cries of agony from their charges. More tragically still, the stretchers carried by the last teams to leave are silent ones. On one of them lies Chassignole, the bomber.

Petrus Chassignole, class of 1913, in service at the front since the start of the war, was killed this evening, 2 October 1918, after fifty months of suffering.

We move around this plain for several more days. The runners are based at a crossroads in a battered forest, which is sometimes even hit by our own 75 shells.

A little further forward what remains of our units are attacking the village of Challerange where the enemy has dug in deeply and seems to want to put up a fight. The Germans launch a surprise counter-attack and take some prisoners.

Support from our own artillery is inadequate.

It has been raining and the nights are cold. For ten days now the men have slept on the bare ground and have had to fight with hardly any sleep and nothing hot to eat. They are tired, and sick; quite a number are evacuated. We are all asking to be relieved.

At last we are, after an offensive of eleven days in which we have advanced about fifteen kilometres. This victory has cost us half our troops. A company in the battalion now consists of no more than twenty fighters.

We are taken away on trucks, utterly exhausted. But alive. Maybe we will be among those who come back from the final relief . . .

6. CEASEFIRE!

WE WERE MOVED BY
train and truck, and a few days after leaving Champagne we found ourselves back in the mountains of Alsace.

They sent us straight to the front lines. Soldiers who had just attacked were already on alert on the fire-steps, having repulsed a surprise assault by the Germans that had greeted our arrival. For the
poilus
the war drags on relentlessly with its long hours of guard duty and sudden dangers. We know that there will be no let-up from now on, no end to the efforts we must make. The word is that high command is planning an offensive on this front, attacking the flank of the German armies. This time we cannot count on assault troops coming up from our rear at the last moment. This one will be for us, and we know how much victory will cost . . .

Above Saint-Amarin we are holding the ridges of the Sudel and the Hartmann overlooking the Rhine valley. But I haven’t yet explored our positions. When we took over the sector, our battalion was kept in reserve. And for the last couple of weeks I have been attached to the intelligence service in the colonel’s office, where Nègre – taking advantage of someone going on leave – had got me a post. He even imagines getting me promoted to corporal. I tell him this is a ridiculous idea after five years of army life. But he is serious:

‘If you don’t have a job to go to, you could take up a career as an NCO. Your war service counts double. You only need another five years to have the right to retire with a pension. Think about it! They’re going to need good people to rebuild a career army. With a bit of luck you could soon find yourself with an adjutant’s baton!’

‘You’re very kind! But what about you, old chap, why aren’t you signing up again?’

‘I’ve got better things to do. It’s time I pretended to be an honest man so I can end my days in prosperity.’

‘And how will you set about doing that?’

‘I am going to become the most jingoistic patriot you can imagine, the scourge of the Boche, the whole bloody shebang!’

‘That’s rather out of fashion these days.’

‘Foolish boy! How else are you going to recoup your losses and get a nice return on your outlay?’

‘Oh, come on, Nègre! We’re going to tell them a bit of the truth once we get home!’

‘You’re still young, my boy! Who’ll want to hear the truth? The people who’ve profited from the war, who’ve been lining their pockets from it all the way through? What do you want anyone to do with your truth? You’re a victim, you’re a victim, who’s going to care? Where have you seen anyone showing pity for idiots? Get it into your head once and for all: in a few years’ time, that’s what we’ll look like: idiots. It’s time to change sides!’

‘Perhaps you’re right as regards people in their fifties. But the new generation will listen to us.’

‘And to think I had hopes for you! . . . Listen, you soppy idealist, the new generation will say: “They’re either trying to shock us or just drivelling.” You’re about as perceptive as mothers who really think their words of warning will keep their lovesick young daughters out of trouble.’

‘So you’ll support a new war?’

‘I’ll support whatever they like!’

‘And you’ll participate?’

‘Next time round, rest assured your old pal Nègre will be crippled by rheumatism, unfit for service, will have found himself a nice, safe position. I’ll have got myself a little trade, maybe some kind of factory, whatever, and I will be shouting: “Go on lads, on to victory, fight to the finish!”’

‘And you think that’s decent?’

‘You really have wasted these last five years! Unfortunate young man, you make me tremble with fear for you! How will you survive life?’

‘Don’t you believe that a man can have opinions and stick to them?’

‘Men’s opinions are based on the size of their bank balance.
To have or not to have
, as Shakespeare would say.’

‘Before the war, sure, I agree. But things will have changed. Such exceptional events must surely result in something worthy, something noble.’

‘There’s no nobility except in the face of death. Only a man who has been tested to the very depths of his soul, who has faced being blown apart by the next shell can talk of nobility.’

‘You’re being unfair to some of our leaders . . .’

‘Oh, that’s great! Be gentle with them, say thank you, slave! You know as well as I do that the leaders are just pursuing their careers, playing poker. Their reputation is at stake. So what? If they win, their name liveth for evermore. If they lose, they retire on a fat pension and spend the rest of their lives justifying themselves in their memoirs. It’s all too easy to be sincere when you make sure you’re well out of harm’s way.’

‘But even so there have been some great figures, like Guynemer and Driant.’[
42
]

‘Obviously there have been men of conviction and others who’ve done an honest job. Guynemer, sure! But remember that he performed way up in the heavens, before a bloody great public: the whole earth. That makes you a man to remember! How do you compare him with the poor idiot who’s come out of the depths of Pomerania singing
Deutschland über alles
for the greater glory of old Kaiser William, and who has understood what’s going on far too late? And what’s he got in common with the
poilu
who’s looking forward to getting his face ignominiously smashed in the mud with no one to see it and no one to shout about it? He’s risking everything: he’s risking his skin. What does he get out of it? Drill and parades. Once he’s back on the streets, he’s going to have to find a job. The boss will find him smelly and uncouth . . . Let me give you the balance sheet of this war: fifty great men to go down in the annals of history; millions of dead who won’t be mentioned any more; and one thousand millionaires who lay down the law. A soldier’s life is worth about fifty francs in the wallet of some fat industrialist in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Vienna or anywhere else. Are you getting the picture?’

‘So what’s left?’

‘Nothing! That’s the whole point, absolutely nothing! Can you believe in anything after what you’ve seen? Human stupidity is incurable. All the more reason to laugh at it. Why should we care? We don’t give a damn! So let’s get back in the game, accept the old lies that keep men going. Laugh at it, for god’s sake, just laugh!’

‘But if we tell . . .’

‘Tell what? . . . You want to starve to death later on?’

‘But can’t we tell the truth about the war without taking on all the institutions of power?’