Paths of Glory (27 page)

“You're crazy,” said Didier. Langlois accepted this dismissal of Férol as being adequate and he and Didier fell to talking between themselves.

They were apprehensive, deeply so, but, as yet, they were not really afraid. They had relaxed from the strain of the court-martial proceedings, made more than ever an inimical performance by the stiffness of the court, the overwhelming number of officers' uniforms, and the long, slim, gleaming fixed bayonets of the guards. Most of their bodily secretions were functioning normally again and saliva once more moistened mouths which had been dry.

They outdid each other with arguments to prove that death was certain, though at the same time they were convinced that it was life that was certain. They were responding to that curious instinct which impels men to talk themselves out of a situation by talking themselves into it. They heaped hopelessness upon hopelessness and they felt that they were doing their cause some good thereby. They talked for an hour or more in a vain effort to free themselves from the contradictoriness of their feelings. They knew they were going to die and, at the same time, they didn't believe it. Or, they believed they were going to be executed and yet the idea that such a thing could happen to them was unthinkable.

This state of contradictory and tangled feeling received a clarification shortly after nightfall which swept away almost the whole of their laboriously constructed edifice of immunity and left them suddenly and shockingly in possession of what remained, namely, hopelessness. The clarification came in the form of a visit from Sergeant Picard, the priest.

“My sons,” he said to them, “you are soldiers and I therefore do not need to beat about the bush. I bring you bad news. You must prepare yourselves for the worst. The colonel told me to tell you so. He has been in telephone communication with Army Headquarters. The Army Commander was out to dinner and couldn't be reached. The colonel talked to the chief of staff, but he said he had no authority to intervene in such a matter. The colonel pleaded with him, and then the line became disconnected. Dax tried to get him back, but when he got Army Headquarters again and said who he was, they kept him waiting for some time and then told him the chief of staff had gone out and couldn't be found. He says you will understand that they don't want to be found. It's the same way at Division.

“My sons, there is nothing for me to say to you just now. But there is something I can do, and I have done it. I have brought you paper and pencil. If any of you cannot write, I am at your service. It will be the same as if it were in a confessional.... Very well, then, here are the writing materials. I shall be back later. You can write your letters without fear of the censor for I shall see that they reach your families. The church, as well as the state, you know, has its means of communication.”

“Sergeant,” said Langlois, “how much time have we got?”

“Not very much, my poor fellow, but I think at least until after it is daylight.”

“Why do you think that? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure, because the whole regiment has been ordered to parade. They wouldn't be parading in the dark. Besides, the firing . . .” Picard checked himself suddenly and was relieved to hear Didier cover the gaucherie with a question.

“Will it hurt very much, sergeant?”

“I don't think you'll ever feel it. Your pain will be now, and not of the body. The—er—that will come as a welcome end to your anguish. I'll be back to help you through these hours, if I can.”

“Sergeant,” said Férol, “bring us some cigarettes, will you? And don't forget some matches too.”

Sergeant Picard went out.

“Not one of them called me ‘father,'” he said to himself. “Later, perhaps . . .”

Didier sat on the boards and worked over his letter to his wife. Words came slower for him at first from a pencil than they did from his tongue.

He began at the beginning and told her the story of the patrol, of his arrangement with Roget, of the attack on the Pimple, and of all that followed thereafter with such bewildering rapidity. He became so engrossed in the recital of the military events of his story that, at times, he slipped into the style of a formal report. It was his defence he was writing, the one he had been deprived of. Now and then the injustice of the whole thing would overwhelm him and his words came in rushes of indignation, almost hysterical in their striving to convey his sense of outrage. This was followed by a calmer interval of grief; nor was it an inarticulate one, either, merely because he expressed it in terms of his love for the odds and ends in his pockets, those odds and ends which a wife sent to her husband at the front. He gave detailed instructions about exactly how he wanted his children brought up, what trades they were to go in. In the next sentence he left all that to his wife. He spoke with dignity and with pride about his own life and work. He had always been a man of character and he wanted his wife to preserve his reputation among his friends and acquaintances, more for his children's sake than for his own. He assured her he had never been a coward. He was simply being shot as an example. He had never had any luck and he was resigned to his fate. After all, France was already full of fatherless children and widows. He promised her he would face the firing-squad like a brave soldier. Neither she nor the children need ever hang their heads in shame for him. He returned to the objects in his pockets which he had spread before him, the tobacco pouch, a letter, a lock of hair, all from his beloved Annette. Then, suddenly overcome, he ended his letter abruptly:

“How I love you, my God! And how I weep!”

And Didier wept, silently, turning his face away so the others would not see.

Langlois's letter:

Sergeant Picard, the priest, returned to the guard-house soon after midnight. He collected the prisoners' letters and put them carefully away in an inside pocket.