Under Fire (30 page)

Papa Blaire displays in his well-worn mouth a set of new teeth, so resplendent that one can see nothing in all his poor face except those gayly-dight jaws. The great event of these foreign teeth's establishment, which he is taming by degrees and sometimes uses for eating, has profoundly modified his character and his manners. He is rarely besmeared with grime, he is hardly slovenly. Now that he has become handsome he feels it necessary to become elegant. For the moment he is dejected, because--a miracle--he cannot wash himself. Deeply sunk in a corner, he half opens a lack-luster eye, bites and masticates his old soldier's mustache--not long ago the only ornament on his face--and from time to time spits out a hair.

Fouillade is shivering, cold-smitten, or yawns, depressed and shabby. Marthereau has not changed at all. He is still as always well-bearded, his eye round and blue, and his legs so short that his trousers seem to be slipping continually from his waist and dropping to his feet. Cocon is always Cocon by the dried and parchment-like head wherein sums are working; but a recurrence of lice, the ravages of which we see overflowing on to his neck and wrists, has isolated him for a week now in protracted tussles which leave him surly when he returns among us. Paradis retains unimpaired the same quantum of good color and good temper; he is unchanging, perennial. We smile when he appears in the distance, placarded on the background of sandbags like a new poster. Nothing has changed in Pepin either, whom we can just see taking a stroll--we can tell him behind by his red-and-white squares of an oilcloth draught-board, and in front by his blade-like face and the gleam of a knife in his cold gray look. Nor has Volpatte changed, with his leggings, his shouldered blanket, and his face of a Mongolian tatooed with dirt; nor Tirette, although he has been worried for some time by blood-red streaks in his eyes--for some unknown and mysterious reason. Farfadet keeps himself aloof, in pensive expectation. When the post is being given out he awakes from his reverie to go so far, and then retires into himself. His clerkly hands indite numerous and careful postcards. He does not know of Eudoxie's end. Lamuse said no more to any one of the ultimate and awful embrace in which he clasped her body. He regretted--I knew it--his whispered confidence to me that evening, and up to his death he kept the horrible affair sacred to himself, with tenacious bashfulness. So we see Farfadet continuing to live his airy existence with the living likeness of that fair hair, which he only leaves for the scarce monosyllables of his contact with us. Corporal Bertrand has still the same soldierly and serious mien among us; he is always ready with his tranquil smile to answer all questions with lucid explanations, to help each of us to do his duty.

We are chatting as of yore, as not long since. But the necessity of speaking in low tones distinguishes our remarks and imposes on them a lugubrious tranquillity.

* * * * * *

Something unusual has happened. For the last three months the sojourn of each unit in the first-line trenches has been four days. Yet we have now been five days here and there is no mention of relief. Some rumors of early attack are going about, brought by the liaison men and those of the fatigue-party that renews our rations every other night--without regularity or guarantee. Other portents are adding themselves to the whispers of offensive--the stopping of leave, the failure of the post, the obvious change in the officers, who are serious and closer to us. But talk on this subject always ends with a shrug of the shoulders; the soldier is never warned what is to be done with him; they put a bandage on his eyes, and only remove it at the last minute. So, "We shall see."--"We can only wait."

We detach ourselves from the tragic event foreboded. Is this because of the impossibility of a complete understanding, or a despondent unwillingness to decipher those orders that are sealed letters to us, or a lively faith that one will pass through the peril once more? Always, in spite of the premonitory signs and the prophecies that seem to be coming true, we fall back automatically upon the cares of the moment and absorb ourselves in them--hunger, thirst, the lice whose crushing ensanguines all our nails, the great weariness that saps us all.

"Seen Joseph this morning?" says Volpatte. "He doesn't look very
grand, poor lad."

"He'll do something daft, certain sure. He's as good as a goner, that lad, mind you. First chance he has he'll jump in front of a bullet. I can see he will."

"It'd give any one the pip for the rest of his natural. There were six brothers of 'em, you know; four of 'em killed; two in Alsace, one in Champagne, one in Argonne. If Andre's killed he's the fifth."

"If he'd been killed they'd have found his body--they'd have seen it from the observation-post; you can't lose the rump and the thighs. My idea is that the night they went on patrol he went astray coming back--crawled right round, poor devil, and fell right into the Boche lines."

"Perhaps he got sewn up in their wire."

"I tell you they'd have found him if he'd been done in; you know jolly well the Boches wouldn't have brought the body in. And we looked everywhere. As long as he's not been found you can take it from me that he's got away somewhere on his feet, wounded or unwounded."

This so logical theory finds favor, and now it is known that Mesnil Andre is a prisoner there is less interest in him. But his brother continues to be a pitiable object--"Poor old chap, he's so young!" And the men of the squad look at him secretly.

"I've got a twist!" says Cocon suddenly. The hour of dinner has gone past and we are demanding it. There appears to be only the remains of what was brought the night before.

"What's the corporal thinking of to starve us? There he is--I'll go and get hold of him. Hey, corporal! Why can't you get us something to eat?"--"Yes, yes--something to eat!" re-echoes the destiny of these eternally hungry men.

"I'm coming," says bustling Bertrand, who keeps going both day and
night.

"What then?" says Pepin, always hot-headed. "I don't feel like chewing macaroni again; I shall open a tin of meat in less than two secs?" The daily comedy of dinner steps to the front again in this drama.

"Don't touch your reserve rations!" says Bertrand; "as soon as I'm back from seeing the captain I'll get you something."

When he returns he brings and distributes a salad of potatoes and onions, and as mastication proceeds our features relax and our eyes become composed.

For the ceremony of eating, Paradis has hoisted a policeman's hat. It is hardly the right place or time for it, but the hat is quite new, and the tailor, who promised it for three months ago, only delivered it the day we came up. The pliant two-cornered hat of bright blue cloth on his flourishing round head gives him the look of a pasteboard gendarme with red-painted cheeks. Nevertheless, all the while he is eating, Paradis looks at me steadily. I go up to him. "You've a funny old face."

"Don't worry about it," he replies. "I want a chat with you. Come with me and see something."

His hand goes out to his half-full cup placed beside his dinner things; he hesitates, and then decides to put his wine in a safe place down his gullet, and the cup in his pocket. He moves off and I follow him.

In passing he picks up his helmet that gapes on the earthen bench. After a dozen paces he comes close to me and says in a low voice and with a queer air, without looking at me--as he does when he is upset--"I know where Mesnil Andre is. Would you like to see him? Come, then."

So saying, he takes off his police hat, folds and pockets it. and
puts on his helmet. He sets off again and I follow him without a
word.

He leads me fifty yards farther, towards the place where our common dug-out is, and the footbridge of sandbags under which one always slides with the impression that the muddy arch will collapse on one's back. After the footbridge, a hollow appears in the wall of the trench, with a step made of a hurdle stuck fast in the clay. Paradis climbs there, and motions to me to follow him on to the narrow and slippery platform. There was recently a sentry's loophole here, and it has been destroyed and made again lower down with a couple of bullet-screens. One is obliged to stoop low lest his head rise above the contrivance.

Paradis says to me, still in the same low voice, "It's me that fixed up those two shields, so as to see--for I'd got an idea, and I wanted to see. Put your eye to this--"

"I don't see anything; the hole's stopped up. What's that lump of
cloth?"

"It's him," says Paradis.

Ah! It was a corpse, a corpse sitting in a hole, and horribly
near--

Having flattened my face against the steel plate and glued my eye to the hole in the bullet-screen, I saw all of it. He was squatting, the head hanging forward between the legs, both arms placed on his knees, his hands hooked and half closed. He was easily identifiable--so near, so near!--in spite of his squinting and lightless eyes, by the mass of his muddy beard and the distorted mouth that revealed the teeth. He looked as if he were both smiling and grimacing at his rifle, stuck straight up in the mud before him. His outstretched hands were quite blue above and scarlet underneath, crimsoned by a damp and hellish reflection.

It was he, rain-washed and besmeared with a sort of scum, polluted and dreadfully pale, four days dead, and close up to our embankment into which the shell-hole where he had burrowed had bitten. We had not found him because he was too near!

Between this derelict dead in its unnatural solitude and the men who inhabited the dug-out there was only a slender partition of earth, and I realize that the place in it where I lay my head corresponds to the spot buttressed by this dreadful body.

I withdraw my face from the peep-hole and Paradis and I exchange glances. "Mustn't tell him yet," my companion whispers. "No, we mustn't, not at once--" "I spoke to the captain about rooting him out, and he said, too, we mustn't mention it now to the lad.'" A light breath of wind goes by. "I can smell it!"--"Rather!" The odor enters our thoughts and capsizes our very hearts.

"So now," says Paradis, "Joseph's left alone, out of six brothers. And I'll tell you what--I don't think he'll stop long. The lad won't take care of himself--he'll get himself done in. A lucky wound's got to drop on him from the sky, otherwise he's corpsed. Six brothers--it's too bad, that! Don't you think it's too bad?" He added, "It's astonishing that he was so near us."

"His arm's just against the spot where I put my head."

"Yes," says Paradis, "his right arm, where there's a wrist-watch."

The watch--I stop short--is it a fancy, a dream? It seems to me--yes, I am sure now--that three days ago, the night when we were so tired out, before I went to sleep I heard what sounded like the ticking of a watch and even wondered where it could come from.

"It was very likely that watch you heard all the same, through the earth," says Paradis, whom I have told some of my thoughts; "they go on thinking and turning round even when the chap stops. Damn, your own ticker doesn't know you--it just goes quietly on making little circles."

I asked, "There's blood on his hands; but where was be hit?"

"Don't know; in the belly, I think; I thought there was something dark underneath him. Or perhaps in the face--did you notice the little stain on the cheek?"

I recall the hairy and greenish face of the dead man. "Yes, there was something on the cheek. Yes, perhaps it went in there--"

"Look out!" says Paradis hurriedly, "there he is! We ought not to
have stayed here."

But we stay all the same, irresolutely wavering, as Mesnil Joseph comes straight up to us. Never did he seem so frail to us. We can see his pallor afar off, his oppressed and unnatural expression; he is bowed as be walks, and goes slowly, borne down by endless fatigue and his immovable notion.

"What's the matter with your face?" he asks me--he has seen me point out to Paradis the possible entry of the bullet. I pretend not to understand and then make some kind of evasive reply. All at once I have a torturing idea--the smell! It is there, and there is no mistaking it. It reveals a corpse; and perhaps he will guess rightly

It seems to me that he has suddenly smelt the sign--the pathetic, lamentable appeal of the dead. But he says nothing, continues his solitary walk, and disappears round the corner.

"Yesterday," says Paradis to me, "be came just here, with his mess-tin full of rice that he didn't want to eat. Just as if he knew what he was doing, the fool stops here and talks of pitching the rest of his food over the bank, just on the spot where--where the other was. I couldn't stick that, old chap. I grabbed his arm just as he chucked the rice into the air, and it flopped down here in the trench. Old man, he turned round on me in a rage and all red in the face, 'What the hell's up with you now?' he says. I looked as fat-headed as I could, and mumbled some rot about not doing it on purpose. He shrugs his shoulders, and looks at me same as if I was dirt. He goes off, saying to himself, 'Did you see him, the blockhead?' He's bad-tempered, you know, the poor chap, and I couldn't complain. 'All right, all right,' he kept saying; and I didn't like it, you know, because I did wrong all the time, although I was right."

We go back together in silence and re-enter the dugout where the others are gathered. It is an old headquarters post, and spacious. Just as we slide in, Paradis listens. "Our batteries have been playing extra hell for the last hour, don't you think?"

I know what he means, and reply with an empty gesture, "We shall see, old man, we shall see all right!"

In the dug-out, to an audience of three, Tirette is again pouring out his barrack-life tales. Marthereau is snoring in a corner; he is close to the entry, and to get down we have to stride over his short legs, which seem to have gone back into his trunk. A group of kneeling men around a folded blanket are playing with cards--

"My turn!"--"40, 42--48--49!--Good!"

"Isn't he lucky, that game-bird; it's imposs', I've got stumped three times I want nothing more to do with you. You're skinning me this evening, and you robbed me the other day, too, you infernal fritter!"--"What did you revoke for, mugwump?"--"I'd only the king, nothing else."