CHAPTER VII

EASTER EGGS

Easter—it fell on April twenty-third that year—dawned splendidly, a real day of gladsome spring.

The company was off duty. We had worked for a month on the fortifications in the front-line trenches and we deserved this fine day.

In addition the sector was quiet. There hadn’t been an engagement or a skirmish since February. This large village—more than a village, a town almost—scarcely five miles from the Boche lines, absolutely unprotected, not concealed in the slightest by a bend in the terrain, by a hill or a wood, had not received a single shell in three months.

Of course it is true that the church, town hall and some factories were injured, but not very much. They had some large shell holes, but they hadn’t fallen in or tumbled down. The church and town hall still had their roofs, and if the chimneys of the sugar refineries were cut on the bias, it was high up, almost at the top, as if they wanted to blunt them, or spare them, or preserve them.

We were now accustomed to this incomprehensible calm, in fact the officers were often heard to say,

“This quiet bodes no good to us.”

All day and nearly all night, too, we hear the shriek of French and Boche shells in the air. Batteries of heavy artillery search for their marks, but all that misses us and passes over our heads or strikes in front. We know that they aren’t aimed at us, and we take no interest in them. So with that fine carelessness of men long since accustomed to the worst dangers, we live in absolute security.

That Easter morning a musical mass was sung in an immense great hall which had been used formerly for entertainments. A crowd of soldiers of every branch of the service and from all the regiments encamped in the neighborhood packed the place. In the crowd was a goodly number of civilians, including women and girls who were wearing their best dresses for the first time in a year.

The band of the ... first Territorials played.

Someone beside me dared to murmur,

“All the same, if a Boche shell fell in that crowd, what a mess it would be!”

“Don’t think,” came from several sides at once, “about Boche shells. They fire them. They know we are here. They are afraid—”

The chaplain, assisted by two clerical stretcher bearers, began worship on the improvised altar on the stage.

Soldiers sang the psalms of the liturgy.

* * * * *

I was nervous, and sobs came to my throat. In order not to make a ridiculous spectacle of myself with my tears I went out. I ran to the cantonment, saddled my horse, and we galloped at random through the sunny country on paths covered with flowers. I stopped in the depths of a valley under the poplars and stretched out on the grass. My horse laid down beside me. And while he munched the grass entirely indifferent to me, I said:

“Kiki, old Kiki, if an unexpected shell fell on us now and blotted us out, that would be much less disastrous than if it fell among those who at this hour are praying in that chapel. They are praying for their faraway firesides, their mothers, their wives.

“They are praying for the preservation of the past and for the future. They have the joy of believing, and that belief, that faith, has steeped them in a special life to which they remain attached.

“But we, old horse? If a shell annihilates us, what of it?

“We have never believed anything and we never will.

“I have impressed my brutal scepticism on the beings who are nearest and dearest to me. I have torn down the faith of their cradles ... a faith in the Beyond.

“So when we shall be under the sod sleeping our long night, before next spring has awakened its green verdure on our remains, base and nameless oblivion will already have overtaken us. On the simple white cross my hastily traced name will not even be read....

“Perhaps in passing near my abandoned grave someone will say, ‘Poor fellow!’ Perhaps someone more sentimental than the rest will throw flowers on it.

“But in disappearing, old horse, we shall harm no one.

“The tears on the beautiful eyes I know so well will at first be bitter, but they will be dried at last.”

* * * * *

This rather melancholy monologue was not to Kiki’s taste at all. He interrupted me by whinnying loudly. He knew it was time for oats.

So we went back to the cantonment under the fine midday sun. Before our door at the last house on the left, on the road to the sugar refinery, Burette, the quartermaster-sergeant, was going through his matutinal ablutions. He generally began them about eleven, just as they were calling dinner, which made him twenty minutes late and gave him a chance to growl about the cooking, which was not hot enough to suit him, or about his share, which, according to his appetite, was reduced to a proper allowance.

Inside, seated before an open canteen which served him equally as a seat or a writing desk, was Adjutant Dotan reading and re-reading and sighing over the letters he took from a voluminous package in front of him. In a loud voice he mused over the problem which haunted his days and nights:

“Shall I marry? Or, shall I not?”

For two years now Dotan had seen the realization of his matrimonial projects grow further and further away from week to week, from month to month.

On the first leave the Regimental Administrative Council had not acted on his request. Then, for two consecutive times, leave was stopped on the day before he was going to go. And despite the advice of the colonel, to whom he told his grievance, Dotan would not marry by proxy. This ceremony _in partibus_, entrusted to a third party, seemed to him the least bit ridiculous, and he had a well-developed desire for the whole of the wedding ceremonies.

“Shall I marry? Or, shall I not?”

While he thought over his dilemma, he read for the hundredth time the letters from his gentle fiancée, who awaited him in Provence. And he occupied the monotony of the long hours in writing her two letters a day, one in the morning and another in the evening, with sometimes a supplementary postal card in addition.

“To think that if I were married I should have already been so happy!”

“Three days,” Morin let fall cynically in his innocent voice.

“Yes, I should have been happy.”

“Three days,” insisted Morin, “the second day before, the day before, and the day of your wedding until noon. And then you wouldn’t be as you are now—free, tranquil, and without a care.”

“Free, tranquil, without a care! Oh, yes, you say. You’re always the same. Free, tranquil and happy! You must have learned that by looking out of your window, you, say....”

Morin, in accordance with his parsimonious use of words, did not want to carry on this tedious discussion. He would have answered, nevertheless, had not Dedouche announced that the table was set, and that there was a wonderful menu, a real Easter menu.

Chevalier, the mess corporal, both our Vatel and cup bearer, had come back from leave the day before. Before our ravished eyes he untied his packages, spread out sumptuous, epicurean dainties, and drew from their thick straw covers generous bottles of wine whose very appearance made us joyful.

Morin had been a constant guest at the select restaurants of La Cannebière and at the famous inns of La Corniche, and is an expert in the art of opening a fine wine without shaking it, and he also knows how to carve roasts and chickens skilfully and symmetrically.

He was opening with suitable impressiveness an old bottle of Sauterne, whose bright golden color brought smiles to our faces, when a tremendous explosion brought us to our feet and threw down the single partition in the room.

“The gun back in the garden draws the fire,” mumbled Dedouche with his mouth full, and without letting go of his plate which he was rubbing carefully with a large bit of bread.

But as he spoke a still more violent explosion shattered all the window panes in the house to bits.

A great Boche shell had fallen thirty yards from us in the street which had been recently covered with hard flint and which it scattered into innumerable fragments. We heard the cries of the wounded and the dying outside.

“Quick! Into the cellar!”

But none of us lost our heads sufficiently to take refuge in the cellar without our munitions.

One brought the fowl, another the bottles, a third the sauce, and someone the cheese and candles, and under the threat of shots which speeded us we reached our underground shelter.

The light of two candles stuck in bottles showed us the table in the darkness and we spread out our dinner things anew.

Above was the bombardment in all its intensity.

Shots landed in the road level with our air-hole, which, as a provision against such an occurrence, had long since been stuffed with sandbags.

We heard things falling!

“_Mince!_ what are they offering us for Easter eggs?”

This ready joke made us laugh, and we forgot the tragedy of the hour. In the heady anesthesia of real Pommard, and not christened “Pommard” for use at the front, but which had a real Burgundian bouquet, we forgot that the shells were raging in all their fury above us.

The shadow of a man appeared at the entrance to the cellar. Illuminated by the wavering yellow lights of our candles, it stood out in sharp contrast in the darkness of the staircase.

“Is the margis here?... Margis, the lieutenant says you are to bring all the horses at once to the gulley in the Caix woods and shelter them from the bombardment.”

“All right, I’m coming. Go on, Dedouche, pour out another glass of Pommard. I’ll take my dessert in my pocket.”

I picked up my helmet, mask and cane and was ready to go, as I listened through the vaults and hoped for a let-up in the storm.

“It’s over. We can go.”

“When you wish, old fellow. They’ve stopped for breath.”

“You’ll find out in five minutes.”

“Bah! I’ve more time to go than I need.”

“Good luck, and if you find any Easter eggs on the way bring them back for dinner.”

The adjutant’s reiterated joke no longer had the same zest for me and it hardly made me smile.

Outside, the streets were empty, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.

The bombardment had stopped, but no one was taken in by this deceptive calm. From one moment to another we waited for a new bombardment even more violent than the first. The Boches are creatures of habit and this is not the first time they’ve played this trick. When they bombard a cantonment, they very often interrupt their bombardment some minutes so as to make us think it is over; then, when the men have ventured into the streets, they suddenly begin again and make fresh victims.

A house has fallen in the middle of the road some steps from our cantonment. Débris block the way, and we have to climb over them. Farther along, at the other end of the street, a house which was still intact this morning is now in flames.

There is no time to lose. Already several shells, advance messengers of the coming storm, begin to fall. I was about to dart across the Place when a “105” fell on the pavements and burst.

A poor little soldier carrying two enormous bags, a great bundle of linen, and some souvenirs in his hands passed just then. He was on his way to the station at Guillaucourt to take the train, for he was going on leave.

Rejoicing in his approaching happiness he walked on without paying the slightest attention to this atmosphere where death was hovering. A shot hit him in the back and passed out the other side. I jumped to aid him. He was bathed in blood. In a gentle, caressing, almost timid voice he said to me:

“Oh, it’s not painful. I am dying.”

And then with his lips, with an expression of kindness and thankfulness which I shall never forget, he murmured, “Yvonne.” ... And his face haloed with blessedness like the religious images of the martyrs, he died.

I stood there in ecstasy, transfixed, before that beauty in death, before that strength of love which lights the final hour.

How many I have seen die in this way! In their last breaths all had the name of some woman, and their eyes lighted at the name.

In the final moment of a life which is going out physical suffering no longer counts. The name of the loved one embodies all the vanishing mirage of the future, the end of a too beautiful dream, the memories of a happy past ... of a happy past, for the bad times are forgotten.

Before the quivering body of this poor little soldier, struck down fiercely just as he was going on leave, full of hope, of plans, of dreams, a song on his lips, I forgot the threatening shells. An artilleryman went by on the run and shouted at me:

“Get out of that. You’ll get done up.” And I fled.

* * * * *

Our horses were bivouacked in the courtyard of a sawmill. Not an accident there. I counted them all at a glance.

The underground shelter of the men was in the back of the yard, and I went to the air-hole which was stopped up by a piece of sheet-iron which served as a screen against splinters.

“Oh, down there! Men of the echelon. All outside. To horse. We must hurry. Come on, hurry up! Your masks, helmets, forward with just the bridle!”

One by one they jumped out of their lairs, grimacing as the bright sun struck them full in the face as they came out of the darkness.

“Each one two horses, by squads of six.... One hundred yards between each squad. The other men will remain here and mobilize the pack saddles and caissons in the cellar. Take the road to the Caix station ... on the road lined with poplars.... On the gallop ... no straggling.”

Some minutes later we were already going out of the village. It was a bad passage, but the only one and the shortest one to reach our destination, but three hundred yards had to be covered on entirely unprotected ground opposite the Boches.

Boom! It was the expected. The shells began to fall again. A cloud tinted with red from the tiles of a falling house rises in the air and makes a large spot in the sky back by the church.

Boom! There’s another one now and nearer to us, near the sugar refinery.

A crash, an avalanche of bricks; this time it is the chimney of the sawmill which falls on the horses’ cantonment. It was time, five minutes sooner and we would have been under it.

“Go on, go on.... Gallop, for God’s sake. Corporals ... keep the distances.... Spread out the squads.... Get into the fields ... behind the trees.”

We reach the deep path like a whirlwind, while the bombardment rages over the village more than ever.

“Any accident? Anyone hit? Good. Assemble, and on the trot now.”

Ten minutes later we are in the shelter of Muguet wood, completely shut off from the view of the Boche artillery.

The wood deserves its name, for it scents the air a hundred yards about with the perfume of violets and lilies of the valley, which form a carpet between the trees and which our mules, entirely insensible to the subtle beauties of nature, begin to eat as though they were common fodder.

“Corporals ... look to your sections.... Is everyone here?... All the horses too?”

I cast a rapid glance over the parked beasts.

“Look, Liniers, where is Chocolate?”

And indeed where was Chocolate?

How did it happen that Chocolate wasn’t there?

Still he had been with the rest at the sawmill.

Chocolate, as the veteran of the echelon, received special consideration from the men. As far as the dispositions of the cantonment permitted, they reserved for him a covered shelter, a feeding rack, and a manger.

This time the sawmill offered many resources. The stable walls still stood with only a few gaps, and the roof was still intact. Beside some artillery horses, who were generally absent, there was an available place and they had given it to Chocolate. And there the drivers had forgotten him.

If it had been any other animal we would have let him go, but Chocolate was an entirely different matter and we must go and find him.

“Raynal, I hand over the command of the detachment to you. Liniers, come with me, we’ll go and find Chocolate.”

We went back over the path, on foot this time, but as fast as our legs would go. As we reached the village the intensity of the bombardment seemed to decrease. Were we going to be lucky enough to strike another lull? Again there were particularly violent explosions, nearer, then nothing more.

We reached the village entirely out of breath.

As we turned into the street which led to the sawmill Liniers stopped suddenly, as if petrified, and began to wave his hands.

“M ...!”

“What?”

“The shed....”

“Well, what about the shed?”

“Demolished. Can’t you see? It’s gone.”

We ran still faster.

The shed was absolutely demolished and is now only a shapeless mass of rubbish, but there are no signs of a shell—no traces of burned timbers, no splinters. One would have thought that it had folded up and laid down on its side like a house of cards.

When we reached the shed we saw Chocolate’s great neck and shoulders and enormous head free from the rubbish which hid the rest of his body. He was stretched out full length on his side, browsing serenely on the young shoots of an apple tree, which had gone down with the building. His large eye looked us over as we stood there, overcome and absolutely stupefied with amazement, as much as to say:

“What ... you’ve come at last ... you needn’t have been in so much of a hurry.”

I ran to the air-hole of the cellar.

“Hey there, men with spades; quick, come, dig out Chocolate.”

“Dig out Chocolate!” and they all rushed out utterly surprised by the announcement of such a job.

The bricks were scattered with a few blows of the shovels, the beams raised, and the place cleared away.

With all the ease of a circus horse who has been playing dead, Chocolate stretched out his front feet, then his hind ones, balanced himself two or three times, took a spring, and without the slightest hurry stood up, shaking himself all over like a dog coming out of the water.

There were a few scratches on his hide, but it was an old hide, hard and tanned, which resists everything. Nothing broken! Brave Chocolate, come on! The men all look at him, admire him, and fondle him. He seemed somewhat surprised by such manifestations of great affection.

And without a care in the world for the bombardment which was beginning again, he went to the nearby pond and drank deeply.