Chapter 2

It is very surprising that the rest of Carre did not go with the leg.

He had a pretty hard day.

O life! O soul! How you cling to this battered carcase! O little gleam on the surface of the eye! Twenty times I saw it die down and kindle again. And it seemed too suffering, too weak, too despairing ever to reflect anything again save suffering, weakness, and despair.

During the long afternoon, I go and sit between two beds beside Lerondeau. I offer him cigarettes, and we talk. This means that we say nothing, or very little.... But it is not necessary to speak when one has a talk with Lerondeau.

Marie is very fond of cigarettes, but what he likes still better is that I should come and sit by him for a bit. When I pass through the ward, he taps coaxingly upon his sheet, as one taps upon a bench to invite a friend to a seat.

Since he told me about his life at home and his campaign, he has not found much to say to me. He takes the cakes with which his little shelf is laden, and crunches them with an air of enjoyment.

"As for me," he says, "I just eat all the time," and he laughs.

If he stops eating to smoke, he laughs again. Then there is an agreeable silence. Marie looks at me, and begins to laugh again. And when I get up to go, he says: "Oh, you are not in such a great hurry, we can chat a little longer!"

Lerondeau's leg was such a bad business that it is now permanently shorter than the other by a good twelve centimetres. So at least it seems to us, looking down on it from above.

But Lerondeau, who has only seen it from afar by raising his head a little above the table while his wounds are being dressed, has noticed only a very slight difference in length between his two legs.

He said philosophically:

"It is shorter, but with a good thick sole...."

When Marie was better, he raised himself on his elbow, and he understood the extent of his injury more clearly.

"I shall want a VERY thick sole," he remarked.

Now that Lerondeau can sit up, he, too, can estimate the extent of the damage from above; but he is happy to feel life welling up once more in him, and he concludes gaily:

"What I shall want is not a sole, but a little bench."

But Carre is ill, terribly ill.

That valiant soul of his seems destined to be left alone, for all else is failing.

He had one sound leg. Now it is stiff and swollen.

He had healthy, vigorous arms. Now one of them is covered with abscesses.

The joy of breathing no longer exists for Carre, for his cough shakes him savagely in his bed.

The back, by means of which we rest, has also betrayed him. Here and there it is ulcerated; for man was not meant to lie perpetually on his back, but only to lie and sleep on it after a day of toil.

For man was not really intended to suffer with his miserable, faithless body!

And his heart beats laboriously.

There was mischief in the bowel too. So much so, that one day Carre was unable to control himself, before a good many people who had come in.

In spite of our care, in spite of our friendly assurances, Carre was so ashamed that he wept. He who always said that a man ought not to cry, he who never shed a tear in the most atrocious suffering, sobbed with shame on account of this accident. And I could not console him.

He no longer listens to all we say to him. He no longer answers our questions. He has mysterious fits of absence.

He who was so dignified in his language, expresses himself and complains with the words of a child.

Sometimes he comes up out of the depths and speaks.

He talks of death with an imaginative lucidity which sounds like actual experience.

Sometimes he sees it... And as he gazes, his pupils suddenly distend.

But he will not, he cannot make up his mind....

He wants to suffer a little longer.

I draw near to his bed in the gathering darkness. His breathing is so light that suddenly, I stop and listen open-mouthed, full of anxiety.

Then Carre suddenly opens his eyes.

Will he sigh and groan? No. He smiles and says:

"What white teeth you have!"

Then he dreams, as if he were dying.

Could you have imagined such a martyrdom, my brother, when you were driving the plough into your little plot of brown earth?

Here you are, enduring a death-agony of five months swathed in these livid wrappings, without even the rewards that are given to others.

Your breast, your shroud must be bare of even the humblest of the rewards of valour, Carre.

It was written that you should suffer without purpose and without hope.

But I will not let all your sufferings be lost in the abyss. And so I record them thus at length.

Lerondeau has been brought down into the garden. I find him there, stretched out on a cane chair, with a little kepi pulled down over his eyes, to shade them from the first spring sunshine.

He talks a little, smokes a good deal, and laughs more.

I look at his leg, but he hardly ever looks at it himself; he no longer feels it.

He will forget it even more utterly after a while, and he will live as if it were natural enough for a man to live with a stiff, distorted limb.

Forget your leg, forget your sufferings, Lerondeau. But the world must not forget them.

And I leave Marie sitting in the sun, with a fine new pink colour in his freckled cheeks.

Carre died early this morning. Lerondeau leaves us to-morrow.

MEMORIES OF THE MARTYRS

I

Were modesty banished from the rest of the earth, it would no doubt find a refuge in Mouchon's heart.

I see him still as he arrived, on a stretcher full of little pebbles, with his mud be-plastered coat, and his handsome, honest face, like that of a well-behaved child.

"You must excuse me," he said; "we can't keep ourselves very clean."

"Have you any lice?" asks the orderly, as he undresses him.

Mouchon flushes and looks uneasy.

"Well, if I have, they don't really belong to me."

He has none, but he has a broken leg, "due to a torpedo."

The orderly cuts open his trouser, and I tell him to take off the boot. Mouchon puts out his hand, and says diffidently:

"Never mind the boot."

"But, my good fellow, we can't dress your leg without taking off your boot."

Then Mouchon, red and confused, objects:

"But if you take off the boot, I'm afraid my foot will smell...."

I have often thought of this answer. And believe me, Mouchon, I have not yet met the prince who is worthy to take off your boots and wash your humble feet.

II

With his forceps the doctor lays hold carefully of a mass of bloody dressings, and draws them gently out of a gaping wound in the abdomen. A ray of sunshine lights him at his work, and the whole of the frail shed trembles to the roar of the cannon.

"I am a big china-dealer," murmurs the patient. "You come from Paris, and I do, too. Save me, and you shall see.... I'll give you a fine piece of china."

The plugs are coming out by degrees; the forceps glitter, and the ray of sunshine seems to tremble under the cannonade, as do the floor, the walls, the light roof, the whole earth, the whole universe, drunk with fatigue.

Suddenly, from the depths of space, a whining sound arises, swells, rends the air above the shed, and the shell bursts a few yards off, with the sound of a cracked object breaking.

The thin walls seem to quiver under the pressure of the air. The doctor makes a slight movement of his head, as if to see, after all, where the thing fell.

Then the china-dealer, who noted the movement, says in a quiet voice:

"Don't take any notice of those small things, they don't do any harm. Only save me, and I will give you a beautiful piece of china or earthenware, whichever you like."

III

The root of the evil is not so much the shattered leg, as the little wound in the arm, from which so much good blood was lost.

With his livid lips, no longer distinguishable from the rest of his face, and the immense black pupils of his eyes, the man shows a countenance irradiated by a steadfast soul, which will not give in till the last moment. He contemplates the ravages of his body almost severely, and without illusion, and watching the surgeons as they scrub their hands, he says in a grave voice:

"Tell my wife that my last thoughts were of her and our children."

Ah! it was not a veiled question, for, without a moment's hesitation, he allows us to put the mask over his face.

The solemn words seem still to echo through the ward:

"Tell my wife..."

That manly face is not the face of one who could be deceived by soft words and consoling phrases. The white blouse turns away. The surgeon's eyes grow dim behind his spectacles, and in solemn tones he replies:

"We will not fail to do so, friend."

The patient's eyelids flutter--as one waves a handkerchief from the deck of a departing steamer--then, breathing in the ether steadily, he falls into a dark slumber.

He never wakes, and we keep our promise to him.

IV

A few days before the death of Tricot, a very annoying thing happened to him; a small excrescence, a kind of pimple, appeared on the side of his nose.

Tricot had suffered greatly; only some fragments of his hands remained; but, above all, he had a great opening in his side, a kind of fetid mouth, through which the will to live seemed to evaporate.

Coughing, spitting, looking about with wide, agonised eyes in search of elusive breath, having no hands to scratch oneself with, being unable to eat unaided, and further, never having the smallest desire to eat--could this be called living? And yet Tricot never gave in. He waged his own war with the divine patience of a man who had waged the great world war, and who knows that victory will not come right away.

But Tricot had neither allies nor reserves; he was all alone, so wasted and so exhausted that the day came when he passed almost imperceptibly from the state of a wounded to that of a dying man.

And it was just at this moment that the pimple appeared.

Tricot had borne the greatest sufferings courageously; but he seemed to have no strength to bear this slight addition to his woes.

"Monsieur," stammered the orderly who had charge of him, utterly dejected, "I tell you, that pimple is the spark that makes the cup overflow."

And in truth the cup overflowed. This misfortune was too much. Tricot began to complain, and from that moment I felt that he was doomed.

I asked him several times a day, thinking of all his wounds: "How are you, old fellow?" And he, thinking of nothing but the pimple, answered always:

"Very bad, very bad! The pimple is getting bigger."

It was true. The pimple had come to a head, and I wanted to prick it.

Tricot, who had allowed us to cut into his chest without an anaesthetic, exclaimed with tears:

"No, no more operations! I won't have any more operations."

All day long he lamented about his pimple, and the following night he died.

"It was a bad pimple," said the orderly; "it was that which killed him."

Alas! It was not a very "bad pimple," but no doubt it killed him.

V

Mehay was nearly killed, but he did not die; so no great harm was done.

The bullet went through his helmet, and only touched the bone. The brain is all right. So much the better.

No sooner had Mehay come to, and hiccoughed a little in memory of the chloroform, than he began to look round with interest at all that was happening about him.

Three days after the operation, Mehay got up. It would have been useless to forbid this proceeding. Mehay would have disobeyed orders for the first time in his life. We could not even think of taking away his clothes. The brave man never lacks clothes.

Mehay accordingly got up, and his illness was a thing of the past.

Every morning, Mehay rises before day-break and seizes a broom. Rapidly and thoroughly, he makes the ward as dean as his own heart. He never forgets any corner, and he manages to pass the brush gently under the beds without waking his sleeping comrades, and without disturbing those who are in pain. Sometimes Mehay hands basins or towels, and he is as gentle as a woman when he helps to dress Vossaert, whose limbs are numb and painful.

At eight o'clock, the ward is in perfect order, and as the dressings are about to begin, Mehay suddenly appears in a fine clean apron. He watches my hands carefully as they come and go, and he is always in the right place to hand the dressing to the forceps, to pour out the spirit, or to lend a hand with a bandage, for he very soon learned to bandage skilfully.

He does not say a word; he just looks. The bit of his forehead that shows under his own bandages is wrinkled with the earnestness of his attention--and he has those blue marks by which we recognise the miner.

Sometimes it is his turn to have a dressing. But scarcely is it completed when he is up again with his apron before him, silently busy.

At eleven o'clock, Mehay disappears. He has gone, perhaps, to get a breath of fresh air? Oh, no! Here he is back again with a trayful of bowls. And he hands round the soup.

In the evening he hands the thermometer. He helps the orderlies so much that he leaves them very little to do.

All this time the bones of his skull are at work under his bandages, and the red flesh is growing. But we are not to trouble about that: it will manage all alone. The man, however, cannot be idle. He works, and trusts to his blood, "which is healthy."

In the evening, when the ward is lighted by a night-light, and I come in on tiptoe to give a last look round, I hear a voice laboriously spelling: "B-O, Bo; B-I, Bi; N-E, Ne, Bobine." It is Mehay, learning to read before going to bed.

VI

A lamp has been left alight, because the men are not asleep yet, and they are allowed to smoke for a while. It would be no fun to smoke, unless one could see the smoke.

The former bedroom of the mistress of the house makes a very light, very clean ward. Under the draperies which have been fastened up to the ceiling and covered with sheets, old Louarn lies motionless, waiting for his three shattered limbs to mend. He is smoking a cigarette, the ash from which falls upon his breast. Apologising for the little heaps of dirt that make his bed the despair of the orderlies, he says to me:

"You know, a Breton ought to be a bit dirty."

I touch the weight attached to his thigh, and he exclaims:

"Ma doue! Ma doue! Caste! Caste!"

These are oaths of a kind, of his own coining, which make every one laugh, and himself the first. He adds, as he does every day:

"Doctor, you never hurt me so much before as you have done this time."

Then he laughs again.

Lens is not asleep yet, but he is as silent as usual. He has scarcely uttered twenty words in three weeks.

In a corner, Mehay patiently repeats: "P-A, Pa," and the orderly who is teaching him to read presses his forefinger on the soiled page.

I make my way towards Croin, Octave. I sit down by the bed in silence.

Croin turns a face half hidden by bandages to me, and puts a leg damp with sweat out from under the blankets, for fever runs high just at this time. He too, is silent; he knows as well as I do that he is not going on well; but all the same, he hopes I shall go away without speaking to him.

No. I must tell him. I bend over him and murmur certain things.

He listens, and his chin begins to tremble, his boyish chin, which is covered with a soft, fair down.

Then, with the accent of his province, he says in a tearful, hesitating voice:

"I have already given an eye, must I give a hand too?"

His one remaining eye fills with tears. And seeing the sound hand, I press it gently before I go.

VII

When I put my fingers near his injured eye, Croin recoils a little.

"Don't be afraid," I say to him.

"Oh, I'm not afraid!"

And he adds proudly:

"When a chap has lived on Hill 108, he can't ever be afraid of anything again."

"Then why do you wince?"

"It's just my head moving back of its own accord. I never think of it."

And it is true; the man is not afraid, but his flesh recoils.

When the bandage is properly adjusted, what remains visible of Groin's face is young, agreeable, charming. I note this with satisfaction, and say to him:

"There's not much damage done on this side. We'll patch you up so well that you will still be able to make conquests."

He smiles, touches his bandage, looks at his mutilated arm, seems to lose himself for a while in memories, and murmurs:

"May be. But the girls will never come after me again as they used to..."

VIII

"The skin is beginning to form over the new flesh. A few weeks more, and then a wooden leg. You will run along like a rabbit."

Plaquet essays a little dry laugh which means neither yes nor no, but which reveals a great timidity, and something else, a great anxiety.

"For Sundays, you can have an artificial leg. You put a boot on it. The trouser hides it all. It won't show a bit."

The wounded man shakes his head slightly, and listens with a gentle, incredulous smile.

"With an artificial leg, Plaquet, you will, of course, be able to go out. It will be almost as it was before."

Plaquet shakes his head again, and says in a low voice:

"Oh, I shall never go out!"

"But with a good artificial leg, Plaquet, you will be able to walk almost as well as before. Why shouldn't you go out?"

Plaquet hesitates and remains silent.

"Why?"

Then in an almost inaudible voice he replies:

"I will never go out. I should be ashamed."

Plaquet will wear a medal on his breast. He is a brave soldier, and by no means a fool. But there are very complex feelings which we must not judge too hastily.

IX

In the corner of the ward there is a little plank bed which is like all the other little beds. But buried between its sheets there is the smile of Mathouillet, which is like no other smile.

Mathouillet, after throwing a good many bombs, at last got one himself. In this disastrous adventure, he lost part of his thigh, received several wounds, and gradually became deaf. Such is the fate of bombardier-grenadier Mathouillet.

The bombardier-grenadier has a gentle, beardless face, which for many weeks must have expressed great suffering, and, which is now beginning to show a little satisfaction.

But Mathouillet hears so badly that when one speaks to him he only smiles in answer.

If I come into the ward, Mathouillet's smile awaits and welcomes me. When the dressing is over, Mathouillet thanks me with a smile. If I look at the temperature chart, Mathouillet's smile follows me, but not questioningly; Mathouillet has faith in me, but his smile says a number of unspoken things that I understand perfectly. Conversation is difficult, on account of this unfortunate deafness--that is to say, conversation as usually carried on. But we two, happily, have no need of words. For some time past, certain smiles have been enough for us. And Mathouillet smiles, not only with his eyes or with his lips, but with his nose, his beardless chin, his broad, smooth forehead, crowned by the pale hair of the North, with all his gentle, boyish face.

Now that Mathouillet can get up, he eats at the table, with his comrades. To call him to meals, Baraffe utters a piercing cry, which reaches the ear of the bombardier-grenadier.

He arrives, shuffling his slippers along the floor, and examines all the laughing faces. As he cannot hear, he hesitates to sit down, and this time his smile betrays embarrassment and confusion.

Coming very close to him, I say loudly:

"Your comrades are calling you to dinner, my boy."

"Yes, yes," he replies, "but because they know I am deaf, they sometimes try to play tricks on me."

His cheeks flush warmly as he makes this impromptu confidence. Then he makes up his mind to sit down, after interrogating me with his most affectionate smile.

X

Once upon a time, Paga would have been called un type; now he is un numero. This means that he is an original, that his ways of considering and practising life are unusual; and as life here is reduced entirely to terms of suffering, it means that his manner of suffering differs from that of other people.

From the very beginning, during those hard moments when the wounded man lies plunged in stupor and self-forgetfulness, Paga distinguished himself by some remarkable eccentricities.

Left leg broken, right foot injured, such was the report on Paga's hospital sheet.

Now the leg was not doing at all well. Every morning, the good head doctor stared at the swollen flesh with his little round discoloured eyes and said: "Come, we must just wait till to-morrow." But Paga did not want to wait.

Flushed with fever, his hands trembling, his southern accent exaggerated by approaching delirium, he said, as soon as we came to see him.

"My wish, my wish! You know my wish, doctor."

Then, lower, with a kind of passion:

"I want you to cut it off, you know. I want you to cut this leg. Oh! I shan't be happy till it is done. Doctor, cut it, cut it off."

We didn't cut it at all, and Paga's business was very successfully arranged. I even feel sure that this leg became quite a respectable limb again.

I am bound to say Paga understood that he had meddled with things which did not concern him. He nevertheless continued to offer imperative advice as to the manner in which he wished to be nursed.

"Don't pull off the dressings! I won't have it. Do you hear, doctor? Don't pull. I won't have it."

Then he would begin to tremble nervously all over his body and to say:

"I am quite calm! Oh, I am really calm. See, Michelet, see, Brugneau, I am calm. Doctor, see, I am quite calm."

Meantime the dressings were gradually loosening under a trickle of water, and Paga muttered between his teeth:

"He's pulling, he's pulling.... Oh, the cruel man! I won't have it, I won't have it."

Then suddenly, with flaming cheeks:

"That's right. That's right! See, Michelet, see, Brugneau: the dressings have come away. Sergeant, Sergeant, the dressings are loosened."

He clapped his hands, possessed by a furtive joy; then he suddenly became conscious, and with a deep furrow between his brows, he began to give orders again.

"Not any tincture of iodine to-day, doctor. Take away those forceps, doctor, take them away."

Meanwhile the implacable forceps did their work, the tincture of iodine performed its chilly function; then Paga yelled:

"Quickly, quickly. Kiss me, kiss me."

With his arms thrown out like tentacles, he beat upon the air, and seized haphazard upon the first blouse that passed. Then he would embrace it frantically.

Thus it happened that he once showered kisses on Michelet's hands, objects by no means suitable for such a demonstration. Michelet said, laughing:

"Come, stop it; my hands are dirty."

And then poor Paga began to kiss Michelet's bare, hairy arms, saying distractedly:

"If your hands are dirty, your arms are all right."

Alas, what has become of all those who, during days and nights of patient labour, I saw gradually shaking off the dark empire of the night and coming back again to joy? What has become of the smouldering faggot which an ardent breath finally kindled into flame?

What became of you, precious lives, poor wonderful souls, for whom I fought so many obscure great battles, and who went off again into the realm of adventure?

You, Paga, little fellow, where are you? Do you remember the time when I used to dress your two wounds alternately, and when you said to me with great severity:

"The leg to-day, only the leg. It's not the day for the foot."

XI

Sergeant Lecolle is distinguished by a huge black beard, which fails to give a ferocious expression to the gentlest face in the world.

He arrived the day little Delporte died, and scarcely had he emerged from the dark sleep when, opening his eyes, he saw Delporte die.

I went to speak to him several times. He looked so exhausted, his black beard was so mournful that I kept on telling him: "Sergeant, your wound is not serious."

Each time he shook his head as if to say that he took but little interest in the matter, and tried to close his eyes.