Mes amis, dans la vieFaut faire des économiesLes journaux vous l’ont dit.C’est aussi mon avis.
Mes amis, dans la vieFaut faire des économiesLes journaux vous l’ont dit.C’est aussi mon avis.
Mes amis, dans la vie
Faut faire des économies
Les journaux vous l’ont dit.
C’est aussi mon avis.
This intellectual refrain must have given him extreme pleasure, for he began it again and again without any interruption.
“Well,” I said, “judging from the looks of things, you aren’t often disturbed here?”
At this the drummer cast me a searching look, cold, disdainful and commiserating, as much as to say to me,
“One can see that you’ve just come!”
As for the quartermaster, he replied to everything in the repertoire of theEldorado. Without stopping his juggling, he shouted at me in his amazing voice:
Moi! je m’en fous,Je reste tranquil’mentDans mon trou!...
Moi! je m’en fous,Je reste tranquil’mentDans mon trou!...
Moi! je m’en fous,
Je reste tranquil’ment
Dans mon trou!...
He was going on when the infernal noise of some aerial trolley tore through space.
“Attention!” he cried, without moving from his mattress. “There’s the Metro!”
Almost at the same moment, a great shell, a “310” at least, burst in the court of the house opposite, demolished the roof, and crushed a dozen horses.
The adjutant was just crossing the street and he stopped at the door to estimate the damage.
“They missed the steeple again,” he said, with a disdainful shrug for the Boche artillery.
And Morin, the drummer, by way of commentary, without interrupting his reading:
“Close the door. If they send any more shells, that will make a draft.”
From Proyart to Morcourt is five miles by a crossroad which in its many curves and windings cuts across trenches, communication trenches and barbed wire.
The snow had stopped, but it still covered the ground, the trees and the farms with its regular white covering. The communication trenches showed black on this vast screen.
The crows circled in innumerable flights and sought in vain for the carrion which had been so abundant for months and which, to-day, was buried.
We went along, boot to boot, slowly, for the roads were slippery. Kiki wanted to dance about, for the keen air made him lively. But Zèbre’s sedateness dismayed him, and Kiki wisely ranged alongside and regulated the pace by his.
The lieutenant talked but little—a few detached words, chopped phrases, about the company,an observation on the weather, a reflection on the horses.
The road was almost deserted save for a few Territorials, muffled in their sheepskins, who dragged along their heavy wooden shoes which were made even higher by a thick sole of snow. From time to time a company wagon, driven like an express train, grazed us with its wheels and splashed us with mud.
Then, abruptly, without having had to climb the slightest hill, we saw Morcourt, as one sees suddenly from the top of a cliff the sea at his feet, in the midst of the thousand windings of the Somme, of the canal and the turf-pits. Morcourt is a village scarcely as large as Proyart, and like it hidden in a gully sheltered from the winds on all sides, and also like it, hidden under the snow.
A blacksmith had set up his forge in the open air against the walls of a tottering tile-kiln. All around the snow had melted in great black puddles where the waiting horses had pawed the ground. The smoke from his fire rose red-tinted and dark in the heavy air which seemed to muffle the ring of the hammers on the anvil.
We come to a stop before a house nearly inruins, whose tottering remains are a constant menace. A corporal rushes out—nimble, short and thick-set, a small Basque cap binding his sunburned forehead—and then some men come from the neighboring stables.
The houses in the country which were invaded for a short time and in which troops have had their cantonments for long weary months all look alike. Their doors and windows are gone, but these are replaced by tent canvas.
The drivers of the echelon and the war train in the machine-gun companies are nearly always sailors, the older classes of the Territorials, who after many changes have been assigned to the Colonial regiments. No one knows why, but it is probably because the bureaucratic, stay-at-home mental worker finds some relationship between the Colonials and the sea. And so they make these men, accustomed to the management of ships, infantrymen, or drivers, or even cavalrymen. But with the unfailing readiness and the ingenuity of their kind they make up so much for all that, that far from appearing unready and badly placed, one would say that they were veterans already broken to all the tricks of the trade.
Their long ship voyages and the necessities of critical hours have taught them to replace with the means at hand most things in material existence. From an old preserve box and a branch of a tree, squared and split with a hatchet, they make a strong and convenient table. With a scantling and a bit of wire lattice taken from a fence, they make an elastic mattress which, covered with straw and canvas, becomes a very comfortable bed.
The sailor is carpenter: the hatchet in his hand takes the place of the most ingenious tools of the joiner; painter: he has painted and refitted his boat from its tarry keel to the scroll work of the bulwarks and the figures and the beloved words they put on the stern; mender: he mends his sails and nets artistically; cook: during the long days at sea on his frail craft with its limited accommodations, he makes the most savory dishes from the fruits of his fishing and a few simple spices. His qualities and his knowledge are numerous and wide: astronomer and healer, and, as well, singer of beautiful songs which cradle his thought at the will of the rhythms, as the sea rocks his boat at the will of the waves.
But in this multiplicity of talents he lacks that of a driver, and what is more, a driver of a machine gun. That is a job which combines the heavy and the mountain artillery. A machine-gun driver should be able to drive in the saddle the leading team of horses and put the heavy caisson of ammunition through the most difficult evolutions. Again, he should be able to drive on foot the mule loaded with his pack-saddle and through the most impossible and sometimes the most dangerous paths.
We had scarcely begun to swallow a cup of thick, smoking, regulation coffee in a room of the cantonment, furnished with special skill, when Sub-Lieutenant Delpos—smart, carefree, smiling, a cap on the back of his head and a song on his lips—arrived.
Dedouche’s description seemed to me to be exact. He was indeed a very young man, very quick, very blond and very gay. He was already an officer when others of his age had scarcely left college; he was already a hero counting in his active service a thousand feats of prowess when his rather sceptical contemporaries were content to read about them in books. Open merrimentshone in his eyes. He had gained his promotion in the field far from the stifling atmosphere of study halls. Yesterday he was still a sergeant in Madagascar, Senegal, and Morocco; to-day he is an officer who has fought since the beginning of the Great War; to-morrow he will be a trainer of men. He knows them all; many are his old bedfellows or companions of the column. His remarks are keen and unrhetorical and they please the men. They love him and fear him; they are free with him and respect him. They know that he understands his trade perfectly and that they can deceive him in nothing.
Our introduction was short and unceremonious. A man brought on the table a bottle of very sweet Moselle wine, which is christened at the front “Champagne.” It was one of those wines which make up for their qualities by such pompous appellations and well-intentioned labels as “Champagne de la Victory,” “Champagne de la Revenge,” “of the Allies,” “of the Poilu,” “of Glory.” They are all equally bad, but they make a loud noise when the cork is drawn and most of the wine flows away in sparkling foam.
We drained our cups to the common health,and to the success and certain glory of the company.
Then the lieutenant, who has memories of the drama, said in a voice which recalled the tones of the already classic Carbon de Casteljaloux, his neighbor,
“Since my company has, I believe, reached its full number, shall we not show it to thelogis, if you please?”
Under the rays of an anemic sun which had waited until the hour of sunset before it deigned to appear, we made a brief visit to the echelon.
First the roll; five corporal muleteers or drivers: Raynal, the owner of a vineyard in Gironde; Liniers, a salesman of wines and spirits and a great elector in the Twelfth Arrondissement; Glanais, Bonecase, Glorieu, carpenter, vine-grower, and farmer—and none of them had ever managed a horse in his life.
And the men—one in fifty is a cavalryman—but that one is perfect. He was trained at the cavalry school at Saumur; trained horses and bred them, so they at once turned him over to the echelon, where he had to lead a mule by the bridle. That, of course, was a reproach to his old trade,so in default of any other satisfaction it taught him the philosophy of resignation and peaceful blessedness.
The cavalry!
“Oh, the cavalry, that’s been posing five minutes,” said Sub-Lieutenant Delpos—he was extremely fond of that expression.
There were horses and mules varying in age from five to seventeen. They were all sensible, settled down, their legs somewhat worn out, and more accustomed to the hearse than to a caisson, and more familiar with the song of the worker than with the roar of cannon. They were all gentle, only demanding oats and straw; some with their bones sticking out of their hides, while others were still sleek and shiny from their warm stables and fresh straw; all unconscious of what awaited them on the morrow.
One of the mules was a veteran, an enormous, cunning animal. His hair was short and rough, and in places there were great patches where the hide showed. His skin was hung on a projecting framework of bones, and, although he was well fed, he was very thin—with a thinness so unyielding to rations that it was impossible toget him fat. His head was that of an epicurean philosopher with deep mocking eyes. This was Chocolate.
Chocolate is beyond the time when he has an age. The oldest soldiers in the regiment have always known him, even at Marrakech and Rabbat in Morocco.
Chocolate has made many campaigns during his active service and he has received several wounds as well.
The story goes that one day in Morocco Chocolate got loose from the bivouac, and started browsing on the grass and wild oats in an ambuscade—between two fires. Absolutely indifferent to the crackling of bullets which he had known from infancy, he continued to lop off the plants until the pernicious bullets began to graze his skin. Then he stretched out at full length in a hollow in the sand and browsed on the grass within reach of his teeth, while he waited the end of the adventure. Then he went back to the bivouac in search of a pail of water and a bag of oats.
Now Chocolate is the file leader. He indicates by his example to the horses whom the pack-saddlegalls that the best way of carrying it is to avoid romping to the right and the left, shifting about, and trotting, in fact, all movements which misplace the saddle or wrinkle the skin beneath. The secret is to work soberly, slowly and at an even pace.
Chocolate belongs to a family of mules which ranks high in history. The broad, rounded backs of his ancestors have borne debonnair sovereigns, preacher monks, magnificent Sultans and Sancho Panzas, baskets of vegetables and cans of milk. To-day Chocolate, their descendant, carries an infernal instrument—a machine gun. But what matters that to him? The road rolls on before him and he follows it. There are oats at the end, to-night or to-morrow, what difference does it make?
“He is cool,” the drivers say. Coolness is the great secret of the Colonials.
Coolness, indifference to danger, bad weather, adversity, obstacles, death—no nervousness, no useless bursts of anger, no dangerous hurrying, no false starts. It is necessary to go—they will go—they arrive. That is all.
Dedouche brings me a note to sign for on the report book. It reads:
“The non-commissioned officers will assemble their sections in the courtyard of Cantonment No. 77 at 2.30. Each gun captain will present his gun. Service marching order, with masks and arms.”
I sign mechanically to please Dedouche, who thinks he is showing me a special favor by offering me the first reading of all orders and reports. But this one interests me but little, for I have neither arms nor guns to present. So it is as a spectator that I am present at the lieutenant’s inspection. This time I shall see the complete company.
I find myself at the appointed hour at Cantonment 77.
One must have lived in these remains of villages, which persist in standing, near the linesto have an exact idea of what they are. In these villages furious combats have taken place in the streets, from house to house, and for two years they have been occupied and overpopulated—a hamlet of one hundred and fifty inhabitants often serves as a cantonment for ten thousand men—by men of all arms of the service, from all regions, of all colors.
It is not ruin in all its tragic horror and majesty. It is worse.
It is something which appears to want to live, but which a latent leprosy eats away. Often there are traces of shells, the splatter of bullets, the marks of fire; the roofs may have fallen in from the recent shelling, but even yet the general effect is that the houses on the streets are still standing.
The fronts of these houses, made of straw and mud, with only a large door swinging on its hinges, are whole. Of course the mud has often been scratched in long, leprous wounds, and the straw tumbles out leaving the bare skeleton of worm-eaten wood; and, besides, the windows are without the glass, which has been broken to bits by the explosion of shells, and which is replaced bybits of paper or by calendars. But the real ruin is inside.
Here is the work of the carelessness and negligence of the wandering multitudes who pass that way, who arrive at evening, tired, muddy, wet, who fall asleep on damp straw, cut to pieces and crawling with vermin, and who go on the next day, or three days later, leaving as a mark of their passing a greater stench and a greater dilapidation.
The ruin is inside. It is not the beautiful ending of destruction by fire, but the slow death by cancer which eats away, by gangrene which mounts from the cattle sheds to the stable, from the stable to the barn, and from the barn to the hearth. And at last a day comes when the front alone is standing on the ruin of the annihilated house, and then men who are passing by, seeing that it is tottering and dangerous, cut it down with blows of the axe and chop the wood into bits for their little needs.
And so these houses die: houses which under their humble appearance had great souls palpitating with life, where lives were born and passed their years; where joys and griefs exclaimed andwept, where the peasant, the son of the soil, drew from this soil, the generatrix of strong races, the re-vivifying harvests which he stored away in the barn which to-day is dead.
Whole villages and great villages agonize in this way through months of wearing away, and their end is no less terrible, no less majestic, no less pitiful than of those villages with glorious names which the wrath of shells beats into dust.
Cantonment 77 is made up of those houses which waste away. Between the fragile walls, notched by an empty barn and a fallen shed, opens a courtyard. Filth spreads out in a vast pool on which float among the refuse a pile of garbage, boxes, the waste of cooking and greasy papers.
In the corner of a recess open to every wind, on piles of bricks held together by iron bars pulled from the window sills, the cook has set his pots and bowls in line. His fire of wood so green that the sap oozes out licks the already blackened walls with its long flames.
All that offers even a precarious shelter—a roof—is occupied by the men who crowd in there on old, filthy straw, and on the meager rations of fresh straw, often too fresh. And as the tilesand thatch let the rain filter through, they stretch above them strips of tent canvas.
Oh, blessed canvas! To what uses is it not put! It serves as a roof against bad weather, the rain and snow; a protection against dampness, mud and vermin; planted on two stakes, stretched to a door casing, it protects the fires for cooking from draughts; in the more comfortable cantonments in the rear, where the straw is clean and abundant, where the men are at last able to take off their shoes, and their muddy leggings and their trousers heavy with dampness, it serves as the bed clothes; and, finally, at the last hour it is in the tent canvas that they collect the bodies with their torn and shattered limbs. It serves as shroud and coffin. And, faithful to its rôle, it is the last shelter.
The men began to arrive by groups almost in order, at any rate as much so as the littered ground in the courtyard would permit. They assembled by sections in a half circle around the pool of filth. It was certainly a picturesque sight when, at the command “Attention,” these men mounted a faultless guard around this fetid pool, where, among papers, tossed about and dirty, andbox covers, there floated, bloated and fetid, all kinds of carrion, the rats of the last hecatomb.
Near the doorway on the largest and cleanest part of the courtyard the eight machine guns were drawn up in line.
Eight machine guns, the armament of the company.
Eight guns, so small, so fine, and such bits of workmanship, that one would think to see them that they were a child’s playthings.
The machine guns appeared very coquettish and pretty as they rested on their bluish-gray tripod, with their steel barrels well burnished even to the mouth of their muzzles. They hardly appeared at all threatening with the polished leather of the breech, where the bronzed fist of the gun layer stood out in graceful designs, and the attenuated round and svelte circles of the radiator.
Remains of Villages near the LinesSee page 36
Remains of Villages near the LinesSee page 36
And the machine gun is a coquette, too. Under its appearance of delicacy and grace it conceals a terrible power of domination and strength. Yet it hurls pitiless death without noise, with a rapidity as furtive as a shout of laughter, with a tac-tac which is scarcely perceptible and which is no moremenacing than the familiar tac-tac of the sewing-machine or the typewriter.
And the machine gun is a coquette, too! Fashioned like a work of art, the brilliancy of its polished steel and the voluptuous roundness of the brass invite caresses. Its shots come from they know not where, since they can see nothing—a bush is sufficient to conceal it; light, it is here one minute and there another; it is not visible until one is almost upon it, yet its shots are fatal at some miles.
It is delicate and costly, needing a hundred things for its adornment, skilled care for its toilet and a hundred men to serve. Is not the machine gun a coquette?
As the Company Casanova is of recent formation it received an entirely new armament of the latest model. The guns are built on the Hotchkiss system—the last word of perfection in war. They are light, scarcely fifty pounds, and they are easy to manipulate skilfully. The rapidity of their fire is extreme, more than five hundred shots a minute, and their adjustment is such that they can fire on the most varied objects. First, there is blockade fire, which concentrates all the shotson a narrow point; then the sweeping fire, which sweeps the whole of an extended field; and finally, indirect fire, which hits its designated target with mathematical precision, at the same time concealing the source.
The machine gun is the little queen of battles. One may smile to look at her, but one shudders when he thinks of her ravages.
And the men are proud of their guns.
I observe them while the lieutenant speaks to them and their eyes look alternately at the lieutenant and at their respective guns. They know their gun; they love her; possess her. They have confidence in her, and it is she who defends them.
To-day there are about one hundred and fifty men grouped in the same specialty, from all regions, all regiments, all arms, who have come after more or less lengthy stays in the instruction camps at Nice, Clermont, and La Valbonne.
Their specialty has created among them a certain sort of affinity, a family characteristic. Machine gunners are an element apart, a sort of élite. In their ranks there is a certain homogeneity which comes from the practice of the same competency which is nearly a science. They feelsomewhat superior to, at least different from, the ordinary companies.
They appreciate the worth of their distinction and scarcely ever associate with other troops. The companies of infantry are swamped in a battalion, while the companies of machine guns are isolated, autonomous, directly dependent on the commanding officer, and they enjoy an absolute initiative in a battle. Finally, they are not anonymous or numbered; they are not called the fifth, seventh, or the twelfth, but the “Company Casanova,” as they once said Royal-Piémont or Prince Condé.
Then, too, there is their insignia. The insignia is the bauble, the jewel, of the soldier. It is a real satisfaction to have something on the uniform which distinguishes one from his neighbor. To such a point do they carry this that many cannot resist putting on insignia to which they haven’t the slightest right. And none of the insignia arouses greater envy than the two small intersecting cannons of the machine guns.
It takes one hundred and fifty men, two officers, ten non-commissioned officers, and sixty horses to serve, supply and transport the eight small guns,one hundred and fifty men trained and inured to hardship. There is none here who has not been in several battles and received several wounds in his active service. There is none here who has not a good record. When said of one that means little, but when said of all it is worth telling.
There are artillerymen, cavalrymen, and sailors who have become foot soldiers through their different changes; and not only are all arms represented, but all professions, all classes and all temperaments. Jacquet, a poet and musician, a dreamer with an exquisite soul, is an accurate gun layer. Finger drives milk wagons in Paris, but with his gigantic hands he manipulates with delicacy the wheelwork of his Hotchkiss. Millazo, who behind his counter at Hanoï showed gracefully the jewels of Indo-Chinese art and learned at Lure the meticulous art of watchmaking, now manages a “sweeping” fire as calmly and accurately as he used to mount a spiral spring on its microscopic pivot. Corporal Vial, who used to verify accounts in the luxurious banks on the Riviera and handle tinkling gold and checks, here shows that he knows the science of fire and his machine and leads his squad with authority.Charlet drove the heavy locomotives on the railways of the North; Gamie regulated the powerful looms in the textile factories, and they both owe to their knowledge of mechanics their duties as range takers. Imbert was a fisherman and, as he knows how to cook a savory bouillabaisse, he is assigned to the difficult rôle of cook and acquits himself conscientiously and well. However, Chevalier, an expert in geometry, who for twenty years grew pale in profound studies of logarithms and co-ordinates, here assumes the duties of mess corporal, and discusses with asperity the supplies and remarks pitilessly on the regulation cup of wine and the mathematical pounds and ounces of mutton, lard and beans.
In spite of what one might think, this odd collection of men is as homogeneous as could be imagined. This comes from the fact that above all this different knowledge is a uniform purpose, because all these multiple alliances tend toward a common end which is incarnated in their chief, a man from the South, who is expansive and impetuous, but who curbs his temperament under the rigid calm of a man from the North, one of the common people, a son of the soil, who hasrisen to the rank of officer, and a commanding officer at that, solely through persistency and courage.
When the lieutenant had finished his rapid but close inspection, and had examined with the eye of a connoisseur the condition and repair of the guns, he took in the whole company with a look, for it is his work which he commands with firmness and which he loves. He is already going, after addressing a few remarks to the adjutant and the classic, “All right. Break ranks,” when a man steps out of the ranks and comes towards him.
“Lieutenant, the company is now completely equipped and armed, but there is, however, still something lacking.”
“Indeed,” replied the lieutenant, “and what’s that?”
“Its marching song.”
“Its marching song! Have you chosen one?”
“Chosen one! Oh, no! We have an unpublished one, as new as the company itself, composed for us and created by us. Will you do us the honor of listening to it?”
“Will I? The devil. I ask it; I demand it. I want to learn it, too. Go on. Start it!” he exclaimed.
And then Gaix turned towards his comrades and began to sing in his great deep baritone voice our marching song, “Ma Mitrailleuse,” which each section had learned secretly and which they sang together for the first time to-day.
On a rhythm taken from some war march, some one had composed simple words, which were nevertheless image-provoking and vibrant, where the alternating motet “Ma Mitrailleuse,” sung in chorus, sounds like a bugle call.
This marching song is one of those which engrave themselves at once on the memory and in the heart, which are never forgotten, for in their accents are rooted the strongest impressions of the hours lived in the simple brotherhood of arms, the memory of dangers encountered together, the pride of victories, and the pious homage to those who sang it with us and whose manly voices were silenced forever in the night of battles.
And I find in writing it the same deep stirring emotion that I experienced when I first heard it.
MA MITRAILLEUSESur notre front, dans ton abri,Tu dors sur ton trépied bleu gris,Calme dans l’ombre vaporeuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Et ton canon d’acier bleuiBenoîtement perce la nuit.Que tu parais peu dangereuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Si parfois en te transportantJe trouve ton poids fatigant,Et dis tout bas “la sacré gueuse!”Ma mitrailleuse,Pardonne-moi, car j’ai grand tort,Sachant que tu chantes la mortDe l’Allemagne furieuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Mais dans le petit jour blêmi,Alerte! Voici l’ennemi!Et t’éveillant soudain rageuse,Ma mitrailleuse,Avec tes tac tac réguliersFauche les Boches par milliers,Sans t’arrêter, noire et fumeuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Et comme nous elle attendraLe grand jour qui déclancheraL’offensive victorieuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Poursuivant le bandit germain,J’entendrai sur les bords du Rhin,Au grand soleil, claquer joyeuseMa mitrailleuse.
MA MITRAILLEUSESur notre front, dans ton abri,Tu dors sur ton trépied bleu gris,Calme dans l’ombre vaporeuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Et ton canon d’acier bleuiBenoîtement perce la nuit.Que tu parais peu dangereuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Si parfois en te transportantJe trouve ton poids fatigant,Et dis tout bas “la sacré gueuse!”Ma mitrailleuse,Pardonne-moi, car j’ai grand tort,Sachant que tu chantes la mortDe l’Allemagne furieuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Mais dans le petit jour blêmi,Alerte! Voici l’ennemi!Et t’éveillant soudain rageuse,Ma mitrailleuse,Avec tes tac tac réguliersFauche les Boches par milliers,Sans t’arrêter, noire et fumeuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Et comme nous elle attendraLe grand jour qui déclancheraL’offensive victorieuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Poursuivant le bandit germain,J’entendrai sur les bords du Rhin,Au grand soleil, claquer joyeuseMa mitrailleuse.
MA MITRAILLEUSE
Sur notre front, dans ton abri,Tu dors sur ton trépied bleu gris,Calme dans l’ombre vaporeuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Et ton canon d’acier bleuiBenoîtement perce la nuit.Que tu parais peu dangereuse,Ma mitrailleuse.
Sur notre front, dans ton abri,
Tu dors sur ton trépied bleu gris,
Calme dans l’ombre vaporeuse,
Ma mitrailleuse.
Et ton canon d’acier bleui
Benoîtement perce la nuit.
Que tu parais peu dangereuse,
Ma mitrailleuse.
Si parfois en te transportantJe trouve ton poids fatigant,Et dis tout bas “la sacré gueuse!”Ma mitrailleuse,Pardonne-moi, car j’ai grand tort,Sachant que tu chantes la mortDe l’Allemagne furieuse,Ma mitrailleuse.
Si parfois en te transportant
Je trouve ton poids fatigant,
Et dis tout bas “la sacré gueuse!”
Ma mitrailleuse,
Pardonne-moi, car j’ai grand tort,
Sachant que tu chantes la mort
De l’Allemagne furieuse,
Ma mitrailleuse.
Mais dans le petit jour blêmi,Alerte! Voici l’ennemi!Et t’éveillant soudain rageuse,Ma mitrailleuse,Avec tes tac tac réguliersFauche les Boches par milliers,Sans t’arrêter, noire et fumeuse,Ma mitrailleuse.
Mais dans le petit jour blêmi,
Alerte! Voici l’ennemi!
Et t’éveillant soudain rageuse,
Ma mitrailleuse,
Avec tes tac tac réguliers
Fauche les Boches par milliers,
Sans t’arrêter, noire et fumeuse,
Ma mitrailleuse.
Et comme nous elle attendraLe grand jour qui déclancheraL’offensive victorieuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Poursuivant le bandit germain,J’entendrai sur les bords du Rhin,Au grand soleil, claquer joyeuseMa mitrailleuse.
Et comme nous elle attendra
Le grand jour qui déclanchera
L’offensive victorieuse,
Ma mitrailleuse.
Poursuivant le bandit germain,
J’entendrai sur les bords du Rhin,
Au grand soleil, claquer joyeuse
Ma mitrailleuse.
When the last accents, sung by the men at the top of their lungs, died away, there was silence and I looked at the lieutenant.
He was seated on a staircase, with his head leaning on his clenched fists. He had listened to the whole song, and now he remained for a moment as if waiting. And when he stood up his eyes were slightly red and his lips concealed under a smile the impress of intense emotion.
“It is good,” he said, “very beautiful, my friends, and I congratulate you all. Your song is admirable, it will go with us everywhere, and we will lead it to victory. But who is the author? There must be an author. The devil, there must be an author!”
There was a moment of silence as if each one hesitated to reply, but a big sergeant cried out in a stentorian voice:
“Abanfor the author, Lieutenant Delpos, and a couplet for him besides.”
Then the men broke all alignment, pressedaround their young sub-lieutenant, joyous, proud and blushing with pleasure, weeping with joy, and burst out at the top of their lungs, with indescribable feeling, which showed all their strength, their will for victory and their unbreakable confidence:
Et comme nous elle attendraLe grand jour qui déclancheraL’offensive victorieuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Poursuivant le bandit germain,J’entendrai sur les bords du Rhin,Au grand soleil, claquer joyeuseMa mitrailleuse.
Et comme nous elle attendraLe grand jour qui déclancheraL’offensive victorieuse,Ma mitrailleuse.Poursuivant le bandit germain,J’entendrai sur les bords du Rhin,Au grand soleil, claquer joyeuseMa mitrailleuse.
Et comme nous elle attendra
Le grand jour qui déclanchera
L’offensive victorieuse,
Ma mitrailleuse.
Poursuivant le bandit germain,
J’entendrai sur les bords du Rhin,
Au grand soleil, claquer joyeuse
Ma mitrailleuse.
Then, amidst the applause and the “vivats,” the lieutenant embraced his young friend vigorously and said:
“Nom de Dieu! You didn’t tell me that you were a poet. I congratulate you.”
And taking him by the arm, he went off joyous, skipping like a gamin, taking up again the inspiring refrain:
Ma Mitrailleuse ... Ma Mitrailleuse!
Ma Mitrailleuse ... Ma Mitrailleuse!
Ma Mitrailleuse ... Ma Mitrailleuse!
One evening the lieutenant said to me a little after dinner:
“To-morrow, at four o’clock, we’re going to the first line trenches to find positions for the machine guns. The section leaders are coming, and if you want to come, you’ll find it interesting.”
The selection of a machine gun emplacement is essentially a delicate task. The Germans are past masters in this art. So, in the days of attack when our artillery had made a thorough preparation and they were convinced that there was nothing left in front and we could advance without trouble, exactly as though taking a walk in a square, we found ourselves abruptly right in the fire of a Boche machine gun which had not been spotted and which was so skilfully camouflaged that it had resisted the most terrible bombardment.
It is necessary above all to find a place which commands a wide field of fire and one easy toplay on. It must also be easy to conceal the gun in some way, for, if it is once spotted, a shell will soon send the gun and its crew pirouetting in the air, unless they are forewarned by a shot too long or too short, but whose destination is unmistakable, and so have time to move.
It was scarcely daylight when we assembled in front of the lieutenant’s quarters.
A fog that could be cut with a knife limited our view to a few yards. It was cold.
Sergeant Lace is there already walking back and forth in the fog. He is always exactly punctual, anyway. He is equipped as if for an assault with his revolver, mask, and field glasses. His chest is covered with numerous colonial decorations, his military medal and his war cross with three palms.
Lace is a section leaderemeritus. He is rough and harsh in appearance; he never smiles, or rarely; he is tanned from his long stay in the colonies, but he does his duty with unfailing exactness. During an attack in Champagne he found himself under the command of his brother, a lieutenant, who was mortally wounded at his side. He embraced him reverently, took the papers,pocketbook and letters from the pockets of his jacket, removed his decorations, which were now relics, and resumed his place in the ranks. He fought all day, attacked a fortified position, assisted in the dangerous task of clearing a wood, and when night came, by the light of star shells under a hellish bombardment and a storm of shrapnel, he went back and brought out his brother’s body and gave it proper burial. Lace is a soldier and a conscientious one.
Other silhouettes approach and come out of the darkness like ghosts. One is Poirier, a very young man, who laughs in the midst of the worst dangers, which he absolutely ignores. Then there is big Roullé, whom ten years in the tropics did not succeed in making thin, and whose breadth of shoulder is ill-adapted to the narrowness of the communication trenches. Then Pierron comes on the run, singing a Neapolitan song. He is from Saigon and is homesick for the Asiatic nights, whose charms he is forever describing.
As the hour strikes the lieutenant appears.
We follow the main road through the fog. This leads to Lehons, a ruined village which is situated in the lines and cuts the trenches.
One can hardly distinguish the trees in the fields either to the right or the left. The dawn is silent. Nature wants light for her awakening, but this morning the lights persist in staying dim.
We hear occasionally a cannon shot, as sharp as the crack of a whip. It comes from a battery of “75’s” concealed in a wood at our side, which fires at stated intervals for tactical reasons. The shell shatters the air over our heads and all becomes quiet again.
So we walk along for nearly an hour, some grouped together while others dream away by themselves. The fog now begins to lighten and we are able to see the adjoining fields. They are torn with shell holes, the rare trees are shattered and slashed, and their branches hang down like broken limbs. In the ditches, full of muddy water, are piles of material—rolls of barbed wire, eaten by rust, chevaux de frise broken to pieces, and crossbars and round logs already covered with moss.
Suddenly, there in front of us, at two paces, splitting the fog is—the village. There are houses—remains of houses—and parts of wallswhich through some prodigious feat of balance persist in remaining upright.
The first house on the right was apparently of some importance. The two master walls still remain in spite of the roof having fallen. Between them is a pile of stones, burnt girders, and in the middle of the heap of rubbish still stands, intact and rigid, pointing straight toward yawning heaven, the iron balustrade of a winding staircase. A great signboard of black wood runs from one wall to the other, apparently holding them together, and one might believe that they only remain upright, thanks to it. It is riddled with bullets and the flames have licked it as they passed, but one can still read the long yellow letters of the inscription:
LodgingsFamous CuisineComfortable Rooms
None of us risk an ironical reflection or a mocking smile, for to-day we have become accustomed to so many strange inscriptions which in disaster are the living lie of their emptiness.
Opposite, on the other side of the road, the military cemetery shows its multitude of crosses.Their number has exceeded the capacity of the site provided for it, and they have already become masters of the surrounding fields. These graves are all immutably alike, and they are built and maintained with a fraternal affection by companies of Territorials who hold the cantonments in the neighborhood.
Yes, they are all immutably alike. There is always the white wooden cross with the name of the deceased, the number of his regiment, his company and the date of his death in simple black letters. The grave is a small square, bordered by bits of tile or bricks, sometimes by planks or the bottoms of bottles. And on this humble burial place someone has planted primroses.
A bottle stuck in the ground by the neck holds a bit of paper on which is written all supplementary information as to identity which will guide the pious pilgrim of to-morrow.
Sometimes a perforated helmet or a tattered cap placed on the cross by a comrade who respects his memory tells us that the soldier was wounded in the head. One shudders at some of these helmets, they are rent so grievously.
We pass rapidly but religiously through the narrow paths between the graves. It is a sort of duty rather than curiosity which leads us to look over all these cemeteries in search of some known name, a friend’s name, so that we may pay our last respects.
But time passes. It would not be prudent to stop longer, for already above the neighboring hedge we can hear the sinister “ta-co” of the German bullets. Branches of an apple tree, lopped off by the shells, fall at our feet.
So we enter the village through what was once a street. Here for fifty yards are barricades of bricks and dirt interlaced with farm instruments and carts.
Barbed-wire entanglements which only leave a narrow, difficult, zigzag passage between them are evidences of the bitter fights which took place here.
We reach the church which is the beginning of the communication trench which leads to the front lines.
The church! There is absolutely nothing left of it. One might think that the savagery of theGerman cannon raged with a special hate on the buildings created for rest, meditation and prayer.
The church has fallen down and the naves are now only a mass of stones on which the briers are already beginning to grow. A sort of arched door still stands at the entrance, without a scratch. It is nearly new and its brilliant ironwork seems a challenge in the midst of this destruction.
The communication trench starts on the spot where the high altar used to stand. We follow it under the ruins, through the orchards which it furrows, adjusting our steps to each other, and keeping our eyes on the man ahead.
Above our heads nature awakes; the sky appears clear now; and branches of trees with their buds and blossoms hang over the parapets.
It is five o’clock and broad daylight when we reach the proposed emplacement. It is on a knoll in the middle of an orchard which is bordered some hundred yards away by hawthorn and privet hedges. Behind the hedges are the Boche lines.
The engineer in charge of laying out the works is on the ground. He tries to profit by the only salient which permits firing on a sufficiently widesweep of ground. On the right it commands the entrance to the village by a road. We see its white windings where it unrolls through the gardens, and then it plunges into a small wood and loses itself. Opposite us the emplacement commands an entire sector.
They will scoop out the place underneath, and they will keep the green shell of grass and bushes which make the most fortunate and natural sort of camouflage. A communication trench grafted on the main trench from the church will give access to it.
Orders are given rapidly, measurements are taken, and the tasks laid out. It is hardly expedient for us to delay in this corner, for our movements would betray our intentions, and already bullets, which are by no means spent bullets, cross above our heads singing their unappreciated buzz.
We make our way back through the trench.
In the village the men belonging to the supporting columns have left their lairs and are attending to their usual occupations. Some of them are washing their clothes in the watering-trough in the square and singing as they wash. The company barber is installed near the fountain andthe men form a circle about him as they wait their turn. On a butcher’s stall of white stone a cook is cutting up a quarter of beef into equal rations. Only two hundred yards from the enemy the village has taken up almost its usual existence again. These men are not afraid. At the sound of the first shell they jump into their cellars, which are amply protected by earth and boards. But they already have their customs. Shells only come at the hour when the supplies are brought up, and not always then, for the shelling doesn’t occur regularly every day. The enemy doesn’t waste munitions on a village he knows is so well destroyed.
The fresh air and the long road have set our teeth on edge and given us an appetite. We halt to break a crust. Some have brought canteens of wine or coffee; bottles of preserves appear, and the improvident—I am one—pay homage to those who pass a full flask.
The sun is already high when we start back along the road.