Although the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Battalions were in the line, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth were still in reserve and support, and every evening I was on duty at Bully-Grenay or Bracquemont to hear the confessions of these troops.
I remember one evening while on my way from Fosse-dix to Bracquemont, where the Thirteenth was now quartered, hearing the strains of an accordion, and a number of male voices singing some French song. I stopped and looked back. Down the little street came a strange procession. First, a young man, badly crippled from some hip trouble, limped rather quickly for one so stricken. High above him, from a pole that he carried, waved a large tricolor of France. Immediately behind him, still wearing his soldier’s uniform, came a French soldier who had been wounded. It was he who played the accordion. Then behind him, and spread out the whole width of the street, was a column of young men of about seventeen or eighteen years of age. All were bedecked in gay colors—sashes of crimson or yellow or green, etc., around the waist and over the shoulders; streamers of different colored ribbons waving from their hats or caps. As they advanced, they danced some strange continental dance which now and again called for the crossing of feet, and sometimes the resting of the hand on the shoulder of a neighbor.
When they drew opposite me the singing and dancing stopped, and they fell into a regular marching step, while the wounded soldier played “Father of Victory” march on his accordion. They passed me, marching briskly and cheering irregularly. Doors flew open in the little village of Bracquemont as they entered, and mothers and sisters ran to them to see the young lads as they passed.
When I came out from the church that evening the lads were just coming back from the next town. Again they were singing their song and dancing their fantastic dance. Just as they neared the church, the Thirteenth pipe band came behind them playing merrily. Hearing it, the lads quickened their step till it was almost in time with the Scotch music. On they went, keeping ahead of the band, which was obliged to slacken its pace a little, but it did so accommodatingly.
I stood near an old man watching the procession. Alongside us were three middle-aged women who smiled as it passed; but I saw tears on the cheeks of one woman while she smiled.
The old man told me that this was the procession of the young men who had just received their call to the colors. Tomorrow they would leave. On my way back to Fosse-dix I was wondering why it was that a lame man carried the flag; then suddenly it came to me that on account of his lameness he could not go to the war, and that very likely for this reason each class, when called, showed him the courtesy of appointing him to lead the procession.