EXISTENCE in the trenches is characterized by a monotony that soon becomes a burden. It is made up of waiting and work: work in which a man is by turns dirt-digger, sentinel, carpenter, and porter. There is much time for rest and repose. It is a special type of life, which recalls that of the sieges of olden days, when armies sat long months at a time facing each other. One does not fight all the time. The vigil is constant, but the struggle is not. There is the incessant watching of the field in front, the unrelaxed tension of stalking the enemy; and at the rear the staleness of inaction.
What is there to do? Sleep, certainly. Then find amusement, for the time is long. The hours move slowly, night follows day and day night without bringing change. Therefore, one must exercise his ingenuity.
One writes a lot of letters. There is always a relative to enlighten, or a sweetheart to console, or a mother to entertain. Letters arrive which are read and reread. Then the newspapers bring their limited ration of news. We discuss their contents. We learn that the submarine warfare is extending; that the Zeppelins have gone over England; that the Bulgars are attacking the Roumanians; that a great parliamentary speech has explained to the world the causes of the upheaval. Thus we kill a few more minutes. Then ennui returns: dull tediousness that puts the thumbscrews on the brain; homesickness for the distant fireside, for the old life renounced for war; yearning for the past, still near and yet so far. One wanders about and knows not what to do. One fellow has some playing-cards and opens a game. We smoke, and dream, and sew, and clean our arms. We await our turn at sentry duty. It rains. We yawn. The sun comes out, one risks his life to pay a visit to his neighbors. The picturesque ceases to be, by reason of familiarity. One sees nothing of that which at first fixed his attention. The deep trench where crazy grasses hang is a road only too well trodden. The mess is stale, the card-game stupid. One is bored to death and utterly worthless.
Then the inveterate wag intervenes. He sings, he “joshes.” He brings a laugh. The dying conversation revives. Those who were dozing sit up again and take notice. Circles form. Each one tells a story, and the long faces spread into smiles. Torpor is banished for a moment. The man who was cutting a cane with his pocket-knife exhibits it. It is fine and much admired. The man who hollowed out an inkstand from a fuse brings it forth. His work is curious, dainty, and ornamental: bravo! A painter is there, an artist, who brings out his album; he has a hundred drawings, warm with color. Each man would like to possess a copy. That is the end: there is nothing more. All this is too brief, and the time is too long. We cast about for something new.
In a hut some one installs a museum. It is a collection of souvenirs of the field of battle. The gathered trophies hang on the walls. A Boche helmet is near a freakishly twisted splinter. A German trooper’s sword-belt hangs near a saw-bayonet. There are cartridge-boxes, fragments of guns, the button of a tassel from the sabre of a buried German officer. Every one is interested in the work and brings his contribution to enrich the collection. It does not belong to any one in particular, but is owned jointly. It is the pride of the sector and the joy of the regiment. It receives the casse-tête picked up after the last hand-to-hand scrimmage with the Boches; a reservoir of liquid fire, whose bearer lies somewhere near the trench that he sought to enter; some fragments of grenades—anything which one might pick up on a kilometre of ground furrowed by projectiles, dug up by shells, or ploughed by cannon-balls. Curious conglomeration! Glorious scraps of iron! Mute witnesses of the fury of men, implements of their ferocity!
At another spot some man who loves the cultivation of the land cares for a wee patch of garden. A garden, yes, that is what I said. In the midst of the trenches. He has planted some pansies, a sprig of stock, and three clumps of pinks. He waters them every morning, and watches them carefully. Woe to any careless foot that might crush them! These flowers, in the sombre surroundings, breathe perfume and poetry.
At another spot a fight between a dog and a rat is pulled off. A lieutenant sets a fox-terrier on a promising hole of the rodents. A group of men look on eagerly. One, armed with a pick, enlarges the opening. Another removes a stone which was in the way. The dog, trembling with excitement, sniffs, paws, digs, buries his nose in the earth, scratches, reaches the animal at the bottom of his retreat—seizes him! Good dog! He shakes the rat furiously, breaking his back. The victor is applauded and petted.
Simple distractions, these! I will pass them by quickly. There is the man who makes chains of welded wire; the one whose hobby is photography. One mysterious fellow amuses himself with cookery. There are some secret pursuits, like that of the inveterate hunters, who place game-traps at twilight and at dawn endanger their lives to go out to empty them. There are fishermen who drop lines in the canal. A hundred avocations are followed on the edge of the war, side by side with the service, in range of the cannon and punctuated by shells.
I had my occupation, as well as the others, you may be sure. I published a newspaper: a great affair. A newspaper, in the trenches—that savors at once of a trade and of an adventure. Title: The War Cry, appearing once a month. Every month, then, I had a problem: to get paper. An obliging cyclist had to bring it from the village on the day fixed. He left it at the foot of a sapling, no matter what the uproar overhead; no matter how large the edition of shrapnel messages from the Germans. Oh, honest pulp, intended for a simple life, into what scenes of adventure art thou thrust!
In one trench the print-shop was twenty feet underground. It was illuminated by three night-lamps, set in a triangle. At another place the shop was on a level with the surface of the ground, and the bombardment scattered sand and pebbles over the proof. At another time it was installed in a bedroom of a ruined house. As there was no roof to catch the rain, it fell in large tears on the printer and the printing. No matter! The number was issued, illustrated. It was eagerly sought, and the copies circulated briskly, carrying gratuitous joy, smoothing knit brows, bringing a laugh, and, finally, carrying to the rear the gayety of the front.
When I look back upon these labors, they seem to me childish. In their place, they were amazing. The Great Tragedy held us constantly in its clutch. The man who was polishing a ring for his fiancée did not finish it: that very evening a ball or a piece of shell shattered the work and destroyed the worker. The man who was carving a walking-stick was a mutilated wreck before his work was finished. The danger was incessant. In these occupations we sought distraction from the thought of it all, but one could never ward off that which fate held in store for him. It was an intermission snatched from ennui; a truce; and when one was doing fairly well, thinking no more of physical discomfort and mental anguish, suddenly the cannon barked, the alarm was sounded, and the dance of hell was on again!
“Outside: trench thirteen!”
Then we ran. We left the rings and walking-sticks and the newspaper. The War Cry—It was the real war cry now. The Boche had come upon us by stealth. It might be night or day, morning or evening. He slid, he crept, he crouched, he jumped into our trench. We must hack him to pieces with grenades. Then we must put up again a fallen splinter-shield, reconstruct an observation-post, open again a filled-up trench. The shells came like gusts of wind, the shrapnel flew, smoked, and stunk.
Or, at another time, it was our turn to leap out, run to the assault, take a trench, hold it, and guard it.
It was necessary, from time to time, to go to the rear that we might enjoy some real security and relaxation.
The relief! Who will ever adequately sing its praise? It came at night, ordinarily. Two or three days before the event the sector saw strangers arrive for a visit, officers and sergeants, who looked around and took instructions. This is the way they were shown about:
“Look out at this point. This part of the trench seems to be in easy range of the guns.”
“This is a bad corner. Torpedoes hit it every morning. Go by quickly over there, for you can be seen.”
“Every man who passes this spot is saluted by a bullet. We have some wounded every evening.”
They took notes, made observations and inquiries. We looked upon their activities with satisfaction. They were the forerunners of comrades who were about to come, in their turn, to enjoy a period in the open country—underground. They never came too soon. Already we were making up our packets, putting our affairs in order, buckling our knapsacks, filling our side-bags.
We departed fewer than we came. We left some chums in the earth, under humble mounds marked with a cross. There was one man surprised when on patrol—he was carried back dying in the arms of his companions. Another, disembowelled by a grenade, fell at his post without a cry. We had known these men, we had loved them. One was gay, one was grave. All were loyal comrades whom we would never see again. When killed they had remained all day lying at their posts. A cloth was thrown over them, concealing the face and partly covering the body. In the evening when the shadows fell, we put them in their graves.
It was very simple. If possible, the section surrounded the grave, a rough excavation hollowed in the dirt thrown up from the trenches. Sometimes, not always, some one murmured a prayer. The body was lowered, and the dead went his way saluted as a hero by the cannon. That was all. It was sad and impressive, simple as an unpremeditated gesture. Some one put a bunch of field-flowers on the fresh mound. The soldier’s cap was placed on the wooden cross. Then into a bottle was slipped the name of the departed—dead that France might live, fallen at his post of honor. Immediately we returned to our places, to watch and to fight. To-day it was he. To-morrow it would be one’s self.
The relief came by following the communication-trenches. Curious concerning their new post, the fresh arrivals asked many questions:
“Pretty nifty here, isn’t it?”
“Where are the kitchens?”
We informed them as rapidly as possible. We wished that they would arrive more quickly. It seemed as if we would perish in waiting for them, and that the danger increased by their coming. They made a lot of noise. They went back and forth, they talked. Surely the Boche would hear them and let loose his cannon.
In fact, that is what often occurred. Then the brutal shells added to the disorder. Ignorant of the shelters, lost in the thick darkness, the new arrivals flattened themselves out where they could. Their non-commissioned officers reassembled them and led them on in jostled disorder. It seemed that the confusion would never end, that we would have to stay there, all mixed together like tangled thread from an unwound spool. It seemed that the deadly hammering would annihilate us all, down in the earth. Then the officers brought order from chaos. The first line took their places. At the posts of listening the new men replaced the old.
“Notice that recess: that is where the Boches send their love-tokens.”
“Do you see that black pile over yonder? Behind it is a German machine-gun.”
Down in the shelters the new men were making themselves at home, the departing men were gathering up their belongings.
“Good luck to you!”
“Don’t worry about that!”
Then we set out. We reached the line of supply, and crossed a clearing filled with artillery. We could breathe more easily. We were going away, toward repose. At last, in the darkness, we found the road. Conversation began, pipes were lighted. We were getting farther away from the tunnels, from the depths of the earth, and from death. Though still menaced by shells, we felt liberated. We came to a demolished village occupied by moving shadows: men who remained at the rear, in the accessory service of food supply and munitions. Lanterns bobbed here and there. Some horses hitched by the road switched their tails in friendly salute. We went on. We met an ammunition-train going at full speed in a terrible racket of wheels and oaths. Still we marched. We descended a slope. Over yonder lay the Promised Land, spared by the gods of war: where the crops were growing; where the houses had roofs, the villages had inhabitants, the barns had straw; where there was wine to drink, girls to look at, and merchandise to buy. It was all there. We knew it. The recollections of our former visit came to mind. One hoped to find the cantonment running on as in the last sojourn; la mère Laprot, who knew so well how to cook an omelet, and big Berthe, whose teeth were so white when she smiled.
One gave an energetic hunch to the knapsack. One recognized every tree, every turn of the road. We were getting nearer. One more pause and we would be there. We must still climb a bluff, steep as a ladder, leading to the plateau. We climbed—for everything can be overcome.
At last we arrived. The village awaited us with open arms. We entered, and were at home.
The shed was hospitable as ever. We felt of the straw, and laid aside our accoutrement. The arms and leather trappings made a little pile at the head of each man’s place. Blankets came out of the knapsacks. How delicious to stretch at full length on the straw! A few moments more and a hundred sonorous snores, deep and diversified, blended their antiphones under the worm-eaten roof.
Life entered the village with the troops. From early morning the streets swarmed. Wagons lined up under the trees and unpacked their loads. Horses chewed their hay while switching their tails contentedly, or enjoyed long drinks at the trough. The blacksmith hammered the glowing horseshoes in the midst of a smoky haze. The buffets were full. The cold-meat shop was invaded. The grocer was besieged until he emptied his boxes. It was a rush, a battle, an assault.
“Some sausage!”
“Some thread!”
“Some soap!”
“How much for this cheese?”
“I’ll take that box!”
The coins jingled. Happy laughter responded to happy smiles. Wine flowed. At the river laundry the surface of the stream was billowy white with the suds from well-washed clothing. With a drum for a chair, the barber was busy with his razor. At another place shower-baths completed the work of renovation. New faces emerged, fresh-skinned and wide-eyed. The exuberant joy of youth burst forth into gay cries and bodily freedom. Visits were exchanged. The smoking kitchens were sending out delicious odors. The non-coms were kept busy hunting for their men who had disappeared, flown away.
By noon, however, the troop was again in order. In the square the soldiers were in line, with arms polished and garments clean. The roll was called. Their appearance was noted, their losses of equipment were made good. The report was read. We learned that such an one was cited for bravery, that the general was pleased, that we would remain eight days without molestation.
Then the gayety increased. We organized to make the most of our vacation. Some men with a bright idea arranged a theatre and prepared a concert. Two sawhorses supported the stage, which we trimmed with leaves. We draped the flag of the mairie overhead. The programme was quickly arranged, as we had a considerable talent in the regiment.
On the day appointed for the performance chairs were placed for the higher officers, the chief of the battalion, and the captains. The privates noisily disposed of themselves as chance permitted. There were spectators roosting on the wheels of carts, others perched on straw-stacks; wherever a body could hold its equilibrium, there was a body. An improvised orchestra opened the entertainment. Then several singers followed with comic songs. The applause was tumultuous, as high spirits mounted higher. We forgot the war, at that moment, and its suffering and privation. A ballad touched our deeper sentiment. A monologue was punctuated with laughter. The hilarious faces of the spectators told of their pleasure—the joy of living, with youth and health. We relaxed our tense nerves, and became human beings again. There were no more shells, no more mud, no more guard duty, no more fatigue. The tragedy had paused; and, if one had not heard the growling rage of the cannon bent upon its work of death and destruction, one would have believed that there could be no more pleasant existence.
On other days there were games in the open air. Like children freed from school the men ran in the meadows, tussled in a game of prisoner’s base, or played leap-frog. The suppleness of body, the litheness of movement, were such as to inspire admiration. These were no longer soldiers, but graceful athletes, with agile muscles and solid torso. Under the trees gently waving in the breeze, with the clear sky of France above a charming countryside, the scene evoked the picture of the athletic games of antiquity. Not even the group of philosophers was lacking, walking up and down and arguing.
Thus the hours ran on, peaceful and all too short. The troop took a fresh breath, renewed its spirit, calmed excited nerves, found new courage and a magnificent enthusiasm. The cruel remembrance of dark hours, of horrible spectacles, of losses, became dim. We found again a vibrant love of life. The soul-sickness which had grown upon us at the parapets, under the shells, melted away in the new environment, in the joy of a recreation dearly won.
The week of vacation was completed. They were new men, refreshed and invigorated, who fell into line when the hour arrived. In the darkness we retraced the road by which we had come. We were returning to the battle, we were re-entering the tunnels, the dugouts, the redans, the trenches, the parallels. Now we were the relief, in our turn. We took our place. We brought back with us arms, food, replenished cartridge-boxes, new men to fill the vacancies in our ranks. More than that, we brought back valor, patience, faith, and a spirit reborn.
We entered again the domain of death, again we began the agony.