Authors: Gabriel Chevallier
Logic dictates to me: to be a volunteer is to accept all the risks of war,
to accept to die
. . . I need this consent to continue, need this agreement between my will and my action . . .
‘So, you accept?’
‘Yes! I do.’
‘The final sacrifice?’
‘Yes, yes, just get it over with!’
This slim, blond boy, with his pale skin and well-proportioned body (the legs a little too heavy, for my taste), this boy of twenty-two who looks sixteen, this soldier with a schoolboy’s face, his forehead still smooth, and his mocking smile, they say (how could it not be mocking?), and his eyes that stare into the depths of beings (I know how my mechanism works, I have taken it apart often enough), this Jean Dartemont, is going to die, on this March evening in 1918, because a man said: ‘It’s always the same ones who have to take the risks’, because in the gaze of this man with whom he could not have an hour’s enjoyable conversation he found some unbearable glimmer of reproachful light, which was immediately extinguished by the habit of submission . . .
Striding forward vigorously like a true infantryman, Jean Dartemont is going to get himself killed on this plateau of the Aisne and he is not calling for help from either the notion of duty or God. As for God, he cannot love him without loving the shells that he sends, which seems absurd to him. If he calls upon him, it is only confusedly: ‘I am giving the most that I can give and you know what it is costing me. If you are just, then judge. If you are not, then I have nothing to expect from you!’
He is going to get himself killed, this boy, because he thinks it is inevitable. Just for self-esteem. Ever since he began to think, he only envisaged life in terms of a success. Precisely what success he did not know, except that this success would be inseparable from an inner success, sanctioned by himself. Such a conception does not allow him to face death resolutely without having the
intention
of dying.
At that moment, he has it. The mind has mastered the body, and the body will no longer shirk at marching on to the final agony.
I can read myself clearly because I have been turning over these questions for years. The answers had been prepared for the day when I was in the final extremity. That is the moment when I must hold to the principles that I have made for myself.
I will witness my death. Only one thing shocks me: the feeling of pity that death evokes in the living. They look on a corpse as the remains of someone defeated. I will get myself killed in a little local action, one that will not even get mentioned in dispatches, stupidly, in some corner of a trench. They will say: ‘Now Dartemont, there was a chap who might have made something of himself but he never got the chance’. The earth will cover my corpse and time my memory. They will not know what happened inside me at the final moment, will not know that I volunteered for death, defeated myself – the only kind of victory that is precious to me. But I am well used to ignoring the opinions of others. Who cares what stories they will tell!
I still need to face pain, which I dread. I consider the worst pains I have endured: neuralgia, a bout of typhoid, a broken arm. But I cannot recall the feelings. Pain has no place in time, its duration is short. It will be numbed by shock at the start. Then the flesh will give out its dramatic cries. An hour, two hours . . . If it is unbearable then I will end it with the loaded pistol I have ready in my hand. But at least the mind will keep this lucidity: ‘I thought as much.’ I will not be left with that appalling terror-stricken gaze that you see on those taken by surprise, who had not already given their consent.
My mind is imagining what will happen to me so intensely that I am already wounded as I am marching; my stomach is open, my chest smashed in, each shot that spares me nonetheless penetrates my flesh, cuts it and tears it and burns it. The sacrifice is consummated. The blow I am awaiting, from one second to the next, cannot be worse. It will only be the last blow, the
coup de grâce . . .
‘Let’s stay here!’ shouts Julien behind me.
I had forgotten him. I turn round and see his haggard face. He points out a sap to me, one running across our trench which is caught in enfilade shellfire.
‘Let’s stay in there for a moment.’
‘Stay if you want, I’m going on,’ I say rather cruelly.
Since my decision is made I have no reason to take cover. But the briefest pause, the least hesitation would weaken my resolve. Now I cannot throw everything into question again. And besides, what Julien is suggesting is stupid, based on fear of going further. We would hardly be protected in a little deserted sap in which I do not know of a single shelter.
I set off and he follows me again without saying anything. I am truly not afraid. The trench is blocked: I clamber over the pile of earth without any rush, hardly even ducking, and find myself on a level with the plain. Mechanically, I glance across the devastated landscape. A shell explodes on my right, the red gleam in the middle of the black ball of combustion imprints itself on my retina.
We are approaching the company sector. I am still unscathed, but I hang on to my idea: to die. I push away the hope that tries to insinuate itself. With the hope of escaping reappears the wish to flee. My mind continues to offer me up to the shrapnel, still waits for the blow that will finish me off. I repeat to myself: get my face smashed in! This familiar phrase suits me very well, it diminishes the thing’s importance.
We come out into the front line, and turn left. The explosions merge into one, the whistles from the two artilleries, the noise of shrapnel and shells, are all mixed together. Under a heavy bombardment it is almost impossible to distinguish the incoming shells. I am amazed that all this violent rage is spread above us without any consequences. The trench is deserted for a long stretch.
At last we find a small group of men squeezed up against the parapet. A look out peers furtively out over the plain. He shouts to us:
‘We’ve seen the Boche down there!’
Down there is precisely where we are going. Too bad! Our mission is to reach the lieutenant, to pass on news. Onwards!
We go round a few traverses. Suddenly I find myself facing a revolver: a French one. The lieutenant has come with an escort to find out what’s happened. We tell him that his men are still at their posts. He turns round and takes us with him. For two hundred metres, the position had been badly damaged by box barrage fire, aimed at cutting off the place where the enemy wanted to attack. After this point we were moving away from danger. Soon we reached the command post and went down into the shelter.
‘Wait here,’ says the lieutenant, ‘until it’s over.’
Life was given back to me.
‘What got into you?’ they asked, when I returned to the battalion.
‘We were saying, Dartemont’s trying to get himself a commendation.’
But I’ve already got my commendation. I awarded it to myself, and I don’t give a damn for those of the army, which sanction the circumstances and ignore the motives.
In my comrades’ attitude, there is amazement and something like blame, as if they’re saying to themselves: ‘he knows all the dodges, that one!’ They cannot accept that I went off simply because I wanted to. My gesture seems inexplicable to them and they search for an ulterior motive. If I confided to Aillod that I just risked my life because of him, even though my role protected me, it would surely astonish him. In war, one does not do things for sentimental reasons! And, if I told the men about the decision I had taken just now as the shells came down, if I told them what I had been thinking, they would not believe me. How many have anticipated their deaths resolutely? I have gained nothing by following the impulse that drew me along. But I acted for myself. I am happy enough with this spontaneous act and with the way I accepted my responsibilities.
We get the casualty lists. The wounded arrive on stretchers and their cries bring misery to the twilight. A German corpse is also brought in, a soldier who fell just in front of the company and who was found in the grass. So the Germans really did get right up to our lines and this corpse is the proof of our victory. He has no papers on him, no army number. Enemies always conceal the identity of soldiers on patrol so as not to reveal the positions of their divisions.
At an early hour I go and stretch out on my bunk in the dark, and reflect on this evening’s events. So, in order to be courageous, I now have a fairly simple means at my disposal: to accept death. I recall that once before, in Artois, when it was a matter of going out and facing machine guns, I had adopted this idea for some hours. Then the orders had changed.
Those who go forward – and it is most of them – saying to themselves: ‘Nothing will happen to me’ are ridiculous. I cannot sustain myself with a notion like this, for I’m well aware that the cemeteries are full of people who had hoped they would come back, who had convinced themselves that bullets and shells made a choice. All the dead had put themselves under the protection of some personal providence, distracted from all the others to watch over them. Without that, how many would have come to get themselves killed?
I know I am incapable of courage unless I have decided to give my life. Without that choice, there is nothing but flight. But you take such a decision on the spur of the moment and you cannot make it last for weeks and months. The mental effort is too great. Hence the rarity of true courage. We generally accept a kind of lame compromise between the destiny and the man, which reason rejects.
Until now I have shown absolute courage twice. This will be the greatest thing I will have done in the war.
Then I think of the words of Baboin: ‘Don’t try to be too clever . . .’ Today I tried to be clever, and, if I want ‘to come back’ it would be a good idea not to give in to such impulses too often . . .
There is a growing rumour that a major German offensive is soon coming, but no one knows where. The offensive is a direct consequence of the Russians’ withdrawal which has freed up a lot of enemy troops. It is said that our command is ready for it and has taken the necessary steps.
The army has placed its confidence in General Pétain, who has shown some concern for the troops’ welfare. He has a reputation for not wanting to squander the lives of his men. After the carnage organised by Nivelle and Mangin, generally considered here as bloodthirsty monsters, the army needed reassurance. We know that the two victorious operations led by the new commander-in-chief, at the Chemin des Dames and Verdun, were wisely conducted, with adequate matériel. Pétain has understood that this is a war of weaponry and that reserves are not inexhaustible. Unfortunately, he came too late.
The prospect of great battles ahead is enough to trouble us. But being attacked does not frighten us any more than an offensive led by us. On the contrary we estimate that it is prudent to wait. Selfishly enough, we hope that this business will not start where we are.
The days are bright. Now every night we hear droning in the sky. German aeroplanes are flying over the lines above us, on their way to bomb Paris. We lack the means to block their passage. But we wave to the invisible aviators:
‘The patriots are going to catch it!’
‘It might do them some good. What civilians need is a few hours of bombs falling smack on their bloody heads!’
‘Yeah, then see if they still shout “never surrender”!’
‘What’s really stupid is destroying ancient monuments.’
‘Oh, right, that’s a good one! Isn’t your hide worth a monument? You think anyone gives a damn if you’re blown to buggery?’
‘Let the old Parisians have a taste of it for once!’
‘It’d be a good laugh if they dropped a big one right on the Ministry of War!’
‘Shut your mouth, you defeatist!’
‘Listen to this bloody turncoat! You little twerp, you yellow-belly tin soldier!’
‘The first thing to do in war,’ says Patard, the artillery telephonist, ‘is destroy. That way it’s over quicker.’
That is his guiding principle and he acts on it. Whatever is intact, he smashes up; whatever is smashed up he finishes off; and whatever isn’t guarded, he steals. His pockets are full of strange objects. He is the biggest filch anyone has ever seen, the terror of kitchens, canteens, and shops. His most famous exploit is to have ‘pinched’ the breeches and boots of his divisional general. It happened at the Chemin des Dames. At the back of a dugout, Patard was busy making imitation police headgear that he had the notion of selling to the men of his regiment. But he needed some braid to decorate the caps. In order to obtain it, he offered to go to the division during a bombardment to exchange a piece of broken equipment. It was while he was poking about down there that he came across the fine linen breeches hanging from a nail, red ones, exactly the colour he needed. Since a pair of boots was standing alongside, he took them as well, and made his way back to the trenches. The general made an almighty fuss, but never suspected that his breeches, cut into fine strips, had ended up on the heads of the gunners and that he was saluting them every time he encountered his men. Having cut off the shoes and changed the colour of the ‘aviator’ boots, Patard fashioned himself a pair of gaiters, with which he shamelessly declared himself quite enchanted: ‘The general certainly didn’t rob me with these, old chap!’
His time at Verdun, accompanied by his pal Oripot, was the occasion for another remarkable achievement. This is how he tells it:
‘So, we turn up at the front with the sarge and all our clobber, somewhere near Vaux. The sarge was a decent bloke but the sector was a dump: craters all over the place, shells raining down, and all the brass hiding underground. “OK,” I says to the sarge, “it ain’t worth the trouble of unwinding the phone line just so it’ll get cut, is it?” “Do what you like,” he says. “All right then,” I says, “I’ll go for a wander with Oripot and find us a bit of nourishment.” “What you going to find?” he says. “There’s always something to find,” I tells him. After sniffing around this desert for a bit we come across a sort of vault at the back of the Vaux fortress, which was a food store, absolutely stuffed with nosh of every kind, all you could wish for. But there was no way of sneaking in. The door was guarded by a pair of territorials, real sticklers. “What do you want?” they asks me. “A bit of grub, eh!” “You got a docket?” “No,” I says. “You gotta have a docket!” “What docket?” They explains to me how it works. “Right,” says I, “I’ll go and get one of these dockets!” Back we go to the sarge and tell him the set-up. “But I can’t sign one of those!” he says. (You always get a few dopes even among the educated.) “You just have to sign it as Chuzac!” That was the name of a former group officer who had got on the wrong end of a mortar shell. We go back to the territorials with a docket for food for twenty-five lads. Oh, fellers, you wouldn’t believe it! Five big cans full of
gniole
and kilos of chocolate, and jams, and meths for the camp stove, and you name it! We found ourselves a nice deep shell-hole where we melted the chocolate in the brandy. In twenty-four hours we’d drained all five cans. Then back we go to the two codgers with another docket, and another, and another, till it was all over. “You haven’t suffered any losses, then?” asks the territorials. “We’re in a safe spot!” I tells them. Stupid old buggers!’