Gabriel Chevallier - Fear

‘Where we’ve been, you only salute the dead!’

WE HAVE BEEN MOVING AROUND for a month or more.

At battalion HQ we enjoy the privilege of being able to leave our packs with the support unit transport. And some, myself included, have replaced their rifles with pistols, and thus also freed themselves of bayonets and bandoliers. This contravenes regulations but is tolerated, and we would in any case be hard pressed to find our own rifles again, now that they have mysteriously disappeared. It is quite possible that we bear some responsibility for these disappearances, but no one is ever going to get to the bottom of it. After years of war, we are firmly convinced — a rifle is of no use at all to soldiers like us, whose role is to rush around in the trenches and whose constant concern is to avoid any unexpected encounters with the enemy. On the contrary, it has major drawbacks: the care that has to be taken of the breech and barrel, its heavy weight, the way it slides about on the shoulder. Some prefer to get themselves short-barrelled carbines, easier weapons to handle, which you can attach with a strap. The ways we have managed to acquire arms to suit our taste remains obscure. But in short we have adapted our weaponry ‘to the demands of modern warfare’, which consist of avoiding anything that is fired at us, and our choices come with experience. It is in decisions like these that we can recognise the much celebrated initiative of the French soldier, with which he makes up for the deficiencies of the rule book concerning armies in the field.

Thus equipped according to our tastes, haversacks at our side, blankets across our chests instead of bandoliers, and canes in hand, our marches are turning into tourism. Those who are interested in the countryside can enjoy discovering panoramic views, picturesque bends in the road, a deep, crystal-clear lake at the foot of a valley, pastures as green as freshly painted railings, bright borders of birches round a park, an old house with rusty wrought iron and broken shutters which retains nobility in its decrepitude like a grand old lady fallen on hard times. Mornings are sweet delight, pale blue mist clearing to unveil wide vistas blushed with luminous pink. All of a sudden, the chime of church bells breaks the silence, while the farmyard cock warms himself in the sun, lord of all he surveys. We share the adventure of new billets in the evening, a village to explore with all it has to offer in the way of grocery shops, bars, wood and straw — and women, if we stay awhile. But women are rare and the countless men who lust after them get in each other’s way. The excess of desires protects their virtue, and the beneficiaries of this are usually men stationed at the rear who have permanent quarters in the village.

We make up a little detachment at the head of the battalion, behind the commandant on horseback who is himself preceded by all the cyclists. The road opens before us, clear and empty. As we pass through towns and villages, we are the first to spot a pretty girl standing on her doorstep. My comrades, almost all from the south, greet her with an exclamation which needs to be heard with the right accent: Vé, dé viannde! Which makes it clear that their aspirations are not focused on the soul of this child.[34]

Behind us, men from the companies struggle with their loads of packs, light machine guns, and full bandoliers. They need marching songs to forget their fatigue. Drawing its recruits from Nice, Toulon, Marseille, etc., the regiment has kept its local traditions in spite of the incorporation of new elements from all over the country. One song is particularly popular. It celebrates the charms of a certain Thérèsina, a young woman who always extends a warm welcome to working men. Every couplet praises a different part of her superb body. The best bit, kept till last, is more or less the same as that which gourmets appreciate in chickens. More men join in, voices swell, and the song ends on this apotheosis:

Bella c… nassa ,

Quà Thérèsina ,

Bella c… nassa ,

Bella c… nassa ,

Per fare l’amoré.

Thérèsina, mia bella ,

Per fare l’amoré.

Thérèsina, mia bella ,

Per fa-ré l’a-mo-ré! [35]

This evocation of the charming Thérèsina, half-Niçoise, half-Italian, has helped us up many a steep hill and over many a difficult stretch, as if possession of this military Venus must be the reward for our efforts.

Soldiers from the south are very demonstrative. During breaks, while we are all sitting around outside our billets, they shout out from group to group, and amiably insult each other in their colourful patois.

‘Oh! Barrachini, commen ti va, lou miô amiqué?’

‘Ta mare la pétan! Qué fas aqui?’

‘Lou capitani ma couyonna fan dé pute!’

‘Vaï, vaï, brave, bayou-mi ouna cigaréta!’

‘Qué bâo pitchine qué fas!’ [36]

At the front, where there is the risk of the Germans listening in to our telephone communications, this patois is used as a code. I remember once hearing our adjutant announce a bombardment of our sector thus:

‘Lou Proussiane nous mondata bi bomba!’

I do not understand everything. But I love this sonorous tongue, which evokes sunny lands with all their optimism and nonchalance, and lends a particular pungency to their tales. Sometimes when we’re sharing a hut I have the impression of finding myself mixed in with an exotic tribe. These people experience the north as an exile. They say: ‘We’ve come to fight for others. It isn’t our country that’s being attacked.’ To them, their country is the shores of the Mediterranean, and they have no worries about their frontiers. They are astonished that people can fight tooth and nail over cold regions, blanketed in snow and fog for six months of the year.

Yet they perform their enforced role as soldiers just like everyone else — only with a bit more noise and cursing. They are easy people to get on with.

The battered division has gone to recuperate on quiet roads and in peaceful villages. Survivors of the Chemin des Dames have brought back a series of anecdotes which they embellish and gradually transform into feats of arms. Now that they are no longer in immediate danger, the simplest men forget how they shook with fear, forget their despair, and display a naïve pride. Poor men who paled in terror under the shells, and will do so again at the next engagement, make themselves into a legend worthy of Homer, without seeing that their vanity, which has nothing to feed on apart from the war, will become part of the same traditions of heroism and chivalrous combat that they usually scorn. If you were to ask them ‘Were you afraid?’ many would deny it. At the rear they start talking again of courage, dupes of this tawdry illusion. They like to impress civilians with tales of the horrors they have witnessed, exaggerating their own sangfroid. They bask in the joy of having survived the massacres, blot out the others that are being prepared, and the fact that their lives that they managed to save last time round will soon be threatened again. They live in the present, they eat and they drink. ‘No need to worry!’ they say, and in that they are mistaken.

Rewards and medals have been distributed, with the usual injustice. Men like lieutenants Larcher and Marennes, for example, who held the battalion together, have received hardly any recognition. When a battalion performs well, its leader is the first to get medals, and if he does not indicate those among his subordinates who showed merit, the higher ranks ignore them. In fact Commandant Tranquard abandoned us at our first break, without so much as a by your leave, and without bothering to put the affairs of his unit in order — ‘like a yellow-belly’ as people said. The men at the front fight amidst chaos; there are no witnesses, no umpires to record their successes. They alone can judge where honour is due. This makes most proud proclamations ridiculous and most honours a disgrace. We know of all the usurped reputations which nevertheless carry weight at the rear. Medals are a mockery when some share out the honours and everyone else shares the risks. And as for stripes, they quickly became absurd distinctions; we tore them off long ago. Their only value is for those passing their time in the military zone at the rear who want to impress people when they’re on leave. For us, the front means the trenches.