Books: The New Book Of Martyrs
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Georges Duhamel >> The New Book Of Martyrs
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The big fellow looks like a peasant. He holds his helmet in both
hands, and stares at his brother's face with eyes full of horror
and amazement. Then suddenly, he begins to cry out:
"Poor Andre! Poor Andre!"
This cry of the rough man is unexpected, and grandiose as the
voice of ancient tragedians chanting the threnody of a hero.
Then he drops his helmet, throws himself on his knees beside the
death-bed, takes the dead face between his hands and kisses it
gently and slowly with a little sound of the lips, as one kisses a
baby's hand.
I take him by the arm and lead him away. His sturdy body is shaken
by sobs which are like the neighing of a horse; he is blinded by
his tears, and knocks against all the furniture. He can do nothing
but lament in a broken voice:
"Poor Andre! Poor Andre!"
XXVI
La Gloriette is amongst the pine-trees. I lift up a corner of the
canvas and he is there. In spite of the livid patches on the skin,
in spite of the rigidity of the features, and the absence for all
time of the glance, it is undoubtedly the familiar face.
What a long time he suffered to win the right to be at last this
thing which suffers no more!
I draw back the winding-sheet. The body is as yet but little
touched by corruption. The dressings are in place, as before. And
as before, I think, as I draw back the sheet, of the look he will
turn on me at the moment of suffering.
But there is no longer any look, no longer any suffering, no
longer even any movements. Only, only unimaginable eternity.
For whom is the damp autumn breeze which flutters the canvas hung
before the door? For whom the billowy murmur of the pine-trees and
the rays of light crossed by a flight of insects? For whom this
growling of cannon mingling now with the landscape like one of the
sounds of nature? For me only, for me, alone here with the dead.
The corpse is still so near to the living man that I cannot make
up my mind that I am alone, that I cannot make up my mind to think
as when I am alone.
For indeed we spent too many days hoping together, enduring
together, and if you will allow me to say so, my comrade,
suffering together. We spent too many days wishing for the end of
the fever, examining the wound, searching after the deeply rooted
cause of the disaster--both tremulous, you from the effort to bear
your pain, I sometimes from having inflicted it.
We spent so many days, do you remember, oh, body without a soul
... so many days fondly expecting the medal you had deserved. But
it seems that one must have given an eye or a limb to be put on
the list, and you, all of a sudden, you gave your life. The medal
had not come, for it does not travel so quickly as death.
So many days! And now we are together again, for the last time.
Well! I came for a certain purpose. I came to learn certain things
at last that your body can tell me now.
I open the case. As before, I cut the dressings with the shining
scissors. And I was just about to say to you, as before: "If I
hurt you, call out."
XXVII
At the edge of the beetroot field, a few paces from the road, in
the white sand of Champagne, there is a burial-ground.
Branches of young beech encircle it, making a rustic barrier that
shuts out nothing, but allows the eyes and the winds to wander at
will. There is a porch like those of Norman gardens. Near the
entrance four pine-trees were planted, and these have died
standing at their posts, like soldiers.
It is a burial-ground of men.
In the villages, round the churches, or on the fair hill-sides,
among vines and flowers, there are ancient graveyards which the
centuries filled slowly, and where woman sleeps beside man, and
the child beside the grandfather.
But this burial-ground owes nothing to old age or sickness. It is
the burial-ground of young, strong men.
We may read their names on the hundreds of little crosses which
repeat daily in speechless unison: "There must be something more
precious than life, more necessary than life ... since we are
here."
THE DEATH OF MERCIER
Mercier is dead, and I saw his corpse weep. ... I did not think
such a thing possible. The orderly had just washed his face and
combed his grey hair.
I said: "You are not forty yet, my poor Mercier, and your hair is
almost white already."
"It is because my life has been a very hard one, and I have had so
many sorrows. I have worked so hard ... so hard! And I have had so
little luck."
There are pitiful little wrinkles all over his face; a thousand
disappointments have left indelible traces there. And yet his eyes
are always smiling; from out his faded features they shine, bright
with an artless candour and radiant with hope.
"You will cure me, and perhaps I shall be luckier in the future."
I say "yes," and I think, "Alas! No, no."
But suddenly he calls me. Great dark hollows appear under the
smiling eyes. A livid sweat bathes his forehead.
"Come, come!" he says. "Something terrible is taking hold of me.
Surely I am going to die."
We busy ourselves with the poor paralysed body. The face alone
labours to translate its sufferings. The hands make the very
slightest movement on the sheet. The bullets of the machine-gun
have cut off all the rest from the sources of life.
We do what we can, but I feel his heart beating more feebly; his
lips make immense efforts to beg for one drop, one drop only from
the vast cup of air.
Gradually he escapes from this hell. I divine that his hand makes
a movement as if to detain mine.
"Stay by me," he says; "I am afraid."
I stay by him. The sweat no longer stands on his brow. The
horrible distress passes off. The air flows again into the
miserable breast. The gentle eyes have not ceased to smile.
"You will save me after all," he says; "I have had too miserable a
life to die yet, Monsieur."
I press his hand to give him confidence, and I feel that his hard
hand is happy in mine. My fingers have groped in his flesh, his
blood has flowed over them, and this creates strong ties between
two men.
Calm seems completely restored. I talk to him of his beautiful
native place. He was a baker in a village of Le Cantal. I passed
through it once as a traveller in peace time. We recall the scent
of the juniper-bushes on the green slopes in summer, and the
mineral fountains with wonderful flavours that gush forth among
the mountains.
"Oh!" he exclaims, "I shall always see you!"
"You will see me, Mercier?"
He is a very simple fellow; he tries to explain, and merely adds:
"In my eyes. ... I shall always see you in my eyes."
What else does he see? What other thing is suddenly reflected in
his eyes?
"I think ... oh, it is beginning again!"
It is true; the spasm is beginning again. It is terrible. In spite
of our efforts, it overcomes the victim, and this time we are
helpless.
"I feel that I am going to die," he says.
The smiling eyes are still fixed imploringly upon me.
"But you will save me, you will save me!"
Death has already laid a disfiguring hand on Mercier.
"Stay by me."
Yes, I will stay by you, and hold your hand. Is there nothing more
I can do for you?
His nostrils quiver. It is hard to have been wretched for forty
years, and to have to give up the humble hope of smelling the
pungent scent of the juniper-bushes once more. ...
His lips contract, and then relax gradually, so sadly. It is hard
to have suffered for forty years, and to be unable to quench one's
last thirst with the wonderful waters of our mountain springs. ...
Now the dark sweat gathers again on the hollow brow. Oh, it is
hard to die after forty years of toil, without ever having had
leisure to wipe the sweat from a brow that has always been bent
over one's work.
The sacrifice is immense, and we cannot choose our hour; we must
make it as soon as we hear the voice that demands it.
The man must lay down his tools and say: "Here I am."
Oh, how hard it is to leave this life of unceasing toil and
sorrow!
The eyes still smile feebly. They smile to the last moment.
He speaks no more. He breathes no more. The heart throbs wildly,
then stops dead like a foundered horse.
Mercier is dead. The pupils of his eyes are solemnly distended
upon a glassy abyss. All is over. I have not saved him. ...
Then from those dead eyes great tears ooze slowly and flow upon
his cheeks. I see his features contract as if to weep throughout
eternity.
I keep the dead hand still clasped in mine for several long
minutes.
VERDUN
FEBRUARY-APRIL 1916
We were going northward by forced marches, through a France that
was like a mournful garden planted with crosses. We were no longer
in doubt as to our appointed destination; every day since we had
disembarked at B----our orders had enjoined us to hasten our
advance to the fighting units of the Army Corps. This Army Corps
was contracting, and drawing itself together hurriedly, its head
already in the thick of the fray, its tail still winding along the
roads, across the battle-field of the Marne.
February was closing in, damp and icy, with squalls of sleet,
under a sullen, hideous sky, lowering furiously down to the level
of the ground. Everywhere there were graves, uniformly decent, or
rather according to pattern, showing a shield of tri-colour or
black and white, and figures. Suddenly, we came upon immense
flats, whence the crosses stretched out their arms between the
poplars like men struggling to save themselves from being
engulfed. Many ancient villages, humble, irremediable ruins. And
yet here and there, perched upon these, frail cabins of planks and
tiles, sending forth thin threads of smoke, and emitting a timid
light, in an attempt to begin life again as before, on the same
spot as before. Now and again we chanced upon a hamlet which the
hurricane had passed by almost completely, full to overflowing
with the afflux of neighbouring populations.
Beyond P----, our advance, though it continued to be rapid, became
very difficult, owing to the confluence of convoys and troops. The
main roads, reserved for the military masses which were under the
necessity of moving rapidly, arriving early, and striking
suddenly, were barred to us. From every point of the horizon
disciplined multitudes converged, with their arsenal of formidable
implements, rolling along in an atmosphere of benzine and hot oil.
Through this ordered mass, our convoys threaded their way
tenaciously and advanced. We could see on the hill sides, crawling
like a clan of migrating ants, stretcher-bearers and their dogs
drawing handcarts for the wounded, then the columns of orderlies,
muddy and exhausted, then the ambulances, which every week of war
loads a little more heavily, dragged along by horses in a steam of
sweat.
From time to time, the whole train halted at some cross-road, and
the ambulances allowed more urgent things to pass in front of
them--things designed to kill, sturdy grey mortars borne along
post haste in a metallic rumble.
A halt, a draught of wine mingled with rain, a few minutes to
choke over a mouthful of stale bread, and we were off again,
longing for the next halt, for a dry shelter, for an hour of real
sleep.
Soon after leaving C----we began to meet fugitives. This
complicated matters very much, and the spectacle began to show an
odious likeness to the scenes of the beginning of the war, the
scenes of the great retreat.
Keeping along the roadsides, the by-roads, the field-paths, they
were fleeing from the Verdun district, whence they had been
evacuated by order. They were urging on miserable old horses,
drawing frail carts, their wheels sunk in the ruts up to the nave,
loaded with mattresses and eiderdowns, with appliances for eating
and sleeping, and sometimes too, with cages in which birds were
twittering. On they went, from village to village, seeking an
undiscoverable lodging, but not complaining, saying merely:
"You are going to Verdun? We have just come from X----. We were
ordered to leave. It is very difficult to find a place to settle
down in."
Women passed. Two of them were dragging a little baby-carriage in
which an infant lay asleep. One of them was quite young, the other
old. They held up their skirts out of the mud. They were wearing
little town shoes, and every minute they sank into the slime like
ourselves, sometimes above their ankles.
All day long we encountered similar processions. I do not remember
seeing one of these women weep; but they seemed terrified, and
mortally tired.
Meanwhile, the sound of the guns became fuller and more regular.
All the roads we caught sight of in the country seemed to be
bearing their load of men and of machines. Here and there a horse
which had succumbed at its task lay rotting at the foot of a
hillock. A subdued roar rose to the ear, made up of trampling
hoofs, of grinding wheels, of the buzz of motors, and of a
multitude talking and eating on the march.
Suddenly we debouched at the edge of a wood upon a height whence
we could see the whole battle-field. It was a vast expanse of
plains and slopes, studded with the grey woods of winter. Long
trails of smoke from burning buildings settled upon the landscape.
And other trails, minute and multi-coloured, rose from the ground
wherever projectiles were raining. Nothing more: wisps of smoke,
brief flashes visible even in broad daylight, and a string of
captive balloons, motionless and observant witnesses of all.
But we were already descending the incline and the various planes
of the landscape melted one after the other. As we were passing
over a bridge, I saw in a group of soldiers a friend I had not met
since the beginning of the war. We could not stop, so he walked
along with me for a while, and we spent these few minutes
recalling the things of the past. Then as he left me we embraced,
though we had never done so in times of peace.
Night was falling. Knowing that we were now at our last long lap,
we encouraged the worn-out men. At R----I lost touch with my
formation. I halted on the roadside, calling aloud into the
darkness. An artillery train passed, covering me with mud to my
eyes. Finally, I picked up my friends, and we marched on through
villages illumined by the camp fires which were flickering under a
driving rain, through a murky country which the flash of cannon
suddenly showed to be covered with a multitude of men, of horses,
and of martial objects.
It was February 27. Between ten and eleven at night we arrived at
a hospital installed in some wooden sheds, and feverishly busy. We
were at B----, a miserable village on which next day the Germans
launched some thirty monster-shells, yet failed to kill so much as
a mouse.
The night was spent on straw, to the stentorian snores of fifty
men overcome by fatigue. Then reveille, and again, liquid mud over
the ankles. As the main road was forbidden to our ambulances there
was an excited discussion as a result of which we separated: the
vehicles to go in search of a by-way, and we, the pedestrians, to
skirt the roads on which long lines of motor-lorries, coming and
going, passed each other in haste like the carriages of an immense
train.
We had known since midnight where we were to take up our quarters;
the suburb of G----was only an hour's march further on. In the
fields, right and left, were bivouacs of colonial troops with
muddy helmets; they had come back from the firing line, and seemed
strangely quiet. In front of us lay the town, half hidden, full of
crackling sounds and echoes. Beyond, the hills of the Meuse, on
which we could distinguish the houses of the villages, and the
continuous rain of machine-gun bullets. We skirted a meadow strewn
with forsaken furniture, beds, chests, a whole fortune which
looked like the litter of a hospital. At last we arrived at the
first houses, and we were shown the place where we were expected.
There were two brick buildings of several storeys, connected by a
glazed corridor; the rest of the enclosure was occupied by wooden
sheds. Behind lay orchards and gardens, the first houses of the
suburb. In front, the wall of a park, a meadow, a railway track,
and La Route, the wonderful and terrible road that enters the town
at this very point.
Groups of lightly wounded men were hobbling towards the hospital;
the incessant rush of motors kept up the feverish circulation of a
demolished ant-hill.
As we approached the buildings, a doctor came out to meet us.
"Come, come. There's work enough for a month."
It was true. The effluvium and the moans of several hundreds of
wounded men greeted us. Ambulance No----, which we had come to
relieve, had been hard at it since the night before, without
having made much visible progress. Doctors and orderlies, their
faces haggard from a night of frantic toil, came and went,
choosing among the heaps of wounded, and tended two while twenty
more poured in.
While waiting for our material, we went over the buildings. But a
few days before, contagious diseases had been treated here. A
hasty disinfection had left the wards reeking with formaline which
rasped the throat without disguising the sickly stench of the
crowded sufferers. They were huddled round the stoves in the
rooms, lying upon the beds of the dormitories, or crouching on the
flags of the passages.
In each ward of the lower storey there were thirty or forty men of
every branch of the service, moaning and going out from time to
time to crawl to the latrines, or, mug in hand, to fetch something
to drink.
As we explored further, the scene became more terrible; in the
back rooms and in the upper building a number of severely wounded
men had been placed, who began to howl as soon as we entered. Many
of them had been there for several days. The brutality of
circumstances, the relief of units, the enormous sum of work, all
combined to create one of those situations which dislocate and
overwhelm the most willing service.
We opened a door, and the men who were lying within began to
scream at the top of their voices. Some, lying on their stretchers
on the floor, seized us by the legs as we passed, imploring us to
attend to them. A few bewildered orderlies hurried hither and
thither, powerless to meet the needs of this mass of suffering.
Every moment I felt my coat seized, and heard a voice saying:
"I have been here four days. Dress my wounds, for God's sake."
And when I answered that I would come back again immediately, the
poor fellow began to cry.
"They all say they will come back, but they never do."
Occasionally a man in delirium talked to us incoherently as we
moved along. Sometimes we went round a quiet bed to see the face
of the sufferer, and found only a corpse.
Each ward we inspected revealed the same distress, exhaled the
same odour of antiseptics and excrements, for the orderlies could
not always get to the patient in time, and many of the men
relieved themselves apparently unconcerned.
I remember a little deserted room in disorder, on the table a bowl
of coffee with bread floating in it; a woman's slippers on the
floor, and in a corner, toilet articles and some strands of fair
hair. ... I remember a corner where a wounded man suffering from
meningitis, called out unceasingly: 27, 28, 29 ... 27, 28, 29 ...
a prey to a strange obsession of numbers. I see a kitchen where a
soldier was plucking a white fowl ... I see an Algerian non-
commissioned officer pacing the corridor. ...
Towards noon, the head doctor arrived followed by my comrades, and
our vehicles. With him I made the round of the buildings again
while they were unpacking our stores. I had got hold of a syringe,
while waiting for a knife, and I set to work distributing morphia.
The task before us seemed immense, and every minute it increased.
We began to divide it hastily, to assign to each his part. The
cries of the sufferers muffled the sound of a formidable
cannonade. An assistant at my side, whom I knew to be energetic
and resolute, muttered between his teeth: "No! no! Anything rather
than war!"
But we had first to introduce some order into our Inferno.
In a few hours this order appeared and reigned. We were exhausted
by days of marching and nights of broken sleep, but men put off
their packs and set to work with a silent courage that seemed to
exalt even the least generous natures. Our first spell lasted for
thirty-six hours, during which each one gave to the full measure
of his powers, without a thought of self.
Four operation-wards had been arranged. The wounded were brought
in unceasingly, and a grave and prudent mind pronounced upon the
state of each, upon his fate, his future. ... Confronted by the
overwhelming flood of work to be done, the surgeon, before seizing
the knife, had to meditate deeply, and make a decision as to the
sacrifice which would ensure life, or give some hope of life. In a
moment of effective thought, he had to perceive and weigh a man's
whole existence, then act, with method and audacity.
As soon as one wounded man left the ward, another was brought in;
while the preparations for the operation were being made, we went
to choose among and classify the patients beforehand, for many
needed nothing more; they had passed beyond human aid, and
awaited, numb and unconscious, the crowning mercy of death.
The word "untransportable" once pronounced, directed all our work.
The wounded capable of waiting a few hours longer for attention,
and of going elsewhere for it were removed. But when the buzz of
the motors was heard, every one wanted to go, and men begging to
be taken away entered upon their death agony as they assured us
they felt quite strong enough to travel. ...
Some told us their histories; the majority were silent. They
wanted to go elsewhere ... and above all, to sleep, to drink.
Natural wants dominated, and made them forget the anguish of their
wounds. ...
I remember one poor fellow who was asked if he wanted anything.
... He had a terrible wound in the chest, and was waiting to be
examined. He replied timidly that he wanted the urinal, and when
the orderly hurried to him bringing it, he was dead.
The pressure of urgent duty had made us quite unmindful of the
battle close by, and of the deafening cannonade. However, towards
evening, the buildings trembled under the fury of the detonations.
A little armoured train had taken up its position near us. The
muzzle of a naval gun protruded from it, and from moment to moment
thrust out a broad tongue of flame with a catastrophic roar.
The work was accelerated at the very height of the uproar. Rivers
of water had run along the corridors, washing down the mud, the
blood and the refuse of the operation-wards. The men who had been
operated on were carried to beds on which clean sheets had been
spread. The open windows let in the pure, keen air, and night fell
on the hillsides of the Meuse, where the tumult raged and
lightnings flashed.
Sometimes a wounded man brought us the latest news of the battle.
Between his groans, he described the incredible bombardment, the
obstinate resistance, the counter-attacks at the height of the
hurly-burly.
All these simple fellows ended their story with the same words,
surprising words at such a moment of suffering:
"They can't get through now. ...
Then they began to moan again.
During the terrible weeks of the battle, it was from the lips of
these tortured men that we heard the most amazing words of hope
and confidence, uttered between two cries of anguish.
The first night passed under this stress and pressure. The morning
found us face to face with labours still vast, but classified,
divided, and half determined.
A superior officer came to visit us. He seemed anxious.
"They have spotted you," he said. "I hope you mayn't have to work
upon each other. You will certainly be bombarded at noon."
We had forgotten this prophecy by the time it was fulfilled.
About noon, the air was rent by a screeching whistle, and some
dozen shells fell within the hospital enclosure, piercing one of
the buildings, but sparing the men. This was the beginning of an
irregular but almost continuous bombardment, which was not
specially directed against us, no doubt, but which threatened us
incessantly.
No cellars. Nothing but thin walls. The work went on.
On the third day a lull enabled us to complete our organisation.
The enemy was bombarding the town and the lines persistently. Our
artillery replied, shell for shell, in furious salvos; a sort of
thunderous wall rose around us which seemed to us like a rampart.
... The afflux of wounded had diminished. We had just received men
who had been fighting in the open country, as in the first days of
the war, but under a hail of projectiles hitherto reserved for the
destruction of fortresses. Our comrade D----arrived from the
battlefield on foot, livid, supporting his shattered elbow. He
stammered out a tragic story: his regiment had held its ground
under a surging tide of fire; thousands of huge shells had fallen
in a narrow ravine, and he had seen limbs hanging in the thicket,
a savage dispersal of human bodies. The men had held their ground,
and then had fought. ...
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