Letters of a Soldier, 1914-1915 Part 2

Then the wounded: fine spectacle of patriotism. The English army. The artillery.

We no longer know anything, having no more papers, and we can't trust the rumours which fly among the distraught population.

Splendid weather.

_Sat.u.r.day, September 5_ (_at the end of 60 hours in a cattle-truck: 40 men to a truck_).

On the same day we skirted the Seine opposite the forest of Fontainebleau and the banks of the Loire. Saw the chateau de Blois and the chateau d'Amboise. Unhappily the darkness prevented us from seeing more. How can I tell you what tender emotions I felt by these magnificent banks of the Loire!

Are you bombarded by the frightful aeroplanes? I think of you in such conditions and above all of poor Grandmother, who indeed had little need to see all this! However, we must hope.

We learn from wounded refugees that in the first days of August mistakes were made in the high command which had terrible consequences. It falls to us now to repair those mistakes.

Ma.s.ses of English troops arrive. We have crossed numbers of crowded trains.

Well, this war will not have been the mere march-past which many thought, but which I never thought, it would be; but it will have stirred the good in all humanity. I do not speak of the magnificent things which have no immediate connection with the war,--but nothing will be lost.

_September 5, 1914_ (_1st halting-place, 66 hours in the cage without being able to stretch_).

Still the same jolting and vibration, but three times after the horrible night there has come the glory of the morning, and all fatigue has disappeared.

We have crossed the French country in several directions, from the rather harsh serenity, full of suggestiveness, of Champagne, to the rich robust placidity of Brittany. On the way we followed the full and n.o.ble banks of the Loire, and now . . .

O my beautiful country, the heart of the world, where lies all that is divine upon earth, what monster sets upon you--a country whose offence is her beauty!

I used to love France with sincere love, which was more than a little _dilettante_; I loved her as an artist, proud to live in the most beautiful of lands; in fact, I loved her rather as a picture might love its frame. It needed this horror to make me know how filial and profound are the ties which bind me to my country. . . .

_September 7_ (from a note-book).

. . . We are embarked on the adventure, without any dominant feeling except perhaps a sufficiently calm acceptance of this fatality. But sensibility is kept awake by the sight of the victims, particularly the refugees. Poor people, truly uprooted, or rather, dead leaves in the storm, little souls in great circ.u.mstances.

Whole trains of cattle-trucks, which can hardly be said to have changed their use! Trains in which is heaped up the desolation of these people torn from their homes, and how quickly become as beasts! Misery has stripped them of all their human attributes. We take them food and drink, and that is how they become exposed: the man drinks without remembering his wife and children. The woman thinks of her child. But other women take their time, unable to share in the general haste. Among these waifs there is one who a.s.sails my heart,--a grandmother of eighty-seven, shaken, tossed about by all these blows, being by turns hoisted into and let down from the rolling cages. So trembling and disabled, so lost. . . .

_September 10_ (from a note-book).

We arrive in a new part of the country on the track of good news: the strong impression is that France's future is henceforth a.s.sured.

Everything corroborates this feeling, from the official report which formally announces a complete success down to the most fantastic rumours.

_September 13_ (from a note-book).

This is war; here are we approaching the place of horror. We have left behind the French villages where peace was still sleeping. Now there is nothing but tumult. And here are direct victims of the war.

The soldiers: blood, mud and dirt. The wounded. Those whom we pa.s.s at first are the least suffering--wounds in arms, in hands. In most of them can clearly be seen, in the midst of their fatigue and distress, great relief at having been let off comparatively easily.

Farther on, towards the ambulances, the burying of the dead: there are six, stretched on two waggons. Smoothed out, and covered with rags, they are taken to an open pit at the foot of a Calvary. Some priests conduct, rather than celebrate, the service, military as they have become. A little straw and some holy water over all, and so we pa.s.s on. After all, these dead are happy: they are cared-for dead. What can be said of those who lie farther on and who have pa.s.sed away after nights of the throes of death and abandonment.

. . . From this agony there will remain to us an immense yearning for pity and brotherhood and goodness.

_Wednesday, September 16, 1914._

In the horror-zone.

The rainy twilight shadows the road, and suddenly, in a ditch--the dead!

They have dragged themselves here from the battlefield--they are all corrupt now. The coming of darkness makes it difficult to distinguish their nationality, but the same great pity envelops them all. Only one word for them: poor boy! The night for these ignominies--and then again the morning. The day rises upon the swollen bodies of dead horses. In the corner of a wood, carnage, long cold.

One sees only open sacks, ripped nose-bags. Nothing that looks like life remains.

Among them some civilians, whose presence is due to the German proceeding of making French hostages march under our fire.

If these notes should reach any one, may they give rise in an honest heart to horror of the foul crime of those responsible for this war.

There will never be enough glory to cover all the blood and all the mud.

_September 21, 1914._

War in rain.

It is suffering beyond what can be imagined. Three days and three nights without being able to do anything but tremble and moan, and yet, in spite of all, perfect service must be rendered.

To sleep in a ditch full of water has no equivalent in Dante, but what can be said of the awakening, when one must watch for the moment to kill or to be killed!

Above, the roar of the sh.e.l.ls drowns the whistling of the wind. Every instant, firing. Then one crouches in the mud, and despair takes possession of one's soul.

When this torment came to an end I had such a nervous collapse that I wept without knowing why--late, useless tears.

_September 25._

h.e.l.l in so calm and pastoral a place. The autumnal country pitted and torn by cannon!

_September 27._

If, apart from the greater lessons of the war, there are small immediate benefits to be had, the one that means most to me is the contemplation of the night sky. Never has the majesty of the night brought me so much consolation as during this acc.u.mulation of trials. Venus, sparkling, is a friend to me. . . .

I am now familiar with the constellations. Some of them make great curves in the sky as if to encircle the throne of G.o.d. What glory! And how one evokes the Chaldean shepherds!

O constellations! first alphabet!. . .

_October 1._

I can say that, as far as the mind goes, I have lived through great days when all vain preoccupations were swept away by a new spirit.