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<h2>XXII</h2> <h3>THE ABSENT-MINDED PILGRIM</h3> December, 1915. That day, during a lull in the fighting, the General gave me permission to take a motor car for three or four hours to go and look for the grave of one of my nephews, who was struck down by a shell during our offensive in September. From imperfect information I gathered that he must be lying in a humble emergency cemetery, improvised the day after a battle, some five or six hundred yards away from the little town of T—— whose ruins, still bombarded daily and becoming more and more shapeless, lie on the extreme border of the French zone, quite close to the German trenches. But I did not know how he had been buried, whether in a common grave, or beneath a little [Pg 220]cross inscribed with his name, which would make it possible to return later and remove the body. "To get to T——," the General had said, "make a détour by the village of B——, that is the way by which you will run the least risk of being shelled. At B——, if the circumstances of the day seemed dangerous, a sentinel would stop you as usual; then you would hide your motor behind a wall, and you could continue your journey on foot—with the usual precautions, you will understand." Osman, my faithful servant, who has shared my adventures in many lands for twenty years, and who, like everyone else, is a soldier, a territorial, had a cousin killed in the same fight as my nephew, and he is buried, so he was told, in the same cemetery. So he has obtained permission to accompany me on my pious quest. To-day all that gloomy countryside is [Pg 221]powdered with hoar-frost and over it hangs an icy mist; nothing can be distinguished sixty yards ahead, and the trees which border the roads fade away, enveloped in great white shrouds. After driving for half an hour we are right in the thick of that inferno of the battle front, which, from habit, we no longer notice, though it was at first so impressive and will later on be so strange to remember. All is chaos, hurly-burly; all is overthrown, shattered; walls are calcined, houses eviscerated, villages in ruins on the ground; but life, intense and magnificent, informs both roads and ruins. There are no longer any civilians, no women or children; nothing but soldiers, horses, and motor cars; of these, however, there are such numbers that progress is difficult. Two streams of traffic, almost uninterrupted, divide the roads between them; on one side is everything that is on [Pg 222]its way to the firing-line; on the other side everything that is on its way back. Great lorries bringing up artillery, munitions, rations, and Red Cross supplies jolt along on the frozen cart ruts with a great din of clanging iron, rivalling the noise, more or less distant, of the incessant cannonade. And the faces of all these different men, who are driving along on these enormous rolling machines, express health and resolution. There are our own soldiers, now wearing those bluish helmets of steel, which recall the ancient casque and bring us back to the old times; there are yellow-bearded Russians, Indians, and Bedouins with swarthy complexions. All these crowds are continuously travelling to and fro along the road, dragging all sorts of curious things heaped up in piles. There are also thousands of horses, picking their way among the huge wheels of innumerable vehicles. Indeed it might be thought [Pg 223]that this was a general migration of mankind after some cataclysm had subverted the surface of the earth. Not so! This is simply the work of the great Accursed, who has unloosed German barbarism. He took forty years to prepare the monstrous coup, which, according to his reckoning, was to establish the apotheosis of his insane pride, but which will result in nothing but his downfall, in a sea of blood, in the midst of the detestation of the world. There is certainly a remarkable lull here to-day, for even when the rolling of the iron lorries ceases for a moment, the rumbling of the cannon does not make itself heard. The cause of this must be the fog and in other respects, too, how greatly it is to our advantage, this kindly mist; it seems as if we had ordered it. Here we are at the village of B——, which, the General had expected, would be the terminus of our journey by car. [Pg 224]Here the throng is chiefly concentrated among shattered walls and burnt roofs; helmets and overcoats of "horizon" blue are crowding and bustling about. And every place is blocked with these heavy wagons, which, as soon as they arrive, come to a halt, or take up a convenient position for starting on the return journey. For here we have reached the border of that region where, as a rule, men can only venture by night, on foot, with muffled tread; or if by day, one by one, so that they may not be observed by German field-glasses. At the end of the village, then, signs of life cease abruptly, as if cut off clean with the stroke of an axe. Suddenly there are no more people. The road, it is true, leads to that town of T——, which is our destination; but all at once it is quite empty and silent. Bordered by its two rows of skeleton trees, white with frost, it plunges into the dense white fog [Pg 225]with an air of mystery, and it would not be surprising to read here, on some signpost, "Road to Death." We hesitate for a moment. I do not, however, see any of the signals which are customary at places where a halt must be made, nor the usual little red flag, nor the warning sentry, holding his rifle above his head with both hands. So the road is considered practicable to-day, and when I ask if indeed it leads to T——, some sergeants who are there salute and confine their answer to the word "Yes, sir," without showing any surprise. So all that we have to do is to continue, taking, nevertheless, the precaution of not driving too fast, so as not to make too much noise. And it is merely by this stillness into which we are now plunging, by this solitude alone, that I am aware that we are right in the very front; for it is one of the strange characteristics of modern warfare [Pg 226]that the tragic zone bordering on the burrows of the barbarians, is like a desert. Not a soul is visible; everything here is hidden, buried, and—except on days when Death begins to roar with loud and terrible voice—most frequently there is nothing to be heard. We go on and on in a scenery of dismal monotony, continually repeating itself, all misty and unsubstantial in appearance as if made of muslin. Fifty yards behind us it is effaced and shut away; fifty yards ahead of us it opens out, keeping its distance from us, but without varying its aspect. The whitish plain with its frozen cart ruts remains ever the same; it is blurred and does not reveal its distances; there is ever the same dense atmosphere, resembling cold white cotton wool, which has taken the place of air, and ever the two rows of trees powdered with rime, looking like big brooms which have been [Pg 227]rolled in salt and thrust into the ground by their handles. It is clear indeed that this region is too often ravaged by lightning, or something equivalent. Oh, how many trees there are shattered, twisted, with splintered branches hanging in shreds! We cross French trenches running to the right and left of the road, facing the unknown regions towards which we are hastening; they are ready, several lines of them, to meet the improbable contingency of a retreat of our troops; but they are empty and are merely a continuation of the same desert. I call a halt from time to time to look around and listen with ears pricked. There is no sound; everything is as still as if Nature herself had died of all this cold. The fog is growing thicker still, and there are no field-glasses capable of penetrating it. At the very most they might hear us arrive, the enemy, over there [Pg 228]and beyond. According to my maps we have still another two miles at least before us. Onwards! But suddenly there appears to have been an evocation of ghosts; heads, rows of heads, wearing blue helmets, rise together from the ground, right and left, near and far. Upon my soul! they are our own soldiers to be sure, and they content themselves with looking at us, scarcely showing themselves. But for these trenches, which we are passing so rapidly, to be so full of soldiers on the alert, we must be remarkably close to the Ogre's den. Nevertheless let us go a little farther, as the kindly mist stays with us like an accomplice. Five hundred yards farther on I remember the enemy's microphones, which alone could betray us; and it so happens that the frozen earth and the mist are two wonderful conductors of sound. Then it [Pg 229]suddenly occurs to me that I have gone much too far, that I am surrounded by death, that it is only the fog which shelters us, and the thought that I am responsible for the lives of my soldiers makes me shudder. It is because I am not on duty; my expedition to-day is of my own choosing, and in these conditions, if anything happened to one of them, I should suffer remorse for the rest of my life. It is high time to leave the car here! Then I shall continue my journey on foot towards the town of T——, to find out from our soldiers who are installed there in cellars of ruined houses, whereabouts the cemetery lies which I am seeking. But at this same moment a densely crowded cemetery is visible in a field to the left of the road; there are crosses, crosses of white wood, ranged close together in rows, as numerous as vines in the vineyards of Champagne. It is a [Pg 230]humble cemetery for soldiers, quite new, yet already extensive, powdered with rime too, like the surrounding plains, and infinitely desolate of aspect in that colourless countryside, which has not even a green blade of grass. Can this be the cemetery we are seeking? "Yes, certainly this is it," exclaims Osman, "this is it, for here is my poor cousin's grave. Look, sir, the first, close to the ditch which borders the cemetery. I read his name here." Indeed, I read it myself, "Pierre D——." The inscription is in very large letters, and the cross is facing in our direction more than the others, as if it would call to us: "Halt! we are here. Do not run the risk of going any farther. Stop!" And we stop, listening attentively in the silence. There is no sound, no movement anywhere, except the fall of a bead [Pg 231]of frost, slipping off the gaunt trees by the wayside. We seem to be in absolute security. Let us then calmly enter the field where this humble cross seems to have beckoned to us. Osman had carefully prepared two little sealed bottles, containing the names of our two dead friends, which he intended to bury at their feet, fearing lest shells should still be capable of destroying all the labels on the graves. It is true we have carelessly forgotten to bring a spade to dig up the earth, but it cannot be helped, we shall do it as best we may. The two chauffeurs accompany us, for knowing the reason for our expedition, they had, with kindly thoughtfulness, each brought a camera to take a photograph of the graves. Pierre D—— had been discovered at once. There remained only my nephew to be found among these many frozen graves of youthful dead. In order to gain time—for the [Pg 232]place is not very reassuring, it must be confessed—let us divide the pious task among us, and each of us follow one of these rows, ranged with such military regularity. I do not think human imagination could ever conceive anything so dismal as this huge military cemetery in the midst of all this desolation, this silence which one knows to be listening, hostile and treacherous, in this horrible neighbourhood whose menace seems, as it were, to loom over us. Everything is white or whitish, beginning with the soil of Champagne, which would always be pale even if it were not powdered with innumerable little crystals of ice. There is no shrub, no greenery, not even grass; nothing but the pale, cinder-grey earth in which our soldiers have been buried. Here they lie, these two or three hundreds of little hillocks, so narrow that it seems that space is precious, each one [Pg 233]marked with its poor little white cross. Garlanded with frost, the arms of all these crosses seem fringed with sad, silent tears which have frozen there, unable to fall, and the fog envelops the whole scene so jealously that the end of the cemetery cannot be clearly seen. The last crosses, hung with white drops, are lost in livid indefiniteness. It seems as if this field alone were left in the world, with all its myriad pearls gleaming sadly, and naught else. I have bent down over a hundred graves at least and I find nothing but unknown names, often even that cruel phrase, "Not identified." I say that I have bent down, because sometimes, instead of being painted in black letters, the inscription was engraved on a little zinc plate—nothing better was to be had—engraved hastily and difficult to decipher. At last I discover the poor boy whom I was seeking, "Sergent Georges de F." There he is, in line [Pg 234]as if on a parade ground, between his companions, all alike silent. A little plate of zinc has fallen to his lot, and his name has been patiently stippled, doubtless with the help of a hammer and a nail. His is one of the few graves decked with a wreath, a very modest wreath to be sure, of leaves already discoloured, a token of remembrance from his men who must have loved him, for I know he was gentle with them. For reference later, when his body will be removed, I am now going to draw a plan of the cemetery in my notebook, counting the rows of graves and the number of graves in each row. Look! bullets are whistling past us, two or three in succession. Whence can they be coming to us, these bullets? They are undoubtedly intended for us, for the noise that each one makes ends in that kind of little honeyed song, "Cooee you! Cooee you!" which is characteristic of them when they expire [Pg 235]somewhere in your direction, somewhere quite close. After their flight silence prevails again, but I make more haste with my drawing. And the longer I remain here the more I am impressed with the horror of the place. Oh this cemetery which, instead of ending like things in real life, plunges little by little into enfolding mists; these tombs, these tombs all decked with gem-like icicles which have dropped as tears drop; the whiteness of the soil, the whiteness of everything, and Death which returns and hovers stealthily, uttering a little cry like a bird! Yonder, by the grave of Pierre D——, I notice Osman, likewise much blurred in the fog. He has found a spade, which has doubtless remained there ever since the interments, and he finishes burying the little bottle which is to serve as a token. Again that sound, "Cooee you! Cooee [Pg 236]you!" The place is decidedly unhealthy, as the soldiers say. I should be to blame if I lingered here any longer. Upon my soul, here comes shrapnel! But before I heard it explode in the air I recognised it by the sound of its flight, which is different from that of ordinary shells. This first shot is aimed too far to the right, and the fragments fall twenty or thirty yards away on the little white hillocks. But they have found us out, so much is certain, and that is owing to the microphones. This will continue, and there is no cover anywhere, not a single trench, not a single hole. "Stoop down, sir, stoop down," shouts Osman from the distance, seeing another coming towards me while my attention is still occupied with the graves. Why should I stoop down? It is a useful precaution against shells. But against shrapnel, which strikes downwards from above? [Pg 237]No, we ought to have our steel helmets, but carelessly, anticipating no danger, we left them in the car with our masks. All that is left for us is to beat a hasty retreat. Osman comes running towards me with his spade and his second little bottle, and I shout at him: "No, no, it is too late, you must run away." Good heavens, the car has not even been turned! Why, that was an elementary precaution, and as soon as we arrived I ought to have seen to that. What a long, black record of carelessness to-day; where is my head? It is because our entry to the cemetery was so undisturbed. I call out to the two chauffeurs who were still taking photographs: "Stop that, stop! Go at once and turn the car! Not too fast though, or you will make too much noise, but hurry up! Run!" [Pg 238]Osman took advantage of this diversion with the chauffeurs to begin digging in the ground near me. "No, I tell you, stop at once. Can you not see that they are still shelling us? Run and get behind a tree by the roadside." "But it is all right, sir, it is just finished. It will be finished by the time the car has been turned." In my heart I am glad that he is disobeying me a little and completing the work. Never was a hole dug so rapidly nor a bottle buried so nimbly. Then he puts back the earth, jumps on it to flatten it down, and throws down his sexton's spade. Then we run away at full speed, stepping on the hillocks of our dead, apologising to them inwardly. Nothing seems so ridiculous and stupid as to run under fire. But I am not alone; the safety of these soldiers is in my charge, and I should be guilty if I delayed them for as much as a second in their flight. [Pg 239]Shrapnel is still bursting, scattering its hail around us. And how strange and subtle are the ways of modern warfare, where death comes thus seeking us out of invisible depths, depths of a horizon that looks like white cotton wool; death launched at us by men whom we can see no more than they can see us, launched blindly, yet in the certainty of finding us. We reach the car just as it has finished turning; we jump in, and off our car goes at full speed, all open. We pass the occupied trenches like a hurricane; this time heads are scarcely raised because of the shower of shrapnel. These men, to be sure, are under cover, but not so we, who have nothing but our speed to save us. In our frantic flight, in which my part is simply passive, my imagination is free to return to that gloomy cemetery and its dead. And it was strange how clearly we could hear the shrapnel in the midst of this [Pg 240]silence and in this extraordinary mist, which increased, like a microphone, the noise of its flight. It is, moreover, perhaps the first time that I have heard it performing a solo apart from all the customary clamour, in intimacy, if I may say so, for it has done me the honour of coming solely on my account. Never before, then, had I felt that almost physical appreciation of the mad velocity of these little hard bodies, and of the shock with which they must strike against some fragile object, say a chest or a head. The game is over, and we are entering again the village of B——. Here, out of range of shrapnel, only long-distance guns could reach us. We have not even a broken pane of glass or a scratch. Instinctively the chauffeurs draw up, just as I was about to give the order, not because the car is out of breath, or we either, but we need a moment to regain our composure, to [Pg 241]arrange the overcoats thrown into the car in a confused heap, which, after our hurried departure, danced a saraband with cameras, helmets, and revolvers. And then, like people who at last succeed in finding a shelter from a shower in a gateway, we look at one another and feel inclined to laugh—to laugh in spite of the painful and still recent memory of our dead, to laugh at having made good our escape, to laugh because we have succeeded in doing what we set out to do, and especially because we have defied those imbeciles who were firing at us. [Pg 242] <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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