i was going out into the yard, with my three or four papers spread out in my hand, when i heard myself called. i stopped. it was captain ribet.
"newspapers are prohibited!" he said.
i was standing at attention. i gazed at him. was he joking? in peace time, i knew they were not allowed. but to-day! was it a pet fad of his? or else were there special instructions?
his features relaxed. he continued:
"will you lend me one?"
i handed him the whole bundle.
"allow me ..." he said. "just a glance."
he ran through the first page, and was just going to turn over.
i made bold to say:
"there's nothing so exhilarating as that reading, i consider, sir! i confess i was thinking of letting my men profit by it...." he cut me short:
"i understand, i understand you. you're a good sort, dreher! two or three of you have turned out to be extraordinarily useful! i was a little bit prejudiced against you young bourgeois. i thought you would be selfish, and not care a rap about your work or anything else. i was mistaken."
he added:
[pg 411]
"i wish all your comrades were like you!"
i opened my mouth but he stopped me.
"i know what i'm talking about. i'm quite well aware of it. look here, only this morning i had a talk with descroix and humel. i've warned them of one thing, and that is, that if during the first engagement their men flinch.... ah! i'm not going to stand any nonsense! it'll be a case of summary justice, i can tell you!"
i put in a few words on humel's behalf.
"yes, he's getting himself in hand again, since he's had something to do with you others!"
bless the man! nothing escaped him. he continued:
"as for playoust, nothing on earth will induce me to have him in my firing-line again. i'm going to arrange to have him sent to the ammunition-train, but i shall warn them to keep an eye on him there!"
i said nothing as i felt slightly embarrassed. it was certainly the first time that the company commander had lingered in tête-à-tête with one of his n.c. o's. ravelli, who was a few yards off, must think i was getting a wigging. i tried to escape.
"stop a minute," said ribet, "if i'm not boring you...."
he smiled.
"and stand at ease, dreher!"
i moved my left leg, and smiled in my turn.
then he began to talk to me in an unexpectedly familiar tone—this man whom i had thought so proud, so incapable of confiding in any one. he told me his whole history, how when quite small he had always longed to be a soldier, how he had been kept back by an illness, and had failed for st. cyr (i had always[pg 412] thought he had been through it), why he had enlisted.... he loyally reported all his disappointments, and mortifications. it was the last trade in peace time. he appealed to me to corroborate this statement from the knowledge gained from my brother whom i had just lost. oh, the slow advancement, the insufficient pay, the spirit of jealousy and tyranny...!
he made a speech for the prosecution. the greatest part of the army was a mass of laziness, lies, and intrigue. there were two ways of rising from the ranks: the military school, where hard work did not succeed except when combined with push (except in regard to successes with the fair sex), and the colonies. he had got himself sent to the soudan, as an ambitious young subaltern, but at the end of a few months his liver had become inflamed. weeks of fever, and a long martyrdom at the hospital at brazzaville had followed, and he had finally been sent back to france with the advice never to set foot in africa again. it had meant that his life was wrecked—that he must grow old in the dreary atmosphere of little garrison towns.
his tone grew still more bitter when he described the utter boredom, the flat distractions, the lack of any intellectual milieu, and beyond that the moral subjection, the physical over-work. the machine was worn out before its time, one became fit for nothing.
i could not help asking him:
"why ... can't you clear out in time?"
"why? because when once you're in it, you stay there. made a captain after fifteen years' service, i waited ten more for—can you guess what? a trumpery bit of rubbish, the military cross!"
he continued:
[pg 413]
"when i retired, i was used up, done! the time for aspiring to something higher was past, or at all events for the realisation of it. i was made a tax-collector. that was all that was left for me!"
yes, theirs was an odd fate, i thought, the peace-time soldiers, who come out and mature, acquire lace and age, and end by disappearing without having realised that for which they imagined they were born.
i said in order to console him:
"but since you're fighting to-day...."
he drew himself up:
"exactly. to-day i'm fighting. i am taking risks, i obey and command; i am, in fact, of some use. at my age, if i had been in the reserve, they'd have left me at the dep?t!"
he tossed his head.
"it's true. taking everything into account, i don't think i regret anything."
his eyes shone.
of some use! yes, indeed, this company commander, who had three hundred men in his charge, and played his part conscientiously, had used and not abused the power placed in his hands. it was the eternal swing of the pendulum. greatness after servitude!
he went on with his confidences.
"you'll laugh at me! the things i was keenest about were the studies which form the crown of our art—strategy and tactics. to handle masses of men, and face those many-sided problems—the offensive, the pursuit, the retreat.... i worked a lot on my own account. there are some questions on which i don't think ... any one could catch me out."
he was working himself up.
[pg 414]
fancy holding the fate of a section in your hands! or being commander-in-chief on a day when the victory he has prepared comes to pass.
at this point a little irony crept into my thoughts and chilled my admiration for him. what was to become of all these ambitions of a company commander in this fine "dug-out" from st. maixent? the idea of exploiting his mania occurred to me. i might get some interesting information out of him....
i looked at him.
"well, what do you think of the situation at the moment?"
did he guess my secret tendency to sarcasm? a struggle seemed to be going on in him. mistrust obviously won the day. he would not lay himself open to ridicule. he treated me to the usual commonplace. we must hold on, and leave the russians time to throw all their weight into the balance. it was a necessity for the germans to finish us off quickly.
"then you don't think we ought to meet their attack?"
"that depends!"
"well then, do you think our retreat is nearly over?"
"ask joffre!"
i sounded him:
"some people consider that we ought to go and wait for the enemy on the loire."
that was too much for him. he cried:
"oh, no, no. that would be absolutely idiotic. i know there was some talk of it!"
"how far, then?"
he hesitated:
[pg 415]
"i hope some day we may be in a position to take the offensive again!"
i looked up.
"yes," i said, "because at the moment...."
"well?"
"what are we doing?"
he scrutinised my face.
"follow up your idea."
"we are shutting ourselves into a camp."
"does that distress you?"
"i may be a bad judge."
he twirled his moustache.
"really! you too, you too! you look at things like that?"
i had him—i had led him on to the point from which i knew he would launch out.
"if the worst came to the worst, and paris was stormed, there would only be one thing for us, the troops collected here, to do. that would be to stick in the trenches covering the approach to the forts, and be killed, down to the last man!... for that matter i think they'd be in a bit of a hole with our army on their flank. but that's not at all the position. for four days, dreher, four days you understand, their new objective has been visible. they are inclining towards the south-east. they are set on surrounding all our forces in the field. under these circumstances, i think—it seems to me—that a decisive movement...."
this time he threw restraint to the winds. he began by explaining all he had been able to follow of the operations since the beginning. in a lump, of course, but how much i valued that first sight i had had of things as a whole, at a time when i was sighing[pg 416] after light from the depths of my ignorance. it was in vain that i had instinctively put myself on guard against the pretensions of an officer in a subordinate position. i was forced to admire the masterly way in which he stated the facts, the precision and lucidity of his words, which would have made of him a remarkable professor of military history. he summed up for me, in a few words, the action in the north which until then had been shrouded in a thick mist for me. our premature offensive, the strength of the german right under von kluck exceeding all expectations—our english allies overcome in spite of heroic efforts—the enemy's wing set in motion and hurled towards paris by forced marches which it was impossible to hinder in spite of terrible sacrifices—our men falling back, fighting day and night, on to the outskirts of the capital. that was last week's balance sheet. to-day the enemy had given up the idea of paris, provisionally and was applying the new principle: the search for, and the annihilation of, the hostile armies in the field. it was a far-reaching conception. just think of the gigantic forces they had hurled into lorraine too, which had just forced us back in a few days from sarrebourg and morhange to the st. dié-nancy front. it was a colossal enveloping movement. our front pierced towards neufchateau, as the principal german mass fell back by chalons—our communications cut, that meant all our forces in the east, and the whole system of our fortified towns caught at one haul, three-quarters of our strength destroyed, the war virtually over.
"then?" i said panting in spite of myself.
"we have a chance. will they know how to make use of it? i believe so—first of all, our right must[pg 417] hold out. castelnau is down there, he is the only man who has held his own. then you see von kluck is clearly leaving paris on one side. he does not set much store by the place, only sees it in the stake of victory. that is perhaps a mistake, perhaps the mistake. perhaps our one object was to get him to make that mistake!"
he took a deep breath:
"dreher, listen to this! if we were in the camp in force—and why shouldn't we be?—if we had had time to concentrate several corps there, a hundred thousand men say, which i believe is the case—if we threw ourselves on their flank, imprudently uncovered—if at that precise instant our other armies made headway against them—if von kluck were suddenly to find himself wedged in a vice...."
the captain pulled up short. was he afraid of having said too much, of having ventured too far in his bold inferences?
he went on:
"however, they may be tempted to keep us as a last resource."
but he could not bear this idea, and refuted it himself instantly:
"no, a thousand times no! a bad calculation. all the forces on the spot, and at the right moment! that was what was wanted!"
he interrupted himself again, with beads of perspiration on his forehead ... and suddenly said in a detached tone of voice:
"i say that to you, but i know nothing, nothing. the staffs are the only judges. are our numbers sufficient? is our combination assured, and the enemy's compromised?"
[pg 418]
an aeroplane passed by. the captain raised his arm:
"is it that bird that is bringing decisive information?"
"or the order to attack?" i murmured.
he was silent, and i could get no more out of him but idle generalities, but i read in his eyes, and face his approbation of my wish, the conformity of our desire.
