Under Fire by Henri Barbusse (best books to read for students .txt) š
- Author: Henri Barbusse
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After several goings and comings, he stops at one spot and draws back a littleāāIt was there, Iām right. Lookāitās that stone there that I knew it by. There was a vent-hole there, you can see the mark of the bar of iron that was over the hole before it disappeared.ā
Sniffling he reflects, and gently shaking his head as though he could not stop it: āIt is when you no longer have anything that you understand how happy you were. Ah, how happy we were!ā
He comes up to me and laughs nervously: āItās out of the common, that, eh? Iām sure youāve never seen yourself like itācanāt find the house where youāve always lived sinceāsince alwaysāā
He turns about, and it is he who leads me away:
āWell, letās leg it, since there is nothing. Why spend a whole hour looking at places where things were? Letās be off, old man.ā
We departāthe only two living beings to be seen in that unreal and miasmal place, that village which bestrews the earth and lies under our feet.
We climb again. The weather is clearing and the fog scattering quickly. My silent comrade, who is making great strides with lowered head, points out a field: āThe cemetery,ā he says; āit was there before it was everywhere, before it laid hold on everything without end, like a plague.ā
Half-way, we go more slowly, and Poterloo comes close to me-āYou know, itās too much, all that. Itās wiped out too muchāall my life up to now. It makes me afraidāit is so completely wiped out.ā
āCome; your wifeās in good health, you know; your little girl, too.ā
He looks at me comically: āMy wifeāIāll tell you something; my wifeāā
āWell?ā
āWell, old chap, Iāve seen her again.ā
āYouāve seen her? I thought she was in the occupied country?ā
āYes, sheās at Lens, with my relations. Well, Iāve seen herāah, and then, after all, zut!āIāll tell you all about it. Well, I was at Lens, three weeks ago. It was the eleventh; thatās twenty days since.ā
I look at him, astounded. But he looks like one who is speaking the truth. He talks in sputters at my side. as we walk in the increasing lightā
āThey told usāyou remember, perhapsābut you werenāt there, I believeāthey told us the wire had got to be strengthened in front of the Billard Trench. You know what that means, eh? They hadnāt been able to do it till then. As soon as one gets out of the trench heās on a downward slope, thatās got a funny name.ā
āThe Toboggan.ā
āYes, thatās it; and the place is as bad by night or in fog as in broad daylight, because of the rifles trained on it before hand on trestles, and the machine-guns that they point during the day. When they canāt see any more, the Boches sprinkle the lot.
āThey took the pioneers of the C.H.R., hut there were some missing, and they replaced āem with a few poilus. I was one of āem. Good. We climb out. Not a single rifle-shot! āWhat does it mean?ā we says, and behold. we see a Boche, two Boches, three Boches, coming out of the groundāthe gray devils!āand they make signs to us and shout āKamarad!ā āWeāre Alsatians,ā they says. coming more and more out of their communication trenchāthe International. āThey wonāt fire on you, up there,ā they says; ādonāt be afraid, friends. Just let us bury our dead.ā And behold us working aside of each other, and even talking together since they were from Alsace. And to tell the truth, they groused about the war and about their officers. Our sergeant knew all right that it was forbidden to talk with the enemy, and theyād even read it out to us that we were only to talk to them with our rifles. But the sergeant he says to himself that this is Godās own chance to strengthen the wire, and as long as they were letting us work against them, weād just got to take advantage of it,
āThen behold one of the Boches that says, āThere isnāt perhaps one of you that comes from the invaded country and would like news of his family?ā
āOld chap, that was a bit too much for me. Without thinking if I did right or wrong, I went up to him and I said, āYes, thereās me.ā The Boche asks me questions. I tell him my wifeās at Lens with her relations, and the little one, to. He asks where sheās staying. I explain to him, and he says he can see it from there. āListen,ā he says, āIāll take her a letter, and not only that, but Iāll bring you an answer.ā Then all of a sudden he taps his forehead, the Boche, and comes close to meāāListen, my friend, to a lot better still. If you like to do what I say, you shall see your wife, and your kids as well, and all the lot, sure as I see you.ā He tells me, to do it, Iāve only got to go with him at a certain time with a Boche greatcoat and a shako that heāll have for me. Heād mix me up in a coal-fatigue in Lens, and weād go to our house. I could go and have a look on condition that I laid low and didnāt show myself, and heād be responsible for the chaps of the fatigue, but there were non-coms. in the house that he wouldnāt answer forāand, old chap, I agreed!ā
āThat was serious.ā
āYes, for sure, it was serious. I decided all at once. without thinking and without wishing to think, seeing I was dazzled with the idea of seeing my people again; and if I got shot afterwards, well, so much the worseābut give and take. The supply of law and demand they call it, donāt they?
āMy boy, it all went swimmingly. The only hitch was they had such hard work to find a shako big enough, for, as you know, Iām well off for head. But even that was fixed up. They raked me out in the end a lousebox big enough to hold my head. Iāve already some Boche bootsāthose that were Caronās, you know. So, behold us setting off in the Boche trenchesāand theyāre most damnably like oursāwith these good sorts of Boche comrades, who told me in very good Frenchāsame as Iām speakingānot to fret myself.
āThere was no alarm, nothing. Getting there came off all right. Everything went off so sweet and simple that I fancied I must be a defaulting Boche. We got to Lens at nightfall. I remember we passed in front of La Perche and went down the Rue du Quatorze-Juillet. I saw some of the townsfolk walking about in the streets like they do in our quarters. I didnāt recognize them because of the evening, nor them me, because of the evening too, and because of the seriousness of things. It was so dark you couldnāt put your finger into your eye when I reached my folkās garden.
āMy heart was going top speed. I was all trembling from head to foot as if I were only a sort of heart myself. And I had to hold myself back from carrying on aloud, and in French too, I was so happy and upset. The Kamarad says to me, āYou go, pass once, then another time, and look in at the door and the window. Donāt look as if you were looking. Be careful.ā So I get hold of myself again, and swallow my feelings all at a gulp. Not a bad sort, that devil, seeing heād have had a hell of a time if Iād got nailed.
āAt our place, you know, same as everywhere in the Pas de Calais, the outside doors of the houses are cut in two. At the bottom, itās a sort of barrier, half-way up your body; and above, you might call it a shutter. So you can shut the bottom half and be one-half private.
āThe top half was open, and the room, thatās the dining-room, and the kitchen as well, of course, was lighted up and I heard voices.
āI went by with my neck twisted sideways. There were heads of men and women with a rosy light on them, round the round table and the lamp. My eyes fell on her, on Clotilde. I saw her plainly. She was sitting between two chaps, non-coms., I believe, and they were talking to her. And what was she doing? Nothing; she was smiling, and her face was prettily bent forward and surrounded with a light little framework of fair hair, and the lamp gave it a bit of a golden look.
āShe was smiling. She was contented. She had a look of being well off, by the side of the Boche officer, and the lamp, and the fire that puffed an unfamiliar warmth out on me. I passed, and then I turned round, and passed again. I saw her again, and she was always smiling. Not a forced smile, not a debtorās smile, non, a real smile that came from her, that she gave. And during that time of illumination that I passed in two senses, I could see my baby as well, stretching her hands out to a great striped simpleton and trying to climb on his knee; and then, just by, who do you think I recognized? Madeleine Vandaert, Vandaertās wife, my pal of the 19th, that was killed at the Maine, at Montyon.
āShe knew heād been killed because she was in mourning. And she, she was having good fun, and laughing outright, I tell youāand she looked at one and the other as much as to say, āIām all right here!ā
āAh, my boy, I cleared out of that, and butted into the Kamarads that were waiting to take me back. How I got back I couldnāt tell you. I was knocked out. I went stumbling like a man under a curse, and if any-body had said a wrong word to me just thenā! I should have shouted out loud; I should have made a row, so as to get killed and be done with this filthy life!
āDo you catch on? She was smiling, my wife, my Clotilde, at this time in the war! And why? Have we only got to be away for a time for us not to count any more? You take your damned hook from home to go to the war, and everything seems finished with; and they worry for a while that youāre gone, but bit by bit you become as if you didnāt exist, they can do without you to be as happy as they were before, and to smile. Ah, Christ! Iām not talking of the other woman that was laughing, but my Clotilde, mine, who at that chance moment when I saw her, whatever you may say, was getting on damned well without me!
āAnd then, if sheād been with friends or relations; but no, actually with Boche officers! Tell me, shouldnāt I have had good reason to jump into the room, fetch her a couple of swipes, and wring the neck of the other old hen in mourning?
āYes, yes; I thought of doing it. I
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