Then the inveterate wag intervenes. He sings, he “joshes.” He brings a laugh. The dying conversation revives. Those who were dozing sit up again and take notice. Circles form. Each one tells a story, and the long faces spread into smiles. Torpor is banished for a moment. The man who was cutting a cane with his pocket-knife exhibits it. It is fine and much admired. The man who hollowed out an inkstand from a fuse brings it forth. His work is curious, dainty, and ornamental: bravo! A painter is there, an artist, who brings out his album; he has a hundred drawings, warm with color. Each man would like to possess a copy. That is the end: there is nothing more. All this is too brief, and the time is too long. We cast about for something new.
In a hut some one installs a museum. It is a collection of souvenirs of the field of battle. The gathered trophies hang on the walls. A Boche helmet is near a freakishly twisted splinter. A German trooper’s sword-belt hangs near a saw-bayonet. There are cartridge-boxes, fragments of guns, the button of a tassel from the sabre of a buried German officer. Every one is interested in the work and brings his contribution to enrich the collection. It does not belong to any one in particular, but is owned jointly. It is the pride of the sector and the joy of the regiment. It receives the casse-tête picked up after the last hand-to-hand scrimmage with the Boches; a reservoir of liquid fire, whose bearer lies somewhere near the trench that he sought to enter; some fragments of grenades—anything which one might pick up on a kilometre of ground furrowed by projectiles, dug up by shells, or ploughed by cannon-balls. Curious conglomeration! Glorious scraps of iron! Mute witnesses of the fury of men, implements of their ferocity!
At another spot some man who loves the cultivation of the land cares for a wee patch of garden. A garden, yes, that is what I said. In the midst of the trenches. He has planted some pansies, a sprig of stock, and three clumps of pinks. He waters them every morning, and watches them carefully. Woe to any careless foot that might crush them! These flowers, in the sombre surroundings, breathe perfume and poetry.
At another spot a fight between a dog and a rat is pulled off. A lieutenant sets a fox-terrier on a promising hole of the rodents. A group of men look on eagerly. One, armed with a pick, enlarges the opening. Another removes a stone which was in the way. The dog, trembling with excitement, sniffs, paws, digs, buries his nose in the earth, scratches, reaches the animal at the bottom of his retreat—seizes him! Good dog! He shakes the rat furiously, breaking his back. The victor is applauded and petted.
Simple distractions, these! I will pass them by quickly. There is the man who makes chains of welded wire; the one whose hobby is photography. One mysterious fellow amuses himself with cookery. There are some secret pursuits, like that of the inveterate hunters, who place game-traps at twilight and at dawn endanger their lives to go out to empty them. There are fishermen who drop lines in the canal. A hundred avocations are followed on the edge of the war, side by side with the service, in range of the cannon and punctuated by shells.
I had my occupation, as well as the others, you may be sure. I published a newspaper: a great affair. A newspaper, in the trenches—that savors at once of a trade and of an adventure. Title: The War Cry, appearing once a month. Every month, then, I had a problem: to get paper. An obliging cyclist had to bring it from the village on the day fixed. He left it at the foot of a sapling, no matter what the uproar overhead; no matter how large the edition of shrapnel messages from the Germans. Oh, honest pulp, intended for a simple life, into what scenes of adventure art thou thrust!
In one trench the print-shop was twenty feet underground. It was illuminated by three night-lamps, set in a triangle. At another place the shop was on a level with the surface of the ground, and the bombardment scattered sand and pebbles over the proof. At another time it was installed in a bedroom of a ruined house. As there was no roof to catch the rain, it fell in large tears on the printer and the printing. No matter! The number was issued, illustrated. It was eagerly sought, and the copies circulated briskly, carrying gratuitous joy, smoothing knit brows, bringing a laugh, and, finally, carrying to the rear the gayety of the front.
When I look back upon these labors, they seem to me childish. In their place, they were amazing. The Great Tragedy held us constantly in its clutch. The man who was polishing a ring for his fiancée did not finish it: that very evening a ball or a piece of shell shattered the work and destroyed the worker. The man who was carving a walking-stick was a mutilated wreck before his work was finished. The danger was incessant. In these occupations we sought distraction from the thought of it all, but one could never ward off that which fate held in store for him. It was an intermission snatched from ennui; a truce; and when one was doing fairly well, thinking no more of physical discomfort and mental anguish, suddenly the cannon barked, the alarm was sounded, and the dance of hell was on again!
“Outside: trench thirteen!”
Then we ran. We left the rings and walking-sticks and the newspaper. The War Cry—It was the real war cry now. The Boche had come upon us by stealth. It might be night or day, morning or evening. He slid, he crept, he crouched, he jumped into our trench. We must hack him to pieces with grenades. Then we must put up again a fallen splinter-shield, reconstruct an observation-post, open again a filled-up trench. The shells came like gusts of wind, the shrapnel flew, smoked, and stunk.