“It gave me a mighty queer feeling,” Coco told me, “to look at that dark spot of blood gradually growing bigger and bigger over that officer’s breast. I remember that I wondered if it had been my rifle ball that had wounded him. And that other German, too—I wondered if I had already killed a man. If I had, why wasn’t it murder? What was the difference between war and murder, anyway? Of course these barbarians were invading my country, but—yes, it was my duty to protect France, but—well, I had to give it up. You know there are priests fighting in the ranks, too, in this war, m’sieur! They must know. It’s all right, I suppose—and yet there is always that ‘but’ when you see a thing like that. Well, it was too exciting then for much philosophy. You see, the cannons were getting louder all the time, and the whistle blew and we marched on again. But somehow we didn’t feel much like singing any more!”
Near rising ground they halted. The officers hurried forward, and with field glasses inspected the country ahead; then called the column on. Now they were actually in the danger zone—a wide expanse of fields, dotted with farms here and there, and across, a mile away, were woods, dark, sinister. It was a sunny afternoon; the odor of the damp, warm earth was clean and pungent. There were wide stretches of yellow stubble fields, where the wheat had been lately cut. Some sheaves were still standing, as if the war had interrupted the harvest, half done.
As they advanced cautiously the cannonading ceased. Somehow to Coco the silence was more dreadful even than that incessant muffled reverberation. But those woods yonder—what dangers were they hiding? Every eye was strained in that direction.
Deploying to the left of the road, Coco’s company made for a whitewashed farmhouse half a mile away, across the fields. The other companies fanned out to either side.
No one seemed to know just what was going to happen. Coco’s lieutenant, a jolly, talkative young fellow who had always used to keep his platoon roaring at his jokes, was now unwontedly serious and silent. Coco watched him. He marched on with his field glasses held constantly to his eyes, tripping over roots and bushes and stones and swearing as he went.
On and on toward that dark, mysterious wood through beet fields, across ditches, over hedges they went, till they came to a cross-road leading into the farm. Here they halted.
Coco, nervous, apprehensive, jumped at hearing his name called out. “Cucurou! Bracques! Lemaitre! Go forward and reconnoiter! Careful, now, men!”
VI
Coco wondered why they had to call on him; but, well, it had to be done, his duty, and he did it. With a man on either side of him he walked forward gingerly through a field where cows were grazing, nearer and nearer that horrible wood. He didn’t dare look at the ground; as he stumbled on his eyes never left that wood, so deathly still and mysterious. Were there Germans hidden in those trees? It was his duty to find out. Bracques and Lemaitre didn’t falter; so Coco didn’t falter. He kept right on, nearer and nearer. His one idea was the importance of first seeing the enemy.