“Will I? The devil. I ask it; I demand it. I want to learn it, too. Go on. Start it!” he exclaimed.
And then Gaix turned towards his comrades and began to sing in his great deep baritone voice our marching song, “Ma Mitrailleuse,” which each section had learned secretly and which they sang together for the first time to-day.
On a rhythm taken from some war march, some one had composed simple words, which were nevertheless image-provoking and vibrant, where the alternating motet “Ma Mitrailleuse,” sung in chorus, sounds like a bugle call.
This marching song is one of those which engrave themselves at once on the memory and in the heart, which are never forgotten, for in their accents are rooted the strongest impressions of the hours lived in the simple brotherhood of arms, the memory of dangers encountered together, the pride of victories, and the pious homage to those who sang it with us and whose manly voices were silenced forever in the night of battles.
And I find in writing it the same deep stirring emotion that I experienced when I first heard it.
MA MITRAILLEUSE
Sur notre front, dans ton abri,
Tu dors sur ton trépied bleu gris,
Calme dans l’ombre vaporeuse,