One evening the lieutenant said to me a little after dinner:
“To-morrow, at four o’clock, we’re going to the first line trenches to find positions for the machine guns. The section leaders are coming, and if you want to come, you’ll find it interesting.”
The selection of a machine gun emplacement is essentially a delicate task. The Germans are past masters in this art. So, in the days of attack when our artillery had made a thorough preparation and they were convinced that there was nothing left in front and we could advance without trouble, exactly as though taking a walk in a square, we found ourselves abruptly right in the fire of a Boche machine gun which had not been spotted and which was so skilfully camouflaged that it had resisted the most terrible bombardment.
It is necessary above all to find a place which commands a wide field of fire and one easy to play on. It must also be easy to conceal the gun in some way, for, if it is once spotted, a shell will soon send the gun and its crew pirouetting in the air, unless they are forewarned by a shot too long or too short, but whose destination is unmistakable, and so have time to move.
It was scarcely daylight when we assembled in front of the lieutenant’s quarters.
A fog that could be cut with a knife limited our view to a few yards. It was cold.
Sergeant Lace is there already walking back and forth in the fog. He is always exactly punctual, anyway. He is equipped as if for an assault with his revolver, mask, and field glasses. His chest is covered with numerous colonial decorations, his military medal and his war cross with three palms.
Lace is a section leader emeritus. He is rough and harsh in appearance; he never smiles, or rarely; he is tanned from his long stay in the colonies, but he does his duty with unfailing exactness. During an attack in Champagne he found himself under the command of his brother, a lieutenant, who was mortally wounded at his side. He embraced him reverently, took the papers, pocketbook and letters from the pockets of his jacket, removed his decorations, which were now relics, and resumed his place in the ranks. He fought all day, attacked a fortified position, assisted in the dangerous task of clearing a wood, and when night came, by the light of star shells under a hellish bombardment and a storm of shrapnel, he went back and brought out his brother’s body and gave it proper burial. Lace is a soldier and a conscientious one.
Other silhouettes approach and come out of the darkness like ghosts. One is Poirier, a very young man, who laughs in the midst of the worst dangers, which he absolutely ignores. Then there is big Roullé, whom ten years in the tropics did not succeed in making thin, and whose breadth of shoulder is ill-adapted to the narrowness of the communication trenches. Then Pierron comes on the run, singing a Neapolitan song. He is from Saigon and is homesick for the Asiatic nights, whose charms he is forever describing.
As the hour strikes the lieutenant appears.