TWENTY-TWO DAYS IN THE TRENCHES
Sunday, 25th October.
Roberty, our lieutenant, has been evacuated. We saw him leave in the ambulance. We are very sorry, as he is the first friend to drop out of our life so far.
Two months' intimacy, pleasure and pain shared hourly by us all, have enabled us to appreciate at his true worth this officer with whom Reymond and myself have been on the most intimate terms, and who valued his rank only in so far as it enabled him to make the life of his men more tolerable. I am not speaking merely of ourselves, his close friends; every soldier of the section did more than obey him. They dreaded his displeasure, and looked quite discomfited if by any chance they had made him angry. Roberty slept on straw with the first squadron, partaking of the same food as the rest. He cheerfully performed every duty that fell to an officer's lot.
Every evening, in the trenches, he went himself to arrange about the outposts. His task finished, he would come back to us in our shelter and engage in a friendly chat and smoke.
"Even in the Foreign Legion," remarked Belin, "I never saw that done."
Raising his index finger, he added—
"But though he made himself one of us, I never respected any officer more than I respected him."