Of late the air has become fairly vibrant with disquieting rumours: one does not know what to believe, what to reject.
The Germans are massing for a gigantic drive on Nancy. In three weeks, some say, the offensive is to begin; three days, say others. Nancy is to be another Verdun. If they break through they will pass this way. The American troops are being withdrawn from this neighborhood: any day the order may come for us to leave. At Paris the political situation is dark. Some people even fear a popular uprising against the government. I hinted at this to Monsieur, he shook his old head hopelessly. But yes, things were in a bad way. Now if France only had Veelson at her head! France and Veelson! His gesture indicated the grandeur of such a contingency. As it was, France lacked a leader. And underneath all this runs another rumour, still darker, still more disquieting. The French, the gallant French, they say, are “laying down.” They are ready to make peace at any price. They are played out, sick to death of it all!
“Forty-two months in the trenches!” cried a sergeant en-permission last night; “It is enough! I am through. Let the Americans do it!”
And this feeling, they tell us, is wide-spread. The people see our soldiers day after day, in the training camps, inactive. “What are they here for?” they are asking. “Why don’t they fight? Are they going to wait until it is all over?”
Will our soldiers, half-trained as they are, and a mere handful, be forced, to satisfy them, into the trenches?
In the canteen I look into the boys’ faces and smile, but my heart turns sick within me.
Bourmont, December 20.
Such a strange, incredible thing has happened,—a thing that has upset all my preconceived ideas of human nature. It began with Malotzzi. Malotzzi as his name betrays is a “wop;” he is also the smallest fellow in the company which contains many small men. Nor is he only small, but with his thin olive-tinted face and his slender body, he looks so delicate, so ethereal that you feel a breath of wind might fairly blow him away. To the company he is “a good kid, quiet, never makes any trouble.” To me he has always seemed an elfin, changeling creature, a strayed pixie, whose impishness has turned to gentleness. Child of the tenements that he is, he is possessed of the most exquisite old-fashioned courtesy that I have ever yet encountered; and he has the starriest eyes of any mortal born.
Not long ago he came to the counter to show me a post-card from his sweetheart. It had an ugly picture of a red brick city block upon it, and the message scrawled in an unformed hand beneath contained little except the simple declaration that when he came home she would go with him to the photographer’s over the candy store at the corner and they would have their pictures taken together. Yet no flaming and lyric love-letter could have rendered him more naively proud. Malotzzi with a sweetheart! It was absurd, he was nothing but a child! I can well believe that Malotzzi wouldn’t make a very “snappy” soldier.
This afternoon when the company was out for drill, a certain Second Lieutenant discovered that Malotzzi hadn’t got his pack rolled up right. This was not the first time he had offended in this manner. The Lieutenant had warned him. He was angry. He took Malotzzi over to the bath-house, stripped off his blouse, tied his hands so he couldn’t struggle, and beat him with a gunstrap until he fainted.