He alone seemed changed by these formidable circumstances. He was thrilled. I should like to have been thrilled.
What made the Descroix and Humels so unbearable to me was their peace-time point of view. The way they spent hour after hour playing stupid card games, taking no interest in anything else! It was beyond me, and it worried me. They would not be the ones to save France!
(Should I be!!!)
Guillaumin reassured me.
"Don't you worry about that! You keep your eye on the poilus. That's all that matters!"
I tossed my head. My men? What could I know about them?
I had thirty-three roughs under me, squads 11 and 12. Guillaumin had the same number, squads 9 and 10; Lieutenant Henriot was in command of the platoon.
Up to now, I had tried only to avoid being unpopular. I thought I was succeeding in it. I relied entirely on my corporals, Bouguet and Donnadieu, who were well up in their job.
Chance had thrown together in my section, Judsi and Lamalou, the two scoundrels whom I have already mentioned, among the stolid Beaucerons who were all so much alike that they might have been brothers. They were a scurvy couple. They had already been caught by a patrol one night in town, and brought back drunk, shouting and storming, and had been in such a dangerous mood next day that Henriot had not dared to haul them over the coals for it.
The impressions I had retained of the few weeks once spent on a company, before going to the "Peloton," the one occasion in which I had come into contact for a short period with the lower classes, were these: The barrack was a den of wild beasts, and the peasants real brutes. The fact that the one thing they looked forward to was Sunday when they could drink themselves stupid, made them lower even than the animals. Beyond that the only thing that had worried me was the "promiscuousness." The days of ragging were over; I was free with my cigarettes and "drinks." I could always find someone ready to take my fatigues for me for the sake of a sixpence, and ever since then Bouillon had been my guardian angel. It did not matter how much this pleb was looked down on!