Attached to my original company during the manœuvres, reports had reached the ears of the reserve officer to the effect that I was already well up in my work, and I had at once been made a non-commissioned officer, a distant and unapproachable being.
My energetic "command" ensured my authority, on the drill-ground at all events. Elsewhere?... There was no elsewhere. As for taking a personal interest in each of the men, and searching into, and investigating their characters, as Guillaumin tried to induce me, and forced himself to do,—the idea had never entered my head. To-day it seemed an idle fancy outside the realms of realisation. I felt that this mass of men was too remote from, and, in all probability, hostile to us. No, they did not count at all as individual souls! I listened to Guillaumin as he extolled their sound good sense, and sturdy morale. It was too much to ask of this poor food for cannons.
But one thing struck me, nevertheless; the small, the infinitesimal number of men who "groused." Not a sign of "shirkers." It was astounding to me to note, in the days that followed, how this spirit had spread. I did not see any great enthusiasm, but rather determination, or perhaps it was resignation. There was at all events, no reluctance, no little underhand plots, elaborated with a view to remaining at the depôt. I have quoted our friend Belloeil; but even he would willingly have gone with us, I think, but for his asthma, which made him pant like a seal, merely at having to go up into billets.
One drama, I remember, caused a sensation: a reservist who had thrown himself successively through a window, under a cart, and under a train. He was hard to kill, that fellow!
How set he was on doing away with himself! At the inquest, a letter which had been discovered established the fact that the only motive for this act had been ... fear. Yes, simply the stupid fear of going to the front.... Poor wretch. What a fine funeral ovation they gave him. Good-for-nothing, rotter, and funk were the mildest terms employed. If he had accounted for a Bosche, his skin would have been of some use.
On the fourth day, Friday, the order arrived in the morning to assemble for field-parade.
Guillaumin was triumphant.
"There now, you see! Didn't I tell you so? They're coming all right—even to us!"
The men were taking their valises. And what about us; no, we agreed not to.