Butrel shrugs his shoulders and begins to hum to himself. Sitting on the ground close to us, he busies himself rolling a cigarette between brown, nicotine-stained fingers. He is a splendid little soldier, this Butrel, once in the Foreign Legion, highly intelligent, straight as a die. For those to whom he takes, he would do anything, but he takes to few, however. Willingly would he die for those who succeed in winning his affections. Wherever he goes he obtains universal respect, sometimes not unmingled with fear. The hardest cases in the company, the bullies who reign over their squads by force of physical fear, give a wide berth to this thin little man, whose head scarcely reaches their shoulders. Those who attempted to molest him in the early days, suddenly found themselves uncomfortable before blue eyes which became unwontedly dark, and they flinched before the nasty threat lurking behind the cold concentrated stare.
Butrel fears neither God nor man. He enters into his proper element when under fire. Let what will happen, it finds him cheerful and all unperturbed. Joking without nervousness or bravado, he moves about as unconcerned amid a tempest of bullets as a fish swimming through the water. No one has ever seen him voluntarily take cover. When trenches are to be dug, he digs with his comrades, "he does his bit!" Nevertheless he finds the task none the less disagreeable; he doubts the utility of such labour. The unforeseen and adventurous fascinates him. Yesterday it pleased him to try and get himself killed in order to save "grandad," because long ago he had decided that grandad was a "stick," and also because it was amusing to stand upright and fire at the Boches in the clearing, precisely as if he were at target-practice. The fact that each of those Boches was armed with an automatic rifle as precise and effective as his own, Butrel ignored. He found the situation amusing, and that was enough.
He hankers after his African wars, those fights of one against five, when one plunged into the midst of wheeling horsemen teeming like wasps, or when the two 75's, set to point-blank range, spat forth their shrapnel to cut long lanes through the massed ranks of rebellious tribesmen; those nights spent beneath canvas, superb nights white with stars, rendered all the more stimulating because the surrounding blackness probably veiled a hundred ambushes; the long, still hours of sentry-go when the eyes sought to scrutinize the dark earth in fear and quaking lest the next instant might reveal the blacks stealing forward, knives between their teeth—those were days and nights after Butrel's own heart.
The present methods of warfare, the endless struggle with an invisible enemy, the shells hurled over miles of countryside, seem to him both tiresome and disgusting.
If it be true, as has been rumoured for several days past, and even more confidently affirmed this very morning, that we are going to entrench and sit down as the Boches have already done, perhaps to remain in sheer idleness with nothing better to do than to watch each other's trenches, Butrel will go to pieces, fall ill, unless…. But the man is a very devil! As sure as the sun shines he will discover some highly intelligent way in which to quench his thirst for danger, and to amuse himself while plunging us into amazement and compelling our admiration! The style of life has not yet been created which will serve to bring Butrel down to the common standard; there is nothing sufficiently dull and depressing to extinguish the ardent flame burning within him, which makes of this little, thin, pale-faced man, with frail limbs, a soldier worthy of an epic!
Towards evening, the men scatter over the fields in quest of straw to provide at least some protection against the night. They set off quickly, spreading out towards the woods over stubble fields in which piles of corn are standing to dry; they return heavy-footed, bending beneath the weight of tremendous sheaves, the stalks of which trail out behind them like a pig-tail; a soft rustling follows their steps.
But when the darkness of the night and deep silence enfold the bivouac, loud calls suddenly ring out. Sharp brief orders bring us quickly to our feet; the sections form up with some difficulty, for the men are still to some degree in the grip of their first sleep. Then the whole battalion moves down towards Mouilly, where, so we are informed, we are going to billet.
What time is it then? Ten o'clock already! We shall have to distribute rations, settle the men in the houses and barns, cook our meat and make coffee—it will be midnight before we shall be able to get to sleep again! And we must go back to the same trenches before dawn!
There is, however, some consolation in the thought that we are going to occupy a solidly-built house, to light a fire, a fire in a real grate for a change, to stretch ourselves out perhaps beneath an eiderdown. We may even be able to take off our boots—those boots of mine, those narrow boots which I have not so far been able to replace, and which torture me inexpressibly! To be warm, to sleep without one's equipment, one's toes quite free in one's socks!… It certainly won't be for long, but that is all the more reason why one should hurry up and get to sleep.
Here we are at the village. An endless buzzing fills it. Supply lorries, dark wagons besieged by the darkness which the light of flickering lanterns only serves to emphasize.