I can see them now at the bottom of the ravine, carrying the wounded man on a stretcher; can follow their course through the high grass. And while they are making for the road, other men dig a grave in the hole dug by the shell. In a few minutes all is over; no deep hole is necessary to receive those poor human fragments!
I watch them get the soul-sickening débris down from the tree, and gently place it in the hole, together with the two legs: then the earth falls in heavy lumps. Two branches to form a cross; a name, a date. How simple it all is! After our departure to-morrow others will come as smiling and indifferent before the constant menace of death as ourselves. And perhaps near that grave which the shell dug, other card-players will seat themselves on the moss, and throw down their cards and laugh amid the fragrant bluish smoke of their pipes.
Friday, October 2nd.
To Mouilly, all alone, hands in my pockets. I have been ordered to supervise the clearing up of the village, have all the rubbish buried, and hunt looters and deserters out of the houses.
I conscientiously accomplished this delicate mission of marshal, dustman, and police officer. I formed several fatigue-parties, each with a definite task. I sent out patrols and walked up and down the streets myself.
The results are praiseworthy. Bones, empty meat-tins and other indescribable things have disappeared beneath the earth. The roadway has been well brushed with birch brooms. Never before, not even in pre-war days, has the village been so aggressively clean. It looks as if it has been an object of tender care. Even the shattered roofs and holes in the walls now appear less desolate. Perhaps, however, I look on these things with a prejudiced eye; I am rather pleased with myself and my men; maybe that I exaggerate.
A dozen soldiers are kneeling side by side before a trough, bending over the soapy water, washing their linen in silence. But where is the washing and the babbling washerwomen of a year before? One hears nothing now but the slapping of palms against the wet clothes, and the noise of the trickling water wrung from them.
"Hullo, Pannechon? Almost finished?"
Pannechon looks up. Still kneeling and resting his hands on the inclined plank before him, he turns his head to look at me.
"Yes, Lieutenant. I have only this flannel waistcoat to finish. I have put everything to dry in the cupboard behind the chimney-piece in the house."