THE soldiers at the front are always looking for the bright side of life, and after a little one gets to see humor in many more things than he would have believed possible at home. As an example, there seems to be little humor connected with a funeral, yet one of the times I saw the poilus most amused was one day at P 4, our relay station, on such an occasion.
There had been an intermittent bombardment, and we were sitting or standing inside the abri waiting for it to let up. The abri was located in the corner of a graveyard, and there was always the unpleasant feeling that the next rain might wash a few bones in on us. The abri was small, very crowded, and, as it was several feet underground, none too well ventilated. Every one spent long stretches here, and brought his food with him. What was too poor to eat soon mixed with the mud on the floor, lending an unsavory odor to the atmosphere. Presently one of the Frenchmen went out to see if the bombardment had stopped. This is discovered by the same method one ascertains whether or not it is raining—if he gets wet the storm is not over. The bombardment was not over, and we waited. At last it seemed to have let up, only an occasional shell crashing into the woods across the road, and we went out to stretch and get a breath of air.
The poilus gathered our inquisitive friend from the surrounding shrubbery and trees and put him into several empty sandbags which they laid on a stretcher, carefully placing the head, which appeared to have been solid enough to withstand the shock, at the upper end. Another man carried a freshly-made pine-wood coffin. In high spirits, the assembled soldiers formed a procession and marched into the graveyard, singing alternately a funeral dirge and “Madelon,” the French “Tipperary.” This graveyard, not being on the firing-line itself, was rather a formal affair. The graves were laid out in neat rows, and each man had one all to himself with a wooden cross and his name on it. Of course occasionally the shells did a little mixing, but that was a jest of the Fates which disturbed no one, least of all those who were mixed.
Arrived at the grave, the poilus rolled in the fragments of our late friend and covered them with dirt.
“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note.”
Then they came back, roaring with laughter and tossing the coffin in the air. The hero had expected the coffin and they had fooled him. Now they could use it again.
The usual method of burial on the French front, where there is little time to attend to such matters, is to dig a ditch six feet wide, ten feet deep, and twenty feet long approximately. As each man is killed, time and circumstances permitting, he is divested of his coat and shoes, and his pockets are emptied. He is then thrown into the ditch and covered with a few shovelfuls of dirt. This system is all very well until new divisions relieve those in the trenches, and start digging ditches for their own men. As there are no marks to show the location of the old ones, they sometimes uncover rather unpleasant sights.
The reputation we have gained at home of being cold-blooded and lacking in the finer senses is undeserved. While one is in it he cannot permit himself to realize or dwell on the horrors or they would overwhelm him and drive him insane. What is more natural than for the reaction to turn the matter into jest and joke, to permit it to glance from the surface without inflicting a wound?—“C’est la guerre.”