"Yes, certainly this is it," exclaims Osman, "this is it, for here is my poor cousin's grave. Look, sir, the first, close to the ditch which borders the cemetery. I read his name here."
Indeed, I read it myself, "Pierre D——." The inscription is in very large letters, and the cross is facing in our direction more than the others, as if it would call to us:
"Halt! we are here. Do not run the risk of going any farther. Stop!"
And we stop, listening attentively in the silence. There is no sound, no movement anywhere, except the fall of a bead of frost, slipping off the gaunt trees by the wayside. We seem to be in absolute security. Let us then calmly enter the field where this humble cross seems to have beckoned to us.
Osman had carefully prepared two little sealed bottles, containing the names of our two dead friends, which he intended to bury at their feet, fearing lest shells should still be capable of destroying all the labels on the graves. It is true we have carelessly forgotten to bring a spade to dig up the earth, but it cannot be helped, we shall do it as best we may. The two chauffeurs accompany us, for knowing the reason for our expedition, they had, with kindly thoughtfulness, each brought a camera to take a photograph of the graves. Pierre D—— had been discovered at once. There remained only my nephew to be found among these many frozen graves of youthful dead. In order to gain time—for the place is not very reassuring, it must be confessed—let us divide the pious task among us, and each of us follow one of these rows, ranged with such military regularity.
I do not think human imagination could ever conceive anything so dismal as this huge military cemetery in the midst of all this desolation, this silence which one knows to be listening, hostile and treacherous, in this horrible neighbourhood whose menace seems, as it were, to loom over us. Everything is white or whitish, beginning with the soil of Champagne, which would always be pale even if it were not powdered with innumerable little crystals of ice. There is no shrub, no greenery, not even grass; nothing but the pale, cinder-grey earth in which our soldiers have been buried. Here they lie, these two or three hundreds of little hillocks, so narrow that it seems that space is precious, each one marked with its poor little white cross. Garlanded with frost, the arms of all these crosses seem fringed with sad, silent tears which have frozen there, unable to fall, and the fog envelops the whole scene so jealously that the end of the cemetery cannot be clearly seen. The last crosses, hung with white drops, are lost in livid indefiniteness. It seems as if this field alone were left in the world, with all its myriad pearls gleaming sadly, and naught else.
I have bent down over a hundred graves at least and I find nothing but unknown names, often even that cruel phrase, "Not identified." I say that I have bent down, because sometimes, instead of being painted in black letters, the inscription was engraved on a little zinc plate—nothing better was to be had—engraved hastily and difficult to decipher. At last I discover the poor boy whom I was seeking, "Sergent Georges de F." There he is, in line as if on a parade ground, between his companions, all alike silent. A little plate of zinc has fallen to his lot, and his name has been patiently stippled, doubtless with the help of a hammer and a nail. His is one of the few graves decked with a wreath, a very modest wreath to be sure, of leaves already discoloured, a token of remembrance from his men who must have loved him, for I know he was gentle with them.
For reference later, when his body will be removed, I am now going to draw a plan of the cemetery in my notebook, counting the rows of graves and the number of graves in each row. Look! bullets are whistling past us, two or three in succession. Whence can they be coming to us, these bullets? They are undoubtedly intended for us, for the noise that each one makes ends in that kind of little honeyed song, "Cooee you! Cooee you!" which is characteristic of them when they expire somewhere in your direction, somewhere quite close. After their flight silence prevails again, but I make more haste with my drawing.
And the longer I remain here the more I am impressed with the horror of the place. Oh this cemetery which, instead of ending like things in real life, plunges little by little into enfolding mists; these tombs, these tombs all decked with gem-like icicles which have dropped as tears drop; the whiteness of the soil, the whiteness of everything, and Death which returns and hovers stealthily, uttering a little cry like a bird! Yonder, by the grave of Pierre D——, I notice Osman, likewise much blurred in the fog. He has found a spade, which has doubtless remained there ever since the interments, and he finishes burying the little bottle which is to serve as a token.
Again that sound, "Cooee you! Cooee you!" The place is decidedly unhealthy, as the soldiers say. I should be to blame if I lingered here any longer.