—Si j’étais grand....
[If I were grown up!]
Akin to the soldier en permission is the soldier en repos. Of the latter class was our Carlos, who was given us by M. le Sous-Préfet, together with a horse and two carts. He was to report during his stay to no one but Mlle. la Directrice, nor would the authorities take any direct cognisance of him save in case of her complaint. A southerner was Carlos, a dapper man from the Basque provinces. There he had a wife and two children whom he had not seen for three years. But he expected a permission shortly, he said; and that may have reconciled him to the uncongenial hewing of wood and drawing of water to which he was detailed. Day long he drove, or chopped trees, or cleaned the stable, as advised. His only diversion appeared to be our milk maid,—a harmless enough one, I presume; for she told us proudly and often how she received a letter from her soldier-husband every day. Nevertheless, there was visible sadness when one morning Carlos announced that he had been transferred. And was he then going home? No, his permission had been taken away; he was returning to the front. He and Tambour were to join the artillery. Poor old Tambour, faithful, plodding; one knew not for which to feel more compassion, the horse or the master, as one pictured them dragging into position the grey seventy-fives! “Good-bye, then,” I said, “I am sorry.” “O, what would you,” he replied. “So it goes. But you, you are leaving also. Some one has told me, for America—La bonne chance, Mademoiselle.”
Unlike Carlos only in that they came by regiments, were the shifting troops taken at intervals from the trenches for a brief rest in our more habitable villages. One saw them, a weary line of blue, marching down the roads, flanked by stretcher bearers, and followed by a provision train. Once settled, they stood about the corners of the streets or in the gaping doorways; a disconsolate enough addition to the ruins. Or at the camp kitchens, drawn up to one side, they grouped themselves around huge cauldrons of soup. Sometimes a more ambitious company set to work to clean up the village and built an outdoor bathing tank which was much in use. On one occasion, a dashing troop of blue devils gave military concerts each evening. An incongruous sight was the band, drawn sprucely up in a desolate courtyard, and a strangely stirring sound, the music floating through the empty streets, of Ce que c’est qu’ un drapeau. Often soldiers and even officers came over to see us at the Château and to ask for cigarettes or shoes. If one had time to listen, they talked for hours on the war. They were never boastful, these soldiers; they had a just estimate of the German strength of organisation; they had no illusions as to their own personal fate. Each one expected to die at his post. Patient, sturdy, intelligent, they gave one confidence that, however heavy the dawn bombardments, our lines would hold. And if our lines, then all the lines manned by them with such spiritual as well as physical courage. The morale of the poilu, unflinching, will yet win the war.