“‘Eh bien?’

“Who can render the intonation of that ‘Eh bien’?  What actor could imitate it?  In that ‘Eh bien?’ there was neither astonishment nor severity, nor brusque recall to duty, but rather the compassionate emotion of an elder brother before a youngster’s weakness which he knows is only a passing mood.  That ’Eh bien?’—­how he put into it, this elder of ours, so much pitiful authority, such sweetness of command, such brotherly confidence, and also such strength of will.  The five men sprang up.  And you know that we took the village after having fought from house to house.  At the angle of two alleys the lieutenant was killed, and that is why the two notes of his ‘Eh bien?’ will always echo in my heart as the fine call of an unrecorded heroism.  It appears that this war must be impersonal—­it is the political formula of the time —­and it is forbidden to mention names.  Eh bien?  Have I named any one?”

14

Out of the monotonous narratives of trench-warfare, stories more horrible than the nightmare phantasies of Edgar Allen Poe, stories of men buried alive by sapping and mining, and of men torn to bits by a subterranean explosion which leaves one man alive amidst the litter of his comrades’ limbs so that he goes mad and laughs at the frightful humour of death, come now and then to reveal the meaning of this modern warfare which is hidden by censors behind decent veils.  It is a French lieutenant who tells this story, which is heroic as well as horrid: 

“We were about to tidy up a captured trench.  At the barrier of sand-bags which closed up one end of it, two sentinels kept a sharp look-out so that we could work in peace of mind.  Suddenly from a tunnel, hidden by a fold in the ground, an avalanche of bombs was hurled over our heads, and before we could collect our wits ten of our men had fallen dead and wounded, all hugger-mugger.  I opened my mouth to shout a word of command when a pebble, knocked by a piece of shell, struck me on the head and I fell, quite dazed.  But my unconsciousness only lasted a second or two.  A bursting shell tore off my left hand and I was awakened by the pain of it.  When I opened my eyes and groaned, I saw the Germans jump across the sand-bags and invade the trench.  There were twenty of them.  They had no rifles, but each man carried a sort of wicker basket filled with bombs.  I looked round to the left.  All our men had fled except those who were lying in their blood.  And the Germans were coming on.  Another slip or two and they would have been on the top of me.  At that moment one of my men, wounded in the forehead, wounded in the chin, and with his face all in a pulp of blood, sat up, snatched at a bag of hand grenades, and shouted out: 

“Arise, ye dead!”