“He isn’t much older than me,” the young officer cadet told himself, “and he doesn’t have any medals on his chest: he must be new here too.”
Glad to have met a comrade who didn’t intimidate him, giving him some time before coming face to face with his senior officers, Jean casually introduced himself: “Officer Cadet Jean Herbillon.”
“Captain Gabriel Thélis, squadron commander,” the young man replied.
The captain held out his hand and Jean noticed three tarnished gold service stripes on his sleeve. Jean felt his cheeks were ripe to burst thanks to a sudden rush of blood to the head, and the feeling that his skin was on fire only served to increase his terrible confusion.
Forgetting that he wasn’t wearing his kepi, Jean raised his hand to his forehead and stammered: “Forgive me, Captain.”
A flurry of agonizing thoughts flashed through his mind. He’d behaved like a goofy popinjay. Instead of expressing the admiration he now felt for this young captain, he’d addressed him with insupportable familiarity. He thought he’d lost all credibility in the captain’s eyes.
While Jean stood stiffly with his brow all sweaty, the captain’s eyes—now endowed with a golden sheen by the sunlight—never shifted from the officer cadet. Suddenly, the room filled with clear, hearty laughter.
Firm fingers came to rest on Herbillon’s shoulder and the voice that boomed with well-being told him: “Enough formalities. Let’s go see the planes.”
Soon enough they were walking the grounds just outside the barracks. Surrounded by the clear contours of a road, and fringed by a curtain of trees in the distance, the field ahead was large and flat, before it came to a stop in front of two abrupt cliffs that spoiled the entire landscape. From a chasm hollowed out by the river to the north rose a bluish vapour, while to the south lay the greyish smoke of human dwellings. Jean was thus able to get his bearings and plot where the river Vesle ran through and where the village of Rosny-sous-Bois lay. He didn’t linger on this. His gaze hungrily wanted to absorb everything that this landscape, indicative of a risky life, contained. He went to see immense hangars that looked like truncated cathedrals, groups of mechanics scattered here and there, the huge white canvas T-shaped weathervane which indicated the wind’s direction. Much to his surprise, he found that this war-zone closely resembled the aviation school where he’d undergone his training.
Nevertheless, Captain Thélis was still examining him. The captain had liked Jean from the get-go, despite his outrageously new peacoat and his useless leather harness. He liked the frankness of his face, his forehead, which seemed indicative of willpower, his eyes, which beamed with candour, and the vitality that animated his entire body. Yet Captain Thélis could only express his sympathy for the officer cadet through jokes. “So you’re not a morning person, eh rookie?” he said, all of a sudden.
Jean jumped with a start.
“I know,” the captain continued, “you got here late. Still, if I’d been in your shoes I would have woken up at dawn to see your comrades off.”
Jean didn’t dare tell him what the orderly had said and instead hung his head. Ruthlessly continuing his jesting, the captain carried on: “A little dumb, are we? Fine, tell me what they taught you at school.”
“But… well, everything, Captain.”
“That’s too much.”
Offended, Herbillon expounded what he’d been taught: how to use the wireless, calibrating the flight controls, photography…
The captain interrupted him. “Do you know how to look?” he said.
This time, the officer cadet thought the captain was joking, but Thélis’s curtness wiped the smile off his face.
“I don’t mean to be funny,” he said. “Let me assure you, here we learn how to really look. It just takes time.”
He carried on questioning Jean over several technical details, and to each of Jean’s answers the captain muttered: “We’ll see, we’ll see, it’s not as easy as that.”
Yet the captain never posed the question Jean most wanted to answer—whether he was brave or not. In fact, Thélis didn’t even hint at it. Herbillon was hurt by this: he saw it as an unceremonious slight. The fear he’d felt the previous day had completely dissipated and, standing on that sunny plateau where the fresh air filled men with the desire to fly, Officer Cadet Jean Herbillon believed himself immune to fear. Thus, he wanted to prove himself.
“When can I fly, Captain?” he asked, looking like the cat that got the cream.
“If the weather’s good tomorrow I’ll take you up myself,” Thélis answered, seemingly completely unfazed by the question.
“Over the front lines?” Jean insisted.
“No, over Monte Carlo.”
Despite the captain’s mockery, Herbillon added: “We’ll fight, won’t we, Captain?”
Thélis looked at him with a sort of mocking tenderness. “I really hope we won’t,” he said. “If we engaged the enemy on each sortie then we’d be out of business!”
The young man repressed his surprise and disappointment, but the captain had guessed exactly what the officer cadet was feeling: his desire to display his bravery, to fulfil his ambitions of glory and battle, his faith in daily feats of prowess. The captain recalled his own arrival at the squadron three years earlier, and how the exact same thoughts he’d detected in Herbillon’s eyes had once flashed through his own mind. He wanted to explain it all to him, but he knew the young officer cadet wouldn’t believe him, so he said to himself: “He’s a good recruit.”
He didn’t realize he was actually praising the young lieutenant he’d once been and not the cadet standing in front of him.
“You’ve got guts, I’m sure of that,” the captain kindly told him. “The rookies are always braver than the rest of us, who’ve all become jaded!”
The captain suddenly frowned, cast a quick glance on the field and quickly headed towards a group of men who had assembled in front of a hangar. So as not to be left alone in the middle of a field where he didn’t know anyone, Herbillon followed him.
They soon found themselves outside the Bessonneau hangar, a white canvas structure with a bell-shaped roof, where through its high nave one could glimpse the confused mass of aeroplanes. Some mechanics were standing around nonchalantly, absorbed in chatter. A bulky lieutenant was sitting in their midst, smoking a very old pipe atop an oil drum. When the captain arrived, the men stood to attention; not budging an inch, the officer smiled broadly. He said: “Fine weather we’ve having, eh old chap? Not flying today?”
He stretched, perfectly blissful.
“So, you’re on your sunbathing shift?” The captain suddenly yelled: “Look up there!”
There was anger in his voice and in his sombre gaze, and Jean was surprised to watch the affable, mocking young man transform into a stern officer. However, the bulky lieutenant didn’t make the slightest move. Following the spot Thélis had indicated, he lifted his eyes to glance at the wind tee on top of a hangar and calmly replied:
“That damned breeze changes all the time.”
He beckoned to two men and headed over to the gigantic T in order to change its direction. On his return, Thélis grumbled: “Fat lizard.”
Then he turned to Jean and said: “Herbillon, meet Marbot, my old comrade and the chief observer here, and the very best there is.”
The officer cadet immediately respected the lieutenant given the captain had recommended him so highly, and worried that the lieutenant would resent being reprimanded in front of a rookie. But the bulky man said: “Thanks for being here, young fellow. I suspect Thélis didn’t want to ruin my reputation in front of you, otherwise he would have been far crueler.”
Thélis couldn’t help himself and burst out laughing.
“You know me well, you old dog,” he muttered; then he asked. “Has Berthier been gone a long time?”
“Roughly a couple of hours, Captain,” one of the mechanics answered.
“He should have been back by now, I assigned him a quick rec
onnaissance mission.”
Marbot, who’d resumed his place on the oil drum, grimaced in disgust.
“Some people can’t get enough of it.”
“That’s true,” Thélis concurred distractedly.
He looked up at the sky, which was a pale blue. The horizon trembled in the wan light. Marbot shrugged.
“You want to fly too, huh? There are no missions today.”
“I’m going to try out my new engine.”
Herbillon cast a supplicating gaze at the captain. “Take me with you, Captain,” he asked.
“I told you: tomorrow,” Thélis drily answered. “I thought I made myself clear. In the meanwhile, study the maps; you can make yourself useful that way.”
As the captain headed towards his plane, Marbot told Jean:
“Don’t worry old chap, Thélis is the very best we’ve got but he’s afraid he’s too young for people to obey him. That’s all.”
Herbillon had never imagined that an aviator could be as bulky and scruffy as Marbot. He was wearing a filthy blue uniform that was far too large for him, and which hung loosely off his sturdy limbs; a grey army sweater enveloped his torso and neck and his feet ambled sweetly along in a pair of clogs. With his chipped pipe stuck firmly between his little yellow teeth, he looked like a peaceful farmer shooting the breeze after a hard day’s work.
As though he’d guessed what the young man was thinking, Marbot said: “Being comfortable is your chief priority. All you need is a bedroom, an experienced cook, a pipe, and you’re set. I’ll teach you all of that. You just need to be a little organized and you’ll get by just fine on your army pay.”
He began to explain how he thought Herbillon should budget. At the mess hall, officer cadets only spent three francs a day. Marbot would give him a pair of trousers and an army jacket, which a tailor could resize, so that he wouldn’t have to use his new uniform. After he’d bought some tobacco, he would still have enough left over to put some money aside.
Jean listened to Marbot, afraid that he was also making fun of him. To think that these were the first recommendations his commanding officer had given him! They were standing on a field burning with feverish heroism and here he was talking about household finances. He was trying to provoke him!
But no, the bulky lieutenant wasn’t kidding. Marbot’s cheeks swelled with a kind of affection while he calculated the sums the young officer cadet could spend while on leave from the front. Then he stopped talking, as though he had nothing else to say to the young man. Despite his run of bad luck with the captain, Jean ventured, “And as for work, what would you advise me to do?”
Marbot savoured a big puff of his pipe and answered: “Nothing. You’ll pick it up as you go along.”
A wild whirring noise twisted his features into a grimace. “That’s Thélis making all that noise,” he grumbled. “Go have a look, old chap—it must still be a fun sight for you.”
The captain’s happy head emerged out of the cockpit. The force of the propellers was ruffling his short black hair, and curled his lips into a silent laugh. Sometimes he slowed the engine down; at others he gave it full throttle. The aeroplane twitched like an impatient beast, just like its pilot, both lusting after the vastness of space.
Thélis finally jumped off and hit the ground. As he’d put on a pair of blue overalls to try out the engine, he looked like one of the mechanics surrounding the plane, with whom he started to swap jokes. Then he walked towards Jean and asked: “What time is it?”
“Just after twelve, Captain.”
“And Berthier still isn’t here; that beast is going to start worrying me.”
The word made Jean feel strangely pleased. It was the first time he’d been reminded he was actually stationed at the front, and it justified his pride and dreams. Danger had finally shown its true face. He was almost disappointed when Marbot, having scanned the sky with his small, piercing eyes, had spotted an object that had looked invisible to Jean and called out:
“There he is, Captain.”
A biplane swerved to the right above the field and its landing gear grazed the ground. The pilot was the first to climb down. He was wearing his flight suit and leather helmet, with his goggles resting on his forehead. He looked like a deep-sea diver of the skies. Jean couldn’t make out any of his features except for a scar that ran all the way from his mouth to the edge of his aviator hood. He was limping.
“Taking your time, eh Deschamps!” the captain yelled.
The pilot replied in a drawl typical of people from the Touraine countryside. “Berthier wanted to look at everything.”
He removed his helmet. His mouth was disfigured by the wine-red scar running to his ear. He was badly shaven and his blond fuzz gave his huge face an ochre sheen. Jean found him unpleasant, but when the pilot removed his suit, Jean was stunned to see his chest studded with glorious medals and ribbons.
He was distracted by a strange silhouette. A body rose out of the observer’s seat on the biplane and, even though he was wrapped in wools and furs, he still looked very thin. Each of his movements was accompanied by a clicking sound. In his hands was what looked like an excessive stack of wooden and nickel plates. A great number of instruments whose uses Jean knew nothing of were hanging from his shoulder and the various pockets located around his suit. Even his cork helmet and goggles had an unusual shape to them.
Jean noticed that everyone around him, from the captain all the way to the mechanics, smiled at this man with a mixture of irony and tenderness, which increased when Thélis called out to him and asked: “So, Berthier, have you finally cracked the laws of perpetual motion by spending all that time up there?”
A voice suddenly arose from the observer’s hood that instantly inspired a tender sweetness in Jean, even though he couldn’t understand why. It rang out with a naive, stirring clarity, embodying a captivating innocence that made such childish ways of talking seem so charming. It said: “Forgive me, Captain, I completely lost track of time. There was a blank spot in the Trench of Cannibals that I wanted to identify at all costs.”
“And?”
“I couldn’t manage it; I’ll get it done next time.”
Marbot shook his head gravely.
“Pierre, Pierre, you dishonour me…”
“Is that so, big guy?” Berthier exclaimed. “Would you believe it!…”
“Oh no,” Thélis exclaimed. “If you get started we’ll be here until nightfall, and we’re hungry! Get yourself over to the office, file your report and be prepared to pay the late fines.”
Deschamps, who was carefully inspecting his camera, swiped a misshapen thumb across his brow and noted:
“This sortie is going to cost us dearly, four tears on our wings.”
“Four? Were you in a fight?”
Jean was startled.
“No, it must have been artillery fire,” Deschamps said.
“Well, there we have it, you’re up to speed now, Herbillon,” the captain cried. “We’ll drink a bottle for each bullet hole.”
“Ah, this heathen here won’t want to hear any jokes like that,” Marbot grumbled, “but that’s where all his money is going to go!”
*
The evening of that first day with his squadron, Herbillon returned to his room, drunk with exhaustion.
The conversations at the table were still ringing in his ears like a volley of bullets; ten faces, which he hadn’t known up until that day, had been etched into his mind with haunting precision. He tried to put a name to each of them but couldn’t manage it. The names of those he’d met on the field—the captain, Marbot, scar-face Deschamps, Berthier’s childish voice with his head always in the clouds—instead came easily to him.
He also remembered Doc, the pilot-physician who wore his golden wings on his facing, which was made from garnet-red velvet. One face in particular had left an impression: a great beak of a nose, a drooping moustache, he looked like an old D’Artagnan—then there was another: a clean-shaven face, haughty, and pal
e.
Yet they all shared a common characteristic: a slightly crazed look in their eyes, a feverish light that illuminated all their faces, which manifested itself regardless of whether they were calm or nervous, fierce or depressed, a kind of prayer that rose from those devil-may-care men.
Thélis’s eyes burned with passion, while Berthier’s gaze was dreamy; Deschamps’s was lacklustre, while Marbot’s was jolly; yet all were inhabited by that vague flame, which befuddled them and stirred them up, one after the other. Jean examined his face in the mirror and a great sense of pride warmed his veins: he thought he could recognize the same strange comradely look in his own eyes.
He felt suddenly reassured. That look in his eyes contradicted the remarks that had so disconcerted him the previous day. His comrades had only talked about their pay, wine, leave from the front and women. Their eyes betrayed an adventurous twinkle. They were certainly jaded, but only because they’d achieved so many exploits. Whereas he’d just joined the saga. Tomorrow, the captain would take him flying, and there would doubtlessly be a fight; they might even shoot down an enemy plane.
He had already started drafting the letter he would send to Denise.
The army cot, narrow and stiff, felt delightfully restful to his limbs, which had been strained by standing in the field all day and in the mess hall all evening. Everything that came easily and naturally to the others instead required all the effort at his body’s disposal. He kept paying attention to his slightest move, how he walked, how he talked; he was even afraid of coming across as too shy or unpleasant. All that effort had left him irritated rather than tired and, despite his exhaustion, he only fell asleep very late.
Opening his eyes to the milky light, he thought morning still hadn’t broken. All the thoughts that had subconsciously invaded his sleep, returned to him in a flash, like a confused, joyful halo: today he was going to fly. Mathieu the orderly entered his room with a pitcher of steaming water.
The Crew Page 2