Deschamps grabbed her by the back of the neck and drew her close to him. The rustic calm on his face had been replaced by primitive desire. His eyes shone with such a glow, and his lips began to twist so bluntly, that Maury turned away, as awkward as though he’d just seen a demonic apparition.
“I’ve got to write a report,” he said. “I must get back.”
Standing up too, Herbillon planted his lips in the warm nape of the girl’s neck.
They walked in silence through the small city’s streets, animated by the automobiles of the army’s General Staff. Without looking directly at him, Maury asked Herbillon in a hushed tone: “How can you kiss a woman who belongs to another?”
“Come on, Deschamps isn’t jealous of Florence!”
“I can believe that! But doesn’t it disgust you a little?”
“Why? She has such wonderful skin…”
“So she belongs to everyone?”
“Just to me, for that moment.”
“Well, isn’t there a woman you love?” Maury asked.
“Of course.”
Denise’s charming ghost accompanied Jean on his walk through those muddy streets.
“Wouldn’t it bother you,” Claude continued, “to see another man caress her like that?”
Herbillon thought it over and exclaimed: “It really wouldn’t, not at all.”
A memory made him smile. Both to demonstrate the sincerity of his words, and to show off his conquests, he told Maury about his adventure on the train just a few moments after he’d left his mistress at the station.
Maury listened to him with a mixture of amazement and a confused sense of envy. How healthy that boy was, who knew of love only as a physical joy, and how innocently and naively proud of his good fortune he was! Nevertheless, Herbillon wanted to dispel the disapproval he felt his comrade nourished towards him. “Don’t think I’m only capable of lust,” he said. “There are different women for different emotions; some should only be desired, others should be treated with tenderness.”
“Indeed,” Maury pensively replied. “It’s like Plato’s old distinction between Celestial Aphrodite and Vulgar Aphrodite.”
“Precisely, and both rule over me.”
“Well, no, I can’t go as far as that,” Claude exclaimed. “Making the same gestures when they are unadorned by deeper feelings depletes the richness of the love which we are given.”
A shudder ran through him and, suddenly sounding like an invalid obsessed with a fixed idea, in a way Herbillon had already heard him speak before, he said: “Do you think one can discern this kind of love in a woman?”
Without waiting for the officer cadet’s reply, Maury continued in a hushed, mournful monotone: “I have a wife, she’s young. She’s my most prized book and also the longest: it’s the book of my happiness. She’s my gentle friend. But I’ve always lived on the margins of my desire. One might even say that the ability to adapt and the reflexes other people naturally possess are absent in me. I can’t let myself go, and the same goes for my love. I desperately try to seek that spark in those cherished eyes, looking for that deep-seated vibration to reassure me, and I simply can’t find it. I employ any means to try to awaken it, even the most ridiculous ones.”
Their path began to rise steeply, while the wind lashed against their chests. He stopped so he could talk more quickly.
“Don’t laugh! That’s why I’m here among you. One day, when I had reached the end of my tether, a pilot came to see me. He was well groomed, his boots shone and, even to my cynical eyes, he had that mysterious prestige which all men with stripes on their jackets possess. Thus I thought I’d make myself more pleasing to women. But look at me. The uniform which hangs so well on you almost looks like a joke when I wear it. I’ve been here for fifteen days and I still haven’t flown a single mission. My comrades didn’t welcome me warmly and this morning, I didn’t even get a letter.”
By overemphasizing that last sentence and detaching it from the others, Maury had revealed the underlying reason behind his confidences, which, despite the fact he and Herbillon had grown closer and closer by the day, still shocked the officer cadet. So this was the mundane pain which that haughty forehead, so rich in subtlety of thought, concealed behind it! The young man’s great friendship towards Maury was now intertwined with a little contempt. Jean still couldn’t understand how anyone could suffer so much over a woman.
They started walking again. The wind was clearing the sky of clouds, sending them fleeing to the east in great hordes.
“So, tell me,” Maury nervously asked, “is your mistress just as mysterious? Does she suddenly distance herself from you, fall into silences worse than arguments? Does her love ever seem to weaken, subdued by dark dreams? Do you ever catch a glimpse of intolerable pity or regret in her eyes?”
At which, in order to exact his revenge on Claude for his pressing line of questioning, as well as for the disappointment he’d caused him—and with the confused aim to show off the full extent of his happiness—Jean began to sketch a portrait of his relationship with Denise, matching Maury’s descriptiveness.
He spoke of the unblemished joy of their rendezvous, their lighthearted cheerfulness, her vitality, her naive abandon and her boundless desire as she gave herself over to him. Each word made Maury sink further and further into his despair.
“Enough,” he muttered. “It’s useless, you’re too young.”
An automobile from the squadron caught up with them.
“Lieutenant,” the driver told Maury, “the sky’s brightened up, the captain is waiting for both you and Lieutenant Deschamps.”
“He’s with Florence,” Jean exclaimed.
“I’ll go fetch him.”
Thélis had already had two pilots’ outfits brought out. On spotting Maury, he cried from afar: “You’re going to take me over the lines, Maury!”
Herbillon was bursting with admiration for the captain once again. While he always flew the inexperienced observers who’d just arrived at the front in his own plane in order to spare his other pilots the risk, he never entrusted their lives to a pilot unless he’d first put their technique and bravery to the test. Thus, he took upon himself all the dangers associated with those first few hours of flight, when the untrained eye failed to detect the deadly enemy before it was too late, or when awkward hands failed to handle both the plane and the machine gun.
“Go ahead and eat without us,” Thélis said, turning to Jean, “and tell Deschamps to join us above the Chemin des Dames.”
“You don’t want me to fly with him, Captain?”
“No Mr Officer Cadet, Gival’s going to partner up with him. You still haven’t earned the right to fly with anyone except me.”
The dinner had just begun when Deschamps came in, carrying his fur coat. “My blasted windmill won’t be ready for another half-hour!” he furiously exclaimed.
He ate a little, muttering: “The Chemin des Dames is a bad area, the rookie won’t know how to get back from there.”
“Come now, relax,” Marbot said. “Thélis has flown tougher missions than that.”
“Sure, but he was the one handling the stick and rudder.”
Impatient, he went out to the field. The sound of an engine’s rumble above the mess hall told his comrades he’d left.
Once dinner was over, Marbot went to stand by the door and smoke his pipe, as usual. Old Captain Reuillard, who could not bend his memory to the whims of the Morse signal, went to sit next to the wireless. As for Neuville, Charensole and Doc, who were accustomed to playing bridge with Thélis, they asked Jean to sit in for him during his absence.
At that moment, Marbot called them. “Come look, Maury’s back!”
“He’s coming in at an odd angle, he cut the gas off too early.”
The plane had begun its slow descent, bit by bit, as though the pilot was afraid of losing altitude too quickly.
“They must have suffered some kind of mechanical failure, for sure,” Marbot said.
“Good landing, but you went into a spiral dive too late back there; that’s how they inflicted so much damage on us.”
“You got shot at?” Marbot asked.
“Almost from the get-go,” Thélis cheerfully answered, “we had four Fokkers on our tail; they shot a hole through our radiator. Fortunately we were flying at high altitudes, and so Maury brought us back down like a fine yachtsman.”
“He got lucky,” Herbillon said, “a dogfight on his first outing.”
“Don’t cry just yet young man,” Marbot said. “You’ll have your close shaves soon enough and you won’t walk away feeling proud, let me assure you.”
“Let’s go eat,” Thélis said. “I’m starving, and as for you lot…” But he stopped in his tracks. “Where’s Deschamps?” he asked.
“He flew off to join you just a quarter of an hour ago because he had some engine trouble.”
“He’s going to come up against that flotilla of Fokkers. If it was anyone else I’d be worried, but he’ll see himself through it.”
Back in the mess hall, the captain saw that the cards had been dealt.
“Start the game—Herbillon, keep my seat warm for the time being and don’t let me down!”
The officer cadet won the game and proudly informed Thélis, who stood up.
“Excellent my boy,” he said. “Now let me put my luck to the test.”
On taking his place he said: “Deschamps must still be looking for me out there.”
While the game went on, Herbillon went to sit by Maury. “So, what did you think of your first fight?” he asked.
Claude was about to speak, but his lips formed into a tender smile and he muttered: “Forgive me for not telling you. There’s someone I have to say it to first before I share it with anyone else.”
Jean returned to the game of bridge. Thélis played his hand with the same glowing, childlike energy he applied to all his other pursuits, whether it was dancing the quadrille or fighting. As always, his ardour proved infectious and set the tone, and the game seemed all the livelier and appealing thanks to his presence.
Marbot, who’d been keeping watch by the door, interrupted them: “Hey, Thélis, Deschamps still hasn’t returned.”
A frown formed on the captain’s brow, but he said: “He’s been stuck here for a week, I bet he’s just flying around.”
Neuville was experiencing a bout of unbearable luck, and Thélis was hell-bent on defeating him. An hour went by quickly as they struggled. All of a sudden, the honey-coloured blanket that the sun had been casting on the table was replaced by a pallid curtain. Their eyes turned to the sky. Thick clouds obstructed it with their deathly pale flakes.
“Deschamps won’t be long now,” the captain said mechanically.
But he was surprised by the strange sound his voice had made. It betrayed a worry and anxiety he hadn’t been conscious of until that moment, and which he could now see had spread to everyone else. Nevertheless, everyone tried to conceal it. Everyone in the squadron knew that talking about misfortunes was to encourage a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The game resumed, but everyone was irritated and afraid. Their fingers clutched the cards.
“You can’t see anything out there,” Doc suddenly said.
“Evening fell quickly,” Herbillon commented.
“It’s because we had a late lunch,” Charensole observed.
They hung their heads to elude each others’ gazes, if only to avoid their eyes expressing the thought that had flashed across all their minds. Everyone knew how Deschamps loathed flying in the foggy twilight, and now they couldn’t hear the noise of his plane, even from afar.
The silence was complete except for the noise Captain Reuillard made as he practised hitting the telegraph keys.
Turning to him, Thélis said: “Could you give it a rest, old chap? It sounds like you’re typing out a distress call.”
Then, addressing the players, he exclaimed: “Why are you all so quiet? We haven’t finished. It’s your hand, Doc!”
Their faces bent over their cards once again. In the meanwhile, the last burst of light outside had completely vanished. Large raindrops began striking the canvas roof like a gong.
“Come here, Herbillon,” Thélis said.
Whispering in his ear, he told him: “I need you to place a call—not here, in the office—call the artillery batteries, the observers, the army corps, call everyone to see if there’s any news.”
By the time the young man returned, the light bulbs had been switched on. Even though Thélis didn’t say anything, everyone turned to stare at Jean.
“Nobody knows anything,” he said, making a gesture that unsuccessfully feigned indifference.
“There were four of them, right Thélis?” Marbot asked in a hushed tone.
The captain didn’t answer him. Death entered the mess hall.
Invaded by that spectre, Neuville wanted a distraction. “Trump card,” he said.
“Two clubs,” Charensole replied.
The officer cadet felt that everyone was gasping for air, but he couldn’t open the door because the night had turned stormy.
As they couldn’t figure out what else to do, the game went on.
For the following two days in a row, they were besieged by a storm that confined them to their shaking barracks, while the winds howled their screams outside on the field. The gale tore the roofs off the hangars. In order to walk outside one had to struggle as though one were fighting a river’s current.
Over those couple of days, Thélis kept waiting for news of Deschamps. He loved him deeply and passionately, perhaps in a less tender way than he’d loved Berthier, but his bond with the former was possibly stronger, since it had been forged through thousands of shared memories involving drinking sprees, reconnaissance missions and dogfights, all of which had been threaded together by three years of life in the squadron.
When he finally gave up all hope, he had the following sign hung in the mess hall:
A five-plane patrol at first light. To search for the fallen.
Marbot was the first to read the order and immediately went to look for Thélis. “You want to go avenge Deschamps, don’t you?”
As the captain didn’t reply, he carried on. “That’s not our job. We’re not fighter pilots.”
“You’re scared, eh Jelly?” Thélis spitefully retorted.
“You know full well that I always do my duty when called for,” he said, “but you can’t risk your skin—and ours—purely on the basis of emotions.”
The captain’s eyebrows twitched, but he restrained himself. “You’re right,” he observed. “I’ll only ask for volunteers. But I’m telling you right now that I’m not taking you. I’ll bring Herbillon with me since he’s not too jaded.”
“So you’ll be crazy together. Goodnight.”
Watching his thick silhouette try to negotiate the narrow door, Thélis shouted out: “Listen Marbot. You’re right, but so am I. Isn’t that what be both want?”
The large man gazed at him with his little, lively eyes. “My poor chap, you must really be agitated if you’re apologizing to me.”
He slapped the captain’s shoulder, which was the most emotional gesture he could make. However, he still didn’t offer to take part in the patrol.
The following morning, when his orderly came to wake him, Herbillon jumped out of bed with joy. This time he would finally fly and fight.
In his haste, he didn’t bother to dress and simply slipped his furs over his pyjamas. He found Thélis in the mess hall: he was clean-shaven, powdered and groomed as though expected at a party. There was a plate of cold cuts and a bottle of rosé on the table.
A soft breeze, which still carried the fragrance and freshness of the night, wrapped itself around their foreheads. Outside, the first rays of light struggled against the darkness over the vast sile
nce of the damp earth. Jean thought there could be no finer meal than those scraps of meat and that rugged wine, which he shared with his hero while waiting for the coming of day and glory.
Five planes were reverberating on the field. The engines’ monstrous yell was scaring away the new morning’s sweetness. The air whirled around them. The sky was as tender as a fragile flower that could only bathe for a few moments in the sun’s youngest rays. The mechanics were singing and the propellers buzzed as though drunk on their own power.
Herbillon forgot about everything else as he savoured the pleasure that went with being strong and healthy, and flying into the blue at dawn.
The captain’s plane was the first to reach high altitude, and Jean saw his comrades follow suit like brown rockets. Then the group headed towards enemy lines, having assumed a triangular formation.
The euphoria of flying was still new to Jean. The engine’s gigantic breaths, the propeller’s vortex, the furious winds, all combined into a vast, brutal symphony, which left him stunned. He’d barely begun to be able to distinguish all the instruments.
Soaring in such a manner into the solitude of the sky and seeing the red sun leap towards the horizon filled his chest with an unspeakable pride, as did the fact they were going to fight over enemy lines.
To complete his happiness, they would have to find the fight the captain was looking for, hear the crackle of the machine guns and experience—and he was certain this was going to happen—the pride that comes with victory. He anxiously searched the sky in the hope of seeing planes with black crosses on their wings.
It was all in vain. They flew across the sky—which shone like a precious stone—for a long time, but saw nothing but emptiness. It seemed certain that this reconnaissance mission would pass without incident, dully, just like all his other missions before it.
To banish the disappointment from his thoughts, he absorbed himself in looking at the landscape, trying to unravel the tangle of trenches below, which the rising sun’s oblique rays had turned into purplish streams. Yet Jean’s still-inexperienced eyes failed to establish a fixed boundary between the opponents’ lines and their own.
The Crew Page 6