The Crew

by Joseph Kessel

  The officer cadet suddenly heard a soft, shy voice that was very close to him say: “Aren’t you feeling well? Perhaps you’ve drunk too much?”

  He shuddered, looked at the singer for a moment uncomprehendingly and then brutally replied: “Too much? You mean not enough, right? But there’s nothing strong to drink here. Tell them to bring me a real man’s drink.”

  The warm, generous body leaning over Herbillon was overcome with great pity.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself…”

  “So this is a cabaret only fit for little girls then?”

  The singer called a waitress over.

  “Marthe, bring over some of my grappa,” she ordered.

  Slipping her a sly gesture, she quickly added in a whisper: “The cheap one.”

  The officer cadet had once again stopped paying attention to anything going on around him. However, the singer couldn’t bring herself to leave him on his own. She felt the need to talk to him, but didn’t know what to say. Finally, she asked him: “So, you’re a pilot?”

  A twitch made Jean’s jaws clench.

  “You can see that I am,” he replied.

  “Still so young and you already have a medal on your chest?”

  “That wasn’t my fault!”

  Instead of wounding Paméla or chasing her away, Jean merely managed to pull on her heart strings even more. That lordly tone in a teenage shell… that repressed anger… that raw, beautiful sorrow… moved to pity, the girl had fallen for him and was ready to be in love.

  “Can I sit with you for a little while?” she pleaded.

  “Why?”

  She humbly replied: “I’d like to offer you something.”

  “Oh no, I’ll make you as miserable as I am.”

  “If you insist.”

  “Oh, you know…”

  Herbillon didn’t have the time to finish his thought. The police officer yelled: “Paméla!”

  Without bothering to reply to him, and as though she hadn’t heard him, Paméla calmly applied some thick rouge to her lips.

  “Paméla!” the officer repeated, raising his voice. “Do I really need to run after you?”

  A kind of morbid delight electrified Herbillon’s nerves. The target-less rage that had been building up in him ever since he’d set foot inside that cabaret finally found the right pretext to burst. It was an outburst that needed to happen, an essential act of catharsis.

  “Why don’t you relax, you little draft-dodger?” he said, half getting up from his table. “Paméla is sitting at my table and she can stay here as long as she likes!”

  “Oh, my little one,” Paméla gratefully and cheerfully murmured, “you want to stand up for me…”

  Herbillon pushed past the naked shoulder pressing against him and advanced towards his adversary.

  Amidst the silence the room had plunged into, the police officer mumbled: “Wannabe… brat… greenhorn…”

  His invectives were shattered by the painful cry he voiced.

  Herbillon had grabbed hold of his moustache and was pulling on it almost to the point of ripping it off. The policeman raised his hand. The officers present in the room left their table to go break up the brawl. There was no need for them to do so. Marbot had already separated the men. Shaking the policeman with all his formidable might, he growled: “Get out of here, Fokker. The little one here is my friend. Get out of here, it’s for the best!”

  Everyone in the room was hostile to the policeman’s presence. He was forced to withdraw.

  Despite Paméla’s protests, Herbillon and Marbot left right after him.

  *

  Herbillon woke up the next morning with a feeling of peace he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

  “Rest, finally some real rest…” he murmured, leaping out of bed.

  Outside, the sun shone on the slate roofs. Specks of dust that seemed to have been born from those rays of light danced around. Herbillon had his one-eyed orderly help him shower in the courtyard, then rapidly dressed himself.

  “My lieutenant finally looks healthy this morning,” the old soldier said.

  “It’s all because I behaved badly last night, Mathieu.”

  “Get it out of your system while you’re still young, Lieutenant!”

  Herbillon was out on the street, whistling the squadron’s tune, when a sentry approached him and blocked his path.

  “Lieutenant Maury has asked for you,” he told him, out of breath. “Urgent business.”

  It wasn’t a long walk to the office where Maury was waiting for him, but Herbillon found it tougher than a forced march. He knew why Maury had sent for him and he wasn’t worried about it at all. What really oppressed him, which deprived him of the zest for life which he had for a few moments reacquired in a wonderfully vigorous manner, was the necessity to attend the meeting to which he was headed.

  He interpreted it as a fatal sign, a seal that would be impossible to break. The noose that bound them together, which they thought they’d slipped out of, was now mercilessly tightening around their necks, binding their destinies together. Herbillon felt all this with a concealed terror when he glimpsed into Maury’s eyes, which no longer betrayed suspicion as they once did, but rather a kindness and concern that filled Jean with shame, regret and a fondness that was more painful to bear than his unforgivable mistakes.

  “Can I be of assistance?” he asked, in as offhand a manner as he could manage, trying to sound as official as possible.

  Claude didn’t allow himself to be fooled by Jean’s affectations. He was the squadron’s commander for the time being and, just like Thélis before him, he wanted to run it like a big brother.

  “Herbillon,” he sweetly began, “why didn’t you come talk to me about that silly business?”

  “What silly business?”

  “Come on, you know what I mean. Your quarrel with that policeman. I have his complaint right here; would you like to read it?”

  “I have no interest in it. Do whatever you think is best.”

  A sad crease which Herbillon was far too well acquainted with formed around the corners of Maury’s lips. Claude smiled and continued: “I’ll take care of the matter, naturally… but do me a favour and make sure it doesn’t happen again. I know you won’t want to put me in such a difficult situation again in Thélis’s absence. Getting completely drunk like that is so unlike you, after all.”

  “I wasn’t drunk,” Herbillon said.

  Jean was at the end of his tether. Claude’s affectionate tone, the words he was using, his desire to protect him, to help him, he just couldn’t face it any more. Accepting his help… reaching the nadir of humiliation, of deceit…

  “You don’t really expect me to believe this was all over some girl?” Claude exclaimed.

  Herbillon was frightened by Claude’s overly penetrating gaze. He needed to bring that meeting to an end as soon as possible.

  “At least I wasn’t accountable to you back up north,” he said. “If you have to punish me, then go ahead, I won’t beg you to spare me. But I’m free to do what I like when I’m off-duty.”

  When Herbillon left, Maury lingered pensively for a moment.

  Then, for the hundredth time that day, he reread his wife’s letter. She was coming to join him. The train would drop her off at the station in an hour’s time. It would be a long wait!

  CHAPTER VII

  THE PLATFORMS were almost empty. There were a few police officers and a sergeant wearing a helmet with a chin strap who led a unit of soldiers, who were busy inspecting the papers of the soldiers on leave. As soon as the train began to slow down, the young woman had no trouble recognizing her husband’s tall, frail frame. Her feelings towards him hadn’t changed, and were the usual mix of friendship, security and indifference.

  Yet how her blood grew hot when her desire led her to believe, against all likelihood, that the young staff officer in the distance was her Herbillon!

  “I must really be losing my mind,” she said to hersel
f once she realized her mistake. “Claude must have come on his own.”

  Maury had also recognized Hélène from afar. By the time her head appeared out of the carriage door, and she bent that long, supple neck which he so dearly loved, nothing remained of his former doubts and anxiety. Hélène had come to him, to be with him, and had set off after barely having received the news that he was on vacation. She had come to him with her bright, lively eyes, her youthful movements and her secret seriousness.

  At that moment, Maury was so happy that he childishly thought his temporary command of the squadron was a mark of great prestige. He wanted to jump onto the still-moving train and leap from footboard to footboard to reach the woman who so thrilled him with delight. But she still intimidated him, just like she’d always done.

  It was precisely when he was in Hélène’s presence that Claude felt most hindered by his awkwardness, his body’s lack of gracefulness and his inability to convey his emotions.

  Thus, Maury waited until the train had come to a complete stop and, by the time he advanced towards Hélène, nothing of his earlier feelings were left except a welcoming expression that was very calm and considerate. She thought he was examining her, as though his cool, lucid affection was judging her. She felt the need to apologize: “I just couldn’t stand it any more, Claude,” she told him. “I promise I won’t bother you while you’re among your comrades.”

  He clasped her against his bony body with a passion that was so timid it was almost impossible to perceive and, even though his heart was overflowing with happiness and gratitude, he quietly replied: “You did the right thing, darling. My comrades don’t impinge much on my life.”

  She took his arm. They left the station without exchanging any more words. As they were being driven away, Maury could no longer entirely conceal the intensity of his happiness: “Hélène, Hélène…” he murmured. “I’ve thought so much about you! You’ve rescued me from my solitude, my demons…”

  She barely heard him. Right up to the last moment when they’d left the station, her eyes had kept scanning her surroundings for Herbillon. Even though she constantly felt at fault in Maury’s presence, she didn’t feel guilty about the one thing he could have actually reproached her for.

  “You’re so sweet,” she replied, absent-mindedly.

  The squadron’s quartermaster had found a nice big room and a kitchen to set up the officers’ mess, which was situated in a genteel mansion on the outskirts of town.

  Herbillon headed over there at lunchtime. Thanks to the long brisk walk, he’d managed to dispel the unease that his meeting with Maury had caused him. He reaped the blessings of all that sun, the beautiful flower-studded fields, the sweetly scorching air and the dust raised by his boots as he walked down the path.

  The way his comrades welcomed him imparted to him a boyish sense of pleasure. They were proud of how he’d conducted himself at Paméla’s. He had defended the squadron’s honour. Not satisfied with having conquered the heart of the most sought-after woman in Bacoli, he’d also given a police officer a rightly deserved hiding!

  “We’ll never go out in a finer blaze of glory,” Narbonne solemnly said. “Let me buy you a tall glass!”

  Everyone drank to Herbillon’s adventure, and Jean himself was close to thinking he’d behaved admirably.

  Marbot suddenly entered and, while still standing on the threshold, shouted to the orderlies: “Add another setting, next to Lieutenant Maury.”

  Then, turning to the officers, he added: “Bide your tongues, no cursing, or he’ll have you cooked alive!”

  “Who’s going to eat with us?” Doc asked. “A colonel, a general?”

  “Even better—a woman! Maury’s wife.”

  Herbillon slowly backed away, his hands limp and moist, while Marbot carried on: “Maury called me so I could apologize to you. Since his wife has just arrived, he didn’t want to bother us by eating here, but I protested, nay demanded he lunch with us, and in the end he agreed. Did I do the right thing?”

  “It wouldn’t have been decent of you not to,” Doc said.

  “And besides, she might be pretty! Have you seen her?” Narbonne asked.

  “Unfortunately not,” Marbot said. “She was busy unpacking in the room above Maury’s office, but Herbillon met her when he was on leave in Paris.”

  “Oh!… Only very briefly,” Jean said, with some effort.

  “Well, how was she?”

  “Younger than him.”

  “And?”

  “She’s… not bad at all… You’ll see for yourselves.”

  The officers instinctively straightened their jackets and tightened their belts.

  “If I’d known she was coming I would have worn my new boots,” Narbonne exclaimed. “I want to go change right away.”

  “You won’t have the time,” Marbot said. “She’ll be here any minute.”

  Herbillon was overcome with panic. He felt he couldn’t deal with both Maury and Denise at the same time—and in front of the whole squadron to boot! Denise, who of course was in reality called Hélène. His mistress—who was actually Claude’s wife.

  He’d never really been able to merge the two in his mind, and bind those different roles into a single person. He thought he could easily lose his mind if he saw Denise standing next to Maury, and perhaps start screaming, pleading and raving…

  A little door led out into the courtyard. He slipped towards it and vanished.

  A few minutes later, Maury introduced his wife to all the officers. She listened to their names—Marbot, Doc—as though she was in the midst of a confused dream. The only face she wanted to see, as though driven by some maddening thirst, was nowhere to be found.

  “Herbillon’s still missing,” Maury finally said. “You remember him, don’t you, Hélène, the young cadet I sent over to meet you?”

  She nodded, incapable of uttering a word. If Herbillon had been there, everything would have seemed easier, more straightforward. Without him, she felt empty, forsaken, indifferent to everything.

  The following sentences reawakened her interest.

  “The cad… but he was here with us just a moment ago!” Narbonne exclaimed. “There’s his half-empty glass of port right there.”

  “He just ran away!” Doc exclaimed.

  Lowering his voice, Marbot added: “He was afraid we’d hold him back and he wanted to go see Paméla.”

  Doc smiled, nodded, and went from officer to officer to slip them the news.

  “Why don’t we sit?” Maury suggested.

  The brawl between Herbillon and the policeman was the main topic of conversation. Marbot related it down to the smallest detail.

  “Did he really pull the Fokker’s moustache?” Narbonne asked, over the moon. “His enormous moustache. Isn’t that scandalous, Madame?”

  “I can’t help but agree,” Hélène Maury said, forcing a smile.

  The meal went on in the usual noisy, cheerful manner for everyone there, all except for the young woman—whom the officers thought they could amuse with tales of their games, libations or death—and for Claude, who could feel his wife’s unease and yet felt powerless to do anything about it.

  “If only Thélis had been here,” Claude sadly thought to himself.

  While his comrades praised and envied his amorous exploits, Herbillon had sought refuge in his room, upholstered in that time-weathered wallpaper, lying motionless on top of his bed, without having even bothered to remove the duvet. His body was half-wrapped in a soft, thick, burning material, while his thoughts whirled around in his head in an infernal circle. He was overwhelmed, haunted, wiped out.

  Yet just as he was finding it impossible to move his limbs, even by a single inch, he was also unable to free himself from the web of images in his mind and he found himself confined by the two names that kept haunting him.

  Hélène… Denise…

  Denise… Hélène…

  The same syllables repeatedly hammered away at his brain, and the same frighte
ningly familiar, frighteningly beloved features kept constantly disappearing and reforming in front of his eyes. It was his whole universe.

  He only snapped out of it when Mathieu pushed open the door to his room, and without waiting to be invited in, Denise appeared on the threshold.

  At that moment, Herbillon experienced a quasi-miraculous relief. Faced with this woman standing before him in the flesh, whose expressions and sensual density he recognized, the other vague, impossible image of her in his mind, which had paralysed him with a hypnotic kind of terror, completely disappeared. However, as soon as Jean had leaped out of bed and dismissed the orderly with a wave of his hand, he realized what that woman’s presence in his room would mean vis-à-vis his relationship to Maury and the squadron, with his comrades walking past the house, while the office where Claude performed his duties as acting commander lay just across the street, surrounded as he was on all sides by the rules of discipline, the army and, ultimately, war.

  Without kissing her or coming close to her, Jean asked her in a low voice: “Why did you come here?”

  Denise was so completely thrown by that tone in his voice, and by that reproach and fear, that she leaned her back against the door. Separated from her lover by the vastness of that room, she first tried to reassure him.

  “Nobody saw me come in here, I swear, Jean,” she said. “And I only figured out where you lived by chance; I didn’t ask any of your comrades. I couldn’t resist… I couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “Why did you come to Bacoli?” the cadet persisted with fierce obstinacy.

  The young woman lingered in silence for a moment. However, despite staring at her pointedly, Herbillon didn’t notice that her face was hardening. He continued to think out loud.

  “I had hoped,” he exclaimed, “to find a little respite here… to find myself again… to gain some clarity… that it might be easier away from my duties and all those hours spent flying. Claude had also started to calm down.”

  Denise’s lips barely opened as she replied: “Do you think I came all this way to see him? I came here because I had to! You were driving me crazy with your silence. Not a word ever since you left Paris! And thanks to Claude, I knew you were still alive. I had to see you, to know what you wanted, what your thoughts were and if you still had any feelings for me.”