Paths of Glory

by Humphrey Cobb

  ETIENNE (rising at the same time): Mr. President! The indictment is an important document in the case. I myself have not even seen it yet. I request that it be read out.

  PRESIDENT (who hasn’t seen the indictment either, for the good reason that there isn’t any): The request is refused.The expression on ETIENNE’s face is one of bewilderment, of horror even. He does not like the tone of this beginning and he feels that every effort will be made to maintain it.

  ETIENNE: But, Mr. President, the indictment is of capital importance. We have a right to know what the accusations are which—

  PRESIDENT: The request has been refused. Please don’t delay proceedings. The accused will give their names. LANGLOIS, DIDIER, and FÉROL look at each other, hesitating.

  ETIENNE: From left to right. You first. Speak up!The prisoners tell their names.

  PRESIDENT: Where’s the fourth—? I withdraw that. All right, sit down. The prosecutor will call his first witness.This is the moment ETIENNE has been anxiously waiting for. The calling of the first witness will give him a much-needed hint of what the prosecutor’s tactics are going to be. He is surprised and baffled when he hears the name.

  IBELS: The accused, Private Férol!Two guards detach themselves from the group and lead FÉROL to a place opposite the clerk at the other end of the long table and turn him to face half-right towards the judges. The PRESIDENT consults some notes, then begins to question FÉROL, without looking at him at first.

  PRESIDENT: Were you a member of Number 4 Company during the attack this morning?

  FÉROL: Yes, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Did you refuse to advance?

  FÉROL: No, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Did you advance?

  FÉROL: Yes, sir.

  PRESIDENT: How far did you advance?

  FÉROL: To about the middle of no-man’s-land.

  PRESIDENT: Then what did you do?

  FÉROL: Well, the Boche machine guns were like a hailstorm and I saw that—

  PRESIDENT: No. Answer my question. What did you do? FÉROL: Well, sir, I saw that me and Meyer—

  PRESIDENT: I didn’t ask you what you saw. I asked you what you did.

  FÉROL: Yes, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Did you advance?

  FÉROL: Not after I saw that me and Meyer—

  PRESIDENT: Did you turn round and go back?

  FÉROL: Well, when I saw that—

  PRESIDENT: Attention! Answer my question. Did you turn round and go back? Yes or no?

  FÉROL: Yes, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Any questions, Mr. Prosecutor?

  IBELS (with a smile which is meant to convey that the PRESIDENT’s adroit questions have made any others superfluous): No, sir.

  PRESIDENT: The accused may go back to his seat.

  ETIENNE: Just a minute, Mr. President. I’d like to question the witness.

  PRESIDENT: You mean the accused?

  ETIENNE: Yes, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Say so then. But make it short.

  ETIENNE: Férol, when you reached the centre of no-man’s-land, tell the President why you turned back.

  PRESIDENT: Is that a question?

  ETIENNE: Yes, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Then put it in the form of a question.

  ETIENNE: Yes, sir. When you reached the centre of no-man’s-land, were you and Meyer alone?

  FÉROL: Yes, sir.

  ETIENNE: Address yourself to the court. What had happened to the rest of your company?

  FÉROL: I don’t know. Those near us were all killed or wounded. The rest had gone back, I suppose.

  ETIENNE: So, finding yourselves alone, you decided the only thing to do was to go back and get in touch with your company? FÉROL: Yes, sir.

  ETIENNE: Was the fire heavy?

  FÉROL: It had already done in half of our company.

  ETIENNE: If you had advanced then, you would have been two men advancing alone?

  FÉROL: Yes, and we wouldn’t have gotten two metres farther. We had to crawl back, at that.

  ETIENNE: That’s all.

  PRESIDENT: Mr. Prosecutor?

  IBELS: So you retreated?

  FÉROL: Well, when we saw that—

  IBELS: Did you retreat? Yes or no?

  FÉROL: Yes.

  IBELS: Yes, what?

  FÉROL: Yes, sir.

  PRESIDENT: The accused may go back to his seat. Call your next witness, Mr. Prosecutor.ETIENNE’s heart sinks. The prosecution’s tactics are now clear to him, sickeningly so. They aren’t going to bother with witnesses, not even with primed witnesses. They are simply and cynically going to force the prisoners to inculpate themselves. He mutters under his breath: “Jesuits! Steam-roller! Assassins!”

  IBELS: The accused, Private Langlois, to the bar! LANGLOIS faces the judges, his guards at his elbows. He faces them a little more than half-right because he wants his médaille militaire and his croix de guerre to show.

  PRESIDENT: What company were you a member of during the attack?

  LANGLOIS: Number 3, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Did you refuse to advance?

  LANGLOIS: No, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Did you advance?

  LANGLOIS: Yes, sir, I did, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Why are you here then?

  LANGLOIS: Because we drew lots and I—

  PRESIDENT: The question is withdrawn. How far did you advance?

  LANGLOIS: I was right near Lieutenant Bonnier when he was killed in the wire.

  PRESIDENT: The enemy wire?

  LANGLOIS: No, sir. Our wire.

  PRESIDENT: Our wire is close to our trench, isn’t it?

  LANGLOIS: Not so close, sir. There’s a space between the wire and the trench.

  PRESIDENT: But it wasn’t the enemy wire?

  LANGLOIS: No, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Then you didn’t advance more than a few metres?

  LANGLOIS: I advanced as far as I could, sir.

  PRESIDENT: I see. And then what did you do?

  LANGLOIS: Lieutenant Bonnier was killed. A lot of men were killed. There didn’t seem to be anybody in command. I didn’t know what to do.

  PRESIDENT: Did you take command, urge the men forward?

  LANGLOIS: There were no men to urge forward.

  PRESIDENT: Answer my question. Did you take command?

  LANGLOIS: No, sir. There was nothing to take command of.

  PRESIDENT: Did you stay where you were?

  LANGLOIS: Yes, sir.

  PRESIDENT: So you didn’t advance any further?

  LANGLOIS: I couldn’t. The fire was too heavy. The attack seemed to have faded away.

  PRESIDENT: So you retreated to your trench?

  LANGLOIS: I went back to it when I found the advance had been stopped.

  PRESIDENT: But if the advance had continued, it wouldn’t have been stopped, would it?

  LANGLOIS: . . . ?

  PRESIDENT: Answer my question.

  LANGLOIS: Yes, I think it would. It was already stopped by the German fire which—

  PRESIDENT: Or by the French cowardice. Anyway, you failed to advance, didn’t you?

  LANGLOIS: No, sir.

  PRESIDENT: What do you mean, “no, sir.” You said yourself you didn’t get further than your own wire.

  LANGLOIS: I couldn’t, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Because you were afraid.

  LANGLOIS: Because it was useless.

  PRESIDENT: Ah, I see. You, a soldier of the line, decided it was useless. Any questions, Mr. Prosecutor?

  IBELS: No, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Any questions, Captain Etienne?

  ETIENNE: With the court’s permission I’d like to read the citations for bravery this man has already earned on two occasions. First, citation in the Orders of the Army for—

  PRESIDENT: Quite immaterial, captain. The accused is not being tried for his former bravery, but for his recent cowardice. Medals are no defence.

  ETIENNE: May I, then, call witnesses to his character and to the fact that he is on the list for promotion
to an officer’s training school?

  PRESIDENT: You may not. But you may, if you can, call witnesses to the fact that he reached the German wire.

  ETIENNE: I am unable to do that, sir, because there wasn’t anybody in the whole regiment who could get anywhere near the German wire.

  PRESIDENT: That is a matter of opinion. You will permit me to disagree with you, captain.

  ETIENNE: I expect it, sir.

  PRESIDENT: I am grateful to think that I won’t disappoint you. The accused may go back to his seat. Next witness, Mr. Prosecutor.

  IBELS: The accused, Private Didier!

  PRESIDENT: You’ve heard the questions put to the other prisoners. I presume that you, too, were part of the attacking wave, that you did not refuse to advance, that, in fact, you did advance, undoubtedly the farthest in your company?

  DIDIER: Yes, sir, I tried to advance.

  PRESIDENT: You tried to advance. Am I to understand that you failed?

  DIDIER: Well, sir, I got farther than some at that.

  PRESIDENT: Explain yourself.

  DIDIER: We were standing three or four deep in the trench. I was with my back up against the parados. When the whistles blew, the ones in front started to climb the parapet. Captain Charpentier was first and he was killed at once. My turn came and I started to climb the scaling ladder. Just at that moment, Corporal Valladier’s body was blown back on top of me. It knocked the ladder backwards with me on it. Valladier was a heavy man, and he and the ladder came down like a load of coal on top of me. It knocked the wind clean out of me. When I came to and pulled myself out from under, the attack was all over. PRESIDENT: So you never left the jumping-off trench?

  DIDIER: Yes, I was practically out of it.

  TANON (interrupting): Were your feet on the parapet?

  DIDIER: Well, almost, sir.

  PRESIDENT: How much of you was actually on the parapet?

  DIDIER: Well, none of me was on the parapet. As I said, I was on the ladder. But from the waist up I was above the parapet.

  PRESIDENT: But your feet were on the ladder, not on the parapet?

  DIDIER: Well, they had to be on the ladder so as to get onto the parapet.

  PRESIDENT: Yes, I quite understand that. As a matter of fact, however, your whole body remained in the space delimited by the walls of the trench, didn’t it?

  DIDIER: I don’t understand what you mean, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Is it not a fact that you never got out of the jumping-off trench at all?

  DIDIER: Well, as I was saying, sir, I was just getting out when Valladier’s body—

  PRESIDENT: Answer my question. Did you or did you not get out of the jumping-off trench?

  DIDIER: I was trying to tell you, sir—

  PRESIDENT: Answer yes or no.

  DIDIER: . . .

  PRESIDENT: Answer me, I say.

  DIDIER: No.

  PRESIDENT: Any questions, Mr. Prosecutor?

  IBELS: No questions, sir.

  PRESIDENT: Captain Etienne.

  ETIENNE: I would like to call witnesses to the conditions which prevailed in the Number 2 Company trench. I would like to show that—

  PRESIDENT: Quite unnecessary. The accused himself has told us that he never left the jumping-off position.

  ETIENNE: Just the same, I want to prove that—

  PRESIDENT: The request is refused.

  ETIENNE: May I then call witnesses to the accused’s record, character and—

  PRESIDENT: I told you before, we’re not trying the accused for his character. I wish you would stop attempting to introduce these irrelevancies. The accused may go back to his seat. If you wish to make your pleading, Captain Etienne, you may do so now. You can have five minutes.

  ETIENNE: Yes, sir. First, then, I consider it my duty to respectfully protest against the manner in which this trial has been conducted. I protest with the gravest formality against the fact that the indictment was not read. I consider that this is an omission the illegality of which renders this court martial null and void. Second, I protest against the fact that no stenographic notes of the trial were kept. This deprives the accused of an instrument with which to back up an appeal for pardon to the President of the Republic—

  PRESIDENT: You are overlooking the fact that the presidential pardon no longer exists, Captain Etienne. It was precisely because these cases of cowardice and insubordination were increasing that the President relinquished his prerogative of pardon and that the summary courts martial were re-established. There is, therefore, no need for keeping stenographic notes.

  ETIENNE: Nevertheless, sir, I take exception to their omission. I do so all the more emphatically because of my third protest, which I am about to make. I respectfully but none the less formally protest against the manner in which the accused were questioned and forced into admissions which were so distorted that they became incriminating. I draw the attention of the Court to the fact that the examination of the witnesses was grossly unfair and that the cross-examination was blocked, if it was not dispensed with altogether. As I said, I would consider myself lacking in my duty to the men I have been appointed to defend if I did not make these formal protests to the court.

  Let me now, with the Court’s permission, turn to the three men sitting here under the stigma of one of the worst accusations that can be made against soldiers—cowardice.

  Gentlemen, I say to you that these men were not cowards. They were heroes! They belong to a famous regiment of assault troops, a regiment whose standards are weighted down with the decorations which a grateful country has heaped upon them, a regiment to which it is my own greatest pride to belong. Within the last month, only, they again distinguished themselves in the fierce fighting in the Souchez Valley and the neighbouring ridges where so much French blood has been spilled. Decimated, weary, sleepless, and shell-shocked, they were finally relieved, what was left of them, two or three days ago for a well-earned period of rest and re-equipment. While actually on the march out to the rest area, they were diverted and sent into the Pimple sector with orders to capture that notoriously formidable obstacle, so formidable indeed that two attacks made on it by fresh troops, fresh troops, I repeat, had recently failed. Without a murmur, they put their fatigue aside and found themselves in the trenches again on the very night they were to have been in billets. For thirty-six hours they submit to a devastating enemy harassing fire. The ground around them is covered with the corpses of their comrades who have fallen in the previous attacks. The air is heavy with the stench of death and noisy with the sound of death.

  Zero hour comes, and the barrage opens. The German counter-barrage replies at once, registered to a metre. Deadly machine-gun fire sprays the parapets almost as thickly as does an impenetrable rain. Do they falter? They do not. They advance into the frightful inferno, their numbers thinning out so heart-breakingly fast with each step forward they take.

  Férol gets the farthest, way out into the middle of that avenue of death called no-man’s-land. There, he finds himself alone. Is he expected to attack the Pimple by himself? No, no one would ask that of a man, it is too senseless. Gentlemen, the accused Férol was no coward!

  Langlois, wearing his médaille militaire and his croix de guerre, is right with his company commander, inextricably caught in his own wire which is ringing to the sound of the enemy machine-gun bullets. His company commander is killed, his company cut to pieces. As he testified himself, he did not take command because there was nothing to take command of—except the dead. He is stopped, he cannot go farther. Gentlemen, the accused Langlois was no coward!

  Didier has bad luck, I’ll admit. But is he to be branded a coward because a man’s body falls on top of him and knocks him out? I wanted to bring witnesses to the conditions which existed in the Number 2 Company frontage, perhaps the worst spot in the sector. They would have told you that the attacking wave was literally mown down like wheat on the lip of the trench by a withering fire. Didier was trying to advance when he was prevented by one
of those accidents which might have seemed funny under other circumstances but which, under these, was too significant to be anything but horrible. I also wanted to call witnesses to the fact that he had, prior to the attack, carried out single-handed a dangerous and daring patrol along the enemy wire, that he was considered an ace at that sort of thing by his company commander, unhappily killed a few seconds after he had gallantly led his men to the assault. Gentlemen, the accused Didier was no coward!

  What more is there for me to say . . .

  PRESIDENT: Nothing. You have already overstayed your time.

  ETIENNE: If you please, gentlemen. I know that some examples are wanted, but these men are the wrong ones. Surely it will not be you, honourable judges of a court of military justice, who will contribute to the grotesque irony of condemning these men for a crime which is the antithesis of the qualities they actually displayed and for which they should be decorated?

  Gentlemen, convinced of the strong sense of duty which animates your consciences as officers, of the profound sense of justice which rules your consciences as judges, of the pervading feeling of compassion which moves your consciences as men, I commend the destinies of the accused to your generosity of spirit, assured that three French officers of your integrity will not find it possible to act in such a way as to be accessories to what might become a frightful and revolting judicial crime. Thank you for your attention and patience.

  PRESIDENT: Mr. Prosecutor.

  IBELS: Mr. President and judges of the court martial. I have not my opponent’s gift for oratory, and, if I had, I would not use it at this time, considering it, from the point of view of the case for the prosecution, as unnecessary. The accused, one by one, came up and admitted to a failure to advance during an ordered attack. In military law that is, at the very best, called cowardice in the face of the enemy. I therefore confine myself to requesting the court to act in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Military Justice, to find the accused guilty of the charges as stated, and to impose the penalty which is prescribed by the Code.

  PRESIDENT: Accused, stand up! Have you anything further to say in your defence?