The Prospector

by J. M. G. Le Clézio

  Evenings, in the underground shelter, the men play cards, dreaming out loud as they await curfew. News is passed around, the fighting in Verdun, and for the first time, we hear those strange names that will be repeated so often: Douamont, le ravin de la Dame or the Lady’s Ravine, Fort Vaux, and the name that makes me shudder in spite of myself, le Mort-Homme or Dead Man’s Hill. One soldier, an English-speaking Canadian, tells of the Tavannes Tunnel, where the wounded and dying are piled, while shells explode overhead. He relates the lurid incandescence of explosions, the smoke, the ripping sound of 370 mm mortar shells, of all the men that are being mutilated and burned at this very moment. Can it be summer already? On some evenings the sunset over the trenches is extraordinarily beautiful. Huge violet and crimson-coloured clouds hovering in the grey, golden sky. Can those who are dying at Douamont see it? I imagine life up in the sky, soaring so high above the earth as if on the wings of the tropicbirds. You wouldn’t see the trenches, the shell marks any more, you’d be far away.

  We all know that combat is near now. The preparations we’ve been working on since the beginning of winter have come to an end. The teams don’t go down to the river any more, the trains have almost stopped running. In the shelters under the tarps, the cannon are ready, the light machine guns are in the circular dugouts at the ends of the trenches.

  Around mid-June Rawlinson’s soldiers begin to arrive. Englishmen, Scots and battalions from India, South Africa, Australia, divisions coming back from Flanders, from Artois. We’ve never seen so many men before. They turn up on all sides, march along the roads, the railways, settle into the kilometres of trenches we’ve dug. They say the attack will take place on 29 June. The cannon start firing as early as the 24th. All along the bank of the Ancre to the south, along the bank of the Somme, where the French forces are entrenched, the deafening blasts of cannon roll. After so many days of silence, after this long, huddled wait, we feel giddy, feverish, we’re trembling with impatience.

  All day, all night long, the cannon boom, a red glow lights up the sky over the hills around us.

  Out there, on the other side, they remain silent. Why don’t they respond? Have they vanished? How can they resist this deluge of artillery fire? We don’t sleep for six days and six nights, constantly combing the landscape in front of us. On the sixth day the rain begins to fall, a torrential rain that turns the trenches into streams of mud. The cannon fall silent for several hours, as if the sky itself has joined in battle.

  Crouching in the shelters, we watch the rain falling all day until evening and we’re seized with anxiety, as if the rain will never stop. The Englishmen talk about the flooding in Flanders, hordes of green uniforms swimming in the swamped waters of the Lys. Most of us feel disappointed that the attack has been put off. We study the skies and, as evening is approaching, Odilon announces that the clouds have grown thinner, that you can even see a patch of sky, and everyone cries, ‘Hurrah!’ Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe the attack will take place during the night. We watch the darkness creeping slowly into the Ancre Valley, drowning the forests and the hills facing us. It is a strange night that has fallen, not one of us is really sleeping. Near dawn, just as I’m dozing off with my head resting on my knees, I’m startled awake by the brouhaha of the attack. The light is already bright, blinding, the wind blowing in the valley is hot and dry, the sort of wind I haven’t felt since Rodrigues and English Bay. From the still damp riverbanks a glowing, gossamer mist is rising, and the odour that I perceive just then, the odour that penetrates and disconcerts me: the smell of summer, of earth, of grass. And also what I glimpse between the stanchions of the shelter, the gnats dancing in the light, buoyed by the wind. There is such peace in that moment, everything seems to be suspended, stopped.

  All of us are standing in the muddy trench, helmets pushed down tight, bayonets fixed to the barrels of our rifles. We’re peering over the embankment at the blue sky where white clouds, light as down, fluff. We are tense, we’re listening to the sounds of summer, the water flowing in the river, the chirping insects, the singing of a lark. We’re waiting with painful impatience in the peaceful silence, and when the first rumblings of cannon come from the north, the south and the east, we flinch. Soon the heavy English artillery begins to thunder behind us, and in response to their powerful blasts the earth-shaking boom of the shells hitting the ground on the other side of the river echoes out. The bombardment is nerve-rattling – after that long rainy day – to us it seems incomprehensible that it should be rumbling around in that utterly clear blue sky and that beautiful bright summer sunlight.

  After an eternity the din of explosions comes to an end. The silence that follows is filled with pain and dazedness. At exactly seven-thirty the order to attack is passed down from trench to trench, repeated by sergeants and corporals. When it’s my turn to shout it out, I look at Odilon’s face, I catch the last expression on his face. Now I’m running, leaning forwards, clutching my rifle in both hands, towards the bank of the Ancre, where the pontoons are covered with soldiers. I can hear the spitting of machine guns in front of me, behind me. Where are the enemy bullets? Still running, we make it across the moored pontoons in a racket of boots on the wooden planks. The river water is heavy, blood-coloured. Men slip in the mud on the other bank, fall, do not get up again.

  The dark hills are above me, I can feel their threat like a penetrating gaze. Black plumes of smoke are rising on all sides, smoke with no fire, the smoke of death. Isolated rifle shots ring out. Spurts of machine-gun fire come up out of the ground in the distance, without our being able to tell from where. I run behind the group of men, not trying to find shelter, towards the objective that has been pointed out to us for months: the hills that lay between us and Thiepval. Men are running, joining us on the right, in a shell-torn field: they’re from the 10th Corps, the 2nd Corps, and Rawlinson’s division. In the middle of that vast and empty field the bushes burned by the gases and shells look like scarecrows. The sound of light machine-gun fire bursts forth all of a sudden, straight ahead of me at the end of the field. Barely a light cloud of bluish smoke floating here and there at the edge of the dark hills; the Germans are buried in the mortar craters, their LMGs are spraying the field. Men are already falling, cut down, puppets with no strings, crumpling up in groups of ten, of twenty. Were any orders given? I didn’t hear anything, but I throw myself on the ground, I’m looking around for shelter, a crater, a trench, a muddy tree stump. I’m crawling over the field. All around me I can see shapes crawling like I am, like huge slugs, their faces hidden behind their rifles. Others are lying still, faces in the muddy earth. And the cracking of rifles resounding in the still air, the spurts of LMG fire, in front, behind, everywhere, leaving their small blue, transparent clouds floating in the warm breeze. After crawling like that through the loose earth, I finally find what I’m looking for: a block of stone, hardly larger than a boundary stone, left in the field. I stretch out against it, my face so close to the stone I can see every crack, every moss stain. I remain there, not moving, my body racked with pain, ears ringing with the blasts of the bombs that have stopped falling now. I think, say out loud, now’s the time to let them have it! Where are the other men? Are there still men on this earth or only these pathetic, ridiculous larvae, crawling along and then stopping, disappearing in the mud? I lie there for so long, my head against the stone, listening to the LMGs and the rifles that my face grows as cold as stone. Then I hear the cannon behind me. Shells explode in the hills, black clouds from fires rise into the hot sky.

  I hear officers shout out the order to attack, just as they had a little while ago. I’m running straight out ahead again, towards the mortar craters where the LMGs are buried. There they are all right, like huge burned insects, and the bodies of the dead Germans look like their victims. The men run in close ranks towards the hills. The LMGs hidden in other craters spray the field, killing dozens, scores of men at a time. Along with two Canadians I roll, head over heels, into a crater occupied by German bod
ies. Together we heave the cadavers overboard. My comrades are pale, their faces stained with mud and smoke. We stare at each other, saying nothing. In any case the noise of the battle would drown out our words. It even drowns out our thoughts. Protected by the gun shield of the LMG, I examine the objective: the hills of Thiepval are still just as dark, just as distant. We’ll never make it.

  Around two o’clock in the afternoon I hear the retreat being sounded. The two Canadians immediately leap out of the shelter. They run towards the riverbank so fast I can’t keep up with them. I can feel cannon blasting ahead of me, hear the howling of heavy mortar sailing over us. We’ve only got a few minutes to get back to the base, back to the shelter of the trenches. The sky is filled with smoke, the sunlight that was so beautiful this morning is smirched now, tarnished. When I finally get to the trench, breathless, I look at the men who are already there, I attempt to recognize their eyes in their exhausted faces, in the blank, absent look of men who have narrowly escaped death. I look for Odilon’s eyes and my heart is pounding in my chest because I don’t recognize them. I move hurriedly through the trench, all the way to the night bunker. ‘Odilon? Odilon?’ The men look at me in bewilderment. Do they even know who Odilon is? There are so many missing. For the rest of the day, as the bombardments continue, I keep hoping – irrationally – that I will finally see him appear at the edge of the trench with his calm, child’s face, his smile. The officer calls roll in the evening, puts an ‘X’ in front of the names of the absentees. How many of ours are missing? Twenty, thirty men, maybe more. Slumped against the banking, I smoke and drink bitter coffee, looking up at the beautiful night sky. The next day and those that follow, the rumour goes around that we’ve been beaten at Thiepval, as well as at Ovillers, at Beaumont-Hamel. They say that Joffre, commander-in-chief of the French army, had requested Haig to take Thiepval at any cost and that Haig refused to send his troops into another massacre. Have we lost the war?

  No one talks. Everyone eats hastily in silence, drinks the tepid coffee, smokes, without looking at his neighbour. What disturbs the living, what worries them, are the men who didn’t come back. At times, in my half-sleep, I think of Odilon as if he were alive, and when I wake up I look around for him. Maybe he’s wounded, at the infirmary in Albert, sent back to England? But deep down inside I know very well, despite the glorious sunshine, that he fell face down in the muddy field within sight of the dark line of the hills we were unable to reach.

  Now everything has changed. Our division, which was decimated during the Thiepval attack, has been divided up between the 12th and 15th Corps, to the south and north of Albert. We are fighting under Rawlinson’s orders, using the ‘hurricane’ technique. Every night the columns of light infantry advance from one trench to the next, crawling noiselessly across the wet fields. We penetrate deep into enemy territory and if it weren’t for the magnificent, star-filled sky I wouldn’t know that we are going further south each night. Thanks to my experience on board the Zeta and during the nights in English Bay I’m able to take note of this.

  Before daybreak the cannon begin the bombardment, burning the forests, the hamlets, the hills before us. Then, as soon as the sun appears, the men mount the attack, take up positions in the mortar craters, fire at the enemy lines with their rifles. A moment later the retreat is sounded and we all fall back, safe and sound. Fourteenth of July, after the attack, the British cavalry breaks cover for the first time and charges between the bomb holes. Along with the Australian Corps, we enter Pozières, which is nothing but a heap of ruins.

  Summer simmers on, day after day. We sleep wherever the attack has led us, anywhere, lying on the bare ground, shielded from the dew with a scrap of canvas. We can’t think of death any more. Every night we move forwards, under the stars, in single file through the hills. From time to time the flash of a flare shines out, we hear the haphazard cracking of shots. Warm, empty nights with not an insect, not an animal.

  In the beginning of September we meet General Gough’s 5th Army and, along with those who remained under the orders of Rawlinson, we march further south, towards Guillemont. Under cover of night we make our way back north-east, going up the railway in the direction of the woods. Now they’re on all sides, darker and even more menacing: the Trônes Woods behind us, the Leuze Woods to the south, and before us the Birch Woods. The men aren’t sleeping, just waiting in the calm of night. I don’t think any of us can help but dream about what this place used to be like before the war; the beauty of it, these stands of still birches where the hooting of barn owls, the purling of streams, the leaping of wild rabbits could be heard. These woods where lovers would go after the dance, the grass – still warm with the day’s sunlight – where bodies would roll and enlace one another, laughing. The woods at evening time, when blue plumes of smoke would rise so peacefully from the villages and on the paths, the silhouettes of little old women gathering firewood. Not one of us is sleeping, we’re staring wide-eyed into the night – maybe our last. We’ve got our ears pricked up, our senses alert to the slightest vibration, the slightest sign of life that seems to have completely vanished. In pained apprehension, we await the moment when the first blasts of 75 mm-calibre cannon will come tearing through the night behind us, making the ‘hurricane’ of fire rain down upon the tall trees, disembowel the earth, lay open the dreadful path of the attack.

  It begins to rain before dawn. A fine drizzle that penetrates our clothing, wets our faces and makes us shiver. And so, almost with no fire support, the men launch into the attack of the three woods, in successive waves. Behind us the night lights up eerily over in the direction of the Ancre, where the 4th Army is mounting a diversionary attack. But for us it is a silent, cruel, often hand-to-hand combat. One after the other the waves of infantrymen pass over the trenches, capture the LMGs, pursue the enemy into the woods. I hear shots cracking very near to us, in the Birch Wood. Lying in the damp earth we shoot haphazardly into the underbrush. Soundlessly, flares light up above the trees, fall back to earth in a rain of sparks. As I’m running towards the wood I stumble over something: it’s the body of a German lying on his back in the grass. He’s still holding his Mauser, but his helmet has rolled several feet away. The officers shout, ‘Cease fire!’ The wood is ours. Everywhere, in the grey light of dawn, I see the bodies of the Germans lying in the grass in the fine rain. There are dead horses all over the fields and the cawing of crows is already echoing out grimly. Despite their exhaustion, the men are laughing, singing. Our officer, a red-faced, jovial Englishman, tries to explain to me. ‘Those bastards, they weren’t expecting us…!’ But I turn away and I hear him repeating the same thing to someone else. I feel so intensely exhausted it makes me stagger and feel nauseous. The men settle in for the night in the underbrush, in the German camps. Everything was ready for them to wake up, they say that even the coffee was already brewed. The Canadians are the ones to drink it, laughing. I’m stretched out under the tall trees, my head leaning against the cool bark, and I fall asleep in the lovely morning light.

  Winter’s heavy rains are here. The Ancre and the Somme are flooding their banks. We are prisoners of the conquered trenches, stuck in the mud, huddled in makeshift shelters. We’ve already forgotten the exhilaration of the battles that brought us this far. We captured Guillemont, the Falfemont farm, Ginchy, and, during the day of 15 September alone, Morval, Gueudecourt, Lesboeufs, pushing the Germans back to their rear-line trenches atop the hills near Bapaume or Transloy. Now we’re prisoners of the trenches on the other side of the river, prisoners of the rain and mud. Days are grey, cold, nothing happens. At times the boom of cannon fire resounds in the distance over by the Somme, in the woods around Bapaume. At times we’re awakened in the middle of the night by bright lights suddenly illuminating the sky. But they aren’t lightning flashes. ‘On your feet!’ the officers shout. We pack our bags in the dark, set out, stoop-backed in the icy, sucking mud. We’re advancing southward on worn paths along the Somme, unable to see where we’re going. Wha
t do all these rivers everyone talks about so much look like? The Yser, the Marne, the Meuse, the Aisne, the Ailette, the Scarpe? Rivers of mud under the low-hanging sky, heavy waters washing along the remains of forests, burned rafters, dead horses.

  Near Combles we meet the French Divisions. They are paler, more battered than we are. Sunken-eyed faces, ragged, mud-stained uniforms. Some don’t even have shoes, only bloody rags around their feet. In the convoy is a German officer. The soldiers are roughing him about, insulting him, because of the gases that have killed so many of our men. Very proud in spite of his tattered uniform, he suddenly pushes them away. He shouts in perfect French, ‘Why you’re the ones who used the gases first! You’re the ones who forced us to fight in that manner! You!’ A striking silence follows. Each of us looks away and the officer goes back to his place among the prisoners.

  Later we enter a village. I have never learned the name of that village, in the drab dawn, the streets are deserted, the houses in ruins. Our boots echo out strangely in the rain, as if we’d reached the end of the world, out at the very edge of the void. We pitch camp in the ruins of the village and convoys, Red Cross vans, file by all day long. When the rain stops a cloud of dust veils the sky. Farther away, in the trenches that are extensions of the village streets, we can hear the rumbling of cannon again and, off in the distance, the thud of shells.

  Sitting in front of a fire of burning boards, beside piles of rubble, Canadian, Territorial and French soldiers fraternize, exchange names. There are others who aren’t asked any questions, who don’t say anything. They roam the streets endlessly, unable to stop. Exhaustion. Off in the distance we hear faint rifle shots, like schoolboys playing with firecrackers. We’re drifting along in a strange land, steering out into incomprehensible time. The same day, the same endless night, are forever tormenting us. We haven’t spoken in such a long time. Haven’t spoken a woman’s name in such a long time. We hate the war with every fibre of our beings.