by Earle Looker
Gaspard’s white teeth appeared in his beard. “As I said, I have been thinking. Now with this defense which I have devised, the least, as you say, that you can do for your friend here is to go to Paris to accomplish this duty for him …”
“But …”
“Zut alors! At the same time, I have again been thinking …”
“There’s not much more you could think of,” David said with impatience. “But go on.”
“Enfin,” Gaspard began, but stopped. He seemed surprisingly at a loss for words. He warmed himself with his phrase, “Nomme d’Dieu, nomme d’Dieu, nomme d’Dieu! If I seem vulgar and offend your reticence, but if on the other hand your mind has been jarred from its sanctimonious North American wrappings? You must have additional reasons for going to Paris?”
David looked at him again without expression.
Gaspard was encouraged to continue: “I am speaking of necessity. From the look brulant you give me, you are thinking of morality. I am moral also, but there are times when I must recognize necessity. You have been shaken. You must pull yourself together. You must relax. You cannot do so here. You will bury the body of your friend in this trench. You will remain near it, even when you return to that hut where you have established your headquarters. To relax, forget you must. To forget – there it is! Not difficult. Not unpleasant. The only difficulty will be that which you make for yourself deciding who would make the most interesting companion in your arms.”
David did not look at Gaspard at all this time. Could Gaspard read his mind? Or was he judging by what he had reason to think was compelling to all men at this moment? Yes, Gaspard had judged correctly and levelled him down. Why? When Gaspard was not given to coarseness, but possessed a highly civilized set of taboos of his own. David decided to remain silent despite Gaspard’s directness and the probable truth of what he had to say. David reflected that his private thoughts were his own. He was aware now that his determination to break the news of Alan’s death, in an interview, which might well be even more distressing than Gaspard could ever imagine, was partly self-justification for the idea of going to Paris for all Gaspard might have in mind and more, and partly his own punishment of himself (Alan would have said, ‘So you wear your hair shirt even then?’) for relaxing the rules of conduct he had so long imposed upon himself.
‘And so, Paris!’ he thought. ‘First to do this distressing duty. And then, as Gaspard had said, to forget. To try! But to hell with Gaspard and his lying defense.’ David felt himself decide it with reason clear and calm: he would go first as a duty, then to relieve himself, then to protest against this reality. It was perhaps the best opportunity for protection through action that he would ever find, certainly the moment of the greatest cause. There it was, he thought, simple and straightforward without Gaspardian dramatics. But there was one ideal to which he would cling: Alan’s truth. He would go and return and make no defense. Alan would have understood.
4
Certainly, David thought, Gaspard had succeeded in administering additional desire to his blood stream. He felt it circulate. What Gaspard called necessity was greater now than it might have been since he had rejected, not always easily, the comfort some of his friends had found in the arms of village girls behind the lines. He had blamed them not at all for this. In fact, he had looked the other way when his own officers were concerned; their suffering and imminent death seemed to have confirmed their right to catch as many willing girls behind doors in billets as they chose as long as they harmed no one. He had not failed to read the invitation in the eyes of some of those fine, lusty, full bodied peasants who, in the too early wisdom of their generation, could be as coarse and as rough as men and then so abruptly naïve that their youth made them beautiful. But though he had often been stirred, he had as often been held to restraint by his resistance to that law he felt was working all about them. Nature seemed striving more than ever to replace what had been destroyed by war, even men. Not the whole army had sought to seed itself in every furrow, but it seemed men did when they were about to die.
For a long time, he reflected, his desire had swung from hot to cold and back again to receive a tempering that suggested it was acquiring strength for the part it would play in some endeavor or action to come, rather than for its own satisfaction. What he meant himself could hardly be explained by the combined efforts of a medical officer, for fact, and a chaplain, for fancy.
But there might indeed be some woman who could succeed in sweeping out of his mind all that had been cruel to him in the action, the mistakes, the losses, the fear, callousness and filth? Gaspard might be right; it might take some woman to do this. There must be someone whose eyes would be sympathetic because she had looked upon some of these and would know how to deal with them.
David said, “So you think …?”
Gaspard nodded his beard. “Soyez-en bien sur, make no doubt about it! And Paris is a city of women at any time – today!” His thinking took another turn, “And to eat a civilized meal! “Des ceufs a la Huguenot, eggs cooked in mutton gravy,” Gaspard said and licked his lips.
He wiped his beard. “And a bath with hot water!” He washed his hands.
David shivered. ‘Paris!’ he thought. ‘A man’s city of lights and women, who could understand a soldier – they had been understanding them for a thousand years – the place of reality and tolerance and luxury, of doors and locks and privacy and the only kind of warmth that could ever overcome this deathly chill.’
Gaspard said suddenly, “I am going to Paris myself. Without orders. I have a way to get there and to remain there without arrest.”
“You! No, you don’t mean – Why, I can’t – you aren’t serious?”
“Serieusement!”
David thought, ‘Where’s the catch?’ and said, “But why’?”
“My reason? It is a long story. We cannot stand here while I tell it. Prochainment. Pour le moment will you not trust my word of honor that it is a reason you will consider fully as practical – to defend – as yours, and in all probability superior?”
“Your word of honor’? Up to a moment ago, Gaspard, I would have trusted it, but this idea of defense …”
“Daveed, I propose we go together.”
“You’ve been leading up to this?”
“I did not intend …”
“It’s roundabout, why?”
“Mon vieux, do not misunderstand …”
“You suggest we both pretend we’re crazy? Well isn’t that just swell.”
“Mais non …”
“Two cases of insanity going together is pretty mad isn’t it?”
“Mais …”
“We’d have to plan this as carefully as if we were planning – say – a raid, wouldn’t we?”
“Assuredly,” Gaspard said and bit his lip. It was obvious to him discretion had fully returned to David; these questions, here was his natural self. “But,” Gaspard protested, “I have already a plan.”
David glanced toward the stretcher. “Has it a lie at the heart of it, like your defense idea?”
Gaspard saw the trap. He noted David’s glance was cold and gray again. Gaspard looked down at the briquette in his hand; the heat had gone out of it. He would now have furiously to think: here, after all, was an American who might for some time fail to appreciate the real urgency and the vital importance of the project. He dared not submit to David’s questioning on David’s own terms and risk refusal, in his present mood, to go along with it.
‘God of Battles!’ Gaspard thought. ‘If they could know, the souls of five hundred thousand Frenchmen, who might not have been killed would march with me! There must be little delay.’
David was blocking him now. The transport marched not. ‘Let no man obstruct, no battalion, no regiment of men!’
Gaspard trembled. He knew now he had dedicated his whole existence to this. He knew he could d
o anything that might ever be necessary to make this action march to a successful conclusion. His hand fell naturally upon the butt of his revolver, but no one can successfully draw a weapon on a battalion commander in the midst of his own men and make him fully understand you dared to use it.
Gaspard pulled his beard to keep himself from grinding his teeth in it. ‘There must be some stratagem to employ to bring pressure upon this American within perhaps the next hour?’ he thought.
“Yes,” Gaspard said, “I am bien serieux, mon vieux.” He shrugged. “I am going. You? I shall go back to my command post to attend to some matters first. But I shall not go without seeing you first.”
“Thanks,” David said crisply.
Gaspard turned and strode down the trench like the master of his world, saluting the figure on the stretcher as he passed.
CHAPTER 4
Silver Eagles
“War does not determine who is right –
only who is left.”
~ Bertrand Russell
Rue Désiré-Guelliot, Vouziers, 1918
David’s nostrils filled with the nauseous stench of his trenches. The light, early morning haze rising over them seemed not so much from the warm breath of men moving about as from a slow escape, through the fissures of the muddy soil, of the vapors of corruption from bodies partially buried beneath. David felt an itching between his shoulder blades like crawling maggots. He felt the blood clot in his head with appalling old ideas of death.
It was not as if he had made his contribution, done his work, written himself out; his development had really just begun; surely the best was on the way. It was credible enough that Alan’s smashed body could no longer feel; it was now six feet down in the filled traverse with his helmet and an identity tag upon a stake set above it, with a well-painted cross now being made to more permanently mark the grave.
He was startled by the abrupt arrival of Gaspard, swaggering along the trench trying to avoid the mud and the muck.
“This Oberst, this fils de pute”, Gaspard was saying, “He is dead. Is that not settled?” There seemed to be a doubt, for he added with vigor, “I was right. We are strong, and we will enforce the right!”
He said much more. David hardly heard him. He felt as winded as if he had been running without halt and had just discovered he had done it upon a treadmill. He had passed none of those landmarks of experience he had thought were far behind him. He saw them, for that instant, for what they were: quick understanding, firm decision and command, control of fear, veteran imperturbability in the presence of death. He was exhausted.
Gaspard must have been speaking for some time. When David listened again, Gaspard was saying, “Name of a name, how fast will this news travel to the rear? How soon we will be ordered to explain? May we not be placed under arrest in quarters to await an enquiry? The moment we are arrested, we will be cut off from everyone who might be of aid to us. The facts are no defense. The facts will convict us. Our only hope is political influence. Zut alors! I have a thought: I shall ask my general for leave to Paris. At once.”
David blurted, “Running away won’t help.”
Gaspard flushed with anger. “No one would ever think that of me. Moreover, it cannot be done and – how you say? – ‘get away with?’ But if I do not get orders to Paris within the hour I may be held here so long it may be impossible to settle this other affair.”
“Other affair?” David cried. “You want to pull something else? Would you like me to join you in killing your Division Commander? I’ll probably have my leaves pulled off my shoulders for this mess. Thanks Gaspard, and damn you for that! I’ve a colonel who’s itching to do just that. He’s had his silver eagle only about three weeks. He’s been looking for trouble for me, and now I guess he’s found it.”
Gaspard gave David all his attention. “Silver eagle?” he said. “That is a strange phrase. That brings to me an idea boiling up at the top of my brain. Silver Eagle! What do you mean by that?”
“Let it pass,” David said wearily, “and let me think. I’ve got to collect my ideas to report what happened.”
Gaspard caught David’s arm in an iron grip. “You have said something! It may not be necessary for you to make a report. Answer me. What do you mean by Silver Eagle?”
David looked into Gaspard’s eyes and saw concentrated command as well as what seemed clear madness. “You’re a colonel yourself, Gaspard. You know it’s the insignia of a colonel in our army; silver eagles on his shoulder.”
Gaspard laughed with a note of joyousness, as if he had already forgotten about the dead Oberst. “Name of a name! I have found it – the solution! Silver Eagle! Oui! You are going with me to Paris. Non, I am going with you. I organize that political influence. I save myself. Also I save you from consequences of this episode in which I have involved you.” He spoke with the greatest decision and finality. He possessed the true air of assurance that is the soul of leadership. David had often found his enthusiasm contagious, yet this suggestion piled one madness upon another, and David told him so.
“It is not for me to argue,” Gaspard countered. “A commandant at your age, mon vieux, must also be not a little mad, hein? But I will state fact. You can never prove you were not with me from the very beginning of this affair. You were. Did you or did you not ask for what purpose those poignards were desired? You did not. Why not? The fight was opposite your lines. Yes. This is what will be asked at the enquiry. Do you not think we will get off with merely une reprimande? Assuredly not. What could be the charges? There would be many. To begin with, all troops were ordered to stay in their trenches. We wish to avoid court-martial. No matter what we say, each word will pull another button from our tunics, and we will stand with our decorations thrown in the dust at our feet – civilians! While the drums beat! I admit my responsibility, but that does not alter what has happened. You do not wish to depend upon me? Then perhaps you have your own political influence? Would you not have to walk on water to get it? You cannot cable to America, not the words that would help you. Your colonel, you have told me about him. Your general? He does not know your name until he reads the charges against you. Then his blood will turn to steam; he will hiss out of every pore.
“You are cooked, mon vieux, unless I help you. So you will come with me to Paris. It is decided. There is help for us there. Our professional soldiers stand together, as do yours. Have I not done favors for my friends who are now in high command? Would not three little words from my Minister of War command generals, abolish courts, make what has happened seem another rumor of the imagination? All this is true – so, to Paris we go at once!”
The argument seemed convincing enough, yet Gaspard’s flow of words fathered the suspicion he was talking once more to conceal an intention. “What,” David asked sharply, “was that other affair?”
Gaspard sucked in his breath. He appreciated the fact David had regained his steadiness and ability to pick up that unfortunate phrase, “to settle this other affair,” warned of the need of extreme tact. Gaspard found himself put to the necessity of a lie. He laughed to make the pause necessary to gather himself for a convincing falsehood, and began the time consuming motions required to make a briquette work for the lighting of a cigarette.
David, however, struck fire from an American match by flicking it with his fingernail and cupped his hands to protect the flame that Gaspard also used, murmuring his thanks. ‘Everything may be happening about you,’ Gaspard thought. But, like the immediate proffer of this light, the action of most traits is automatic and will be repeated again and again in a thousand forms. David’s attitude must be counted upon with a degree of certainty. Gaspard said, “I have done this for you, you have done that for me; this is not true, no?”
David made no response, but Gaspard saw his face had flushed.
And there was some moral justification, Gaspard reflected, repeating to himself a major conclusion, for wha
t he was doing even when considering David’s future. This was the moment. The time element was important for it was a reasonable supposition that troops now in the trenches would be relieved by those not infected by the fraternization of armistice. David’s battalion would soon be ordered into billets, but further back than heretofore because the fighting was over and the comfort of the men had to be considered. Back where there would be laughing wenches to be caught behind doors to fulfill their pent-up needs for passion. Gaspard saw no harm in this alone, but to a youngster of David’s North American naïve experience in such matters, might not his illusions be destroyed when Gaspard most wished to preserve them? Gaspard grimaced to himself, thinking of the impression at the end of a campaign that the first woman met, who possessed a face, vivacity, humor and a passable figure represented all that was desirable.
Gaspard looked at his American with an expression altogether suggestive. “You think it is an affair with some woman? Non, I should be too busy. You would be the one with time for that – in Pigalle!”
He thus implied to David as strongly as if he had said, “If you go with me what you do in Paris is your own affair. You young fool; you know well enough what you need. Why not be frank? Go straight to any café on the Grands Boulevards, and there your only trouble will be in deciding which would be the most beautiful, the most interesting, the most satisfactory companion.”
David heard a voice within himself: ‘Why not? Isn’t it about time?’
Gaspard’s argument, despite David’s understanding of how it had been administered to his blood stream, circulated now within him. Civilized life for twenty-four hours. Being jostled by crowds, women on the sidewalks, shop windows, a bed of clean sheets, warmth and a full breakfast. Each of these, as Gaspard had meant them to be, was seductive. But David said to him, “You fool! I can’t get leave to go with you.”