Under Fire - Henri Barbusse (best book series to read txt) š
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āāNever! We wonāt let you goāit canāt be done.ā
āāButāā
āāBut me no buts,ā I reply, while she locks the door.ā
āThen what?ā asked Lamuse.
āThen? Nothing at all,ā replied Eudore. āWe just stayed like that, very discreetlyāall the nightāsitting, propped up in the corners, yawningālike the watchers over a dead man. We made a bit of talk at first. From time to time some one said, āIs it still raining?ā and went and had a look, and said, āItās still rainingāāwe could hear it, by the way. A big chap who had a mustache like a Bulgarian fought against sleeping like a wild man. Sometimes one or two among the crowd slept, but there was always one to yawn and keep an eye open for politeness, who stretched himself or half got up so that he could settle more comfortably.
āMariette and me, we never slept. We looked at each other, but we looked at the others as well, and they looked at us, and there you are.
āMorning came and cleaned the window. I got up to go and look outside. The rain was hardly less. In the room I could see dark forms that began to stir and breathe hard. Marietteās eyes were red with looking at me all night. Between her and me a soldier was filling his pipe and shivering.
āSome one beats a tattoo on the window, and I half open it. A silhouette with a streaming hat appears, as though carried and driven there by the terrible force of the blast that came with it, and asksā
āāHey, in the cafe there! Is there any coffee to be had?ā
āāComing, sir, coming,ā cried Mariette.
āShe gets up from her chair, a little benumbed. Without a word she looks at her self in our bit of a mirror, touches her hair lightly, and says quite simply, the good lassā
āāI am going to make coffee for everybody.ā
āWhen that was drunk off, we had all of us to go. Besides, customers turned up every minute.
āāHey, la pātite mere,ā they cried, shoving their noses in at the half-open window, āletās have a coffeeāor threeāor fourāāāand two more again,ā says another voice.
āWe go up to Mariette to say good-by. They knew they had played gooseberry that night most damnably, but I could see plainly that they didnāt know if it would be the thing to say something about it or just let it drop altogether.
āThen the Bulgarian made up his mind: āWeāve made a hell of a mess of it for you, eh, ma pātite dame?ā
āHe said that to show heād been well brought up, the old sport.
āMariette thanks him and offers him her handāāThatās nothing at all, sir. I hope youāll enjoy your leave.ā
āAnd me, I held her tight in my arms and kissed her as long as I couldāhalf a minuteādiscontentedāmy God, there was reason to beābut glad that Mariette had not driven the boys out like dogs, and I felt sure she liked me too for not doing it.
āāBut that isnāt all,ā said one of the leave men, lifting the skirt of his cape and fumbling in his coat pocket; āthatās not all. What do we owe you for the coffees?ā
āāNothing, for you stayed the night with me; you are my guests.ā
āāOh, madame, we canāt have that!ā
āAnd how they set to to make protests and compliments in front of each other! Old man, you can say what you likeāwe may be only poor devils, but it was astonishing, that little palaver of good manners.
āāCome along! Letās be hopping it, eh?ā
āThey go out one by one. I stay till the last. Just then another passer-by begins to knock on the windowāanother who was dying for a mouthful of coffee. Mariette by the open door leaned forward and cried, āOne second!ā
āThen she put into my arms a parcel that she had ready. āI had bought a knuckle of hamāit was for supperāfor usāfor us twoāand a liter of good wine. But, ma foi! when I saw there were five of you, I didnāt want to divide it out so much, and I want still less now. Thereās the ham, the bread, and the wine. I give them to you so that you can enjoy them by yourself, my boy. As for them, we have given them enough,ā she says.
āPoor Mariette,ā sighs Eudore. āFifteen months since Iād seen her. And when shall I see her again? Ever?āIt was jolly, that idea of hers. She crammed all that stuff into my bagāā
He half opens his brown canvas pouch.
āLook, here they are! The ham here, and the bread, and thereās the booze. Well, seeing itās there, you donāt know what weāre going to do with it? Weāre going to share it out between us, eh, old pals?ā
9
The Anger of Volpatte
WHEN Volpatte arrived from his sick-leave, after two monthsā absence, we surrounded him. But he was sullen and silent, and tried to get away.
āWell, what about it? Volpatte, have you nothing to tell us?ā
āTell us all about the hospital and the sick-leave, old cock, from the day when you set off in your bandages, with your snout in parenthesis! You must have seen something of the official shops. Speak then, nome de Dieu!ā
āI donāt want to say anything at all about it,ā said Volpatte.
āWhatās that? What are you talking about?ā
āIām fed upāthatās what I am! The people back there, Iām sick of themāthey make me spew, and you can tell āem so!ā
āWhat have they done to you?ā
āA lot of sods, they are!ā says Volpatte.
There he was, with his head as of yore, his ears āstuck on againā and his Mongolian cheekbonesāstubbornly set in the middle of the puzzled circle that besieged him; amid we felt that the mouth fast closed on ominous silence meant high pressure of seething exasperation in the depth of him.
Some words overflowed from him at last. He turned roundāfacing towards the rear and the basesāand shook his fist at infinite space. āThere are too many of them,ā he said between his teeth, āthere are too many!ā He seemed to be threatening and repelling a rising sea of phantoms.
A little later, we questioned him again, knowing well that his anger could not thus be retained within, and that the savage silence would explode at the first chance.
It was in a deep communication trench, away back, where we had come together for a meal after a morning spent in digging. Torrential rain was falling. We were muddled and drenched and hustled by the flood, and we ate standing in single file, without shelter, under the dissolving sky. Only by feats of skill could we protect the bread and bully from the spouts that flowed from every point in space; and while we ate we put our hands and faces as much as possible under our cowls. The rain rattled and bounced and streamed on our limp woven armor, and worked with open brutality or sly secrecy into ourselves and our food. Our feet were sinking farther and farther, taking deep root in the stream that flowed along the clayey bottom of the trench. Some faces were laughing, though their mustaches dripped. Others grimaced at the spongy bread and flabby meat, or at the missiles which attacked their skin from all sides at every defect in their heavy and miry armor-plate.
Barque, who was hugging his mess-tin to his heart, bawled at Volpatte: āWell then, a lot of sods, you say, that youāve seen down there where youāve been?ā
āFor instance?ā cried Blaire, while a redoubled squall shook and scattered his words; āwhat have you seen in the way of sods?ā
āThere areāā Volpatte began, āand thenāthere are too many of them, nom de Dieu! There areāā
He tried to say what was the matter with him, but could only repeat, āThere are too many of them!ā oppressed and panting. He swallowed a pulpy mouthful of bread as if there went with it the disordered and suffocating mass of his memories.
āIs it the shirkers you want to talk about?ā
āBy God!ā He had thrown the rest of his beef over the parapet, and this cry, this gasp, escaped violently from his mouth as if from a valve.
āDonāt worry about the soft-job brigade, old cross-patch,ā advised Barque, banteringly, but not without some bitterness. āWhat good does it do?ā
Concealed and huddled up under the fragile and unsteady roof of his oiled hood, while the water poured down its shining slopes, and holding his empty mess-tin out for the rain to clean it, Volpatte snarled, āIām not daftānot a bit of itāand I know very well thereāve got to be these individuals at the rear. Let them have their dead-heads for all I careābut thereās too many of them, and theyāre all alike, and all rotters, voila!ā
Relieved by this affirmation, which shed a little light on the gloomy farrago of fury he was loosing among us, Volpatte began to speak in fragments across the relentless sheets of rainā
āAt the very first village they sent me to, I saw duds, and duds galore, and they began to get on my nerves. All sorts of departments and sub-departments and managements and centers and offices and committeesāyouāre no sooner there than you meet swarms of fools, swam-ms of different services that are only different in name-enough to turn your brain. I tell you, the man that invented the names of all those committees, he was wrong in his head.
āSo could I help but be sick of it? Ah, mon vieux,ā said our comrade, musing, āall those individuals fiddle-faddling and making believe down there, all spruced up with their fine caps and officersā coats and shameful boots, that gulp dainties and can put a dram of best brandy down their gullets whenever they want, and wash themselves oftener twice than once, and go to church, and never stop smoking, and pack themselves up in feathers at night to read the newspaperāand then they say afterwards, āIāve been in the war!āā
One point above all had got hold of Volpatte and emerged from his confused and impassioned vision: āAll those soldiers, they havenāt to run away with their table-tools and get a bite any old wayātheyāve got to be at their easeātheyād rather go and sit themselves down with some tart in the district, at a special reserved table, and guzzle vegetables, and the fine lady puts their crockery out all square for them on the dining-table, and their pots of jam and every other blasted thing to eat; in short, the advantages of riches and peace in that doubly-damned hell they call the Rear!ā
Volpatteās neighbor shook his head under the torrents that fell from heaven and said,ā So much the better for them.ā
āIām not crazyāā Volpatte began again.
āPāraps, but youāre not fair.ā
Volpatte felt himself insulted by the word. He started, and raised his head furiously, and the rain, that was waiting for the chance, took him plump in the face. āNot fairāme? Not fairāto those dung-hills?ā
āExactly, monsieur,ā the neighbor replied; āI tell you that you play hell with them and yet youād jolly well like to be in the rottersā place.ā
āVery likelyābut what does that prove, rump-face? To begin with, we, weāve been in danger, and it ought to be our turn for the other. But theyāre always the same, I tell you; and then thereās young men there, strong as bulls and poised like wrestlers, and thenāthere are too many
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