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ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 (Au Champ d'Honneur) 
 
ON THE FIELD OF 
 HONOR 
 
 (Au Champ d'Honneur) 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGUES LE ROUX 
 » » 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 MRS. JOHN VAN VORST 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
^ 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 191S, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published January igi8 
 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 I 
 
 Paris, August i, 1914. 
 
 I HAVE known it since this morning: the 
 mobilization has been decided. Robert, my 
 lieutenant, is to leave for the front. 
 
 This has not come as a surprise. Last 
 year he took a certain initiative which met 
 with success. He found his own regiment 
 quartered too far from the frontier. In case 
 there was to be war, he wanted, from the 
 start, to be on the firing-line. I did what 
 I could to further this wish of his. The an- 
 swer I received was: "This is not an es- 
 pecial favor. The reports we have received 
 recommend this officer particularly highly." 
 
 I was glad of this. 
 
 The apartment where my dear son lives 
 is situated directly opposite my own; the 
 
4 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 Seine and the beautiful gardens of the 
 Tuileries lie between us. I speed across 
 them now. 
 
 His concierge is putting a few stitches in 
 a pair of red trousers — my boy's trousers. 
 This morning, as usual, he had already left 
 the house by seven o'clock for his factory 
 in the suburbs of Paris, in order to turn 
 over to his chiefs his especial duties. 
 
 I shall go to his office in the old quarter 
 of the Temple and wait for him. 
 
 Learning of my presence there the Presi- 
 dent of the Board of Directors says to me: 
 "Your son is universally admired and 
 loved among us here. We were so happy, 
 three weeks ago, when we heard that he 
 had become engaged. He seemed radiant 
 with joy: a joy that must now be post- 
 poned." 
 
 A quarter to eleven. 
 
 The engineers returning from the fac- 
 tory tell me that Robert has gone back to 
 Paris. He will not come now to his office ; 
 my best chance of finding him will be at 
 his flat. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 5 
 
 So here I wait in his salon in the Rue de 
 Rivoli. Like his bedroom it is scarcely 
 more than a chapel dedicated to the mem- 
 ory of his mother, for whom he has just 
 taken off mourning. The portraits of his 
 fiancee are here together with ours. His 
 canteen is open on the divan; lying about 
 are the shoes and clothes he has worn dur- 
 ing the manoeuvres. I continue to wait. 
 I am impatient for his presence to put an 
 end to the silence which reigns in these two 
 rooms. 
 
 At last, here he is. 
 
 He says: "Well, this time it's a sure 
 thing." 
 
 "My poor child!" 
 
 He knows it: that I am not grieving at 
 what he must do. Ever since he has reached 
 the age of reason we have talked together 
 of the war, as one speaks of a beautiful 
 dream. But how can I help thinking of his 
 recent happiness, the joy he was about to 
 realize, and which is now vanishing ! 
 
 He understands and he smiles. 
 
 How well I know that smile! I saw it on 
 
6 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 his face, ten years ago, the night his brother 
 died. I had asked him not to sleep in the 
 same room, which, since their earUest child- 
 hood, he and his brother had shared. 
 
 He answered me then: "I must become 
 accustomed to it. The sooner the better." 
 
 To-day he says: "If this had happened 
 last year, when I was leaving for the ma- 
 noeuvres, I would have been glad beyond 
 words. But now . . . ! It was hard for a 
 moment, but that's past — everything is 
 all right; only I can't help regretting that 
 I must leave without seeing *her' again." 
 
 His mobilization billet will not in any 
 case be delivered to him before this eve- 
 ning. And yet, I can scarcely persuade 
 him to do what he most desires. 
 
 Presently we are rolling along in the 
 August sunlight upon the road which leads 
 to a far-away country place. In spite of 
 the sun's glare I have the impression that 
 the way has been swept by a tempest. Al- 
 ready there are no more men to be seen 
 anywhere. The women, standing in little 
 groups, talk together before the doors of 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 7 
 
 the houses. They are deep in conversation; 
 they Hft their arms, gesticulating, relating 
 each her own adventure. Those who stand 
 alone are weeping. The road is clear, more- 
 over, of all traffic, of all the heavy peasant 
 carts which usually encumber it and which 
 go on their way heedless of the motor's 
 horn. 
 
 We scarcely speak: not only because of 
 the roughness of the cobblestones, but be- 
 cause we should have too many last things 
 to say to each other. 
 
 "Don't forget, my boy, what experience 
 I have had in my explorations. Believe 
 me when I tell you that it is better to sleep 
 on stones, on pebbles, than on the ground 
 itself. The war will come to an end and 
 you must return well and strong for *her* 
 sake." 
 
 He smiles more cheerfully than just now 
 and he slips his hand into mine. I hold it 
 fast as though he had become a child again. 
 
II 
 
 She did not know that we were coming, 
 his little fiancee, but her heart was awake 
 to every sound that passed. We have not 
 time to ring; already the gate is open. 
 
 I have known her only a short time, this 
 young girl, in whom the only boy left me 
 has placed all his love and all our hope. 
 My intercourse with her has been the mere 
 contact of superficial politeness during a 
 brief engagement. 
 
 Now, with her beautiful hair flying loose 
 about her poor, tragic face, with her tears, 
 she is no longer the amiable stranger whom 
 one welcomes, for better, for worse, with 
 an indulgent smile. She has become one of 
 us through our common suffering. 
 
 She throws herself into her fiance's arms. 
 
 Looking at them I recall a little song 
 which seems to sound now in my memory, 
 like a sob. It expresses, as a passionate 
 people understand it, man's chance of hap- 
 piness : 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 9 
 
 "Two kisses I hold fast In my soul's 
 very depths, 
 And which never leave me: 
 The last my mother gave me, 
 The first I took from you." 
 
 Helen's mother has gone to Paris hop- 
 ing for news. Her daughter wants to fol- 
 low her, so, together, we three set out for 
 the railroad. The train will take us more 
 quickly than the motor, to Paris. 
 
 In the compartment I leave the two 
 fiances alone. I keep my eyes turned to- 
 ward the window. 
 
 Trains of soldiers pass us one after an- 
 other. The horses seem in splendid condi- 
 tion; the men are standing at their heads. 
 Their bare, muscular arms are halfway 
 out of the windows of these improvised 
 stables. Men and animals are a picture 
 of strength, magnificent, irresistible. They 
 pass followed by cheers. 
 
 In a cattle van, just like these, fifteen 
 months ago, in Bulgaria, I spent a day and 
 a night among the soldiers who had been 
 carried off the battlefield. Bleeding, dying, 
 
10 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 they lay there in the straw! . . . Away 
 with such memories ! I must not show my 
 anguish to these two children who are still 
 talking together of their hopes, of their 
 future happiness. 
 
 No order has been sent to the Rue de 
 Rivoli to the address of our lieutenant. 
 Helen goes to join her mother. This eve- 
 ning Robert will dine with them ; I will come 
 at midnight to find my boy in his rooms. 
 
 The news which is given me at the For- 
 eign Office somewhat raises my hopes. 
 
 The Premier has told the German Am- 
 bassador that "mobilization does not mean 
 war"! 
 
 The Ambassador has proposed some pos- 
 sible negotiation in which England, Rus- 
 sia, — Germany herself, — may take part. 
 Austria would then be invited to heed the 
 advice of Europe and the result would be 
 peace. 
 
 What a long way I have travelled since 
 this morning! 
 
 The word " peace " seems to weigh upon 
 my heart. 
 
Ill 
 
 When, at midnight, I ring at the apart- 
 ment in the Rue de Rivoli, the concierge is 
 sleeping, the house is in darkness. 
 
 It is the first time I have been here at 
 night. I creep up the stairs, feeling my 
 way. There are two hallways, a lift, a glass 
 door. Not sure at all, I try rapping, at my 
 right, upon what chances to be the right 
 door. 
 
 No particular instructions have been sent 
 to my lieutenant, but posters placarded 
 everywhere by this time are calling the 
 men not to wait for more formal notifica- 
 tion. So it is to-morrow morning that he 
 is to leave. 
 
 I found him writing a few letters to differ- 
 ent relatives, to old friends, to his sister, — 
 our Marie-Rose, — whom the mobilization 
 finds in Normandy, too far away to reach 
 her brother before he leaves. 
 
 He asks me to send my servant, now and 
 
12 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 then, to clean his rooms and to brush his 
 clothes: "So that things won't be eaten 
 by the moths when I return." 
 
 Again he smiles. 
 
 The news which I bring him, and which 
 I no longer believe myself, as we stand 
 there before his closed canteen, his revolver, 
 and his glistening sword, does not seem to 
 touch him. He does not wish the enemy's 
 retreat. 
 
 "Now that the sacrifice is made!" 
 
 His thoughts and mine are with the little 
 fiancee; he says with melancholy: "When I 
 consider myself only, I envy those who were 
 married yesterday. When I put myself in 
 her place, I realize that all is for the best." 
 
 I beg him to lie down and get some rest. 
 On the divan there is a prayer-carpet which 
 I gave him. Often in my tent, in Africa, 
 I had used it as a bed, when I was travel- 
 ling alone, across the sands, the under- 
 brush, the mountains, or the swamps. 
 
 I long now to stretch myself out on this 
 little rug and to sleep until morning under 
 the same roof with my boy, — until morn- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 13 
 
 ing, when I can go with him to the train. 
 But obviously this is not his wish. He does 
 not give me his reasons, but I can imagine 
 them. 
 
 It is not for me that he reserves his final 
 adieu; he surrounds his love with a certain 
 mystery as though to isolate it. 
 
 How well I understand him without his 
 speaking. 
 
 My beloved son, I, too, am capable of 
 sacrifice. I recall the days when the robust 
 athlete, which you have now become, was 
 only a poor little child, suffocating with 
 croup. The surgeon's knife had gone deep 
 into your throat. All about you, those who 
 cherished you, had been contaminated by 
 the horrible contagion. You had been re- 
 duced to the last stages of infection, — the 
 newspapers had announced the death of 
 my son. But I was determined to fight 
 to the end and to save you. Seated by the 
 seaside, on the beach, I held you in your 
 agony. When I saw you sinking away, I 
 gave you ether. I dropped champagne or 
 cognac into your baby throat. 
 
14 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 I brought you back after days of strug- 
 gle, during which I loved you as a father 
 and as a mother. There, lying against my 
 breast, dear son, you were born again ; and 
 yet, your last thought now is not for me. 
 You belong more to your own hopes for the 
 future than to me. No doubt it is a privi- 
 lege to be able to give you both to your 
 country and to love. 
 
 He must get some sleep now. 
 
 He takes a candle. Together we descend 
 the complicated stairs where I had groped 
 my way, in the shadows, alone. 
 
 The concierge is still sound asleep. At a 
 time when silence is so precious we are 
 obliged to call and call. One would almost 
 think me impatient; in a hurry to get 
 away. 
 
 At last the door opens. 
 
 There, on the threshold, I bid my boy 
 farewell. The candle he holds in his hand 
 throws its light upward. I see him as he 
 stands before me with his blue leggings, 
 his red trousers, his flannel shirt. As I put 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 15 
 
 my arms about him, I feel his shoulders, 
 his back, — so strong, so muscular. 
 
 As I bend over to kiss him he smiles and 
 he says: "You know that I shall do my 
 duty, and a little more, if I have the 
 chance." 
 
IV 
 
 Just now I passed in front of the rail- 
 road station by which he left this morning. 
 
 The streets, the boulevards, make a dan- 
 gerous crossing on account of the mad 
 rapidity with which the automobiles speed 
 by. They are loaded with soldiers, in all 
 sorts of uniforms, hastening toward the 
 train. Flags are swung from every win- 
 dow. The street is decorated as for the 
 14th of July. The crowd fills the sidewalk, 
 the street itself. The dense masses part at 
 the sound of the bugles and then close 
 again. There is a sound unbroken like the 
 murmur of the sea. All is an atmosphere 
 of confidence, of honor, and of gayety. The 
 people seem to have aroused themselves to 
 the joy of action after forty years of wait- 
 ing, which have held them as by an evil 
 spell. Here and there, however, women, 
 young and old, move along as though walk- 
 ing in their sleep! 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 17 
 
 In the Rue Lafayette I met a couple who 
 have haunted me since. A workman of 
 about thirty, strong and yet already slightly 
 bowed under the weight of labor and of 
 hardship. By the hand he held his little 
 girl — a child of about six. She had on an 
 apron and a little bonnet which covered 
 her brown hair. He was talking to her as 
 one speaks to a grown-up person who is 
 already well accustomed to being resigned 
 and who understands that courage is a duty. 
 
 He kept saying to her these two words, 
 which, ever since yesterday, all the men 
 one meets are whispering to the women 
 clinging to their sides : 
 
 "You understand . . ." 
 
 And she "understands," this little girl 
 of six years old. She "understands" that 
 the mother she once had has long been 
 dead, but that she still had the father — 
 somewhat rough, perhaps, but so kind — 
 the father, whose hand she now holds. She 
 "understands" that presently she must 
 loosen her grasp ; that her father then will 
 lift her up in his arms, and that he will kiss 
 
i8 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 her; that he will leave her with people she 
 scarcely knows, going off without turning 
 his head. All this she "understands" very 
 clearly, the little girl of six. She was not 
 crying; she had "understood"! 
 
 As I looked at her I felt my heart heavy 
 with shame. I said to myself: "Your son 
 is not the only one to go." 
 
 And my thoughts turned toward the 
 young men of twenty who, every Sunday, 
 filled our country house. 
 
 I think of you, Charles, my sister's son, 
 whom my mother loved so tenderly. In 
 two months' time you were to have finished 
 your military service with the grade of 
 lieutenant. Your father was so proud to 
 feel that a boy who has passed his law exam- 
 inations, who has been graduated from the 
 School of Political Science, is well prepared 
 for the battle of life. But it is into this 
 other struggle that you must first enter, 
 my Charles. I know that you will honor 
 us all. 
 
 And I thought of you, Jean, the son 
 whom I have adopted in my heart, to com- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 19 
 
 fort. You remember? My poor boy, Guy, 
 had not long been dead and I was still look- 
 ing for him everywhere. One summer day, 
 in the train which took me daily to my 
 work, a young man got into my compart- 
 ment and sat down opposite me. It was a 
 shock to me, but very sweet. There, be- 
 fore me, was my lost child, just as I had 
 known him when he was eighteen. The 
 same silhouette, the same peculiarities of 
 physiognomy, the same eyebrows, eyes 
 of the same color. I longed to hear the 
 sound of his voice. 
 
 When we reached Paris I could not re- 
 sist longer. I went up to you, my dear 
 Jean, I touched your shoulder. I said, so 
 humbly: "Excuse me, sir,... But you 
 look so much like a son whom I have 
 lost. . . ." 
 
 And it happened that you had just the 
 soul to greet such a confidence. You told 
 me yourself that you were about to lose a 
 mother you adored, your grief helped you 
 to understand my own. A few days later 
 you led me to the bedside of your dying 
 
20 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 mother. She could well be proud, indeed, 
 of the five children who surrounded her 
 then. Yet, when she spoke of you, her 
 voice had a peculiarly tender note. She 
 said with such appealing warmth that she 
 hoped her "little Jean" might become 
 mine. 
 
 Thus the farewell with this charming 
 mother made between us a bond. How is it 
 possible that a boy of twenty can become 
 the friend of a man whose temples are al- 
 ready growing grey? Yet that is what 
 happened. Sundays when you came, win- 
 ter and summer, to join the gay little 
 crowd who surrounded my son and my 
 daughter, you were the only one who found 
 your way to the room where I took refuge 
 in solitude, fearing that my presence might 
 put a restraint upon the freedom and 
 hilarity of the young; you came to keep me 
 company; you took pity on me. 
 
 You remembered, as an own son might, all 
 the anniversaries whose memories sounded 
 like a melancholy bell in the depths of my 
 heart. I was so proud of you, when, your 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 21 
 
 two years of military service finished, you 
 came back from Saint-Mihiel, seeming a 
 true warrior, after the two years of iron 
 discipline imposed upon the frontier regi- 
 ments. 
 
 - 1 used then to say to myself: "It is my 
 son Guy, just as he would have returned 
 to me from the army." 
 
 To-day, my little friend, it seems to me 
 that you are going to war with two souls, 
 yours and "his," two valiant souls, made 
 to harmonize, two souls guarded by their 
 mothers in heaven. 
 
 How glad I would have been if I could 
 have taken your head a moment between 
 my hands and kissed your forehead before 
 you set out this time ! 
 
 I thought of you, too, my dear Max. 
 You're just eighteen, and it is not for you 
 that the bugles sound. Yet I know you! 
 You will join the others as soon as you 
 have learned to handle a sword. 
 
 Do you remember the May mornings 
 when you used to ride in our forest with 
 Robert and Marie-Rose ? 
 
22 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 Your dear mother used to say to me: 
 "Don't give him too wild a horse/* 
 
 To-day she is prepared to let you mount 
 the war-horse which will carry you to dan- 
 ger, to glory. You and she know that you 
 are the son of the man who was at the 
 head of our Government at a time when it 
 was necessary to choose between sacrifice 
 and ruin, and who conquered the egoism 
 of certain madmen, by pleading the cause 
 of France. 
 
 Carry your gayety, like a lark, into the 
 camp where you are going now. Max. Our 
 eyes will follow you skyward. 
 
August 3, 1914. 
 
 My dear Son: 
 
 How often in my life I have been the one 
 to leave. 
 
 Above all, beyond all, beyond joy, honor, 
 profit, I seemed to be called. Sometimes 
 the call came from within ; sometimes from 
 without. It sounded as the voice of those 
 I have loved. It was as a command from 
 the forefathers whose names I could not tell 
 you, — Bretons, Normans, — these ances- 
 tors of mine, sea-men who, in their barks, 
 their ships, had roamed at large, loving 
 the wind as they fought it between the sea 
 and the sky! 
 
 Again, for months, for years even, at a 
 time, the imperious summons seemed al- 
 most silenced. I was able to enjoy the 
 pleasures of existence with an ardor pecu- 
 liar to those who touch port, knowing that 
 to-morrow they shall embark again. Sud- 
 
24 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 denly then a land breeze would spring up, 
 tearing me with it away from everything, 
 from the shelter of my home, from the 
 pleasure of laying my hands upon your 
 childish heads. 
 
 I was impelled to leave. 
 
 For twenty years this voice of my an- 
 cestors sounded in my ears; it filled my 
 heart with longings and with determina- 
 tion. It seemed to show me the way I was 
 to set out upon. 
 
 How could I dream that, for me, the 
 final harbor would be a tomb, the square 
 of green sod, where my first-born son was 
 laid at twenty, his hands full of earthly 
 hopes ? How could I foresee that in leaving 
 us his soul was to be followed by another 
 soul, that the mother would join the son, 
 and that, in the midst of my journey, I 
 must cast anchor between two mounds of 
 earth? 
 
 One thing is certain ; since I have learned 
 to distinguish the faint breath that bows 
 earthward the grass above the graves, the 
 imperious Voice within me has been si- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 25 
 
 lenced. It is no longer to me that it calls 
 when the Dead make known, with an 
 irresistible power, their will. It is to you 
 now, Robert, that it must appeal, — to 
 you, my only remaining son, the last of 
 our name, — you who are the final ex- 
 pression of so much courage, vanished for- 
 ever beneath the earth and under the seas. 
 
 Shall I tell you when I realized that you 
 had been summoned, too, by this voice of 
 my Youth ? 
 
 It was one night last year when you said 
 to me: "If there should be war I want to 
 serve on the frontier." 
 
 Amen ! May this command of your fore- 
 fathers guide you and uphold you when 
 the moment comes to choose. Only, don't 
 forget, to-day, that I, who was formerly the 
 wanderer, have become the one who stays 
 behind. 
 
 Write to me often, my boy. 
 
VI 
 
 All that occurs in our family while our 
 sons are fighting is an example among in- 
 numerable others of the effort which our 
 present duty imposes upon us French peo- 
 ple. 
 
 In the South, my brother-in-law, Pro- 
 fessor of the Faculty of Surgeons, has been 
 ordered to take charge of a Red Cross hos- 
 pital. A second brother-in-law, the father 
 of Charles, has resumed his uniform as 
 Field Surgeon. My two sisters are both 
 acting as nurses. My daughter Marie- 
 Rose, my niece Alice, have entered two 
 hospitals in Normandy as assistants of the 
 "Union des Femmes de France." 
 
 I have been given a special task at the 
 War Office; it is my duty to receive, and 
 to comment upon, the news which the 
 General Headquarters, in accord with the 
 Government, prepare for publication at 
 midnight. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 27 
 
 At the late hour when I come in search 
 of this manna which to-morrow is going to 
 nourish the hearts of the people with hope 
 or with anxiety, the door of the War Office 
 is guarded as though it were the entrance 
 to a fortress. All the facade is aglow with 
 lighted windows. The information received, 
 the orders sent out, leave no time here for 
 rest, night or day. 
 
 On the ground floor of the Rue Saint- 
 Dominique the attendants are lined up as 
 usual, with frock coats and white cravats. 
 A statue of the Winged Victory, the God- 
 dess of Samothrace, spreads its wings, 
 headless, at the top of the stairway. 
 
 I cannot look at this decapitated splen- 
 dor; the symbol is too unfortunate, placed 
 thus upon the very threshold of the Palace 
 of National Defence. 
 
 My thoughts speed on, up the long flights 
 of stairs, they push open an unfamiliar 
 door. 
 
 Here, before the war, I had had inspir- 
 ing talks with the Generalissimo, to whom 
 we, the fathers, the old men, the women, 
 
28 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 have confided all the hopes of our country, 
 our race. I like to recall his image : strong 
 as a giant, calm, sure of his own power. I 
 like to remember his clear, steady gaze and 
 the confidence which the spirit of his men 
 awakes in him. 
 
 In the shadow of this Great Chief I see 
 you, dear lieutenant, who are the incarna- 
 tion for me at this moment of all our war- 
 ring youth. 
 
 You smile at me and you say: "Have 
 faith. We are commanded." 
 
VII 
 
 Every night, before attempting to sleep, 
 I read over the two bulletins which are the 
 warp and woof of my existence : the mid- 
 night communique and the last letter from 
 my son. 
 
 It is almost three weeks now since you 
 left, my child, and already history has been 
 re-made. Liege has barred the way against 
 the Germans. The English army has come 
 to reenforce our defence in the North. In 
 Alsace our flag reappeared and was again, 
 alas, torn down. On the highways of our 
 open country which, in perfect faith, we 
 considered protected by a treaty of honor, 
 the enemy is now advancing. We are re- 
 treating, but in closest contact with our 
 adversary, face to face, our arms locked 
 in a death-struggle. 
 
 The officers of the Etat-Major who, 
 every evening, before an open map, com- 
 ment for me upon all that is obscure in 
 
30 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 the communique, keep repeating: "Our 
 offensive has become a defensive, but we 
 are retreating only momentarily. To-mor- 
 row we shall have touched a base from 
 which to swing/' 
 
 I, too, feel faith in our troops, in our 
 chiefs, in the final triumph of Justice. So 
 I hasten back to my newspaper. The 
 stenographers who take down what I dic- 
 tate follow one upon the other. I see no 
 change of expression on their faces. Al- 
 ways I try to keep in mind as I compose 
 my article, whether the news be bad or 
 good, those who are to read it to-morrow, 
 those whom I would guard against undue 
 discouragement or too great elation. 
 
 This done, I walk across Paris in the 
 darkness of the night already paling into 
 dawn. To quiet my anxiety I walk alone 
 in the middle of the streets, silent, sonorous. 
 As I pass your door, my son, I greet your 
 memory. I cross the river as the stars are 
 growing dim. And, of course, before clos- 
 ing my eyes, I re-read your last letter. 
 
 It is balm for me who try to be a giver of 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 31 
 
 balm. These little pages, scratched oflF with 
 a pencil, reflect the wholesome state of 
 mind of your companions and yourself. 
 Your courage is not abated by the reading 
 of such bulletins as you find pasted on the 
 doors of the town-halls. Your eyes are 
 turned toward the enemy; you are ab- 
 sorbed in the task before you; you think of 
 naught else but your determination to be 
 victorious. 
 
VIII 
 
 August 23, 1 91 4. 
 
 I WAS looking forward, my dear Robert, 
 with melancholy, to this date of August 
 23 d. Ten years ago to-day, your beloved 
 brother, Guy, just twenty, left us forever. 
 
 I was on my homeward way from an 
 exploring expedition in Africa. My thoughts 
 sped on before me ; on the platform of the 
 railway station I fancied I could see those 
 I love, and who love me, standing in a little 
 group, expectant, joyous. 
 
 You alone were waiting to meet me in 
 reality. There was no time to be lost if I 
 wished to look once more into the eyes of 
 my boy, my first-born. 
 
 I lived over those hours as I passed be- 
 fore our house in the forest, the house 
 where, from one year to another, I used 
 to write down, my children, the marks 
 which showed how much you had grown, 
 as you stood against the door of my study. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 33 
 
 Why I do not know, but this memory of 
 happy days seemed to rise up as I went on 
 my way to visit the graves of our loved ones. 
 
 One summer's evening, soon after we 
 had come to Uve in the old house, and when 
 we were still full of happy plans for the 
 future, at about six o'clock, a stranger rang 
 at our door. Without giving his name he 
 asked to be received. 
 
 I greeted in him an elderly man, well and 
 honorably known. He said to me : 
 
 "Twenty-eight years ago I lived in this 
 house with my young wife. The War of 
 1870 broke in upon our happiness and we 
 were obliged to escape from our home. 
 Once, during the German occupation, how- 
 ever, I ventured to return here to see what 
 havoc the barbarians had wrought in our 
 nest. 
 
 "The vision of it was unbearable. An 
 officer of the commissariat had installed 
 himself in the middle of the courtyard. To 
 settle certain payments he had taken out 
 from our drawing-room a table, a precious 
 bit of furniture. His boots, which he did 
 
34 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 not wish to dirty, were placed on a cushion 
 which my wife had embroidered. Behind 
 him, on the lawn, a hundred horses, with 
 their riders, halters in hand, were picketed. 
 
 "Since then the wife of my youth has 
 died and I have never had the courage 
 to return here. But just now, happening 
 to pass the door of your house, — our 
 house, — I saw the lights in the windows. I 
 asked who lived here. I was told your 
 name. I rang, and I came in to ask: 'In 
 the spot where I have known such joy, are 
 you in turn happy?'" 
 
 Since then, often, on my way home from 
 Paris in the train, I have recalled that visit, 
 always with something like a shudder. 
 When the moon shines, the big tree in the 
 garden hides, with its sombre shadow, all 
 that lies behind it. It seemed to me that 
 I, too, could see the German soldiers there; 
 the phantom horses, the paymaster, with 
 his heels dug into the silk of a cushion. 
 
 Are these vandals to return? 
 
 Just now, as I drove along the road by 
 Mont Valerien, they were blowing the 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 35 
 
 houses up with dynamite. They were mak- 
 ing the way clear for the cannon's aim. 
 
 For the first time, as I sat by your graves, 
 I have not regretted, my Guy, that you and 
 your mother should have entered into 
 peace. 
 
 Watch over your beloved one, who is 
 fighting now, and know, if you can, that 
 here below we are living through terrible 
 hours in which our poor hearts sigh: 
 
 "Blessed be the Dead!" 
 
IX 
 
 So, then, the presentiment which op- 
 pressed me in the cemetery is to come 
 true? 
 
 A second time, since I have been able to 
 understand and to suffer, we are to see the 
 heart of France, Paris, pierced by their 
 ruthless lances ? 
 
 The other evening, when I reached the 
 War Office, they let me pass without look- 
 ing at my permits. The Court of Honor was 
 only dimly lighted. The official attendants 
 had disappeared from the hall, where they 
 stand. The big room beyond was plunged 
 in utter darkness. 
 
 I waited there a long time, opposite a 
 statue of the great Carnot, meditating, with 
 his chin resting on his hand. Through the 
 transparent curtains before the windows I 
 could see a military automobile standing at 
 the entrance steps, and its lanterns lighted 
 feebly this statue. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 37 
 
 How heavily this tete-a-tete weighed upon 
 my weary heart. I seemed to be watching 
 alone with him, who had organized the 
 victory. 
 
 At last a soldier who passed with a pile of 
 documents under his arm said to me: "The 
 major who usually receives you is gone." 
 
 Through the intricate hallways he led me 
 to a little office where I found my habitual 
 informant. He was in campaign uniform. He 
 said to me, with a solemn kind of joy : "The 
 Minister has granted me the favor of joining 
 my regiment." 
 
 Then he asked: "What news have you of 
 your son .? " 
 
 "I only know," I answered, "that he is 
 impatient to begin fighting." 
 
 "He will have satisfaction." 
 
 This morning I understood, as did the rest 
 of the people in France, why all was in dark- 
 ness last night : the Government has left us. 
 Naturally the press has to follow. I am to 
 remain here to serve as a bond between 
 our Paris "Matin," which will continue to 
 
38 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 publish an edition, and the new Military 
 Governor. 
 
 I have known him for years, and I love 
 him, this pilot who is to guide us in the pres- 
 ent storm. 
 
 In the days when he was governing his 
 African island and when I myself was strug- 
 gling in the mud of the Nile, we used to 
 correspond. 
 
 I go now to ask him to direct me. 
 
 His voice, made for commanding, seems 
 to chop off his words as though with a sword. 
 He says to me: "To all who approach me I 
 insist upon this one simple thought : in the 
 present struggle, our lives, the lives of those 
 we love, do not count. Such is the price of 
 Victory." 
 
 Then, after a silence: "Yesterday I saw a 
 regiment of whom the necessary sacrifice 
 had been asked. There were ten who re- 
 turned. They brought me back their flag. 
 Here is the example to spread abroad." 
 
The first one of those I love succumbs! 
 This is the message I receive : 
 
 Dear Mr 
 
 I have sad news for you. My poor brother 
 Jean was wounded by a bullet in the head. 
 Since then he has been missing! 
 
 Is there any way to find out if he has 
 been carried to some ambulance ? My fam- 
 ily know nothing of this. I would be glad 
 to talk with you. 
 
 This is what I have been able to learn 
 more precisely: Jean was fighting in the 
 North. Bewildered by a heavy mist his regi- 
 ment came full upon a mitrailleuse in am- 
 bush ; seven hundred of his companions were 
 shot down. Jean was safe. But as he was 
 turning back to join his major, suddenly he 
 said: "I have been struck." 
 
40 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 The bullet had hit him in the head. He 
 took off his cap. He was bleeding terribly. 
 He said again: "It is nothing." 
 
 He was seen crawling toward a little wood 
 in which he hoped to take shelter; the grove 
 was full of our wounded. The Germans, 
 knowing this, set fire to it ! 
 
 I have just seen Jean's brother. 
 
 I insisted to him that wounds in the 
 head, if they do not kill at once, can heal; 
 that Jean has probably been carried into 
 a German ambulance, or made prisoner, 
 none of which, of course, I believe myself. 
 
 He listened to me, the poor brother. He 
 seemed to be convinced. Then suddenly he 
 said in a low tone: "But suppose that they 
 have tortured him to death by setting fire 
 to the wood ?'* 
 
 I waited until he had gone, to weep. 
 
 Is it true, my little friend .? Shall we never 
 see each other again.? Have I known your 
 charming spirit only to lose you .? And by a 
 refinement of cruelty destiny has ended your 
 life on this sacred,date of the 23d, when, ten 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 41 
 
 years ago, I closed the eyes of the son who 
 seemed in you to have come to life again. 
 I lose you, and, in you, I lose my boy a 
 second time. 
 
XI 
 
 September 13, 1 914. 
 
 I HAVE kept from Robert the news that 
 Jean has been killed. He must not know 
 how dearly victory is costing us. 
 
 "I want you to feel, my son, how steady 
 Paris has been in learning that fate has 
 turned in our favor and that her majesty 
 shall not be violated. 
 
 "The clear Sunday morning when Paris 
 received the news of her delivery, there 
 was no singing, no celebration, no excited 
 crowds filling the boulevards. Paris wanted 
 no other hymn of joy than the text of the 
 official communiques, which, after being 
 cursed for their reserve, had suddenly let 
 fall the veil, to show you to us, you, our 
 combatants, in your glory. 
 
 "I have just returned from the battle- 
 field. With my own eyes I have seen the 
 hideous spectacle which you describe so dis- 
 creetly in your letters. As usual, indescrib- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 43 
 
 able filth. The Germans had accumulated 
 empty cases, stolen clothes, precious objects, 
 scattered and dishonored. The champagne 
 and cognac bottles were as numerous, lying 
 about the overturned cannon, as the empty 
 shells themselves. 
 
 "I saw their dead abandoned on the 
 earth ; quantities of apples which had been 
 shaken down by the bombarding were piled 
 up around the bodies. 
 
 "They were the Giants of the Guard. 
 
 "By what miracle, my son, are you able 
 to overthrow them, in a hand-to-hand 
 struggle, these creatures who seem to tower 
 above you with all their height and with all 
 their weight ? 
 
 "I know! You are acting of your free will 
 and they are merely obeying orders. They 
 are seeking a prey and you are fighting for 
 an idea. - j 
 
 " But how can I help shuddering, my son, 
 when I read your last letter? — 'My men 
 are now seasoned against the bombarding, 
 the constant bursting of shell. I am waiting 
 to test them in an attack with the bayonet.' " 
 
XII 
 
 Is it my grief over Jean or is it the dread- 
 ful scene of the battlefield? For the last 
 ten days I have lived without letters. I can 
 no longer sleep. 
 
 I know only too well how to read the 
 communiques not to understand that, van- 
 quished on the Marne, the enemy is seeking 
 a revenge on the Meuse. 
 
 It is there, my Robert, that you and 
 your comrades are making your resistance, 
 at what a cost ! 
 
 Without indicating exactly the spot, with- 
 out any date, the resume of yesterday com- 
 mended highly your valor. It concluded 
 bluntly: "On both sides the losses are 
 heavy." 
 
 I carried that weight to-night on my 
 homeward way. 
 
 At the hour I return, all the lights are 
 extinguished or lowered; the moon, tri- 
 umphant, seems to make of Paris a vast 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 45 
 
 sepulchre. I looked at this pale light in 
 the heavens and I thought to myself: "You 
 who are walking here, poor man, after your 
 day's work, and who go now to seek a little 
 rest before morning, — do you know even 
 whether, at this moment, somewhere, on 
 the ground, your son is not stretched out 
 now, his mouth and his eyes open?" 
 
 The anguish was so intense that I believe 
 I groaned, like a lost dog, in the night. 
 
 Yes, life and death no longer have the 
 same value as of old, in time of peace. A few 
 months ago, my Robert, your sister, you, 
 and I read with astonishment one of the 
 stories of '93 in which the youth of France 
 mount the scaffold with a smile. So much 
 courage, so much detachment, seemed to 
 us almost incomprehensible! 
 
 To-day we understand. You, the combat- 
 ants, who have gone to the very source of 
 heroism itself; we, who love you and who 
 have now at stake more than our own lives, 
 — we understand. For you, as for us, one 
 thing alone matters: the "Day of Glory" 
 must dawn. 
 
46 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 This is what you think, is it not, and 
 what you want me to think, my son, wher- 
 ever you are — beyond the moon? 
 
XIII 
 
 September 20, 19 14. 
 
 In the letters which he wrote to me regu- 
 larly up to the end of August, Robert made 
 things as clear as he could without disobey- 
 ing his chiefs orders. He spoke to me of 
 what he himself is the most interested in: 
 his men and their manoeuvres. 
 
 Yet, I have no great merit in imagining 
 that doubtless his fiancee, our dear Helen, 
 has probably been more liberally dealt with. 
 In order to quiet my anxiety, I have begged 
 her to send me a few crumbs of her riches. 
 She has just sent me a veritable Blue Book. 
 Since the beginning of August, until the first 
 contact with the enemy, our Robert has re- 
 lated here the story of his soul. 
 
 What emotion for me who have followed 
 his every move for the last ten days, to see 
 how he avoids in his letters all that could 
 give his beloved a shadow of anxiety. To 
 read what he says, over Helen's shoulder, 
 
48 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 one would really think that he is telling 
 about the manoeuvres in some land of 
 dreams — where the flowers grow only to 
 be offered to a fiancee, where the moon 
 rises only to light up her apparition! 
 
 If you return, my son, from this en- 
 chanted country, where, by the magic of 
 your love, the shells are turned into roses, 
 how well you will deserve to be made 
 happy by this child of your choice. 
 
 If you are to climb higher and ever higher 
 the way of sacrifice, to the height where 
 stands the cross, then gloiy be to this young 
 love which fills your soul, and, in the horrors 
 of war, enables you to live a supernatural 
 existence. 
 
XIV 
 
 LETTERS FROM ROBERT TO HELEN 
 August to September^ 1914 (Fragments) 
 
 August 2, 1914. 
 My little fiancee J so dear to me : 
 
 From our first halting-place I write you 
 my first letter. The way has seemed very 
 long to me as I was going ever farther from 
 my happiness. 
 
 We were herded together in the corridors 
 of the train, seated on our canteens, and, as 
 each of us was wearing his best smile, we 
 looked quite like some pleasure excursion 
 starting off. The peasants, scattered along 
 the track, were in the same good humor. 
 We asked them: "Who will bring in the 
 harvest?'' 
 
 Everywhere the answer was the same: 
 "The women!" 
 
 And we were greeted by the waving of 
 handkerchiefs. 
 
50 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 I found some of my old comrades, and the 
 contact with them seemed to make me a 
 soldier again. All my life in Paris seemed 
 already so far away ; but you, you stood out 
 above everything. I tell those with whom I 
 have become acquainted (one grows inti- 
 mate quickly nowadays with people of one's 
 own milieu) that I am engaged. Every one 
 has something kind to say. In the train I 
 ran across an employe from the factory. He 
 spoke to me of you at once, timidly, to please 
 me. 
 
 "Were you able to bid each other good- 
 bye?" he asked. "How sad you must have 
 been!" 
 
 What a good fellow! 
 
 My little Helen, I think of you constantly. 
 I listen to your watch on my wrist and to 
 your last words in my heart. 
 
 August 3, 1914. 
 
 You wished that I might find a friend. I 
 have found one, a colleague of my father. 
 He directs a large illustrated paper which 
 you have known since your childhood; he 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 51 
 
 has written several successful plays. For all 
 this, this veritable Parisian is the most 
 simple, the most cordial of companions one 
 could imagine for such a campaign. 
 
 We shall call him, if you will, by his first 
 name. Lieutenant Jean-Jose. It will be 
 easier to speak of him in this way when I 
 write. 
 
 His charming devotion to his wife and to 
 his little boy make him indulgent of my 
 heart's preoccupations. With him I shall be 
 able to talk of you and of my father. 
 
 Tuesday, August 4, 191 4. 
 
 My day has been a full one. I had to 
 clothe my men, arm them, distribute the 
 cartridges and other stuff, the dishes, the 
 kettles, the food. 
 
 I have worked without ceasing, urging on 
 my sergeants and my corporals. All this 
 can be told in a line, but it has filled sixteen 
 hours. 
 
 My men need seriously to be taken in 
 hand. Individually they are all ardor, all 
 aflame ; but they don't hang together. It is 
 
52 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 so long since they have served as soldiers 
 that they need discipline. I shall try to work 
 them into shape. 
 
 ' If you could see me, my Helen, you would 
 not recognize your cotillion partner of last 
 winter. In the first place, I am very dirty, 
 having almost no time to devote to my 
 toilet, and then I have handled so much 
 metal, so many boots, that my hands are 
 quite impossible. I scold, I try to be fero- 
 cious, terrifying. But these are habits 
 which I shall not always keep, I promise 
 you. 
 
 August 5, 1 91 4. 
 
 We know now what we are going to do in 
 the East to begin with. We shall form a 
 part of the mobile defence of a fortress — 
 a celebrated bishopric — which no doubt 
 played an important part in your composi- 
 tion on the history of France when you were 
 given good marks. 
 
 I assembled my men at seven o'clock. I 
 made them perform one or two exercises. 
 Things are not going badly. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 53 
 
 For the last two days we have been helped 
 by the young girls and women who, un- 
 ceasingly, have been stitching on insignias, 
 mending our trousers, putting numbers on 
 our sacks. The men were enchanted. 
 
 This morning the girls brought us flowers. 
 The men put them on their rifles, on their 
 caps. The whole company was decorated 
 with enormous daisies and dahlias. The 
 train went off covered with branches. 
 
 They must become laurel branches ! 
 
 August 6, 1 914. 
 
 We are waiting the order which will sum- 
 mon us nearer the front, and it looks as 
 though we might have to curb our impa- 
 tience for eight or ten days more. It is ex- 
 asperating. Forgive me for confessing it, 
 but you understand, don't you ? what I feel. 
 
 I don't risk anything more by going into 
 battle now than in a fortnight, and this de- 
 lay is so tiresome. We cannot leave the 
 barracks, as the order to move on may 
 arrive at any moment. One grows irritable 
 doing nothing. 
 
54 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 My men will be in condition in about two 
 or three days; they could be ready now. 
 They already respond very well to all I ask. 
 
 The other morning our flag was presented 
 to us. It is its first appearance, as our regi- 
 ment has only just been formed, and as yet, 
 naturally, it has not been christened by any 
 victories. It is good to think that, if we are 
 able, we shall inscribe the first names on 
 this silk. 
 
 I talk of you with my orderly, a fine fellow, 
 quite clever, and who was to have been mar- 
 ried on Saturday. He can understand me. 
 
 I long to go to battle soon so that I may 
 come back to you soon. 
 
 Jugust 7, 1914. 
 
 We are still safe. We sleep in villages 
 where one does not always find a post- 
 office. 
 
 I am obliged to look out for my men, their 
 food, their poor feet. They are a good lot 
 and they have confidence in me. They know 
 that I have been engaged for a month and 
 they are devoted to me already. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 55 
 
 Yesterday we were quartered in a charm- 
 ing village, in the hollow of a valley, where 
 a tiny river winds its way. Jean- Jose and I 
 carried our canteens to a field and there we 
 took a bath in the stream. It was delight- 
 ful. In the evening I walked out in the vil- 
 lage, for my service first, as I was on duty, 
 and then for my pleasure, as this little 
 town, sleeping, with our fires aglow in the 
 open air and the full moon which rose in the 
 sky, was really beautiful. I went for a mo- 
 ment into the church. There were three 
 old women kneeling in the dim candlelight. 
 I said a prayer for us. 
 
 The country is marvellous. Flowers 
 everywhere and of all descriptions : bluets, 
 enormous daisies, digitalis, morning-glories. 
 
 I send you a wild carnation which this 
 morning, by the roadside, I picked for 
 you. 
 
 August 13, 1914. 
 
 To-day I received four letters from you. 
 My orderly brought them to me trium- 
 phantly. Like the others in my company 
 
56 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 he knows from whom they come, and he is 
 delighted to hand them to me. 
 
 The other morning the major reviewed 
 our battalion ; our company was congratu- 
 lated for its good bearing. We were the only 
 ones complimented. This does n't seem 
 much, judged from afar; yet here, with the 
 sun so exhausting, the difficulties of obtain- 
 ing sufficient water, the absence of all re- 
 sources, it is a most complicated matter to 
 make the men keep their shoes clean, with 
 the buttons sewed on. 
 
 Last year when I went to serve my twenty- 
 three days, I still felt as though I were mas- 
 querading in my uniform. To-day nothing 
 remains in my surroundings to remind me 
 of what I used to be. Thus, for example, 
 this morning I had my sword sharpened for 
 the second time. One of the men held it on 
 the grindstone until it was able to cut mar- 
 vellously well; he finished the blade off like 
 a needle-point. As a matter of fact my best 
 arms are my men. I want them to follow me, 
 and they are all determined to do so. They 
 declare to me that I shall return to marry 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 57 
 
 you, and I know that in the hour of danger 
 they will not fail me. 
 
 August 15, 1914. 
 
 I shall not have the joy of going into 
 battle on my twenty-seventh birthday. 
 
 This letter will reach you long after the 
 iSth of August; it will tell you that on that 
 day I was thinking of you, — no more than 
 usual, but with greater reverence. It used 
 to be a day of rejoicing at home, because of 
 my mother, of Marie-Rose, and myself. My 
 father used to spoil us so. 
 
 I think of all these dear ones whom I have 
 loved and whom I love. In memory of them, 
 and of you, I would like to have done some- 
 thing brilliant to-day. But here we still 
 are. 
 
 Don't think that we are considered as 
 useless; we are ready. We are being kept 
 here in order to be moved to the spot where 
 we can be most useful when we have our 
 first clash with the enemy. 
 
 We shall triumph because of your prayers. 
 
 Dearest ! may I ask you a favor? 
 
58 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 The 23 d of August is the anniversary of 
 my brother's death. My mother used al- 
 ways to have a Mass said for him on that 
 day, and I did the same when she was no 
 longer here. You know how much I loved 
 my brother Guy. He was charming. I am 
 sure you would have loved him, too. You 
 will make me very happy, if, on the 23 d of 
 August, you pray for him as well as for me. 
 
 This birthday of mine has been rather 
 dull. We got up at three this morning to 
 lead our men up to the place where they are 
 digging trenches. We are working in all 
 haste now because we expect soon a big 
 battle in the North. 
 
 This morning I was thinking of you, fol- 
 lowing you in every act. You got up early, 
 went to Mass. I saw all this in the blue sky, 
 for the plain where we are camping over- 
 looks the valley of the Moselle, and the 
 horizon is far, far away. 
 
 Yes, my little Helen, I shall commend 
 myself to God when I am under the enemy's 
 fire for the first time. I shall think of you 
 then. I don't feel like the somewhat cow- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 59 
 
 ardly person who is converted because "One 
 can never tell what may happen!'' No, I 
 have already spoken to you of this. I have 
 faith, and it seems to me that if ever our lives 
 are in the keeping of God, it must be at such 
 times as these I am traversing. I have al- 
 ways prayed in the solemn moments of my 
 life and I shall continue to do so now. 
 
 This evening — for your sake — I have 
 tried to make myself look as well as possi- 
 ble. That is to say I have scrubbed myself 
 from head to foot, and, after shaving, I have 
 put some powder on my face. It is the first 
 time such a thing has happened, I can as- 
 sure you. I perfumed my handkerchief with 
 your perfume and I gave an extra touch to 
 my mustache. 
 
 Jean- Jose giggled with glee. 
 
 August 18, 1 914. 
 
 My beloved: 
 
 Fear not! I am leaving now after four- 
 teen days of preparation. I know my men 
 thoroughly; I can rely on them. This is 
 great good luck. I am very calm and I am 
 
6o ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 thoroughly acquainted with my service. 
 Perhaps we shall not be in actual fighting 
 for a few days still. All this is the fortune 
 of war. 
 
 Excuse me if I say to you, so frankly, that 
 I am happy. At last I shall be able to do 
 something. It is an unheard-of joy that I 
 should be able to fight for you. 
 
 Dearest, you can do as much for me — 
 more even than I can do for you. You can 
 pray for me and protect me by your love. 
 Knowing that my dead are watching over 
 me and that you are entrusting me to God, 
 I go in peace. 
 
 August 19, 1914. 
 
 We have advanced slightly to the north. 
 We are now about fifteen kilometres from 
 the first line of the German trenches. Daily 
 we pay honor to our flag — a touching 
 ceremony. 
 
 I still have a bed to sleep in, in the home 
 of an old couple, childless, and unfortu- 
 nately very cross, the woman especially. 
 But, in such cases, one always fares better 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 6i 
 
 in the end than when one meets at first with 
 a good welcome. As a matter of fact, after I 
 have asked politely for a table, some water, 
 some cooking-utensils, and have been re- 
 fused them, I proceed to help myself without 
 further ceremony ; this right of commandeer- 
 ing is one of the chief advantages of war. 
 You see, dearest, I am not always the over- 
 polite young man whom you used rather to 
 make fun of. But my men are not given to 
 destroying things. I am very severe on this 
 point. I want them to behave courteously, 
 respectfully. 
 
 August 26, 1914. 
 
 Still nothing serious to report. To be on 
 the front here is quite restful. The village 
 is strongly entrenched and it commands 
 the plain for a great distance. "They" will 
 not pass this way. 
 
 I am making myself a coat. I discovered 
 in my company a tailor who is able to exe- 
 cute such a garment with a soldier's hood. 
 We have taken the buttons and the lining 
 from an old dolman; we have ripped from 
 
62 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 two caps some stiff linen for the collar. With 
 some gold braid found in a work-box this 
 man is going to make me the regiment 
 numbers. 
 
 It amuses me to have this coat put to- 
 gether, haphazard, with such materials as 
 we could find by the way. 
 
 The moon no longer shines, and it grows 
 dark early. When I am out for night service 
 I look up at the stars and the sky, which 
 you may be gazing at too. These nights of 
 absolute silence are impressive when we 
 have extinguished our fires, so that they 
 may not betray our presence, and when 
 we hear the "Who goes there?" of the sen- 
 tinels as they proceed on their rounds. 
 
 It is all so beautiful, and perhaps for that 
 very reason I feel a great loneliness. 
 
 Of course I cannot really wish that you 
 were here with me. You would be too un- 
 comfortable and I cannot imagine you here 
 among all these men. . . . But, how I long 
 for your apparition ... 1" 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 63 
 August 27, 1914. 
 
 If you knew what good your letters do me ! 
 When things begin to weigh heavily I say to 
 myself: "Helen loves me!" — and I take a 
 fresh start. 
 
 Constantly during the day I kiss your 
 watch. I think my men must have no- 
 ticed this. They speak to me often of you 
 — "the lieutenant's fiancee!" When one 
 of them becomes sullen or homesick I gen- 
 erally hear this remark being addressed to 
 him by a comrade: "Don't you suppose the 
 lieutenant would rather be with his fiancee 
 than here?" 
 
 And that ends the discussion. 
 
 We lead a life in general which absorbs all 
 our energies. Only one things haunts us — 
 the memory of a kiss ! It lingers in the mind 
 like the caress of one soul for another. . . . 
 As such I bring it to you. 
 
 August 29, 1 9 14. 
 I beg of you to go on doing things as 
 though I were there, so that I may know 
 just how to think of you, and so that when 
 
64 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 I return at last to your side, I shall find the 
 same Helen I left a month ago. When I 
 give orders to my men I want them to be 
 executed as though you were there to see 
 all that they do. When some good idea 
 comes into my head I am as proud of it as 
 though you were able to give me your appro- 
 bation. . . . Thus you are a part of all I do. 
 
 Last night I slept in the bedroom of a 
 little child who had left her dolls there — an 
 Alsatian, with the big bow, a cradle full of 
 dollies. It made an amusing contrast with 
 myself, in my uniform, on the bed. 
 
 These homes into which one casts a glance 
 are interesting. They reveal something of 
 the life of these people whom one sees only 
 once in passing. Generally we are given 
 the best room full of all the particular treas- 
 ures: the wreath of orange blossom, the 
 photographs of bridal pairs, gilded vases, 
 boxes, and a profusion of plush and imita- 
 tion tortoise-shell ; lots of holy pictures and 
 statuettes and rosaries. They seem to have 
 kept something of the spirit of Jeanne d' 
 Arc 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 65 
 August 30, 1 91 4. 
 
 This morning I took a delightful walk. 
 We call it a patrol. I set out at three o'clock 
 with six soldiers and a corporal. We 
 tramped over the fields and through the 
 woods, beyond the farthest outposts, to see 
 if "they" are approaching. 
 
 We go always at dawn, for it is at sun- 
 rise that the German cavalry scouts are in 
 search of us. It was charming, but we had 
 no success. The pine trees, the thyme, and 
 the hay smelt wonderfully good. We went 
 through the outposts ; we passed the line of 
 sentinels, who asked for the watchword. 
 And then the chase began! It was very 
 amusing. There was a mist and we started 
 up first the night birds, then the partridges. 
 The sun rose and we got back at about five 
 o'clock with the sound of the first church 
 bells ringing the early Mass. 
 
 All the time I was thinking of you, my 
 beloved little fiancee. In the sky there were 
 mauves, and blues, and greys which you 
 would have loved. About us, and behind us, 
 my six good men were acting as your guard. 
 
66 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 ... I shall give myself, heart and soul, I 
 shall give myself, for my country and for 
 you. You make one in my heart. But when 
 I shall have done all I can, then I shall try- 
 to return. 
 
 August 31, 1914. 
 
 We are very much occupied just now. My 
 company has been detailed to different out- 
 posts at a certain distance from the battle- 
 field. They are set to guard all the ways of 
 escape, to patrol, inside and outside of the 
 lines. We sleep without undressing and 
 armed. This has been going on for three 
 days. It might be fatiguing, but it is really 
 amusing. I am wonderfully well, abso- 
 lutely well. 
 
 We are free to decide who may live and 
 who must die in this village, but we don't 
 abuse our rights. The inhabitants have 
 grown accustomed to us and they do all 
 they can for us. They give us eggs, milk, 
 fruit, for the place is fairly large and 
 there are still some chickens left, and some 
 cows. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 67 
 
 I keep on perfecting my men's appear- 
 ance. As I had no number-badges for my 
 new regiment, — a fact which annoyed the 
 colonel every time we encountered him, — 
 I decided to make some myself. A girl in 
 the village who knows how to embroider 
 accomplished this miracle with some ravel- 
 lings of gold braid. I had been given to un- 
 derstand that this young person was an 
 artist. The charge for her work was six 
 sous, and that was quite sufficient pay- 
 ment. She managed to create for my cap, 
 my coat, and my dolman, three cubist fig- 
 ures which have a great deal of local color. 
 At least I now wear the number of my regi- 
 ment. 
 
 Your ribbon has never left my arm. You 
 will untie it when I come back. I send 
 you two flowers in your favorite colors 
 which I picked this morning. The four- 
 leafed clover — or what I shall ask you 
 to consider as such — was given to me 
 for you, tied up as you see it, by one of my 
 men. I promised to send it to you from 
 him. 
 
68 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 Postal card. 
 {The date has been scratched out.) 
 
 I am well, perfectly well. Not the slight- 
 est trace of fatigue, and our spirits are ex- 
 cellent. I am thinking of you all the time 
 and I hope that you are not anxious. We 
 are going to drive them back surely and I 
 shall return to you. Have no fear of it. I 
 am thinking of you ; I love you ! The days 
 are splendid and the nights very fine. Last 
 night the street — of which I enclose a 
 picture — was full of the camp-fires of our 
 soldiers, and above was the moon enveloping 
 all in its light. 
 
 I love you ! I hope that I may be allowed 
 to say this on a postal card without its be- 
 ing held up ! I am thinking of you. I keep 
 everything that comes to me from you. 
 Your watch goes well. I depend entirely 
 upon it and I nurse it as though it were a 
 little bit of you. 
 
 I send you my deep, all my deep, great 
 tenderness. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 69 
 September 8, 1914. 
 
 My beloved : 
 
 There has been a hole in my letters. There 
 is none in my skin, and so you will be happy, 
 though you have n't heard from me. 
 
 Yesterday we passed through Nancy. It 
 was extraordinary. Every one was so 
 pleased with the work we have been doing 
 the last few days that they could n't make 
 enough of us. One lady was distributing 
 postal cards which she collected afterwards 
 to mail for us. I scratched off two words to 
 you. A young man took our pictures; he 
 promised to send you the proofs. Jean- 
 Jose declares that if you can stand this like- 
 ness of me it is a proof of your love. 
 
 I must tell you that we had been five 
 days without our baggage, — two nights in 
 the trenches, — and that we had come a 
 long way in the sun and in the dust. We 
 were very dirty; but you see I am whole. 
 
 At night, on our plain, I prayed for you; 
 I thought of you as I looked at the moon. 
 It was so beautiful. Fancy the terrace of 
 Saint-Germain, only longer, and stretching 
 
70 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 out before one the fields of Lorraine beyond, 
 extending to Luneville. 
 
 In this valley they had wickedly set fire 
 to five villages which we saw in flames. 
 They were bombarding in every direction, 
 taking poor aim, as they did not bring down 
 a single church steeple, though they tried 
 hard enough. 
 
 I was thinking of you. 
 
 Do you know that picture in the moon 
 which is known as the "kiss"? It was there 
 so clearly those two nights and I never grew 
 tired of looking at it. 
 
 September 14, 19 14. 
 
 I send you a flower which I picked this 
 afternoon on land that we have taken from 
 them. I kissed it and kissed it again. I 
 wanted you to find on it the trace of my 
 love! 
 
 It was delightful to feel one's self advanc- 
 ing on ground that they had been obliged to 
 abandon. They retreated suddenly and to a 
 great distance, and they were greater in num- 
 bers than we. But they fled just the same. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 71 
 
 I have lived through interesting days 
 and your picture has protected me. You 
 know that I kiss it every night in the dark. 
 It was exceedingly complicated, because I 
 had to unfasten my coat in the rain, but I 
 would not have missed it for anything in the 
 world. 
 
 . I told you that once when I received one 
 of your letters in the firing-line, a quarter of 
 an hour before an attack, I leaned up against 
 a tree in order to read in peace what you 
 had written. Don't think I was afraid. I 
 handed the command over to my sergeant 
 and stood under cover only in order not to 
 miss a word from you. I took up my post 
 at once; the tree, indeed, had served rather 
 to keep my men from seeing me than the 
 shells from striking me. 
 
 While we were stationed in the woods, 
 as we had no more water, idiotic as it 
 may seem, in spite of the constant rain, 
 I was entrusted with a reconnaissance in 
 one of the three villages just beyond us, a 
 village in which the enemy was getting 
 provisions. 
 
72 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 A reconnaissance of this sort is very 
 amusing. I set out with ten well-picked 
 men. We were followed by a dozen others, 
 armed, of course, but carrying a collection 
 of bottles and buckets. We crept along 
 quietly, entering the gardens by the back. 
 
 There happened to te no Germans there, 
 at the time, which was less amusing. But 
 it delighted us to see the heads of the in- 
 habitants looking wildly out and to notice 
 the change of expression on those unhappy 
 faces when they perceived our red trousers. 
 We were so glad to be able to say to them: 
 "Don't be afraid! We promise you that 
 they shall not return." 
 
 We took the water and these poor people 
 gave us everything they could spare: eggs, 
 milk, a little piece of butter, and the last 
 bottle of white wine in the village, which 
 an old man went and hunted up for us. 
 They would not let me pay for anything. 
 They were amazed that I did not let my 
 men pick any of their fruit. We carried off 
 our treasures in our caps. I left a picket on 
 guard, above the village, at the entrance of 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 73 
 
 the woods, and the enemy has not returned 
 since. 
 
 To-day I went to see one of their bat- 
 teries which has been hailing shells on us 
 for two days past, and which we succeeded 
 at last in smashing. I will try to bring you 
 back one of the shell baskets as a souvenir. 
 It would do very well to hang on a car- 
 riage, for umbrellas. 
 
 What brutes these Germans are ! If you 
 could see the state the villages are in when 
 we reach them after they have just re- 
 treated. They have not had time to set fire 
 to them, or else they have not dared to do 
 so, fearing reprisals. But they have broken 
 everything to bits. The inhabitants tell us 
 horrible stories which are only too true. 
 On their disgusting pointed helmets, on 
 their belts, on all the things we find aban- 
 doned, and on their dead, they have in- 
 scribed everywhere the words: ''Gott mit 
 uns'' (God is with us). 
 
 In this sad little village they have none 
 the less pillaged the church and installed in 
 it their stables. It is a sorry sight to see: 
 
74 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 there is straw on the ground, — in what 
 state you can best imagine, — the statues 
 have been overturned and broken, the altar 
 is upside down, the flowers are strewn be- 
 fore it, they have taken the priests' robes 
 and mantles to cover their horses, the sac- 
 risty is full of empty bottles ! 
 
 I don't believe there is another people in 
 the world capable of acting in such a man- 
 ner. We are rejoicing in proportion, to be 
 regaining the ground from which this scum 
 is forced to retire. And also I say to myself 
 that it means drawing nearer to the moment 
 when I shall be with you again. 
 
 I have been covered with mud for days, 
 and in fact we are all in the same condition. 
 My men look like bandits. Our clothes, our 
 leather, our arms, are very much the proper 
 color. It is all very picturesque, but not 
 exactly elegant. 
 
 The other day, as we were passing through 
 Saint-Mihiel, I purchased a delightful little 
 muffler, violet and chocolate. It is having a 
 great success, for one of the essentials of 
 war is to modify a soldier's uniform. We 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 75 
 
 try to keep as warm as possible, as we are 
 out of doors all the time. We are preparing 
 for the winter nights. 
 
 I was to have spent these September days 
 with you at Fontainebleau. I am thinking 
 of this constantly, and I am so glad that 
 "they" did not get as far as that. We shall 
 find everything just as we left it there. 
 
 September 17, 191 4. 
 
 Yesterday, dearest, we were in contact 
 with them, through our scouts. To-day they 
 have disappeared. We are in the woods, on 
 the edge of a plateau which overlooks the 
 plain of the Woevre. In the far distance 
 we can see the forts of Metz. 
 
 The village is enchanting, with its old 
 church and fourteenth-century cloister 
 perched on the clifif. Beneath us, as far as 
 the eye can reach, the plain and the forest 
 are stretched out. This is the way which 
 they follow stealthily to reach our frontier. 
 
 We are installed in huts left by the Ger- 
 mans, and it is amusing to think of their 
 having made them. The men have trimmed 
 
76 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 them up in great style and our nigger village 
 would delight you. Jean- Jose, the captain, 
 and I have chosen a round hut which has 
 quite the form of an Indian chief's wigwam. 
 It is comfortable. Outside there is as much 
 confusion as when Cyrano was before Arras. 
 
 I have made a stool out of some branches. 
 Jean- Jose has a similar seat, and together 
 we play ecarte on a drum. Just now we had 
 our tea in Russian style, with slices of lemon, 
 and some bread toasted before the fire on 
 a bayonet: all in the face of the enemy. 
 Isn't that rather smart? Unfortunately, 
 the enemy is quite heart-breaking; he sys- 
 tematically refuses to fight and keeps fall- 
 ing back without firing a shot. Now and 
 then we manage to seize a belated patrol, 
 but to beat them we must follow them into 
 their own ground. 
 
 Dearest, the rain has succeeded in making 
 its way into our cabin. I have had to come 
 nearer to the light and now the page I am 
 writing you is very dirty. Will you excuse 
 it ^ I have not time to begin again. 
 
 I talk of you all the time with Jean-Jose, 
 
ON THE FIELD GF HONOR 77 
 
 who is really a delightful companion. We 
 play cards when we have nothing else to do. 
 First we played for champagne. We gave 
 that up, as we never could find the cham- 
 pagne to pay our debts. Then we played 
 our turn to fight; the winner was to be the 
 first in battle. But that was too boring for 
 the loser. 
 
 I have just lost a rubber: a dinner which 
 I am to give for you, and Jean- Jose and his 
 wife, when I come back. Just now we are 
 gambling for our supper ; it amuses us. 
 
 One of the men has just brought me a 
 sketch of our hut. The person with his back 
 turned is I, deep in conversation, before our 
 tea. The same fellow, who is a sculptor, has 
 promised to make a drawing which I will 
 send to you. 
 
 Heavens ! How far away you seem. You 
 couldn't bear the muddy creature I am 
 now. 
 
 September 19, 1 914. 
 
 We are resting just now in a village, Jean- 
 Jose and I. We shall sleep in the same bed. 
 
78 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 in the home of a kind old woman. We have 
 sent our orderlies to sleep in a barn and we 
 have made a splendid fire to dry ourselves 
 by. I break the wood; Jean- Jose blows 
 through an iron tube, which they use in 
 this part of the world, instead of a bellows. 
 It is idyllic ! 
 
 I will let you know to-morrow if we have 
 had pleasant dreams. 
 
 September 20, 1 91 4. 
 
 It is four o'clock in the morning. We have 
 just been wakened with a start. We must 
 be off at five. We are to descend into the 
 plain and wait there for orders. If they are 
 what I hope they will be, dearest, the mo- 
 ment I have so longed for is near. Do not 
 be anxious. I will come back to you. 
 
 Such love as ours is bound to endure. 
 
XV 
 
 This afternoon, at Versailles, we closed 
 our meeting of the County Councillors. 
 One of my colleagues brought me back to 
 Paris in his motor. 
 
 It is only six o'clock, so I decide to stop at 
 my office before dinner to see if there is any 
 news. My office is empty. The maps of the 
 Etat-Major are laid out for my evening 
 task, the last mail is on the table in its usual 
 place. 
 
 Before I have had time to sit down my 
 attention is drawn to two letters which 
 both look alike, in official envelopes, un- 
 sealed, without stamps, addressed hastily 
 and by the same hand. A postal card from 
 the armies protrudes from under them. 
 
 It is not my boy's writing on this card, 
 but his signature is at the bottom. He has 
 dictated the following: 
 
8o ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 Military Hospital, Alpha, 
 Saturday, September 26, 1914. 
 
 My dear Father : 
 
 I have been wounded in the arm, but that 
 is nothing. Another bullet passed through 
 my lungs; the spine is bad. This is tire- 
 some, for my legs are paralyzed. But they 
 tell me that, as the wound is a clean one, 
 I shall recover. It will take time. That is 
 all. 
 
 I am able to write to you owing to the 
 
 kindness of Mr. N ^ one of the officials 
 
 of this hospital. 
 
 Beneath, the signature unsteady. 
 
 He is not dead! 
 
 Let us look at the letters. 
 
 I chance to fall upon the one which he 
 tenderly hoped I might read first. 
 
 I don't know the name of the military- 
 doctor who signed it. 
 
 This letter was written on the outskirts 
 of the battlefield a short time after my boy 
 had been picked up: 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 8i 
 
 September 23, 19 14. 
 {No place indicated.) 
 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 I am writing to you at the request of your 
 son, seriously wounded in the chest yester- 
 day morning. His wound, however, is not 
 mortal ; it will be a question of time and of 
 care. He is at present in an ambulance and 
 he will probably be moved on in a few days. 
 He is under the care of a good surgeon and 
 he wants for nothing. 
 
 Louis P 
 
 (Doctor of the ist class,) 
 
 "The wound is not mortal . . ." "He 
 will probably be moved ..." 
 
 Is this true.? Then why the second 
 letter? 
 
 I open it ; it bears the same date as the first. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 Just now I wrote to you by your son's 
 bedside, almost under his dictation, a let- 
 ter which could leave you a certain amount 
 of hope. To be sincere I must deny what 
 
82 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 I have said. I would not do so, as I do 
 not wish to be the first to bring you such 
 bad news, but it would not be loyal on my 
 part to leave you under the impression of a 
 message which you had the right to suppose 
 sincere. 
 
 Your son bears with great courage such a 
 wound as his is. His only thought is for his 
 family. 
 
 Please, sir, let me send you my affection- 
 ate sympathy for your grief as a father at 
 such a time, and, may I add, my cordial 
 admiration for your son. 
 
 Louis P 
 
 It is the death decree . . . ! 
 
 Thank you, both of you, thank you. You, 
 a stranger, who with such fraternal pity 
 have taken the time to write me the truth, 
 and you, my son, who have lied to me. 
 
 The card and the two letters are there 
 open on the table. I don't need to read 
 them again. I don't wring my hands, I don't 
 cry out, "My God !" I am waiting for that 
 feeling of emptiness to leave my head. My 
 
; ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 83 
 
 other boy and his mother I have followed to 
 the grave, but an instant ago I still had a 
 son. Now he has fallen beside the others! 
 It takes a moment for me to steady myself 
 under the shock. 
 
 I must go and tell my colleagues. 
 
 In the editing-rooms downstairs, I show 
 them the postal card. 
 
 "This is the letter of a hero!" 
 
 "And this one?" 
 
 I read it aloud to them. 
 
 I don't know exactly what I shall do. I 
 think I shall go up and write my article. 
 Tenderly, a hand is laid on my shoulder; a 
 voice says: "You are going to your boy!" 
 
 I look at the comrade who has spoken 
 these words as though it depended on him^ 
 to dispel the difficulties which bar the way. 
 Not that I am not longing, my child, to be 
 near you, while you live, or if you are gone ; 
 but just now I seem to have no individual 
 existence, to be only the reflex of my 
 father and his forefathers. Sea-men, all of 
 them, they put duty above everything else : 
 a rigid discipline. It has been so generally 
 
84 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 understood, I myself have explained to so 
 many unfortunate parents, that, when our 
 sons fall on the battlefield, it is impossible 
 to go to them. I can't believe that such a 
 favor is to be granted me. 
 
 Some one says: "Yes! yes! There is a 
 train from the Gare de I'Est at half-past 
 eight. ... Of course you must have a permit 
 from the Governor of Paris. . . . Hurry and 
 find him. ... If you are in luck you should 
 be able to leave to-night. " 
 
 I start at those words ... "If you are in 
 luck!... in luck!" 
 
 How kind they are. How eager to help 
 me. The attendants are standing near the 
 door. . . . They look at me and bow as I go. 
 I thank them and say: "Why, it is rain- 
 ing!" 
 
 I am still in the vestibule under cover. It 
 is not rain, but a cold perspiration that wets 
 my brow . . . my hands. 
 
XVI 
 
 I AM in luck. 
 
 The Governor receives me at once. 
 
 "General," I say to him, "when I came 
 to see you two weeks ago, you said to me: 
 'One thing alone is of consequence: that we 
 give ourselves, all we have, and all we love.' 
 — It is done. My son has been mortally 
 wounded!" 
 
 "My poor friend!" 
 
 I felt a sob in my throat as he said this, 
 holding out his hand to me, this chief, so 
 emaciated that he seems more like a thought 
 than a body in action. 
 
 "Where did your son fall?" he asks. 
 
 I name the place, yonder, so far away in 
 Lorraine. . . . 
 
 He answers: "All depends on General 
 Headquarters. I shall do what is necessary 
 . . . the best will be a laisser-passer for a 
 motor. . . . But you can't possibly have it 
 
86 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 before tomorrow. . . Try in any case to 
 leave by train." 
 
 I am in luck. 
 
 At the station I show my letters to the 
 officials. They allow me to take the train. 
 I don't attempt to look out of the window 
 to see what ravages the enemy may have 
 made in the regions we are passing through. 
 ... I am looking within . . . looking for my 
 child. 
 
 I cannot even ask myself, "Is he going to 
 live?" — but only, "Will he be still alive?" 
 . . . "Shall I find him still on his bed? . . . 
 On his bed, his eyes closed, his hands 
 clasped. ... !" 
 
 How I long to see him one last time. 
 
XVII 
 
 Though I have been in all parts of the 
 world, I happen never to have visited this 
 historic town. Yet it plays a great part in 
 our imaginations from the time we are 
 children. 
 
 When I was a schoolboy it used to appear 
 to me like one of the pillars of the gigantic 
 portal which defends our native land. It 
 seemed to tower above the dark shadow 
 which our schoolmasters, after the War of 
 1870, used to spread over Alsace-Lorraine. 
 I used to long to be among the soldiers who, 
 one day, would tear away this veil of crape 
 which had covered the face of France. 
 
 Ah! if, in those days, some one had said 
 to me: "This glory is reserved for your son, 
 but you will shroud him in Victory ..." 
 
 We are not far off now. I can distinguish 
 the town: rows of trees which descend 
 abruptly into the moats full of water, tiled 
 roofs, crowded under shelter of the cathe- 
 
88 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 dral, and, at a little distance beyond, on 
 an elevation, the hospital. I recognize it, 
 for my boy had described it in one of his 
 first letters. 
 
 He was quartered at that time in the 
 barracks which I can see yonder at the foot 
 of the hill. His companions, like himself, 
 were preparing for action. Now he has 
 mounted to the top of the hill, he lies there 
 on his back, his face turned heavenward, 
 side by side with those whose campaign is 
 ended. 
 
 "O God! Grant that I may see my son, 
 a last time!" 
 
XVIII 
 
 The major in command of the railroad 
 station offers me his automobile. We cross 
 the town like the wind ; we speed past a poor 
 little chapel outside the walls, a facade of 
 pasteboard decorated with a cluster of flags. 
 Before the open door some soldiers are bear- 
 ing a coffin. 
 
 "Can it be Robert?'' 
 
 No ! They tell me it is not he, so, forward, 
 on the way. 
 
 The chauffeur, who notices my emotion, 
 speaks to me gently. He is a young Lorraine 
 priest. The day before yesterday his native 
 village was bombarded while his parents 
 were in the presbytery. Since then he has 
 had no news from them. 
 
 He says to me: "I am praying for them! 
 I shall pray for your son." 
 
 It is the last turning in the road. Here 
 is the iron grating before the hospital, and 
 the picket who guards it. At the back of 
 
90 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 the garden stands a tall building. A clock 
 strikes the quarter-hours, heard by those 
 who lie on their beds, dying. 
 
 I am shown to the office of the director, 
 who had been kind enough to write to me. 
 I can hear his step approaching. 
 
 He is charming, this unknown friend, with 
 his little bonnet de police^ his smile, half- 
 hidden by a beard touched with gold. 
 
 He says to me: "Take heart. You shall 
 see him." 
 
 "Will he be able to know me?" I ask. 
 
 "I left him only an hour ago," he an- 
 swers. "He did not imagine you were so 
 near. How glad he will be to see you." 
 
 The director wants me to stop a moment in 
 his office to rest, to compose myself. I must 
 not go into the sick-room looking as I do. 
 
 I obey. 
 
 On the desk are piled up death certificates. 
 I can look at them calmly now. I know that 
 his name is not on the lists. 
 
 How ungrateful we are. I know that he is 
 living, that he will be able to speak to me, 
 and already I hunger for a greater joy. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 91 
 
 I ask, with a feeling of shame: "Is there 
 no hope?" 
 
 The handsome director, no longer smiling, 
 answers evasively: "You know what his 
 wound is . . .!" 
 
 I know. If by some miracle his heart 
 were to go on beating for several years more, 
 he would be, from his hips to his toes, like 
 one already dead. He does not deserve such 
 torture. 
 
 I close my eyes. I summon all my cour- 
 age. I must not be a coward. 
 
 We can go now to see him. 
 
 In the narrow hallway, the second room 
 to the right is his. Between us there is only 
 a door to separate us now. The direc- 
 tor passes in front of me, to tell him that 
 I am there. But I cannot wait. I follow 
 him. 
 
 Opposite me, near the window, stands an 
 empty bed. To the right, in the corner, 
 another bed. 
 
 He is there. His face is toward the wall. 
 
 Hearing the director's voice, he turns 
 slowly. He sees us both. He lifts his eyelids 
 
92 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 and his lips move. He speaks: "You? 
 How good of you to come . . ." 
 
 "My boy!" 
 
 The director has vanished. I see my child. 
 I touch him. We are together. 
 
XIX 
 
 He had stood by my side when I closed 
 his brother's eyes, and his mother's. He 
 knows what it is to clasp to one's heart a 
 lifeless form. 
 
 He tries to put his arms around my 
 neck. The effort is too much for him. The 
 time has passed now, when he can give this 
 sort of proof of his affection to those he 
 loves here below. 
 
 Does he know that through his rough 
 hospital shirt I can feel his arms, his strong 
 arms which were my pride, withered now 
 and stiff already? 
 
 He looks at me with such depths of 
 gravity in his eyes! 
 
 "Robert, my boy! What an honor you 
 are to us." 
 
 He does not answer. He sees that my 
 lowered eyes are fixed upon his hands, 
 stretched out on the sheet. 
 
 Suddenly, as though he were rising from 
 
94 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 the shadows of some nightmare, he says: 
 "It does n't mean an invalid's chair." 
 
 And he smiles. He smiles as he did on the 
 threshold of his house in the Rue de Rivoli 
 when we parted and he said tome: "You 
 know that I shall do my duty, and a little 
 more, if I have the chance." 
 
 Oh! my child, I dare not question you. 
 "What do you mean? ... 'It won't be an 
 invalid's chair'?" 
 
 Was it a word of hope that escaped your 
 poor, pale lips? Of hope, in your misery! 
 
 Do you believe that you will be able, 
 some day, to rise again from this bed? 
 That you will be able to walk as other 
 men, elated by your young love ? Or was it 
 an expression of resignation, of irony, at 
 your own fate ? 
 
 I know you, and your generous soul; you 
 spoke thinking of me only. You want me to 
 say to myself: "Our lot might have been 
 worse. In this condition he might have 
 survived." 
 
XX 
 
 The director, with his golden beard, 
 comes to get me, so that I may go with 
 him to see the head doctor. 
 
 Behind this other desk, where Hfe and 
 death are administered, I find another 
 friend. 
 
 Thirty years of life in the colonies has pre- 
 pared him for the fortunes of war. His ex- 
 periences have made him human. A Breton 
 by race, he has the sailor's temperament and 
 seems more like a seafaring man than a 
 practicing physician. 
 
 I feel as though I were on the bridge of a 
 ship. He has endured long absences in far- 
 away posts where he dreamed of a distant 
 home. In the misery of such loneliness he 
 has known what it is to love. And so he can 
 imagine how heart-breaking this final sepa- 
 ration is. 
 
 His fraternal kindness, I feel, will make 
 my way easier. 
 
96 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 "Your son?" he asks. "Have you seen 
 him? He is what I call a hero. There are 
 many brave men on the battlefield, but 
 when they are brought here there is a let- 
 ting-down. He knows exactly his case, yet 
 he has never shown any sign of weakness. 
 When the Governor of the town came to see 
 me, I said to him, *I have a lieutenant here 
 who was plucky under fire and who is turn- 
 ing a brave face now toward death!' The 
 Governor asked to see your son. He compli- 
 mented him on his conduct. It pleased the 
 lieutenant." 
 
 "It pleases me too," I say. 
 
 He nods approval and asks: "Are you 
 going to remain?" 
 
 "If I only could..." 
 
 "It is contrary to all rules. , . . But you 
 are a Colonial, you can get on with little 
 and be satisfied. You can share pot-luck 
 with us. We shall have a bed put up for 
 you." 
 
 And as this man is too loyal to disguise the 
 truth he adds: "No, no. You won't be im- 
 posing upon us, for, alas, your stay here will 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 97 
 
 not be a long one. We can't nourish the 
 Heutenant, nor even quench his thirst. 
 Everything we give him is useless. He will 
 hold out to the end of his strength. And he 
 was strong. Well, I shall see you to-night 
 at dinner." 
 Across his desk he holds out his hand. 
 
XXI 
 
 It is my next duty to become acquainted 
 with the head nurse. 
 
 The director says to me : " It is she who 
 manages this whole lower floor. She is a 
 remarkable woman. Her hands are tender, 
 when she touches all these poor sufferers, 
 and yet she is astonishingly powerful. The 
 wounded call for her when they need to be 
 lifted up out of their beds. Your son likes 
 her and they say that she is especially good 
 to him." 
 
 I enter the place where the orderlies 
 are preparing all that is needed for their pa- 
 tients, and where they wash the soiled linen. 
 They rub and scrub, they weigh things, and 
 heat others, and call and discuss. 
 
 A woman's voice, urging them to make 
 haste, quiets this confusion. 
 
 It is the head nurse. I look at her with 
 emotion. Opposite me, in the last terrible 
 moments, she will stand by my child's bed- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 99 
 
 side ; a woman of France. She will take the 
 mother's place, the place of the sister who 
 cannot be here, of the fiancee whom he will 
 not see again. 
 
 The first encounter with this profes- 
 sional of suffering is rather brusque. She 
 devotes herself valiantly and zealously to 
 the wounded ; she has no time to waste with 
 the parents. I understand that. I thank her 
 and ask: "You perhaps have some one fight- 
 ing yourself?" 
 
 Without lifting her eyes from some liquid 
 she is straining, she answers : " My only son. 
 I am without news. So is everybody, for 
 that matter. I don't let it affect me. What 
 would become of us here if we gave up to our 
 feelings?" 
 
 She asks this question so roughly, with 
 such bravado, that I know she is n't heart- 
 less in reality. So I kiss one of her poor 
 hands, so ready to help those who need her 
 in their suffering. 
 
 Such things are unheard of here. She is 
 astonished. She lets me see that she is a 
 woman and a mother: 
 
loo ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 "My son?'' she says. "It seems to me I 
 am touching him when I lift one of them. 
 Yours is very fine. He is a martyr. No one 
 ever hears him complain. He is still so par- 
 ticular about how he looks. While you were 
 with the head doctor he called me. He 
 wanted me to tidy him up, on account of 
 you, I suppose," 
 
XXII 
 
 I HAVE to pass through the principal 
 ward to reach my child. There are men 
 here who can go no farther. Many of them 
 are merely waiting the end. They know that 
 they are still living only because of their 
 suffering. 
 
 Their iron bedsteads are lined up to the 
 right and to the left, the heads against the 
 windows, the feet toward us. The white 
 sheets, the rough grey blankets, seem an 
 emblem of the union here of care and of 
 misery. 
 
 Some of these poor men's heads are com- 
 pletely hidden by the bandages from under 
 which the eyes gaze, dark, fixed circles. 
 Some have drawn the sheets over them like 
 a shroud; some sleep, their mouths open; 
 some hold out for bandaging a cavity, grey 
 on the edges; some are drifting away; some 
 are beyond recall. 
 
 I feel ashamed to go through this place of 
 
"' fd2''-"aN THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 suffering without stopping, without speak- 
 ing to any one, as though I were indifferent 
 to the agony of others, as though I did not 
 feel in the air, heavier than this atmosphere 
 of fever, the weight of their thoughts. 
 
XXIII 
 
 From what depths has this childhood's 
 memory risen ? 
 
 As I came into your ward, my boy, I re- 
 membered the long-ago days, when, after 
 the birth of a new little brother, my mother 
 used to send for us. She was so fresh then, 
 my mother, my aged mother, who happily 
 is not alive to-day. So sweet, in her snowy 
 bed, with a touch of pink in her cheeks. 
 
 This military hospital has outdone itself 
 for you, my boy. They have given you a 
 better place. You are no longer in the 
 shadow of a wall. Your bed stands near the 
 window now. At least my presence has 
 served to bring you, in your last hours, 
 nearer to the light. 
 
 When you see me your whole face be- 
 comes radiant, and in spite of all the bonds 
 that are loosening, so many things seem to 
 live again in your smile that I feel you have 
 never left us to go to war, that you have 
 
104 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 not been wounded, that you are not a hero, 
 that you are not going to die. So I come in 
 again, just as I used of old when you were 
 a schoolboy: "Robert!" I say, "it is late. 
 You must get up." 
 
 I lean against the foot of your bed, di- 
 rectly opposite you, for it wearies you to 
 turn your head, and I can see you better 
 this way. 
 
 My eyes cannot look enough at you. 
 
 Your beard has grown. I have known you 
 always with a mustache only, such as I wear 
 myself. Your beard is of- a warm color, the 
 same Italian brown as your mother's hair, 
 which in her youth was touched with gold 
 when she stood in the sunlight. 
 
 "It is becoming to you, this beard, my 
 boy; you must wear it always." 
 
 He looks at me with a pity which seems 
 to enfold us both; but he does not protest. 
 Neither of us is deceived ; but in the depths 
 of the tenderness that binds us together 
 there is a certain chivalry which defies 
 disaster. 
 
 Agreed, my boy. The contractus signed 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 105 
 
 by a glance, and we shall keep it unflinch- 
 ingly. Neither you nor I can tell how many 
 days, how many hours, are left us to be to- 
 gether. We shall live as though we did not 
 know the decree is signed, as though I were 
 waiting here until you get strong enough for 
 me to take you home. 
 
XXIV 
 
 Yesterday he was too tired, after the 
 excitement of seeing me, to talk with me 
 as he is so eager to do about the things I 
 want so much to hear. 
 
 He will tell me his story in the moments 
 of respite which the morphine affords him. 
 
 He said to me, almost abruptly as though 
 giving an order — it is hard for him to speak, 
 and I must respond at once: "Sit down be- 
 side me!'* 
 
 Then he began the story which is to be 
 as his testament : 
 
 "If the notebook in which I used to write 
 every day should ever be returned to you, 
 you will see that my diary comes to an end 
 on September 20, 1914. So I shall tell you, 
 now, what happened during my last three 
 days. 
 
 "On that Sunday, the 20th, we had left 
 our shelter by five in the morning. The 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 107 
 
 Wind blew, the rain beat down furiously. 
 The men were digging trenches to the north. 
 We came down into the plain to await or- 
 ders. These were not long in reaching us. 
 We were informed that there was an en- 
 gagement started in the neighborhood and 
 that we were to take part in it. 
 
 "I was elated, as was every one. But my 
 satisfaction was to be of short duration. At 
 the very moment when our battalion was to 
 advance toward the cannon's mouth, I re- 
 ceived orders to join the artillery with my 
 section. 
 
 "The battery that we were to guard was 
 placed in a hollow of the valley and very 
 cleverly concealed there. Its aim was di- 
 rected on an important village, held by the 
 enemy, just opposite us. We watched the 
 firing with envy, my men and I, for our regi- 
 ment was fighting before our eyes. They 
 had been called upon to reinforce another 
 regiment of infantry who were attacking 
 the village. 
 
 "As consolation, I said to myself: 'Sup- 
 pose they take the village without you? 
 
io8 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 The war won't be over for that. You will 
 have other chances to fight/ 
 
 " I listened to this reasoning with one ear, 
 and with the other I heard the cannon ; so 
 that I was consoled without being consoled. 
 
 *' Toward noon, a dense smoke and smoth- 
 ered flames broke out in the village. Our 
 cannon had done good work. We were about 
 to redouble the dose of shell when I saw a 
 soldier running toward us. He was gesticu- 
 lating as he approached. It was one of 
 Jean- Jose's men. 
 
 "Within earshot he called out: 'Stop fire! 
 Our troops are in possession of the village.' 
 
 "A shiver ran down our spines, for, in 
 such a case, one is never sure that one has 
 n't fired a few bullets too many. 
 
 " I received orders to join our battalion at 
 nine that night. To do so we had to cross 
 over part of the field where the fighting had 
 taken place during the day. 
 
 "I remembered having read in certain war 
 stories these words: *We walked on the 
 wounded and on the dead.' I realized that 
 night their true meaning, all the more ago- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 109 
 
 nizing because we could not stop to answer 
 those poor creatures who were calling us as 
 we passed. I had received strict orders: 
 * Rally as quickly as possible, by the shortest 
 way.' 
 
 "It was ten o'clock when we entered the 
 burning village. We were to quarter there, 
 in the buildings saved from the flames. 
 
 "I had just knocked on the door of a 
 barn where I intended to install my sec- 
 tion, when I had the pleasure of running 
 across my comrade. Lieutenant Jean-Jose. 
 
 "He and his men had had a trying time 
 getting across the hilltop, but they had 
 come through unscathed. I longed to hear 
 the details of their encounter, but Jean- 
 Jose, who had been rather hard hit, was 
 too worn out to answer my questions. 
 
 "Together we went into a deserted house. 
 A neighbor sold us some jam and a bottle of 
 wine. We dragged a mattress out in front 
 of the fire and there we went to sleep. Not 
 for long, however. At three o'clock in the 
 morning — that was Monday, the 21st — 
 we were already up and under way in the 
 
110 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 pitchy darkness. At dawn our colonel as- 
 sembled us in the clearing of a wood. He 
 addressed a few words to us. He said he was 
 satisfied with the way our regiment had 
 conducted itself the day before. We must 
 expect that to-day and to-morrow things 
 would be hotter. He spoke to us from his 
 horse, concluding: 'We shall get them, if it 
 means that three quarters of us fall in the 
 effort. Vive la France!' 
 
 "His address made an excellent impres- 
 sion. We wrapped ourselves up in our 
 cloaks and tried to sleep in spite of the rain 
 which fell heavily, and the enemy's bom- 
 barding. 
 
 "That day of the 21st of September 
 seemed long to me. I was apprehensive for 
 the morrow. I had been invoking this en- 
 counter for weeks, but things were not oc- 
 curring as I had imagined they would. 
 
 "When, at evening, before a camp-fire, I 
 had dreamed of my chance to receive the 
 true * baptism of fire,' the whole adventure 
 was enveloped in an atmosphere of hero- 
 ism. I supposed I should be facing an en- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR in 
 
 emy superior perhaps in numbers, and who 
 would attack us boldly ; that we would wait 
 for them and break their force as we met 
 in hand-to-hand combat. We would drive 
 them back, putting them to flight. Of course 
 all this would give a splendid chance for 
 each of us to do something remarkable — 
 and the whole encounter would take place 
 in the broad sunlight. 
 
 "The chance offered us in reality pre- 
 sented a very different aspect. Our men, 
 drenched with the rain, heavy with lack of 
 sleep, realized they were not going to fight 
 on fresh ground. They had been called to 
 help out the comrades who had been 
 obliged to yield in the same spot! The 
 wounded who were being carried back 
 through the village, said: 'We are retreat- 
 ing. There are too many of them.' 
 
 "Well, I can say this to you: I have al- 
 ways been superstitious ! It was during the 
 night of a 22d to a 23d that our Guy left 
 us forever. 
 
 "At the end of the day, they did not hide 
 from us that we had not been successful. 
 
112 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR] 
 
 We received an order to occupy the trenches 
 at our right. The command was clear. We 
 were to protect, as they fell back, those 
 of our own men who were retreating. In 
 case the Germans should attempt to pur- 
 sue them, we were given orders to resist 
 them as long as we could hold out. 
 
 "The rain had transformed the trenches 
 into a swamp. The water was up to the 
 calves of our legs, and what grieved us more 
 was the procession of litters carried past us 
 as the wounded were brought down from 
 the firing-line. 
 
 "I drew near to Jean- Jose to munch a 
 crust with him. Conversation languished. 
 Our teeth were chattering with cold and we 
 had no way of warming ourselves. So we 
 saw that Tuesday, the 22d, dawn. 
 
 "Toward one in the morning, the colonel 
 decided that the enemy would attempt no 
 further advance in our direction that night. 
 He sent us permission to leave our foot 
 bath, with the order to fall back. 
 
 " It was a relief for the men to march even 
 in the rain after being so long in the mud. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 113 
 
 So they set out in high spirits on a sHp- 
 pery road, in complete darkness, across the 
 woods. 
 
 "At five in the morning the men hoped 
 that they would be allowed to come to a 
 halt, long enough this time really to get 
 some sleep. But when they found that the 
 colonel had sent for a supply of water and 
 that they were instructed to fill their bottles, 
 they understood that to-day would be mere- 
 ly a continuation of yesterday. They lay 
 down, however, for a moment, by the side 
 of the road. They were so muddy I could 
 hardly distinguish them from the earth. 
 And how grey their faces were ! 
 
 "At seven in the morning we had taken 
 up our position at the entrance of a wood. 
 We occupied the trenches which the Ger- 
 mans had dug with care a few days before. 
 The rain had ceased for the time being. It 
 had been followed by a sharp wind. This 
 dried our cloaks, but left us shivering. 
 
 "Toward eight o'clock some of the en- 
 emy's scouts were signalled. They were 
 throwing up defences to our right. Our cap- 
 
114 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 tain considered that we ought to investi- 
 gate. He had noticed the expression on my 
 face, two days before, when he had sent us 
 as aids to the heavy artillery with which 
 our battalion was in contact. 
 
 "He called me and gave me the following 
 orders: *Take your section and make a 
 reconnaissance over there. These Boches 
 decidedly have too much cheek!' 
 
 "I had already accomplished missions of 
 a similar character; never in such close con- 
 tact with so many of the enemy's numbers, 
 so I was delighted. I no longer thought of 
 the rain, of the unpropitious date, nor of the 
 failure of our comrades. To act was to feel 
 confident at once. My men were as glad as I. 
 
 "What followed during the day, as the 
 battle developed, proved to what an extent 
 this audacity of the enemy was premedi- 
 tated. You know how cautiously they gen- 
 erally hide the preparation going on in a 
 trench where they intend to establish a 
 battery. We always protect ourselves from 
 any possible indiscretion; we avoid outside 
 contact of any sort. We strain our necks 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 115 
 
 keeping a lookout in the air to see if any 
 aeroplanes are observing us. Obviously, a 
 battery whose position is known can't hold 
 out very long; at the best the adversary's ar- 
 tillery manages to nullify any work it may 
 attempt. Knowing the precautions we take 
 under similar circumstances, the careless- 
 ness of the Germans toward us seemed to 
 me disconcerting. They no more ignored 
 our presence in their immediate neighbor- 
 hood than we did theirs. And yet the sol- 
 diers, whom I could see distinctly (I had 
 crept on somewhat ahead of my men into 
 a clover-field), were digging, piling up tree 
 branches, without attempting in any way 
 to conceal what they were doing. Worse 
 than that, a dozen or more of them had 
 taken off their dolmans. They were work- 
 ing in shirt sleeves. Had they been endeav- 
 oring to show themselves they would have 
 acted no differently. 
 
 " Such peculiar proceedings on their part 
 aroused my curiosity. I wanted to get a 
 nearer view of their trenches. I wanted to 
 see whether the enemy really were working 
 
ii6 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 earnestly without sufficient cover, or if they 
 were simply preparing a dummy battery in 
 order to misguide our artillery at the mo- 
 ment of the clash. 
 
 "This was exactly what I was not allowed 
 to pass judgment upon. A sentinel, who no 
 doubt had had his eye upon me for some 
 minutes, decided that I was advancing too 
 far. He gave the alarm. I had only time 
 to call to my men: 'Lie down and don't 
 move!' 
 
 "Already a cloud of bullets stormed 
 through the tree branches, above and about 
 us. 
 
 "I was just going to order my men to fall 
 back to a slope where we would be in a 
 better position to respond to the enemy, 
 — far superior in numbers to ourselves, — 
 when, coming from the opposite direction, 
 we heard another volley of hail. It was one 
 of our own mitrailleuses starting into action. 
 
 "With this timely warning made by the 
 sound of the bullets, the captain decided 
 the moment had come for us to push on our 
 action. He called us together. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 117 
 
 "I had had time to make a rapid sketch 
 of the trench. I ordered my men to crawl 
 back under cover of the wood, and so we 
 rallied in our own tracks. 
 
 " From as far as he could see us the captain 
 called to me: 'Are your men all with you?' 
 
 "*No breakage/ I answered. 
 
 "Then, half smiling, half angry, he de- 
 clared: *I told you to go and find out what 
 they are up to. I did not tell you to enter 
 their trenches!' 
 
 "I relished this reproach particularly and 
 my men did the same. I left them to go and 
 report to the colonel. 
 
 "I longed to tell him that the preparations 
 which I had seen under way appeared to be 
 sham. But that would have been putting 
 an interpretation on facts, which was none 
 of my business, and, after all, it was only an 
 impression I had. 
 
 "The chief listened to me, biting his 
 cigar end, and then he went to join the 
 colonel of the regiment which was to make 
 the attack with ours. That colonel is here 
 in this hospital now; you need only cross 
 
ii8 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 the garden to see him. He has a fine face, 
 — so soldierly. He is installed in a little 
 cottage which you can see from my window. 
 He fell twenty-four hours after I did. The 
 bullet struck him full in the chest ; it entered 
 just above his Legion of Honor Cross. He 
 can give you, more clearly than I, an ac- 
 count of what we had hoped to accomplish 
 on those two days, the 22d and 23d of Sep- 
 tember, and of what we actually did. 
 
 " I expected to find my men asleep. They 
 had got up forty-eight hours before, on Sun- 
 day, at four o'clock. It was noon on Tues- 
 day now. This made fifty-six hours during 
 which these fellows had been marching back 
 and forth, doing odd jobs, making recon- 
 naissances, even fighting under a pelting 
 rain, without fire or sleep. 
 
 "Now they might have taken some rest 
 had they wanted to, for they knew the at- 
 tack would not begin before noon. Yet I 
 found them wide awake. 
 
 "One of them said to me jokingly: 
 'Dead or alive, we'll have plenty of time 
 to sleep after the battle.' 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 119 
 
 "A trifle after noon I was given a bit of 
 news which rejoiced me. My superior offi- 
 cers had decided to give me a mark of their 
 precious confidence. 
 
 "On the hill beyond there was a village 
 which our colonel believed to have been 
 deserted. He thought that the only piece 
 of heavy artillery which since morning had 
 been responding to our * 75 ' had been left 
 in the village by the enemy to mislead us. 
 
 "His plan was simple. The 19th Com- 
 pany was to spread out over the ground in 
 the form of a lozenge. The sections were to 
 be stationed a hundred metres apart in all 
 directions. We would take the village from 
 the right. With this aim in view, I passed 
 ahead with my section, composed of fifty 
 men. 
 
 "I have been told since that our colonel 
 ought not to have been content with mere- 
 ly studying the landscape through a field- 
 glass, that he ought to have dispatched a 
 scout to determine whether the village really 
 was empty, as he presumed it to be. This 
 precautionary measure would have pre- 
 
120 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 vented the massacre of our battalion and 
 heavy losses for our regiment. 
 
 "I can't go into this discussion. A chief 
 receives orders which he transmits to his 
 subalterns. I want to say one thing, how- 
 ever: in my bed, as I lie here, I am full of 
 gratitude to my colonel for the opportunity 
 he gave me. Thanks to him, if things had 
 turned out well, I could have distinguished 
 myself. 
 
 "It was about two o'clock when we came 
 out of our trenches to pass along the edge 
 of the wood. At first we marched in single 
 file for about fifty minutes. My watch 
 marked three o'clock when we reached the 
 height where my section, according to the 
 plan, was to come out leading at the left. 
 Already we had been discovered by the 
 enemy. 
 
 "We had long since grown accustomed to 
 the crashing of the shells, but it was the 
 first time we had been enveloped in a very 
 network of bullets fired at such close range. 
 This was the death-line surely. 
 ^"I had long looked forward to this mo- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 121 
 
 ment. Since the beginning of the campaign 
 and before that; when I used to go to the 
 manoeuvres, and even farther back, at 
 school, when I used to study the new map 
 of our eastern frontiers, I used to say to 
 myself then: 'So long as you have not been 
 put to that test you won't know your real 
 worth/ 
 
 "You know as well as I do that the in- 
 stinctive movement at such a time does n't 
 carry you forward. I thought of you, of 
 mamma, of Guy, of Marie-Rose, and of 
 Helen. I said to you in my heart: *It is for 
 you ! ' — and then, my eyes closed, I plunged 
 forward ! 
 
 "The wood was behind us now. We were 
 crawling in the open. 
 
 "You know the manoeuvre: the moment 
 there is a lull, you bound forward on all 
 fours. I was in the midst of my men. We 
 advanced as though we were swimming. 
 
 "The horizon was hidden by a hilltop 
 which at about three hundred metres from 
 us rose up against the sky. The Germans, 
 who were entrenched behind the slope, had 
 
122 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 plenty of time to take good aim at us as 
 though we were so many hares started up. 
 
 "Instantly there were wounded — dead, 
 probably — among our number, for all the 
 bullets did not merely dig up earth before 
 our noses and fall gently against our water- 
 cups. 
 
 "I did not stop to count those who fell. 
 I cried out: 'Closer! Closer!' — and I threw 
 myself ahead of the men to encourage them. 
 Thus, bounding on, in a series of leaps, we 
 covered about two hundred metres and 
 started to crawl up the slope. At each move 
 my section was thinning out, but the men 
 followed me. 
 
 "One grows accustomed to everything. 
 When we had faced the first volley, at the 
 foot of the hill, I had thought: 'We shall 
 not make ten metres!' 
 
 "Now it seemed as though the bullets 
 were not intended for me. I could see my- 
 self at the top of the hill already. I would 
 throw my section on those who were hiding 
 beyond. Like Pierrette and the jug of milk ! 
 Yet one can't regret having had such hopes 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 123 
 
 for a moment. They seem to be made up of 
 a childish faith, of love, of all that is super- 
 natural and quite complete. 
 
 "They did not last long. I opened my 
 mouth to call out again : 'Onward, my boys ! ' 
 — when a column of earth and dust passed 
 over us and glued us to the ground. The 
 Boches had brought up their mitrailleuses. 
 In addition the rain was rattling down as 
 it does in Paris when a storm-cloud bursts 
 and people are obliged to seek shelter, from 
 the hail, under the porte-cocheres. 
 
 "I threw off the earth that had fallen on 
 me. I seized by his shoulders a soldier lying 
 at my right. I did the same for a man at my 
 left, and the others — they did not move. 
 They stared at me with their poor eyes. I 
 could not tell whether they had been killed 
 or had died of fright. 
 
 "For a moment I was in despair. This 
 was not what they had pledged me. I stood 
 up in the hailing bullets and shouted with 
 all my strength: 'If I am killed, it is your 
 fault ! . . . But as long as you lie there with- 
 out moving I shall remain standing!' 
 
124 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 "They heard me. Four or five of them 
 lifted themselves up on their elbows; the 
 others followed. 
 
 "They roused themselves ; again we moved 
 forward. 
 
 "I wanted to see what was beyond the 
 hilltop, so I crawled up to the crest. 
 
 "It was at that moment that I was shot 
 through the arm by the bullet I wrote you 
 of in my letter . . . here. ... At first I 
 thought a stone had struck me. The blood 
 pouring down my sleeve enlightened me. I 
 tried moving my fingers. Nothing serious 
 had been touched, so I took no further notice 
 of the wound. Far more disturbing was what 
 I had just seen beyond the crest of the hill. 
 
 "It was only a thin point, and on the 
 other side of it, under the slope, was a sort 
 of hollow which would have to be got over 
 running, under the enemy's fire, before we 
 could reach the foot of the second hill, which 
 could not be seen from our plain. Beyond 
 the second defence the Germans were en- 
 trenched solidly, and always hidden from us. 
 
 "I was sure that my men would rise to 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 125 
 
 the occasion and would leap over the first 
 hill. But in order that such sacrifices be of 
 use, the whole battalion should have been 
 stationed already on the slope, ready to 
 follow us, and push forward with us. 
 
 "No such order came to me. Nor did 
 I receive notice to fall back. I received 
 nothing. It was cruel to leave my men to be 
 killed, one after the other, lying there on the 
 ground. They deserved that more use be 
 made of their lives or of their death. 
 
 "I came back to my section. I looked 
 behind us. 
 
 "To the left things were going badly. 
 There was a company there going to pieces. 
 When they had disappeared, all would be 
 up with us. On the other side, our artil- 
 lery was hammering away on the trenches 
 which I had reconnoitred in the morning, 
 and which were only a sham. We had no 
 idea where the batteries were situated which 
 were pelting us now. 
 
 "At this very moment I saw my dear 
 friend, Lieutenant Jean-Jose, leading half 
 a section. He was bounding up the hill 
 
126 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 toward us. The storm of the mitrailleuse 
 had slackened a bit, but the shells and the 
 shrapnel had started up. 
 
 "I shouted out to him: 'Steady there! . . . 
 I'll come down!' 
 
 "We each went halfway and I asked him: 
 
 "*Are you bringing me orders?' 
 
 "'None whatever!' 
 
 "'I shall go for them, then.' 
 
 "On the way down I met our captain and 
 said to him: 'The 20th over there has col- 
 lapsed. Shall we go to their assistance?' 
 
 "He was kneeling on the ground. He 
 looked and then shook his head: 'Let them 
 shift for themselves. The major wants the 
 whole forward movement continued.' 
 
 "I went on down to where the major was 
 standing and told him what I had been able 
 to see from above. He replied: 'You have 
 succeeded in reaching there? . . . Remain 
 there! I shall try to climb up beside you. 
 I want to have a look over the crest of the 
 hill.' 
 
 " So I returned to my post and said to my 
 men: 'We are to wait.' 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 127 
 
 "The storm that had been falling had 
 not been the best thing in the world for all, 
 and there were not many of us left to wait. 
 Yet the major had set out at once; he was 
 almost up to us. Stopping a moment for 
 breath, he crawled to the crest of the hill. 
 I saw his cap : it stood out against the sky. 
 Suddenly he raised his left arm. He made a 
 gesture with his right arm and shouted 
 something. 'What?' I answered. 
 
 He did not have time to repeat his com- 
 mand. He fell on his back. ... He lay there, 
 groaning: 'My wife! . . . My children!' 
 
 " Perhaps what he wanted to call out was, 
 'Advance.' I beckoned to one of the men, — 
 a young priest, — who is a fine fellow, full of 
 feeling. I said to him: 'Sergeant Bresson, 
 go to the major there. Take him some 
 water. Ask him if he has any orders for me, 
 and carry him down from where he lies.' 
 
 "I followed the sergeant with my eyes. 
 At the moment when he stooped to kneel 
 by the major, I saw his arm drop. A bullet 
 had demolished it. This did not prevent 
 Bresson's praying aloud. 
 
128 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR' 
 
 " I thought to myself: 'The sergeant won't 
 come back and the major is dying. I must 
 go to them and lose no time about it, other- 
 wise I shall not know whether he wants me 
 to go across the hill/ 
 
 "So I got up, and in order to hasten mat- 
 ters, instead of creeping over the ground, I 
 ran toward my chief. I did not go far. The 
 good German marksman who had taken aim 
 at the major and then at Bresson, or some 
 other marksman equally skillful, fired at 
 me, twice in succession. His first shot went 
 through the sack hanging on my back. 
 Then he changed his aim about the width of 
 two fingers. That bullet went in under my 
 right arm, traversed both lungs, and made 
 the wound you know. 
 
 "It seems that I said: 'I have been hit!' 
 
 "Immediately some of my men came to 
 my assistance. I gave them the order: 'Let 
 Lieutenant Jean-Jose know.' 
 
 "They told me that this noble friend was 
 coming up to me. It was n't worth while. 
 I gave orders that they shout to him: 
 * Don't come on!' 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 129 
 
 "The lieutenant was needed at the head 
 of his section, and I counted on him to let 
 Helen know. Moreover, there was nothing 
 just then to be done for me. 
 
 "I commanded my men: *Go back to 
 your posts . . .' 
 
 "And I settled myself to wait." 
 
XXV 
 
 It is nearly an hour that my poor boy has 
 been talking and that I have been hanging 
 on his words without having the courage to 
 stop him. I realize that he is using strength 
 he will never regain, but he longs so to 
 speak, and one cannot impose silence upon 
 the dying. 
 
 Yet, for a moment, he ceases, closing his 
 eyes. When he opens them again he sees 
 that I am standing at the foot of his bed. 
 
 He says, with a consideration which over- 
 whelms me : 
 
 "You must be tired holding up my pil- 
 low ... I shall lie down for a moment, and 
 then I want to go on. . . ." 
 
 After a few moments he begins again: 
 
 "At the second the bullet struck me, and 
 
 as I was falling, I realized that I was going 
 
 to be paralyzed. I turned myself over while 
 
 I still had the strength. My thoughts 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 131 
 
 worked like lightning. I said to myself: 'If 
 they come later to pick us up, I don't want 
 them to think me dead/ And also I wanted 
 to see what was happening to the end. 
 
 "When my men had dragged me down a 
 little under the hill, I lost consciousness a 
 moment. I did n't notice that they had 
 slipped a sack under my head. It was there 
 when I came to my senses. 
 
 "The bullets continued to rain over my 
 head. All our men had climbed down to the 
 foot of the slope. I was alone. 
 
 "I could move my arms. I turned my 
 wrist so that I could see my watch. It was 
 a little after four o'clock. Above me the 
 sky wasgrey and it was still raining a little. 
 
 "I longed to move my legs, and yet I did 
 not dare try, for fear of discovering that I 
 no longer had control over them. At last I 
 summoned all my courage. I tried several 
 times. They hung there like two sacks. 
 Then I realized what had happened to me." 
 
 He stops a moment. He does not want to 
 say the forbidden word. And the memory 
 
132 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 of his sacrifice prolongs itself in a silence 
 where my soul meets his. 
 
 I know, my boy, that the time is coming 
 when you will no longer be able to speak 
 to me. Then some voice, near by, will say: 
 "He no longer suffers now!" — and we 
 shall fold your hands. 
 
 Then you will have ceased living for us. 
 But I know that you died for yourself at 
 that moment when, stretched out on that 
 hillside, alone, before God, your country, 
 your love, you accepted without a murmur. 
 
XXVI 
 
 "Now, my child, I want you to rest!" ! 
 
 "No, no! . . . There is more I want to 
 tell you . . ." 
 
 He does not add: "To-morrow, shall I be 
 able to go on?" 
 
 He guesses what is in my heart, and he 
 does not want me to despair. 
 
 "I assure you," he says, "that physically 
 I did not suffer as much as one would sup- 
 pose. I mean from my wound, for, almost 
 at once, I was tormented by thirst. It was 
 almost a blessing; it kept me from thinking 
 too much. 
 
 "I did not say to myself: *I want to get 
 up. ... I want to recover!' 
 
 "The idea of drinking absorbed me. I 
 opened my mouth in the hope that a few 
 drops of rain might fall into it, but I did not 
 feel them. 
 
 "The bullets continued to fall like hail. 
 
134 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 They did not bother me, only the time 
 seemed long, terribly long. 
 
 "I don't know how long it lasted that 
 way. But in my misery something very 
 beautiful happened. Suddenly I heard a 
 voice beside me. I asked: *Who is there?' 
 For I was above all afraid of the Germans 
 appearing. I did not want to fall into their 
 hands alive. 
 
 *'An answer came: 'It is I, Peguy!' 
 
 " Peguy was one of my men, a poor fellow 
 whom I had often been obliged to repri- 
 mand, for he had a way of looking as though 
 he had just dropped out of the moon, which 
 set the others to laughing. I knew that he 
 had a wife and a child. 
 
 "He had left the cover of the woods now 
 to come to my assistance. He had reached 
 me crawling. It was terribly dangerous. 
 Surely, if I had thought some one might 
 come to help me, it was not Peguy. 
 
 "When he was quite close to me, he said : 
 'Lieutenant! I have n't always been a good 
 soldier. I have given you a lot of trouble, 
 but to-day you have honored us all, and I 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 135 
 
 could n't bear to leave you lying here, so I 
 have come to fetch you.' 
 
 "You can't imagine how glad I was to 
 feel that I was n't abandoned. I answered 
 him: *My dear Peguy, I thank you with all 
 my heart, but I am not able to move. You 
 would get killed here for nothing. Only un- 
 fasten my collar because I am suffocating, 
 and, if you can, give me something to drink.' 
 
 "He did as I asked. He gave me some 
 water with a little mint. Then I said to 
 him: 'Peguy, I command you to go back.' 
 
 "He obeyed, going down on all fours. 
 
 "After he had left me, — it must have 
 been about five o'clock, I think, — I re- 
 mained alone until midnight. 
 
 "It was not my wound that caused me 
 the greatest suffering. It was all that was 
 going on above my head and around me. 
 Their mitraille wearied me. It no longer 
 fell at my side: it passed high up in the air. 
 No doubt they were bombarding the wood 
 which we had left behind us early in the day. 
 
 "Beneath me it seemed that the earth 
 had become a raft. I seemed to be climbing 
 
136 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 up high waves only to fall back again in the 
 sea's trough. This was only imagination, of 
 course; the bombarding was violent, but the 
 slope on which I lay was not shaken by it. 
 . . . The rocking was in myself. ... It is 
 there still. . . . Even in my bed T don't feel 
 as though I were lying flat. I rise and sink 
 on the waves. It is very fatiguing." 
 
 As he said this he stopped a moment, 
 and on his face, as upon that of a drowning 
 man, I see the marks of distress. Poor, hu- 
 man derelict, his feet in the air, his head 
 downward, he drifts toward some unknown 
 shore! 
 
 Yet he wants to end his story, so that he 
 shall not have to resume it, as this effort, 
 after so many others, is cruel for him. He 
 begins again: 
 
 " I was glad when I saw the night coming, 
 as I said to myself: *When those who are 
 firing at us can no longer see, perhaps my 
 men will come to find me.* I was thinking 
 of my men because I had been attached to 
 them and I was sure of their devotion. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 137 
 
 "My hopes were fulfilled. 
 
 "Toward six in the evening I heard 
 sounds approaching. Some one called me 
 in the darkness. I answered. A moment 
 after they were beside me, four or five of 
 those fine fellows whom I had sometimes 
 assisted on long marches by carrying their 
 sacks for them ; and also by caring for their 
 poor feet, as you had advised me to do. 
 Because of such little acts of kindness, they 
 had come now to find me on the battle- 
 field. 
 
 "They had no litter, so they tried to carry 
 me without. It could n't be done. Then 
 they made a sort of couch by crossing their 
 rifles and throwing a cloak over them. I 
 was longing enough to get away, but the 
 barrels of the guns proved too hard for such 
 a wound as mine. I felt myself growing cold. 
 
 "Tm done for,' I said to them. . . . Tut 
 me down on the ground. ... I would rather 
 it ended there!' 
 
 "They were exhausted themselves, but 
 they were determined not to abandon me. 
 So they laid me down in the grass. Two of 
 
138 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 them remained with me; the others went 
 off in search of something better for me. 
 
 "I don't know how long my friends and 
 I stayed there tete-a-tete. I had only one 
 idea in my head — like an obsession — to 
 get back. . . . Where ? . . . To Paris probably. 
 
 "It was about midnight when I found 
 myself on some straw, on the ground floor 
 of a farmhouse. There were many of our 
 wounded about me ; some were dying, others 
 already dead. 
 
 " Since then I have heard that as my Utter 
 was carried down from the field, my colonel, 
 who was wounded also, dragged himself 
 over to greet me as I passed. I have a sort 
 of vague memory of hearing him speak my 
 name and say: 'Farewell, lieutenant! . . . 
 Farewell, my poor child!' 
 
 "I was not able to answer him. He under- 
 stands, for they say I was looking very far 
 gone. 
 
 "I don't know whether I was examined 
 after that. If they had time to find out 
 what was the matter with me, they must 
 have decided it was fairer to care first for 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 139 
 
 those who could be saved. How many of 
 us there were ! Our major had been killed, 
 our captain, a second lieutenant, not to 
 speak of the soldiers who were in their last 
 agony. 
 
 "Everything that took place that night 
 is vague in my memory. It seems that a 
 priest came to visit us. I gave him, they 
 say, my wallet, with my papers, your let- 
 ters, Helen's, and your addresses. I have 
 no recollection of all this. I acted as though 
 in a dream of which nothing remains on 
 waking. One thing I do remember, the mo- 
 ment when my dear friend. Lieutenant 
 Jean- Jose, appeared by my side. 
 
 "He had seen me fall and had been look- 
 ing for me. He had continued to search in 
 spite of the bullet which had struck him in 
 the knee. It was a comfort to see him again. 
 
 " Since the outset of the campaign we had 
 lived side by side, like brothers. We had 
 promised each other that, if a misfortune 
 befell either of us, the one surviving would 
 write a letter, I to his wife, he to my 
 fiancee. 
 
140 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 " He had come now to know whether he 
 were to fulfil his promise. I said to him: 
 'I am seriously wounded. Both my lungs 
 and the spine. . . . But perhaps I can re- 
 cover, at my age!' 
 
 "He understood. He knew that I wanted 
 him to say in the letter he was to write 
 Helen: 'There is hope.' He did as I asked, 
 and I shall never forget it." 
 
 Do you hear, Jean- Jose, my friend, the 
 faithful friend who tended my boy? He 
 said "Never," at a moment when such a 
 word savors of the eternal. 
 
XXVII 
 
 Once more I try to interrupt him, for his 
 pale face, tanned by the sun, is touched with 
 a flush of pink in the cheeks. 
 
 He insists: "It doesn't matter. ... I 
 have something more, very fine, to tell you. 
 Often I wrote you that I was proud of my 
 men. . . . You can't imagine how kind- 
 hearted they are. . . ." 
 
 I can see him smiling as though to some 
 pleasing vision. ... Of whom I can guess ! 
 For an instant thus, between his resignation 
 and his sufferings, passes the image of his 
 pure, young love. 
 
 "That night in the farmhouse was hard! 
 The bombarding continued uninterruptedly, 
 and they were taking good aim now. We 
 could hear roofs falling in, walls crumbling, 
 trees being uprooted. Those of us who were 
 seriously wounded lived in terror. It was 
 
142 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 worse than our physical sufferings. We 
 were haunted by this thought: *If things 
 keep on like this, they will have to evacuate 
 the village. . . . What then? . . . Those of 
 us who cannot use our legs to walk will be 
 left behind.' 
 
 "We all feel alike. Anything is better 
 than to fall into the Germans' hands, to 
 have to see them before dying. 
 
 "Toward six in the morning they told us 
 that some carts were on the way to fetch us. 
 Those who could help themselves climbed 
 into these wagons. I was n't among them. I 
 waited until three in the afternoon without 
 any one even having time to give me a drink. 
 
 "Then some more carts were sent for us. 
 A field surgeon came into the room where I 
 was lying. He took us all in at a glance. 
 He was weighing our relative chances, for 
 there were only a few places to be disposed 
 of, and we were numerous. 
 
 "They were going to leave me a second 
 time, when one of my men, who had been 
 chosen to leave, pointed me out. He called 
 out to the orderlies who were bringing in a 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 143 
 
 Utter: 'Take him! . . . Take him! ... He is 
 engaged to be married!' 
 
 "I have spoken to you already of Peguy, 
 who brought me a drink in the firing-line, 
 and I know you won't forget him. But of 
 this one I cannot tell you the name ... I 
 was too far gone. I could just hear what he 
 said. It seemed like dew falling on my heart, 
 and, for a moment, I felt I had been saved. 
 I did not even have the strength to say 
 'Thank you!' to this comrade, who, at such 
 a moment, had given me his turn. Because 
 he knew that I was in love, and loved. Be- 
 cause he thought I could be carried some- 
 where to a bed where I could lie until per- 
 haps some friendly hand might come to 
 touch me." 
 
 The shadows are gathering in the room 
 now. Twice the head nurse has opened the 
 door gently to look at him. Now she comes 
 in. She nods toward our patient with a 
 shade of reproach. 
 
 "He is tiring himself out! We must leave 
 him alone now." 
 
144 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 I go back to the threshold of his room to 
 look at him once more. He has closed his 
 eyes, but he is not asleep, for his lips are 
 moving. 
 
 He is praying, praying for him whose 
 name he does n't know, and who, in the 
 midst of so much agony, offered himself in 
 order to make a place for the Love which 
 triumphs over Death. 
 
XXVIII 
 
 I GO back to think by myself in the shelter 
 which has been offered me near the hospital 
 gate by the head surgeon. 
 
 I am lodged in a place directly opposite 
 the iron paling. It used to be a wineshop. 
 Before the war the people who came up to 
 visit the sick used to stop there and take a 
 drink to revive their spirits. 
 
 The room where I sleep opens into the 
 kitchen. As this part of the house is not 
 built over a cellar, the walls are dank. It 
 is used like a storeroom, for fruit, cheese, 
 pumpkins, and milk cans. At any other 
 time all these odors would keep me from 
 sleeping, but I am in a state of body and 
 mind in which nothing affects me. 
 
 Behind my door I can hear our cook com- 
 ing and going — Big Louis, and his assist- 
 ant Goddin. Both of them are orderlies. 
 They take turns doing night duty in the 
 wards. 
 
146 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 On the night of my arrival they adopted 
 me. They treat me with an almost tender 
 consideration which sometimes brings to 
 my eyes the tears I can't shed before my 
 son. 
 
 The head surgeon said to me: "With a 
 fellow like Big Louis you could go to the 
 end of the world!" 
 
 One can go to the end of suffering with 
 him too. He is a butcher by profession, but 
 he was bom with the instinct of fraternity; 
 he seems to comfort all those who go near 
 him. 
 
 The hospital regulations don't allow me 
 to remain in my boy's ward at night, on the 
 empty bed, opposite his. 
 
 Big Louis realizes what this sacrifice costs 
 me. He said to me at once: "Goddin and I 
 take turns on night duty in the pavilion 
 where your son is. If he should take a turn 
 for the worse we would run to tell you." 
 
 This good fellow realizes probably that 
 in my anguish, between the fruit and the 
 cheese, I pass my nights open-eyed. He has 
 noticed that I generally fall asleep toward 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 147 
 
 morning when the chill of the autumn dawn 
 sends the dampness drifting down the walls 
 of my cellar-like room. He prepares the 
 breakfast as noiselessly as possible, so as 
 not to disturb my sleep. And scarcely am 
 I awake when he pushes open my door, 
 thrusts in his curly head, and announces: 
 "The lieutenant has had a good night!" 
 
 In these hours of world-destruction, here 
 in this distant barracks of suffering, where 
 death is mowing down such hosts of young, 
 on the brink of your tomb, my boy, it is a 
 comfort to my sad heart, this kindliness of 
 a poor laborer. It is the same as that shown 
 you by the soldier who brought you a drink, 
 by the other one who gave you his chance. 
 Big Louis now, regardless of fatigue, spends 
 half of each night watching, so that my 
 anguish, which has roused his pity, may 
 have moments of forgetfulness. 
 
XXIX 
 
 "And now there is n't much more to tell 
 you!" 
 
 If I did not know what I do know, I 
 could almost believe that my son is better. 
 
 Big Louis declares to me: "It's his joy 
 at seeing you." The head surgeon says 
 nothing. 
 
 And as my son talks to me, his mind so 
 clear, his spirit seeming to hover on his lips, 
 I am thinking of the flame that leaps up 
 before it dies. 
 
 He resumes his story: 
 
 "In the cart which brought me back, as 
 it bumped along the stony road, I would 
 rather not say what my suffering was . . . 
 I try to forget it. I had not been bandaged. 
 I hung on to the side of the wagon. 
 
 "When we reached the end of our journey 
 I had become a being who was all eyes ! I 
 could see Helen looking at me. . . . This 
 kept me alive. . . . 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 149 
 
 "It was night by the time they had set 
 us down before a little chateau, which I had 
 admired a week before as we halted there 
 for a moment. Now the chateau and the 
 outbuildings were all crowded to overflow- 
 ing with the wounded. 
 
 "They put me down in a hallway and I 
 could hear the men who had been carrying 
 me say in a low voice: 'This one is done 
 for!' 
 
 "Each time a surgeon passed, I spoke my 
 name — your name — as distinctly as I 
 could, so that they would come to my aid. 
 
 "At last one of the surgeons stopped by 
 my side. He leaned over me. He asked me 
 if I were your son, the nephew of the sur- 
 geon of the Montpellier Faculty. 
 
 "I told him I was. *Your uncle was 
 my instructor,' he said. . . . ^Wait a mo- 
 ment. ... I shall be able to examine you 
 presently.' He promised to tell me the truth 
 about myself. 
 
 "In a few minutes he returned and ex- 
 amined me on my litter, where he made the 
 first dressing I had had. I could not see his 
 
150 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 face, but I heard the diagnosis as he dic- 
 tated it. When he said, *I'm going to have 
 you put near me on a mattress in the draw- 
 ing-room,' he looked at me in such a kindly 
 way that I understood. It was then that I 
 asked to write to you. How could he find 
 time to help me! He is a man of deep feel- 
 ing. The horrors he has seen have not dulled 
 his sensibilities. 
 
 "There were three of us on the same mat- 
 tress. Everything was wet with blood, but 
 I was better there than on the floor. I had 
 entirely regained my senses. I was very 
 grateful. 
 
 "The night, however, was terrible. They 
 had set up an operating-table in the middle 
 of the room, under the chandelier. The 
 wounded were passed along, one after an- 
 other. I remember particularly clearly a 
 captain whom they were trepanning. He 
 was living his battle over and over. He 
 kept shouting: * Forward! . . . We've got 
 them, boys! . . . Forward! . . .' 
 
 "It was hard, too, to hear men with grey 
 hair calling out : / Mamma ! ' 
 
ON THE FIELD OF [HONOR 151 
 
 "Many of those who were under the 
 chloroform cried out as though they were 
 awake. Perhaps I did the same ! I imagined 
 myself, as they did, still leading on my men, 
 yelling, howling ! . . . I have the same im- 
 pression now. ... I can't seem to realize 
 that I am alone. 
 
 "And yet, toward morning, I fell asleep, 
 not into unconsciousness, but into a natural 
 sleep. It was the first time since I was 
 wounded. When I woke up it was broad 
 daylight. I had an amusing surprise. 
 
 "By my side, sitting on the edge of my 
 mattress, was a splendid fellow, whom you 
 don't know, but with whom I became ac- 
 quainted in a charming way last winter; he 
 is the sergeant of dragoons, Dombrowsky.^ 
 He and his sister are friends of Helen. 
 
 "We used to meet at balls. He is a culti- 
 vated fellow, slightly 'precieux,' perhaps. 
 He was among the first to write when he 
 heard I was engaged. He congratulated me 
 on my happiness. He was to have been one 
 of our ushers. 
 
 * Killed in action, May 20, 1915. 
 
152 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 "I could not believe my eyes. I said to 
 him: 'Dombrowsky! . . . You here? . . . 
 Where have you dropped from?' 
 
 "What he told me touched me infinitely. 
 The day before he had been told by the 
 commissary that I had fallen, and all about 
 it. He went immediately to find his colo- 
 nel. He told him of our friendship. He asked 
 permission — which was granted him — to 
 come and pay me a visit. 
 
 "This charming friend was so delighted 
 to find me in that heap of humanity that I 
 felt as though I were being fairly raised from 
 my mattress. I liked to pretend to myself 
 that it was Helen who had sent him to me. 
 
 "So we began to talk, and we talked on 
 and on, as if we were not in a field hospital, 
 beside an operating-table, but at the famous 
 Baraduc's, taking a lesson in the * Turkey 
 Trot ' or ' Hesitation Waltz ' ! He would say, 
 *Do you remember . . .?' and I would an- 
 swer, * Yes . . . ! And do you remember . . . ?* 
 
 " We were so happy ! 
 
 "Suddenly he asked me: 'What can I do 
 for you?' 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 153 
 
 "I was always tortured with thirst. I 
 said: 'Find me some champagne.' 
 
 "You can imagine how jokingly I said 
 this word 'champagne.' I might as well 
 have said 'caviar' or the 'moon.' But he 
 sprang up declaring: 'I'll get you some.' 
 
 "I wanted to detain him, to explain that 
 I was only joking; that I would much rather 
 have him spend with me whatever time he, 
 had. But already he had gone. 
 
 "He did n't return until four hours later. 
 He brought with him a bottle of real cham- 
 pagne. What he told me seemed as miracu- 
 lous as all the rest. 
 
 "Two days previous he had taken a 
 squad of Uhlans by surprise in a neighbor- 
 ing village, and put them to rout. There- 
 upon an old peasant, whom the Germans 
 had taken time to ill-use, threw himself on 
 Dombrowsky's breast. He said: 'If ever 
 the longing takes you to drink a bottle of 
 champagne, remember me. I promise to 
 find you one.' 
 
 "So, when I asked for champagne, he 
 recalled this promise, sprang on to his horse, 
 
154 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 and went to find the grateful peasant. He 
 claimed the fulfilment of his pledge, which 
 it seems delighted the old man, who, with 
 great alacrity, dug up a bottle which he 
 had buried at the foot of a walnut tree, 
 and Dombrowsky brought it back to me. 
 
 "We drank it as though it were the elixir 
 of life. I say 'we,' for you won't be sur- 
 prised when I tell you that my two com- 
 panions on the mattress were invited to 
 touch glasses with us. 
 
 "This was the end of my adventures. A 
 few hours later I was lifted carefully into a 
 motor ambulance and transferred here. The 
 director was kind enough to act as secretary. 
 I dictated a letter to him for Helen, another 
 one for you. And you came to me. 
 
 "When I try to sum up in my memory 
 my short campaign, I feel rather sore. I 
 had promised you all, you, Helen, Marie- 
 Rose, to do my best. How glad I would 
 have been of a better chance to keep my 
 word. All those weeks of preparation, long 
 marches, counter-marches, the days in the 
 trenches, the reconnaissances, the rain, the 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 155 
 
 bombarding; all that counts for nothing. 
 My effort really began at the foot of the hill 
 where I received the order to go ahead, 
 leading my section in a bayonet attack at 
 the crest of the hill. It was then half-past 
 three. At four o'clock, I was stretched on 
 the ground. My war lasted one half-hour 
 and three hundred metres." 
 
 This is my son's story, as he told it to 
 me on that October evening, on the hospital 
 bed, which he will leave only to be laid 
 under the earth. 
 
 Under pretext of sending these details 
 to his fiancee and his sister, I wrote almost 
 to his dictation. 
 
 If, in the years to come, when our present 
 misery has become a legend of glory, some 
 youth of our family — I can no longer say, 
 of my name — should chance to read this 
 story, may he find in it the love of honor, 
 the love of France. 
 
 In memory of the dear son who dictated 
 these lines, and of myself, his father, who 
 noted them, at the foot of his death-bed. ^ 
 
XXX 
 
 It IS a quarter of a century now since I 
 crossed the Sahara Desert, from southern 
 Morocco to southern Tunis, with a mihtary 
 expedition, during the dog days, on a drome- 
 dary. On this exploring trip I first learned 
 what it means to be thirsty — a thirst that 
 goes beyond the lips, seems to dry up the 
 tongue, the throat, going down into the very 
 chest, until one becomes almost delirious. 
 But at the moment of our worst torture, we 
 were sure of one thing: every advance step 
 of the beasts we were mounted on shortened 
 our misery. The vast dune was vanishing 
 behind us : the oasis was drawing nearer. 
 
 Within these four hospital walls I am 
 shut up with a traveller whose thirst will 
 never more be quenched. 
 
 The pity felt for him on all sides places 
 in my hands fresh milk, champagne, the 
 purest of water. His eyes follow me with 
 heartrending fixity as I try, in the hope of 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 157 
 
 making the time seem shorter, to vary the 
 different beverages, so eagerly waited for. 
 He says: "Now I want some champagne 
 and water. . . . Now give me a little milk 
 and Vichy. ... A little water alone. ... Is 
 the ice all melted?" 
 
 Alas ! He has drunk of death. The bitter 
 taste burns his throat. 
 
 While he was telling me his calvary I 
 saw his lips grow dry and more dry. The 
 moments grew oftener when he stopped, 
 almost as frequent as his heart-beats, to 
 beg for a taste of something refreshing. 
 
 How he must have suffered before I was 
 with him, when he called the orderlies, who 
 could only turn a deaf ear, as they hastened 
 to some other sufferer ! 
 
 Don't beg my pardon, my child, for mak- 
 ing me get up so often. It is a joy for me 
 to wait on you as long as you shall ask it. 
 Command me! Be capricious if you will! 
 Ask for what you want ! 
 
 When, after a long pause, in which you 
 have summoned all your patience in order 
 to spare me, I hand you a glass, all moist 
 
158 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 from the ice within, you say to me: "I am 
 dreaming that some day I shall be in a place 
 where I can have as much water as I want, 
 as much as ever I want." 
 
 I turn aside to hide my face, for in your 
 eyes I have seen the vision of Paradise. 
 
XXXI 
 
 I CAN no longer postpone paying my 
 respects to the military authorities. I want 
 also to ask their permission to prolong my 
 stay. 
 
 My friend, the priest chauffeur, drives 
 me down to the city. 
 
 The place is empty of all its inhabitants. 
 Exiled, they have left their doors closed, 
 their shutters drawn. The shopkeepers have 
 riveted the heavy blinds on their show win- 
 dows. And the old residential quarters show 
 long rows of flat silent walls, overgrown, 
 here and there, by some vine, some green 
 plant of a deserted garden. 
 
 The young women, the little children, 
 whose presence, as they walked about, en- 
 livened the public squares, the principal 
 streets of the town, have been replaced by 
 a world of soldiers. All uniforms, all grades, 
 are to be seen here. 
 
 No one is idle. Each one, the bearer of 
 
i6o ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 some order, hurries toward some definite 
 duty. People walk in the street as freely as 
 on the sidewalk. From time to time the 
 harsh cry of a motor parts the crowd of 
 pedestrians : some superior officer, wrapped 
 in his great-coat, flashes by. Or some heavy 
 truck, that seems too long, too broad, for 
 the winding way of these streets, built in 
 the Middle Ages, passes, shaking the old 
 houses to their foundations. Or some squad 
 of cavalrymen files by, their swords swing- 
 ing with a slight clinking of chains, the so- 
 norous trampling of their horses' hoofs on 
 the ancient paving-stones. 
 
 My little priest knows the town like his 
 own checked pocket handkerchief. He takes 
 me first to the house of the General of the 
 Et at- Major, and then to that of the Gover- 
 nor-General of the place. 
 
 I bring them a breath of Paris, to these 
 exiled officers, words that cannot now ap- 
 pear in print, but which, some day, will go 
 to make up history, for they bear witness 
 to this fact: France, though tortured, con- 
 tinues to smile. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR i6i 
 
 And, too, I don't conceal from them my 
 own grief. In my present state of mind it is 
 a comfort to me that the blotting-out of a 
 little lieutenant, who has done his duty 
 faithfully, stands out against the gigantic 
 slaughter going on, shines in the splendor 
 of a sacrifice which has become universal. 
 
 The Governor-General of the place says 
 to me: "I went to pay a visit to your son. 
 You have brought the boy up well. I con- 
 gratulate you." 
 
 ^ At the Etat-Major, a certain Major 
 Etienne — I shall never forget him — says 
 to me as I take leave of him: "A young and 
 glorious comrade who dies without a mur- 
 mur, a father who refuses to weep for him! 
 What an example ! — We all need examples. 
 Come often to see us." 
 
 I came up the steps of the building with 
 a heavy heart. I leave feeling somewhat 
 stronger. They have given me permission 
 to stay on as long as I like. My child will 
 not see me leave him. I shall be able to 
 remain by his side until his eyes grow dim. 
 Death alone now can drive me away. 
 
XXXII 
 
 To-day, at two o'clock, when I went 
 into his ward, I received a shock. It is a 
 new Robert I see on the bed. 
 
 The wounded man of yesterday, for whom 
 every word was a cause of suffering, has dis- 
 appeared. In his place I see a radiant per- 
 son. The accident, whatever it be, which 
 keeps him stretched out at full length, 
 does n't affect his mind or his freedom of 
 speech. He is bubbling over with confi- 
 dences. His lips move on, almost volubly. 
 
 He says: "I have been thinking things 
 over in the night and I have decided we 
 must not miss the chance of renting the 
 apartment I went to visit with Helen, the 
 end of July. . . . We liked it so much! . . . 
 You know, Quai Malaquais. . . . Overlook- 
 ing the Seine. The house is rather old and 
 we supposed it would be insufficiently 
 heated. But Helen will have the light she 
 needs for her painting and I shall be just 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 163 
 
 around the comer from my office. If you go 
 back to Paris before I do, please go to see 
 if the sign To Let is still hanging over the 
 door." 
 
 I look at my child with stupefaction. He 
 takes no heed of me, however, for just now 
 he is talking from the bottom of his happy 
 heart. A mysterious hand has turned the 
 obscure dial which was hiding from him his 
 "to-morrow." He is living over again the 
 dreams he dreamed before the war. He is 
 deep in his plans. He carries me away with 
 him. 
 
 With a smile he dispels my anxiety. 
 
 "You don't feel feverish?" I ask him. 
 
 And he answers: "Not at all! I want to 
 tell you something which may at first sight 
 seem rather mad to you. You remember the 
 Arabian servant we used to have, Amara?" 
 
 The name recalls a native horseman, 
 whom, twenty years before, I had brought 
 back with me to Paris, from his Algerian 
 mountain-top, to care for my horse. His 
 Chechia, his little blue jacket, his full red 
 trousers, his spurs, created a sensation 
 
i64 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 among the maidservants from the Avenue 
 de VilHers to the Place Malesherbes. 
 
 He could do anything and everything, 
 like all those of his race who have been 
 trained at the bordjs by the functionaries* 
 wives. 
 
 "You have n't forgotten him?" he asks. 
 "Well, I don't know how, but away off in 
 his province of Oran, Amara heard that I 
 was to be married. He wrote to me. He 
 asked me to take him into my service. He 
 said I must remember what a good cook he 
 is, and that he knows also how to wash and 
 iron and all the rest. Have n't you often told 
 me yourself that he was the first nurse 
 Marie-Rose had.? He would make a won- 
 derful man-of-all work for us ! Helen is like 
 me in this respect: she enjoys picturesque 
 things." 
 
 I have just time to answer: "Of course, 
 my dear child." 
 
 Already his fancy is chasing another but- 
 terfly in the sunlight. 
 
 This goes on for two long hours — all 
 too short for him. Then, by degrees, his 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 165 
 
 thoughts grow more sombre, become more 
 melancholy, until at last he says to me : "All 
 that is only a dream! I have been dream- 
 ing." 
 
 ... On the threshold of the big ward, I 
 run across the chief surgeon. He sees how 
 disturbed I am. He says to relieve me: 
 "The lieutenant was in great pain during 
 the night, so we increased his usual dose of 
 morphine. You were with him in a moment 
 of elation!" 
 
XXXIII 
 
 I OUGHT to be glad that he can know in 
 this way moments of forgetfulness before 
 the hour comes when he shall have for- 
 gotten all. Then why do I feel a sob in my 
 throat? . 
 
 I must walk off this agitation, quiet the 
 beating of my poor heart. 
 
 I pass out of the hospital gate. I wander 
 on aimlessly. My steps seem to be guided 
 for me. 
 
 In August, my child had spoken to me 
 in one of his letters about a thirteenth- 
 century church, which is one of the treas- 
 ures of this ancient city. It is reached 
 through a cloister which opens on to a 
 little square. 
 
 One day, when he chanced to be in the 
 town, doing errands for the regiment, he 
 went for a moment, as though to shelter 
 there his faith and his love, in this church. 
 
 I am glad to be there alone now. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 167 
 
 The church is as empty as the city. The 
 last rays of the sun illuminate the stained- 
 glass windows, the splendors of Paradise, 
 as the glory of the Middle Ages conceived 
 them. A few candles shine out like pale 
 stars, lighted in haste by some passing 
 soldiers who have stopped here a moment 
 on the way to combat. 
 
 Here is the baptismal font, where, for 
 centuries, joyous processions have carried 
 the newborn. Here is the altar, where, for 
 generations, the young couples who have 
 chosen each other tenderly have knelt to 
 bind their love and their dreams in the vows 
 of eternity. Here are the stones, worn down 
 by the weight of those who are wrapped in 
 their shrouds. 
 
 I shall kneel here, O God! as I turn to 
 Thee in supplication. 
 
 For twenty years I went my way, a son 
 on either side of me. They were my honor. 
 I did not consider that they belonged to 
 me more than they did to God. I did not 
 forget that God gives life, and that it is 
 His to take again. 
 
i68 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 When He took my first son I bowed my 
 head. I do not question now His taking 
 my only remaining boy. But, when I put 
 this last child in the tomb, will my faith 
 be buried with him.? I ask myself this 
 question in all humility. 
 
 Science itself, which certain men of my 
 generation have made their dogma, remains 
 a mystery for me, as deep a mystery as the 
 mysteries of God. I have read their books. 
 I admire their effort to search out the truth. 
 What I have been able to grasp through 
 them does not deprive me of the hope that 
 the beloved forms we have loved, and 
 whose substance is of dust and returns to 
 dust, are each and all animated by the 
 breath of God. 
 
 It is His will that still again one of these 
 precious apparitions must slip from my 
 grasp. After so many sorrows I must now 
 see my son go, my last son, the end of our 
 lineage. At this moment, when I so long 
 to be comforted, what do I see ? 
 
 I know how brave this dying boy of mine 
 is. Neither physical pain nor any other 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 169 
 
 can wring from him the cry he does not 
 want me to hear, and which would seem 
 Hke a reproach to God. 
 
 When his sufferings overcome him, he 
 pretends that he needs to rest, and he asks 
 me to leave him for a time so that I shall 
 not be saddened by the sight of his misery. 
 Yet, to-day, I found him suddenly envel- 
 oped in joy. 
 
 He was beginning a new life, the hopes 
 he had relinquished were all renewed again. 
 He was going to recover. He formulated 
 plans for future work. He felt the hand of 
 his fiancee in his, his heart overflowing 
 with her response to his love. He smiled 
 at me without a cloud on his face. He 
 said to me: "When are we to leave here?" 
 
 This hope, which blinds him, and which 
 crucifies me, is a lie. He does not find its 
 source in his faith in God, nor in his con- 
 sideration for me. Its gentle blessing has 
 not entered his soul through any miracle 
 of divine grace : it has sprung from a poison 
 contained in a bottle; it is passed into his 
 veins through a needle-point. One dose 
 
170 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 calms the sufiFering caused by his wound; 
 another dose relieves the agony of his mind; 
 still another stronger dose restores him to 
 happiness. 
 
 Meanwhile, where is his soul? Where is 
 the soul of my son which I struggle to think 
 of as having an existence apart from the 
 body which I shall lay away in the tomb ? 
 
 What becomes of this soul, intangible, 
 immaterial, immortal, spiritual, the soul 
 which I am determined to seek in God? 
 Which is right, my grief appalled at the 
 thought of annihilation, when I see my 
 child's death agony, or the voice which 
 affirms: "The thoughts, the breathing, the 
 feelings, all the phenomena you are observ- 
 ing, are the results of a unique mechanism. 
 The whole thing will stop at a given mo- 
 ment, and forever." 
 
 O God, forbid that my faith should per- 
 ish! Deliver me from temptation! 
 
XXXIV 
 
 "We are playing a delicate game," the 
 chief surgeon says to me with his Celtic 
 smile, — so kindly, so sad. . . . "Our chief 
 anxiety, you see, is that the magic of the 
 poison should outlast the resistance of our 
 patient." 
 
 So I must resign myself to it as to every- 
 thing else. From to-day on, my child, I 
 shall follow you in these two existences 
 without a murmur. 
 
 When I feel the veil of illusion vanishing 
 away and the shadow descending upon 
 your brow, I, too, have a talisman to turn 
 to. It prolongs on your precious face the 
 light that soon shall have faded. 
 
 I ask in a low tone: "Suppose we read 
 over some of Helen's letters .f*" 
 
 The reply is always the same: "I was 
 just going to ask you that." 
 
 When I arrived here these love-letters 
 
172 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 were all tucked away on a shelf at the head 
 of his bed. Sometimes he would reach up 
 and touch them. He did not open them, 
 however, for the writing — clear and dis- 
 tinct as it is — dances before his eyes so 
 that he cannot make it out. But he knew 
 the letters were there. 
 
 I have put them in their proper order. 
 They were with him in the rain, under fire. 
 He lay on them when he was for hours in 
 such agony, alone, on the slope of the hill. 
 He carried one of them on his heart ; it is 
 stained with blood. 
 
 They tell of the love of a young girl, 
 these charming love-letters, so tender. They 
 count the days. They speak of the unbear- 
 able anxiety. They follow on the map every 
 step of the absent one. They urge him not 
 to be too reckless ; they cherish his courage. 
 They allude to the short past, which, for 
 two happy children, was a lifetime. They 
 evoke a future in which all their happiness 
 shall be illuminated by glorious memories. 
 They hold a hope which binds together 
 heaven and earth. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 173 
 
 I read them and my poor sufferer drinks 
 them in. 
 
 He never wearies of listening to me spin 
 out this brief romance of his engagement. 
 Some of the letters leave him dreamy; 
 others make him smile. He has his favor- 
 ites. He loves them all. 
 
 He suffers to think that a single one of 
 these notes, traced by a beloved hand, may 
 perhaps be waiting behind the postman's 
 window. So, every day, our reading ends 
 with the same request : 
 
 *' To-morrow morning, while my wound 
 is being dressed, would you go down to 
 the post-office in the town? I would be so 
 grateful to you! By this time Helen must 
 have received the letter Jean- Jose sent her. 
 She knows I have been wounded. Poor 
 little Helen!" 
 
XXXV 
 
 • 
 
 My daily visit to-the post-office produces 
 on me the same impression as my hasty 
 promenades across the hospital wards. 
 They teach me a wholesome lesson in 
 brotherly love. 
 
 To be sure I try not to allow my misery 
 to hide from me the sufferings of others, 
 but the grief which seeks isolation is in 
 danger of becoming blind ; it seems to be- 
 come for itself, like love, the centre of the 
 world. 
 
 In this military post-office I come in 
 contact with the anguish, the tenderness 
 of others who love as I do, fathers, mothers, 
 wives, and husbands, brothers and sisters, 
 fiancees, sweethearts; their longing to see 
 each other fills the sacks piled up here on 
 the ground, heaped up in the corners, ever 
 added to by fresh arrivals. 
 
 Day and night, around all sorts of tables, 
 snatched haphazard from deserted wine- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 175 
 
 shops, the soldiers are sorting, sealing, ty- 
 ing. They have been told to make haste. 
 Their own good-will prods them on faster 
 than any order. They don't forget it for a 
 moment: all that they handle here is the 
 expression of some farewell, a kiss of adieu. 
 
 Where is he to be found now — such and 
 such a soldier, of the 19th Company of the 
 3S6th Regiment, i4Sth Brigade, 73d Divi- 
 sion, 20th Army Corps.? A few days ago, 
 not a dozen kilometres from here, his bat- 
 talion was shot to pieces. Is he waiting his 
 letters in some hospital? At the depot .f* 
 In the trenches, or under the earth? 
 
 So it is with all the others. And yet 
 these simple fellows never grow weary of 
 their heavy task. They turn over the 
 mussy envelopes, all these cards without 
 stamps, as though they were so many bank- 
 notes, a fortune which has been entrusted 
 to their keeping. 
 
 The window, where I ask for mail every 
 day, is the last one in the office. The em- 
 ployes have grown to know me. When they 
 have finished counting up the words in my 
 
176 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 telegrams, which daily, in one form or an- 
 other, repeat the same lamentable story, 
 "He is holding his own ... He is thinking 
 of you ... He says over your names . . ." 
 these witnesses of my distress look at me 
 with pity. They are happy when they have 
 letters for us. They don't like to have to 
 say, "Nothing as yet ..." 
 
 These letters, when they come, hide the 
 truth also. It has been agreed among us 
 that Marie-Rose and the other members 
 of the family, and our own friends, are to 
 write as though I had come merely to help 
 my boy through a convalescence. They all 
 speak of the joy of seeing him again, of 
 the welcome waiting him and the reward 
 he so well deserves. 
 
 It is difficult to read such messages aloud 
 at the foot of his bed without my eyes be- 
 traying my feeling, without letting my 
 voice falter. 
 
 It is my boy's desire that those who love 
 him shall not be saddened too soon. 
 
XXXVI 
 
 This morning, as I was coming back 
 from the Etat-Major, I ran across my 
 friend and Robert's, standing on a street 
 comer, Lieutenant Jean- Jose. 
 
 The last time I had seen him was in the 
 foyer of a Paris theatre, on a "first night'* 
 of one of his plays. Friends were crowding 
 around him to congratulate him on his 
 success. 
 
 War and all he has been through have 
 given him an added touch of youth — alert, 
 resolute, in spite of the cane he is obliged 
 to use, and the double rent in the knee of his 
 trousers where the ball went in and came 
 out. 
 
 The flash of joy which lighted up his face 
 when he first caught sight of me vanishes 
 at once ; he realizes what my presence here 
 signifies. 
 
 "And Robert?" he says. "Poor fellow! 
 I went through alternate stages of hope 
 
178 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 and despair about him — when I saw him 
 first, on the night after the battle, by the 
 light of a little lamp lying on the straw 
 in the corner of a farmhouse kitchen. I 
 thought all was up with him. The priest 
 who had been talking with him said to me : 
 ' He is wandering in his mind. . . / I left 
 him overwhelmed. Then, the next morn- 
 ing, he was looking like himself again. He 
 asked me to write to his fiancee. He wanted 
 me to send her a reassuring message. I did 
 it before having my wound dressed, and 
 after that we did not see each other again. 
 I was sent here to a hospital in the town. 
 I have been on my back for a week." 
 
 In a low tone he asks: "Then, there is 
 no hope?" And brusquely, "Come, let's 
 have a look at him . . ." 
 
 Jean- Jose enters the room. He is greeted 
 with a bound of joy. My patient's face 
 looks like some dismal facade whose win- 
 dows have all been suddenly thrown open; 
 the light streams in, and the outward land- 
 scape is reflected in every mirror. 
 - This handsome fellow, standing beside 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 179 
 
 his bed, his hand outstretched, has been his 
 confidant during the hours when one mocks 
 at the idea of death. For a moment they 
 laugh together, as gayly as though the war 
 had been long since ended, as though they 
 were recalling its charming side, already 
 growing dim in their memories; as though 
 they were delighting together in the ad- 
 ventures of their valiant young days. But 
 even such joys are short-lived, and in a 
 moment they are recalling the details of 
 the attack. They are still happy at being 
 together, but now they no longer smile. 
 
 The questions follow each other rapidly: 
 
 "The captain?" 
 
 "Dead." 
 
 "Lieutenant Pascal, our little Saint-Cyr 
 boy who dashed out under fire with his 
 white gloves?" 
 
 "Killed." 
 
 "And the two majors . . . ? And my poor 
 men...?" 
 
 It is a sinister review of spectres. The 
 regiment has dwindled to nothing under 
 the enemy's fire. 
 
i8o ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 Robert stops to think for a moment and 
 then he says: "You and I behaved very 
 decently." 
 
 "You more than I." And, turning to me, 
 Jean-Jose says : " Has he told you what he 
 did on the hill-top? ... Of course not! 
 He has given you a general idea, but I'm 
 sure you don't know this : When he decided 
 the time had come for him to go in search 
 of the major for orders, he came down the 
 slope, facing the enemy, facing the shot, 
 standing and walking backward. When 
 I shouted to him, 'You are mad! What 
 do you mean?' he responded by this one 
 sentence, characteristically French; and 
 which ought to be mentioned in the army's 
 despatches: 'I don't want to be shot in the 
 back!'" 
 
 I look at my child. 
 
 He is flushing slightly: "I didn't want 
 my men to suppose I was going off on a 
 walk for my own pleasure." 
 
 The two clasp hands a moment, these 
 two friends who are not to see each other 
 again. 
 
XXXVII 
 
 As on the day of my arrival, here I am 
 again, seated in the office of the director. 
 He has removed his Httle police cap which 
 becomes him so well. His brown eyes, 
 golden like his beard, study me with a 
 charitable compassion. 
 
 "I heard you say," he begins, "that you 
 wantedtotakeyour son away. . . afterward. 
 Perhaps you can obtain permission before 
 the war is over. In any case you are ac- 
 quainted with the regulations for such 
 undertaking. . . . Wood . . . lead. . . . We 
 have neither here. I have just received 
 notice from the city that they have only 
 one coffin left. We shall not receive any 
 more for some time to come. If you want 
 this one you must buy it at once. I know 
 how brave you are, and I thought you 
 would rather have me tell you this." 
 
 To think ahead, it is the proof of friend- 
 ship and of love. Mothers don't wait until 
 
1 82 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 their children are born to prepare a cradle 
 for them. I must do as they. 
 
 The director is ready to accompany me 
 to the city. He will take me to see the car- 
 penter who deals in these last sheets of zinc, 
 these last planks of oak. 
 
 He is a frontiersman, half Lorraine, half 
 Alsatian, cordial and hearty, with an ample 
 figure. 
 
 I tell him what has happened to my 
 child as though my own reasons for find- 
 ing him heroic could modify anything in 
 the making of a coffin. As answer the car- 
 penter wants to explain what excellent 
 materials he uses : 
 
 "The oak I am going to give you you 
 could not buy in Paris. It is the finest to 
 be had in French Lorraine, from the moun- 
 tains, near the village where I was born. 
 If you happen to go there you will hear my 
 family well spoken of, I assure you! . . . 
 'Boissec! . . . Patriots every one of them! 
 . . . Always ready to open a bottle of wine 
 for a soldier who needs to be refreshed on 
 his march.' Your child could n't be com- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 183 
 
 forted any more by a swallow of wine. But 
 we'll take care of him! You can rely on a 
 Boissec as though you were one of the fam- 
 ily yourself! Since 1793, sir, we can count 
 back one hundred and ten Boissecs who 
 have been killed fighting for their coun- 
 try." 
 
 I know, my dear man, our generation 
 are not the inventors of trials and sacri- 
 fices — other sons have died before mine. 
 But the far-away griefs of these distant an- 
 cestors are like the withered leaves of by- 
 gone days fallen at the foot of some oak 
 tree. What counts for us is the first ver- 
 dure of the early spring which spread like 
 a crown over the tree and which offered 
 its shade to the traveller, weary with the 
 labors of the day. 
 
 To satisfy this Boissec I comply with all 
 he proposes. I taste his wine, I feel of his 
 timber, I choose the metal mountings he 
 picks out for me. I even accept — Heaven 
 have pity on me ! — this overwhelming con- 
 dition: "When the coffin is ready you will 
 have to take it away at once — I could n't 
 
1 84 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 guard it against the supplications of others 
 who want it as much as you do. If they 
 offered some enormous price, I 'd have to let 
 it go. I could only give you your money 
 back. You '11 be easier^ diable ! when you 've 
 got the thing in your own keeping!" 
 
 You are right, my dear Boissec, I shall 
 be easier. I don't want my child, before 
 the warmth has even left his body, to be 
 placed, naked, under the earth. 
 
XXXVIII 
 
 As I was getting into the priest's motor 
 a soldier touched my arm. He has a tele- 
 gram for me which has been delayed nearly 
 four hours on the way, owing to some er- 
 ror in transmission. It is a despatch from 
 Helen. 
 
 She says: "Arrive to-morrow morning 
 with my mother." 
 
 I was sure that this brave child would 
 come to bid her fiancee farewell. But "to- 
 morrow morning" is to-day. It is almost 
 ten now and the train was due at eight 
 o'clock. 
 
 At the station they say several people 
 have arrived coming from the direction of 
 Paris. No one has noticed a young girl. 
 What has become of these two poor women 
 in the face of the rigorous sentinels? I am 
 so preoccupied about them, my Robert, 
 that I have scarcely time to think of you — 
 of your emotion at seeing "her" again. 
 
i86 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 The priest's automobile carries me off at 
 top speed. 
 
 At the foot of the short cut which mounts 
 abruptly to the hospital gate, I see Helen 
 and her mother. They are on their way 
 back to the town ; they walk slowly, one a 
 little behind the other, and without ex- 
 changing a word. Each one is plunged in 
 the solitude of her own personal sorrow. 
 
 Have they been turned away from the 
 hospital ? 
 
 No, they have seen him, and this vision 
 has struck Helen like a thunderbolt. Her 
 thoughts are upon the calvary she has just 
 mounted; my tender thanks to her are 
 addressed to an absent soul. 
 
 **My own daughter! I shall cherish you 
 always for having brought him this last 
 
 joy!" . 
 
 She is not listening to what I say. Her 
 eyes are dull, her arms hang lifeless. She 
 murmurs: "That is n't Robert I saw! . . . 
 That isn't Robert!" 
 
 Alas! my dear child, what could you 
 have hoped to find on the crest of the hill 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 187 
 
 yonder? You sped toward some injured 
 dream. . . . You found a dying man. 
 
 Her mother says: "You must excuse 
 her. . . . You see how she is suffering." 
 
 What must I excuse, my daughter.? 
 That you should be grief-stricken? He 
 and you and I, we are three broken-hearted 
 beings. 
 
XXXIX 
 
 Helen weeps. 
 
 In the poorly lighted room, where she 
 and I have taken refuge while her mother 
 is unpacking their modest belongings, she 
 weeps. Her tears flow for this happiness 
 that might have been; for the immense 
 suffering she has seen; for her own life 
 which is broken. 
 
 "How happy Robert must have been to 
 see you." 
 
 "Yes! yes! As happy as he could be. But 
 already he has gone beyond where I can 
 reach him. We see each other, but between 
 us there seems no real contact." 
 
 I take her poor hands in mine. She wears 
 the ring which my boy placed on her fin- 
 ger in token of her promise to be his wife. 
 It is a diamond which his mother used to 
 wear as a young woman, and which Robert 
 has had mounted with a setting of rubies. 
 
 Helen guesses my thoughts. An expres- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 189 
 
 sion of anguish crosses her brow. She 
 groans: "Think what he said to me that 
 last night in August, before he left me! 
 'If God wills that I should not return, my 
 loving wish is that some fine man may 
 come into your life, to protect you, as I 
 have longed to do myself. But he would 
 be grieved to see this ring on your finger. 
 So you won't wear it. But if you ever have 
 a daughter, give it to her, when she is en- 
 gaged, in memory of our unfulfilled happi- 
 ness.'" -^ 
 
 She wrings her hands and says: "Just 
 now he kept looking and looking at this 
 ring. ... Ah ! why did he say what he did 
 when we were about to part!" 
 
 I listen to her and it seems to me I can 
 see our old house, near the forest, the re- 
 union on the day the engagement was an- 
 nounced, when all the young friends were 
 gathered around our table. 
 
 That was scarcely three months ago. 
 
 I looked out of my window at the chest- 
 nut tree in the garden, where, ten years be- 
 fore, I had seen the coffin of my oldest boy. 
 
190 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 And I thought to myself: "Soon, now, in 
 the same shadowy spot we shall shelter a 
 cradle. A young mother will be leaning 
 over this new little life beginning. The 
 chain of existence shall be thus continued.'' 
 
XL 
 
 Robert and Helen spend the day alone 
 together. She takes my place giving him 
 water, ice, milk. 
 
 Meanwhile, Helen's mother and I stroll 
 about the paths of the garden. Our foot- 
 steps sound in the gravel as we pass under 
 our patient's window. 
 
 She is calm, this mother of Helen's. So 
 kind, so peaceful. She watches her child's 
 sufferings with something of the astonish- 
 ment of the Madonnas as they appear in 
 holy pictures. She seems to be saying: 
 "Poor little girl! You supposed that per- 
 fect happiness was possible here on earth ? 
 You had forgotten my widow's mourning." 
 
 She realizes it, this mother: I shall not 
 be any more selfish in my love for her 
 daughter than my poor boy was. 
 
 We talk together of Helen as though my 
 son were the outsider, as though she be- 
 longed to us both. This melancholy ac- 
 
192 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 companiment seems to suit the sad duet 
 which these two young souls are singing 
 as they sit side by side behind the closed 
 window — behind the smile, which, in 
 their misery, they force themselves heroi- 
 cally to wear. For I understood, from what 
 Helen said, my beloved son keeps the same 
 absolute command of himself with his 
 fiancee as he does always with me. 
 
 Does he know that she realizes the truth 
 as clearly as he does ? At all events, he will 
 ask no questions. 
 
 Between them, until the last moment, 
 they will admit but the certainty of seeing 
 each other again. 
 
 The glance he gave me, when, at about 
 four o'clock, I went into his room, fol- 
 lowed by Helen's mother, showed me his 
 determination on this subject. So, all 
 three, silently, we obey this unspoken rule, 
 like the soldiers who came to his rescue 
 when he fell on the hillside, and to whom 
 he commanded : " Return to the firing-line ! " 
 
XLI 
 
 The big ward which is beyond the little 
 hallway into which Robert's room opens 
 is full of wounded who are kept isolated: 
 all those who can go no farther, those whom 
 they don't want to have die among their 
 comrades in some cattle train. 
 
 So near the battlefield these poor hope- 
 less case3 receive no visits. They must con- 
 tent themselves with dictating a few letters, 
 or having read to them the answers when 
 they are able to listen to them. 
 
 I am so wrung with pity for their loneli- 
 ness that I beg Helen not to come through 
 this ward. So, to reach Robert's room, we 
 go around the tall building, we keep close 
 to the walls where no one can see us, as 
 though we were going to some clandestine 
 meeting. But these poor fellows found 
 out that the lieutenant, their comrade, had 
 a dear visitor. They sent me word by Big 
 Louis that they longed to have this young 
 
194 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 girl come through their ward. They said: 
 "We're so glad that some one can have a 
 little happiness." 
 
 By what miracle, O God! do you thus 
 enrich the human heart, burying the ego- 
 ism which seemed to be withering up the 
 face of the earth, bringing back into your 
 light the seed of brotherly love ? 
 
 I feel it, with an emotion that is over- 
 whelming; the young girl whom these 
 lonely creatures long to see pass before their 
 eyes is not a mother, or a wife. She is the 
 betrothed who shall have no wedding, the 
 dream which shall remain a dream, the 
 symbol of what might have been, the pure 
 love wherein each one of these dying men 
 seeks the reflection of some fleeting mem- 
 ory, dear to his heart. 
 
XLII 
 
 It was to-night that Helen bade him 
 good-bye. 
 
 Both of them, until this last agony, have 
 maintained toward each other their gen- 
 erous effort at control. There has been no 
 mention made of any final separation. My 
 child — so brave himself — had made a 
 good choice. How can I not weep over the 
 child who might have been theirs ! 
 
 So we talk of the reunion ... his return 
 to Paris. 
 
 "As soon as I can be moved,'' he says, 
 "Helen has promised that she will send a 
 motor for me. I shall be carried directly 
 to the hospital at Neuilly. She will be 
 waiting for me there." 
 
 The look in his eyes is almost ecstatic as 
 he pronounces these words. "She will be 
 waiting for me." 
 
 At that time he will have drunk of the 
 waters whose murmurings he already hears. 
 
196 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 He will have quenched there his thirst, 
 appeased his sufferings. She will come to 
 him, more ethereal than her wedding veil. 
 She will have in her hands the flowers that 
 never fade. And they shall be forever 
 united in Glory. 
 
XLIII 
 
 "To get away . . ." 
 
 This was the fixed idea which possessed 
 him when his soldiers picked him up on 
 the battlefield. How agonized his expression 
 was when he said to me himself: "I want 
 to try to get home!" 
 
 Since Helen left, he has been haunted 
 by the same thought. During the ever 
 briefer moments when he is under the in- 
 fluence of morphine, "to get away" means 
 "to recover with the care of his beloved 
 fiancee." 
 
 When the poison is no longer active, he 
 faces the future again deliberately. Then 
 "to get away" means "to go back to 
 Paris, to fall asleep on Helen's shoulder." 
 
 As his confidant, I telegraph to the Min- 
 ister of War, I pay visits to the civil and 
 military authorities, I go on errands, I beg, 
 I entreat, that, when the time comes, I 
 may take him away from here, not as my 
 
198 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 thinking, feeling son, still alive, but all 
 there is left of him, between the planks of 
 oak. 
 
 The Minister sends me his affectionate 
 condolences, but until the end of the war 
 no one can use the railroad for such pur- 
 poses. The prefect says I can go by the 
 road when the lead coffin has been sealed, 
 the oak cover screwed down. "But you 
 and I," he adds, "know neither the day 
 nor the hour. So we must place the body 
 temporarily in a tomb here. And for that 
 you must ask the municipal authorities." 
 
 The body! 
 
 I want "the body"! 
 
 The major says "Yes," with tears in his 
 eyes. He advises me to go to the ceme- 
 tery to arrange things with the guardian 
 of the tombs; with the grave-digger! 
 
 I have just come back from there. I 
 saw the place. So, when, my child, you 
 say to me: "What trouble you are taking 
 for me! . . . Have you succeeded?" I can 
 answer truthfully: "You will be able to 
 leave." 
 
XLIV 
 
 I HAD helped you, my boy, to make the 
 arrangements for your wedding. From my 
 own belongings I had selected the souvenirs 
 most directly connected with my fore- 
 fathers. I was so happy to think that I 
 should see them in the home you were to 
 found. 
 
 You will not be able to take them with 
 you where you go, and to-day, other 
 thoughts preoccupy me. 
 
 My child, you shall not be laid away un- 
 shrouded in the earth; but I hope for bet- 
 ter than this assurance. 
 
 I want a pillow to place under your head. 
 
 In town, every day, for an hour or two, 
 the military authorities allow the shop- 
 keepers to push aside the shutters from 
 the show windows which used to be well 
 stocked. Long before the shop door opens, 
 groups of soldiers have gathered. They are 
 in from the trenches. They hold in their 
 
200 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 hands a list of the errands they have been 
 asked to do. Every one wants flannels and 
 woollens to comfort him in the rainy dug- 
 outs. In your letters, my boy, you spoke 
 of a certain "splendid violet muffler" of 
 which you were proud. 
 
 I stand in line with these valiant young 
 men, covered with mud, happy to be still 
 alive. When, at last, it is my turn, I ask 
 for a j)illow cover. 
 
 The shopkeeper lifts her arms in aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 "Could you," I ask, "sell me two hand- 
 kerchiefs? . . . Not too coarse and of the 
 same size.?" 
 
 "Muslin? . . . That is something which 
 the poilus don't often ask for." 
 
 So I find what I want. I can sew the 
 two handkerchiefs together. Between them 
 I can slip some wool, bought at a drug shop. 
 Your head, in this way, Robert, won't rest 
 against the lead. 
 
 I must have a flag too. I want to wrap 
 you up in it. You have died for the flag. 
 
 I found one as I wanted. A friendly hand 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 201 
 
 offered to sew the pillow, and now I have 
 these two treasures beside me in my cellar 
 room. I see them when I close my eyes at 
 night. I see them in the morning when I 
 awake. They lie there on the shelf; I have 
 no cupboard. I am always conscious of 
 their presence. 
 
XLV 
 
 Every evening, when the head nurse 
 has given the last hypodermic which keeps 
 our patient quiet for the night, I creep out 
 of the room on tiptoe and cross over the gar- 
 den. 
 
 On the other side of the flower bed I 
 knock at the door of a Httle cottage. 
 
 I go to pay a visit to the colonel who fell, 
 in a similar bayonet attack, the day after 
 Robert, on the same hill, leading his regi- 
 ment. 
 
 His eyes very bright, his mustache grown 
 long, as he lies there on his pillow he looks 
 like such a leader as Neuville would have 
 chosen as a model. 
 
 The colonel was born in one of the 
 French islands in the Indian Ocean. On 
 the various battlefields of Africa and Asia 
 he has played a role inspiring to his men. 
 He does not know, and no one knows, if he 
 can survive the wound made by a bullet 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 203 
 
 in his chest, which entered just above his 
 Legion of Honor Cross. 
 
 The colonel married late. On the bed 
 where he lies he thinks of his young wife, 
 of his little children, of the son who sends 
 his love, written in a laborious copy-book 
 hand, the sight of which brings tears to this 
 heroic soldier's eyes. 
 
 I like to sit down beside the little table 
 laden with cups and medicine glasses. I 
 like to write for him what he wants to 
 dictate to me, for his young wife and his 
 children. 
 
 Then we talk together about my boy. 
 
 Even before I came the colonel asked 
 every day for news of his young neighbor. 
 There is an atmosphere of camaraderie. 
 So much heroism and the constant pres- 
 ence of death seem to do away with all 
 grades. 
 
 The colonel relates to me our battle as 
 he saw it. 
 
 When he knew that, with no previous 
 cannonading, he was asked to send his sol- 
 diers on for a bayonet attack upon a thor-. 
 
204 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 oughly well-defended position, this chief 
 felt as chagrined as a horseman who is 
 forced to send his thoroughbred over some 
 insurmountable obstacle. 
 
 He says: "I went to find the major in 
 the middle of the night. I entreated him 
 to postpone the attack for several hours, to 
 wait at least for the protection of darkness 
 until the next night. They promised to 
 forward my request to the chiefs higher up. 
 But our action, no doubt, was only part 
 of a general plan. We were needed just 
 there. At noon the order came to attack 
 • . • 
 
 There is a moment's silence. Then the 
 colonel concludes: "They were right, of 
 course. To-day we command the position." 
 
 He does not think, he does not say: "At 
 what a cost!'' 
 
 Nor does my child. 
 
 Nor do I. 
 
XLVI 
 
 To-day Robert received a visit from the 
 sergeant major who has been sent by the 
 paymaster to bring him his last salary. 
 
 On the threshold, this soldier salutes. 
 He keeps his hand lifted rather longer than 
 usual, because, instead of receiving him 
 standing, the lieutenant is there stretched 
 out flat on his bed. 
 
 This sergeant major is a true official. 
 He represents the Administration, a power 
 which must never commit an injustice nor 
 show any feeling. 
 
 He says: "Lieutenant, I wish to give 
 you what is due." 
 
 My patient stretches out his hand to his 
 visitor. On his lips there is a fleeting smile: 
 *'My pay! . . . Why, of course! . . . I had 
 forgotten it. . . ." 
 
 To pay is a duty. The sergeant major 
 is the mechanism which accomplishes this 
 duty. 
 
2o6 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 He answers gravely: "Lieutenant, there 
 are officers and soldiers who have wives, 
 children. They claim part of the pay. 
 They should not be made to wait." 
 
 There was a silence. Robert has lowered 
 his eyes, and the sergeant major concludes : 
 "I am to give you your pay in your own 
 hands." 
 
 He spreads out a little blue paper, a few 
 silver pieces, some coppers, on the bed. 
 He has done what he came for. But he is 
 very scrupulous. He seems to feel the 
 Government owes something more to this 
 dying man. 
 
 Always correct, but almost tenderly, he 
 says: "Has the lieutenant heard the news?" 
 
 "What news?" 
 
 "The lieutenant has been mentioned in 
 the despatches." 
 
 "Of our brigade?" 
 
 "Of the army." 
 
 This is the true payment, for the son, 
 like his ancestors, cherishes honor. 
 
 He asks: "Do you know what mention 
 was made?" 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 207 
 
 "I do not," answers the sergeant major. 
 
 "I hope I shall hear," adds my boy. 
 
 The sergeant major leaves, prolonging 
 his salute even further than when he came 
 in. 
 
 For a moment Robert weighs in his hand 
 the little sum of money laid on the bed. 
 
 Then he says: "The price of blood is not 
 heavy. . . . But it is what it is. . . . You 
 must put this aside. When Marie-Rose 
 marries, you must buy her a present with 
 it, a present from me. . . . Your present, I 
 can offer you to-day, if what the sergeant 
 major says is true." 
 
XLVII 
 
 When exhaustion overcomes him and 
 suddenly he lowers his eyes, I can no longer 
 remain seated. I have to get up to lean 
 over him, to watch him. If,, now and then, 
 he did not wrinkle his brow, to drive away 
 the flies that torment him, I might almost 
 think he will never wake. 
 
 Gaze at him, poor man, and try to grow 
 accustomed to this thought: he will look 
 like this when the struggle is over ! 
 
 In the arms of Death Triumphant I see 
 a transfigured Robert. 
 
 It is he, and yet it is still more you, my 
 son Guy, whom I see; as you used to look 
 when I walked between you, happy to 
 hear people say as we passed, "They seem 
 to be three brothers!" — as you looked in 
 the peace of your final sleep. 
 
 At that moment, my first-born child, 
 you had grown so like me in appearance 
 that it was no longer you, but myself, at 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 209 
 
 the age of twenty, lying there. You wanted 
 to leave this heritage to my grief: 
 
 "I was you, even more than you 
 dreamed." 
 
 Oh ! my sons, why, in dying, do you wear 
 the look of my youth .? Is it because, in this 
 vision, you wish to show me the child to 
 which your lost love shall never give birth.? 
 
 This is the lesson I learn: We three are 
 but a single being, multiplied for an instant, 
 and drawn close again to return to God. 
 
XLVIII 
 
 The soldier who guards the hospital gate 
 stopped me just now on my way. This 
 humble fellow is wrapped up in his little 
 girl, a child about twelve years old. Stand- 
 ing by his side, she watches placidly the 
 wounded being brought in, the dead being 
 carried out. 
 
 For her they are merely the guests com- 
 ing or going whom she greets in passing, 
 stopping a moment some game to smile or 
 to make the sign of the cross. 
 
 The good man is embarrassed when he 
 sees me. I feel I must encourage him. 
 
 "Sir," he says, "it's Boissec. . . . You 
 know, the carpenter from town? ... He 
 gave me a message for you. ... He has 
 finished the work. ... He would like to 
 deliver it as soon as possible. ... It seems 
 you agreed to this?'' 
 
 "Yes, I did." 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 211 
 
 "Then ... he can bring it up to-mor- 
 row morning? . . ." 
 
 And the poor fellow adds in a low tone: 
 "Where shall I have them put it.?" 
 
 Near me, of course, with the other relics, 
 the flag, the pillow : I have reached the 
 point where it is almost a comfort to be 
 thus sure of having a coflSn for my son be- 
 fore he is dead. Now I am certain that his 
 poor, wretched body will not receive di- 
 rectly the weight of the earth upon it. 
 
 In my misery I am happier than thou- 
 sands of other fathers, who will see before 
 them only an irregular field, and who will 
 not know where to kneel, if they want to 
 say a prayer. 
 
XLIX 
 
 The director has been promising me for 
 some time to show me the portraits of his 
 two little children. He is sorry that a ray 
 of sunlight, which mars the photograph, pre- 
 vents my seeing how pretty his young wife is. 
 
 While I am looking at these charming 
 pictures, the paymaster brings me the 
 mail. I recognize on one of the envelopes 
 my brother-in-law Eugene's writing. He 
 is surgeon now in a railroad station near 
 the front, where thousands of wounded pass 
 through his hands. 
 
 I tell the director the pretty story of how 
 this young doctor happened to become one 
 of our family. 
 
 Twenty-four years ago (Robert was 
 about three years old then) our household 
 was stricken with croup. My two chil- 
 dren had bad cases. We did not yet know, 
 we, the mothers and fathers, the blessed 
 remedy with which to combat and quell 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 213 
 
 this malady at its start. Minute by min- 
 ute we had to fight suffocation. 
 
 The great speciaHst whom I had sum- 
 moned to our aid said to me: "Here are 
 the name and address of one of my assist- 
 ants. I hope he will be able to leave his 
 studies to come and stay here in the house. 
 It will be the only chance of saving your 
 children." 
 
 I can never forget my search through the 
 Latin Quarter, from one street to another. 
 Finally I reached a student lodging-house, 
 where, in the days when I was preparing 
 for my examinations at the Sorbonne, I 
 myself had stayed. 
 
 In the very room where I had burned the 
 midnight oil chance would have it that I 
 should find this young man to whom I 
 looked to save us. 
 
 He was polite, speaking only common 
 sense, no doubt: "I am preparing for the 
 competition to become interne," he said. 
 "I can't throw up my work like this." 
 
 "Eight years ago," I answered him, "I 
 was seated behind this very table. ... I 
 
214 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 would have said exactly what you are 
 saying; I didn't know then what I have 
 learned since in becoming a father. You, 
 too, some day, will know what this paternal 
 affection is. Then you will be sorry that 
 you thrust aside my anguish. Moreover, 
 it is not only because you love Science that 
 you have chosen the profession of doctor? 
 You want to relieve suffering humanity.? 
 . . . Come now to the assistance of a father 
 who can't see his sons die." 
 
 He listened to me. He came with me. 
 It was a terrible epidemic in the house- 
 hold. One after the other the two children, 
 their mother, one of my brothers, one of 
 my sisters, were infected with the disease, 
 which we fought for two months. 
 
 We were the victors, and, as a recom- 
 pense for such hours of mortal misery, we 
 saw the dawning of a young love. 
 
 My sister Marie-Louise was then in her 
 twentieth year, and very charming. As 
 her hands smoothed the pillows of our 
 poor sufferers, they had encountered the 
 doctor's hands, joined with them. So, 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 215 
 
 after the period of convalescence, we cele- 
 brated a love marriage. 
 
 The happiness of the young couple 
 seemed to radiate farther than the old pro- 
 vincial church and the circle of friends who 
 had accompanied them thither. It reached 
 as far as those who long to hear a happy 
 ending to a tragic story. 
 
 "To-day," I say to the director, "my 
 brother-in-law Eugene's only son, his 
 * Charles,' is fighting. *Our Charles' is a 
 lieutenant, twenty-two years old. He has 
 passed his law examinations brilliantly, 
 graduated from the School of Political 
 Science. What a shock it must have been 
 to Eugene when he learned that the last 
 of the children whose lives he saved years 
 ago is now dying in my arms, and that even 
 his experience could do nothing for us!" 
 
 I open the envelope which the paymaster 
 handed me. 
 
 Ah, God ! . . . You can spare no one ! . . . 
 Charles has been killed,^ shot through the 
 
 ^ Lieutenant Charles Didier, killed in action, Sep- 
 tember 22, 1 91 4. 
 
2i6 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 heart a few miles from the spot where his 
 cousin fell, on the other side of the Moselle. 
 He had sprung out of the trenches to lead 
 on his men. 
 
 This is the end. The end! In both 
 branches of the family! My father has lost 
 his last grandson. 
 
 For a moment I cannot take it in or be- 
 lieve it. It is too much — too much! 
 
The letter from Charles's father has 
 lain all day hi my coat pocket. It seemed 
 to burn my breast when Robert asked me 
 as usual if there were no news from his 
 friends at the front, from his cousin, who 
 was like a brother, and who, on his wed- 
 ding day, was to have been his best man. 
 
 To decipher these poor lines I waited 
 until night, until I was alone in my cellar 
 room. 
 
 So, my poor Eugene, it was for this that 
 twenty-four years ago I came to hunt you 
 out before your work-table and bring you 
 into my house! 
 
 I said to you : *' Later you will understand 
 how profound this love is for one's own 
 
 son." 
 
 You listened to me. You came with me. 
 Toward what fate? 
 ^ To-day I read your letter within a few 
 
2i8 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 feet of the very coffin in which I am wait- 
 ing to lay my last son, and you, you have 
 been on to the battlefield to disinter your 
 boy. 
 
 For two long days and two long nights 
 you were searching for him in the grass, for 
 this beloved child, searching under the 
 rain of bullets. You were sent back and 
 forth from those who did not know where 
 to take you, to those whose indifference 
 failed to grasp your determination. Yoii 
 wore your eyes out making out the names 
 already growing dim on the wooden crosses. 
 You felt your heart sink before these name- 
 less tombs. And when at last you knew 
 in which direction to guide your steps, you 
 did as I, you made friends of those who 
 could help you realize your hope. The old 
 carpenter who agreed to make you a coffin 
 in the night hours; the cartman who har- 
 nessed his horse in the darkness ; the village 
 priest who gave you a sheet; the sergeant 
 who shouldered his gun to show you the 
 way; the soldiers your son had commanded, 
 and who set out with you before dawn to 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 219 
 
 find the hillside, and the spot where the 
 soil was overturned. 
 
 Each word in your letter, each one of 
 your thoughts, poor father, finds an echo in 
 my heart. You write: 
 
 " I walked on, my eyes fixed on the woods 
 of Selouze. We reached a clump of shrubs, 
 two hundred metres farther on another 
 cluster of bushes, quite near the place 
 where my child had been shot down. The 
 sergeant showed the way with a steady 
 step. He led me to the trench which Charles 
 had occupied the previous day. A little 
 heap of earth, a little cross made of two 
 branches. It was there. Charles and I were 
 together again. 
 
 "I noticed that the men were wait- 
 ing for an order from me. I said: 'Go 
 ahead!* 
 
 "With their shovels they began throw- 
 ing up the earth. Gently, respectfully, the 
 soldiers dug all about the grave. . . . First 
 a red spot appeared. 
 
 "'Stop!' I cried. 
 
 "I brushed away the dirt with my hands. 
 
220 ON THE FIELD OF HONORS 
 
 Little by little I uncovered the legs in their 
 new red trousers. I lifted them up. I freed 
 them. The cloak had been thrown over 
 the head and shoulders. 
 
 "The body was entirely outlined now. 
 It was covered with blood; the earth, too, 
 had been soaked with it. It had flowed from 
 the bullet hole in the chest. 
 
 "I could not yet distinguish the face, 
 but I could see his poor feet with their 
 heavy boots, hobnailed, clumsy, and his 
 hands with their slender fingers, thin, 
 wrinkled, already withered. 
 
 "We dragged him to the edge of the 
 grave. I lifted up the cloak. Poor little 
 Charles! 
 
 "It was his pale, fine face, his straight 
 nose, his full mouth. Death had respected 
 his features. But what an unknown expres- 
 sion he wore! His head was thrown back 
 as though defiantly in a moment of su- 
 preme effort. His face had a look of savage 
 energy. He had aged twenty years in the 
 moment of combat. 
 
 "I was overwhelmed. I kissed him for 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 221 
 
 his poor mother, for his sister, for myself. 
 My tears fell upon his forehead. 
 
 ** Meanwhile the sun had risen; the mist 
 had turned into a fine rain; the shells had 
 begun to fall again. I had to leave if I did 
 not want to add new grief to this grief. 
 The soldiers placed the body on a litter and 
 we started on our way. 
 
 "I walked by his side, holding his hand 
 in mine, the hand of my boy, so cold now. 
 We were close together again as we used 
 to be in the days when we dreamed about 
 the future." 
 
 The letter is longer still, but I shall read 
 no more to-night. 
 
 My little Charles, I shall not tell Robert 
 that you have fallen. He was counting 
 upon you to console me. The thought that 
 you, too, have left us would grieve him too 
 sorely, however glorious your end. 
 
 But to-morrow how happy he is going 
 to be to find you on the other side, be- 
 tween Guy and Jean ! In the joy of your 
 reunion, my dear children, don't forget 
 
222] ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 those who have loved you so deeply here- 
 below, and who must finish their days 
 without you. 
 
 Charles, Robert, you must forgive me 
 if just now I was rebellious. Have you not 
 fallen, dear sons, to teach us fathers that 
 sacrifice is not measured by reason? 
 
LI 
 
 Every evening, toward six o'clock, the 
 cathedral, deserted and silent during the 
 day, becomes peopled with moving shad- 
 ows ; soldiers who pass, valiant fellows sent 
 back from the trenches for a short rest. 
 
 A few candles placed in the side chapels, 
 on an altar, break the depth of gloom. A 
 little light under a lamp-shade illumines a 
 hymnal. A few rays reach as far as the 
 vaulted roof: they touch up the brass of a 
 chandelier, the gold of a faded banner, the 
 fringe of a flag. At the foot of the pillars 
 it is as dark as the forest in night-time. 
 
 Among these trees of stone, under the 
 leaves of the capitals, a group of people 
 stand, silent, immovable. Is it in my 
 imagination that these cloaks exist, stiff 
 with mud, their long folds hanging straight ? 
 Is it the dim light in which these shaggy 
 heads appear? Is it the intensity of these 
 
224 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 thoughtful faces? In the semi-darkness 
 these men seem less to be living than to 
 be some statues of the Middle Ages ; figures 
 on a church door, weary with standing so 
 long erect in all weathers, outside the 
 church, and who have come to seek shelter 
 in the cathedral and to bear witness to 
 their own martyrdom, their resignation. 
 
 It is a motley crowd: people who have 
 faith, those who have none, men whose 
 hands have been always joined in prayer, 
 strong-minded men who have mocked at 
 the idea of another life. They are all to- 
 gether here now, those who just have es- 
 caped death, those who are going back to 
 face death. 
 
 Absorbed in the same deep thought, 
 they listen to the military chaplain, who, 
 at the foot of the altar, recites the evening 
 prayer first, followed by the prayer for the 
 dead. A song sounds forth, accompanied 
 by a few chords on the harmonium. The 
 voices are full and steady. From the mute 
 crowd there goes up suddenly the ancient 
 cry of suffering humanity: 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 225 
 
 "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, 
 
 O Lord. 
 " Lord, Lord, hear my voice . . ." 
 
 I wait until the end of the service to 
 speak to the priest officiating. He had been 
 at the hospital during the day, passing 
 souls in review. He seems, this military 
 priest, less a priest clad in his frock than 
 a Saint George, with spurs and armor. 
 
 He said to me: "Your son is ready." 
 
 He speaks as a military instructor might 
 speak of his recruits: "They are prepared." 
 
 His faith radiates like a halo. He has 
 long since passed the moment when one 
 makes compromises with the hesitating, 
 when one encourages vain regrets. He is 
 an archangel, with rigid features, standing 
 on the threshold of Paradise. 
 
 He thrusts open the door with his lance. 
 He orders you to enter. 
 
LII 
 
 After supper the head surgeon says to 
 me: "Let us go to see the lieutenant." 
 
 It was in response to his orders that I 
 have given up the pleasure of visiting my 
 child every evening, to kiss his damp brow 
 before entering upon the night. They are 
 afraid I may arouse him from the torpor 
 which, for a few hours, plunges him into 
 forgetfulness. So this sudden invitation 
 startles me. I wonder, trembling. I ask 
 myself: "Is he worse.?" 
 
 The head surgeon lights a lantern. He 
 leads the way across the hospital garden. 
 In the middle of the path he stops: "It 
 will not be to-morrow. But I advise you 
 to keep within call." 
 
 We pass through the ward where all is 
 in darkness. The head surgeon stops here 
 and there, letting the light from his lan- 
 tern fall upon some pillow where it shows 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 227 
 
 a tortured face, the eyes closed. He reads 
 the fever chart nailed on the wall. He 
 shakes his head and we pass on. 
 
 Now we are in the hallway into which 
 the officers' rooms open. In the silence a 
 voice, unknown to me, calls out aloud, in 
 a monologue of broken, incoherent words. 
 
 The head surgeon listens and says: "It 
 is the lieutenant talking yonder ... I 
 shall leave you with him a moment. Don't 
 stay longer." 
 
 In the dim glow of a night light I per- 
 ceive my child. 
 
 His head is thrown back on his pillow. 
 His throat — so emaciated now — seems 
 so long, so long. The dampness on his 
 brow curls his hair in light tendrils. 
 
 He opens his eyes. He looks at me. He 
 does not see me. 
 
 "Robert, my child..." 
 
 "Mamma . . ." 
 
 Where is he in his wandering dream ? In 
 the room where, in their childhood, his 
 mother came to cover him and his brother 
 in their beds, commending them in her 
 
228 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 simple Italian faith to the angels whom 
 she believed to be hovering over them ? 
 
 Fearing, as he does, to give way to some 
 emotion so deep that he could not regain 
 possession of himself, not once has this 
 son of ours, since I have been nursing him, 
 pronounced before me his mother's name. 
 
 Impulsively I say: "Robert, dear . . . 
 you never speak to me of your mother . . ." 
 
 He has gone too far from me. He does 
 not see me, he does not hear me, he does 
 not answer. On his lips I see the faintest 
 smile. He says: "She comes to me in the 
 night!" 
 
LIII 
 
 Does he remember my visit to him? 
 
 Does he want to answer my appeal and 
 leave with me some last message for those 
 nearest his heart ? 
 
 This morning he says to me, nervously, 
 his teeth almost closed: "There is some- 
 thing I want to beg you to do about my 
 friend Jacques. You know how fond I am 
 of him! . . . We entered the School of 
 Chemistry together; we were graduated 
 side by side. Ever since I have been work- 
 ing at the factory, not a day has passed 
 that he has not come in the evening to 
 smoke a cigarette with me on the couch, on 
 Rue de Rivoli. In the summer-time, when 
 I had a few days' vacation, I liked to spend 
 them with him and his mother in their 
 villa at the seaside. When he used to come 
 to lunch with us, in our house, near the 
 forest, I was so happy. He knew all my 
 hopes, my plans. I knew his. ... It is 
 
230 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 about one of these mutual secrets that I 
 want to say a word." 
 
 In the pictures which daily I like to 
 evoke before my poor child, two young 
 couples appear and reappear, Helen and 
 himself, his friend Jacques and Helen's 
 sister. These two are slightly more in the 
 background — not quite distinct. But the 
 desire he has to see these two together is 
 not the only reason why they lean one 
 toward the other. 
 
 It was to Marie-Therese that Robert 
 first spoke of his love for Helen; it was she 
 whom he took as confidante to serve his 
 interests. 
 
 I have read the letters in which this 
 charming child tried to comfort him at a 
 moment when he was not yet certain of 
 his happiness. 
 
 And Jacques, of course, his friend, played 
 a part in the naive conspiracy. When he 
 danced with Helen he had the mission of 
 telling her how much he admired his friend. 
 
 Such games of love can't be played with 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 231 
 
 impunity when one is twenty. So the 
 spark was soon fanned to a flame. 
 
 I say now, without surprise: "Your 
 friend Jacques is attached to Marie-The- 
 rese?" 
 
 "He loves her..." 
 
 "And she...?" 
 
 " She loves him too. I am sure of it, only 
 she won't admit it yet. Jacques needs me 
 to plead his cause as I needed him to plead 
 mine with Helen. I hate to fail my best 
 friend at such a critical moment. This is 
 why I have turned to you . . ." 
 
 He smiles. He sees the two young cou- 
 ples who might have traversed life together, 
 as they danced together the winter before. 
 Before his fleeting fancy has changed from 
 joy to melancholy, he begs me: "You will 
 speak well of Jacques to Helen's mother, 
 won't you ? . . . Say everything I would 
 have said had I been able, so that Marie- 
 Therese and he can marry and so that two 
 of us at least may be happy." ^ 
 
 ^ Married, January 13, 1915. 
 
LIV 
 
 "And now I must say a word about 
 Marie-Rose." 
 
 Robert has loved this little sister, ten 
 years younger than he, with the greatest 
 tenderness. When she was at the age of 
 mud pies and wooden shovels, he used to 
 leave his favorite books to go down into 
 the garden and play with her. He would 
 take her into the stable, show her how to 
 hold her hand out quite flat when she gave 
 a bit of carrot to my horse, or a pinch of 
 tobacco to the gazelle, which he had called, 
 and of which she was afraid. 
 
 When Guy's death left him alone with 
 this sister, the bonds of affection grew 
 stronger between them. He seemed to say 
 to her: "You have lost one of your cava- 
 liers, but I am still here. ... I will pro- 
 tect you." 
 
 When, after that, Marie-Rose lost her 
 mother, this brotherly attachment be- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 233 
 
 came almost fierce. And so It went on 
 until the moment when the image of an- 
 other young girl came to fill a greater place 
 in his heart than the first affection which 
 for eighteen years had absorbed him. 
 
 To-day it seems as though a veil were 
 being lifted. For the first time he seems 
 to realize that a sister, who had so long 
 been cherished, may have suffered when 
 she saw that she no longer held the first 
 place in her brother's thoughts, and that 
 she had been obliged to give way before 
 another queen. 
 
 "Dear Rosette," he says. "How nice 
 she was about my engagement ! She seemed 
 happy at seeing me happy! And how un- 
 selfish of her to let Helen come to me, since 
 the regulations of the fortress are so severe 
 that I could not have the joy of seeing them 
 both." 
 
 He talks on and on, quickly, and though 
 his mind works clearly his words succeed 
 each other rapidly, confusedly, on his lips. 
 
 "I must tell you," he says, "when I saw 
 Rosette for the last time! . . . You re- 
 
234 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 member she was staying with my uncle 
 and aunt at Mont Fortin ? Before going to 
 spend my vacation with Helen I had gone 
 to say a word of greeting to the others. 
 The morning I left she came with me on 
 to the terrace which overlooks the whole 
 horizon, the town, the river, the church 
 spires, the meadows. It was a sunny July 
 day. The flower beds in the gardens were 
 wonderfully sweet. We looked out to- 
 gether over the distant view and we kissed 
 each other fondly. I am so happy to have 
 said good-bye to Rosette in that beautiful 
 light. . . . She will always think of me now 
 as blessed." 
 
LV 
 
 All day he has been tortured. He thinks 
 his engagement has been broken. 
 
 "On account of the state I am in, you 
 understand ? '^ he says. 
 
 I hold his two hands in mine to help him 
 in fighting the phantoms that are closing 
 in around him. 
 
 "How Helen would suffer," I say, "if 
 she knew that you had lost confidence in 
 her." 
 
 "Of course ... of course. ... It is not 
 her fault." 
 
 Staring vacantly into the air he seems to 
 see the cause of this new misery; but I can- 
 not drive the look of anguish from his brow. 
 
 He no longer believes now that he has 
 been mentioned in despatches. 
 
 "You haven't received any notifica- 
 tion," he asks. "Nothing official! . . . 
 Neither have I. . . . If the sergeant major 
 was just saying all that to please me . . ." 
 
236 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 "My poor child," I answer, ''don't 
 worry. It is true, of course. . . . This is 
 the least honor that could be given one who 
 has done what you have done." 
 
 "Then let them make haste." 
 
 His suffering is terrible, worse than any 
 agony caused by his wound, worse than 
 the horror of dying. 
 
 Toward evening he says to me: "For- 
 give me! . . . There are moments in the 
 day when the devil amuses himself by show- 
 ing me his magic lantern . . ." 
 
 Then suddenly he seems relieved; he 
 seems natural again. My love seems to 
 touch him, to dispel the shadows once 
 more. 
 
 Inconsolable, he pronounces these words, 
 which shall be my consolation: "How kind 
 you are to me . . ." 
 
LVI 
 
 He and I keep a close watch for the 
 brief little moments when he can master 
 his remaining strength. I stand then at the 
 foot of his bed and he dictates a letter to 
 Helen. We stop after each sentence, often 
 after each word, and for a long time. He 
 does n't want to be helped, he knows what 
 he wishes to say. 
 
 When we have come to the bottom of the 
 page I draw near to him and show him the 
 paper. He tries to read what is written on 
 it, and he signs it, with three letters, which 
 spell the nickname she used to give him. 
 
 Every day it grows harder for him to 
 trace these three letters, for his arm can no 
 longer control his fingers. When he has 
 succeeded, he kisses the place and he 
 watches me seal the message while the 
 dampness moistens his brow. 
 
 To-day he said to me: "Put the exact 
 date." 
 
238 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR \ 
 
 •"^ And we waited almost a quarter of an 
 hour, he with a vacant stare, I with my 
 hand ready to take down what he might 
 have to say. 
 
 At last he dictated: 
 
 "My dear wife ..." 
 
 It is the farewell letter. It is not long. 
 He wants to repeat one last time : 
 
 "Forever and forever.'' 
 
 My hands tremble almost as violently 
 as his when I show him this letter to sign. 
 He tries once, twice, ten times. It is too 
 much for him. What he scrawls at the foot 
 of the page is meaningless. 
 
 He looks at me to see what my impres- 
 sion is; then, more deliberately than usual, 
 he presses his burning lips to the signature. 
 
 I had brought him the last autumn 
 flowers gathered in the hospital garden. He 
 kisses them too. He wants me to slip one 
 into the envelope; when this is done he 
 says: "How I hope this letter will not be 
 lost.'' 
 
 He watches me place it in my wallet, i 
 ,His thought follows it on to its journey's 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 239 
 
 end; he sees it in Helen's hands. He knows 
 that her lips will touch the spot he has 
 touched with his dying lips. He lowers 
 his eyes as receiving this farewell kiss. 
 
 I wait. 
 
 His eyes are open again. They have in 
 them a look of peace. 
 
 He says resolutely: "And now, don't 
 speak to me of Her again." 
 
LVII 
 
 Yesterday he bade adieu to the dream 
 of his youth, but in the calm with which 
 he waits for death, he still keeps a place 
 for the affection of bygone days. 
 
 He asks me: "My mother taught me 
 how to read in the 'Cdntes de Perrault.' 
 Could you get them here, do you think?" 
 
 The caprices of the dying have to be 
 obeyed. But what can I do! I cannot leave 
 him now long enough to go down to the 
 town. And by what chance could I find 
 here, in this house of suffering, where we 
 live, these fairy-stories? 
 
 The janitor's daughter happens to have 
 them ; they were given to her as a prize at 
 school, an edition adapted for children, 
 with certain pages left out. It seems like a 
 miracle, just the same. He can scarcely 
 believe it is true when he sees me sitting 
 beside his bed with the book in my hands. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 241 
 
 "Dear son," I ask, "which one of these 
 stories do you want me to read first?" 
 
 He remembers his emotion, as a Httle 
 child, when he heard the adventures of 
 Blue Beard and Little Red Riding Hood. 
 He does n't want to hear about wicked 
 people. He answers me in a way that 
 overwhelms me: "Read me only the stories 
 that have a happy ending." 
 
 So we shall invoke the dream of the Love 
 that nothing discourages, neither maledic- 
 tions, nor curses, nor the thickets of an 
 impassable forest: "The Sleeping Beauty." 
 
 "Once upon a time there was a prin- 
 cess ..." 
 
 I read on and on . . . 
 
 "You're not getting tired, my child?" 
 
 "No! no! Goon." 
 
 The time passes. I stop a moment. We 
 can hear the ticking of my watch. No one 
 is stirring on the path under our windows. 
 Everything about us seems to have de- 
 cided to contribute to this silence, this 
 reverie. 
 
 So I read on and on. 
 
242 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 He does not seek the meaning of the 
 words. He enjoys them as one would 
 music. Above my voice he hears another 
 voice calHng him. 
 
 "It was during the winter we spent at 
 Bordighera, after the croup. Mamma used 
 to read aloud to us in the evenings. She 
 had hung 'toiles de Genes' all around the 
 room. They represented palms, flowers, 
 trees, palaces, ships : things as wonderful as 
 in any fairy-story!" 
 
 I read on and on. I read until the page 
 of glory which crowns all these dreams with 
 the supreme happiness accorded to lovers 
 here below: 
 
 "They lived to be very old, and had a 
 great many children." 
 
LVIII 
 
 Big Louis, who comes to call me in the 
 morning, is the bearer of bad news. 
 
 "Sir," he says, "the lieutenant is bad! 
 He has been talking all night and we can't 
 quiet him/' 
 
 I am out of bed with a bound. 
 
 Yes, the lieutenant is bad, indeed, as 
 bad as possible! Last night was our last 
 moment of intimacy, when our souls were 
 still in touch. How sweet it was! 
 
 The lieutenant has the tense expression 
 of one who is struggling hand to hand with 
 a foe against whom he must defend him- 
 self. Death has deceived herself if she 
 thinks she can fell him without his resisting. 
 
 His soul, yesterday still so conscious, has 
 made the sacrifice, but his youth still fights 
 for life. 
 
 I can do nothing but offer him a drink now 
 and then, or wipe the moisture from his face, 
 and watch this struggle as it progresses. 
 
244 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 The head surgeon came at ten o'clock. 
 He looked at the lieutenant a moment. He 
 clasped my hand in his, he turned to the 
 nurse and said: "Don't leave him now." 
 
 At all costs he must get away from his 
 bed of torture. There are moments when 
 my voice calms him. There are others when 
 he falls back on his pillows and breathes 
 as loudly as a frightened horse. He looks 
 at the ceiling, at his bed, at the closed door, 
 at the barred windows. He does n't under- 
 stand where he is, or why he is here. His 
 lips move, and when I offer him something 
 to drink he pushes it away. 
 
 "None of that poison/' he says. 
 
 The fresh springs where he has dreamed 
 of quenching his thirst have become roar- 
 ing streams. They flow about the walls, 
 they beat against the bed, they fill his ears 
 with their noise, they roar in his brain. 
 
 I had hoped that he might fall asleep 
 without this nightmare, and that he would 
 not strike his brow thus against the portal 
 of death. 
 
LIX 
 
 Noon, 
 
 He has been talking for two hours, but 
 it is no longer to us that he addresses these 
 hasty confidences which he whispers in a 
 low tone. 
 
 I lean over him trying to understand. 
 In vain. Behind his closed teeth there is 
 a dull sound as of pebbles being rolled back 
 and forth when the waves rise and fall. 
 
 Outside it is the splendid noonday of 
 October. A radiant light falls from the 
 blue sky above ; it gives an intensity to all 
 it touches, to the perfume of the rare au- 
 tumn flowers. Life is sweet between heaven 
 and earth. 
 
 Oh! how cruel it seems to me, my son, 
 the outward beauty of everything which 
 persists, as I watch you, going alone, at 
 midday, into the shadows. 
 
LX 
 
 Three o'clock. 
 
 He is still lucid. He lifts his haggard 
 face from the pillow; he stares at me. 
 
 He still has one question to ask me. 
 
 Almost violently he says: "Come, come! 
 She is bigger now, is she not?" 
 
 "Who is bigger, dearest?" 
 
 He looks at me with terrible intensity, 
 as though all the peace of his life hereafter 
 depended on what I am about to answer 
 him. 
 
 He sees that I am unable to grasp what 
 he means. So he makes a supreme effort. 
 He pronounces distinctly the word: 
 
 ''Francer 
 
 So it is, my son. You cannot leave us 
 without speaking that name: "France." 
 It is for her I brought you up. To heal the 
 wound inflicted upon her, as your own 
 wound was inflicted on you, so that the 
 little children, who will attend the schools 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 247 
 
 tomorrow may look upon her in her en- 
 tirety, this France which you and I have 
 known dismembered in the darkness. So 
 that they may say with a smile: "Our older 
 brothers have replaced the crape with a 
 wreath of laurels." 
 
 This is what you are dying for, my son. 
 And you want to be sure, before leaving, 
 that you have not given yourself for noth- 
 ing. 
 
 So be it. And since you have no time 
 to wait, I shall advance the hour for you. 
 I tell you the truth as you have made it 
 true for us — you, who are nearing the 
 Truth of God. 
 
 Yes! my Robert. You and your com- 
 panions have given us a bigger France. 
 The shadow that covered Her you have 
 lifted. You have won the victory, van- 
 quished the enemy! 
 
LXI 
 
 Six d*clock. 
 
 An orderly has just come to say that the 
 colonel, our neighbor, wants to see me im- 
 mediately. 
 
 I find him sitting on his bed. In the dimly 
 lighted room his brilliant eyes seem to glow. 
 
 He does not give me time to speak: "The 
 head surgeon has told me. Your boy is the 
 first to go. I want to send him some flow- 
 ers, and one can find nothing here. You 
 see what I am doing?" 
 
 He had ordered the soldier who waits on 
 him to bring him his coat — the one he was 
 wearing on the day of the attack, the one 
 through which the bullet passed just above 
 the heart. With a pen-knife he is carefully 
 cutting off his decorations : poor faded rib- 
 bons, they are his emblems of Asia, of 
 Africa, of the dust, the rain, the snow, 
 blood, and glory, such as he has known 
 them in his soldier's life. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 249 
 
 When he is through he puts the ribbons 
 in my hand. 
 
 "Give these to your son from me/' he 
 says. "They don't really mean anything, 
 for these decorations are mine, not his. 
 But they are the things I have cared most 
 about on earth. Give them to him. Let 
 him take them with him." 
 
 His fiancee had bidden him the farewell 
 of Love. This is the adieu of Honor. 
 
 He is not astonished, this soldier, that I 
 should not try to thank him in words! 
 He wants me, as a father who must soon 
 close the eyes of his son, to keep all my 
 strength for the supreme moment. He 
 knows the only thing that can comfort 
 those whose feelings are deep. 
 
 He clasps me in his arms an instant, com- 
 manding: "Go back to him now, quickly!" 
 
LXII 
 
 Eleven o*clock p.m. 
 
 He has ceased talking, he no longer 
 whispers, but for hours he has been singing. 
 
 I know these scales. He used to run 
 them over, up and down, when he was a 
 child in arms. We used to listen, delighted, 
 at this song which sprang from his baby 
 throat. We watched for the first lisping 
 syllables which soon would become our 
 names, the sweet names that are a reward 
 in themselves to all mothers and fathers 
 for all their care. He seemed to realize then 
 that he was accomplishing some great 
 miracle, as his soul ventured thus, like a 
 ship, upon the unknown seas, toward all 
 that the future might hold in store for him 
 here below. 
 
 Now his eyes closed, his arms inert, ly- 
 ing here devoured by his wound, he chants 
 in his failing voice I know not what Service 
 for the Dead. 
 
LXIII 
 
 Night has closed in upon us. They have 
 lighted the lamps in Robert's room. The 
 head nurse is at his bedside. She occupies 
 the vacant place there. 
 
 How he has changed during the few 
 moments I was away from him ! 
 
 I draw near to him, saying: "Robert, 
 the colonel doesn 't want you to wait any 
 longer for the reward you have been prom- 
 ised; he has sent you the ribbons of his 
 decorations." 
 
 And I place this treasure on his out- 
 stretched hands. 
 
 His brows are lifted slightly; his face 
 shows astonishment, joy. He seems to say: 
 "These are for me? I don't deserve them!" 
 
 And upon his lips, already contracted in 
 death, there is a happy smile, the last one. 
 
LXIV 
 
 Midnight. 
 
 Some one knocks at the door. Big Louis 
 opens. 
 
 It is a soldier-priest whom I have often 
 seen in the big wards. He says to me : "The 
 other day I visited your son on my rounds. 
 He spoke to me of a brother whom he loved 
 very much, and who has gone before him 
 to heaven. I have come now in memory of 
 that brother." 
 
 He goes to the bedside, and kneeling 
 down in his blue cloak, he murmurs a 
 prayer. 
 
 I follow him with all my soul. 
 
 "O God, our Father, hidden from us be- 
 yond this world, this child whom you are 
 taking spoke your name reverently, with 
 faith. To shelter his young love, so pure, 
 he longed for your Kingdom here on earth. 
 He has responded without a murmur to 
 the dictates of your will. He has never 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 253 
 
 spoken a word of anger against the enemy 
 who shot him down and who rejoiced to 
 see him fall. He knows that when he has 
 gone I shall fold my hands before my daily 
 bread and that I shall be ashamed to touch 
 it. In answer to such submission, such 
 suffering, protect him. O God, protect me 
 from the temptation that hovers between 
 You and Death. Silence the Voice that 
 cries out: 'Faith, Justice, Duty, One's 
 Country, Honor? All were but the irony 
 of Evil triumphant!' " 
 
 The soldier closes his prayer with ardor, 
 f On the brow which is growing cold, on 
 the hands which are stiffening, on the heart 
 which has loved so, he makes the sign of 
 the cross. He looks at me, and he sees that 
 I, too, am nailed upon my cross. 
 
 His charity envelops the one who is go- 
 ing and the one who must remain. He says 
 to me, as he leaves us : " Let us not be sor- 
 rowful like those who are without hope." 
 
LXV 
 
 Three o'clock. 
 
 It is three o'clock in the morning. 
 
 The head nurse says to me: "His pulse 
 seems to have stopped beating." 
 
 Godin and Big Louis weep. I take his 
 hands and fold them. I close his eyes. 
 
 . , . There is more I can do for him still. 
 
 The rules of the hospital are strict. They 
 forbid his remaining now, vanquished, 
 upon his bed, so near to others for whom 
 the struggle is not yet over. They exact 
 that he shall be taken into a cellar room, 
 the antechamber of the tomb, more fright- 
 ful than the tomb itself. 
 
 Once, as the door swung open, while I 
 was passing, I caught sight of this Hades. 
 I saw the dead lying there in rows, scarcely 
 covered over, waiting on the cold stones 
 until they should be lowered into some 
 grave, corr>mon to all. 
 
 The head surgeon is here. I say to him: 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 255 
 
 " Since you have been so kind, in the weary 
 hours of the night, as to bring us the com- 
 fort of your presence here, grant us this 
 one favor ; don't separate us until our vigil 
 is ended. I promise you, as soon as the day 
 breaks, you shall find this bed empty/' 
 
 The head surgeon reflects. He is solemn. 
 He asks: "Is the coffin near here?" 
 
 "Ready to be carried in at a moment's 
 notice." 
 
 "Well, then . . . my fellow surgeons and 
 I will come at eight o'clock to pay our last 
 tribute to the lieutenant." 
 
LXVI 
 
 Half-past three. 
 
 For hours and hours now, Big Louis, 
 Godin, the head nurse, have been helping 
 us. They have forgotten their own increas- 
 ing fatigue. They have forgotten that to- 
 morrow another day of labor begins for 
 them. 
 
 It is not only pity for him and for me 
 which keeps them up; his courage and my 
 love have kindled deeper feelings in their 
 hearts. They, who have seen so many 
 lonely death agonies, encounter here, as a 
 consolation, the sort of respect which en- 
 velops Death in its proper dignity. 
 
 The head nurse says to me: "Tied be- 
 tween the shoulder and the elbow of his 
 left arm, there is a black velvet ribbon. 
 When his fiancee was here, I noticed she 
 wore one like it in her hair Shall I leave it ? " 
 
 She lifts up the coarse linen shirt to show 
 me. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 257 
 
 Ah, God! As she does it, he moves. 
 
 We had thought his heart had ceased to 
 beat. Life was ended, but not his love. 
 His hands clasped, his eyes closed, thrown 
 back on his pillow, he says ''No!'' with 
 his head. Death, touched by such loyalty 
 as his, lets him return an instant to defend 
 his secret, to pronounce the last words be- 
 fore entering into silence forever. 
 
 To this poor woman, so anxious about 
 her own son, who has nursed him as a son, 
 he murmurs: "Thank you!" 
 
 To me, whose eyes he may not close, he 
 gives up his soul, with this word on his 
 lips: "Papa!" 
 
 And now, it is the peace of Death. 
 
 The lamps may be extinguished, the 
 day may dawn, the coffin may be brought 
 in. 
 
LXVII 
 
 My three friends have been given his 
 strict orders; not afterward, even, am I 
 to see the wound which has sapped his hfe. 
 
 To obey him now is a last tribute to pay, 
 as though he were Hving. 
 
 I have much to do for him still, for day 
 is breaking and we must make haste. In 
 the little pillow which I have made to put 
 under his head, I shall place his love- 
 letters, the letters from his sister, Marie- 
 Rose, mine, those from his friends. And 
 the portraits which he carried with him 
 always; his mother's, one of Helen, one of 
 his brother Guy, mine, some "snap-shots" 
 made last spring, before he was engaged, 
 when he used to go to the Bois de Bou- 
 logne with her, after church, on Sunday; 
 a picture of Helen and himself, standing 
 together under the basket of flowers he sent 
 her the day of their engagement. . . . 
 
 This is not the moment to look at these 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 259 
 
 photographs. I shall see them all, and oth- 
 ers, later. There will be time then. 
 
 When I return after a moment, our 
 friends have covered his bed with white. 
 They have brought in some flowers, the 
 last of the garden, to place about his head, 
 to scatter over the sheets. 
 
 He seems to belong to me now, as never 
 before. 
 
 I must not give way to this feeling of 
 peace. 
 
 I have made a promise and I must keep 
 it. 
 
 Just as we were laying him in the coffin, 
 his eyelids, which I had closed, are lifted. 
 The strange terror which has haunted his 
 eyes, since he has been pursued by tor- 
 menting visions, has vanished. Until I 
 cover his face, he seems to look at me with 
 a confiding tenderness, with the eyes of his 
 childhood's days. 
 
 We have finished. The pillow is under 
 his head ; the ribbons of the colonel's deco- 
 rations are pinned on his breast, the flowers 
 are spread out over his shroud, 
 
26o ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 "Now give me the flag to cover him. . . /' 
 
 "My Robert!" 
 
 Why do I call to him thus, since I know 
 he cannot answer me ? 
 
 Dear friends, who stand about me, we 
 are looking for the last time at his face. I 
 was so happy the day he was born. Come! 
 come! I must show as much courage as 
 he. Let me kiss his brow. I shall see him 
 now only through the flag. 
 
LXVIII 
 
 Eight 6*clocki 
 
 The head surgeon arrives, followed by 
 the professor from Nancy, and by their 
 colleagues. 
 
 They have put on full-dress uniform to 
 bring us their condolences. 
 
 In the shadows which envelop the world, 
 these men are like a ray of consolation, 
 through the effort they make, with their 
 science, and with their kindliness, to bind 
 up the agonies which the Power of Evil 
 spreads broadcast. 
 
 I want to express to them my gratitude: 
 
 "Gentlemen," I say, "with this son, to 
 whom your compassion pays tribute here, 
 my name dies out. It dies well, thanks to 
 him. As for you, you have assisted him 
 until the last beat of his poor heart. I 
 thank you as well. For him, and for my- 
 self, for his ancestors before him, for the 
 mothers and those who love and who are 
 
262 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 too far away in their anguish, to show you 
 their gratitude, I thank you. 
 
 "It is because of your care that so many 
 wounded, who seemed lost, are able to rise 
 up from their beds. It is you who quiet the 
 sufferings of those who must go to the end 
 of their torment. 
 
 " For this precious gift of your learning, 
 and your brotherly tenderness, may you 
 be rewarded through those you love." 
 
 The head surgeon looks for a moment 
 at the coffin, then he answers: "We shall 
 keep the memory of your son with those 
 we cherish most in our hearts." 
 
 And the professor from Nancy adds : "We 
 doctors weep for him." 
 
LXIX 
 
 The almoner sends me word that he is 
 going off on his bicycle to give the last 
 sacraments to some dying man in a neigh- 
 boring village. He can't come to us before 
 four in the afternoon. 
 
 So 1 begin the watch by my boy's side. 
 
 Above his head I have placed the cap he 
 had on when they picked him up. It has 
 the blue coiffe over it. The number of his 
 regiment is embroidered there in the threads 
 of gold which a little village girl, in Au- 
 gust, had unravelled from some braid. 
 Hidden underneath is the number of his 
 former regiment, the one he left voluntarily 
 in order to be, from the first instant, as 
 near as possible to the front. 
 
 Across his chest I have laid his sword. 
 The sheath was twisted under him as he 
 fell, the blade broken. 
 
 The head nurse, Godin, Big Louis, have 
 
264 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 left me to go to other sufferers. I am alone 
 with him and with my memories. 
 
 I can see him playing about me, as he 
 did when he was a little child, in his sailor 
 suit. He spends the winters on the Medi- 
 terranean, where his convalescence is as- 
 sured by a princely hospitality, extended 
 at the same time, and proudly, to a king. 
 
 Before the door of this sovereign, my 
 little sailor boy stands guard. The king, 
 as he comes out, returns the salute of this 
 little child, as solemn as though he were 
 accomplishing a great duty. 
 
 Now, again, we are together on our 
 farm in Algiers. I have turned the gran- 
 ary into a riding-school where I teach him 
 to ride. He clings to the bareback horse 
 whose mane fairly covers him as he gallops 
 around. 
 
 Then he goes to spend a year with his 
 mother and his brother in Germany. 
 
 He travels in England. He speaks the 
 languages of these two countries like his 
 own. He reads Italian, Portuguese, Span- 
 ish, and yet, before me, he always remains 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 265 
 
 silent. I say to him: "My dear Robert, are 
 you afraid of me?" 
 
 He answers that it is out of respect. 
 
 He attaches no importance to himself, 
 nor to his wishes. He looks upon his 
 brother as a superior officer who decides 
 upon the plan of campaign and tells him 
 what he is to do. The day this beloved 
 brother vanished from his vision, he said 
 to us: "How much better if it could have 
 been I!" 
 
 And on his face I see an expression of 
 terror, of shame that he should still be liv- 
 ing. 
 
 Now he is a youth, almost arrived at 
 manhood. He is about to be graduated as 
 chemical engineer from the School of Chem- 
 istry. 
 
 One day while he and his companions are 
 handling some inflammable substance in a 
 wooden shed, a fire breaks out. All make 
 a rush to get away. Some one runs to the 
 back of the laboratory and cuts off the 
 gas to avoid an explosion. It is Robert. 
 He always bears the marks on his face of 
 
266 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 a slight burn which scarred him that day, 
 and which grows scarlet when the air is cold. 
 
 Another day, during a vacation which 
 he spent at the seashore in Brittany, in 
 the middle of the morning bath, a cry of 
 distress rises above the shouts of general 
 merriment ; a young man and a young girl 
 have got beyond their strength in deep 
 water. A vigorous arm swims out to their 
 rescue. After diving and bringing them to 
 the shore this anonymous person is greeted 
 with the bravos of the crowd. It is Robert 
 again. He does n't want his mother to be 
 anxious thinking that her last son is in 
 danger. We hear of this act of bravery 
 several days later, by chance, when we see 
 the mother of the two imprudent young 
 people rush up to thank him in the street. 
 
 So it was. 
 
 He was as modest as he was courageous. 
 
 Oh ! how wonderful it would be if things 
 were happening now as our ancestors used 
 to suppose, if his mother, his brother, his 
 young comrades, were able to greet him. 
 in the other world, if, between their joy. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 267 
 
 hidden from me and my grief, there were 
 only the space of the blue heavens ! 
 
 Whatever may be the reality, as you have 
 planned it, O God, you cannot but open 
 the way to such a simple heart ! 
 
LXX 
 
 H alf -past four p.m. 
 
 The priest has taken him. Our friends 
 were gathered about the gate ; they bade us 
 farewell. 
 
 It was raining early this morning. Now 
 the sky is lowering; as night draws near the 
 air is chilly. 
 
 At the top of the short cut by which we 
 descend in spite of the sharp turning, be- 
 cause it is growing late and we must hurry, 
 two colonels are stationed, in full-dress uni- 
 form. 
 
 They salute their young comrade, they 
 clasp my hand, and they join our little pro- 
 cession. 
 
 The commanding general of the Staff, 
 the governor-general of the fort, have sent 
 them as a mark of honor. The director is 
 there, too; he represents the hospital. He 
 wanted to go with me to the end. I walk 
 ahead, alone, close to my boy. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 269 
 
 Before going down into the sunken road, 
 I look once more about me. 
 
 Here are the hills upon which his eyes 
 rested as they were carrying him to the 
 summit of his calvary. Below us lies the 
 town with its historic church spires; and 
 there, to the right, at the foot of the slope, 
 are the barracks from which he dated the 
 letters he wrote us during the first weeks of 
 the campaign. 
 
 Some soldiers are exercising in the yard. 
 The sound of a trumpet reaches us. It 
 comes faintly from the distance which 
 makes everything look small. 
 
 Is it aloud that I cry in agony or is it 
 only my soul that calls out to the soldiers 
 below: "My son is dead!" 
 
 So I follow him. I wanted him to be 
 set down for a moment before the little 
 chapel outside the fortifications, which 
 seems to have been thrust here on to the 
 roadway in order to bless the dead as they 
 pass. A pause of ten minutes will not make 
 us late. 
 
 How heartrending is that groaning of a 
 
270 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 coffin as it glides from the hearse to the 
 shoulders of the pallbearers. Yet, I have 
 no desire to stop my ears, to close my eyes. 
 It is my son whom they are carrying here 
 between these oak planks, and, I know it 
 of old, the time will come when I would 
 give all, just to see this coffin again. 
 
 The priest has transformed the sad little 
 chapel into a triumphal gate to Paradise. 
 The flags are draped in clusters, the candles 
 are flickering, amid the brilliance of the 
 blue, white, and red, like so many stars, 
 which, at the end of a beautiful day, appear 
 in the sky amid the pink and the grey of 
 the clouds. 
 
 The priest is clad in the garments stiff 
 with gold. He walks around the coffin, 
 swinging his incense-burner. He sends the 
 soul on its way, toward the threshold of 
 the other world. 
 I Peace and Light! 
 
 This is what we invoke, O Lord, for 
 those who leave us. This is your promise 
 to us after so much suffering in darkness. 
 
 We have to cross the town from one end 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 271 
 
 to the other, then the drawbridge, following 
 along by the riverside. 
 
 The twilight has faded as we pass like 
 so many shadows through the gate of the 
 cemetery. 
 
 Everything has been arranged as I had 
 hoped. 
 
 While he waits for the moment when he 
 may go to rest beside his mother and his 
 brother, between the murmuring forest and 
 the house where he grew up, he shall have 
 a safe place here. 
 
 My friend. Colonel Etienne, has sent me 
 this message: "If he is still here on All 
 Souls' Day, we shall carry flowers to his 
 grave, from the Staff." 
 
 Sleep in peace, now, my son, these first 
 hours of the sleep that shall know no wak- 
 ing. As darkness closes in upon us I leave 
 you, but you are not alone. 
 
LXXI 
 
 At the hospital, lying in the bed where 
 Robert died, there is already another 
 wounded man. 
 
 In the cemetery, when I pushed open 
 the gate this morning, the tombstone had 
 been set in place. 
 
 I have nothing more to hope for here ; I 
 must leave now. 
 
 Just as I did three weeks ago, when I 
 was hastening to him, I lean out of the 
 train window. I want to see, on the hill- 
 top, the place where he gave up his soul. 
 What use to weary my eyes and my heart 
 searching thus for him ? Between the earth 
 and the sky I hear a voice say to me : "Your 
 beloved is no longer here." 
 
 Beyond the heavens, whose depths my 
 eyes seem to penetrate, the sky is blue. 
 The gold earth reflects this azure radiance. 
 On each side of the railway track are rows 
 of mountain ash bushes still, with their 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 273 
 
 brilliant berries, their green leaves; like so 
 many plants of coral and of green gold. 
 The increasing speed of the train makes 
 them appear like a single hedge as they fly 
 by, one after another. I can scarcely look 
 at them, they are so dazzling. 
 
 Why, O God, do you show me such 
 earthly beauty at a moment when I am 
 crushed under the blow which has killed 
 my last son ? 
 
 My people before me, I following their 
 example, we have lived for the idea of per- 
 petuating our honorable name. It is a 
 name sprung from the fields of Normandy, 
 from the sea of Brittany. It has been a 
 watchword of duty, of hope, of all that one 
 lives for. 
 
 How many times, as a young man, have 
 I stamped out in me the desires, however 
 passionate, which might have cast a shadow 
 on the worthiness of this name. 
 
 I said to myself: "Remember those who 
 bore it before you, those who shall bear it 
 hereafter." 
 
 Thus our family name has served me as 
 
274 ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 
 
 a compass in my life of adventures. It was 
 my earthly religion: a religion which did 
 not detach one from the other, but which 
 was within my reach. 
 
 I had built a temple for this name. 
 
 In my forest home there is a hall, high- 
 ceilinged and long as a church. Over the 
 chimney-place are the words of our motto, 
 "Au Large!" — which was carried by our 
 ships on their pennants to all the ports of 
 the world. Near by, as my contribution 
 to these family treasures, I have hung the 
 map of Africa, where, amidst the volcanic 
 mountains and the capricious windings 
 of strange rivers, I had the privilege of 
 writing our name upon one of the last mor- 
 sels of unexplored land on the earth. 
 
 Around the map I have grouped the fam- 
 ily portraits: Amable, who was a banker 
 in the days of Louis XV; his son, an officer 
 in blue, who, by his marriage with a Ven- 
 deenne, caused the blood of the Chouans 
 to flow in our veins; Pierre-Cheri, who for 
 a moment held the fickle affections of 
 Princess Pauline; Uncle Gaspard, who fol- 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 275 
 
 lowed Napoleon to Saint-Helena; and all 
 the Jean-Louis, all the Paul-Louis, all the 
 Charles-Henri, all the Robert-Hugues, who 
 have done their duty on land and on sea, 
 since the days when king and country were 
 one, until this present glorious resurrection 
 of the "Marseillaise." 
 
 I was not satisfied with building this 
 house to shelter our name. I have traced 
 its history in a little book which has touched 
 many hearts. 
 
 This was what I had done out of respect 
 for my forefathers, out of love for those 
 who would continue the name. I used to 
 recall proudly the saying of some philoso- 
 pher: "He has lived fully who has brought 
 up a son, built a house, written a book." 
 
 O God, how have you treated this too 
 human wisdom! 
 
LXXII 
 
 As I was leaving, several letters were 
 handed to me; among them, one from 
 Marie-Rose, my daughter, the only remain- 
 ing child. She writes me from a hospital, 
 where, since the beginning of the war, like 
 all the women of France, she has been 
 nursing the wounded. 
 
 I scarcely dared open this letter of my 
 bereaved child. I was afraid of finding the 
 tears which must flow for her own loss after 
 so many sorrows as have followed, one 
 upon another, this year. At eighteen she 
 has a mother and two brothers in the tomb. 
 
 My little Marie-Rose, I feared the read- 
 ing of your letter would take my remaining 
 strength. . . . But in your grief you com- 
 fort me, as it is only of my sorrow you 
 are thinking: "So, my dear father," you 
 write, "you have suffered everything . . ." 
 
 You understand all too clearly how my 
 soul is torn. And your comprehension 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 277 
 
 comes as a refreshment. It inspires you to 
 write this sentence, at which, as humble as 
 love, God must Himself smile: "The sons 
 which I could give you won't count." 
 
 They will count, my child, they will 
 count. Our fathers have not lost all, since 
 you are living. 
 
LXXIII 
 
 And now, what am I to do? 
 
 One of the last times that we talked to- 
 gether, he and I, like friends whose thoughts 
 run on together, side by side, toward the 
 same horizon, my dear son said to me: 
 "The men of your generation must keep 
 on working; they must live to a good old 
 age! Otherwise, who will be left to direct 
 the children? Who can help them to fill 
 the breach left by so many dead? The 
 traditions of France must not perish with 
 us. It is the men of your age who must 
 gather up what remains and forge a new 
 link in the broken chain. Those who have 
 lost their sons shall find in the fatherless 
 children dear companions to love and to 
 guide." 
 
 It was not only out of affection, my 
 Robert, that you spoke thus to me. You 
 were talking with the perspicacity of the 
 fearless on the threshold of the other world. 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 279 
 
 Just now, as I was looking out of the 
 train window, at the passing landscape, I 
 saw an old man ploughing a field. A child, 
 caught up from his childish games, bridle 
 in hand, was leading the aged horse. The 
 grandfather, bowed earthward, was push- 
 ing with all his strength. Above the tombs 
 he was preparing for this little child the fu- 
 ture harvest. 
 
 I shall work in the same way. 
 
LXXIV 
 
 How beautiful this French country is, 
 through which we pass, in its autumn 
 glory. 
 
 The forest, which used to cover these 
 hillsides, remains like a crown upon their 
 summit. Among this wild tangle of trees, 
 generations of effort have made the green 
 meadows, the gentle shelter of the valleys. 
 Roads wind their way easily from one 
 height to another, from one church steeple 
 to another; gayly they go, bringing to all 
 the happy chances of reunion. 
 
 There is room here for the wheat, for 
 the vineyards, for the villages and the 
 towns, for the churches and the schools, for 
 the graves and for the cradles. 
 
 The sky, which spreads itself above this 
 blessed land, seems to be one with it, as a 
 soul seems one with a beautiful form. 
 
 This is not a mere highway. It is a safe 
 
ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 281 
 
 harbor, a mother, a sweetheart. It has a 
 spiritual personality, it is Our Country! 
 
 To live for such a country, to die for such 
 a country. . . . 
 
 It is worth while! 
 
 THE END 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 

 
 
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