In the Field (1914-1915) | Page 4

won't make anything by it." And yet I am sure that many soldiers who have passed that station on their way to the Front will keep the same grateful remembrance that I still have. I shall never forget the group of girls in white on the sunny platform of the little station; I shall never forget the simple grace with which they prevailed upon the men to accept the good things they offered and even forced upon them. I thanked them as best I could, but awkwardly enough, trying to interpret the thoughts of all those soldiers. And when the train had started again on its panting course, I felt sorry I had not been more eloquent in my speech; that I had already forgotten the name of the little station, and never thought of asking the names of our benefactresses.
We were now getting near the fighting zone, and I already felt that there was a change in the state of mind of the people. They still called out to us: "Good luck!... Good luck!" But earlier in the day this greeting had been given with smiles and merry gestures; now it was uttered in a serious and solemn tone. At the station gates and the level crossings, the eyes of the women who looked at us were more sad and profound. They fixed themselves upon ours, and seemed to speak to us. And even when their lips did not move their eyes still said "Good luck!... Good luck!"
We saw motor cars rushing along the roads, and could distinguish the armbands on the men's sleeves, and rifles in the cars or lying in the hoods. And yet daily life was going on as usual. There were workers in the fields, tradespeople on the doorsteps of their shops, groups of peasants just outside the hamlets. But yet a peculiar state of mind was evident in each one of these people who were going on with their daily work. And all these accumulated cares, all these stirred imaginations, produced a strange atmosphere which infected everything, seemed to impregnate the air we breathed, and quenched the gaiety of the men in our train. Wattrelot and I were overcome by a kind of religious emotion; we felt as though we were already breathing the air of battle.
At about six o'clock we arrived at the station of L., where the train stopped for a few minutes. The platforms were crowded with Staff officers. A soldier assured me that the chief Headquarters were here. I wanted to question some one and try to get some authoritative information as to what was happening at the Front. It seemed to me that I had a right to know, now that I was on the point of becoming one of the actors in the tragedy in progress a few leagues off. But directly I came up to these officers I felt my assurance fail me. They looked disturbed and anxious. There was none of that merry animation that had reigned in the interior and that I had expected to find everywhere.
And then a strange and ridiculous fear came over me; the fear of being looked upon as an intruder by these well-informed men who knew everything. I imagined that they would spurn me with scorn, or that I should cause them pain by forcing them to tell me truths people do not like to repeat. It also occurred to me that I was too insignificant a person to confront men so high in office, and that I should appear importunate if I disturbed their reflections. But I was now quite sure that the official announcements had not told us all. Without having heard one word, I felt that things were not going so well as we had hoped, as every day in our little town in the west we tried passionately to divine the truth, devouring the few newspapers that reached us.
A pang shot through me. I now felt alone and lost amongst these men who seemed strangers to me. Crossing the rails, I got back to our train, drawn up at some distance from the platforms. The sun was on the horizon. In the red sky two monoplanes passed over our heads at no great height. The noise of their engines made everybody look up. They were flying north. And I felt a desire to rush upwards and overtake one of them and take my seat close to the pilot, behind the propeller which was spinning round and sending the wind of its giddy speed into his face. I longed to be able to lift myself into the air above the battlefields, and there, suspended in space, try to make out the movements of the clashing nations.
I resolved to have a talk with the engine-driver of a train