1914

As it happened they charged too soon, compounding the error by massing on the road that ran through the combat theater. Open and thoroughly familiar to the enemy artillery set up behind the trees, this road was in fact a perfectly clear target, and right away a few men not far from Anthime set about falling. He thought he saw two or three great spurts of blood but shoved them vigorously out of his mind, not being even certain, not having had time to be certain, that it was blood under arterial pressure—or even that he’d ever really seen blood until then, at least not in that way or that form. Besides his mind wasn’t in good shape for thinking, only for trying to shoot at whatever seemed hostile and above all for hunting down some possible cover wherever it might be. Luckily, although the road immediately received a proper drubbing from enemy fire, it did have low-lying areas here and there where the men had at first been able to seek shelter for a short while.

But for too short a while: barked orders prodded the first lines of infantry off the road and into the oat field alongside it where they were clearly at risk and now, not content with taking fire from the enemy, the men began receiving it as well in the back from the imprudent shooting of their own forces, after which disorder spread swiftly through the ranks. The thing is, they were green troops, and the foul-ups were just beginning; only later would the men be ordered to sew a large white rectangular patch on the backs of their greatcoats, to make them more visible to the observing officers and minimize such blunders. Meanwhile, as the band played its part in the engagement, the baritone sax was shot in the arm and the trombone fell gravely wounded; the group closed ranks and although their circle was reduced, kept playing without missing a note and then, when they began to reprise the measure in which “the bloody standard is raised,” the flute and tenor sax fell down dead.

The artillery having come to the company’s aid too late in their advance, the troop had been unable to gain the advantage all day, constantly moving forward only to retreat right away. Finally, at dusk, with a last effort they managed to drive the enemy back beyond the woods with a bayonet charge: Anthime saw—thought he saw—men stabbing other men right before his eyes, then firing their weapons to retrieve the blades from the flesh via the recoil. Clutching his rifle, he himself now felt ready to stab, impale, transfix the slightest obstacle, the bodies of men, of animals, tree trunks, whatever might present itself: a fleeting state of mind yet absolute, blind, excluding all others, but in the event the opportunity never arose. He continued to advance with all the others, laboriously, without lingering over the details, but the ground thus gained did not remain that way for long: the company had to withdraw almost immediately, since their position was not tenable without reinforcements that did not arrive. All this Anthime put together only later, when it was explained to him, for at the time he hadn’t understood a thing, which is par for the course.

So this was the first taste of combat for him and the others, at the end of which Captain Vayssière, an adjutant, and two quartermaster sergeants were found among the few dozen dead, not to mention the wounded, hastily removed by stretcher bearers just after nightfall. The band had suffered further casualties: one of the clarinetists had been gutshot, the bass drummer and his instrument had been sent tumbling by a bullet through his cheek, and the second flutist had lost half a hand. Picking himself up again when it was all over, Anthime noticed that his mess tin and stewpot had been shot through, and his kepi as well. Shrapnel had torn away the entire bottom of Arcenel’s knapsack, in what remained of which he’d found a projectile that had ripped his jacket on the way in. After roll call it turned out that the company was missing seventy-six men.

Leaving at dawn the next morning, the survivors had a lot more marching to do, often through forests where they were less exposed to the enemy’s binoculars and aerial observation from aviators and observers in barrage balloons, although the often uneven terrain made progress more difficult and tiring. They were finding more and more corpses, abandoned weapons and equipment; on two or three occasions they had to fight again, but fortunately only in brief affrays that were even more chaotic but in any case less bloody than the first engagement at Maissin.