Fear by Gabriel Chevallier Read Free Book Online

marching.
    We slept on straw in huts of wood and tarpaulin that were swelteringly hot in the daytime. We were used as navvies, repairing old trenches in readiness for a new offensive. We set off at dusk, marched for a long time through former positions. Once we got to the right spot we were assigned our tasks in groups of two: one pick, one shovel. After a certain hour, the nights were calm. We could only hear the crackle of grenades far away, and brief fusillades, and see rockets going up: stray bullets buzzed like mosquitoes. A few artillery shells exploded ahead of us, also far off, and an invisible battery, somewhere down in the shadows, barked its response. We returned to camp at daybreak and had the morning to rest.
    Our huts were so infested with lice that I would often go and sleep in a field, rolled up in my blanket and tent canvas. The trouble with that was the damp morning dew. That was surely the cause of the stomach upsets that wore me out and for a long time gave me no peace at all. In a situation where everything depends on your body, a discomfort like this became something very serious.
    Along with Bertrand and some other soldiers, I was attached to the company office as a runner or, if they needed one, a secretary. This did not spare us from work, but it brought a few advantages. We got out of afternoon drill and other petty annoyances, and we were given food separately which we could cook in kitchens in the village, paying the people who lived there a bit of extra money to improve on our rations. This cooking was also an occasion for frequent quarrels, because of the work it entailed, to which we brought very little good will. I often noticed at the front how men’s boredom and misery changed to anger at the slightest pretext; they did not know who to blame and so turned violently against each other. Too much suffering made them lose control. And since material concerns were all they thought about (all intellectual life being suspended, having nothing there to nourish it), the pettiest issues were the cause of their arguments. In war all instincts are given free rein, with nothing to impede or stop them, except for death’s arbitrary intervention. And even that limit did not exist for those whose jobs usually kept them out of danger. Among the many senior officers staying in the village I saw two examples.
    The first was the colonel of an infantry regiment, idling away the time in a camp that had been set up on the outskirts of the village. A former colonial, red-faced and robust, he derived great pleasure from beating up soldiers. His way of doing this, as I witnessed, showed clearly that he was deranged. He would hail someone, call him over, and then, with a warm smile, ask him a few friendly questions to put him at ease – but his eyes shone in a strange way, and his veins swelled up. And then suddenly he would strike the subordinate a blow full in the face, accompanied by a torrent of insults, which made him even more excited: ‘Take that, you swine! You son of a bitch!’ He would carry on hitting the man until, having got over his surprise, his victim would flee. Then the colonel would resume his stroll, moving in a jerky, uncoordinated fashion like someone suffering from ataxia, smacking his jaws, with a contented air. It would often happen that a soldier walking along with nothing much to do would be stopped and get a fierce kick in the arse: the colonel had passed. Very soon, people learned to get well out of the way when they saw him coming, and he could no longer approach anyone. Such a cruel deprivation changed him; he became sad and withdrawn. He only brightened up when a man from another unit or regiment fell into his hands, someone who did not know about his mania. But these windfalls were rare. He experienced a few happy days when four hundred reinforcements were sent up from the rear to join his regiment. For one week, he kept himself busy punching and insulting and his good humour was