New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-06-11

around us listened with confident
familiarity to our explanations about
the action which was prepared and the
dangers TO which we would be exposed
Dear faces of our troopers, proud and
stirred. affecting an easy and uncon-
cerned bearing and laughing loudly at
the smallest jokel
Soul Flees with Action.
During these hours Of active waiting
and of resolution the guns Numbered
without interruption from one end to
the other Of the horizon.
when, at 10 o'clock in the evening
of the oath, we started forward toward
the furnace, We left behind in the
bivouacs, with the ashes of the letters
burned before our departure, our old
soul, made of troubles, hope, fear and
love, and we put on at the same time as
our equipment our soul of combat.
From that moment on we do not live
in the present. The probability of
death eclipses the past and forbids the
future. Such state, lasting days ana
days, would be inconceivable and also
unbearable if the circumstances did not
make it easier by lessening greatly the
sensibility.
First, there is the noise. Then after
the noise the fatigue which breaks our
limbs, the hunger, the thirst, the want
of warm food which provokes a kind of
contraction of the stomach, really pain
full. But above all, that which enables
a man TO remain in the fight without
being demoralized by the losses, by
certain sights, it is sleep; in the first
hours there is no rest, and an immense
expense of physical and especially
moral strength; then, after a certain
time, all disappears before an irresist-
ible need of sleep. Every minute of
quiet. under the rain, in a hole, in an
open field, under violent lombard
ment, we lie down and sleep! Don't
think il is a painful sleep; il is de-
lcious. As soon as you allow your
nerves TO relax a soft warmth pene
trstes you, flows in your veins; you
squat in your ditch with little childish
gestures, and right away, in a second,
like a stone in pit, you fall in the
most profound, the most blissful sleep.
All Bound in Action Dream.
Forced to wake up, you continue
your dream, and from now on the
reality appears only through your
dream and you see yourself act. There
is kind of duality in you-the physi-
cal person who creeps, falls in the
mud. lies down under the fire of the
mitrailleuses, sneaks from one tree TO
another, and the moral person who OBJ
serves these strange proceedings, or
ders them and enjoys an astonishing
lucidness.
Dream and lucidness here are the
two words which seem to me TO ex-
press best the soul of the combatant.
Dream, this small wood, chopped
by the fire and through which, in
hellish noise, pale men glide, creep
ing on their knees and elbows.
''Dream, this continual lombard
ment, winch shakes the ground,
brushes men and throws others on the
earth, their faces down.
"And in that dream what clearness
Of thought This you must do, just
this and nothing else. No hesitation.
Responsibility, far from hindering the
officer, sustains him, raises him up;
what could he fear. when he is sur
rounded by his 'poilus,' ready to act
without hesitation on a gesture, on
word. What tenderness he feels for
these men Of all ages whom he calls
my children; unforgettable minutes