40 Homme, 8 Chevaux

Gaspar had been at the head of his class. He dabbled in poetry, and one of his works had been accepted for publication across the Channel in Punch. It was not a great poem, but it was risqué (as people expected French poetry to be), ribald, and funny. His fellow students at the Saint Jean Hulst school in Versailles were all impressed, particularly the girls, and Gaspar enjoyed a pleasant, and ribald, summer after his work was published.

Like many of his classmates, Gaspar left the Universite and enlisted in the Guards when war broke out in 1914.Training was hard, but leave was fun, and the girls thought every soldier, even ugly ones like Gaspar’s friend Reynaud, were good company. They partied in Paris on the night training ended and slept on the train eastward the next morning as it rolled toward Belgium.

Gaspar’s division was sent to the front, to what later became known as the Battle of the Frontiers. His unit halted at the railhead at Charleroi. He saw the ambulances bringing the wounded and dead to the field hospitals, and later he himself was assigned to carry the litters bearing the wounded and dead to the hospital or the morgue, as the case may have been. His unit was held in reserve and it was not the unit’s job to help at the hospitals; but his commandant needed to keep the men busy.

Gaspar disliked the morgue runs. The doctors there were grim and disheartened by the death and dismemberment they saw every day. What was the cause of death, to write on a death certificate, when the dead man was in pieces and not all the pieces were there?

The hospitals, however, were something else.

The young nurses, many from rich families, with wonderful bloodlines, fine features, and a guilty need to be helpful, were caring and sympathetic. Their sympathy transferred to the orderlies and soldiers, like Gaspar, that shouldered the litters, swept up the bloodied bandages, and laid down their burdens for the care of these “angels of mercy.” For a young man of 21, in the flower of youth, the hospitals were fertile ground, and the nurses were seeds waiting to be planted.

The battle around Charleroi had petered out after two days of fighting and Gaspar and his crew were taking their ease at the railroad siding and congratulating themselves for having survived, when Gaspar suddenly pitched forward. A half-second later his men heard the crack of the rifle shot but could not tell where it came from. They carried Gaspar to a boxcar and took shelter in it for safety. It began to rain, so they stayed there until a lieutenant arrived with two squads from the quartermaster corps.

Gasper was in the corner of the car, in a fetal position. He appeared to be asleep, until Henri came closer and saw the wound. The bullet had entered behind Gaspar’s right ear and halted behind the left eye, the eye pushed from its socket and hanging by some tissue on the floor of the railroad car. A mixture of blood, mud and brains had coagulated on the floor under the eye. The brain that had written the poetry, the blood that had fueled the passion of hospital romances, the mud from the soldiers’ boots, dried and glued the handsome face to the floorboards.

“Who is this?” asked Lt. Henri Moreau.

Private Reynaud was seated on the boxcar floor, his hand on Gaspar’s boot.

“Gaspar,” he said. “He was our Corporal. A Boche sniper shot him. We brought him here.”

“Well, he can’t stay here,” said the Lieutenant. “This train is reserved for the horses of the 8th Artillery. They won’t travel with a corpse. Take him away.”

“Please, Sir,” said Reynaud, “can we just have a moment. The men are already feeling bad enough that he is killed. He was not just our leader, but our friend”

“Don’t argue with me, Private,” scolded Moreau. “Do with him what you will, but I will not delay this train for a dead man. My duty won’t allow it. Take him to the station. A Field Service unit has headquarters in the village square. Have them send an ambulance here to take the boy away.”

The nine remaining men of Gaspar’s squad slid open the door of the boxcar and jumped to the ground. Reynaud set off toward the village square to the American Field Service headquarters, where the ambulances were lined up. The rest carried Gaspar to a bench on the station platform, under its shed roof and out of the rain. They covered him with his tunic and laid his helmet and Lebel rifle alongside him. The others stood near the corpse, smoking and leaning on their rifles and against the cars. They were unsure what they should do, now that their corporal was dead.

The train originally had seven cars; three flatcars to carry the field artillery pieces and caissons, a car for ammunition, and three boxcars to carry the 24 horses needed to pull the artillery to the front and into position. The few lorries available were not strong enough to pull the heavy field pieces and overcome the muddy roads. Four horses, however, could do the job easily and horses, therefore, were a valuable commodity. The flatcars and ammunition car had been detached earlier and sent back with another locomotive to bring more field guns forward. The boxcars were for the horses.

The quartermaster men brought wagons with them, drawn by tired looking, sway backed mules, and each filled with hay from the surrounding fields. Lt. Moreau examined the car’s floor and, apart from Gaspar’s blood and a bit of gore, and a few shards of hay from the outbound trip, found it to be reasonably clean. The men had not used it as a latrine. He concluded he could simply load the new hay without first sweeping or washing the floor, and he directed his men to do so.

The first wagon rolled up to the opening. One soldier climbed into the car, and two into the wagon, each with a pitchfork. The men in the wagon tossed the hay into the car, and the soldier inside spread it around. It took both wagons to cover the floor of the car, and other men repeated the process with other wagons until the three cars were finished. The French 8th Artillery began to arrive with its horses for transport back to the rear, for replacement and rest. The 75-millimeter and 150-millimeter artillery pieces that the horses had pulled into the line had been detached and would stay in their positions in the event the Germans chose to regroup and attack once again. The High Command believed that to be unlikely, as the Germans had suffered nearly 2,000 casualties, and lost two lines of trenches. The horses would have the hay to eat on their way back, and by the time they reached the depot outside Paris, all the hay, and what was left of Gaspar, would be gone.

Moreau watched the work as it progressed. Although he had wished for a field command and a chance to match the fame and glory of his grandfather—a division commander during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s whose commemorative pin Moreau wore, against regulations, on his uniform--his taste for battle during the summer of 1914 had soured. It was not so much the dead soldiers—one expected soldiers to die in war; it was, after all, where glory came from. But it was everything else. The dead cattle, that had once made milk and cheese for the village; the red feathers and gray fur in the farmers’ pens that had been chickens and rabbits; the shattered schools with dead school children inside; the young farm boys, hunting in their own fields with their squirrel guns, blown apart by a sudden barrage so that only the stocks of their guns were left to decorate their small crosses. It was not the glory he once had in mind.

Moreau heard the sound of the ambulance and saw it bouncing along the road from the village. Two ambulance orderlies—Americans—alighted from the vehicle and approached Moreau. They wore khaki uniforms with the red-striped insignia of the American Field Service ambulance corps, and they were taller, and obviously better fed, than the French soldiers in the field.

The lead American approached Moreau. He saluted—although he did not report to Moreau and held no rank—and Moreau saluted back.

“Where is the wounded man?” asked the American.

“He is at the station, over there.”

Moreau and the two Americans looked over toward the station. The Americans had brought with them two nurses—an older one, with blonde hair now turning gray, and a young girl of perhaps 25, with short dark hair, wide eyes, and a white gown with a large red cross along its chest. The nurses were moving along to attend to Gaspar.

“He is not wounded, my friend,” said Henri to the Americans. “Dead, I’m afraid.”

The American looked sternly at Moreau.

“You should have said so,” said the American curtly. “We have plenty of wounded to attend to. The dead don’t need our help.”

Henri and the Americans began to walk toward the railway shed when the younger of the two nurses reached Gaspar and bent down to examine his condition, to help him. She first reached into her bag, took out a bottle of sterile water, and soaked some gauze in it. Then she peeled back Gaspar’s tunic, looked at the soaked gauze, and began to apply it to the dead soldier’s face. She had made only a stroke or two before she froze, dropped the gauze, turned away, and fell forward to the station floor.

Moreau and the two Americans rushed forward. The older nurse was already there, and had lifted the young nurse from the ground and placed her on the next bench. The older nurse was waving her wide-brimmed nurse’s hat across the young nurse’s face, fanning her. The young girl was coming around.

“Are you alright?” asked Moreau of the girl. The two Americans pushed Moreau aside and hovered over the girl. They knelt down and listened to her chest, and her breath, opened her mouth with their fingers and peeled open her eyelids with their thumbs. Her eyes were rolled up, but as they looked, the eyes came down. The girl closed her eyes, and her breath returned with a normal, gentle, rising and falling of her chest.

The Americans turned to Moreau.

“She will be okay,” they said, in their confident American way. “Just some shock. Does anyone know why? Does she know this man?” No one seemed to know.

The American Field Service men stood up, straightened their uniforms, and turned to Moreau.

“He’s yours,” the lead American said, “The grave details are nearby. You French lost 500 or 600 yesterday, and they’re busy; but they will get here today or not later than tomorrow. The Boche have a longer wait.”

The Americans saluted again and returned to their vehicle.

“Are you coming?” asked the lead American of the older nurse.

“Not just yet,” she said. “Go ahead. It’s not that much of a walk.”

Moreau returned to the station, to Gaspar and the nurses. The young girl was still whimpering but was in control.

“Are you alright?” asked Moreau.

“Yes,” she said. She rubbed her eyes, took a breath, and straightened her nurse uniform.

“I just never expected this,” she said, her head moving side to side. “I was with him just three days ago.”

“With this man?” asked Moreau.

“Yes,” said the young nurse. Her name was Genevieve. She was from Verdun.

“Is he a relative,” asked Moreau, “a cousin, brother…?”

“No,” said Genevieve. “Just a boy. He brought in the wounded. He cleaned them up. He was very funny. He even made fun of the dead ones and I was embarrassed to laugh when he did, even though it was funny.”

Moreau looked at the young nurse. There were tears on her cheeks and on the red cross of her gown. She had wiped her cheeks but wiping her chest had left streaks of tears on the red cross.

“We were only together one evening. He kept asking, insisting, on seeing me, and after a while I could not say no.”

“We are not supposed to see the soldiers,” said Genevieve. “Mother Superior forbids it. But Gaspar was so charming, so clever, so witty…” her voice trailed off.

“Is there anything I can do?” asked Moreau.

“No, I suppose not,” said Genevieve, wearily. “Oh, maybe something,” she said. “He was writing a poem for me. He told me a few lines, but we had been drinking wine and I can’t remember them now. He said the poem was in his kit. What is a ‘kit’?”

“It’s what a soldier keeps all his important things in,” said Moreau, “like family pictures, girlfriends…things like that.”

Genevieve looked out along the tracks. To the rear, the low rumble of artillery fire had suddenly begun. The Germans were acting up. Genevieve was quiet.

“I will look for his kit,” volunteered Moreau. “I’m sure I will find your poem there. Do you have a card?” She was from a fine family and had one. “I will send it as soon as I can,” said Moreau, “unless, of course, the Boche have other ideas.” They both laughed.

“Adieu,” said Genevieve, and joined the older nurse to walk back to the village.

The locomotive engineer and his collier came up.

“The Germans are attacking. We are ordered to withdraw, and the French 8th has been ordered back into the line to cover our withdrawal.” said the engineer. “This train is leaving for Paris. Horses have two of the cars, but we cannot wait for the rest. I have space for 40 of you. Come if you are coming.”

Gaspar’s squad jumped aboard. Lt. Moreau assembled his quartermaster crew and ordered his 17 men to join the nine already in the car. There still was room for three horses, or 13 more men, but none of the horses or men of the French 8th Artillery could be seen coming down the road.

“We must go,” said the engineer.

“Please, sir, may we take our corporal?” one of Gaspar’s men asked Moreau. Moreau looked over at Gaspar. Someone had put a flower on Gaspar’s chest.

Moreau turned toward the sound of the artillery. The road was still empty, except for the old nurse, walking with her arm around Genevieve.

He could not leave Gaspar to rot on the bench.

“Of course,” he said.

Gaspar was hoisted aboard along with the rest. As his men did so, a slip of paper fell from Gaspar’s tunic and Reynaud stooped to retrieve it. But when he turned it over, the writing was smeared with blood, and Reynaud could only make out the name ‘Genevieve,’ underlined at the top of the page, and a few scattered words after. Just waste paper. Reynaud dropped the paper to the tracks, wiped his hand against his trouser leg, and pulled himself into the car. He sat on the floor of the car, next to Moreau.

The engineer blew the train’s whistle, and it started with a jolt. Slowly, it gathered speed as it left the station. Reynaud looked out of the open boxcar door, then back to the corner of the car, where Gaspar remained huddled.

“It was to be an adventure,” said Reynaud to Moreau, “all of us together. None of us has been to Berlin, but Gaspar said he would take us there.”

He stopped to wipe his eyes.

“Such a shame,” he said. “Gaspar was a fine young man, and a good friend. He knew how to get girls, which meant there were always some extra ones for me.”

Moreau smiled at the thought.

Moreau watched through the boxcar’s open door as the station platform receded into the distance, and the Belgian countryside passed by. He wondered what would happen after his train reached Paris, and his unit was re-assigned. He wondered where he would find the next train siding, horses, boxcars, and men. He wondered if, somewhere, a young German enlistee was lying prone on a firing range, sighting in his Mauser.

Moreau fingered the commemorative pin on his uniform and wondered if he would be remembered or missed. He wished he was clever, like Gaspar.

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