The shelling died down that night, which might almost have allowed them to rest, if they hadn’t had to go all the way to Perthes in the dark through three miles of communication trenches to look for provisions, their supply deliveries having been disrupted by the offensive. Upon his return, Anthime had just enough time before going to sleep to find a letter from Blanche waiting for him with news of Juliette—a second tooth—and to learn from a quartermaster sergeant that the 120th had taken two trenches on the right. On the left, toward the butte at Souain, those across the way had also taken two that had supposedly been immediately clawed back again: in short, no end in sight.
And from the next morning on it went on and on some more, in that perpetual polyphonic thunder beneath the vast entrenched cold. Big guns pounding out their basso continuo, time shells and percussion-fuse shells of all calibers, bullets that whistle, bang, sigh, or whine depending on their trajectory, machine guns, grenades, flamethrowers: danger is everywhere, overhead from the planes and incoming shells, facing you from the enemy artillery, and even from below when, thinking to take advantage of a quiet moment down in the trench, you try to sleep but hear the enemy digging secretly away beneath that very trench, underneath you, carving out tunnels in which to place mines to blow the trench to bits, and you with it.
You cling to your rifle, to your knife with its blade rusted, tarnished, darkened by poison gases, barely shining at all in the chilly brightness of the flares, in the air reeking of rotting horses, the putrefaction of fallen men and, from those still more or less on their feet in the mud, the stench of their sweat and piss and shit, of their filth and vomit, not to mention that pervasive stink of dank, rancid mustiness, when in theory you’re out in the open air at the front. But no: you even smell of mold yourself, outside and in, inside yourself, you, dug in behind those networks of barbed wire littered with putrefying and disintegrating cadavers to which sappers sometimes attach telephone cables, because sappers don’t have it easy. They sweat from fatigue and fear, take off their greatcoats to work more freely, and might hang them on an arm sticking out of the tumbled soil, using it as a coat tree.
All this has been described a thousand times, so perhaps it’s not worthwhile to linger any longer over that sordid, stinking opera. And perhaps there’s not much point either in comparing the war to an opera, especially since no one cares a lot about opera, even if war is operatically grandiose, exaggerated, excessive, full of longueurs, makes a great deal of noise and is often, in the end, rather boring.
11
ONE FOLLOWING MORNING, much like the others, snow decided to fall along with the shells—at a different rhythm, naturally, for the shells had been less plentiful than usual, only three so far that day—whereas Padioleau decided to complain.
I’m hungry, Padioleau was moaning, I’m cold, I’m thirsty and also I’m tired. Well sure, said Arcenel, just like the rest of us. But I feel very low, too, continued Padioleau, plus I’ve got a stomachache. It’ll pass, your stomachache, predicted Anthime, we’ve all got one, more or less. Yes but the worst part, insisted Padioleau, it’s that I can’t figure out if I feel low because of the stomachache (You’re beginning to piss us off, observed Bossis) or if I’ve a stomachache because I feel low, if you see what I mean. Fuck off, announced Arcenel.
That’s when the first three shells that had flown too far, exploding uselessly behind the lines, were followed by a fourth and more carefully aimed 105-millimeter percussion-fuse shell that produced better results in the trench: after blowing the captain’s orderly into six pieces, it spun off a mess of shrapnel that decapitated a liaison officer, pinned Bossis through his solar plexus to a tunnel prop, hacked up various soldiers from various angles, and bisected the body of an infantry scout lengthwise. Stationed not far from the man, Anthime was for an instant able to see all the scout’s organs— sliced in two from his brain to his pelvis, as in an anatomical drawing—before hunkering down automatically and half off balance to protect himself, deafened by the god-awful din, blinded by the torrent of rocks and dirt, the clouds of ash and fine debris, vomiting meanwhile from fear and revulsion all over his lower legs and onto his feet, sunk up to the ankles in mud.
After that everything seemed just about over. As the smoke and dust gradually cleared from the trench, a kind of quiet returned, even though other massive detonations still sounded solemnly all around but at a distance, as if in an echo. Those who’d been spared stood up fairly spattered with bits of military flesh, dirt-crusted scraps rats were already snatching off them and fighting over among the bodily remains here and there: a head without its lower jaw, a hand wearing its wedding ring, a single foot in its boot, an eye.
So silence seemed intent on returning—when a tardy piece of shrapnel showed up, from who knows where and one wonders how, as clipped as a postscript: an iron fragment shaped like a polished Neolithic ax, smoking hot, the size of a man’s hand, fully as sharp as a large shard of glass. Without even a glance at the others, as if it were settling a personal score, it sped directly toward Anthime as he was getting to his feet and, willy-nilly, lopped off his right arm clean as a whistle, just below the shoulder.
Five hours later, everybody at the field hospital congratulated Anthime, showing him how they envied him this “good wound,” one of the best there was: serious, of course, crippling, but not more than many others, really, and coveted by all as one of those that ship you away forever from the front. Such was the enthusiasm of his comrades propped up on their elbows at the edge of their cots, waving their kepis—at least those who weren’t too damaged to wave—that Anthime almost didn’t dare complain or weep from pain, or lament the loss of his arm, the disappearance of which he was not actually fully aware. Not fully aware either, in truth, of the pain or the state of the world in general, no more than he could envisage—looking at the others without seeing them—never being himself able ever again to lean on his elbows except on one side. Out of his coma and then out of what served as a surgical unit, his eyes open but focused on nothing, it simply seemed to him— although he didn’t really know why—that given the laughter, there must be some reason to be happy. Reason enough for him to feel almost ashamed of his condition, again without fully understanding why: so as if he were reacting automatically to the other patients’ applause, to join in the merriment he gave a laugh that came out like a long spasm and sounded like braying, which shut everyone up instanter. A serious shot of morphine then returned him to the absence of all things.
And six months after that, the folded sleeve of his jacket affixed to his right side with a safety pin, another pin anchoring a new Croix de Guerre on the other side of his chest, Anthime was strolling along a quay by the Loire. It was Sunday again and he’d passed his remaining arm through the right arm of Blanche, who, with her left hand, was pushing a carriage containing Juliette, asleep. Anthime was in black, Blanche in mourning as well, with everything around them blending rather well with that color in touches of gray, chestnut brown, hunter green, save for the tarnished gilding on the shops, which gleamed dully in the early June sunshine. Anthime and Blanche were not saying much, except to mention briefly the news in the papers. At least you’ve avoided Verdun,[11] she had just said, but he had not thought it advisable to reply.
11
Modern estimates put the number of dead and wounded at close to a million men. After eleven months, the longest and bloodiest battle of World War I ended with no real advantage to either side.