Thirty Hours with a Corpse, and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol

The Little Soldier

SHE LISTENED, her elbow on the table, her chin in her hands. While he spoke he gazed at her with eager eyes—the eyes of amorous youth. He was telling her the story of his life—of his brief memories of boyhood, of college, the ending of his studies; the war, his ardent desire to fight, his mother’s fears and, finally, his dream of fighting realized.

She interrupted him:

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen years.”

She smiled and laid her finger on the narrow ribbon which he wore on his coat.

“What is this?”

“That is the emblem of those wounded in battle.”

“Have you been wounded?”

“Yes,” he answered, without attaching any importance to it.

Moved by the thought of this mere boy stricken down, lying in a ditch, she murmured, with an air of almost maternal interest and concern:

“Poor little fellow! And when were you wounded?”

“At the Marne.”

“Was it a serious wound?”

He answered negligently, pointing to his breast:

“A piece of shell went through there.”

And as she insisted, anxious to have all the details, he told her what he knew about the war: The hard retreat; the triple daily marches to the rear; then the advance, the roads encumbered with wreckage and bodies, the trees uprooted; the men struggling against fatigue and sleep and able to see nothing ahead of them but a dead plain and a gray horizon; the sudden thunder of the artillery; the blow which one never sees or knows of, but which strikes one to the ground; then the awakening to consciousness at a relief station, removal to a distant hospital, long months of rest under a gracious sky, convalescence and, finally, the furlough home.

She took one of his hands in hers and repeated:

“Poor little fellow! And will you return to the front?”

“I hope to.”

They got up. The wood, this springtime night, was filled with shadows and perfumes. She walked along, leaning on his arm, stroking with her ungloved hand the rude cloth of his cloak. At moments, when the moon shone on them from between the trees, she glanced admiringly at his delicate little figure, his shining eyes and his beardless cheeks. He scarcely spoke now, forgetting the war, surrendering himself to the tenderness of the moment, seeking words and promises, but finding only soft pressures and sighs with which to express the feelings of his heart.

Then suddenly the sky became black, the trees tossed, the wind bent the small ones double and whistled among the great oaks with a noise like bullets. She said:

“A storm is coming. We must hurry home.”

“Why? It is so pleasant here.”

In fact, they were happy there, in spite of the storm—happy to be alone in the wood, so alone that the wood seemed to belong to them. She smiled as they made a little detour from the main path.

“If I were not with a soldier I should be afraid.”

These words filled him with pride and he pressed her arm softly. Then the rain began to fall, and they sought shelter under some trees. With her thin dress and her light taffeta mantle she could not help trembling. They thought that they were sheltered, but the drops reached them gradually and then the shower turned into a steady downpour. He expressed concern about her being so lightly clothed. She answered:

“That is nothing. But how about you?”

“Me? I have been in worse storms than this.”

She excused herself for having asked him such a question.

“It was foolish, of course. You are a soldier.”

Time passed. The rain beat through their leafy covering. The far-off street lamps seemed enveloped in a watery haze. No conveyances were in sight.

“We must go home, all the same,” she said.

“You are right,” he replied. “But you cannot walk through the rain this way. You are already drenched. You are cold. It is dark. Nobody will see you. I am going to put my cloak over your shoulders.”

She refused.

“And how about yourself ?”

“Nonsense. Let me do it, please.”

He unbuttoned his cloak and softly laid it over her. This time it was he who was maternal in manner. They hurried along, smiling, through the rain, but each one worried about the other.

“Are you all right?”

“All right. And you? Aren’t you cold?”

“Not at all.”

“I should never forgive myself if you were taken ill again.”

At a roadhouse they found a carriage. As he shivered a little she put her hand on his jacket.

“You are wet through.”

“It is nothing at all.”

“When you get home you must change your clothes at once.”

“I promise you that I will.”

She heard his teeth chatter.

“I am heartbroken. If you should fall ill—”

“But you didn’t catch cold; that was the only important thing.”

He thought of nothing else than of gazing at her, of cuddling up against her, stroking affectionately the big cloak which for a few minutes had sheltered her. On parting with him she said:

“Above all, let me hear from you soon.”

Then he kissed her hand and let her enter her house.

A week went by without her hearing anything from him. She did not dare to go herself and inquire about him. One day she passed by the house in which he lived. They had put straw in the street. That evening she decided to telephone.

They told her that the little soldier was ill—in fact, very ill. And one morning she received a letter, the envelope bordered in black. He was dead. Stupefied, she read and re-read that frightful line:

“Jean Louis Verrier, corporal of the 7th Infantry.”

Her little soldier! Her poor little soldier! She followed the funeral procession, her eyes fixed on the hearse, which went jolting along draped with a tri-color bunting and with the blue cloak with which he had covered her.

Afterward a desire to know something more about this poor youth, of whom she really knew so little, led her to pass again by the house in which he had lived. Some men had just removed the furnishings. She approached the janitress and said to her:

“My God, but he went quickly.”

“Alas!” sighed the good woman. “They had little hope that he would pull through.”

“It was his wound, I suppose?”

“Oh! his wound—that would never have carried him off. That would have healed. But he had weak lungs. In spite of that, they could never prevent him from taking risks. All those fatigues, all those hardships—they were too much for him. He got pneumonia. He was passed along for six months from one hospital to another, refusing always to be mustered out. They thought that he was better. He must have committed some imprudence. He got pneumonia again, and that finished him.”

She answered:

“Thank you, madame.”

And thinking of the spirit of that adolescent, who had marched toward death for a beautiful ideal, and then, for the simple joy of being gallant toward a woman, had carried with him to the tomb no other trophies than a piece of ribbon and a woman’s smile, she sighed:

“He was a man.”