It was odd that they had so much in their bowels to evacuate because, having stayed put longer than anyone expected, they had almost run out of food. Jean-Baptiste’s own stomach was griping—but with emptiness, not emptying. He was giddy and his head was full of strange images, half-dreams. Those men who weren’t ill drank to ease their hunger and their terrible hope.
For a week, the snow and the freezing fog camouflaged each side from the other, and still death waited. Perhaps he was hopping from one foot to the other, crossing his arms back and forth across his chest to keep warm, Jean-Baptiste thought. Or perhaps death wrapped the snow around himself, like the furs that comforted the ladies of the Faubourg St. Honoré; perhaps, like them, he gave a false little shiver and shrugged as he settled into luxury; perhaps he too wrinkled his nose rather sweetly with the contented warmth of being more fortunate than anyone else around. Death was not a bully, Jean-Baptiste thought. Not a cat-torturing, girl-pinching lout like Laporte, now Corporal Laporte, number one bully to the 165th. No, death was a smooth, clever performer, waiting, spying, like Dr. Vignon. Luring you into friendship. After the third night of standing to and after he’d had three glasses of pinard, Jean-Baptiste could imagine Vignon-Death whispering “Let’s get out of this, let’s go for one of our afternoon trips on the river. It’s not far away. You could walk home. Sleep in a proper bed. Don’t worry, I’ve got the very thing to keep the cold away.”
Just when they were all wondering if perhaps the weather had set in for real and they might not have to die until May, a priest arrived and gave them all absolution. Aspirant Collinette had his eyes closed, his lips moving in prayer all the way through and crossing himself as if God might look kindly on sheer quantity of genuflection.
“Always bad luck, a holy man,” Doré said, and belched. He was close enough for Jean-Baptiste to smell fish on his breath.
In the afternoon, perhaps for lack of anything to do, their guns had opened up from behind them, letting the Germans know they were ready. As night fell, Jean-Baptiste had not had so much pinard that he didn’t notice it was colder than ever but frighteningly clear; puddles froze and the moon shone on the motionless earthworks, transforming the naked beech and oak trees; the residual snow and the encroaching mud had a black-and-white beauty. There was a silence in their lines, and because of it the rumble of distant German trains could be heard, moving to their depot deep in the Spincourt Forest, undoubtedly loaded with ammunition. As he was dropping off to sleep, his tight grave of a hole spinning when he shut his eyes and acid rising from his stomach, Jean-Baptiste could even hear Germans singing, a lot closer than the trains.
The next day, Jean-Baptiste woke with a sick headache; and when what passed for daylight came, they could—as he had feared—see. It was still freezing at first, but the fog had gone, the wind had settled, and the sun came out. There was a bit of a ruckus as Giseaux had disappeared in the night. Aspirant Collinette didn’t seem bothered; he was nervous as hell, anyone could see that, and his guts were still playing up. He couldn’t even get to the officers’ cabinet but had to use the men’s stinking latrine.
Sergeant Folz said “Giseaux’s dead if I find him. I’ll crucify him with my own hands.” He made a strangling motion. Then he crossed himself, at which a massive explosion shook the ground and debris fell on them. Another, nearer, followed. Explosion succeeded explosion and the trees came apart with a terrible cracking and crashing. The ground trembled, and the hole that had been a bed for Jean-Baptiste caved in. Other men were still in their burrows when they and their holes disappeared after the big guns—210-millimeter shells, Doré said, field mortars—started landing horribly accurate fire along the wood.
“Under cover, men,” said Collinette, almost politely.
“Move, you numbskulls!” Folz bellowed.
As they were running, bent double, to defend their broken defenses, they passed one of their own guns, torn camouflage fluttering from it, and a handful of artillery men fanned out around it almost in a circle, deader than dead.
A runner passed in a panic, delivering his message to anyone who’d listen: the sector to their left had taken a direct hit and they couldn’t count on support. Jean-Baptiste stumbled on. After the next close shell, Jean-Baptiste thought he was deaf; but then he could hear shrieks, quite plainly and not far away.
So death had been waiting even closer than Jean-Baptiste had imagined. The alarm was sounded: a tiny bugle, as a spotter saw large numbers of Germans moving toward their damaged positions. A second soldier, badly injured, came tumbling into their bay, warning them some Germans had entered the trench system and infiltrated their defenses.