of a wood, waiting for the order which hurls them to the assault of that
stupid and formidable position which is made up of barbed wire in
front of the advanced trenches. Since midday the guns thunder
without cessation, sweeping the ground. The Germans answer with
great smashing blows, and it is the artillery duel which precedes
heroic work. Every one knows that when the guns are silent the brief
order which will ring out above the huddled men will hold their
promise of death. Yet those men talk quietly, and there are some of
them who in this time of danger find some poignant satisfaction,
softening their anguish, in calling up the memory of those dear beings
whom perhaps they will never see again. With my own ears I have
heard a great fair-headed lad expatiate to all his neighbours on the
pretty ways of his little daughter who is eight years old. A kind of dry
twittering interrupts his discourse. The field telegraph, fixed up in a
tree, has called the lieutenant. At the same moment the artillery fired
a few single shots and then was silent. The officer drew his watch, let
ten minutes pass, and then said, 'Get up,' in the same tranquil and
commonplace tones with which a corporal says 'attention' on parade
ground. It was the order to go forward. Every one understood and
rose up, except five men whom a nervous agony chained to their
ground. They had been demoralized by their long wait and weakened
by their yearnings for the abandoned homes, and were in the grip of
fear. The lieutenant--a reservist who had a little white in his beard--
looked at the five defaulters without anger. Then he drew, not his
sword from its scabbard, but a cigarette from its case, lighted it, and
said simply:

"'Eh bien?'

"Who can render the intonation of that 'Eh bien'? What actor could
imitate it? In that 'Eh bien?' there was neither astonishment nor
severity, nor brusque recall to duty, but rather the compassionate
emotion of an elder brother before a youngster's weakness which he
knows is only a passing mood. That 'Eh bien?'--how he put into it, this
elder of ours, so much pitiful authority, such sweetness of command,
such brotherly confidence, and also such strength of will. The five
men sprang up. And you know that we took the village after having
fought from house to house. At the angle of two alleys the lieutenant
was killed, and that is why the two notes of his 'Eh bien?' will always
echo in my heart as the fine call of an unrecorded