The Crew

by Joseph Kessel

  “I think Herbillon won’t be leaving with us,” he said. “He found out about the post from some comrade of his and he asked Thélis to be posted there.”

  “What did the captain say?” his young wife asked.

  “He accepted his request. He couldn’t have done otherwise.”

  Hélène stayed silent. What could she possibly say that wouldn’t betray her happiness?

  “I’m going to sleep on the sofa in the next room,” Claude murmured. “I have to get up early tomorrow, and I don’t want to wake you up.”

  As she watched her husband leave, more clumsily than ever, Hélène experienced such shame that she thought she was burning on the inside. But she’d wanted her victory so badly, and so fiercely fought for it, to let this make a dent in it.

  “Claude… he’ll recover,” she thought to herself, in a falsely reassuring way.

  The young woman was busy packing her suitcase when the captain had his presence announced. “I’m happy to make your acquaintance,” Hélène Maury said. “Claude and his comrades have spoken so highly of you.”

  Thélis observed her closely, and Hélène felt overcome with a slight unease, although she couldn’t discern its origins.

  “You’re looking for Claude, right?” she continued. “He isn’t here.”

  “I know where he is—he’s in the car park,” Thélis said. “I’m here in regards to Herbillon.”

  “I don’t understand…” she mumbled.

  Thélis carried on quickly, as though he hadn’t heard her: “You must forgive me, Madame, I’ve only come here because I felt that I had to. I know about everything… yes, about everything. Please listen to me.”

  “Did Jean?…”

  “No, it was the police patrol that saw you last night.”

  The young woman took a deep breath and defiantly declared: “So it doesn’t matter. Jean’s safe.”

  “Indeed he is,” Thélis said without changing his tone, “but not in the way you think…”

  The captain noticed the young woman withdraw into herself, giving her body a feline quiver, showing she was ready to defend herself and, imperceptibly shaking his head, he said: “Don’t look on me as your enemy. It’s too late.”

  “What do you mean?” Hélène cried. “Did you take him back into the squadron?”

  “I didn’t—and neither did anyone else. It was his own choice.”

  “It’s not true… it’s impossible. You refused his request. You have no right to do that.”

  “He didn’t give me the chance to refuse it. He tore the request up right in front of my eyes.”

  “After all the promises he made… after… and I even believed him, I even believed that he loved me.”

  “Oh, he loves you! You can rest assured about that,” Thélis said. “In fact, even more than I thought possible.”

  The young woman replied with a laugh that was a little too shrill and obsessive: “Sure, he loves me, but he’s going to stay…”

  The captain’s face betrayed curiousness and incredulity: “Did you really think you could drag him away? Ask him to deny…”

  “Deny what? The squadron?… You?… His honour?… The crew! Spare me your speeches. They won’t work on me. He’s going to meet his death and is going to leave me behind, when I’m the one who loves him… I’ll never understand it, or allow it, or forgive him for it, never!”

  Contrary to what Herbillon had done, Thélis didn’t try to plead with her or convince her. He was too wise and clear-sighted not to understand that a real, genuine woman—and the one standing in front of him was a shining example of that particular breed—was ruled by different stars than the ones that governed his own life, and that those stars were irreconcilable. A woman like her could suffer the rule of men under duress, but there would always be some essential part of her that would never accept it.

  At that moment, the captain tried to reach out to her in order to achieve the two-fold task that had led him to talk to her: first to avoid the outburst her suffering would ensure she would cause; and secondly, to prevent Jean from returning to the front ravaged by the sorrow and resentment he’d leave behind in his wake.

  Without allowing the young woman to begin pleading or complaining, he said: “Don’t regret that you’ve failed. By following you, Herbillon would have simultaneously destroyed all his feelings for you.”

  “Come on!” Hélène cried out with the same twitchy laugh she’d made a few moments earlier. “Fine then! Away with you, I should have known…”

  Thélis interrupted her with his voice, which was more persuasive and self-assured: “You’re deceiving yourself! Try to understand, don’t blind yourself to the truth. Think: without his comrades, without the call to action and the risks that come with it, Herbillon would have had nothing to distract him. He would be constantly stuck in his own thoughts. At which point he would fully comprehend his weakness. Every morning and every evening, the papers would bring him news of the front, news of us, stoking his sense of shame, aggravating his self-loathing. All of which would make him turn on you, since you would be the cause of all his dilemmas and the sole witness of his downfall. He would start to hate you…”

  “Enough! Please… enough,” the young woman suddenly cried.

  She feebly raised her hands, as though to shield herself. Yet it was no longer the captain’s voice she heard, but that of her own doubts, her own fears, which she’d barely subdued during the sleepless night she’d just experienced. She knew Herbillon far too well not to have suspected that she risked destroying his love simply by saving his life.

  “Herbillon would never forgive you,” the captain continued. “Moreover, as soon as a woman who knew nothing about him or the fact he’d abandoned his comrades crossed his path, someone whose mere presence wouldn’t mercilessly remind him of all of that, he would leave you for her… he would fall in love with her thanks to all the hatred for you that would have grown inside him, and which he would then continue to harbour for the rest of his life…”

  “So you reached the same conclusion,” Denise exclaimed. “I beg you, please be blunt with me. Don’t try to console me, the situation is far too serious for that. Do you really think this is what would happen?”

  “I swear on the lives of the men of my squadron,” the captain told her.

  The young woman’s arms fell limp and inert by her sides.

  “So, all is well then,” she murmured, her eyes having grown vacant, almost glassy.

  She didn’t hear Thélis leave the room.

  The cars, trucks and tractors were lined up on the right side of the street that led west out of Bacoli. The sweat-drenched drivers were giving the hand cranks a few final turns to start their cars’ unruly engines. The inhabitants of that little village were exchanging their final goodbyes with the officers they knew. Young female workers were smiling at the soldiers.

  Maury slipped out of his wife’s embrace.

  “Make sure you write to me every day, Claude,” she said. “I’m so afraid.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” Claude told her. “We’re used to it, you know that, and with Herbillon as my observer, all the odds are in our favour.”

  An orderly came to inform Maury that the captain was waiting for him in the car. Maury drew close to Hélène again and they exchanged a silent kiss. Walking away in his gangly strides, Maury went to join Thélis.

  The young woman started to walk back to the top of that long row of vehicles. All she wanted was to see Herbillon’s face. She hadn’t managed to see the cadet after her conversation with Thélis. She was scared of what she might do and that, despite herself, she might make one last attempt to persuade him to stay with her. She’d continually postponed the hour of farewell, and now that the departure was upon her, she was drained of all strength and resolve.

  Herbillon suddenly emerged out of the side of the road.

  “Denise, finally!” he exclaimed. “I looked around for you all morning, you were hiding from me, weren’t you?
But I couldn’t… I just couldn’t… Forgive me…”

  Denise’s eyes brimmed with tears, but not the sort she’d feared. They were sweet, benevolent and merciful, because they sprang from a love that came of selfless oblivion, if only for a moment.

  “My poor little one…” she murmured. “Go ahead, since that’s what you want, since you feel that you must. I won’t make you suffer, don’t worry…”

  If she’d ever wanted a reward for her words, she found it in the joy and gratitude expressed by Herbillon’s beaming face, which now suddenly looked as it once had: boyish, virile, eager to laugh and live.

  “You’re so brave, such a great person! I love you, I love you, until we meet again…”

  As his car had driven past him, Herbillon had to run in order to catch it on the fly. Standing on the footboard, he cheerfully waved goodbye to his mistress. She didn’t see him. She had shut her eyes.

  By the time she reopened them, the trucks were already rolling past and bouncing heavily along the potholed road. Soon enough, the convoy was enshrouded by a thick veil of dust.

  CHAPTER X

  THEY WERE WELCOMED back to the front by the sound of artillery fire. The distant roar, which called out to them and threatened them, lent all their words and gestures a solemn depth. The tents turned the entire landscape an unblemished white; each tent housed a crew.

  Entering his own tent, where two camp beds had been set up side by side, Herbillon mused over how his physical intimacy with Maury was only likely to grow. However, this wasn’t the time for personal problems. One had to save one’s strength for the tasks presaged by the deafening rumble on the horizon.

  Herbillon ran into Thélis, who’d just returned from the new headquarters. Never had the young man seen the captain’s face look so beautiful. The fire in his eyes and his body’s vitality betrayed the joy caused by the exertion and the fighting.

  “How lucky I’ve been,” Thélis exclaimed, “to come back from my leave only to stumble onto such a great undertaking!”

  Finding his own enthusiasm reflected in the cadet’s emotions, he asked: “Are you happy now, greenhorn?”

  Then, he grew suddenly serious: “Keep your eyes peeled,” he advised. “You still haven’t seen what a war zone looks like.”

  A great shadow fell over his face, as though a premonition had just allowed him to witness the wholesale massacre of his comrades. He spoke so shyly that Herbillon barely recognized his voice: “I need you to remember something, Herbillon. I’m very religious, and if I don’t come back, make sure you all say mass for me.”

  Without giving the young man the opportunity to reply, he ran over to his plane. Then he left, flying the first reconnaissance mission over the front lines.

  By the time he returned, the light had slowly started to fade. A table was set up in the open air, and they dined on canned food, since the cook would only arrive the following day. During the meal, Thélis handed out all the assignments. Two planes would have to fly out every morning to observe the enemy’s advance; another three would go out to take photographs, while two more would go out on evening patrols. Finally, a crew would be kept on permanent standby in order to fly off on urgent missions at a moment’s notice.

  Herbillon and Maury went on their monitoring mission a day before they had been scheduled to on the roster. Charensole and Brûlard never made it back the previous night.

  The cadet wandered around the field that had been unceremoniously cleared through the bales of honey-coloured crops and thought about the missions he’d already flown over the new front. They had been mostly calm, save for the dangerously precise shots fired by an artillery battery lying in wait next to the Marne. Yet the latent danger that snapped at their heels had reinforced the bond between Herbillon and Maury more than ever before, allowing them to simultaneously share the same reflexes and know the other’s thoughts and emotions.

  Herbillon had figured out that Maury’s suspicions had reached a point where anything seemed possible. His logic had run aground on what he still thought was a physical impossibility, yet he no longer doubted his instincts; and the young man discerned a frightening certitude in Claude that even the latter was probably oblivious to, but which caused him a sadness that spread over his face and made him look like a mortally wounded animal.

  The sight of a plane’s shadow on the ground pulled him out of his reverie. Virense and Michel had just returned. The smoothness of the landing was a testament to the pilot’s technique. Jean headed towards the plane to question his comrades. Nevertheless, neither of them left the cockpit. Herbillon called out to them, but they didn’t reply. Slightly worried, he jumped up on the footboard and let out a cry. The rudder, leather cushion and interiors were drenched in blood, and Virense was slumped back in his seat, his eyes shut. The young man’s gaze shifted to the observer’s cockpit, where a pile of human remains lay on the floor.

  Faced with the sight of that sinister plane, which had seemingly returned only to deliver a couple of corpses, Herbillon started to tremble.

  They later learned that despite having had his right wrist shattered by shrapnel, Virense had had the strength to land his corpse-bearing plane, but had fainted the moment the wheels had touched the ground.

  Narbonne, who was scheduled to fly next, frowned and grumbled: “A bumpy ride.”

  Narbonne firmly believed—and his overall experiences had merely reaffirmed that belief—that death, just like a game of chance, liked to work according to sequences. Nevertheless, he made a cheerful gesture towards Sorgues, the machine gunner, who climbed into the plane with him.

  An hour went by. All of a sudden, Jean shuddered and raised his head. Although he couldn’t spot anything in the sky, which was enveloped in a thin mist, a faint crackling resounded through the air.

  “Maury!” the young man yelled.

  Claude ran out of his tent and shouted: “Yes, they’re fighting up there!”

  They stood and listened for a few seconds. Machine guns were being fired aboard invisible planes. They exchanged a look.

  Claude hesitated.

  “They must be at least five miles up in the air,” he said. “We won’t reach them in time.”

  He’d scarcely finished talking when Jean grabbed his hand and pressed it until it hurt.

  “It’s over,” he murmured.

  A spark fell out of the sky, yet it did so from such heights that Maury doubted it for a moment longer. It began growing vertiginously: a bird in flames, a ball of fire, a burning plane.

  A group of pilots and mechanics left their tents.

  “French?” they yelled.

  “Yes, a Salmson.”

  “Chased right down to the ground.”

  “One of ours?”

  “Narbonne.”

  “He’s not crashing, he’s just nosediving of his own accord, he’s still alive.”

  Overcome with a helpless anguish, they were forced to look on while their comrade attempted to exploit the velocity of his breakneck drop to land the plane before it burst into flames. They pictured him rammed against his vertical rudder, running his engine at full speed, gripped by his furious desire to plunge his plane into the field close to where the charred fuselage of the previous plane that had gone up before it had landed.

  Words no longer bound by reason punctuated that desperate fight.

  “So long as the wings hold steady!”

  “You can hear the engine!”

  “There he is, right above us!”

  “Make way! Make way!”

  But nobody budged. The winged fireball was now only a dozen or so metres above the ground, and all their thoughts were focused on that horrible landing, when a clamour suddenly rose up: “He’s going to jump!”

  A burning mass leaped out and crashed on the ground. At the same time, the burning plane hit the adjacent wheat field with a resounding thud until it lay half-buried in the earth.

  Herbillon and Maury were the first to rush towards the pilot. They found noth
ing there except a giant, blistered mass. The skin had slipped off his body in strips, leaving only blackened flesh in its wake. All the features on that swollen face had melted together into a lumpy pile of fat. Neither Claude nor Jean could recognize their comrade, and the horror they felt refused to leave any room for pity.

  The same shudder ran through them. The shapeless mass, which bore no correlation to the man they’d watched fly off just an hour earlier, suddenly emitted a voice, a familiar voice, the same voice they’d heard resonate through the mess hall, or during a game of cards as it had laughed so candidly. Far from being delirious, it sounded lucidly conscious; and although its lips were nothing but a swollen mess, that broken, monstrous stranger was employing Narbonne’s voice to utter its final words.

  Later that day, the army corps entrusted the emergency standby crew to photograph the bridges over the river Marne.

  The mission was going to be the most dangerous of all. Thélis, who had just returned from the front and whose brow was furrowed in a painful rage, resolved to fly out alongside Doc in order to provide Claude some cover.

  The three planes quickly crossed over into enemy skies. Maury scanned ahead and turned to face Herbillon. A single look synchronized their faculties. Their ability to choose the right timing to engage over the Marne would determine their mission’s success, as well as their own fate. Their plane would have to keep the same speed and altitude as it flew from Dormans to Château-Thierry in order to ensure the consistency of their photographs. They also had to make sure that German fighter planes wouldn’t come up behind them during their flight.

  For one last time, the cadet’s eyes attentively scanned the sky without noticing anything suspicious. There were some clouds above the Vesle that could easily be concealing enemy aircraft, but as he didn’t want to prolong what was already a dangerous wait, Jean gestured to Claude; the plane slowly began to veer. The escort planes behind them faithfully copied their movements.