He crouched down inside the cockpit to create less wind resistance, when the mysterious flux that was proving both a curse and a blessing slid up against him from Claude’s direction. He looked up and saw Maury’s helmet tilting towards the ground. Heading in the same direction as his comrade’s, Jean’s younger eyes immediately noticed what had attracted the pilot’s attention. Jean no longer felt cold.
Some brown spots seemed to be flying towards them from very far below. They looked like a swarm of midges, except for the fact that the sun often cast a sheen on them that Jean recognized as reflections bouncing off a metal surface. A German patrol was on the lookout, waiting for their return. Jean counted five planes and thought: “As many as the ones Thélis faced.”
It looked as though they were climbing slowly, practically imperceptibly, but Herbillon, who’d learned to judge distances, knew that they would catch up to them before they crossed the Marne. They could only rely on a single hope: that the German fighters would be incapable of reaching their altitude.
Without either of them exchanging a signal, Maury hauled back on the stick to lift the nose in an attempt to gain even more altitude. All in vain: judging by the plane’s sluggish reaction and the engine’s breathlessness, they realized they’d reached an altitude they could not surpass. Nevertheless, the brown spots kept growing larger, and looking at their shorter wings and the stockier build of the new models, they gave up all hope of outrunning them. Those German fighters, flying more resiliently through that air than their heavier two-seater, still had an edge over them, even at those heights.
Despite the leaden weight that had settled on his limbs, Herbillon loaded his magazines and lowered the turret. The effort crippled his chest and left him feeling dizzy, but sitting upright, he thought: “Maury’s got to pitch down. We’ll be better able to fight that way.”
As though answering his wish, an icy gust of wind burned his hands and the shock of the plane’s abrupt descent cut off his breath. Claude was making the exact manoeuvre Jean had hoped for.
Finding itself back in denser air, the engine began to roar like thunder and the plane’s tail, which now lay above the young man’s head, looked like that of a mythical fish. Jean was being crushed against the side of the cockpit, tethered to his machine guns, keeping a lookout for the enemy.
Now the German patrol fell upon them at the speed of thought.
The purple bullets, the plane’s jolting, the German fighters’ vertiginous acrobatics, and that steel plate which Jean hugged to his chest as though it were a human being—all of these were the vital essence of the young man’s life, for what seemed like seconds, or hours. Then the astonished euphoria of still being alive lifted his spirits. During that crazy dive which Maury had plunged the plane into, threatening to tear it apart in the process, they had crossed over the lines. Lady Luck had taken them under her wing. The Marne had turned visibly blue again. They would cross it in just a few seconds. They were saved.
Yet a cry burst out of Claude’s mouth and, even though he didn’t hear it, Jean felt as though his heart stopped still. There were three single-seater planes with black crosses on their wings heading from the direction of French skies. It was the second wave of attack, and the other fighters that had engaged them at first returned for another attack. The young man was overwhelmed by the enemy-studded sky. They didn’t stand a chance while caught between those two agile, terrible waves. Maury tried his hardest to find a chink in that flying suit of armour which moved with lightning-speed strokes, yet each thrust their aeroplane made was met by an even more vigorous parry.
Herbillon passively waited for that terrible game to come to an end. How long would it last? Neither of them knew. They finally realized they were about to die.
At that moment, a kind of spasm took hold of Claude. He wanted to know. Although he’d come to an abstract conclusion, having heard the bell toll for him, his incredulity overruled his logic. At that defining moment, he still hoped that his friend hadn’t betrayed him, and that his loyal wife would cry for him.
He couldn’t leave that world without either being certain of his crewman’s innocence, or hearing a fully fledged confession of betrayal. In a familiar gesture, he turned to look at Jean, who, sitting upright, had been waiting for Claude’s gaze to meet his.
The bullets sketched a trail of fire above their heads. The drunken wind wounded them with its lashing gusts, and the engine’s roar had synchronized with their blood, giving it a superhuman rhythm. Their nerves were more alive than ever, their senses sharper and their wits quicker. All because death had opened its mouth to swallow them up, and they could already smell its breath. They had now become a single mind in a single body.
Herbillon easily understood the reason behind the haunted look in Maury’s eyes. The crew was headed to its demise, and Claude was demanding to know the truth. Jean knew he had no right to keep anything from the man who was going to sink into the vast expanse of the sky with him.
Yet Jean’s fear of death was trumped by his fear of being hated by Claude. He wanted them to die in a brotherly manner, and for their crew to be finally reconciled. Under Claude’s fixed state, Jean humbly joined his hands together.
Then he furiously grabbed hold of his machine-gun butts.
Maury automatically turned the plane on its side to prevent the fighter that was coming at him from below, which was wrapped a hail of sparks, from firing at him. The rabid pack of planes danced around him. His resistance was being guided solely by his instincts.
Maury was stunned by his dexterity at that moment, because Herbillon’s gesture had made it clear that Jean simply wanted to die. Quick, quick, if only a bullet could put an end to the whirlwind of his thoughts!
Claude was possessed by such wrath that the thought that his disloyal friend would share his fate made him happy, and he even wanted to hasten their end.
When an enemy came at him again, Maury jerked the plane to the right, heading straight for the fighter, without even bothering to fire on him, certain he would smash it to pieces with the full force of his weight.
Yet a memory forced itself upon him. None of his other comrades had wanted him as their pilot, nobody except Herbillon. Was this how he was going to reward his trust?
A hard pull on the rudder allowed the plane to give way. The German plane passed so close by that Maury saw the enemy pilot let go of the controls and brace for impact. Taken aback by that desperate manoeuvre, and afraid that they might shoot at their comrade, the other fighters held their fire. The Marne—and, beyond it, salvation—was right there.
Yet Claude hesitated when it came to steering the plane towards it.
All of a sudden, he felt a sting on his side; and when he understood that a bullet had pierced him, he was stupefied and terrorized to feel the will to live rage within him.
Despite Jean’s confession, and despite the loss of all hope, Claude didn’t want to die. His teeth tore through his lips in order to overcome the weakness that was overwhelming him; his hand stiffened against the rudder which still miraculously governed the plane, and he dove towards safe ground. The kind of strength beasts experience when cornered and about to die led him to choose a suitable field and fulfil all the ritual manoeuvres that this entailed.
When the plane rolled along the thick grass, he turned towards Jean so he could vent his delirious, joyful cry. As the plane shook, a head bobbed about in the rear cockpit, one of its temples crowned with a sombre foam.
The sun spilled through the closed shutters, its dull light toned with amber highlights.
It didn’t hurt Claude’s eyes when they opened after he’d lain unconscious for sixteen days. He noticed a figure sitting down next to his bed, its head hung low. The robe it was wearing cast a shadow against the white walls. The way its shoulders curved and the simplicity of its hairdo allowed Claude to recognize it as Hélène.
Yet her beatitude was so frail and calm that Claude didn’t dare disturb it by moving and he shut his eyes. A feve
r grazed his skin, light as a caress. Claude wanted nothing more than to prolong that moment, when the happiness of his reconquered life flowed according to a divine rhythm.
However, despite himself, Claude looked at Hélène, who hadn’t stirred at all. He couldn’t see any of her face except for her smooth forehead and the distinct curve of her hair. How close they were, and yet how far. How vague and insignificant she seemed to him! Looking at her, Claude felt the intense desire for his resurrection to be greeted by a different face.
The image of a tender, male face flashed confusedly across the limbo of his mind. Herbillon! But why was there a red aureola around his temple?
His bated breath grew more urgent! He began to relive the entire experience: the dogfight, the terror of death, the euphoria of salvation, the desire to share it all with his comrade. Then the vision of that vacated body which had torn him apart.
Who was Hélène thinking about as she sat there completely still? Jean, of course. She was right! Just moments after they’d succumbed to the beating of those funereal wings, all that suspicion and suffering had seemed so pitiful! How could he have entrusted his will to live to those petty sentiments?
Now that he’d left the kingdom of shadows, he knew…
Herbillon! His young face, his young body! How he’d sadly joined his hands together up there in that deadly sky!
Claude’s chest was empty except for a heartbroken pity.
When Hélène finally raised her face, an etching of sorrow, she found a set of bright eyes staring at her. She started to move towards him, but he gestured to her with his eyelids, signalling that she should stop.
“Where did they bury him?” he asked, in a murmur so low she had to bend over to hear him.
As though following her own train of thought, she answered: “Next to the captain.”
“That’s good.”
Exhausted, Claude fell silent again. A fly fluttered in the air like a wild bullet. His eyes followed it as it rushed around, then his gaze fell on Hélène once again. The tears she was holding back were shining through her eyelashes.
“Go ahead, cry, cry,” he told her, “I so wish that I could.”
She knew that he knew, and shamefully took his hand in hers. He clenched her cool hand. Then her head dropped onto the sheets and her shoulders heaved with sobs.
The line formed by her neck was so full and solid, and her despair so vibrant with youth, that a pensive smile formed on Claude’s lips. Hélène would forget all about Officer Cadet Jean Herbillon long before he did.
LA VALLÉE-AUX-LOUPS
4 SEPTEMBER 1923
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Original text © Éditions Gallimard, 1969
First published in French as L’Équipage, 1923
Translation © André Naffis-Sahely, 2016
First published by Pushkin Press in 2016
This book is supported by the Institut français (Royaume-Uni) as part of the Burgess programme
ISBN 978 1 782271 85 7
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