La Guerre:Yes Sir

by Roch Carrier

  “It’s true that I’m a man? Hostie de tabernacle, that’s good news!”

  “Yes, my boy, it’s good news!”

  Shivering with joy, Philibert jumped out of the grave. Standing on the earth that had been dug up he turned to Arsène. “Mon vieux Christ if I’m a man I’m getting the hell out. You can bury yourself all alone!”

  “Little Calvaire! “ roared his father.

  They had to finish digging the grave. The earth was hard, chalky.

  “Independent little bugger! At noon when you come to ask for your piece of meat I’ll give you a boot in the ass. You’re going to learn what life’s all about!”

  Philibert walked through the snow toward the station. He had decided that he would never come back to the house.

  “If I’m a man I’m going to be a soldier like Corriveau.”

  Arsène went on digging. It was hard to loosen the earth. The pick scarcely bit into it. Arsène hurried.

  The first few times he had done this work he had made a notch in the handle of his shovel for every villager who was buried. Now he no longer counted them. There was only a little bit of dirt left to remove, and all he thought of was that little bit of dirt. “This ground is so hard that Corriveau will stay fresh till late spring.”

  Elsewhere in the world there was night, war. Harami, come to study commercial law in Europe, had been sent out to the backwash of the war.

  His duty was to sleep for several hours in his wet, muddy sleeping bag so that he would be rested for the call that would sound in a few hours. He did not sleep. He was desperate.

  Distant gunshots.

  So many men had died beside him and everywhere in Europe and elsewhere, Harami had so often seen guts bursting out of an open belly, he had seen so many men drowned in the mud, he had seen so many limbs torn off, strewn over the ground like demented plants.

  Harami thought of a man he had seen die, a new man, arrived that very day. Harami had found himself beside the new man at supper. He had asked a question that Harami had not understood. Then the new one had spoken English with a very heavy accent. “Are you a real nigger from Africa?”

  Harami had been offended by the insolence of the question. “No,” he had replied, with the unctuous politeness he had picked up in London.

  “Is there snow where you come from?”

  “In the mountains, yes, there is snow.”

  “Bon Dieu de Christ,” exclaimed the new one, “there’s so much snow in my village maybe that means I was living on a mountain too.”

  Harami had smiled.

  “They probably haven’t got any real toilets here,” sneered Corriveau.

  “The w.c.’s over there,” Harami indicated.

  “You’ve got to line up, wait your turn. I can’t.”

  “Go over there, then, behind the hedge.”

  “Thanks.”

  The new one ran, undoing his belt. He disappeared behind the hedge. Harami heard a loud detonation: a mine. A cloud of earth was raised. Harami ran.

  Once again there were several shreds of flesh, several bloody bits of clothing, a billfold. By reading the papers Harami had learned Corriveau’s name.

  As they were leaving the church they saw the sky, very high, distant, deep as the sea where icebergs would be adrift, because the clouds were white and hard under the sky; when they lowered their eyes the snow was spread out like a sea too, as vast as the sky and the water.

  The soldiers who were carrying Corriveau’s coffin closed their eyes because the snow reflected the light so brightly that it hurt their eyes, tired from the night’s watch. Mother Corriveau, in tears, was leaning with all her weight on the arm of her husband, who was not weeping but who kept repeating that it was he who was being carried to the grave. Behind the old parents of the dead boy they had left a space for the members of the family who had not been able to come to the funeral. Then the villagers followed, silently, this one of their own whom they were about to render unto heaven and to earth.

  The clock struck, marking the steps of the cortège. The slowness was infinitely sad.

  Little by little Corriveau was forgotten, they were so taken up with hating the snow in which they were hobbling around, and which was melting in their boots and shoes.

  Finally they arrived, covered with snow, out of breath, wet and shivering.

  The soldiers placed the coffin on the two planks thrown across the grave. They held themselves rigid at the sergeant’s order.

  “Atten… shun! ! !”

  The villagers were arranged in a circle around the grave.

  The sergeant brought his bugle to his mouth, puffed out his cheeks, and blew. The very earth wept under the snow. From the depths of their memories of Corriveau alive, the tears came. Those who did not want to cry choked. In her wedding dress Molly wept beside Anthyme Corriveau and his wife. Only the eyes of the soldiers were dry.

  Then, holding the coffin by cables they let slip between their hands, the soldiers lowered Corriveau into his grave.

  Arsène prepared to throw the first pellet of earth.

  “Wait!” the sergeant ordered.

  He jumped into the grave, took the flag off Corriveau’s coffin, and climbed out.

  “Now you can go…”

  The gravedigger hastily filled in the hole with snow and earth.

  The priest in his long black cope threw holy water, which didn’t take long to freeze.

  For Bérubé it was not over yet. The sergeant ordered him to find a carpenter in the village who knew how to make a coffin.

  Bérubé returned in the afternoon with a roughly made coffin. The Anglais Henri had killed was laid in it. The coffin was covered with Corriveau’s flag.

  Bérubé realized that his punishment was finally going to begin.

  The sergeant ordered him to carry the Anglais’ coffin with the other soldiers.

  Without speaking, they carried away the body of the hero killed while he was doing his duty.

  Molly walked behind them. Because of her white gown, she was the first to disappear.

  The war had dirtied the snow.