have also learned how to find my bearings on a cloudy night and how to solve complicated tactical problems.
But they forgot to teach me how to feed forty hungry soldiers with-out any mess tins. Or how to motivate them for sentry duty or a night exercise when they are shivering with cold because we haven’t pro-vided them with any winter clothing.
Still. Somehow the problems are solved. In half legal ways I orga-nize some mess tins. And if there are not enough to go around, we just have to take it in turns to eat. I can hear some whispering in French. Some plot is being hatched. But what? In the end one of them approaches me - as a representative. "Commander" he says, and hands me a mess tin. I pass it on to someone else. He tries to explain to me in French that I should be the first to eat. I refuse. The ones who are standing at the end of the queue and waiting ill-temperedly say nothing.
After we have eaten our job is to load sand onto a truck, to fill the bases of our tents with, and so prepare them for the rainy season. I tell them what we have to do. They grumble. They came here to fight, not to work. How can I explain to them that an infantry soldier is at the same time a fighter, a worker, and a beast of burden?
When we reach the place, they don’t want to get out. I shout. A few get out and stand around and wait. I realize that words won’t help here. I grab a shovel and set to work, as if I were unaware of them. The men whisper to each other, point their fingers at me, and discuss the matter. One of them picks up a shovel and joins in, then a second, a third, and a fourth follow suit. Another little victory!
* * *
Without intending to, I compare them with the group that was inducted with me a year ago. Melancholy seizes me. How many of the veterans are still with us? Some are fallen, many wounded. A few have found themselves jobs at HQ. There are not many familiar faces from those days still around. And this lot? They have good intentions. Most of them want to fight and to be good soldiers. But they are dif-ferent from us. They don’t have that open laugh, that healthy cheer-fulness. They are missing that natural, rebellious pride which needs no discipline.
After just a few days of exercises came the order for us to take over a sec¬