The Crew Read online

  JOSEPH KESSEL

  THE CREW

  Translated by

  André Naffis-Sahely

  PUSHKIN PRESS

  LONDON

  for Sandi

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  COPYRIGHT

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER I

  THE NEW TRUNK, with its securely fastened leather straps and bearing the freshly painted name Officer Cadet Jean Herbillon, was cluttering up the entrance hall.

  The father, who was fiddling with the chain of his pocket watch, looked at the time and, rather a little too sternly, said: “We should get going, Jean.”

  “Are you sure you want to go on your own?” his mother asked. “Like a big boy?”

  The young man lowered his gaze to avoid having to see his mother try to force a smile. “Yes, mother,” he said. “I’ll be brave, and so will you. Besides, don’t forget Georges is coming with me.”

  They stopped talking. The clamour of the street made the silence they were powerless to break seem far more noticeable. They were keen for this goodbye ceremony to be over, for the door to close on this separation, which was tearing them apart on the inside. So intolerable was this moment to them that it made them feel helpless, meaning they could neither admit how anxious they were, nor pretend nothing was wrong.

  Jean was counting the seconds, those last, oppressive seconds filled with false sentiments, like his father’s stoicism, his mother’s bravery, and even his own cheerfulness. The only real, palpable emotion was his parents’ all-consuming suffering, and Jean’s own impatience to get away from them so he wouldn’t have to endure it any longer. He knew that the moment he crossed the threshold, all that sadness would fall from him like a troublesome veil as he joined the race towards the future and a life of action…

  A child’s voice rang out, striking a triumphal, dissonant note: “The car’s here, Jean; I had a hard time finding it, you know.”

  “I knew I could count on you,” the young man told his little brother with a smile.

  Jean hurried to leave. Confronted with his family’s tense faces, a lump had developed in his throat and he wanted to get away before they could see the colour drain from his face.

  A few awkward kisses were exchanged, along with some vain, feverish words.

  The brothers drove through streets emptied by the night and the wartime curfew. A bluish glow leaked out of the streetlights, which had been fitted with slotted covers. Inside the dimly lit car, the little one turned to look at Jean and couldn’t decide what he most admired in him: his courage, the winged stars on his collar or the shininess of the tawny leather. As far as Georges was concerned, Jean was the living embodiment of war, such as he’d seen it illustrated in all the pictures and posters.

  The young man slowly savoured that adulation, especially since his own self-image was just as naive.

  He was twenty years old. It was his first tour of duty on the front. Despite all the stories he’d heard at boot camp and his own keen sense of reality, his youth couldn’t think of war without endowing it with all the trappings of heroism.

  Once they reached the Gare de l’Est, Jean straightened his kepi, put his peacoat on and said to Georges: “Take the trunk to the train bound for Jonchery and wait for me.”

  The platforms were teeming with soldiers. The joy of their leave from the front was still imprinted on their faces. Jean walked past groups of these soldiers, his heart swelling with comradely pride. He could finally consider himself the equal of those who were about to depart. He loved them for all they had suffered, especially those whom death had already marked out. Since he believed that he too carried that precious essence within him that evening, he felt he could also bask in a little of that love and respect.

  From time to time, his thoughts strayed to that city drowning in darkness, which filled him with a disdainful pity. That city only sheltered men who were either unable or unwilling to fight. He, on the other hand, now walked among the warriors.

  He felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around him. Then his senses were engulfed by a familiar perfume.

  “Jean, my darling,” a breathless, trembling voice muttered. “I was so worried I wouldn’t make it in time.”

  Jean turned his eyes, which were still intoxicated with that naive image of himself, towards the young woman and said: “I knew you’d come.”

  His tone was calm, almost indifferent, but it concealed a deep tenderness, and an even deeper pride. Without Denise there, his departure simply wouldn’t have been as glorious.

  How invigorating she was! It was the only word he could find to describe his mistress. Her skin, her eyes, her voice, her laughter, her feelings, they were all invigorating!

  The young woman slid her arm into his and, pressing tightly against him, they walked, cutting through the crowds of washed-out greatcoats.

  With Denise beside him, Jean wasn’t counting the seconds like he’d done at home. He felt more carefree while next to her. Despite his imminent departure, despite the front he already belonged to, and whose tentacles seemed to move inside those darkened trains, he felt as though their rendezvous could last forever. The ease of their union seemed to banish all other anxieties.

  A whistle pierced through the cacophony of the station. Denise pressed herself tighter against the young man and this told him they were about to part ways. He detected neither fear nor sorrow in his mistress’s eyes, just a muted adoration. He bent down to meet her mouth and, although he knew it was a farewell kiss, and that it could also be their last, given that they might never see one another again, his young body buckled under those firm lips.

  They ran towards the rumbling train. Men who’d been torn from the city’s peaceful embrace were leaning against the doors. Georges was anxiously searching through the multitude of sullied uniforms to spot his brother’s silhouette: dazzling like a piece of polished metal. When he finally saw him, in the company of a young woman, Georges shouted in perhaps too militaristic a tone: “Your trunk’s been loaded, Jean. Quick, get on.”

  The train cars were shuddering. Jean roughly shook his brother’s hand, kissed his mistress’s fingers, and jumped on the footboard just as the train was departing. He tried to be as graceful as possible in that single motion since he so dearly desired to keep playing a certain role.

  Jean was surprised to find his compartment was full of civilians. It seemed so odd and appalling to him that men would travel for work or pleasure on the same train that was leading him to danger. He’d assumed he would be travelling with officers, comrades who belonged to the heroic school which he believed the front to be. Instead, he found himself in the presence of a small, wrinkled old man, three preppy teenage boys and a young woman whose bearing was a little too formal in contrast to her affectionate eyes.

  Nevertheless, his disappointment led him to realize the new perks he could now enjoy. Sat in the corner seat his brother had reserved for him, Jean unceremoniously crossed his leather-clad legs and began smoking a pipe, which always kept going out because he’d never learned how to use an accessory which he’d deemed essential to his new persona.

  The train, that fiery river, sped alongside shadowy banks. Jean’s gaze occasionally met the young woman’s, who w
ould look away after a brief smile. Her teeth were a pearly white. The rim of her hat cast a mysterious penumbra that covered her face almost all the way down to her lips, but he could see that her breasts were firm and loose underneath her silk blouse. This image alone awakened a desire for sexual conquest in Jean, and his face beamed with such unrestrained lust that the old man shot him a complicit smile. Yet, lowering her eyelids, the unknown woman pretended to go to sleep. Disappointed, Jean stepped out into the corridor.

  He leaned his forehead against the window’s metal bar. Lights flickered across the plain. Streams and rivers shone like pieces of luminous silk. In the midst of the train’s excitement, Jean could almost hear the impetuous uproar of his desire: to get there, to join his squadron. Over the course of the past year, Jean’s youthful pride and his thirst for glory and danger had turned those goals into his sole purpose in life. Now that he was a cadet-observer, and had flown a dozen flights at the Le Plessis airbase, knew all the marshalling signals and had learned Morse code, he was itching to take his place among the supermen he’d pictured, certain he would be able to prove his worthiness.

  He was so lost in his daydreaming that he didn’t hear his compartment gradually emptying out and he gave a little start when a voice very close to him asked: “Will we reach Fismes soon, Monsieur?”

  He noticed the woman whom he’d given up on seducing was standing next to him, almost touching his shoulder. All his dreams and memories suddenly vanished. As the question had been asked in a non-committal tone that didn’t require an exact answer, Jean answered hers with one of his own: “You know you’re travelling very close to the front lines, Madame?”

  “My uncle is waiting for me.”

  Her smile made it all too obvious that she didn’t care whether he believed in the existence of this uncle.

  They went back inside their compartment. Jean offered her a cigarette and she accepted. She laughed easily and her vocabulary was fairly common, albeit lively. Jean quickly realized she was on her way to join an army commander whom she didn’t really like, but who supported her financially. After a few demurs on her part, he won the privilege of addressing her by her first name, which was Nelly, and Jean wanted to press his advantage.

  But the memory of his mistress put a stop to his plans. She had been so sweet and loyal. Was he going to betray her now, having just barely left her? Yet a decisive line of argument banished all his scruples. Tomorrow he would be at the front. Thus, didn’t he have a right to fulfil all his desires? He took the young woman in his arms. She didn’t resist.

  When Nelly left, a gentle weariness overcame the young officer cadet as he savoured the memory of an easy triumph. Suddenly, he felt as though a shadow had sat next to him. He shuddered and looked around. There was nobody there. Neither was there anyone out in the corridor, or in the rest of the car for that matter. Only a great silence, broken by a few bumps and jolts. Jean realized his loneliness had assumed a bodily form.

  The train rolled along fearfully and cautiously, the night-lights had been lit, and the darkness outside was as dense as black marble. As though he’d only just understood the full meaning of the word, the young man exclaimed: “The front!”

  Pressing his face against the windowpane, he vainly tried to glimpse through the darkness, whose immense cloak concealed all the nearby trenches and the hundreds of thousands of men who lived in a state of alert.

  He felt as though a thump resounded in his chest.

  “Artillery fire,” he murmured, as though having experienced another revelation.

  Tense, Jean kept his ears pricked, as though unwilling to miss even the slightest noise of breath coming out of those unknown lands. He’d left Paris only a few hours earlier. He thought he could still see his parents’ faces, or feel the flesh of his mistress’s arm, and could still remember the colourful display of the news kiosk at the station. Yet at the same time he already felt bound to this new place, where men died in droves. Through the same window which had once framed Denise’s face, Jean could now see the gloomy, secret outline of the front.

  The train proceeded slowly, almost gently, as though aware of how enfeebled its passengers had become. The train’s rocking motion and silence—albeit a silence punctuated by a distant rumble—meant the ecstasy that had made the young man giddy ever since his departure finally disappeared. Soon enough, all he could feel was an anxious solitude and strange questions insinuated their way into his doubtful mind. Why did he have to enlist? Why did he have to pick the most dangerous branch in the army?

  He recalled the image of the burning aircraft which had crashed close to the aviation school’s grounds and thought about how his own flesh might one day crackle and sizzle like that.

  Why was that odious train rolling along so slowly? It was like it was loaded with coffins! And that bland, colourless lantern light, and that field completely subsumed by the night!

  Jean now began to criticize himself. He was fully aware of what had pushed him towards enlisting in the air force. It hadn’t been his thirst for heroism, but his vanity. He’d allowed himself to be seduced by the glamour of the uniforms, those flashy winged stars and the prestige pilots enjoyed among women. Women had been the decisive factor. His breast swelled with hatred for those feeble, perverse creatures for whom he’d given up his life. Since she hadn’t attempted to dissuade him, Denise seemed the most despicable of them all.

  Looking for other grievances to bear a grudge over, he realized he didn’t really know much about that young woman: didn’t know who her friends were, hadn’t visited her home, and didn’t even know her surname. He also realized he didn’t have a single portrait of her, and that he’d only discovered she was married because she’d once forgotten to remove her wedding band. This mystery, which had until that point made Denise seem so compelling, had then turned into a mark of dishonesty and coldness.

  Jean thought about how his brief adventure with Nelly had been a means to achieve his just revenge and tried to allay his anxieties by revelling in that memory.

  The train, meanwhile, had slowed to the point that one might well have walked beside it. Jean wanted to get off so he could lose that unbearable weight which was oppressing him, and this very desire revealed the full extent of his distress.

  “I’m scared,” he thought, in spite of himself.

  He tried to defend himself, but all the arguments withered away in the face of his self-loathing. What would be the point of lying to himself? All his indignation against himself or Denise had been caused by that very fear.

  The young man who’d laughed when he’d talked about danger, who’d called those who seemed to understand the word “fear” a bunch of cowards, he, Officer Cadet Jean Herbillon, was now scared himself, and this had happened even before he’d come anywhere close to danger.

  Jean experienced such shame that he didn’t even realize it completely neutralized his fear.

  CHAPTER II

  THE SUN’S BROADSWORD pierced through Jean’s eyelids. He turned on his side, jealously guarding his sleep, but then the roof started to shake and it made him rise to his feet still dazed by the light and noise.

  His eyes first fell on the empty room and the shelf where a pitcher of water lay, although he didn’t understand what he was looking at. What was that sombre cage upholstered in tar paper? However, the sight of his trunk, still unpacked, proved to be the missing link that reforged his chain of memories. He had joined his squadron.

  He jumped out of bed and threw his uniform on. The noise that had woken him up had come from an engine. They were already flying; he must have woken up late. Despairing, he thought the others would think he was lazy. At that exact moment, a soldier as huge and clumsy as a bear painfully squeezed his frame through the narrow door.

  “I’m the orderly,” he said. “Would my lieutenant like some hot water? Then I’ll bring the coffee.”

  The soldier was blind in one eye, which made the young officer awkward. Hesitantly, he said: “No, thank you. I wou
ld prefer some cold water.”

  Then he reflected and forced himself to add: “You should have woken me up earlier.”

  “The captain said I should let my lieutenant sleep,” the soldier replied, winking at Jean with his one good eye.

  “Ah, the captain…” Jean murmured.

  “He’s a man who knows what’s what,” the orderly calmly continued. “The lieutenant will have all the time he needs for everything.”

  The officer cadet liked the orderly’s friendly, familiar tone, but thought it best that the soldier also respect him.

  “That’s good,” he curtly replied. “I won’t be having any breakfast this morning.”

  The sun and that deafening noise which kept stopping and then furiously starting again, which he now recognized as the sound of whirling propellers, were luring him to the outside world. When he stepped outside his room, he left the darkness behind. He found himself in a long, narrow, shadowy corridor with two rows of doors on either side. Noticing light filtering through one of the doors to his left, he walked towards it.

  He entered a large room which, thanks to its four windows, was filled with the clear light of day. It was upholstered in corrugated cardboard and, standing in front of a long table, which was covered with a white wax-cloth studded with blue flowers, Jean felt both cheerful and invigorated. He was examining a stack of shelves that filled one of the corners of the room when he heard: “So you’ve already discovered the bar, Mr Officer Cadet. Your future looks promising already.”

  The voice was so refined, sharp-edged and full of cheer that it reverberated through Jean’s body like a benign wave. He spun around. Standing in front of the corridor’s dark gaping mouth was a young man with his arms held behind his back. He was dressed in a black tunic whose cloth shone just as much as its gold buttons. The tunic closely hugged his thin waist and narrow neck. The fine slenderness of his frame matched the sharp features of his face: his bright, almond-shaped eyes, his straight nose and the pencil moustache that was framed by the corners of his lips.