They told me, one after the other, of brave deeds that had come under
their own observation.
"The French common soldier is exceedingly brave--quite reckless," one
of them said. "Take, for instance, the case, a day or so ago, of
Philibert Musillat, of the 168th Infantry. We had captured a
communication trench from the Germans and he was at the end of it,
alone. There was a renewal of the German attack, and they came at him
along the trench. He refused to retreat. His comrades behind handed
him loaded rifles, and he killed every German that appeared until they
lay in a heap. The Germans threw bombs at him, but he would not move.
He stood there for more than twelve hours!"
There were many such stories, such as that of the boys of the senior
class of the military school of St. Cyr, who took, the day of the
beginning of the war, an oath to put on gala dress, white gloves and a
red, white and blue plume, when they had the honour to receive the
first order to charge.
They did it, too. Theatrical? Isn't it just splendidly boyish? They
did it, you see. The first of them to die, a young sub-lieutenant, was
found afterward, his red, white and blue plume trampled in the mud,
his brave white gloves stained with his own hot young blood. Another
of these St. Cyr boys, shot in the face hideously and unable to speak,
stood still under fire and wrote his orders to his men.
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