A Fable

A dour, insular sergeant leaves 12 men on a train journey to collect the body from St. Mihiel. Six months have passed since the “false armistice” (403) and actual peace has been declared. The men are too inebriated to deal with the nature of their assignment, having pilfered the brandy bottles from the sergeant’s valise. When they arrive in the town, the drunken men are watched by a crowd of local people. An elderly woman begs to be taken out to the battlefield to retrieve the body of her son, who died in the war in 1916. The sergeant refuses her pleas. They ride a truck past the towns which are being slowly rebuilt with American help. The smell of rotting corpses and the sight of dead bodies disgusts the men. Teams of people carry out the bones of the dead and bury them, identifying who they can and constructing monuments in their honor. Despite the men’s pleas, the sergeant insists that they try to find a body matching the demands of their assignment. They try to locate a suitable body, one which has “no identification of name regiment or rank” (411). Once a body is found and the documents are signed, the men take the valise from the sergeant and insist on drinking in the dead man’s honor. They are shocked that the valise is empty save for one bottle. Once finished, they carry the body out to the truck. They abandon the body to search for the missing alcohol. Finding nothing, they agree to reconvene in Verdun. The body is loaded up into the truck and they drive away.

In Verdun, the men argue with the sergeant over the availability of alcohol. As the sergeant signs papers, the old woman from earlier in the day talks to the self-elected leader of the men, a former lock picker. She begs to look at the body to see whether it is her son. They agree to show her the body in exchange for brandy. She looks, even though the body is so badly damaged and rotten that “it was no longer man” (416). Nevertheless, she is insistent that the dead man is her son. She demands the body to bury and offers more money or brandy. The picklock agrees and the men shift the body into her cart in exchange for 100 francs. They send a man to buy brandy and reseal the now-empty coffin. When he returns, the sergeant is outraged but the men are too intoxicated to care. They take the empty coffin on a train back to Paris.

The men wake up with hangovers. They are in St. Mihiel and the train has stopped to be dressed in black mourning colors. Picklock leads the men to a nearby café for coffee and bread. A stranger listens to their story and offers to help them find a replacement body. In exchange, they offer one of the men’s Swiss watches. The watch was taken from a paralyzed German officer, who was then killed and left in no-man’s land. The stranger leads them to a field, where he has recently dug up the body of a soldier. While they ride to his farm, he explains that the field belonged to “some people named Demont” (423). The man who owned the land is dead, but he left behind a wife and her sister who still live there and work the land. The body is located where a beech tree once stood. Unaware of the true identity of the body, the men dig up the corporal and load him into the coffin. With a body and more brandy, they return to Paris on the train.

Marya works on the farm. She watches the man, hired since the death of her sister’s husband, and then runs to her sister to explain that a “young Englishman” has come to take the corporal’s medal, as arranged. The Englishman walks on crutches due to a missing leg. He is traveling with “a tall thin cadaver of a man” (426). The Englishman is the runner, still suffering from the wounds inflicted when the false armistice broke. The man with him is Zsettlani. They sit down to a meal in Marthe’s house. Zsettlani rudely offers money as soup and wine are served. The runner talks about how he learned about the corporal. He asks about the corporal’s wife, who he is told has returned to the brothel in Marseille where she worked when she first met the corporal because she needed to take care of a sick grandmother. The runner takes the medal from the corporal’s family and leaves. Marthe and Marya continue to work on their farm; Zsettlani returns that evening and asks why the women refused to take his money in exchange for the food and wine. Angry, he takes the coins and leaves.

Six years pass. The marshal dies and his body is laid to rest in Paris. The funeral procession passes by the Arc de Triomphe, followed by a parade of mourners and dignitaries, all paying respects to the man who led the French army during World War I. Among them is his aged batman. At the church, a eulogy is offered. The runner pushes his way to the front of the crowd. He reveals the corporal’s medal and throws it at the caisson, demanding that the dead marshal “take it” (436). The act infuriates the crowd. They attack him, forcing the police to intervene. The police drag the runner to a nearby alley. As curious people watch, the runner lays down hurt in the gutter and laughs. From the crowd steps the Quartermaster General. He offers his sympathy to the runner, agreeing with the runner’s claim that he is “not going to die. Never” (437).