THE

OLD

CAVALRY MAN

by Yves Cerny

(Translated from the French by Clarkson Crane)

During the spring maneuvers of 1936 we had been having fine weather until that day. Sometimes a bit of early fog, but the sun always broke through before long and dried out the men's overcoats. Then it would be nice until evening.

But May is an uncertain month in the mountainous region of central France. The morning we left Bugeat we started across the Millevaches plateau under a lowering sky with swift clouds thickening and growing blacker every moment. Soon we were plodding under a kind of fine drizzle that moistened our faces and clothes as if with a nearly imperceptible watery powder. Then, little by little, drops began forming along our eyebrows and lashes and sliding down our cheeks. The material of my overcoat, thick and closely-woven, was of good quality, so that for the time being the dampness was not soaking through, but I wondered what was happening to the men's overcoats, made of cheap stuff, already worn, and never really waterproof.

I was beginning to feel genuinely sorry for these infantrymen, their unhappy faces gray under the rain; for real rain was falling now, cold, penetrating, and falling so steadily and relentlessly that we no longer had any hope of its letting up. Obviously, we were in for it the whole day.

"It's the foulest march of all," the second lieutenant told me. "Not even a town at the end of it. Just a village! Two little pubs with bedrooms upstairs. The officers eat some in one, some in the other, because neither one's big enough to hold us all. And at night two to a bed. I remember it from last year," At the end of the day, by the time I had made sure all my men were under cover and had eaten properly, I had done a lot of sloshing about in the mud. During the march I had scarcely seen Yvon, the young cyclist-messenger of the company, who was acting as my orderly. On the narrow road he had stayed at the rear of the column except when some order was relayed to him from section to section, When it was time for the officers to eat, he came and told me which of the two pubs to go to. He said my things were in my room and that he would show me the way there when I was ready.

The dinner was heavy but very good, like nearly all the dinners since we had left Tulle. We were just finishing when one of the girls who were waiting on us told me my orderly had come a few minutes before. I asked her to take

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