March 29, 1917^ 
LAND & WATER 
29 
The Warrior's Soul 
By Joseph Conrad 
THE old oflTiccr with the long white moustaches gave 
rein to his indignation. 
" Is it possible that you youngsters have no more 
sense than that ? ' Some of you had better wipe the 
milk off yom- upper lip before you pass judgirient on the few 
poor stragglers of a generatioh which has done and suffered 
not a little in its time." 
His hearers having expressed much compunction the 
ancient warrior became appeased, but he was not silenced. 
" 1 am one of them — the survivors I mean," he began 
jiatiently. " And what did we do ? What have we achieved ? 
JJc — the great Napoleon— started xipon us to emulate the 
Macedonian Alexander, with a ruck of nations behind him. 
We opposed empty spaces to French impetuosity, then we 
offered them an interrhinable battle so that their army 
went at last to sleep in its positions Iving down on the heaps 
of its dead. Then came the wall of fire in Moscow. It 
toppled down on them. 
" Then began the long rout of the Grand Army. I have, 
seen it go on, like the doomed flight of haggard, spectral 
sinners across the innermost frozen circle of Dante's Inferno 
ever widening before their despairing eyes. 
" The lot' that escaped must have had their souls doubly 
riveted inside their bodies, to carry them out of Russia 
through that frost fit to spHt rocks. But to say that it was 
our fault that a single one of them got away is mere ignorance. 
Why ! Our own men suffered nearly to the limit of their 
strength. Their Russian strength. 
" Of course our spirit was not broken, and then our cause 
was good — it was Holy. But that did not temper the wind 
much to men and horses. 
" The flesh is weak. Good or evil purpose, humanity 
has to pay the price. Why, in that very fight for that httle 
village of which I have been telling you, we were fighting for 
the shelter of these old houses as much as for victory. And 
with the French it was the same. 
" It wasn't for the sake of glory or for the sake of strategy. 
The French knew that they would have to retreat before 
morning and we knew perfectly well that they would go. 
As far as the war was concerned there was nothing to fight 
about. Yet our infantry and theirs fought like wild cats, 
or like heroes if you like that better, amongst the houses — 
hot work enough — while the supports out in the open -stood 
freezing in a tempestuous north wind which drove the snow 
on earth and the great masses of clouds in the sky at a terrific 
pace. The very air was inexpressibly sombre by contrast 
with the white earth. I've never seen God's creation look 
more sinister than on that day. 
" We, the cavalry (were only a handful) had not much 
to do except turn our backs to the wind and receive some 
stray French round shot. This I may tell you was the last 
of the French guns, and it was the last time they had their 
artillery in position. These guns never went away from there 
cither. We found them abandoned next morning. But that 
afternoon they were keeping up a truly infernal fire on our 
attacking columns ; the furious wind carried away the smoke 
and even the noise, but we could see the c6nstant flicker of 
darting fire along the French front. Then a driving flurry 
of snow would hide everything except the dark red flashes in 
the white swirl. 
" At intervals when the air cleared, we could see away 
across- the plain to our , right, a- sombre column moving 
endlessly ; the column of the great rout creeping, on all the 
time, while the fight on our left went on with a great din and 
fury. The cruel whirlwinds of snow swept over that broken 
mob time after time. And then the wind fell as suddenlj' 
as it had risen in the morning. 
" Presently we got orders to charge the retreating column ; 
I don't know why, unless to prevent us from* getting frozen 
in our saddles, by giving us Something to do. The order was 
welcome enough. So we changed front slightly to the right 
andgot in motion at a walk to take that dark line in the dis- 
tance in flank. It might have been half-past two in the 
afternoon then. 
" You must know that in all this campaign, my regiment 
had not been on the main Hue of Napoleon's advance. All 
these months the army we belonged to had been wrestling 
with Oudinot in the north. We had come only lately, 
driving him before us down to the Bcresina. 
" It was on this occasion then that I and my comrades 
came for the first time near to Napoleon's Grand Armj'. It 
was an amazing and terrible sight. I had heard of it from 
others. I had seen the stragglers from it, some small bands 
of marauders, parties of prisoners in the distance. But this 
was the very column itself ! A mere starving, half-demented 
mob. It issued from the forest two miles away and its head 
was lost in the murk of the fields. We rode into it at a trot, 
which was the most we could get out of our horses, and we 
stuck in that human mass as if in a bog. There was no 
resistance. I heard only a few shots, half a dozen perhaps. 
Their very senses seemed frozen within them. I had time to 
have a good look while riding at the head of my squadron. 
Well, I assure you, there were men walking on the outer edges 
so lost to everythmg but their own misery that they ne\'er 
looked our way. Soldiers ! 
" My horse pushed over one of them with his chest. He 
had a dragoon's blue cloak all torn and scorched and he 
didn't even put his hand to snatch at my bridle to save him- 
self. Perhaps his hands had been frostbitten. He just went 
down. Our troopers were pointing and slashing ; well, and 
of course, I myself . . . What will you have ! An 
enemy is an enemy. Yet a sort of awe crept into my heart. 
There was no noise — only a low deep murmur dwelt over them 
interspersed with louder cries and groans, while that mob 
kept on pushing and surging past us as if sightless and without 
feeling. A smell of scorched rags hung in the cold air. My 
horse staggered in the eddies of swaying men. But it was 
like cutting down galvanised corpses that did not care. In- 
vaders ! Yes. God was already dealing with them. 
" I touched my horse with the spurs to get clear. There 
was a sudden rush and an angry growl, when our second 
squadron got into them on our right. My horse plunged 
and snorted and somebody got hold of my leg. As I had 
no mind to get pulled out of the saddle I gave a back-handed 
slash without looking. I heard a cry and my leg was let 
go suddenly. 
" Just then I caught sight of the subaltern of my troop, 
at some little distance from me. His name was Tomassov. 
That multitude of resurrected bodies with glassy eyes was 
seething round his horse blindly, with stifled growls and, crazy 
curses. I saw him sitting erect in his saddle, not looking down 
at them, and sheathing liis sword deliberately. 
" This Tomassov, well, he had a beard. Of course we 
all had beards then. Circumstances, lack of leisure, want of 
razors too. No, seriously, We were a wild-looking lot in 
those unforgotten days which so many, so very many of us did 
not survive. You know our losses were awful too. Yes, we 
looked wild. Des Rtissef sauvages — what ? 
" So he had a beard— this Tomassov I mean ; but he 
did not look sauvage. He was the youngest of us all. And 
that meant real youth. At a distance he passed muster 
fairly well, what with the grime and the general stamp of that 
campaign. But directly you were near enough to have a 
good look into his eyes, that was where his lack of age showed, 
though he was not a boy. . 
" Those same eyes were blue, something like the blue 
of our autumn skies, dreamy and gay too — credulous eyes. 
A top-knot of fair hair decorated his brow like a diadem, in 
what you may call normal times. 
" You may think I am talking of him as though he were 
the hero of a novel. Why, that's nothing to what the ad- 
jutant of the regiment discovered about him. He discovered 
that he had a "lover's lips "■ — whatever that may be. If the 
adjutant meant a nice mouth, why it was nice enough. 
But I think it was meant for a sneer. That adjutant of ours 
was not a very delicate fellow. ' Look at those lover's 
lips,' he would remark in a loudish undertone, wlule Tomassov 
w as talking. 
" Tomassov didn't quite like those murmurs. But to a 
certain extent he had laid himself open to banter by the 
lasting character of his impressions. 
" They were connected with the passion of love and, 
perhaps, not so very unique as he seemed to think them. 
What made us, his comrades, tolerant of his allusions to them, 
was the fact that they were connected with France, with 
Paris. 
" You can't conceive now how much prestige there was in 
these names, for the whole world. It was the centre of wonder 
for all human beings gifted with reason and imagination. 
There we were, thb majority of us young and well connected, 
but not long out of our hereditary nests in the provinces, 
simple ser\ants of Gc»d ; rustics, if 1 may say so. So we were 
