One Of Ours

Claude witnesses a mixture of raucous and somber activity when his unit arrives in France. He observes the overeager excitement of Americans flirting with French women, trying French cheese for the first time, and attempting to use their newly acquired French vocabulary (often with amusing results). He also observes food shortages, badly injured soldiers with amputated limbs, and soldiers with sickly, suffering faces. When Claude asks where the wounded soldiers came from, he learns that they are survivors of the brutal Battle of Cantigny.

As the soldiers march through the fields of France, Claude is struck by the mixture of familiarity and unfamiliarity within the landscape. The Old World thatched roof houses, vibrant cornflowers, and poppies are completely new to Claude. He sees a number of familiar plants and trees, however, including cottonwoods. Claude reflects that this familiar tree somehow appears more beautiful growing in France than it ever did in Nebraska. In addition, Claude sees boxes of produce that have been shipped in from the midwestern United States, bearing stamps and labels he recognizes. He feels proud that soldiers and French villagers are being fed by hardworking farmers “back home.”

Captain Maxey, a small, frail man who comes from a poor family in Mississippi, is appointed first officer of Claude’s unit. Prior to the war, Claude was vaguely acquainted with Maxey through the Erlich family in Lincoln. He didn’t like Maxey when he was in school, and this dislike persists in the army. Although determined to “be somebody,” Maxey proves an inadequate leader. His men are deemed “soft,” and they are ordered to build barracks and extend the sanitation system. It quickly becomes clear that several of his men are not sure what they’re doing.

A new soldier, Lieutenant David Gerhardt, joins Claude’s unit. Gerhardt used to study music in Paris and is therefore deeply familiar with the country. Initially, Claude feels jealous of Gerhardt’s fluent French and cultured background as a former professional violinist. Both Claude and his fellow soldiers grow to respect Gerhardt, however, when they learn that he volunteered to be a soldier on the front lines. Though Gerhardt struggles to keep up with their training for trench warfare, they realize “he could have had a soft job as interpreter or as an organizer of camp entertainments,” and they admire the fact that he “could have wriggled out and didn’t” (582).

Gerhardt introduces Claude to an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Joubert, and they stay in the Joubert home for several nights. The Jouberts treat both men as family, offering clean beds, warm baths, and pajamas, and preparing their favorite foods. Claude later learns that the Jouberts’ own son, a young man the same age as him, was killed in a battle with the Germans.

On their march to the trenches, the unit encounters a starving French woman with a son, a daughter, and a baby. The daughter, Toinette, speaks enough English to communicate with the soldiers. She tells them that her father died in the war, and the baby was fathered by a German soldier. The American soldiers carry the starving woman and her children to shelter, where they provide food from their rations.

When they reach the trenches, the men commiserate with a group of very young British soldiers from a “Pal Battalion” (teens who enlisted together just out of high school). Through these British soldiers, Claude learns that Victor died in an air battle with eight German aircrafts. His plane went down in a blaze after he himself shot down three German planes. The soldiers also describe the mass death they faced in the Battle of the Somme. One thousand men marched to battle on their side, and only 17 returned.

Seeking some feminine company, Claude goes to see Mademoiselle (Mlle.) de Courcy, a French woman who often “entertains” American soldiers. Claude visits her with a letter of introduction, but she proclaims that his American army uniform is enough. Mlle. de Courcy explains that she is grateful to the Americans for their help liberating her village from the Germans. Curious about where Claude comes from, she asks him to draw a map of Lovely Creek. She muses, “This war has taught us all how little the made things matter. Only the feeling matters” (631).

Claude and his unit experience the disturbing atmosphere of death firsthand. They see numerous graves for unnamed soldiers in the countryside. As they bathe in the river, they disturb dead bodies underwater. When they come to a village the Germans have just left, earning a warm welcome from all the French residents, they are surprised by a German sniper, and many innocent civilians die. Even through his most harrowing experiences, Claude remains strong in his positive convictions and his sense of belonging with his men.

While staying with a family that asks Gerhardt to play the violin, Claude inquires about his hesitance to play. Gerhardt explains that he never plans to return to his former profession, insinuating that he will never return home from the front. He feels it would be impossible to return to the life he led before the war, and that his existence would lack purpose and meaning.

Claude is placed in charge of a company at the Boar’s Head section of the Moltke trench. They quickly become engaged in a dangerous battle with the Germans. During battle, he sends Gerhardt back with a message and prays that he survives, begging God to spare him and take his life instead. Though Claude is shot and killed as the Germans advance upon them, he dies without learning that Gerhardt has been killed as well.

The surviving members of Claude’s unit sail homeward: “Some look thoughtful, some well contented, some are melancholy, and many are indifferent, as they watch the shore approaching. They are not the same men who went away” (748). Mahailey and Claude’s mother continue to feel love for him even after his death, cherishing his memory “beyond everything else” (751).