Pierre Mille: I’ve killed a man! You must turn away from me, for I’ve killed a man!

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

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Pierre Mille
On the Vast Earth
Translated by Bérengère Drillien

“Another of the Hovas was polished off by one of his brothers-in-arms, a little mistake which did not prevent him from being reported as being killed by the enemy; it all comes into reckoning you know, and that is the way the war bulletins are drawn up….”

“Then began the final massacre; the poor devils were dragged out of the rice-field, and out of the ditches where they lay hidden, and shot. One ancient man, covered with amulets, fell down and embraced my feet. I would have saved him, if I could, but my allies seized him, propped him against a bank, and blew his brains out without more ado. All that remained to be seen of the poor wretch were two legs sticking up out of the grass with white marks upon the black skin, as though death had given a sudden skin disease to the poor old beggar. Not a pleasant thing to witness. Soeur Ludine trembled with the horror of it all.

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“The first thing that met his eyes was the man he had killed a few minutes before. The corpse was lying on the ground in a painful, twisted position, and the great block of granite, one corner of which was bloody, still lay on his neck.

“Old Stewart threw himself down upon his knees beside it, shuddering from head to foot and crying, ‘I’ve killed a man! You must turn away from me, for I’ve killed a man!’ Tears were running down his cheeks, and he groaned despairingly as though he had been guilty of the greatest crime. And his children, the Protestant converts whom he had defended and saved, ceased their cries of joy and their embracing, and gazed at him in mute astonishment.”

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These Senegalese had the greatest contempt for the Malagasies, and now marched before us and them without the slightest regard for order….They hardly deigned to wear a uniform, but one could not but admire their dauntless and almost terrible courage, their rude health and their passion for bloody warfare….

“We’re nearly there,” said Galliac, “there’s the Jesuit observatory!”

On the summit of the circular hill rose a half-ruined, dome-shaped tower, which although crumbling to pieces still contrived to look banal and vulgar.

“Doesn’t it make you think of the Gospels?” said Galliac, adding with a cynical smile, “I came not to bring peace upon earth, but the sword!”

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…what is the principle of our system? First of all to make the native pay, and the to govern with his money; after deducting the pay of our officials from the lump sum, we next put the balance in our pockets.

At the time of which I speak, I could see it crumbling to ruin, and, as if we, the conquerors, needed some excuse for what we had done, we made merry over the follies and the vices of the conquered.