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Soldier from Guadeloupe (2nd engineers)
Gregoire Bianney

Under the palm trees with their ever-rustling branches he lived carefree, in the enchantment of a dream country, where everything becomes obliterated by the dazzling mirage of the sun, country of marvellous flowers, perfumed breezes, sea the colour of violets. How could someone used to living under such generous skies survive in a quite different and less pleasing climate? And yet these also, indolent sons of the old French empire, came to fight for her. They came to know the ceaseless rain, the squalor, horizons without hope. The war was particularly hard for them, and their absence from home sadder than for others, since their dreams carried them away towards a fairy land, towards a sleepy town on the edge of the lazy sea.
“Under the palm trees, with their ever–rustling branches”.