'Neath Verdun, August-October, 1914
by Maurice Genevoix · English · Gutenberg #46770 · 394,902 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: 'Neath Verdun, August-October, 1914
Author: Maurice Genevoix
Translator: H. Grahame Richards
Release date: September 5, 2014 [eBook #46770]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'NEATH VERDUN, AUGUST-OCTOBER, 1914 ***
_'Neath Verdun_
PREFATORY NOTE
The following work has been scrutinized by the French Military
Authorities, and the word (Censored) will be found in the text to
indicate the eliminations they have deemed it expedient to make.
_'NEATH VERDUN_
_August--October, 1914_
_By Maurice Genevoix._
_With a Preface by Ernest Lavisse_
_TRANSLATED BY_
_H. GRAHAME RICHARDS_
_Translator of_:
"_Hunters and Hunting in the Arctic_" (_Duc d'Orleans_)
"_Expansion of Modern Germany_" _etc., etc._
"_Geographical Distribution of Capital_" (_Prof. A. Vergogni_)
_LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO._
_PATERNOSTER ROW_ :: :: _1916_
Dedication
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
ROBERT PORCHON
Mentioned in Army Orders for "admirable bravery"
KILLED AT LES EPARGES
THE 20th OF FEBRUARY, 1915
CONTENTS
I.--CONTACT IS ESTABLISHED 1
II.--THE CROSSING OF THE MEUSE 19
III.--THE RETREAT 31
IV.--THE DAYS OF THE MARNE 44
V.--BEHIND THE CROWN PRINCE'S ARMY 118
VI.--IN THE WOODS 160
VII.--THE ARMIES GO TO EARTH 205
PREFACE
The author of this work, Mr. Maurice Genevoix, is a second-year
student at the Ecole Normale, Paris. Having finished the second year
of his course and, incidentally, completed a study "on Maupassant," he
was in a position to regard with pleasant anticipation the vacation
due to fall in July, 1914--a month later he received his baptism of
fire, and of what a fire!
He supplies us with an invaluable picture of the war.
In the first place, the writer is endowed with astonishing powers of
observation; he sees all in a glance, he hears everything. The intense
power of concentration he possesses enables him instantly to seize
upon all essentials of a particular incident or scene, and so to
harmonize them as to produce a picture true to life.
Nothing escapes him--the song or hiss of bullets, the diverse notes of
hurtling shells, the explosions, the shatterings--every tone of the
infernal uproar; the breezes that pass, those that follow the
explosions, those that have caressed the bodies of the dead "Whose
frightful odour poisons the air;" the faces of men in moments of great
crisis, their words, their dialogues; and, finally, the changing
appearances of inanimate things, for are not actions for ever
associated in the mind with the changing aspects of nature?
The pre-eminent, outstanding merit of the work, however, consists in
the never failing sincerity of its author.
Many of those accounts already published--joyous greetings from the
trenches, or light-hearted letters most carefully selected from among
many thousands--due to many reasons, such as the precautions taken by
the Censor; the reluctance among non-combatants to emphasize their own
inaction and well-being by contrast with the suffering of others; a
natural and universal desire to make the best of things; the very
human habit of seeking to explain numerous and diverse manifestations
by one simple idea, for example, to attribute every great event to the
heroism of every man involved--a heroism without an end; and finally,
the tone of the Press, the banality of its optimism--all these things
contribute to present a picture of war softened and sweetened,
abounding in "good times." Such travesty of the truth at once revolts
and fills with indignation those who fight. A war such as this has
proved to be merits at least that we should hear and face
unflinchingly the truth of it in all its entirety.
The regiment is on the march; towards the close of day it passes
through a village:
"The entrance to the village, which is indeed little more than a
hamlet, was choked with carriages, with ploughs and horse-rakes,
which had been drawn to one side. In silence we pass before the
shattered houses. Nothing remains but the mere shells of walls and
distorted chimneys still standing above the wrecked hearths. Some
charred beams have rolled almost into the middle of the roadway; a
large mechanical mowing-machine raises its broken shaft like a
stump.
"The regiment defiles through the gloomy evening; our steps
resound lugubriously and violate the surrounding desolation. In a
short while, when the last section will have disappeared over the
summit of the hill, the cold and silent night will descend again
on the village, and peace shroud the poor, dead houses."
The regiment is on the march, and it is raining:
"Resignation indeed is difficult of attainment when one knows, as
we do, the increase of our sufferings the rain involves: the heavy
clothes; the coldness which penetrates with the water; the
hardened leather of our boots; trousers flapping against the legs
and hindering each stride; the linen at the bottom of the
knapsack--that precious linen, to feel which against one's skin is
a sheer delight--hopelessly stained, transformed little by little
into a sodden mass on which papers and bottles of pickles have
left their stain; the mud that spurts into one's face and covers
one's hands; the confused arrival; the night all too short for
sleep passed beneath a coat that freezes instead of warming; the
whole body stiff, joints without suppleness, painful; and the
departure with boots of wood which crush the feet like the
torture-shoe. Hard, indeed, is resignation!"
But something turns up which makes the regiment forget the rain and
its own sufferings. It passes between lines of strangely still
bodies--and those are the bodies of Frenchmen, their brothers.
"They seem attired all in new clothes, those still figures, so
continuously has the unceasing rain poured down upon them. Their
flesh is decomposed. Seeing them so darkened, with lips so
swollen, some of the men exclaimed:
"'Hullo! These are Turks!'"
Their bodies had been "sloped backwards," facing the road, as though
"to watch us pass." The Germans, retreating after the days of the
Marne, indulged freely in the folly of arranging the bodies of their
victims after this fashion. The officer himself was for a moment
overcome by this horrifying spectacle, but:
"Come! Head erect and fists clenched! No more of that weakness
that a moment ago assailed me. We must look unmoved on these poor
dead and seek from them the inspiration of hate. It was the Boche
in his flight who dragged these sorry things to the side of the
road, who arranged this horrid spectacle for our express benefit,
and we must never rest until the brute has drunk our cup of
vengeance to the dregs."
The regiment has come to War; night falls, a night towards the end of
September:
"The cold became intense ... those wounded who had not yet been
recovered moan and cry aloud in their sufferings and distress....
'Are you going to let me die here?... Drink!... Ah!...
Stretcher-bearers!...'
"And the soldiers, hearing those agonized cries, but chained to
their posts by the word of duty, groan in anguish: 'What are they
fooling about, those stretcher-bearers?...
(Censored)
"'They are like fleas--never to be found when one most wants
them!' And the cries continue--voices soft and strained and weary
from having called so often and long:
(Censored)
"'...?' 'Mother! Oh! Mother!--Jeanne!... P'tite 'Jeanne!... Oh!
say that you can hear me, 'Jeanne!... I am thirsty ... so
thirsty!...' The cries of others make one shudder. 'Still, 'I say
I won't ... I won't die here, my God!... 'Stretcher-bearers!...
Stretcher-bearers!... 'You joint-shearers, carve me up!...
'Ah!...'"
The advance of the regiment is checked. The enemy, following his early
retreat, which at times assumed the appearance of a veritable rout,
turned at bay. The section in command of our lieutenant dig a trench
and pass forty hours in it. It has rained and it is still raining. A
furious downpour is succeeded by a trickling stream which drips
ceaselessly above their heads:
"Motionless, and packed tight together in cramped and painful
attitudes, we shiver in silence. Our sodden clothes freeze our
skin; our saturated caps bear down on our temples with slow and
painful pressure. We raise our feet as high as we can before us,
but often it occurs that our frozen fingers give way, letting our
feet slip down into the muddy torrent rushing along the bottom of
the trench. Already our knapsacks have slipped into the water,
while the tails of our greatcoats trail in it."
So one night was passed--and then a second. The relief was due to
arrive at any moment; but would it ever appear, that relief?
"As for myself, I no longer hoped for it. I had gone past caring.
We had been there a long time.... No one will come. No one could
possibly relieve us placed as we were, at the edge of this forest,
in this trench, beneath this rain! Never again would we see houses
with the lights glowing in the windows, never again see barns in
which the well-packed hay never got wet. Nor ever again would we
undress ourselves to rest our bodies and free them of this
terrible iciness...."
Then comes the end of endurance and patience:
"It is no longer worth while even to trouble oneself by hoping!"
Heart-rending scenes these, are they not? Is it imperative that they
should be discounted? It is conceivable they may upset, even disgust,
the reader; but because they cause us pain we must not shrink from
them, for it is precisely through the medium of that pain that we
enter into intimate contact and communion with our soldiers; in
compelling ourselves to contemplate these realities, however
unpalatable they may be, we learn to accord our soldiers that
recognition, that admiration, that pity which is their due!
Equally candid are his observations on the morale of the combatants.
There are moments when they are demoralized, when they are afraid,
yes, afraid! During a bombardment, for example:
"With bodies hunched together, heads hidden beneath knapsacks,
muscles strained and contorted, agonizedly awaiting the
nerve-shattering shock of the explosions."
One day the regiment just about to enter the firing-line encounters a
column of wounded making for the clearing stations--a long column
which seems unending, and:
"It is as if, in merely showing themselves, with their wounds and
their bloodstains, with their appearance of exhaustion and their
masques of suffering, they had said to our men: See! It is a
battle that is being waged! See what it has brought us.... Don't
go on! And the men who were going forward looked upon them with
faces anxious and troubled with dread, with eyes wide and fevered,
in the grip of a moral tempest."
Is it necessary to record these weaknesses? It is, because they
represent nothing but the truth, and it is natural that the "living
flesh should shrink," willing not to die. When Henry IV. was on the
point of charging in battle his emotions so overcame him that he was
compelled to dismount from his horse. But for a moment only. And then
he charged! The enemy found it incredible that this man who hurled
himself into the fight as recklessly as any mere carabineer could
conceivably be the king of France himself. And Turenne, trembling in
the face of peril, reprimanded his body, saying: "Thou tremblest,
carcass!" After which he forced himself to go where he least wished to
go. And so is it with our soldiers:
"They are marching; each step they take brings them nearer that
zone where Death reigns to-day, and still they march onwards. They
go to enter that region of death, each with his living body; that
body which, in the clutch of terror, performs involuntarily the
motions of men fighting, eyes straight levelled, finger resting on
rifle trigger; and that must continue as long as may be necessary
notwithstanding the whistling bullets flying by unceasingly,
bullets which often times embed themselves with a horrible, dread
little noise, which makes one swiftly turn one's head as though to
say: 'Hallo! Look!' And looking, they see a comrade crumple up and
say to themselves: 'Soon perhaps it will be I; maybe in an hour or
in a minute or even in this passing second, it will be my turn.'
Then fear makes its kingdom of the living flesh. They are afraid;
unquestionably they fear. But being afraid, they remain at their
posts. And they fight the flesh, compel their bodies to obedience,
because that is as it should be, and because, indeed, they are
men!"
Such is the truth, the reality, which truth and reality, far from
depressing me, gives me strength. I see the soldier as he is, I know
him as he is, I love and admire him with complete confidence!
This work of Genevoix glorifies our poilu: reveals him as a man,
highly strung and impressionable, capable of panic--the work quotes
instances of such panic--but, at the same time, patient despite his
temperament, enduring well-nigh beyond the powers of human endurance;
a grumbler against heaven and earth, desiring always to be able
precisely to account for all things--in particular he wishes to know
where he is going and why he is going!--A jester full of strange quips
and cranks; but docile on the whole, loving those officers who show
they care for him; familiar with those who permit it, with a
familiarity purely deferential; in fine, possessed of attributes and
virtues which defy precise definition, wholly admirable without the
slightest consciousness of it.
On the 12th September, 1914, when Genevoix was perusing a notice
attached to a wall, "printed in letters two hands high," announcing
the victory of the Marne, he watched some soldiers approach to read
the placard in their turn.
"The faces of all of them were mud-stained and hairy to the very
lips ... for the most part they were infinitely wearied and
miserable. Nevertheless, these were the men who had just fought
with a courage and energy more than human; these were the men who
had proved themselves stronger far than German shells and steel;
these men were the conquerors. I should have liked to have told
each one of them of the glow of affection which suddenly surged
through me; affection for these men who have now won for
themselves the admiration and respect of the whole world, who have
sacrificed themselves without ever uttering the word 'sacrifice,'
without seeming conscious of the sublimity of their own heroism!"
The work is not altogether devoid of moments of gaiety; the
conversation of the soldiers to which each contributes his particular
patois; the distribution of rations to the various sections; the
claims which rain down upon the corporal: "What--that sugar! Not a
very fat lump, is it? Why, the pile you just handed the 3rd is almost
double as much!" To which the corporal: "If you are not satisfied go
and make your complaint to the Ministry!"; the cutting up of a quarter
of beef by one, Martin, a miner from the North, armed with a knife
"which had been given to him by a prisoner--a good enough piece of
goods, too, which knife indeed has not its equal among the whole
company for carving up a piece of tough meat"--and the task ended, a
sufficiently difficult one, achieved as it were by the inch, Martin
triumphant, proclaiming himself to be "Some Butcher." Then there is
that lunch which our lieutenant orders on pay-day: an omelette, never
to be forgotten; a slice of juicy ham; most wonderful of jams; hunches
large and thick from a loaf of fresh bread; afterwards a pipe, the
blue, fragrant smoke of which drifts slowly up to the rafters above
us. And following these wonders, the night passed in a bed, with real
sheets and blankets upon it! The memories of other nights are
evoked--rough nights spent on heaps of stones in the fields, or on the
débris of splintered trees which litter the woods, or amid the
humidity and mud of the trenches, or the discomforting dryness of the
stubble-fields--and now, to be covered from head to foot with
bedclothes in a soft, real bed!
"Not yet was our amazement exhausted ... in vain we sought with
every inch of our bodies for some hard spot, for some lurking
corner which would hurt; but no spot or corner was there which was
not soft and warm!... And we lapsed into bursts of laughter; we
expressed our delight and enthusiasm in burlesque, in jokes, each
one of which provoked fresh outbursts of laughter...."
(Censored)
"We, that is to say Porchon and myself: Lieutenant Porchon and
Lieutenant Genevoix."
There could be nothing more delightful than the comradeship existing
between Genevoix of the Ecole Normale and the St. Cyrien, Porchon.
They had been trained for widely different destinies, these two young
men; the Ecole Normale on the one hand, Saint Cyr on the other! And if
they both turned out to be excellent officers, with nothing to choose
between them, that does not merely prove the value of the education
obtained at the Ecole Normale. It proves something better and greater
than that: the deep accord, the healthy unanimity which exists between
French minds. So these two companions count the days gaily; they are
young and they are French.... But Porchon is the gayer of the two;
Genevoix envies him a little for his ready laughter, for the never
failing and welcome good humour, to enter into the spirit of which, he
says, "I compelled myself as though seeking the conquest of a
virtue...."
I like, too, the melancholy underlying this work. This war, foreseen
and predicted, but whose horrors completely transcend the imagination,
this retrograde movement towards the almost forgotten barbarity of a
humanity we thought was marching towards new horizons, was there ever
equal cause for human sadness? And there where the Germans, hailing
from all parts of Germany, of all professions and creeds, steep
themselves to satiation in joys purely cannibalistic, how shall a
soldier of France control his tears, or rather how shall he find heart
to weep?...
I am pleased, too, that those superb sentiments which sustain courage
in moments of superhuman fatigue, which exalt amid perils and horrors,
should be touched upon, however lightly, in the following pages. They
dwell in the inmost heart of us all, hidden by that timidity, that
exaggerated sense of shame, which prohibits us from revealing what is
best and most sacred in ourselves. A few words alone suffice, like
those written after a reunion of officers when a Captain found himself
in command of a Corps, because:
"The Colonel had been wounded, the commander of the 1st Battalion
also had been wounded, while the commanders of the 2nd and 3rd
Battalions had been killed.
"From the expression of the faces about me, from the serenity
reflected in each man's eyes, I gathered we were all ready to face
the future whatsoever it might contain.... It almost seemed we
leaned on one another for support, brothers by the common faith
within us. A grace exalted and fortified us!..."
And how many times does the word "Patrie" occur in these pages? Once
only, as far as I can remember. Genevoix, idling about the trenches
one day, heard the chime of distant bells drifting over the woodlands.
The Germans in their trenches heard the bells, as did our men in
theirs, but they bore not the same message for us as for them. To our
soldiers they said:
"Hope, sons of France! I am quite near you, I, the voice of all
those firesides you have left behind you. To each of you I bring a
vision of that corner of the earth in which his heart is
embowered. I am the heart of your homeland beating against your
heart. Let confidence be always with you, sons of France,
confidence and might always. I rhyme the immortal life of the
Patrie!"
But to the Germans they said:
"Madmen, who believe that France could die! Listen to me: above
the little church, the fragments of whose stained-glass windows
strew the flagstones, the steeple still stands erect. It is from
there I come to you, gaily, mockingly. Through me the whole
village defies you. I can see!... I can see!... Whatsoever you
have done I can see. Whatsoever you may yet do, I also will see.
And I fear you not at all. For I know the day will come when the
weather-cock on the steeple, who stares unceasingly towards the
far horizon, will look down upon your mad, despairing flight,
while the bodies of your numberless dead lie thick over all the
land."
ERNEST LAVISSE.
'NEATH VERDUN
I
CONTACT IS ESTABLISHED
_Tuesday, August 25th._
The order for departure descended upon us like a thunderbolt:
instantly, driven by the apprehension that something or other might
ultimately be forgotten, there ensued a precipitate scurrying here,
there, and everywhere throughout the town. Only with difficulty did I
find the time even to warn those who are dear to me. The last
inspection on the barrack-square was over. Out of the canteen, where I
had gone to snatch a mouthful of food, I rushed, crossed the yard in a
stride, and here you behold me, as erect and stiff as a ramrod, before
files of men in blue coats and red trousers.
I was just in time: the General himself had already reached the right
of my section. I stood with sword at the salute, my right hand
grasping its hilt, my left kneading the greasy paper containing my
recent purchase--a penny-worth of bread and a nameless pork
confection, which perspired.
The General halts before me; young, well set-up in his tunic, with a
face refined and full of energy.
"Good luck to you, Lieutenant."
"Thanks, General."
"Here's my hand, Lieutenant."
Did I not know it? I felt the sandwich being reduced to pulp in my own
hand.
"Don't you feel excited, Lieutenant?"
A touch of legerdemain and my sword has passed into my left hand. I
grip firmly the hand extended to me and answer loudly, distinctly,
fairly meeting his eyes:
"No, General."
And that is a lie: I am highly excited. I should have been ashamed not
to be. There were so many impressions, so many fleeting reflections to
shake me from head to foot! But I well understood that "Don't you feel
excited?" of the General. I said "No:" I spoke the truth.
We were going to Troyes. So at least we were told. From Troyes, we
were evidently to proceed straight to Mulhouse, to occupy and defend
that captured town. This also we were told.
The prospect delighted me. To go to Alsace and remain there was
certainly not so glorious as to have won our way there; but, at the
same time, the prospect was not one to be despised.
We defiled through the town: roadways echoing, handkerchiefs waving,
some laughter, some tears.
A mistake in the route cost us a few additional miles of measured
tramping. Gradually the pace grew easier, for the oldest reservists,
still plump, perspired freely, making no complaint, however.
We saw some of our wounded before the doorway of a large grey
building. They held out at arm's length for our inspection spiked
helmets and little round forage caps with red bands on a khaki ground.
"We also!" we cried. "We are going there, my friends!"
A young workgirl, fair and buxom, smiles upon me, displaying all her
teeth. She has a small, well-poised head and inviting, ruddy cheeks.
Her smile does me a world of good; for I am going to war; the morrow
perhaps will see me in the thick of it!
The train, at last. A mere black line of gaping trucks with a few
first-class carriages. Entraining is a big affair; the young major, a
dark and energetic man, urges his horse from group to group, shouting
directions and commands. A constant murmur arises from the onlookers.
Why in the name of everything has he given the order for the little
tricoloured flags, which a moment since were waving above the marching
battalion, to be removed?...
Slowly we draw out of the station as the eventide descends. The sunset
is sombre, dominated by monstrous clouds of purple and virgin gold.
Through the night rolls on the convoy. Our old Captain of the 27th
draws off his iron-plated boots and displays his socks, brilliantly
yellow and quite new. We stretch ourselves, we groan, we snore. A
pointsman, busy with his levers, cries out to us to ask whither we are
bound:
"Troyes? What a joke! You are on your way to Verdun!..."
To believe everything one is told is the first illusion.
O sullen silence of night travelling! Our faces grow dull and lifeless
in the indistinct light which filters doubtfully through the blue
shade. From time to time, perched high up on the embankment, we flash
past vague figures silhouetted against the darkened heavens; they are
sentries guarding the line. Suddenly long white pencils of light
evolve majestically out of the night's blackness, chasing away the
shadows.
Walls and station lamps announce Verdun. For a further three or four
miles we run on. At one o'clock in the morning we find ourselves at
Charny. Amid much confusion the sections fall in opposite the doors of
the wagons, from which a heavy mist now slowly drifts. And
heavy-footed and slowly we set out on the march.
_Wednesday, August 26th._
At daybreak we pass through Bras. Before the country cottages are huge
piles of manure from which a light steam rises. Cocks are a-crow; but
man is still sleeping. We march and still march. Little by little, I
become conscious that a rather fevered curiosity is spreading through
the ranks.
We overtake a regiment of field artillery, drawn out in an
interminable file, resting by the wayside. Gunners and drivers are
alike asleep, overcome by fatigue, the former sprawled on the gun
carriages, mouths wide open; the latter with their noses buried in the
manes of their horses. They too sleep, poor beasts, with muzzles
drooping and knees bent.
We pass by, the heavy, nailed boots of the men echoing loudly on the
roadway. But the artillerymen do not hear us; they sleep too soundly
for that. We even find it necessary to prod the horses before they
will move aside to let us pass.
Crossing the Meuse, we encountered immense herds of cattle. They were
divided into hundreds corralled at the water's edge in a smooth
meadow. The brutes were lying on the brown earth, with their muzzles
upraised in an ever-changing chorus of lowing. Cattlemen in red
trousers kept placid watch over them.
_Vachérauville._ It is broad daylight. We have called a halt on a
piece of uncultivated land on the side of a hill. I am still feeling
dull and knocked up after the long night passed in the box-like
carriage.
There are about a thousand of us altogether. The men, having piled
arms and thrown themselves down on the ground, are sleeping, too tired
even to ask questions. Indeed, the detachment commander himself
appears to be ignorant as to our final destination. He is a dear old
fellow in spectacles. I can just imagine him by his own fireside, his
feet in slippers, poking away and smoking a big pipe. I shall never
get used to seeing him on horseback!
That nuisance, L ... promoted medical officer, fusses about here and
there, his tongue wagging ceaselessly:
"What is this water? It's bad! Typhoid! Typhoid!--And where do
_you_ come from, young man? Have you any cartridges?--Give that
horse something to drink!--This chasseur is ill.--You are ill, my
friend!--Yes, yes. You _are_ ill!--Just show me your tongue!--Ah, we
must dose you. Yes!--Yes! What, not ill? No? Not ill? More's the pity!
They should have taken away his spurs!..."
A lamenting voice rings out:
"Where's the officer! Where's the officer!"
An old woman hastens up, her cap all awry, her hands raised to the
skies.
"What shall I do? They have taken away the canopy of my well to make a
fire. Who is going to indemnify me for it?..."
Loss, damage, indemnity; words, alas, we are to hear often enough!
_Midday._ Conveyances are passing along the road at the foot of the
hill: huge four-wheeled wains, each drawn by a thin, mangy horse.
Wickerwork baskets, bales of household goods, rabbit hutches, have
hastily been flung into them. On the top, mattresses, pillows,
eiderdowns of a faded red have been piled. And on these are sitting
women with backs hunched and bent, their clasped hands drooping over
their knees, their eyes dull and blank. One cannot tell from their
expressionless faces whether or not they are suffering. They seem to
be immersed in reflections purely animal and without end. Here and
there from amid this lamentable medley of goods protrude the heads of
dirty-nosed urchins, with light hair tangled and matted. A few
bellowing cows follow the wagon, dragging at the ropes by which they
are tied, and lowing. An awkward youth with large hands and immense
feet, whip in hand, drives them forward by kicking them lustily in the
haunches.
Suddenly, cries and the rattle of triggers ring out. I turn swiftly to
find thirty of our men deploying as skirmishers, facing the crest. Our
old captain, red as a beetroot, his small scared eyes darting wildly
round, shouts at the top of his voice:
"Look out! Look out! Rapid fire! ... upon the enemy approaching ... at
800 yards...."
What can all this mean? Have we been taken by surprise? I look about,
but can perceive nothing, absolutely nothing to cause an alarm. Then I
see J---- hurriedly whispering in the captain's ear. Over the latter's
face there instantly spreads an expression of complete astonishment:
"Cease fire! At once! At once, I say!"
J---- turns away convulsed, slyly indicating with his forefinger rows
of corn-stacks aligning the crest of the hill!
On the road leading to the village, we pass people in detached groups,
each of which becomes a hotbed of gossip. The latest arrivals are
questioned avidly and insatiably:
"So there was a machine-gun in the church tower, was there?... How
long did they continue firing on you?... Is it true that almost all
the wounded were hit in the feet or legs?"
I approach one such gathering. In the centre are two stragglers: one
is silent and sad-faced; the other orates with much gesticulation.
There is a slight scar on his face, where the blood has dried and
coagulated. And he displays a bullet embedded in the padding of his
great coat, like a needle in a piece of cloth.
One encounters these stragglers constantly.
(Censored)
They form an endless procession, dragging one leg after the other,
their faces feverish, their hair long and their beards dirty.
And here are still more wagons packed with women and children, or with
wounded men, some of whom sit gripping the sides with both hands,
while others lie stretched full length on blood-stained straw.
Ammunition wagons go by at a gallop, creating a terrible rattle;
groups of dusty infantry tramp over the withered grass by the
roadside.
And so the torrent, descending from the top of the hill over which the
road vanishes into the distance, streams on towards the bottom of the
valley where the village lies. Does it mean a panic, this? I ask
myself. Certainly not! But if not, then why this feeling of
depression, of which, do what I will, I cannot rid myself?
A Staff-officer has arrived. Our detachment commander turns pale with
emotion merely at the sight of his badges. It quickly transpires that
we are to turn back across the Meuse the way we came. I learn the news
without surprise; I was certain that that stream of stragglers boded
ill for us.
A long march lies before us, over a monotonous road destitute of
trees. The sky is gloomy, obscured by rain clouds. Moreover the
atmosphere is oppressive. We revisit Bras and Charny, then Marre and
Chattancourt: which villages all resemble each other, with their
low-built houses--presenting a colour-scheme of washed-out blue and
dirty yellow. And always, at the very thresholds of the cottages, is
the inevitable pile of manure, spreading every now and again right
into the middle of the roadway.
Esnes is like Marre and Chattancourt. We are billeted there with a
young woman who has the face of a toothless doll and legs without
calves. In a dark corner of the room, I catch a glimpse of some
strange person, fondling a child still in swaddling clothes. Like a
shadow he vanishes as we enter.
From the open door I watch a soldier in shirt-sleeves, forearms bare,
slaughtering a sheep lying with its legs tied to a gate. Each agonized
convulsion of the poor beast makes me feel ill; it brings back to my
mind the time when, in a slaughter-house, I plunged my leg into a
bucket filled with warm blood, streaming in a flood from the severed
neck of a slaughtered cow!...
The evening set in grey and depressing. Fine rain began to fall,
saturating everything. I thought of my men trying to rest out in the
fields, lying round their piled arms, and set out to see if I could
find shelter for them.
It did not prove difficult, for there was scarcely a soldier in the
whole village. I found a barn full of hay, and returned to the meadow
well pleased with myself:
"Up, boys! Bring your arms, packs, and the whole bag of tricks! There
is a roof with good hay beneath it for you over there!"
Through the night and a rain increasing in violence I lead a cortège
of mute shades. Alas! we do not get far. For in the village I
encounter my commander, striding up and down before the houses, making
himself quite ill from anxiety.
"About turn! Quick march!"
The shades return to the marsh, still mute. I listen to the
slush-slush of their heavy boots as they tramp through the puddles.
Poor devils!
Returning I meet a few soldiers moving towards the cemetery with its
congregation of tombs clustering round the little church. They are
carrying a body wrapped in a flag on a stretcher. Then I recollect
someone mentioned that a cavalryman had been killed earlier in the day
by a stray bullet.
Sleeping quarters I found to consist of a shabby garret. Sleep was
fitful at the best. All through the night the door slammed. Every time
I opened my eyes, I saw by the dim rays of a smoky lamp other eyes
hidden in the shadow of caps. On one side of me, in an alcove similar
to mine, a sick man, tortured by a sharp attack of rheumatism, kept
constantly moaning and crying.
Dawn at last! I dress myself hastily, only too thankful to escape the
oppressive atmosphere of this hovel. I long to breathe the fresh air,
to open my lungs, to escape as far as possible from that bed, from
those greasy bedclothes which have communicated their dampness to my
skin, from the musty smell of cheese, skim milk and pig's-wash....
It is still raining. In the distant meadow I can see stacked rifles
and sodden knapsacks; but not a man is afoot. So much the worse....
Bravo!
_Thursday, August 27th._
Another long march, protracted and dawdling. Indeed it could not
justly be described as a march at all; rather was it the wandering of
men who had lost their way. Haucourt, then Malancourt, then
Béthincourt. The road is a mere river of mud. At each step a jet of
yellow water spurts upwards. Heavier and heavier becomes my great
coat. It is useless for me to bury my neck between my shoulders: large
drops of cold rain contrive to work themselves inside my collar and
trickle down my back. My knapsack bumps to and fro against my hips.
Whenever a halt is called, I remain standing, not daring even to raise
an arm lest the penalty be still more water down my back.
We find that we have arrived at Gercourt, which proves to be our
immediate destination. A splash of blue breaks through the rain
clouds. Our uniforms begin to recover their original colours, brass
buttons to gleam.
The day's march is ended! I turn my back to the increasing warmth
while trying to masticate a stringy piece of meat and some
elastic-like bread. Above the men, standing easy, a mist of
evaporating water rises and drifts away.
"All officers stand forward!"
Something apparently is about to occur. It turns out to be the
Adjutant coming to give instructions from the Colonel. He is a big,
dark, active man. He steps forward, drums beating: twelve files, one
per company. Things move quickly for us too; a shower of questions
descends upon us like an avalanche; there is no time to reply before
it is all over. I am to join up with the 7th Company as the regiment
passes.
My regiment arrives! Our reservists run as fast as they can towards
the embanked roadway. And a fine medley ensues! Greetings shouted from
afar; exclamations of pleasure exchanged between the marching files
and the men gathered on the banks. There is anxiety in the eyes of
almost everyone looking upon those who have already fought. Some of
the men return to the stacked rifles with faces lowered and arms
listlessly swinging.
I slip into my place as the 7th passes. And as the march proceeds the
same questions are heard on every hand: "What about Robert?--He is
wounded. A bullet in the shoulder. Not serious.--And Jean?--He is
dead...."
It is the brother of those two soldiers, the one wounded, the other
killed, who replies. He lets fall these words in a breathless voice as
he runs to resume his place in the ranks.
We halt in column in a parched meadow. I take advantage of this
opportunity to present myself to my Captain. He is a big, finely-built
man, with powerful body supported by rather slender legs. The quick
and penetrating glance he gives me tends to weaken my first
impression, which led me to regard him as being rather slow-witted.
"Ah, young man, so you are entering on your apprenticeship! You have
come to a good school, as you will learn. A good school!"
A smile wrinkles the corners of his blue eyes. It would seem that my
superior has a pronounced taste for irony!
There is also a second-lieutenant attached to my company, a
Saint-Maixentian, young and solid, and something of a dandy. He has a
flaming moustache rather too heavy for his ruddy, chubby face,
possesses massive shoulders, thick wrists and calves. He puts out his
hand and at once offers me a sip of gin as an appropriate prelude to
further acquaintanceship.
"Wait a little, old man, and you shall see how we'll mop them up!"
He flings out an arm and with a sweep indicates the horizon and the
village of Cuisy, which is close at hand.
Five minutes afterwards, the whole regiment descends a steep road
between two high banks covered with bushes. The stones slip beneath
our feet; we clutch one another; we snatch at branches for support; my
sword becomes an alpenstock.
As soon as we get out into the country, we find ourselves once more in
the mud and slush. We pass many barns but few houses. A village
containing perhaps a hundred inhabitants is our resting-place. And
there room must be found for three thousand of us. Let it be
understood, we never would have occupied such a hole had there been no
War!
It is night. I know that we are supposed to be messing with the
officers of the 8th. But where? No one has mentioned a rendezvous. I
remind myself that a campaigning soldier's first principle should be:
"Rely upon thyself alone." And so, through the darkness and mud and
inevitable manure, I set out to discover the mess.
The place of assembly is a dimly-lit kitchen. At one end, the yellow
flame of a candle set the shadows dancing on the walls. A cook, bare
of arms and grimy of paws, fingers and handles some meat as if he were
kneading dough. A second, with a pipe between his teeth, skims the
_pot-au-feu_ whilst expectorating into the cinders. He raises
towards me a face like that of a thick-lipped faun; his eyes are very
clear, but unintelligent and slow-moving. The beginnings of a beard
decorate his chin with a few odd hairs as stiff as bristles. It is he
who receives me in a voice drawling and muffled--his mouth, it seems,
is chock-full of macaroni.
One after the other the officers enter. There is the Captain and the
Saint-Maixentian, as well as a newly-commissioned cadet from Saint
Cyr, bony of face, nose powerful, and altogether a good sort, I find,
who, like myself, has just come from the depot. The Captain of the 8th
is a short, well-built, fair man, refined, meticulously well-groomed,
with a smile that reveals his teeth, and a soft voice which he
modulates beautifully. A lieutenant, powerfully built ... (Censored)
... whose nose descends into his spoon ... (Censored) ... regales us
on vapid obscenities. Finally, there is a second-lieutenant, slender
and delicate, dark, with a very boyish face, intelligent yet artless.
Dinner proceeds rather gloomily. The two captains exchange anecdotes
concerning Morocco, or ready-made stories gleaned in the camps
regarding fair women.
Once more I plunge through the mud. And I reflect that it would be
foolish in the extreme not to profit by this stay in a village by
trying to find a bed in which to pass the night. As a result, I
ultimately slip between two crumpled sheets beside a farmer of fifty
or so, who breathes heavily and smells strongly.
Nevertheless I sleep, and soundly too!
II
THE CROSSING OF THE MEUSE
_Friday, August 28th._
Four o'clock in the morning. We ascend to the top of a stony road. The
night mists are still drifting. The whole regiment falls in near the
village, in an orchard bounded by hedges. And there a monocled major
in a sing-song voice reads aloud a stirring proclamation: it is the
Colonel's funeral oration, filled with vehement exhortations, and a
poem of Déroulède's to finish up with. Much simpler and more touching
is the sight of the soldiers presenting arms, and all the officers
with their swords at the salute.
On the summit of a wind-swept crest, we dig trenches deep enough to
accommodate men standing erect. I inhale the fresh air greedily,
delighted to be out in the sunshine and happy, while my men dig away
with their picks and throw shovelfuls of earth over the parapet.
An immense valley lies extended below us. At the foot of the hill are
deeply shadowed woods interspersed with luminous lakes of
well-mellowed crops. To the right, a road takes an abrupt turn and
leads through an avenue of trees; in the foreground, a second road at
right angles to the first, cuts an ugly gash through the dappled
richness of the fields. At the bottom of the valley, the white walls
of the village of Dannevoux peeps forth between the green leaves. And
still further away, over towards the Meuse, invisible from this spot,
is a chain of blue hills.
Until evening, the men dig with zest. From afar off sounds the muffled
rumble of a violent cannonade. We take our lunch by the roadside,
attacking a charred fowl with teeth and fingers, and drinking muddy
wine to the last dregs. To-night, as yesterday, I gratefully retire
with my farmer; but on this occasion his snores haunt me, and he wakes
me every time he moves.
_Saturday, August 29th._
The men, with shirts opened and their skins wet with perspiration,
complete their trenches beneath a searching and pitiless sun. Above
the rumbling of distant artillery, we hear the detonations, still
muffled and deadened, of nearer batteries. By holding my hand to my
ear, I can distinguish soft whistlings which terminate in wailing
explosions. Shrapnel evidently, the smoke of which is slowly
dissipated in the calm air.
We retain our billets that night also, but not many of us sleep; for
the German shells are bursting now hardly a mile away from the
village; the windows shake and tremble under the stress of the
formidable explosions.
_Sunday, August 30th._
_Bois de Septsarges._ Hardy undergrowth thrusting forth roots
shoots amid the shadows of the great forest. Great splashes of light
are on the moss; living, quivering sun-rays pierce the warm gloom; the
acrid odour of fermentation, increased by the sun, is oppressive. It
strikes one forcibly, that sun! I recline in the shelter of a tree,
moving only as the shade moves.
P----, a second-lieutenant of the 8th, lies weltering beside me. He is
writing in pencil a long letter to his wife; he chats about her and
his little girl, who is five months old. I pay him all the attention I
possibly can, but I fear I do not understand much of what he says: his
voice comes to me like a monotonous purring--which is, as it were,
punctuated by the throbbing of the blood in my temples and fingers.
And so I fall asleep.
A terrific explosion wakes me with a start. Three more successive
detonations shatter the air, and above my head I hear the flight of
shells--a light rustling, a rapid rushing, which one can with some
difficulty follow with the ear, growing more and more distant until it
terminates finally in the explosion.
"Those are 120 mm. guns," P---- remarks to me.
Scarcely have the words crossed his lips before a succession of
harsher and more violent explosions causes me to look away to the
left. There is no hanging back for each other with these! They
come altogether in a rush, yet each detonation is separately
distinguishable, despite the deep murmur following the resounding,
vibrating echo which steals through the undergrowth. I think a battery
of our 75's must have urgent work on hand.
By the evening, the cannonade has become far heavier. The whistling
shells pass and cross each other's course; the smaller ones furiously
maintaining a flat trajectory; the bigger ones sailing past almost
slowly, winging through the air with well-nigh dulcet tones. Quite
mechanically I raise my eyes to watch them. Every man hearing that
noise for the first time, does the same thing.
When we leave the wood these "marmites" are bursting away to our left,
near enough for us to hear, after the explosion, the hail of splinters
striking the trees.
We remain in our billets as wakeful as on the preceding night, and
this is to be my last night with my fat old man. Alas!
_Monday, August 31st._
We set out for the Septsarges Wood again. The day is passed as was the
preceding one. Grillon, a regimental barber, shaves me: a sensation
which has already become strange to me. Two knapsacks for a stool, a
tree for a backrest. I pay him with superfine tobacco, and he would
have kissed me! I settle down again for a siesta, chasing the shade.
Towards two o'clock we make a fresh move. We push forward in a
north-easterly direction, traversing the whole length of the wood
until we reach trenches constructed by the engineers with a breastwork
of tree-trunks in front. We take possession of them. A shelter made of
branches is reserved for my occupation a little behind the line.
It would hardly have been natural had we not, in the course of our
day's wanderings, received a few big Berthas--ten or so exploded in
succession not thirty yards from us.
I passed the night in my bower. The branches of which it was
constructed had become sun-dried and reminded me of the fact by
affectionately digging me in the sides. My improvised mattress would
not shake down properly, while the knapsack beneath my head acquired a
sudden and spiteful hardness. I was not yet used to it.
_Tuesday, September 1st._
We remain in the trenches. Some belated food is eagerly expected from
the kitchen. Very shortly, however, the inevitable complete confusion
descends upon us. For the fight is moving along to our front. The
Captain has sent word to say that the first line must have been broken
through and that we must redouble our vigilance. Porchon, my Saint
Cyrien, acting on orders, sends out a patrol away to the left. Hardly
have they got clear when rifle shots ring out--we know well Lebels are
speaking!--and the patrol tumbles back, scared. It appears they
sighted the Boches and fired! My men become restless and anxious;
there is a premonition of evil in the air.
Suddenly a shrill whistling bursts out and increases, increases ...
until two shrapnel shells explode almost above my trench. I am down on
the ground in a moment; and even in the act my attention is attracted
and held by the terrified expression of one of the men. The memory of
that man's face haunts me now!
Once again a messenger comes up at a run:
"The Captain sends me to warn you that there is nothing now between
you and the Germans!"
Is it true? We have seen the wounded coming down ... (Censored) ... A
corporal of the 27th, stained and perspiring, his face expressive of
his agitation, calls out to inform me that Dalle-Leblane has a bullet
through his stomach. Then a great tall fellow, shot through the
thighs, goes by groaning. He raises both feet, resting the whole
weight of his body on those supporting him. Good comrades those, and
true heroes! They carefully set down the wounded man about ten yards
from my trench and, having ridded themselves of their burden, make
off. So it remains for me to have the man transported, still
bellowing, to the battalion first-aid post.
The news reaches me, I know not by what means, that the --th are
retiring, mainly on their left. It turns out to be true, for they come
to relieve us, and we move back to new positions, five hundred yards
to the rear.
Line in sections of fours, in a clearing. The shells begin to burst
around us. At the very first explosion, a reservist, a big man, fair
and ruddy, turns round sharply to tell me he is wounded. He is pale
and trembling violently. I discover that he has been pricked by a
thorn as he was bending down!
A second shell, and a street hawker from Ferral is grasping a bleeding
wrist. A third: Corporal Tremoult receives the end of someone else's
rifle full in the mouth. For a moment he is dismayed; then, his spirit
returning, he commences to swear to the point of extinction. This
peppering continues.
Night. From afar sound the moans of the wounded. A mutilated horse
whinnies in pain. Also there comes to my ears a strange and poignant
lamentation--perhaps it is only the cry of a nightbird!
I make the round at eleven o'clock, crippled by the cold. Half an hour
has passed since I called Porchon, but I am not yet asleep when the
order for our withdrawal arrives. We return to the trenches at Cuisy.
_Wednesday, September 2nd._
We have been here since two o'clock, and settle ourselves down with a
curious sense of security and protection. Have they, the Boches,
crossed the Meuse in number? Maybe! But, perched on the top of this
elevation, we can await them tranquilly. Four days ago a
machine-gunner came down to us with a range-finder and supplied me
with exact ranges. Should they come, I shall be able to regulate our
fire and we shall drive them down before they reach us.
Meanwhile we sleep. The stars are limpid and steady; the air freshens
with the approach of day. Crouching right at the bottom of the trench
on a bed of dry lucerne, I wrap myself tightly in my greatcoat and
doze a little, a doze constantly broken by chill awakings. At last my
men, moving about me, succeed in rousing me. I rub my eyes, stretch my
arms, and jump to my feet. The sun is rising and already floods the
fields with a sea of soft light. I recognize my valley, with the
range-points marked to the extreme limits of effective fire.
Many aeroplanes are up--ours bright and light, those of the Boches
dark and sinister, but all of them dainty and with the calm unswerving
flight of birds of prey.
One or two patrols of grey dragoons are scouting in a field of rye. A
few shots coming from the right of us stop them. Before us at the edge
of a wood is a vedette of Uhlans, horses and men quite motionless,
except when, every now and again, one of the horses, fly-pestered,
flicks its flanks with its tail.
Through my glasses, I distinguish two wounded men dragging themselves
along a road--two Frenchmen. One of the Uhlans has also seen them. He
has dismounted and is moving towards them. I follow the scene with
concentrated attention. Now he is close to them and addresses them;
then all three commence to move towards a thicket bordering the
roadway, the German between the two Frenchmen, supporting them,
without doubt encouraging them with words. And there, taking many
precautions, the big, grey horseman helps our men to stretch
themselves at ease. He leans over them and it is long before he rises;
I am sure he is dressing their wounds!...
At two o'clock the shells come whistling over us again. A battery on
the crest behind us has opened fire. The firing has endured for
perhaps ten minutes or so, when suddenly a German shell bursts not ten
yards in front of our trench. Quite automatically I raised my head the
second following the explosion--and an invisible something passed
growling beneath my very nose. A man near me says laughingly:
"Mind the hornets!..."
I have learnt a lesson. Good! The next time I won't get up before the
swarm has passed.
I have not long to wait. Four shells arrive at the same moment, then
three more, then ten. This continues for almost an hour. We are all
prone at the bottom of the trench, our bodies in the mud, our heads
beneath our knapsacks. Between each outbreak of the tempest, the two
men to the right of me labour feverishly to dig a niche for themselves
in the trench side. They scratch away like a fox in the earth; I can
see no more of them than the nails in their boots.
A dark, fantastically shaped, copper-coloured cloud of smoke,
irritating throat and lungs, steals down upon us. It has not had time
to clear before a fresh storm bursts. One can hear it approaching,
irresistible; I feel the terrible shock as the first shell strikes the
ground, before being deafened by the succeeding salvo.
During an interval of comparative calm, a noise of someone scrambling
and sliding makes me quickly turn my head. One of my men has jumped
out of the trench to the left and is running along the front of it
towards the right, knapsack on back and rifle in hand, bayonet
clinking, mess-tin rattling, cartridges shaking! The water-bottle on
his hip beats a violent tattoo. He glares at me with eyes wild and
dilated, and then hurls himself bodily back into the trench. Like a
thunderbolt he falls right on top of his comrades before they can find
time to jump aside. Much shouting and swearing ensues, punctuated by
blows. A sudden squall of half a dozen high explosives serves,
however, to restore peace among them. The shells fall uncomfortably
near us, one indeed not more than five yards from me. For a moment it
seemed as if the walls of earth had closed in upon me; a stone,
several pounds in weight, catches me fair and square in the knapsack,
driving my nose deeply into the clay and leaving me dazed for quite
ten minutes.
The sunset is beautiful and soothing. Night falls clear and still. I
walk up and down before the trench in a field of lucerne, stopping at
the edges of the enormous craters dug by the shells, picking up here
and there steel splinters, still warm, or copper fuses almost intact
on which are inscribed numbers and abbreviated words. And then I
return "home" and stretch myself out on the earth to sleep.
III
THE RETREAT
_Thursday, September 3rd._
A messenger arouses me. The darkness of night is still with us. I
consult my watch in the light of a match: it is only two o'clock! I
feel convinced at once that we are going to attack. On a projecting
stone the cook has placed my coffee. I drink it in one gulp; it is
stone-cold, certainly, but that does not matter very much.
Where are we going? To Septsarges? I believe that must be our
destination, until suddenly we branch off the road to the right and
head directly for Montfaucon. Already the village appears before us,
lining the side of a hill the summit of which is crowned with a
church. I can now distinguish with the naked eye the red cross on the
white flag floating above the hospital. At the foot of the hill we
swing away to the left in a south-easterly direction. It is not to be
Montfaucon after all!
For good reason too! Several regiments, the whole division in fact, is
under orders to assemble in a ravine situated a few hundred yards from
the village. The concentration, however, does not proceed rapidly.
(Censored)
My company, as rearguard, is drawn up at the roadside. It is broad
daylight now. How long are we destined to remain here? It was only
yesterday we were bombarded at Cuisy!
I identify a distant explosion as emanating from the heavy German
artillery. Is the compliment directed to us? The hiss teaches me that
the shell is coming directly for us. Instinctively I look towards
Montfaucon and see flames and dense smoke spurt out quite close to the
church: two seconds elapse before the noise of the explosion reaches
us.
That was the signal for pandemonium; shells shrieking, hissing,
bursting; tiles falling in showers, walls smashing and crashing to the
ground. The earth beneath my feet heaves and trembles; my very skin
seems to ripple with the force of the outburst. I no longer know where
I am. With a heavy heart I watch the plumes of smoke, black, red and
yellow, arising on every side to mingle and form an enormous cloud,
ominous, outrageous, drifting above the stricken village.
Ambulance cars with their sad burdens pass; burdens many of whom are
very near the portals of death.
Wounded men follow on foot, some of whom are half lying on their
crutches, others supporting the whole of their weight on two sticks. A
chaplain is with them: he jests and smiles in an attempt to renew
their confidence and courage.
An old man and his wife pass by, a piteous sight. The man carries on
his back a huge basket full to overflowing; the old woman is bearing
other napkin-covered baskets, one on each arm. They walk quickly,
their eyes full of distress and fear; and they look back again and
again towards their house from which they have been driven
forth--their house which by this time, maybe, is no more than a
smoking pile of ruins!
Across the meadows strides a farm labourer whose legs are obviously
far too long for his body. He is shouting aloud and driving before him
ten or more black and white cows. His enormous feet assist him in the
task; beneath his cap one detects the malformed head of a crétin.
The column is far enough ahead by this time to permit us in our turn
to take up the march. I can still distinguish, far away down the road,
the old couple of a short while since--the woman appearing thin and
diminutive between her two big baskets, while the old man's basket
seems to be trotting along on two ridiculously small and inadequate
legs. Behind us, the shells thunder down unceasingly upon Montfaucon.
We march, urged onwards by an indescribable cloud of dust. We are full
of high spirits and completely confident that when the time comes we
shall give a good account of ourselves; nevertheless, we cannot
refrain from wonderingly asking ourselves where are our guns which
should be able to silence those of the enemy? Apparently we are being
out-manoeuvred; most obviously we are falling back. A certain
thought hammers away at my brain until it dominates everything else;
it is that we are but straws in the pathway of an overwhelming force!
Only yesterday in the trenches at Cuisy I was watching the German
motor-cars rushing on the roads in the plain which had just been a
battlefield. The stretcher-bearers, too, were busy collecting the dead
and wounded, and over towards Dannevoux the smoke of a fire mounted
above the trees--the fire in which they were already cremating their
dead. Their aeroplanes floated over our positions, signalling ranges
and directions to their gunners. A vedette of cavalrymen acted as
observers, defying fatigue, while patrol after patrol came through the
fields of wheat and rye.
I pondered these things on this morning, and began to understand how
tremendous was the organization which went to create this seemingly
irresistible power.
I recalled also how only yesterday I had seen a battalion of Germans
assemble between two woods scarcely two miles from our lines. The men
had flung aside their coats and commenced, quite unperturbed, to dig
trenches, while beside them the smoke of their camp kitchens rose in
the air. And I had asked myself then with ever increasing amazement
why our so greatly vaunted 75's did not drop a handful of shells in
the middle of this group of Boches?
The road is dusty, our throats parched, our feet painful. Passing
through Malancourt, which we have already visited once, then Avocourt,
we reach the forest of Hesse. At the edge of a ditch lie some
mutilated horses, their large eyes filmed and staring, their legs
stiff. A white horse, just at the point of death, heavily raises its
head and watches us pass. A charitable sergeant sends a bullet through
its skull to put a term to its misery; the head sinks, the sides
quiver with the last fluttering sigh.
The heat increases steadily. Stragglers line the road, sprawled full
length in the strip of shade which edges the woods. Some fall out of
the ranks, seat themselves phlegmatically, draw out some bread and
corned beef, and placidly commence to eat.
Parois. The slaughter-houses of the Army Corps are here. The blood
which has formed miniature lakes in front of the barns dries in the
sun, filling the atmosphere with a sickening smell with which mingles
the more powerful fumes of iodoform.
A long halt near Brabant, at the bottom of an airless declivity in
which one perspires as in a bath. My mouth is burningly dry, I am
fevered. I find it impossible to swallow a single mouthful; worse
still I find sleep equally impossible.
By the time we reach Bracourt, lights are dancing before my eyes, a
strange buzzing is in my ears. I let myself fall on to some straw, my
limbs helpless, my head empty as a bell, yet as heavy as lead. I
decide to see the doctor!
The doctor's visit. He is a jolly, big man, with black hair and
pronounced jaw, whose fine eyes seem always to be witnessing the birth
of some new and original thought. He is inspecting the sick and
wounded in the porch of the church, distributing white powders,
compounds of all colours, opium pills, painting chests with tincture
of iodine, lancing blisters full of blood or pus. Two men carry up
some poor being who writhes in their grasp, foaming at the corners of
the mouth, and uttering savage cries: an epileptic in a fit!
I feel that above all things in heaven and earth I want to sleep. I
obtain just as do the others some of the white compounds and a few
morphia pills. At the same time I solicit permission to sleep in a
barn, rather than in the open outside the village.
By chance I happened to encounter B---- that night. We spoke of
comrades of pre-war days, canvassed events still recent, and yet how
far off already! The meeting did me good, allaying the fever a little.
A few hours' sleep and I woke up as fit as a lark and ready for
anything, temporarily at least!
_Friday, September 4th._
Another day's march under a sun which seems to have increased in
intensity even since yesterday. Jubécourt, Ville-sur-Cousances. These
are full of gendarmes and "forestiers"; staff cars and supply lorries.
All that spells retreat.... (Censored) ... Nevertheless, this has not
the appearance of being a rout and I seek in vain to understand the
meaning of these forced marches, of this breathless rush to
Bar-le-Duc.
The most amazing and absurd rumours are flying round. Perhaps the pick
of the bunch is the news that we are marching to Paris to maintain
order!
Julvécourt, Ippécourt. We halt after leaving Fleury-sur-Aire, and here
we eat. Batches of men arrive with huge portions of cheese which looks
like Brie. Others are carrying bottles and cans fastened to their
belts. The tins begin to rattle.
The grass in the meadow where we are resting is thick and wet. Many of
the men take off their boots and walk bare-footed to refresh their
feet in the cool greenness. Almost all of us have spread our coats and
tunics saturated with perspiration to dry in the sun. Clean shirts and
the coloured linings of over-garments are everywhere. The colours
dance in the bright sunshine, tiring the eyes.
In the cold and transparent waters of the Aire I wash myself to the
waist. Two or three of the men have stripped themselves for a swim.
Among them I notice a muscular, brown-skinned swimmer who disports
himself vigorously, moving with a stroke which carries him from one
side of the river to the other in a few seconds. All along the bank
men are dabbling, bending over the water to wash socks and
handkerchiefs. Little by little a blue film spreads over the surface
and becomes iridescent in the sunshine. We dine gaily in the shade of
some trees whose lower branches droop almost into the water. Near us a
lieutenant with waxed moustache, arms bare, the open front of his
shirt displaying a chest as hairy as that of a wild boar, is standing
in the midst of a group of other men and holding forth. The loudness
of his voice deafens and overcomes his listeners. At times, selections
from his harangue reach me:
"There are two ways to settle them; break through the centre or
outflank them on the wings."
Nubécourt. To-day's march has not exhausted me as much as yesterday's.
I venture to remind B----, the Maixenter, of a certain night I
permitted him to pass in my bed. Poor me! The beast appeals to my good
heart, to what he calls my knowledge of the world. He is weary, oh, so
weary! and the bed is so narrow! Are there no others to be found in
the village? Surely there are many others! I depart without any
attempt to dissimulate my annoyance and disgust.
We mess in a kitchen similar to the others I have described--the
yellow lights of candles casting weird shadows over everything. A
thick-lipped cook serves us with a spoilt and unsatisfying concoction
which leaves a flavour like ink in one's mouth.
Long and wearily I seek a bed. But all my efforts as well as those of
a flat-figured but good-hearted girl, succeed in gaining me only one
hour's sleep. And that hour I passed on some straw in a barn.
_Saturday, September 5th._
Porchon laughingly tells me that the wine-merchant has disposed of the
wine we ordered and at a much better price than we offered.
Beauzée-sur-Aire; Sommaisne. It is at this latter place that during a
short halt I see the first of the _Bulletins des Armées_.
A family of ducks is swimming about in the Aisne, a mere stream
passing through the centre of the village.
Rembercourt-aux-Pots. There is a beautiful church here of the
sixteenth century, a trifle flat, maybe, and its lines rather spoilt
by excessive richness of ornamentation. Trees line the road; each time
we pass through the shade of them I carry my cap in my hand and
experience an almost overwhelming desire to sit down and rest. More
gendarmes and foresters, still more beflagged motor-cars. This
evidently is not the battle front! We pass a hamlet with a tiny
station. That is the line doubtless on which to-night we will find
ourselves en route to Paris (nothing else but Paris is talked about
now).
Condé-en-Barrois. A long string of ammunition vans coming from the
village blind us with an opaque dust. The midday halt takes place in a
field in which everything is adance in the blinding heat. Some poor
devil is brought before the Captain. He is waisted with water-bottles
and mess-tins from which peep forth bottles of wine and beer. In
either hand he carries a pair of fowls flapping and croaking
violently. Moreover, as he is holding a string of a package in his
teeth, he finds it rather difficult to render an explanation. The
package covers the lower part of his face; one can see only two
distressed and tearful eyes. In due course he explains to us in a
whining tone that he was arrested in the village at a moment when he
was collecting provisions, but that he has paid for everything, that
he is an honest man, that he would not for a second dream of stealing
so much as a pin, that it is not fair to him. The words "looting" and
"court-martial" descend upon his head with the stunning force of a
mallet. He is commanded to take his provisions to the cook's quarters.
And he departs ruefully, almost hidden beneath his collection of
bottles, birds, packages and mess-tins.
I slept for two hours with P---- at the house of a bicycle merchant.
The room was upside down, goods all piled up in one corner, yawning
cupboards bare. Are the people doing this from motives of prudence, or
have they received an order to evacuate?
It is the same in the house where we dine. The prevailing confusion is
even more eloquent, for the house in question is more spacious and
well built. Nothing in the sideboards; walls bare; the table itself
seems lost in the cold solitude of the beeswaxed floor.
It is a feast we find in this village, which is larger than the others
we have visited. Up to the present we have only passed through poor
hamlets, cleaned out from top to bottom. The men make hay while the
sun shines; mutton has been bought for them and they settle down to an
orgy. It is long since they have touched wine. They have it now and
they abuse it, also cider and beer.
Night has descended when we take up the march again. It is about ten
o'clock. The column moves on its sinuous way with many alarms and
unexpected halts. I hear behind me the steps of a horse in the saddle
of which the Captain of the 8th sleeps fitfully. He rouses himself
from time to time to give a piece of his mind to certain men whose
copious libations of the afternoon now impel to stop abruptly and
frequently. One of these men replies to him impertinently, protesting
that it is inhuman to drive men onwards in the way he is doing, and
then discreetly vanishes into the ranks before he can be identified.
We are returning the way we came, and we do not stop at the tiny
station in the village I had noticed earlier in the day. Are we not
then going to entrain at Bar-le-Duc? Do they then intend to let the
disorder at Paris continue?
Here we are at Rembercourt, silently marching past darkened houses. We
pass the road to Sommaisne on the left and cut across fields towards
some woods vaguely outlined against the sky.
IV
THE DAYS OF THE MARNE
_Sunday, September 6th._
Half-past one in the morning! Kit bags on the ground, rifles piled,
lines in sections of four, at the edge of a little wood of birch trees
struggling for life on a stony soil. The night is cold. I place a
listening post well forward and return and seat myself near my men.
The stillness is palpitating; the passage of time interminably
long-drawn. The dawn begins to lighten the sky. I look around me and
see the pale and tired faces of my men.
Four o'clock. A dozen rifle shots to the right cause me to leap to my
feet just as I am making myself comfortable. Out of a small
neighbouring wood a dozen Uhlans are flying at a gallop--they must
have passed the night in the covert.
The day breaks clear and fresh. My Nubécourt bedfellow produces his
inexhaustible flask, and we sip a drop of brandy which possesses no
bouquet at all and seems like raw alcohol. The Captain joins us at
last and explains the situation in a few words:
"A German army corps," he says, "is marching towards the south-east,
having for flank-guard a brigade which follows the valley of the Aire.
The --th Corps is going to engage the said German corps, while it
remains for us to deal with the flanking brigade."
For the first time I am going to experience war in all its reality!
Facing the Aire, with Sommaisne behind us, the men commence to dig
trenches with their handy entrenching tools. They know it is intended
that we should fight, and they need no urging to put forth their best
efforts. Before us and to the left towards Pretz-en-Argonne a
battalion covers us. Through my glasses I see two watchful observers
on the roof of a house.
The trenches are finished. They are only deep enough to shelter us
kneeling, but that is sufficient.
Towards nine o'clock the bombardment commences. High explosives hurtle
by without pause, bursting over Pretz, shattering roofs and bringing
down whole walls. My men remain quite calm although they know that a
violent and furious fight is immediately before them.
Eleven o'clock and our turn is come. The men deploy instantly. There
is no time for reflection on my part; I feel nothing, unless it be
that the fevered fatigue of the past hours has now left me. Rifles are
speaking close at hand, shells are still bursting in the distance.
With a strange detachment I watch the lines of our men blue and red
against the earth, advancing and advancing apparently without
movement. About me the wheat bows down beneath a heavy, languid
breeze, and with a certain feverishness I repeat to myself again and
again: "I am in it now! This is war and I am in it!" and I am
astonished to see that all the things about me retain their ordinary
appearance, to hear the snapping of rifles which is no more than the
snapping of rifles. For, on the other hand, it almost seems as if my
body had undergone some change, that it is no longer the same, that I
experience different sensations with different organs.
"Lie down!"
The bullets are whistling above us now. The rattle of the fusilade
drowns their sharp notes; but I know that behind us the song of the
bullets dies away to diminuendo and silence.
We commence to advance. The movement is admirably executed, with the
same regularity and deliberation as if we were at manoeuvres. Little
by little there arises in me an exhilaration which raises me above
myself. I feel that all these men are part of myself--these men who,
at a gesture from me push forward despite the bullets shrilling
towards us seeking chests, faces; the living flesh for billets.
We lie down for cover, we rise with a jump; we run as fast as our legs
will carry us straight for the hidden Boches--we long to see those
Boches so that we can get at them more surely and chase them far from
these fields ruined and trampled by their hordes.
We are completely exposed and under fire. The bullets sing no longer;
they pass invisible with a nasty spiteful hiss. They are no longer at
play but in deadly earnest.
Clac! Clac! Two bullets have struck immediately to my left. The noise
at once surprises and slightly amazes me; these bullets seem less
dangerous when they sing and whistle. Clac! Clac! Stones, pieces of
dried earth, spurts of dust fly into the air; we have been seen and
they have got the range of us. Forward! I am leading, seeking a ditch,
a slope, a fold in the earth wherein to shelter my men after the first
rush--even the hedge of a field, or anything which will render them
less visible to the Boches will do. A movement of my right arm
shortens the line by half. I hear the tramp of feet, the rustle of the
stubble lying in our course. And while we are running forward the
detachment in support fires rapidly but steadily. Then when I raise my
cap, that detachment in its turn charges at the double, whilst all
around me my men's rifles come into play and speak unceasingly.
A strangled cry to the left. I have scarcely time to see the man
sprawl flat on his back, his two legs still moving as though to carry
him forward. A second, and all his body stiffens and then relaxes and
the man is no more than an inert thing, dead flesh which to-morrow the
sun will commence to decompose.
Forward! To remain still would cost us more dearly now than the most
furious assault. Forward! The men are falling rapidly, stopped dead in
full course, some crashing prone without a word, others halting and
staring stupidly, while feeling with their hand for their wound. And
they say: "I have got it," or, "Mine has arrived!" Often it is no more
than a single expressive word. Almost all of them, even those whose
wounds are slight, turn pale at the shock. The impression is borne in
upon me that one thought alone is in all their minds; to get away very
quickly, never mind where, so long as it be somewhere free from this
eternal hissing of the bullets. They seem to me like little children,
children whom one would wish to console, to protect. An almost insane
desire seizes me to cry out to those waiting ahead of us:
"Do not harm them! You have no right to do so! They are no longer
soldiers--they will do you no harm!"
Instead I say to one of the passing men:
"Come along, old man, cheer up! Thirty yards ahead of you, behind that
little crest, you will be out of danger ... ah, yes, I know your foot
is bad, that it swells. But we will take good care of you in a minute.
Do not be afraid."
The man, a corporal, dragging himself along on all fours, stops to
look back at me with the eyes of a caged beast. Then he resumes his
clumsy, tormented, crablike crawl.
At last I catch a glimpse of the Boches. They are hiding themselves
behind sheaves which they push before them; but at least I know now
where they are and my men's bullets will therefore stand a better
chance of finding an objective.
The advance is resumed and continues without wavering. A great
confidence possesses me. I feel that all is going well;--and at this
moment a corporal arrives breathless and covered with perspiration:
"Lieutenant."
"What is it?"
"The Major sends me to tell you you are too far advanced. The movement
has been executed too quickly. You must halt and await orders."
I lead my section to the shelter of a slight undulation which is no
more than a vaguely-defined fold in the earth, but where at least some
shelter from the bullets will be obtained. And so we remain there
lying flat, awaiting the orders which appear as if they will never
arrive. Everywhere, above us, before us, to the right and the left,
the shots whistle and hiss and shrill. A few steps from me the bullets
of a deafening machine-gun strike the earth in a regular, steady
stream. Dust and stones are flung high in the air, and for a moment I
feel an almost irresistible temptation to approach that death-dealing
squall, and touch that invisible stream of innumerable and minute
splinters of metal, each of which can kill.
The minutes drag past long and wearying. I raise myself a little and
attempt to see what is occurring. To the left the thin line of
riflemen extend as far as eye can reach; all the men are lying behind
their knapsacks firing. Behind a wheatfield, twenty men or so are
standing to aim better and fire. I can see distinctly the recoil of
their rifles and the corresponding jerk of their right shoulders. As
the smoke clears for a second, I am able to distinguish Porchon's
platoon, and Porchon himself smoking a cigarette. There also is the
Saint Maixenter's platoon, somewhat disorganized. Further away again
are the men of the 8th. Behind them a little man is walking up and
down, erect, nonchalant and quite at home. Who can this reckless
individual be? Through my glasses I make out an over-waxed moustache
and the blue smoke of a pipe; it is the Captain! Someone had already
told me of his attitude when under fire!
The orders, merciful Heavens, where are our orders? What can be the
matter? Why are they leaving us here? I make up my mind and suddenly
get up. It is imperative I should know what the Boches are doing and
where they are at present. Keeping under cover of the sheaves, I mount
the gentle slope until I reach the top of it. There before me, four or
five hundred yards distant, are men in greyish green uniforms, almost
indistinguishable from the greenness of the fields. It is only with
the greatest difficulty I can make them out at all.
Quite near their line, but far to my right, is a machine-gun
surrounded by men in French uniform firing at triple speed. I
determine to bring my men to the top of the slope where at least they
will be able to fire.
While I am making my way back to them a shell passes overhead. It
explodes among the detachment of the 8th, and a gap of twenty yards is
made in their line. The next second other men have filled the gap. A
second explosion, another and still another; the bombardment has
recommenced. All my men fling themselves flat.
"Oh!..." The cry escaped a dozen of us at once. A high explosive burst
clean among the Saint Maixenter's platoon. And he, I saw it distinctly
with my own eyes, received the shell full in his body. His cap
vanished into space, a part of his coat, an arm. And there he is lying
on the earth a shapeless mass, white and red pulp, a body stripped
well-nigh naked, shattered. His men, finding themselves leaderless,
give way and scatter.
What is this?... Can it be that the confusion is spreading to all the
men on the left there? It travels rapidly towards us. Some soldiers
are running towards Sommaisne beneath the shells. When each shell
explodes it makes a gap among them, blowing away men as you blow away
dust with a puff. The confusion has spread to the 8th now. If the
Captain were only there, he would be able to hold his men. But a few
moments ago I saw him press a hand swiftly to his face. Our covering
section away to the left comes next; the bullets have left none to
preserve discipline. Now it is the neighbouring platoon. Then
suddenly, brutally, we are swept up by the wave: there are the unknown
faces of men of other companies round about us mixing with the men and
destroying their nerve. A tall thin man, the Captain of the 5th, cries
out to me that the commander has ordered us to fight in retreat, that
we haven't been supported in time, that we are alone and lost if we
remain. And thus is the position abandoned.
With all my power I strive to preserve order and calm, to allay the
panic among my men. I march deliberately with arms wide extended,
exclaiming:
"Do not run, do not run! Follow me."
All my attention is concentrated on the task of getting my men away to
safety with as little loss as possible. One of them near me receives a
bullet through his skull while engaged in cutting an opening through
some wire; he falls on to the wire and remains hanging there, broken
in two, his feet touching the earth on the one side, head and arms
hanging down over the other.
Shells follow us, high explosive and shrapnel. Three times I find
myself within the deadly cone of bursting shrapnel: the bullets hiss
into the earth about me, smashing heads and shattering feet.
We march through an inferno of smoke, from time to time obtaining a
glimpse, through momentary clearings, of the village and the river
running beneath the trees. But there is no truce to the shells which
follow us in hundreds.
I recollect passing one of my sergeants being carried by two of the
men on crossed rifles; he pointed out to me speechlessly, his torn and
bloodstained shirt and his side terribly lacerated by an explosion. I
could see the raw edges of the flesh....
I march onwards and onwards exhausted and stumbling. I take a long
gulp of the water that remains in my flask. Since yesterday evening I
have eaten nothing.
When we reach the edge of the stream, the men halt and throw
themselves down and commence to lap the muddied waters like dogs.
It must be seven o'clock now; the sun is sinking into a bed of virgin
gold. The sky above us is a pale and transparent emerald. The earth
darkens, colours vanish. It is quite dark by the time we leave
Sommaisne. We become mere shadows trailing along the road.
We halt for the first time at Rembercourt. Nothing but sleep seems to
matter now, and I fling myself down on the bare earth, calling upon
it. Before it descends upon me I hear the rolling over all the roads
of the wagons and ambulance vans filled with the wounded; and further
away, back in Sommaisne, the smashing of rifle butts against closed
doors and the harsh savage cries of the looting Teutons.
_Monday, September 7th._
The morning mist awakens me. My clothes are drenched and drops of
water glisten on the mica of my map case. Before us and a little to
the left is Rembercourt, whose large church dominates the village in
its shadow. From where we are, we can see one side of it in all its
length. Towards the left there is a little road which disappears
between two slopes.
It is along that road that the Captain and Porchon appear towards ten
o'clock accompanied by a handful of men. It appears that they found
themselves cut off from the rest of the regiment and passed the night
in a wood in advance of the French line. I was able to identify the
Captain while he was still some distance off by means of a lance which
he carried; it was an Uhlan's lance, captured at Gibercy, and with
which nothing could induce him to part. I made my report to him.
As at Cuisy, we dig trenches. Are we going to wait here for the
Germans this time? We no longer have the advantage of a valley before
us as at Dannevoux, but in the course of the five hundred yards or so
which intervene between our new position and Rembercourt, I estimate
that should the Germans elect to advance along this road many of them
will fall before they reach us.
Towards Beauzée the fight is still in progress. Unendingly little
groups of wounded men appear over the last crest and march slowly
towards us. Those with arms in slings move more quickly; others drag
along, helping themselves with sticks cut in some small wood or other;
many halt, then drag themselves a few yards further, then pause again.
During the afternoon I went down into the village. It was full of
soldiers ... (Censored) ...
(Censored)
Soon after three o'clock the German heavy artillery commences to shell
Rembercourt. At five o'clock the church takes fire. The crimson glow
of the conflagration is emphasized as the shadows increase. The
blackness of the night makes the church an immense brazier. The wooden
framework of the roof is traced out in flames and incandescence. The
steeple has become a living fire in the heart of which the dead bells
hang black and grim.
The framework of the roof falls piecemeal. One can see the rafters
sagging and sagging and then remaining suspended for a few moments
above the furnace before falling with a deafening crash. And each time
a portion falls in this way, a volcano of clear sparks rises high into
the sky to remain drifting and floating like some echo.
For hours and hours I stood watching the fire, my heart sad and heavy.
My men are asleep on the ground, lining the trench with their bodies.
Try as I will I cannot lie down to sleep like them.
_Tuesday, September 8th._
The Captain roused me I don't know how many times to give me
instructions; as a matter of fact I believe it was because he himself
found sleep impossible and was lonely with that loneliness which
visits men on such nights. Together with his liaison officers he had
taken up sleeping quarters in a dense thicket by the roadside. At each
awakening I beheld the church still in flames.
This morning the ruins were still smoking. The mass of fire-blackened
stone stood clearly defined against a limpid sky.
The men are sleeping heavily ... (Censored) ...
(Censored)
From some woods away to the left a fusillade growing more and more
violent each instant rings out. Behind us a battery of 120 mm.'s speak
without pausing. And above Rembercourt at long intervals shells burst,
half a dozen at a time.
(Censored)
..., lying on a slope when the shriek of the shells announce the
arrival of the Germans, then, quite placidly resume their task again.
(Censored)
This morning someone offered me some brandy plums, huge greengages
preserved in a narrow bottle, cherries in a thick syrup, green
haricots and peas in bottles, as well as some pink sweet-meats
arranged artistically beneath laced paper in a pale blue box on the
cover of which, inscribed in letters of gold, was the name "Pamphile."
(Censored)
At noon we leave the trenches. Marching in loose columns we move
towards the road which runs from Rembercourt to Vauxmarie. All along
the road from Erize-la-Petite we encounter the craters the shells have
dug in the fields. The countryside is bare and depressing, despite the
brilliant sunshine. In a ditch lie some horses, disembowelled, legs
shattered, huddled at the bottom of the sloping sides. There were six
of them all in a heap, making an enormous pile of carrion, the
horrible stagnant smell of which saturated the air. Everywhere there
are shattered ammunition carts, wheels in splinters, ironwork twisted.
_Vauxmarie Road._ We take up a position, availing ourselves of the
ditch as a trench, ready to support those fighting ahead. There is a
great desolate plain before us, ploughed by shells, sown with still
bodies and fragments of the uniforms of men with faces turned either
towards the sky or buried in the earth, rifles lying beside them just
as they had fallen from their hands. To the right the road mounts
towards the top of the valley; it is of a dazzling whiteness that
tires the eyes. Far before us a number of platoons are lying on the
ground in extended order, only to be distinguished with difficulty.
They are receiving the full force of the German artillery. Abruptly
the shells cease ravaging the uncultivated and shattered fields and
come towards us. They arrive shrieking and all together. Nearer and
nearer they come, until we are certain they are going to descend upon
us. And the men hunch their bodies together, round their backs, thrust
their heads beneath their knapsacks, all their muscles contracting in
agonized suspense while waiting the explosion of those enormous
messengers of death. The bombardment increases in intensity, and now
plumes of black smoke are drifting along the hilltop and the noise
becomes ear-splitting. Each time a shell falls in the ranks there
ensues, in the real sense of the term, a scattering of the men; and
when the smoke has dispersed there remain lying on the yellow earth of
the stubble field dark sombre patches, forms vague and unmoving. A
commander of the gendarmerie mounts the hillside on his bicycle,
pedalling with all his strength. He is making directly for the point
where the line of the valley touches the sky crowned with its sinister
black plumes. Smaller and smaller he becomes, is silhouetted for a
moment clear and distinct, and finally vanishes. A quarter of an hour
passes before he reappears, a streak, now pedalling back into the
valley. He has a message for our commander; it seems that something is
required of us.
We are conducted back to the heights of Rembercourt, passing to the
right of the village. Here we take cover on a steep slope covered with
wild vegetation, extending alongside the orchard which I had seen that
morning. The bursting shells almost deafen us. They explode in
hundreds, shattering the plain, obliterating the road along which we
marched a short time since, causing tiles to fall and rattling the
wood-work of roofs. Nor are we forgotten. A few compliments in the
form of half a dozen high explosives are generously sent our way. The
last of these burst so close to our commander, who was sitting on the
slope, that it seemed as if someone had punched him violently and
rudely in the back. Under the tremendous force of the explosions the
trees of the orchard bend and sway, causing a shower of plums and
apples to fall upon us.
We have not been sighted, but the enemy knows the lie of the land so
well that he guesses without difficulty the probable location of our
reserves, and punishes them by way of precaution. Up to the present,
however, all my men have escaped without serious injury, except one
who, descending the slope, suddenly mounted into the air to come to
the earth behind us. At least ten men received scratches.
Happily we leave before the enemy devotes serious attention to us. At
a certain moment, immediately following the arrival of a shell, a
messenger rushed out of the village where the Captain had taken up his
station. He came running towards us, gesticulating violently. While he
was still several yards away he cried in a loud voice:
"Advance!"
Raising my sword I repeat the order.
"Forward! Follow me!"
And I jump down on to the road. Hardly have I taken three steps
forward, however, before I hear the shells come shrieking towards us.
There is just time for the men to rush back up the slope they had
already quitted; in the very act of throwing myself flat the shells
explode six at once. A portion of the road rises towards Heaven to
descend again in a hail of stones and earth. The smell almost
suffocates me as I lie clinging to the earth there, shrouded in dense
black smoke. I think that was a narrow escape! A few moments of calm
succeed. Now is the time to run: the men come down the slope at their
best speed; then, finding ourselves outside the zone of immediate
danger and sheltered a little by the village, we mount a rising behind
which I know we may hope to find a certain amount of safety.
More shells fall on the spot we occupied a few moments since. My men
look at each other, look at me, and congratulate themselves. The
narrowness of their escape loosens their tongues. "Ah, the filthy
dogs!" I hear. That also is what the messenger calls them when I see
him again. On the road he had not sufficient breath left to express
his feelings. He had been so near the explosion area that the buckles
of his knapsack were shattered, and when afterwards he looked around
it was to find himself occupying a post of honour in the middle of a
field, innocent of a scratch, while the said knapsack hung gracefully
among the branches of a plumtree.
The day declines; we go back once more to our trenches. I met, sitting
in a ditch, two cavalry subalterns, one a Hussar, the other a
Chasseur, belonging to some detachment or other. I had made their
acquaintance at the depot.
(Censored)
Night has fallen and once again we have forgotten to eat. A mouthful
of iron rations, a drop of tepid water from my flask, which water has
a pronounced taste of tin.--"Still, that is something else the
Prussians won't have," as my grandmother used to say.
_Wednesday, September 9th._
Not a wink of sleep. The noise of the shells hurtling through the air
is constantly in my ears, while the acrid and suffocating fumes of
explosives haunt my nostrils. Scarcely yet is it midnight before I
receive orders to depart. I emerge from the trusses of wheat and rye
among which I had ensconced myself. Bits of stalk have slipped down my
collar and up my sleeves, and tickle me all over. The night is so dark
that we stumble over the stones and irregularities of the ground. We
pass very close to some 120's drawn up behind us; I hear the voices of
the artillerymen, but only with difficulty can I distinguish the
heavy, sleeping guns.
Rations are distributed en route with no other light than that of a
camp lantern which gives forth but a faint glow. The feeble yellow
light stains with brown patches the portions of raw meat cut up in the
dusty grass of the roadside.
A march across fields, a march of somnambulists, mechanical, legs
light as down, heads heavy as lead. It seems to last for hours and
hours. And we are always bearing to the left; at day-break, I assure
myself, we shall have returned to our point of departure. Little by
little the shadows rise, enabling me to recognize the Vauxmarie Road,
the wrecked ammunition carts, the dead horses.
Hallo! The German guns are speaking early this morning! Before us
shrapnel is bursting noisily and spitefully. Over the plain they have
thrown a barrage. Nevertheless we have to go through it. Our first
section detaches itself; in a line, long-drawn and thin, it moves
across the fields towards a small wood which the captain has indicated
as the objective. Rifles crackle away to the left. Bullets sing and
throw up the dust about the marching section. Then shrapnel bursts
right over the men. The undulating line becomes still, taking cover
behind a ridge of earth shaped like a gigantic caterpillar. I have
been given to understand that we are to occupy the advance post, and I
await my turn to move forward. The major and the captain are before
us, taking cover of some trees, watching. And the captain, seeing his
men out there under the shower of shells, finds it difficult to make
up his mind to throw us others forward. After a time the commander of
the gendarmerie whom I had seen cycling along the road, comes up. He
is crimson to the lips and his eyes are savagely glaring. Cursing and
swearing violently, he utters a few breathless words.
(Censored)
The captain, turning towards me, said:
"Go!"
So the time is come!
I experience a feeling only of pleasure. I am in the same strange
mental condition as when under fire for the first time at Sommaisne.
My legs move without volition; I march unthinkingly, conscious only of
an all-pervading joy which elevates me above myself and permits me as
it were to look upon myself as another being. In five minutes we reach
the pine-wood which is our destination. We deploy before it, indeed
almost within it. Without waiting a minute, the men set to work with
their trenching tools. At the end of a couple of hours we possess a
deep and narrow trench. Behind us to the left is Rembercourt; to the
right front the tiny station of Vauxmarie.
The heat is enervating and unhealthy. A few clouds drift slowly past,
increasing in size little by little and growing darker and more
ominous, while the edges yet remain fringed with silver. From time to
time puffs of wind bring to us a stench, sickly, penetrating,
intolerable. It is as though we were in a charnel house.
All around us are bodies. One there is that is most horrible to look
upon. Yet look upon it I must, despite my will. It is the body of a
man lying near a shell hole; the head is detached from the trunk, and
the blackened entrails protrude from a terrible wound in the abdomen.
Near him lies a sergeant, the stock of his rifle still in his
hands--the barrel and mechanism must have been blown far away. Another
man lies with both legs parallel, yet the foot of one crosses the
other; that leg must be shattered. And there are so many others! Our
position compels us to look upon them, to breathe that foetid air
until nightfall.
And until nightfall I smoke and smoke in an attempt to stifle the
soul-sickening miasma, that smell of the poor dead, lost on the field
of battle, abandoned by their own who had not the time to throw even a
few lumps of earth over them to hide them from the eyes of the living.
Throughout the day aeroplanes hovered over us. Shells fell also. But
our captain had had a keen eye for a good place, and while a few
explosions came perilously near, we suffered no casualties. At the
worst it was a few shrapnel or other shells which burst far too high
overhead to cause us concern.
For what reason are the aeroplanes remaining so long aloft up there?
For more than two hours they have floated above us, describing great
circles, drawing away only when our artillery became too pressing in
its attentions, then returning until the black crosses on their wings
were easily and plainly discernible. Towards evening they headed
directly for the heavy black clouds accumulating on the horizon.
Into those sombre masses the sun sinks, dyeing them crimson at first,
leaden as the light slowly fades. The finish of the day is ominous and
depressing. The darkness of night settles down almost tangibly, while
the stench of the dead bodies rises and spreads.
Sitting at the bottom of the trench, my hands crossed over my raised
knees, I hear before and behind me, over the whole plain, the sharp
thud of pickaxes against stones, the scraping of spades throwing up
the earth, the careful murmur of lowered voices. Occasionally, some
man whom one cannot see, coughs and expectorates. The night envelops
and hides us from the enemy's eyes, permitting us at last to bury our
dead.
The voice of my sergeant calls to me through the darkness:
"Are you there, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, I am here!"
Groping about until he finds my hand, he places something into it.
"Here, sir. This is all we found on them."
Crouching at the bottom of the trench, I strike a match. In the light
it sheds for a brief spell, I see a much-worn pocket book, a leather
purse, and an identification disc attached to a piece of black cord. A
second match! The pocket book contains the photograph of a young woman
nursing a baby in her lap; also I am enabled to make out a name
inscribed in straggling letters on the disc. The sergeant comments:
"There was nothing on the other--I searched him from his heels to
his--his neck--I mean the one whose head was blown off. And there was
nothing except the purse which belonged to him."
A third match. The purse contains a little money, a few coppers only,
and a piece of dirty, crumpled paper, on which is written: "Gronin
Charles, Railway employee. Class, 1904. Soissons." Then the match goes
out.
I shake the sergeant's hand; it is damp and feverish, and the fingers
are not steady.
"Good-night! Go and sleep! Go on!"
He departs, leaving me solitary and alone in the midst of fast
sleeping men. To sleep like them!... To be able to stifle all thought,
to forget! In my hand the little possessions of the dead men grow
heavier and heavier.... "Gronin Charles, railway employee...." The
smiling faces of the photograph dance beneath my closed eyelids, grow
bigger and bigger until they become almost a hallucination. The poor,
poor people!
_Thursday, September 10th._
Something splashes gently on my face: raindrops large and tepid. Have
I indeed been asleep, then? And what time can it be? The wind is
rising, but the night is still black. A little to the right front of
the trench a dark mass is outlined against the still darker sky. That
must be the heaped-up bundles of straw in which the major, the captain
and his messengers have ensconced themselves for the night.
I have just settled to sleep again when a few bullets whistle
overhead. It seems to me that they come from close at hand. Yet we,
being the advance posts, can have no other detachments before us. What
does it mean then?
I am not permitted much time for speculation; abruptly, a concentrated
fusillade breaks out, every second approaching nearer and nearer and
extending the whole length of the line. Without doubt, those are
Germans firing, directing a night attack against us.
"On your feet, every man of you. On your feet. Quick. Get up!"
I shake a corporal sleeping near me. From one end of the line to the
other a shiver passes, followed by the quick rustling of straw; then
bayonets clatter, and magazines click.
All this has passed in an instant, yet I have still had time to see
the major and the captain jump back down into the trench away to the
right, and scarcely have they done so before black figures are
silhouetted, barely discernible against the lightless sky, over the
top of the nearest rising. They were not thirty yards away when I
distinguished the pointed spikes of their helmets. That sight was more
than sufficient. At the top of my lungs I issue an order for rapid
fire.
Hardly has the command left my lips when the dense masses of men
rapidly approaching us burst into shrill, savage shouts.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Vorwärts!"
How many thousands of soldiers are surging down upon us then? The
moist earth quivers beneath the tramp of their heavy feet. Most surely
must we be smashed to pieces, trampled down, broken. For there are not
more than sixty of us all told, and how may sixty men extended in
single file hope to resist the tremendous pressure of these ranks upon
ranks of men rushing down upon us like a herd of maddened buffaloes?
"Rapid fire! Nom de Dieu! Fire!"
The crackling of the rifles rends the air; spurts of flame shatter the
darkness. The rifles of my platoon have spoken simultaneously!
And now there is a gap in the very heart of the charging mass. I hear
shrill screams of agony as of beasts mortally stricken. The dark
figures divide to flow right and left, just as if, before the trench,
and extending its whole length, a tempest had raged and laid men to
the earth, as the breath of the gale bends down the growing wheat.
Some of the men about me say:
"Look, Lieutenant! See, they are lying down!"
"No, my friend! It is not so. They have fallen down!"
And ... (Censored)
Once more I repeat:
"Fire! Fire! Let them have it! Put it into them! Fire!"
The men reload their magazines swiftly, resting their cheeks ...
(Censored) ... and fire a volley at point blank range. Out there, men
fall in swathes! The gap widens and widens until no one remains
standing before us, not a living soul! But the shadows nevertheless
are still moving onwards to the right and left; they intend to
outflank, to envelop us. And to the right and left there is not a man
to stem for a moment that rushing torrent, which, at the best, we have
only been able to check for an instant, and divert to either side. The
wave will reform behind us--all will be lost!
"Hurrah! Vorwärts!"
They excite themselves with their own cries, like savages. Their
raucous voices rise loud above the crackling rifle fire, toned and
modulated in the flux of the wind-driven rain and the louder
detonations close at hand. Suddenly the wind has increased; the rain
descends literally in torrents: one gains the impression that the fury
of the fighters has moved the very heavens.
All at once a flame leaps up, glistening on brass buckles and helmet
spikes, turning bayonets to silver. The Germans have set fire to the
pile of straw beneath which the major and captain were snugly sleeping
a short while since. The flames writhe and waver this way and that at
the wind's caprice; drops of rain flying before the glow become like
the spray of a rushing fountain. The faces of my men are pale and
streaming with water; their eyes, under frowning brows, are
dark-ringed and like sparks of steel, expressing at once their
eagerness to strike and kill as well as to live.
"First section, right face!..."
Can they hear me?...
"Right face!..."
They do not hear me. The unceasing spatter of rifle fire, the moaning
wind, the rain beating a tattoo on mess-tins, and above all, the
shouting of human voices drown my command.
"Let me pass, you!"
I thrust a man against the parapet of the trench.
"Let me pass!"
From man to man I progress, calling aloud for the sergeant. One, two,
three soldiers I pass, and then before me the trench is empty,
abandoned; a little trampled straw, a rifle, a few knapsacks and
nothing more. But I am just in time to catch one dark figure of a man
hauling himself out of the trench by the overhanging brambles.
"Hey, you!" I cry. "The major? The captain?..."
The wind hurls a few disconnected words into my face.
"Have left ... orders!"
At that moment two helmeted figures appear above the parapet someway
further along to the right, two figures silhouetted against the light
of the fire. The next instant something falls heavily on to the straw
at the bottom of the trench.
Meanwhile behind me the shrieking Germans are right on the top of my
men. Obviously there is nothing to do but try and win through to the
trenches of a battalion of chasseurs located to the rear and right of
our line.
I give the order with all the strength of my lungs.
"Pass through the wood! Not alongside it! Retreat into the wood!"
I thrust forward the men who instinctively hesitate before the dense
entanglement of branches bristling with thorns, and I in my turn
bodily fling myself into the undergrowth. To the left of my trench
ring out oaths and strangled cries. Apparently, some fools afraid of
the thorns have hesitated too long and now perhaps have German
bayonets in back or chest!
I start to run towards the chasseurs' line. Before me and all around
me dark shadows move; and always the same cry rings out:
"Hurrah! Vorwärts!"
I am surrounded by Boches; it seems impossible that I can escape,
separated as I am from all my men. Nevertheless I grasp my revolver in
my hand and pray only I may be permitted to give a good account of
myself.
Suddenly I am sprawling face downwards, nose to the earth, having
stumbled over something hard and metallic. Lying in the mud is the
body of a dead German whose helmet has rolled a little away from him.
Instantly an idea seizes me. I pick up the helmet and place it on my
own head, passing the strap beneath my chin to secure it.
There follows a mad flight for the safety the chasseurs will afford.
Without hesitating a second, I rush by groups of Boches who are
wandering about doubtfully, their original plans having been rather
upset by our fusillade. As I pass them I cry:
"Hurrah! Vorwärts!"
Like them, too, I keep repeating the word to which they seem to attach
great importance, which is:
"Heiligtum!"
The rain stings my face: the mud adheres to my soles until only with
difficulty can I raise boots which have become enormously big and
heavy. Twice I fall on my hands and knees, only to rise again and
instantly resume my flight, notwithstanding my aching legs. Singing
and whistling bullets pass over me into the darkness beyond.
Out of the blackness at my feet a man rises and the words on his lips
are French.
"Is it you, Letty?"
"Yes, Lieutenant; I've got one in the thigh."
"That's all right, old man; we'll get there yet!"
Already there are no more harsh voiced brawlers around us. Manifestly
they must reform before continuing the assault. So I throw away the
helmet and replace my cap of which I have taken good care.
Before reaching the chasseurs I overtake four Boches, in each of whom,
either in the back or in the head, I put a revolver bullet. Each one
drops in his tracks with a long, strangled cry.
(Censored)
In the chasseurs' trenches I discover twenty or so of my men. They are
kneeling in the mud at the bottom, unable to find a place in the
firing line.
"Follow me, my boys," I cried.
The Vauxmarie Road is only a few steps away and I place my twenty
poilus along the sloping side of a ditch. One and all we feel that all
we want to do is to remain there until we die.
Still another outburst of rifles. Flat on my stomach on the
water-sodden grass I look upon a second fire the reflection of whose
ruddy glow seems to be carved out of the night's opacity--that must be
the Vauxmarie farm burning.
Behind us a voice unexpectedly rings out:
"Ohé! Trenches there? Is there anyone of the --th here."
I reply: "Present."
"An officer?"
"I am Lieutenant. Who is asking?"
"It is I, Lieutenant."
A man presents himself to me and tells me he has been sent by Captain
C----.
"Come quickly ... quickly, with every man you can find. The flag is
near here among the trees and the Captain is afraid that unless he has
assistance he will not be able to save it."
We set out instantly following the orderly.
Our trousers cling to our knees and thighs; the long grass pours water
into our boots.
We pass a machine-gun section. The men have attached the belt; but
they have only one gun and that won't work.
Hoarse cries rise again, increased to the point of frenzy, then weaken
and finally die away. The chasseurs are holding fast! One of my men
exclaim:
"And _that's_ their stopping place."
Easily I follow the sounds of the fight. All my senses appear to have
become abnormally sharp. And so I am able to perceive some vaguely
defined dark figures who move silently not twenty yards away to the
right of us. I strive with all my force to pierce the darkness, but my
eyes are filled with water and fail me. So, motioning with my hand, I
say in a low voice to one of my men:
"Look there, Chabeau. Can you see anything?"
"Yes, Lieutenant."
"What is it?"
"Some Boches. They are flanking us."
"Are there many of them?"
"No, not a pile of them."
"Can you count them?"
Two or three seconds and then:
"I believe there are seven of them."
His words confirm my own conclusions. A few stragglers, undoubtedly,
who have lost their way in this infernal mêlée of the night. At my
order ten of my men face towards the right, and in each one's ear I
whisper:
"Wait until I give the word to fire. Do not hurry and aim well."
The Boches have halted, hesitating, undecided; they form a dark group
framed in a stillness which seems almost palpitating.
"Fire!"
A spurt of flame, followed instantly by cries of agony and terror:
"Kamerad! Kamerad!"
Only two remain standing and they rush towards me. The younger of them
snatches at my hands covering them with tears and saliva. He utters a
few incoherent words which reveal the tempest of fear obsessing him:
"I am not a Prussian; I am a Swabian. The Swabians have never done you
any harm ... the Swabians did not want this war...."
And his eyes glare into mine in a very frenzy of revolting
supplication.
"I have given the French wounded, water. My comrades also: that is
what we Swabians are!"
He talks and talks, and always the same monotonous refrain is
repeated:
"_Das machen die Schwaben._ That is what the Swabians do."
Then, with ever mounting incoherence, he tells me other things; that
he is an electrician, that he can walk fifty yards on his hands ... he
would have done it instantly too if I had but given the signal,
possessed as he was by terrible fear, tortured by the thirst for life.
The other was passed from one man to another, palpitating and
terror-stricken: we had not so far made any other prisoners! My men
jeered at him like curious children. They listened with an air of
wisdom to the conversation between myself and the German. Not
ill-naturedly they amused themselves by causing him involuntarily to
hunch his neck down between his shoulders when they placed a hand upon
him. And each time, they laughed heartily and boyishly.
All this time the crackling of rifles disturbs the night's stillness;
the short snappy reports emanating close at hand, the swift whistling
of German bullets from the distance. Nor did the rain cease to fall,
plastering our great-coats on to our backs, streaming in rivulets from
the peaks of our caps. The wind, however, had ceased to moan. It blew
gently now as though appeased, but cold and foxy. The day was
approaching and never was the light of day so longed for. I saw once
more the battlefield of Sommaisne, bathed in sunlight, clear in
outline, rich in colour. And all that night we had been as blind men,
fighting gropingly. I shrank from the thought of death in that icy
mud, or in those puddles of water into which one stumbled....
How strange everything is. During a brief calm, music, strange, sharp,
but rhythmic rings out. That must be the German bugles taking up their
message and approaching nearer and nearer all along their lines. I
turned to my Boche and asked:
"What is that?"
He bends his head, places his hand behind his ear to listen and
replies:
"Halt!"
Truly enough the firing begins to die away little by little. A few
more violent outbursts succeed, and then there is silence, except for
stray shots here and there, which echo with curious loudness in the
motionless, cold air. The stillness that follows seems almost
menacing. It falls over the scene of battle like an immense mantle--it
is a portentous silence, as though willed by some mysterious powers of
evil: pregnant has the night been with human anguish and suffering.
The advent of the wan day does not lighten our spirits; a faint
luminance, whitened and cloud-flecked, appears above the horizon,
moving slowly towards the zenith. Storm battalions move languidly
across the pale sky. The day is false to its season, presaging as it
does, and so long in advance, the coming of winter. It is like one of
those cold days which invariably arrive inopportunely to shatter the
illusion of spring, just when one has commenced to delight in the new
year's rush of life.
Not for a moment does the rain cease; steadily and stubbornly it falls
now, swamping us and penetrating our clothing. One of the Germans
remarks to me in a tone of familiarity:
"I am freezing!"
With hands in his pockets, elbows pressed close to his sides and
shoulders hunched up, he is shivering while lounging at ease.
The minutes drag slowly by. At daybreak the Colonel appears, his
cavalry cloak stiff and heavy with mud. About a dozen prisoners are
brought before him. I bring mine up also. The electrician will not
leave my side, but clings to me desperately in a renewed access of
terror, haunted probably by a vision of himself back to a wall facing
a dozen levelled rifles, ready at word of command to place a dozen
bullets through him.
There is a junior officer among the prisoners, whose lips and chin are
hidden by a curly beard. He understands a few words of French, and, as
the Colonel questions him, he stares directly back at him through
slitted eyes and answers:
"Yes, monsieur."
"Not monsieur, but Colonel!"
The words, uttered in a sharp voice, are accompanied by a meaning
glance. The Boche flinches as though he had received a cut from a
stirrup leather. He draws himself up, arms to the body, shoulders
squared, stiffly at attention.
Captain C----, who is present, turns to me:
"I do not think I shall need you any longer. Do not wait, but try and
find your captain and the rest of your company."
(Censored)
Hardly have we set out on the march, when a few shots sing over us.
Quick volleying succeeds, until the crackling of rifles again covers
the whole plain.
"They are starting again, Lieutenant," says Chabeau.
It is true; they are starting again, and, what is more, as hard as
they are able to. "Fire on and always, my Boches," I murmur, "that is
what you are best fitted for. You dared attack us hand to hand and man
to man, only under the cover of night, and even for that you paid
dearly, as you well know!"
I catch sight of a line of men, some thirty or so, away to the left.
They represent, apparently, all that survive of a section. They are
moving swiftly forward, stooping instinctively beneath the hail of
lead. At the head of them marches an officer, slim built, bearded, yet
of boyish appearance. Is it not Porchon?
I strike across towards him with all speed. I am certain now it is no
other than Porchon. And he also has seen me and is approaching me. He
is the first to utter the very question on my own tongue:
"Do you know where the Captain is?"
"No! Are you also looking for him?"
"And you! Then let us march together, old fellow."
We range our men in skirmishing formation and set off. All the while
the bullets are whistling and spattering about us. Chancing to turn my
head to one side, I suddenly detect an officer, sitting, the sodden
ground notwithstanding, in the middle of a field. As he catches my
eye, he waves his arm. I have an idea that he is shouting to us, but
the infernal noise prevents me hearing what he says. I take a few
steps in his direction, unexpectedly to find it is the Colonel.
Turning to Porchon I shout the news aloud:
"It is the Colo! I am going to see what he wants ... look after my
men, will you? ... you understand?... Take my men.... Can you hear
me?..."
He nods swiftly, turns and continues steadily on his way towards the
rising, beyond which one can hear the noise of hard fighting.
Saluting, I present myself to the Colonel.
"Second-Lieutenant of Reserve."
He nods, smiling, and glances towards a puddle metamorphosed
temporarily into a muddy fountain by a bullet.
"Reserve--or the Line! Ah, well, I fear bullets take no heed of such
distinctions!"
He stares at me long and fixedly, as if engaged in weighing my
invisible merit in the scales, and then explains clearly and rapidly
exactly what he expects of me.
"All my orderlies are busy on some mission or the other. I wish you to
find, without loss of an instant, Colonel G----, commanding the
brigade, and ask him, in my name, to send to me here as many men as he
can possibly spare of the --th. Tell him we are in contact with
enormous effectives, that our losses up to the present have been very
heavy, so heavy, in fact, that I am afraid my regiment is no longer
capable of holding on.
"He must be near Hill 281, a mile to the north of Marats-la-Petite. Do
everything in your power to find him, not losing a second, and impress
upon him how urgent is my necessity for immediate reinforcements."
"Very well, mon Colonel!"
With the bullets humming in my ears, I set out at a speed which sends
the mud splashing all over me, from head to foot. The old sense of
elation is upon me, impelling me forward, forgetful of the night's
happenings, impervious to fatigue--I must find the commander of the
brigade and obtain the assistance so desperately needed, from him.
There is no room for other thought than that in my brain. Happily, I
do not dwell on the weight of the responsibility thrust upon me in
this unlooked-for fashion; my burning desire is to succeed in my
mission, nothing more.
I have already started away at a run when the Colonel receives a
bullet in the forearm. With his other arm, he imperatively motions to
me to keep on my way.
Skirting the base of a steep slope, I pass through a fire zone where
the bullets in hundreds, whining and shrilling, tear up the soil all
about me. Then I encounter a group of men, standing at the foot of a
tree. There is a dying officer in the centre, supported against the
tree-bole. A glimpse I have of a dark blue tunic wide opened, of a
shirt stained with bright blood. The wounded man's head sags heavily
down to his shoulder, and in the whitened, tortured face, moist from
fearful agony, I recognize my own major.
But I must not stay!
My heart is thundering within me; there is a sharp pain between my
shoulders; there is a rending pain at the small of my back. And my
legs! Every other minute violent cramp paralyses thighs or calves,
sending me sprawling to the earth, where I lie gasping and panting for
what seem eternities, striving to fight it back. My sodden clothes
become almost fantastically heavy, and the weight is for ever
increasing. To the very tips of my fingers I feel the irregular,
violent pulsing of my arteries; my cloth-covered sword scabbard pricks
my hand.
On the top of a rising alongside the road is a road-mender's hut.
Behind it, a section of dismounted chasseurs is drawn up. It opens out
into skirmishing order and sets off briskly and confidently for the
scene of the fighting.
I take a steep declivity at full speed. Once or twice I fall full
length in the mud. Another slope is negotiated in a sitting attitude.
At the bottom of it I stumble, bruised from head to foot, into a
little wood, where some soldiers stand, waiting orders, leaning on
their rifles. Still more dismounted chasseurs! They too deploy, ascend
the slope, and march unflinchingly into the inferno. The fight rages
continuously behind me, as well as away to the left.
For the third time I encounter dismounted chasseurs, formed up in
sections. And one after another these sections breast the rising
ground, reach the summit, where for a moment they remain clean-cut and
distinct against the sky, and then plunge downwards into the heart of
the fight.
Another steep descent! I take it lying flat on my back, creating a
veritable avalanche of stones and rubble. This deposits me in a
well-sheltered, luxuriant little ravine. Almost irresistible is the
desire that springs up in me to stretch myself full length among the
fresh, fragrant grasses, to bathe my fevered face in the moisture, to
lie still there and forget.... In a panic I force myself to my feet,
afraid of losing grip!
A 77 drops neatly into the hollow and explodes at the bottom of it. I
receive a tremendous and disconcerting shock, while about me fragments
of steel and lead plough and tear up the earth.
In response to a command, some chasseurs suddenly appear at the edge
of the ravine, and roll down exactly at the point where a few moments
earlier I had descended. One of them jumps down, his legs quite stiff,
blood trickling out of one of his boots from a smashed leg.
"How pale you are," says a second-lieutenant who comes up. "Are you
wounded?"
"I don't think there is anything much the matter with me," I reply. "A
bunch of shrapnel caught me in the knapsack fortunately."
The wounds of the injured soldier are dressed. A second man lies prone
and still, a bullet through his brain.
Shells are hurrying over us now, carrying their shrill messages; a
good number burst a little before us, and the echo of their harsh,
metallic explosions is flung from one side of the ravine to the other.
At each explosion huge, torn fragments of steel fly high above us
across the sky. Columns of yellow smoke, dense and heavy, drift slowly
through the still air, until they encounter the pines whose branches
part and disperse them.
"Do you know where I can find Colonel G----?" I ask the chasseur
lieutenant.
"Not exactly! Somewhere close at hand, I think. But the major will be
able to inform you of his whereabouts."
I find the major to be quite a young man, tall, with an expression at
once frank and resolute. He listens to my mission and says:
"That is quite all right. You will find the Colonel behind that wood
there--at least he was there less than an hour ago. Some of the --th
are entrenched on that slope.
(Censored)
... "Go along, and good fortune go with you!"
I am pretty well exhausted by this time. Only some internal exaltation
sustains me. This hollow is endless ... this hill steep beyond
imagination! Up at the top some men are moving about and talking. I
tell myself to run onwards ... but all I can do for the moment is to
rest on my sword and slowly drag one swollen foot after the other. The
pain in my back has become intense. Nevertheless I must go on. One
final effort and I shall have reached my destination. Onwards!...
(Censored)
The men I totteringly approach have assumed the dimensions of giants.
They possess enormous, unbalanced bodies; they are monstrosities who
dance before my burning eyes. With a gentle, sustained power, the mud
itself seems to draw me towards them.
Forward!... But I can no longer move forward.... The light is
failing.... Ah, what an unfortunate devil I am!
Someone raises and carries me with strong, careful arms. The sensation
is good. Then some burning liquid scorches my mouth and throat, and
instantly causes me to open my eyes. Close to my face, a voice asks:
"How do you feel now?"
"It is nothing at all," I say weakly. "Fatigue! no sleep ... nothing
to eat. Been fighting all night. It is all right!"
I am lying in a trench covered with muddy straw. Near me is a
lieutenant and several men. It is the former who just spoke to me and
who presses whiskey upon me from his flask.
I look at the collar of his coat and see the number of the regiment I
have been seeking.
"Ah! So I have found you," I cried. "Is the whole regiment here?"
The abruptness of my question takes him back for a moment.
"Yes, that is so! Didn't you know?"
"I should say I didn't, seeing that I have zig-zagged all over the
countryside for you and Colonel G----. We hadn't the slightest idea
where to find you at the advance post and for hours we, unsupported,
have been at grips with more Germans than you could count in a week.
"You are wanted very badly indeed over there. Do you know where he
is--Colonel G----?"
"In this wood, I believe. He has taken up his position somewhere
before those batteries you can hear firing. It should be possible to
see him from here."
He raises himself and looks about.
"I can see him no longer, but he has been here for a long time past.
They will certainly be able to tell you over there where he is gone."
I thank him and ask before leaving: "Just one more drop of '_Gniole_,'
if you can spare it. I am very badly in want of a stiffener."
I take a long gulp of neat spirit and set off towards the 75's which
are growling together in the wood.
When I reach them I find the artillerymen absolutely overjoyed. They
are working their guns at a speed and with a precision and enthusiasm
which greatly impresses an infantryman such as I am. One has scarcely
time to perceive the small copper shells which are gallantly waging
their part in this long distance duel. They pass before the eyes in a
thin line, red and yellow, instantly to vanish into the breech, still
smoking from the last shot. And the next second the gun hurls its
shrapnel message with a report imperious and gay as though delighting
in the glory of the spurting flame and the heavy smoke drifting away
in a column. The artillery-men run, jump and gesticulate about their
gun. Most of them have flung aside their coats and rolled their
sleeves to their elbows. They are one and all in high spirits, joking
and laughing boyishly. With my mud-stained clothes, with my pale and
lugubrious face, my advent has an effect similar to that of an owl
suddenly alighting in the midst of a flock of sparrows. But their
happiness is contagious, and little by little I feel my own spirits
rising. They give me the impression that something happy has occurred.
I question a lieutenant who is marking the fall of the shells through
his glasses, shaking from head to foot the while from excitement.
"Things going well? Eh?"
He turns towards me. The joy which fills him is plainly legible in his
face. He laughs exuberantly:
"I should say they are going well. The Germans are giving
way--deserting their positions like rats a sinking ship."
He laughs once more. "Listen to our 75's! They are making them dance
like madmen! That is the way to carry on, what? They are being kicked
in the sterns now, the swine!"
A staff captain on foot is watching the delighted gunners. He laughs
also and repeats several times in a loud voice: "Good! Very good!"
I approach him and in a few words inform him of what was befalling
half an hour ago over towards Vauxmarie on the Erize road. I repeat to
him my wounded colonel's words, indicate the course I have followed,
express my joy at having finally reached my destination, and add:
"I should, however, like to see Colonel G----, as I have been sent to
him."
The Captain pauses before he replies kindly:
"You go and get some rest now. The --th are no longer needed. Nor
will you be wanted for a little while. You have done well."
Then he informs me that my regiment has been withdrawn from the firing
line and is being re-established a little to the rear. On his map he
indicates the point of assembly and afterwards shakes me warmly by the
hand.
"_Au revoir_, young man," he says. "Sleep well, eat well, keep
yourself fit. You will want all your strength to keep fast on the
heels of the Boches."
My heart leaps within me.
"Then, Captain, we have won a great victory?"
"I do not know ... not yet. But truly it will be so if all our rascals
have progressed since Sunday as these have."
A surge of joy sweeps through me--a curious warmth, sweet, fervent and
strong. Oh, that this may be true, that it may be true! The nervous
tension under which I have laboured for hours past breaks suddenly. I
feel strangely small and weak, and am obsessed by an insane desire to
cry without constraint.
In the background, the 75's aligned along the edge of the wood
continue joyously their triumphant salvoes. But the rattle they make
now sounds queerly afar off, as though my head had been enveloped in a
thick hood of wadding. Beneath my feet the soil, strewn with wet
pine-needles, becomes elastic, enabling me to walk without effort. And
so I leave the Captain, walking slowly, already forgetful of my recent
travails, blind to the things about me.
Visions of those who are dear to me dance before my eyes. I can see
them as though in life smiling tenderly upon me. They give me a sense
of being protected, watched over, soothed. I can even hear their
familiar voices speaking rather solemnly but caressingly,
nevertheless.
"Be of good heart. It is only the passage of the cruel moments such as
those of yesterday, of to-day, and maybe those of to-morrow which,
bringing victory, shall reunite us."
(Censored)
Before rejoining my regiment I have to pass along a road leading from
one of the Marats to the other. Near Marats-la-Petite I discover a
first-aid post, and show the surgeon my back, which has become still
more painful. The post consists of a dimly-lit barn, containing
several seriously wounded men lying on straw. One could scarcely
distinguish the outlines of their bodies and could only hear their
groans emanating from the gloom. The floor was littered with pieces of
cotton wool stained with blood, dried and brown, or freshly crimson.
"You must rest," the surgeon told me. "The shrapnel has not
penetrated, but you have some really famous bruises."
I discovered my regiment bivouacked in a meadow near a stone culvert
bestriding a large ditch full of water.
Porchon is there, also the Captain.
(Censored)
Of the 5th Company there survive about 50 men only. And only a few
more of the 6th. Not a single officer remains. They were stationed
further ahead than we were that night, and the darkness, the
confusion, the rain, enabled the Boches to enfilade their trenches,
marked during the day by those large aeroplanes with the black
crosses. It was a white-handed massacre, the disgusting exploit of
assassins who stab in the back.
The Germans in question belonged to the 13th Army Corps, and were for
the most part Würtembergers. They had been made drunk with alcohol and
ether--such at least the prisoners had avowed. In the knapsacks of
some of them were found incendiary pastilles, and many of my men
assured me that they had seen a number of Germans burst into flame
from head to foot when struck by a bullet, and continue to burn like
torches.
A march across inundated fields or over roads whose puddles reflect
the wan sky. I walk in the rear of the company with the Captain, who
moves onwards with long, slow steps, his inevitable lance marking time
against the pebbles. Two prisoners march alongside us. The Captain, a
man of Lorraine, from the neighbourhood of Sarrebourg, gossips with
one of them, I with the other. He is a gardener from Esslingen, near
Stuttgart. I chat with him about these towns which I know well. A
certain confidence having been established between us, he offers me
his tin of meat. I accept it without exhibition of much pride; it is
certain he will be given something to eat to-morrow, and as for us,
maybe we shall get nothing. I divide the booty with my orderly and two
of my men. It was excellent, that meat, surrounded with a transparent
jelly. ... (Censored) ... Bread is lacking, but that does not matter.
The meat suffices to fill a void.
Halt at the edge of a wood on a slope. Dead leaves from last autumn
still lie about, and here and there are some quite freshly yellow
which the convulsion of the night has stripped from the branches.
As company after company comes up the men hail one another, laughing
and congratulating themselves on having escaped. Sitting amid the
undergrowth, they eat what they have got. Those who have been wise
enough to preserve at the bottom of their knapsacks a tin of meat have
become kings. The others roam about in their vicinity, tortured by a
covetousness which is plain in their eyes, burning with a desire to
commandeer, yet not daring so far. Fortunate, too, beyond their
fellows are those who have found in the knapsacks of captured Germans
small sweetened biscuits. Many men raid the fields, returning with
carrots and terrific turnips which they cut up with their
pocket-knives and swallow voraciously.
A night dull and cold. Lying on the bare earth of the slope, I am
constantly freezing. The stones which form my bed penetrate my flesh
and make me as uncomfortable as if I had as many wounds. A nightmare
haunts me. It concerns the loss of my flask by one of my men who
should have brought it to me filled with water, but whom I cannot find
anywhere. Deeply do I regret having teased Porchon because he left his
sword among the straw of his trench, while I contrived to save mine! I
have my sword, I have my cap, I have my knapsack, but no longer have I
my flask. And that is a loss that renders the future dark and gloomy.
Still sleeping, I recall the exquisite taste of the few drops of tepid
water I swallowed that night at Sommaisne, which were as balm to my
arid, burning throat; I recall the spirit I gulped that very morning,
and which built up anew my declining strength ... no longer a flask!
What a misfortune!
_Friday, September 11th._
"Attention! Fall in!"
We depart. Ten or so "marmites" burst behind us over a wood not very
far away. The Boches must have smelt us hidden beneath the trees.
There is just as much water in the fields as yesterday--puddles, pools
forming miniature lakes, and microscopical rivers running between
upstanding ridges.
We encounter more woods and lose our way among the dense growth,
vividly green by reason of the recent rain. We stumble through
ditches, grass-choked, and thrust a way through interlacing brambles
which push their shoots into the middle of the path. From the heart of
the wood ring out monotonously the sharp trilling and twittering of
many birds at song. Occasionally, a blackbird rises and flies before
us, but so low that it is almost able to touch the earth with its
claws; in the breeze its wings create the leaves rise and flutter.
Above our heads a break in the clouds forms a lake, blue, limpid and
deep. All is stillness and peace.
But when we leave the wood the world has become grey and depressing.
We splash across a marshy field in which guns and ammunition wagons
are drawn up, plastered with mud to the axles, and tarnished with
splashes. There are the entrails and soft skins of sheep lying in
little round piles in the puddles. Bones are scattered about, to which
fragments of rain-washed meat are still attached, and they serve to
give the bare field the semblance of a charnel-house. A road crosses
it, shining with stagnant water and bordered until lost to sight by
dejected-looking trees. And over this unelevating prospect, leaden
rain-laden clouds hang low and drift one into the other, until the
little lake of blueness is completely veiled from view.
We are at Rosnes. It is a village alongside the road. It serves to
make me think rather pathetically of all those houses which have not
yet suffered bombardment, of those barns even, which contain hay, hay
soft and fragrant, in which one can find warmth and comfort.
We leave Rosnes behind us and, marching easy, slowly ascend a steep
rising, finally to arrive on a plateau covered far and near with thick
growth. The breeze passing over it gives it the appearance of a
mysterious and noisome pond whose icy surface is ruffled by autumn
winds.
At Captain C----'s invitation, a meeting of officers takes place. It
is he who, at Gercourt, distributed the men of our detachment into
companies. And now here he commands the regiment, since the colonel
and the chief of the first battalion are wounded, and those of the
second and third are killed. It is only then I learn that for several
days past the 3rd Battalion has been commanded by the officer of
gendarmerie whom I saw on the morning of the 9th, when he ran up
shouting at us and at our major because he hesitated to throw us out
over a bare plain swept by machine-gun fire. He had died
magnificently.
Captain C---- addressed us in his unimpassioned voice. He congratulated
us and told us he relied on each one of us. We were worn out, but it
was necessary to keep going and preserve appearances before the men,
in order to maintain their courage so long as the present hard times
continued; to prevent them, by the exhibition of our own energy and
enthusiasm, from succumbing to the temptation of grumbling and
complaining.
From the expression of the faces about me, from the serenity legible
in each man's eyes, I gathered we were all ready to face the future,
whatsoever it might contain. It almost seemed we leaned on each other
for support, true brothers by the common faith within us. A grace
exalted and fortified us.
Thus my captain became my battalion chief and Porchon my company
commander. I was well content, because the passage of each day had
brought Porchon and myself nearer each other. I know him to-day to be
a man open and frank to the last word, ambitious to show himself just,
but indulgent in all things, and brave with that simplicity which
exalts courage. Moreover, I love his good humour, his never failing
laugh, the ardent life in him. To be gay and light-hearted, to remain
so under the sharpest physical sufferings, even when devastation and
cruel death break or snatch away the men or human things about you; to
remain constant before these assaults which strike more at the heart
than at the intellect, is for a leader a hard but sacred duty. Porchon
had perhaps taught me this. No longer did I wish to deaden my senses
in order to render my task the easier. I was eager to confront all the
demands of this prodigious and unnatural world into which I had been
suddenly cast; I no longer even sought to escape those duties which
seem to lead one to certain death. And these things would be easy to
achieve if only I could attain something of that good humour which I
sedulously sought to possess as one sets out to conquer a virtue.
Porchon would assist me.
We set off together to settle the location of the trenches which our
company must construct. Our men set to work with tools obtained from a
park. The picks quickly break up the brown, heavy soil. It is raining,
but the task is not difficult. The men sing and jokes fly about--probably
because the first section has already been called up for the distribution
of rations!
They have descended towards Seigneulles, a village close at hand at
the bottom of the valley. From our position we can see the regimental
carts pointing their shafts towards us, tilted and supported on garden
fences. Further away, emerging from a lake of greenness, is a small
group of houses, and the cock on a church steeple.
Soon now along the roadside the fires begin to smoke. This evening we
are going to eat cooked meat and hot potatoes. We shall have straw for
our beds and a roof to shelter us from the wind and rain. Who cares
for to-morrow since life to-day is so good!
_Saturday, September 12th._
Heavily and dreamlessly I sleep, and awake to find myself in precisely
the same attitude as that in which I flung myself down the preceding
night. The straw wraps me in grateful warmth, rather moist, perhaps,
because the water in my saturated clothes has evaporated during the
night. Above me I can see the rafters of the roof from which dusty
spider-webs hang; for the moment I am amazed to find myself thus
snugly ensconced beneath a roof, instead of the usual branches or the
bare sky to which I have become accustomed. The rain trickles softly
and gently over the tiles. The sound intensifies my sense of comfort,
and it pleases me to think that I have slept in warmth and comfort,
despite the never-ceasing downpour.
But the rain exacts its revenge in the course of the day. For duty
compels us once more to climb up to the plateau to complete the
trenches commenced the day before. We find that in the night the
torrent has well-nigh filled them with liquid mud. Some sappers,
however, come to our assistance, and, thanks to them, we are able to
shelter ourselves from the worst of the downpour; they hastily
construct a thick roof of baulks of timber covered with earth.
The men work easily, flinging jests one to the other. The incidents of
the night attack are revived and acquire a totally new force by reason
of the simple words in which they are related.
"I was all right at the beginning," says Martigny, one of my men. "But
all at once, while I was still firing, down toppled a Boche right on
top of me, without so much as a "by your leave!" I was on my knees and
he lay across my calves. It's not easy to fire in such a position as
that! Little by little the weight forced my knees down into the mud;
the water rose almost up to my hands: how was I to refill my magazine?
I could not see the animal, but you can take my word for it, he was
heavy."
And a second:
"A good job for me that I was once fencing-sergeant in the regulars!
Otherwise I should not be here now. Not even time to fix my bayonet
before I found one of the ugly pigs on top of me with his skewer. I
thought to myself: 'What's all this about? But you are going to find
you can joke once too often, my Boche!' And there we were all in and
at it. I parried a thrust with the stock of my rifle, but what sort of
defence could I put up, seeing that my weapon was much shorter than
his? Only he didn't manage to get his bayonet into me!... There wasn't
even a cartridge! I tell you that Boche kept me jumping from side to
side until I felt like dying from weariness. You know what a job it is
to parry, when you can no longer feel your own fingers? Still jumping,
I said to myself: 'What in the name of glory are those asses right and
left footling about? Are they going to stand by and see me knocked
out?' Oh! but they were there all right, and it was Gillet to the
right who put a bullet into him while he was pausing to take a breath.
Then I stuck on my bayonet and filled my magazine. There were others
still coming up, you understand!"
"Sons of pigs, these Boches!" rasps a miner from the North. "And what
mugs they are too, _Mon Dieu!_ When I saw them swarming over towards
me, 'Martin,' said I to myself, 'you're done for this time!' And then:
'Hurrah!' they're off! Bang, bang, bang! And I knew no more."
"Martin, you are babbling," grunts a huge Champenois, who is smoking
his pipe and listening with eyes atwinkle. "Hammer away at the earth,
seeing that is what you were born for; but don't mix yourself up in
conversations, because you can't talk."
He spits on his hands, rubs them against each other, and taking up his
pick starts digging again with long, steady, powerful strokes.
Eight o'clock in the morning and nothing before us but a day of rest.
We do not go down to the village, however, until four o'clock in the
afternoon. Then we hastily erect temporary shelters against the
weather, building them of pointed stakes, branches and bundles of
straw. The rain sweeps down obliquely, driven by a westerly wind. Men
lie face down in the straw through which course streams of rain. Many
of them fall asleep, and when they wake after their short siesta, the
straw has left on their cheeks crimson furrows which look like scars.
The plateau, covered as it now is with little huts of straw erected in
less than an hour, has all the appearance of a gipsy encampment. The
Captain's stick thrust in the ground before one of the larger of these
shelters indicates Headquarters. He's pretty certain to be there
himself, although there are no signs either of him or of his
messengers. Through the rain-mist, indistinct figures occasionally
drift across the deserted plain without giving it life. The rain makes
them vague, colourless, almost formless. Gradually they draw away into
indistinctness, finally to disappear so abruptly as to leave one
puzzled and mystified. A second before they were visible; they are no
longer so now; and there remains only the drenched plain on which our
straw huts appear like strange unhealthy excrescences.
Between two showers, Porchon appears before me. He carries in his hand
a can in which there is something smoking and steaming. He offers it
to me with a plainly self-satisfied grin.
"A fine company, mine, what? Everything in stock you can possibly
want. Smell that, old man, and fill your nostrils well before drinking
it."
To my amazement the contents of the can prove to be cocoa, which duly
disappears. I can recall nothing since leaving the depot which has
tended to create such a sense of comfort within me, such a sense of
well-being, security and peace. Can we indeed be at war? Can one
reconcile the thought of war with steaming, boiling cocoa? My
astonishment lasts longer than the fragrant liquid.
"Where did you find that?..." I asked.
Without replying he draws from his large pockets a brandy flask, a
sausage and two pots of jam from Bar-le-Duc. These jams gave the show
away.
"I know!" I exclaimed. "You've run across a peddling grocer from Bar?"
And while speaking, a vision I had often seen on the roads at home
comes to me, and I add with a tone of deep conviction:
"He had a little wagon with oilcloth curtains, and there were bells on
the horse's collar."
Porchon's eyes opening wide told me I had guessed correctly ...
(Censored)...: "...."
In the evening we go into the village. I stroll slowly towards the
barn where my section is billeted. In the square, a group of noisy
soldiers is gathered before a house which has nothing in particular to
distinguish it from its neighbours. With much pushing and stretching
of necks they are contriving to scan a big placard stuck on the wall.
Of course, I can't be left out when there's something to be seen,
though actuated by nothing but sordid curiosity.
The first word that encounters my eyes, however, gives me a violent
shock. I can see nothing else but that word, which instantly seizes
upon my excited imagination and seems to presage things marvellous,
superhuman, incredible. The word is:
"Victory!"
It sings in my ears, that word. It echoes through all the streets, it
bursts on me like a triumphant fanfare.
"Victory!" Thrills pass through me, enthusiasm seizes upon me and
stirs me so violently as to make me feel almost sick. I feel that I am
too small to contain the emotion to which the sacred word gives rise.
"_The retreat of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd German Armies is becoming
pronounced before our left and centre. In its turn, the enemy's
4th Army is beginning to fall back to the north of Vitry and
Sermaize._"
So that is it, then! We have been progressing everywhere. We have
grappled with them, badly torn them, wounded them! Oh! that it may run
and run, that German blood, until every particle of strength shall
have streamed out of them!...
In the light of this news other things become simple and clear to me.
That endless retreat of the first days of September, those forced
marches through the heat along dusty, stifling roads--were not the
flight of a disordered army knowing itself defeated. A retreat, yes;
but step by step, and not an inch further than a line agreed upon by
our leaders. Beside this bulletin announcing victory, I find the
proclamation issued by the Generalissimo the night before the battle:
"_The moment is come when we must no longer look behind us....
It is time now to attack and drive back the enemy...._"
That was so every man among us had felt and known instinctively.
"_Die where you stand rather than give way._"
No one had read those words aloud to us at Condé in that hour when we
turned once more and faced north. But they had been in our hearts;
they had become our purpose in life and our will. Not knowing that on
the events of those days of durance depended the safety of the
country, we had nevertheless made the terrible but necessary sacrifice
lightheartedly, joyously.
Since those days, our land had been drenched with blood wherever we
had loaded our rifles or fixed our bayonets. The fragile wall of
living flesh had defied their enormous shells; their bullets could not
shatter it; and when, after an avalanche of steel, the helmeted hordes
had rushed forward to trample it beneath their feet, not all their
stubborn attacks, renewed again and again with desperate fury
throughout five long days, succeeded in creating the breach for which
they had sacrificed so much.
To-day, over towards Vauxmarie, the sappers are gathering together the
bodies of the fallen Boches lying as thickly strewn as the grass in
the fields. The corpses are taken in tens in tumbrils towards huge
pits, yawning to receive their loads of dead flesh. When the carts
arrive at the edge of these graves, they are tilted up, and the bodies
tumble out, arms and legs swinging horribly, grotesquely. And the good
earth of France swiftly hides from sight those greenish uniforms,
those decomposing faces with blinded eyes, those heavy nailed boots
which never again will trample the soil of our beloved land.
A sapper coming fresh from this scene of horror, unable to rid himself
of the soul-sickening memory of it, gave me these details. His words
bring images before my eyes which remain with me until they assume the
form of almost an hallucination. Yet nevertheless the gruesome picture
awakens in me something of a bitter pride, a fierce joy--I feel an
uncontrollable desire to shout aloud, a desire to kill still so
imperious that I have to clench my teeth to repress it.
It was as I stood before the little low-roofed Mayor's house in the
village, my eyes scanning those few lines written by some surgeon or
other, that I became the prey of one of the most intense and confusing
emotions it is possible for the human heart to experience.
Several times I walked up and down, passing and repassing soldiers
still hustling one another in their endeavours to read the
announcements. Strangely alike in appearance were they. The faces of
one and all were mud-stained and bristles filled the hollows of their
cheeks. Their blue great-coats bore traces of the dust of the road, of
the mud of the fields, of the heavy rain; their boots and gaiters had
long since acquired a permanently sombre colour; their clothes were
worn and torn at knees and elbows, and from their tattered sleeves
protruded hands incredibly dirty and hardened. Most of them appeared
wearied and wretched beyond description. Nevertheless, these were the
men who had just fought with superhuman energy, who had proved
themselves stronger than German bullets and bayonets; these men were
the conquerors. I should have liked to have told each one of them of
the sudden glow of affection which filled me for them--those soldiers
who have now won the admiration and respect of the whole world by
sacrificing themselves so grandly without thought of sacrifice,
without realizing the depth of their heroism.
To-morrow perhaps they must once again take up their knapsacks, fasten
on once more those cartridge-belts which chafe the shoulders, and go
marching for hours, despite feet that swell and burn; sleep beside
ditches full of water, eating only when the occasion presents, knowing
hunger sometimes and thirst and coldness. They will go on, and among
them not one will be found to grumble at the life before them. And
when the hour sounds to fight once again, they will shoulder their
rifles with the same easy indifference, will rush forward as eagerly
between the bursts of enemy fire, will display the same tenacity
before the mightiest efforts of the enemy. For in them dwell souls,
ever scornful of weakness, strengthened and fortified by the
conviction of victory, capable of conquering physical pain and
weariness. Oh, all of you, my brothers in arms, we are going to do
still better than we have already done, are we not?
Cries ring out from the end of the village. Men begin to run as fast
as they can towards the plateau. What can be happening--where are they
going? Suddenly I understand. Up there on the plateau I perceive a
swarm of soldiers, numbering half a battalion, perhaps. The colours of
their coats and trousers are remarkably fresh, blue and red; mess-tins
and water flasks shimmer and gleam brightly, despite the poorness of
the light. These men, in fact, are exactly as they should be for
parade; they are fresh and spick and span. They are newly-arrived
reinforcements.
Happy men, to come to war in a moment of victory, not to know the
agony of retreat before a blow has been struck, a retreat which no one
can explain! The vision of the Cuisy trenches, of a sunlit field of
fire, has never for a moment ceased to be with me during all the days
before Sommaisne. We had to retreat and we knew not why! Happy men
indeed who come to christen their weapons amid the intoxication of a
pursuit, without having had first to suffer the torture of a disaster
such as we suffered!
V
BEHIND THE CROWN PRINCE'S ARMY
_Sunday, September 13th._
"We are probably leaving Seigneulles to-day," the Captain said to me a
short while ago; "let us hope we are not going to be kept constantly
on the move again."
That hope is fervent within me, Captain! Meanwhile, what spirit of
evil tempted me to eat all day long yesterday? Those eggs which a
quartermaster of the 5th gave me were so deliciously fresh that I
pricked two holes in the shells and ate them raw. Most luscious, too,
were the contents of the gunners' frying-pan! Tender and roasted to
perfection the fowl of which the captain offered me a wing; plump the
rabbit my "fags" gently simmered over a slow fire behind our barn. But
alas! what a night I spent!
The straw pricked my hands and face and feet; it was so burningly hot,
too, that I yearned for the freshness of soft sheets, I was feverish.
My stomach felt as heavy as a huge lump of lead. At times it was
seized with strange palpitations; at others, it became as an
indiarubber ball, inflated to the last degree. When I dozed,
nightmares peopled the night, awakening me with such a start that I
bumped my head against the staves of a gigantic tub behind which I had
fixed up my bed of straw. By the time the morning came, I felt able to
sleep a little, but with the broad light of day streaming in through
the open door of the barn, there remained nothing else to do but to
get up and dress. Legs feeble, mouth pasty, head void! What a triple
fool I had been! And here I am with nothing before me but long
marches!
Still, why complain when it is my own fault? I am not yet dead of
indigestion, and to-morrow it will be gone!
I dip my nose in the miniature basin lent to Porchon and myself by the
village doctor. I do not know in what kind of a basin the amiable
doctor himself washes, but the one he has lent us is farcical. To
dissolve the grime of a week's accumulation would alone necessitate
buckets and buckets of water; and all we have is a few drops of cold
water at the bottom of a pot about as big as a thimble, and our
washing has to be done in a saucer. Happily, my orderly appears while
I am still wallowing in the midst of my woes, bearing a camp pail
filled to overflowing. I splash about to my heart's content,
indifferent to the fate of the floor, which is generously watered. My
nocturnal discomforts are soon forgotten. I feel better and am well
content.
We depart at noon. My section is drawn up before the barn, each man
with his pack on his back, his rifle grounded. No one is missing. I
inspect them to find that they have all brushed their uniforms, washed
and shaved. No speck of dust on either equipment or boots. Heads are
erect, eyes clear, everything, in fact, most pleasing and
satisfactory.
A peculiar silence invariably prevails during the last seconds before
setting off on the march. It did so on the present occasion, until it
was shattered by a sudden outburst of rifle fire in the distance. What
can that be? Is it a joke? For since the day before yesterday, we have
not even heard a single shell.
"Lieutenant, Lieutenant! Do you see it?"
Every man peers into the sky in the direction indicated by one of
them. I can see it now, a Taube, small, clear and distinct against a
cloudless patch of sky, flying directly towards us. We know their
silhouettes well by now, and though only the hum of the engine betrays
an almost invisible speck, it is not long before we call out "Boche"
or "French."
There is no question about this being Boche, and they must be firing
upon it from Rosnes or Marats-la-Grande. It is quite out of our range;
all we can do is to stand and watch. Nevertheless, every one of the
men is positively trembling from eagerness to chance a shot. One of
them, in fact, goes so far as to raise and aim his rifle, and then,
half-turning towards me:
"May I, Lieutenant, may I?"
"Don't be a fool, Godard!" I reply rather severely. "What! Fire at it
from here!"
In a hard school I have learnt to know the price of a cartridge, as
well as a horror of waste!
Some man in an adjoining section suddenly cries triumphantly:
"They have got it!"
It is true the aeroplane has oscillated a little, a very little--but
it is quite sufficient to send the men dancing with joy and shouting
from sheer delight as if they were children. As for myself, I am only
too certain that we have by no means "got it." It is still flying
quite steadily. For an instant the whole fuselage is visible; then
nothing but the tops of its wings are showing. In turning, it banks
steeply and remains suspended for a moment before vanishing from sight
behind the roof of our barn. For the men, that is sufficient. They are
one and all convinced that it has fallen, that it has crashed to the
earth, there away towards the north. I don't mind them believing it!
Forward! We march slowly across fields which are still heavy, but
which are no longer puddles, so at least we are able to keep our feet
dry. Ahead, the 8th begins to straggle, falls out of line and gets in
our way. Each time we pass an orchard, men fall out, run to the trees,
and fill their knapsacks with apples and quinces. On such occasions I
growl out:
"Fall in, confound you!..."
Finally, however, it becomes necessary for me to drop on two or three
of the looters, whom I compel to throw down their gatherings at the
foot of the tree they have robbed. One must occasionally adopt
forcible expedients to preserve some semblance of order.
_Marats-la-Grande._ We do not pass through the village. Some mounted
batteries are passing and scaling the sloping fields towards the road.
The riders are shouting and whipping their horses, already straining
at the collar. Poor beasts! So thin that one can count their ribs,
sides chafed raw by the harness, heads hanging, they strain and strain
until their laboured breathing is audible, while their large bleared
eyes speak eloquently of their sufferings.
A grave; two posts have been tied to form a cross! On the horizontal
one a deep notch has been made with a knife, revealing the white heart
of the wood. Someone has written in pencil the name of the soldier
whose body is lying in the earth, his uniform for his shroud. The
number of his regiment, his company and the date of his death, the 9th
of September, are also inscribed. Four days! Only four days ago that
decomposing something lying beneath the mound of earth was a man in
the full flood of life, hoping, perhaps, soon to be reunited to the
dear ones waiting for him. Four days!... His parents would not have
heard yet.
More graves. They are not laid out in any particular order, or even in
groups. At irregular intervals, they line the road we are following,
which is no more than a trampled-down track over fresh grass between
trees in leaf. Everywhere one can see these sad little crosses, on
almost all of which a red cap hangs. Without halting, the men read
aloud the inscriptions. The 8th of September, the 9th of September,
the 10th of September....
And here is one which is not marked with the little cross of branches.
A stake has been simply driven into the ground, bearing a burnt-in
inscription to tell passers-by the name of the dead man; on the
newly-turned earth some white stones have been arranged in the form of
a cross--they seem to protect him who lies there better and more
intimately.
Hastily-made graves, turned out with small trenching tools, how I wish
you were much deeper! Your lines suggest the shape of the body you
hide from our eyes. The rain must have soaked you these last days and
nights! But at least calm and peace are with you. The enemy is far
away, never to return. Guard well, then, your poor dead, until the day
dawns when the old men and women shall come to demand of you the
bodies of their loved ones!
We march onwards a few minutes longer and reach a bare plain studded
with shell-craters. The sun is sinking, the rays of its golden light
striking obliquely. Mutilated horses are lying about, their stiff legs
crossed or thrust up towards the sky. Their swollen sides betray the
work of putrefaction within. A viscous fluid trickles from the corners
of their mouths, which reveal their long yellow teeth; their bluish
eyes have become filmy and liquid. They are a revolting, nauseating
spectacle! I recognize the sickly, penetrating stench which always
becomes more pronounced with the approach of night and is invariably
associated with the corpses of big animals.
"Halt!" Before us is a line of trenches covered with straw. It is near
here I fell on the morning of the 10th, and the men who picked me up
sheltered me beneath a roof similar to this one. The atmosphere of
human residence is still perceptible. Its occupants cannot have been
gone long.
Rest, a prelude to settling down for the night. A final snack: the
jams from Bar emerge from our knapsacks. The men are swarming over the
plain. I watch a few of them dragging behind them some disreputable
red eiderdowns which are shedding their feathers; others are carrying
pieces of oilcloth picked up Heaven knows where; and some have become
the proud possessors of dirty coverlets full of holes.
Where on earth are they going? Two of them who were just strolling
between the pyramids of rifles have suddenly disappeared as though
they had dived from the camp. There must be a steep slope there with
some farm, or perhaps a village, at the bottom of it. Looters have
noses like bloodhounds for inhabited spots, and start at once in
pursuit. There is no cure for that disease. I study my map to find
that we are just above Erize-la-Grande. Its road and houses cannot be
a hundred yards from where I am. I dispatch a non-com. in pursuit of
the men, with orders to bring them back at once.
I leave the wet trench to walk a little in the open air before the
fall of night. A few cyclists go by, rather more elegant than
ourselves, in their short coats, knee-breeches and their puttees.
Swinging from their belts are Boche flasks covered with a cloth
coloured similarly to the uniforms we have so often seen. I regret my
own lost flask and envy the cyclists. I have recognized the man of the
5th to whom I entrusted it, but that does not carry me much further,
although I have made a mental note of him for a future occasion.
"Fall in!"
New orders have just arrived and we are to move on again.
Before leaving, I pick up a fragment of shell over which I stumbled.
It is fifty centimetres long by fifteen wide, with jagged edges like
the teeth of a saw. I contemplate this terrible thing lying heavy in
my hand. To what kind of a shell, swift and growling, must it have
belonged? This fragment must be one of those which cleanly sweep away
an arm or leg, tear off a head, or cut a man completely in two. And
holding it thus in my hand, heavy and cold, I remember a poor little
cyclist who was killed close to us in Septsarges Wood--one leg taken
away at the hip and the lower part of his abdomen laid open.
Trees and a shimmer of green on a wide road, away to the north. Night
is falling. Suddenly through the greyness we find ourselves looking
upon some ruins--we have reached Erize-la-Petite.
The entrance to the village, which is indeed little more than a
hamlet, was choked with carriages, with ploughs and horse-rakes, which
had been drawn to one side. In silence we pass before the shattered
houses. Nothing remains but the mere shells of walls and distorted
chimneys still standing above the wrecked hearths. Some charred beams
have rolled almost into the middle of the roadway; a large mechanical
mowing-machine raises its broken shaft like a stump.
The regiment defiles through the gloomy evening; our steps resound
lugubriously and violate the surrounding desolation. In a short while,
when the last section will have disappeared over the summit of the
hill, the cold and silent night will descend again on the village, and
peace shroud the poor, dead houses.
For the last time I turn and look back, glutting my eyes with this
vision of desolation. Then I resume mechanically the onward march, sad
to the point of tears, with the wan chillness of death in my heart.
Another road skirting the line which links Rembercourt with Vauxmarie
and Beauzée. In the ditches, hunched up or stretched at full length,
are human corpses. A single corpse is a rare spectacle. As a rule they
are lying huddled together as if seeking to warm each other. The
failing light reveals blue coats and red trousers; Frenchmen; more
Frenchmen, in fact nothing but Frenchmen! Judge my enthusiasm on
finding some Boches among them! I fall out several times to make sure
that these really are Boches. The foe cannot have had the time to hide
away that lot!
The night becomes black and corpses are no longer visible. But they
are always there, at the bottom of the ditches, on the slopes at the
very edge of the road. We realize their presence even in the dark. By
shielding the eyes and peering hard, it is possible to see the eerie
heaps which have lost all resemblance to that of which they are made.
Beyond all, one can smell them; the peculiar, indescribable stench is
heavy in the still evening air. The slowly moving breeze passing over
those bodies fills our noses and throats with the odour. It makes us
shudder instinctively, fearful lest that welter of putrefaction should
be communicated from them to us.
Not a word in the ranks; nothing but the regular tramp, tramp, before
and behind me; occasionally someone coughs, a little dryly, or a man
spits. That is all. It must be cold, yet my head and hands are
burning, and my will struggles to subdue an uncontrollable inclination
to turn to my right where the cool waters of the Aire, flowing by the
roadside, are betrayed by the stagnant pools under the trees.
An unexpected halt! The men bump their noses against the packs of the
file in front. Confusion and much swearing. Then quick commands:
"Quartermasters prepare rations for distribution."
It is the best of all signs. The day's march is ended. Yet for an hour
we are kept waiting on the road. The stench is worse than ever. There
are dead horses somewhere near here.
_Deuxnoux-devant-Beauzée._ We pass in turn before the ration-carts. By
the light of swinging lanterns I catch a glimpse of a bearded face,
the blade of a butcher's knife, at the end of a bare forearm, quarters
of meat, and the twinkling buttons of a greatcoat. The lantern dances
on its way; nothing remains but confused, restless forms.
Very soon, however, fires are leaping and glowing in the roadway
outside the houses. The cooks are bending over them, their
weather-hardened, highly coloured faces thrown into relief, while the
gigantic shadows they cast flit along the walls.
We mess in the house of a farmer's wife whose husband is on service.
This time last night she was waiting on German officers. She showed us
a plate containing the remains of some pickled cabbage, and exclaims:
"See, messieurs, they left such a lot behind them!"
She soon gets to work, and, propping a loaf against her ample bosom,
cuts off thick slices of new bread (new bread, mark you!). In another
moment our glasses are merry with cider brought from the cellar in a
stone jug at least two feet high.
"But are you quite sure," she asks, "that they won't return?"
I reply to her in a fashion that pleases her:
"Madam, you can bet your own child's cap upon it!"
We are well abed when there sounds a heavy knocking on the door of the
barn, which my men have already firmly closed.
"Pannechon! Pannechon! Come out, _mon vieux_!"
Pannechon is my orderly. I hear him emerging from the hay and
stumbling over sleepers who do not scruple to tell him what they think
of him.
Then the door opens creakingly. Pouf!... What a smell! It seems to be
compounded of skim-milk, rats, perspiration, and other indescribable
things. It is sharp and nauseous, and quite turns me. What on earth
can smell so vilely? All at once the stench revives an old memory;
brings back to my mind the picture of one of the Boche "assistant's"
rooms at the Lakanal Lyceum. I used to go there from time to time to
wile away an hour or so, and, at the same time, to acquire fluency in
his language. This was in the course of a remarkably hot summer, and
he used to take off his coat and vest and put himself at his ease, so
that when I opened the door that same stench struck me in the face,
seized me by the throat, as it were. He used to grin, half of his
fatuous face hidden by tortoise-shell spectacles and greet me with his
heavy, guttural tones:
"_Mon Ongle Penchamin!_ Splendeed, splendeed! And so teepigally
Vrench!"
I remember I used to push my chair as far back as possible, until, in
fact, my back was against the wall, and finish up by saying:
"Let us go out into the park, shall we? We shall be able to breathe
better out there than here."
Ah, well! Destiny decrees that I shall now sleep amidst this
oppressive smell of Germans, stretched out on the hay in which they
have sheltered. Bah!... It's a dear price to pay for recovery of
possession!
"Pannechon! What on earth's this?"
I seize the corner of a piece of cloth protruding from the straw. I
pull it out and find it to be a greyish-green mantle with a red
collar.
"Pannechon, pitch that outside!"
I stretch myself out, cover myself with my greatcoat and close my
eyes. Hullo! What is this poking my side!
I thrust my hand into the hay and feel something hard with many
corners. Patient investigation reveals a lacquered toilet-box with a
mirror under the lid, a cheap and nasty gewgaw.
"Pannechon! Pitch that out too."
Sleep now. No, not yet! Just one more find--a tin of metal polish.
Happily it is the last. I draw my greatcoat well up over my eyes and
stretch myself out luxuriously. It is warm, it is good, and there is
nothing at all to grumble at. Until to-morrow, and then the Boches!
_Monday, September 14th._
It is raining, of course. The march beneath this sad and watery sky is
going to be a detestable one. I resign myself in advance to a day of
saturation.
Resignation indeed is difficult of attainment when one knows, as we
do, the increase of our sufferings the rain involves: the heavy
clothes; the coldness which penetrates with the water; the hardened
leather of our boots; trousers flapping against the legs and hindering
each stride; the linen at the bottom of the knapsack--that precious
linen, the feel of which against one's skin is a sheer delight--hopelessly
stained, transformed little by little into a sodden mass on which
papers and bottles of pickles have left their stain; the mud that
spurts into one's face and covers one's hands; the confused arrival;
the night all too short for sleep passed beneath a coat that freezes
instead of warming; the whole body stiff, joints without suppleness,
painful; and the departure with boots of wood which crush the feet
like the torture-shoe. Hard, indeed, is resignation!
As yesterday we march between two lines of French corpses. They seem
to be dressed in new clothes, so much rain has fallen on them. It is
perhaps a week since they fell. Their flesh, swollen by decomposition,
has attained enormous dimensions; they have legs and arms of
tremendous size, yet curiously short, and their clothes are stretched
to bursting over their inflated bodies. Men of line regiments, then
Colonials. The dead we passed previously were lying face downward;
these have been raised and propped against the slope facing the road,
as though to watch us pass. Their faces are blackened, their lips
large and swollen. Many of our men, taking them to be negroes,
exclaim: "Hullo! These are Turcos."
I have a particularly vivid recollection of one of those poor dead by
the roadside. He was a captain of the Colonials. They had made him
kneel on the grass by forcibly bending his legs beneath him; one of
his legs had gradually bent back and was stretched out in front of
him, giving one the impression that the man was about to throw himself
forward, as if in some erratic dance. His body was turned sideways,
but his head craned rigidly forward, and his eyes were fixed on the
road in a vacant stare. But what struck me most was his moustache,
light and curly and altogether charming. Beneath it the mouth was no
more than two purple pads of flesh. That fair ladies'-love moustache
on a putrefying face was a heartrending spectacle.
Come! Head erect and fists clenched! No more of that weakness that a
moment ago assailed me. We must look unmoved on these poor dead and
seek from them the inspiration of hate. It was the Boche in his flight
who dragged these sorry things to the side of the road, who arranged
this horrid spectacle for our express benefit, and we must never rest
until the brute has drunk our cup of vengeance to the dregs.
Impotent and childish is the fury that only inspires us with rage and
the passion for vengeance instead of fear, as our foe hopes and
believes.
Besides, every step forward now presents us with eloquent testimony of
the completeness of the defeat they have suffered--helmets torn and
pierced by our bullets, crushed and shattered by our shells; rusty
bayonets; broken cartridge-belts, still full. To the left of the road
in the fields are some overturned ammunition wagons and gun-carriages
in pieces, the horses lying dead in a heap. In the ditch is the
carriage of a shattered machine-gun; one can see the hole made by the
shell--a 75. What a state the gun on that carriage must have been in!
And the machine-gunners? At the bottom of the hole! Ammunition belts
of coarse white canvas lie coiled in puddles.
We pick up some boots full of rain-water. I wonder whether the men
from whom we took them walked barefooted through the mud merely for
pleasure? In another hole we find the men themselves. Further on again
we encounter crosses bearing German inscriptions. Here then are the
Ottos, the Friedrichs, the Karls, and the Hermans! Each cross bears
four, five and even six names. The Germans were in a hurry; they
buried their men in bunches.
A cross higher than the others attracts and holds our attention; it
bears no more than three words deeply carved in big capitals:
ZWEI DEUTSCHE KRIEGER.
Is there still another challenge hidden behind this? If so, it is
obscure. For who killed you, you two German soldiers?
Over the trampled roadway, newspapers, postcards and letters flutter.
I pick up a photograph on the back of which a woman has written a few
lines:
"My Peter, it is a long time since we received any news from you
and we are naturally very anxious. I think, however, that very
shortly you will be able to tell us of still further victories and
that you will return in glory to Toelz. What a fête you shall have
then...." And then further on: "The little one has grown and is
becoming quite strong. You could never imagine what a little
treasure he is. Do not be too long in returning, or he will not be
able to recognize you."
Sad enough, indeed, is it not? Whose, however, is the fault? Remember
our dead of a short while ago; remember the captain flung almost
across the road. What has he done, of what is he capable, this Peter,
this German whose photograph shows him with lowered face, cold eyes,
heavy-jawed, resting his hand on the back of a chair on which his wife
is seated, smiling but negligible? Pity at such a moment would shame
us. Let us harden our hearts and keep them hard until the end comes.
_Saint-André._ On a hillock just beyond the village we come upon
the remains of a dressing-station. The site is marked by a fine
confusion. Red-haired cowhide cases scattered about, all yawning and
emptied of their contents; bayonets in their black sheaths; severed
cartridge-belts; helmets without their spikes; linen torn and stained
with mud and blood; packages of dressings by the hundred; pieces of
cotton wool saturated by the rain lying in the middle of tiny
blood-stained pools. The great trees rising above the hillock seem to
be contemplating this sad chaos, while the rain drips from their
branches softly and unceasingly.
We pass before Souilly. A windmill for raising water spreads its giant
sails fanwise over a huge grey metal armature. Some silent houses
which have escaped the shells: the melancholy of deserted houses which
is almost as poignant as the sadness that clings to ruins.
A halt under the rain and quarters at Sivry-la-Perche, in a barn with
green doors like all those on the Meuse. Rifles are piled on the
threshing-floor, knapsacks hung on the pegs. The granary dominates the
neighbourhood and is full of hay and straw. So lofty is it, that the
walls become lost to sight in the darkness before meeting the rafters.
_September 15th-17th._
Yet one more long march, this time straight across the entrenched camp
of Verdun. Thierville is our nearest point to the citadel. Beneath a
rainy sky, crossed by light clouds, lies Verdun, marked by its
barracks with their roofs of coloured tiles, and the aviation field
with its white hangars, and the towers of its cathedral rising high
above trees and houses.
All the surrounding villages are alive with troops. Many questions are
flung about as we pass through. Many of the men rush to the public
fountains whose water flows into a stone basin, swallow a quart or so
in long gulps, and fill their flasks. The weight of my own flask at my
belt gives me a sense of comfort--it is a German flask which Pannechon
brought me yesterday, and which I have duly appropriated.
The Meuse. Cattle in the meadows. Then Bras and afterwards Vachérauville.
Three weeks only have elapsed since I passed along this self-same
road. Is it credible? It is a fact, nevertheless, although I find it
difficult to convince myself of the reality of it. For what have I not
experienced in the way of new and intense sensations, what a richness
of impressions I have acquired, what dangers run? How altogether
undreamed of has that life been! Confusion about me and within me;
then habit swiftly succeeding the chaos of the early days. Three weeks
only since I passed along this road, a very raw recruit, and now here
am I a seasoned soldier.
We rested the night at Louvemont, a dirtier village than all the dirty
villages we have come across so far. We are able to obtain milk, white
cheese and a few small pots of honey. These things at least aid us to
digest the anathemas Captain C---- has showered upon us since our
arrival, because we have dared openly to display one or two signs of
weariness.
We spend a doubtful, uncertain day at Louvemont. Some heavy batteries
behind the village keep firing at regular intervals, sending their
heavy shells whizzing high above our heads. The Germans do not reply.
For several hours we were in the fields--no one knew why--engaged
in apparently aimless manoeuvres in open formation as if under
curtain-fire. Did a cautious prudence dictate this course, or were our
actions consequent upon certain information received? One thing at
least is certain, and that is that in the evening, shortly after we
had returned to the village, a dozen or so 'crumps' were sent over to
us. One of them struck a house on the opposite side of the road at the
moment we were sitting down to dinner. It smashed the roof--one could
hear that distinctly--passed into the house, smashed a chair on which
the regimental doctor had placed his tunic, and finally embedded
itself in the wall without exploding. The doctor was not in the house
at the time; but when he returned it was to find the copper fuse of a
large 150 directly pointing towards his bed. He went out and sought
more comfortable quarters.
We left the village this morning. In the first place we took up a
position in line of sections of four among some stunted acacias
covering the side of a stony ravine.
I was seated near Porchon, so exhausted and weary that from time to
time I sank involuntarily against his shoulder. My brain seemed to
have become pap, and my inability to think caused me almost physical
pain. A single tenacious impression remained in my mind--the pursuit
was ended; somewhere near here the Boches had turned, and now I must
fight once more, notwithstanding this breakdown of body and mind. I
felt most miserably lonely, which loneliness brought in its train a
black despair I simply could not resist. Not a letter had I received
from my people since the day I first set out, not a word of affection,
nothing, nothing at all. And they, too, what could they know of me?
Had they received the cards, scribbled in haste between the
bombardments, or at the side of the road during a halt, or written in
the evening in the barn, by the light of a flickering candle? They did
not know in what part of the world to look for me. I had been in the
battle, but they remained completely ignorant as to what had occurred
to me in that battle. Anxiety would have racked them throughout these
long and interminable days; and I, who would prefer death a thousand
times to complete solitude, was deprived of their affectionate news so
essential to my well-being.
That evening we were told off for outpost duty at the edge of a wood,
and before me lay two atrocious days of suffering and discouragement;
two days the memory of which I hope will fortify me against any future
trials, seeing that I had sufficient strength on that occasion to hold
on and not disgrace myself.
_Saturday, September 19th._
Forty hours we pass in a ditch full of water. The improvised roof of
branches and straw soon lets all the rain through. Since then we live
in the midst of a torrent.
Motionless, and packed tight together in cramped and painful
attitudes, we shiver in silence. Our sodden clothes freeze our skin;
our saturated caps bear down on our temples with slow and painful
pressure. We raise our feet as high as we can before us, but often it
occurs that our frozen fingers give way, letting our feet slip down
into the muddy torrent rushing along the bottom of the trench. Already
our knapsacks have slipped into the water, while the tails of our
greatcoats trail in it.
The slightest movement causes pain. I couldn't get up if I wanted to.
A short while ago the adjutant attempted to do so; the effort wrung a
cry from him, so keen were the pains in his knees and back; and then
he sank down on top of us before slipping back into the hole in the
mud his body had made, and resuming his former huddled attitude, which
had caused his ankles to stiffen.
Nowadays I find it difficult to recall all that befell in the course
of those two days; memory is veiled and dim. It is as though I had
lived in an atmosphere of numbness in which all light and beauty were
but dead things. An intense pain about my heart, never moving,
rendered me almost delirious.
I remember that we remained for a long time hidden in a large thicket.
My section was stationed near the battalion horses, which had been
picketed together. Every time they moved, branches broke and fell. And
most certainly it was raining, there could be no doubt of that; for
long afterwards the eternal pitter-patter of rain on the leaves
remained in my ears. Afterwards, I do not know how long, we set out on
the march.
Almost insensibly a depressing evening settled down over fields and
woods. Before us were extended the columns of infantry, clinging like
ants on the side of the bare slope. Above us, the smoke balls of
shrapnel, soft and pale, hung in the air. This shrapnel gave no
warning of its approach, and shells burst with an abrupt snap which
found no echo over the dull countryside. A deserted farm to the left
had been stripped of its reddish tiles, which lay smashed to pieces on
the earth. A horseman was moving slowly towards this farm, his head
covered by the hood of his cloak; his horse seemed merely to glide
onwards, strangely silent. The stillness was portentous, almost
tangible.
We passed a night in another trench in reserve, where we are at
present. Five or six of us in a bunch hung over a few damp pieces of
wood we had collected in the hope of being able to make a fire; the
sticks smoked but refused to burst into flame. I recollect that I was
obsessed by a feverish and loquacious gaiety; I scorned my own sad
condition and laboured tremendously to prevent myself giving way to
the fever running riot in my veins. This lasted some time, and so
nervous was I, so disordered was my speech, that those about me
watched me queerly and significantly. The moment came when my
ill-timed jests became an insult to the general depression. I fell
silent then, and resignedly delivered myself up to that dumb despair
which had been dogging my heels for days, waiting only the opportunity
to enter into its kingdom.
The monotonous, incessant tapping of the rain on the leaves of the
trees was in itself maddening. The sticks in the brazier hissed and
spluttered. There was a single spark, a faint glow among the cinders,
which I watched desperately.
In the morning firing was heard in the direction of the outposts. The
Captain sent me with two sections to reinforce them. We marched in
single file, slipping on the greasy clay, falling every few steps;
laboriously climbing on hands and knees a little ascent which, but for
the mud, I could have taken in a couple of strides.
Arriving at our destination, we were compelled to seek shelter behind
the trunks of trees, for all along the edge of the wood bullets were
whistling. There were no trenches and the men were lining a ditch,
standing in the water with their knapsacks before them.
The rain did not cease. It flooded the vast ploughed lands, where here
and there groups of walnut trees seemed to huddle shiveringly
together. Two German vedettes posted before a wood facing ours seemed
like two stone statues. Shortly afterwards infantry emerged from the
wood and advanced over open ground, as dark as the soil itself, and
scarcely visible. We killed several of them and they went back
hastily, abandoning their dead.
Still the bullets continued to whistle. From time to time a cry burst
from one of the men in the ditch, and he would come into the wood
towards us, both hands pressed against his chest or staring at the
blood dripping from his fingertips with wide, terrified eyes. At last
the firing ceased and calmness reigned.
We returned into reserve, carrying one of my corporals who was wounded
in the groin by a bullet that had passed right through it. That was a
difficult journey over the muddy roads! The wounded man groaned
feebly, his arms passed around the necks of two of his comrades, his
head swaying, his face livid. Once the men carrying him slipped and
fell to their knees, and the agonized cry which broke from the
sufferer echoed in my ears long after it had died to silence.
The night was like the preceding one; a silent, palpitating wait, the
minutes as long drawn as hours; incessantly yearning for the dawn
which never appeared. I grew gradually drowsy, and at length fell
asleep in a heap on a comrade. He violently thrust me off, swearing
savagely; I did my best to express my resentment. A little later,
sudden anguish caused me to jump to my feet. I had upset the brazier,
by this time almost extinct, and I had placed my hand on a few still
glowing fragments of wood.
The rain continues to fall.
It is daylight now. We have just eaten a morsel or two of cold meat,
wet and stale, as well as a few green potatoes found in one of the
fields and partially cooked in patches beneath the cinders. We have
been promised relief in the evening, but I am in such a condition now
that I hope for nothing. Things have become very vague and
ill-defined. I imagine that we must have been where we are at present
for a very, very long time. We have been sent here; we have been
commanded to remain here; and we have been forgotten. It is quite
simple. No one will come. No one could come to replace us at the edge
of this wood, in this ditch, beneath this rain. Never again shall we
see snug houses with a bright fire in the grate, or well-built barns
filled with hay which never gets wet. Never again shall we undress to
stretch our cramped limbs and rid them of this terrible iciness. And
what good would it be if we could? My clothes, stiff with mud, the
puttees crushing my legs, my hardened boots, the straps of my
equipment, have not all these things become part of me and of my
sufferings? They are me! The water which first saturated my skin runs
now in my very veins. What am I indeed but a muddied mass swamped with
water, cold to the very heart, cold as the straw which covers us, cold
as the trees on which each leaf rustles and shivers, cold as the very
earth of the fields, which little by little is dissolving beneath the
flooding rains?
Yesterday perhaps there was still time. Then we could have regained
grip of ourselves, compelled our wills to resist. But to-day the evil
has gone too far, has progressed beyond all hope of reparation. It is
too late. It is not even worth the trouble of hoping for....
_Sunday, September 20th._
"By the way, old man, when will you have finished with the whole of
the blanket?"
Since we got into bed that is the third time Porchon has passed that
same remark. I ignore him, most properly, striving hard to make my
feigned snores sound regular and natural.
"Here, you blockhead, here! When the deuce will you stop bagging all
the blanket?"
The beast persists! He is asking for it and gets it!
"Dry up--you're a nuisance! Take your beastly blanket, roll yourself
in it, swelter in it, take it all for yourself, only leave me alone to
sleep in peace!"
Porchon contrives to remain silent for at least a minute; then, in a
sleepy voice:
"I say!"
"Well, what is it now?"
"It is a bit better here than in the Haumont Wood, what?"
"Rather!"
"Better even than the barn at Louvemont, don't you think?"
"Naturally!... But say, old man, don't you think we had better go to
sleep?"
Two minutes later and Porchon is snoring. But no longer is there sleep
for me. Scenes and memories have been evoked and flit across my mind
to keep me constantly wakeful. What devil of mischief prompted the
idiot to mention those things? He has set the machine working and now
there is no stopping it!
And so in memory I live again through bad days, nightmare days--the
_réveil_ in the furious, stinging rain; the arrival at Louvemont,
that indescribable village little better than a sewer. I had gone over
to the quarters of the adjoining section because before their barn a
little chimney-piece had been erected with some paving stones. There
had been a fire of flaming logs, hissing and spluttering. We had
stripped ourselves to the waist to let the grateful warmth of the
flames play on our chests and backs and shoulders. Sitting on a bundle
of straw we had found an old, white-bearded soldier, dreaming. I had
gone up to him and said:
"Hallo, M----! So you are better! Beginning to feel alive once again,
eh?"
"Oh, yes, Lieutenant. But it has been a hard pull, a very hard
pull!..."
And he had repeated in a low voice, as though experiencing again
hardships still recent: "Very hard!"
Poor old man! He had gone through the campaign of '70 as a volunteer,
and since those days had lived outside France. For thirty years, I
believe, he acted as a notary in California, until the very day, in
fact, which had brought this war upon us. Then, when France was once
more attacked and menaced, he had flung everything aside and had come
back to shoulder his rifle. He had described himself as being robust,
smart and well able to endure any hardships. They had accepted his
statement and sent him up to face the Boches with the first batch of
reinforcements. He had joined up with us in the woods at the very
moment we were setting out for those nightmarish advance posts; those
two terrible succeeding days were the first of his service. Poor old
man!--and he was sixty-four years of age!
The following night Pannechon had made me up a deep and fragrant bed
of hay, just before I set out for mess. Dinner ended, I returned to
the barn, humming softly to myself, and enjoying in anticipation a
night of warmth and slumber. I entered the barn and stumbled in the
dark. Good, here's the ladder!... One, two, three steps--the bed
should be here! Groping about, I felt my revolver case and linen bag;
then my hands encountered not the hay bed, soft and rounded, but a
firm, extended and rather rough surface. What in the name of the
mysteries could this be? A voice, muffled by the hay, enlightened me
with disconcerting abruptness:
"Eh, my friend! when you have quite finished exploring my back,
perhaps you will tell me what it is you want!"
One of my poilus had found the bed so inviting that he had
appropriated it. Of course, when he discovered my identity, he flooded
me with fantastic excuses. However, we spread the bed out a little and
slept soundly beside each other for eight hours on end.
That morning we had moved on a short distance, via Douaumont, Fleury,
Eix, across a countryside covered either with mud or trees, dominated
by the forts with their grass-grown glacis and cupolas. We had crossed
the line from Verdun to Conflans, marching ankle-deep in wet
coal-dust. Before a smoke-blackened house at the barrier some enormous
girasols thrust forth their yellow and black corollæ, their colours
rendered more brilliant by the recent rain. We passed some squads of
territorials with their tools on their shoulders, artillerymen from
the big fortresses, slow-moving country wagons laden with forage,
tree-trunks and wine casks. Wooden huts had been erected along the
roadside, each of which had a name inscribed on it, such as: Happy
Villa; The Good Children's Castle; Villa Piccolo, etc. Verses adorned
some of them, not of high poetical attainment, but something after
this fashion:
"You never see us weeping here--
Often you'll see us drinking beer.
War may not be the best of fun,
But we'll stick it till we've smashed the Hun!"
Some of these cabins were constructed of logs and roofed with pine
branches, the most thickly-tufted ones, of course. The points of the
spikes were turned downwards to prevent the rain trickling through to
the layer of thatch below. The huts, erected at the owners' caprice,
were much scattered, and followed the meanderings of the rising ground
to the summit of a slight elevation dominating the road to the right.
The doors, wide opened and yawning, revealed a dark, mysterious space,
and made it appear almost as if the side of the slope was riddled with
fathomless holes, while the bundles of brushwood made irregular green
blots, clear and bright in the neighbourhood of the roadway, growing
darker and vaguer as they approached the elevation, finally to vanish
completely amid the undergrowth.
At length we arrived at Moulinville, where the quartermaster
discovered an empty house, not yet too filthy for habitation, because
the owner of it, on mobilization, had been stationed close
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