THE LAST LAP
On every side the results of long marches were only too plain. Spirits
were damped. There were fewer songs, and no jokes. The men were not by
any means "downhearted," and would rather have died than admit that they
were depressed, but the brightness was all rubbed off, and a moroseness,
a dense, too-tired-to-worry taciturnity had set in that was almost
bullet-proof.
Although the familiar sounds of artillery boomed away quite close to
them they were not deployed, and when it was dark they bivouacked along
the side of the road.
That night the Colonel addressed the Officers at some length. "The old
man" always had an impressive way of speaking, and darkness and
overwrought nerves doubtless magnified this. He spoke in subdued tones,
as if awed by the intense silence of the night.
We all could tell where we were, he said--a few miles east, or even
south-east by east of the French Capital. Our base, Havre, lay to the
north-west, with the enemy in between. It was unnecessary to say
anything further. The facts spoke for themselves. The British Army was
up against it, none could tell what would happen next. One duty,
however, was self-evident, and that was to watch the food-supply.
Things were going to be serious. Henceforward the army was to be on half
rations, and he knew what that meant. He had been on "half rations" in
the South African War, and he had seen a man give a franc for a dirty
biscuit, and he knew what it was for soldiers on active service to be
hungry. He ordered us, he begged and prayed them, to spare no energy in
stopping waste of any description, and making their men realise the
gravity of the position. No Officer was in future to draw any rations
from the Company Cookers, and the Mess Sergeant had somehow procured and
victualed a mess-cart.
That night must have been the most fateful night in the history of
France. All the world was watching with bated breath, watching to see
whether France was really a "back number"--whether the Prussian was
truly the salt of the earth. If Paris fell, the French Armies in the
field were cut off from their base; defeat was certain, and the national
history of France, or, at any rate, the glory of it, would be stamped
out for ever under the Kaiser's heel. The fate of France was in the
balance, and also the fate of the Russian Armies. If Paris fell, Europe
might be as much the slave of Prussia as it had been a century ago of
Napoleon. As for England, if her Fleet could master the German, well
and good. But, if not....
It looked as if the enemy were within an ace of victory. He had flooded
Belgium and Luxembourg with his armies, and, at the first clash of arms,
had hurled everything before him in a manner which to the civilian must
have appeared terrible in its completeness. Several times had the
defenders apparently attempted to stand, and as many times had they been
hurled with even greater violence southwards. And now, before the
campaign was a month old, the enemy were within an ace of the most
complete victory of modern times. Many men will never forget that
night--men on either side with high commands.
How the Kaiser must have chuckled when the French Cabinet left for
Bordeaux! Bombastic phrases were perchance chasing themselves through
his perverted mind. How fine he would look at Versailles, strutting
about the Hall of Victories. He would sleep in the bed of the "Grand
Monarque"--and in Les Invalides how he would smile at the tomb of
Napoleon! Perhaps his statesmen were that very night drafting the terms
of peace that a crushed adversary would be only too thankful to accept.
His day had come at last! Henceforward how he would laugh at Democracy
and Socialism. He would show them that he was master. The best weapon in
all the world was sudden, bloody war. He would show his people that he
was their Master, their Salvation, their War Lord. He was the greatest
man in history, so he thought that night.
There may come a time when he will realise that, after all, he was only
the most contemptible and pitiable. But that is by the way.
His Generals could not have been so sure. They must have seen the
exhaustion of their men. Von Kluck must have already felt the weight of
the army, rushed out of Paris by General Galliéni, that threatened to
envelop his right flank. Von Heeringen must have realised that the
offensive was being wrenched from his grasp. And the Crown Prince was
throwing himself in vain upon the forts of Verdun and Nancy.
That night, too, somewhere behind the French lines, a man of very
different stamp from the Kaiser was putting the final touches to the
preparations of the greatest counter-attack in History. He knew that the
enemy had literally overstepped his lines of communications, was
exhausted, and nervous of failure so far from his bases. He knew that as
long as de Castelnau clung on to the heights around Verdun, his centre
and left were safely hinged upon a fortress under cover of which he
could launch his counter-offensive with all the weight of his now
completely mobilised reinforcements. Moreover, the army that had hurried
pell-mell from Paris in taxicabs, in carts, in any form of conveyance
that the authorities could lay hands upon, was now completely
established on the left of the British, and if Von Kluck, lured on by
the prize of Paris, pushed on, he would be outnumbered on his front and
very seriously menaced on his right, and disaster would be certain.
Not that the Subaltern knew or cared much for these things. He and his
men were past caring. Continuous retreat had first evoked surprise, then
resentment, then, as fatigue began to grip them like a vice, a kind of
dull apathy. He felt he would not have cared whatever happened. The
finer emotions of sorrow or hope or happiness were drugged to
insensibility. With the exception of odd moments when, absolutely
causelessly, wild anger and ungovernable rage took possession of him and
seemed to make his blood boil and seethe, he seemed to be degenerating
into the state of mind commonly attributed to the dumb beasts of the
field--indifferent to everything in the wide world except food and
sleep.
That night a draft commanded by one Subaltern arrived to fill up the
gaps.
The next day the retreat continued. The men's nerves were tried to
breaking-point, and a little detail, small and of no consequence in
itself, opened the lock, as it were, to a perfect river of growing anger
and discontent.
This was how it happened. The Colonel had repeated the previous night
the order about looting, and the men were under the impression that if
any of them took so much as a green apple he would be liable to "death
or some such less punishment as the Act shall provide." They talk about
it and grumble, and then suddenly, without any warning except a
clucking and scratching, the Mess Sergeant is seen by the greater part
of the Battalion to issue triumphantly from a farm gate with two or
three fat hens under his arms. Smiling broadly, totally ignorant of the
enormity of his conduct, he deposits his load in the mess-cart drawn up
to receive the loot!
The men did not let the opportunity slip by without giving vent to a lot
of criticism.
The Subaltern's ears tingled at the remarks that he heard. Never in his
life had he felt so ridiculous.
Luckily, another similar incident relieved the situation, shortly
afterwards. During a few minutes' halt, a cow near the road stood
gazing, with that apathetic interest peculiar to cows, at the thirsty
men. It was not for nothing, as the French say, that one of the
reservists had been a farm hand. He went up to the cow, unfastening his
empty water-bottle as he went, and calmly leant down and began to milk
the neglected animal until his bottle was full. It was not in itself a
funny proceeding, but there was something about the calmness of both the
cow and the man, and something about the queerness of the occasion, that
appealed to the sense of humour of the dourest old Puritan of them all.
They laughed, they roared, they shouted, in a way that reminded the
Subaltern of the last "soccer" season.
The noise must have mystified the pursuing Uhlans not a little.
But the laugh did not last long on their lips. Directly afterwards they
swung into a road already occupied by a train of refugees. After the
sight of a good strong man struck down in his strength, this, perhaps,
was the saddest sight of the whole war. How miserable they were, these
helpless, hopeless people, trailing sadly along the road, the majority
with all they had saved from the wreckage of their homes tied in a
sheet, and carried on their backs. Some were leading a cow, others
riding a horse, a few were in oxen-driven wagons. They looked as if they
had lost faith in everything, even in God. They had the air of people
calmly trying to realise the magnitude of the calamity which had
befallen them, and failing.
Here and there the Subaltern thought he saw a gleam of reproach in their
faces. It hurt him not a little. Only a few days ago the British had
been advancing, as they thought, to certain victory. All had been
sunshine, or at any rate hope. How the villagers had shouted and cheered
them! How the women had wept with sheer joy, and shy young girls had
thrust flowers into their buttonholes! What heroes they had felt
swinging forward to meet the enemy, to defend the homes of their friends
and Allies, and avenge their wrongs!
The rôle had been melodramatic, superb! But here they were, skirting the
very gates of Paris, apparently fleeing before the enemy, and this
without having made any very determined effort at resistance. Poor
protectors they must have looked! Those simple peasants would not
understand the efficacy, the necessity even, of running away "to live
and fight another day," with a greater chance of success.
The Subaltern often used to wonder what the poor wretches thought of
troops, which, though in possession of arms and ammunition, still
retreated--always retreated. They could not understand.
The march came to an end about one o'clock. A halt of half-an-hour for
dinner was ordered in the shade of some huge trees in a park. The
mess-cart and Cookers arrived, and a meal was soon in progress. The
Regimental Officer of what is now referred to as the "Old Army" was
perhaps the best-mannered man one could possibly meet. His training in
the Mess made him so. He was the sort of man who would not have done
anything which so much as even suggested rudeness or greed. He was as
scrupulous of his Mess Rules as a Roman Catholic Priest is of his
conduct at High Mass. To the newly-joined Subaltern, Guest Night
conveyed the holy impression of a religious rite. But here was a comic
demonstration of the fact that the strictest training is only, after
all, a veneer. Two Senior Officers were actually squabbling about a
quarter-pound tin of marmalade! The Subaltern could not help smiling.
The incident merely showed how raw and jagged the Great Retreat had left
the nerves of those who survived it.
An hour's halt passed only too soon, and its later moments were made
uneasy by the instinctive aversion which every one felt for the sound of
the whistles that would mark the end of it. The Battalion, however, had
no sooner swung into the road, than the Colonel, who had been reading a
message with an expression of surprise, held up his hand to signal the
halt. The moment was historic. Although none knew, it was the end of the
Great Retreat.