the march was at a bruising pace. We braced ourselves for endurance.
Our faces, with several days’ growth of beard, were streaked with sweat
and dirt, were drawn and haggard from fatigue. We marched all night
without arriving at our goal, then all day. It was evening when we
reached the citadel perched on its rock, dominating a vast stretch of
plain. We were installed in an entirely new barrack, and went to sleep
without eating. We were not hungry, which was well, as there were no
provisions. I threw myself on a bed and fell asleep like a clod. It
would be light to-morrow, one could see clearly to-morrow; one could
wash to-morrow, one could eat to-morrow.
That was the way of it. All night the exhausted troop slept without
sentinels, stomach empty, mouth open, in whatever position they
happened to fall, utterly incapable of any defense. If the enemy
had come, he could have swept away at a single stroke and without a
struggle ten thousand men. There was not one of us who could have fired
a shot.
This haste was important. It gave time to catch our breath. The army
having escaped the German pursuit, saved its quota and could reorganize.
“Look at that steep bluff!” said Berthet to me the following morning.
“It seems impregnable, does it not? Nevertheless, in 1809 Napoleon’s
Marie Louise Battalion took Laon by storm, from this side, and made a
bayonet charge up those steep slopes, and dislodged the enemy.”
As for us, we must first descend the declivity. The enemy was
approaching. His scouts and advance-guards flashed through the plain
in every direction. He gushed from the woods, he streamed along the
roads, he inundated the fields. He came from everywhere, as if the
entire earth had vomited Germans. They were innumerable as a cloud of
locusts. It was more like a plague than an army. It was a barbarian
horde pouring itself over our country and forcing us to retreat again;
always retreat, always faster, without looking back and without
offering resistance.
We set out once more, madness in our eyes. Would it never end, this
flight? What was happening? What were our armies doing? Were we going
to fall back as far as Paris? or perhaps still farther, as far as
the Loire? We no longer knew what to think. We no longer possessed
speech or ideas. The chiefs knew no more than the men. They no longer
attempted to explain. Our lieutenant carried the knapsack of a man gone
lame, and marched chewing a cigar. Our commandant went up and down the
length of the column with a sombre air, and no one dreamed of singing.
These were the first days of September. The air was still hot
and stifling. Some men, made giddy by the sun, fell in crumpled
masses. Sweat ran off our bodies, rusted the arms in our hands. A
suffocating dust filled the air and covered faces and clothing with an
ever-thickening layer. Throats were parched, eyes haggard, shoulders
bleeding.
Berthet fell. I helped him up, he fell again. He could go no farther,
and I feared that I would see him die there of exhaustion. I rubbed
him, made him drink a little mint. Then I put him in the shade and went
foraging. I discovered some water and a fresh egg, which I made him
take. He swallowed it, only half conscious. Then I saw a resurrection.
He sat up, light returned to his eye and color to his cheek.
Thus he was saved; but how many remained on the route, easy prey for
brutal German soldiers, and how many died, their names unknown! The
plains of Thierache and of the Aisne alone know how many fell by
the way, victims of exhaustion, during the great retreat, when the
foul enemy already scented Paris and believed it within his grasp;
superhuman retreat, which spread for the foe the snare of the Marne,
that miracle which the passing centuries will hold in remembrance.
Such was the retreat, from my view-point as a humble soldier of the
ranks, from my position as an atom lost in the immense movement. Others
will recount its strategic value; others will explain its grandeur. I
have seen only what I have here related, I, a little cog in the huge
tragedy, and I am proud to have lived those hours. Other great hours
were to follow, but those passed through were not the least wonderful.
IV
WAITING
We took with us on our retreat some prisoners captured at Guise, during
our frenzied flight; some dozen men, whom the gendarmes conducted,
handcuffs on wrists. They excited much curiosity.
These soldiers did not give a very proud idea of the battle, nor of
the enemy army. They were poor devils, dressed in gray, whose boots of
tan leather alone drew attention. These looked very well, but were too
narrow for the feet, and several men limped in a ridiculous manner.
Chained with them marched some civilians, marauders or spies, also
being conducted to the rear. One of them attempted escape one night.
Immediately retaken, one hour later he stood before a court martial,
whose sombre appearance is graven on my memory.
It was a simple village house, with green shutters. A sentry stood
at the door. Through the open windows one could see the tribunal in
session, and the accused defending himself. The trial was brief and
tragic. Five officers were seated in a commonplace dining-room, with
an extension-table for a desk, at the end of which two clerks were
writing. At the end of the room, in front of the buffet, some gendarmes
guarded the accused. The contrast between the austere scene and its
setting was striking. There a man was being judged, there his life or
death was the subject for decision; and the cannon were roaring, quite
near, and the retreating army was filling the village street.
I saw the man plead his cause, standing, gesticulating. The judges
listened attentively and gravely. Not a muscle of their countenances
moved; they seemed made of wax. Their caps made splashes of scarlet
and gold on the table. On the wall behind the presiding officer hung
a naïve picture of a country fête. The hanging lamp appeared to have
been in the way: it was unhooked and put in a corner. I could plainly
hear the voices, though I could not distinguish the words. The accused
implored. He clasped his hands and fell on his knees. Then he uttered a
cry.... The gendarmes dragged him away. His place was taken by another
prisoner.
The next day, when we were leaving, he was missing. He had been shot at
sunrise.
* * * * *
We finished the retreat by railway, finding a train which had come as
far as a broken bridge and was turning back on its route. We were shut
up in the carriages three entire days. Though it seemed an interminable
journey, nevertheless it ended with our return to our starting-point.
This return, of a fantastic duration (our whole trip could be made
in eight hours in time of peace) occupied the first days of the
battle of the Marne. Yes, while the destiny of the world hung in the
balance, while the most formidable struggle the earth had ever seen
was in progress, we were packed into boxes on wheels, we were shunted
about and loitered on the rails like so much useless merchandise.
Our train moved, stopped, went into a station, departed, stopped
again. We remained for hours on grassy tracks where no train had
passed for months. We borrowed unfamiliar routes, we lost our way
on unknown switches. Sometimes we stopped in a tunnel, or in the
midst of a deserted countryside. Sometimes we halted at a town where
the inhabitants crowded about us, bringing provisions of all sorts:
bread, wine, meat, and fruit, and fêted us in a thousand ways. The
people questioned us eagerly. The greater number had a son or brother
in the army, and naïvely asked news of them. We had no information
whatever, but exchanged assurances of an early victory. In spite of
what we had seen, our confidence remained unbroken, and we gave much
comfort to those who saw only disaster ahead. We maintained that the
French advance continued constantly in Alsace, that the Germans were
retreating everywhere, that the Russians were galloping on Berlin by
forced marches. We were certain that Germany was rushing to suicide,
and our certainty was eagerly demanded in exchange for the presents
received. The sympathy of all these people was touching. It seemed
as though we were all one family with these, our own French people,
who were giving us so hearty a welcome. We felt so grateful for their
reception that we would have liked to embrace them all.
Then the train started. We exchanged hearty adieus as we went
away--only to stop a little farther on for another lapse of time. After
three full days of this we reached our destination. We had traversed
half of France, and were now going to recuperate for new hardships.
Our camp was located in a little village buried in verdure, in the
midst of a calm countryside, as far from the war as possible. Very
little news reached this out-of-the-way spot; newspapers were old when
they arrived. The populace lived as usual, groaning a bit to keep in
countenance, but not suffering any real inconvenience.
We were soon bored to death. In spite of the daily exercises, in spite
of the drills, in spite of the preparations and small side comedy of
war, we longed for the tempest, for the great whirlwind which was
sweeping away our brothers over yonder, toward the east. Only its
echoes reached us. There was the Marne; there was the German retreat;
there was the digging of trenches, the line stretched to the sea; there
was the Yser.
Yet here we stayed. Time passed heavily. We felt much aggrieved: it
seemed that the war was bound to be too short to offer us a sufficient
revenge. We gave up hope of returning to the front, so long did the
days seem while our comrades were doing the fighting.
Berthet and I never ceased to fret. Inertia crushed us. We would have
accepted no matter what offer of an errand in order to go away, to have
action, to quit the tranquil country where we were vegetating, to find
again adventure, to run risks: in short, to live. It seemed to us that
we spent months there, stagnating. In reality it was six weeks.
In that apparent inaction the regiment was putting itself in condition.
One day twelve hundred men were selected for reinforcements to join a
neighboring division of the army. There were touching farewells. Those
who were leaving, feverish with joy, shook hands proudly with those who
remained behind, and who were envious to the last man. None of these,
however, was destined to return unharmed. All were mowed down on the
plains of Champagne in their first engagement, and their places were
filled by new comrades from other camps.
That also is an aspect of war. One does not keep constantly the same
comrades, nor even the same officers. The army is a living organism
which undergoes constant wear and rebuilding. At first, one gladly
believes that he will always have the same neighbors, that he will be
with the same sergeant, that he will be surrounded by the same faces
until the end. Then one comrade is transferred to another regiment,
another merely disappears. Another is called to a distance: he goes
and never returns. Soon one finds himself the only man remaining of
the original group. The company has not fought, it has not suffered
murderous losses, and still its personnel has been renewed.
Yo is gone. Amelus is gone. Happily, Berthet remains for me, and I for
him. We will not leave each other. We believe it since we desire it,
and we are almost sure that we will be able to mould the future to our
wish; such is the immense vanity of man.
Thus we spent our days, soldiers without being soldiers, soldiers of
time of peace, tied down to puerile exercises, to imaginary assaults,
to supposititious battles. We champed our bits. We longed for the
struggle, we awaited our turn with growing impatience.
It came at last. One evening the order to go forward arrived. The
regiment was ready, solid, high-spirited, complete. It set out: all
felt a secret thrill. At last we were going to the Front, we were going
to know, to fight, and to die!
V
LA PIOCHE
It is night. It is raining. The train stops at a station. We have
arrived. But where? No one knows. All is black. All is sombre. All is
sinister. All is threatening. We alight from the carriages to stretch
our legs.
“Silence!” growl the officers. “In two ranks, quick!” Along the
platform we fall in line as well as possible in the dark, our knapsacks
on our backs, and, over all, the rain.
“Forward.”
We reach a road; a road that feels hard under the feet. A damp chill
arises from the invisible earth and the rain glues our clothing to our
skins. Our shoes are heavy with mud. We march. Each follows the comrade
who stumbles along ahead, and whom one can hardly see. One hears
only the rustling of the trees, the confused sound of steps, a brief
exclamation, an oath. We go straight ahead where we are led; through
the dark toward the unknown.
“Silence!” hiss the chiefs, “we are close to the enemy. Not a word; not
a cigarette.”
A sort of apprehension grips us. The fear of the unknown binds us. It
is not the certainty of danger: it is worse. It is an inexpressible
anguish. One is in danger from invisible blows that will fall unawares.
We mount a hill. At the summit one has a view, a darkly shut-in view,
whose walls of black are pierced by flashes of fire; mere sparks in the
distance. Artillery! This which we look down upon is the Front. There,
below us, at a considerable distance still, they are fighting. With
throbbing hearts, eager to advance, to arrive at the place destined for
us, we peer into the cannon-starred curtain of the night.
But the march continues to be slow. One slips on the muddy ground, one
skids, one swears. As we go down the hill the stirring sight is blotted
out like dying fireworks, and we are once more in a shut-in road, whose
embankments add to the blackness and cut off all outlook.
Nevertheless, the confused sounds of the battle carry up the slope
to our marching troop. Somewhere, down there, a lively artillery
duel crashes in fury and the brilliant flashes of light dart their
resplendent triangles into the heavens. Is it there we are going? No
one knows. One feels his heart thrilled and a little shaken by the
nearness. Instinctively one touches elbows with his neighbor, tightens
his grip on his rifle; becomes silent.
All the time we advance. Occasionally there are stops; sudden,
unlooked-for stops. Then one starts on. Soon we reach some houses. We
are entering the street of a village and the shaded lanterns cast weird
shadows on the walls. The column crowds together. We catch our breath.
“We camp here,” say the sergeants.
The orders are sent along the line. There is a moment of rest; then the
squads break up. Every one seeks his place of shelter. We are quartered
in the buildings of a large farm. I and my companions are billeted in
a barn and we stamp our feet on the unthreshed wheat which has been
stored there. Each begins hollowing out a place to sleep.
“Make no lights,” order the sergeants, “you will be spotted.”
“Eh, boys!” calls a voice, “where do you come from?”
And from between the bundles of straw we see the up-lifted heads
of several soldiers. Approaching them, we find that they have been
comfortably sleeping in their straw nests, and that our arrival has
awakened them. We question them:
“What is this place, here?”
“It is Taissy.”
“Ah!”
“Is it far from the trenches?”
“Oh, no, mon garçon; only about fifteen hundred metres.”
Then they tell their story. They are cripples, mostly lame, who are
waiting for vehicles to take them back to the dressing-stations. They
have been in the trenches for a month; they have fought; they give
details of their battles. We do not see them. We hear only detached
phrases which come to us confusedly out of the night.
“A dirty hole. We lost a heap of men.”
“There’s a fort up there which we recaptured.”
“There were three counter-attacks.”
“Then, a dirty canal full of rotten meat. What a stink!”
Suddenly some furious detonations rend the air. Every one is silent. We
listen.
“That’s nothing,” say the old-timers, “it’s only our battery firing.
But if the Boches answer you will see something!”
“Do they often reply?”
“Hell, yes! Every day. Half of the village is already pounded to
pieces.”
“Ouf!”
It is true. A comrade who has been prowling around outside comes back:
“The next farmhouse is demolished. The roof is gone and the walls are
like a sieve.”
“Silence!” growl the sergeants. “Go to sleep. You must fall in at five
o’clock to-morrow morning.”
The conversations cease. Each one picks out a place, buries himself in
the straw, and sinks into sleep as a ship is engulfed by the waves.
It is our first night under fire. Perhaps some of us do not find
untroubled slumber, but there is no alarm and to stay awake is useless.
Besides, there is nothing to do but sleep. So we sleep.
At dawn we are afoot. We can see that the war is not far distant. The
near-by houses are disembowelled, and such walls as still stand are
pierced by great round holes where the shells passed. Certain roofs
seem like lace, their rafters blackened by fire and rain. We are
curious, and run about that we may not miss seeing any of the damage
done by the bombardment.
“Back to your quarters!” cry the non-coms. “To go out is forbidden.”
We hardly heard them, and they had to use force to hold back the men
and prevent their scattering in the village streets. The officers came
to the rescue. Then we obeyed. Soon came the order to fall in, the roll
was called, and as soon as the knapsacks were buckled to the shoulders
we started on. We were going to the trenches.
The cannonade incessantly grew louder. We followed a road bordered
with trees and masked by underbrush; a road leading toward the noise.
Every eye sought for signs of this unknown thing into which we were
marching. They were not lacking. Everywhere broken branches hung from
the trees, and frequently we passed ruined houses whose peasant owners
dumbly watched our marching troop. On we marched. We crossed a bridge
and entered another village, a hamlet entirely deserted, mutilated,
horrible to look at, like a wounded man lying on the ground. Its
houses, after their years of tranquillity, had suffered a terrible
assault. They were riddled with shells; their walls were like a
moth-eaten garment. We could see the interiors still fully furnished;
curtains still hanging at windows where all the glass had been
shattered; half-open buffets, occasionally with their mirrors intact.
Only a glimpse did we catch as we passed. Then we left the ruins and,
for a time, followed a canal. This we crossed by a frail foot-bridge
and found ourselves in a narrow ditch--a communication-trench--the
first we had seen. We descended into the earth, following this narrow
chink which reached to our shoulders and, at times, entirely concealed
us. This boyau wound its way about, turning and zigzagging apparently
without reason. We traversed it in single file, seeing nothing but
the back of the man in front and the two walls of smooth clay cut
perpendicularly to the bottom.
It was a sight unfamiliar to all: an extraordinary journey, a thing of
mystery, the entering of an infernal region where feelings of humanity
were left behind.
Suddenly a rapid whistling passed over our heads, which were lowered in
one simultaneous movement. Another followed, then another and, a little
behind us, three explosions resounded with a noise like the tearing of
silk amid a jangling of metals. We had received our baptism of fire.
We advanced more quickly in an eagerness to reach our underground home.
We bumped the walls, sometimes so close together that our knapsacks
stuck fast, so that we had to tear them loose with a considerable
effort. All the time we shuddered at the nasty whistle of the shells,
which passed to fall and crash behind. One felt that he must escape;
must get out of this place where, if he remained, he was sure to be
mashed like a strawberry in a marmalade. The march quickened so that we
almost ran, staggering against the trench walls at every sudden turn of
its meandering course and always, above us, that terrible screaming and
those crashing explosions.
Lord! But our cheeks were pale and our looks anxious. Later we stood
it better as we became accustomed to it. This, however, was our first
moment under fire, our first meeting with the foe, and we felt crushed
by the narrow confines of this fissure in which we could only follow
the column--a column without end, which straggled over too great a
length in spite of the efforts of the officers to hurry the men and to
close up the distances.
Suddenly we emerged into open ground. A railroad-embankment with its
rails in place, its telegraph-poles still standing and occasionally a
flagman’s house still in good condition, hid us from the enemy. At one
bound we glued ourselves to this embankment, flattening our bodies on
the ground; for the German shells continued to lash the air, while out
on the plain gray puffs marked their explosions.
Some comrades, whose easy gait showed their familiarity with the place,
were already advancing toward us. They motioned to us and pointed out
the dugouts.
“This way. Don’t stay there.”
We followed their directions on the run and entered by groups into the
shelters they had indicated. Here, packed together so closely that we
could not budge, we waited for the storm to pass. In the abri were some
wounded on their way to the dressing-station, and we felt the deepest
emotion at seeing the stretchers with their mangled and groaning
burdens.
At last the firing stopped. We waited for orders. The sergeants were
called together for instruction. Soon they came back and then our
work began. We first laid aside our knapsacks and grouped ourselves
by squads. Then we picked out tools from a long pile of shovels and
pickaxes, and followed the non-coms along the embankment, a little
nervous, it is true, but curious about the work we were to do.
“Two picks, one shovel,” came the order. “Two picks, one shovel,”
repeated the sergeants as they placed us at our distances.
“Voilà! You are going to dig here. Loosen the ground with the picks and
clear it away with the shovels. Do you understand?”
Then we went at the work. It was the beginning of our first trench.
Gradually we heated up; we hacked at the soil; we shovelled it away;
we spat on our hands; we struck again; we wiped away the perspiration.
Occasionally some shells seemed to leap over the embankment and passed,
screeching, on their way. We dodged at the sound and then laughed at
our involuntary movement. Then we straightened up to catch our breath,
and in the moment inspected our workyard and glimpsed the neighborhood.
The embankment of the _chemin de fer_ entirely protected us from the
enemy. At a little distance two rows of trees marked the way of the
canal we had crossed. Between the parallel lines of the canal and the
railroad was a field of beets, humped in places with bodies of men that
one had not had time to bury; while here and there crosses marked the
fallen of the earlier days of the struggle.
We saw all this at a glance, and quickly bent ourselves back to the
earth and our toil. Our rifles hampered us in our work, and we laid
them on the freshly heaped-up earth, taking care to protect them
from sand. We did not know why they were making us do this digging,
or what good purpose was to be served by our labor; but we worked on
unremittingly, proud to accomplish the necessary task, proud to be at
work and to feel so calm in the midst of war.
“You are lucky,” said one of the veterans standing near by. “The sector
is calm to-day. You would not have been able to do that yesterday.”
“Lively, was it?”
“You’ve said something. But tell me, have you come to relieve us? It’s
not a bit too soon.”
“We don’t know.”
“It’s likely that is what we’re here for,” added some one.
In reality, no; we did not know. They had sent us there and there we
stayed. After all, no one seemed able to give us an explanation, and
we didn’t try to explain things ourselves. They told us to hurry and
we hurried. That was all. In the meantime our tracks were burying
themselves. The ditch was already knee-deep, and by so much it
diminished the stature of each of the diggers. No one stopped us, so
we kept on, digging furiously, as if the final victory depended on our
effort of this moment.