HOW WE CROSSED THE GERMAN LINES—THE CHARGE OF GILOCOURT—THE ESCAPE IN THE
FOREST OF COMPIÈGNE
6th to 10th September, 1914
Having left Versailles we arrived at Saint-Mard on the 6th of September
to find ourselves in the thick of the battle of the Marne. The struggle
extended all around us, from one horizon to the other, and if it was
incomprehensible to our officers it was still more so to us private
soldiers. In the evening, from Loges-en-Josas, where we had been
billeted, we heard the guns. Everyone was sure that Paris would be
invested within the next two days, and then we were suddenly sent off to
be stranded some forty kilomètres to the north-east of Paris. We were
ignorant of the movements going on, and we were amazed and quite out of
our reckoning, hardly daring to believe that the enemy, who the evening
before was thought to be at the gates of Paris, was now in retreat.
For my own part I preserve only a confused and burning recollection of
the days of the 6th and 7th of September, days memorable amongst all
others, since they saw the beginning of the victorious offensive of the
armies of Maunoury, of Foch, of French and of Langle de Cary. The heat
was suffocating. The exhausted men, covered with a layer of black dust
adherent from sweat, looked like devils. The tired horses, no longer
off-saddled, had large open sores on their backs. The air was burning;
thirst was intolerable, and there was no possibility of procuring a drop
of water. All around us the guns thundered. The horizon was, as it were,
encircled with a moving line of bursting shells, and we knew nothing,
absolutely nothing.
In the torrid midday heat we kept advancing, without knowing where or
why. We passed a disturbed night rolled in our cloaks in an open field,
without rations and already suffering from hunger. The next day was
a repetition of the last and was passed in the same hateful state of
physical exhaustion and of moral inquietude. From time to time, behind
some hill, beyond some wood, quite near, a sudden and violent musketry
fire broke out; the gun fire redoubled in intensity and we heard the
whistle of the shrapnel passing high over us, and the noise of the
bursting shell. There, we said to ourselves, is the fighting; there,
no, there, and then there on the left, on the right; it was everywhere.
Repeatedly our column had to make sudden detours to avoid artillery fire.
Still we knew nothing, and we continued our march as in a dream, under
the scorching sun, gnawed by hunger, parched with thirst and so exhausted
by fatigue that I could see my comrades stiffen themselves in the saddle
to prevent themselves from falling. The sun went down with a splendour
that no one thought of admiring. Little by little, insensibly, our
figures bent forward till they touched the wallets on our saddles, and
we gave way to a sort of torpor. Then a long tremor ran along the ranks.
Above the village of Troène we fell into the thick of the fight. This
happened so quickly that I preserve only a visual image of it. We had
slowly climbed a hill, whose shadow concealed the setting sun from us.
As we came out on the crest of the hill, we caught a sudden glimpse of a
regiment of chasseurs-à-cheval, silhouetted in black against the immense
red screen of the sky, charging like a whirlwind, with drawn sabres.
A “75” gun on our flank fired without interruption. I can see now a
wounded chasseur who rose from the grass where he lay almost under the
muzzle of the gun, and who fell back, as if struck by lightning, from
the displacement of air caused by the shell. A second later nothing was
to be seen except a confused _mêlée_ behind a small wood. The noise was
terrible, and was made up of a thousand different sounds. An officer of
chasseurs, with a bullet through his chest, bareheaded, all splashed with
blood, came down the hill leaning on his sword, and leaving behind him a
long trail which reddened the grass. Then the sun seemed to perish as the
immense uproar died down; all the noises died away, and we continued our
road in the rapidly falling darkness, having had a sudden and fugitive
vision of one scene amongst the thousands which compose the drama of a
great battle.
All night we had marched without repose, without food. In our exhaustion
we had become the spectres of our former selves, and our hearts were
breaking from discouragement. We did not know that right alongside of us
the most victorious offensive in the history of the world was commencing.
We did not suspect that, under pressure from General Maunoury, the
German 4th Reserve Corps was giving way, and that this must assure the
rout and the final defeat of Von Kluck’s army.
From the 8th we began to play an active part in the great battle. The 5th
Cavalry Division was ordered to surprise a German convoy and to seize
it. The officers told us of this mission. At last we were going to do
something; our time of waiting was at an end, and there was to be no more
wandering about the burnt-up country, devoured by thirst and discouraged
at feeling ourselves lost and forgotten in the great struggle we had
set our hand to. The convoy would be four kilomètres long, and we could
already imagine the attack, the taking of the booty. It was going to be a
romantic and amusing episode, and the dragoons sat up in their saddles,
forgetting their fatigue and their hunger, and full of joy at the thought
of the promised combat.
In my inner self I could not share the general enthusiasm; I felt that
we had been exactly marked down by the enemy’s aircraft which flew over
us each moment, insolently bidding defiance to our rifle and machine-gun
fire.
The expedition, however, started off well. A young dragoon, sent forward
as scout, penetrated into a farm and there found fifteen Prussian Staff
Officers engaged in stuffing themselves with food. He calmly pointed his
revolver at them and advised them to surrender. “My regiment will be here
directly; any resistance is useless.” In reality he had to keep them
under the muzzle of his revolver for a long quarter of an hour, for the
regiment was still far off. A major having shown signs of moving, the
dragoon blew out his brains at point-blank range, and he succeeded in
keeping them all terrorised until our arrival. This capture stimulated
still further the general good humour. I can still see six of the
fourteen prisoners file past the flank of the column, each between two
dragoons, a forage cord tied to the reins of their horses, and I can see
again the cunning and furious look of a “hauptmann” still bloated with
the feast which we had prevented him from completing. I remember the gay,
frank laugh of the whole regiment, its light-heartedness at having laid
hands on these fat eaters of _choucroute_, who were too astonished even
to be insolent.
A few moments afterwards three German motor-cars were sighted three
hundred mètres off, going at a prudent pace. At once the ranks were
broken and we galloped furiously at them, each straining hard to be the
first to get there; but, by quickly reversing their engines, the three
chauffeurs succeeded in turning and made off at top speed, riddled by
machine-gun fire, but out of range for us. The last of them, however, was
destined to fall into our hands next morning, having been damaged by a
shot in its petrol tank. We had to set it on fire so as not to abandon
it to the enemy, who were pressing us on all sides. Half my regiment was
now detached from the division and charged with the task of capturing,
unaided, the tail of a convoy which was reputed to have broken down on
the road.
At nightfall we entered the forest of Villers-Cotterets, under the
command of Major Jouillié, and I was assailed by an acute presentiment
of misfortune. I parted from the other half of the regiment and from the
other regiments of the division with the clear and irresistible intuition
that I would not see them again for a long time, and shortly afterwards
we melted like shadows under the trees of the great dark forest.
Then commenced, for me, one of the most painful episodes of the whole
war. The silence of the forest was lugubrious. A Taube persisted in
flying over us, quite near to the ground, like a great blackbird. Its
shadow grazed us, one might have said, and nothing was more harassing
and more demoralising than this enemy that followed us and kept
persistently on our track. At a cross-roads, as we came out into a large
clearing, it let fall three long coloured smoke balls to signal our
presence to its artillery, which was doubtless quite near but of whose
position we were ignorant. Then it disappeared with a rapid flight, and
the night fell black as ink around us.
The voices of the officers seemed grave. The continual thrusts which the
column made, its returns on its tracks, gave me to understand that we
were groping our way, not knowing which to take. We descended in double
file a terribly steep narrow path, preceded by the machine-guns, which
had only just room enough to pass. The soft soil sunk in like a marsh.
Then there was a sudden halt and, quite near me, I saw the Major’s face,
full of anxiety. Addressing Captain de Tarragon in a choking voice he
said, “The machine-guns are done for.” The rest of the phrase was lost,
but I heard the words “bogged, engulfed, impossible to get them out....”
We were ordered to incline, and we climbed up again to the forest. All
the men were alarmed at the loss of the machine-guns, abandoned in the
marsh, and the face of Desoil, the non-commissioned officer with the
machine-guns, was heart-breaking. His mouth worked but no words came.
With this discouragement all of us felt a renewal of hunger which was
painfully acute. Thirst too burnt our throats, and fatigue weighed down
our exhausted limbs. Ah, how I envied the horses which nibbled the leaves
and the grass. For two days our water-bottles had been empty, we had
already finished our reserve rations and this contributed to the gloom on
our faces.
Towards midnight, the village of Bonneuil-en-Valois was vaguely outlined
in the night at the edge of the forest. The hungry and tired horses
stumbled at each step; almost all the men were dozing on their wallets,
and we committed the irreparable fault of dismounting and of sleeping
heavily on the open ground, instead of utilising the cover of night to
join one of the neighbouring divisions by a forced march. A small post
composed of a corporal and four men was the only guard for our bivouac.
Each of us had passed his horse’s reins under his arm, and all of us
slept, officers and men alike, like tired brutes. We did not suspect that
our sentinels were posted hardly three hundred mètres from the German
sentries, who were concealed from us by a fold in the ground which held a
regiment of Prussian infantry, who had chanced to get there, within rifle
range, just at the same time as we.
At dawn a neighing horse, some clash of arms, probably gave away our
position, and the alarm was given in the enemy’s camp, which was
separated from us only by a field of standing lucerne. The troopers slept
on, and the German scouts crept up, absolutely invisible.
A sudden musketry fire woke us up, and the German infantry was on us.
I cannot think of these moments without giving credit to the admirable
presence of mind which saved the situation by the avoidance of all panic.
The horses were not girthed up, many of the kits had slipped round, reins
were unbuckled; no matter, we had to mount. I have a crazy recollection
of my loose girth, of my saddle slipping round, of the blanket which had
worked forward on to my horse’s neck; no matter, “Forward! Forward!” a
second’s delay might be our ruin. A hail of bullets fell amongst us.
Alongside of me, Alaire, a quite young non-commissioned officer, was hit
in the belly. He was the first in the regiment whom I had seen fall.
God! what a horrible toss he took, dragged by his horse, maddened by
fear, crying out, “Rolland, Rolland, don’t abandon me.” Then, in a last
contortion, his foot came out of the stirrup and he died convulsed by a
final spasm. Near me, the Captain’s orderly gave a loud shout; horses,
mortally wounded, galloped wildly for some mètres and then suddenly fell
as if pole-axed.
I saw a man who, as if seized with madness, sent his wounded horse
headlong to the bottom of a ravine and then threw himself after.
“Forward! Forward!” I followed the others, who made off towards the
village. My horse trod on a German whose throat, gashed by a lance
thrust, poured out such a stream of blood that the earth under me was red
and streaming with it. “Forward! Forward!”
We were not going to view them then, these enemies who killed us without
our seeing them, so hidden were they amongst the grass that they blended
with the soil? Yes we were though, and suddenly surprise stopped short
the rush of the squadrons. Before us, some mètres off, and so near that
we could almost touch it with our lances, an aëroplane got up, like a
partridge surprised in a stubble. A cry of rage burst from every throat.
We tried to charge it with our lances in the air, but it mocked our
efforts, and our rearing horses were on the spot ten seconds too late.
The enemy seemed also to have flown. All that remained were two or three
grey corpses that strewed the soil. We trotted into the village with our
heads down, humiliated at having been fooled like children.
After having passed the first few isolated farms along our road, an
enemy’s section came for us, exposing themselves entirely this time,
while a line of recumbent skirmishers fired a volley into us from our
right, almost at point-blank range. There was nothing for it but to
retire, unless we wanted to remain there as dead men, and at the gallop,
the more so because a machine-gun was riddling the walls of a farm with
little black points. We passed before it like a whirlwind; and, happily,
its murderous fire was too high to hit us. I can still recall the sight
of an isolated German, caught between the fire of his regiment and the
charge of our horses. I turned my head and laughed with joy at seeing a
comrade pierce him with his lance in passing.
The Germans were all round us, and our only line of retreat was by the
forest, into which we all plunged in a common rush without waiting for
orders. The forest, at least, represented safety for the moment. It was
a sanctuary calculated to protect us from an entire army, until we died
of hunger. For a long time we marched in silence, cutting across the
wood, avoiding the beaten path, for our intention was to attain the very
heart of the forest, or some impenetrable spot where we could not be
discovered, where we could regain our breath and where our officers could
deliberate and take a decision. The whole half-regiment took shelter at
last in an immense ravine, where we were sheltered from aircraft. We were
covered by a thick vault of leaves in a sort of prehistoric gorge, which
seemed far from all civilisation and lost in an ocean of verdure, and
there we dismounted. The Major sent patrols to explore the issues from
the forest, and we waited some mortal hours without daring to raise our
voices.
Our situation was almost desperate. For three days we had touched not a
morsel of bread, not a biscuit, our horses not a handful of corn. The
reserve rations were exhausted; and the patrols, which came in one after
the other, brought sad news. The Germans were masters of all the issues
from the forest, and we were taken in a vice, prisoners in this gulf
of trees and reduced to dying of hunger and thirst. A little way off,
the officers—Major Jouillié, Captain de Salverte, Captain de Tarragon,
Monsieurs Chatelin, Cambacérès, Roy and de Thézy—deliberated with glum
faces. Each stood near his horse so as to be able to jump on in case of
surprise. In spite of everything the men’s spirits remained admirable.
All had a jest on their lips, and the more serious amongst them wrote a
line to their wives or mothers. Leaning against the trunk of a tree, I
scribbled on two letter-cards, found in my wallets, two short notes of
adieu. The day passed with depressing slowness.
Towards four o’clock two officers of Uhlans appeared on a little road
which, so to speak, hung above us. At once all eyes were fixed on these
two thin silhouettes. They advanced, talking quietly, with their reins
loose on their horses’ necks. How great was the temptation to shoulder
one’s carbine, take steady aim, feel one’s man at the end of the muzzle
and kill him dead with a ball through the heart! Everyone understood,
however, that it was necessary to keep quiet and let off the prey so good
a mark was it, for doing so would have given the alarm and signalised our
presence. Now they were right on us, so near that we could have touched
them, and yet they did not know that there were two hundred carbines
which could have knocked them over at point-blank range. Even now I
can distinctly see the face of the first, as if it were photographed
on my brain. He was quite young, with an eye-glass well screwed into
the eye, his face was red and insolent, just as the Prussian officer
is always represented. He had a whip under his arm, and he even had a
cigar. Suddenly his face and that of his companion contracted, as if
confronted by some apparition. This French regiment must have seemed to
them a phantom of the forest, some impossible and illusory vision seen in
the shadow of the leaves. Their horses stopped short and, for the space
of a second, their riders looked like two figures in stone. Then in a
flash they understood and fled at full speed. For an instant we heard
the stones fly under their horses’ shoes, but the sound grew fainter and
fainter, and a deep silence reigned again.
The alarm had been given, the danger had still further increased, and,
now that our place of concealment had been discovered, we had to start
off again across the thicket and rock on our poor done-up horses. On
reflecting over it, my mind refuses to believe that such a cross-country
ride was possible. To throw the enemy off the scent it was necessary to
pass where no one would have imagined that a horse could go, and that
involved a ride into the abyss in the deepening night, plunges into black
gulfs, intersected by trunks of trees, to the foot of which some horsemen
and their horses rolled like broken toys.
I felt my old horse, Teint, curl up and tremble between my legs. His hair
stood on end and his nostrils opened and shut. On, on, ever on ... to the
very heart of the old forest, whose most secret solitudes we troubled,
frightening the herds of deer, which fled terrified before our cavalcade.
For a moment it seemed as if we were at some monstrous hunt on horseback
with men for quarry, and in spite of myself, a mortal fatigue seized on
me. I shut my eyes and waited for the “Gone away.” Better it were to be
finished quickly, since the game was lost.
The troops had got mixed and I found myself again for a moment amongst
the 3rd squadron by the side of Lieutenant Cambacérès, and we exchanged a
few brief words. Almost timidly, so absurd did the idea appear that one
of us could escape, I asked him to write a line home if it were my luck
to be done for and if he came out safe. I promised him the same service,
if the rôles were reversed. To such an extent does gaiety enter into
the composition of our French nature, we even joked for a few moments
and we shared a last tablet of chocolate, which he had preserved in his
wallet, a service for which I shall always be grateful to him, for hunger
was causing me insupportable pain. We were now going at a slow pace over
a carpet of dead leaves, amongst trees which were singularly thinned
out. Our object being to gain the heart of the forest, we had ended up
by reaching its border, and we remained glued to the spot, holding our
breath at the sudden vision seen through the branches.
The famous convoys that the division was out to take were there, in
front of us, on a stretch of some eight kilomètres of road. Waggons of
munitions, provision carts, water-carts, lorries of all sorts, were
moving gaily along at an easy walk, and the rumbling noise was continuous.
In the calm of the evening each spoken word, each order given by the
guides came to us clear and distinct. Then came the last vehicles, the
last country carts, some stragglers tailing out into a confusion of
cyclists and horsemen; and so the interminable convoy went on its way.
The vehicles at its head had the appearance of toys on the horizon, of
toys designed with the pen on the gold of the sky; and the personnel
looked like insects finely traced in the clear atmosphere. The whole
thing went quietly on its way like a slow caravan. One would have said
that here was a people coming to settle in conquered country and arriving
at the end of its journey in the peace of a lovely evening.
The same day, at the same moment, General Foch, pushing the thin end of
his wedge between the armies of Bülow and those of Hausen, enlarged that
fissure which was to prove fatal to the German army which had almost
arrived at the Marne. The pursuit was about to begin. These same convoys,
whose peaceful aspect wounded our hearts from the insolence of their air
of possession on French soil (we were ignorant of course that the dawn
of a great victory was about to break)—these same convoys, lashed by
terror and by the breath of panic, were going to follow beaten armies in
a headlong and wild retreat, leaving on the road their waggons and stores.
* * * * *
From this moment a vague hope sprang up in our hearts and, as is often
the case, we gathered courage when the worst of catastrophes seemed to be
heaping on our heads.
Night fell little by little. It was impossible to remain where we were.
We were well within the German lines, of this there was no doubt, since
we had the enemy’s troops behind us, while their convoys were on in front
of us; but, under cover of night we might attempt a desperate stroke,
and anything was better than dying of hunger. Towards ten at night our
column came bravely out of the forest—a silent column whose members
looked like phantoms. Cutting across country, we avoided Haramont,
Eméville, Bonneuil-en-Valois, Morienval. As night fell a sombre gloom
seized on us. All those silent villages, which we dared not approach, had
a threatening appearance; lights appeared suddenly, more or less distant;
a succession of luminous points was moving slowly, like a moving train
going slowly. I was ill at ease, and this was causing me physical pain;
my saddle girth was too loose and had allowed my horse’s blanket to slip
till it threatened to fall off. No matter, for nothing in the world would
I dismount. It seemed as if hands came out of the shadows and stretched
forth to seize me. A breath of superstitious terror blew over us, and, in
the deep surrounding silence, a single persistent and regular noise made
us start with the fear of the unknown. It was the screech of the owl,
an unnatural cry which seemed like a signal replied to in the distance;
and it made us shudder. My eyes eagerly searched the shadow to discover
a hidden enemy. Twice I could have sworn that I saw a group of German
uniforms, two mounted Uhlans, another on foot; but I mistrusted my eyes,
hallucinations being of common occurrence at night, and I tried to pluck
up courage.
While crossing a road a sudden noise and a cry of “Help!” rang out, a cry
choked with agony and terror. It came from one of our men, whose horse
had struck into mine and had rolled into the ditch. I turned and saw
in a flash a brief struggle which the night at once blotted out. This
time I had made no mistake. There really were two Germans struggling
with our comrade; but I was carried on by the forward movement, and
profound silence reigned again. If we were surrounded by enemies, why
this conspiracy of silence? The horrid screech of the owl never ceased,
imparting panic to our disordered imaginations, making us think that even
a catastrophe was preferable to this maddening incertitude, to this agony
of doubt. During this time I lived the worst hours of my life.
We advanced, however, marching from west to east, and soon we entered
the great black mass of the forest of Compiègne, from whence arose four
or five bird-calls as we approached. No matter; for the second time the
forest represented safety for us, and under the impenetrable shade of its
tall trees we followed its edge in the direction of Champlieu, sometimes
followed, sometimes preceded by the hooting which announced, as we learnt
later, our approach and our passage.
At the moment when our agony was at an end, when hope revived, when,
even, certain men giving way to fatigue had bent down on to their
wallets drunk with sleep,—at that moment we fell definitely into the
mouse-trap into which the Germans had methodically decoyed us, and a
desperate attack was made on us from all sides. The drama took place
so rapidly that I can remember only detached shreds of it. The clouds
parted, letting fall a flood of moonlight; somewhere a cry resounded in
the night, and the black forest seemed to spit fire. Thousands of brief
flashes lit up each thicket, a hail of bullets thinned the column, and
mingled with this were cries and a terrible neighing from the horses,
some of which reared, while others lay kicking on the ground, dragging
their riders and their kits in a spasm of terrible agony. Instinctively
each trooper made a “left turn” and galloped furiously to get out of
range of this murderous fire which decimated our ranks. In a few seconds
we had put two hundred mètres between the forest and us, and the two
squadrons rallied under cover of a slight mist.
As we rode a squadron sergeant-major, Dangel, gave a groan, as his horse
carried him off after the others. Then I saw him collapse, pitch forward
on his nose on to his horse’s fore shoulder and fall to the ground, to be
dragged. I leapt from my horse and managed to disengage his foot. Holding
him in my arms, I begged him to show a little pluck. “We must clear out
of this or we will be taken prisoners. For God’s sake get on your horse.”
His only response was a long sigh, then his heavy body collapsed in my
arms, and he dragged me to the ground. For a second I was perplexed. The
others were far off, and I alone remained behind with a dying man in my
arms, who clasped me in desperate embrace. At last his arms let go, and a
spasm stretched him dead at my feet. I laid him piously on the grass with
his face to the sky, and when I had finished this last duty to a comrade,
I raised my head and saw a whole line of skirmishers fifty mètres off.
For a moment a feeling possessed me that I could not get away; but,
damme, they were not going to take me alive. An extraordinary calm came
over me.
I remounted slowly, made sure that I had picked up all four reins and
lowered my lance. Now, by the grace of God ... now for it. A volley
greeted my departure, but it was written that I was to escape. Several
bullets grazed me, not one hit me. Soon I was out of range and concealed
by a curtain of fog. I rejoined the two squadrons, many of whose troopers
were without horses. Two hundred mètres farther on a fresh fusillade came
from the invisible trenches and decimated our already thinned ranks.
Captain de Tarragon, whose horse had been wounded, pitched forward
and remained pinned under his horse. I passed by him at the gallop
hardly seeing him, and I heard a shout that seemed to illumine the very
darkness: “Charge, my lads.” This shout, repeated by all, swelled,
increased and became a savage clamour, which must have paralysed the
enemy, for the fusillade ceased and cries of “Wer da” were heard at
different points.
Afterwards I shut my eyes and tried to remember, but for some moments
everything was mixed up. I recall a furious gallop at the dark holes
where the Germans had gone to earth. A high trench embankment faced us
and my horse got to the other side after a monstrous scramble. Before
me and on my right and left I saw horses taking complete somersaults; I
could not say whether it lasted a minute or an hour. The pains and the
privations of the last three days culminated in a moment of madness. We
had to get through, cost what it might; we had to bowl over everything,
break through everything, but get through all the same, and our hot and
furious gallop grew faster under the heedless moon, which bathed the
country with its pale and gentle light. Three times we charged, three
times we charged down on the obstacle without knowing its nature, until
the remains of the two squadrons found themselves, breathless, in a
little depression at the edge of a wood, before an impassable wall of
barbed wire.
Impatient voices shouted for wire-cutters, and during the delay before
these were forthcoming, a few panic-mongers blurted out false news,
which soon circulated and which all believed: “The enemy is advancing in
skirmishing order.” “We are going to be shot down at point-blank range,”
etc.... Had the news been true, I would not have given much for our
skins. Huddled together like a flock of sheep before the gap which some
of our men were exerting themselves to open up for our passage, a handful
of resolute infantry could have killed every one of us.
At last the gap was made and I descended a steep slope between the thin
stems of the birches, having been sent forward as scout by my Major, whom
I was never to see again. Below, a figure in silhouette and bareheaded
was resting on his sword in the middle of a clearing bathed in moonlight.
He watched me coming, and I was astonished to recognise in him the
officer of my troop. For a brief moment each had taken the other for an
enemy, and at twenty mètres off we were each ready to fall on the other.
Our mutual recognition was none the less cordial. M. Chatelin refused
my horse, which I offered to him, deciding to try to regain our lines
on foot under cover of night (which he did after having knocked over
two German sentries). He warned me expressly against some skirmishers
concealed in a thicket behind me, and after a hearty handshake and a
“good luck,” which sounded supremely ironical between two such isolated
individuals, lost in the heart of German “territory,” I watched his thin
silhouette melt into the darkness.
I made my way back to give an account of my mission and to tell the
Major that this route was impracticable for the two squadrons. Above,
the plain extended to infinity, white in the moonlight, with no vestige
of a human being! All that was to be seen were two horses which galloped
wildly to an accompaniment of clashing stirrups, and the uneasy neighs of
lost animals—that whinny of the horse which has something so human in it
gave me a shudder. How was it that two squadrons had had the time, during
my brief absence, to melt and disappear?
What road have they found? Why have they abandoned me? The terror of
desolation took the place of my former calm. To die with the others in
the midst of a charge would have been fine; but to feel oneself lost
and alone in all this mystery, in this endless night, in the midst of
thousands of invisible enemies, was a bit too much. It was a childish
nightmare and, seized with the same panic as the lost horses, I too
spurred mine till his flanks bled, and I set off straight before me
galloping like a madman. Luck, or perhaps my horse who scented his
stable companions, brought me all at once to a small contingent of
dragoons,—Captain de Salverte and eleven men, with whom I joined up. I
questioned the Captain, who could tell me nothing. He had found himself
detached and lost like me, and he had put himself at our head to try to
get us out of this inextricable position. We walked on gloomily through
a country cut up by hedges and streams. Shortly, we found ourselves
within a few mètres of an enemy’s bivouac, the fires of which made the
shadows dance on our drawn faces. A stupid sentry was warming himself,
and had his back turned to us. What was the good of struggling? Why cheat
oneself with chimerical illusions? The day would dawn and we would be
ingloriously surprised and sent to some prisoner’s camp in the centre of
Germany, unless, choosing to die rather than yield, we kept for ourselves
the last shot in our magazines.
However, we reached the forest. In the maze of dark paths we lost the
Captain and Sergeant Pathé. With Farrier Sergeant-Major Delfour, and
Sergeant-Major Desoil of the machine-gun section, nine of us were left,
and we were determined to try a last effort, spurred by an awakening of
that instinct of self-preservation which stiffens the desire to live in
the very face of death.
Deep in the forest we passed the night concealed in a thicket, taking
pity on our horses, which would have died had we demanded a further
effort of them. Soon we were overpowered by sleep, sleep so profound that
the entire German army might have surprised us, without our raising a
little finger to get away.
At daybreak we continued our way, with stiff and benumbed limbs and
soaking clothing. It was a beautiful autumn day. Wisps of pink mist
wrapped to the tree tops. A large stag watched our coming with uneasy
surprise, standing in the middle of a paved road on his slim legs. He
disappeared with a bound into a clump of bushes, whose swaying branches
let fall a shower of silver drops. A divine peace possessed all space. In
a clearing some thirty loose horses had got together. The larger number
were saddled and carried the complete equipment of regiments of dragoons
and of chasseurs. The lances lay on the ground, together with complete
sets of kit and mess tins. Surely the enemy had not passed this way or he
would have laid hands on all this material so hurriedly abandoned; and
yet no human being was about who could tell us anything, not even a lost
soldier. There was no one but ourselves and the immense tranquil forest,
gilded by early autumn, splashed with the dark green of the oaks and with
every shade of colour from ardent purple to the white leaf of the aspen.
That glorious dawn shone on the greatest victory the world had ever seen.
The battle was over for the armies of Maunoury, of French, of Franchet,
of d’Estrey, of Foch, and of Langle de Cary. The pursuit was beginning,
and the whole extent of country, where we were now wandering, pursued and
tracked like wild beasts, was going to be cleared within a few hours of
the last German who had sullied its soil.
More than thrice during the morning we came unexpectedly on German
detachments, isolated parties, lost patrols or stragglers, and each time
we cut across the wood to escape them at the risk of breaking our necks.
Then we got to a long straight path at the lower end of which a fine
limousine motor-car had been abandoned, and at the end of the path we
reached a village which appeared to be empty. We consulted together for
a moment, being in doubt what to do; but all of us were loth to return
to the forest. This was the fifth day of our fast; so much the worse for
us; it was time to put an end to it, so we made our way to an abandoned
farm. We sheltered there for two hours, scanning the surrounding country
for signs of life. Everything seemed dead. We could see no peasant, no
civilian, not even an animal, and this waiting was one torment the
more, but it was to be the last. Not till ten o’clock, over there, very
far off, did I catch sight of the thin black caterpillar of a column
of soldiers coming our way during my turn of sentry-go. My heart beat
violently, but I refrained from giving the news to my comrades from
the fear of raising false hopes. My eyes burnt like flame and my teeth
chattered. If these were Germans the game was up. If they were French,
oh! then!
I looked, I looked with my eyes pressing out of my head. At times, as I
strained my eyes, everything grew misty and I could see nothing; then,
a second later, I again found this growing caterpillar and I began to
distinguish details. There were squadrons of cavalry, but I could not yet
make out the colour; and my body, from being icy cold, turned to burning
hot. At times I forced myself not to look. I looked again, counted
twenty, and then devoured space with my eyes.
A patrol had been detached, and approached rapidly at the trot; this
time I recognised French Hussars. Then all strength of will, and all my
effort to remain calm disappeared. I turned my reeling head towards my
comrades and I fell on the grass crying, crying like a madman, in words
without sequence. The fatigue of these five days without food or drink,
almost without sleep, and the living in a perpetual nightmare, brought on
a nervous crisis, and my whole body was racked with spasms. My comrades,
not having as yet understood, looked at me with astonishment. With a
gesture I pointed out the approaching column, the pale blue of which
contrasted brightly with the gold of the leaves. All of them, as soon as
they had seen it, were overcome as I had been, each in his own way. Some
burst into brusque convulsive sobs, others danced, waving their arms like
madmen or rather like poor wretches who have passed days of suffering and
agony on a raft in mid-ocean, and who suddenly see a ship approaching to
their rescue.