This cry is repeated several times. I enter the Wood. Guided by the
sound of the voice and climbing over shattered and twisted trees, I end
by discovering a human form cowering in a shell-hole----
"You're wounded?"
"Yes, in the head, the arms, in the legs and the heart----"
"_Mon vieux_, you bawl too much to be really wounded. Get up!"
The unfortunate arose and I read fear in his eyes.
"Where do you come from?"
"From Herbebois--they attacked with their flame-throwers--I saw my
brother lieutenant, burning like a torch. My comrades stayed, but I
know nothing more----"
THE MAGNIFICENT POILU, CHAMBRETTES.
_February_ 22, 1916.
A column of infantry-munitions wagons halted at the fork in the road
from Beaumont and Ornes; a 305 shell had dug a deep crater in the road
which was cut in two.
These light wagons, in good order, could pass neither to the right nor
to the left of the hole on account of wire entanglements.
Observed by the enemy, the convoy, after some moments, met with a
veritable rain of projectiles, time and percussion, which fell around
us.
Men, horses and mules were killed or wounded. A _poilu_ spontaneously
took command of the column, his immediate superiors having been killed.
The beasts reared and plunged, frightened by the flashes and explosions
which succeeded each other rapidly. The men clinging to the bridles
were killed on the spot before they could make a move!
A little soldier is lifted high by his frantic mule, which stands,
straight up on its hind feet. He curses, he yells, while the timed
shell churn the air with wailings like a dying child----
"I say you will not go back--at a time like this, _you_ mules _must_
not go _back_!"
* * * * *
A few seconds later he and his mule are on the ground, fastened, one
to the other, by the bridle: the shell which killed him has almost
stripped his body of clothes. I also was thrown to the ground, but I am
not hit----
Bending over the man, I attempt to find, but vainly, his identification
tag, so that some day the name of this obscure hero may be known----
The mule, stretched out at full length, essays to raise its head, still
grasped by the hands of the corpse, and gives a couple of useless
kicks----