Falling Back
Down below, in a subterranean chamber, there burned a cheerful fire, a
chimney taking the smoke and flames up through the ground above and
into the open. Seated about it, more dishevelled than ever, their
chins bristly now, and their faces and hands stained a dull, dirty
colour, sat Jules and Henri and others of their comrades, resting for a
time, while men of their regiment watched for them.
"And, believe me, it has been a fight of fights," said one bearded
veteran, lolling back against the earth wall of the dug-out, a cup of
steaming coffee gripped in one huge, dirty hand, and a hunch of cheese
in the other. "A fight more bitter than any that has gone before it,
and one which will become more desperate. Allons! Here is death to
the Kaiser!"
He smiled round at his comrades, whose faces were lit up by the rays
from the flickering flames, showing a gleaming row of teeth, and steady
eyes, and features which displayed not the smallest trace of fear, or
even of anxiety.
"Death to the Kaiser--to the butcher who sends his troops to such
slaughter!"
Tossing his head backwards, he let the contents of the cup gurgle down
his throat, then, smacking his lips, he held the vessel out for a
further ration.
Steps on the wooden stairway leading into the dugout just then
attracted the attention of the whole party, and soon there arrived
another comrade--a junior officer--to swell their numbers, to tax the
limit of accommodation down below to the utmost. As dirty as any of
his men, dirtier perhaps, he bore about him traces almost of
exhaustion, and, throwing himself on the ground, silently accepted the
drink and food which were at once offered him. It was not, indeed,
until he had finished his meal, and until he had almost smoked the
contents of one pipe-load of tobacco, that he opened his lips to the
_poilus_.
"And then, Monsieur le Lieutenant," began one of the _poilus_, a
cheerful young fellow, who, indeed, was in civil times the chum of this
young officer, "you've been far, mon Commandant, you have brought news
to us? For did you not leave us a while back to pass along the
communication-trenches? What, then, is the tale? And are there
supports and reserves at hand to reinforce us?"
Again it was to be noted that there was not a sign of anxiety on the
face of this young soldier, nor in the tones which he adopted. He
merely smiled and shrugged his shoulders, in fact, as the officer shook
his head decidedly.
"No! No supports, and no reserves at present," he said. "We must
fight it out to a finish."
"Bien! To a finish, my friends!" chirped in the bearded warrior,
sipping at a fresh cup of steaming coffee. "Then it is not for us to
grumble, but rather for the Boches. For, see, desperate men who cannot
be relieved, and who will not surrender, fight like rats in a trap, and
such beasts were ever venomous. And so, Monsieur le Lieutenant, there
are none to help us?"
"None!" came the cheery answer. "The position is as clear as daylight.
It is only now that our High Command is able to perceive that the
Germans have launched a stroke at Verdun, which is stronger, and likely
to be fiercer, than any that have preceded it on any other portion of
the line. They tried, these Boches, to burst their way through Ypres
in April, you will remember, having failed to do so in the previous
October. They have tried their hand in other parts, and always with
failure. Now it is the turn of Verdun--a salient like that at Ypres,
and one which must be held against all oncomers. You ask the fortunes
of our other troops. Listen, then, my friends; for by dint of crawling
and creeping, often across the open--for communication-trenches have
been obliterated--I was able to reach a centre where information had
been gathered. We, here, in the neighbourhood of Brabant, stand firm,
thanks to the heroic fighting of our comrades."
"And thanks, monsieur, to the noble leading of our officers," declared
the bearded veteran; whereat the _poilus_ clapped their hands in
approbation.
The officer's face was radiant at such a compliment, which, let us
observe, was thoroughly well deserved; for if the _poilu_, the common
soldier of the French armies facing the Germans, had fought well, his
officer had indeed set him a magnificent example.
Much need, too, had the _poilus_ holding the Verdun salient for the
best of officers. For the German onslaught, though it had failed so
far, had at least the prospect of future success because of the
surprise effected. Not that the attack was entirely unexpected on the
part of the French, but surprise was great at the vast preparations and
massed guns and infantry the actual attack had disclosed to our ally.
Those guns had first deluged every few yards of the twenty-five miles
of trenches from Brabant to Troyon, and later, swinging round, had been
concentrated on a narrow sector of four miles perhaps, a sector
occupied by Henri and his friends and other Frenchmen.
As to the German infantry, they were in great numbers. Indeed, there
were some seven German army corps massed against the Verdun salient;
while the French, with incomplete information of the intending coup to
be attempted by the enemy, had but two army corps to defend the
positions. Moreover, time would be required in which to bring up
reinforcements; for, be it remembered, the Verdun salient is pushed out
to the east of the River Meuse, and though there are bridges crossing
the river, they are not so numerous as to allow of huge forces being
rapidly transferred across them. A still more important factor in the
position was, perhaps, the distance those reserves must be brought
before they could stand shoulder to shoulder with their comrades. It
is not mis-stating the fact on the night of the 21st February when we
assert that those two French army corps, holding a trench-line
extending over some twenty-five miles, stood, for the time being and
for many hours to come, alone between the enemy and their objective.
They must fight not only to retain their positions, but must fight for
time--time in which General Joffre and his commanders could rush
reinforcements to assist them. Yet, though the battle had only lasted
one single day, it had proved every man in those two corps a stanch
fighter, every one determined to resist to the utmost.
"We here, in the neighbourhood of Brabant, my friends, hold fast as you
know," said the officer, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. "Though the
enemy have poured shot and shell on us, though they have blown our
positions up and obliterated our trenches, we are here; and, indeed, do
I not see before me a most cheery and merry company? Yes, another cup
of coffee as I smoke and talk. It is cold outside, and somehow coffee
soothes a man's nerves after such an ordeal. Well, then, here we are,
firm, and not thinking of retiring yet awhile. On the line to Haumont,
they, our comrades, hold their battered trenches, and, like ourselves,
have taught the enemy a severe lesson. Then, passing to our right, you
get to the Bois de Caures, which this morning was held by a French
garrison. If we in this position were plagued with the fire of enemy
guns, in that strip of forest our friends have been deluged, and their
positions torn asunder and blown to pieces, even their dug-outs often
being penetrated. The place became untenable, and yet it has been of
assistance in the fighting. It was mined, and when the Germans, held
off till that time by our sharpshooters, launched a division at it, our
fellows slipped away before the enemy, and, waiting till the Germans
were in the wood and pouring into the battered trenches, fired the
mines, killing hundreds of them."
There came grunts from that bearded veteran, a gleam of his even white
teeth, and muttered remarks from the others seated about the fire in
the dug-out.
"Terrific!" exclaimed Henri. "Absolute murder; yet, what would you?"
"Yes, what would you?" repeated the officer. "It is France, it is
liberty, it is the right to live as we wish for which we fight, against
the oppression of a people who look upon might as right, and who, if
they could, would deprive France and Britain and all the Allies of
their liberty. So, murder! Yes, my comrade, but, as you observe,
necessary. If the Kaiser, seeking for some great event, casts his
hosts of men at us, our duty is plain; not an inch of ground of the
sacred soil of France must be rendered up unless absolutely necessary;
while the enemy, if they advance, must advance over the corpses of
their comrades. But let me proceed. The Bois de Caures was evacuated,
and then the southern end of it seized once more by some of our gallant
fellows. Then there was fighting on the line to Ornes and at
Herbebois, and there, too, the garrisons held their positions, having
fought throughout the day and inflicted enormous losses on the Boches.
Elsewhere I cannot tell you what the position is, though there is
rumour that all is favourable."
Taking it in turns to go on duty, to watch the ground in front of them
or to repair their battered trenches, that slender garrison which the
policy of the French High Command had placed in the first line of
trenches about the salient of Verdun waited with calm confidence for
the morrow--for the 22nd February. Nor had they long to wait ere the
conflict once more reopened. Guns had boomed throughout the night, and
shells had continued to rain about them, but now, as light broke, and
they hastily gulped down their breakfast, the bombardment increased in
intensity along that northern sector, while presently enemy troops
could be seen forcing their way up a ravine which cuts its way between
Brabant and Haumont. _Poilus_ in positions there were driven back for
a moment by flame-projectors, which were used freely by the
enemy--spurts of flaming liquid were scattered over them, and sometimes
whole lengths of trenches set burning. Then the torrent of shells
which was pouring upon the northern sector was increased, though that
had seemed almost impossible, in the neighbourhood of those two places.
Brabant and Haumont were shattered, the village of the latter name
being flattened out and destroyed utterly. Shells ploughed the ground
behind the French front position, so that communication-trenches, which
had suffered severely on the previous day, and support- and
reserve-trenches were blown to pieces and out of all recognition.
Indeed, as the day passed, the slender garrison in that part were
forced to abandon whatever protection the ground had previously given,
and, retiring before the enemy, to fight a rear-guard action in the
open. Some three or four miles of country behind that front line was
indeed searched by the enemy guns; some indication of the enormous
expenditure of shells indulged in by the Kaiser. The French left,
resting on the River Meuse and the centre, was thus forced backward,
though the gallant garrison of Herbebois still held on, together with a
force of men on a hill just south-west of them. Some success had in
fact fallen to the German phalanx attack on the Verdun salient.
General von Haeseler, who was nominally in command, though acting under
the orders of the ambitious Crown Prince of Germany, had by his
smashing artillery-fire, though not by his infantry attacks, forced the
French to abandon a portion of their trenches, and had indeed shortened
that line to which we have referred previously--that line which formed
an imaginary base to the Verdun salient. In fact, he had contrived to
narrow the neck of the salient, though not yet very greatly, and
thereby had limited the space across which the French troops could
retire in the event of the abandonment of the salient being necessary.
Repeating the process on the following day--for by then the French had
fallen back to their second line, now badly battered, at Samogneux and
Hill 344--these new positions were assailed with such a torrent of
shells that by the evening they were absolutely untenable, and a
further retirement was essential. Indeed, by the morning of the 24th,
the French left, as it lay on the River Meuse, was withdrawn to the
famous Pepper Hill, so that the distance between the new first line and
the city of Verdun was considerably decreased, while that imaginary
base-line, across which the French must retreat if the salient was to
be evacuated, was still further shortened. But elsewhere, where
artillery-fire had given the enemy less assistance, where, indeed,
massed guns could not be spared to blaze a path towards Verdun,
desperate fighting held up the advance of the Germans. At Herbebois
and Ornes and on to Bezonvaux there was hand-to-hand fighting of the
most desperate nature, while at Maucourt--an advance position held by
the French--terrific execution was done to the masses of troops hurled
forward by the Germans. Here masked French quick-firing guns caught
German columns of attack, twenty men abreast and hundreds deep, at
close range, and blew them into eternity. Yet the hordes still came
on, with a bravery never surpassed, and, in spite of every effort, in
spite of a superb display of courage and tenacity, the French were
forced to retire up the slopes towards Bezonvaux, and so in the
direction of the fortress of Douaumont perched up aloft and looking
down upon the scene of this sanguinary conflict. Towards the former of
these two places the garrison of Ornes was also compelled to beat a
retreat, finding itself at Bezonvaux, at the mouth of a ravine, which
ascends the heights leading to that fortress already mentioned, which
was to be the scene of a terrible battle in days now near at hand. To
portray all that occurred on this eventful 23rd February would be
almost impossible, and certainly beyond the scope of these pages; yet
one must mention the case of those gallant Zouaves and African
sharpshooters, who, to the north of Douaumont, recaptured a wood
between Herbebois and Hill 351, which is just to the south-west of it,
and lies in front of Beaumont. Here, in spite of an avalanche of
shells which was poured upon them, and of murderous attacks launched in
their direction, they held out for quite a considerable period, and,
having in turn retired upon the Bois de Fosse, were eventually
compelled to fall back upon the plateau of Douaumont.
The morning of the 24th, as it dawned, discovered, indeed, a critical
change in the positions held by our noble allies. The northern face of
the salient had, as we have described, been driven in, and the handful
of troops holding it had been forced to retire over some four miles of
country, fighting in the open, infantry and gunners fighting a terrific
rear-guard action, and doing their utmost--and doing that most
gallantly--to hold up a further advance of the enemy. That imaginary
base-line which we have mentioned as running across the base of the
salient, where the winding River Meuse traces its path amongst the
hills, had been dangerously shortened, and already Germans were massing
in the neighbourhood of Vacherauville, close down to the river, under
the shadow of the Cote du Poivre, where they hoped to drive in their
wedge, and to further shorten that line across which French troops must
retreat if indeed the salient was to be evacuated. And towards the
east, towards the apex of the salient, outlying advance-parties of the
French had been driven in by sheer weight of guns and numbers, and were
now back on the heights of the Meuse, their line drawn from that held
by their comrades in the neighbourhood of Louvemont, close to the Cote
du Poivre, round about Douaumont and its village, and so to Vaux and
south of it. Here, indeed, we must leave them for a moment, while we
return to Henri and Jules and their comrades, entangled in that country
to the north which had been ploughed, almost every foot of it, by the
torrent of shells poured upon it by the Kaiser's artillery.
Stealthily creeping away from their advanced positions, and leaving
these dull-grey lines of German dead stretched out before them--a
ghastly indication of their prowess--the troops fell back in clusters,
clambering from shell-hole to shell-hole, creeping behind any cover
which was to be discovered, and making the utmost use of the darkness.
"And so it is you--you, Jules?" cried Henri, as dawn broke on the early
morning of the 23rd and discovered his comrade. "Well, I never!"
It was typical of the gallant and gay Jules that he grinned in the face
of his chum, and repeated the observation.
"Well, I never! And what a sight to be sure! We were gentlemen when
escaping from Ruhleben compared with our condition now. What a mess to
be in, to be sure--and how hungry I am!"
"Hungry, mon garcon?" cried a sergeant near them, one of their own
battalion; "then there's good news for you; for if our commanders have
not been able to send us reinforcements, they have at least not
forgotten that we are living men. There is food close at hand, and our
cooks are preparing it."
In the lines which the troops had now gained in those trenches dug some
time before, and sweeping across the slopes of Pepper Hill (Cote du
Poivre), there were indeed welcome comforts for the men who had so
gallantly held up the advance of the Germans, and who had more
gallantly still, and with greater fortune, endured the terrible ordeal
of that shattering torrent of shells poured for hours now upon them.
Back behind the fire-trenches cooks were busy over their braziers,
while already kettles of steaming soup and coffee and long rolls of
bread were being conveyed to the soldiers. It was a happy, a grimy,
and a decidedly confident band of men who sat down that early dawn to
prepare once more for the enemy. Dishevelled, their chins covered with
dirty bristles, steel helmets lost in numerous cases, clothing torn,
and equipment absent, this band of heroes was nevertheless as jovial as
it was hungry.
"Better get as much sleep as you can now, my friends," said an officer
as he came along the trench. "A few men to keep watch will be quite
sufficient, and the rest had better turn in to their dug-outs or lie
down here at their posts. It won't be for long, my lads, I can tell
you, for the Germans are not likely to rest now they have got us
moving. Wait, though; is there a man amongst you not too fatigued to
creep forward and reconnoitre?"
"There is, mon Capitaine; I am that man."
"And I also--here; ready and eager."
The two voices were those of Jules and Henri, who happened to be quite
close to the officer as he was speaking, and who, leaping to their feet
from the fire-bank, at once stood at attention, their eager faces
turned towards him.
"You--ah!"
The officer surveyed them both critically.
"Henri and Jules--our particular Henri and Jules--mon Capitaine,"
called out the sergeant who had been speaking to them a little while
before, and who, like the regiment, knew our two heroes thoroughly.
"Henri and Jules, who joined us from Ruhleben, and preferred to fight
in a battle such as this rather than stay in safety--though not in
comfort--in Ruhleben."
"Ah! Henri and Jules, of course. And you are ready?" smiled the
officer.
"Ready, mon Capitaine!" the two answered.
"Then strip off your packs and equipment, and take only your rifles and
bayonets and ammunition; creep down through the trees yonder, and, if
you can, let us know what's happening."
Down below, towards the foot of the lower slopes of the Cote du Poivre,
overlooking the village of Champneuville and the Cote de Talou,
stretched a strip of wooded country, those same evergreens which,
towards the north and elsewhere, had given the Germans such tremendous
opportunities for completing preparations for their attack upon the
salient. Sliding down the hill, diving from one shell-hole to
another--for already the German artillery had turned its attention to
this new French position--creeping along any fold in the ground which
offered even the smallest shelter, Henri and Jules soon gained the
woods, and plunged into them.
"It's as likely as not that the Germans have already sent
reconnoitring-parties here," said Henri in a whisper, as they crouched
at the edge of the wood and gathered breath again after their
exertions. "That is a thing which one would anticipate, and of course
our commanders will expect that just as we do, so that it seems to me
our duty is to steer clear of such parties, as we should do in any
case, to push beyond them, and to ascertain what's happening towards
the north."
"Quite so! At your orders, Henri," smiled Jules, as full of merriment
as ever. Indeed, the fiercer the conflict had grown, the more
desperate the efforts of the Germans had become, and the more
terrifically the fighting had developed, the higher had this young
fellow's spirits risen. Of fear he showed not a trace, though of
excitement he showed every evidence. Sparkling with wit, as lively as
a cricket, wonderfully cheery, he had stood in the forefront of the
battle, not grim like many a comrade, not with teeth set and hands and
fingers clenching his rifle, but jovial, smiling, yet with a deadly
earnestness masked by his merry manner.
"Lead on, my Henri," he said. "Under your directions we made not such
a bad success of that affair in Germany. Let's see now what you can do
in this part of France when we have soldiers and not civilians to deal
with!"
Plunging on into the wood, it was not long before they heard voices to
their left, and, creeping forward, discovered a German officers' patrol
sheltering under the trees and munching their breakfast. A dozen yards
farther on there were some seven or eight men, while voices still
farther to the left demonstrated the fact that there were other parties.
"No matter," said Henri; "we have already said that we expected Germans
to be in the wood. What we want to know is where the main force is.
Let's push on and do our duty."