The French do nothing without a flavoring of sentiment. Rhetoric
flowers in the official proclamations; it makes one laugh even to read
the textbooks for soldiers, they are so strewn with fine, resounding
phrases; and so, of course, it was quite impossible for Coco’s regiment
to get away without one of those stirring, gesticulative speeches by
the colonel.
It was at the Toulouse railway station—parents in tears. The girls
gazed admiringly. Gossipy veterans of ’70, seeing themselves
reincarnated in these fresh young soldiers, patronized them egregiously
with advice. Coco and the other lads listened, but did not hear; they
were smiling at the girls sticking bouquets in their rifle barrels.
“Look back for the last time at your homes and your loved ones,” cried
the colonel, with all his badges on his breast, “and shed the tear
without which our high sacrifice would not have its price. Lift up your
hearts, and so forth, and so forth, my children—_en avant!_”
Children indeed they were, overflowing with the emotion of the south,
these soldiers, and our Coco, with a gulp in his throat, seemed even
more young than most. The war! How often had he heard it predicted for
that year, or the next, or the next—the inevitable war that was to give
France her long-hoped-for revenge. Now, it was actually here! No more
blank cartridges, no more sham battles—_War!_
But Coco’s tears soon dried. They were a merry lot, those
twenty-year-old “_pioupious_,” even on that tiresome trip to the
front. The youngsters had the worst of it during the mobilization. They
sat all that journey on rough-board temporary benches in the luggage
vans. Starting and stopping, side-tracking and backing—munching the
emergency rations (hard tack and canned beef), for mother’s cheese
and chocolate didn’t last long—waving and yelling to the patriotic
spectators along the line, it took them almost three days to reach
Châlons.
At the military camp two more days were spent in concentration,
exercises, and inspection. The last orders were received. Then, at five
o’clock in the morning of the sixth of August, the column started for
the frontier.
Coco was a private in the Tenth Company of the Twentieth Regiment of
Infantry. His army corps, the Seventeenth, formed the left wing of
the Fourth Army. On their left, paralleling their march, was, first,
General Ruffey’s cavalry division, and beyond that the Fifth Army,
under General Lanrezac. On the extreme left wing of the advance were
the British. Meanwhile, marching on Lorraine and Alsace, were the Sixth
and Seventh Armies. With all these columns hurrying to the front,
filling all the roads, railway transportation was impossible. It was a
march of some seventy miles to the frontier.
So, through the lovely forest of Argonne, the boys set out, singing
and joking as they strode along. It was pleasant enough at first, a
romantic adventure; but with his heavy rifle, his heavy cartridge belt
and bayonet, and his musette full of food slung over his shoulder, it
was not long before poor Coco began to get weary. On his back, with
his knapsack, and his rolled overcoat and his tin _bidon_ and tin
_gamelle_, with the intrenching tool and his share of the company’s
baggage, he carried fully sixty pounds. They marched on one side of
the road. Along the other side automobiles whirled incessantly back
and forth, motor busses filled with provisions rumbled along, dispatch
bearers on motorcycles, officers on horseback—raising dust a-plenty.
Coco’s chum—his “_copain_”—was François Foulot, the son of a
cabinetmaker in Toulouse, a big, athletic, kind-hearted chap with a
bushy black pompadour. Coco had told me about him in Paris. The two
boys were members of a little musical and dramatic club in Toulouse,
and had been friends from childhood. You should hear Coco tell how, on
that long march, François took care of him, carrying his rifle when
Coco was tired, carrying even Coco’s knapsack for him, helping him
grease his boots at night when Coco’s feet began to blister. François
was like a big brother.
At the nightly bivouacs along the road the two boys always slept side
by side; that is, when they slept at all. The excitement (and the hard
ground) for the first few nights kept them wide awake, in spite of
their fatigue.
“_Mon Dieu_, how will this all end?” they asked each other. Coco didn’t
know, François didn’t know; but neither thought the war could possibly
last more than a few months.