Yet there was a terrible earnestness about it all that sobered them.
There was something still more terribly earnest ahead! Every automobile
that whizzed past them, coming in hot haste from the front, announced
it. Every galloping supply wagon, every crouching motorcyclist in
uniform flashing by told the same frantic story: “Hurry! Hurry!
_Hurry!_ The Germans are almost here! France is in danger!”
On those first nights, when Coco’s turn came to stand on sentry duty
by the lonely corner of a wood, his eyes strained into the darkness,
listening for every sound, the sight of a bush waving in the wind often
brought his gun to his shoulder with a quick, excited “_Halte-là!_”
For Coco, sensitive, earnest, and not a little fearful, was in a high
nervous tension. Already the Germans were fighting in Belgium—the
killing had commenced. From one of the villages they passed the boy
wrote a brave little letter to his mother on a post card: “If anything
should happen ... well, one knows one’s duty, and God will do the rest.
Lovingly, Coco.”
On, on, through the hilly forests of Argonne they marched, making
about twenty-five miles a day. And on that dusty march food was scarce.
Poor Coco’s feet, despite the tallow in his socks, were too sore for
him to chase chickens, but François succeeded in capturing seven. Not
much, however, when their necks were wrung, for a company of 250 men.
Even the bread began to run out. But on they went, singing by day and
shivering by night—on, on toward Belgium. Coco says that their chief
worry was lest they shouldn’t find enough straw to sleep on, or at
least enough to tie up their feet in bundles to keep them warm.
At Mouzon they crossed the Meuse, and here Coco slept more comfortably
than he had for a week, on a sack full of straw at a farm. After
a day’s wait for orders—and no meat even here—they set out again,
passed through Carignan, and soon reached the last village in
France—Florenville. “Don’t send me any more French money,” Coco here
wrote to his mother. “It won’t be any use to me now!” Poor Coco! How
little did he know how soon he was to return!
V
On the morning of August 21 they crossed the boundary. Hurrahs from
the men—they were going forward to conquer! They were going to deliver
this brave little country from the barbaric invader who had laid it
waste. Coco was thrilled with the nobility of their mission. “_Vive
la France!_” he shouted with all the rest; but alas, the approaching
thunderstorm soon damped his spirits. The rain poured down in torrents,
down the back of his neck and into his shoes. Coming to a halt, they
bivouacked in a wide field. It thundered and it lightened. Soaked and
cheerless, the regiment tried to sleep. The fires wouldn’t burn. One
couldn’t even smoke a cigarette. As Coco turned on his side the water
oozed under him sloshily.
He dozed off, however, after a while, only to be awakened by a punch in
the ribs. “Listen!” François was saying. “What’s _that_?”
“Thunder, of course!” Coco, irritated, rolled over again, opened his
eyes after a while, and saw François still sitting up, alert.
“That’s not thunder!” he exclaimed. “Listen! it’s cannonading!”
Coco sat up now quickly enough. Others woke up to swear at them—and
then they listened, too.
“Look!” cried François. Galloping down the road came a dispatch
rider. He halted, was challenged by the sentry, and turned in at the
colonel’s headquarters. Then he was off again, splattering, clattering
through the mud. Then a bugle call: “_Fall in!_” All over the field
the wet men jumped up, slung on their belts, grabbed their rifles and
formed dismally in the rain. As they stood waiting, word ran down the
column—François passed it to Coco—“_The enemy!_” An ammunition wagon
drove up—boxes of cartridges were distributed. “Load!” ordered the
captains. The ranks were fairly buzzing now, everyone asking questions,
nobody answering. A whistle blew. “_Forward, march!_” Coco had no
thought of the rain now! The guns grew louder, but still no enemy
was visible. The cannonading slackened, grew faint, thundered off in
another direction, died, began again far away. But the rumbling was
always ahead—the regiment was marching nearer and nearer the fighting.
And so on to Bertrix, fifteen miles from the frontier. Coco rather
liked Bertrix. Bertrix rather more than liked Coco. The pretty little
Luxemburg town welcomed him and all the other young “_piou-pious_”
as its saviors. Nothing was too good for the French soldier boys who
had come to deliver them from the Huns. What do you want—cigarettes?
beer? bacon? It was quite a jolly affair, with the streets full of
smiling women and young girls smiling too, bringing fruit and eggs and
preserves, and good, fresh butter.
Coco was already a hero—and, after eight days without meat, that bacon
was certainly good! How they all laughed and chattered! But the old men
stood apart and listened anxiously; for, through all that rejoicing
there came steadily the distant sound of guns. Surely the Germans were
coming nearer! If they ever got to Bertrix—The old men shook their
heads with foreboding.
Again the whistle blew—_Forward!_ The enemy was only a few miles away
now; it was getting exciting. The boys, proud, patriotic, confident,
started “_La Marseillaise_” and the song was taken up by the whole
column—“_Marchons! Marchons!_” they sang—but Coco was singing, he
admits, to keep up his courage, as he tramped on through the mud to be
shot at. He tried to keep in mind that he was marching on gloriously
to fight for his country; but he couldn’t help thinking of what he had
heard of those terrible machine guns at Liége and Namur.
_Halt!_ The captain whipped out his field glasses—everybody gazed
eagerly ahead. There it was, _there!_ coming steadily nearer, flying
low—a German aeroplane—a “_Taube_” reconnoitering. There was a quick
order. As the whir of the motor grew nearer the lieutenant of Coco’s
platoon pointed. “_Aim!_” Fifteen rifles were thrown up, covering the
monoplane. “Steady, now, men—wait till she comes near enough—now,
_Fire!_”
Coco fired, jammed down the lever of his gun, shot again, again. Almost
over their heads the flyer seemed to stop, turned, volplaned swiftly
down—it was too good to be true—swept lower in a wide curve. Then men,
shouting, ran for it as it swooped into the field beside the road. Coco
ran for his first sight of a German.
Two officers in khaki, limp and pale, were strapped to the seats. One
was unconscious, with a red hole in his neck. The other painfully
unfastened his strap, and came forward, staggering. He saluted the
captain stiffly, a queer smile on his blond German face. Coco heard him
say in perfect French:
“I am badly wounded, monsieur. This is my last trip, I’m afraid. Ah,
well; you are going to beat us in the end, no doubt. With all your
allies there’s little hope for us. But you’ll have to shed a good deal
of blood before you win!” Then he suddenly collapsed. Coco saw him fall
on the ground in a faint.
“It gave me a mighty queer feeling,” Coco told me, “to look at that
dark spot of blood gradually growing bigger and bigger over that
officer’s breast. I remember that I wondered if it had been my rifle
ball that had wounded him. And that other German, too—I wondered if I
had already killed a man. If I had, why wasn’t it murder? What was the
difference between war and murder, anyway? Of course these barbarians
were invading my country, but—yes, it was my duty to protect France,
but—well, I had to give it up. You know there are priests fighting in
the ranks, too, in this war, m’sieur! _They_ must know. It’s all right,
I suppose—and yet there is always that ‘_but_’ when you see a thing
like that. Well, it was too exciting then for much philosophy. You
see, the cannons were getting louder all the time, and the whistle blew
and we marched on again. But somehow we didn’t feel much like singing
any more!”
Near rising ground they halted. The officers hurried forward, and with
field glasses inspected the country ahead; then called the column on.
Now they were actually in the danger zone—a wide expanse of fields,
dotted with farms here and there, and across, a mile away, were woods,
dark, sinister. It was a sunny afternoon; the odor of the damp, warm
earth was clean and pungent. There were wide stretches of yellow
stubble fields, where the wheat had been lately cut. Some sheaves were
still standing, as if the war had interrupted the harvest, half done.
As they advanced cautiously the cannonading ceased. Somehow to Coco
the silence was more dreadful even than that incessant muffled
reverberation. But those woods yonder—what dangers were _they_ hiding?
Every eye was strained in that direction.
Deploying to the left of the road, Coco’s company made for a
whitewashed farmhouse half a mile away, across the fields. The other
companies fanned out to either side.
No one seemed to know just what was going to happen. Coco’s lieutenant,
a jolly, talkative young fellow who had always used to keep his platoon
roaring at his jokes, was now unwontedly serious and silent. Coco
watched him. He marched on with his field glasses held constantly to
his eyes, tripping over roots and bushes and stones and swearing as he
went.
On and on toward that dark, mysterious wood through beet fields, across
ditches, over hedges they went, till they came to a cross-road leading
into the farm. Here they halted.
Coco, nervous, apprehensive, jumped at hearing his name called out.
“_Cucurou!_ _Bracques!_ _Lemaitre!_ Go forward and reconnoiter!
Careful, now, men!”