So much Georges told me; more he would not tell, at first, except that
he thought the Germans stopped firing at about thirty meters distance,
and began to sing the “_Wacht am Rhein_.”
Now I have always wanted to know the details of a typical bayonet
fight—just how the issue is decided, why a Frenchman might not win
here, and a German there, and so keep the victory uncertain. That, in
fact, was one of the things I went to Toulouse to find out. But, to get
any vivid picture of that bloody encounter was impossible. Georges
simply shook his head. “It was too horrible,” he said.
At last he confessed reluctantly that when he saw the men ahead of
him bayoneting the Germans, jabbing like madmen, he too gave a jump,
and shut his eyes and stabbed at something he had seen in front of
him, advancing with a long steel point—something that suddenly stopped
singing, and squealed “like a wounded horse,” he said.
“I remember only that I pulled out my bayonet, and felt a jet of warm
blood strike my face,” Georges went on, when I forced him. “Then, I
must have almost fainted, I think; I don’t know what happened till I
found myself wiping my face, and something was holding me. It was the
bayonet of that German’s that was caught in the wing of my overcoat,
somehow—and he was lying on the ground with the blood still coming out
of his stomach. There were lots of our men on the ground, but lots
more of Germans. The rest of them were running; they were two hundred
meters away by this time, and our men were after them, sticking them
like pigs.... The sight of it made me sick.... When they came back,
I was standing there, just leaning on my gun, swaying ... and it was
raining ... I didn’t know it was raining at all till then ... but the
blood was almost entirely washed off my coat.... Isn’t that enough,
m’sieur? I cant _bear_ to think about it.”