[51] "Blood ran in the streets like water," said Jean Claudius still
more emphatically, according to a witness. This was probably the origin
of the fantastic accounts which appeared in the press at this period,
most of them purely imaginary.
[52] We must quote this short passage from the eloquent speech made at
the funeral of this brave officer at Lannion by Second-Lieutenant de
Cuverville, representing Admiral Berryer: "The order to mobilise found
Ernest Eno at Brest, engaged in training those very battalions he was
later to lead against the enemy; and no one could have been better
qualified than he to give our young recruits not only professional
instruction, but those lessons of manliness and patriotism which go to
the heart, and make men strong and courageous. For he was himself a
hero. A self-made man, he had raised himself step by step on the steep
ladder of his calling. He was a true sailor. He went off with the 1st
Regiment of Marines on August 13.... He fell at the head of his men
under intense fire round the cemetery of Dixmude, his thigh fractured by
a fragment of shell. He was not fated to recover from his terrible
wound. He died, uniting in his last prayers to God his dear ones and his
beloved Brittany, which he was to see no more." An operation had been
performed on Eno on the battlefield by his fellow-citizen and friend Dr.
Taburet, one of the doctors of the brigade, who showed the most supreme
contempt of danger under fire in attendance on our wounded.
[53] Dr. Caradec, _op. cit._
[54] In less critical circumstances the same accident had happened to
Second-Lieutenant Gautier, and was the occasion of an amusing little
scene, which might have been taken from Leonec and Gerveze's sketches of
Marines: "Yesterday I was going at the Germans with machine-guns at
1,200 metres on a road from which I finally cut them off. All of a
sudden the guns jammed. I yelled from my blockhouse: 'What's the
matter?' 'Guns jammed.' 'Tell the gunner from me that he's an ass.' The
communicator, a worthy Breton fisherman, repeated gravely: 'The
Lieutenant says that the gunner is an ass.' The gunner was one Primat. A
few days later, on November 10, in submerged Dixmude, this same Primat
(the orderly of the Second-Lieutenant), who had survived his officer,
used his machine-guns with such skill and coolness against a German
column that he stopped it dead, mowing down three sections."
[55] This story is told by the Marine Georges Delaballe. Such was the
ardour communicated by Des Pallieres to his men, that the next day a
Marine and a Boche were found "lying dead one upon the other, the
Marine's fingers thrust through the German's cheek, and still clutching
it." A stray bullet had killed them both. What had exasperated the
Marines was that the major who led the attack wore a large Red Cross
armlet. Their native honesty was revolted by this constant recourse to
ignoble ruses, by which our enemies have dishonoured even their own
heroism. Martin des Pallieres was the nephew of the Admiral who
commanded the Marines in 1870. "He was a brave man, whose courage was
combined with great simplicity and gaiety. He was killed by a big shell
in the middle of the group of machine-guns he was working under a
furious fire," writes a correspondent. Dr. Caradec points out that this
night of October 26 was particularly tragic; and in support of this
statement he quotes an incident horrible enough, indeed, from the
narrative of the naval mechanician Le L.:--
"The Germans had taken some French trenches, and shells were raining
thickly upon us. All of a sudden some of our men were engulfed in a mass
of _debris_. As one of my friends was half buried in the earth, I and
another went to help him; but a shell fell right upon him, and I in my
turn was buried up to the neck. Night was coming on fast. I spent
fourteen hours of anguish in this position. Furious fighting was going
on. Two friends were moaning near me. The one nearest begged me to help
him, but I was held fast as in a vice, and had to look on helpless as he
died. My own strength began to fail. I became unconscious a few hours
after I had been buried. What made me suffer most was to see the Germans
a few yards from me. I could see all they were doing, all their
death-dealing preparations. During the night the Senegalese riflemen
retook our lost trenches; they set to work to clear away the rubbish and
found my two dead friends near me. One of the Senegalese stepped on my
head. Feeling something under his feet, he bent down and saw me. They
got me out and took me to the first ambulance. In a few hours I was
fully conscious again. You can imagine how I rejoiced to find myself
among friends. I felt like one risen from the dead."
[56] Among them was Second-Lieutenant Gautier. The following order,
communicated to us by his family, was found with his papers: "Monsieur
Gautier,--By superior orders, I am sending a section to relieve you, and
to instruct you to go with your section near the cemetery, behind the
wall or on the railway embankment, as may seem best to you and to the
officer in the adjoining trenches. Des Pallieres' section, which was in
the cemetery, has been annihilated, Des Pallieres himself killed and
buried in the _debris_ of the trench." Second-Lieutenant Gautier was
killed at 9 o'clock in the evening. "We were having our dinner in the
trench," wrote Lieutenant Gamas a few days later, "when the order came
for him to go to a dangerous position to replace Des Pallieres, who had
just been killed there. The last words your son-in-law said to me were:
'Captain, it's my turn.' We shook hands warmly, looking affectionately
at each other. The next day I heard that my poor friend was dead. He had
been hit in the forehead by a German bullet at the moment when, attacked
by very superior numbers with three machine-gun sections, he had put his
head out in order to regulate his fire and do his duty thoroughly. He
fell nobly, leaving a glorious and honoured name to his wife and
children."
[57] All the officers we have seen or who have written to us declare
that the transport service was excellent throughout the defence, in
spite of the greatest difficulties, and that the naval commissariat was
irreproachable.
[58] He was decorated with the military medal by General Foch in person.