A WATER PATROL
For several days the Germans had been at work making changes opposite
our salient on the banks of the Somme. Probably it was a machine-gun
emplacement to prevent any attempt at attack from that side. But as there
must be no obstacle in the way of our next advance, the major, after
talking with the colonel, sent for Lieutenant Delpos, who was in charge
of the section in that sector and asked him what he thought of the work.
“It’s hard to say,” he answered. “If they’ve brought two or three machine
guns it will be humanly impossible even to try to advance. It all depends
on the importance of the work. We can’t tell from here what it is.”
“Our aeroplane observations and photographs don’t tell us anything,” said
the major. “The view is partly cut off by the tops of the trees along the
river.”
“Aeroplane observations aren’t everything,” answered Delpos.
“But I can’t send a patrol over such unprotected ground. It would be
utterly wiped out before it discovered anything.”
“Will you give me an order,” asked Delpos, “to make a reconnaissance in
whatever way I think best? In twenty-four hours, at the latest, I think I
can bring you the exact details.”
“Go ahead. Do your best. I’ll send you a written order to cover it.”
When he got back to his post, Lieutenant Delpos examined the strip of
terrain as thoroughly as he could by peering over the top of the parapet,
and then asked for the photographs the aeroplanes had taken. Finally,
he studied the map of the country which the enemy occupied opposite us.
Then, he went to Éclusier, borrowed a boat, and stayed out in the current
calculating its direction by bunches of grass pulled from the banks.
He came back to the company towards noon and sent me to the echelon for
Gondran, whom I brought back about three o’clock. At seven Delpos had
his plans made. He went to the major, who received him at once, and
explained the project he wanted to put into execution that evening.
Delpos asked him, as it would probably be useful in distracting
attention, to have the sections at the extreme north of the sector fire
several heavy volleys between eleven o’clock and midnight.
When this was arranged, everything was ready for his departure and he
invited me to dinner as he ordinarily did. His dinners were always good
and there was excellent wine which his servant had managed to find in the
ruins of Harbonnière and Villers.
As he was lighting his cigar after the dessert, he said:
“We’re going to pay a call on the Boches this evening. The chances of
staying there are about even, but, in any case, even if we remain, the
performance won’t be uninteresting. It will be as good as a first night
at the ‘Grand-Guignol!’ Take your revolver, some grenades and come along.”
I would have been highly unappreciative to have refused such a kind
invitation, although adventure, to say nothing of such a mad adventure,
has never been to my taste. But Lieutenant Delpos had the reputation of
always getting out, so why shouldn’t he get out this time.
Gondran was waiting for us a little ways from Éclusier, in a small creek,
hidden under the trees.
Gondran and his boat!
It was one of those flat-bottomed, square-ended boats that fishermen
use to cross marshes where the water is shallow. He had covered it with
a camouflage of grass, weeds, and moss so that even close to it was
impossible to tell it from one of the thousand little islands which
obstruct the Somme at this point.
We slipped into the boat and stretched out at once—it wouldn’t have held
us in any other way—and waited for total darkness. When it came, Gondran
began to push the boat ahead. He was used to fishing for eels with a
spear in the clear waters of the canals and knew how to move silently,
without a splash, almost without making a ripple on the surface of the
water. If our course had not been against the current, we might have been
mistaken for a pile of drifting grass.
Flat on his stomach in the stern with both arms in the water up to his
elbows and a stick of wood in each hand, slowly and silently he paddled
like a duck.
The officer and I were both flat also, in the bow, and we peered into the
darkness. I held a string in one hand, and the other end was tied around
Gondran’s arm. We had arranged that one pull meant to stop and stay where
we were; two to go back.
We went on without accident for nearly two hours. Suddenly, a bump, a
hard jolt, fortunately without any noise besides the rustling of the
weeds. The night was so thick that it was impossible to tell what the
obstacle was, whether it was the bank or an island. We tried in vain
to see through the fathomless darkness. We ventured to feel about with
our hands, and, in the middle of the weeds and reeds, I was gripped by
something. I pulled back my arm, in a hurry, to get away. A sharp point
cut the skin, then another, and I felt a scratch from my elbow to my fist.
I whispered in Delpos’s ear, “Barbed wire.”
A network of barbed wire barred the river here. The Germans had foreseen
the possibilities of an approach and had taken precautions to prevent
it. Was the network large, or was there only a single barrier, that was
the question. Or, should we go back? In any case there was no use in
re-appearing before we were expected, for we had reached their lines.
Since the work under suspicion was a little in advance of their first
trench, we must be nearly even with it. We had brought wire cutters, but
what was the use of cutting the first net, if we were to find another
beyond it, and then another, and so on for fifty or a hundred yards
perhaps.
The enemy is meticulous in his defenses and spares no means of protecting
himself. It was also a question whether we were in the middle of the
river or near the bank. By shoving his paddle down at arm’s length
Gondran touched bottom. So we were going to reach the bank, but first we
must prepare for our retreat. Using the barbed wire as a guide, we put
the boat out into the middle of the river, but not in the strength of the
current, and then on a stick we had brought along set up a dummy dressed
in the uniform of one of the Colonials. Then we went back to the bank.
Here was the most ticklish and dangerous moment of our mission. What, we
asked ourselves, was the shape of the bank and would we find a sentinel?
We brought the boat as near the shore as possible and in as far as we
could. By feeling to the right we could touch solid ground. The time had
come!... We glided from the boat like snakes and once on land remained
motionless, holding our breaths. It was impossible to see anything a yard
off; there was no noise except the far-off rumbling of the guns in the
English sector. We went ahead.... The heavy socks we had drawn over our
boots deadened our steps. The damp grass bent but did not crackle.
“Conrad! Come here. It is time.”
“What time?”
“Nearly midnight.”
“Good.”
“The lieutenant isn’t here.”
“No?”
“He is with the major and will come back.”
“Come along.”
“But there’s no one here.”
“What of it? Come along.”
This conversation in German stopped us short. The voices seemed to come
from the ground two steps in front of us. Doubtless there was a sap
there.... We heard steps getting farther away. I grabbed the officer
and making a megaphone of my hands whispered in his ear what I had just
understood from their conversation. In the same way, he responded:
“Inviting you was an inspiration. Since they’ve gone, we can get in
there.”
A few steps beyond in the open ground a feeble light filtered through
sacks hung as shutters. It was the sap!... We stretched out on the ground
and tried to see inside. There was no one standing, but if anyone was
left he must be asleep, and we could surprise him.... We jumped in. Not a
soul. Without a doubt it was a post momentarily empty during a relief. On
some overturned chairs there was a platter with a candle on it and we put
it out. We examined the place with our flashlight. A communication trench
opened into the post and we started down.
No matter where it led or whether we could retrace our steps or not,
the die was cast. The number of chances of our getting back alive which
Delpos had said were even seemed to me to have grown beautifully less.
The trench stopped short within ten yards. Ahead, to the right, to the
left, we stuck our noses into the solid wall. But the men had got out
someway....
Delpos risked another flash of his light—the way out was over our heads.
It was a shaft with a ladder leading up it. We heard someone talking
above. The relief was coming down....
Just then the noise of firing came from our own lines. The sections were
firing as had been arranged. This wise precaution served beyond our
utmost expectations, for above us began at once the rapid tac-tac of the
machine guns and we heard commands.
So the shaft led into the machine-gun emplacement. That was just what we
wanted to know; our reconnaissance was at an end.
Delpos drove a cheddite bomb into the wall beneath the ladder, and I tied
a slow fuse to it. We jumped towards the river. I lighted the fuse as I
jumped from the sap, just as an immense body appeared in the opening and
blocked the way.
“_Wer da?_”
“‘_Wer da?_’ you’ll find out who is there,” Delpos muttered, and with a
blow full on the chest, while I threw myself on his legs, we got the
colossus down, as he shouted for help.
But the firing drowned his cries.
Then, to deprive him of all interest in keeping on, I applied my revolver
to his forehead, and Delpos kicked him under the chin. We left him
senseless and voiceless for at least a quarter of an hour.
We jumped into our boat and slid under the camouflage. Whether we had
made too much noise or a sentinel had heard us, I don’t know, but we
were hardly there, and were just pushing off, when shots came in our
direction, star shells lighted the river, and men ran up and down the
bank.
We heard them cry, “There he is ... there....” They had seen our dummy in
the middle of the river and were firing at him with rifles and bombarding
him with grenades. We did not move. By stretching out an arm we could
almost have touched the legs of the men who came down to the water’s edge
to hurl their grenades. None of them dreamed we were so near.
The alarm lasted about twenty seconds; it seemed like a century.
We knew that the blockhouse was going to blow up and we wanted to be far
away for the débris were likely to reach us and crush us.
Suddenly, terribly, came the explosion.
It was fortunate for us that the alarm had held us close to the bank.
Whole blocks of granite were hurled into the middle of the river just
where we would have been. We were too near and too low and everything
went over us.
The violence of the waves tore us from the bank and drove us into the
strength of the current, and we weren’t fired on once. The whole garrison
had been blown up.
* * * * *
At daybreak, three o’clock in the morning, Lieutenant Delpos woke up the
major.
“Major,” he said, “it was a machine-gun emplacement. But it is no more.
If you will allow me, I’m going to bed. I couldn’t get any sleep over
there; there was too much noise.”