"Betrayed! I was waiting for some one to come out with that!"
"Well, I mean it; betrayed! I heard about it yesterday.... It was
a General who delivered up the army plans. I know what I'm talking
about!"
"Pooh! Camp gossip!"
"I heard the same thing," affirmed another.
"Simply camp gossip! From the moment we got scratched that was bound
to come sooner or later. If you're beaten it's because you've been
betrayed! The French can't be the weaker! Lord, no! It's impossible,
of course! But you know there are five German army corps in front of
us. That makes two to one.... No ... well, all the same. Even with two
to one we can't be beaten, can we? And, if we are, we at once begin
to whine about betrayal! Wasn't it you who were always saying that
Langle de Cary's army ought to come up and help us? Eh? Well, it's all
simply because you don't feel strong enough to tackle the Boches by
yourselves."
"All the same, traitors exist right enough," said the trumpeter with
a sage nod of the head. "There always have been traitors, and there
always will be, to sell France."
"Idiot!" said Hutin peremptorily.
* * * * *
Almost all my comrades thought as I did. A few properly equipped
reinforcements would have enabled us to get the upper hand. Even alone,
here behind the Meuse, we could have managed to stop the enemy.
Besides, during the days of defeat we had just been passing through,
what a moving picture of our country had been revealed to us! An army
immediately victorious cannot plumb the depths of patriotism. One
must have fought, have suffered, and have feared--even if only for a
moment--to lose her, in order to understand what one's country really
means. She is the whole joy of existence, the embodiment of all our
pleasures visible and invisible, and the focus of all our hopes.
She alone makes life worth living. All this united and personified
in a single suffering being, begotten by the will of millions of
individuals--that is France!
In defending her one defends oneself, seeing that she is the sole
reason for being, for living. One would prefer to fall dead on the spot
rather than see France lost, for that would be worse than death. Every
soldier feels this truth, either vaguely, or distinctly and clearly,
according to his powers of perception and affection.
And yet, in the camp, these things are never talked of. The reason
is that words which, in peace-time, too often veiled by their gross
grandiloquence these deeper and finer feelings, would be insupportable
now. This passion, for it is a passion, lies deep down in the heart
with other sacred and inmost emotions, to give outward expression to
which would be almost to profane them.
* * * * *
"Come on, now! Harness! Hook in! We're off."
The rain had soured the men's tempers.
"Now then! Be careful with your horse, can't you? You might have killed
us!"
"Untie your horses so that we can get the picket-lines, will you?...
All right, damn you, I'll do it myself."
"There's a silly fool! Fine place to tether a colt to--the wheel of an
ammunition wagon. He's ripping up the oat-bag. Pull him off, can't you?"
Cramone, threatening his team with his whip, repeated for the twentieth
time:
"I'll teach you how to behave, you brutes!"
"There's another dish lost," shouted Millon. "Who's the idiot who
didn't pick it up yesterday?"
"Can't you pull your infernal mules back a bit?... We can't limber
up.... Never seen such a fool!..."
The men pushed and tugged at their horses, which, face to the wind,
continued pulling this way and that in a vain attempt to prevent the
rain stinging their ears. Bréjard lost his temper.
"Lord, what a set! Can't you keep your horses straight?... Look at that
off-leader!... Can't you see he's got entangled?..."
"Thought we were going to have a rest to-day!"
"I suppose the Germans are resting, aren't they?"
The start was difficult. During the night the wheels of the vehicles
had sunk deeper and deeper into the softening soil, and the horses'
hoofs kept slipping on the slope.
Once on the road the battery broke into a trot, the mud splashing in
sprays from under the feet of the horses. Some of the gunners, attacked
by colic, stopped in the ditches, and then, still doing up their
breeches, ran along by the side of the column in order to overtake
their vehicles.
We were going to extend a strong artillery position on the heights of
the Meuse valley. From the hills near Stenay the sound of the guns
reached us in gusts, and, some distance off, above the woods, we could
see the shrapnel shells bursting. The rain had stopped, and the sky,
dark a moment previously, suddenly cleared and assumed a uniformly
light grey tint.
In a meadow by the roadside some peasants, fleeing before the tide of
invasion, had set up their nightly camp. A large green awning sheltered
their cart and formed a tent at the same time. Two shafts projected
from the front end, pointing skywards. An old man and two women--both
pregnant--with half a dozen children clinging to their skirts, watched
us go by.
The road rose stiffly upwards, and the column slackened its pace to a
walk. I heard one of the women say to the old man, as she gave him a
nudge with her elbow:
"Go on, father!"
The old man hesitated, but she insisted:
"You must!"
He seemed to make up his mind, and approached us, shifting from one leg
to another. Then, with a red face, he muttered:
"No! Can't ask for that at my time of life!"
He was about to go, but we stopped him.
"Ask for what, old fellow?"
"For a bit of bread, if you've got any over. It's for the children!"
"Yes, of course we have! We never eat it all!"
As a matter of fact we seldom get enough bread. The loaves have to be
sorted out, and, when the mouldy parts have been thrown away, the
ration is usually more than halved. The old man walked by the side of
the limber while the men searched in their bags.
"Here you are!"
Two loaves, almost fresh, were held out to him.
"With an onion and a good set of teeth they're eatable!"
"Thanks.... Thank you so much.... But I'm afraid you'll be short
yourselves!"
"Oh, no! That's all right, old chap! Why, we get a wagonful of those
every day!"
He made off, a loaf under each arm. I saw him hunch his shoulders and
dry his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.
A shower of shrapnel shells suddenly burst in the distance, over the
dark woods.
"Swine!" growled Millon between his teeth. He had given up his bread.
He shook his fist towards the enemy.
Once in position to sweep the uplands on the right bank of the Meuse,
we dried ourselves in the sun.
In the afternoon a few horsemen, Uhlans presumably, appeared on the
edge of a distant wood. A broadside of shells quickly made them seek
cover again.
_Friday, August 28_
"Alarm!"
"What?"
"Come on, up you get!"
"What's the time?"
"Don't know.... It's still dark."
"All right, then, we'll get up. Hutin, come on, get up!"