_Sunday, September 6_
When we awoke, in a fine morning lightly veiled by silvery mists, the
suburbs of Paris were already visible.
We passed through the forest of Fontainebleau, where troops were
camping amid the broom and bracken, and rolled on through the woods in
which the white walls and red roofs of the villas made a gay splash
on the green background. The gardens were a mass of flowers; huge
sunflowers turned their golden faces towards us.
We almost forgot the tragedy of the moment.
Sunday! The bells were ringing. Besides, Paris was quite close now, and
the magnetic power of the great city was already making itself felt.
The Parisians in the carriage could hardly keep still.
Suddenly, after this dreary journey, and although it would have been
difficult to explain why or how, hope was rekindled in spite of some
more bad news we had learnt on the way, namely, that the Germans had
reached Creil without opposition.
It was not the strength of the entrenched camp of Paris, of its
garrison, nor of its heavy artillery which restored our confidence;
it was rather the instinctive faith of a child, who, having returned
home, feels irresistible because there seems to be a sort of
reassuring sympathy between himself and surrounding objects--even
the elements. What again sent the blood coursing through our veins
was the indescribable yet definite sensation caused by the presence
of something immortal, of something loved and revered. It was like
a breath of life, like the comforting support of an invincible
Personality, an all-powerful Divinity.
And then, as Hutin kept repeating:
"There! That's Paris! that's Paris!"
* * * * *
"The English!"
A convoy of British troops was passing us. The men shouted and waved
their képis.
At Villeneuve-Saint-Georges the station was thronged with Highlanders.
Our train came to a standstill and was immediately surrounded by a
crowd of kilted soldiers intent upon examining our guns. Lebidois acted
as interpreter, and there was much hand-shaking and cheering.
Little Millon stopped a burly Highlander with tattooed wrists and knees
and asked him whether he wore any drawers under his kilt. The other did
not understand and laughed.
"That's so, isn't it?" said Millon. "If only you'd got a little more
hair on your head and a little less on your paws--why, in that skirt
they'd take you for a girl!"
* * * * *
We detrained at Pantin. Except for inscriptions on the wooden panels
or steel shutters of the shops, such as "Owner away at the front,"
or, in letters a foot high, "We are French," and save for the faded
mobilization placards, Pantin wore the usual aspect common to such
places on summer Sundays.
On the pavement and in the roadway swarmed crowds of women in
light-coloured dresses, carefully corseted, their figures curving with
that grace which only Parisian women seem to possess. Soldiers of every
rank and regiment strolled in and out the crush. A Territorial passed
with a woman on one arm, while with the other he led a little boy by
the hand.
Was it possible that the enemy was at the gates?
* * * * *
At Rosny-sous-Bois we camped on a plateau overlooking the town on one
side and the plain of Brie on the other--a depressing enough spot,
devoid of all charm. Far off, towards the south-east, the sound of guns
was audible.
In the streets, between the greenery of the gardens and the
light-coloured fronts of the villas, the scarlet uniforms, white
blouses, and variegated parasols chequered the crowd with bright dashes
of colour.
The Zouaves had come down from the forts.
On the terraces of the cafés, where not a single place remained
vacant, the white aprons of the waiters fluttered in and out among the
multicoloured uniforms of the Chasseurs, Army Service Corps officers,
Artillerymen, Tirailleurs, and Spahis. In front of the Post Office
and round the doors of the bakeries and confectioners' shops the
crowd collected in animated groups. Women ran to and fro greeting the
soldiers, asking questions, searching for a husband, son, brother, or
lover whom they were expecting to arrive.
Every one jostled together, hailed each other, drank, ate, smoked, and
laughed. Families of placid tradespeople, mildly inquisitive, strutted
in and out the crowd with short, conceited little steps.
The guns were still roaring, but in order to hear them one had to
separate from the crowd and enter the quiet little streets between the
gardens.
We heard that fighting was in progress on the Grand Morin.
_Monday, September 7_
It was broad daylight when I was awakened by Bréjard.
"Up you get," said he.
"What?"
"Here, listen to this."
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.
"_Army Order of the Day._
"_At the moment when we are about to engage upon a battle upon
which will depend the safety of the country, it is necessary to
remind every one that this is not the time to look back. No effort
must be spared to attack and repulse the enemy. Troops which can
advance no farther must at all costs hold the ground won and let
themselves be killed rather than retire._"
"Do you understand?"
Yes, we had all understood perfectly. We should never have been able to
express so simply and yet so completely our inmost thoughts. "Troops
should let themselves be killed rather than retire." That was it!
"And now, limber up," added Bréjard. "We're off there!"
* * * * *
Just as the battery was starting, two girls, the sister and fiancée of
one of the gunners, hurried up. For a moment or two they ran, flushed
and panting, by the side of the horses, both speaking rapidly and at
the same time. When they were quite out of breath they held out their
hands, one after the other, to the gunner, who leant down from the
saddle and kissed their finger-tips.
* * * * *
We passed through the suburbs and then, by the Soissons road,
approached the plain of Brie. We were going to the front, and I think
that each man felt that we were now passing through the gravest and
most critical moments of a whole century--perhaps of a whole history.
* * * * *
Evening fell. The battery had been on the march for more than ten hours
without halting. Far away in the background Montmartre reared its black
silhouette against the western sky.
The fields were lit up by the stars, which were exceptionally
brilliant, but the road remained dark under the vault of tall trees
planted in double rows on either side, between which floated a
suffocating cloud of dust. A distant searchlight was sweeping the
plain. The battery broke into a trot on the paved road, and the
vehicles jolted and bumped so that it was veritable torture to sit
on them. Sharp internal pains made us twist as we clutched on to the
limber-boxes; our aching backs seemed no longer capable of sustaining
our shoulders, and the breath came in gasps from our shaken chests.
Our hearts thumped against our ribs, our heads swam--we perspired with
pain. Should we never stop?
Hour after hour we followed the same dark road, but the column had
again slowed down to a walk. The bright headlights of an approaching
automobile suddenly threw the trees into vertiginous perspectives like
the columns of some cathedral, and showed up the teams and drivers as
they emerged from the gloom in a grotesque procession of fantastic
shadows. The motor passed.
On we lumbered ... on, on.... Should we never stop?
* * * * *
"Halt!"
At last! We parked the guns in a field and then led the horses off to
be watered.
The only light in the dark little village was a lamp burning in a
kitchen, in which we caught a glimpse of large copper sauce-pans.
There was no drinking-place and we had to push on to a marshy meadow
through which ran a river. The banks were so steep that the horses
could not drink from the current, and we gave them water out of the
skin bags.
On our return we found the road crowded with horses. Other batteries
had just arrived.
An eddy in the stream had just pushed me up against the garden wall of
a château when a motor, showing no lights, forced its way through the
herd of horses, throwing against me a confused mass of men and animals
whose weight crushed me against the stone. Another car followed, then
another, hundreds of them, silently and interminably.
By the light of the moon, which had now risen, I was able to recognize
the oil-skin caps usually worn by taxi-drivers. Inside the cabs I
caught a glimpse of soldiers sleeping, their heads thrown back.
"Wounded?" asked somebody.
"No," came the answer from a passing car. "It's the 7th Division from
Paris. They're off to the front!"
_Tuesday, September 8_
"Attention!"
It was still pitch-dark. Cinders continued to smoulder on the hearths.
The guns were still roaring, and the vivid jets of fire startled us
like flashes of lightning. A little way off, to the east, a farm or
hayrick was burning. The weather was sultry and a persistent smell of
putrefying flesh permeated the air.
The battery started; we were off to the firing-line.
At daybreak we reached Dammartin, where, on the doors and closed
shutters, notices and billeting directions were chalked up in German.
On the front door of one house I saw two words scrawled in pointed,
Gothic handwriting: "_Gute Leute_" (Good people). I wondered who it was
that lived there....
We continued on our way. The dull boom of the guns seemed to come from
the bowels of the earth, and continued uninterruptedly.
By the side of the road a grave had been dug and marked by a white deal
cross bearing a name painted in tar and capped by a Chasseur's shako
with a brass chain. The dead man had evidently not been buried soon
enough, and a sickening smell rose up from the freshly turned soil,
which had cracked under the hot sun.
The road was still staked out with dead horses, swollen like
wine-skins, their stiffened legs with shining shoes threatening the
sky. From a gaping wound in the flank of a big chestnut mare worms were
wriggling into the grass; others were swarming in her nostrils and
mouth, and in a bullet-hole behind her ear.
"Trot!"
The battery became almost invisible in its own dust. We began to pass
wounded, hundreds of wounded--infantry of the line, Alpine troops,
and Colonial infantry white with dust, their wounds dressed with red
bandages. They helped each other along.
The majority were marching in small groups. Many had stopped to rest.
It was very hot, and I saw several of them round an apple-tree, shaking
down the fruit in order to slake their thirst.
We had halted while the Major received orders from an A.D.C. I
questioned one of the Colonials, who was wounded in the head.
"Well, how are things going down there?"
"Phew! they're falling thick!"
I did not know whether he was referring to bullets, shell, or men, but
from the expression of the drawn and haggard faces it was easy to see
that the fighting had been severe.
"Been fighting long here?"
"Yes."
"How many days?"
"It had begun when we came."
"And when did you come?"
"The day before yesterday."
And he repeated:
"Yes, they're falling thick!"
We restarted, again at a trot.
The clear sky, of a pure limpid blue on the northern and eastern
horizon, was fleeced with the white smoke of shrapnel shell; in
the distance black clouds were rising from burning buildings and
high-explosive projectiles.
We were still pursued by the smell of dead flesh, which harassed and
obsessed us, making us peer about in all directions for hidden corpses.
Suddenly one of the horses of my ammunition wagon foundered and refused
to go any farther, stopping the whole team. He had to be unharnessed
and abandoned. The other carriages had passed us, and with our five
remaining horses we galloped across country in order to rejoin the
column. The furrows nearly shook us off our seats and we had to hold
on to the box-rails with might and main, bracing our legs against the
foot-rests in order not to fall off.
We overtook the battery in a village which had been visible from afar
on the flat and bare countryside. The enemy had evidently quartered
there. The doors had been broken in with blows from the butt-ends
of rifles; almost all the windows had been smashed, and were now
mere frames bristling with jagged splinters of glass. Dirty curtains
flapped through them on the outside. Torn-down shutters lay strewn on
the pavement among broken bottles, shattered tiles, and empty tins of
preserves. Others, hanging by one hinge, beat against the fronts of the
houses.
Through the wide-open doors we could see staved-in wardrobes which had
been thrown down the staircases. Empty drawers, mantelpiece ornaments,
photographs, pictures and prints littered the red-tiled floors.
Mud-stained sheets with the mark of hobnailed boots on them trailed to
the middle of the street, giving to these unfortunate houses something
of the horror of ripped-up corpses.
The pavements were a mass of furniture thrown out of the windows,
perambulators, go-carts, and broken wine-casks. Wood crunched under the
wheels of the wagon. A pair of pink corsets was lying in the gutter.
On one of the Michelin danger signals, at the other end of the village,
I read the warning: "_Attention aux enfants--Sennevières_," and on the
other side a derisive and mournful "_Merci_."[1]
* * * * *
We halted where the road traced a straight white line through a plain
covered with mangel-wurzels. The desolate nakedness of the fields was
only broken by a shed, three hayricks, and, farther off, some little,
square-shaped copses and a long line of poplars. To the east and north
the battle growled, whistled and roared like a storm at sea. One would
have thought that the infernal noise came from some deep, subterranean
earthquake.
We had waited a few minutes when suddenly the countryside sprang to
life. Battalions, debouching from Sennevières, deployed in skirmishing
order, and other soldiers--hundreds and thousands whose presence one
would never have suspected--rose up from the bosom of the earth and
swarmed like ants over the fields, their breeches making red patches
on the sombre green of the grass. Frightened hares fled from before the
oncoming lines.
Small groups of wounded again began to go by. They could be seen far
off, black specks on the straight white road dazzling in the sun.
Some Cuirassiers appeared to be billeted somewhere in the surroundings.
One or two passed by on foot, without helmets or breast-plates, their
chests covered with buff-coloured felt pads fitted with wadded rings
round the armholes. They were carrying large joints of fresh beef.
In the shade of three poplars to the right of the road, just outside
the village, some men were slaughtering cattle and selling the meat.
Near-by lay a dead horse.
Presently came the order:
"Reconnoitre!"
The battery was going into action. Once more I was unable to escape the
little shiver of fear which follows this word of command.
In the firing position the battery was only masked by a hedge of
brambles and some tangled shrubs, so that from several points of the
horizon we must have been visible to the enemy. The position was not a
good one, but it was the best the surroundings offered.
The officers had taken up their position near the first gun on a narrow
path cutting across the plain. The battlefield opened out wide before
us. But on the almost flat countryside which bore such an everyday
aspect, and upon which we nevertheless knew the destiny of France was
at stake, not a man, not a gun was to be seen. The thunder-ridden plain
seemed to lie motionless under the shells.
We had covered our guns with sheaves; yellow under the yellow straw
they might deceive at a distance. Besides, straw affords good
protection against shrapnel bullets and shell splinters.
We at once fell asleep in the sun with the apathy of pawns who let
themselves be moved, with that fatalism which is an inevitable result
of the life fraught with hourly danger we had been living for a month.