"But those aren't the Germans we were on the heels of yesterday and the
day before, are they?"
"No," he answered, "these must be troops which were behind them in
Belgium."
The first line, installed in a narrow valley, replenished every
half-hour the battery which, in position near a large farm, was
emptying wagonful after wagonful of shells. The German artillery swept
the plain, and some six-inch Howitzers, whose objective seemed to be
the bend of a neighbouring road, aiming too high, threatened to catch
us in enfilading fire at any moment. On the other hand, one of their
77 mm. batteries had opened fire on a wood commanding the other end
of the valley. There could be no thought of trying to get out of this
uncomfortable position by way of the plain. The enemy would see us
and his Howitzers would reach us with ease. The officer in charge of
the train, Lieutenant Boutroux, was perplexed. Finally he decided to
face the 77 mm. guns, and we began to work round the edge of the wood,
shrapnel shell bursting over our heads. Soon the valley curved inwards.
The danger zone was passed. Unscathed, and keeping well screened from
the enemy, we took up a fresh position in another gully almost exactly
similar to that we had just left.
We lacked water, and in order to find it had to follow a path leading
across the field to some barns, from the roofs of which pipes ran down
into a couple of water-tanks. A ladder was propped up against one of
the latter, and I climbed up out of curiosity. The metal plating of
the inside was covered with rust, and out of the turbid water, which
was slowly sinking, emerged an old boot, a felt cap, and all sorts of
shapeless objects of cloth or metal, coated with green slime. We had
nevertheless to content ourselves with this water!...
* * * * *
The sound of the battle was indicative of no decision; it neither
approached nor became fainter. The wounded who passed told us that
since the morning the infantry had been continually launched against
the strong entrenchments without being able to break through them. The
gun-fire did not slacken until nightfall.
We rejoined the batteries, cutting across the plain now hidden from
the enemy by the falling darkness. Somewhere a machine-gun was still
crackling. A thin rain was floating in the air and we rapidly became
wet through. We had to lie in the open among the mangel-wurzels, and
the horses were not taken out of the vehicles.
It was almost impossible to sleep. The moment we lay still we began to
shiver and our teeth chattered. I had a vague fear that the cold, which
ran down my spine in long shudders, might kill me unawares if I went to
sleep.
My feet resting on the wheel, I curled up on the top of the ammunition
wagon, preferring the icy contact of the steel to the dampness of the
ground. The rain began to fall more heavily.
_Wednesday, September 16_
Quite early this morning the dull, far-off thud of a Howitzer echoed
and re-echoed, and immediately afterwards, as if fired by a train of
powder, all the guns on the plateau began to roar.
Astruc came up:
"Lord!" said he, "I had a funny experience last night! Just think ...
the others had bagged all the places under the wagons, and, as I was
looking about, I saw a great big chap, at least six feet long, covered
over with a blanket in the middle of the field. 'Well,' said I to
myself, 'if there's room for one there's room for two,' and I lifted up
the blanket and snuggled in beside him. But as I went to sleep I pulled
it little by little to my side. Suddenly the long 'un sits up, wide
awake, and starts shaking me!... At first I said nothing--pretended
to be asleep. I was so tired! But he went on shaking me, and then
he shouted: 'What the blazes do you think you're doing?' Finally I
grunted, 'All right! No need to make such a row....' And then I rubbed
my eyes, and got up.... Do you know who it was?... It was the Major!
I'd pulled his blanket off him! I didn't lose my head. I told him that
I felt awfully ill--fit to die--and that there wasn't any more room
underneath the wagon.... Then he muttered something, I don't know what,
and settled down again. I didn't hesitate an instant, but lay down
beside him. Then he said: 'Well, for God's sake don't take all the
blanket, at any rate!'"
The battery went off to take up position, and the first line of wagons
returned to the gully where we sheltered yesterday.
My wrist was hurting me. In spite of the dressing the wound had been
poisoned by the blood of the wounded and dead at Attichy.
* * * * *
The postmaster arrived with a sackful of letters.
"At home they seem to think the war will last until New Year," said
somebody.
"But the Russians?"
"Oh! the Russians...."
"Well, let's see ... October, November, December.... That makes another
three months and a half.... Why, we shall all be dead of exposure
before then!"
* * * * *
Hardly five hundred yards away from our park some big farm buildings
suddenly burst into flames, the walls surrounding the yard showing up
on the bare fields like a massive square of luminous masonry. The smoke
at first rose in heavy, dark spirals pierced here and there by yellow
flashes and then shot straight up into the clear sky in a tall column.
We knew that there were sheep in the farm. The bombardment had ceased,
and I decided to save one or two of the animals in order to supplement
our ordinary rations. Two gunners of the 12th Battery, the carriages of
which were lined up close to ours, had the same idea.
We set out for the farm as rapidly as possible. The field we had to
cross had been ploughed up yesterday by the German Howitzers. The enemy
doubtless thought that infantry lay concealed behind the buildings,
and the whole day long his heavy guns had vainly mown down the
mangel-wurzels.
"They've gone to work as though they wanted to plant trees in fives,"
remarked one of my companions. And he added:
"And they've done the job jolly well! I know something about it, for
I'm a gardener."
On the edge of a shell crater two gendarmes lay stretched side by side
among the scattered clods of earth. One of them, a big, red-haired
man, had a great gaping wound in his chest, and his right arm, doubled
up in a strange posture, looked as if it had two elbows. The body of
the other, a grey-headed corporal, seemed untouched, but in one of his
eye-sockets there was nothing but a clot of blood, and the eye itself
was hanging on his temple at the end of a white tendon.
"Poor old chap!" said the gardener.
He leaned over the corpse with its ghastly, one-eyed face staring at
the sky, and reverently covered it with the silver-badged cap which
had fallen near the dead man's side.
* * * * *
Behind one of the blue-slated roofs, which was still intact, lively
flames were now breaking out but were immediately stifled by the clouds
of smoke. A magnificent cone-shaped fir-tree, of funereal aspect,
mounted guard over the fire like a solitary sentry.
We approached the building. Near the wall of the yard were lying two
gunners and a couple of horses. They had just been killed, and the
blood on the ground was still red. I recognized one of the men as the
orderly of one of our officers. The other had fallen face downwards,
his arms crossed under him.
A shell had bored a great hole in the yard. Three ducks, despite the
heat of the flames, were dabbling about in a little green pond near a
square-shaped dunghill. Another, the head of which had been cut off by
a shell splinter, was lying on its side at the edge of the water.
Against the background formed by the great dark curtain of smoke, which
from where we were standing hid half the sky, the skeleton of a barn
stood out like a fascinating framework of molten metal. Long flames
darted out from the doorway and licked a plough and a harrow which had
been abandoned there. Above the hay-shoot a pulley-wheel for hoisting
fodder, mounted in a recess in the front of the building, was red-hot.
The roar of the guns was no longer audible, being drowned by the
crackling of the fire and the sharp hiss of the sparks as they fell in
the pond. One of the ducks, stung by a glowing splinter, was shaking
her feathers.
"We're none too soon," said the gardener. "The mutton will be half
cooked already."
The sheepfold was only separated from the shed, which was now alight,
by a bake-house, and was already full of smoke, through which the
woolly backs of the animals loomed like even denser clouds. The
door was open, but the stupid beasts had not fled, and had crowded
together against the end wall under the window communicating with
the bake-house, through which came the smoke which was gradually
asphyxiating them. Huddling together they pushed forward as though
trying to break down the wall with their foreheads.
"Come on," said the gardener. "You, Lintier, stand there ... at the
door. That's how we'll work it. We'll both of us rush in and each pull
out one of them, and you put a bullet through them as they come out.
Understand?"
"All right!"
I had a glimpse of the shadowy forms of the two men dodging about in
the smoke. Then I heard the scraping of hard hoofs on the ground and
one of the gunners reappeared grasping with both hands the tail of a
fat sheep which he pulled out backwards. I killed the animal on the
threshold, and immediately afterwards a second. The gardener went in
again to fetch a third.
I replaced my revolver in the holster, and each of us hoisted a sheep
on to our shoulders. They encircled our necks like heavy furs, which we
kept in place by grasping the pointed feet bunched together in front
two by two. From their heads, hanging down behind, blood dripped down
our backs. We started off across the mangel-wurzel field.
Suddenly the gardener cried out:
"Listen!"
We stopped.
"Down!"
"We're seen!"
We heard the scream of heavy shell approaching, and at once threw
ourselves flat on the ground behind the sheep, which formed a sort of
rampart. Down came the shells between us and the farm. We jumped up,
and, in spite of our heavy burdens, ran till we were out of the line
of fire. We passed the dead gendarmes and did not stop until we had
reached a row of poplars which hid us from view. Three projectiles
swooped down on the spot we had just left.
Winding our way through the copses and hollows of the plateau we
regained the park in safety.
I resumed my seat on a bundle of wood near the fire, while a gunner,
who was a butcher by trade, methodically cut up one of the sheep strung
up by the foot to the store wagon.
As I led the horses down to drink at the tanks I took a short cut
across the fields in the hope of finding some potatoes, beetroot, or
perhaps some onions. We were specially in need of onions, for some of
our food was most insipid and we knew of no other flavouring.
I found neither onions nor potatoes, but, on the other side of a knoll,
I saw some foot-soldiers stretched out on the loose sheaves of wheat.
Their red breeches were visible a long way off. Evidently some of those
who had fallen in the engagements of the 12th.
In a hollow a little farther on I also came upon some German corpses.
Thirteen Frenchmen and seventeen Germans had fallen there, almost side
by side. And yet the Frenchmen seemed more numerous. Red patches on the
yellow of the stubble-field, they caught the eye, whereas the Germans
were hardly noticeable.
The arms and packs of the dead men had been taken away, and coats,
tunics, and shirts had been unbuttoned so that the medals could be
unpinned. Their necks, bared chests, and eyelids had already turned a
greenish-grey. A little sergeant, who had fallen backwards on to some
sheaves which now pillowed his head, still held his right arm starkly
in the air. The stiffened fingers of his outstretched hand seemed
clasped in a grip of agony. On his sleeve the gold bar shone in the sun.
As I passed on, some swallows, whose low flight announced rain, skimmed
over the knoll, their pointed wings lightly touching the dead men.
_Thursday, September 17_
Our line of wagons still remains in the same hollow, nor has the
battery changed position. Although during the last two days it has
fired more than five hundred shells the enemy has not been able to
discover its whereabouts.
Fighting continued, growing ever more violent in character, near
Tracy-le-Mont, Tracy-le-Val, Carlepont in front of us, Compiègne on the
west, and on the east, parallel to the Aisne, towards Soissons.
We neither advanced nor retired, and that was all we knew of the
engagement. We have begun to fall into regular habits here; soup is
served and the horses are watered at the same hour every day.
On my way to the water-tanks this morning I saw an odd-looking priest.
Sitting astride his horse in the middle of the road he was talking to
a surrounding group of gunners and foot-soldiers. He was booted and
spurred, and a long waterproof cape, fastened under his chin, floated
down over the crupper of his horse. A big wooden cross hung from his
neck on to the varnished strap of his revolver-holster, and into his
wide black belt he had stuck a German bayonet.
Standing in the stirrups he looked like some strange militant monk as
he stroked the neck of his horse.
"Yes," said he, "he's a nice beast. He belonged to a Uhlan whom I found
after the battle last week, near Nanteuil, where I was going to hear
confessions. He had been abandoned, so I took him. It is much better
than walking."
And he added:
"He saved my life yesterday.... I was going to the outposts where there
had been some fighting and where I had heard that I was wanted. I was
quite alone, and suddenly I met a patrol of Uhlans. They fired at
me, but missed. I was angry at not being able to go where I wanted,
and as I wheeled round I let them have a revolver shot. As a priest I
ought not to have done that, ought I? But I couldn't help it. I saw one
topple over. The others pursued me, but my horse went like the wind,
and after a time they gave up the chase. So I turned round again and
followed them. I found the man I had shot. He didn't understand a word
of French. I was able to give him absolution before he died, but it was
a near shave!"
* * * * *
Night was falling when we rejoined the battery. It was raining, and we
wondered whether we should again have to sleep in the mud.
I found my comrades of the first gun--Hutin, Millon, and
Déprez--covered with mire and black with powder, their faces gaunt with
weariness.
"Hallo!"
"Ah, Lintier!" said Hutin. "We've had a bad time of it to-day! I
really don't know how it is we are still here!... I don't know.... Ask
Millon...."
Millon nodded his head. He seemed at the end of his strength.
"Gratien is dead."
"Oh!"
"Killed as he was mounting his horse ... a small splinter in the spine.
He didn't move.... A shell came right through the shield of the third
gun without bursting.... And another fell not two yards off our trench!"
"Ah! That one did burst. We were badly shaken.... My hair and beard
were singed."
"No one wounded?"
"No one in the battery, except Gratien, who was killed.... Yes, though!
Pelletier got his forehead grazed by a splinter. Come and have a look
at the ammunition wagon--it's like a nutmeg-grater. It began to smoke
at one time. Suppose it had blown up!... It was full ... thirty-six
high-explosive shells!..."
It was now quite dark, so we lit the hurricane lamps. Somebody called
out:
"Eleventh, to your billets!"
"Right!"
"First gun ... fifth gun...."
"Fifth!"
"To your billets, eleventh!"
We followed a man carrying a hurricane lamp, and found that we had to
share our billets with some foot-soldiers from the south whose accent,
so to speak, smelt of garlic.
The men of the firing battery let themselves fall in the straw like
foundered horses, and, after having made sure of a warm place, I
sallied out with a couple of comrades of the first line in order to
find something to eat and drink.
The narrow, badly paved streets were alive with the shadowy forms of
men jostling each other, the indistinct coming and going of horsemen
and wagons, the noise of many feet plodding through the mud, and the
confused sound of voices and respiration.
A little café, near which the pavement had been broken up by a shell in
the afternoon, was crowded with foot-soldiers, A.S.C. men, and Zouaves.
The bottles, jugs, and glasses standing on the counter half hid the
shadeless brass lamp with which the place was lit, and threw huge,
uncouth shadows across the narrow, smoke-filled room on to the walls.
There was a babble of voices and laughter. Every one was drinking, and
the proprietor still had some liqueurs and rum left. The tired-out
soldiers soon became drunk with alcohol, tobacco, and tales of the war.
This diminutive café, where there was a little light, a little warmth,
and a whole world of oblivion, was a veritable haven in the immense
weariness of the night, among the thousands of soldiers stretched out
everywhere round us, in the open or in barns, sleeping as soundly as
the dead men just laid low in the fields by the shrapnel bullets.
We succeeded in finding a bottle of champagne. Never had the sparkle of
wine seemed to me so delicious.
Nobody was asleep when we returned to our billets. Despite the
complaints of the gunners the southern infantrymen went on talking,
swearing, and leaving the door open....
"Aren't you chaps ever going to go to sleep?" thundered a gunner from
the depths of the darkness.
"Hold your jaw!"
"Here! shut the door, can't you?"
Men continually trod on our feet and chests and let their rifles and
packs fall on us. The air was full of grumbling and vituperation. It
was nearly midnight, and Moratin lost his temper:
"Now are you ever going to shut up, you ----! If you don't, I'll go and
fetch the Major!"
A broadside of oaths rose from the straw. The gunners replied. Dozing
men, waking up, yelled:
"Shut your mouths! _Shut 'em_, do you hear?"
_Friday, September 18_
Day was just breaking as we moved slowly along the roads across the
plain, our horses sinking up to the fetlocks in clayey mud.
We met large parties of wounded--Tirailleurs, Zouaves, and, above all,
soldiers of the line. They overflowed the road on either side as they
plodded on with heavy steps which dragged in the gutters and puddles.
The dawn was misty. It was half-past four, but we could not see the
faces of the wounded until they were actually passing our carriage,
when we had a vision of white bandages and of others crimson-red. But
when the troops had gone by in the vague, uncertain light, we could
only perceive a slowly rolling sea of heads and shoulders.
In the eyes of some of my comrades who yesterday were so close to death
and who to-day were still stiff, tired, and dejected, I caught sight of
looks of envy. They were aware of the orders which had arrived during
the night, namely, that we were to return to our positions of yesterday.
They were not afraid, but the familiarity with danger, which had made
them brave, had in no sense impaired their love of life--the life
which they felt bubbling in their veins and which, in a few moments
perhaps, might be spent, with all their red blood, on the field of
mangel-wurzels. They were thinking of those who had died yesterday, of
Corporal Gratien, of Captain Legoff--an officer adored by his men--of
the six numbers of the 6th Battery who were reduced to a shapeless,
bleeding pulp at the bottom of their trench.
It is at moments like these, at once melancholy and solemn, when the
regular creaking and jolting of the wagons and the measured hoof-beats
of the horses numb the senses and make one drowsy, that one's thoughts
turn most bitterly to the future of bygone dreams, to all promised joys
and pleasures, to all the happiness for which the past has paved the
way and which might possibly have been realized without difficulty....
Dawn--I do not know why--is always a sad hour. And on the mornings of
battle this inherent sadness is rendered more poignant by the dread of
the terrible and perhaps final experiences which the day just born may
hold in store. Regrets and fears become linked in a vicious circle of
thought from which there is no escape.
One's only desire is to live--to return alive in the evening--but to
conquer first, to prevent the enemy from reaching our homes, above all
to protect the weak and loved ones behind us, in France, whose lives
are even more precious to us than our own. To conquer! And still live
to-night!
* * * * *
The battery again took up position near the holocaust of the farm,
which was still burning, and the wagons returned to their gully.
My wrist was giving me considerable pain, and the medical officer
wanted to send me behind the lines on sick-leave, but I preferred to
rest with the wagons a few days longer and then return to my gun.
The rain began to fall in torrents. On the edge of a lucerne-field one
of our horses, which we had to abandon yesterday, was rolling in its
death agony. The straw we had brought with us, hashed up by the wheels
of the vehicles and by the hoofs of the horses, and mingled with the
water and mud which had collected in the clayey hollow, formed a kind
of noisome quicksand into which we sank ankle-deep.
The men did not open their lips except to swear or complain. No
more dead wood was to be found in the copses; all had been consumed
yesterday and the day before. We could not light a fire. Some passing
gunners told us that there were still some faggots in a farm near the
water-tanks, and we at once hurried thither. On the plain the corpses
were no longer lying among the loose sheaves. On one side of the Tracy
road, which was now nothing more than a swamp, the earth had been dug
up in the middle of the field of mangel-wurzels and two crosses roughly
fashioned out of planks marked the grave.
The farm to which we had come in our quest for wood had been arranged
as a first-aid post. The buildings surrounded a yard, in the centre of
which, near the dung-heap, were ranged up several green-tilted carts
marked with the red cross. In one corner a heap of cotton-wool and some
blood-stained bandages and compresses were slowly burning.
In the stable and cow-sheds one could see, through the half-open
doors, the recumbent forms of sick and wounded lined up on the straw
underneath the empty troughs and mangers. Some hospital orderlies
in canvas clothing were busy making soup. A medical officer stalked
stiffly by in his white smock. Not a cry of pain was to be heard.
In the wood-shed some sick men--nine or ten pale and gaunt
foot-soldiers--were lying on trusses of hay which they had not even
untied. One man, whom we could not see owing to the darkness, was
breathing stertorously with a noise like an engine.
* * * * *
The firing was less violent than yesterday. An aviation park had been
formed a few hundred yards from our hollow, behind the farmhouses in
which the Staff had taken up its quarters for the day. This proximity
rendered our position increasingly unsafe. The enemy's Howitzers tried
to reach the aeroplanes standing on the field, and though they seemed
to be firing at haphazard, shells continually fell here and there on
the outskirts of our park.
* * * * *
The day was drawing to a close without giving any indication as to the
issue of the battle, which had already been in progress five days.
But towards evening a long convoy of Moroccan _Carabas_ passed on the
road near-by, marching southwards towards the Aisne. They were followed
by some infantry. What could be the meaning of it? We could not help
feeling uneasy.
The dusk deepened into darkness and the long golden beams of the
searchlights began to sweep the plain. Under the hard, unyielding light
the smallest objects--a hayrick, a shed--cast huge inky shadows on the
field.
Next, some artillery passed by, also heading towards the Aisne. We
could not see the carriages, but recognized them by the familiar
creaking and rattling. Occasionally they halted a moment or two,
and then another sound became audible--a sound like a far-off
torrent--caused by infantry on the march on some other road across the
plain.
It started to rain again.
We rejoined our batteries at the water-tanks. A ceaseless tide of men
brushed by our carriages, their shadowy figures rising and falling as
they passed in the darkness.
"What regiment is that?" I asked. No one answered.
"What regiment is that?"
Apparently a regiment of dumb men. They continued to march by in the
gloom without giving any reply.
"What regiment is that passing? Can't you speak French?"
"Hundred and third."
"Where are you going to?"
"We don't know."
"Where are you going to?" I repeated.
"We don't know," came the answer again.
On the fields of mangel-wurzels flanking the road we could see masses
of motionless artillery. Was the Army Corps retiring? And yet we had
not been outflanked this time.... I was suddenly seized with anxiety.
It began to rain harder. Under the moving ray of a searchlight I caught
a glimpse of a long road black with men and horses.
My carriage had ranged up close to those of the first gun.
"Hutin!"
"Here! Yes? Hallo, it's you!"
"Yes.... Well, are we retiring?"
"No."
"What? The whole division is falling back!..."
"We're being replaced."
"Think so?"
"Yes. I've seen some gunners of the Corps which is replacing us."
"In that case we shall get some rest."
"No, I don't think so. I've heard that they mean to make a turning
movement over by the forest of Compiègne and the forest of Laigle with
the Moroccan Division."
* * * * *
Rain ... darkness ... smoking prohibited. The surrounding gloom was
alive with distant footfalls, the muffled rumble of wheels, jingle of
arms, and the heavy breathing of men and animals.
Behind the infantry regiments of the division we began a slow march
interrupted by the halts of the foot-soldiers ahead and by other
unknown impediments.
About midnight we crossed the Aisne. Rain was still falling. Two
hurricane lamps marked the entrance of the pontoon bridge constructed
by the Engineers. The planking gave under the weight of the column and
one heard the water plashing against the metal bottoms of the boats.
The road was now clear, and the batteries on ahead broke into a trot.
A horse which had become entangled in the traces stopped our wagons
for a moment or two, and before we were able to catch up the head of
the column a cross-roads suddenly brought us once more to a halt.
In the dense darkness there was nothing to indicate which road the
leading vehicles had taken. We listened.... A distant rumble seemed
to come from the right, and we wheeled in the direction of the sound.
The drivers urged their horses forward. We strained our eyes in an
attempt to pierce the gloom, always hoping to see the bulky form of
an ammunition wagon or gun loom out of the darkness ahead. But we
hoped in vain. The road became narrower, and at every moment we risked
falling into the ditch. Finally we had to confess to ourselves that we
had lost our way.
The Lieutenant gave the word to halt. We prepared to wait for daybreak
before continuing our march. The downpour redoubled in violence, and
it was impossible to find shelter. The gunners huddled together on the
limber-boxes and became motionless, while the drivers stamped up and
down in the mud at the heads of their teams.
Overcome by fatigue I had begun to get drowsy in spite of the cold and
the wetness of my clothes, which stuck to my skin like icy poultices
and seemed to suck all the warmth from my body. Suddenly I became aware
of footsteps splashing in the gutters by the side of the road. Men were
passing by the wagon. I thought that possibly somebody had discovered a
barn and was leading them to it. I followed.
Sure enough, after a few minutes' walk we came to a house, the black
bulk of which rose up suddenly before me, darker than the surrounding
darkness.
My foot knocked against a ladder. Perhaps it led to a window? I
clambered up and found myself in a loft of which the flooring was
rotten and gave way under my tread. I clutched the low framework of
the roof and advanced cautiously. Some one was already asleep there; I
heard his breathing. Stretching myself carefully athwart the beams and
pillowing my head on a bundle of wood, I prepared to go to sleep. It
was almost hot in the loft.
_Saturday, September 19_
We started off again at dawn in a drizzling rain. The road, studded at
intervals with the bodies of dead horses, wound through interminable
woods of tall beeches from which the rain dripped heavily. Endless
enfilades of swamped and deserted trenches stretched away on either
side and were finally lost in the undergrowth. Tall, heavy trees had
been felled and laid athwart the road, which had sunk beneath their
weight. And when they had been dragged into the ditches in order to
leave the way clear for the troops, their stout branches had scored
deep scratches in the road, which had soon been converted into
quagmires by the rain.
We passed through Pierrefonds, where, beneath the leaden sky, the
magnificent outlines of the château rose up amid the verdure darkened
by the rain, and then entered the forest of Compiègne, with its lofty
beeches standing in colonnades, below which lay long lines of swamped
trenches zigzagging between the trees, with here and there a primitive
hut made of branches and ferns, and more and more dead horses.
The sun, breaking out between two clouds and piercing the leaves, threw
emerald-green lights on the wet moss. Among the dark tones the bright
trunks of the birches flashed intermittently.
* * * * *
Compiègne! The town, occupied by the enemy for a few days only, did not
appear to have suffered very much. Gun-fire was audible from far off,
to the north-east.
We crossed the Oise and rejoined our batteries at Venette, an outlying
suburb.
In the large hall of a farm to which I had gone in search of provisions
the farmer's wife, a matron of over fifty summers, was depicting the
horrors of the German occupation to four gunners.
She broke off as I came in.
"Some milk and eggs? You want to buy them? No! I won't sell them, but
I'll give you them.... Please wait a moment."
And she resumed her story.
"Well, as I was saying, it was just like that ... in front of their
father. They trussed him up with his back to the wardrobe so that he
couldn't help seeing everything. Five or six of them there were, and
one officer. They violated both girls--only eighteen and twenty, and
such nice, honest girls too!... Yes--all six of them, one after the
other! The poor things screamed all the time!... Oh, those aren't
men!... They're just beasts!..."
And lowering her voice a little, but without embarrassment, she
continued:
"More than one woman went through the same thing. I did ... yes!... And
yet I'm no young girl.... I've a son who is a soldier like you.... Oh,
God, it's awful!... It happened one evening, at about this time ...
four of them had arrived here to sleep. How was I to defend myself?...
The best thing was to say nothing. There have been women who have tried
to defend themselves and who have been simply ripped up ... that's all!
My husband was out, getting in their things. I thought to myself, 'If
he comes in, what will happen?... He'll kill some of them....'"
"Yes, I would, too! I'd have killed them!" interrupted a voice from the
darkness at the end of the room.
I had not seen the man as he sat smoking his pipe in a corner of the
hearth.
His wife turned towards him.
"Poor old dear! You'd perhaps have killed one of them, but the
others would have killed both of us.... Besides, as far as I'm
concerned--well--I know I'm too old!... That's what my husband
said--afterwards.... That won't lead to any consequences!"
_Sunday, September 20_
A long march in a stinging hail-storm, first towards the west and then
northwards. We are evidently attempting a turning movement against the
German right wing.
_Monday, September 21_
The day broke with the calm brightness of early autumn. We continued
our enveloping movement.
Towards midday a heavy French battery in position near the road
suddenly began to fire. Our officers went off at a gallop to
reconnoitre. We thought we were going into action, but were finally
told that we should not be wanted to-day and were sent off to camp in
a park near Ribécourt. We ranged up the guns on a lawn flanked by a
magnificent wood of beech-trees bordered by rhododendrons.
On one side of us lay an unruffled sheet of water, reddening under the
brilliant sunset, and, on the other, among the clumps of trees beneath
which lay flower-beds set off by blood-red sage, rose a fine modern
château. Under the rich foliage a little rustic bridge spanning the
river gave an effect curiously Venetian.
* * * * *
The evening was sultry, but nevertheless we made our bivouac fires
under the chestnut-trees flanking the river. In the darkness of the
night, which had now fallen, the pond looked like an enormous blot of
ink. We were almost blinded by the yellow flare of our fires and could
no longer distinguish the river banks, thus risking at every step a
fall into the water.
_Tuesday, September 22_
We passed the night on some straw in the outbuildings.
My wrist is now healed, and I am going to return to my post with the
first gun.
Under the morning sun the pond shone like a silver mirror, and the
little Venetian bridge struck a bright note among the dark tones of the
trees, while the water flowing underneath, over the slime and rotten
leaves, was jet-black. The château stood out starkly against the pale
blue sky, and the yellow gravel of the walks and the vermilion sage
afforded a bright contrast to the uniform green of the lawns.
The battery moved on. The crackling of rifle and machine-gun fire
accompanied the roar of the artillery. The enemy was evidently making
a stand against our enveloping movement, which it was doubtless the
intention of the French commanders to accentuate. We resumed our march
towards the north, heading for Roye. The success of the manoeuvre
depended on numbers, and I wondered whether we had sufficient men
available.
In a field by the wayside some Senegalese Tirailleurs, fine-looking,
ebony-coloured men dressed in navy blue uniforms, were making coffee
with the simple gestures and admirable attitudes of people untrammelled
by civilization.
* * * * *
The officers had gone off to reconnoitre. We halted at the foot of a
long slope in the middle of some large mangel-wurzel fields forming a
kind of basin near the village of Fresnières, where heavy shells were
falling.
The line of fire, forming an angle towards Compiègne, stretched from
north to south. We could not be more than a mile or two, as the crow
flies, from the plains we had been occupying during the past few days
on the banks of the Aisne, near Tracy-le-Mont.
I do not know what echo or confusion of sound prevented us from
locating the position of the battle exactly. Fighting was going on in
the direction of Ribécourt and Lassigny, but the heavy battery which
had been bombarding Fresnières was now silent. Behind the woods columns
of black smoke were curling upwards. Fires or shells bursting? It was
impossible to tell.
But our chief anxiety was the northern horizon, which was masked by a
line of poplars, and from which occasional and unsustained rifle-fire
revealed the presence of the enemy. The Germans might reply to our
enveloping movement by trying to execute a similar manoeuvre.
On the edge of the woods to the north-east large numbers of troops
could be seen in movement. A long black column of artillery was winding
its way across country. The hoof-beats of a far-off squadron, trotting,
sounded like the reptation of some huge serpent. The whole countryside
was alive. From where we stood one would have said that it was only the
leaves of the mangel-wurzels moving in the wind, but in reality it was
infantry deploying in skirmishing order.
We took up position in a field. The ground under my gun was extremely
soft, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that the carriage would
continue to recoil with the result that a perpetual error in laying
would retard our rapidity of fire. The second gun was no better placed
than ours, but the other section, in position on a stubble-field,
was on much firmer ground. The battery would thus lose all cohesion,
but there was no help for it. It was impossible to use the position
assigned to us to better advantage.
In front of us, some 77 mm. guns were sweeping the fields, but
these did not cause us much anxiety. In relation to the position
which, judging from their fire, they were occupying somewhere to the
north-east, we were well covered. But, beyond Lassigny, standing out
amid the verdure, rose a line of lofty, wooded hills which commanded
the whole of the plain and from the summit of which our battery was
certainly visible. We could not take our eyes off their threatening
crests. What lay hid in their gloomy forests?
We were well within range of heavy artillery should the enemy install a
battery at that point.
"Come on," said Bréjard, "we must make a hole and get to work quickly."
In feverish haste we dug a trench behind the ammunition wagon. Another
group of ·75's, occupying a position parallel to ours, opened fire on
Lassigny.
The ·77's now increased their range, and every round became more
threatening.
"To your guns ... by the right, each battery!" commanded the Captain.
"What range? We haven't heard the range," shouted Millon.
"Eleven hundred!"
"How much?"
"Eleven hundred!"
"Oh, they're not far off!"
"Sounds bad, that," growled Hutin.
The gun reared, and immediately recoiled more than two yards. We had
to man it forward into position, but the spade and wheels had sunk so
deep in the soil that try as we would the six of us could not move it.
Our shoulders to the wheels, struggling and sweating, we began to get
nervous and angry. Finally we had to call to the detachment of the
second gun to come and help us.
Some infantry had taken up position in front of the battery. We
signalled to them to move to the left.
"They'll get cut in two, the idiots!"
"To the left!"
"What fools!"
"To the left!"
The Lieutenant, his lungs exhausted, waved his long arms.
"Lord! aren't they stupid, those fellows!" We shouted in chorus:
"To the left ... _to the left_!"
At last they moved off, and we could fire.
"Eight hundred!"
We thought we had not heard aright.
"Eight hundred!"
So the enemy was there, behind the crests, and was advancing....
What was the French command waiting for? Why did they not throw forward
the troops which, over towards Fresnières, were swarming on the
mangel-wurzel fields?
Moratin, who was standing on the refilling wagon, cried out:
"Go on, let 'em have it full! That shell from the first gun mowed down
a heap of them. There! you can see them, the brutes!... You can see
them!..."
His words gave us strength to push the gun, the wheels of which kept
turning backwards, forward into position again.
"Hutin!"
"What?"
"Did you hear?"
"Hear what?"
"There it is again."
"Bullets ..."
"Yes."
"In threes, double traverse!"
The Captain had climbed into an apple-tree close to the fourth gun. The
bullets, brushing over the crest, were too high to touch us, but they
continually cut down leaves round the Captain. We begged him to come
down. For the tenth time one of the gunners insisted:
"You mustn't stay there, sir!"
The Major interfered:
"Come down, De Brisoult!"
But the Captain, his glasses to his eyes, continued to scan the
northern horizon and only answered quietly:
"But I can see very well, sir ... very well. Nine hundred!..."
"Nine hundred!"
"Nine hundred!" repeated the gunners.
Our infantry had doubtless retaken Lassigny. German shells were now
bursting over the town, giving off clouds of yellow smoke.
"One thousand!"
We had at last found a more or less firm position for our gun, and our
fire accelerated as the enemy fell back.
"Eleven hundred!"
"Twelve hundred!... Cease firing!"
The detachments piled up in front of the trenches the ejected
cartridge-cases which strewed the field. Bullets still continued to
hum over our heads, but the 77 mm. shells were now falling wide of the
mark. We remained motionless at the bottom of our trenches. Every few
minutes Hutin asked me:
"What time is it?"
When I told him he became impatient:
"Confound it!" said he, "we don't seem to be getting on!"
In the afternoon, on an order from the division, the Major commanded
the limbers to be brought up.
The drivers arrived on horseback, at a trot.
"Dismount!" shouted the Captain.
They did not hear. Bullets, skimming over the crest, still whistled by.
They would inevitably be killed.
"Now then, altogether," said the senior N.C.O.... "One ... two ...
three.... Dismount!..."
Twenty voices were raised in a single shout. This time they heard, and,
without stopping the limbers, the drivers hurriedly tumbled off their
horses.
* * * * *
We took up a fresh position still nearer the enemy between two lines of
poplars in a meadow overgrown with tall grass. Almost immediately the
77 mm. guns, which since the morning had been searching for us without
success, began to threaten our battery. The enemy could not have seen
our movements, and no aeroplane was visible aloft. Had our position
been signalled by a spy?
A foot-soldier passed, holding his abdomen with both hands and shifting
from one foot to the other in the throes of intense suffering.
"Is there an ambulance over there?"
"Have you had a bullet in the stomach?"
"No, here ... between the legs. It burns, it burns frightfully!"
"Listen," said Millon, "make for our limbers--over there on the left,
behind the trees. They've nothing to do, and will perhaps be able to
help you."
"Thanks! I'll go to them."
"But take care between the trees in the meadow. The shells are falling
thick there!"
The unfortunate soldier moved off slowly, writhing with pain.
The Captain was standing at the foot of the first poplar of one of
the two lines, intent upon making observations. Men ready to transmit
orders by word of mouth lay at regular intervals on the exposed ground
between the battery and the observation-post.
The 77 mm. shells were now bursting directly overhead. We took cover.
Every few seconds the enemy's shrapnels sowed the position with
bullets, the lead twanging on the steel armour of the ammunition wagon.
Nobody moved, and no one was wounded.
Then I saw Hutin, who, sitting on the layer's seat, was sheltering
behind the gun-shield, suddenly jump to his feet:
"Good God!" he ejaculated, "the Captain!"
"Hit?" we asked anxiously.
"It burst just over the tree he was leaning up against!"
In spite of the danger the whole detachment at once stood up like one
man.
"Can you see him, Hutin?"
"No...."
Lieutenant Homolle, the Major's little A.D.C., who quietly came up,
unprotected, from the observation-post, shouted to us from a distance:
"Will you take cover, you idiots!"
"The Captain?"
"He's not hurt."
And, when he had reached us and taken shelter behind the ammunition
wagon, he added:
"I've got two in the thigh.... That's nothing--they didn't go in ... a
couple of bruises, that's all. The shell's got to burst pretty close
to do any damage. The most annoying thing about it is that the Captain
can't see the Germans. We can't fire!"
The enemy's fire redoubled in violence, and shrapnel bullets riddled
the poplars, making a noise like falling hail. Shorn-off leaves,
carried by the wind, were scattered round the guns.
One of the liaison officers--one of the _hurleurs_[3] as they are
called--wounded in the side, hurriedly left the position. Astruc,
wounded in the chest and vomiting blood, also left the field, leaning
on the arm of a comrade.
We again became motionless under the shell-fire.
Since a moment or two I had felt an unaccustomed itching in my beard.
Had I caught trench pest? Hutin lent me his looking-glass, but, while
I was carefully combing myself, I felt a sudden burning sensation in
my right hand, in which I was holding the glass, and which I had
stretched beyond the protective bulk of the ammunition wagon. At the
same time something hit me in the chest. Feverishly, with my left hand,
I fingered the cloth of my uniform and found a rent in it breast-high.
I felt myself suddenly grow weak. I tore open my tunic and shirt ...
nothing ... I could see nothing. My skin was unscratched.
My pocket-book, letters, and letter-case, which I carry in the pocket
of my shirt, had stopped the bullet. The blood was spurting from my
wounded hand. That was nothing. Instinctively I had pocketed the
looking-glass. I do not know how it had remained between my fingers,
for my thumb was now no more than a pendant piece of tattered flesh.
"You'll have to clear off," said Lieutenant Hély d'Oissel, who was
crouching down next to me.
Hutin stood up:
"Lintier!" he cried, in a voice vibrating with horror which went
straight to my heart.
"It's nothing, old chap ... only my hand."
"I'll dress it for you!"
But shells were falling incessantly and I refused to let him get from
under cover.
"Run off quick!" said the Lieutenant.
I ran off across the meadow, crouching down as much as possible
under the menace of the shrapnel bullets. Blood was dripping on to my
leggings and thighs, and sticking the cloth of my breeches to my knees.
From my hand the bullet had projected a red, star-shaped piece of flesh
and tendons on to my chest.
Suddenly came the whistling of approaching shells.
At the foot of one of the poplars two horses had just been killed. I
threw myself down between them in the long, blood-stained grass. The
shells burst. With a dull sound a large splinter ripped up one of the
inert bodies protecting me.
I immediately set off again, rapidly getting out of the 77 mm. Howitzer
line of fire. My wounded hand was covered with earth and horse's blood.
As I crossed a road or embankment, I suddenly found myself faced by the
threatening muzzles of twenty French field-guns lined up on the field.
There was nothing for it but to retrace my steps.
Behind the motionless artillery some Moroccan Tirailleurs were lying
among the mangel-wurzels. I nearly trod on them before I discovered
their presence.
A Captain stood up and beckoned to me:
"Come here, gunner, and I'll bandage you. Got your first-aid
dressing?... In the inside pocket of your tunic?... Hallo, it's all
torn! Been wounded in the chest? No?... Well, you're lucky!..."
He examined my hand.
"H'm ... nasty!... lot of earth and gun-grease got into it.... We must
clean that off and disinfect the wound as soon as possible.... I'll
take off the worst with some cotton-wool."
I was out of breath with running, and the blood was throbbing in my
temples and buzzing in my ears. The instinct of self-preservation
suddenly deserted me, and, as I stood motionless, I began to feel
faint. My legs shook and gave way as though broken at the knees. The
figure of the officer standing by me seemed to turn round and round.
"Hallo! Steady!" he cried.
He forced the neck of a flask between my lips and poured a draught of
rum down my throat. I immediately felt strengthened from head to foot
and laughed as I thanked him.
"That's all right!" said he as he finished dressing my hand.
The field-hospitals of the division were at Fresnières, and I started
off in that direction. My hand felt as though it had turned to lead,
and, as I walked across country, holding myself stiffly erect with a
view to resisting another fainting fit, buoyed up by the thought that
I should soon be under cover, far from the shells and the battle, an
unwonted lassitude, a yearning for sleep and silence, a weakening of
will-power suddenly took possession of me and seemed to penetrate to
the very marrow of my bones. It seemed to me that when I got to the
hospital I should sleep for days on end.
To sleep--to sleep--and, above all, no longer hear the guns, no longer
hear anything. To live without thinking, and in absolute silence; to
live after so many times having narrowly escaped death. Suddenly I
remembered what the Captain of Tirailleurs had said--that my wound was
dirty, infected with earth and horse's blood. The fear of gangrene, of
lock-jaw, and of all other forms of hospital putrefaction gripped me by
the throat.
At Fresnières an enormous shell had just killed, in front of the door
of the hospital, a medical officer, a nun, and four wounded men. The
bodies were laid out side by side on the pavement, but the corpse of
a Tirailleur, a great, dark-skinned giant whose arms, stretched out,
spanned an extraordinary space, still lay in the cut-up roadway. The
air was full of the distant whistling of shells. In the face of this
menace which remained hanging over my head, now that I could no longer
fight, I was seized with an instinctive and puerile feeling of revolt.
I was no longer fair game.
In the yard outside the hospital, among the stretchers bearing wounded,
blood-stained men, some hospital orderlies were laying the more severe
cases on a large table covered with a flowery-patterned oil-cloth. Two
medical officers were hurriedly dressing them.
One, a big, brown-haired man with gold-rimmed spectacles, beckoned to
me. I went up to him.
"Well, what's wrong with you?"
"Shrapnel...."
"Let's have a look!"
He unwound the bandage, and, as soon as he took off the compress, the
blood began to spurt like a fountain. He looked at the wound and made a
grimace.
"H'm ... it bleeds badly...."
He called one of his subordinates, a bearded officer, who hurried up.
"Look ... we'd better take the thumb right off, hadn't we?"
"I should think so!..." said the other.
"Right. We'll cut that off for you at once," said the officer with the
gold-rimmed glasses.