[5] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters in the
book.
'NEATH VERDUN--BEHIND THE CROWN PRINCE'S ARMY
_By Lieutenant Maurice Genevoix--Translated by H. Grahame Richards_
This extraordinary narrative by a young Lieutenant in the French
Army gives the most vivid impression that has been recorded of the
Great War. The author was a student at the Ecole Normale, Paris, at
the outbreak of the War. He received his baptism of fire in August,
1914--and what a baptism it was! It has been truly said by critics
that his narrative is one which will be read and reread and handed
on to posterity. He lays bare the soul of the War. Under his magic
touch, we stand at Verdun; we see the army at "The Crossing of the
Meuse"; we stay with them through "The Days of the Marne"; we march
with them "Behind the Crown Prince's Army"; we fight with them "In
the Woods." We here reprint portions of his narrative by permission
of his American publishers, _Frederick A. Stokes Company_.
[6] I--STORY OF THE LIEUTENANT AT VERDUN
Half-past one in the morning! Kit bags on the ground, rifles piled,
lines in sections of four, at the edge of a little wood of birch trees
struggling for life on a stony soil. The night is cold. I place a
listening post well forward and return and seat myself near my men. The
stillness is palpitating; the passage of time interminably long-drawn.
The dawn begins to lighten the sky. I look around me and see the pale
and tired faces of my men.
Four o'clock. A dozen rifle shots to the right cause me to leap to my
feet just as I am making myself comfortable. Out of a small neighboring
wood a dozen Uhlans are flying at a gallop--they must have passed the
night in the covert.
The day breaks clear and fresh. My Nubécourt bed-fellow produces his
inexhaustible flask, and we sip a drop of brandy which possesses no
bouquet at all and seems like raw alcohol. The Captain joins us at last
and explains the situation in a few words:
"A German army corps," he says, "is marching towards the southeast,
having for flank-guard a brigade which follows the valley of the Aire.
The --th Corps is going to engage the said German corps, while it
remains for us to deal with the flanking brigade."
For the first time I am going to experience war in all its reality!
* * * * *
Clac! Clac! Two bullets have struck immediately to my left. The noise
at once surprises and slightly amazes me; these bullets seem less
dangerous when they sing and whistle. Clac! Clac! Stones, pieces of
dried earth, spurts of dust fly into the air; we have been seen and
they have got the range of us. Forward! I am leading, seeking a ditch,
a slope, a fold in the earth wherein to shelter my men after the first
rush--even the hedge of a field, or anything which will render them
less visible to the Boches will do. A movement of my right arm shortens
the line by half. I hear the tramp of feet, the rustle of the stubble
lying in our course. And while we are running forward the detachment
in support fires rapidly but steadily. Then when I raise my cap, that
detachment in its turn charges at the double, whilst all around me my
men's rifles come into play and speak unceasingly.
A strangled cry to the left. I have scarcely time to see the man sprawl
flat on his back, his two legs still moving as though to carry him
forward. A second, and all his body stiffens and then relaxes and the
man is no more than an inert thing, dead flesh which to-morrow the sun
will commence to decompose.
Forward! To remain still would cost us more dearly now than the most
furious assault. Forward! The men are falling rapidly, stopped dead in
full course, some crashing prone without a word, others halting and
staring stupidly, while feeling with their hand for their wound. And
they say: "I have got it," or, "Mine has arrived!" Often it is no more
than a single expressive word. Almost all of them, even those whose
wounds are slight, turn pale at the shock.
* * * * *
"Oh!..." The cry escaped a dozen of us at once. A high explosive burst
clean among the Saint Maixenter's platoon. And he, I saw it distinctly
with my own eyes, received the shell full in his body. His cap vanished
into space, a part of his coat, an arm. And there he is lying on the
earth a shapeless mass, white and red pulp, a body stripped well-nigh
naked, shattered. His men, finding themselves leaderless, give way and
scatter.
* * * * *
We march through an inferno of smoke, from time to time obtaining a
glimpse, through momentary clearings, of the village and the river
running beneath the trees. But there is no truce to the shells which
follow us in hundreds.
I recollect passing one of my sergeants being carried by two of the
men on crossed rifles; he pointed out to me speechlessly, his torn and
blood-stained shirt and his side terribly lacerated by an explosion. I
could see the raw edges of the flesh....
I march onwards and onwards exhausted and stumbling. I take a long gulp
of the water that remains in my flask. Since yesterday evening I have
eaten nothing.
When we reach the edge of the stream, the men halt and throw themselves
down and commence to lap the muddied waters like dogs.
It must be seven o'clock now; the sun is sinking into a bed of
virgin gold. The sky above us is a pale and transparent emerald. The
earth darkens, colors vanish. It is quite dark by the time we leave
Sommaisne. We become mere shadows trailing along the road.
* * * * *
Not a wink of sleep. The noise of the shells hurtling through the air
is constantly in my ears, while the acrid and suffocating fumes of
explosives haunt my nostrils. Scarcely yet is it midnight before I
receive orders to depart. I emerge from the trusses of wheat and rye
among which I had ensconced myself. Bits of stalk have slipped down my
collar and up my sleeves, and tickle me all over. The night is so dark
that we stumble over the stones and irregularities of the ground. We
pass very close to some 120's drawn up behind us; I hear the voices of
the artillerymen, but only with difficulty can I distinguish the heavy
sleeping guns.
* * * * *
Hallo! The German guns are speaking early this morning! Before us
shrapnel is bursting noisily and spitefully. Over the plain they have
thrown a barrage. Nevertheless we have to go through it. Our first
section detaches itself; in a line, long-drawn and thin, it moves
across the fields towards a small wood which the captain has indicated
as the objective. Rifles crackle away to the left. Bullets sing and
throw up the dust about the marching section. Then shrapnel bursts
right over the men. The undulating line becomes still, taking cover
behind a ridge of earth shaped like a gigantic caterpillar.