Heavily and dreamlessly I sleep, and awake to find myself in precisely
the same attitude as that in which I flung myself down the preceding
night. The straw wraps me in grateful warmth, rather moist, perhaps,
because the water in my saturated clothes has evaporated during the
night....
We find that in the night the torrent has well-nigh filled the trenches
with liquid mud. Some sappers, however, come to our assistance, and,
thanks to them, we are able to shelter ourselves from the worst of the
downpour.
The men work easily, flinging jests one to the other. The incidents of
the night attack are revived and acquire a totally new force by reason
of the simple words in which they are related.
"I was all right at the beginning," says Martigny, one of my men. "But
all at once, while I was still firing, down toppled a Boche right on
top of me, without so much as a "by your leave!" I was on my knees and
he lay across my calves. It's not easy to fire in such a position as
that! Little by little the weight forced my knees down into the mud;
the water rose almost up to my hands: how was I to refill my magazine?
I could not see the animal, but you can take my word for it, he was
heavy."
And a second:
"A good job for me that I was once fencing-sergeant in the regulars!
Otherwise I should not be here now. Not even time to fix my bayonet
before I found one of the ugly pigs on top of me with his skewer. I
thought to myself: 'What's all this about? But you are going to find
you can joke once too often, my Boche!' And there we were all in and
at it. I parried a thrust with the stock of my rifle, but what sort of
defence could I put up, seeing that my weapon was much shorter than
his? Only he didn't manage to get his bayonet into me!... There wasn't
even a cartridge! I tell you that Boche kept me jumping from side to
side until I felt like dying from weariness. You know what a job it is
to parry, when you can no longer feel your own fingers? Still jumping,
I said to myself: 'What in the name of glory are those asses right and
left fooling about? Are they going to stand by and see me knocked out?'
Oh! but they were there all right, and it was Gillet to the right who
put a bullet into him while he was pausing to take a breath. Then I
stuck on my bayonet and filled my magazine. There were others still
coming up, you understand!"
"Sons of pigs, these Boches!" rasps a miner from the North. "And what
mugs they are too, _Mon Dieu_! When I saw them swarming over towards
me, 'Martin,' said I to myself, 'you're done for this time!' And then:
'Hurrah!' they're off! Bang, bang, bang! And I knew no more."
"Martin, you are babbling," grunts a huge Champenois, who is smoking
his pipe and listening with eyes atwinkle. "Hammer away at the earth,
seeing that is what you were born for; but don't mix yourself up in
conversations, because you can't talk."
He spits on his hands, rubs them against each other, and taking up his
pick starts digging again with long, steady, powerful strokes.
* * * * *
In the evening we go into the village. I stroll slowly towards the
barn where my section is billeted. In the square, a group of noisy
soldiers is gathered before a house which has nothing in particular to
distinguish it from its neighbours. With much pushing and stretching of
necks they are contriving to scan a big placard stuck on the wall....
The first word that encounters my eyes, however, gives me a violent
shock. I can see nothing else but that word, which instantly seizes
upon my excited imagination and seems to presage things marvellous,
superhuman, incredible. The word is:
"Victory!"
It sings in my ears, that word. It echoes through all the streets, it
bursts on me like a triumphant fanfare.
"Victory!" Thrills pass through me, enthusiasm seizes upon me and stirs
me so violently as to make me feel almost sick. I feel that I am too
small to contain the emotion to which the sacred word gives rise.
"_The retreat of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd German Armies is becoming
pronounced before our left and centre. In its turn, the enemy's 4th
Army is beginning to fall back to the north of Vitry and Sermaize._"
So that is it, then! We have been progressing everywhere. We have
grappled with them, badly torn them, wounded them! Oh! that it may run
and run, that German blood, until every particle of strength shall have
streamed out of them!...