disappears. I can recall nothing since leaving the depot which has
tended to create such a sense of comfort within me, such a sense of
well-being, security and peace. Can we indeed be at war? Can one
reconcile the thought of war with steaming, boiling cocoa? My
astonishment lasts longer than the fragrant liquid.
"Where did you find that?..." I asked.
Without replying he draws from his large pockets a brandy flask, a
sausage and two pots of jam from Bar-le-Duc. These jams gave the show
away.
"I know!" I exclaimed. "You've run across a peddling grocer from Bar?"
And while speaking, a vision I had often seen on the roads at home
comes to me, and I add with a tone of deep conviction:
"He had a little wagon with oilcloth curtains, and there were bells on
the horse's collar."
Porchon's eyes opening wide told me I had guessed correctly ...
(Censored)...: "...."
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.
Of course, I can't be left out when there's something to be seen,
though actuated by nothing but sordid curiosity.
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!...
In the light of this news other things become simple and clear to me.
That endless retreat of the first days of September, those forced
marches through the heat along dusty, stifling roads--were not the
flight of a disordered army knowing itself defeated. A retreat, yes;
but step by step, and not an inch further than a line agreed upon by
our leaders. Beside this bulletin announcing victory, I find the
proclamation issued by the Generalissimo the night before the battle:
"_The moment is come when we must no longer look behind us....
It is time now to attack and drive back the enemy...._"
That was so every man among us had felt and known instinctively.
"_Die where you stand rather than give way._"
No one had read those words aloud to us at Condé in that hour when we
turned once more and faced north. But they had been in our hearts;
they had become our purpose in life and our will. Not knowing that on
the events of those days of durance depended the safety of the
country, we had nevertheless made the terrible but necessary sacrifice
lightheartedly, joyously.
Since those days, our land had been drenched with blood wherever we
had loaded our rifles or fixed our bayonets. The fragile wall of
living flesh had defied their enormous shells; their bullets could not
shatter it; and when, after an avalanche of steel, the helmeted hordes
had rushed forward to trample it beneath their feet, not all their
stubborn attacks, renewed again and again with desperate fury
throughout five long days, succeeded in creating the breach for which
they had sacrificed so much.
To-day, over towards Vauxmarie, the sappers are gathering together the
bodies of the fallen Boches lying as thickly strewn as the grass in
the fields. The corpses are taken in tens in tumbrils towards huge
pits, yawning to receive their loads of dead flesh. When the carts
arrive at the edge of these graves, they are tilted up, and the bodies
tumble out, arms and legs swinging horribly, grotesquely. And the good
earth of France swiftly hides from sight those greenish uniforms,
those decomposing faces with blinded eyes, those heavy nailed boots
which never again will trample the soil of our beloved land.
A sapper coming fresh from this scene of horror, unable to rid himself
of the soul-sickening memory of it, gave me these details. His words
bring images before my eyes which remain with me until they assume the
form of almost an hallucination. Yet nevertheless the gruesome picture
awakens in me something of a bitter pride, a fierce joy--I feel an
uncontrollable desire to shout aloud, a desire to kill still so
imperious that I have to clench my teeth to repress it.
It was as I stood before the little low-roofed Mayor's house in the
village, my eyes scanning those few lines written by some surgeon or
other, that I became the prey of one of the most intense and confusing
emotions it is possible for the human heart to experience.
Several times I walked up and down, passing and repassing soldiers
still hustling one another in their endeavours to read the
announcements. Strangely alike in appearance were they. The faces of
one and all were mud-stained and bristles filled the hollows of their
cheeks. Their blue great-coats bore traces of the dust of the road, of
the mud of the fields, of the heavy rain; their boots and gaiters had
long since acquired a permanently sombre colour; their clothes were
worn and torn at knees and elbows, and from their tattered sleeves
protruded hands incredibly dirty and hardened. Most of them appeared
wearied and wretched beyond description. Nevertheless, these were the
men who had just fought with superhuman energy, who had proved
themselves stronger than German bullets and bayonets; these men were
the conquerors. I should have liked to have told each one of them of
the sudden glow of affection which filled me for them--those soldiers
who have now won the admiration and respect of the whole world by
sacrificing themselves so grandly without thought of sacrifice,
without realizing the depth of their heroism.
To-morrow perhaps they must once again take up their knapsacks, fasten
on once more those cartridge-belts which chafe the shoulders, and go
marching for hours, despite feet that swell and burn; sleep beside
ditches full of water, eating only when the occasion presents, knowing
hunger sometimes and thirst and coldness. They will go on, and among
them not one will be found to grumble at the life before them. And
when the hour sounds to fight once again, they will shoulder their
rifles with the same easy indifference, will rush forward as eagerly
between the bursts of enemy fire, will display the same tenacity
before the mightiest efforts of the enemy. For in them dwell souls,
ever scornful of weakness, strengthened and fortified by the
conviction of victory, capable of conquering physical pain and
weariness. Oh, all of you, my brothers in arms, we are going to do
still better than we have already done, are we not?
Cries ring out from the end of the village. Men begin to run as fast
as they can towards the plateau. What can be happening--where are they
going? Suddenly I understand. Up there on the plateau I perceive a
swarm of soldiers, numbering half a battalion, perhaps. The colours of
their coats and trousers are remarkably fresh, blue and red; mess-tins
and water flasks shimmer and gleam brightly, despite the poorness of
the light. These men, in fact, are exactly as they should be for
parade; they are fresh and spick and span. They are newly-arrived
reinforcements.
Happy men, to come to war in a moment of victory, not to know the
agony of retreat before a blow has been struck, a retreat which no one
can explain! The vision of the Cuisy trenches, of a sunlit field of
fire, has never for a moment ceased to be with me during all the days
before Sommaisne. We had to retreat and we knew not why! Happy men
indeed who come to christen their weapons amid the intoxication of a
pursuit, without having had first to suffer the torture of a disaster
such as we suffered!
V
BEHIND THE CROWN PRINCE'S ARMY
_Sunday, September 13th._
"We are probably leaving Seigneulles to-day," the Captain said to me a
short while ago; "let us hope we are not going to be kept constantly
on the move again."
That hope is fervent within me, Captain! Meanwhile, what spirit of
evil tempted me to eat all day long yesterday? Those eggs which a
quartermaster of the 5th gave me were so deliciously fresh that I
pricked two holes in the shells and ate them raw. Most luscious, too,
were the contents of the gunners' frying-pan! Tender and roasted to
perfection the fowl of which the captain offered me a wing; plump the
rabbit my "fags" gently simmered over a slow fire behind our barn. But
alas! what a night I spent!
The straw pricked my hands and face and feet; it was so burningly hot,
too, that I yearned for the freshness of soft sheets, I was feverish.
My stomach felt as heavy as a huge lump of lead. At times it was
seized with strange palpitations; at others, it became as an
indiarubber ball, inflated to the last degree. When I dozed,
nightmares peopled the night, awakening me with such a start that I
bumped my head against the staves of a gigantic tub behind which I had
fixed up my bed of straw. By the time the morning came, I felt able to
sleep a little, but with the broad light of day streaming in through
the open door of the barn, there remained nothing else to do but to
get up and dress. Legs feeble, mouth pasty, head void! What a triple
fool I had been! And here I am with nothing before me but long
marches!
Still, why complain when it is my own fault? I am not yet dead of
indigestion, and to-morrow it will be gone!
I dip my nose in the miniature basin lent to Porchon and myself by the
village doctor. I do not know in what kind of a basin the amiable
doctor himself washes, but the one he has lent us is farcical. To
dissolve the grime of a week's accumulation would alone necessitate
buckets and buckets of water; and all we have is a few drops of cold
water at the bottom of a pot about as big as a thimble, and our
washing has to be done in a saucer. Happily, my orderly appears while
I am still wallowing in the midst of my woes, bearing a camp pail
filled to overflowing. I splash about to my heart's content,
indifferent to the fate of the floor, which is generously watered. My
nocturnal discomforts are soon forgotten. I feel better and am well
content.
We depart at noon. My section is drawn up before the barn, each man
with his pack on his back, his rifle grounded. No one is missing. I
inspect them to find that they have all brushed their uniforms, washed
and shaved. No speck of dust on either equipment or boots. Heads are
erect, eyes clear, everything, in fact, most pleasing and
satisfactory.
A peculiar silence invariably prevails during the last seconds before
setting off on the march. It did so on the present occasion, until it
was shattered by a sudden outburst of rifle fire in the distance. What
can that be? Is it a joke? For since the day before yesterday, we have
not even heard a single shell.
"Lieutenant, Lieutenant! Do you see it?"
Every man peers into the sky in the direction indicated by one of
them. I can see it now, a Taube, small, clear and distinct against a
cloudless patch of sky, flying directly towards us. We know their
silhouettes well by now, and though only the hum of the engine betrays
an almost invisible speck, it is not long before we call out "Boche"
or "French."
There is no question about this being Boche, and they must be firing
upon it from Rosnes or Marats-la-Grande. It is quite out of our range;
all we can do is to stand and watch. Nevertheless, every one of the
men is positively trembling from eagerness to chance a shot. One of
them, in fact, goes so far as to raise and aim his rifle, and then,
half-turning towards me:
"May I, Lieutenant, may I?"
"Don't be a fool, Godard!" I reply rather severely. "What! Fire at it
from here!"
In a hard school I have learnt to know the price of a cartridge, as
well as a horror of waste!
Some man in an adjoining section suddenly cries triumphantly:
"They have got it!"
It is true the aeroplane has oscillated a little, a very little--but
it is quite sufficient to send the men dancing with joy and shouting
from sheer delight as if they were children. As for myself, I am only
too certain that we have by no means "got it." It is still flying
quite steadily. For an instant the whole fuselage is visible; then
nothing but the tops of its wings are showing. In turning, it banks
steeply and remains suspended for a moment before vanishing from sight
behind the roof of our barn. For the men, that is sufficient. They are
one and all convinced that it has fallen, that it has crashed to the
earth, there away towards the north. I don't mind them believing it!
Forward! We march slowly across fields which are still heavy, but
which are no longer puddles, so at least we are able to keep our feet
dry. Ahead, the 8th begins to straggle, falls out of line and gets in
our way. Each time we pass an orchard, men fall out, run to the trees,
and fill their knapsacks with apples and quinces. On such occasions I
growl out:
"Fall in, confound you!..."
Finally, however, it becomes necessary for me to drop on two or three
of the looters, whom I compel to throw down their gatherings at the
foot of the tree they have robbed. One must occasionally adopt
forcible expedients to preserve some semblance of order.
_Marats-la-Grande._ We do not pass through the village. Some mounted
batteries are passing and scaling the sloping fields towards the road.
The riders are shouting and whipping their horses, already straining
at the collar. Poor beasts! So thin that one can count their ribs,
sides chafed raw by the harness, heads hanging, they strain and strain
until their laboured breathing is audible, while their large bleared
eyes speak eloquently of their sufferings.
A grave; two posts have been tied to form a cross! On the horizontal
one a deep notch has been made with a knife, revealing the white heart
of the wood. Someone has written in pencil the name of the soldier
whose body is lying in the earth, his uniform for his shroud. The
number of his regiment, his company and the date of his death, the 9th
of September, are also inscribed. Four days! Only four days ago that
decomposing something lying beneath the mound of earth was a man in
the full flood of life, hoping, perhaps, soon to be reunited to the
dear ones waiting for him. Four days!... His parents would not have
heard yet.
More graves. They are not laid out in any particular order, or even in
groups. At irregular intervals, they line the road we are following,
which is no more than a trampled-down track over fresh grass between
trees in leaf. Everywhere one can see these sad little crosses, on
almost all of which a red cap hangs. Without halting, the men read
aloud the inscriptions. The 8th of September, the 9th of September,
the 10th of September....
And here is one which is not marked with the little cross of branches.
A stake has been simply driven into the ground, bearing a burnt-in
inscription to tell passers-by the name of the dead man; on the
newly-turned earth some white stones have been arranged in the form of
a cross--they seem to protect him who lies there better and more
intimately.
Hastily-made graves, turned out with small trenching tools, how I wish
you were much deeper! Your lines suggest the shape of the body you
hide from our eyes. The rain must have soaked you these last days and
nights! But at least calm and peace are with you. The enemy is far
away, never to return. Guard well, then, your poor dead, until the day
dawns when the old men and women shall come to demand of you the
bodies of their loved ones!
We march onwards a few minutes longer and reach a bare plain studded
with shell-craters. The sun is sinking, the rays of its golden light
striking obliquely. Mutilated horses are lying about, their stiff legs
crossed or thrust up towards the sky. Their swollen sides betray the
work of putrefaction within. A viscous fluid trickles from the corners
of their mouths, which reveal their long yellow teeth; their bluish
eyes have become filmy and liquid. They are a revolting, nauseating
spectacle! I recognize the sickly, penetrating stench which always
becomes more pronounced with the approach of night and is invariably
associated with the corpses of big animals.
"Halt!" Before us is a line of trenches covered with straw. It is near
here I fell on the morning of the 10th, and the men who picked me up
sheltered me beneath a roof similar to this one. The atmosphere of
human residence is still perceptible. Its occupants cannot have been
gone long.
Rest, a prelude to settling down for the night. A final snack: the
jams from Bar emerge from our knapsacks. The men are swarming over the
plain. I watch a few of them dragging behind them some disreputable
red eiderdowns which are shedding their feathers; others are carrying
pieces of oilcloth picked up Heaven knows where; and some have become
the proud possessors of dirty coverlets full of holes.
Where on earth are they going? Two of them who were just strolling
between the pyramids of rifles have suddenly disappeared as though
they had dived from the camp. There must be a steep slope there with
some farm, or perhaps a village, at the bottom of it. Looters have
noses like bloodhounds for inhabited spots, and start at once in
pursuit. There is no cure for that disease. I study my map to find
that we are just above Erize-la-Grande. Its road and houses cannot be
a hundred yards from where I am. I dispatch a non-com. in pursuit of
the men, with orders to bring them back at once.
I leave the wet trench to walk a little in the open air before the
fall of night. A few cyclists go by, rather more elegant than
ourselves, in their short coats, knee-breeches and their puttees.
Swinging from their belts are Boche flasks covered with a cloth
coloured similarly to the uniforms we have so often seen. I regret my
own lost flask and envy the cyclists. I have recognized the man of the
5th to whom I entrusted it, but that does not carry me much further,
although I have made a mental note of him for a future occasion.
"Fall in!"
New orders have just arrived and we are to move on again.
Before leaving, I pick up a fragment of shell over which I stumbled.
It is fifty centimetres long by fifteen wide, with jagged edges like
the teeth of a saw. I contemplate this terrible thing lying heavy in
my hand. To what kind of a shell, swift and growling, must it have
belonged? This fragment must be one of those which cleanly sweep away
an arm or leg, tear off a head, or cut a man completely in two. And
holding it thus in my hand, heavy and cold, I remember a poor little
cyclist who was killed close to us in Septsarges Wood--one leg taken
away at the hip and the lower part of his abdomen laid open.
Trees and a shimmer of green on a wide road, away to the north. Night
is falling. Suddenly through the greyness we find ourselves looking
upon some ruins--we have reached Erize-la-Petite.
The entrance to the village, which is indeed little more than a
hamlet, was choked with carriages, with ploughs and horse-rakes, which
had been drawn to one side. In silence we pass before the shattered
houses. Nothing remains but the mere shells of walls and distorted
chimneys still standing above the wrecked hearths. Some charred beams
have rolled almost into the middle of the roadway; a large mechanical
mowing-machine raises its broken shaft like a stump.
The regiment defiles through the gloomy evening; our steps resound
lugubriously and violate the surrounding desolation. In a short while,
when the last section will have disappeared over the summit of the
hill, the cold and silent night will descend again on the village, and
peace shroud the poor, dead houses.
For the last time I turn and look back, glutting my eyes with this
vision of desolation. Then I resume mechanically the onward march, sad
to the point of tears, with the wan chillness of death in my heart.
Another road skirting the line which links Rembercourt with Vauxmarie
and Beauzée. In the ditches, hunched up or stretched at full length,
are human corpses. A single corpse is a rare spectacle. As a rule they
are lying huddled together as if seeking to warm each other. The
failing light reveals blue coats and red trousers; Frenchmen; more
Frenchmen, in fact nothing but Frenchmen! Judge my enthusiasm on
finding some Boches among them! I fall out several times to make sure
that these really are Boches. The foe cannot have had the time to hide
away that lot!
The night becomes black and corpses are no longer visible. But they
are always there, at the bottom of the ditches, on the slopes at the
very edge of the road. We realize their presence even in the dark. By
shielding the eyes and peering hard, it is possible to see the eerie
heaps which have lost all resemblance to that of which they are made.
Beyond all, one can smell them; the peculiar, indescribable stench is
heavy in the still evening air. The slowly moving breeze passing over
those bodies fills our noses and throats with the odour. It makes us
shudder instinctively, fearful lest that welter of putrefaction should
be communicated from them to us.
Not a word in the ranks; nothing but the regular tramp, tramp, before
and behind me; occasionally someone coughs, a little dryly, or a man
spits. That is all. It must be cold, yet my head and hands are
burning, and my will struggles to subdue an uncontrollable inclination
to turn to my right where the cool waters of the Aire, flowing by the
roadside, are betrayed by the stagnant pools under the trees.
An unexpected halt! The men bump their noses against the packs of the
file in front. Confusion and much swearing. Then quick commands:
"Quartermasters prepare rations for distribution."
It is the best of all signs. The day's march is ended. Yet for an hour
we are kept waiting on the road. The stench is worse than ever. There
are dead horses somewhere near here.
_Deuxnoux-devant-Beauzée._ We pass in turn before the ration-carts. By
the light of swinging lanterns I catch a glimpse of a bearded face,
the blade of a butcher's knife, at the end of a bare forearm, quarters
of meat, and the twinkling buttons of a greatcoat. The lantern dances
on its way; nothing remains but confused, restless forms.
Very soon, however, fires are leaping and glowing in the roadway
outside the houses. The cooks are bending over them, their
weather-hardened, highly coloured faces thrown into relief, while the
gigantic shadows they cast flit along the walls.
We mess in the house of a farmer's wife whose husband is on service.
This time last night she was waiting on German officers. She showed us
a plate containing the remains of some pickled cabbage, and exclaims:
"See, messieurs, they left such a lot behind them!"
She soon gets to work, and, propping a loaf against her ample bosom,
cuts off thick slices of new bread (new bread, mark you!). In another
moment our glasses are merry with cider brought from the cellar in a
stone jug at least two feet high.
"But are you quite sure," she asks, "that they won't return?"
I reply to her in a fashion that pleases her:
"Madam, you can bet your own child's cap upon it!"
We are well abed when there sounds a heavy knocking on the door of the
barn, which my men have already firmly closed.
"Pannechon! Pannechon! Come out, _mon vieux_!"
Pannechon is my orderly. I hear him emerging from the hay and
stumbling over sleepers who do not scruple to tell him what they think
of him.