CHAPTER XIII

A NIGHT CONVOY

The colonel just telephoned the following order:

“The echelons of the companies of machine guns will bring, to-night, thirty thousand cartridges to the P. C.[1] of the regiment. This order must be executed before daylight.”

We spent the afternoon in verifying the belts and making up the war train.

Towards seven o’clock we went slowly towards the bridge at Froissy, where we made a long halt until night fell. The sentry refused to let us take the towpath which would save us some eight miles.

These were his instructions!

It appears that the noises of the caissons and wagons might wake up the enemy, who would at once bombard the towpath near which were numerous huts of regiments who were resting.

So we crossed the canal, and in order to get to Cappy on our right, we have to go round by Bray-sur-Somme.

But this road has its distractions.

The road is absolutely torn up and it is not five yards wide anywhere, in fact it is an infernal mixture of automobiles, artillery, caissons and batteries.

No one will slow up. They cross over, go around, hang on, shout, bellow, insult, and get past as best they can. Our mules are obstinate and stubborn and go on their way placidly in the midst of this uproar.

Once we lean so far to the right that the hubs of the wheels on the lower side stick in the mud.

We doubtless go ahead slowly, but we go ahead all the same. The drivers have to go in front of their beasts. It would be madness for them to stay on the seats of the ammunition wagons, and the certain ruin for man and beast, for exhausted by fatigue, they would fall asleep and get in the way of the enormous meteors which rush by without seeing anything.

As we approach Bray, the crowding is beyond anything one could imagine.

It is one compact mass of wagons, trucks, caissons, guns, forage wagons, all entangled, mixed up, wedged together, trying to get through a street scarcely wide enough to let two wagons by and where ten insist on going together.

If we mix with this crowd, we will condemn ourselves to several hours in one place without moving. Once in the crush it is impossible to get free and go back.

Roudon suggests that we twist around the village. Our wagons have the advantage of being able to go anywhere. They were made expressly for this work and have wide wheels and no frames.

We make a passage through a hawthorn hedge with a few blows of the axe and cross the fields in spite of the invectives of the gendarmes who persist in trying to make us circle round in regular order, just as though we were going around the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde.

“Here, brave gendarmes, they pass as they can. Guns thunder. Shells are near, and it is necessary to arrive at the appointed time.”

“Instructions thought out by some officer in the peace and quiet of a faraway office are all rot. Go on, you’ll find out.”

We are beyond the village an hour later and are on the highway which leads to the bridge at Cappy.

Here, things are askew again. We must cross to get over the bridge. We can’t go around that. So we get into the string of wagons and follow their pace. They advance in skips and jumps ... they go ahead ten yards, stop a quarter of an hour, and begin again. One would think he was in the line at the Opéra on the day of a free performance.

We stand about in one spot more than three hours.

Finally, about midnight we reach the entrance to the bridge.

A new delay!

We have to get out of the way to let convoys past which are going in the opposite direction. They are ammunition trucks which make a noise like thunder.

Just then, some artillerymen, who do not want to wait and who glory in the not altogether fortunate reputation of always getting by, no matter what’s in the way, dash on to the bridge at a gallop.

“That’s it. Now we’re in a pickle, a mess ... that’s the....”

The poles run into the carburetors, the horses rear and kick against the hoods with their maddened hoofs; the motors continue to run, raging at their impotence.

Nevertheless a way must be cleared through the bridge. And in the pitch dark night that’s not easy.

A chauffeur has the ingenious idea of lighting a headlight.

Immediately, evidently judging that this light is without a doubt insufficient and its aid is indispensable for us, the German artillery sends us all the material necessary for clearing the bridge.

It sends us shells and with absolutely no care at all.

To the right, to the left, in front, and behind, the shots fall like a hailstorm.

Cries, groans, oaths, and commands impossible to execute! It is Hell.

In an excess of generosity, doubtless to aid us in getting out of our difficulty, a well-aimed shell falls on a truck, sets fire to the gasoline tank, and the whole thing saturated with paint and covered with impervious canvas bursts into flames.

We can see. We can see only too well now, and the Boches too.

Through their glasses they can easily estimate what their objective is worth and see what a large crowd is crowding around the spectacle. And their bombardment doubles in intensity.

“This is no time to stay here.”

On the trot we gain the fields and follow the bank lined by poplars.

We reach the limit of the zone of fire in about three hundred yards. We crowd behind the trees and hedges to avoid the splinters which can still reach us.

Suddenly, there is a terrible cry, a noise of something falling. The bridge has fallen down.

That is fatal.

“We’ve got to be at the P. C. at daybreak, but I don’t see how we are going to make it.”

There is absolutely nothing to do just now; it would be folly to try anything, no matter what it was.

No matter what the cost these convoys must reach the left bank, where numerous units wait for the ammunition which they need badly, so the order is given to silence the enemy’s batteries which are bombarding us so thoroughly.

All the guns in the valley of Froissy, including the big English guns, thunder out at once in an astounding uproar....

The enemy returns the fire with a storm of shrapnel. But the trees with their thick leaves fortunately protect us from this. We hear splinters and bullets falling into the waters of the canal a few yards away.

The fire near the bridge continues. The flames have reached other vehicles now and a great cloud goes up in the air lighting up the surrounding country. No one even dares to think of trying to put it out in the thick rain of bullet and shell.

Roudon is disturbed. He is a man of duty, to whom an order is a sacred thing. No obstacle should prevent the execution of an order, so he proposes that we go back to Froissy and reach the P. C. of the regiment by way of the Cappy plateau.

“That’s mad, _mon vieux_. We’d never make it before nine o’clock in the morning, and we’d all be killed going that way in the open.”

“So much the worse. It is necessary to bring the ammunition. It is an order and it is urgent.”

“Wait a little while until this quiets down. They’ll not go on like this all night.”

“Yes, they will too; they’ve seen the convoys and they’ll keep up the barrage until daylight.”

“If we could only find a boat. We could take the caissons to the other side. The quarry isn’t far from there. The men could carry them.”

“What are you thinking about? Going to find a boat at this time of night! And with what is falling into the canal we’d run some risk in crossing....”

* * * * *

Far from silencing the enemy, the fire of our batteries exasperates him.

Heavy guns, guns on tractors doubtless, have been brought into play. “280’s” and “210’s” come at regular intervals.

The Boches must have thought they had surprised a strategic movement much more important than it really was and were trying to check it.

The place is becoming untenable.

At the edge of the canal is a large stable for the canal horses, and a crowd of drivers, gunners, and cyclists have taken refuge there. It falls apart when a great shell strikes it. A terrible cry goes up and the building bursts into flames all over, like tow soaked in oil.

No one knows how many bodies are burned to cinders there. A frightful odor assails our nostrils in the smoke which encircles us.

A heavy rolling roar, boring through the night like the noise of an express train coming out of a tunnel at high speed, comes from over there, from the black hole where the enemy is.

“That’s a terrific fire!”

“Look out.”

A violent puff, like a heavy blow, knocks us down.

The mules rear and draw back. A wagon slides down the bank and falls into the water, taking its animal and driver with it.

A shell has burst on the bank opposite and it has torn up by the roots a large poplar which falls across the canal. It is a miracle that it didn’t crush a dozen of us. We run to help the driver. The water is shallow. He holds himself up by the weeds. We pull him out with the aid of several lengths of whip lash, but the mule and the wagon have rolled into the middle of the canal and are lost.

The bombardment continues until dawn, but less violently.

A few shots, the longest, come near us. The pounding continues on the site of the bridge, obstinately and stubbornly.

We are still there at the first rays of dawn.

“This is exasperating. We can never get these munitions to the P. C. before daylight.”

“Say, Roudon, we have a bridge right in front of us. It will do.”

And indeed the large poplar might let us get across the canal.

We try it.

We leave one man to guard the five wagons, and the rest detach the caissons from their supports, hang them on our shoulders, and one after another we try the chance bridge which bends a little but does not break.

Less than fifteen minutes later all the munitions are together on the opposite bank.

We reached the P. C. at five o’clock, exhausted without a doubt, but the order has been executed.

* * * * *

When the artillery officer saw us arriving, he started shouting,

“What do you want me to do with that?”

Roudon repeated the order he had received the day before.

“So you haven’t received the cancellation of the order? You always ought to wait for that. We were relieved last night. Take that stuff back where you got it from.”

We carried the caissons back to our wagons by the same way, by the same bridge.

Captain D ... was coming along the towpath and saw us arrive.

Roudon was furious as he told him about our useless adventure which might have cost us so dear.

He listened, laughed, then, coldly:

“Bah! that will do the mules good. They’ll get used to marching at night....”