CHAPTER XVII

THE ATTACK

We had been talking about it for months. The hour of the great attack has finally come.

They have been preparing for it ever since we were transformed into diggers and sappers who dug trenches, parallels, communication trenches, and saps, day and night.

It’s going to succeed at last.

This time the artillery preparation won’t be insufficient.

We have guns, little and big, of every kind, of every caliber, from the little howitzers set low on their plates with their large muzzles like those we used to see on the terrace of the Invalides up to the great naval guns, long, lean and sharp, like a cigar, monumental guns of unheard-of size mounted on gigantic platforms, with covered turrets, new and odd foreign cannon, long as a train and mounted on rails.

And there are projectiles such as the wildest imagination could not dream of. Whole fields of shells of every caliber from the small “75” which now seem like playthings to the enormous “400’s” which can be moved only by gigantic jacks.

And over this immense sea of shells they have stretched a green colored tarpaulin, dotted with great yellow spots, with great chalky streaks which in the distance give them the appearance of a field furrowed by tracks.

We have been encamped in a wood for three days under tents beside batteries of heavy artillery waiting for the order to take up our positions for the attack.

And for these three days our constant occupation has been to strengthen and set up our huts again, for every shot from the great neighboring gun drags them from the ground by the tremendous displacement of air.

That is all right in the daytime. This Penelope-like work relieves the monotony and serves as a counter irritant to nervousness. But the occupation is less interesting at night.

Finally, about nine o’clock one evening, a great uproar arose in the companies on the other side from us and by degrees, like a rising sea, reached us—we are in our usual place at the extreme wing of the battalion.

The adjutant had advanced to meet the news and he came back on the run.

“It’s come this time. They are distributing the playthings to clear the trenches and they’re going to give out an additional cup of brandy.”

“Do you believe it will be before to-morrow morning?”

“Do I believe it. It’s sure, by God! Perhaps you want them to wait until next winter!”

“No, but you know. There have been so many orders and counter-orders that one can never be sure. It ought to rain.”

“Do you think it will rain?”

“Good God! I wish it would. The sooner we finish the performance, the sooner we’ll get to bed.”

The colonel’s orderly arrives with the orders:

“The Casanova company of machine guns will support the second battalion and will take the designated objective (Hill 707) directly after the third wave.”

“The third wave! Hum! That’s not good. The first wave is a promenade, nothing in front. The second goes over then, but the third has all the shells, for it’s right in the barrage.”

“And after?”

“After?”

“Say, you must think you’re in a café at La Cannebière. Perhaps you’d like to order an ice. This is war, you know.”

“I see it now.”

The distributions are finished at ten o’clock and we move towards our positions behind the second battalion.

The men have taken off their belts and all their useless equipment and are in jackets with their tent canvas crosswise.

The diluvial rain which has been falling for some days has stopped this evening. The sky is as black as ink and we can’t see a yard in front of us.

The paths were already muddy, but now they have disappeared after whole regiments have gone towards the lines without interruption for some hours. When we reach the communication trench it is no longer a trench at all, but a stream of fluid mud, where we sink over our leggings. We have to use our hands to pull out our legs when they get stuck.

“Well, _mon vieux_, if we have to go clear to Berlin at this pace, we won’t get there before to-morrow morning!...”

It is so dark that we can scarcely see the back of the comrade in front of us. We march in silence, with our hands on the sheaths of the bayonet and our mask case to prevent the metal striking against the sides of the trench.

It is after two o’clock when we reach the lines. We take our places as best we can, where we can, and with what we can find.

The saps are filled with companies in reserve who will guard the trench while we fight.

We find places against the sides of the trench, in chance dugouts gashed in the parapet. We have to be careful to keep our feet underneath us to avoid having our toes crushed in the incessant coming and going to and fro.

Rifts in the clouds show us that the sky is clearing. It will be fine.

We talk. We weigh optimistically our chances of success. But we have to shout into each other’s ears or we couldn’t hear anything. Above us is the infernal roar of an incessant bombardment.

Our guns have fired some days without interruption. And the men never cease praising the heavy artillery. We have never been supported in this way. How far we are from the days in Champagne! We have confidence, absolute confidence.

Day comes. The sun rises, the bright clear sun, which will be warm soon, rises over the ridge behind us. On the broad, many-colored screen of the sky with its rays of dawning day, the chimney of the distillery at Frameville, still intact and standing as though hurling defiance at the Germans, stands out monumental and black like a gigantic obelisk.

The countryside never stood out so clearly. I note the slightest details with a feeling which can never be effaced. I continue to look persistently to overcome my nervousness and to have something else to think about.

I look....

Below, in advance, are light lines of freshly turned earth. They are the German trenches, and I think I can see among the apparent ruins the invisible loopholes ready to belch forth death. A little further to the left, a few yards from the sides of the cliff is a small clump of woods which seems quiet and deserted. Our shells have started fires, but the fortified positions which conceal the machine guns are still there.

I look....

The ground and slope in front of me, close to the parapet, is empty, bare, torn full of shell holes. Young trees have been cut down, and the fallen trees are rotting in the earth under the growing moss. But daisies, buttercups, wild poppies, and cornflowers have sprung up and blossomed, opening out to nature, the sun, and life.

All the fires will shortly rage on these flowers. The blood of men will flow on them, and to-morrow their sweetness will be mingled with the charnel-house of corpses ... our corpses.

Nature has never seemed to me so moving. Tears come to my eyes. It is not fear. No, it is not that. There are times when one may be afraid. Here we realize that fear is a reflex impression, ridiculous, and above all useless; that the minutes which are left are perhaps too numbered to waste in vain sentiments.

But while I look through the mirage of nature, I have seen a small shriveled figure with trembling lips, and eyes hollowed with pain and fright; I have seen small hands—long, pale, emaciated hands—clasped before a photograph; I have heard the expression so many times, read it so many times in the letters on my breast, on my heart: “Tell me that you will come back. You are my all, father, mother, brother, child, husband; tell me that you will be careful, that you will come back to me,” and a slight uncontrollable, nervous trembling takes hold of me; but no one can see it.

The blast of the whistle—the final order—rings out. I find myself on the slope without knowing how I came there, in the midst of the others, beside the lieutenant, at my post.

Under a protecting storm of our “75’s” we advance towards our objective. The battalion has already crossed the first line of the Boche trenches without resistance.

All nervousness is gone now. I am very cool. The third wave advances in front of us in good order, in step, without heavy losses. We march in their wake.

There, thirty yards away, on the right is a knoll. That is our objective which we must occupy to prevent the enemy’s reserves coming up.

We draw nearer; my heart begins to beat violently. It is nervousness. It is the beginning of the end.

Suddenly a sharp noise stops me; then another beside my ear. Instinctively I throw myself on the hill. A sergeant falls near me without a word. He is dead, a bullet in the middle of his forehead.

We are under the fire of a machine gun which defends the approach to our objective.

The bullets whistle in a continuous buzz around us. A sharp burning pain, like a sting; a cry stops in my throat, on my very lips. I fall.

The fusillade rages. To the right, to the left, around me everywhere, bullets bury themselves in the ground. I am wounded, but where? All my limbs are numb.

I feel a hand take mine and grasp it. It is the lieutenant, who has already come running to me.

“Good-by for the present.”

“For the present.”

It is nothing. A stone hurled violently by the bursting of a shell has hit me in the back. It has just missed killing me. I remain there a moment without being able to get my breath back or to get up.

All around there is an incessant rain of bullets and shrapnel.

However, I can’t remain there right in the barrage. I make an effort to catch up with the company. My fall which took only a few seconds has put considerable distance between the wave and me. More than three hundred yards separate us.

I want to run after it, but I can’t.

A greenish cloud rolls like a flood over the plain. The enemy is launching gas.

Some one out of breath joins me. It is Morin who took a message to the major. He is now carrying an order to the lieutenant.

“This is dangerous.”

“One might think so.”

“Commandant Courier was just killed getting out of the parallel.”

“No?”

“A ‘155’ square in the chest. It killed two officers and five men. I’ve a splinter in my thigh and one in my shoulder.”

We walk along side by side as fast as we can, but slowly nevertheless. We can’t do anything else. We get tangled in the barbed wire; we stumble over corpses; we fall headlong into shell holes. The mud covers the mica in my mask.

A hundred yards in front of us the company reaches its objective, the hill and the Boche blockhouse.

Two sections have rushed in and are already in action.

Two more sections throw themselves into a crater more to the left opposite a clump of trees which is still held by the enemy.

Suddenly there is a terrific explosion, and the most violent clap of thunder that can be imagined sends us head over heels.

The ground trembles, the earth cracks, and through the crevices oozes a black smoke which envelops us. Everything is black. Are we entombed?

A mine has been exploded near us in the entrance. They shout; they cry. Belts of cartridges burst in the furnace. A swarm of bees seems to fly over our heads. The blockhouse has just blown up with our two sections. It was mined.

When the smoke lifts from the overturned ground, all we can see are corpses scattered about. Our comrades ... our dead!

The enemy wanted to prevent our companies capturing and organizing it.

We try to see something from the shell hole where we remain. It is certain death even to try to raise the head. The bullets glance off the ground.

Morin wants to join the lieutenant and finish his errand in spite of everything, but where is he? Was he in the blockhouse? We can’t see anyone in front of us.

Our waves of infantry have turned to the right, invested Herbècourt, and taken it. They are now fighting in the village. We judge from the columns of smoke that there are fires. The noise of the explosion of grenades reaches us.

But in front of us there is no one. It is a breach. The breach our company ought to have held firmly closed with its machine guns during the attack on the village.

The enemy knows this without a doubt. He has calculated his blow well. He has succeeded. He is going to launch out from the clump of trees and take our companies in the rear.

Indeed that is the case. Groups of gray worms crawl out of the thicket. They reach the ridge. They are a hundred yards from us. There is no one to stop them. But where are our two sections? Are they wiped out too?

“My old Morin, we’re done for.”

Our hands clasp in a fraternal farewell. In three minutes the Boches will be on us. They will kill us pitilessly. We hold our revolvers ready, fingers on the trigger. At least we won’t go alone.

They stand up now and shout. They are going to make a dash.

“_Vorwaerts! Gottfordam isch!_”

The harsh sound of the command and the oath comes to us clearly.

They dash forward to take the crater.

But almost at the end, at scarcely fifty yards, the four guns of our two sections, hidden in the shell holes, receive them with a withering fire.

The Boche line cracks, breaks; groups of men fall in heaps, like puppets.

Our guns fire constantly.

The Boche line wavers, hesitates, the ranks thin out. We can hear the dead sound of the falling bodies.

We laugh and laugh; we applaud, crying like fools:

“There are our two sections. Bravo!”

But behind the files that fall are others in greater numbers which advance in close ranks, one after another.

Our fire is slower. Our munitions are exhausted—the gun crew is firing all the cartridges of their carbines.

The assailants realize this. Some of the groups have already reached our emplacements. An incredibly tall and strong officer hurls himself on a gun. It is Marseille’s gun. It has been silent just a moment, but it hasn’t finished its task for all that.

Marseille tears the barrel from the tripod, and using it as a gigantic mace beats the officer to death.

A terrible hand to hand fight follows. The lieutenant, wounded, dripping with blood, on his knees on the parapet, stops the demoralized enemy with shots from his revolver.

But this heroic defense of the breach can’t last long. Most of our men have fallen and most of the rest are wounded. The enemy is still advancing, in close ranks now. He is going to get by....

Then, from the support trench, which the ... first Territorials hold, a company dashes out like a whirlwind, with an irresistible dash. It throws the mass of the enemy into disorder, and it is soon just a mob, which turns its back and flees frantically, as fast as it can go, falling under our rifle fire, and strewing the ground with corpses and innumerable wounded who drag themselves along on the ground begging for mercy.