CHAPTER VI

OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT

Yesterday evening at five o’clock we received an order to take our positions in the front line to support the attack which the second battalion would make at nine-thirty.

It was raining. It has rained all the time for some months, and we have become accustomed to the mud and dampness.

We left the cantonment at Morcourt at nightfall. We went along the towpath of the canal, across the bridge at Froissy, through the ruins of Éclusier and entered the communication trench which we knew as the “120 long.”

The silent march is accomplished with little difficulty. There is no sound of cannon. Everything is quiet. We reach our positions about midnight—four dugouts camouflaged for the guns of two sections which are to play on the sector; the two other sections remain in the “Servian” trench in reserve at the disposal of the commander.

The lieutenant examines the post established for him. Farther ahead is a communication trench which has been completely overturned and destroyed, now nothing but a great hole. Below is a big tangle of barbed wire, fascines and ripped open sandbags. We can see very well through this jumble and we are installed there.

We can make out the details of the Boche lines through the glass.

“Come. I think it will be all right. But it will be hard. Fortunately, it can’t last long.”

Then we return to the positions for a final inspection.

The emplacements which our guns occupy are round excavations about three yards across and two deep. In the middle nearly on a level with the surrounding ground is a sort of pedestal for the machine gun. The barrel scarcely reaches beyond the hole and it is absolutely invisible at a short distance. The men have proceeded to make a camouflage which resembles the character of the terrain with wickerwork covered by dirt and grass. The many inventions with which they have increased the weight of the machine guns—the shield, sights and periscope—are in their places. The men disdain these additions a little and even neglect to use them unless forced to do so.

“They would only have to add a little more,” they say, “to make a ‘75’ instead of a machine gun.”

“The periscope may be of use for something. You have to try half an hour before you can see anything. I like my eyes better.”

The ammunition wagons are installed and opened; the belts are ready; the gun layer, the loader, and the crew are at their stations.

The lieutenant makes the rounds of each section, inspecting the guns, testing the mechanism, trying the weight of the munitions, taking account of everything and looking each man in the face.

“We are the last company organized,” he says. “You know that the machine gunners should be the flower of the army; don’t forget it. It is our first engagement. Try to show that we’re there a little.”

This short unpretentious harangue produces its effect on the men, who smile as they listen to it. They are not nervous now, but only slightly curious. They are not sorry to put their toys to the test at last, and to shoot their projectiles at something besides the moving figures in the training camps.

When the inspection is over and the final instructions have been given, we return to the commandant’s station, and stretch out to sleep on the reserve caissons which protect us from the mud. Rifts in the clouds reveal the stars. It will be fine to-morrow. But waiting is cold, very cold, and it is impossible to sleep under such a wind. We talk.

“You’re going to hear a concert. They haven’t massed more than three hundred guns in all, from the ‘75’ to the heavy artillery, on our fifteen hundred yard front for nothing. Have you seen the ‘150’ mortars? They have some muzzles.”

Dawn appears. A light fog rises from the ground and seems thickest at the side of the canal where the German positions are. It is the coldest hour of the day and the earth of our dugout is as hard as iron; it is frozen. Instinctively I let down the ear-flaps of my cap which until now I have kept under my helmet.

“Are you cold?”

“I’m not warm.”

“A drop of brandy?”

“Sure.”

The lieutenant passes his canteen to me and as I drink the thin stream from its mouth I feel a wave of warmth.

Light comes, but it is very pale. Around us we hear the tread of feet on the hard ground and the slapping of arms across the chest.

We wait nervously. Presently we receive an order not to fire until the blast of the whistle.

Eight o’clock! Behind us, in the limpid azure, the red disk of the sun rises.

A shell cuts through the air; then another; then still another. Our artillery is firing on the Boche lines.

“Attention.” The response is instantaneous. We can still see no movement in the ranks of the infantry to our right whose rush we are to support. What are they waiting for? The men are nervous and they start to grumble.

Boom! comes the Boche’s reply.

A great mass of earth, grass and crumbled stones shoots up a hundred yards ahead of us!

Too short!

Boom! still another. Still short!

A large shell heads for us. It thunders. Where is it going to burst? The devil! It falls near our first section, to the left; then, almost at once, another, a little to the right. Are we spotted? We haven’t fired a cartridge yet, and there isn’t an aeroplane or sausage in the air.

Two “150’s,” one right after the other, burst fair on the section, right in the hole. An enormous mass of earth spurts up. Through the dust and smoke we see broken arms, sandbags ripped open, legs torn from the body, an entire body, the gun!...

The lieutenant knits his brows in dismay. A sergeant from the reserve half section, slightly pale, runs up with the details.

“Sergeant Rollé, the gun layer, and the crew are killed.”

“Occupy the emplacement with your half-section.”

“Very well, Lieutenant.”

Shells are falling in our sector without a break. All the guns are splattered with splinters and most of the crews are slightly wounded.

Durozier’s half section jump out of their dugout in a hurry and throw themselves into the hole which has now increased in size to a vast yawning crater.

“If we could only fire on something. But there’s nothing to see. And no signal.”

The Boche artillery certainly has a grudge against our first section. The new gun is scarcely in position when a great shell falls in the same place, in the same crater.

We see distinctly a body blown high into the air, and the body still holds the mount of the machine gun which he was just setting in place. Headless, disemboweled, it falls just in front of our dugout within reach of our hands. It is Gouzé, the chief gunner.

“The _salauds_!”

An intelligence officer from the major reaches us.

“Get ready to support the wave which is going over with all your guns!”

The shells burst on our position implacably. There isn’t the slightest choice between the emplacements. Three guns are still intact and ready to fire at the blast of the whistle. But the fourth gun must be put in position, too.

“Tell the adjutant of the section to occupy the crater,” comes the order.

By means of the half-destroyed communication trench I reach the section which I find burrowing in shelters built hastily out of whatever came handiest and deliver my order.

The adjutant takes it and turns pale.

“All right, but there’s no great chance of our getting there.”

Their hearts throb, and they look at each other. It is true that it is necessary, but on the parapet between the trench and the crater, no longer the slightest protection, shells fall like hail and without a let-up. They hesitate.

As if he had foreseen this, the lieutenant had followed behind me. He reads their hesitation in their faces and is about to say something to overcome it when the blast of the major’s whistle sounds. It is the signal. The wave jumps from the parallels and dashes forward. We must fire.

Our three guns have already begun their rattle and are spraying the terrain before the enemy’s trenches close to the ground, probing the loopholes, mowing the parapets, and cutting the last of the barbed wire.

The fourth gun ought to fire too; it must. Then, quietly, with that unusual coolness which characterizes him, the lieutenant clambers over the parapet.

“Will you come with me, _Margis_?”

Cigarette between his lips, leaning carelessly on his curved handled cane, as though he were going for a morning walk through the fields, he advances, standing very straight, without hurrying, and without losing an inch of his great height.

The men understand. Five seconds later we are in the crater and in less time than it takes to tell it the gun begins to fire like the rest.

The enemy’s artillery has now changed its objective. It now aims its fire on the assaulting wave.

We return to our shelter. The spectacle is wonderful. Almost without losses, our waves reach the first of the enemy’s lines and clear them at a bound.

“Lengthen the fire.... On the second position.... Farther ... on the third; on the fortified emplacement; to the left of the woods.... Fire, fire, fire, nom de Dieu!”

The fire on our sector begins again more violently than ever. We have bothered the enemy and he wants to silence us.

Three out of four of our guns are silent. The fourth, the last one to arrive, with all the rapidity of its fire, alone sustains the attack of our infantry. The wonderful little machine devours without a skip the endless munitions which the crew have difficulty in bringing to it.

“Fire, Adjutant, fire! Don’t stop. Give it to them,” shouts the lieutenant, seized by the fever of battle.

And the adjutant fires, fires without stopping. Our wave reaches its objective, the enemy flees, whole companies surrender.

“That’s it; we are there. Fire on the reserves, farther, the length of the embankment. Cease firing, stop it, stop firing. We are there.... Cease firing!”

Just as he shouts this order a shell, the last one—the third on the same spot—falls, bursts, and buries the gun and its heroic crew.

“M ...! The swine! Can’t they see that it is finished?”

Heavily and mournfully we make toll of the dead. Comrades pay their last respects to their comrades. They take their letters and keepsakes, and arrange the bodies for their last resting place as best they can.

The order to go back is given.

For two hours we make our way through the communication trench, now only a stream of mud in which we sink to our ankles.

We advance, dejected, silent, heavy with fatigue, depressed by the thought of those we have left behind, whom we shall never see again, as was our wont, even yesterday at the cantonment.

The lieutenant is in the lead, leaning on his baton, silently, chewing on his eternal cigarette.

We finally reach the end of the trench at Froissy and come out on the main road.

In spite of their long hours of fatigue and the sleepless nights, the men suddenly seem less weary.

They no longer march one on top of the other, stepping over corpses. Their horizon has broadened; they see; they breathe; they come out of their trance; they emerge from Hell, they come from death. They are coming back to life!

Two hundred yards ahead we can already see groups: our mules, our limbers, companies of Territorials who are repairing the roads, sappers from the engineer corps, men from the field kitchens, automobiles, dreams ... the living world at last.

The sub-lieutenant has remained at the rear of the column, assuming the difficult task of encouraging the stragglers and keeping up the spirits of the weak. Now he runs up and down the ranks. He is proud of his men; he loves their swagger and steadiness.

“Come, children, a little speed. Try to march by these people in some style.”

And as we approach the first huts he begins to sing at the top of his lungs his song, the song of the machine gun:

_Mais dans le petit jour blémi,_ _Alerte! Voici l’ennemi!_ _Et t’éveillant soudain rageuse,_ _Ma mitrailleuse,_ _Avec tes tac tac réguliers,_ _Sans t’arrêter, noire et fumeuse,_ _Ma mitrailleuse._

Some of the men look at him in surprise, look at him and then begin to sing.

And this bruised troop, which had just lost half its effective strength, with its wounded men with their bloody bandages, their torn clothes, their arms in bits, filed by singing this heroic joyful song, expressing in their voices all their hopes and all their triumphs.

It defiled between lines of astonished men who stood respectful, stupefied at so much energy, so much fire and dash in the face of so much death.

In position before his staff, fingers together in the prescribed position of salute, a general stood with bared head, while the company marched by.