Part 3

Once again a messenger comes up at a run:

"The Captain sends me to warn you that there is nothing now between you and the Germans!"

Is it true? We have seen the wounded coming down ... (Censored) ... A corporal of the 27th, stained and perspiring, his face expressive of his agitation, calls out to inform me that Dalle-Leblane has a bullet through his stomach. Then a great tall fellow, shot through the thighs, goes by groaning. He raises both feet, resting the whole weight of his body on those supporting him. Good comrades those, and true heroes! They carefully set down the wounded man about ten yards from my trench and, having ridded themselves of their burden, make off. So it remains for me to have the man transported, still bellowing, to the battalion first-aid post.

The news reaches me, I know not by what means, that the --th are retiring, mainly on their left. It turns out to be true, for they come to relieve us, and we move back to new positions, five hundred yards to the rear.

Line in sections of fours, in a clearing. The shells begin to burst around us. At the very first explosion, a reservist, a big man, fair and ruddy, turns round sharply to tell me he is wounded. He is pale and trembling violently. I discover that he has been pricked by a thorn as he was bending down!

A second shell, and a street hawker from Ferral is grasping a bleeding wrist. A third: Corporal Tremoult receives the end of someone else's rifle full in the mouth. For a moment he is dismayed; then, his spirit returning, he commences to swear to the point of extinction. This peppering continues.

Night. From afar sound the moans of the wounded. A mutilated horse whinnies in pain. Also there comes to my ears a strange and poignant lamentation--perhaps it is only the cry of a nightbird!

I make the round at eleven o'clock, crippled by the cold. Half an hour has passed since I called Porchon, but I am not yet asleep when the order for our withdrawal arrives. We return to the trenches at Cuisy.

_Wednesday, September 2nd._

We have been here since two o'clock, and settle ourselves down with a curious sense of security and protection. Have they, the Boches, crossed the Meuse in number? Maybe! But, perched on the top of this elevation, we can await them tranquilly. Four days ago a machine-gunner came down to us with a range-finder and supplied me with exact ranges. Should they come, I shall be able to regulate our fire and we shall drive them down before they reach us.

Meanwhile we sleep. The stars are limpid and steady; the air freshens with the approach of day. Crouching right at the bottom of the trench on a bed of dry lucerne, I wrap myself tightly in my greatcoat and doze a little, a doze constantly broken by chill awakings. At last my men, moving about me, succeed in rousing me. I rub my eyes, stretch my arms, and jump to my feet. The sun is rising and already floods the fields with a sea of soft light. I recognize my valley, with the range-points marked to the extreme limits of effective fire.

Many aeroplanes are up--ours bright and light, those of the Boches dark and sinister, but all of them dainty and with the calm unswerving flight of birds of prey.

One or two patrols of grey dragoons are scouting in a field of rye. A few shots coming from the right of us stop them. Before us at the edge of a wood is a vedette of Uhlans, horses and men quite motionless, except when, every now and again, one of the horses, fly-pestered, flicks its flanks with its tail.

Through my glasses, I distinguish two wounded men dragging themselves along a road--two Frenchmen. One of the Uhlans has also seen them. He has dismounted and is moving towards them. I follow the scene with concentrated attention. Now he is close to them and addresses them; then all three commence to move towards a thicket bordering the roadway, the German between the two Frenchmen, supporting them, without doubt encouraging them with words. And there, taking many precautions, the big, grey horseman helps our men to stretch themselves at ease. He leans over them and it is long before he rises; I am sure he is dressing their wounds!...

At two o'clock the shells come whistling over us again. A battery on the crest behind us has opened fire. The firing has endured for perhaps ten minutes or so, when suddenly a German shell bursts not ten yards in front of our trench. Quite automatically I raised my head the second following the explosion--and an invisible something passed growling beneath my very nose. A man near me says laughingly:

"Mind the hornets!..."

I have learnt a lesson. Good! The next time I won't get up before the swarm has passed.

I have not long to wait. Four shells arrive at the same moment, then three more, then ten. This continues for almost an hour. We are all prone at the bottom of the trench, our bodies in the mud, our heads beneath our knapsacks. Between each outbreak of the tempest, the two men to the right of me labour feverishly to dig a niche for themselves in the trench side. They scratch away like a fox in the earth; I can see no more of them than the nails in their boots.

A dark, fantastically shaped, copper-coloured cloud of smoke, irritating throat and lungs, steals down upon us. It has not had time to clear before a fresh storm bursts. One can hear it approaching, irresistible; I feel the terrible shock as the first shell strikes the ground, before being deafened by the succeeding salvo.

During an interval of comparative calm, a noise of someone scrambling and sliding makes me quickly turn my head. One of my men has jumped out of the trench to the left and is running along the front of it towards the right, knapsack on back and rifle in hand, bayonet clinking, mess-tin rattling, cartridges shaking! The water-bottle on his hip beats a violent tattoo. He glares at me with eyes wild and dilated, and then hurls himself bodily back into the trench. Like a thunderbolt he falls right on top of his comrades before they can find time to jump aside. Much shouting and swearing ensues, punctuated by blows. A sudden squall of half a dozen high explosives serves, however, to restore peace among them. The shells fall uncomfortably near us, one indeed not more than five yards from me. For a moment it seemed as if the walls of earth had closed in upon me; a stone, several pounds in weight, catches me fair and square in the knapsack, driving my nose deeply into the clay and leaving me dazed for quite ten minutes.

The sunset is beautiful and soothing. Night falls clear and still. I walk up and down before the trench in a field of lucerne, stopping at the edges of the enormous craters dug by the shells, picking up here and there steel splinters, still warm, or copper fuses almost intact on which are inscribed numbers and abbreviated words. And then I return "home" and stretch myself out on the earth to sleep.

III

THE RETREAT

_Thursday, September 3rd._

A messenger arouses me. The darkness of night is still with us. I consult my watch in the light of a match: it is only two o'clock! I feel convinced at once that we are going to attack. On a projecting stone the cook has placed my coffee. I drink it in one gulp; it is stone-cold, certainly, but that does not matter very much.

Where are we going? To Septsarges? I believe that must be our destination, until suddenly we branch off the road to the right and head directly for Montfaucon. Already the village appears before us, lining the side of a hill the summit of which is crowned with a church. I can now distinguish with the naked eye the red cross on the white flag floating above the hospital. At the foot of the hill we swing away to the left in a south-easterly direction. It is not to be Montfaucon after all!

For good reason too! Several regiments, the whole division in fact, is under orders to assemble in a ravine situated a few hundred yards from the village. The concentration, however, does not proceed rapidly.

(Censored)

My company, as rearguard, is drawn up at the roadside. It is broad daylight now. How long are we destined to remain here? It was only yesterday we were bombarded at Cuisy!

I identify a distant explosion as emanating from the heavy German artillery. Is the compliment directed to us? The hiss teaches me that the shell is coming directly for us. Instinctively I look towards Montfaucon and see flames and dense smoke spurt out quite close to the church: two seconds elapse before the noise of the explosion reaches us.

That was the signal for pandemonium; shells shrieking, hissing, bursting; tiles falling in showers, walls smashing and crashing to the ground. The earth beneath my feet heaves and trembles; my very skin seems to ripple with the force of the outburst. I no longer know where I am. With a heavy heart I watch the plumes of smoke, black, red and yellow, arising on every side to mingle and form an enormous cloud, ominous, outrageous, drifting above the stricken village.

Ambulance cars with their sad burdens pass; burdens many of whom are very near the portals of death.

Wounded men follow on foot, some of whom are half lying on their crutches, others supporting the whole of their weight on two sticks. A chaplain is with them: he jests and smiles in an attempt to renew their confidence and courage.

An old man and his wife pass by, a piteous sight. The man carries on his back a huge basket full to overflowing; the old woman is bearing other napkin-covered baskets, one on each arm. They walk quickly, their eyes full of distress and fear; and they look back again and again towards their house from which they have been driven forth--their house which by this time, maybe, is no more than a smoking pile of ruins!

Across the meadows strides a farm labourer whose legs are obviously far too long for his body. He is shouting aloud and driving before him ten or more black and white cows. His enormous feet assist him in the task; beneath his cap one detects the malformed head of a crétin.

The column is far enough ahead by this time to permit us in our turn to take up the march. I can still distinguish, far away down the road, the old couple of a short while since--the woman appearing thin and diminutive between her two big baskets, while the old man's basket seems to be trotting along on two ridiculously small and inadequate legs. Behind us, the shells thunder down unceasingly upon Montfaucon.

We march, urged onwards by an indescribable cloud of dust. We are full of high spirits and completely confident that when the time comes we shall give a good account of ourselves; nevertheless, we cannot refrain from wonderingly asking ourselves where are our guns which should be able to silence those of the enemy? Apparently we are being out-manoeuvred; most obviously we are falling back. A certain thought hammers away at my brain until it dominates everything else; it is that we are but straws in the pathway of an overwhelming force!

Only yesterday in the trenches at Cuisy I was watching the German motor-cars rushing on the roads in the plain which had just been a battlefield. The stretcher-bearers, too, were busy collecting the dead and wounded, and over towards Dannevoux the smoke of a fire mounted above the trees--the fire in which they were already cremating their dead. Their aeroplanes floated over our positions, signalling ranges and directions to their gunners. A vedette of cavalrymen acted as observers, defying fatigue, while patrol after patrol came through the fields of wheat and rye.

I pondered these things on this morning, and began to understand how tremendous was the organization which went to create this seemingly irresistible power.

I recalled also how only yesterday I had seen a battalion of Germans assemble between two woods scarcely two miles from our lines. The men had flung aside their coats and commenced, quite unperturbed, to dig trenches, while beside them the smoke of their camp kitchens rose in the air. And I had asked myself then with ever increasing amazement why our so greatly vaunted 75's did not drop a handful of shells in the middle of this group of Boches?

The road is dusty, our throats parched, our feet painful. Passing through Malancourt, which we have already visited once, then Avocourt, we reach the forest of Hesse. At the edge of a ditch lie some mutilated horses, their large eyes filmed and staring, their legs stiff. A white horse, just at the point of death, heavily raises its head and watches us pass. A charitable sergeant sends a bullet through its skull to put a term to its misery; the head sinks, the sides quiver with the last fluttering sigh.

The heat increases steadily. Stragglers line the road, sprawled full length in the strip of shade which edges the woods. Some fall out of the ranks, seat themselves phlegmatically, draw out some bread and corned beef, and placidly commence to eat.

Parois. The slaughter-houses of the Army Corps are here. The blood which has formed miniature lakes in front of the barns dries in the sun, filling the atmosphere with a sickening smell with which mingles the more powerful fumes of iodoform.

A long halt near Brabant, at the bottom of an airless declivity in which one perspires as in a bath. My mouth is burningly dry, I am fevered. I find it impossible to swallow a single mouthful; worse still I find sleep equally impossible.

By the time we reach Bracourt, lights are dancing before my eyes, a strange buzzing is in my ears. I let myself fall on to some straw, my limbs helpless, my head empty as a bell, yet as heavy as lead. I decide to see the doctor!

The doctor's visit. He is a jolly, big man, with black hair and pronounced jaw, whose fine eyes seem always to be witnessing the birth of some new and original thought. He is inspecting the sick and wounded in the porch of the church, distributing white powders, compounds of all colours, opium pills, painting chests with tincture of iodine, lancing blisters full of blood or pus. Two men carry up some poor being who writhes in their grasp, foaming at the corners of the mouth, and uttering savage cries: an epileptic in a fit!

I feel that above all things in heaven and earth I want to sleep. I obtain just as do the others some of the white compounds and a few morphia pills. At the same time I solicit permission to sleep in a barn, rather than in the open outside the village.

By chance I happened to encounter B---- that night. We spoke of comrades of pre-war days, canvassed events still recent, and yet how far off already! The meeting did me good, allaying the fever a little. A few hours' sleep and I woke up as fit as a lark and ready for anything, temporarily at least!

_Friday, September 4th._

Another day's march under a sun which seems to have increased in intensity even since yesterday. Jubécourt, Ville-sur-Cousances. These are full of gendarmes and "forestiers"; staff cars and supply lorries. All that spells retreat.... (Censored) ... Nevertheless, this has not the appearance of being a rout and I seek in vain to understand the meaning of these forced marches, of this breathless rush to Bar-le-Duc.

The most amazing and absurd rumours are flying round. Perhaps the pick of the bunch is the news that we are marching to Paris to maintain order!

Julvécourt, Ippécourt. We halt after leaving Fleury-sur-Aire, and here we eat. Batches of men arrive with huge portions of cheese which looks like Brie. Others are carrying bottles and cans fastened to their belts. The tins begin to rattle.

The grass in the meadow where we are resting is thick and wet. Many of the men take off their boots and walk bare-footed to refresh their feet in the cool greenness. Almost all of us have spread our coats and tunics saturated with perspiration to dry in the sun. Clean shirts and the coloured linings of over-garments are everywhere. The colours dance in the bright sunshine, tiring the eyes.

In the cold and transparent waters of the Aire I wash myself to the waist. Two or three of the men have stripped themselves for a swim. Among them I notice a muscular, brown-skinned swimmer who disports himself vigorously, moving with a stroke which carries him from one side of the river to the other in a few seconds. All along the bank men are dabbling, bending over the water to wash socks and handkerchiefs. Little by little a blue film spreads over the surface and becomes iridescent in the sunshine. We dine gaily in the shade of some trees whose lower branches droop almost into the water. Near us a lieutenant with waxed moustache, arms bare, the open front of his shirt displaying a chest as hairy as that of a wild boar, is standing in the midst of a group of other men and holding forth. The loudness of his voice deafens and overcomes his listeners. At times, selections from his harangue reach me:

"There are two ways to settle them; break through the centre or outflank them on the wings."

Nubécourt. To-day's march has not exhausted me as much as yesterday's. I venture to remind B----, the Maixenter, of a certain night I permitted him to pass in my bed. Poor me! The beast appeals to my good heart, to what he calls my knowledge of the world. He is weary, oh, so weary! and the bed is so narrow! Are there no others to be found in the village? Surely there are many others! I depart without any attempt to dissimulate my annoyance and disgust.

We mess in a kitchen similar to the others I have described--the yellow lights of candles casting weird shadows over everything. A thick-lipped cook serves us with a spoilt and unsatisfying concoction which leaves a flavour like ink in one's mouth.

Long and wearily I seek a bed. But all my efforts as well as those of a flat-figured but good-hearted girl, succeed in gaining me only one hour's sleep. And that hour I passed on some straw in a barn.

_Saturday, September 5th._

Porchon laughingly tells me that the wine-merchant has disposed of the wine we ordered and at a much better price than we offered.

Beauzée-sur-Aire; Sommaisne. It is at this latter place that during a short halt I see the first of the _Bulletins des Armées_.

A family of ducks is swimming about in the Aisne, a mere stream passing through the centre of the village.

Rembercourt-aux-Pots. There is a beautiful church here of the sixteenth century, a trifle flat, maybe, and its lines rather spoilt by excessive richness of ornamentation. Trees line the road; each time we pass through the shade of them I carry my cap in my hand and experience an almost overwhelming desire to sit down and rest. More gendarmes and foresters, still more beflagged motor-cars. This evidently is not the battle front! We pass a hamlet with a tiny station. That is the line doubtless on which to-night we will find ourselves en route to Paris (nothing else but Paris is talked about now).

Condé-en-Barrois. A long string of ammunition vans coming from the village blind us with an opaque dust. The midday halt takes place in a field in which everything is adance in the blinding heat. Some poor devil is brought before the Captain. He is waisted with water-bottles and mess-tins from which peep forth bottles of wine and beer. In either hand he carries a pair of fowls flapping and croaking violently. Moreover, as he is holding a string of a package in his teeth, he finds it rather difficult to render an explanation. The package covers the lower part of his face; one can see only two distressed and tearful eyes. In due course he explains to us in a whining tone that he was arrested in the village at a moment when he was collecting provisions, but that he has paid for everything, that he is an honest man, that he would not for a second dream of stealing so much as a pin, that it is not fair to him. The words "looting" and "court-martial" descend upon his head with the stunning force of a mallet. He is commanded to take his provisions to the cook's quarters. And he departs ruefully, almost hidden beneath his collection of bottles, birds, packages and mess-tins.

I slept for two hours with P---- at the house of a bicycle merchant. The room was upside down, goods all piled up in one corner, yawning cupboards bare. Are the people doing this from motives of prudence, or have they received an order to evacuate?

It is the same in the house where we dine. The prevailing confusion is even more eloquent, for the house in question is more spacious and well built. Nothing in the sideboards; walls bare; the table itself seems lost in the cold solitude of the beeswaxed floor.

It is a feast we find in this village, which is larger than the others we have visited. Up to the present we have only passed through poor hamlets, cleaned out from top to bottom. The men make hay while the sun shines; mutton has been bought for them and they settle down to an orgy. It is long since they have touched wine. They have it now and they abuse it, also cider and beer.

Night has descended when we take up the march again. It is about ten o'clock. The column moves on its sinuous way with many alarms and unexpected halts. I hear behind me the steps of a horse in the saddle of which the Captain of the 8th sleeps fitfully. He rouses himself from time to time to give a piece of his mind to certain men whose copious libations of the afternoon now impel to stop abruptly and frequently. One of these men replies to him impertinently, protesting that it is inhuman to drive men onwards in the way he is doing, and then discreetly vanishes into the ranks before he can be identified.

We are returning the way we came, and we do not stop at the tiny station in the village I had noticed earlier in the day. Are we not then going to entrain at Bar-le-Duc? Do they then intend to let the disorder at Paris continue?

Here we are at Rembercourt, silently marching past darkened houses. We pass the road to Sommaisne on the left and cut across fields towards some woods vaguely outlined against the sky.

IV

THE DAYS OF THE MARNE

_Sunday, September 6th._

Half-past one in the morning! Kit bags on the ground, rifles piled, lines in sections of four, at the edge of a little wood of birch trees struggling for life on a stony soil. The night is cold. I place a listening post well forward and return and seat myself near my men. The stillness is palpitating; the passage of time interminably long-drawn. The dawn begins to lighten the sky. I look around me and see the pale and tired faces of my men.

Four o'clock. A dozen rifle shots to the right cause me to leap to my feet just as I am making myself comfortable. Out of a small neighbouring wood a dozen Uhlans are flying at a gallop--they must have passed the night in the covert.

The day breaks clear and fresh. My Nubécourt bedfellow produces his inexhaustible flask, and we sip a drop of brandy which possesses no bouquet at all and seems like raw alcohol. The Captain joins us at last and explains the situation in a few words:

"A German army corps," he says, "is marching towards the south-east, having for flank-guard a brigade which follows the valley of the Aire. The --th Corps is going to engage the said German corps, while it remains for us to deal with the flanking brigade."

For the first time I am going to experience war in all its reality!

Facing the Aire, with Sommaisne behind us, the men commence to dig trenches with their handy entrenching tools. They know it is intended that we should fight, and they need no urging to put forth their best efforts. Before us and to the left towards Pretz-en-Argonne a battalion covers us. Through my glasses I see two watchful observers on the roof of a house.

The trenches are finished. They are only deep enough to shelter us kneeling, but that is sufficient.

Towards nine o'clock the bombardment commences. High explosives hurtle by without pause, bursting over Pretz, shattering roofs and bringing down whole walls. My men remain quite calm although they know that a violent and furious fight is immediately before them.