Part 7

But the rain exacts its revenge in the course of the day. For duty compels us once more to climb up to the plateau to complete the trenches commenced the day before. We find that in the night the torrent has well-nigh filled them with liquid mud. Some sappers, however, come to our assistance, and, thanks to them, we are able to shelter ourselves from the worst of the downpour; they hastily construct a thick roof of baulks of timber covered with earth.

The men work easily, flinging jests one to the other. The incidents of the night attack are revived and acquire a totally new force by reason of the simple words in which they are related.

"I was all right at the beginning," says Martigny, one of my men. "But all at once, while I was still firing, down toppled a Boche right on top of me, without so much as a "by your leave!" I was on my knees and he lay across my calves. It's not easy to fire in such a position as that! Little by little the weight forced my knees down into the mud; the water rose almost up to my hands: how was I to refill my magazine? I could not see the animal, but you can take my word for it, he was heavy."

And a second:

"A good job for me that I was once fencing-sergeant in the regulars! Otherwise I should not be here now. Not even time to fix my bayonet before I found one of the ugly pigs on top of me with his skewer. I thought to myself: 'What's all this about? But you are going to find you can joke once too often, my Boche!' And there we were all in and at it. I parried a thrust with the stock of my rifle, but what sort of defence could I put up, seeing that my weapon was much shorter than his? Only he didn't manage to get his bayonet into me!... There wasn't even a cartridge! I tell you that Boche kept me jumping from side to side until I felt like dying from weariness. You know what a job it is to parry, when you can no longer feel your own fingers? Still jumping, I said to myself: 'What in the name of glory are those asses right and left footling about? Are they going to stand by and see me knocked out?' Oh! but they were there all right, and it was Gillet to the right who put a bullet into him while he was pausing to take a breath. Then I stuck on my bayonet and filled my magazine. There were others still coming up, you understand!"

"Sons of pigs, these Boches!" rasps a miner from the North. "And what mugs they are too, _Mon Dieu!_ When I saw them swarming over towards me, 'Martin,' said I to myself, 'you're done for this time!' And then: 'Hurrah!' they're off! Bang, bang, bang! And I knew no more."

"Martin, you are babbling," grunts a huge Champenois, who is smoking his pipe and listening with eyes atwinkle. "Hammer away at the earth, seeing that is what you were born for; but don't mix yourself up in conversations, because you can't talk."

He spits on his hands, rubs them against each other, and taking up his pick starts digging again with long, steady, powerful strokes.

Eight o'clock in the morning and nothing before us but a day of rest. We do not go down to the village, however, until four o'clock in the afternoon. Then we hastily erect temporary shelters against the weather, building them of pointed stakes, branches and bundles of straw. The rain sweeps down obliquely, driven by a westerly wind. Men lie face down in the straw through which course streams of rain. Many of them fall asleep, and when they wake after their short siesta, the straw has left on their cheeks crimson furrows which look like scars.

The plateau, covered as it now is with little huts of straw erected in less than an hour, has all the appearance of a gipsy encampment. The Captain's stick thrust in the ground before one of the larger of these shelters indicates Headquarters. He's pretty certain to be there himself, although there are no signs either of him or of his messengers. Through the rain-mist, indistinct figures occasionally drift across the deserted plain without giving it life. The rain makes them vague, colourless, almost formless. Gradually they draw away into indistinctness, finally to disappear so abruptly as to leave one puzzled and mystified. A second before they were visible; they are no longer so now; and there remains only the drenched plain on which our straw huts appear like strange unhealthy excrescences.

Between two showers, Porchon appears before me. He carries in his hand a can in which there is something smoking and steaming. He offers it to me with a plainly self-satisfied grin.

"A fine company, mine, what? Everything in stock you can possibly want. Smell that, old man, and fill your nostrils well before drinking it."

To my amazement the contents of the can prove to be cocoa, which duly 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.