CHAPTER VII

THE REPULSE

As the Germans crossed the border of France and the hordes of the Kaiser, like some whirlwind of devastation, crushed our villages, trampled down our gardens, smote our sons, France trembled with rage, a rage at first not unmixed with fears. But it was for a moment only. The fierce reaction followed, and with the steadfast poise of her faith, her endurance, her heroism, she resisted. That resistance was a sublime act of confidence in herself. It meant an endless self-sacrifice. It meant a solidarity of hearts. It meant a complete disenthrallment from the illusions of ease and indolence and impregnability. We were surprised. The enemy was at our gates. And Paris, the cynosure of our pride and of our affection banished its _insouciance_, and suddenly became strained with gravity, and a kind of, I know not what, absorption in a new life.

The German wedge moved on, and then our armies holding stiffly together fell back, prodding the sides of the huge leviathan, that sprawled over our fair land with its fierce talons extended, with a savage not-to-be-denied hunger reaching out for that paramount morsel--Paris--and spitting out of its ravenous mouth sprays of desecrating Uhlans and automobile excursionists, who were here and there, now hiding in a wood, now racing over the roads. It was these drops and waterings of saliva from its horrid living mass that spread terror and anxiety and a sickening dread. But we had not severed our lines, and the retreating army corps tightly kept their cordon intact, though falling back with a deep reentering swerve in the centre, where the enemy fought hard to break through. And not seldom it happened that those exudations from its vast throat were stamped out summarily, so that no spot of their defilement remained. And Joffre--_Pater patriae_--was not worried. That we knew; the plan was working. I learned that from a colonel who had been at the crossing of the Meuse, where, so he said, "the Germans spent their thousands to gain their end, squadrons upon squadrons, slaughtered like pigeons from a trap, coming on, stuck together like an army of termites, and beaten into death by the merciless fire from our guns. But they got over," he said, "and that was what they wanted to do. Why, living men were thrown into the gaps to be rained down with shot and shell, like so much earth and stone into a pit that must be crossed."

The plan was to thrust the great beast sideways, and for that purpose Joffre kept his plunging assaults on the west, while the English lured them eastward and then came the Battle of the Marne. Charleroi, Rheims, Rethel, Soissons, St. Quentin, had been passed, the bridge over the Marne near Meaux blown up, and now came the sudden halt with our backs against the wall, as it were, and every nerve and muscle strained in the death-grip. The magnificence of our resistance was the measure of our sense of peril.

I had trembled for St. Choiseul, but as the tide swept southward those fears passed, at least there was a breathing spell for us all. It had been sad enough. The few men who were under command to join the colors left in a little company, with their wives and children, their sweethearts and parents, all silent and dreary, with the dreariness of nameless fears. The men only were smiling and cheerful, and--not all of them; the women mute, and the prattling children impressed by some instinctive sympathy, almost always mute too. The women were all resigned, I thought, with just here and there some silently weeping girl, who smothered her sobs, and forced to her eyes the same earnest pathetic resolve of resignation that the others wore. Gabrielle had been an angel of mercy to these women. She had visited them; she opened our house to them, and entertained them, and took care of some of the children, and was so brave and loving with them, that they called her, among themselves, _la Mère de Pitié_--the Mother of Pity. A pretty name.

I had been driven to the verge of exhaustion with work in the Red-Cross and with service in Paris. The dispersion southward of the war-cloud roused my spirits, and then I was requested to follow the troops to Meaux--that was in September just after Quintado died--and I was more than glad. There was much work to do there, and I knew the leaders thought that the Germans were trapped. There had been some evidence of shortage of ammunition with them, and their loss had been crippling--so it seemed, though like some scourge of insects extinction was impossible. Behind those who fell pressed on the unnumbered legions, fresh and ready. But the advance had been too rapid and the critical moment dawned when the blow could be struck that would hurl them backward. So it was thought. So it proved.

The country-side about Meaux is delicious in its pastoral charm. It is _un pay riant_, and its smiles are so large and gentle, so benignant and inviting, that the dwellers there are always smiling too. The broken land rising, falling, with streams, passing hither, thither, that gleam beneath the fair skies, and are like silver bands and threads on its bursting jacket of green and gold, is a land of gardens and fields, with clustering woods on hilltops, or, just missing that, creeping down like warm coverlids in capes and tippets to the wide valleys. Ah! it is most beautiful. And into this sweet refuge upon these quiet happy changeful villages--changeful in the drifting shadows from the slumbering clouds that basked above them in the glittering sun--came the rough confusion of WAR. But it was not for long. No, no, not for long. The kind God banished it before it had ravaged and soiled the peaceful homes, the dainty walled gardens, the sweeping fruitful meadows, the plenteous orchards, the teaming acres ripening so enchantingly with grain and barley, or profaned its pretty grave-yards gathered so warmly around its spired churches. Yes indeed our armies and the English allies banked here with stubborn courage, and put it all to flight. Drove it forty miles away!

I saw much of that fighting. I was not far away when the English fought like bull-dogs at Landrecies, when they hit the Teutons even harder at Coulommiers, and in one engagement with our own men I took part. I was not with the colors, but in the emergency I offered to shoulder a gun and was assigned to a company by Colonel Brissot, who indulged my fervor with a resigned and sympathetic shake of his noble head, remarking:

"_C'est un peu dure. Mais que voulez vous. Quand un homme veut à mourir pour la Patrie c'est son affaire._"

We lay back on a hill in a thin wood, and had planted the machine guns in shallow pits. It overlooked a road, down which our scouts reported the Germans were coming. I saw the first advanced lines, the gray multitude plunging on, apparently unadvised of our proximity. It was our intention to enfilade them, and then, under cover of fire to retreat, to another eminence, with a supporting column swinging from the opposite quarter, so that eventually we might catch the enemy in the double grip of two cross fires. On the Boches came confidently. They spied us before our spit-fires got into action, and the order rang out to charge us. Three companies were thought sufficient for the task of cleaning us out. They went at us in a huge lunge forward, almost unbrokenly up the hill slope, their ranks close pressed, and unwavering by the fraction of a foot. Almost at the minute when they started up the hill, from the rear a caisson rolled up to our position, and two shells were dropped amongst them. I saw the individual men fall, while, as they fell, others through the gaps sprang into their places, and the solid front unchangeably swept upward. It was magnificent discipline and superb valor. Another shell shattered the line, and I saw the mangled bodies drop. But still the unchecked tide poured on, with shouts, and somewhere from a distance I caught the vigorous beat of drums. The next instant they were almost at the muzzles of our cannon. The word was given and the ripping articulation of our machines rained three deadly streams of shot. The men rolled over each other in the murderous hail, and, for a moment, the whole line halted. The limp dead bodies formed a rampart, and behind that hideous protection their comrades fell to their knees and answered our fire with their guns. At the same moment a shell with the detonation of a crack of thunder soared over us, and struck the ground behind us, gimleting its way into the scorched earth, that smoked like a mimic crater. A fragment of the shell knocked over the gunner at one of the machine-guns and the next instant our officer caught sight of a swarming mass of gray bodies, debouching into the roadway to our left, stealthily and rapidly driving down upon us, with the evident purpose of surrounding our salient. The order to retreat under the charge of the right wing, who, for the expedient, was to hold the enemy, now pretty well discomfited by the unceasing machine fusillade, was given, and we on the left and centre slowly retired, moving to the second line of defence, more stoutly guarded by three regiments of infantry and the park of cannon.

The position of our machine guns, and the endangered right wing, which had utterly disarrayed the Germans by their bayonet onslaught, demanded attention. It would require but a few minutes for the arrival of a new division of the enemy, and already a greater force was seen detaching itself from the main body on the road, crossing the field below the hill, with a run. Everywhere in front of us the Teuton front seemed to be enlarging, and the glittering helmets of the plumed Uhlans, like a sheet of kindling fires, suddenly emerged within it. There was nothing for it but retreat, and a retreat quickly made. I trembled for the safety of the thin file of defenders on the hilltop. Their certain extinction or capture was inevitable.

Then something most unexpected happened. Dropping shells from the extreme right of our second line of defense, where the danger had been reported, covered the hillside with a rapid succession of eruptions. It was insupportable, though, with characteristic stubbornness--the German officers rushed more men to the desolated slope, where the shells ripped the ground, and filled the air with iron splinters. It was terrific, and our gunners and infantry, dismayed for their own safety, in the superabundant rescue, scrambled back and, together almost, entered the lines of the second defense. I remember well enough my own struggles to get there, for at the very conjuncture when my legs should have best succored me, the injured member became almost useless. I rolled into a lucky hole, where there had been at some time an excavation made, or begun, for some reason, possibly the building of an outhouse or cattle shed. An intense pain developed, and I found myself quite, as the Americans say, "out of commission." Within sight was our second line of defense, bristling with rifles and concealed machine guns, a strong position, well garrisoned, and immediately before me raced the parting remnants of the small parleying party that I had adventurously joined.

My predicament was dangerous. The very thought of capture and isolation for months or years from St. Choiseul and Gabrielle and the domestic duties I was so sorely needed to perform, terrified me, but it also made me more methodical and ingenious. I searched the possibilities of a return to my friends, and the obvious plan was to "lie still," and in the night, if the positions of the armies remained unchanged to steal under the cover of darkness back to the French lines.

Suddenly I heard the oncoming shouts of German troops, and I realized that it was the advance ranks of the division deployed to our left to surround the hill,--now deserted--and which probably would continue their advance to the attack, of our second line of defense, with the whole strength of the German corps. I glanced about me. Some overturned bushes lay at the side of the hole, and instinctively I seized them to ambuscade my refuge.

I crouched--perhaps a derisive observer would have said I squatted--closely within the lowest recess of the accidental excavation, and drew after me, with all the caution my necessity and impatience permitted, the withered and prickly bushes--a hawthorn bramble--so that, like a cowering rabbit in its warren, I awaited the rapidly nearing host of the Germans. Luckily the excavation was somewhat removed from their direct approach, and formed so obvious and considerable a feature in the ground, that the platoons would avoid it, or at the worst jump over it. Nearer and nearer came the clamorous companies, and the heavy tramp of their feet, beating in unison the stubbled field, made my heart beat too with an insistent rapidity.

Now they were passing my tiny screen. I could hear their laughter and the occasional rough sallies of their voices. The line seemed endless. Just dimly through the interlaced twigs and dirt encumbered branches of the hawthorn, I could actually catch a broken view of the massive column. The horrible thought of one of the soldiers, through an inadvertence, or from the crowding of the lines, falling into my dug-out, sent the blood whirring through my veins and bathed me in perspiration. I drew my revolver. It might be a straggler, and, if just one man, the weapon would serve completely for my protection. I shuddered at the awful chance. This extremity was worse than the indiscriminate and generalized murder of the battlefield.

Then just as this suspense almost throttled my breathing, the whole line rested, and there above me--I could see their strong figures, their gray coats, even the gleam of their _pickelhaubes_--the babel of conversation broke out in incoherent gurglings of German. Another instant and the order might be given to break ranks, to camp, and my screen might serve, practically enough, to light a fire, or even the hole be selected as a preeminently good substitute for a hearth. Smoked and roasted out then it would be!

No, the line moved again, with the unintermittent trudge of the hundreds of booted feet, now and then the clangor of a sword, now and then the whish of grazing coats, and always a certain observed but indescribable hum of rapidly passing bodies. Then came silence--no more?--could it be possible? In my hole the light had grown dimmer and dimmer, and while it was no prudent criterion of the time of day above me, still I felt sure--for I had counted the seconds elapsing as the battalion swept over me--that the night drew near, and then--deliverance.

At first I scarcely dared to stir, fearing the betrayal of my retreat by the animated bush which I would raise above me. But after a long wait, while the light sensibly failed, I cautiously crowded what I could of it, _the bush_, beside me, and surmounting it, at length was able to peer out of the hole, and note the opportunities for my escape. It was very dark, the night threatened to be stormy, and the rising wind prevented my distinctly hearing sounds about me, if anyone was in the vicinity. Slowly with the finest sense of carefulness and stealth, I crawled to the lip of the shallow pit, and rose above it, and stood up, achingly relieving my sharply disabled limb.

"_Sind gefangen_;" the voice was at my side, and a shadow accompanied it. But I was quicker than its groping arms or hands, quicker than the gun or sword, or whatever else it seized for my despatch. I jumped at the black body with my revolver trigger snapped back, and pressed the muzzle upon the now rampant body, that grappled with me, and discharged it. The report was almost inaudible, and the sound of the falling German, as he dropped lifeless into the pit, that had sheltered me, was hardly more than a dull thud. What was about me? was the enemies' circuit here on every side? I hesitated for a moment. There came no sound of rescue. The topography of the country I knew well. Far--about a half a mile--to the right as you looked westward, was a road leading directly to a village that was in the rear of the second line of our defense. That road I would reach if I could. It was the simplest--to me the only--issue of salvation. I turned quickly aside and fell to the ground. My leg pained me, and seemed almost incapable of movement. Lying there I swung my head about to discover what objects surrounded me. In the night-light, almost absent, I could discern nothing, and taking the risk as there was no other alternative I abandoned the idea of walking to the road, over the rough field, and began slowly to crawl in its direction. The sense of direction was infallible with me, and I had not the slightest doubt of my position. Of course the Germans might by this time have swarmed over the whole area, but that they had not yet attacked the second line of our defense seemed certain as I had heard no firing. Both sides awaited the morning. The Germans were there, no doubt, but farther to the east.

I canvassed these conditions while I crawled over the stinging grass-stubble, and at intervals waded through water holes and muddy banks. Now the ground was rising. I had attained the further side of the broad field, and was surmounting a hillslope beyond which ran the little road that would conduct me to safety. Well, I shall not rehearse the mingling feelings of dread and relief, of quick suspense and then exulting certainty, that I experienced, on that dismal trip on my hands and knees all the way to the village. For only at intervals was it possible for me to use my injured leg that increased in helplessness as I went on. I reached the village, and the first man I encountered on its outskirts was the man who had been next to me in the line of battle.

We were dislodged from our position, and the weary retreat towards Paris continued. I still stayed with the army, and I was in one other fight, when my leg had somewhat regained its usefulness. It was then that I was wounded, then that my soul most revolted against the barbarity of War.

We were in a village near the Marne, when the Germans attacked the place. We had thrown up strong barricades at the end of the main street, from which every vestige of life had departed except--I recall the whimsical observation--that a black cat still crouched upon the narrow window sill of an upper window of one of the little houses. The Germans with their usual intrepidity and singular tenacity of habit were expected to move down upon us in solid formation, and our guns would receive them--we thought--with the almost certain decision of their repulse. I was next to a gunner whose impatience to start the fearful havoc was unrestrained. He kept muttering between his teeth.

"_Sacre Bleu! Pas encore! Pas encore! Les scelerats; Pourquoi ne venaient-ils pas?_"

He did not have long to wait. At the head of the street, with shouts and the loud beating of near-by drums, the Boches came on, almost as if maneuvering upon a field of drill-practice. I was compelled to admire their stolid impervious confidence and fearlessness. Down the deserted alley of houses they rushed, and from behind them swung upward with stunning reports exploding shells, intended for our discomfiture. But the range was imperfect, and they fell beyond our position. I trembled with expectation--the advance of the enemy, so determinedly forceful, with the ranks close pressed in dense crowds, promised an awful disillusion. Our captain warned against any premature discharge. He would give the word. On the bristling lines swung, massively compacted, like some human battering ram, and when I could almost see the buttons on their gray coats the order came.

It was a _whisper_, and the next instant the machine guns spouted, and each soldier braced himself for the charge that might follow the foe's disorder, with fixed bayonet. That was a hideous moment. The bodies of the slain Germans piled high before the oncoming ranks, and from side to side of the street--now become a veritable slaughter-pen--the heaving mass still unrelentingly pressed over their dismembered and fallen comrades. It was the veriest depth of hell. I awaited the next word to charge, and it seemed to me incredible that I could urge myself to do the deed, running the cold steel of the bayonet into quivering flesh. Later like a flash this detachment passed, and the frenzy of the moment blinded me to everything, but the fierce desire to destroy our invaders. I waited. The machine guns unceasingly hissed, and they shook with the uninterrupted intensity of their working. I watched in a delirium of satisfaction their ravages. Arms and hands, even heads, severed as if cut with a knife, flew into the air, and yet the flood of humans, with not-to-be-denied insistency, rose to our barricade, and in another breath would overwhelm us.

Then came the order "_Charge_" and over the barricade with set bayonets--I as best I might--our companies leaped and dashed into the baying pack before us, with the shrivelling terror of the cold steel. The Germans did not like the treatment. The machine guns were withdrawn under the protection of this assault, and while we stemmed the tide, for an instant, it was for an instant only. No effective pressure we could then summon, would withstand the leviathan movement of those belted Prussians. The shells too were finding us out, and we yielded. A German officer cut down with his sword the brave gunner who had so intemperately desired their approach. He was severed almost from shoulder to waist. But he was avenged. I rushed upon the miscreant--so he seemed to me--and pierced his neck with the bayonet in my hands. There were no misgivings then, no secondary thoughts, not even the transient survival of my sickening sense of faintness at the sight of blood. I was acquiring the war-hardening that accompanies incessant Murder.

We fell back from the position in fairly good shape, and soon were reinforced by new regiments, and then by artillery, and mortars, and, as the battle widened, with more and more success on our side, we checked the invasion, and soon were overmastering the invaders. At length they fled, and the whole line swept onward, while fresh men strode into the footsteps of their predecessors and Joffre won the Battle of the Marne.

It was then that I was shot in the breast and shoulder, and fell heavily on my head against a roadside pile of stone. I lay directly in the way of the Red-Cross men--those blessed gleaners of the wounded--and so was quickly carried to safety.