Part 6

Suddenly a rapid whistling passed over our heads, which were lowered in one simultaneous movement. Another followed, then another and, a little behind us, three explosions resounded with a noise like the tearing of silk amid a jangling of metals. We had received our baptism of fire.

We advanced more quickly in an eagerness to reach our underground home. We bumped the walls, sometimes so close together that our knapsacks stuck fast, so that we had to tear them loose with a considerable effort. All the time we shuddered at the nasty whistle of the shells, which passed to fall and crash behind. One felt that he must escape; must get out of this place where, if he remained, he was sure to be mashed like a strawberry in a marmalade. The march quickened so that we almost ran, staggering against the trench walls at every sudden turn of its meandering course and always, above us, that terrible screaming and those crashing explosions.

Lord! But our cheeks were pale and our looks anxious. Later we stood it better as we became accustomed to it. This, however, was our first moment under fire, our first meeting with the foe, and we felt crushed by the narrow confines of this fissure in which we could only follow the column--a column without end, which straggled over too great a length in spite of the efforts of the officers to hurry the men and to close up the distances.

Suddenly we emerged into open ground. A railroad-embankment with its rails in place, its telegraph-poles still standing and occasionally a flagman’s house still in good condition, hid us from the enemy. At one bound we glued ourselves to this embankment, flattening our bodies on the ground; for the German shells continued to lash the air, while out on the plain gray puffs marked their explosions.

Some comrades, whose easy gait showed their familiarity with the place, were already advancing toward us. They motioned to us and pointed out the dugouts.

“This way. Don’t stay there.”

We followed their directions on the run and entered by groups into the shelters they had indicated. Here, packed together so closely that we could not budge, we waited for the storm to pass. In the abri were some wounded on their way to the dressing-station, and we felt the deepest emotion at seeing the stretchers with their mangled and groaning burdens.

At last the firing stopped. We waited for orders. The sergeants were called together for instruction. Soon they came back and then our work began. We first laid aside our knapsacks and grouped ourselves by squads. Then we picked out tools from a long pile of shovels and pickaxes, and followed the non-coms along the embankment, a little nervous, it is true, but curious about the work we were to do.

“Two picks, one shovel,” came the order. “Two picks, one shovel,” repeated the sergeants as they placed us at our distances.

“Voilà! You are going to dig here. Loosen the ground with the picks and clear it away with the shovels. Do you understand?”

Then we went at the work. It was the beginning of our first trench. Gradually we heated up; we hacked at the soil; we shovelled it away; we spat on our hands; we struck again; we wiped away the perspiration. Occasionally some shells seemed to leap over the embankment and passed, screeching, on their way. We dodged at the sound and then laughed at our involuntary movement. Then we straightened up to catch our breath, and in the moment inspected our workyard and glimpsed the neighborhood. The embankment of the _chemin de fer_ entirely protected us from the enemy. At a little distance two rows of trees marked the way of the canal we had crossed. Between the parallel lines of the canal and the railroad was a field of beets, humped in places with bodies of men that one had not had time to bury; while here and there crosses marked the fallen of the earlier days of the struggle.

We saw all this at a glance, and quickly bent ourselves back to the earth and our toil. Our rifles hampered us in our work, and we laid them on the freshly heaped-up earth, taking care to protect them from sand. We did not know why they were making us do this digging, or what good purpose was to be served by our labor; but we worked on unremittingly, proud to accomplish the necessary task, proud to be at work and to feel so calm in the midst of war.

“You are lucky,” said one of the veterans standing near by. “The sector is calm to-day. You would not have been able to do that yesterday.”

“Lively, was it?”

“You’ve said something. But tell me, have you come to relieve us? It’s not a bit too soon.”

“We don’t know.”

“It’s likely that is what we’re here for,” added some one.

In reality, no; we did not know. They had sent us there and there we stayed. After all, no one seemed able to give us an explanation, and we didn’t try to explain things ourselves. They told us to hurry and we hurried. That was all. In the meantime our tracks were burying themselves. The ditch was already knee-deep, and by so much it diminished the stature of each of the diggers. No one stopped us, so we kept on, digging furiously, as if the final victory depended on our effort of this moment.

When evening came and twilight enveloped us in her soft, purple mantle, the violent note of the cannon barked only intermittently, and the gusts of bullets, wailing in the air, sounded like swarms of musical insects swiftly regaining their homes. We believed the hour of repose was near. But we were mistaken: another task awaited us. It was necessary to take advantage of the night to cross the embankment, gain the first line and take our position.

In these first weeks of intrenched warfare, movements of this sort were relatively easy. We were hidden in the darkness: we had only to leap the embankment and move to our places. The enemy replied only when he heard a noise, and fired quite at random. His commonest field-piece was the light seventy-seven, which barked loudly but did little damage, and the workmen of the two camps matched their skill at only a hundred metres’ distance, without hurting each other very much.

This evening they placed us behind some trees at a roadside.

“Fire only on order,” said the officers. “One of our companies is out in front fixing the wire. If you fire, you risk wounding your comrades.”

They repeated their instructions to the sergeants and thus began our first night at the front. Each one watched as well as he could, straining his eyes in the effort to pierce the blackness, hearing the blows of the mallets on the stakes and thrilling at the fusillade.

A night is long. A night in November is cold. It freezes. We shivered out there in the dark, but we did not dare to budge. The noise of shooting was almost constant, and bullets were striking everywhere about us, ringing on the stones, clipping twigs from the trees or sinking dully into the soil. Our teeth chattered; we shivered; we tried to warm our hands by rubbing them. Some rash ones stamped their feet to restore the circulation, and from time to time we heard a muffled conversation. We didn’t know where we were nor the distance which separated us from the enemy. We feared a possible ambush, a surprise attack maybe, and we pinched ourselves to keep awake. The hours seemed deadly long.

At last we saw the dirty gray of dawn overspread the sky and slowly dissipate the thick mist that rose from the earth. Clumps of trees and underwood, little by little, took form. No sooner were they fully visible than a terrible fusillade broke out, lashing the air like a thousand hisses; a crackling shower of bullets that rolled and rattled like hail. They cut the branches just above us and made the pebbles fly. We crouched to the ground; buckling our sacks, gripping our guns, hunching our shoulders and tensing our legs to be ready for the expected attack.

“Get ready to go back,” whispered the sergeants and the order was repeated along the line. We crept, we crawled like slugs, profiting by the smallest tuft of grass, the shallowest recess in the ground that might serve as a shield, but with little hope of escape.

Some furious discharges of seventy-fives cracked with such rapidity and precision that they comforted us. We felt sustained and protected and steadied ourselves. We were annoyingly hampered by our heavy equipment, our inconvenient cartridge-boxes and all our cumbersome accoutrement. Suddenly a man was wounded. He cried out, and, losing all prudence, arose, ran, crossed the embankment and fled to the shelter. Instinctively we followed his example. On the way another man was wounded and fell. Two of his companions seized him and, dragging him between them, struggled to safety, in the shelter of the railroad-bank. It was finished. We reassembled. We were muddy, bruised, and wounded; eyes red from loss of sleep, and mouths drawn, but, just the same, we were content. Thenceforth we were soldiers. We had faced danger. True, we had not fought, but we were ready.

Our rôle had just commenced. We had occupied this sector to fit it up as this novel thing, this underground war, demanded. This task achieved, we were to be its defenders. It was necessary to dig trenches that we might no longer watch from the scanty shelter of trees; to improve on these primitive holes that had been dug, to serve temporarily, at the beginning of the battle. Therefore we dug trenches. It was necessary to connect them with communication-channels. Therefore we dug boyaux. We had to install redans, build firing benches or banquettes[C] and construct dugouts. All these things we did. We dug in the earth day and night. We gathered up cubic metres of soil and threw them out in front to heighten our parapet. We used our shovels and picks; we sweat; we suffered; we froze.

The winter rolled on. December brought intense cold. Ice and snow covered the land, and while we watched the foe, our rifles froze in the loopholes. We ate when we were lucky. The kitchens were far in the rear, and when the soup and coffee arrived they were ice-cold. The service men started early with their mess-pails, but they stumbled in the trenches and often spilled more of the soup and wine than they brought. We ate badly; we slept little: we always dug. We never rested. There were heavy materials to be carried; the stakes for the entanglements, the spools of wire, the sheet iron, the posts, and the timbers. There was nightly patrol duty, the hours on guard, the attack to repulse, endless holes to be bored in the earth. In the daytime one slept where he could, curling up in the mud at the bottom of the trench or seeking to avoid the rain by crawling into some fissure. At night we stole out into No Man’s Land and stalked the foe or dug a listening-post. We watched the illuminating rockets. We plunged to shelter when they threatened to expose us to fire.

We lived there some strenuous hours, some terrible weeks. Some suffered from trench foot, some froze to death, some were killed. These are terrible things: these nights on guard, these nights hugging the ground when on patrol, these nights in the listening-post when the body chills, becomes numb, and loses all sensation. One goes on detail and loses one’s way. One falls, dumb with fatigue, and an alarm sounds. One starts to sleep and an attack rages.

War is a thing of horror. It is more. The very soil is hollowed out like dens of beasts; and into these creep human beings. The rain saturates the trench and rots legs and wood alike. The corpse hangs on the wire and serves as a target. War is cold, war is black, war is night. It is, in truth, such a horror that those who have lived these hours may say: “I was there. But to tell about it is to live it over again. And that is too much.”

As for us, we suffered. At first we had no dugouts and slept beneath the open sky. We had no trenches and stalked our foe while waist-deep in mud. In December’s cold we had no fire. This which we saw, which we defended, which the foe destroyed, was France. Our land was invaded, profaned by the German, and we could not retake it. These conquered forests, these occupied cities, these subjugated plains, these mountains polluted, were our native soil and we could not regain them. The sacred homeland was under the boot of the German. Was this the death-rattle in the throat of the republic?

VI

THE GAS

The severe winter ran its course. We had worked incessantly. We had a whole sector to ourselves. First, there was the tangled network of barbed-wire, a piece of work in which we all had a share. Each evening, as night fell, a company of men went out on No Man’s Land to work in the thick, treacherous darkness. One gang dug holes and put in the posts, another stretched the parallel wires, another attached the transverse wires. As this required great blows of a mallet, it made considerable noise, which drew down the enemy’s gun-fire. As they gained experience, the men went out rapidly, worked swiftly, and returned to our trenches only when their task was accomplished. At dawn, the Boches tried to destroy our work of the night before, by firing many volleys into the network. The damage was never considerable, and they stopped that game when, imitating them, we cut their barbed-wire to pieces.

Under that efficacious protection we contrived openings for listening and firing trenches. At the first, two men alternated in a constant lookout, with ear quick to catch any sound, with eyes strained to observe the most minute sign. Behind them, on the benches,[D] entire sections, with guns poised in the loopholes, waited and watched from twilight to dawn, while the others slept, down in the shelters underground.

This organization constituted the first lines in the spring of 1915, when we hoped for an early victory. So temporary did the work appear to be, we spent no more time and effort on our trench systems than seemed necessary for immediate purposes. The dugouts were of the most limited dimensions, really kennels, large enough for two men to sleep fairly comfortably, but which usually housed six, no one knows how. One came there overcome by sleep. One threw himself on the ground without removing his accoutrement, and was asleep almost before touching the earth. To afford some protection against the bitter wind, a cloth was stretched in front of the opening. While this shut out the unwelcome breezes, it also shut in a concentrated, hot and malodorous steam, composed of the mouldy moisture from the earth itself, of human perspiration and panting exhalations, of wet leather and clothing. However, one breathed somehow. When the time was up, and one went out to resume work or watching, the icy air enveloped one like a sepuchral winding-sheet, and the night blinded one’s eyes. One followed the communication-trench, took up gun or shovel, as the order might happen to be, and became either soldier or laborer; or, more often, both at once. Everything was done at night. Everything was dismal, dangerous, frightful. There was no real repose, no relaxation. The incessant shell-fire added its horror to our other discomforts and dangers. The shell! that insensate creature of chance, which bursts over the innocent, scatters its fragments over the plain, and in stupid indifference crushes a clod of earth or snuffs out the lives of a hundred human beings. The shell! that monster which comes with a moaning wail, invisible as a beast of darkness, and dies in a shower of fire.

One easily becomes familiar with its sound. At first, every shot was terrifying. Then we learned to know approximately what course a shell would follow, at what point it would fall. Then we ceased to listen to or fear any but those coming our way. No others counted. They were non-existent.

Before we reached this point of familiarity, the salvos of that plaything, the seventy-five, made us shudder. They came so fast that we scarcely had time to distinguish the individual shots. Immediately the deadly whistling object skimmed the ground, and the explosion resounded. Some men turned pale, others paid little attention.

Berthet and I found much in this life to interest us. We ran about to see whatever could be seen. As soon as a cannonade began, we went in that direction for the pleasure of observing it. We volunteered for all sorts of difficult tasks, tempted by the risk, enticed by the eternal charm of adventure. He was brave, was Berthet, but knew not how brave he was. Sometimes I sought to restrain him, at which he was always astonished. “I wish to know,” he said, “if I will be afraid.” And he had his way. He went out on the embankment, where he inspected the horizon regardless of the projectiles which saluted his silhouette as soon as he appeared.

We had some magnificent spectacles. One evening there was a bombardment followed by infantry attack. The German uneasiness had been evident in the morning. It expressed itself by a storm of projectiles which fell aimlessly and did little damage. The shells cut the grass, exploded like a sheaf of fireworks, sent the dirt flying high into the air. It worried us at first, then, as we found ourselves safe in the shelter of our deep trenches, assurance returned. Each man went about his business. Some were detailed to dig a tunnel, one must go to the kitchens to fetch soup and bread, another cleaned the arms, rusted during the night by the fog, or in the morning by the dew. All the same, this violent bombardment troubled our officers not a little; they feared a surprise. We had a visit from our general toward evening. He gave some orders, took a look at the loopholes of observation, and went away apparently content. His calm was most reassuring.

Calm is not everything in war. The plans of the enemy must also be taken into account. The Boche artillery became violent. Over our trenches streamed a fire of shells of all calibers mingled. They fell tearing away whole banks of earth at once; they exploded thunderously, in a cloud of dust and stinking smoke. We looked for the worst; we suspected a close attack, a hand-to-hand clash. Suddenly a great cry rang out:

“The gas!”

It was true. Over there, from the enemy’s lines, came great greenish balls, rolling close to the earth, rolling deliberately yet swiftly, rolling straight toward us. Gas! That horrible thing, still almost unknown, which had been used for the first time only recently on the Yser. It was coming with deadly surety amidst a tornado of artillery. Orders were shouted back and forth:

“The gas! Put on the masks!”

Each man spread over his face the protecting cloth. The shelters were closed. The telephone, whose wires ran the length of the communication-trenches, gave the warning: “Look out! The gas!”

We did not yet know what manner of horror it was. None of us had experienced an attack of the sort. We ran to and fro like ants whose hill has been molested. Some fired their guns at random, others awaited orders. The frightful, livid thing came on, expanded to a cloud, crept upon us, glided into the trenches. The air was quickly obscured. We were swimming in an atmosphere stained a venomous color, uncanny, indescribable. The sky appeared greenish, the earth disappeared. The men staggered about for a moment, took a gasping breath, and rolled on the ground, stifled. There were some knots of soldiers who had been asleep in their beds when overtaken by the gas. They writhed in convulsions, with vitals burning, with froth on the lips, calling for their mothers or cursing the German. We gathered them up as best we could; we took them to the doctors, who, thus confronted by an unknown condition, found themselves powerless. They tried the application of oxygen and ether in an effort to save the lives of the victims, only to see them die, already decomposed, in their hands.

The masks had not yet been perfected and were a poor protection. Some ran about like madmen, shrieking in terror, the throat choked with saliva, and fell in heaps, in contortions of agony. Some filled the mouth with handfuls of grass and struggled against asphyxiation. Others, down in the shelters, sprinkled face and neck with brackish water, and awaited a death all too long in coming.[E] Over all this the artillery shrieked in unchained madness. The sky was of steel, quivering and molten. There were no longer any distinctly heard shots, but a storm of fire. It roared, it whistled, it exploded without respite, as if all the furies of hell were yelping, in a thick, metallic sky. At the left, little by little, an ever-reddening glow showed the neighboring city of Rheims, which the Boches were bombarding in a mad rage of destruction. We saw the flames leap up, the houses kindle like torches and throw toward the sky clouds of sparks and streams of black and red smoke. Everything seemed flaming and tottering and falling in a wild delirium. The earth itself opened to swallow the last survivors. In the trenches the bodies of the dead were heaped, and twisted or bleeding corpses choked the passageways.

Fiercely, convulsively, desperately, the comrades who were unhurt fought at their loopholes. Reinforcements came from the rear in haste, and took their places. Their eyes were those of madmen, their breath was panting.

“The assault will be here in a minute, boys,” I said to my nearest neighbors. “Look out for yourselves. Have your cartridges ready. You, there, lift your gun higher, or you will fire badly! And you, aim toward that corner you see over there!”

Berthet helped me, with a tragic manner of responsibility; the underofficers ran from one man to another crying: “Keep cool! We will get them! Just let them come on!”

Then the action rushed on even more furiously, more demoniac. In the midst of the increased cannonade the gun-fire rattled. It commenced at the left, gained the centre, reached the right. The whole line crackled like the beginning of a roll of thunder. We could no longer see ahead of us. We fired as fast as possible, without knowing where, cutting into space.

“Here they are! Keep cool!”

In the dim light a gray mass was oscillating. As it rapidly advanced, we could distinguish small objects on the plain, like moving blades of grass. We fired: cries could be heard. We fired more rapidly. The gas was dissipating, but the night was becoming thick. Our only light was the blazing city of Rheims and the glow of shells. The pandemonium increased. One could distinguish only his immediate neighbor, lifting his gun, firing, recoiling from the discharge, replacing the spent cartridge with a full one. The pungent taste of burnt powder penetrated the throat. We sweat. We no longer feared. We pulled the trigger; we were fighting, we were defending the soil, the trench, the sector, in a blind rage. _They should not take it!_ They should give up; they should fall back. We would kill them all rather than permit their feet to contaminate the spot we were guarding.

This endured for more than an hour, this insane uproar of shrieking voices, crashing cannon, cracking rifles; while Rheims, in flames threw to the wind her streamers of light.