Saturday, August 29th.
The men, with shirts opened and their skins wet with perspiration, complete their trenches beneath a searching and pitiless sun. Above the rumbling of distant artillery, we hear the detonations, still muffled and deadened, of nearer batteries. By holding my hand to my ear, I can distinguish soft whistlings which terminate in wailing explosions. Shrapnel evidently, the smoke of which is slowly dissipated in the calm air.
We retain our billets that night also, but not many of us sleep; for the German shells are bursting now hardly a mile away from the village; the windows shake and tremble under the stress of the formidable explosions.
Sunday, August 30th.
Bois de Septsarges.Hardy undergrowth thrusting forth roots shoots amid the shadows of the great forest. Great splashes of light are on the moss; living, quivering sun-rays pierce the warm gloom; the acrid odour of fermentation, increased by the sun, is oppressive. It strikes one forcibly, that sun! I recline in the shelter of a tree, moving only as the shade moves.
P——, a second-lieutenant of the 8th, lies weltering beside me. He is writing in pencil a long letter to his wife; he chats about her and his little girl, who is five months old. I pay him all the attention I possibly can, but I fear I do not understand much of what he says: his voice comes to me like a monotonous purring—which is, as it were, punctuated by the throbbing of the blood in my temples and fingers. And so I fall asleep.
A terrific explosion wakes me with a start. Three more successive detonations shatter the air, and above my head I hear the flight of shells—a light rustling, a rapid rushing, which one can with some difficulty follow with the ear, growing more and more distant until it terminates finally in the explosion.
"Those are 120 mm. guns," P—— remarks to me.
Scarcely have the words crossed his lips before a succession of harsher and more violent explosions causes me to look away to the left. There is no hanging back for each other with these! They come altogether in a rush, yet each detonation is separately distinguishable, despite the deep murmur following the resounding, vibrating echo which steals through the undergrowth. I think a battery of our 75's must have urgent work on hand.
By the evening, the cannonade has become far heavier. The whistling shells pass and cross each other's course; the smaller ones furiously maintaining a flat trajectory; the bigger ones sailing past almost slowly, winging through the air with well-nigh dulcet tones. Quite mechanically I raise my eyes to watch them. Every man hearing that noise for the first time, does the same thing.
When we leave the wood these "marmites" are bursting away to our left, near enough for us to hear, after the explosion, the hail of splinters striking the trees.
We remain in our billets as wakeful as on the preceding night, and this is to be my last night with my fat old man. Alas!
Monday, August 31st.
We set out for the Septsarges Wood again. The day is passed as was the preceding one. Grillon, a regimental barber, shaves me: a sensation which has already become strange to me. Two knapsacks for a stool, a tree for a backrest. I pay him with superfine tobacco, and he would have kissed me! I settle down again for a siesta, chasing the shade.
Towards two o'clock we make a fresh move. We push forward in a north-easterly direction, traversing the whole length of the wood until we reach trenches constructed by the engineers with a breastwork of tree-trunks in front. We take possession of them. A shelter made of branches is reserved for my occupation a little behind the line.
It would hardly have been natural had we not, in the course of our day's wanderings, received a few big Berthas—ten or so exploded in succession not thirty yards from us.
I passed the night in my bower. The branches of which it was constructed had become sun-dried and reminded me of the fact by affectionately digging me in the sides. My improvised mattress would not shake down properly, while the knapsack beneath my head acquired a sudden and spiteful hardness. I was not yet used to it.
Tuesday, September 1st.
We remain in the trenches. Some belated food is eagerly expected from the kitchen. Very shortly, however, the inevitable complete confusion descends upon us. For the fight is moving along to our front. The Captain has sent word to say that the first line must have been broken through and that we must redouble our vigilance. Porchon, my Saint Cyrien, acting on orders, sends out a patrol away to the left. Hardly have they got clear when rifle shots ring out—we know well Lebels are speaking!—and the patrol tumbles back, scared. It appears they sighted the Boches and fired! My men become restless and anxious; there is a premonition of evil in the air.
Suddenly a shrill whistling bursts out and increases, increases … until two shrapnel shells explode almost above my trench. I am down on the ground in a moment; and even in the act my attention is attracted and held by the terrified expression of one of the men. The memory of that man's face haunts me now!
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.
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-manœuvred; 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 theBulletins 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.
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.
Eleven o'clock and our turn is come. The men deploy instantly. There is no time for reflection on my part; I feel nothing, unless it be that the fevered fatigue of the past hours has now left me. Rifles are speaking close at hand, shells are still bursting in the distance. With a strange detachment I watch the lines of our men blue and red against the earth, advancing and advancing apparently without movement. About me the wheat bows down beneath a heavy, languid breeze, and with a certain feverishness I repeat to myself again and again: "I am in it now! This is war and I am in it!" and I am astonished to see that all the things about me retain their ordinary appearance, to hear the snapping of rifles which is no more than the snapping of rifles. For, on the other hand, it almost seems as if my body had undergone some change, that it is no longer the same, that I experience different sensations with different organs.
"Lie down!"
The bullets are whistling above us now. The rattle of the fusilade drowns their sharp notes; but I know that behind us the song of the bullets dies away to diminuendo and silence.
We commence to advance. The movement is admirably executed, with the same regularity and deliberation as if we were at manœuvres. Little by little there arises in me an exhilaration which raises me above myself. I feel that all these men are part of myself—these men who, at a gesture from me push forward despite the bullets shrilling towards us seeking chests, faces; the living flesh for billets.
We lie down for cover, we rise with a jump; we run as fast as our legs will carry us straight for the hidden Boches—we long to see those Boches so that we can get at them more surely and chase them far from these fields ruined and trampled by their hordes.
We are completely exposed and under fire. The bullets sing no longer; they pass invisible with a nasty spiteful hiss. They are no longer at play but in deadly earnest.
Clac! Clac! Two bullets have struck immediately to my left. The noise at once surprises and slightly amazes me; these bullets seem less dangerous when they sing and whistle. Clac! Clac! Stones, pieces of dried earth, spurts of dust fly into the air; we have been seen and they have got the range of us. Forward! I am leading, seeking a ditch, a slope, a fold in the earth wherein to shelter my men after the first rush—even the hedge of a field, or anything which will render them less visible to the Boches will do. A movement of my right arm shortens the line by half. I hear the tramp of feet, the rustle of the stubble lying in our course. And while we are running forward the detachment in support fires rapidly but steadily. Then when I raise my cap, that detachment in its turn charges at the double, whilst all around me my men's rifles come into play and speak unceasingly.
A strangled cry to the left. I have scarcely time to see the man sprawl flat on his back, his two legs still moving as though to carry him forward. A second, and all his body stiffens and then relaxes and the man is no more than an inert thing, dead flesh which to-morrow the sun will commence to decompose.
Forward! To remain still would cost us more dearly now than the most furious assault. Forward! The men are falling rapidly, stopped dead in full course, some crashing prone without a word, others halting and staring stupidly, while feeling with their hand for their wound. And they say: "I have got it," or, "Mine has arrived!" Often it is no more than a single expressive word. Almost all of them, even those whose wounds are slight, turn pale at the shock. The impression is borne in upon me that one thought alone is in all their minds; to get away very quickly, never mind where, so long as it be somewhere free from this eternal hissing of the bullets. They seem to me like little children, children whom one would wish to console, to protect. An almost insane desire seizes me to cry out to those waiting ahead of us:
"Do not harm them! You have no right to do so! They are no longer soldiers—they will do you no harm!"
Instead I say to one of the passing men:
"Come along, old man, cheer up! Thirty yards ahead of you, behind that little crest, you will be out of danger … ah, yes, I know your foot is bad, that it swells. But we will take good care of you in a minute. Do not be afraid."
The man, a corporal, dragging himself along on all fours, stops to look back at me with the eyes of a caged beast. Then he resumes his clumsy, tormented, crablike crawl.
At last I catch a glimpse of the Boches. They are hiding themselves behind sheaves which they push before them; but at least I know now where they are and my men's bullets will therefore stand a better chance of finding an objective.
The advance is resumed and continues without wavering. A great confidence possesses me. I feel that all is going well;—and at this moment a corporal arrives breathless and covered with perspiration:
"Lieutenant."
"What is it?"
"The Major sends me to tell you you are too far advanced. The movement has been executed too quickly. You must halt and await orders."
I lead my section to the shelter of a slight undulation which is no more than a vaguely-defined fold in the earth, but where at least some shelter from the bullets will be obtained. And so we remain there lying flat, awaiting the orders which appear as if they will never arrive. Everywhere, above us, before us, to the right and the left, the shots whistle and hiss and shrill. A few steps from me the bullets of a deafening machine-gun strike the earth in a regular, steady stream. Dust and stones are flung high in the air, and for a moment I feel an almost irresistible temptation to approach that death-dealing squall, and touch that invisible stream of innumerable and minute splinters of metal, each of which can kill.
The minutes drag past long and wearying. I raise myself a little and attempt to see what is occurring. To the left the thin line of riflemen extend as far as eye can reach; all the men are lying behind their knapsacks firing. Behind a wheatfield, twenty men or so are standing to aim better and fire. I can see distinctly the recoil of their rifles and the corresponding jerk of their right shoulders. As the smoke clears for a second, I am able to distinguish Porchon's platoon, and Porchon himself smoking a cigarette. There also is the Saint Maixenter's platoon, somewhat disorganized. Further away again are the men of the 8th. Behind them a little man is walking up and down, erect, nonchalant and quite at home. Who can this reckless individual be? Through my glasses I make out an over-waxed moustache and the blue smoke of a pipe; it is the Captain! Someone had already told me of his attitude when under fire!
The orders, merciful Heavens, where are our orders? What can be the matter? Why are they leaving us here? I make up my mind and suddenly get up. It is imperative I should know what the Boches are doing and where they are at present. Keeping under cover of the sheaves, I mount the gentle slope until I reach the top of it. There before me, four or five hundred yards distant, are men in greyish green uniforms, almost indistinguishable from the greenness of the fields. It is only with the greatest difficulty I can make them out at all.
Quite near their line, but far to my right, is a machine-gun surrounded by men in French uniform firing at triple speed. I determine to bring my men to the top of the slope where at least they will be able to fire.
While I am making my way back to them a shell passes overhead. It explodes among the detachment of the 8th, and a gap of twenty yards is made in their line. The next second other men have filled the gap. A second explosion, another and still another; the bombardment has recommenced. All my men fling themselves flat.
"Oh!…" The cry escaped a dozen of us at once. A high explosive burst clean among the Saint Maixenter's platoon. And he, I saw it distinctly with my own eyes, received the shell full in his body. His cap vanished into space, a part of his coat, an arm. And there he is lying on the earth a shapeless mass, white and red pulp, a body stripped well-nigh naked, shattered. His men, finding themselves leaderless, give way and scatter.
What is this?… Can it be that the confusion is spreading to all the men on the left there? It travels rapidly towards us. Some soldiers are running towards Sommaisne beneath the shells. When each shell explodes it makes a gap among them, blowing away men as you blow away dust with a puff. The confusion has spread to the 8th now. If the Captain were only there, he would be able to hold his men. But a few moments ago I saw him press a hand swiftly to his face. Our covering section away to the left comes next; the bullets have left none to preserve discipline. Now it is the neighbouring platoon. Then suddenly, brutally, we are swept up by the wave: there are the unknown faces of men of other companies round about us mixing with the men and destroying their nerve. A tall thin man, the Captain of the 5th, cries out to me that the commander has ordered us to fight in retreat, that we haven't been supported in time, that we are alone and lost if we remain. And thus is the position abandoned.
With all my power I strive to preserve order and calm, to allay the panic among my men. I march deliberately with arms wide extended, exclaiming:
"Do not run, do not run! Follow me."
All my attention is concentrated on the task of getting my men away to safety with as little loss as possible. One of them near me receives a bullet through his skull while engaged in cutting an opening through some wire; he falls on to the wire and remains hanging there, broken in two, his feet touching the earth on the one side, head and arms hanging down over the other.
Shells follow us, high explosive and shrapnel. Three times I find myself within the deadly cone of bursting shrapnel: the bullets hiss into the earth about me, smashing heads and shattering feet.
We march through an inferno of smoke, from time to time obtaining a glimpse, through momentary clearings, of the village and the river running beneath the trees. But there is no truce to the shells which follow us in hundreds.
I recollect passing one of my sergeants being carried by two of the men on crossed rifles; he pointed out to me speechlessly, his torn and bloodstained shirt and his side terribly lacerated by an explosion. I could see the raw edges of the flesh….
I march onwards and onwards exhausted and stumbling. I take a long gulp of the water that remains in my flask. Since yesterday evening I have eaten nothing.
When we reach the edge of the stream, the men halt and throw themselves down and commence to lap the muddied waters like dogs.
It must be seven o'clock now; the sun is sinking into a bed of virgin gold. The sky above us is a pale and transparent emerald. The earth darkens, colours vanish. It is quite dark by the time we leave Sommaisne. We become mere shadows trailing along the road.
We halt for the first time at Rembercourt. Nothing but sleep seems to matter now, and I fling myself down on the bare earth, calling upon it. Before it descends upon me I hear the rolling over all the roads of the wagons and ambulance vans filled with the wounded; and further away, back in Sommaisne, the smashing of rifle butts against closed doors and the harsh savage cries of the looting Teutons.
Monday, September 7th.
The morning mist awakens me. My clothes are drenched and drops of water glisten on the mica of my map case. Before us and a little to the left is Rembercourt, whose large church dominates the village in its shadow. From where we are, we can see one side of it in all its length. Towards the left there is a little road which disappears between two slopes.
It is along that road that the Captain and Porchon appear towards ten o'clock accompanied by a handful of men. It appears that they found themselves cut off from the rest of the regiment and passed the night in a wood in advance of the French line. I was able to identify the Captain while he was still some distance off by means of a lance which he carried; it was an Uhlan's lance, captured at Gibercy, and with which nothing could induce him to part. I made my report to him.
As at Cuisy, we dig trenches. Are we going to wait here for the Germans this time? We no longer have the advantage of a valley before us as at Dannevoux, but in the course of the five hundred yards or so which intervene between our new position and Rembercourt, I estimate that should the Germans elect to advance along this road many of them will fall before they reach us.
Towards Beauzée the fight is still in progress. Unendingly little groups of wounded men appear over the last crest and march slowly towards us. Those with arms in slings move more quickly; others drag along, helping themselves with sticks cut in some small wood or other; many halt, then drag themselves a few yards further, then pause again.
During the afternoon I went down into the village. It was full of soldiers … (Censored) …
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Soon after three o'clock the German heavy artillery commences to shell Rembercourt. At five o'clock the church takes fire. The crimson glow of the conflagration is emphasized as the shadows increase. The blackness of the night makes the church an immense brazier. The wooden framework of the roof is traced out in flames and incandescence. The steeple has become a living fire in the heart of which the dead bells hang black and grim.
The framework of the roof falls piecemeal. One can see the rafters sagging and sagging and then remaining suspended for a few moments above the furnace before falling with a deafening crash. And each time a portion falls in this way, a volcano of clear sparks rises high into the sky to remain drifting and floating like some echo.
For hours and hours I stood watching the fire, my heart sad and heavy. My men are asleep on the ground, lining the trench with their bodies. Try as I will I cannot lie down to sleep like them.
Tuesday, September 8th.
The Captain roused me I don't know how many times to give me instructions; as a matter of fact I believe it was because he himself found sleep impossible and was lonely with that loneliness which visits men on such nights. Together with his liaison officers he had taken up sleeping quarters in a dense thicket by the roadside. At each awakening I beheld the church still in flames.
This morning the ruins were still smoking. The mass of fire-blackened stone stood clearly defined against a limpid sky.
The men are sleeping heavily … (Censored) …
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From some woods away to the left a fusillade growing more and more violent each instant rings out. Behind us a battery of 120 mm.'s speak without pausing. And above Rembercourt at long intervals shells burst, half a dozen at a time.
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…, lying on a slope when the shriek of the shells announce the arrival of the Germans, then, quite placidly resume their task again.
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This morning someone offered me some brandy plums, huge greengages preserved in a narrow bottle, cherries in a thick syrup, green haricots and peas in bottles, as well as some pink sweet-meats arranged artistically beneath laced paper in a pale blue box on the cover of which, inscribed in letters of gold, was the name "Pamphile."
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At noon we leave the trenches. Marching in loose columns we move towards the road which runs from Rembercourt to Vauxmarie. All along the road from Erize-la-Petite we encounter the craters the shells have dug in the fields. The countryside is bare and depressing, despite the brilliant sunshine. In a ditch lie some horses, disembowelled, legs shattered, huddled at the bottom of the sloping sides. There were six of them all in a heap, making an enormous pile of carrion, the horrible stagnant smell of which saturated the air. Everywhere there are shattered ammunition carts, wheels in splinters, ironwork twisted.
Vauxmarie Road.We take up a position, availing ourselves of the ditch as a trench, ready to support those fighting ahead. There is a great desolate plain before us, ploughed by shells, sown with still bodies and fragments of the uniforms of men with faces turned either towards the sky or buried in the earth, rifles lying beside them just as they had fallen from their hands. To the right the road mounts towards the top of the valley; it is of a dazzling whiteness that tires the eyes. Far before us a number of platoons are lying on the ground in extended order, only to be distinguished with difficulty. They are receiving the full force of the German artillery. Abruptly the shells cease ravaging the uncultivated and shattered fields and come towards us. They arrive shrieking and all together. Nearer and nearer they come, until we are certain they are going to descend upon us. And the men hunch their bodies together, round their backs, thrust their heads beneath their knapsacks, all their muscles contracting in agonized suspense while waiting the explosion of those enormous messengers of death. The bombardment increases in intensity, and now plumes of black smoke are drifting along the hilltop and the noise becomes ear-splitting. Each time a shell falls in the ranks there ensues, in the real sense of the term, a scattering of the men; and when the smoke has dispersed there remain lying on the yellow earth of the stubble field dark sombre patches, forms vague and unmoving. A commander of the gendarmerie mounts the hillside on his bicycle, pedalling with all his strength. He is making directly for the point where the line of the valley touches the sky crowned with its sinister black plumes. Smaller and smaller he becomes, is silhouetted for a moment clear and distinct, and finally vanishes. A quarter of an hour passes before he reappears, a streak, now pedalling back into the valley. He has a message for our commander; it seems that something is required of us.
We are conducted back to the heights of Rembercourt, passing to the right of the village. Here we take cover on a steep slope covered with wild vegetation, extending alongside the orchard which I had seen that morning. The bursting shells almost deafen us. They explode in hundreds, shattering the plain, obliterating the road along which we marched a short time since, causing tiles to fall and rattling the wood-work of roofs. Nor are we forgotten. A few compliments in the form of half a dozen high explosives are generously sent our way. The last of these burst so close to our commander, who was sitting on the slope, that it seemed as if someone had punched him violently and rudely in the back. Under the tremendous force of the explosions the trees of the orchard bend and sway, causing a shower of plums and apples to fall upon us.
We have not been sighted, but the enemy knows the lie of the land so well that he guesses without difficulty the probable location of our reserves, and punishes them by way of precaution. Up to the present, however, all my men have escaped without serious injury, except one who, descending the slope, suddenly mounted into the air to come to the earth behind us. At least ten men received scratches.
Happily we leave before the enemy devotes serious attention to us. At a certain moment, immediately following the arrival of a shell, a messenger rushed out of the village where the Captain had taken up his station. He came running towards us, gesticulating violently. While he was still several yards away he cried in a loud voice:
"Advance!"
Raising my sword I repeat the order.
"Forward! Follow me!"
And I jump down on to the road. Hardly have I taken three steps forward, however, before I hear the shells come shrieking towards us. There is just time for the men to rush back up the slope they had already quitted; in the very act of throwing myself flat the shells explode six at once. A portion of the road rises towards Heaven to descend again in a hail of stones and earth. The smell almost suffocates me as I lie clinging to the earth there, shrouded in dense black smoke. I think that was a narrow escape! A few moments of calm succeed. Now is the time to run: the men come down the slope at their best speed; then, finding ourselves outside the zone of immediate danger and sheltered a little by the village, we mount a rising behind which I know we may hope to find a certain amount of safety.
More shells fall on the spot we occupied a few moments since. My men look at each other, look at me, and congratulate themselves. The narrowness of their escape loosens their tongues. "Ah, the filthy dogs!" I hear. That also is what the messenger calls them when I see him again. On the road he had not sufficient breath left to express his feelings. He had been so near the explosion area that the buckles of his knapsack were shattered, and when afterwards he looked around it was to find himself occupying a post of honour in the middle of a field, innocent of a scratch, while the said knapsack hung gracefully among the branches of a plumtree.
The day declines; we go back once more to our trenches. I met, sitting in a ditch, two cavalry subalterns, one a Hussar, the other a Chasseur, belonging to some detachment or other. I had made their acquaintance at the depot.
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Night has fallen and once again we have forgotten to eat. A mouthful of iron rations, a drop of tepid water from my flask, which water has a pronounced taste of tin.—"Still, that is something else the Prussians won't have," as my grandmother used to say.