Part 11

The carts of the refugees had to be lined up on one side of the road in order to make way for the infantry of the 2nd Army Corps arriving from Clermont-en-Argonne and Sainte-Menehould. These troops seemed to have suffered less severely than the regiments of the 4th Corps, but they had no more notion as to their destination than we. They also spoke of d'Amade, of successes in the north, and of naval victories. They appeared to be quite unaware that the Germans were advancing behind us. But were they really advancing? Was it not merely a fresh allotment of French troops? How we wished that it were!

_Friday, September 4_

It was still night when we broke up the camp. After a whole day solely spent in eating and sleeping, we should have felt much refreshed had we not been tortured with diarrhoea. The Medical Officer had no more bismuth or paregoric elixir left, and we had no choice but to chew blackthorn bark.

The horses were even more exhausted than the men. Many had been slightly injured in the engagements on Monday and Tuesday, and their wounds were suppurating. No one seemed to trouble about them, and that was not the worst, for some of them had to suffer the stupid remedies applied by the ignorant drivers. I saw one man urinate on his horse's pastern, which had been cut by a shell splinter. Nearly all the animals were lame as the result of kicks received at night-time, when the worn-out stable-pickets fall asleep. Seldom taken out of the traces and hardly ever unharnessed, the straps, cruppers, and especially the crupper-loops had made large sores on them which were covered all day long with flies. And, besides all this, the poor beasts, like the men, were weakened by incessant diarrhoea.

All the morning we marched on, through Givry-en-Argonne, Sommeilles, Nettancourt, and Brabant, the milestones being at first marked "Meuse" and then "Marne." The dust half veiled the austere, regular hills of the beautiful country and the magnificent reaches of the forest of Argonne sloping away to the east.

About noon we reached Revigny-aux-Vaux, a pretty little white-walled town surrounded by fields and pasture-lands, where we parked our guns on the bank of the Ornain, close to the station. As we were leading the horses down to the river a man dressed like an artisan, who was sitting by the side of the road, accosted me:

"Where are you gunners from?"

"From the Hauts-de-Meuse, over by Dun and Stenay. We've been replaced there by fresh troops."

"Replaced?"

"Yes--they say by the 6th Army Corps."

"Pooh, that's all rot!... You've just turned tail!... Yes ... simply that!... Do you know where the Prussians are?" he added, getting up.

I felt chilled by a sudden fear. Misery was plainly written on the fellow's bony, emaciated face. When sitting he had not seemed nearly so tall or thin.

He stretched out a long arm, and with a shaking hand pointed to the north-west.

"They're just outside Châlons, the Prussians!"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You don't believe me? Well, I've come from Châlons--an aeroplane dropped a bomb on the station just as my train left. And the Prussians have got to other places as well, if you want to know. They are at Compiègne! Do you hear?... At Compiègne ... it's certain. You've only got to ask ... anybody here will tell you. They've got to Compiègne and they took La Fère as they passed."

I began to tremble, everything seemed to be turning round me, and for a moment I thought I should fall. Instinctively I pressed my knees into my horse's sides and returned slowly to the camp with a haggard face and an aching heart.

Hutin was there. I looked him straight in the eyes and said slowly:

"Hutin! The Germans are at Compiègne!"

"Where?"

"At Compiègne!"

He grew pale and shrugged his shoulders.

"No!"

"Yes, at Compiègne!"

"Compiègne! Compiègne! Why, that's less than sixty miles from Paris! Oh, my God!"

We looked at each other.

"Who let them get through?"

"Those in the north, I suppose."

"Then it's worse than in '70!"

"At Compiègne!" repeated Hutin distractedly.

Dreadful thoughts of downfall, of treason, of all the bitterness of defeat and of suffering endured to no purpose rose up like spectres in each man's mind.

"I told you so; we've been sold!" declared the trumpeter.

In spite of everything, I still could not believe in treachery.

"Sold! Why sold? By whom?... By whom?"

"How should I know? But they wouldn't be at Compiègne if we hadn't been betrayed. Oh, it's the old story!... Just like '70.... Bazaine in '70!"

"We may have been overwhelmed.... There are so many of them!... Three times our numbers!... Besides, in 1870 the mistake made by the Châlons army was that they didn't wait for the Germans at Paris. That is well known. If MacMahon's army had not advanced, had not let itself be bottled up at Sedan, perhaps we shouldn't have been beaten...."

I grasped at the idea of a strategic retreat, and tried to convince my comrades in order to convince myself. But they all remained downcast and sullen, and kept repeating:

"Just as in '70!"

What a refrain!

Bréjard, who had been listening as he smoked, was the only one who was still confident.

"The worst of it is," said he, "that we don't know anything for certain. But, if the other Army Corps are in the same condition as ours, all is by no means lost. They've probably been pushed back a bit in the north, like we have been in Belgium. But if they haven't been taken, that is the main thing, and as for this being the same as '70--why, there's absolutely no resemblance! In '70 we were alone, whereas now we've got the English and Russians with us."

"Oh, don't talk to me about the English and Russians!" said the trumpeter.

"Have you seen any of the English, sergeant?"

"No, but they're over here, all right."

"They are said to be," corrected Millon. "But it was also said that we were advancing in the north. A brilliant advance!..."

"And the Russians!" went on Pelletier. "Why the hell aren't they in Berlin by this time? They've nothing to stop them on their side...."

Bréjard shrugged his shoulders:

"Well, but all the same they can't get there by railway, you know!"

"But a month ought to be enough ... with their famous Cossacks," retorted the trumpeter.

And he continued:

"It's all tommy-rot! Shall I tell you what _I_ think of it, sergeant? Well, these Russians and English, who have declared war on Germany ... it's simply sham!... A put-up job! They've engineered the whole thing together in order to do us in ... just like '70!"

"Just like '70!" repeated Blanchet, who, sitting cross-legged like a tailor, was mending a rent in his coat.

This crushing catastrophe, which had descended upon us like the blow of a sledge-hammer, made us begin to doubt everything and everybody.

Why, instead of beguiling us with imaginary victories, could they not simply have told us: "We have to deal with an enemy superior in numbers. We are obliged to retreat until we can complete our concentration and until the English reinforcements arrive."

Were they afraid of frightening us by the word "retreat" when we were already experiencing its reality?

Why? Why had we been deceived, demoralized?...

Accompanied by Déprez and Lebidois I turned into the garden of a restaurant and ordered luncheon. Under the leafy arbour of virginia creepers and viburnum, pierced here and there with dancing rays of sunlight, blazed a medley of officers' uniforms--chemists, Medical Corps men, infantry officers of all denominations, A.S.C. officers and pay-masters, the latter in green uniforms which gave them the appearance of foresters.

For fifteen days we had not eaten off proper plates nor drunk from glasses. The luncheon would have been an untold delight had we not all three been haunted by the spectre of defeat....

* * * * *

When night fell we entrained. The long platform, littered with straw, was illuminated at lengthy intervals by oil-lamps. The horses, overcome by exhaustion, their heads drooping, allowed the drivers to lead them into their boxes without offering any resistance. The gunners finished loading up the guns on the trucks, and soon all became silent. The men installed themselves for the night, thirty in each van, some stretched out on the seats and others lying underneath, using their cloaks as pillows. Rifles and swords had been cast into a corner. And, just as the western sky had ceased to glow, leaving the dreary platform dark and desolate, the train slowly started.

_Saturday, September 5_

I had hardly any sleep last night. Every quarter of an hour the train stopped, and men attacked by dysentery trod on me as they hurriedly made for the doors in order to jump down on the permanent way. This morning the same scramble continues. As soon as the train stops one has a vision of files of gunners making for the bushes, whence they hastily return when the whistle blows. Luckily the train gathers speed very slowly.

* * * * *

A melancholy day--spent in absently watching the country roll past, one's mind always hypnotized by the thought of defeat....

Often the train does not go faster than a man walking.

IV. FROM THE MARNE TO THE AISNE

_Sunday, September 6_

When we awoke, in a fine morning lightly veiled by silvery mists, the suburbs of Paris were already visible.

We passed through the forest of Fontainebleau, where troops were camping amid the broom and bracken, and rolled on through the woods in which the white walls and red roofs of the villas made a gay splash on the green background. The gardens were a mass of flowers; huge sunflowers turned their golden faces towards us.

We almost forgot the tragedy of the moment.

Sunday! The bells were ringing. Besides, Paris was quite close now, and the magnetic power of the great city was already making itself felt. The Parisians in the carriage could hardly keep still.

Suddenly, after this dreary journey, and although it would have been difficult to explain why or how, hope was rekindled in spite of some more bad news we had learnt on the way, namely, that the Germans had reached Creil without opposition.

It was not the strength of the entrenched camp of Paris, of its garrison, nor of its heavy artillery which restored our confidence; it was rather the instinctive faith of a child, who, having returned home, feels irresistible because there seems to be a sort of reassuring sympathy between himself and surrounding objects--even the elements. What again sent the blood coursing through our veins was the indescribable yet definite sensation caused by the presence of something immortal, of something loved and revered. It was like a breath of life, like the comforting support of an invincible Personality, an all-powerful Divinity.

And then, as Hutin kept repeating:

"There! That's Paris! that's Paris!"

* * * * *

"The English!"

A convoy of British troops was passing us. The men shouted and waved their képis.

At Villeneuve-Saint-Georges the station was thronged with Highlanders. Our train came to a standstill and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of kilted soldiers intent upon examining our guns. Lebidois acted as interpreter, and there was much hand-shaking and cheering.

Little Millon stopped a burly Highlander with tattooed wrists and knees and asked him whether he wore any drawers under his kilt. The other did not understand and laughed.

"That's so, isn't it?" said Millon. "If only you'd got a little more hair on your head and a little less on your paws--why, in that skirt they'd take you for a girl!"

* * * * *

We detrained at Pantin. Except for inscriptions on the wooden panels or steel shutters of the shops, such as "Owner away at the front," or, in letters a foot high, "We are French," and save for the faded mobilization placards, Pantin wore the usual aspect common to such places on summer Sundays.

On the pavement and in the roadway swarmed crowds of women in light-coloured dresses, carefully corseted, their figures curving with that grace which only Parisian women seem to possess. Soldiers of every rank and regiment strolled in and out the crush. A Territorial passed with a woman on one arm, while with the other he led a little boy by the hand.

Was it possible that the enemy was at the gates?

* * * * *

At Rosny-sous-Bois we camped on a plateau overlooking the town on one side and the plain of Brie on the other--a depressing enough spot, devoid of all charm. Far off, towards the south-east, the sound of guns was audible.

In the streets, between the greenery of the gardens and the light-coloured fronts of the villas, the scarlet uniforms, white blouses, and variegated parasols chequered the crowd with bright dashes of colour.

The Zouaves had come down from the forts.

On the terraces of the cafés, where not a single place remained vacant, the white aprons of the waiters fluttered in and out among the multicoloured uniforms of the Chasseurs, Army Service Corps officers, Artillerymen, Tirailleurs, and Spahis. In front of the Post Office and round the doors of the bakeries and confectioners' shops the crowd collected in animated groups. Women ran to and fro greeting the soldiers, asking questions, searching for a husband, son, brother, or lover whom they were expecting to arrive.

Every one jostled together, hailed each other, drank, ate, smoked, and laughed. Families of placid tradespeople, mildly inquisitive, strutted in and out the crowd with short, conceited little steps.

The guns were still roaring, but in order to hear them one had to separate from the crowd and enter the quiet little streets between the gardens.

We heard that fighting was in progress on the Grand Morin.

_Monday, September 7_

It was broad daylight when I was awakened by Bréjard.

"Up you get," said he.

"What?"

"Here, listen to this."

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"_Army Order of the Day._

"_At the moment when we are about to engage upon a battle upon which will depend the safety of the country, it is necessary to remind every one that this is not the time to look back. No effort must be spared to attack and repulse the enemy. Troops which can advance no farther must at all costs hold the ground won and let themselves be killed rather than retire._"

"Do you understand?"

Yes, we had all understood perfectly. We should never have been able to express so simply and yet so completely our inmost thoughts. "Troops should let themselves be killed rather than retire." That was it!

"And now, limber up," added Bréjard. "We're off there!"

* * * * *

Just as the battery was starting, two girls, the sister and fiancée of one of the gunners, hurried up. For a moment or two they ran, flushed and panting, by the side of the horses, both speaking rapidly and at the same time. When they were quite out of breath they held out their hands, one after the other, to the gunner, who leant down from the saddle and kissed their finger-tips.

* * * * *

We passed through the suburbs and then, by the Soissons road, approached the plain of Brie. We were going to the front, and I think that each man felt that we were now passing through the gravest and most critical moments of a whole century--perhaps of a whole history.

* * * * *

Evening fell. The battery had been on the march for more than ten hours without halting. Far away in the background Montmartre reared its black silhouette against the western sky.

The fields were lit up by the stars, which were exceptionally brilliant, but the road remained dark under the vault of tall trees planted in double rows on either side, between which floated a suffocating cloud of dust. A distant searchlight was sweeping the plain. The battery broke into a trot on the paved road, and the vehicles jolted and bumped so that it was veritable torture to sit on them. Sharp internal pains made us twist as we clutched on to the limber-boxes; our aching backs seemed no longer capable of sustaining our shoulders, and the breath came in gasps from our shaken chests. Our hearts thumped against our ribs, our heads swam--we perspired with pain. Should we never stop?

Hour after hour we followed the same dark road, but the column had again slowed down to a walk. The bright headlights of an approaching automobile suddenly threw the trees into vertiginous perspectives like the columns of some cathedral, and showed up the teams and drivers as they emerged from the gloom in a grotesque procession of fantastic shadows. The motor passed.

On we lumbered ... on, on.... Should we never stop?

* * * * *

"Halt!"

At last! We parked the guns in a field and then led the horses off to be watered.

The only light in the dark little village was a lamp burning in a kitchen, in which we caught a glimpse of large copper sauce-pans.

There was no drinking-place and we had to push on to a marshy meadow through which ran a river. The banks were so steep that the horses could not drink from the current, and we gave them water out of the skin bags.

On our return we found the road crowded with horses. Other batteries had just arrived.

An eddy in the stream had just pushed me up against the garden wall of a château when a motor, showing no lights, forced its way through the herd of horses, throwing against me a confused mass of men and animals whose weight crushed me against the stone. Another car followed, then another, hundreds of them, silently and interminably.

By the light of the moon, which had now risen, I was able to recognize the oil-skin caps usually worn by taxi-drivers. Inside the cabs I caught a glimpse of soldiers sleeping, their heads thrown back.

"Wounded?" asked somebody.

"No," came the answer from a passing car. "It's the 7th Division from Paris. They're off to the front!"

_Tuesday, September 8_

"Attention!"

It was still pitch-dark. Cinders continued to smoulder on the hearths. The guns were still roaring, and the vivid jets of fire startled us like flashes of lightning. A little way off, to the east, a farm or hayrick was burning. The weather was sultry and a persistent smell of putrefying flesh permeated the air.

The battery started; we were off to the firing-line.

At daybreak we reached Dammartin, where, on the doors and closed shutters, notices and billeting directions were chalked up in German. On the front door of one house I saw two words scrawled in pointed, Gothic handwriting: "_Gute Leute_" (Good people). I wondered who it was that lived there....

We continued on our way. The dull boom of the guns seemed to come from the bowels of the earth, and continued uninterruptedly.

By the side of the road a grave had been dug and marked by a white deal cross bearing a name painted in tar and capped by a Chasseur's shako with a brass chain. The dead man had evidently not been buried soon enough, and a sickening smell rose up from the freshly turned soil, which had cracked under the hot sun.

The road was still staked out with dead horses, swollen like wine-skins, their stiffened legs with shining shoes threatening the sky. From a gaping wound in the flank of a big chestnut mare worms were wriggling into the grass; others were swarming in her nostrils and mouth, and in a bullet-hole behind her ear.

"Trot!"

The battery became almost invisible in its own dust. We began to pass wounded, hundreds of wounded--infantry of the line, Alpine troops, and Colonial infantry white with dust, their wounds dressed with red bandages. They helped each other along.

The majority were marching in small groups. Many had stopped to rest. It was very hot, and I saw several of them round an apple-tree, shaking down the fruit in order to slake their thirst.

We had halted while the Major received orders from an A.D.C. I questioned one of the Colonials, who was wounded in the head.

"Well, how are things going down there?"

"Phew! they're falling thick!"

I did not know whether he was referring to bullets, shell, or men, but from the expression of the drawn and haggard faces it was easy to see that the fighting had been severe.

"Been fighting long here?"

"Yes."

"How many days?"

"It had begun when we came."

"And when did you come?"

"The day before yesterday."

And he repeated:

"Yes, they're falling thick!"

We restarted, again at a trot.

The clear sky, of a pure limpid blue on the northern and eastern horizon, was fleeced with the white smoke of shrapnel shell; in the distance black clouds were rising from burning buildings and high-explosive projectiles.

We were still pursued by the smell of dead flesh, which harassed and obsessed us, making us peer about in all directions for hidden corpses.

Suddenly one of the horses of my ammunition wagon foundered and refused to go any farther, stopping the whole team. He had to be unharnessed and abandoned. The other carriages had passed us, and with our five remaining horses we galloped across country in order to rejoin the column. The furrows nearly shook us off our seats and we had to hold on to the box-rails with might and main, bracing our legs against the foot-rests in order not to fall off.

We overtook the battery in a village which had been visible from afar on the flat and bare countryside. The enemy had evidently quartered there. The doors had been broken in with blows from the butt-ends of rifles; almost all the windows had been smashed, and were now mere frames bristling with jagged splinters of glass. Dirty curtains flapped through them on the outside. Torn-down shutters lay strewn on the pavement among broken bottles, shattered tiles, and empty tins of preserves. Others, hanging by one hinge, beat against the fronts of the houses.

Through the wide-open doors we could see staved-in wardrobes which had been thrown down the staircases. Empty drawers, mantelpiece ornaments, photographs, pictures and prints littered the red-tiled floors. Mud-stained sheets with the mark of hobnailed boots on them trailed to the middle of the street, giving to these unfortunate houses something of the horror of ripped-up corpses.

The pavements were a mass of furniture thrown out of the windows, perambulators, go-carts, and broken wine-casks. Wood crunched under the wheels of the wagon. A pair of pink corsets was lying in the gutter.

On one of the Michelin danger signals, at the other end of the village, I read the warning: "_Attention aux enfants--Sennevières_," and on the other side a derisive and mournful "_Merci_."[1]

* * * * *

We halted where the road traced a straight white line through a plain covered with mangel-wurzels. The desolate nakedness of the fields was only broken by a shed, three hayricks, and, farther off, some little, square-shaped copses and a long line of poplars. To the east and north the battle growled, whistled and roared like a storm at sea. One would have thought that the infernal noise came from some deep, subterranean earthquake.