Part 14

It was splendid weather when we awoke. During the night it had rained a little, but we had surrounded our guns with armfuls of hay gathered from some large ricks near-by. I slept under the ammunition wagon, which sheltered me as far as the knees, and I had covered my feet with a couple of sheaves. The ground was not very damp and I slept well in spite of the shower.

With the dawn the sky cleared. The air was soft and warm, and the tall trees in their infinite variety of green shades stood out in clear-cut silhouettes against the pale blue of the sky. The grass, although cut short, now that the summer was ending, had regained some of its lost freshness.

Here and there in the fields dark heaps arrested the eye. These were the bodies of fallen Germans. Once one has seen three or four one instinctively searches for them everywhere, and a forgotten wheat-sheaf in the distance looks like a corpse.

We started, the wheels of the leading carriages tracing a well-marked track across the fields. On one side lay a dead German. The vehicles had brushed by him as they passed and would have crushed his feet had the drivers not seen him in time. His face was still waxen in colour, and the eye-sockets alone had begun to turn green. The solemn, regular features were not lacking in a certain virile beauty.

The man sitting next me on the wagon looked long at the dead man's face as if trying to catch his last expression.

"Poor devil!" said he, shrugging his shoulders.

A little moved myself, I echoed:

"Yes, poor devil!"

But the wheel-driver, who had left a wife and children behind him, and was wondering how they fared, turned in his saddle:

"Dirty pig!" he growled.

* * * * *

This morning the battle started early and with unusual violence on a front which appeared to stretch from east to west. As far as one could see the sky was fleecy with shell smoke.

"There!... And they said the Germans were going--were entraining! Do you see them over there?... Brutes!"

"Yes. They were detraining!"

The men bitterly cursed their erstwhile credulity. Nevertheless I knew that this evening they would be ready to believe the news that the Russians had reached Berlin, provided that it was sufficiently vigorously affirmed.

We learned the truth from some passing foot-soldiers. The Germans had entrenched themselves strongly on the wooded hills and in the quarries. The pursuit was held up, and a new battle was about to begin.

I asked a sergeant:

"But those aren't the Germans we were on the heels of yesterday and the day before, are they?"

"No," he answered, "these must be troops which were behind them in Belgium."

The first line, installed in a narrow valley, replenished every half-hour the battery which, in position near a large farm, was emptying wagonful after wagonful of shells. The German artillery swept the plain, and some six-inch Howitzers, whose objective seemed to be the bend of a neighbouring road, aiming too high, threatened to catch us in enfilading fire at any moment. On the other hand, one of their 77 mm. batteries had opened fire on a wood commanding the other end of the valley. There could be no thought of trying to get out of this uncomfortable position by way of the plain. The enemy would see us and his Howitzers would reach us with ease. The officer in charge of the train, Lieutenant Boutroux, was perplexed. Finally he decided to face the 77 mm. guns, and we began to work round the edge of the wood, shrapnel shell bursting over our heads. Soon the valley curved inwards. The danger zone was passed. Unscathed, and keeping well screened from the enemy, we took up a fresh position in another gully almost exactly similar to that we had just left.

We lacked water, and in order to find it had to follow a path leading across the field to some barns, from the roofs of which pipes ran down into a couple of water-tanks. A ladder was propped up against one of the latter, and I climbed up out of curiosity. The metal plating of the inside was covered with rust, and out of the turbid water, which was slowly sinking, emerged an old boot, a felt cap, and all sorts of shapeless objects of cloth or metal, coated with green slime. We had nevertheless to content ourselves with this water!...

* * * * *

The sound of the battle was indicative of no decision; it neither approached nor became fainter. The wounded who passed told us that since the morning the infantry had been continually launched against the strong entrenchments without being able to break through them. The gun-fire did not slacken until nightfall.

We rejoined the batteries, cutting across the plain now hidden from the enemy by the falling darkness. Somewhere a machine-gun was still crackling. A thin rain was floating in the air and we rapidly became wet through. We had to lie in the open among the mangel-wurzels, and the horses were not taken out of the vehicles.

It was almost impossible to sleep. The moment we lay still we began to shiver and our teeth chattered. I had a vague fear that the cold, which ran down my spine in long shudders, might kill me unawares if I went to sleep.

My feet resting on the wheel, I curled up on the top of the ammunition wagon, preferring the icy contact of the steel to the dampness of the ground. The rain began to fall more heavily.

_Wednesday, September 16_

Quite early this morning the dull, far-off thud of a Howitzer echoed and re-echoed, and immediately afterwards, as if fired by a train of powder, all the guns on the plateau began to roar.

Astruc came up:

"Lord!" said he, "I had a funny experience last night! Just think ... the others had bagged all the places under the wagons, and, as I was looking about, I saw a great big chap, at least six feet long, covered over with a blanket in the middle of the field. 'Well,' said I to myself, 'if there's room for one there's room for two,' and I lifted up the blanket and snuggled in beside him. But as I went to sleep I pulled it little by little to my side. Suddenly the long 'un sits up, wide awake, and starts shaking me!... At first I said nothing--pretended to be asleep. I was so tired! But he went on shaking me, and then he shouted: 'What the blazes do you think you're doing?' Finally I grunted, 'All right! No need to make such a row....' And then I rubbed my eyes, and got up.... Do you know who it was?... It was the Major! I'd pulled his blanket off him! I didn't lose my head. I told him that I felt awfully ill--fit to die--and that there wasn't any more room underneath the wagon.... Then he muttered something, I don't know what, and settled down again. I didn't hesitate an instant, but lay down beside him. Then he said: 'Well, for God's sake don't take all the blanket, at any rate!'"

The battery went off to take up position, and the first line of wagons returned to the gully where we sheltered yesterday.

My wrist was hurting me. In spite of the dressing the wound had been poisoned by the blood of the wounded and dead at Attichy.

* * * * *

The postmaster arrived with a sackful of letters.

"At home they seem to think the war will last until New Year," said somebody.

"But the Russians?"

"Oh! the Russians...."

"Well, let's see ... October, November, December.... That makes another three months and a half.... Why, we shall all be dead of exposure before then!"

* * * * *

Hardly five hundred yards away from our park some big farm buildings suddenly burst into flames, the walls surrounding the yard showing up on the bare fields like a massive square of luminous masonry. The smoke at first rose in heavy, dark spirals pierced here and there by yellow flashes and then shot straight up into the clear sky in a tall column.

We knew that there were sheep in the farm. The bombardment had ceased, and I decided to save one or two of the animals in order to supplement our ordinary rations. Two gunners of the 12th Battery, the carriages of which were lined up close to ours, had the same idea.

We set out for the farm as rapidly as possible. The field we had to cross had been ploughed up yesterday by the German Howitzers. The enemy doubtless thought that infantry lay concealed behind the buildings, and the whole day long his heavy guns had vainly mown down the mangel-wurzels.

"They've gone to work as though they wanted to plant trees in fives," remarked one of my companions. And he added:

"And they've done the job jolly well! I know something about it, for I'm a gardener."

On the edge of a shell crater two gendarmes lay stretched side by side among the scattered clods of earth. One of them, a big, red-haired man, had a great gaping wound in his chest, and his right arm, doubled up in a strange posture, looked as if it had two elbows. The body of the other, a grey-headed corporal, seemed untouched, but in one of his eye-sockets there was nothing but a clot of blood, and the eye itself was hanging on his temple at the end of a white tendon.

"Poor old chap!" said the gardener.

He leaned over the corpse with its ghastly, one-eyed face staring at the sky, and reverently covered it with the silver-badged cap which had fallen near the dead man's side.

* * * * *

Behind one of the blue-slated roofs, which was still intact, lively flames were now breaking out but were immediately stifled by the clouds of smoke. A magnificent cone-shaped fir-tree, of funereal aspect, mounted guard over the fire like a solitary sentry.

We approached the building. Near the wall of the yard were lying two gunners and a couple of horses. They had just been killed, and the blood on the ground was still red. I recognized one of the men as the orderly of one of our officers. The other had fallen face downwards, his arms crossed under him.

A shell had bored a great hole in the yard. Three ducks, despite the heat of the flames, were dabbling about in a little green pond near a square-shaped dunghill. Another, the head of which had been cut off by a shell splinter, was lying on its side at the edge of the water.

Against the background formed by the great dark curtain of smoke, which from where we were standing hid half the sky, the skeleton of a barn stood out like a fascinating framework of molten metal. Long flames darted out from the doorway and licked a plough and a harrow which had been abandoned there. Above the hay-shoot a pulley-wheel for hoisting fodder, mounted in a recess in the front of the building, was red-hot. The roar of the guns was no longer audible, being drowned by the crackling of the fire and the sharp hiss of the sparks as they fell in the pond. One of the ducks, stung by a glowing splinter, was shaking her feathers.

"We're none too soon," said the gardener. "The mutton will be half cooked already."

The sheepfold was only separated from the shed, which was now alight, by a bake-house, and was already full of smoke, through which the woolly backs of the animals loomed like even denser clouds. The door was open, but the stupid beasts had not fled, and had crowded together against the end wall under the window communicating with the bake-house, through which came the smoke which was gradually asphyxiating them. Huddling together they pushed forward as though trying to break down the wall with their foreheads.

"Come on," said the gardener. "You, Lintier, stand there ... at the door. That's how we'll work it. We'll both of us rush in and each pull out one of them, and you put a bullet through them as they come out. Understand?"

"All right!"

I had a glimpse of the shadowy forms of the two men dodging about in the smoke. Then I heard the scraping of hard hoofs on the ground and one of the gunners reappeared grasping with both hands the tail of a fat sheep which he pulled out backwards. I killed the animal on the threshold, and immediately afterwards a second. The gardener went in again to fetch a third.

I replaced my revolver in the holster, and each of us hoisted a sheep on to our shoulders. They encircled our necks like heavy furs, which we kept in place by grasping the pointed feet bunched together in front two by two. From their heads, hanging down behind, blood dripped down our backs. We started off across the mangel-wurzel field.

Suddenly the gardener cried out:

"Listen!"

We stopped.

"Down!"

"We're seen!"

We heard the scream of heavy shell approaching, and at once threw ourselves flat on the ground behind the sheep, which formed a sort of rampart. Down came the shells between us and the farm. We jumped up, and, in spite of our heavy burdens, ran till we were out of the line of fire. We passed the dead gendarmes and did not stop until we had reached a row of poplars which hid us from view. Three projectiles swooped down on the spot we had just left.

Winding our way through the copses and hollows of the plateau we regained the park in safety.

I resumed my seat on a bundle of wood near the fire, while a gunner, who was a butcher by trade, methodically cut up one of the sheep strung up by the foot to the store wagon.

As I led the horses down to drink at the tanks I took a short cut across the fields in the hope of finding some potatoes, beetroot, or perhaps some onions. We were specially in need of onions, for some of our food was most insipid and we knew of no other flavouring.

I found neither onions nor potatoes, but, on the other side of a knoll, I saw some foot-soldiers stretched out on the loose sheaves of wheat. Their red breeches were visible a long way off. Evidently some of those who had fallen in the engagements of the 12th.

In a hollow a little farther on I also came upon some German corpses. Thirteen Frenchmen and seventeen Germans had fallen there, almost side by side. And yet the Frenchmen seemed more numerous. Red patches on the yellow of the stubble-field, they caught the eye, whereas the Germans were hardly noticeable.

The arms and packs of the dead men had been taken away, and coats, tunics, and shirts had been unbuttoned so that the medals could be unpinned. Their necks, bared chests, and eyelids had already turned a greenish-grey. A little sergeant, who had fallen backwards on to some sheaves which now pillowed his head, still held his right arm starkly in the air. The stiffened fingers of his outstretched hand seemed clasped in a grip of agony. On his sleeve the gold bar shone in the sun.

As I passed on, some swallows, whose low flight announced rain, skimmed over the knoll, their pointed wings lightly touching the dead men.

_Thursday, September 17_

Our line of wagons still remains in the same hollow, nor has the battery changed position. Although during the last two days it has fired more than five hundred shells the enemy has not been able to discover its whereabouts.

Fighting continued, growing ever more violent in character, near Tracy-le-Mont, Tracy-le-Val, Carlepont in front of us, Compiègne on the west, and on the east, parallel to the Aisne, towards Soissons.

We neither advanced nor retired, and that was all we knew of the engagement. We have begun to fall into regular habits here; soup is served and the horses are watered at the same hour every day.

On my way to the water-tanks this morning I saw an odd-looking priest. Sitting astride his horse in the middle of the road he was talking to a surrounding group of gunners and foot-soldiers. He was booted and spurred, and a long waterproof cape, fastened under his chin, floated down over the crupper of his horse. A big wooden cross hung from his neck on to the varnished strap of his revolver-holster, and into his wide black belt he had stuck a German bayonet.

Standing in the stirrups he looked like some strange militant monk as he stroked the neck of his horse.

"Yes," said he, "he's a nice beast. He belonged to a Uhlan whom I found after the battle last week, near Nanteuil, where I was going to hear confessions. He had been abandoned, so I took him. It is much better than walking."

And he added:

"He saved my life yesterday.... I was going to the outposts where there had been some fighting and where I had heard that I was wanted. I was quite alone, and suddenly I met a patrol of Uhlans. They fired at me, but missed. I was angry at not being able to go where I wanted, and as I wheeled round I let them have a revolver shot. As a priest I ought not to have done that, ought I? But I couldn't help it. I saw one topple over. The others pursued me, but my horse went like the wind, and after a time they gave up the chase. So I turned round again and followed them. I found the man I had shot. He didn't understand a word of French. I was able to give him absolution before he died, but it was a near shave!"

* * * * *

Night was falling when we rejoined the battery. It was raining, and we wondered whether we should again have to sleep in the mud.

I found my comrades of the first gun--Hutin, Millon, and Déprez--covered with mire and black with powder, their faces gaunt with weariness.

"Hallo!"

"Ah, Lintier!" said Hutin. "We've had a bad time of it to-day! I really don't know how it is we are still here!... I don't know.... Ask Millon...."

Millon nodded his head. He seemed at the end of his strength.

"Gratien is dead."

"Oh!"

"Killed as he was mounting his horse ... a small splinter in the spine. He didn't move.... A shell came right through the shield of the third gun without bursting.... And another fell not two yards off our trench!"

"Ah! That one did burst. We were badly shaken.... My hair and beard were singed."

"No one wounded?"

"No one in the battery, except Gratien, who was killed.... Yes, though! Pelletier got his forehead grazed by a splinter. Come and have a look at the ammunition wagon--it's like a nutmeg-grater. It began to smoke at one time. Suppose it had blown up!... It was full ... thirty-six high-explosive shells!..."

It was now quite dark, so we lit the hurricane lamps. Somebody called out:

"Eleventh, to your billets!"

"Right!"

"First gun ... fifth gun...."

"Fifth!"

"To your billets, eleventh!"

We followed a man carrying a hurricane lamp, and found that we had to share our billets with some foot-soldiers from the south whose accent, so to speak, smelt of garlic.

The men of the firing battery let themselves fall in the straw like foundered horses, and, after having made sure of a warm place, I sallied out with a couple of comrades of the first line in order to find something to eat and drink.

The narrow, badly paved streets were alive with the shadowy forms of men jostling each other, the indistinct coming and going of horsemen and wagons, the noise of many feet plodding through the mud, and the confused sound of voices and respiration.

A little café, near which the pavement had been broken up by a shell in the afternoon, was crowded with foot-soldiers, A.S.C. men, and Zouaves.

The bottles, jugs, and glasses standing on the counter half hid the shadeless brass lamp with which the place was lit, and threw huge, uncouth shadows across the narrow, smoke-filled room on to the walls.

There was a babble of voices and laughter. Every one was drinking, and the proprietor still had some liqueurs and rum left. The tired-out soldiers soon became drunk with alcohol, tobacco, and tales of the war.

This diminutive café, where there was a little light, a little warmth, and a whole world of oblivion, was a veritable haven in the immense weariness of the night, among the thousands of soldiers stretched out everywhere round us, in the open or in barns, sleeping as soundly as the dead men just laid low in the fields by the shrapnel bullets.

We succeeded in finding a bottle of champagne. Never had the sparkle of wine seemed to me so delicious.

Nobody was asleep when we returned to our billets. Despite the complaints of the gunners the southern infantrymen went on talking, swearing, and leaving the door open....

"Aren't you chaps ever going to go to sleep?" thundered a gunner from the depths of the darkness.

"Hold your jaw!"

"Here! shut the door, can't you?"

Men continually trod on our feet and chests and let their rifles and packs fall on us. The air was full of grumbling and vituperation. It was nearly midnight, and Moratin lost his temper:

"Now are you ever going to shut up, you ----! If you don't, I'll go and fetch the Major!"

A broadside of oaths rose from the straw. The gunners replied. Dozing men, waking up, yelled:

"Shut your mouths! _Shut 'em_, do you hear?"

_Friday, September 18_

Day was just breaking as we moved slowly along the roads across the plain, our horses sinking up to the fetlocks in clayey mud.

We met large parties of wounded--Tirailleurs, Zouaves, and, above all, soldiers of the line. They overflowed the road on either side as they plodded on with heavy steps which dragged in the gutters and puddles.

The dawn was misty. It was half-past four, but we could not see the faces of the wounded until they were actually passing our carriage, when we had a vision of white bandages and of others crimson-red. But when the troops had gone by in the vague, uncertain light, we could only perceive a slowly rolling sea of heads and shoulders.

In the eyes of some of my comrades who yesterday were so close to death and who to-day were still stiff, tired, and dejected, I caught sight of looks of envy. They were aware of the orders which had arrived during the night, namely, that we were to return to our positions of yesterday.

They were not afraid, but the familiarity with danger, which had made them brave, had in no sense impaired their love of life--the life which they felt bubbling in their veins and which, in a few moments perhaps, might be spent, with all their red blood, on the field of mangel-wurzels. They were thinking of those who had died yesterday, of Corporal Gratien, of Captain Legoff--an officer adored by his men--of the six numbers of the 6th Battery who were reduced to a shapeless, bleeding pulp at the bottom of their trench.