Chapter XI

When we arrived at Pingeh, the port of Saigon, the zephyrs disembarked first, and we followed. Straightway most of us were marched off to a camping-field where tents and other impedimenta were awaiting us, and in a short time we had formed a fairly creditable camp. Those of ours who were kept behind on the quay were employed in sorting out our baggage as the coolies carried the troopship's load ashore. Considering that all except the officers carried their belongings on their backs, this was not hard work, and most of them were satisfied, but the dozen or so left on guard over the ammunition cases brought out by the transport were not at all lucky, as they got no meal, not even a cup of coffee, for fully twelve hours. That's always the way. Your ordinary officer can't understand why everybody is not satisfied when he is. If the captain has a good lunch and a better dinner, the simple soldier may tighten his belt and put a bit of tobacco between his teeth--that is good enough for him. Well, there are officers who care for their men, but they are so few that, if you know a hundred captains, you may easily reckon the good ones on the fingers of a hand. Some are inclined to be good, but though physically brave they are morally cowards; they cannot stand the sneering of those who look upon the men as mere instruments for gaining decorations and promotion, and it is so very easy to acquire the habit of doing as most of your equals do. It is wrong--oh! I who have felt it know how wrong it is!--for a man who has rank and a better lot than others to forget the responsibility attached to his position, to let the men under him understand hour by hour and day by day and week by week how little he cares for their comfort, to swear at the sick, to sneer at the wounded, to order the dead to be thrown any way into a trench, and to abuse the burial party because they did not cover the carcasses quickly enough. War is war, as an Alsatian in my company used to say; but why should a man, or rather men, come into camp for the night after a long march, and perhaps a sharp fight, to be sworn at and abused by the officers who, for their own sakes even, should try to make things cheerful for all? But again I am digressing.

We spent about a week at Saigon, under canvas all the time. Of course, we got our share of inspection; first the chief officer--I forget now who he was, not that he was at all worth remembering--then the medical officer, then a quartermaster--the best of all, for he supplied deficiencies in clothing. I must say this: when a French soldier goes on campaign he is well fitted out--they took from us every article that showed any signs of wear, and a new one was at once issued. At first we thought that we should have to pay out of our scanty means for the new supplies. We were only too glad to find that, instead of taking our money under false pretences, as they do in other armies, our pay was increased, and we were told, and truly told, that the increase would last while we were on active service. Take my word for it, no matter how bad the officers may be, the French Government is the best in the world to its troops on active service. If men suffer, it is not the fault of those in Paris; put the blame rather on the underlings--I mean the commandants and the captains. But, remember, what I have just said I have said only of the Republic--of the monarchy and the empire I know nothing.

Another reason for this delay was that the French, if they can by any chance do it, keep men quiet on land for some days after a voyage. This is very sensible. No man gets what I may call his land legs until some time after he has come ashore from a transport, where space is small and men are many, where food is wretched, and water mawkishly warm and suspiciously sweet. The rest did us good; the new clothing and the extra pay put us in good humour. When at last we put on our knapsacks for the march into the interior, we were altogether different from the 500 semi-mutinous scarecrows who had landed from the troopship only six or seven days before.

Every man had 150 rounds of ball cartridge in his pouch; all rifles were loaded; we were evidently to be kept on the _qui vive_ from the earliest possible moment; talking in the ranks was often stopped without any visible cause; the sentries were visited half-a-dozen times a night; discipline was in all respects as strict as it could be; and we were made to understand, as if we had learned nothing in Algeria, that we were in front of a cautious, skilful, and sometimes daring, enemy, and that every man was responsible for his own and his comrades' lives.

Now I have no intention of writing a history of the war in Tonquin. I shall merely give details of the most important events of my life there, and of these the first in order was the battle of Noui-Bop.

We had not been long in the East, and were by no means acclimatised, when the battalion to which our two companies had been sent was ordered to join a mixed force of French soldiers and natives under the command of a distinguished French general, whose name is of no importance to my narrative. This general was operating against a large force of Black Flags, and, as a result of his operations, there was every prospect of a hot engagement, and this was exactly to our taste. Ever since we had joined the battalion we had been looked upon with suspicion by the officers, for the news of the fight between the companies at Three Fountains had travelled to Tonquin, and many believed that it was a foolish thing to allow both companies to soldier together, as there might be at any moment a renewal of the fray. Even our comrades of the two other companies in the battalion at first thought that we might again fall out, but very soon they saw what the officers could not, or would not, see--that No. 4 and ours were as friendly as possible to each other and that there was not the slightest chance of ill-feeling showing itself between us. Thus we were anxious to be in a big battle; we trusted in ourselves, and every man was determined, by showing reckless bravery in the field, to wipe away the disgrace which we knew attached to us, partly for our little fight and partly for the desertions at Singapore.

After a good deal of manoeuvring, of which we bore our share, at last it was evident that the eventful day had come. Some chasseurs d'Afrique who were with us had located the Black Flags and their allies, many of whom were regular soldiers of the Chinese army, in a strong position at a place called Noui-Bop. Our native scouts confirmed this, and also reported that there were several white officers amongst them--these we guessed to be English or Prussians, or a mixture of both. We knew that the enemy had good rifles and plenty of ammunition, that they held favourable ground, that there was no chance of outflanking them owing to their superiority in numbers and the nature of the country, and that the frontal attack should be pushed well home if it were to succeed. Well, so much the better, we said to ourselves.

On the morning of the battle we were aroused a little after sunrise. This was because, in the East, it is best for European soldiers to get the work of the day done before the sun becomes too hot. After breakfast my battalion was ordered to leave knapsacks, greatcoats, blankets--everything, indeed, save our arms and the clothing we stood up in--in the quarters which we had occupied during the night, and about fifty men were told off to see that there was no looting of their comrades' belongings while the fight was going on. Then we went forward, and took up our position in the centre of the fighting line. On our right there were Annamite tirailleurs, backed up by some French soldiers, I think zouaves; on our left a half-battalion of a French regiment of the line--if I do not mistake, the 143rd. We waited and smoked awhile, some laughed and joked, others puffed at their pipes in silence, the officers were talking and looking always to the rear. At last a dull booming was heard--the guns were beginning behind us--we could see the shells passing over our heads and bursting more than a thousand yards away in our front. Pipes were put up, but still we sat quietly on the ground, listening to the roar of the guns and watching the shells as they searched the line where our enemies lay. A staff officer galloped up to our commandant, and we all got up without waiting for the word of command. After a short colloquy the staff officer galloped back to the general, the orders came clear and abrupt from commandant and captains, and before we could well understand what we were doing No. 4 Company and mine were extended in skirmishing order, with the other two companies of the battalion behind us in support.

We had not advanced very far in this formation when a man, five or six files on my right, flung up his arms and came to the ground with a groan. Just then we began to fire, our firing being kept strictly under control by the officers and sub-officers, who saw no use in allowing us, as soldiers naturally do, to blaze away all our ammunition at too long a range against a well-protected enemy. We went along almost too well; not alone had the officers to control our fire, they had also to work hard to keep us in hand as we went forward in the attack. All was well. A man fell here and another there, but the losses were not enough to speak about until we came to the dangerous zone.

Now let me explain what is meant by the dangerous zone. I did not understand it at the time, but I afterwards learned all about it, and many a time I thanked my stars when the order came to fix bayonets, for then I knew that I was safely through the ugly place and that most, if not all, of the chances were in my favour.

The Chinese--at least those of them whom we were fighting--never put the rifle to the shoulder as Europeans do when about to fire. Instead, they tuck the rifle-butt into the armpit and try to drop the bullet, as it were, on the attacking party. They cannot well do this until the attack comes within five hundred yards of the defence, nor can they do it when the enemy is within two hundred yards of their line, but they succeed fairly well--that is, well for such clumsy shooters--while the fighting line of the advance is between five hundred and two hundred yards of their position. This was pointed out to us by our officers, and we could easily see for ourselves that what they said was true. Looking back--of course, when the battle was over--we saw only scattered bodies lying for the first three or four hundred yards of our advance, then a comparatively large number in the dangerous zone, after that few, for, as we closed with the bayonet and were practically at point-blank range, the Black Flags wavered and fired at the sky rather than at us.

Well, we had got along fairly until we came to within about five hundred yards of the enemy's trenches. Then the men went down fast, and the officers, sergeants, corporals, and veterans shouted out to us neophytes to run. And we did run; we covered about three hundred yards of heavy ground--we were attacking through rice fields, you must know--as quickly as men ever did before or since. I was pretty blown when I heard the order given to lie down, and down we lay, with bullets flying overhead, until we regained our breath. Above us the shells from our guns were shrieking, in front they were exploding; it gave us all--at least it gave me--a feeling of heartfelt gratitude that the big guns were on our side. After some time we were ordered forward again. We ran a bit, fired a round, ran again a little way and fired another cartridge, not at the foe, for as yet we could see no men in our front, but at the long line of smoke that overhung the trenches where the Black Flags and their allies, the Chinese regulars, were waiting for our charge.

In this fashion we managed to get to within about eighty yards of the enemy's trenches, and were then ordered to halt, lie down, and fire as often as possible at the heads and figures that we were now beginning to distinguish where the little puffs of smoke arose. A light breeze was sweeping down the battlefield, and this lifted the blue-white clouds, so that men on both sides could easily make out their enemies. An officer sprang up about twenty yards away from me, waved his sword, and shouted out something which I could not hear, so incessant was the rattle of musketry. I saw the others fixing their bayonets, and I reached round to my left side to pluck out mine. As I did so, I saw the supporting companies of ours running up to join us. Very soon they were at our side, and the four companies, nearly a thousand strong, poured in a hot fire for a minute or two. Then we heard the clear notes of the charge. In a second, commandant, officers, sub-officers, and simple soldiers were all racing for the trenches like madmen, shouting: "Kill, kill!" How I got there I do not know. I was in, anyway, if not amongst the first, certainly not amongst the last, and when there a horrible scene lay before my eyes. On all sides were dead and dying men, some of the dead quiet and calm in appearance, as if only sleeping, with just a little spot of red on the forehead or staining the breast; others torn to pieces by the deadly shells. Some of the wounded were quite passive and resigned; others were crying out, I suppose for mercy. But it was not of them we thought, our business lay with a large body of men, led by a big chief in yellow tunic and wide yellow trousers, who met us with bayonet, sword, and spear and tried to retrieve the fortunes of the day. Our officers--bad as they were, they were brave--rushed straight at this band. We followed like wolf-hounds rushing at wolves. Their hoarse cries and imprecations soon died away as with bloody bayonets we thrust and dug our way through them from front to rear. Once more the Asiatic went down before the European, and in five minutes from the time our foremost entered the trenches we had left not a single Black Flag or Chinese regular standing on his feet. Some of the wounded fired at us as they lay upon the ground; that work, however, was very soon stopped.

Meanwhile the half-battalion of French troops of the line had gallantly carried their part of the entrenchments, but on the right the native troops, the Annamite tirailleurs, were in trouble. Some Frenchmen were with them, but these were too few of themselves to make head against the enemy, who thronged like bees to flowers where they saw a good chance of throwing back the attack. My captain, a good soldier and a bad man, hastily collected about a hundred of his men, and getting us into some sort of order gave us the word--and the example too, indeed--to charge. We fell upon the exposed flank of the barbarians. In a couple of minutes we drove it in upon the main left of the enemy, and very soon the Annamites, taking their courage in both hands, returned to the attack. Some of ours again went round and charged the enemy in the rear, and then the game was up--the battle was over. I wish I need say no more about the fighting, but many would not surrender, and these, of course, were promptly shot or bayoneted where they stood. Some wounded also suffered, but I must say that when a white man, zouave or legionary, put a wounded enemy out of pain it was only after the savage had tried to shoot or stab a passing soldier. Well, if a wounded man will try to kill there is only one thing to do--put it as soon as possible out of his power to do serious damage. I don't blame the savages much for firing or cutting at our fellows; as they never gave quarter to whites, they naturally believed, I suppose, that whites would give no quarter to them.

Some of the Annamite tirailleurs did, I am afraid, a little unjustifiable killing. Well, it's the way with these people; they think as little of killing a wounded man as a hungry legionary would of killing a providentially sent chicken. We must make allowances; but I am very doubtful about the wisdom of European nations in supplying arms and teaching modern drill to the yellows, the blacks, and the browns. You may make any of these very good imitations of white soldiers, but the leopard cannot change his spots, and the effects of centuries of cruelty cannot be eradicated in a day. The Annamites had one excuse--they were merely doing to the Black Flags what the Black Flags would have done to them and to us had the issue of the fight been different. This is a poor excuse, I admit, but then any excuse is better than none at all. The white officers attached to our native levies did their best to keep their men in hand, but orders are not always minded, even by the very best soldiers, in the heat of action or the flush of victory.

No one must assume that what I have written is a full account of the battle of Noui-Bop. I merely tell what happened under my own eyes. I know nothing whatever of the events that occurred in other parts of the battlefield, nor must it be considered that the troops I have mentioned were the only attacking ones. There were others advancing far away to the right and to the left--we were only the centre of the advance--and when I speak of right and left, I mean right and left of the central attack, not extreme right and left of the firing line.

When we had cleared the Black Flags and their comrades out of the entrenchments, we had a short rest under arms. Very soon, however, we received orders to advance, but cautiously, so as not to get too far in front of the rest. In our rear we could see the artillerymen bringing up their guns to new positions. Occasionally a gun would be unlimbered and a shell or two thrown into a part of the enemy trying to re-form. These shells did not do much damage to the enemy, but they did a great deal of good to us; it was so pleasant to watch the projectiles hissing through the air and to know that our friends the Black Flags were also watching them, but with very different feelings. One of our fellows, a happy-go-lucky Andalusian, called the shells _lettres d'avis_--warning notices that we were coming and that it would be best for the barbarians to be "not at home." Only twice in this advance had we to make a regular attack, and in each case the men who opposed us did not wait to allow us to get to close quarters; they fled with a hail of bullets about their ears before we got within two hundred yards. The French advance on the extreme right seemed to have more difficulty. I fancy an attempt was made to take them in flank. Anyway, we heard a continuous roll of musketry, with the heavy booming of guns, for about ten or fifteen minutes, and then only a dropping fire, when the attack had evidently been repulsed. On the left no trouble was experienced; our comrades there swept forward, driving the men opposed to them like sheep. About eleven o'clock we were halted. The native levies were sent on in pursuit, as they were better able than European soldiers to follow up a retreating enemy in the heat of the noonday sun. We lay down and rested, happy in the thought that our first fight in Tonquin was over and won. We were not allowed to remain long at our ease after the fight. First two companies, and afterwards the other two, were sent back to get the knapsacks and other impedimenta left behind by the general's order before the advance. About half-past four in the afternoon we got some bread and soup, and a little after five, when the great heat of the day was over, we set forward on our march in the track of the retreating enemy and the pursuing tirailleurs. We kept on until nearly nine o'clock at night, occasionally halting for a rest. In spite of the Annamite levies being in front of us on this march we took all possible precautions against a surprise; we had a section of a company in front, and, in advance of that again, one of its squads. Other squads were out far to the right and to the left. These precautions may seem unnecessary, as our own friends were in front, but, indeed, they were very useful for several reasons. In the first place we saw that, no matter how triumphant our arms might be, there was to be no relaxation of precaution or of discipline; in the second, it was possible that our irregulars might have allowed a large body of the enemy to slip in behind them, and these might ambush us; again, all the men of the main body felt a sense of security, and consequently their nerves were not kept constantly strained--a material advantage in warfare. It is a good maxim to put all the watchfulness on a few and to allow the main body to rest or march in security; so an officer will have better soldiers in action. The best men in the world can't help feeling worried and depressed by constant expectation of an attack. A battle is nothing--very often it is, indeed, a relief--but always waiting and always speculating on an attack, and always wondering from what side it will come, will wear out the strongest nerves. Then come dogged sullenness, loss of interest in one's work, carelessness in duty, and slovenliness in the little things that all soldiers take pride in, and in the end disaster.

That night we lay about fifteen or sixteen kilometres from the place where we had rested the previous night. It was lucky that it was not my turn for guard; I felt so sleepy after the morning fight and the evening march. I had scarcely rolled myself up snugly in my greatcoat and blanket when I fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep, and I could almost swear that I had not had two minutes' rest when the reveille went in the morning. I felt very hungry, and that made me get up quickly from the spot of hard ground on which I had been sleeping, to help the others to light the fire for the squad's morning coffee. Nicholas the Russian asked me how I felt.

"Hungry, my comrade, hungry," I replied. And everyone, even the captain, who was passing at the time, laughed as if I had said a good thing. Soldiers are very like schoolboys; the simplest thing said or done by one they know far surpasses anything said, no matter how brilliant, anything done, no matter how renowned, by those they do not know. On active service they are even more easily amused. We often laughed heartily at sayings that, considered calmly by me now, show not the slightest trace of humour.

When the tale of dead and wounded was made up it was seen that our battalion had suffered more than any other corps in the fight, and that of the four companies constituting it mine had the greatest number of losses. This was not bad for me. For some reason or other the captain made me a soldier of the first class, and I was very glad indeed that Nicholas the Russian and Le Grand were also promoted to wear the single red stripe on their right sleeves. We laughed heartily as we thought of our advance in rank and of what we should have got instead of promotion if all were known about the quarrel at Three Fountains. Well, what people don't know won't trouble them.

For some time after this our battalion was always on hard duty. We on some days marched only ten or twelve kilometres; on others, in pursuit of a band of marauders, we covered as much as twenty-five or thirty. Remember, we had to do all this in a country where roads are bad and travelling over fields almost impossible, with heavy packs on our backs, and never less than a hundred rounds of ball cartridge in our pouches. Then no matter how pleasant the greatcoat and the blanket might be at night, they were no light load during the day, and especially between the hours of eleven in the forenoon and four in the afternoon, when we had to go forward if there was the slightest chance of catching up with some or other band of scoundrels. Moreover, when soldiers are on flying duty, they seldom get enough to eat, and what they do get is not the very best or nicest food in the world. One day we came in at the hour of evening soup to a little camp where some zouaves and marine fusiliers were. They were very good to us indeed; the soup they had just prepared for themselves they gave to us, and they took, good fellows that they were, the dry bread and unboiled rice that we had in our haversacks. They were decent men, these French soldiers; they saw that we had been on tramp for some time, and they hesitated not a moment to give us the savoury soup when they saw the hungry longing in our eyes and the convulsive twitch of nostrils, as the grateful odour was perceived. They did more; they gave us some wine and native spirit, and I do not know whether we were more pleased with the gifts or with the free, generous dispositions of the givers. Well, we did as much afterwards for Frenchmen.

This victory at Noui-Bop gave the French control over a large strip of country. Moreover, many new recruits joined the Annamite tirailleurs, for the Asiatic, like all others, wants to be on the winning side. There were promotions, of course, but the only ones I was at all interested in were those that gave the single red chevrons to Nicholas, Le Grand, and myself. We had got to like one another very much, and I believe that the promotion of one gave more pleasure to his comrades than to himself. I may say here that Nicholas and Le Grand afterwards refused further promotion; I, a boy and fool, took it when offered, but I must tell how that came about in another chapter.