Chapter IV: From the Marne to the Aisne (2)

In the gutters the rivers of blood had become congealed. The hot, fetid smell, imprisoned under the vault of the trees, still floated in the air, more nauseating and terrifying than ever. The efforts the men had made in order to unharness the horses and clear the roadway had caused the intestines to split and break, and they now trailed about everywhere, covered with dust, separated by several yards from the gaping, empty bodies from which they had been torn.

Two prisoners, tall men whose height was increased by their long grey cloaks and pointed helmets, came down from the plateau. The foot-soldiers accompanying them, fearing that this spectacle of death might cause their enemies too keen a delight, had blindfolded them, and led them by the hand in and out the corpses. But the Germans had recognized the smell of blood. A line of uneasiness barred their foreheads and they continually sniffed the tainted air.

_Monday, September 14_

At Attichy we spent the night in some splendid, well-closed barns in which the hay lay deep, but our rest was disturbed by horrible nightmares. I dreamt that I was rolling among mutilated corpses in rivers of blood. When I awoke it was raining.

A countryman with a drooping white moustache brought us some beer and wine in buckets. He lived in an isolated house easily visible from our barn, in a copse on the side of the hill. During the German occupation he had left his house as being too solitary and had taken up his quarters in the village. When the enemy took their departure the day before yesterday he had returned to his house accompanied by a foot-soldier. He was going on ahead when through the broken-in front door he saw, in the hall, a helmeted German in the act of aiming at him. He jumped to one side, exposing the French soldier behind him, whereupon the German at once dropped his rifle and threw up his hands. The two Frenchmen seized him and, sitting him down on a chair in the kitchen, shot him through the head. There they left him, still sitting, his head on his breast and the blood dripping from his forehead between his knees on to the tiled floor, and went off to reconnoitre the surroundings of the house and the garden. They could discover nothing suspicious, but when they returned to the kitchen they found it empty. Nothing remained of the German save a pool of blood in front of the chair. But near the door and on the stairs were red stains and they heard groans coming from the garret.

We asked the peasant:

"Well, what did you do with your Boche?"

"Oh, he's still in my garret," he answered placidly.

"But you must get him out of that. He'll soon begin to smell!"

"Yes, I'm going to dig a hole for him to-night near the dung-heap."

And, as I ventured to say that instead of killing the man treacherously they might have taken him prisoner, seeing that he had surrendered:

"Why?" asked the peasant. "Wouldn't he have killed me if I'd been all alone? And yet I'm a civilian!"

"No!" he added, "we shall never kill enough of those swine!"

* * * * *

The wind had risen and the rain ceased. Our Group advanced along the Compiègne road, which runs by the side of the river. But we had hardly gone a mile when the word was given to halt. We prepared to make our soup, but there was no water, and I searched in vain for a spring or well. Finally we decided to draw water from the Aisne. On the opposite bank a dead German was lying among the rushes, half his body submerged in the stream. Well, we would boil the water, that was all! One must eat!

As night fell a horseman arrived with orders. We set off at a trot.

Under the lee of a high wall some Spahis were resting, their burnous making red patches in the dusk. Near them their little horses stood motionless under their complicated harness. Against an apple-tree leaned an Arab with magnificently cut features, as regular as those of a statue. Under the purple, woollen hood his brown face bore an expression of that resigned melancholy, at once so pitiful and so noble, in which men of his race always languish when far from the desert. His large, apathetic black eyes, which seemed fixed upon something in the distance, had a mystic look in them. He appeared to feel cold. The gunners greeted him smiling:

"Hallo! old Sidi!"

But the Arab, without moving, only replied with a condescending blink of his eyes.

The batteries took up position, the first line of wagons halting behind a screen of acacias. The silence of the night was hardly broken by a confused murmur of the far-off battle when suddenly, as if at a given signal, more than forty French field-guns, almost in unison, fired a terrific volley across the plateau.

The vivid flashes from the muzzles cleft the twilight like red lightning. The air continued to vibrate. It was as though the atmosphere were filled with huge sound-waves dashing and splitting one against the other like the waves of the ocean in a storm. The earth quivered in response to the twanging air. Gradually the night became darker.

Our batteries were certainly firing at registered aiming-points. The enemy only replied now and again, and then at haphazard.

Suddenly a rumour began to circulate:

"The Germans are entraining! That station is being bombarded!..."

"Oh, well, I shouldn't prevent 'em taking their tickets," said an imperturbable-looking reservist. "I shouldn't interfere with 'em. Let them clear out and let us go back home. I've a wife and two kiddies. It's no joke, war!..."

It was pitch-dark when the guns, one by one, gradually became silent. In a few moments there was complete stillness, a stillness almost surprising, almost disturbing after the deafening cannonade.

We rejoined the batteries. Noiselessly, one behind the other, the carriages plunged like phantoms into the darkness, the soft field, as it yielded under the wheels, giving a strange impression of cotton-wool. The nocturnal clarity, diffused and as if floating, did not enable us to see what kind of field it was which the long column was crossing without a jolt or jangle, with only an occasional creaking of badly oiled wheels.

The whole countryside smelt of death, and this was not due to imagination. Far off a burning building stood out like a fixed point of light. The massive trees of a neighbouring park filled us with nameless fears.

The wheel of the limber passed over something soft and elastic which yielded under the weight. I felt sure that it was a dead man, and looked behind me fearfully. But I could see nothing.

We halted on the outskirts of a village called Tracy-le-Mont, where the supply-train was waiting for us. Rations were issued, the men in their cloaks standing in a black circle round the provision wagon, which was lit by a solitary lantern. Hutin and Déprez were among them. Somebody was calling out the guns:

"Third!... Fourth!..."

"First!" cried Hutin.

"You've missed your turn. You'll have to come last now."

We talked while waiting. Hutin was very tired and hungry.

"There's some good grub going," said he. "We're going to get some fresh meat."

"Yes, but fires will be forbidden."

"I suppose you haven't seen the postmaster?" he asked suddenly.

"No, why?"

"Because in the first line you see him more often than we do."

"Well, I've begun to doubt whether there is such a person."

"It's true.... The brute never turns up! Confound it all! If only we got letters sometimes the time would pass quicker. The last I had was simply to say that they hadn't any news of me. It does seem hard!"

"First gun!"

"At last," said Hutin. "Good-bye, old chap! I'm off to get my grub. Try to get back to us soon."

_Tuesday, September 15_

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.

It is at moments like these, at once melancholy and solemn, when the regular creaking and jolting of the wagons and the measured hoof-beats of the horses numb the senses and make one drowsy, that one's thoughts turn most bitterly to the future of bygone dreams, to all promised joys and pleasures, to all the happiness for which the past has paved the way and which might possibly have been realized without difficulty....

Dawn--I do not know why--is always a sad hour. And on the mornings of battle this inherent sadness is rendered more poignant by the dread of the terrible and perhaps final experiences which the day just born may hold in store. Regrets and fears become linked in a vicious circle of thought from which there is no escape.

One's only desire is to live--to return alive in the evening--but to conquer first, to prevent the enemy from reaching our homes, above all to protect the weak and loved ones behind us, in France, whose lives are even more precious to us than our own. To conquer! And still live to-night!

* * * * *

The battery again took up position near the holocaust of the farm, which was still burning, and the wagons returned to their gully.

My wrist was giving me considerable pain, and the medical officer wanted to send me behind the lines on sick-leave, but I preferred to rest with the wagons a few days longer and then return to my gun.

The rain began to fall in torrents. On the edge of a lucerne-field one of our horses, which we had to abandon yesterday, was rolling in its death agony. The straw we had brought with us, hashed up by the wheels of the vehicles and by the hoofs of the horses, and mingled with the water and mud which had collected in the clayey hollow, formed a kind of noisome quicksand into which we sank ankle-deep.

The men did not open their lips except to swear or complain. No more dead wood was to be found in the copses; all had been consumed yesterday and the day before. We could not light a fire. Some passing gunners told us that there were still some faggots in a farm near the water-tanks, and we at once hurried thither. On the plain the corpses were no longer lying among the loose sheaves. On one side of the Tracy road, which was now nothing more than a swamp, the earth had been dug up in the middle of the field of mangel-wurzels and two crosses roughly fashioned out of planks marked the grave.

The farm to which we had come in our quest for wood had been arranged as a first-aid post. The buildings surrounded a yard, in the centre of which, near the dung-heap, were ranged up several green-tilted carts marked with the red cross. In one corner a heap of cotton-wool and some blood-stained bandages and compresses were slowly burning.

In the stable and cow-sheds one could see, through the half-open doors, the recumbent forms of sick and wounded lined up on the straw underneath the empty troughs and mangers. Some hospital orderlies in canvas clothing were busy making soup. A medical officer stalked stiffly by in his white smock. Not a cry of pain was to be heard.

In the wood-shed some sick men--nine or ten pale and gaunt foot-soldiers--were lying on trusses of hay which they had not even untied. One man, whom we could not see owing to the darkness, was breathing stertorously with a noise like an engine.

* * * * *

The firing was less violent than yesterday. An aviation park had been formed a few hundred yards from our hollow, behind the farmhouses in which the Staff had taken up its quarters for the day. This proximity rendered our position increasingly unsafe. The enemy's Howitzers tried to reach the aeroplanes standing on the field, and though they seemed to be firing at haphazard, shells continually fell here and there on the outskirts of our park.

* * * * *

The day was drawing to a close without giving any indication as to the issue of the battle, which had already been in progress five days.

But towards evening a long convoy of Moroccan _Carabas_ passed on the road near-by, marching southwards towards the Aisne. They were followed by some infantry. What could be the meaning of it? We could not help feeling uneasy.

The dusk deepened into darkness and the long golden beams of the searchlights began to sweep the plain. Under the hard, unyielding light the smallest objects--a hayrick, a shed--cast huge inky shadows on the field.

Next, some artillery passed by, also heading towards the Aisne. We could not see the carriages, but recognized them by the familiar creaking and rattling. Occasionally they halted a moment or two, and then another sound became audible--a sound like a far-off torrent--caused by infantry on the march on some other road across the plain.

It started to rain again.

We rejoined our batteries at the water-tanks. A ceaseless tide of men brushed by our carriages, their shadowy figures rising and falling as they passed in the darkness.

"What regiment is that?" I asked. No one answered.

"What regiment is that?"

Apparently a regiment of dumb men. They continued to march by in the gloom without giving any reply.

"What regiment is that passing? Can't you speak French?"

"Hundred and third."

"Where are you going to?"

"We don't know."

"Where are you going to?" I repeated.

"We don't know," came the answer again.

On the fields of mangel-wurzels flanking the road we could see masses of motionless artillery. Was the Army Corps retiring? And yet we had not been outflanked this time.... I was suddenly seized with anxiety.

It began to rain harder. Under the moving ray of a searchlight I caught a glimpse of a long road black with men and horses.

My carriage had ranged up close to those of the first gun.

"Hutin!"

"Here! Yes? Hallo, it's you!"

"Yes.... Well, are we retiring?"

"No."

"What? The whole division is falling back!..."

"We're being replaced."

"Think so?"

"Yes. I've seen some gunners of the Corps which is replacing us."

"In that case we shall get some rest."

"No, I don't think so. I've heard that they mean to make a turning movement over by the forest of Compiègne and the forest of Laigle with the Moroccan Division."

* * * * *

Rain ... darkness ... smoking prohibited. The surrounding gloom was alive with distant footfalls, the muffled rumble of wheels, jingle of arms, and the heavy breathing of men and animals.

Behind the infantry regiments of the division we began a slow march interrupted by the halts of the foot-soldiers ahead and by other unknown impediments.

About midnight we crossed the Aisne. Rain was still falling. Two hurricane lamps marked the entrance of the pontoon bridge constructed by the Engineers. The planking gave under the weight of the column and one heard the water plashing against the metal bottoms of the boats.

The road was now clear, and the batteries on ahead broke into a trot. A horse which had become entangled in the traces stopped our wagons for a moment or two, and before we were able to catch up the head of the column a cross-roads suddenly brought us once more to a halt. In the dense darkness there was nothing to indicate which road the leading vehicles had taken. We listened.... A distant rumble seemed to come from the right, and we wheeled in the direction of the sound. The drivers urged their horses forward. We strained our eyes in an attempt to pierce the gloom, always hoping to see the bulky form of an ammunition wagon or gun loom out of the darkness ahead. But we hoped in vain. The road became narrower, and at every moment we risked falling into the ditch. Finally we had to confess to ourselves that we had lost our way.

The Lieutenant gave the word to halt. We prepared to wait for daybreak before continuing our march. The downpour redoubled in violence, and it was impossible to find shelter. The gunners huddled together on the limber-boxes and became motionless, while the drivers stamped up and down in the mud at the heads of their teams.

Overcome by fatigue I had begun to get drowsy in spite of the cold and the wetness of my clothes, which stuck to my skin like icy poultices and seemed to suck all the warmth from my body. Suddenly I became aware of footsteps splashing in the gutters by the side of the road. Men were passing by the wagon. I thought that possibly somebody had discovered a barn and was leading them to it. I followed.

Sure enough, after a few minutes' walk we came to a house, the black bulk of which rose up suddenly before me, darker than the surrounding darkness.

My foot knocked against a ladder. Perhaps it led to a window? I clambered up and found myself in a loft of which the flooring was rotten and gave way under my tread. I clutched the low framework of the roof and advanced cautiously. Some one was already asleep there; I heard his breathing. Stretching myself carefully athwart the beams and pillowing my head on a bundle of wood, I prepared to go to sleep. It was almost hot in the loft.

_Saturday, September 19_

We started off again at dawn in a drizzling rain. The road, studded at intervals with the bodies of dead horses, wound through interminable woods of tall beeches from which the rain dripped heavily. Endless enfilades of swamped and deserted trenches stretched away on either side and were finally lost in the undergrowth. Tall, heavy trees had been felled and laid athwart the road, which had sunk beneath their weight. And when they had been dragged into the ditches in order to leave the way clear for the troops, their stout branches had scored deep scratches in the road, which had soon been converted into quagmires by the rain.

We passed through Pierrefonds, where, beneath the leaden sky, the magnificent outlines of the château rose up amid the verdure darkened by the rain, and then entered the forest of Compiègne, with its lofty beeches standing in colonnades, below which lay long lines of swamped trenches zigzagging between the trees, with here and there a primitive hut made of branches and ferns, and more and more dead horses.

The sun, breaking out between two clouds and piercing the leaves, threw emerald-green lights on the wet moss. Among the dark tones the bright trunks of the birches flashed intermittently.

* * * * *

Compiègne! The town, occupied by the enemy for a few days only, did not appear to have suffered very much. Gun-fire was audible from far off, to the north-east.

We crossed the Oise and rejoined our batteries at Venette, an outlying suburb.

In the large hall of a farm to which I had gone in search of provisions the farmer's wife, a matron of over fifty summers, was depicting the horrors of the German occupation to four gunners.

She broke off as I came in.

"Some milk and eggs? You want to buy them? No! I won't sell them, but I'll give you them.... Please wait a moment."

And she resumed her story.

"Well, as I was saying, it was just like that ... in front of their father. They trussed him up with his back to the wardrobe so that he couldn't help seeing everything. Five or six of them there were, and one officer. They violated both girls--only eighteen and twenty, and such nice, honest girls too!... Yes--all six of them, one after the other! The poor things screamed all the time!... Oh, those aren't men!... They're just beasts!..."

And lowering her voice a little, but without embarrassment, she continued:

"More than one woman went through the same thing. I did ... yes!... And yet I'm no young girl.... I've a son who is a soldier like you.... Oh, God, it's awful!... It happened one evening, at about this time ... four of them had arrived here to sleep. How was I to defend myself?... The best thing was to say nothing. There have been women who have tried to defend themselves and who have been simply ripped up ... that's all! My husband was out, getting in their things. I thought to myself, 'If he comes in, what will happen?... He'll kill some of them....'"

"Yes, I would, too! I'd have killed them!" interrupted a voice from the darkness at the end of the room.

I had not seen the man as he sat smoking his pipe in a corner of the hearth.

His wife turned towards him.

"Poor old dear! You'd perhaps have killed one of them, but the others would have killed both of us.... Besides, as far as I'm concerned--well--I know I'm too old!... That's what my husband said--afterwards.... That won't lead to any consequences!"

_Sunday, September 20_

A long march in a stinging hail-storm, first towards the west and then northwards. We are evidently attempting a turning movement against the German right wing.

_Monday, September 21_

The day broke with the calm brightness of early autumn. We continued our enveloping movement.

Towards midday a heavy French battery in position near the road suddenly began to fire. Our officers went off at a gallop to reconnoitre. We thought we were going into action, but were finally told that we should not be wanted to-day and were sent off to camp in a park near Ribécourt. We ranged up the guns on a lawn flanked by a magnificent wood of beech-trees bordered by rhododendrons.

On one side of us lay an unruffled sheet of water, reddening under the brilliant sunset, and, on the other, among the clumps of trees beneath which lay flower-beds set off by blood-red sage, rose a fine modern château. Under the rich foliage a little rustic bridge spanning the river gave an effect curiously Venetian.

* * * * *

The evening was sultry, but nevertheless we made our bivouac fires under the chestnut-trees flanking the river. In the darkness of the night, which had now fallen, the pond looked like an enormous blot of ink. We were almost blinded by the yellow flare of our fires and could no longer distinguish the river banks, thus risking at every step a fall into the water.

_Tuesday, September 22_

We passed the night on some straw in the outbuildings.

My wrist is now healed, and I am going to return to my post with the first gun.

Under the morning sun the pond shone like a silver mirror, and the little Venetian bridge struck a bright note among the dark tones of the trees, while the water flowing underneath, over the slime and rotten leaves, was jet-black. The château stood out starkly against the pale blue sky, and the yellow gravel of the walks and the vermilion sage afforded a bright contrast to the uniform green of the lawns.

The battery moved on. The crackling of rifle and machine-gun fire accompanied the roar of the artillery. The enemy was evidently making a stand against our enveloping movement, which it was doubtless the intention of the French commanders to accentuate. We resumed our march towards the north, heading for Roye. The success of the manoeuvre depended on numbers, and I wondered whether we had sufficient men available.

In a field by the wayside some Senegalese Tirailleurs, fine-looking, ebony-coloured men dressed in navy blue uniforms, were making coffee with the simple gestures and admirable attitudes of people untrammelled by civilization.

* * * * *

The officers had gone off to reconnoitre. We halted at the foot of a long slope in the middle of some large mangel-wurzel fields forming a kind of basin near the village of Fresnières, where heavy shells were falling.

The line of fire, forming an angle towards Compiègne, stretched from north to south. We could not be more than a mile or two, as the crow flies, from the plains we had been occupying during the past few days on the banks of the Aisne, near Tracy-le-Mont.

I do not know what echo or confusion of sound prevented us from locating the position of the battle exactly. Fighting was going on in the direction of Ribécourt and Lassigny, but the heavy battery which had been bombarding Fresnières was now silent. Behind the woods columns of black smoke were curling upwards. Fires or shells bursting? It was impossible to tell.

But our chief anxiety was the northern horizon, which was masked by a line of poplars, and from which occasional and unsustained rifle-fire revealed the presence of the enemy. The Germans might reply to our enveloping movement by trying to execute a similar manoeuvre.

On the edge of the woods to the north-east large numbers of troops could be seen in movement. A long black column of artillery was winding its way across country. The hoof-beats of a far-off squadron, trotting, sounded like the reptation of some huge serpent. The whole countryside was alive. From where we stood one would have said that it was only the leaves of the mangel-wurzels moving in the wind, but in reality it was infantry deploying in skirmishing order.

We took up position in a field. The ground under my gun was extremely soft, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that the carriage would continue to recoil with the result that a perpetual error in laying would retard our rapidity of fire. The second gun was no better placed than ours, but the other section, in position on a stubble-field, was on much firmer ground. The battery would thus lose all cohesion, but there was no help for it. It was impossible to use the position assigned to us to better advantage.

In front of us, some 77 mm. guns were sweeping the fields, but these did not cause us much anxiety. In relation to the position which, judging from their fire, they were occupying somewhere to the north-east, we were well covered. But, beyond Lassigny, standing out amid the verdure, rose a line of lofty, wooded hills which commanded the whole of the plain and from the summit of which our battery was certainly visible. We could not take our eyes off their threatening crests. What lay hid in their gloomy forests?

We were well within range of heavy artillery should the enemy install a battery at that point.

"Come on," said Bréjard, "we must make a hole and get to work quickly."

In feverish haste we dug a trench behind the ammunition wagon. Another group of ·75's, occupying a position parallel to ours, opened fire on Lassigny.

The ·77's now increased their range, and every round became more threatening.

"To your guns ... by the right, each battery!" commanded the Captain.

"What range? We haven't heard the range," shouted Millon.

"Eleven hundred!"

"How much?"

"Eleven hundred!"

"Oh, they're not far off!"

"Sounds bad, that," growled Hutin.

The gun reared, and immediately recoiled more than two yards. We had to man it forward into position, but the spade and wheels had sunk so deep in the soil that try as we would the six of us could not move it. Our shoulders to the wheels, struggling and sweating, we began to get nervous and angry. Finally we had to call to the detachment of the second gun to come and help us.

Some infantry had taken up position in front of the battery. We signalled to them to move to the left.

"They'll get cut in two, the idiots!"

"To the left!"

"What fools!"

"To the left!"

The Lieutenant, his lungs exhausted, waved his long arms.

"Lord! aren't they stupid, those fellows!" We shouted in chorus:

"To the left ... _to the left_!"

At last they moved off, and we could fire.

"Eight hundred!"

We thought we had not heard aright.

"Eight hundred!"

So the enemy was there, behind the crests, and was advancing....

What was the French command waiting for? Why did they not throw forward the troops which, over towards Fresnières, were swarming on the mangel-wurzel fields?

Moratin, who was standing on the refilling wagon, cried out:

"Go on, let 'em have it full! That shell from the first gun mowed down a heap of them. There! you can see them, the brutes!... You can see them!..."

His words gave us strength to push the gun, the wheels of which kept turning backwards, forward into position again.

"Hutin!"

"What?"

"Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"There it is again."

"Bullets ..."

"Yes."

"In threes, double traverse!"

The Captain had climbed into an apple-tree close to the fourth gun. The bullets, brushing over the crest, were too high to touch us, but they continually cut down leaves round the Captain. We begged him to come down. For the tenth time one of the gunners insisted:

"You mustn't stay there, sir!"

The Major interfered:

"Come down, De Brisoult!"

But the Captain, his glasses to his eyes, continued to scan the northern horizon and only answered quietly:

"But I can see very well, sir ... very well. Nine hundred!..."

"Nine hundred!"

"Nine hundred!" repeated the gunners.

Our infantry had doubtless retaken Lassigny. German shells were now bursting over the town, giving off clouds of yellow smoke.

"One thousand!"

We had at last found a more or less firm position for our gun, and our fire accelerated as the enemy fell back.

"Eleven hundred!"

"Twelve hundred!... Cease firing!"

The detachments piled up in front of the trenches the ejected cartridge-cases which strewed the field. Bullets still continued to hum over our heads, but the 77 mm. shells were now falling wide of the mark. We remained motionless at the bottom of our trenches. Every few minutes Hutin asked me:

"What time is it?"

When I told him he became impatient: