BOOK IV
THE LAST WEEK
I
THE BATTLE AT THE FORT
(June 2)
Those who contrived to escape from the fort have related the whole drama. All the shifting scenes here delineated, whether outside or inside, are based on the accounts of those who have seen them and lived through them. The witnesses in this case are themselves the actors. Finally, the fort itself spoke. Up to the last moment, up to the death-agony, it communicated with the high command by means of its signals and its carrier-pigeons.
The day of June 1 is heavy with anguish. The storm slants off to the left, but the air remains sultry and oppressive. The Le Bazil ravine is lost, the dyke is crossed, the enemy break through into Fumin Wood. Of the three entrenchments that stake out the slopes between the pool and the fort, two are given up. R¹ still holds out, but will it be strong enough to prove an obstacle to the foe? Between R¹ and the fort, the La Courtine trench and that of Besançon, which ends in a winding at the double transverse gallery (north-eastern) that has been half-disembowelled, are manned by the 7th Company of the 101st Regiment. In front of the fort, the trench that protects it and, farther east, the Belfort trench are occupied by the 7th and 8th Companies of the 142nd Regiment, the 5th being on the plateau as a support. Will these troops suffice to check the onslaughts? Will they not be outflanked to the west by way of Fumin Wood, and to the east by Damloup and La Horgne bottom, against which the bombardment is raging?
During the night there is great liveliness. The air shivers with countless lightning-flashes from the batteries, and with rockets going up or coming down in showers of stars. Darker than the night are the columns of smoke that rise from the shell-bursts. From the observing-station one of the guard signals movements at the foot of the slopes. No one sleeps, except a few wounded whose strength has completely failed them. Major Raynal, leaning on his stick, takes a turn round the corridors. He does not speak much, he is preoccupied, but his energetic air is reassuring. “The officers,” remarks an eye-witness, “were constantly walking through our midst; they were as calm and collected as usual, but we felt that the hour was at hand, for they looked into every detail.”
At a quarter-past two, before sunrise, the enemy’s range lengthens, and the waves of the attack unroll themselves against our defenders in a semicircle. Our curtain fire came too late; the waves have been able to advance without being broken, and soon they are coming up to the trench of the fort opposite them, to the Besançon trench on the west, to the Belfort trench on the east.
Opposite, they dash against the 7th Company of the 142nd Regiment, which replies by throwing bombs. The first platoon is annihilated on the spot, after inflicting serious losses on its assailants. The second, which was acting as a support, hastens to the rescue, and now comes a formidable rush against more numerous forces, which it prevents from passing. Captain Tabourot is in command of this reinforcing platoon, aided by Cadet Buffet. One of the survivors has drawn the following portrait of him: “Captain Tabourot fought like a lion. He overtopped us all with his tall figure, he gave his orders in curt tones, he encouraged us and put us in our right places. Then he put his hand himself in the grenade sack, took out an armful, and, leaning backwards a little, threw them with perfect composure, taking careful aim every time. This roused us, and we gave a good account of ourselves. What a pity that it didn’t last!”
The heroic band is all of a sudden assailed in the rear, between the trench and the fort. As a matter of fact, to the east, the Besançon trench, after repelling a first onslaught, has given way. Its little garrison, now outflanked, has fallen back upon the double transverse gallery, where one of the two entrances to the fort is to be found. Already they have had to convey to the interior of the fort the dauntless Lieutenant Tournery, who, with his head pierced by a bullet—a mortal wound—will take three days to die without confessing the tortures that rack him. A force deprived of its leader seeks a shelter in order to re-form itself. This force, sadly thinned, re-enters the fort by the transverse gallery, the opening in which it defends. The enemy, however, has managed to worm his way as far as the counterscarp. The northern ditch is barred to him by a revolving gun placed in the double transverse gallery, but, passing along it, he has taken Captain Tabourot’s platoon in the rear.
The captain is struck from behind by a bomb, which breaks his back and slashes both his legs. “Mastering his pain,” says the eye-witness already quoted, “he did not let a single cry of complaint escape his lips, and I can still see him pass in front of us, supported by two of his sergeants. He was pale, but he pointed out the enemy to us.”
He is carried to the infirmary. The procession makes its way into the interior by the breach in the north-eastern single transverse gallery. Major Raynal at once comes to join him. The meeting between the two soldiers is brief: no word of consolation is spoken, no false hopes are held out. The one divines that all is over; the other has too high an opinion of him to take refuge in falsehood. A firm handshake, then the commandant of the fort merely says:
“Well done, my dear fellow!”
The captain’s thoughts are with his men:
“If the Boches get through, sir, it won’t be my company’s fault. It has done all that could be done to block their way.”
After this report he closes his eyes. The major returns to his post. The captain is left alone with a hospital orderly amid a wailing and groaning throng of wounded. A moment later he asks for Cadet Buffet. But Cadet Buffet is in the thick of the fray with the rest of his company.
“He must not be sent for, then,” says the dying man.
A little later Cadet Buffet comes in of his own accord to visit him. The platoon being in danger of having its flank turned, what was left of it had to cleave a passage for itself in order to re-enter the fort.
“Come near me, boy; you who are from Dijon, if you get back safe from the war, you will tell my wife how I died.”
The captain is at peace with his men and with his conscience as a leader, and his thoughts turn towards his home. These were his last words. From now onwards, until the death that comes a few hours later, he devotes all his strength to avoiding any outward sign of the ghastly wounds that he could not survive.
Already his name is rushing through the night, borne by a carrier-pigeon which flew off from the fort at three o’clock in the morning:
“The enemy is around us. I must honourably mention the gallant Captain Tabourot, of the 142nd, who has been very badly wounded; we are still holding out.”
A few hours later, a second pigeon announces his death:
“Captain Tabourot of the 142nd died a glorious death, his wound being received while he was defending the north-eastern breach. I recommend him for the Legion of Honour.”
This is only a part of the message; the rest refers to the operations.
Nevertheless, the Germans have reached the two open breaches, the one in the north-western double transverse gallery and the other in the north-eastern single transverse gallery. They try to force their way through it. At each entrance there is a hand-to-hand conflict. On the right they are at first pushed back. “Our bombs,” says one of those who took part in the combat, “made gaps in their ranks, but reinforcements were continually coming up. Their dead and wounded formed shifting heaps, and, to add to the horror of it, these were cut and torn by splinters from our projectiles.”
Fighting now proceeds in the passages which, from the transverse galleries, lead to the interior. Major Raynal has barricades put up consisting of sandbags got ready in anticipation.
Outside the battle is no less violent. Chevassu’s battalion, of the 142nd Regiment, seems likely to find itself in a hazardous situation. The enemy, if he is checked to the west of the fort by the entrenchment R¹, which he is unable to seize, has contrived to insinuate himself between the curtain and the fort. He reaches the southern side. On the other hand, Damloup was captured at six or seven o’clock in the morning, and, by way of La Horgne ravine, fresh forces ascend to the onset. Chevassu’s battalion, which has two companies in the fort (the 6th and the fragments of the 7th which Captain Tabourot was leading), is charged with the defence of the eastern side of the fort. It does indeed hold its ground at the Belfort and Montbéliard trenches, where the struggle becomes a hand-to-hand one. Second Lieutenant Huguenin, set upon by an enemy private, knocks him down, disarms him, and fights with his adversary’s rifle. The Germans recoil, but return to the onslaught, in the afternoon, with unfixed bayonets. The men of the 142nd, on being reinforced by a company of the 53rd, receive them with cries of “Long live France!”
For all that, the battalion is in danger of having its flank turned. Its machine-gun sections change places and are pointed in three directions—in front, towards Damloup to the east, and to the west against the enemy, who is debouching to the south of the fort. The section commanders calmly indicate the objectives. Sergeant Narcisse, while standing near his machine-gun, is killed by a bullet that hits him right in the forehead. He was a gallant soldier who had been granted the Military Medal in the Champagne battle. Corporal Reveille takes his place, and shouts to his men, “Don’t get flurried, I take it upon myself to clear away the Boches.”
The observers in balloons signal to the north of the fort the arrival of more and more numerous troops, who burrow themselves in our old trenches to evade our curtain fire and to gain ground during the intervals. At noon, some forty men are seen upon the fort, the majority hidden in holes. At 3 P.M. the fort itself issues a bulletin:
“The enemy has gained possession of the north-eastern and north-western transverse galleries. I am pursuing the struggle in the inner passages. A large number of wounded and fugitives. Officers and men are all doing their duty. We shall fight to the bitter end.”
At seven o’clock in the evening, the watchers on the posts of the Fleury redoubt signal that infantry details of several companies are at present marching up in file from the north to the south, at the north-western bend of Fort Vaux. They escalade the fort and vanish through the summit into the interior. While this is going on, other detachments glide along the trenches surrounding the fort.
And at two o’clock in the morning on June 3, Major Raynal sends this message by visual signalling:
“Situation unchanged. The enemy is pursuing his labours on top and round the earthworks. The fort is to be pounded by small ordnance. The enemy occupies our old first-line trenches in force and is strengthening them. He seems to have a trench armed with a machine-gun facing the south-west, not far from the ditch of the defile.”
This machine-gun is not in the ditch of the defile, but on the very superstructure of the fort, where the enemy has managed to convey it, and whence he sweeps the southern slopes. It is impossible to dislodge him from the terreplein; the cupola for 75’s is demolished, there is no cupola for machine-guns, and a fruitless attempt has been made to pass short rifles through the cracks in the observing stations; even these weapons were too long, and could not be used for slaughtering the German infantrymen, who were only a few yards distant.
The southern front of the fort has been saved by the 5th and 8th Companies and the machine-gun section of Chevassu’s battalion, reinforced on the morning of June 2 by the 11th Company of the 53rd Regiment, and in the evening by a battalion of the same regiment. This battalion was to counter-attack without delay, but when brought up close to its objective it has already been sorely tried by the curtain fire it has had to suffer on the way, and must limit itself to holding its ground, to reconstructing the demolished trenches, and to interposing itself among the reduced sections of the 142nd.
Accordingly, on the evening of the 2nd, the enemy is in the northern and western ditches. Partially held in check to the east and south, he is master of the two northern transverse galleries and tries to advance in the stairway. What is more, he has clambered on top, and, from there, searches the southern side with machine-gun fire. Any sortie becomes difficult, if not impossible. All the lines of communication are cut. Nothing is left but carrier-pigeons and signals. The garrison is huddled together in the barracks. It still has access to the observing stations and the single north-western transverse gallery, which has no opening towards the outside. Here they have succeeded in setting up a machine-gun to sweep the southern ditch.
“A large number of wounded and fugitives,” said Major Raynal in his signal message. There is almost as much danger here as outside. The sight of dying men, so continuous and so close at hand, is likely to shake the morale of the garrison. Orders are transmitted more slowly in the crowded and littered corridors. Finally, if there is enough tinned meat and biscuits for all, the supply of water will soon give out.