At the moment when our agony was at an end, when hope revived, when, even, certain men giving way to fatigue had bent down on to their wallets drunk with sleep,—at that moment we fell definitely into the mouse-trap into which the Germans had methodically decoyed us, and a desperate attack was made on us from all sides. The drama took place so rapidly that I can remember only detached shreds of it. The clouds parted, letting fall a flood of moonlight; somewhere a cry resounded in the night, and the black forest seemed to spit fire. Thousands of brief flashes lit up each thicket, a hail of bullets thinned the column, and mingled with this were cries and a terrible neighing from the horses, some of which reared, while others lay kicking on the ground, dragging their riders and their kits in a spasm of terrible agony. Instinctively each trooper made a “left turn” and galloped furiously to get out of range of this murderous fire which decimated our ranks. In a few seconds we had put two hundred mètres between the forest and us, and the two squadrons rallied under cover of a slight mist.

As we rode a squadron sergeant-major, Dangel, gave a groan, as his horse carried him off after the others. Then I saw him collapse, pitch forward on his nose on to his horse’s fore shoulder and fall to the ground, to be dragged. I leapt from my horse and managed to disengage his foot. Holding him in my arms, I begged him to show a little pluck. “We must clear out of this or we will be taken prisoners. For God’s sake get on your horse.” His only response was a long sigh, then his heavy body collapsed in my arms, and he dragged me to the ground. For a second I was perplexed. The others were far off, and I alone remained behind with a dying man in my arms, who clasped me in desperate embrace. At last his arms let go, and a spasm stretched him dead at my feet. I laid him piously on the grass with his face to the sky, and when I had finished this last duty to a comrade, I raised my head and saw a whole line of skirmishers fifty mètres off. For a moment a feeling possessed me that I could not get away; but, damme, they were not going to take me alive. An extraordinary calm came over me.

I remounted slowly, made sure that I had picked up all four reins and lowered my lance. Now, by the grace of God ... now for it. A volley greeted my departure, but it was written that I was to escape. Several bullets grazed me, not one hit me. Soon I was out of range and concealed by a curtain of fog. I rejoined the two squadrons, many of whose troopers were without horses. Two hundred mètres farther on a fresh fusillade came from the invisible trenches and decimated our already thinned ranks. Captain de Tarragon, whose horse had been wounded, pitched forward and remained pinned under his horse. I passed by him at the gallop hardly seeing him, and I heard a shout that seemed to illumine the very darkness: “Charge, my lads.” This shout, repeated by all, swelled, increased and became a savage clamour, which must have paralysed the enemy, for the fusillade ceased and cries of “Wer da” were heard at different points.

Afterwards I shut my eyes and tried to remember, but for some moments everything was mixed up. I recall a furious gallop at the dark holes where the Germans had gone to earth. A high trench embankment faced us and my horse got to the other side after a monstrous scramble. Before me and on my right and left I saw horses taking complete somersaults; I could not say whether it lasted a minute or an hour. The pains and the privations of the last three days culminated in a moment of madness. We had to get through, cost what it might; we had to bowl over everything, break through everything, but get through all the same, and our hot and furious gallop grew faster under the heedless moon, which bathed the country with its pale and gentle light. Three times we charged, three times we charged down on the obstacle without knowing its nature, until the remains of the two squadrons found themselves, breathless, in a little depression at the edge of a wood, before an impassable wall of barbed wire.

Impatient voices shouted for wire-cutters, and during the delay before these were forthcoming, a few panic-mongers blurted out false news, which soon circulated and which all believed: “The enemy is advancing in skirmishing order.” “We are going to be shot down at point-blank range,” etc.... Had the news been true, I would not have given much for our skins. Huddled together like a flock of sheep before the gap which some of our men were exerting themselves to open up for our passage, a handful of resolute infantry could have killed every one of us.

At last the gap was made and I descended a steep slope between the thin stems of the birches, having been sent forward as scout by my Major, whom I was never to see again. Below, a figure in silhouette and bareheaded was resting on his sword in the middle of a clearing bathed in moonlight. He watched me coming, and I was astonished to recognise in him the officer of my troop. For a brief moment each had taken the other for an enemy, and at twenty mètres off we were each ready to fall on the other. Our mutual recognition was none the less cordial. M. Chatelin refused my horse, which I offered to him, deciding to try to regain our lines on foot under cover of night (which he did after having knocked over two German sentries). He warned me expressly against some skirmishers concealed in a thicket behind me, and after a hearty handshake and a “good luck,” which sounded supremely ironical between two such isolated individuals, lost in the heart of German “territory,” I watched his thin silhouette melt into the darkness.

I made my way back to give an account of my mission and to tell the Major that this route was impracticable for the two squadrons. Above, the plain extended to infinity, white in the moonlight, with no vestige of a human being! All that was to be seen were two horses which galloped wildly to an accompaniment of clashing stirrups, and the uneasy neighs of lost animals—that whinny of the horse which has something so human in it gave me a shudder. How was it that two squadrons had had the time, during my brief absence, to melt and disappear?

What road have they found? Why have they abandoned me? The terror of desolation took the place of my former calm. To die with the others in the midst of a charge would have been fine; but to feel oneself lost and alone in all this mystery, in this endless night, in the midst of thousands of invisible enemies, was a bit too much. It was a childish nightmare and, seized with the same panic as the lost horses, I too spurred mine till his flanks bled, and I set off straight before me galloping like a madman. Luck, or perhaps my horse who scented his stable companions, brought me all at once to a small contingent of dragoons,—Captain de Salverte and eleven men, with whom I joined up. I questioned the Captain, who could tell me nothing. He had found himself detached and lost like me, and he had put himself at our head to try to get us out of this inextricable position. We walked on gloomily through a country cut up by hedges and streams. Shortly, we found ourselves within a few mètres of an enemy’s bivouac, the fires of which made the shadows dance on our drawn faces. A stupid sentry was warming himself, and had his back turned to us. What was the good of struggling? Why cheat oneself with chimerical illusions? The day would dawn and we would be ingloriously surprised and sent to some prisoner’s camp in the centre of Germany, unless, choosing to die rather than yield, we kept for ourselves the last shot in our magazines.

However, we reached the forest. In the maze of dark paths we lost the Captain and Sergeant Pathé. With Farrier Sergeant-Major Delfour, and Sergeant-Major Desoil of the machine-gun section, nine of us were left, and we were determined to try a last effort, spurred by an awakening of that instinct of self-preservation which stiffens the desire to live in the very face of death.

Deep in the forest we passed the night concealed in a thicket, taking pity on our horses, which would have died had we demanded a further effort of them. Soon we were overpowered by sleep, sleep so profound that the entire German army might have surprised us, without our raising a little finger to get away.

At daybreak we continued our way, with stiff and benumbed limbs and soaking clothing. It was a beautiful autumn day. Wisps of pink mist wrapped to the tree tops. A large stag watched our coming with uneasy surprise, standing in the middle of a paved road on his slim legs. He disappeared with a bound into a clump of bushes, whose swaying branches let fall a shower of silver drops. A divine peace possessed all space. In a clearing some thirty loose horses had got together. The larger number were saddled and carried the complete equipment of regiments of dragoons and of chasseurs. The lances lay on the ground, together with complete sets of kit and mess tins. Surely the enemy had not passed this way or he would have laid hands on all this material so hurriedly abandoned; and yet no human being was about who could tell us anything, not even a lost soldier. There was no one but ourselves and the immense tranquil forest, gilded by early autumn, splashed with the dark green of the oaks and with every shade of colour from ardent purple to the white leaf of the aspen.

That glorious dawn shone on the greatest victory the world had ever seen. The battle was over for the armies of Maunoury, of French, of Franchet, of d’Estrey, of Foch, and of Langle de Cary. The pursuit was beginning, and the whole extent of country, where we were now wandering, pursued and tracked like wild beasts, was going to be cleared within a few hours of the last German who had sullied its soil.

More than thrice during the morning we came unexpectedly on German detachments, isolated parties, lost patrols or stragglers, and each time we cut across the wood to escape them at the risk of breaking our necks. Then we got to a long straight path at the lower end of which a fine limousine motor-car had been abandoned, and at the end of the path we reached a village which appeared to be empty. We consulted together for a moment, being in doubt what to do; but all of us were loth to return to the forest. This was the fifth day of our fast; so much the worse for us; it was time to put an end to it, so we made our way to an abandoned farm. We sheltered there for two hours, scanning the surrounding country for signs of life. Everything seemed dead. We could see no peasant, no civilian, not even an animal, and this waiting was one torment the more, but it was to be the last. Not till ten o’clock, over there, very far off, did I catch sight of the thin black caterpillar of a column of soldiers coming our way during my turn of sentry-go. My heart beat violently, but I refrained from giving the news to my comrades from the fear of raising false hopes. My eyes burnt like flame and my teeth chattered. If these were Germans the game was up. If they were French, oh! then!

I looked, I looked with my eyes pressing out of my head. At times, as I strained my eyes, everything grew misty and I could see nothing; then, a second later, I again found this growing caterpillar and I began to distinguish details. There were squadrons of cavalry, but I could not yet make out the colour; and my body, from being icy cold, turned to burning hot. At times I forced myself not to look. I looked again, counted twenty, and then devoured space with my eyes.

A patrol had been detached, and approached rapidly at the trot; this time I recognised French Hussars. Then all strength of will, and all my effort to remain calm disappeared. I turned my reeling head towards my comrades and I fell on the grass crying, crying like a madman, in words without sequence. The fatigue of these five days without food or drink, almost without sleep, and the living in a perpetual nightmare, brought on a nervous crisis, and my whole body was racked with spasms. My comrades, not having as yet understood, looked at me with astonishment. With a gesture I pointed out the approaching column, the pale blue of which contrasted brightly with the gold of the leaves. All of them, as soon as they had seen it, were overcome as I had been, each in his own way. Some burst into brusque convulsive sobs, others danced, waving their arms like madmen or rather like poor wretches who have passed days of suffering and agony on a raft in mid-ocean, and who suddenly see a ship approaching to their rescue.

CHAPTER IV

VERBERIE THE CENTRE OF THE RALLY—THE EPIC OF A YOUNG GIRL—MASS IN THE OPEN AIR—FROM DAY TO DAY

10th September to 20th October, 1914

The battle finished on the tenth, and then the pursuit of the conquered army commenced and kept the whole world in suspense, with eyes fixed on this headlong flight towards the north, which lasted till the end of the month, and which was to be the prelude of the great battles of the Yser.

The region round Verberie was definitely cleared of Germans and was become once more French. The little town for some days presented an extraordinary spectacle.

We entered the town after having received the formal assurance of the 5th Chasseurs, who went farther on, that all the country was in our hands. Some divisional cyclists were seated at the roadside. We asked them for news of the 22nd, and their reply wrung our hearts. They knew nothing definite, but they had met a country cart full of our wounded comrades, who had told them that the regiment had been cut up.

No one could tell us where the divisional area was to be found. The division itself appeared to have been dismembered, lost and in part destroyed. We thought that we were the only survivors of a disaster, and, once the horses were in shelter in an empty abandoned farm stuffing themselves with hay, we wandered sadly through the streets destroyed by bombardment and by fire in search of such civilians as might have remained behind during the invasion.

A little outside the town we at last found a farm where two of the inhabitants had stayed on. The contrast between them was touching. One was a paralysed old man unable to leave his fields, the other was a young girl of fifteen, a frail little peasant, and rather ugly. Her strange green eyes contrasted with an admirable head of auburn hair, and she had heroically insisted on looking after her infirm grandfather, though all the rest of the family had emigrated towards the west. She had remained faithful to her duty in spite of the bombardment, the battle at their very door and the ill-treatment of the Bavarian soldiers who were billeted in the farm. Distressed, yet joyous, she prepared a hasty meal and busied herself in quest of food, for it was anything but easy to satiate eleven men dying of hunger when the Germans, who lay hands on everything, had only just left.

She wrung the neck of an emaciated fowl which had escaped massacre, and, by adding thereto some potatoes from the garden, she served us a breakfast, washed down with white wine, which made us stammer with joy, like children. One needs to have fasted for five days to have felt the cutting pains of hunger and of thirst in all their horror, to appreciate the happiness that one can experience in eating the wing of a scraggy fowl and in drinking a glass of execrable wine tasting like vinegar. She bustled about, and her pitying and motherly gestures touched our hearts. While we ate she told us the most astonishing story that ever was, a story acted, illustrated by gestures, which made the scenes live with remarkable vividness.

She told us how, faithful to her oath, she was alone when the Bavarians came knocking at her door, how she lived three days with them, a butt for their innumerable coarsenesses, sometimes brutally treated when the soldiers were sober, sometimes pursued by their gross assiduities when they were drunk; how one night she had to fly half naked through the rain, slipping out through the vent-hole of the cellar, to escape being violated by a group of madmen, not daring to go to bed again, sleeping fully dressed behind a small copse; how at last French chasseurs had put the Bavarians to flight and had in their turn installed themselves in the farm, and how among them she felt herself protected and respected.

She attached herself to her new companions, whom she looked after like a mother for three days. Then they went away, promising to return, and she was left alone.

But the next day at dawn, uneasy at the row that came from the town, she decided to go in search of news. She put on a shawl and slipped through the brushwood and thickets as far as the first houses. She was afraid of being seen, and made herself as small as possible, keeping close to the walls, crossing gardens and ruined houses. The terrible noise increased, and she went towards it. She wanted to see what was going on, and a fine virile courage sustained her. The shells fell near her; no matter, she had only a few more steps to go to turn the corner of a street. She arrived on the place as the battle was finishing.

Her fifteen chasseurs were there, fifteen corpses at the foot of the barricade. One of them, who still lived, raised himself on seeing her, and held out his arms towards her. Then, forgetting all danger, in a magnificent outburst of feminine pity, she braved the rain of fire and dashed to the centre of the place. She knelt by the young fellow, enveloped him in her shawl to warm him and rocked him in her arms till he closed his young eyes for ever, thankful for this feminine presence which had made his last sufferings less bitter.

While she remained kneeling on the pavement wet with blood, a last big calibre shell knocked over, almost at her feet, a big corner house, which in its fall buried the German and French corpses in one horrible heap. She fell in a faint on the stones, knocked over by the windage of the shell, which had so nearly done for her.

During the latter part of her discourse she straightened her thin figure to the full, her strange eyes sparkled, and she appeared to be possessed by some strong and mysterious spirit which made us tremble. She became big in her rustic simplicity—big, as the incarnation of grief and of pity, and the peasant in her gave place to a living image of the war—an image singularly moving and singularly beautiful.

From the next day Verberie became in some degree the rallying point for all soldiers who had lost touch with their units. Elements of all sorts of regiments, of all arms, of all races even, arrived on foot, on horseback, on bicycles, in country carts. There were dragoons, cuirassiers, chasseurs, artillerymen, Algerian Light Infantry and English. Bernous, khaki uniform, blue capes, rubbed shoulders with dolmans, black tunics and red trousers.

In this extraordinary crowd there were men from Morocco mounted on Arab horses and wearing turbans; there were “Joyeux” who wore the tarboosh, and ruddy English faces surmounted by flat caps. All the uniforms were covered with dirt and slashed and torn. Many of the men had bare feet, and some carried arms and some were without. It was the hazard of the colossal battle of the Marne, where several millions of men had been at grips, which had thrown them on this point. All were animated by the same desire for information, and particularly of the whereabouts of their respective regiments. From every direction flowed in convoys, waggons, artillery ammunition waggons, stragglers from every division and from every army corps. The mix-up and the confusion were indescribable. One heard shouting, swearing, neighing of horses, the horns of motor-cars, and the rumble of heavy waggons, which shook the houses.

Faces drawn with fatigue were black with dust and mud and framed in stubbly beards. Everyone was gesticulating, everyone was shouting and a bright autumn sun, following upon the storm, threw into prominence amongst the medley of clothing the luminous splashes of gaudy colours and imparted an Oriental effect to the crowd.

Having eaten, washed and rested, I walked the streets, drinking the morning air and taking deep breaths of the joie de vivre, of the strength and vitality mingled with the air. I looked on every side to see whether I could not find some acquaintance in the crowd, some stray trooper from my regiment.

So it was that the hazard of my walk brought me to a scene which moved me to tears and which rests graven so deeply on my memory that I can see its smallest detail with my eyes shut. The Gothic porch of the church, with its fine sculptures of the best period, was open, making in the brightness of the morning a pit of shade, at the foot of which some candles shone like stars. On the threshold of the porch, gaily lighted by the morning sun, a priest, whose fine virile face I can still recall, held in his hand the enamel pyx, and his surplice of lace of a dazzling whiteness contrasted with the muddy boots and spurs. One could guess that after having traversed some field of battle, consoling the wounded and the dying, he had dismounted to officiate in the open air under the morning sun.

Before him, on a humble country cart and lying on a bed of straw, were stretched the rigid bodies, fixed in death, of two chasseurs who had fallen nobly while defending the bridge over the river. All around, kneeling in the mud of the porch, a semicircle of bareheaded soldiers, overcome by gratitude and humility, were assembled to accomplish a last duty and pay their last respects to the two comrades who were lying before them and who were sleeping their last sleep in their blood-stained uniforms, and assisted at the supreme office. The priest finished the De profundis, and in a clear voice pronounced the sacred words “Revertitur in terram suam unde erat et spiritus redit ad Deum qui dedit illum.” The officiant gave the holy-water sprinkler to the priest, who sprinkled the bodies and murmured “Requiescat in pace.” “Amen,” responded the kneeling crowd, and a great wave of religious feeling passed over the kneeling men, the greater part of whom gave way to overmastering emotion.

I can still see a big devil of an artilleryman, with his head between his hands, shaken by convulsive sobs. Having given the absolution, the priest raised the host sparkling in the sunlight for the last time and pronounced the sacramental words. I moved off, deeply affected by the grandeur of the scene.

By the 12th a good number of 22nd Dragoons and some officers of the regiment had rejoined at Verberie. We formed from this débris an almost complete squadron under the command of Captain de Salverte, who had succeeded in getting through the lines by skirting the forest.

I again found my officer, M. Chatelin, whom I had last seen in the little clearing near Gilocourt, surrounded by lurking enemies, and whom I had hardly dared hope to see again alive; also M. de Thézy, my comrade Clère and others.

We were all sorry to hear that Lieutenant Roy had fallen on the field of battle with several others, and that Major Jouillié had been taken prisoner. As for Captain de Tarragon, it was stated that he might have escaped on foot with his orderly and that he might be somewhere in the neighbourhood with a contingent of escaped men, but any precise information was wanting.

The night before I had slept in the drawing-room of the château belonging to M. de Maindreville, the mayor. Its appearance merits some brief description, so that those who are still in doubt as to the savagery of the Germans may learn to what degree of bestiality and ignominy they are capable of attaining.

This fine drawing-room was a veritable dung heap. The curtains were torn, the small billiard-table lay upside down in the middle of the room, a litter of rotting food covered the floor, the furniture was in matchwood, the chairs were broken, the easy-chairs had had their stuffing torn out of them and the glass of the cabinets was smashed. One could see that all small objects had been carried off and all others methodically broken. On the first floor the sight was heart-breaking. Fine linen, trimmed with lace, was soiled with excrement; excrement was everywhere, in the bath, on the sheets, on the floor. They had vomited on the beds and urinated against the walls; broken bottles had shed seas of red wine on the costly carpets. An unnamable liquid was running down the staircase, obscene designs were traced in charcoal on the wall-papers and filthy inscriptions ornamented the walls.

I have told enough to give an idea of the degrading traces left by a contemptible enemy. I have exaggerated nothing; if anything, I have understated the truth.

And this is the people that wants to be the arbiter of culture and of civilisation! May it stand for ever shamed and reduced to its true level, which is below that of the brute beast.

On the morning of the 12th, under the command of Captain de Salverte we crossed the Oise by a bridge of boats, the stone bridge having been destroyed by dynamite some days before. We went north to billet at Estrée-Saint-Denis, which was to be the definite rallying point of the 22nd Dragoons. We were followed by several country carts, full of dismounted troopers, saddles, lances, cloaks and odds and ends of equipment.

Acting on very vague information, I set out on the 13th to look for Captain de Tarragon. I was mounted on a prehistoric motor bicycle, requisitioned from the village barber. I scoured the country seeking information from everyone I met. I received the most contradictory reports, made a thousand useless detours and was exasperated when overtaken by night without having found any trace of him.

I followed the road leading to Baron and to Nanteuil-le-Haudoin, along which but a few days before the corps of Landwehr, asked for by von Kluck, had marched with the object of enveloping our army, and along which it had just been precipitately hustled back. The sky was overcast and the day threatening. At each step dead horses with swelled bellies threatened heaven with their stiff legs. A score of soldiers were lying in convulsed attitudes, their eyes wide open, with grimacing mouths twisted into a terrifying smile, and with hands clasping their rifles. Involuntarily I trembled at finding myself alone at nightfall in this deserted country, where no living being was to be seen, where not a sound was to be heard except the cawing of thousands of crows and the purr of my motor, which panted on the hills like an asthmatic old man, causing me the liveliest anxiety.

Fifteen hundred mètres from Baron, after a last gasp, my machine stopped for ever, and, as I was ignorant of its mechanics, I was compelled to leave it where it was and continue my journey on foot through the darkness.

The proprietor of the château of Baron put me up for the night. As at Verberie, everything had been burnt, soiled and destroyed. Nothing remained of the elegant furniture beyond a heap of shapeless objects. Next morning with the aid of a captain on the staff who requisitioned a trap for me, I got back to Verberie and found Captain de Tarragon there. He had slept at the farm of La Bonne Aventure, quite near to where I lay.

When he saw me, after the mortal anxieties through which he had lived, believing his squadron lost and cut up, he was overcome by such a feeling of gratitude and joy that I saw tears rise to his eyes while he shook me vigorously by the hand. He had already sent forward my name for mention in the order for the day with reference to the affair at Gilocourt and the death of poor Dangel. I was recommended for the military medal, and my heart swelled with pride and joy, while I was carried back to Estrée-Saint-Denis, stretched out in a country cart with a score of dismounted comrades.

A few days afterwards I was promoted corporal and proudly sported the red flannel chevrons bought at a country grocer’s shop.

Once the half-regiment was reconstituted after a fashion, though many were missing (a detachment of fifty men without horses having returned to the depot), we were attached to the 3rd Cavalry Division, which happened to be in our neighbourhood, ours having left the area for some unknown destination. Until the 1st of October our lot was bound up with that of the 4th Cuirassiers, who marched with us.

On the 23rd of September, as supports for the artillery, we were present at violent infantry actions between Nesle and Billancourt. The 4th Corps attacked, and the furious struggle extended over the whole country. My troop was detached as flank guard and, in the thick morning fog, we knocked up against a handful of German cavalry, whom, in the distance, we had taken for our own men.

We charged them at a gallop, and we noticed that they were tiring and that we were gaining on them. One of them drew his sabre and cut his horse’s flanks with it, whilst a non-commissioned officer turned and fired his revolver without hitting us; but, thanks to the fog, they got away. We did not tempt providence by following them too far for fear of bringing up in their lines.

At night we were sent to reconnoitre some fires which were reddening the horizon and which, from a distance, seemed vast conflagrations. We came upon a bivouac of Algerian troops, who were squatting on their heels, warming themselves, singing strange African melodies and giving to this corner of French soil an appearance of Algeria.

On hearing the sound of our horses they sprang to arms with guttural cries, but when they had recognised that we were French they insisted on embracing our officer and danced round us like children.

We billeted at Parvillers in a half-destroyed farm, and there at daybreak a sight that suggested an hallucination met our eyes. Some ten German soldiers were there in the courtyard dead, mowed down by the “75,” but in such natural attitudes that but for their waxen colour one could have believed them alive. One was standing holding on to a bush, his hand grasping the branches. His face bespoke his terror, his mute mouth seemed as if in the act of yelling and his eyes were dilated with fear. A fragment of shell had pierced his chest. Another was on his knees, propped against a wall, under cover of which he had sought shelter from the murderous fire. I approached to see where his wound was and it took me a moment to discover it, so intact was the corpse. I saw at last that he had had the whole of the inside of his cranium carried away and hollowed out, as if by some surgical instrument. His tongue and his eyes were kept in place by a filament of flesh, and his spiked helmet had rolled off by his side. An officer was seated on some hay, with his legs apart and his head thrown back, looking at the farm.

All these eyes fixed us with a terrifying immobility, with a look of such acute terror that our men turned away, as if afraid of sharing it; and not one of them dared to touch the magnificent new equipment of the Germans, which would have tempted them in any other circumstances. There were aluminium water-bottles and mess tins, helmet plates of shining copper and sculptured regimental badges dear to the hearts of soldiers, and which they have the habit of collecting as trophies.

The dawn of the 25th broke without a cloud over the village of Folies. A heat haze hid the early morning sun. The enemy were quite near, and the sentries on the barricades gave the alarm. The cuirassiers and dragoons, leaving their horses under cover, had been on watch in the surrounding country since the morning to protect the village and the batteries of “75’s,” which were firing from a little way back.

A non-commissioned officer and I had remained mounted. M. de Thézy sent us to investigate some horsemen whose shadows had loomed through the mist and whom we had seen dismount in an apple orchard near the village of Chocques. We set off at a quiet trot, convinced that we had to deal with some French hussars whom I had seen go that way an hour before. We crossed a field of beetroot and made straight towards them. They seemed anchored to the spot, and when we were within one hundred mètres, and they showed no signs of moving, our confidence increased. The fog seemed to grow thicker and our horses, now at the walk, scented no danger. We were within fifty mètres of them when a voice spoke out and the word “carbine” reached us distinctly, carried by a light breeze. The non-commissioned officer turned to me, his suspicions completely stilled, and said, “We can go on, they are French, I heard the word carbine.” At the same instant I saw the group come to the shoulder and a dozen jets of fire tore the mist with short red flashes. A hail of bullets fell all around us, and we had only just time enough to put between them and ourselves as much fog as would conceal us, for before turning tail we had seen the confused grey mass of a column coming out of the village. We had only to warn the artillery and then there would be some fun.

The lieutenant of artillery was two kilomètres back perched on a ladder. Having listened to what we had to say, he turned towards his gun and cried through a megaphone, “2600, corrector 18.” We were already far off, returning at the gallop to try to see the effect, and it was a fine sight.

Leaving the horses in a farm, we slipped from tree to tree. There was the column, still advancing. A first shell, ten mètres in front of it, stopped it short; immediately a second fell on the left, wounding some men, and a horse reared and upset its rider. A third shell struck mercilessly into the centre of the column and caused an explosion which sent flying, right and left, dark shapes which we guessed to be fragments of bodies. It rained shell, which struck the road with mathematical precision, sowing death and panic. In the twinkling of an eye the road was swept clean. The survivors bolted in every direction like madmen, and the agonising groans of a dying horse echoed through the whole country-side.

On the 1st of October we rejoined our division and the first half-regiment at Tilloy-les-Mofflaines. Up to the 20th we passed through a period of great privation and fatigue owing to the early frosts. We were unable to sleep for as many as five days on end, and when at night we had a few hours in which to rest, we passed them lying on the pavement of the street, propped up against some heap of coal or of stones, holding our horses’ reins, each huddled up against his neighbour to try and keep warm.

Here are extracts from my diary, starting from 8th October:

CHAPTER V

THE TWO GLORIOUS DAYS OF STADEN

On October 19th, at midday, we rode into Hougled. The Captain got us together and warned us that we were being sent on in front to delay the march of the enemy till our infantry had had time to come up. The enemy’s march had to be delayed at all costs. He did not conceal from us that two, or perhaps three, divisions had been marked down in front of us, that the task would be a stiff one and that it was a question of “sticking it out” to the last drop of our blood.

We then received orders to prepare for a dismounted action, and, leaving our horses in a street, we set off across the ploughed fields, laden with ammunition. I carried a big cartridge case, which I usually left in my wallets on account of its weight.

Some round clouds, of a snowy whiteness, which made them stand out against the crude and washy blue of the background, scudded across the sky, carried by a stiff breeze. All Nature was en fête, and the fresh strong wind was intoxicating.

Towards four o’clock the enemy showed himself in sections and in companies, well aligned on the plain beneath us. There was no attempt at concealment, as, doubtless, the village was thought to be unoccupied.

Under cover of some thin brushwood we opened fire on these regular formations, to show that we were there and not in the least impressed by these demonstrations of company and field training. It was just like being on manœuvres, and these awkward soldiers seemed rather ridiculous, gravely doing the goose-step, when so soon it would be a question of killing or being killed.

We must have got their range, for we noted through field-glasses a slight confusion in the enemy’s ranks, and, instantaneously, the advancing infantry disappeared. They were still there, however, for their bullets, slipping over the ridge where we offered a good target, pitted the turf all round us, happily without wounding any one. The Germans have a remarkable faculty of making themselves scarce in the twinkling of an eye as soon as they have been seen by an enemy, like those insects which, at the least noise, blend with the grass on which they are perched.

Our naval guns, ranged by the side of the road, fired over the plain. An observing officer, standing on his horse’s back, judged the effects of the fire. We saw the shells burst in beautiful plumes of dark or light smoke. The enemy’s fusillade ceased, much to our satisfaction.

But the German artillery began to reply, and we were soon subjected to such a fire that we had to retreat towards the village, being uneasy about our horses, which happened to be in the line of fire. In going along the main street we kept close to the walls to avoid the shell splinters. Shells of all calibres fell without ceasing, making holes in the thin slate roofs and breaking the windows. I saw one pierce a wall some paces in front of me and burst inside a house, whose stories collapsed, one on the top of the other. It was just like an earthquake, the whole street was shaken by it.

We made for our horses at the double and found them plunging under this storm of fire, and we galloped off behind the village to get them into safety. Without losing a second we distributed extra cartridges in large numbers and returned to take our place between the farms in the grass fields shut in by hedges and barriers. We worked at fortifying our positions till evening. Everyone made “his trench.” (That word had then another signification; at that time the word trench represented for us the least scooped-out hole, the least obstacle placed between the enemy and us.)

We protected ourselves with sand-bags, faggots, agricultural implements, etc. We were hardly installed before we received an order to leave this place and to occupy a road on the right, running between two meadows. We made a barricade at the end of it, somehow or other, with whatever came to hand.

The infantry, expected at four o’clock, were late, and it became questionable whether it would be materially possible to hold out much longer, if the Germans attacked, taking into consideration the disproportion between our forces and those of the enemy.

Night had hardly come when an infernal fusillade broke out, and it lasted till daylight without the least slackening. It was exactly like an uninterrupted salvo fire, with the addition of the sharp, regular dry crackle of machine-guns. Thousands of projectiles struck our fragile barricade or passed, whistling, over our heads. We fired straight in front of us into the dark night, without knowing what we aimed at, except that our fire was directed towards the place whence this murderous storm of shot and shell came.

Constantly the same question ran from man to man: “Have the infantry come up?” for we knew that our lives depended on their arrival. Our orders were: “You will prevent the Germans passing till you have been relieved.”

We had only a handful of troopers, two hundred perhaps, to check the onslaught of a formidable mass of infantry. Unless our infantry came to our aid we would be cut up to a man; but the enemy should have to pass over our bodies.

Overcome with fatigue, and in spite of the thunder all round us, I fell asleep, suddenly, heavily, dreamlessly, in a little ditch which ran by the roadside. I don’t know when I awoke. The noise of the combat was dominated by a clamour still louder and more penetrating: a part of the village of Staden was on fire. A horde of Germans dashed into it, yelling “Hourraa!” A diabolical clamour rose to heaven, and yells and cries of bestial joy mounted with the thick smoke of the fires.

We learnt afterwards that they had charged empty barricades, a party of our men having evacuated the town an hour previously. A corporal of the 1st squadron, posted a little more to the left, told me he had seen them 200 yards off defiling in quick step “silhouetted like devils” against the glare of the fire.

Still no infantry.

A torpor seized me and I fell back into the ditch, overcome by sleep, and slept again till almost daylight. From that moment events moved with great rapidity. It must have been seven o’clock when the infantry at last arrived, fifteen hours late. We heard hurried footsteps. I turned and saw troops falling back in hot haste, being irresistibly outflanked by the enemy. They seemed to be pursued by assailants who were on their heels. I heard voices exclaiming, “It is pitiable to see fellows so up against it.” I said nothing, but, in my inner consciousness, I clearly understood that the supreme moment was come for many of us.

For a moment I feared that we had been forgotten in the general movement. Soon afterwards Captain de Tarragon appeared at the cross-roads. I can see him still; he looked immensely big in his blue cloak. Without speaking, he signalled to us that we could retire. It was time indeed, for the enemy outflanked us on all sides. The troop doubled towards him and ran on. Magrin and I remained alongside him. Never so much as then have I felt the irresistible force of Destiny. It was written that I was to remain with him until the end.

We three reached a farm on the crest of the ridge; 400 mètres off a German company was advancing. The Captain seized a carbine from the hands of a late-comer who fled past us and turned round to open fire. Faithful to my oath, and knowing that our lives hung on a thread, I fired off the contents of my magazine alongside of him. I aimed as best I could, though my greatcoat interfered, and I shot into the brown. A second later the German reply crumbled the wall of the farm, passing between the Captain and me, two fingers’ breadth over our heads.

I implored de Tarragon not to expose himself any longer. What was the use of this heroic folly of standing up alone against an advancing battalion of the enemy? Doubtless our regiment was already a long way off, but we might, perhaps, be able to rejoin it by crawling along the deep ditch which ran by the roadside.

Hate of the enemy seemed, however, to rage in his heart, and he replied, “It is too bad to have to abandon such a target!” At last, his cartridges being exhausted, he decided to retire, without running, and seeming to defy the entire world with his tall well set-up figure of a handsome French soldier. Instead of taking to the ditch which ran by the roadside, he crossed the field of fire. I followed him, without understanding, and Magrin did likewise.

A moment afterwards our number was increased to four by the arrival of an officer of hussars or of chasseurs, who came running up. All my life I shall remember this last. He was young, elegant and good-looking, and so trim and neat with his sky-blue cap jauntily set at an angle. When two mètres off he opened his mouth as if to speak, but before having emitted a sound he fell dead, hit by a bullet under the ear.

The Captain, who was at my side, stepped forward to put himself, at last, under shelter. Hardly had he taken a step before a bullet hit him, and I uttered a cry of rage on seeing him fall in a heap. Feigning to be wounded or dead, to deceive the enemy and cause the cessation of his fire, I fell also, and both of us rolled into the deep ditch.

There was not a minute to lose. “Magrin, quick, quick, no good troubling about the Lieutenant of chasseurs, he’s dead; but perhaps the Captain is still alive, we must get him away.” Magrin, who had tumbled down after me, believing me hit, raised the Captain’s head and I took his feet. A hail of bullets passed like a squall above our heads. We stayed so a good five minutes, exhausting ourselves in useless efforts to carry off this inert body. On account of its weight it was impossible even to move it in the squatting and unhandy position in which we found ourselves.

He did not regain consciousness for an instant; once his eyes opened, then the eyelids quivered and his head fell back heavily. He was dead, and we could not think of getting him away. The fire was furious. Magrin and I, who had remained behind till the last, now tried to gain the farm behind which our regiment was massed. We made three mètres under cover of the ditch, and then we covered a hundred mètres at the run, under such a rain of bullets, aimed at us, that I attribute our escape to a miracle. My greatcoat and cape were riddled. As I turned the corner of the house, that corner even was torn off and the broken bricks fell on me. I passed by some bicycles abandoned against a wall, and, after I had gone by, I heard the sharp crack of broken spokes, which the bullets had cut.

Once I had passed the corner I found shelter for an instant. I came across Captain Besnier who was wounded, and helped to carry him. The road was strewn with the bodies of dragoons, chasseurs and cyclists. Behind the house were a brick-field and a clay-pit, whose slippery crest had to be crossed. I saw some unlucky fellows get half over, within two paces of safety, and then roll to the bottom, hit by the pitiless machine-guns.

The firing redoubled. Major Chapin, who had arrived at the front only three days before, fell hit through the head, and many others fell whom I did not know.

The command of our party devolved on Lieutenant Mielle, and, following an order from the dying Major Chapin, we took the direction of the railway bridge on the right. Lieutenant Desonney was wounded and lay out a hundred mètres off. I heard the Colonel cry in a loud voice with an accent of despair which is untranslatable, “Won’t someone bring in Desonney?” and one after the other five dragoons unhesitatingly left their shelter and threw themselves into the furnace of fire, each of them as he fell, within a few yards, and to be immediately replaced by another. The whole regiment would have gone if the Colonel had not put a stop to such heroic obedience.

But what was going on? Amidst the noise of battle the clear notes of a bugle mounted to heaven; both sides hesitated. They were the well-known notes sounding the charge. We turned, and a sight of unspeakable grandeur met our eyes.

The dismounted 1st squadron, lance in hand, charged into the whirlwind of fire, to allow of the rest of the regiment falling back. The obsessing refrain made one’s temples throb. We were hypnotised, and the Colonel, standing up, unconscious of the bullets which grazed him, folded his arms and watched his admirable soldiers who, moved by almost superhuman brotherly devotion, braved the fire and retarded for a moment the enemy’s march so as to permit their comrades to escape. The Colonel watched, and great tears of pride and of anxiety ran down his tanned cheeks. When, once in one’s life, one has had the privilege of seeing such a deed, it lives with one for ever.

We now crawled across the railway. The machine-guns mowed the fields of beetroot as if they had been shaved off with a razor. Seven of us took this way and we all got through, I don’t know how, without being touched. Then we slipped between the infantry sections which were advancing in skirmishing order on all sides. Some minutes later we were behind a ridge under cover and in safety. We reached a little shanty where we sheltered for a long time, and from the loft of which we could still fire on the enemy.

Towards 9 o’clock the musketry fire gradually diminished. We left the farm only when the artillery duel began. The shells came a bit too close, and there was the risk of the house falling in on us.

We went in search of the horses two kilomètres off, and retirement was decided on because of the need for food and rest. When I caught up the column at the trot I counted 47 led horses, which means that 47 men had fallen. Desonney’s troop had an officer and 14 men missing out of 28. We had lost a major, two captains, two lieutenants and many comrades, but we had made it possible for two army corps to come up.

A mere handful of men had put up a fight against three divisions. A fine page in the history of the regiment!

My greatcoat was handed round the squadron. A bullet had pierced the cloth four times under the heart, another twice through the arm, three others over the ribs.

Eight days afterwards, at Clarques, near Saint-Omer, where we were resting, promotions were made to replace the non-commissioned officers who had fallen gloriously that day. I was made sergeant-major.

CHAPTER VI

THE FUNERAL OF LORD ROBERTS—NIEUPORT-VILLE—IN THE TRENCHES—YPRES AND THE NEIGHBOURING SECTORS—I TRANSFER TO THE LINE

A memorable ceremony in which with others of the regiment I took part, was on the occasion of the ceremony at Saint-Omer in honour of Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, who had died on the 15th November while on a visit to the allied armies.

At half-past six the regiment was formed up on the road and the twelve best specimens of manhood were picked out from each troop. We were soaked by rain on the way, but the sun came out when the ceremony began.

We were formed up in battle array before the town hall. All round the square, on the edge of the pavement, a single rank of Highlanders, carefully sized, stood like statues. We waited the coffin, which appeared at last from a side street, preceded by a troop of English cavalry who marched slowly—their black horses were admirable creatures. Then came a section of infantry, fine, big, taking fellows, who marched with their heads down and their eyes fixed on the ground; next came superb Indian troops, who wore turbans, amongst whom were great native princes; then a contingent of Canadians, just disembarked; lastly some Highland pipers playing a lament whose refrain was eternally alike. We had heard this shrill lament for a long time, now it became stronger and more penetrating the nearer the cortège approached, and gave a strange exotic note to this old-fashioned setting of a little French town.

When the coffin appeared the Highlanders who formed the guard of honour executed a strange movement. They slowly described an arc of a circle with their rifles, their outstretched right arms forming an uninterrupted line all round the square, then each man finished the movement by crossing his arms on the butt-plate of his rifle, the muzzle of which was now resting on the ground.

With their heads bowed, these mourners resembled some old bas-relief. The coffin, enveloped in the Union Jack, was borne on a gun-carriage. It was all very simple and very moving.

To the wild notes of the Scottish bagpipes, now silent, the clear trumpets of our dragoons replied, and their sound was in itself like sparkling metal. They continued to sound until the remains of the Field-Marshal had been placed in the town hall.

After the ceremony, which we did not see, twenty-one guns thundered out, fired by batteries posted behind the square. An immense rainbow, as sharply defined as if drawn with a stroke of the brush, cut the sky with a perfect and uninterrupted semicircle. Symbol of peace, it came to earth directly behind the batteries, and the flash of the guns showed up against its iridescent screen.

An English officer came to tell the Colonel that the ceremony was over, and we returned to Clarques under a beating rain, which had begun to fall again.

Our next active work was at Nieuport. Motor buses brought us to Coxyde, where, amongst the slightly built villas of this watering-place, Belgian and French uniforms swarmed. Sand-dunes, on which the sand encroached on the scanty covering of grass, bordered the horizon on all sides.

Captain Vigoureux had sent me to lay out the camp with a corporal and one man. Clère, Hénon and I went on ahead at a sharp pace. From Coxyde to Ostdinkerque there was no trace of bombardment. On the road we met several lots of horses at exercise, some waggons, many soldiers and a few civilians. At Ostdinkerque a mill, two houses and a part of the church had been gutted yesterday. Some vehicles contained civilians, who were prudently clearing out.

From this place onwards (Nieuport-Ville was six kilomètres off) the road became more and more deserted and the noise of the guns became louder. At first we only heard the noise of our own batteries and the shell burst a long way off. Two kilomètres from Nieuport I heard the whistle of the first German shell, a shrapnel which burst some hundreds of mètres off. Several people on the road were peppered with the fragments of shell; the telegraph wires were broken and the rails of a tramway were torn up. The country was a desert, and the eye saw nothing but sand-dunes without end, and here our underground life began.

At the entrance to the town a prudent man on duty showed his profile at the door of a cellar. I asked him, “Where is Captain Mahot?” and he answered in an irritated voice: “Don’t stand there in the middle of the road, don’t you see that the shells are falling just where you are?” I had not noticed it, but I did not take long to find out. The man on duty led me five mètres underground to Lieutenant Deporte. “Sir, where is Captain Mahot? The town commandant of the 16th Dragoons? I see no one about.” “Everyone has gone to earth,” he replied, placidly filling his pipe, “and I advise you to hurry up and do likewise, for it comes down like hail just about now.” It did indeed. I heard the most disquieting sounds, the bursting of big shells, the splash of bullets, which flattened themselves against the houses. Some streets were enfiladed, and thousands of shrapnel bullets flew back and forward between the German trenches and ours.

The Lieutenant gave me a man to take me to the Captain’s cellar, which was at the other end of the town. He and I (I had left the others in a cellar) skirted the walls, and at every step what a sight! All that remained of the church resembled a sort of historic ruin—some pillars, some arches, very fine ones, and some sculptures lying on the ground. Everywhere the craters of the big shells had the dimensions of dried-up ponds. In the principal place there were two such, in which one could have put two houses.

Speaking of houses, some had been destroyed with an art and a refinement which made them look like builder’s models. One was standing, of which the only thing wanting was the outside wall facing the street, and one could see the section of the gaping interior. The pictures were hanging on the walls, and on the piano were photographs and nick-nacks. The drawing-room, the dining-room and the bedroom were intact; but the flooring of the attics had given way and everything had fallen through to the floor below. Another house was almost comical in appearance, for, against a wall on the lowest story, stood a fine bamboo rack, on which two statuettes of sham Saxe ware smiled an eternal and idiotic smile and seemed to jeer at the bombardment. Other houses, and these were the most numerous, were lamentable rubbish heaps, fallen in, blackened, broken up in every sense, blocking the streets and forming a hideous lamentable chaos. Even when no shell fell—and there were long moments of calm—the houses dropped to pieces of themselves. This one might lose the remainder of its tiles, which fell into the street with a din; the next one might drop, let us say, a stove, or a small billiard-table, from one floor to another.

I arrived at last at the end of my journey, having asked myself a thousand times whether I should not be pulverised on the way there. The worst bit was when I reached the last cross-roads. For the second time I asked an orderly whether this was the house—pardon, the cellar—of Captain Mahot, and for the second time I heard an irritated voice reply, “Don’t stay there in the middle of the street”; but this time I lost the end of the phrase, being blinded and deafened. The heavens seemed to fall on me. I heard, “Get under cover,” and I felt my tympanum shattered. A house twenty mètres from me, a large two-storied house, seemed to be transformed into a volcano. A shell had entered its middle, through the roof, and the whole house collapsed into the street, accompanied by a formidable fall of rafters, bricks and furniture. “You see that,” said the orderly in a severe tone; “get into the cellar.” I felt just like a little boy.

Five marines had been buried under the ruins. A little later I saw their bodies on stretchers. What a lamentable death for a sailor or soldier!

Captain Mahot said to me, “The billeting area of the 22nd Dragoons? Very good, there it is,” and he showed me the butt-end of “the shepstraat.” I looked at it in astonishment, saying to myself, “That?” Messina after the earthquake would have offered more comfort. Nevertheless I inspected the cellars and apportioned them amongst the troops, and, by myself this time, I returned through the town to my point of departure, to meet and conduct Captain Vigoureux, whom I found three hundred mètres beyond the gates.

This made the fourth time that I had made this disquieting journey. I began to feel that I had had enough of it, the more so as I had walked twelve kilomètres, and, not being accustomed to carrying a pack, my back hurt me. Clère was quite knocked up, and had looked at once so sad and so comic that I did not know whether to laugh at him or to pity him.

The regiment settled in more or less (rather less) in the sector reserved for it. The cellars were crowded. My orderly, who was a treasure of devotion and very inventive, arranged my kit, found me a candle and spread a mattress. I was kept on the run, everyone called me at once: “A man wanted for the guard-room, a liaison officer to see the Captain, a man wanted for water fatigue, the quartermaster-sergeant wants to know how things are here, the 3rd troop have no billets and so on.” ... I tried to reply to everyone, and my head was like a whirlpool. It was impossible to keep the men in, though there were strict orders that they were not to leave the cellars. They broke out in every direction, and, in spite of the shells, they amused themselves like children, entering the houses at the peril of their lives. One of them brought me a stuffed stork; another a cornet and a draught screen; my orderly came last with a woman’s mantlet, trimmed with lace!

Towards six o’clock the rain of shells ceased.

After dinner not a sound was heard. The cold was cruel. I wrapped myself in my greatcoat and turned up the collar above my ears. I stuck my head well into my fatigue-cap and, to amuse myself, I started off on “reconnaissance,” armed with an electric lamp. I visited twenty gutted houses, and this diversion was becoming monotonous when, from a particularly damaged court, I heard a somewhat uncertain hand playing the piano. The air was one of those old waltzes which dragoons dote on and which suggest Viennese softness combined with the popular taste of the Boulevards. There was no light in the yawning house. One might have called it the house of Usher, at least I thought of that spontaneously, for there was something weird about those black holes from whence came this sad and popular jingle, though the eye was conscious of nothing but darkness.

My ideas wandered for a moment, but, noticing a ray of light at my feet, I found the key of the enigma: some lascars had brought the piano down to the cellar to be more at their ease. At the foot of some ten steps, or rather of a steep slope—I learnt afterwards that, in coming down stairs, the piano had done the work of a “105”—I had only to pull a canvas curtain aside slightly to see what was going on inside. It was an affecting scene.

Some ten men lay on mattresses listening to the musician, who was seated on a small cask, playing the same waltz over and over again, probably the only thing he knew, with his great clumsy fingers. There was something in the look of each of these men analogous to that of intoxication from opium, or to the fascination on his subject of a mesmerist. Above, the shells began to fall again; below, they had forgotten the war, because they listened to a tune they loved, and, music is all-powerful over simple hearts.

I remember this episode as one of the most picturesque souvenirs of the war. I stayed in that cellar playing to them for more than an hour. They were drunk with pleasure and with dreams of home. That night I could have led them to the assault, even to the cannon’s mouth.

Next day, the 24th of January, réveillé was sounded at three o’clock.

At four o’clock we fell in. We were going into the second line trenches.