Part 16

Judge of my astonishment! At first only a few timid voices joined the Chaplain's. But after a minute or so a marvel happened. From all those chests came a volume of sound such as I could hardly have believed possible. Who will say then that our dear France has lost her Faith? Who can believe it? Every one of these men joined in singing the hymn, and not one of them seemed ignorant of the Latin words. It was a magnificent choir, under a lofty vault, chanting with the fervour of absolute sincerity. There was not one discordant note, not one voice out of tune, to spoil its perfect harmony.

Who can believe that men, many of them more than thirty years old, would remember all the words unless they had been brought up in the faith of their ancestors and still held it?

I could not help turning to look at them. In the light of the candles their faces appeared to be wonderfully transfigured. Not one of them expressed irony or even indifference. What a fine picture it would have made for a Rembrandt! The bodies of the men were invisible in the darkness of the nave, and their heads alone emerged from the gloom. The effect was grand enough to fascinate the most sceptical of painters; it soothed and charmed one and wiped out all the miseries that the war had left in its wake. Men like these would be equal to anything, ready for anything; and I myself should much have liked to see a Monsieur Homais hidden away in some corner of that church.

Meanwhile the sacred Office was proceeding at the altar. At any other time we might have smiled at the sight of that soldier-priest served by choristers of thirty-five in uniform; at that ceremony it was inexpressibly touching and attractive, and it was especially delightful to see how carefully and precisely each performed his function that the ceremony might not lack its accustomed pomp.

When the singing had ceased the Chaplain went up to the holy table. In a voice full of feeling he tried to express his gratitude and happiness to all those brave fellows. I should not imagine him to be a brilliant speaker at the best of times, but on that occasion the worthy man was completely unintelligible. His happiness was choking him. He tried in vain to find the words he wanted, used the wrong ones, and only confused himself by trying to get them right. But nobody had the least desire to laugh when, to conclude his address, he said with a sigh of relief:

"And now we will tell twenty beads of the rosary; ten for the success of our arms, and the other ten in memory of soldiers who have died on the field of honour.... Hail! Mary, full of grace...."

I looked round the church once more, and every one's lips were moving silently accompanying the priest's words. Opposite us I saw the artillery captain take a rosary out of his pocket and tell the beads with dreamy eyes; and when the Chaplain came to the sentence "Holy Mary, Mother of God, ..." hundreds of voices burst forth, deep and manly voices, full of fervour which seemed to proclaim their faith in Him Who was present before them on the altar, and also to promise self-sacrifice and devotion to that other sacred thing, their Country.

Then, after the Tantum ergo had been sung with vigour, the priest held up the monstrance, and I saw all those soldiers with one accord kneel down on the stone floor and bow their heads. The silence was impressive; not a word, not a cough, and not a chair moved. I had never seen such devotion in any church. Some spiritual power was brooding over the assemblage and bowing all those heads in token of submission and hope. Good, brave soldiers of France, how we love and honour you at such moments, and what confidence your chiefs must feel when they lead such men to battle!

* * * * *

We sat at table around the lamp, and good Maman Cheveret had just brought in the steaming soup. Right away towards the east we heard the dull roll of the cannon. Good Monsieur Cheveret had just brought up from his cellar a venerable bottle of his best Burgundy, and, at the invitation of the Captain, he sat down to drink a glass with us, smoking his cherry-wood pipe and listening with delight to our merry chat.

Gosset was in his kitchen next door preparing a delicious piece of beef a la mode and at the same time telling the admiring Maman Cheveret about his exploits of the past month.

We heard the men of the first troop cracking their jokes in the yard as they ate their rations and emptied their pannikin of wine under a brilliant moon.

Down in the valley on the banks of the murmuring Vesle, songs and laughter floated up to us from the artillery park.

And the village itself, shining under the starlit sky, seemed bathed in an atmosphere of cheerfulness, courage and confidence.

VI. A TRAGIC NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES

November 3, 1914.

Imagine a little tiled room, some 16 feet by 9, in which for over a fortnight passing soldiers have been living, sleeping, and eating; imagine the furniture overturned, the broken crockery strewn on the floor, the doors and drawers of the cupboards pulled out, their modest contents scattered to the four corners of the house; add to this windows without glass, doors broken in, rubbish of every kind lying about, brought no one can tell whence or how; and yet note that one or two chromo-lithographs, a few photographs of friends and relatives and certain familiar objects, still cling to the walls, evoking the life that animated this home but a short time ago, and you will get some idea of the place where my Major, my comrades of the squadron and I were lodged on that memorable November evening.

It was five o'clock, and night was already falling, the cold, damp, misty night of Flanders following on a dreary autumn day. Outside the guns were roaring far away. The Battle of the Yser was going on.

Our regiment had just been brought by rail from the Reims district, where it was, to the North of France, and thence to Belgium. Our chiefs had said: "You must leave your horses, you must forget that you ever were cavalrymen, you must make up your minds cheerfully to your new calling and become infantrymen for the time being. We are short of infantry here, and the Germans are trying to rush Dunkirk and Calais. Your country relies upon you to stop them." Our good Chasseurs left their horses at Elverdinghe, 10 kilometres from here. They came on foot, hampered by their heavy cavalry cloaks, dragging their riding boots through the atrocious mud of the ruined roads, carrying in their packs, together with their ration of bread and tinned meat, the huge load of one hundred and twenty cartridges; they arrived here in the firing line, and quite simply, as if they had never been accustomed to anything else, did wonders there and then.

Yesterday, I grieve to say, I was not at the head of my troop. I was unable to take part in the epic battle round Bixschoote, the poor Belgian village which was retaken and then abandoned by us for the twentieth time. I was not present at the heroic death of the gallant and charming Colonel d'A., of the ---- Chasseurs, the author of those heart-stirring pages--and among them "The Charge"--which bring tears to the eyes of every cavalryman. He died facing the enemy, leading his regiment to the attack under terrific fire, and when his men carried him away they ranged themselves round him to make a rampart of their bodies for the chief they adored. I was not able to share the danger of my young comrade, Second-Lieutenant J., who fell bravely at the head of his marksmen, in the middle of my beloved regiment, in which fresh gaps have been made by the enemy's bullets. My seniority had marked me out as officer of liaison to the General commanding our division. But this morning at dawn I came back to take my place in the firing line, and I think I shall be able to make up for lost time.

The day has been absolutely quiet, however. After the fighting of the day before, and a night of sleeplessness and incessant alarms in the trenches, three of our squadrons, mine among them, were relieved before dawn and placed in reserve. They found billets in little forsaken farms some 600 yards from the firing line. Our men rested as well as they could all day, making beds of the scanty supplies of straw they found, washing themselves in pools, and renewing their strength in order to relieve the troops which had remained in the trenches; a squadron of our regiment, a squadron of the ---- Chasseurs, and a section of infantry Chasseurs.

Seated on a broken box, I was doing my best to write a letter, while Major B. and my brother officers O. and F., together with Captain de G., of the third squadron, took their seats at a rickety table and began a game of bridge. Here, by the way, is a thing passing the understanding of the profane, I mean the non-bridge player. This is the extraordinary, I might almost say the immoderate, attraction which the initiated find in this game, even at the height of a campaign. What inexhaustible joys it must offer to make its adepts profit by the briefest moments of respite in a battle to settle down anywhere and anyhow and give themselves up to their mysterious practices!

I pause for a moment in my letter-writing to enjoy the sight, which has its special charm. Two or three kilometres off, towards Steenstraate, the cannon were working away furiously, while only a few paces from our shanty a section of our 75's was firing incessantly over the wood upon Bixschoote; overhead we heard the unpleasant roar of the big German shells; and in the midst of the racket I saw my bridge players dragging their table over to the broken window. Day was dying, and we had not seen a gleam of sunshine since morning. The sky was grey--a thick, dirty grey; it seemed to be very low, close upon us, and I felt that the night would come by slow degrees without any of those admirable symphonies of colour that twilight sometimes brings to battlefields, making the combatant feel that he is ending his day in apotheosis.

But those four seemed to hear nothing. In the grey light I watched the refined profile of the Major bending over the cards just dealt by F. He no doubt has to speak first, for the three others looked at him, in motionless silence, as if they were expecting some momentous utterance. Then suddenly, accompanied by the muffled roar of the battle music, the following colloquy took place, a colloquy full of traps and ambushes, I suppose, for the four officers cast suspicious and inquisitorial glances at each other over their cards:

"One spade." "Two hearts." "Two no trumps." "I double." "Your turn, Major."

But all of a sudden paf! paf! The four players had thrown down their cards, and we all looked at each other without a word. Suddenly we had just heard above us that strange and indefinable crackle made by bullets fired at close range as they tear through the air just above one. No doubt was possible; something extraordinary was happening near the trenches, for the crackling increased mightily, and hundreds and hundreds of bullets began to whistle round us. F. sent the table rolling to the other end of the room with a kick, and we all rushed out after the Major.

There is no more depressing moment in warfare than when one finds oneself exposed to violent fire from the enemy without being able to see whence it comes, or what troops are firing, and what is its objective. Obviously the attack was not directed against us, for between the trenches and the houses where we were there was a thick wood which entirely concealed us from the sight of the enemy. But on the other hand the shots could not have been fired from the trenches the Germans had hitherto occupied opposite us, for had they been the bullets must have passed high over our heads, and we should have heard only the characteristic whistle of shots fired at long range.

For a moment, only a moment, we were full of dread. What had happened? What had become of the comrades who were in the firing-line? Grouped together in the little enclosure bordered with quick-set hedges where there were still traces of what had been the kitchen-garden of our farm, we strained our eyes to see without uttering a word. In front of us was the dark line of the wood. We scrutinised it sharply, this silent mass of trees and bushes on which autumn had already laid the most splendid colours of its palette. In spite of the dull light, what an admirable background it made to the melancholy picture of the devastated landscape! First, quite close to the ground, was a tangle of bushes and brambles, its russet foliage forming a kind of impenetrable screen, which, in bright sunshine, would have been a curtain of purple and gold. Then, pointing up into the misty sky, came the denuded trunks of the trees, surrounded by a maze of myriads of delicate branches, their ramifications stretching a violet-tinted veil across the sky. In spite of the tragic present I could not but admire the marvellous setting Nature offered for the drama in which we were destined to be the actors.