Yet there was a terrible earnestness about it all that sobered them. There was something still more terribly earnest ahead! Every automobile that whizzed past them, coming in hot haste from the front, announced it. Every galloping supply wagon, every crouching motorcyclist in uniform16 flashing by told the same frantic story: “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! The Germans are almost here! France is in danger!”
On those first nights, when Coco’s turn came to stand on sentry duty by the lonely corner of a wood, his eyes strained into the darkness, listening for every sound, the sight of a bush waving in the wind often brought his gun to his shoulder with a quick, excited “Halte-là!”
For Coco, sensitive, earnest, and not a little fearful, was in a high nervous tension. Already the Germans were fighting in Belgium—the killing had commenced. From one of the villages they passed the boy wrote a brave little letter to his mother on a post card: “If anything should happen ... well, one knows one’s duty, and God will do the rest. Lovingly, Coco.”
On, on, through the hilly forests of 17Argonne they marched, making about twenty-five miles a day. And on that dusty march food was scarce. Poor Coco’s feet, despite the tallow in his socks, were too sore for him to chase chickens, but Fran?ois succeeded in capturing seven. Not much, however, when their necks were wrung, for a company of 250 men. Even the bread began to run out. But on they went, singing by day and shivering by night—on, on toward Belgium. Coco says that their chief worry was lest they shouldn’t find enough straw to sleep on, or at least enough to tie up their feet in bundles to keep them warm.
At Mouzon they crossed the Meuse, and here Coco slept more comfortably than he had for a week, on a sack full of straw at a farm. After a day’s wait for orders—and no meat even here—they set out again, passed through Carignan, and soon reached the last village in France—Florenville.18 “Don’t send me any more French money,” Coco here wrote to his mother. “It won’t be any use to me now!” Poor Coco! How little did he know how soon he was to return!