The cold woke me as usual. I was stiff with cramp from my left shoulder down to my hip.... It would be a miracle if we did not all get our deaths of rheumatism. An oppressive silence reigned. I put my hand out to feel the grass damp with dew. I could make out the shadow of my comrades a few yards away.
I rubbed myself and stretched my muscles. I was really remarkably fit on the whole, and the excruciating contraction in my side soon disappeared. I looked out. The Huns yonder must be dreading our awakening. I tried to recall the magnanimous feelings with which I had lulled myself to sleep a few hours ago, but I was too drowsy. Only one vision consented to charm me, the face of a young girl.
"At the wheel already, Dreher?"
It was the subaltern. He told me he had not slept much.
"There might have been a counter-attack! I had to keep on at my rounds!"
[Pg 240]
When he was just on the point of going away, he said:
"I say, Dreher, I hear, that is, Guillaumin told me, your brother...!"
"Oh, so you know about it. It has been a great blow!"
"We'll revenge him all right," he assured me.
A lot of good that would do me, I thought.
There was nothing to show where the east was. An indefinite brightness however replaced the darkness by insensible degrees. The tops of the willow-trees at the bottom of the valley were emerging from a woolly haze.
All our lot were up and about, now. The cooks found a way, without consulting the lieutenant, of going to make the coffee a few hundred yards to the rear.
Judsi, who brought up the first bucketful, said to me:
"Give us your mug, Sergeant!"
"I go in with the '10th,'" I objected, but he assured me that it would give them so much pleasure, we'd got on so well yesterday.
I let him give me some, and tasted it.
"Clinking, your coffee."
"Here's to you!"
Big Henry soon came up on behalf of the other half-section; and I had to accept a second cupful, in order to prevent any jealousy. What enchanted me was that I had won the esteem of these fellows—at small cost, goodness knows!
A little firing had been heard for the last few minutes, but only in the distance, strange to say! Nothing serious so far!
[Pg 241]
The quartermaster-sergeant passed, inquiring what ammunition we had left! Nothing very great! We had played havoc with it.
"No more need of bullets!" Guillaumin interrupted joyously. "We're going to do some storming now!"
I had not seen him since last night. Unbrushed, unshaven, his dirty face shining. Was this, I thought, henceforward to be my friend, my best friend? I would not allow myself to be ill-natured.
He was wanted by Henriot, and crawled away. It was the only mode of progression permitted. I was not sorry he had gone. I should have found nothing to say to him. The prospect of a bayonet charge obviously inflamed and excited him, just like that savage Lamalou who was boasting that he would skewer, how many?—one, two, three—who would have a bet on it?
As for me, I admit that I dreaded those two hundred yards across that no-man's-land (the last rush for how many of us!), and what followed, still more the hand-to-hand fight with the bayonet, the horrible butchery, the atrocious phase of the fighting for which no one prepares, for no one would face it in cold blood.
We had to wait for orders, for a long time, crouching behind the earthworks with our rifles in our hands.
It had got quite light.
All at once, exclamations were heard.
We looked round.
A hussar was galloping across the fields behind us.
"'E's arskin' ter be napoo'd!" Judsi exclaimed.
What a target indeed! How could the enemy help having a shot!
The horseman raced along the line, and disappeared. Not a single shot had been fired by the Bosches. A[Pg 242] few minutes of trying suspense passed. Then a rumour ran along the line. Some of the men showed signs of getting up.
"Lie down!" Henriot commanded.
But we saw Breton walking quickly towards us, without the customary precautions. His face was beaming!
When still thirty yards off, he shouted:
"Nobody ahead of us now!"
"What?"
"They sloped off in the night!"
The news flew from mouth to mouth. An ingenuous, delirious joy took hold of our companions. A broadside of jokes burst forth.
"The 'Allemans' funked us!"
Judsi chuckled.
"W'en the blighters saw the 1.3 being brought along ... they said to themselves: 'Nothing to be done but to 'ook it.'"
I breathed again. I marvelled at the fulfilment of my private wish. No more danger for the moment. I should not be killed this morning!
The hussar, who had brought the news, appeared again, and deliberately urged his horse towards the woods, the zone which yesterday had been inaccessible. There was a new outburst of delight, and the men began to rag the sentries who had been on duty during the night:
"Gaudéreaux, w'y couldn't 'ee tell us they'd done a bink. You was snoozin', you old blighter, I dew believe."
Half an hour later, when arms had been piled, and the men dismissed to rest, Guillaumin took me by the arm:
[Pg 243]
"Let's go and see what's become of the others!"
We met De Valpic on the way. He had not slept either, and was afraid he had caught a cold....
"You'll not be the only one, my dear chap!"
A few steps farther on there was a little group, the Humel-Playoust lot. We went up to them, delighted to find them safe and sound. I don't know what put the idea into my head of tapping Descroix on the shoulder and saying to him:
"Good biz. The N.C.O.'s haven't come off so badly, what?"
He turned round in a fury.
"What do you mean?"
I understood. He must have thought I was alluding to that stupid affair of the stripes, which had gone quite out of my head. So I turned to Humel:
"Was it you who saw Frémont fall?"
"Yes."
"Where was he hit?"
"Oh, look here! One has all one can do to look after oneself!"
The quartermaster-sergeant was making signs to us in the distance. We went towards him. Guillaumin enlightened me on the way.
"That Descroix business was a put-up job, you know. He doesn't like it talked about."
"All the worse if it was arranged beforehand!"
Breton, who had joined us, took us to a clump of trees. When we got there he said:
"Look here!"
A German officer was standing up leaning lightly against a shield. His field-glasses were up to his eyes, and he seemed to be gazing through the opening.
[Pg 244]
Was he alive or dead? We hesitated but soon found out when we got nearer.
"Rather neat, what?" said Breton.
While ferreting about near by, Guillaumin came across a shell-hole. He exclaimed:
"The work of the 75's. No wound, apparently. Simply the effect of the concussion."
Then with a knowing wink:
"Pretty hot stuff these Turpin machines, what?"
We looked for a few seconds at the big well-built man with regular features, in the tightly fitting uniform trimmed with frogs. Some of the men who had come up formed a circle round us. Lamalou, without any hesitation, put his hand on the shoulder of the dead body....
I shall never forget the horror of it! The legs remained fi............