What was to be done with us? We were not left long in doubt.... With our packs on our backs, we set off. Henriot was very much depressed. A cavalry sergeant whom he had just met had spoken to him of a general falling-back of the troops supporting us on our right. We immediately formed a salient, likely to be cut off.
But Guillaumin joined us.
"Tommyrot! Why we're just about to surround them on the left."
He had got the tip from our friend Dagomert, the motor-cyclist.
The column moved off. We marched all night.
Nobody was very clear as to what direction we were taking. We were not moving towards étain. There was no question of a defeat. We were going of our own free will. There were regular halts, and comparatively good order was kept. Everyone was fully convinced that we were carrying out a wily man?uvre. We were tickled, in advance, by the idea of the Bosches' surprise when they saw us appear just where they least expected us!
The long halt took place at daybreak, when coffee[Pg 297] was distributed. According to the lieutenant we were in the neighbourhood of Pillon and Billy, where we had fought the other week. A considerable recoil, no doubt, but we had left the enemy a long way behind.
The fact that the division was assembled on this tableland was once more the signal for troublesome attention from a Taube, which dropped some bombs, and two star shells without doing any damage.
De Valpic told me that he feared we might be obliged to fall back on the Meuse.
"What makes you think that?"
"Various things."
He added:
"Our object is simply to delay them, I think. The north is where the game will be lost or won!"
He had a fit of coughing. Henriot appeared.
"Would you believe it! The general turned up, and hauled the colonel over the coals. He declares that we ought not to have left the trenches we were holding last night!"
"Oh, rot!"
"And that we've got to go back!"
"Nonsense!"
Yes. When the news got about it called forth anger, cold at first—If they didn't know what they wanted.... Then the men grew heated. A wave of rage, and indeed opposition, surged through them. We ourselves did not quite escape it.
Luckily, there was a diversion, in the shape of a cart which drove up. Everyone crowded round. The baggage-master! His horse was foundered. He had got mail-bags of letters and parcels which he had collected at Charny, and shouted to us:
[Pg 298]
"I've been chasing you for the last three days!"
Guillaumin took possession of our bundle, and, mounted on a heap of flints, began the distribution.
A sea of humans surrounded him, faces stretched forward feverishly, arms raised tirelessly—De Valpic in the front row between Bouillon and Humel.
I had been pushed forward. What did I expect? A line from my father when he heard the terrible news? Hm! He would hardly have got mine. No. I expected nothing. One by one the names escaped: Gaudéreaux, Descroix, Lieutenant Henriot. Comrades answered to a certain number of them.
"Missing! Killed!"
Brief words which froze.
I suddenly felt as if I'd had a blow on the head.
"Dreher!" shouted Guillaumin, looking round for me.
Lamalou handed me a letter. My eyes dimmed, my head swam. That writing.... I freed myself from the crush round me. I fled, half demented. I pinched, and weighed the envelope. How light and yet how heavy it was! I just missed charging into the captain who was also hanging about waiting.... I went twenty, fifty, yards, then threw myself down in a field, at the foot of an apple-tree.
My heart was still beating a mad measure, and I could hardly get my breath. I hesitated for a long time before tearing the thin envelope, then slowly and cautiously pulled out the double sheet which I fingered and turned over.... That stamp too.... Yes, yes, I knew it! But I was impatient to revel in the happy certainty: I flew to the signature.
Jeannine! Jeannine! I shouted the name aloud in a transport of delight. Then I hurriedly glanced[Pg 299] through the first page.... And instantly I understood that Happiness was descending upon me....
As if afraid of so much joy, I hid myself, so to speak, from my ecstasy for a few seconds behind such reflections as: "The post hasn't lost much time!" or "That's what you might call a real letter!" As lovers at their meetings cloak the emotion of the first moments with trivial remarks.
Eight pages! She had written eight pages! I began to read them with tender deliberation. One long, dear harmonious poem! Each line held a joy in store for me; at each page I turned I was torn betwixt my regret at seeing it finished and my rapture that the next was beginning. I could repeat those sentences to-day without hesitating over a single syllable.
She was writing, she said, on the evening of August 16th. She had just received my letter, and was answering it immediately. She wanted to be the first to send me a word of consolation in my sorrow. My sorrow? I did not quite understand. It seemed to me that there was no reason now for anything but envy. Then I reddened. Had I not told her of my brother's death, on that card? Ah yes, whether consciously or unconsciously, I had calculated on arousing her pity, her tenderness, and I had succeeded. She professed herself overcome wit............