"Contemptible" Part 6

At last they crossed the bridge. Sappers had been at work on it for some time, and the preparations to blow it up after they had pa.s.sed were almost complete. The first sight of interest was the railway station, which was filled with what appeared to the Subaltern to be double-decked trains. Evidently a French army had detrained here.

The Column swung suddenly round a corner and they were almost staggered with the sight of the cathedral towering above them. To an eye used exclusively to the sight of the dour British edifice, there is something very fascinating about a foreign cathedral such as this. There is something more daring about the style of architecture, something more flamboyant, and yet more solid. The cathedral seemed vaguely indicative of the past grandeur of the Catholic Church. Bathed in the early morning sunlight it appeared to exult over the mean smallness of the houses that cl.u.s.tered at its feet.

Beyond the cathedral there is nothing at all extraordinary about Meaux.

Many months afterwards one of his nurses told him in hospital that she had spent a long time in that very street. She had been with her father, the erstwhile Colonel of a line regiment, and a specialist in strategy, who for the pure love of the thing had laboriously gained permission to stay at Meaux and visit the famous battlefields of the Marne. She said they had been in the very room where General Joffre met Field-Marshal French, and had bought the very teapot in which their tea was brewed.

She rather wondered how many more of these "very" teapots had been sold at fancy prices!

If Von Kluck made a forward thrust at Paris before his sidelong movement to the south-east, it was undoubtedly made at Meaux, which was the scene of some terrific combats.

Emerging from the town, the Column branched off in a south-easterly direction, and ascended the sides of a very steep plateau. Having reached the flat ground at the top, a midday halt was made in the pleasant grounds of yet another chateau.

This fresh move was discussed a great deal as the men lay at full length in the shade of the trees. Evidently there was to be no siege of Paris.

They were marching directly away from Paris. What did it mean? They would get to Ma.r.s.eilles in a fortnight at this rate, and then the only thing to do would be to wire for the Fleet, and be taken safely home to their mammas!

The march went on through the stifling heat of the afternoon, and the Subaltern knew that he, and most of the men as well, were feeling about as bad as it is possible to feel without fainting. They marched through a very dense wood, and then out once more into the open. Even the longest day has its ending, and at last they found themselves halted in the usual lines of companies in the usual stubble field. A Taube flew overhead and all sorts of fire were concentrated on it.

It was already sunset. After the edge, as it were, had been taken off his exhaustion, the Subaltern extracted the before-mentioned piece of soap, and having, as usual, sc.r.a.ped it ready for action, washed his feet in a little stream. He did it under the impression that marching for that day was over. It is very comfortable to wash your hot, tired feet in a cool stream provided there is no necessity to put your boots on again. If something happens that forces you to do this, you are in for a hard and painful job. You would not believe it possible for feet to swell like yours have swelled. They do not seem like your own feet at all. They have expanded past recognition, and their tenderness surpa.s.ses thought.

The Subaltern was sitting by the stream edge gazing at the flush of golden light in the west, when he was awakened by the Major.

"Well, young feller, I've been looking everywhere for you. You've got to take your Platoon out to this village, Villiers, and occupy it till further orders--a sort of outpost position--you will be too far from the main body to establish touch; you have really just to block the roads, and if you are rushed, retire here the best way you can."

Having made sure of the position on the map, and asked for a couple of cyclists to accompany him, the Subaltern began to put on his boots. But they would not go on. It was like trying to get a baby's boots on to a giant's feet, and the more he tugged the more it hurt. The precious moments of daylight would soon be gone, and in the dark it would be ten times more difficult to find the village and block the roads. There was nothing for it but to cut the boots, so, unwrapping a fresh Gillette blade, he made a large V-shaped gash in the top part of each. It was annoying to have to spoil good boots, and in addition his feet would get wet far sooner than hitherto.

All superfluous articles of weight had long since been thrown away, and consequently he had nothing except matches with which to read his map in the dark and windy night. The difficulty was increased by the fact that the way lay across small tracks which were almost impossible to distinguish, but eventually, more by luck than judgment, he brought his men into a village. Was it Villiers? It took him some time to find out.

There were plenty of people in the village street, but the Subaltern could not get coherent speech out of any one of them. Fear makes an uneducated Englishman suspicious, quickwitted and surly. It drives the French peasant absolutely mad. That village street seemed to have less sense, less fort.i.tude, less coolness than a duck-run invaded by a terrier. The Subaltern caught a man by the arm and pushed him into a doorway.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est, le nom de cette village?" he said, with as much insistence and coolness as he could muster. The poor fellow broke into a tirade in which his desire to cut German throats, his peculiarly unfortunate circ.u.mstances, and his wish to get away literally tripped over each other.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est, le nom de cette village?" Followed a flood of words apparently about the village. A third time. "Qu'est-ce que c'est, le nom de cette village?" At last: "Ah, M'sieur, Villiers," with an air of surprise, as if he thought the Subaltern had known all the time, and had asked merely to start a polite conversation.

He let the man go, and turned his attention to the village street, which presented a terrible spectacle of panic. It was obviously unwise to allow this mob to leave the village, as they seemed to wish, and disperse, shouting and shrieking, over the countryside. Very possibly there were spies amongst them, who would bring the enemy about his ears in half an hour. More likely still, the whole excited crowd would wander straight into the arms of the Germans, and be treated with the well-known restraint of Huns towards the unprotected. So he hurriedly placed guards at the chief outlets of the village, with orders, in addition to the usual duties towards the enemy, to prevent the French from leaving it.

He then returned and tried to pacify the inhabitants. But his kind, soothing words in execrable French did not succeed in dispelling the panic and fear. He had to draw his sword (for the purpose of intimidation only) and literally to thrust them into houses. And he had to get three men with fixed bayonets to help him. He did his best to make it generally understood that any one who came out of his house and made a noise would be summarily disposed of. Any sounds of confusion would inevitably have drawn the fatal attentions of the enemy.

He then made a hurried survey of the roads leading out of the village, placed sentry groups at various places of advantage, and established the picket in the centre of the village in a large barn. This done, he sent the cyclist orderly to try and get into touch with the village on the right, which, he had been told, was to be occupied by a platoon from another regiment. The cyclist returned to report that the village was deserted by the French, and that there was no sign of the Blanks.h.i.+res.

Evidently the O.C. Platoon had not been so fortunate in finding his way in the dark.

Dawn broke, and the expected order to retire did not come. The men slept on, intent on s.n.a.t.c.hing as many moments of precious sleep as possible.

Still no orders came. At about eight o'clock the Subaltern finally awoke, and went the rounds of his groups. There was nothing to report, all had been quiet.

When he got back he found that the men had collected quite a good number of eggs from abandoned farmyards, had lighted a fire, and were busy making a sort of stew out of bully beef and swedes, and (he strongly suspected) a stolen chicken. As no orders came still, when he had finished his breakfast, he lay down in the shade of an apple tree and continued his sleep. He woke up later, at about midday, and ate the remainder of his rations, and then fell asleep once more.

He was awakened by the Major. It was about four o'clock, and the remainder of the Brigade was already on the move. The posts guarding the roads were hastily drawn in, and his Platoon took its place in the Company as the Battalion marched by.

He felt extremely pleased with the whole adventure of Villiers. It was the first and only time that he had had a completely detached command.

He had felt the intoxication of undisputed authority; there had been a subtle pleasure in the thought that, as far as help or supervision were concerned, he was absolutely alone and that the responsibility for anything that might happen hung exclusively on his shoulders. The whole day had seemed like a Sunday to him--the first real Sunday since ages and ages ago he had left England, the easy land of peace.

There had been an air of quietness about that afternoon which is peculiar to Sundays, and he congratulated himself on the hours of sleep that he had been able to put in.

From his own point of view the whole war began to seem like an organised campaign of things in general to hustle him about in the heat until he died from want of sleep!

CHAPTER XV

THE LAST LAP

On every side the results of long marches were only too plain. Spirits were damped. There were fewer songs, and no jokes. The men were not by any means "downhearted," and would rather have died than admit that they were depressed, but the brightness was all rubbed off, and a moroseness, a dense, too-tired-to-worry taciturnity had set in that was almost bullet-proof.

Although the familiar sounds of artillery boomed away quite close to them they were not deployed, and when it was dark they bivouacked along the side of the road.

That night the Colonel addressed the Officers at some length. "The old man" always had an impressive way of speaking, and darkness and overwrought nerves doubtless magnified this. He spoke in subdued tones, as if awed by the intense silence of the night.

We all could tell where we were, he said--a few miles east, or even south-east by east of the French Capital. Our base, Havre, lay to the north-west, with the enemy in between. It was unnecessary to say anything further. The facts spoke for themselves. The British Army was up against it, none could tell what would happen next. One duty, however, was self-evident, and that was to watch the food-supply.

Things were going to be serious. Henceforward the army was to be on half rations, and he knew what that meant. He had been on "half rations" in the South African War, and he had seen a man give a franc for a dirty biscuit, and he knew what it was for soldiers on active service to be hungry. He ordered us, he begged and prayed them, to spare no energy in stopping waste of any description, and making their men realise the gravity of the position. No Officer was in future to draw any rations from the Company Cookers, and the Mess Sergeant had somehow procured and victualed a mess-cart.

That night must have been the most fateful night in the history of France. All the world was watching with bated breath, watching to see whether France was really a "back number"--whether the Prussian was truly the salt of the earth. If Paris fell, the French Armies in the field were cut off from their base; defeat was certain, and the national history of France, or, at any rate, the glory of it, would be stamped out for ever under the Kaiser's heel. The fate of France was in the balance, and also the fate of the Russian Armies. If Paris fell, Europe might be as much the slave of Prussia as it had been a century ago of Napoleon. As for England, if her Fleet could master the German, well and good. But, if not....

It looked as if the enemy were within an ace of victory. He had flooded Belgium and Luxembourg with his armies, and, at the first clash of arms, had hurled everything before him in a manner which to the civilian must have appeared terrible in its completeness. Several times had the defenders apparently attempted to stand, and as many times had they been hurled with even greater violence southwards. And now, before the campaign was a month old, the enemy were within an ace of the most complete victory of modern times. Many men will never forget that night--men on either side with high commands.

How the Kaiser must have chuckled when the French Cabinet left for Bordeaux! Bombastic phrases were perchance chasing themselves through his perverted mind. How fine he would look at Versailles, strutting about the Hall of Victories. He would sleep in the bed of the "Grand Monarque"--and in Les Invalides how he would smile at the tomb of Napoleon! Perhaps his statesmen were that very night drafting the terms of peace that a crushed adversary would be only too thankful to accept.

His day had come at last! Henceforward how he would laugh at Democracy and Socialism. He would show them that he was master. The best weapon in all the world was sudden, b.l.o.o.d.y war. He would show his people that he was their Master, their Salvation, their War Lord. He was the greatest man in history, so he thought that night.

There may come a time when he will realise that, after all, he was only the most contemptible and pitiable. But that is by the way.

His Generals could not have been so sure. They must have seen the exhaustion of their men. Von Kluck must have already felt the weight of the army, rushed out of Paris by General Gallieni, that threatened to envelop his right flank. Von Heeringen must have realised that the offensive was being wrenched from his grasp. And the Crown Prince was throwing himself in vain upon the forts of Verdun and Nancy.

That night, too, somewhere behind the French lines, a man of very different stamp from the Kaiser was putting the final touches to the preparations of the greatest counter-attack in History. He knew that the enemy had literally overstepped his lines of communications, was exhausted, and nervous of failure so far from his bases. He knew that as long as de Castelnau clung on to the heights around Verdun, his centre and left were safely hinged upon a fortress under cover of which he could launch his counter-offensive with all the weight of his now completely mobilised reinforcements. Moreover, the army that had hurried pell-mell from Paris in taxicabs, in carts, in any form of conveyance that the authorities could lay hands upon, was now completely established on the left of the British, and if Von Kluck, lured on by the prize of Paris, pushed on, he would be outnumbered on his front and very seriously menaced on his right, and disaster would be certain.

Not that the Subaltern knew or cared much for these things. He and his men were past caring. Continuous retreat had first evoked surprise, then resentment, then, as fatigue began to grip them like a vice, a kind of dull apathy. He felt he would not have cared whatever happened. The finer emotions of sorrow or hope or happiness were drugged to insensibility. With the exception of odd moments when, absolutely causelessly, wild anger and ungovernable rage took possession of him and seemed to make his blood boil and seethe, he seemed to be degenerating into the state of mind commonly attributed to the dumb beasts of the field--indifferent to everything in the wide world except food and sleep.

That night a draft commanded by one Subaltern arrived to fill up the gaps.

The next day the retreat continued. The men's nerves were tried to breaking-point, and a little detail, small and of no consequence in itself, opened the lock, as it were, to a perfect river of growing anger and discontent.

This was how it happened. The Colonel had repeated the previous night the order about looting, and the men were under the impression that if any of them took so much as a green apple he would be liable to "death or some such less punishment as the Act shall provide." They talk about it and grumble, and then suddenly, without any warning except a clucking and scratching, the Mess Sergeant is seen by the greater part of the Battalion to issue triumphantly from a farm gate with two or three fat hens under his arms. Smiling broadly, totally ignorant of the enormity of his conduct, he deposits his load in the mess-cart drawn up to receive the loot!

The men did not let the opportunity slip by without giving vent to a lot of criticism.

The Subaltern's ears tingled at the remarks that he heard. Never in his life had he felt so ridiculous.