[48] I.e., instead of "Croix Rouge," the usual French locution.
[49] We should add, by order of Commander Varney, who, warned by Dr. de Groote, had at once taken the necessary measures. Second-Lieutenant X.'s note-book gives more precise details: "We had succeeded in placing machine-guns on each side of the bridge, which was a revolving bridge, and had just been opened by Commander Varney."
[50] Here there seems to have been some confusion in the eye-witness's account. He leads us to suppose that Dr. Duguet's ambulance was in the town, and that the Germans who killed him and wounded the Abbé Le Helloco went on afterwards to the bridge with their prisoners. "As a fact," we are now told, "the affair took place between the bridge—which the head of a column had crossed by surprise, driving before them a number of Belgians, sailors, and perhaps some marauders—and the level crossing near the station of Caeskerke where the column was finally stopped. It was in this part of the street that Dr. Duguet had his dressing-station; and it was there, too, that Commander Jeanniot, whose reserve post was at Caeskerke, came out to meet the assailants. And it was the fields near the south bank of the Yser to which the column betook itself, dragging its prisoners with it, when it found the road barred." (See M. Thomas Couture's narrative at the end of this chapter.)
X. IN THE TRENCHES
Thus ended this dramatic episode, of which neither the genesis nor the results have been fully elucidated so far. Did the German troop which overran the town during the night, and of which only a portion got away to the meadows with the prisoners, consist of a battalion or a half-battalion? The fire of Captain Marcotte de Sainte-Marie's guns had laid a good many of the enemy low. "We were walking over their corpses in the street," wrote Marine H. G.[51] The next day we turned a fair number of the assailants out of the cellars where they had hidden. But the majority, aided by mysterious accomplices, certainly managed to escape.
In any case, the surprise had been a sharp lesson, showing us how necessary it was that our positions should be immediately reinforced. The Admiral represented this to Headquarters, and two battalions of Senegalese were despatched from Loo. Meanwhile the bombardment had been resumed. It became very intense between eleven and three o'clock, and was directed mainly to the bridges of Dixmude and the trenches in the cemetery. We had some heavy casualties there, notably Lieutenant Eno[52] and part of the seventh company of the second battalion. But the moral of the men was perfectly maintained. We may cite the case of Quartermaster Leborgne, wounded in the head and taken to the dressing-station during a lull in the fighting, who escaped when he heard the cannonade resumed and came back to die at his post, or the bugler Chaupin, who, seeing the recruits arching their backs under the hail of bullets, cried, "Look at me, little ones," and drawing himself up to his full height with magnificent bravery, crossed the danger zone, carrying his comrades along in the wake of his heroism.[53] Thanks to the reconnaissances of his airmen and the spies he had in the town, the enemy's fire was surprisingly accurate. "In the space of two hours, from half-past ten to half-past twelve in the morning," wrote one of the officers who commanded a much-exposed section, Second-Lieutenant T. S., "some fifty shrapnel shells fell round us. At one o'clock a quarter of my men were out of action. I asked for reinforcements and provisions; we had been in the firing line for sixty hours. The Commander gave me a verbal order to fall back. I consulted my petty officers and my men. 'Shall we fall back without being relieved?' 'We can't do it, Lieutenant.' An hour later I received a written order to abandon the trench. I had to obey, after we had buried our dead and carried off our wounded. You see, dear parents, what our sailors will do: they will hold out to the last gasp. That same evening the trench was occupied by another section of the brigade."
And that same evening of October 26 this trench—or another—was again attacked, and was only saved for us by a prodigy of heroism. The enemy had advanced to within a few yards, and charged, shouting "Hurrah!" Our machine-guns were very dirty and would not work.[54] But Lieutenant Martin des Pallières was in command of the section. It was holding the road to Woumen, between the wall of the cemetery and a trench dug on the other side in a beetroot field. Des Pallières sprang upon the parapet.
"Boys," he cried, "we must receive these gentry with cold steel. Fix bayonets!"