[53] Dr. Caradec, op. cit.
[54] In less critical circumstances the same accident had happened to Second-Lieutenant Gautier, and was the occasion of an amusing little scene, which might have been taken from Léonec and Gervèze's sketches of Marines: "Yesterday I was going at the Germans with machine-guns at 1,200 metres on a road from which I finally cut them off. All of a sudden the guns jammed. I yelled from my blockhouse: 'What's the matter?' 'Guns jammed.' 'Tell the gunner from me that he's an ass.' The communicator, a worthy Breton fisherman, repeated gravely: 'The Lieutenant says that the gunner is an ass.' The gunner was one Primat. A few days later, on November 10, in submerged Dixmude, this same Primat (the orderly of the Second-Lieutenant), who had survived his officer, used his machine-guns with such skill and coolness against a German column that he stopped it dead, mowing down three sections."
[55] This story is told by the Marine Georges Delaballe. Such was the ardour communicated by Des Pallières to his men, that the next day a Marine and a Boche were found "lying dead one upon the other, the Marine's fingers thrust through the German's cheek, and still clutching it." A stray bullet had killed them both. What had exasperated the Marines was that the major who led the attack wore a large Red Cross armlet. Their native honesty was revolted by this constant recourse to ignoble ruses, by which our enemies have dishonoured even their own heroism. Martin des Pallières was the nephew of the Admiral who commanded the Marines in 1870. "He was a brave man, whose courage was combined with great simplicity and gaiety. He was killed by a big shell in the middle of the group of machine-guns he was working under a furious fire," writes a correspondent. Dr. Caradec points out that this night of October 26 was particularly tragic; and in support of this statement he quotes an incident horrible enough, indeed, from the narrative of the naval mechanician Le L.:—
"The Germans had taken some French trenches, and shells were raining thickly upon us. All of a sudden some of our men were engulfed in a mass of débris. As one of my friends was half buried in the earth, I and another went to help him; but a shell fell right upon him, and I in my turn was buried up to the neck. Night was coming on fast. I spent fourteen hours of anguish in this position. Furious fighting was going on. Two friends were moaning near me. The one nearest begged me to help him, but I was held fast as in a vice, and had to look on helpless as he died. My own strength began to fail. I became unconscious a few hours after I had been buried. What made me suffer most was to see the Germans a few yards from me. I could see all they were doing, all their death-dealing preparations. During the night the Senegalese riflemen retook our lost trenches; they set to work to clear away the rubbish and found my two dead friends near me. One of the Senegalese stepped on my head. Feeling something under his feet, he bent down and saw me. They got me out and took me to the first ambulance. In a few hours I was fully conscious again. You can imagine how I rejoiced to find myself among friends. I felt like one risen from the dead."
[56] Among them was Second-Lieutenant Gautier. The following order, communicated to us by his family, was found with his papers: "Monsieur Gautier,—By superior orders, I am sending a section to relieve you, and to instruct you to go with your section near the cemetery, behind the wall or on the railway embankment, as may seem best to you and to the officer in the adjoining trenches. Des Pallières' section, which was in the cemetery, has been annihilated, Des Pallières himself killed and buried in the débris of the trench." Second-Lieutenant Gautier was killed at 9 o'clock in the evening. "We were having our dinner in the trench," wrote Lieutenant Gamas a few days later, "when the order came for him to go to a dangerous position to replace Des Pallières, who had just been killed there. The last words your son-in-law said to me were: 'Captain, it's my turn.' We shook hands warmly, looking affectionately at each other. The next day I heard that my poor friend was dead. He had been hit in the forehead by a German bullet at the moment when, attacked by very superior numbers with three machine-gun sections, he had put his head out in order to regulate his fire and do his duty thoroughly. He fell nobly, leaving a glorious and honoured name to his wife and children."
[57] All the officers we have seen or who have written to us declare that the transport service was excellent throughout the defence, in spite of the greatest difficulties, and that the naval commissariat was irreproachable.
[58] He was decorated with the military medal by General Foch in person.