Towards midnight, the village of Bonneuil-en-Valois was vaguely outlined in the night at the edge of the forest. The hungry and tired horses stumbled at each step; almost all the men were dozing on their wallets, and we committed the irreparable fault of dismounting and of sleeping heavily on the open ground, instead of utilising the cover of night to join one of the neighbouring divisions by a forced march. A small post composed of a corporal and four men was the only guard for our bivouac. Each of us had passed his horse’s reins under his arm, and all of us slept, officers and men alike, like tired brutes. We did not suspect that our sentinels were posted hardly three hundred mètres from the German sentries, who were concealed from us by a fold in the ground which held a regiment of Prussian infantry, who had chanced to get there, within rifle range, just at the same time as we.
At dawn a neighing horse, some clash of arms, probably gave away our position, and the alarm was given in the enemy’s camp, which was separated from us only by a field of standing lucerne. The troopers slept on, and the German scouts crept up, absolutely invisible.
A sudden musketry fire woke us up, and the German infantry was on us. I cannot think of these moments without giving credit to the admirable presence of mind which saved the situation by the avoidance of all panic. The horses were not girthed up, many of the kits had slipped round, reins were unbuckled; no matter, we had to mount. I have a crazy recollection of my loose girth, of my saddle slipping round, of the blanket which had worked forward on to my horse’s neck; no matter, “Forward! Forward!” a second’s delay might be our ruin. A hail of bullets fell amongst us. Alongside of me, Alaire, a quite young non-commissioned officer, was hit in the belly. He was the first in the regiment whom I had seen fall. God! what a horrible toss he took, dragged by his horse, maddened by fear, crying out, “Rolland, Rolland, don’t abandon me.” Then, in a last contortion, his foot came out of the stirrup and he died convulsed by a final spasm. Near me, the Captain’s orderly gave a loud shout; horses, mortally wounded, galloped wildly for some mètres and then suddenly fell as if pole-axed.
I saw a man who, as if seized with madness, sent his wounded horse headlong to the bottom of a ravine and then threw himself after.
“Forward! Forward!” I followed the others, who made off towards the village. My horse trod on a German whose throat, gashed by a lance thrust, poured out such a stream of blood that the earth under me was red and streaming with it. “Forward! Forward!”
We were not going to view them then, these enemies who killed us without our seeing them, so hidden were they amongst the grass that they blended with the soil? Yes we were though, and suddenly surprise stopped short the rush of the squadrons. Before us, some mètres off, and so near that we could almost touch it with our lances, an aëroplane got up, like a partridge surprised in a stubble. A cry of rage burst from every throat. We tried to charge it with our lances in the air, but it mocked our efforts, and our rearing horses were on the spot ten seconds too late. The enemy seemed also to have flown. All that remained were two or three grey corpses that strewed the soil. We trotted into the village with our heads down, humiliated at having been fooled like children.
After having passed the first few isolated farms along our road, an enemy’s section came for us, exposing themselves entirely this time, while a line of recumbent skirmishers fired a volley into us from our right, almost at point-blank range. There was nothing for it but to retire, unless we wanted to remain there as dead men, and at the gallop, the more so because a machine-gun was riddling the walls of a farm with little black points. We passed before it like a whirlwind; and, happily, its murderous fire was too high to hit us. I can still recall the sight of an isolated German, caught between the fire of his regiment and the charge of our horses. I turned my head and laughed with joy at seeing a comrade pierce him with his lance in passing.
The Germans were all round us, and our only line of retreat was by the forest, into which we all plunged in a common rush without waiting for orders. The forest, at least, represented safety for the moment. It was a sanctuary calculated to protect us from an entire army, until we died of hunger. For a long time we marched in silence, cutting across the wood, avoiding the beaten path, for our intention was to attain the very heart of the forest, or some impenetrable spot where we could not be discovered, where we could regain our breath and where our officers could deliberate and take a decision. The whole half-regiment took shelter at last in an immense ravine, where we were sheltered from aircraft. We were covered by a thick vault of leaves in a sort of prehistoric gorge, which seemed far from all civilisation and lost in an ocean of verdure, and there we dismounted. The Major sent patrols to explore the issues from the forest, and we waited some mortal hours without daring to raise our voices.
Our situation was almost desperate. For three days we had touched not a morsel of bread, not a biscuit, our horses not a handful of corn. The reserve rations were exhausted; and the patrols, which came in one after the other, brought sad news. The Germans were masters of all the issues from the forest, and we were taken in a vice, prisoners in this gulf of trees and reduced to dying of hunger and thirst. A little way off, the officers—Major Jouillié, Captain de Salverte, Captain de Tarragon, Monsieurs Chatelin, Cambacérès, Roy and de Thézy—deliberated with glum faces. Each stood near his horse so as to be able to jump on in case of surprise. In spite of everything the men’s spirits remained admirable. All had a jest on their lips, and the more serious amongst them wrote a line to their wives or mothers. Leaning against the trunk of a tree, I scribbled on two letter-cards, found in my wallets, two short notes of adieu. The day passed with depressing slowness.
Towards four o’clock two officers of Uhlans appeared on a little road which, so to speak, hung above us. At once all eyes were fixed on these two thin silhouettes. They advanced, talking quietly, with their reins loose on their horses’ necks. How great was the temptation to shoulder one’s carbine, take steady aim, feel one’s man at the end of the muzzle and kill him dead with a ball through the heart! Everyone understood, however, that it was necessary to keep quiet and let off the prey so good a mark was it, for doing so would have given the alarm and signalised our presence. Now they were right on us, so near that we could have touched them, and yet they did not know that there were two hundred carbines which could have knocked them over at point-blank range. Even now I can distinctly see the face of the first, as if it were photographed on my brain. He was quite young, with an eye-glass well screwed into the eye, his face was red and insolent, just as the Prussian officer is always represented. He had a whip under his arm, and he even had a cigar. Suddenly his face and that of his companion contracted, as if confronted by some apparition. This French regiment must have seemed to them a phantom of the forest, some impossible and illusory vision seen in the shadow of the leaves. Their horses stopped short and, for the space of a second, their riders looked like two figures in stone. Then in a flash they understood and fled at full speed. For an instant we heard the stones fly under their horses’ shoes, but the sound grew fainter and fainter, and a deep silence reigned again.