We fill the magazines of our rifles. Ten paces farther on we meet the last sentinels. The password is given, we proceed. We go toward the town, as far as the highroad, where the flight of the distracted populace continues. Amidst a tangle of conveyances, pedestrians slip through mysteriously and hurry by. They jostle us, then make way for us in the throng. At last we stop. The town is only a hundred metres distant, without illumination, but much alive, full of the hubbub of the last departing civilians.
“Listen,” says the lieutenant, “this is your errand: a group of Uhlans has been reported about eight hundred metres from here. At this moment they must be occupying the civilian hospital. They must not be permitted to pass. Two men will hide themselves here, two others there. The others will guard the cross-road. In case you sight them, give them your magazine and fall back on the fort to give the alarm. Do you understand? Go to it!”
In such moments, one’s intelligence is abnormally active: one understands instantly, and each man seems to take his own particular rôle by instinct. I advance with Berthet to take the most forward post: it is where adventure is most likely. The others leave us, to take their own positions. So there we are, he and I, alone as sentinels, at the edge of the highroad—the road which is the path of the invasion, where rolls unceasingly as a torrent the stream of fugitives.
“You tell me what to do,” says Berthet, “I will take your orders.” “It is very simple,” I respond, “one knee on the ground. In the deep grass you will not be seen. For myself, I am going onto the road itself. I will stop any one who looks suspicious. Don’t worry, and don’t let your gun go off unless you hear me fire.” “Very well.” “Oh, another thing! If we are attacked, we will fire, then run for the fort without following the road. Our companions will fire, and we must cut across the fields. Do you agree?” “Yes.”
I leave him, to take my post just at the edge of the road, eyes and ears on the alert, finger on the trigger. A host of memories crowd my brain. How often in other days have I stood guard in just this manner! I recall similar hours which I experienced in China, at Tonkin, in the Sahara. I feel once more the intense poetry which is inspired by such a vigil: a poetry incomparable to any other; a poetry in which alert action is mingled with the strangeness of night, with the thousand noises of a stirring populace, with the imminence of danger, with visions crowding up from the past, with all that surrounds us and all that flees from us. Less than a fortnight ago, at this hour, I used to write my daily article. My young wife, in our dainty dining-room, was rocking the baby to sleep. Or I was correcting proof on my forthcoming book, and she came to sit near me, her fingers busy with some fine needlework. She always placed on my desk the flowers from the dinner-table, and I thanked her for being so good, so pretty, so loving and thoughtful, by a swift stolen kiss on her rosy finger-tips. I read to her the last page I had written. She smiled and approved. Our confidence was complete. She had faith in my ability, I rejoiced to know that she was mine. We were so happy——
To-day, with loaded gun, with every nerve strained, I lie in wait for an advancing enemy. My wife is far away. She has shelter, at least. Without doubt she dreams of me, as I dream of her, and she trembles and she fears the future, the danger, death. My brothers—where are they?—and their wives, and our parents, and all my dear ones, like myself, like all of France, thrown into war, into danger, into suffering. And all the children, and all the helpless women, and old men, all counting on us, on our stoutness of heart, to defend and to save them.
My meditations did not in the least interfere with my watchfulness. From time to time I stopped a passer-by.
“Halt there!”
“We are French.”
“Advance slowly, one by one.”