The attack is resumed. The attack, yes. “C’est la Guerre.” There is no longer, as in former days, a battle of a single day, wherein one is either victor or vanquished, where the outcome is decisive. The attack of to-day is one of the rôles in the drama of life, like being a soldier. Yes, it is life itself.
We made an attack, then, on a certain day, toward Mont Cornillet, which stood out before us like a volcano of chalk. The German and French artillery were crossing their shell-fire. Below, the French were holding. The position was hardly tenable after it was gained, and we were trying to enlarge and strengthen it a bit. My regiment, entirely reformed and equipped, formed a part of the advancing force. Each man, grown wise from his experience in war, could estimate the distance, and the effect of the firing. It was going well. It was hard, but the firing was good. Perhaps we would suffer less this time than on former occasions. Perhaps once more we would return alive. But then, what matter? One is a fatalist in such moments. Destiny will decide. A man is nothing, can do nothing. He is a mere atom, a drop of water in the ocean, a grain of sand in the desert. He goes where the wind drives him. If he is lucky, he comes back alive; if he is unlucky, he returns to the bosom of the earth. It is all very simple, clear, and clean-cut. The sacrifice was made long since. Once for all, the very first time, he has said: “What will come, will come.” He has left his home, he has marched, he has fought, he has suffered. Some men have been killed, others only await their turn. Infinite Fatality holds them in her hand. Those who believe in God, and that God brings solace, have their comfort always with them. They piously attend religious service when they can, wherever the chaplain sets up his altar: in a crushed-in chapel of a demolished village, or in a barn without a roof, or in the trench itself. The man who believes in nothing has no greater fear of death.
Certainly, were it not for the war, one would have lived otherwise. One would have lived in a world of work, with its pains and pleasures, founding a family and rearing his children. One would have lived as lived his father; one would have had a wife like his mother; one would have pursued happiness. But this dream is one of peace. Now, “C’est la Guerre.” The giant struggle passes the control of men, and its unknown end is still far off. One no longer fights merely for his home, his land, his own well-being. One feels that these things have become dwarfed in the tremendous world tragedy, and that at the foundation it has to do with great principles, ideals, and human destiny.
The soldier in action does not see so far. The immediate, the concrete, demand his close scrutiny; but he feels that the war is waged for all the human race, and that his blood will not flow in vain. Emancipation is coming. Man is throwing aside autocratic authority; he has reached his age of majority and wishes to be free. Society impels and guides him. He is no longer the soldier of a people, he is the soldier of a principle. He fights for the triumph of ideals that are noble, ideals that are just, ideals that are free. He assists at the ghastly death-throes of an autocracy which can live only through his enslavement. He knows the price of a revolution: some men must die that others may live. He accepts it. He knows not just how great must be his sacrifice. He knows only that he is resigned.
I saw all this among my comrades. I gathered it in their discussions: for we talk, at the front. The squad argues, reads the newspapers, makes its comments, follows the trend of events when it can. But—when the “Coup de Chien” comes; when the unit enters an engagement; when one fills his cartridge-box or receives his case of grenades; when one goes over the top, to storm the enemy’s parapets and rush to the assault, all else disappears, is wiped out. There remains only exaltation and the act of the moment—a sacrament.
The zero hour is passed from one to another in advance. The attack will be at ten o’clock. A half-hour before, each man is in his place. The artillery fire is redoubled. The German knows that his last minutes have come. As for ourselves, we are attentive and impatient. The anguish of the drive puts our nerves on a tension; eyes take on a hard look, hands grip convulsively. One wishes he could start, leap to the surface, cross No Man’s Land on the run, and drop into the opposite trench. The half-hour drags on slowly.
The hour strikes. With one leap, furiously, the first wave bounds forward, spreads, and crosses the intervening space. The second line follows. We of the next line look and listen. They cry out—they go on—they are running—they arrive! We start. The others are already upon the German. The grenades crackle and snap. The machine-guns spit, the airplanes hum, the shells burst. Forward, forward! We run at full speed. Each knows his rôle. Each knows his act, his allotted piece of work. Each is strangely lucid. The movement is admirable. All is going well, everything is working out with precision. We will gain our point. With an infallible glance the soldier knows the outcome, and in that moment he judges his chief without error, without appeal.
The trench is taken. The shelters are crushed in, the dead are lying all about. Pale and haggard prisoners run toward us, huddled together with up-lifted arms to give themselves up:
“Gut Franzose! Kamarad! Polones, Polones!”
They are Poles: big and little, tall and short; a whole troop. They shrink, now. They would like to run. They are anxious to get away from the place, for the miserable creatures cling to life and fear the shells, their own shells, the German shells, which follow each other in gusts. We drive them on. They go as captives. Three pass, a Frenchman follows, then three more prisoners and another Frenchman, with gun ready. The procession follows the wrecked trench, leaps over the débris, reaches the open space between our lines. Now there is less danger. The prisoners are parcelled off by twenties and are led to the rear. They stop at the first post where wounded are cared for. The stretchers are taken up and carried by the same men who made the wounds, by these men now quite docile, who, dressed in dirty gray made still more dirty by the ground, march with their burden, fearful, but at heart happy: for them the war is over.