"And you have had training?"
"Pardon, monsieur," said the Sergeant, opening a book and placing his finger on the name first of Henri and then of Jules; "here is their record. Three years ago they did their training and attended manoeuvres, and were reported on as excellent conscripts. In the ordinary way they would attend a few drills here, perhaps go through a short instruction in musketry and bayonet exercises, and then be drafted to the front."
"Bien! There is little else after that for them to learn but bombing and the warfare peculiar to trench fighting—such as the conduct of trench-mortars, catapults, and other weapons of a similar description—that they can well learn at the schools of instruction just behind the front. Pass them for the front, Sergeant. Put them down to go with a new draft which leaves for Verdun to-morrow evening. Good luck, my friends! I wish, indeed, that I could come with you."
"Re-form line!" bellowed the Sergeant, or, rather, he snapped the order, and at his words those who had stood forward a pace stepped back just as smartly, while every head turned as the men dressed the line.
"Dismiss!" bellowed the Sergeant, and in a moment the squad broke up, each man going off to his own quarters. As for Henri and Jules, they spent some busy hours in making ready for the coming journey; and, boarding the train with a draft of men the following evening, they found themselves behind the Verdun lines after a longish journey.
They were near the spot selected by the "All Highest", by the Kaiser, the would-be lord of the world, who had determined to make one more gigantic effort to crush the French and to defeat his enemies.
CHAPTER IX
A Terrific Bombardment
There is no need to tell how Henri and Jules, now converted into poilus, joined the troops in their billets behind the lines at Verdun; how they went to a school of instruction, where they were coached in the minute and delicate, if not peculiar, art of bombing; how they learnt, in fact, to conduct trench warfare, and prepared for closer contact with the enemy. Nor need we tell how presently they were drafted into the city of Verdun, where it lies beside the River Meuse in a sleepy hollow facing the heights beyond, which lay between it and the Germans. After a residence there in billets, they crossed the river, and, mounting those heights, gained at length the communication-trenches which gave access to the French positions in the neighbourhood of Hautmont.