"Charge!" he shouted, though the sound was swept away and lost in the turmoil of cheers from the French soldiers who heard him, and in the shattering reports of those French 75's, which, blazing hard in the rear, registered still upon the enemy.
Then those gallant poilus who had poured over the parapets of their trenches—where such still existed—springing from shell-holes where they had taken shelter, and emerging from every sort of odd and unexpected corner, joined in one frantic mob, swept down under the rays of the search-light upon the enemy, and, plunging into their midst, commenced at once a desperate hand-to-hand encounter.
So it was where Henri and Jules were stationed, and the tale was repeated in a hundred different places. Indeed, on this 21st February, when the Germans had confidently anticipated a "walk-over", and when such an event as a massed attack, or even the loss of a considerable number of their infantry, was hardly contemplated, they found themselves held up entirely, with whole ranks of their divisions swept away, and with the ground in front of Brabant, Haumont, and along the northern face of the Verdun salient littered with their killed and wounded. That torrent of shells, which should have killed every one of the slender garrison of Frenchmen, had failed in its effect; while the hope of gaining Verdun, the capture of which was to influence the whole world, and particularly wavering neutrals, was as far away as ever. That desperate attack made during the darkness broke down as others had done, and the Germans—those who were left of them—fled to the cover of the evergreen pine-trees, leaving the poilus of General Joffre's armies to stagger back to their battered trenches, there to prepare—not to rest, not to sleep, for that was out of the question—but to resist still further.
CHAPTER XI
Falling Back
Down below, in a subterranean chamber, there burned a cheerful fire, a chimney taking the smoke and flames up through the ground above and into the open. Seated about it, more dishevelled than ever, their chins bristly now, and their faces and hands stained a dull, dirty colour, sat Jules and Henri and others of their comrades, resting for a time, while men of their regiment watched for them.
"And, believe me, it has been a fight of fights," said one bearded veteran, lolling back against the earth wall of the dug-out, a cup of steaming coffee gripped in one huge, dirty hand, and a hunch of cheese in the other. "A fight more bitter than any that has gone before it, and one which will become more desperate. Allons! Here is death to the Kaiser!"
He smiled round at his comrades, whose faces were lit up by the rays from the flickering flames, showing a gleaming row of teeth, and steady eyes, and features which displayed not the smallest trace of fear, or even of anxiety.
"Death to the Kaiser—to the butcher who sends his troops to such slaughter!"