When I re-entered the “salon,” Durupt, back from vespers, was reading the German translation of a novel by Sienkiewicz, Mit Feuer und Schwert. He turned towards me with a dazed and yet decisive air: “Old Riou, I have a presentiment of victory!”
THE VICTORY OF THE MARNE
September 28, 1914.
A batch of eighty-two convalescent wounded arrived at the fort on the stroke of five. We thought at first that they were ordinary prisoners sent here direct from the last battle. We were already running to meet them on the bridge, eager for trustworthy news, ready to throw a fire of questions at the unexpected messengers across the curtain of Bavarian bayonets. Then we noticed that several of them were limping, while others, though not limping, were leaning upon sticks after the manner of old men, and we perceived that they had all lost the bronzing of trench and camp life. We were disappointed. These white-faced men came from the hospitals of Ingolstadt, and such drafts, as a rule, bring but little news.
While the transfer was being effected, and while the two German non-commissioned officers, the one belonging to the fort and the one belonging to the town, paper and pencil in hand, ticked off their men as sheep are counted at a market, we studied our comrades’ appearance. They were not very ragged. They had almost completely repaired the terrible havoc of battle.
The havoc of battle! These words have no meaning to a fire-eater past the age for active service who fights his battles among women. He speaks of the beauty of the assault, of the heroism of a bayonet charge. All that his imagination conceives is the richly dressed shop-front of war. It would be different if he knew the reality that lies behind! One must have been over several battlefields immediately after the fighting in order to understand the meaning of the phrase, “the havoc of battle.”
“They throw away their shakos, their muskets, even their colours,” writes Victor Hugo. Alas, dropping with fatigue, some of them will even throw away their coats. You see them in shirtsleeves, running across the stubble. The firing gets hotter; suddenly a shell bursts, and a man is wounded in three places—hit in the back, scratched on the thigh, and deeply torn in the arm. He falls. To make matters worse it begins to rain. The ground soon becomes a slough. The battle passes off into the distance. Rain continues. Night comes. Our man, half drowned, and almost buried in a furrow, no longer hears a sound. He tries to rise, but finds it impossible. He strains his eyes to see something. The effort is useless. He is glued to the ground; he can see nothing beyond the tuft of grass where his head is resting, nothing unless it be, close at hand, the mist-wraiths which gradually surround him and hide him. In anguish he cries: “Maman, maman!” He believes himself lost. “Maman!” He screams this with all his might. It is an appeal, a complaint, a prayer. He is in pain. He is parched with thirst. “Maman, maman!”
The stretcher-bearers have heard the cry. “The ambulance!” they shout to reassure him, making a speaking-trumpet of their hands. Here they are with their red lamps knocking against their legs. A red cross man takes our soldier on his back. The wounded man groans. What can be done? They let him groan. On the road is waiting a forage cart with straw on the bottom. It creeks and jolts; it is a bed of torture. It is packed with wounded. The rain never ceases. Our man feels that he is dying of cold, but he has the good luck to faint. The cart reaches a dilapidated farm. Beside the entrance are two lanterns, one white and the other red; it is the field hospital.