The pits were filled instantly, and the men were beginning to regain their calmness and courage, when from a near-by hill the terrifying cannonade recommenced. The butchery recommenced—the explosions, and the screams.
Out of the trenches came all that were left alive, and there was no stopping the army now, till, hurrying all night long without food and rest, demoralized, it found its way back to Mouzon. Here the Seventeenth Corps was pulled together for a hasty review. The roll call showed that in Coco’s regiment there were 1,443 dead, wounded, or missing—fully one-third of its strength gone.
The men were in a fury of disappointment and rage against the generals who had been responsible for the massacre. Where was the artillery? Where were the stretcher bearers? Where were the ambulances and surgeons? Not one did Coco see during the battle, after the battle—nor even during that whole terrible retreat.
And it wasn’t at Mouzon alone that there was wondering, complaining, raging at the failure of the campaign. On the left wing the British expeditionary force, hot with rage at not being supported by General Percin, was falling back from defeat at Mons to pursuit at Bavay—and it was not yet out of danger. On the right, the Fifteenth Corps (fat cowards of the Midi) had turned tail and run in Lorraine. Oh, there was something rotten somewhere. Paris was wild. The Government was shuffled, and the President dealt out a new hand—his high trump was Millerand, new Minister of War, but his right bower was Joffre, commander in chief, of whom all the world was soon to hear. To Coco at Mouzon, the news came that the Fourth Army was to be commanded by General de Langle de Carry. Little did Coco care who commanded it. Much more important than that was that he would get one night’s good sleep on a sack of straw.
By this time the boy had begun to realize what war meant. That night he wrote to his aunt: “I have received my baptism of fire, but I am unhurt. It was terrible. Don’t be frightened, and be sure and write to my mother that you have had good news from me.” He signed the post card for the first time “Georges.” Coco had begun to be a man.
If it has ever been your lot to go without having your clothes off for two weeks—to march through dust and mud in them, sleep in them, fight in them, run in them—then you’ll understand how Georges Cucurou longed for a swim in the river Meuse—to bathe his poor, aching blistered feet. But no—up and out again at six o’clock next morning! Off on the road toward Belgium again. A counter-attack. All day and all night they marched.
XI
There was no singing, this time. The Twentieth was smarting with the shame of its defeat; it was savage for revenge; but, held in reserve behind the battle line, it had to wait listening to the booming cannon and the crackle of machine guns for an impatient hour—then they were ordered back to Mouzon.
At Mouzon, news of a fresh defeat awaited them. The town was now distraught, terror-stricken by the ever-nearing, ever-increasing thunder of the German cannonade. When Georges arrived at midnight, almost every house was lighted. The frenzied inhabitants were packing up or hiding their belongings, ready to fly. The “Bosches” were coming!