“You have a machine gun, haven’t you, Lieutenant.... Won’t you lend it to me ... just a minute? It’s a Saint Etienne. I know that.... I know them all.... They’re all the same.... And five belts with it to amuse the Boches for five minutes.... That’ll be enough for the cooks to get over.”
We understood it all, and we laughed and admired him. Marseille rolled up the barrel of the machine gun and the belts in several thicknesses of canvas, tied a rope to it and attached the other end to his wrist.
“Hold on to the package so that it won’t make trouble on the stones, and when I pull on the rope twice, let it come.”
And he crawled out of the trench and slid down towards the ruined hut.
We waited anxiously the full ten minutes. We watched the cord unroll with varying emotions. It stopped, stood still, immovable. Has he arrived?
Then we felt the two jerks, and the lieutenant let the heavy package slide, and it got mixed up in the stakes, rocks, and gullies, and made such a metallic noise that it could not help attracting the Boche’s attention. And it had an effect. The enemy believed that we were making some sort of a movement, and launched in our direction a heavy fusillade which we refrained from answering.
Again ten minutes passed ... they were interminable.
Then suddenly came the machine gun ... ours ... Marseille’s.
Slowly at first, it sent out its irregular tap-tap, then the cadence became faster, and then a steady crackle. The Boches were taken in the flank and thought that we were making an attack, and Marseille, who saw them running by the light of their star shells, shouted out,
“Forward, the cooks, run, nom de Dieu!”