On Sunday, February 27, its little garrison is strengthened. The reinforcements, Territorials from Verdun, bring us no end of rumours. Are they laying on the colours too thick? We shall know later on or never. They say that the Boche has flung himself at Verdun with Hell’s own artillery (that we knew already, and besides, consider the country round the fort!); that he expected to smash, kill, destroy everything and to advance, shouldering arms, over a cleared terrain; that he has found his match instead of the dead whom he hoped to trample on, and that now fresh troops of ours are coming up: the stroke has failed, the road is blocked. Joffre has been watching and waiting, to strike at a time and place of his own choosing. What is more, Castelnau has come, and Pétain is there, getting ready to take over command. If Castelnau has come and Pétain is in command, all will be well.
“And Douaumont? Tell me about Douaumont.”
“The fort is taken. Didn’t you know?”
“I knew, but I wouldn’t believe it.”
“They won’t be left in possession. We are preparing to retake it from them.”
“That’ll be a tough job. Those birds like to settle in strange nests. Before you can look round, they have dug themselves in. Tell me anything else you know.”
The fort whispers to itself, “And even what you don’t know.” For stones have experience, and therefore irony.
“Well, the Iron Division is there. Others, too, which are unfamiliar to me. At Douaumont village there is a colonel who says, ‘So long as I have breath in my body, the Boche won’t get in.’”
“It’s always risky to say things like that.”
“The Boches have not got in. They were stopped in front of the village. Our machine-guns mowed them down there by hundreds.”