Those who contrived to escape from the fort have related the whole drama. All the shifting scenes here delineated, whether outside or inside, are based on the accounts of those who have seen them and lived through them. The witnesses in this case are themselves the actors. Finally, the fort itself spoke. Up to the last moment, up to the death-agony, it communicated with the high command by means of its signals and its carrier-pigeons.
The day of June 1 is heavy with anguish. The storm slants off to the left, but the air remains sultry and oppressive. The Le Bazil ravine is lost, the dyke is crossed, the enemy break through into Fumin Wood. Of the three entrenchments that stake out the slopes between the pool and the fort, two are given up. R¹ still holds out, but will it be strong enough to prove an obstacle to the foe? Between R¹ and the fort, the La Courtine trench and that of Besançon, which ends in a winding at the double transverse gallery (north-eastern) that has been half-disembowelled, are manned by the 7th Company of the 101st Regiment. In front of the fort, the trench that protects it and, farther east, the Belfort trench are occupied by the 7th and 8th Companies of the 142nd Regiment, the 5th being on the plateau as a support. Will these troops suffice to check the onslaughts? Will they not be outflanked to the west by way of Fumin Wood, and to the east by Damloup and La Horgne bottom, against which the bombardment is raging?
During the night there is great liveliness. The air shivers with countless lightning-flashes from the batteries, and with rockets going up or coming down in showers of stars. Darker than the night are the columns of smoke that rise from the shell-bursts. From the observing-station one of the guard signals movements at the foot of the slopes. No one sleeps, except a few wounded whose strength has completely failed them. Major Raynal, leaning on his stick, takes a turn round the corridors. He does not speak much, he is preoccupied, but his energetic air is reassuring. “The officers,” remarks an eye-witness, “were constantly walking through our midst; they were as calm and collected as usual, but we felt that the hour was at hand, for they looked into every detail.”
At a quarter-past two, before sunrise, the enemy’s range lengthens, and the waves of the attack unroll themselves against our defenders in a semicircle. Our curtain fire came too late; the waves have been able to advance without being broken, and soon they are coming up to the trench of the fort opposite them, to the Besançon trench on the west, to the Belfort trench on the east.
Opposite, they dash against the 7th Company of the 142nd Regiment, which replies by throwing bombs. The first platoon is annihilated on the spot, after inflicting serious losses on its assailants. The second, which was acting as a support, hastens to the rescue, and now comes a formidable rush against more numerous forces, which it prevents from passing. Captain Tabourot is in command of this reinforcing platoon, aided by Cadet Buffet. One of the survivors has drawn the following portrait of him: “Captain Tabourot fought like a lion. He overtopped us all with his tall figure, he gave his orders in curt tones, he encouraged us and put us in our right places. Then he put his hand himself in the grenade sack, took out an armful, and, leaning backwards a little, threw them with perfect composure, taking careful aim every time. This roused us, and we gave a good account of ourselves. What a pity that it didn’t last!”
The heroic band is all of a sudden assailed in the rear, between the trench and the fort. As a matter of fact, to the east, the Besançon trench, after repelling a first onslaught, has given way. Its little garrison, now outflanked, has fallen back upon the double transverse gallery, where one of the two entrances to the fort is to be found. Already they have had to convey to the interior of the fort the dauntless Lieutenant Tournery, who, with his head pierced by a bullet—a mortal wound—will take three days to die without confessing the tortures that rack him. A force deprived of its leader seeks a shelter in order to re-form itself. This force, sadly thinned, re-enters the fort by the transverse gallery, the opening in which it defends. The enemy, however, has managed to worm his way as far as the counterscarp. The northern ditch is barred to him by a revolving gun placed in the double transverse gallery, but, passing along it, he has taken Captain Tabourot’s platoon in the rear.
The captain is struck from behind by a bomb, which breaks his back and slashes both his legs. “Mastering his pain,” says the eye-witness already quoted, “he did not let a single cry of complaint escape his lips, and I can still see him pass in front of us, supported by two of his sergeants. He was pale, but he pointed out the enemy to us.”
He is carried to the infirmary. The procession makes its way into the interior by the breach in the north-eastern single transverse gallery. Major Raynal at once comes to join him. The meeting between the two soldiers is brief: no word of consolation is spoken, no false hopes are held out. The one divines that all is over; the other has too high an opinion of him to take refuge in falsehood. A firm handshake, then the commandant of the fort merely says:
“Well done, my dear fellow!”
The captain’s thoughts are with his men: