On the following night the enemy once more begins to construct his works and his machine-gun shelters upon the superstructure. In this way he blocks up the southern exit. He tries to make it impossible to sally forth or to communicate with the outer world. Reconnoitring parties—as soon as they were suggested, the number of volunteers was so large that a selection had to be made—have tried to find a way of getting into the fort. None of them was successful. To compensate for this, some have managed to go out. Two signallers, we know already, crossed the lines on the early evening of June 4. Some hours later, during the night, Cadet Buffet, two N.C.O.’s, and three men of the 7th Company of the 142nd leave the fort in their turn. The problem is less baffling for those going out than for those coming in. The former merely have to elude the Boche machine-guns, whereas the latter have to elude ours as well. The fort, in order not to be invested, must keep the southern ditch and the approaches. Every shadow that draws near is suspect. The difficult thing is to convince the sentries that one is a friend.
“Don’t lose courage, we shall soon attack,” was the signal received, and the High Command speeds up the preparations for a fresh attack with more numerous effectives. It cannot be set going until June 6 at two o’clock in the morning.
* * * * *
We must now retrace our steps in order to know what has been going on in the interior of the fort.
From the morning of June 2 onwards the fort is swarming with Boches as the mane of a lion swarms with parasites. The Boche is in front, on the flanks, on top, and even inside, for he has rushed through the two gaps in the transverse gallery and is trying to bore his way through into the heart of the place. Major Raynal has introduced some order and system into the garrison, whose numbers have been unduly enlarged by the wounded and the overflow from neighbouring details. It ought not to consist of more than the 6th Company of the 142nd, the machine-gun company, and the fort engineers. The 7th and 8th Companies of the 142nd, which defended the right-hand transverse passages, have reinforced it with more than a hundred rifles; the 7th Company of the 101st, which defended the left-hand transverse passages, has brought some fifty. A machine-gun company of the 53rd has been left behind. With the wounded, this makes a total of over six hundred men. Six hundred soldiers who have to be supplied with water, when the cistern has run dry! Six hundred soldiers, among them wounded men, wasted with fever, who beg for a drop to drink! Nevertheless the garrison is divided up into reliefs, look-out men and rest units, and the distribution of boxes of tinned food, biscuits, chocolate, and even brandy is carried out with regularity. The water ration, which on May 31 was two pints, is reduced on June 2 to a pint and three-quarters. It will be cut down to a pint, then to barely half a pint—and under what conditions! From June 4 the commandant will be forced to take a decided step.
As we have seen, the enemy is at the transverse galleries on the morning of June 2. In spite of his losses, he manages to press the defenders hard, and they beat a retreat. The revolving gun of the double transverse gallery has been put out of action by a shell. The machine-gun that guards the entrance has been smashed by a bomb. The defence is driven back into the interior. A barricade is at once set up under the breach, but from the outside the Germans command it and overpower it with grenades. It has to be withdrawn to the foot of the stairway that leads up to the observing station. Another one is constructed at the top of the stairway. This latter one will hold out until the 4th. The same manœuvre takes place at the single transverse gallery at the north-eastern angle. The barricades keep the enemy back in front of the grating of the corridor, facing the lavatories, which can still be used.
“In the semi-darkness of the fort,” writes a survivor of the 142nd, “the struggle goes on. The enemy tried to exhaust us by depriving us of sleep and condemning us to thirst. The atmosphere was heavy and tainted. At every moment some part of the barricades blew up, and the grenade duel was resumed. We would not give in. But the air grew hot with all these explosives; the smoke and the stench made it almost impossible to breathe, yet the fighting went on all the time. We had installed machine-guns, which blocked up the gangways and did splendid work. It was then that the Germans, having contrived to blow up a barricade, attacked us with jets of flame and liquid fire. The heat, and the fact that we were taken unawares, caused us to waver for a moment. But Lieutenant Bazy, who was there with his machine-gun, darted forward, and so quick was he, that before we had recovered from our amazement he was standing upright in the middle of the gangways and fighting the Germans single-handed with bombs. The flames came up to his shoes, his left arm was bandaged, being already wounded, but little did he care. As he could not speak, on account of that black acrid smoke, he encouraged us by his example. Accordingly we shook off our stupor and went forward in rotation to stand by his side. At last the flame-throwers were quenched. He had succeeded in checking the attack and was beginning to go up again on to the barricade, when the Boches started sending us petards, which knocked us all down with the sandbags on top of us. I was quite convinced that my back was broken, and I only just had enough strength left to put my mask on, as I detected the whiff of poison gas. A private extricated me and carried me to the infirmary while the struggle recommenced. The Germans discharged gases whose heavy fumes hung about the gangways. Despite all their devilish contrivances, their flame-jets, their gases, and their petards, they made no advance. It was magnificent. They shouted to us in French: ‘Surrender, or you will all be killed,’ and we answered by slinging bombs full at their faces.”
“It was magnificent!” How comical is that outcry, in the thick of the fray!
It was on June 4, about midday, that this liquid fire attack took place. The Germans made it through the breach in the western passage. The fort was filled with a “black and acrid” smoke. In order to breathe, the garrison had to remove the armour-plating from the barrack windows. The flames came up to the corridor leading into the rooms. Some soldiers even jumped into the ditch in order to recover their breath. The machine-guns installed on the fort had been destroyed in the morning by our artillery. The curtain fire cut off the exits a little farther south. Without disorder, the troops retired into the interior, but the windows had to be closed again. The enemy swung up sacks of bombs with delay-action fuses, which he sent through the openings, and tried to blow up the armour-platings.
Nevertheless, he made progress in the north-eastern single transverse gallery. We had to retire some yards in the corridor, but not beyond the lavatories. The sick and the wounded had to be looked after on the spot. The stretcher-bearers took advantage of the destruction of the enemy machine-guns installed on the fort, and were thus able to carry corpses away in the western ditch and to cleanse the infirmary of all its filth. From the ensuing night onwards this task was beyond their powers. The dead had to remain with the living. An unspeakable horror stalked through these dim vaults, where, in a thick, pestilent atmosphere, a sleepless, nerve-racked, thirst-maddened garrison, crowded into a narrow space, refused to abandon the struggle.