That night I sat at a peasant's table and heard my four stable-companions understanding everything, and evidently in their world and at home, although they were conscripts. This turned me silent, and I sat away from the light, looking at the fire and drying myself by its logs. As I heard their laughter I remembered Sussex and the woods above Arun, and I felt myself to be in exile. Then we slept in beds, and the goodwife had our tunics dry by morning, for she also had a son in the service, who was a long way off at Lyons, and was not to return for two years.
There are days in a long march when a man is made to do too much, and others when he is made to do what seems meaningless, doubling backward on his road, as we had done; there are days when he seems to advance very little; but they are not days of repose, for they are full of halting and doubts and special bits of work. Such a day had come to us with the next dawn.
The reason of all these things—I mean, of the over-long marches, of the counter-marches, and of the short days—was the complexity of the only plan by which a great number of men and guns can be taken from one large place to another without confusion by the way—living, as they must do, upon the country, and finding at the end of every march water and hay for the horses, food and some kind of shelter for the men. And this plan, as I have said before, consists (in a European country) in dividing your force, marching by roads more or less parallel, and converging, after some days, on the object of the march.
It is evident that in a somewhat desolate region of small and distant hamlets the front will be broader and the columns smaller, but when a large town stands in the line of march, advantage will be taken of it to mass one's men.
Such a town was Bar-le-Duc, and it was because our battery was so near to it that this fourth day was a short march of less than eight miles.
They sent the gunners in early; we drivers started later than usual, and the pace was smart at first under a happy morning sun, but still around us were the bare fields, all but treeless, and the road was part of the plain, not divided by hedges. The bombardier trotted by my side and told me of the glories of Rheims, which was his native town. He was a mild man, genial and good, and little apt for promotion. He interlarded his conversation with official remarks to show a zeal he never felt, telling one man that his tracks were slack, and another that his led-horse was shirking, and after each official remark he returned up abeam of me to tell me more of the riches and splendour of Rheims. He chose me out for this favour because I already knew the countryside of the upper Champagne, and had twice seen his city. He promised me that when we got our first leave from camp he would show me many sights in the town; but this he said hoping that I would pay for the entertainment, as indeed I did.
We did not halt, nor did we pass the gunners that morning; but when we had gone about four miles or so the road began to descend through a wide gully, and we saw before us the secluded and fruitful valley of the Meuse. It is here of an even width for miles, bounded by regular low hills. We were coming down the eastern wall of that valley, and on the parallel western side a similar height, with similar ravines and gullies leading down to the river, bounded our narrow view. I caught the distant sound of trumpets up there beyond us, and nearer was the unmistakable rumble of the guns. The clatter of horses below in the valley road and the shouting of commands were the signs that the regiment was meeting. The road turned. On a kind of platform, just before it joined the main highway, a few feet above it, we halted to wait our order—and we saw the guns go by!
Only half the regiment was to halt at Bar-le-Duc. But six batteries, thirty-six guns, their men, horses, apparatus, forges, and waggons occupying and advancing in streams over a valley are a wonderful sight. Clouds of dust and the noise of the metal woke the silent places of the Meuse, and sometimes river birds would rise and wheel in the air as the clamour neared them. Far off a lonely battery was coming down the western slope to join the throng in its order, and for some reason their two trumpets were still playing the march and lending to this great display the unity of music. We dismounted and watched from the turf of the roadside a pageant which the accident of an ordered and servile life afforded us; for it is true of armies that the compensation of their drudgery and miserable subjection is the continual opportunity of these large emotions; and not only by their vastness and arrangement, but by the very fact that they merge us into themselves, do armies widen the spirit of a man and give it communion with the majesty of great numbers. One becomes a part of many men.
The seventh battery, with which we had little to do (for in quarters they belonged to the furthest corner from our own), first came by and passed us, with that interminable repetition of similar things which is the note of a force on the march, and makes it seem like a river flowing. We recognised it by the figure of one Chevalier, a major attached to them. He was an absent-minded man of whom many stories were told—kindly, with a round face; and he wore eyeglasses, either for the distinction they afforded or because he was short of sight. The seventh passed us, and their forge and waggon ended the long train. A regulation space between them and the next allowed the dust to lie a little, and then the ninth came by; we knew them well, because in quarters they were our neighbours. At their head was their captain, whose name was Levy. He was a Jew, small, very sharp-featured, and a man who worked astonishingly hard. He was very popular with his men, and his battery was happy and boasted. He cared especially for their food, and would go into their kitchen daily to taste the soup. He was also a silent man. He sat his horse badly, bent and crouched, but his eyes were very keen; and he again was a character of whom the men talked and told stories. I believe he was something of a mathematician; but we knew little of such things where our superiors were concerned.