I had consulted my map before breaking into a trot, and had noticed that the road leading to Courgivault passed through two woods, not very deep, but of considerable extent. I soon came in sight of one of them, at about 500 yards distance, below a ridge which we had just passed. I called out to Vercherin, who had begun to spur his horse towards the wood, to stop. I knew that numbers of men had fallen by having acted in this way—a way we have at man[oe]uvres, when the enemy are our comrades with white badges on their caps, and when harmless blank cartridges are used instead of bullets. We had very soon learnt from the Germans themselves the way to reconnoitre a wood or a village, and also how they must be held.
How much more dashing it would have been, more in the light cavalry style, to ride full gallop, brandishing my sword, with my five little Chasseurs into the nearest copse! But I knew then that if it were occupied by the enemy their men would be lying down, one with the soil, using the trees and bushes as cover, till the last moment. Then not one of us would have come out alive.
We were reduced to employing against them their own tactics of mounted infantry. The good old times of hussar charges are past—gone, together with plumes, pelisses waving in the wind, Hungarian braiding, and sabretaches. It would be senseless to continue to be a horseman in order to fight men who are no longer cavalrymen and do not wish to be so. We should fight at a disadvantage, and since the opening of the campaign too many brave soldiers have paid with their lives for their delight in epic fights à la Lasalle.
I searched the edge of the wood carefully with my field-glasses. Before entering it I wanted to be quite sure whether any movement could be discovered, whether any of the brushwood showed signs of being drawn aside by sharpshooters too eager for a shot. My men were on the watch, crouching in attitudes that would have pleased Neuville, their carbines ready, looking with all their eyes and listening with all their ears. Nothing! I called Vercherin with a low whistle. The silence was such that he heard it. He understood the sign I made him, and, holding his carbine high, he went slowly towards the wood and got into it quickly by the road.
My heart beat for a moment when I saw my scout getting near the thick border-line of trees; but now I breathed again. We went in after him, each one by a different opening, and we passed through it as quickly as the horses' legs and the difficulties of the ground would allow. On arriving at the further side I was glad to see my four companions emerging, almost at the same moment, from the thick woody tangle. I could see their grave and confident faces turned towards me. On the ridge in front of us, near a solitary tree, stood Vercherin, clear against the sky and motionless.
We had soon rejoined him, and from this height we saw on the next hill the second wood which hid the village of Courgivault from our view, about a kilometre further off. I feared very much that this second barrier might be used by the enemy as a formidable line of defence, and on that account I ordered the approach to be made with still greater precautions than before. But, as in the first case, we found it empty, and passed through without let or hindrance.
I expected to see Courgivault at once, but a rise in the ground hid it still. I took advantage of this natural cover for getting my men forward without risking a shot. Then, still preceded by Vercherin, we debouched on the plateau on which the village stood.
Those who have found themselves in a similar situation know by experience the sudden emotion that is felt when one sees a few hundred yards off the objective of one's mission, the decisive point one has to reach, cost what it may; the point where one is almost sure to find the enemy in hiding, where one has a suspicion that he sees one, is watching one, silently following all one's movements, and only waiting for the opportunity of picking one off by an unerring shot.
I stopped my men for a moment. Surrounded by green meadows and stubble-fields dotted with apple-trees, lay the grey outskirts of the village It was a very ordinary collection of houses, some of them big farms, others humble cottages. The tiled roofs formed a reddish mass, and above them rose the squat church tower. With my glasses I could distinguish the clock-dial, and could see the time—a quarter past six.
But this clock seemed to be the only thing in the village with any life in it. I looked in vain into the gardens and orchards, which formed a belt of flowers and foliage, for signs of the peaceful animation of country life. And yet it was the time of day when one usually sees housewives coming out of the cowsheds, with their sleeves tucked up and their feet in clogs, carrying pails full of fresh milk—the time when the heavy carts and reaping machines lumber slowly along the brown roads on their way to the day's work. Was it the war that had driven away all those poor village folk, or was it the rough fist of the Teuton that kept them prisoners locked up in their cellars and threatened with revolvers?