Nevertheless, it was an immense delight, as he would sometimes confess to Bernard, to be going towards the fighting line. He had the feeling that he was making for a definite object, the only one that interested him: Élisabeth's deliverance. Even though he was attacking this frontier and not the other, the eastern frontier, he was still rushing with all the strength of his hatred against the detested enemy. Whether that enemy was defeated here or there made little difference. In either case, Élisabeth would be free.
"We shall succeed," said Bernard. "You may be sure that Élisabeth will outwit that swine. Meanwhile, we shall stampede the Huns, make a dash across Belgium, take Conrad in the rear and capture Èbrecourt. Doesn't the proposal make you smile? Oh, no, you never smile, do you, when you demolish a Hun? Not you! You've got a little way of laughing that tells me all about it. I say to myself, 'There's a bullet gone home,' or 'That's done it: he's got one at the end of his toothpick!' For you've a way of your own of sticking them. Ah, lieutenant, how fierce we grow! Simply through practise in killing! And to think that it makes us laugh!"
Roye, Lassigny, Chaulnes. . . . Later, the Bassée Canal and the River Lys. . . . And, later and at last, Ypres. Ypres! Here the two lines met, extended towards the sea. After the French rivers, after the Marne, the Aisne, the Oise and the Somme, a little Belgian stream was to run red with young men's blood. The terrible battle of the Yser was beginning.
Bernard, who soon won his sergeant's stripes, and Paul Delroze lived in this hell until the early days of December. Together with half a dozen Parisians, a volunteer soldier, a reservist and a Belgian called Laschen, who had escaped from Roulers and joined the French in order to get at the enemy more quickly, they formed a little band who seemed proof against fire. Of the whole section commanded by Paul, only these remained; and, when the section was re-formed, they continued to group together. They claimed all the dangerous expeditions. And each time, when their task was fulfilled, they met again, safe and sound, without a scratch, as though they brought one another luck.
During the last fortnight, the regiment, which had been pushed to the extreme point of the front, was flanked by the Belgian lines on the one side and the British lines on the other. Heroic assaults were delivered. Furious bayonet charges were made in the mud, even in the water of the flooded fields; and the Germans fell by the thousand and the ten thousand.
Bernard was in the seventh heaven:
"Tommy," he said to a little English soldier who was advancing by his side one day under a hail of shot and who did not understand a single word of French, "Tommy, no one admires the Belgians more than I do, but they don't stagger me, for the simple reason that they fight in our fashion; that is to say, like lions. The fellows who stagger me are you English beggars. You're different, you know. You have a way of your own of doing your work . . . and such work! No excitement, no fury. You keep all that bottled up. Oh, of course, you go mad when you retreat: that's when you're really terrible! You never gain as much ground as when you've lost a bit. Result: mashed Boches!"
He paused and then continued:
"I give you my word, Tommy, it fills us with confidence to have you by our side. Listen and I'll tell you a great secret. France is getting lots of applause just now; and she deserves it. We are all standing on our legs, holding our heads high and without boasting. We wear a smile on our faces and are quite calm, with clean souls and bright eyes. Well, the reason why we don't flinch, why we have confidence nailed to our hearts, is that you are with us. It's as I say, Tommy. Look here, do you know at what precise moment France felt just a little shaking at the pit of her stomach? During the retreat from Belgium? Not a bit of it! When Paris was within an ace of being sacked? Not at all. You give it up? Well, it was on the first day or two. At that time, you see, we knew, without saying so, without admitting it even to ourselves, that we were done for. There was no help for it. No time to prepare ourselves. Done for was what we were. And, though I say it as shouldn't, France behaved well. She marched straight to death without wincing, with her brightest smile and as gaily as if she were marching to certain victory. Ave, Cæsar, morituri te salutant! Die? Why not, since our honor demands it? Die to save the world? Right you are! And then suddenly London rings us up on the telephone. 'Hullo! Who are you?' 'It's England speaking.' 'Well?' 'Well, I'm coming in.' 'You don't mean it?' 'I do—with my last ship, with my last man, with my last shilling.' Then . . . oh, then there was a sudden change of front! Die? Rather not! No question of that now! Live, yes, and conquer! We two together will settle fate. From that day, France did not know a moment's uneasiness. The retreat? A trifle. Paris captured? A mere accident! One thing alone mattered: the final result. Fighting against England and France, there's nothing left for you Huns to do but go down on your knees. Here, Tommy, I'll start with that one: the big fellow at the foot of the tree. Down on your knees, you big fellow! . . . Hi! Tommy! Where are you off to? Calling you, are they? Good-by, Tommy. My love to England!"
It was on the evening of that day, as the 3rd company were skirmishing near Dixmude, that an incident occurred which struck the two brothers-in-law as very odd. Paul suddenly felt a violent blow in the right side, just above the hip. He had no time to bother about it. But, on retiring to the trenches, he saw that a bullet had passed through the holster of his revolver and flattened itself against the barrel. Now, judging from the position which Paul had occupied, the bullet must have been fired from behind him; that is to say, by a soldier belonging to his company or to some other company of his regiment. Was it an accident? A piece of awkwardness?