11
The spirit of D'Artagnan is not dead. Along many roads of France I have met gay fellows whose courage has the laughing quality of that Musketeer, and his Gascon audacity which makes a jest of death itself. In spite of all the horrors of modern warfare, with its annihilating shell-fire and the monstrous ruthlessness of great guns, the French soldier at his best retains that quality of youth which soars even above the muck and misery of the trenches. The character of a young lieutenant of artillery, who came to fill the place of a poor fellow killed at the side of his caisson, is typical of innumerable soldiers of France. He presented himself with a jaunty good humour, made a little speech to his battery which set all the men laughing, and then shook hands with them one by one. Next day he knew each man by name, used the familiar "thee" and "thou" to them, and won their hearts by his devil-may-care manners and the smile which came from a heart amused by life. Everything was a joke to him. He baptized his four guns by absurd nicknames, and had a particular affection for old "Bumps," which had been scarred by several shells. The captain called this young gentleman Lieutenant Mascot, because he had a lucky way with him. He directed the aim of his guns with astounding skill. A German battery had to shift very quickly five minutes after his first shell had got away, and when the enemy's fire was silenced, he would call out, "Don't chuck any more," to the telephone operator. That was his way of ordering the cease-fire.
But Lieutenant "Mascot," one day jumped on the top of a hayrick to direct the marksmanship of his battery, and a moment later a German shell burst above him and scattered part of the rick in all directions. It was a moment of anguish for the onlookers. The captain became as pale as death, and the gunners went on plugging out shells in an automatic way with grief-stricken faces. The telephone man put his head out of his dugout. He stared at the broken rick. Beyond doubt Monsieur Mascot was as dead as mutton. Suddenly, with the receiver at his ear and transfigured, he began to shout: "Don't chuck any more!" It was the lieutenant who had sent him the usual order. Ten minutes later the lieutenant came back laughing gaily and, after shaking some straw out of his muddy uniform, gave a caressing touch to old "Bumps," who had got the enemy's range to perfection. Then the captain embraced him.
12
The spirit of youth and the spirit of faith cannot rob war of its horrors, nor redeem the crime in which all humanity is involved, nor check the slaughter that goes on incessantly. But they burn with a bright light out of the darkness, and make the killing of men less beastlike. The soul of France has not been destroyed by this war, and no German guns shattering the beauty of old towns and strewing the northern fields with the bodies of beautiful young manhood could be victorious over this nation, which, with all her faults, her incredulities and passions, has at the core a spiritual fervour which lifts it above the clay of life.
The soldiers of France have learnt the full range of human suffering, so that one cannot grudge them their hours of laughter, however coarse their mirth. There were many armies of men from Ypres to St. Mihiel who were put to greater tasks of courage than were demanded of the human soul in mediaeval torture chambers, and they passed through the ordeal with a heroism which belongs to the splendid things of history. As yet the history has been written only in brief bulletins stating facts baldly, as when on a Saturday in March of 1915 it was stated that "In Malancourt Wood, between the Argonne and the Meuse, the enemy sprayed one of our trenches with burning liquid so that it had to be abandoned. The occupants were badly burnt." That official account does not convey in any way the horror which overwhelmed the witnesses of the new German method of attacking trenches by drenching them with inflammatory liquid. A more detailed narrative of this first attack by liquid fire was given by one of the soldiers;
"It was yesterday evening, just as night fell, that it happened. The day had been fairly calm, with the usual quantity of bursting shells overhead, and nothing forewarned us of a German attack. Suddenly one of my comrades shouted, 'Hallo! what is this coming down on us? Anyone would think it was petroleum.' At that time we could not believe the truth, but the liquid which began to spray on us was certainly some kind of petroleum. The Germans were pumping it from hoses. Our sub-lieutenant made us put out our pipes. But it was a useless precaution. A few seconds later incendiary bombs began to rain down on us and the whole trench burst into flame. It was like being in hell. Some of the men began to scream terribly, tearing off their clothes, trying to beat out the flames. Others were cursing and choking in the hot vapour which stifled us. 'Oh, my Christ!' cried a comrade of mine. 'They've blinded me!' In order to complete their work those German bandits took advantage of our disturbance by advancing on the trench and throwing burning torches into it. None of us escaped that torrent of fire. We had our eyebrows and eyelashes burnt off, and clothes were burnt in great patches and our flesh was sizzling like roasting meat. But some of us shot through the greasy vapour which made a cloud about us and some of those devils had to pay for their game."
Although some of them had become harmless torches and others lay charred to death, the trench was not abandoned until the second line were ready to make a counter-attack, which they did with fixed bayonets, frenzied by the shrieks which still came from the burning pit where those comrades lay, and flinging themselves with the ferocity of wild beasts upon the enemy, who fled after leaving three hundred dead and wounded on the ground.
13
Along five hundred miles of front such scenes took place week after week, month after month, from Artois to the Argonne, not always with inflammatory liquid, but with hand grenades, bombs, stink-shells, fire balls, smoke balls, and a storm of shrapnel. The deadly monotony of the life in wet trenches, where men crouched in mud, cold, often hungry, in the abyss of misery, unable to put their heads above ground for a single second without risk of instant death, was broken only by the attacks and counter-attacks when the order was given to leave the trench and make one of those wild rushes for a hundred yards or so in which the risks of death were at heavy odds against the chances of life. Let a French soldier describe the scene: