"They are coming! … Quiet there!"
A file of dark shadows moved forward. The dragoons swung their carbines forward. There was a volley of shots before a cry rang out.
"Cessez feu! Cessez feu!"
The cry had been heard before from German officers speaking excellent French, but this time there was no treachery in it. The shadows who moved forward through the night were Frenchmen changing from one trench to another.
16
The infantryman had a hard time, too. It was true that theoretically he might sometimes snatch a few hours of sleep in a trench or out in an open field, but actually the coldness of the night was often an acute agony, which kept him awake. The food question was a difficult one. When there was heavy fighting to be done, and rapid marching, the provisions became as theoretical as the hours of sleep.
I heard the graphic recital of a sergeant of infantry, which was typical of many others in those early days.
His section awakened one morning near Armentières with a famishing hunger, to find an old peasant woman coming up with a great barrow-load of potatoes.
"These are for your breakfast, my little ones," she said. "See, I have some faggots here. If you care to make a fire there will be roast potatoes for you in twenty minutes."
"Madame, you are too kind," said my sergeant. He helped to make the fire, to pack it with potatoes. He added his eloquence to that of his comrades when the fragrant smell made his nostrils quiver. And just as the potatoes were nearly done up came a motor cyclist with orders that the section was to move on immediately to a place fifteen kilometres away. It was a tragedy! There were tearful farewells to those potatoes. Fifteen kilometres away there was a château, and a friendly lady, and a good cook who prepared a dinner of excellent roast beef and most admirable fried potatqes. And just as the lady came to say "Mes amis, le diner est servi," up panted a Belgian cyclist with the news that German cavalry was advancing in strong force accompanied by 500 motor-cars with mitrailleuses and many motor-cycles, and a battery of horse artillery. It was another tragedy! And the third took place sixteen hours later, when this section of infantry which had been marching most of that time lay down on an open field to sleep without a supper.