A rush, a pounce—we were intent on catching them. Whew! Caught a crab! The hornets had flown—the nest is empty. Where are the brutes? We meant to surprise them, but, by Jove, they gave us an eye-opener.
The solitary thoroughfare descending to the bridge was enfiladed by four machine-guns ambuscaded on the other side of the water. The moment we got into this beastly funnel the hose was turned on and torrents of bullets splashed by. I leapt to the right, my comrade to the left side of the street, and we fell flat into whatever recesses the walls offered. So long as those deadly jets continued the road was impassable. We could only communicate by shouts, but fortunately our vocal chords are sound. The guns made an infernal din. The bullets ricocheted with vicious hisses—pish, whizz, zizz—striking sparks from flints, zigzagging about, grazing the roadway, raising clouds of dust that hung like a fog overhead.
I squatted my Chasseurs behind the church buttresses, and from these shelters they made faces at their comrades over the way and exchanged banter.
"Put your hand out to see whether there is a draught!" yelled one.
"Can't hear. Come and tell dad, ducky," came the retort.
Irrepressible boys! Danger seems to sharpen their wits.
Presently an order reached me—Heaven knows how—to look out and select whatever "combat position" I could for my men.
But what position was I to select? I couldn't see much of a panorama from my hole. I must go out and reconnoitre.
I called for a volunteer, and every man in the platoon answered, "I, sir! I, sir!" Nearest, best heard. A glance at the fellow next to me. It was Pierrat, a brick. He would do. So, my steps dogged by this hardy terrier, I began to play hide and seek from enclosure to enclosure, dodging down towards the river. Now a back yard, now an orchard, had to be negotiated. They were tricky places; you never knew whether you wouldn't come to a dead stop before you were half-way through. From time to time, whenever a fresh bit of shelter is reached, without looking back, I called out to Pierrat: "Keeping on?"