The satisfied expression on his face told me that without words.
IV—"COUP OF CAURES WOOD"
I did not meet either him or Chabert until after the retreat; and, to tell you the truth, we were so busily engaged in keeping back the Germans until it suited our purpose to let them come on en masse that I almost forgot about the "little surprise" which Moreau, Chabert, et Cie. had announced to me through my chief.
When evening came the gradual move back to more advantageous positions began. I shall not go into the details of a strategic retreat with which you yourself must be almost as well acquainted as myself, but simply state that we evacuated the Caures Wood and got away to the high ground in the neighbourhood of the Bois des Fosses, where Peyron, Moreau, Chabert, Sergeant Fleury and myself calmly awaited the impending catastrophe which had been so skilfully and rapidly prepared for the oncoming enemy. The Bois de Caures, in the gathering darkness of night, stood out like a huge black mass against the sky.
"What do you estimate the strength of the attacking force in our section to be?" I asked Captain Peyron.
"Two thousand odd," he replied, "and they have all of them fallen into the trap. As our men ran away through the wood, they followed in masses, blindly and stupidly—les imbéciles! Not one of them will escape, Moreau?"
"Not a soul," replied the chief engineer. Then, glancing at his luminous watch and turning to Chabert, he added, "One more minute, and we shall see what we shall see."
We kept our eyes fixed intently on the dark Bois de Caures. Someone, somewhere, was pressing a button; for all at once huge tongues of flames, accompanied by a series of explosions which rent the cold night air, leapt into the sky. Simultaneously a mental vision must have occurred to every one of us, as it certainly did to me—a vision of hundreds upon hundreds of Germans, caught like rats in a trap, blown to pieces amidst the shattered trees of that fatal wood.
So ended the story of the "Coup of the Caures Wood" as related to me by Lieutenant R——. Hardly had he uttered the last words when the departure bell rang and we hurried away to the train which was to take us to Paris.