He again swung dramatically on his heel, until his back was turned to us. "Au revoir, Messieurs," he said, and as we filed silently and somewhat dazedly from the room, he was again standing before the huge map, chewing the cigar, his shoulders thrust back, and his hands clasped tightly behind him.
The young lieutenant climbed into our car. He explained that the general had delegated him to the party. He went with us through the trenches on succeeding days and said good-by only when we took the train for Paris. He was a brilliant young officer and before the war had been a foreign correspondent for Le Temps. For that great newspaper he had "covered" campaigns in Asia and Africa. Now he explained that he was to be official historian of the campaigns of General Foch.
"I am the latest comer on his staff," the lieutenant said, "so there was not much room for me and he has given me a holiday with you. He has not a large staff, but the house as you see is very little. So I have the room that a baby occupied before the war." The young man smiled and looked down at his stalwart frame. "There was only a little cot and a rocking horse in the room. I sleep on the floor. I shall keep the cot for the baby."
This conversation took place on the last day of our trip, amidst the ruins of Arras. The lieutenant talked continually of his general. He explained how the general had told him in detail, and illustrated by making a plan with matches, the great movement of troops during the battle of the Marne that started the German retreat.
"The general broke all his own rules of war," he explained; "all those rules that he taught so long in the École de Guerre. He moved an entire division—half of the famous Forty-second Corps, while it was under fire—he stretched out the remainder of the corps in a thin line across its place, and moved the division behind his entire army, then flung them against the Prussian Guard as it was beginning the attack on the center. The moving of troops already engaged with the enemy had never been done in any war before."
"But he staked his whole reputation—his military career on it?" I asked.
The Lieutenant smiled. "Oh, yes," he replied, "but after he gave the order, he went for a long walk in the country with a member of his staff, who told me afterwards that not once was the war mentioned, and they were gone three hours. All that time they talked about Spanish art and Spanish music. When they returned to headquarters, the general merely asked if there was any news, knowing well that perhaps he might hear news which would make his name hated forever. He was told the tide had turned and we were winning the battle. He merely grunted and lighted a fresh cigar."
We all remained silent and then a number of desultory questions were asked about the position of the troops. The lieutenant again explained with matches. "The general showed it to me with matches, as I have already shown." He spoke reverently, his voice almost a whisper. "And I have those matches that the general used."
In Arras there was just one house left where we could take luncheon—a fine old mansion belonging to a friend of our guide from the Great General Staff. We brought our food and soldiers served it in a stately room with a massive beamed ceiling and stags' antlers decorating the walls. A tapestry concealed one wall. The officer pulled it aside to show that we sat in only half a room; the other half had been entirely destroyed by shells. From the cellar an orderly brought some of the finest burgundy in France. There was a piano in one corner of the room. When coffee was served, our Captain sat at the instrument and played snatches of Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven.
The discussion at the table turned to music. At the same moment a shell burst a few hundred yards down the street.