“I understand only too well, sir. You are going to ask me to take with my bayonets what a G.H.Q. ink-slinger has already inadvertently captured at the point of his pen!”
“That’s exactly the conclusion I didn’t want you to—”
“So it’s come to this, has it?” Assolant went right on, warming to his pet phobia of the communiqué. The Army Commander, who had heard of these tantrums wherever Assolant’s name was mentioned, decided to sample one for himself.
“So it’s come to this, has it? G.H.Q. is no longer satisfied with attacks for the purpose of window-dressing their communiqués. They must now go the limit and make their infernal literature an objective in itself! I must read the communiqué, must I, because that’s where I shall find my operation orders? My reputation as a fighting commander is secure enough in this army to warrant my refusal—”
“That’s enough, general,” the Army Commander’s voice cut in drily. “No need for any dramatics here, and less than that if you will be so good as to listen to me.”
“I must apologize, sir. I was carried away . . .”
“That’s all right,” the Army Commander said soothingly, and not entirely displeased with his subordinate’s outburst. On the contrary, he admired the genuine fire of the man, a quality Assolant would need above all others for the job that was going to be assigned to him.
“Now this is strictly secret, this part of it I mean. It positively must not go further than your chief of staff, and not even to him unless you are sure of his discretion. A group of armies is forming on this front for an attack about three weeks from now which the C.-in-C. is determined to make a complete break-through. No attack can succeed, however, as long as the Boches hold the Pimple. As you know, it’s a key position which can hold up and cripple our advance from the moment it starts. It must, therefore, be captured—and held. I saw Joffre a couple of days ago and he gave me formal orders to take the Pimple not later than the eighth, which is day after tomorrow—”
“But, Name of God, sir—”
“I’ve entrusted this job to two generals already and, as you know, they’ve both failed me. If there’s one man in this army who can do it, you can, Assolant. I’d have called on you first, but you were up to your neck in it at Souchez.”
“Well, I must say, sir, that you couldn’t have called on me at a worse moment than the present. My division is cut to pieces, and what’s left of it is absolutely exhausted. No, it’s absurd. I’m in no condition to hold the Pimple, much less to take it. It’s out of the question. Can’t you get the C.-in-C. to assign some troops from G.H.Q. reserve to do the job? They’d be fresh and—”
“Yes, but they wouldn’t be assault troops, and the success of this engagement is going to depend on assault troops.”
“Well, mine aren’t assault troops any more, and they won’t be again until they’ve had a thorough rest and refitting.”
“I can give you all the artillery you want, within reason.”
“Artillery isn’t going to be much use on the Pimple, sir. I know that place. It’s a boil, not a pimple. It’s honey-combed with subterranean machine-gun emplacements and it’s connected with the rear by an underground passage having several exits. No. Shells just bounce off it; we’ve seen that before. It’s a fortress.”
“How do you propose to take it then?”
“I don’t. I propose that the C.-in-C. take it with some of the troops he’s going to use for the main attack. Why doesn’t he use the Moroccans? They’re good with the bayonet, which is what the place will have to be taken with, hand-to-hand. And besides, they’re black and our losses will be heavy.”
For a moment the Army Commander thought of protesting vigorously against a cynicism which could arouse such a repugnance in him. Then he realized that Assolant wouldn’t know what he was talking about.
“He won’t hear of it. I told you he expects a complete break-through. Do you know where the first day’s objectives are? Twenty kilometres off. He won’t use a man on these ‘minor operations’—as he calls them—whom he has reserved for the offensive. They must be absolutely fresh so they can exploit the break-through—indefinitely, if necessary. He really thinks this attack will be the last one of the war.”
“Well, the attack on the Pimple will be the last one of my division.”
“Come, come, Assolant, you’ve got a crack division. It may be a bit tired, yes, but it ought to be refreshed and revived by the new class that has just joined it.”
“Now, sir, you’re not going to tell me that recruits are the proper material for a job of this kind . . .”
“Why not? They’re young, strong, healthy—full of youthful ardour. All they dream about is making a bayonet charge. They won’t even know the attack is a bit—hmm—a bit—unusual.” The satisfaction the Army Commander derived from finding that last word was enough to dispel the slight distaste he felt for his own cynicism until Assolant tactlessly brought it home to him.
“That’s true enough. And they’ll never have a chance to find out.”
“Which one of your units is in the best shape?” The Army Commander was again moving quickly away from a subject he didn’t want to get entangled in.
“I suppose the 181st are. Owing to the messenger’s stupidity, they should have gotten five or six hours’ sleep,” said Assolant, unconscious of his irony.
“Ah, the 181st, yes. I’ve seen them cited in Army Orders more than once. Put them in the first wave, then, and let your other regiments support them and consolidate the position.”
“It might be done,” said Assolant, half to himself.
“Of course it can be done. Anyway, it’s got to be done. A first-class regiment which is, precisely at this moment, at the top of its form, made up half of recruits and half of seasoned veterans. The recruits will have the élan, the veterans will temper it. There couldn’t be a better combination. And, as I told you, you can have all you want in the way of guns.” The Army Commander knew he was being specious but he noted with satisfaction that his enthusiasm was beginning to infect Assolant, always susceptible to offensives, and to make him oblivious of the speciousness.
“I’d rather have rest than artillery just now, sir. Still, this is a new experience, to be offered unlimited ammunition. How many rounds of gas could I have? If the wind is right, I’d want to smother that Pimple in gas . . .”
“Call de Guerville in, and your chief of staff too—what’s his name? Couderc. We’ll go over it all thoroughly. Now no weakening in front of Couderc, no reservations. That sort of thing gets around.”
“Don’t worry, sir, my mind is made up. I’ll take the Pimple for you, if you’ll give me a free hand and plenty of grenades besides the artillery.”
“I’ll give you more than that, Assolant, after it’s over, I’ll give you a Corps. Do you think you could possibly snatch the Pimple off tomorrow?”
“Impossible, sir. But the day after, you’ll have it for lunch. In fact you can put it in the communiqué now. Oh, no! I forgot. It’s already in the communiqué. Well, I’ll make it official. You may have heard, sir, that I’ve never said I’d take a position that I didn’t take.”
“And you may have heard that I’ve never made a promise I didn’t keep.”
“Yes, sir. And that leads me to wonder if . . .”
The Army Commander waited for the sentence to be completed, then realizing it wasn’t going to be, he sought out Assolant’s eyes. But he could not engage them, for they were staring with deliberate significance at the four little loops on his own jacket, the four little loops to which the start of a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour could be attached for formal or ceremonial occasions.
“Perhaps . . .” said the Army Commander, concealing his contempt. “Now to work! Ask the staffs to come in, please.” Then he added to himself: “What vulgarity! What a bounder! But he’ll take the Pimple.”
It was after dark, now. The sudden noise of their hobnailed boots striking on cobblestones, and its equally sudd
en ending, conveyed to each company of the 181st Regiment of the line, as it followed the preceding one, that it was crossing a main highway.
Didier, in Number 2 Company, was, perhaps, the only one of the three thousand rank and file who knew or cared where he was. And perhaps he didn’t care so much either, for he was as tired and preoccupied with his aching muscles as the rest. To know his whereabouts, however, was an automatic function for a former frontier guard and night prowler, and that function continued to exercise itself in spite of his fatigue. Nor did it do so any the less keenly because it was dark. On the contrary, senses which had been submerged during the day-time but which had not, for that reason, failed to absorb impressions, came to the surface at night and intensified perceptions which, after all, had been deprived of only one of their number—and that one only partially in Didier’s case—sight.
His sense of direction was a strong one; so strong, indeed, that it inclined him to be intolerant of those who did not have it and to be contemptuous of their laziness, to which he attributed their deficiency. Didier knew exactly where he was; it was a question of pride for him to know this. He knew the regiment had left the village shortly after nightfall on the same road by which it had entered. He knew he had walked up a hill. He had felt the open fields of the low plateau, and the road curving back through them. He had not been able to discern the outline of the wood into which he had been plunged abruptly, but he knew he was in a wood because he had felt space and sound confined about him. His sixth sense of the out-of-doors told him that these places were the same places he had passed through that morning. The order to break step, which was relayed back down the column as it approached the bridge over the stream, merely confirmed his certainty of his position, and the slight tonal change in the echo of the marching regiment, shortly thereafter, made him aware that he was now walking between walls of brick instead of walls of trees—the walls of the hamlet.
Thus, when he heard the boots of the company ahead of him strike on the cobblestones, resound on them for a space, and then go soft again, he automatically noted the fact that the regiment was cutting straight across the highway, past the Café du Carrefour, and that it was heading towards another sector of that front which it had, in his opinion, only too recently quitted.
“So, that’s it,” he said to himself. “Combat order, and this direction. Something doing, all right. The moon ought to be up soon and then I can get some idea of the lay of the land.”
The regiment tramped on in silence. Even the newly joined recruits had had some of their spirits taken out of them by the marching and counter-marching. The others were too weary and dazed by unfinished sleep even to swear. There comes a degree of numbness in fatigue and exasperation which can be expressed only by a sullen silence. Five hours’ sleep had been just enough to stiffen all those men’s muscles but not enough to begin the work of reviving them. Equipment, boots, clothing had stiffened too and, worst of all, their boots had all been made a size too small by the swelling of their feet which they had hastened to release from them....
The tail of the regiment vanished on the other side of the highway, enlarging at each step the gap between itself and the Café du Carrefour.
“To the trenches, again,” said the old woman as the last hobnails of the column went silent on the continuation of the dirt road beyond the cobblestones—her cobblestones, as she was in the habit of thinking of them. She was sitting by her stove in the carefully shuttered café, sipping her bowl of black coffee. “To the trenches, again.” She did not add “Poor devils!” because no such commiserating thought came into her head. She merely made an oral note of a fact. She had sat there, like that, for the better part of two years, ticking off to herself the mysterious and aimless movements of the armies which fluctuated around her crossroads. At first she had sat at her door and watched them. Then winter had driven her inside, and she had stayed on there, alone and without curiosity. There was, moreover, no need for her to come out any more for, as she soon discovered, she had learnt the significance of sounds and her ears now gave her almost as much news of what went on around the crossroads as her eyes had formerly done. She could, for instance, make a fair estimate of the size of a body of troops by the duration and spacing of its tramp. She knew the difference between the rumble of an artillery train and of a convoy of motor lorries, and she could tell whether the latter were loaded or empty. She could distinguish between the noises of a staff car and an ambulance and, more remarkable still, between a troop of cavalry and patrol of mounted military police. When questioned about it, she explained this last accomplishment by issuing the following ultimatum: “The keeper of a bistro must be able to smell police, or go out of business.” Soldiers stopped off there at the Café du Carrefour on purpose to ask that question and to hear the reply. They were never disappointed, unless they happened to be police.
So she sat there, on the high-water mark of the war in those parts, sometimes within the heavy artillery zone, sipping her bowls of black coffee and enumerating to herself the various fragments of the army that beat up and down past her café, enumerating them not from any interest, patriotic or other, in military affairs, for she had none, but as so many good customers lost.
There was a rumble on the road outside which drew nearer as she finished her bowl of coffee. She gave the stove a poke or two, lighted a candle, and blew out the lamp. She moved over to a door and, candle in hand, paused for a moment, listening.
“Rolling kitchens,” she said. Then she went down into her cellar and climbed into bed.
Colonel Dax was marching at the head of his regiment with the officer commanding its First Battalion, Major Vignon.
“It always looks like a distant thunderstorm, doesn’t it?” the major said. He was referring to the effect of sheet lightning produced by the flares along the front and the reverberating overtone of gunfire.
“Not so distant, at that,” the colonel answered in a voice that did not encourage any further small talk. The major took the hint and relapsed into silence. But why, he asked himself, had he been invited to walk with his chief? Was it merely for the purpose of keeping step with him?
“It’s too bad,” the colonel was thinking, “that you can’t ask a man to walk with you without his jumping to the conclusion that you want him to talk to you too. Why can’t I say to a man, ‘Look here, I’m getting into a blue funk, as I always do at this point, and I really need your companionship. But it must be your silent companionship. I just want your bulk, your flesh near me, within touching distance. It takes the edge off my funk and helps a lot.’ But Vignon wouldn’t understand at all. He’d think I’m mad. He just hasn’t the faculty for knowing what I’m going through now. If he suspected the crisis I’m getting near, he’d consider it his duty, probably, to pull his pistol and put a bullet through my head. As a matter of fact that’s exactly why I need his presence so badly at these times. He hasn’t any nerves.”
He was right, too. Neither Vignon nor anybody else suspected for a moment that Dax, colonel of the 181st Regiment of the line, of the crack Assolant Division, next on the list for a general’s stars and a promotion in the Legion of Honour, four times cited for bravery in Army Orders—no one suspected for a moment, so well did Dax conceal the fact, that he was in a state of fear which was rapidly turning into panic.
This fear of his was, so far as he knew, an idiosyncrasy, one which grew with each step forward he was now taking, one which became more acute every time he had to perform the duty of leading his regiment into the trenches. Once the men were in the trenches, the crisis would evaporate. He quite realized that his fears were unreasonable, even groundless, to a certain extent, but that did not make it any easier for him to master his rising terror. All he could think of was the compact mass of living, human, vulnerable flesh, strung out for two kilometres or so behind him. All he could think of was that in another half hour that whole two kilometres of compact, living, human, vulnerable flesh would be well within range of the German guns. Th
e thought appalled him; it also prevented the saliva from forming in his mouth.
“Flesh, bodies, nerves, legs, testicles, brains, arms, intestines, eyes . . .” He could feel the mass of it, the weight of it, pushing forward, piling up on his defenceless shoulders, overwhelming him with an hallucination of fantastic butchery. A point of something formed in his stomach, then began to spread and rise slowly. It reached a level near his diaphragm where it became stationary and seemed to embed itself. He could not dislodge it or budge it up or down, but he recognized it for what it was: the nausea induced by intense fear.
“Three thousand men. My men. To run the gauntlet of open, registered roads with three thousand men. All neatly packeted for the slaughter. It’s too much for one man to bear. I can’t give the order to space out now or they’d know I’m in a funk. They’re quick to sense it when an officer has the wind up. At any moment . . . This strain is intolerable. What an awful racket they make. Where the devil are those guides going to meet us? I’d look like a fool arriving with the regiment in single file, all spaced out. Think of it, I can’t order the fire-zone intervals yet because it wouldn’t look right. What a relief it would be though . . . Keep up appearances, no matter how many lives it costs. What torture this is, and that fool Vignon strolling along as if he’s on a boulevard. Good old Vignon! Why can’t I have some of his . . . Three thousand men, two kilometres of massed flesh. What a target! What’s that light over there? . . .”
His imagination suddenly side-slipped, then righted itself in front of another mirage. He saw, way over there across the lines, German gunners, grotesquely helmeted figures, moving in quiet efficiency around their guns. He saw them ramming shells and charges home and closing the breeches, reading gauges, twirling wheels. He saw the great cannon, mouths still smoking from the previous salvo, rising, slow and erectile, until their muzzles were pointing at just the right spot in the sky. He saw the gun crews step down and away and put their hands to their ears, all except one man to each gun who was clutching a lanyard. He saw the officer raise a whistle to his lips. He saw all of them bow their heads a little and turn half away. He saw the lanyards go suddenly taut, looking as if they had jerked the guns backwards, so instantaneous was the explosion and recoil.
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