Then the captain’s voice rang out a second time:
‘Limber up!’
The movement started again, the drivers galloped, did their about-wheel so that the crews could hitch up the guns. But this time in the middle of the manoeuvre a splinter of shell went through Louis’s throat and tore away his jaw, and he fell across the trail he was in the act of picking up. And as Adolphe was coming up, just when the line of teams was sideways on, there was a furious volley: he fell with his chest split open and arms flung out. In a final convulsion he put his arms round the other man, and they remained twisted together in a fierce embrace, wedded even in death.
Already, in spite of slain horses and the disorder the murderous volley had spread in the ranks, the whole battery was climbing a slope and establishing itself further forward, a few metres from where Maurice and Jean were lying. For the third time the guns were uncoupled, the drivers found themselves facing the enemy while the crews opened fire again at once with obstinate, invincible heroism.
‘It’s the end of everything!’ said Maurice in a broken voice.
It really seemed as though earth and sky were intermingled. Rocks split and dense smoke sometimes darkened the sun. In the midst of the frightful din the horses looked dazed and stupefied, with their heads down. The captain stood out wherever he was, for he was too tall. He was cut in two and fell like a broken flagstaff.
It was above all round Honoré’s gun that the activity went on, unhurried and steadfast. Stripes or no stripes, he had to get down to the job, for only three of his crew were left. He did the laying and pulled the striker while the three others went to the ammunition waggon, loaded, worked with the cleaning brush and ramrod. They had asked for men and horses from the reserve to fill the gaps made by death, but these were a long time coming and meanwhile they had to make do. The maddening thing was that they were still not reaching target and their shells almost all exploded in the air without doing much harm to those terrible batteries on the other side whose fire was so deadly accurate. But Honoré suddenly let out an oath that could be heard above all the noise of firing – of all the bad luck, the right wheel of his gun had been smashed! Fuck it all, with one leg gone the poor old girl was pitched on her side, nose in the earth, all lopsided and no good for anything! He wept bitter tears and put his groping hands round her neck as though he could set her on her feet again by the sheer warmth of his affection. A gun that was the best of them, the only one to have landed a few shells over there! Then he was seized by a crazy resolve to replace the wheel there and then under fire. When he had gone himself with one of the crew and found a spare wheel in the waggon, the tricky operation began, the most dangerous there could be on the battlefield. Fortunately the relief men and horses had at last come, and two fresh gunners gave a hand.
So once again the battery was in confusion. Foolhardy heroism could not be taken any further. The order to fall back definitely could not long be delayed.
‘Get a move on, chums!’ Honoré kept urging them. ‘We’ll take her away with us anyway, and they won’t get her!’
That was his idea – his gun must be saved, just as you save the flag. And he was still talking when he was struck down, his right arm torn off and his left side split open. He fell over his gun and there he stayed as though lying on a bed of state, his head straight on his shoulders and his face intact and beautiful in its anger as it turned towards the foe. A letter had slipped out of his torn uniform, clenched in his fingers, and his blood was staining it drop by drop.
The only lieutenant still alive called the order:
‘Limber up!’
One waggon had blown up with a noise like fireworks fizzing and exploding. They had to decide to take the horses from another ammunition waggon to save a gun whose team was laid out. And this last time, when the drivers had wheeled round and coupled the four remaining guns, they galloped off and never stopped for a thousand metres until they were behind the first trees of the Garenne wood.
Maurice had seen it all. With a little shiver of horror he went on repeating in a mechanical voice:
‘Oh, poor devil! Poor devil!’
This sorrow seemed to make his gut-twisting pain worse than ever. The animal within him was in revolt, he was at the end of his tether and he was dying of hunger. His eyes were worrying him, and he did not even realize the danger the regiment was now in since the battery had had to retire. At any minute the plateau could be attacked by heavy forces.
‘Look here,’ he said to Jean, ‘I’ve got to have something to eat. I’d rather eat and let them kill me afterwards!’
He opened his pack and took out the loaf with both hands shaking, and began to bite into it voraciously. Bullets whistled by and two shells went off only a few metres away. But nothing existed for him any more, there was only his hunger to be appeased.
‘Want some, Jean?’
Jean was watching him dully, with goggling eyes, for his own stomach was tortured by the same desire.
‘Yes, damn it, I do. It hurts too much.’
They shared it out and finished the loaf off greedily, not bothering about anything else as long as a mouthful was left. It was only afterwards that they caught sight of the colonel again, on his tall horse with his bleeding boot. The 106th was broken on all sides. Some companies had already had to take to flight. So, forced to yield to the torrent, he raised his sword and said with tears in his eyes:
‘Boys, you are in God’s hands, though He hasn’t found much use for us!’
He was surrounded by groups of fugitives, and disappeared into a dip in the ground.
Then, without knowing how they got there, Jean and Maurice found themselves behind the hedge with the remnants of their company. There were only forty men left at the most, commanded by Lieutenant Rochas, and the flag was with them: the second lieutenant carrying it had rolled the silk round the staff to try to save it. They ran along to the end of the hedge and threw themselves down among some little trees on a slope, where Rochas made them reopen fire. The men were now scattered like snipers and were under cover and could hold out, especially as a big cavalry manoeuvre was going on to their right, and regiments were being brought back into line to support it.
Then Maurice understood the slow, inexorable encircling movement that had just reached its completion. In the morning he had seen the Prussians pouring out through the Saint-Albert gap, reaching Saint-Menges, then Fleigneux, and now behind the Garenne wood he could hear the thundering cannon of the Guards and was beginning to see other German uniforms coming over the slopes of Givonne. In a few minutes’ time the ring would close and the Guards would join up with the Vth corps and envelop the French army in a living wall, a deadly girdle of artillery. It must have been some desperate idea of making one last effort, an attempt to break this moving wall, that was behind the massing of a division of reserve cavalry, that of General Margueritte, behind a fold in the hills, in readiness for a charge. They were going to charge against death, with no possible outcome, for the honour of France. Thinking of Prosper, Maurice witnessed the terrible spectacle.
Ever since first thing that morning Prosper had done nothing but urge his horse on in continual marches and counter-marches from end to end of the plateau of Illy. They had been awakened at dawn man by man, without any bugle calls, and to brew some coffee they had managed to put a coat round each fire so as not to give their presence away to the Prussians. Since then they had known nothing of what was going on, they had heard gunfire and seen smoke and distant movements of infantry but, in the complete inactivity in which the generals left them, they knew nothing of the progress of the battle. Prosper was falling about with sleep. This was their great trouble: after bad nights and accumulated fatigue an overpowering drowsiness overcame them as they were gently rocked by the movement of their horses. Prosper had hallucinations, saw himself on the ground and snoring on a mattress of pebbles, dreamed that he was in a nice bed with white sheets. For minutes on end he really dozed off in the saddle and was mer
ely a parcel on the move, borne along wherever his trotting mount liked to take him. Sometimes mates of his had fallen off their horses like that. They were all so dead beat that bugles no longer roused them and they had to be kicked out of oblivion and on to their feet.
‘But what the hell are they up to with us, what are they up to?’ Prosper went on repeating to keep this irresistible torpor at bay.
The guns had been roaring for six hours. As they went up a hill he had had two comrades killed at his side by a shell, and a bit further on three others were left on the ground riddled with bullets coming from nobody knew where. It was exasperating to be out on this useless and dangerous military parade across the battlefield. Finally at about one he realized that they had at any rate made up their minds to have them killed decently. The whole Margueritte division, three regiments of Chasseurs d’Afrique, one of French and one of hussars, had been asembled in a dip of the land slightly below the Calvary, to the left of the road. The trumpets had sounded dismount. And the officers’ command rang out:
‘Tighten girths, secure packs.’
Prosper dismounted, stretched himself and stroked Zephir. Poor Zephir! He was as woebegone as his master, worn out with the silly job he was being made to do. Added to that, he was being made to carry a whole world of stuff: clothing in the saddlebags and rolled coat on top, shirt, trousers, knapsack with medical supplies behind the saddle, and slung across him the bag with provisions, to say nothing of the water-bottle, can and messtin. The rider’s heart was filled with pity and affection as he tightened the straps and made sure everything was secure.
It was a nasty moment. Prosper was no more a coward than the next man, but he lit a cigarette because his mouth was so dry. When you are about to charge, every man can really tell himself: ‘This time I shall stay there!’ This lasted a good five or six minutes, and it was being said that General Margueritte had gone ahead to reconnoitre. They waited. The five regiments were drawn up in three columns, each column seven squadrons deep – plenty of cannon-fodder.
Suddenly the trumpets sounded ‘To horse!’ and almost immediately another call: ‘Draw swords!’
The colonel of each regiment had already galloped forward to his battle position twenty-five metres ahead of the main body. The captains were in their positions at the head of their men. And the waiting began again, in deathly silence. Not a sound, not a breath in the blazing sun. Only their hearts beat fast. One more order, the last, and this inert mass would begin to move and hurtle with the speed of a hurricane.
Just then an officer appeared over the brow of the hill, on his horse, wounded and supported by two men. At first they did not recognize him. Then a muttering began, which spread into a deafening clamour. It was General Margueritte, shot through the jaw by a bullet and near to death. He could not speak. He waved his arm towards the enemy.
The clamour grew louder still.
‘Our general! Revenge, revenge!’
Then the colonel of the first regiment raised his sword in the air and shouted in a voice like thunder:
‘Charge!’
The trumpets sounded and the mass began to move, at first at a trot. Prosper was in the front rank, but almost at the end of the right wing. The greatest danger was in the centre, where the enemy instinctively concentrates his fire. When they had scaled the top of the Calvary hill and were beginning to go down the further side towards the broad plain he had a clear view, some thousand metres ahead, of the Prussian squares against which they were being hurled. For all that, he was riding in a dream, feeling as light and disembodied as a man in his sleep, with an extraordinary vacuum in his brain which left him without a single idea – in fact a machine functioning with irresistible impetus. They kept repeating ‘Close up! Close up!’ so as to close the ranks as tightly as possible and give them a granite-like solidity. Then as the pace quickened and changed into a mad gallop, the Chasseurs d’Afrique, as in the Arab fashion, uttered wild yells that maddened their mounts. This furious gallop soon turned into a diabolical race, hell’s own stampede, with its savage catcalls accompanied by the patter of bullets like hailstones on metal things, messtins, water-bottles, the brass on uniforms and harness. In this hail blew a hurricane of wind and din that made the earth tremble, and into the sunshine rose a smell of scorching wool and the sweat of savage beasts.
After five hundred metres Prosper took a fall when a dreadful swerving movement sent everything flying. He seized Zephir by the mane and managed to get back into the saddle. The centre raked by the enemy fire and forced back, had faltered, while the two wings whirled round and fell back in order to recover their impetus. It was the inevitable, foreseeable annihilation of the first squadron. The ground was littered with dead horses, some killed outright, others still writhing in violent death-throes, and unhorsed men could be seen running as fast as their little legs would carry them, looking for another horse. The plain was already strewn with dead, many riderless horses were still careering about and making of their own accord for their place in the line and dashing on into the enemy fire at a mad pace as if drawn on by the smell of powder. The charge was resumed and the second wave was now advancing with increasing fury, men bent low along their horses’ necks, holding their sabres at the knee, ready to slash. Two hundred metres more were covered amid the deafening clamour. But once again the centre gave way, men and animals fell and stopped the charge with the inextricable clutter of their corpses. So the second squadron was mown down in its turn, annihilated, yielding its place to those who followed.
Then, in the heroic determination of the third charge, Prosper found himself involved with hussars and French chasseurs. Regiments no longer meant anything, and now there was simply an enormous wave continually breaking and re-forming to carry away all it met. He no longer had any notion of what was happening, but abandoned himself to his horse, that good old Zephir he loved so much and who seemed to have been driven crazy by a wounded ear. He was in the centre now, other horses were rearing and falling round him, some men were thrown to the ground as though they were blown down, while others, killed instantly, were still in the saddle, still charging with unseeing eyes. And this time, behind the two hundred fresh metres gained, the fields came back into view covered with dead and dying. There were some with their heads rammed into the ground. Others had fallen on their backs and were staring at the sun with terrified eyes starting from their sockets. There was a big black horse, with its belly open and vainly trying to get back on to its feet because its legs were caught in its entrails. Under the increasing fire the wings turned about yet again and gathered themselves together for another furious return.
So it was at last only the fourth squadron, the fourth wave, that came into contact with the Prussian lines. Prosper, with raised sabre, slashed on helmets and dark uniforms which he saw through a haze. Blood was flowing, and he noticed that Zephir’s mouth was bleeding, and thought it was from biting into the enemy ranks.The clamour all round was such that he could not hear himself shout, though his throat felt lacerated by the yelling that must be coming out of it. But behind the first Prussian line there was another, and another and yet another. Heroism was unavailing, for these deep masses of men were like tall vegetation into which horses and men disappeared. However many you mowed down there were still plenty there. Fire continued with such intensity at point-blank range that some uniforms were set alight. Everything collapsed and was swallowed up amid the bayonets, chests cut open and skulls split. Regiments were going to leave two thirds of their strength there, and all that remained of this famous charge was the glorious folly of having attempted it. All of a sudden Zephir was hit by a bullet full in the chest and down he went, crushing beneath him Prosper’s right haunch, and the pain was so intense that he lost consciousness.
Maurice and Jean had looked on at the heroic gallop of the squadrons, and they exclaimed in anger:
‘Good God, what’s the use of being brave?’
They went on firing their rifles as they crouched behind the br
ushwood on the little hillock where they found themselves sniping. Rochas himself had picked up a rifle and was shooting. But this time the Illy plateau was well and truly lost, and the Prussian troops were swarming on to it from all sides. It must have been about two o’clock, the junction was now completed, and the Vth corps and the Prussian Guard had met and closed the trap.
Jean was suddenly knocked over.
‘I’ve got my ticket,’ he muttered.
It had been like a violent hammer-blow on the top of his head, and his képi was knocked off and lay in shreds on the ground behind him. For a moment he thought his skull was open and his brains exposed, and for a second or two he dared not feel with his hand for he was certain there would be a hole. When he did venture his fingers came away red from a copious bleeding. The pain was so terrible that he fainted.
Just then Rochas was ordering them to fall back. There was a Prussian company not more than two or three hundred metres away. They would be caught.
‘Don’t rush, turn round and fire as you go. We’ll find each other down there by that low wall.’
But Maurice was in desperation.
‘Sir, we aren’t going to leave our corporal here, are we?’
‘If his number’s up what do you propose to do about it?’
‘No, no, he’s breathing all right… Let’s carry him!’
With a shrug of the shoulders Rochas suggested that they couldn’t clutter themselves up with everybody who fell. On the battlefield the wounded cease to count. So Maurice implored Pache and Lapoulle:
‘Come on, give me a hand. I’m not strong enough on my own.’
They took no notice, couldn’t hear, were only concerned with themselves, with the sharpened instinct of self-preservation. Already they were moving along on their knees as fast as they could go, out of sight behind the wall. The Prussians were now only a hundred metres away.