In the Field (1914-1915) | Page 2

wretched lantern swinging and creaking above the door I could see their three heads, with pricked ears and uneasy eyes. They were breathing hard and could not understand why they had been brought away from their comfortable stable with its thick litter of clean straw. They were not thinking about the war, but they seemed to understand that their good times were over, that they would have to resign themselves to all sorts of discomforts, march unceasingly, pass nights in camps under the pouring rain, keep their heavy equipment on their backs for many days together, and not always get food when they were hungry.
Then the train would set off again with a noise of tightened couplings and creaking waggons. Whilst I was mechanically looking out at the darkness, dotted here and there with the coloured lights of the signals placed along the line, my straying thoughts would wander to the fields of battle and try to picture the scene on my arrival at the Front.
It was the 28th of August, nearly a month after the order had been given for mobilisation. And the armies had been fighting for some days already. What had happened? We could only glean part of the truth from the short official announcements. We knew there had been hard fighting at Charleroi, at Dinant, and in the direction of Nancy. But the result had not been defined. I thought I could guess, however, that these battles had not been decisive, but that they had cost both sides dear. I was tempted to rejoice, fool that I was, to think that the first great victories would not be won before I joined my regiment. I had not yet been able to console myself for the ill-fortune that prevented me from starting with the squadrons of the first line. And yet I had to submit to regulations. The colonel was inflexible, and answered my entreaties by quoting the inexorable rule: In every cavalry regiment the sixth lieutenant in order of seniority must stay at the dep?t to help the major and the captain of the 5th squadron. They must assemble, equip, and train the reserve squadrons of the regiment.
I shall never forget what those days were to me. Days of overwhelming work, when, in a tropical heat, I was busy from sunrise to sunset, entering the names of thousands of men, registering the horses, giving certificates, and providing food for the lot. It needed some skill to find billets for them all; the horses were lodged in stables, riding establishments and yards, the men in every corner and nook of the vast district. It was tiresome work, and would have been almost impossible but for the general goodwill and admirable discipline. But all the time I was thinking of the fellows away in Belgium boldly reconnoitring the masses of Germans and coming into contact with the enemy.
At last, at eleven o'clock on the 28th of August, the colonel's telegram came ordering me to go at once and replace my young friend, Second-Lieutenant de C., seriously wounded whilst reconnoitring. At six o'clock in the evening I had packed my food, strapped on my kit, and got my horses into the train. I set off with a light heart, and my fellow-officers of the Reserve and of the Territorials, who were still at the dep?t, came to see me off.
But how slowly the train travelled, and what a long way off our little garrison town in the west seemed to me when I thought of the firing line out towards the north! I made up my mind to try to imitate my faithful Wattrelot, who had been snoring in peace for ever so long. I stretched myself on the golden straw and waited impatiently for the dawn, dozing and dreaming.
At about eight o'clock in the morning the train stopped at the concentration station of N. What a crowd, and yet what order and precision in this formidable traffic! All the commissariat trains for the army muster here before being sent off to different parts of the Front. The numerous sidings were all covered with long rows of trucks. In every direction engines getting up steam were panting and puffing. In the middle of this hurly-burly men were on the move, some of them calm, jaded and patient. These were the railwaymen, who went about in a business-like way, pushing railway vans, counting packages, carrying papers, checking lists, and giving information politely and willingly. The rest were soldiers, lost, bewildered in the midst of this entanglement of lines which seemed inextricable. They were asking each other questions, swearing, laughing, protesting, and then they got into a train and were promptly hauled out and sent to another. But, with all this, there was no disorder, no lack of discipline. Everywhere the