what was to be done with us? we were not left long in doubt.... with our packs on our backs, we set off.
henriot was very much depressed. a cavalry sergeant whom he had just met had spoken to him of a general falling-back of the troops supporting us on our right. we immediately formed a salient, likely to be cut off.
but guillaumin joined us.
"tommyrot! why we're just about to surround them on the left."
he had got the tip from our friend dagomert, the motor-cyclist.
the column moved off. we marched all night.
nobody was very clear as to what direction we were taking. we were not moving towards étain. there was no question of a defeat. we were going of our own free will. there were regular halts, and comparatively good order was kept. everyone was fully convinced that we were carrying out a wily man?uvre. we were tickled, in advance, by the idea of the bosches' surprise when they saw us appear just where they least expected us!
the long halt took place at daybreak, when coffee[pg 297] was distributed. according to the lieutenant we were in the neighbourhood of pillon and billy, where we had fought the other week. a considerable recoil, no doubt, but we had left the enemy a long way behind.
the fact that the division was assembled on this tableland was once more the signal for troublesome attention from a taube, which dropped some bombs, and two star shells without doing any damage.
de valpic told me that he feared we might be obliged to fall back on the meuse.
"what makes you think that?"
"various things."
he added:
"our object is simply to delay them, i think. the north is where the game will be lost or won!"
he had a fit of coughing. henriot appeared.
"would you believe it! the general turned up, and hauled the colonel over the coals. he declares that we ought not to have left the trenches we were holding last night!"
"oh, rot!"
"and that we've got to go back!"
"nonsense!"
yes. when the news got about it called forth anger, cold at first—if they didn't know what they wanted.... then the men grew heated. a wave of rage, and indeed opposition, surged through them. we ourselves did not quite escape it.
luckily, there was a diversion, in the shape of a cart which drove up. everyone crowded round. the baggage-master! his horse was foundered. he had got mail-bags of letters and parcels which he had collected at charny, and shouted to us:
[pg 298]
"i've been chasing you for the last three days!"
guillaumin took possession of our bundle, and, mounted on a heap of flints, began the distribution.
a sea of humans surrounded him, faces stretched forward feverishly, arms raised tirelessly—de valpic in the front row between bouillon and humel.
i had been pushed forward. what did i expect? a line from my father when he heard the terrible news? hm! he would hardly have got mine. no. i expected nothing. one by one the names escaped: gaudéreaux, descroix, lieutenant henriot. comrades answered to a certain number of them.
"missing! killed!"
brief words which froze.
i suddenly felt as if i'd had a blow on the head.
"dreher!" shouted guillaumin, looking round for me.
lamalou handed me a letter. my eyes dimmed, my head swam. that writing.... i freed myself from the crush round me. i fled, half demented. i pinched, and weighed the envelope. how light and yet how heavy it was! i just missed charging into the captain who was also hanging about waiting.... i went twenty, fifty, yards, then threw myself down in a field, at the foot of an apple-tree.
my heart was still beating a mad measure, and i could hardly get my breath. i hesitated for a long time before tearing the thin envelope, then slowly and cautiously pulled out the double sheet which i fingered and turned over.... that stamp too.... yes, yes, i knew it! but i was impatient to revel in the happy certainty: i flew to the signature.
jeannine! jeannine! i shouted the name aloud in a transport of delight. then i hurriedly glanced[pg 299] through the first page.... and instantly i understood that happiness was descending upon me....
as if afraid of so much joy, i hid myself, so to speak, from my ecstasy for a few seconds behind such reflections as: "the post hasn't lost much time!" or "that's what you might call a real letter!" as lovers at their meetings cloak the emotion of the first moments with trivial remarks.
eight pages! she had written eight pages! i began to read them with tender deliberation. one long, dear harmonious poem! each line held a joy in store for me; at each page i turned i was torn betwixt my regret at seeing it finished and my rapture that the next was beginning. i could repeat those sentences to-day without hesitating over a single syllable.
she was writing, she said, on the evening of august 16th. she had just received my letter, and was answering it immediately. she wanted to be the first to send me a word of consolation in my sorrow. my sorrow? i did not quite understand. it seemed to me that there was no reason now for anything but envy. then i reddened. had i not told her of my brother's death, on that card? ah yes, whether consciously or unconsciously, i had calculated on arousing her pity, her tenderness, and i had succeeded. she professed herself overcome with emotion. my only brother! why—she reproached me gently—had i spoken of him so rarely? she could see from the tone of my letter how much i loved him. it was natural—the only being in the world fashioned after my likeness, hardly any older than myself, the playmate of my childhood, the confidant of my adolescence. the same profound and simple reasons which my rejuvenated heart had suggested to me. i held victor[pg 300] more dear, i regretted him more poignantly. i blessed jeannine for having guessed my brotherly affection. in my card, i had made some passing allusion to the two little orphans. here again her thoughts ran hand-in-hand with mine; she tactfully confirmed me in the idea of my duties.
oh! with what sublime trust, with what exquisite and ingenuous sympathy these lines overflowed. this language, so new between us, seemed to me usual and necessary. jeannine made some reference to the footing we had been on at ballaigues, when the tone of our trifling had merely been one of playful courtesy. she appeared to apologise for the disguise adopted then. now we might see each other face to face. she professed her friendship for me. she did not hesitate to make use of that word, so delicious and pure, in which i read another, essentially the same, but more magnificent illuminating the entire universe!
i had not a shadow of doubt; she cannot have had either. it was the letter of a fiancée. what surprised me was that we had delayed so long, before seeing into our hearts. ever since my departure, and every day more surely, was not the vision of this child the only one which at the approach of danger consoled me with a hope, towards whom, in the hour of safety, my mirth rose up like incense. this hearth had ceased long since to smoulder under cinders; powerful and generous, it flung its ardent flames towards the sky. and had i doubted, jeannine, lest my passion should not be reciprocated. could i not summon up a certain look of yours, or an inflection of your voice which already bore witness to the chaste avowal. how fervently your fingers had lingered in mine at[pg 301] parting. we had been consecrated to each other ever since that time. the present was less surprising—child of the wondrous past! i seemed already to have spelt out these pages, upon which i was feasting, in the course of some dream. their enchantment, as adored memories, was doubled for me!...
the end of the missive breathed a tenderness no less proud or strong. jeannine knew through the communiqués, of the brilliant affair at mangiennes. she guessed that i had taken part in it, that i was not wounded—(no! my good fortune lent me too great a halo!)
by some mysterious intuition she ended up by counselling me to bear the ill-fortune, which might be near at hand, courageously. what did she know of it? what presentiment had she? i caught a glimpse of the fate of returning troops, the ruin of our first hopes. still distant hypotheses! and then it would have needed greater misfortunes than that to damp me. i was filled with enthusiasm. guillaumin had not lied. what rapture to consecrate myself to thee, to thy defence, my noble france, incarnate in a young face!...
i turned my steps towards my section; i was coming down to earth, returning to grim reality....
what a sight met my eyes!
the piles of arms had been broken everywhere; yonder, the neighbouring battalion was dispersing in the greatest disorder; our lot, disbanded too, were jostling each other on the road. a regular panic! guillaumin, bareheaded, and haggard....
"i was looking for you!" he shouted. "what do you say to this?"
[pg 302]
"what? what do you mean?"
"they're firing on us!"
"who?"
dragging me along, he gasped:
"i've got your rifle and your things. come along. come along!"
we rushed down.
"do you hear?"
the echoes of explosions.
"the 'taube'?"
"that was the beggar that marked us! but ... they talked of our going back.... i don't think! they're close on our heels...! their artillery, the 'coal boxes'!"
he pinched my arm till it bled:
"and we've been flying all night!"
i buckled on my pack, in a dazed way as we ran along, and took my rifle from his. henriot caught us up:
"they're coming up from the south too. we're surrounded!"
he was choking.
playoust stopped in front of us and chucked down his pack exclaiming:
"wot's the use o' goin' on? we're goners!"
some of the men followed his example.
"you thundering lunatic!" i shouted to him.
guillaumin shook his fist at him. i shouted:
"keep your rifles, lads! the war's beginning in earnest now, when you've got to fight for your crops and homes, for everything that's dear to you!"
two or three men who had dropped their arms picked them up. we reached a cross-road.
our poilus were grouped round us.
[pg 303]
"fall in, no. 3 section."
"nicely in the soup, we are!" someone exclaimed.
"possibly! but we'll get out of it somehow. where there's a will, there's a way!"
they looked at each other blankly. then judsi smacked the barrel of his rifle with a swagger.
"so the blighters think they're going to give us a doin'? we'll show 'em wot's wot!"
i could have hugged him!
