when the twentieth was gathered together for roll call, it was found that there were 150 dead or wounded. some 300 germans were stretched upon the ground. but the enemy must be pursued. so forward, with great precautions, to a farm, their headquarters—but it was found to be empty; so82 here they halted for a rest, the young men still panting with the exertion and excitement of the fight. “i tried to smoke my pipe,” said georges, “but i had to give it up.”
with the artillery still hammering all about—but mostly the french batteries of “75’s” now, pounding away in fours—the twentieth stayed till night, and sent its wounded to the rear—for the stretcher bearers and ambulances were right up behind these days, with plenty to do. here the regiment received with yells and tears the news of the victory of this five days’ battle of the marne. it was too good to be true.
the captain of georges’s company, with his arm in a sling, was a frenchman, and now it was time for more rhetoric. he had an appreciative audience, this time. “you are men!” he announced, “you have done your duty, and france is proud of you.” but france, it appeared from his talk, was not83 yet free; and the moral of his discourse was that there was still considerable work to do, and he ended with the word “forward!”
so, forward they went, next morning, gloriously in pursuit of the enemy, now some ten miles away. forward, with their bayonets stained by german blood at last. forward, all the forenoon, past villages wrecked and plundered by the barbarians; past houses gutted and outraged and burned; past trembling, fear-struck peasants offering what was left of their bread and wine. forward all the afternoon, along the roads strewn with helmets, knapsacks, and empty wine bottles; past german camps in the open, littered with armchairs and clocks and silver plate, mattresses and broken pianos, and bottles, bottles, bottles—with sheep and cattle cut open, rotting; past dead horses everywhere, disemboweled, legs up. forward at sunset, past wrecked automobiles,84 burned to masses of curly iron; past caissons smashed by shells, and bicycles without number abandoned along the road. forward, in the moonlight across battle fields where the dead lay in windrows in shocking confusion, mutilated abominably, dead in the long fresh trenches, filling every gallery and compartment, dead in the woods, dead on green meadows where in the cool night air wisps of trailing mist hovered near the ground and the stench was in their nostrils till they sickened and hurried on, rinsing their mouths with water!
forward across the swath, leagues wide, of death and hate and ruin, forward, forward all that night!
