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Repeating the process on the following day – for by then the French had fallen back to their second line, now badly battered, at Samogneux and Hill 344 – these new positions were assailed with such a torrent of shells that by the evening they were absolutely untenable, and a further retirement was essential. Indeed, by the morning of the 24th, the French left, as it lay on the River Meuse, was withdrawn to the famous Pepper Hill, so that the distance between the new first line and the city of Verdun was considerably decreased, while that imaginary base-line, across which the French must retreat if the salient was to be evacuated, was still further shortened. But elsewhere, where artillery-fire had given the enemy less assistance, where, indeed, massed guns could not be spared to blaze a path towards Verdun, desperate fighting held up the advance of the Germans. At Herbebois and Ornes and on to Bezonvaux there was hand-to-hand fighting of the most desperate nature, while at Maucourt – an advance position held by the French – terrific execution was done to the masses of troops hurled forward by the Germans. Here masked French quick-firing guns caught German columns of attack, twenty men abreast and hundreds deep, at close range, and blew them into eternity. Yet the hordes still came on, with a bravery never surpassed, and, in spite of every effort, in spite of a superb display of courage and tenacity, the French were forced to retire up the slopes towards Bezonvaux, and so in the direction of the fortress of Douaumont perched up aloft and looking down upon the scene of this sanguinary conflict. Towards the former of these two places the garrison of Ornes was also compelled to beat a retreat, finding itself at Bezonvaux, at the mouth of a ravine, which ascends the heights leading to that fortress already mentioned, which was to be the scene of a terrible battle in days now near at hand. To portray all that occurred on this eventful 23rd February would be almost impossible, and certainly beyond the scope of these pages; yet one must mention the case of those gallant Zouaves and African sharpshooters, who, to the north of Douaumont, recaptured a wood between Herbebois and Hill 351, which is just to the south-west of it, and lies in front of Beaumont. Here, in spite of an avalanche of shells which was poured upon them, and of murderous attacks launched in their direction, they held out for quite a considerable period, and, having in turn retired upon the Bois de Fosse, were eventually compelled to fall back upon the plateau of Douaumont.

The morning of the 24th, as it dawned, discovered, indeed, a critical change in the positions held by our noble allies. The northern face of the salient had, as we have described, been driven in, and the handful of troops holding it had been forced to retire over some four miles of country, fighting in the open, infantry and gunners fighting a terrific rear-guard action, and doing their utmost – and doing that most gallantly – to hold up a further advance of the enemy. That imaginary base-line which we have mentioned as running across the base of the salient, where the winding River Meuse traces its path amongst the hills, had been dangerously shortened, and already Germans were massing in the neighbourhood of Vacherauville, close down to the river, under the shadow of the Côte du Poivre, where they hoped to drive in their wedge, and to further shorten that line across which French troops must retreat if indeed the salient was to be evacuated. And towards the east, towards the apex of the salient, outlying advance-parties of the French had been driven in by sheer weight of guns and numbers, and were now back on the heights of the Meuse, their line drawn from that held by their comrades in the neighbourhood of Louvemont, close to the Côte du Poivre, round about Douaumont and its village, and so to Vaux and south of it. Here, indeed, we must leave them for a moment, while we return to Henri and Jules and their comrades, entangled in that country to the north which had been ploughed, almost every foot of it, by the torrent of shells poured upon it by the Kaiser's artillery.

Stealthily creeping away from their advanced positions, and leaving these dull-grey lines of German dead stretched out before them – a ghastly indication of their prowess – the troops fell back in clusters, clambering from shell-hole to shell-hole, creeping behind any cover which was to be discovered, and making the utmost use of the darkness.

"And so it is you – you, Jules?" cried Henri, as dawn broke on the early morning of the 23rd and discovered his comrade. "Well, I never!"

It was typical of the gallant and gay Jules that he grinned in the face of his chum, and repeated the observation.

"Well, I never! And what a sight to be sure! We were gentlemen when escaping from Ruhleben compared with our condition now. What a mess to be in, to be sure – and how hungry I am!"

"Hungry, mon garçon?" cried a sergeant near them, one of their own battalion; "then there's good news for you; for if our commanders have not been able to send us reinforcements, they have at least not forgotten that we are living men. There is food close at hand, and our cooks are preparing it."

In the lines which the troops had now gained in those trenches dug some time before, and sweeping across the slopes of Pepper Hill (Côte du Poivre), there were indeed welcome comforts for the men who had so gallantly held up the advance of the Germans, and who had more gallantly still, and with greater fortune, endured the terrible ordeal of that shattering torrent of shells poured for hours now upon them. Back behind the fire-trenches cooks were busy over their braziers, while already kettles of steaming soup and coffee and long rolls of bread were being conveyed to the soldiers. It was a happy, a grimy, and a decidedly confident band of men who sat down that early dawn to prepare once more for the enemy. Dishevelled, their chins covered with dirty bristles, steel helmets lost in numerous cases, clothing torn, and equipment absent, this band of heroes was nevertheless as jovial as it was hungry.

"Better get as much sleep as you can now, my friends," said an officer as he came along the trench. "A few men to keep watch will be quite sufficient, and the rest had better turn in to their dug-outs or lie down here at their posts. It won't be for long, my lads, I can tell you, for the Germans are not likely to rest now they have got us moving. Wait, though; is there a man amongst you not too fatigued to creep forward and reconnoitre?"

"There is, mon Capitaine; I am that man."

"And I also – here; ready and eager."

The two voices were those of Jules and Henri, who happened to be quite close to the officer as he was speaking, and who, leaping to their feet from the fire-bank, at once stood at attention, their eager faces turned towards him.

"You – ah!"

The officer surveyed them both critically.

"Henri and Jules – our particular Henri and Jules – mon Capitaine," called out the sergeant who had been speaking to them a little while before, and who, like the regiment, knew our two heroes thoroughly. "Henri and Jules, who joined us from Ruhleben, and preferred to fight in a battle such as this rather than stay in safety – though not in comfort – in Ruhleben."

"Ah! Henri and Jules, of course. And you are ready?" smiled the officer.

"Ready, mon Capitaine!" the two answered.

"Then strip off your packs and equipment, and take only your rifles and bayonets and ammunition; creep down through the trees yonder, and, if you can, let us know what's happening."

Down below, towards the foot of the lower slopes of the Côte du Poivre, overlooking the village of Champneuville and the Côte de Talou, stretched a strip of wooded country, those same evergreens which, towards the north and elsewhere, had given the Germans such tremendous opportunities for completing preparations for their attack upon the salient. Sliding down the hill, diving from one shell-hole to another – for already the German artillery had turned its attention to this new French position – creeping along any fold in the ground which offered even the smallest shelter, Henri and Jules soon gained the woods, and plunged into them.

"It's as likely as not that the Germans have already sent reconnoitring-parties here," said Henri in a whisper, as they crouched at the edge of the wood and gathered breath again after their exertions. "That is a thing which one would anticipate, and of course our commanders will expect that just as we do, so that it seems to me our duty is to steer clear of such parties, as we should do in any case, to push beyond them, and to ascertain what's happening towards the north."

"Quite so! At your orders, Henri," smiled Jules, as full of merriment as ever. Indeed, the fiercer the conflict had grown, the more desperate the efforts of the Germans had become, and the more terrifically the fighting had developed, the higher had this young fellow's spirits risen. Of fear he showed not a trace, though of excitement he showed every evidence. Sparkling with wit, as lively as a cricket, wonderfully cheery, he had stood in the forefront of the battle, not grim like many a comrade, not with teeth set and hands and fingers clenching his rifle, but jovial, smiling, yet with a deadly earnestness masked by his merry manner.

"Lead on, my Henri," he said. "Under your directions we made not such a bad success of that affair in Germany. Let's see now what you can do in this part of France when we have soldiers and not civilians to deal with!"

Plunging on into the wood, it was not long before they heard voices to their left, and, creeping forward, discovered a German officers' patrol sheltering under the trees and munching their breakfast. A dozen yards farther on there were some seven or eight men, while voices still farther to the left demonstrated the fact that there were other parties.

"No matter," said Henri; "we have already said that we expected Germans to be in the wood. What we want to know is where the main force is. Let's push on and do our duty."

CHAPTER XII
A Reconnoitring-party

For perhaps half an hour Henri and Jules crept through the wood which they had gained from the heights of the Côte de Poivre, turning and twisting here and there as German voices warned them of the proximity of enemy parties, and sometimes stealing past a group of men from whom they were separated by only a few feet of thick undergrowth.

"There's the edge of the wood yonder, the northern edge," said Henri in a little while, stopping and looking upward. "It's lighter in that direction, and without doubt we are now getting down to the road which runs from Beaumont to Vacherauville – a road likely enough to be used by the enemy in his advance on our positions. Look out that we don't expose ourselves at the edge, and let us talk only in whispers."

Jules gripped him a moment later by the sleeve and pulled him down forcibly to the ground, then he shot one hand out and pointed.

"See them," he whispered; "hundreds of men sheltering at the edge of the wood. But why? What's the reason? And listen to those guns! German – eh?"

"No. French 75's, without a question," answered Henri when they had listened for a few moments. "There's nothing else on earth in the artillery line that snaps and barks quite like our soixante-quinze, and it seems to me that they are opened in this direction. Hope to goodness they won't turn their muzzles on this wood, for they would rake it from end to end with shrapnel. Now let's move on a little. I can see the men you have pointed out, and without a doubt they are sheltering under the trees and hiding, I should say, from our gunners. Let's turn from the road a little and push on to the northern point of the wood, for in that direction it almost joins with the Bois des Fosses, and should give us greater opportunities."

They turned slightly to their right, and crept through the mass of trees not yet levelled by the gun-fire of either of the combatants – different, indeed, from the Bois des Caures and the Herbebois, where gigantic German shells had sent trees and earth hurtling skywards, had severed trunks in all directions, and had left but a tangled mass of fallen tree-tops and shattered stumps, smouldering here and there, and masking the trenches and dug-outs and redoubts obliterated during the earlier fighting, masking, too, the bodies of those gallant Frenchmen who had given their lives for the cause, and of the Germans, who had fought to achieve the ambitions of their Kaiser.

Sneaking forward, and keeping well away from the direction of voices, it was not long before Henri and Jules discovered a dell – a deep depression in the ground – heavily wooded and overhung by fir-trees, at the foot of which splashed a stream, which passed from rock to rock, twisting and twining as it flowed towards the Meuse traversing the ground down below.

"Might give us an opportunity of seeing far more than if we went on in the wood," suggested Jules, again catching Henri by the sleeve.

"Why not? Certainly! Why not?" echoed Henri. "Quite a good idea; capital! Let's try it."

"Then down we go! Looks like a splendid place," declared Jules as he gained the stream and splashed into it. "I'll lead, for a change. Suppose we'd better go cautiously?"

There was, indeed, need of caution all the while, for as they traversed that narrow gully, and descended towards the plain which stretches at the foot of the Hill of Poivre, and, crossing the foot of the Côte de Talou, reaches the River Meuse, they found themselves in the midst of a veritable army of Germans – figures in field-grey could be seen in the twilight beneath the trees, sitting on fallen branches or on the ground waiting for orders. There were figures in the same colour to the right and to the left of them in that ravine, and once, as the two halted suddenly and crouched beneath an overhanging bush, they saw a German soldier actually drinking from the stream within a few yards of them; but a guttural voice above, a sharp command, sent the man scrambling up the bank of the ravine to join his company. Then, as they boldly advanced, the voices of German troops grew less distinct, and presently, as the light increased in brightness and they gained the very edge of the wood, it was to discover that they had passed through the enemy's lines, and were, it appeared, alone once more and almost in the open.

Creeping beneath a bush, the two now stared out in every direction, while, taking a pencil from a pocket, and a tattered envelope also, Henri roughly sketched in the situation before him; and, helped by the unobstructed view he could obtain from the opening of the ravine, marked spots in the near distance, where, beneath the shelter of other trees, in folds of the ground, in a farm across the road, he could discern enemy troops hiding.

"There must be thousands of them," he told Jules after a while, "thousands of them; and look over there, to what I believe to be Samogneux, where we were yesterday, and from which the German guns literally blew us, watch the roads there and the edge of the Bois de Caures – what do you see, Jules?"

"See!" exclaimed Jules; "almost hear them, you mean. Thousands of Boches – literally thousands of them, Henri. What's that mean? They are turning in this direction, and though it's hard to make it out quite clearly, I should say that they are waiting for the dusk to fall, fearing our guns across the river. It looks precisely what one would expect it to be – an intended advance on Vacherauville – a descent on a line directly from the north towards Verdun – the city for which they are making."

Without a doubt the two French poilus, sheltering there beneath that bush, had obtained information of more than ordinary importance, though it was likely enough that the movements of the enemy, in some respects at least, were already known by the French staff far behind them. Still, in a case like this, even a morsel of news might help to turn the scale against the Germans; and, having obtained it, the two at once set about the return to their comrades.

"We'll creep up the stream again and keep to the ravine as long as possible," said Henri; "after that we shall have to take our chances in the wood. And, seeing that we were lucky enough to miss the Germans on our way here, I don't see why we shouldn't be successful in returning."

"And if we ain't," declared Jules, with one of those ready smiles of his, "we can't help it; only, of course, a fellow might even then make good his escape by bolting."

An hour later, having very cautiously crept through those men massed just within the wood and out of sight of the French gunners, and having also traversed a long stretch of thickly wooded ground where numerous parties of Germans were resting, the two drew near to that point where they had entered the wood, and behind which open country led to the French positions. By then the shadows beneath the trees had deepened, as dusk had almost fallen, so that it was almost difficult to avoid the trunks of trees, and easy enough to tumble into any person who, like themselves, might be under that cover. Thus, of a sudden, it happened that Henri and Jules plunged into a narrow patch where men were seated, and, stumbling over their legs, were brought up suddenly.

"What's this? Who's this? You clumsy ruffian!" a shrill voice shouted. "Get out with you! But wait! What are you doing here without permission?"

"Stop! My word! The fool's kicked my shin and almost broken my leg. Here, one moment!"

Someone growled an oath, and, shooting out a hand, gripped Henri by the shoulder as he was rising – someone who had rapped out a German oath, let us explain, while the two voices had without a doubt borne the customary guttural accent of the Teuton.

"Let go!"

Henri picked himself up like lightning, and, swinging the butt of his rifle round – for the weapon was hanging over his right shoulder – struck the figure he could but dimly see beside him, and heard at once a dull thud as the wooden stock rapped the man's head violently. Then, with a dive, he gained the trees, and, pausing for a moment, shouted for his comrade.

"Jules! Here," he called. "Here!"

"Here!" came the answer from the point which Henri had only just left, and was followed by a somewhat smothered cry and by a heavy fall, which made it appear as though Jules had been detained by the men into whose midst they had stumbled.

What was Henri to do? Desert his friend and turn and fly away to the French positions? Or go back to his friend?

"The former," he told himself. "At any other time I would turn back and do my best for Jules, whatever it cost; but there's information which must be handed over to my Commanding Officer, and I must go. Jules!" he shouted again in one last effort.

A second later he was enfolded in the arms of a man who had crept up behind him, and who, joined by another within an instant, soon forced Henri to the ground, and, taking him by the legs, dragged him to the spot where Jules was already a prisoner.

"Now, strike a light," a gruff voice said, "just a match, Fritz, and let's see whom we have captured. Oh! Oh! French soldiers – eh? Well, there's nothing very wonderful about that, seeing that we've driven them from Brabant and Haumont, and there must be scores of unfortunate beggars hiding up in the hollows and woods between that position and this. Well, you," he continued, breaking into French, "French soldiers – eh? on your way to join your own lines again. You were fighting at Brabant?"

"Yes, at Brabant!" Henri told him.

"Ah! And received a terrible drubbing. Well, now, what shall we do with them?" asked the same voice – a pleasant enough voice now that the owner of it had got over the start which the sudden incursion of Jules and Henri had caused him – the voice, indeed, of an officer; for, as it proved, this was an officers' party into which the two who had made that daring reconnaissance had stumbled.

"Do with them? Do with them?" snapped a voice. "Shoot them! For there are no men here to hand them over to."

The one who had spoken earlier made no reply, but Henri could hear him giggling, as though he were amused at the callous remark made by his comrade, and as though, anxious not to be a party in such disgraceful treatment of prisoners, he was purposely avoiding discussion. But a moment later the other once more interjected a question.

"What, then?" he asked. "Are we to stay, then, with these two on our knees, as it were, and wait till some of our men come along and take them over? Who knows? They might turn upon us at any moment and cut our throats, for there are only four of us. I vote for shooting them out of hand."

It was an unpleasant voice this – a snappy, vixenish, sharp-toned voice, which appeared to come from an individual of rather diminutive size, though it was only his bare outline that was visible in the darkness beneath the trees.

"Nasty little beggar," thought Henri; while Jules, now released, save that one of the German officers still gripped him by the sleeve, stood close to his comrade. "Nasty little beggar! Spiteful little rat! And somehow we seem to have met before, for the voice rings in a familiar way. But, pooh! it's not possible, or, rather, hardly possible."

A moment later there came the grating sound of a match being rubbed against the side of a box, and then a light flared beneath the trees, to be shaded instantly by the huge hand of the individual who held it, and who proved to be the other spokesman – he of the pleasant voice – who had listened to the suggestion of his comrade without answering. The reflection of the flame held in his palm lit up at first a face beaming with health and good humour, heavily moustached, and as red as was Stuart's. There was a cigarette in his mouth, and Henri, attracted by the light, watched as this German officer puffed at the flame and then ejected a cloud of smoke. His own features, too, were illuminated by that reflected light, and those of Jules also beside him, while an instant later the face of that other officer came into view, the one with the sharp, mean voice, who was for shooting his prisoners. Then a sudden exclamation escaped the latter, and, starting forward just as the flame expired, he stared hard at Henri and his comrade.

"What's this? What's this?" he demanded. "Strike another light, Ernst. I have met these fellows before somewhere; I feel sure of it."

Grumblingly the big man who had just lit his cigarette struck another light, and, sheltering the flame between his two broad palms, brought it close to the faces of the prisoners, illuminating at the same time his own features and those of the officer who had last spoken. One glance was sufficient for Henri then, and in a moment his thoughts flew back to Ruhleben, to that little hovel down in the corner of the camp – the tool-house – which the Germans had considered even too good for their unfortunate prisoners. And outside it; to that scene which he and Jules and Stuart had witnessed on that eventful evening when they made their escape. He could see the rotund figure of the Landsturm sentry being heckled; the figure of the blustering sergeant who had cross-examined him so fiercely, and had well-nigh frightened him out of his senses; and before them a third individual – a shorter, shrivelled-up officer, risen from the ranks undoubtedly – that one who had leapt into the tunnel and had gone scrambling along to discover what steps had been taken by the prisoners to break out of the camp. The selfsame individual, indeed, whom Stuart had extricated from the hole behind the entanglements and had dashed backwards into the tunnel. Similarly, in just as few seconds, the German recognized Henri and Jules.

"Those two!" he shouted – "the men who escaped from Ruhleben with an Englishman! Seize them! No, no! Let us shoot them now, for they would certainly be shot on returning to Germany."

The match died down at that instant and was dropped to the ground, leaving the group in utter darkness, and leaving Henri and Jules in the centre wondering what to do, distressed at their discovery, and feeling that the situation was almost hopeless. Then, of a sudden, Henri slid his left hand back and caught Jules by the sleeve; pulling him towards him, he whispered a sentence in his ear; and, a moment later, plunging forward, drove his fist into the face of the officer who had recognized him, and, pushing on over his fallen figure, burst from the group into the wood outside. Following on his heels, Jules cleared a path for himself, and, hearing the crash of undergrowth in front of him, held on in that direction, heedless of the shouts which came from the group of German officers and of the shots which were fired at them. Five minutes later Jules heard panting in front of him, and, stealing forward, gave vent to a gentle whisper.

"Is that you, Henri?" he asked.

"Yes, Jules," came back the panting answer; whereat Jules joined him, and the two sat for a while at the base of a big tree, resting and recovering their breath, and wondering what they were to do now that their presence in the wood had been discovered.

"A pretty kettle of fish," said Henri at last. "But what luck to have escaped from those fellows; and how mad that German officer will be to know that we have twice slipped through his clutches! A nasty little fellow, Jules! The sort of man who would shoot us out of hand if he had the opportunity."

"Then the sooner we get out of this and back to our friends the better. Besides, there's that news we have got for our commander. Let's make tracks now," said Jules. "By creeping along carefully, and listening for voices, we may be able to steer clear of the Germans and reach the open."

"Listen to them!" whispered Henri. "It's evident they've no fear of the French overhearing them, and that they are searching the woods for us. That's all the better for us, Jules, as you suggest, and by listening carefully we ought to be able to creep past them."

As it proved, the attempt to extricate themselves from their awkward position was not by any means easy; for the discovery made by that officer, and the anger it induced, caused him to call up a number of men who were resting in the woods within easy distance. Sentries were at once thrown out, so as to place a barrier between the two French soldiers so recently discovered and the open country lying between the woods and the French positions. Then other soldiers were set to work to search the woods, a few of them even producing lanterns. Yet, by dint of crawling, of hiding in hollows and under brushwood, and by steering a course away from approaching voices, Henri and Jules at length managed to place themselves beyond the barrier of sentries, and, rising then to their feet, ran on through the wood till they gained its edge and emerged into the open.

Then commenced the final stage of their journey. Crawling over the flat plain which swept gently down to the River Meuse, on the far side of which lay the Goose Hill, Caurette Wood, Crow's Wood, the Mort Homme, and Hill 304 – positions to win unending fame in this warfare in the neighbourhood of Verdun – they gained at length the ground which ascended on their left towards the Poivre Hill, and beyond that again, giving access to the plateau of Douaumont, a plateau destined to see some of the most tremendous fighting in this conflict. Here, anticipating easy going and a country free from the enemy, the two stood upright – for they had been crouching and creeping along before – and marched rapidly towards their destination. But if that slope had been free of Germans during the daytime – as indeed it was, for the guns of the French lining the crests of Poivre Hill commanded it completely – the darkness which had now fallen and hidden all objects had made a most decided difference.

There was the loud tramp of feet on the road which led from Beaumont to Vacherauville, and, as the two drew nearer to that village, they could hear columns of men approaching along the road from Samogneux. A lull in the terrific bombardment, which had now been going on continuously since the 19th February, allowed them even to hear the voices of the Kaiser's soldiers as they closed in upon the French positions – upon that base-line to which we have referred, the line of the Meuse, beyond which lay the Verdun salient.

"There's not a doubt about it," said Henri in a whisper, as he and Jules shrank into a hole behind a bush and waited for a column of troops to pass along the road, "the enemy is preparing for an attack in force to-morrow, via Vacherauville; and, with what we have already seen in the wood, and what we hear now, we have information of the utmost importance. There must have been hundreds of men in the wood."

"Thousands!" Jules corrected him. "Thousands of them! And there are thousands here, too, marching along this road. Listen, now, to those guns being hauled behind the troops. One can only guess that there are many of them by the noise they make, and it surprises me that our men on the far side of the river haven't heard the sounds and opened fire upon the enemy. Wait! What's that?"

The "that" to which Jules referred proved to be a detachment of German troops from the road along which they had been marching, and presently figures could be seen stealing across the grass, steadily streaming past, between them and their friends, struggling forward to take up a position for an attack on the morrow. Orders were given in low gruff tones by officers accompanying those men, while now and again there came the click of accoutrements and the metallic ring of entrenching-tools carried with the parties. Nor was that all; for presently, when the stream of figures had poured past for some minutes, till hundreds had gone by, in fact, and the last of the column had halted, there came to the ears of Henri and his friend the dull blow of picks, the scrape of spades against flints and stones, and the rattle of earth as it was thrown out of an excavation.