Читать книгу: «With Joffre at Verdun: A Story of the Western Front», страница 11

"Digging trenches – digging themselves in! Preparing for our counter-attack to-morrow! And digging themselves in between us and our positions! Now, that's very awkward!" reflected Henri.

"Beastly awkward!" agreed Jules. "But there's one thing about it – it's dark, and, seeing that we have already escaped from the very midst of these same fellows, it seems to me that we may hope to do that again anywhere. Anyway, we must try."

"Certainly, we must try! We must get through them without further delay, for every moment now is of increasing importance."

Stealing forward from the bush, they slowly approached the line which the Germans were then preparing with entrenchments, and could now hear from those portions closest at hand the thud of busy picks and the ring of spades as the men employed them. Here and there a figure was to be seen standing up in the open, while everywhere else that column of men which had filed past them had, as it were, disappeared, or almost so; for already, thanks to the soft nature of the ground and to the rain which had fallen, the men had dug almost two feet down, and were partially hidden.

"Halt! Who are you? Why are you not working in the trenches?"

The question was bellowed at them by one of those figures standing out above the trenches, and, obedient to the order, losing their heads, indeed, for just one brief moment, Henri and Jules halted.

"Run for it!" whispered Henri; "straight through the line and on into the darkness! Come, Jules!"

Without a pause, without venturing to answer the question shouted at them, the two at once took to their heels, and, darting in between the men labouring at the trenches, sped on into the darkness. Nor was there any great attempt to arrest them; for, indeed, the men had already thrown off their tunics and had piled their arms, so that the only individuals carrying weapons were the officers superintending the operations. Half a dozen revolver-shots, therefore, were all that were fired at them, and those went wide in the darkness. Within a few minutes, in fact, the two were secure from all pursuit, and, provided there were no advance-parties thrown out in front of the Germans, might hope to reach their friends without further incident.

"But it is more than likely that pickets will have been posted, so as to avoid a French surprise," said Henri, "and, although I cannot claim much acquaintance with German methods as yet, one can imagine that sentries also have been sent towards our positions. Let's go on in silence, listening every now and again."

Stealing on through the darkness, they passed on more than one occasion a ghostly figure standing erect and motionless, keeping guard against the surprise of his comrades digging those trenches lower down the slope. Once, also, a figure suddenly sprang up before them – the figure of a German scout – a diminutive individual, who, not unnaturally, took them for comrades instantly.

"What now?" he said, standing within five feet of them. "Reliefs, or an advance-party in front of the main force? Surely not that, for it's time for us all to have a little rest, after the fighting we have experienced."

"Reliefs!" Henri told him instantly. "You are to return and report at the trenches. Go now, for we have fed, and no doubt you are hungry."

"Hungry?" The man almost exploded at the words. "Hungry? I am as empty as a drum," he told them. "But there, you have come to relieve me, so good-bye!"

He swung off at once into the darkness, and, waiting till he had gained perhaps a hundred yards, Henri and Jules sped on again towards the French lines, and, clambering up the steeper slopes of the Côte du Poivre, were finally challenged.

"Halte! Qui va la?"

"Friends!" they answered.

"Then advance one – without arms."

It was with a shout of joy that their comrades welcomed them back to the trenches, and almost immediately they were sent along to report to the Commander, receiving his congratulations on their safe return.

"This is information of the greatest importance," he told the two when he had listened to their story; "though, to tell the truth, the movement the enemy are making has been expected and even anticipated. Go and get a meal at once, while I report what is passing. But let me say that you have behaved wonderfully well, my Jules and my Henri, and your Commander will not forget to mention the matter. Adieu! To-morrow we shall see something more of those movements."

Yes, to-morrow! For as the 24th February dawned, and the grey light broke over the slopes of the Côte du Poivre, the Hill of Talou, and the winding Meuse gliding along between the hills which formed the main French positions to the west and to the east of it, the enemy guns, which had not rested for many hours since the outbreak of this gigantic conflict, broke out with terrific energy and commenced to deluge the French positions. Then, down on the lower slopes, on that plain and in the hollows, thousands and thousands of Germans sprang to their feet and dashed forward.

Henri and Jules and their comrades were, indeed, on this day, and upon those which followed, to experience fighting beside which that which had taken place on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd February had been almost child's play – a grim, furious struggle was about to open, in which hand-to-hand contests were to be almost general, and in which that sturdy handful of poilus were to be called upon to make yet again the most gallant efforts.

CHAPTER XIII
Douaumont Fortress

"They come! See them, in their thousands! They are breaking from the trees and the hollows!"

"Thousands of them! Hordes of them! Swarms of the Boches!"

Amidst the storm of shells which the German massed guns were pouring upon that narrow front stretching from the Côte du Poivre past the Côte De Talou to the River Meuse, heads popped up from battered trenches, from shell craters, from fissures torn in the ground by high explosives, and hardy, bristly, dirty poilus, stared down the slopes through the wintry light and watched the enemy approaching. That gallant band indeed, sadly thinned since the opening of the Verdun battle – a battle destined to last longer than any recorded in all history – looked on grimly and waited. Waited expectantly, not in fear and terror lest they should be decimated, not even in doubt or trembling, for the desperate conflict which had been waged so far had taught the French one thing very thoroughly – man for man, they were as good as, nay better than the Germans; gun for gun, their own artillery was at least as dexterous and as exact in its ranging, and, so far as it went, gave wonderful support to the infantry. All then that remained was to withstand that terrible torrent of shells, and wait. To discover shelter of some sort which would protect their bodies and allow them to remain alive till that moment when those grey masses down below got within reach of them.

"And then you shall see, my Henri and my Jules," the sergeant who had spoken up for them on the previous day said, smiling grimly. "These shells that fall about us – pooh! What are they?"

At that moment a 15-inch shell plunged into the ground just behind the parapet – into ground already torn and plastered with shell fragments – and, burrowing at least ten feet deep, at last exploded with a muffled roar, setting the earth trembling, shaking in the sides of the battered trench, and sending up tons of soil, which fell in a cascade all round them.

"Poof! What are they?" he said again, saluting in the direction of the exploded shell. "But nothing! But something to snap one's fingers at! To laugh at! To chortle over! Something to avoid, though, my Henri and my Jules! Not that a man is so careful of his body in these days. Though he is anxious to retain his life, yet not for himself only, not that he shall live on to see the end of this warfare and the victory of the Allies. No, no! But so that he shall live to pull a trigger as the enemy draws nearer, and so help to destroy the German effort."

You would have thought, to look at Jules's face, that he was listening to quite a merry conversation; for that young man was smiling broadly, and, though shells still pitched about them, though many a shrapnel-burst high overhead plastered the ground with bullets, even twitted his comrades. But Henri was stern and severe, and even looked a trifle nervous: such was the difference in their characters. Yet Jules knew, the Sergeant knew, all his comrades knew, that when it came to the pinch, when it came to close fighting, there was no one more to be trusted than the sterner of these two young fellows. Ducking now and again, for somehow he could not help it, turning his eyes anxiously every few minutes in the direction of the enemy, his fingers locking themselves about his rifle and toying nervously with the buttons of his tunic, Henri did indeed, at that moment, look ill at ease, to say the least of it. And yet he too smiled as that shell burst, and, turning a moment later, smiled once more as he pointed towards the enemy.

"Wait!" he told Jules and the Sergeant. "They give us shells here in plenty, those Boches, they keep a torrent of them tumbling about our ears both day and night; but wait, I say! For remember what we saw from the forest, Jules! Those masses down below, the village of Vacherauville and the road to it, the slopes of the Côte de Poivre and of the Côte de Talou, are enfiladed by our guns across the river. Wait then! The gunners have not opened yet, but when the word comes, such a storm of shell will be poured upon the Germans that they too will learn what shell-fire really means."

His words, indeed, proved to be almost prophetic, for though, for some few minutes longer, the thinned garrison of the French trenches in those parts waited and watched the enemy masses advance, almost unobstructed, yet in a little while, and very soon after the machine-gunners had got into action and rifles were speaking sharply from every direction, there came sudden salvoes from across the river, from Charny Ridge, from the hill of Mort Homme, and from that of 304 – high ground, in fact, almost continuous with the Hill of Talou. Taking a bird's-eye view of this particular position of the salient of Verdun, one sees the River Meuse flowing from south to north, winding in big bends through the hills which bound the valley, while, on those same hills to west and east of the river, eminences project which form the positions with which we are dealing. Running almost due east and west, there are Hill 304 and the Mort Homme, with Charny Ridge closer to the river and overlooking it. Then comes a flattened piece of land which is marshy in the winter, and through which the river winds, forming a big bend, and flowing in that part in an east-and-westerly direction. At Vacherauville – lying close to the eastern bank of the river – the next outcrop on the banks of the Meuse is the Côte de Talou, and, still east of it, the Côte du Poivre, while a little farther east, in the neighbourhood of Louvemont, the heights sweep round abruptly to the south to Douaumont, and then to Vaux, towards which those outlying parties of French who had held on so stubbornly to Herbebois, Ornes, and Maucourt, and had retired towards Bezonvaux, were now being driven by the enemy.

A glance at the sketch attached will show at once that the hills we have mentioned to the west or left of the River Meuse, and those to the right, form, as it were, a gateway through which the river passes, entering the gateway at Vacherauville and emerging at Cumières, where a wood and a village nestle close to the river.

Then let us imagine troops marching along roads running parallel to the river in a southerly direction, with the intention of forcing their way through the gateway we have delineated, or rather of forcing their way up the slopes of the Côte de Talou and on to the Côte du Poivre. The roads which they must follow are clearly under command of the guns posted on Hill 304, the Mort Homme, and Charny Ridge, which enfilade the position.

Such was the condition of affairs on this eventful morning, when, having driven in the northern portion of the salient at Beaumont, and shortened its baseline, the Germans once more threw their masses to the assault in the desperate effort to drive in the wedge they had already inserted, to stampede the French at that position, and, breaking through their lines, to get behind the apex of the salient and entrap the thousands of Frenchmen holding the trenches from Douaumont and Vaux down to the southern portion of the salient.

"A brilliant stroke!" you will say. "The outcome of most able generalship on the part of the Germans." But wait! Clever though the enemy was, thoughtful though the German High Command had proved itself to be, and tremendous though the preparations for this battle were, there was yet something vital lacking in strategy. The Germans had counted on their guns to smash a way through any sort of defence, and though it is true that their plans had miscarried in one respect, and they had discovered already, to their considerable cost, that guns alone were not sufficient, yet guns and men together, they had learnt during the initial stages of this battle, were enough first to pound the enemy trenches, and then to drive out the defenders. Reckoning now upon a similar course of events, and, having already pounded the French position, they launched on this morning hosts of grey-coated infantry at the Hills of Talou and Poivre, above which Henri and Jules were fighting.

Posted on an eminence in the neighbourhood of Samogneux, the German High Command, safe from the rifle-fire of the French, watched through their glasses as those sinister lines of grey swept from the wood in which they had been taking cover, and, marching steadily over the ground, advanced upon their objective. And then they too heard that sudden salvo of guns from across the river, and, turning their glasses, surveyed the Mort Homme and Hill 304, positions to which they had given but little consideration.

And see the result! 75's, machine-guns, howitzers, and rifles, all concealed, all dug in or sheltered, and all amply provided with ammunition, poured a storm of shot and shell and bullets upon those advancing grey masses, sweeping them away, shattering the ranks, treating them to a hail of steel beside which the fire of the defenders of the higher slopes of the hill the Germans were attacking was but as a shower compared with a tornado. German infantry melted away under that terrible storm, masses of grey were levelled like corn at the feet of the reaper, while even the forest, through which Henri and Jules had penetrated on the previous day, was flattened or torn to shreds, was converted into a species of smoking volcano. It was terrific! It was a master-stroke on the part of the French Command, and a shattering misfortune to the enemy. Indeed, it took the sting out of their attack entirely; it sent those of their men who had survived this awful ordeal racing back to cover; and it put a peremptory and sudden stop to the cunning German effort to drive in that wedge they had already inserted along the Meuse and so to shorten dangerously the base of the Verdun salient.

"Fall in, men, fall in! We are going to move from the position, handing it over to others of our comrades. Fall in there, men!"

"A move!" ejaculated Jules. "Then where to?"

Henri shrugged his shoulders.

"Anywhere – who cares?" he declared, with a species of desperation. "There's fighting all round, so one place is neither worse nor better than another. But there's one thing that is quite apparent; men are hardly wanted here any longer, and a thin sprinkling of our soldiers can hold these trenches quite as easily as hosts of them. For the guns yonder, those guns on Mort Homme and 304, command the Côte de Talou and the Côte du Poivre far better than could our rifles; so our commanders, who no doubt want men in other places; are thinning out our lines and are sending us to reinforce another portion of the salient."

Creeping along the battered trenches, crawling across masses of tumbled earth, where communication-trenches had once existed, and, by slow degrees, moving to a part where a fold in the ground gave some shelter, though little enough, from the shells which the German guns still sent, the depleted regiment to which Henri and Jules belonged was finally massed in the hollow, and, having been fed there and rested for a while, was marched to the east, towards the fort of Douaumont. That night, indeed, after darkness had fallen, they once more repeated the process of scrambling along shattered trenches, and when the morning of the 25th dawned – a cold and bitter morning with snow-flakes filling the air and whirling across the landscape – they found themselves looking down the steep slopes of the plateau of Douaumont, towards the German positions, and watching, spellbound almost, another demonstration of the power and skill of the German gunners.

"Yes, my friends, they have been at that for hours past," a comrade lying beside them in the trenches told them, as he pointed a finger at the dull-grey outline of Douaumont fort, lying not so far from them. "Believe me, one would have thought, from the number of shells they have fired at the place, that there were thousands of Frenchmen sheltering there whom they hoped to destroy completely. And so they have dropped shells on the place, big shells – Mon Dieu! as big as I am – middle-sized ones, and small ones – in fact, grandfathers, fathers, and children – till the place has been pounded to atoms.

"And so you have come at last, you fellows," he went on when the three had watched, for a while, more shells hurtling into the ruins of Douaumont fort. "Well, you are wanted, wanted badly, for we've fought our way back from Ornes and Bezonvaux, and there are precious few of us left to do more fighting. You are fresh at the game – eh? my comrades."

"Fresh!" ejaculated Jules, looking quite indignant.

"Bien! But I hardly meant that," the poilu told them. "In appearance you are not fresh. No, certainly not; far from it. But then, who of us can turn out nicely under such circumstances? Look at me, I ask you; a mere mud-heap. And so I have been since the battle commenced. And you?"

"And we," laughed Henri, "we are in a similar sort of position. But what would you?" he declared, shrugging his shoulders in truly French fashion. "For listen, mon ami! Like you, we have fought our way back from Brabant, from the lines stretching along past Herbebois and Ornes. We have been in the thick of the fighting, hiding in caves deep down in the earth, in dug-outs which shook as the enemy shells burst above them, crawling from shot-hole to shell-crater, living in earth battered and shaken all day and all night, and thankful to get an hour's sleep at any time, and a bite and a drink to keep us going. 'Fresh,' did you say? Certainly, mon ami, we are fresh, if by fresh you mean we are willing and ready for more fighting."

"Bravo!"

The poilu, his mouth wide open in a huge grin, gripped Henri's hand and shook it heartily.

"Mais! Mon Dieu! That is your sort! That is our sort! That is the French sort!" he cried loudly. "It's that kind of spirit which will carry us on, and which will help us to beat these fellows. Then I was right, you are 'fresh' men who have come to reinforce us, and badly do we need your assistance."

Pulling their coats about them, turning up their collars so as to keep out the whirling flakes of snow, beating their arms about their bodies and stumbling up and down the trenches, the troops watching on the heights above Douaumont, dodging the German shells still flung at them, waited as the 25th February grew gradually older, and the light grew stronger. Something in the air seemed to tell them that this was to be a sterner day than any that had preceded it, and yet there was that about the artillery-fire of the enemy which rather contradicted that feeling. For while everything up to the 24th of the month had gone in the favour of Germany, and while she had gained enormous successes – thanks to her long-continued and secretly-made preparations – yet now the elements themselves turned against her – and in all conscience she had had difficulties enough before, considering the terrific resistance shown by those French heroes. It was snowing, banks of snow-clouds filled the heavens, while whirling flakes made artillery-fire a matter of extreme difficulty. True, big guns, long since established on concrete foundations and quite immobile, could still register by the map as accurately as ever, and still poured shells of large dimensions on Fort Douaumont and on other sectors; but the smaller guns, mere babes compared with those 17-inch howitzers, yet guns flinging missiles which pounded the French trenches, could now only fire aimlessly, so that the torrent of shells was reduced and became a mere nothing to that formerly experienced.

"They will not attack," a poilu gave it as his decision, and very decidedly. "These Boches never attack unless they have first cut up the ground and smashed our trenches; therefore I vote for a brazier here, something to cook, and a pipe of good tobacco."

"And perhaps a game of manne, too," laughed another. "Well, a little rest, after what we have gone through, will do us no harm, and will fit us all the more for what is to follow. Who cares! To-day, to-morrow, or even later, we shall fight. If not to-day, well, let us make the most of it."

Cheery groups collected in the trenches all along the line, men who hardly took the trouble to peer out over the parapets and watch for the coming of the enemy. It looked, indeed, as if this 25th February was to be a day of rest – one sorely needed by our allies. And then, of a sudden, an alarm spread along the trenches; men sprang to their arms and gripped their rifles, while machine-gunners dived into cunning approaches to hidden pieces out in the open, and, scuttling along, manned those instruments which were to send death into the ranks of the Kaiser.

For the enemy were not to be denied, were not to be put off even though the elements were against them. Realizing now that guns alone were insufficient, that losses must be sustained if they desired to capture Verdun and its salient, they had hardened their hearts, and, determined to risk all in this venture (for part of their success, if they captured Verdun, would consist in the rapidity of such capture), now launched the Brandenburg Corps against the Douaumont position, convinced that if only they could capture what remained of the shattered fort, and set foot on this upland plateau, they would command the French positions along the heights of the Meuse, would command, indeed, those guns, posted on Mort Homme and Hill 304, which had assailed them so severely on the previous day, and would thereby easily smash up further French resistance and gain their objective.

"Stand to your arms! Watch the ravines! For we have news that the enemy are advancing up them. Hold your ground at all cost, no matter what your losses, for these are the orders."

Without haste, without excitement, with that grim, steady courage which had stood the French poilu in such good stead already, the men gripped their rifles and made ready for another German onslaught.

"Hold on, whatever the cost!" one man repeated to another.

"Till death, if need be," came the answer.