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CHAPTER XIV
Frenchmen and Brandenburgers

Forbidding and grey, shell-marked and shattered and battered out of all recognition, yet of such a substantial nature that even the high explosives and the ponderous shells dropped upon it by the German gunners could not entirely demolish it, the fort of Douaumont stood up, cold and black, on that morning of Friday, the 25th February, seeming even to overshadow the trench, or the apology for a trench – for here, too, shells had done their work – in which Henri and his friend were lying. Out beyond them the shell-marked ground, across which flakes of snow were drifting, descended abruptly to the plain of the Woevre; and struggling up its slopes came, at that moment, the 5th Division of the 3rd Brandenburg Corps – a corps retired from the fighting-ranks months ago, specially fed, specially trained and armed, and prepared particularly for this Verdun fighting. Its 6th Division was, at the moment, invisible, for it was creeping up the ravine of La Voche, which sheltered it from the fire of the French defenders.

There is no need for us to repeat the tale of terrific fighting, of the stubbornness and gallantry of the Germans, and of the heroic resistance of that thin band of French poilus who still held the main outposts of the Verdun salient. Let us but say that they had been driven in four miles from the northern posts they had held, and on the east had been forced to fall back via Bezonvaux. But those positions had been but flimsily held, but indifferently fortified, when compared with the main defensive positions arranged by our allies. They were back upon that main defensive line now, where it swept from Vacherauville, on the River Meuse, opposite the Mort Homme and Hill 304, across the hill of Talou and Pepper Hill – ominous names already to the enemy – past Louvemont, and so to Douaumont and Damloup, where the trenches had now descended to the plain of the Woevre, and they held to it till they clambered once more up the slopes, and so to the other end of the base of the salient.

Checked on their right, where the 5th Division was advancing, the Brandenburgers were swept from the face of the earth by a tempest of shot and shell; but their 6th Division, advancing up the ravine in front of the shattered fortress, finally burst from cover, and, supported by a torrent of projectiles from the German guns, hurled itself from a close point upon the French defences, and, in spite of the heroic resistance of these soldiers, forced them back.

It was at that particular period that Henri and Jules and a dozen or more of their comrades found themselves in a portion of the fire-trench cut off from their comrades, who had retreated, and already almost surrounded by Germans.

"It's all up! We are surrounded! We are captured! Vive la France!" shouted one of their number; while others looked about them, at first doubtfully, and then with grim resignation.

"Yes, captured! Better lie down in the trench till we are discovered, or else those Huns will fire into us," counselled another of the men.

"And give in like that!" shouted Jules indignantly. "Give in without trying to crawl back to our people?"

"Crawl back!" a corporal answered him hotly. "As if we shouldn't do that if it were possible. Look for yourself, man; you've eyes in your head. See the lines of Brandenburgers between us and our people!"

As a matter of fact, just at the moment when he was pointing to a thick though somewhat scattered line of grey-coated infantry which had now swept on beyond them, a gust of wind came whirling round the corner of the shattered fortress, singing and whistling over the summit, and bringing with it heavier flakes of snow which obliterated the scene about them and made vision almost impossible.

"Well, then!" added the heated Corporal. "Even snow won't help us; for we don't belong to the Flying Corps, and can't, therefore, very well ascend and drop beyond them."

"But – " exclaimed Henri, who had been using his wits and his eyes all this time, and, though bound to feel somewhat helpless, seeing the position in which he and his comrades found themselves, was yet not quite resigned to the idea of becoming a prisoner. ("Not much!" he told himself. "I've had some! – as they say in America. Ruhleben was a lesson which has taught me that the lot of a prisoner is hardly inviting.") "But – " he called out.

"But – " shouted the Corporal back at him, standing quite close to Henri, and bellowing in his ear; for, indeed, the little fellow was very excited. "But you would like to call us cowards next, because we will not charge after the Germans."

"One moment," Henri said, patting him on the shoulder, "one little moment, mon cher ami! Neither you nor I wish to be prisoners, eh?"

"Vraiment!" the little fellow answered, a trifle mollified, his anger oozing out at the tips of his fingers. "But then – Ah! It is Henri, eh? I did not recognize you earlier. Then what do you advise, Henri – you, who have tasted prison life in Germany?"

"Yes, yes! Let Henri tell us," called a number of the others; for already our hero had won no small reputation amongst his fellows.

Let us advance the story just a little and explain that already that officer to whom Henri and Jules had given a report of their reconnaissance had urged upon his colonel that they should be promoted instantly, and even then, as the conflict raged about Fort Douaumont, their names were in Regimental Orders. They were to be "non-commissioned" officers.

"What then?" the little Corporal asked again, eagerly peering up at Henri, for he was some inches shorter.

"I believe you, my dear fellow," exclaimed Henri. "Not being a bird, or, as you rightly observed, not belonging to the Flying Corps, we cannot very well get back to our fellows, that is, not yet. But – and that is just where you chipped in and prevented my saying what was in my mind – but we fellows might manage to hold out if we had some sort of decent cover."

"Aye! Cover – that's it! Out here we should be shot to rags," exclaimed a veteran. "Now, Henri, let's have your decision, and quickly, too, for the snow may stop at any moment."

"Then here it is: take up every cartridge you can find – boxes of ammunition if you can hit on them – get as much food from the haversacks of the killed as you can carry, and then let's creep towards the fort. There's a gateway on this side, for I noticed it in the early hours of the morning. Let's get behind those concrete and stone walls and search for a spot where we can hold out and stand a siege till our fellows counter-attack and relieve us."

The veteran poilu of the party smote his hands together and tilted his steel helmet backward.

"Mon Dieu," he cried, "but that is it! Our Henri has thought of a splendid thing for us. Ecoutez! Then I will tell you, I who have been of the Verdun garrison, not only during this war, but in peace times, I who helped to remove the big guns when the Kaiser showed us that guns behind a fort were no longer useful. There are caverns underneath that masonry, my boys, big galleries, and fortified chambers, to which even a big shell will hardly descend. Yes, there are rooms down below in the bowels of the earth which will shelter us, and hundreds beside us. It is a magnificent plan. I, who know the place, can lead you; and, of a truth, we will find a spot where men such as we are, fighting for France, can hold up a hundred of the enemy. Be busy, then! Pick up cartridges, seek for food and water."

"Yes – and water!" shouted Jules, darting from the trench and stooping over the nearest figure. All about them were the battered trenches of that thin force of noble Frenchmen who had fought hand to hand with the Brandenburgers. There were the bodies of the slain – of friend and foe – lying in every sort of posture, some half in and half out of the trenches; some, alas! unrecognizable, for such is the effect of high explosives; and others, yet again, almost buried already by upheavals of earth as shells burst close beside them. There were not a few wounded, too, who lay waiting the succour which might come some hours hence, and which, it was quite possible, might never come, for in a little while, no doubt, French fire would command the ground on which they lay, and neither troops nor hospital bearers could cross it.

Very eagerly, then, for every one of the men in Henri's party was anxious to escape capture, and eager to rejoin the French forces and again fight the Germans, the poilus scrambled about in the battered trench, or closely adjacent to it, taking up cartridges, despoiling the dead of their haversacks, from which they ejected all but the food contents, while every man loaded himself with as many water-bottles as he could conveniently carry.

"It's still snowing hard," said Henri, when some ten minutes had passed and the band was again collected. "Don't let us get into a flurry, or spoil our chances by being too hurried. Let's number off, and see how many we are."

"One! Two! Three!" —

Without a word of command the man on the left started, and Henri, at the far end of the line, announced his own number. It was twenty.

"Good!" he told them. "More than I thought. Twenty resolute men fighting for France, for la belle France, my comrades – "

"Ah! For la belle France, for home, for victory!" the veteran shouted.

"Yes, for victory. And listen, my friends; we may help towards it," Henri told them. "Resolute men, if they can reach some strong position in that fort, may well assist our friends battling farther back on the plateau. Well, now, there are twenty of us, and I see that there are half a dozen or more ammunition-boxes."

"Ten," the veteran corrected him instantly; "ten, Monsieur Henri" – it had come to "Monsieur" now, such was the veteran's opinion of our hero.

"Good! Ten boxes of cartridges is it? Ten thousand rounds. Now let's see to the water-bottles. How many are there?"

The men, on returning to the spot where Henri stood, had at once deposited their finds at the bottom of the trench, so that there was no difficulty in making an inventory; and now a mere glance discovered the fact that there were more than two water-bottles per man, all filled, as Henri was assured, and all big ones.

"One bottle will last a careful man, say, two days, eh?" he asked.

"In the dungeons of the fort, three days, Monsieur Henri," the veteran replied; "and, besides, it's bitterly cold weather, when a man does not need to drink so much."

"And food? Well, we must guess at that; but it appears from the number of haversacks, and from the way in which some of them are bulging, that there will be sufficient for some days."

"One mo'!" called Jules at that instant. "Each man's got his rifle and bayonet, that's understood; there's ammunition, say, for a four-days' fight, and water and food also. Why not a machine-gun? Here's one abandoned by our fellows when they were forced backward."

Some of the men almost burst into a cheer, while two of them dashed forward, and, dismantling the gun, shouldered the tripod and the barrel.

"Good idea!" Henri told him. "The difficulty, though, will be to carry in sufficient ammunition. But listen to this, you fellows; let's make tracks for the fort at once, decide upon a spot to hold, and deposit our belongings; then, if the snow continues and the Germans keep away, we'll creep out again and look for further ammunition."

They began to move off along the trench at once, the veteran and Henri leading, and Jules and the stout little corporal bringing up the rear. Staggering along, loaded with ammunition and water and food which they had collected, bending as low as possible and holding to the trench so long as it continued, the little band were soon directly under the walls of the fort, and though they peered anxiously about them, looking for the enemy, whose shouts, indeed, they could hear in all directions – even from the fort itself – yet not once did one of the Kaiser's soldiers approach them, while all the time the snow fell silently upon the fort and its surroundings. Then the gate seemed suddenly to open in front of them, and marching in – staggering in, indeed, for they were very heavily laden – they followed the veteran into a shattered courtyard, and from it down a flight of steps to a gallery beneath – a wide gallery with earth roof and cemented floor, along which ran steel rails. Indeed, there was a trolley on those rails, over which Henri stumbled.

"A trolley to run the ammunition round to the guns," the veteran exclaimed, "but useless now, my Henri, quite useless," he chuckled. "For, you see, the guns are behind the fort, and have already sent some of their shells into the enemy."

"That being so, this trolley will do to carry our produce. Pile your ammunition here. That's it. Those ammunition-boxes will weigh less heavily on you when stacked on this trolley. Now, my friend, which way? We are in a deep gallery which seems to be lighted by tunnels running to the outside. Do we turn left or right, or whither?"

The veteran turned to his right without a word, while Henri and one of the men followed, pushing the trolley. Following the gallery, which ran straight on for some fifty yards, they came to a point where the inside walls had been rounded, and the rail swept in a gentle curve round the corner and into the extension of the gallery.

"Halt!" shouted the veteran suddenly. "This is the spot that I have aimed for. Now look! On our left is a wide opening which enters the hall in which the garrison could take their meals and sleep, and which can accommodate, perhaps, at a squeeze, a thousand of them. Right opposite this entrance there is a stairway, and at its top another room – one of a series of gun emplacements now empty. It will do for us, my Henri, I believe. Let us ascend."

Taking up the ammunition-boxes at once, and leaving the trolley at the foot of the stairs, the party scrambled upwards till they found themselves in a square chamber lit by an embrasure in the wall, through which the wintry rays percolated. Standing just at the entrance, and turning round, Henri discovered that, thanks to the height of the opening into the big hall beneath the fort, he was able to look directly into it, though the far end was hidden from view by the stonework at the top. A swift glance round the chamber which they had reached showed him thick masonry all about, steel beams above, and iron rails of circular pattern on the floor, on which the guns had been wont to revolve.

"Well, then?" asked the veteran.

"It will do," Henri told him. "But what we shall want is someone to discover something with which to barricade the top of these stairs. Let us divide ourselves into three parties. Jules, you will command one, our friend the corporal another, and this bearded chum of ours the third. Now, listen."

"Yes, listen to him, to our Henri," cried the veteran. "For it's agreed, is it not, my comrades, that he shall command us?"

"Certainly!" they all shouted.

"Then, here is the plan: our bearded friend stays here and sends a portion of his command about the place to discover sacks of grain, blocks of stone or of timber, anything, in fact, which will allow us to build a wall across the top of the stairs. Jules and his men will descend the stairs and hunt round the fort, while our corporal and his party will retrace their footsteps, pushing the trolley with them, and will bring in to us as much food and as much small-arm ammunition as they can find, and then boxes of ammunition for our machine-gun."

The band of resolute poilus, whose eyes were now sparkling with excitement, for but a little while before they had resigned themselves to capture by the enemy, now separated, each man bustling about; while the veteran amongst them, Jules, and the corporal, snapped out orders, barked them, indeed, and sent their willing men flying. As for Henri, he went hither and thither, first watching one lot of men and then another; and, as they worked, as the veteran and his men sought for obstacles, and by lucky chance found them – for it happened that the French had stored sacks of grain for their transport animals in one of the chambers – while Jules and his men reconnoitred their surroundings, and the corporal, moving very swiftly and with intelligence, returned more than once laden with supplies from outside, the snow-flakes still whirled about the place, still enveloped the fort of Douaumont, to obtain which the Germans had now spent so many lives – spent the lives of their men indeed like water – and which they now almost surrounded.

Shells shrieked overhead, sent from those guns long since embedded in concrete, down under shelter of the evergreen fir-trees surrounding the salient of Verdun, while other shells, smaller missiles, shrieked and exploded as they hurled their way hither and thither, cast at random now, for the thick weather made shooting almost impossible. There came, too, through that embrasure, or through the gateway of the fort, every now and again, the rattle of rifles, the sharp tap-tap of machine-guns, and the snap and bark of the soixante-quinze as the French sent their curtain-fire out beyond the plateau. There was fighting still to the left and to the right of the fort, in the neighbourhood of Thiaumont farm and the village of Douaumont, while to the right, towards Vaux, the flash of weapons was sometimes visible. More than that, voices could be heard near at hand, the shouts of Frenchmen somewhere, either in the fort or closely adjacent to it, and presently the calls, the loud commands, of Germans.

It was, indeed, only half an hour later, when, thanks to the time given to them, Henri's little command had stacked the chamber with an ample supply of food and water, and procured such quantities of ammunition that they might fire it almost all day long and yet have sufficient for a week, that a terrific explosion shook the fortress, a huge German shell having burst almost within it. The far wall of that hall into which Henri had looked, and which faced the bottom of the stairs giving access to their chamber, fell in with a crash and clatter, the semi-darkness existing there being made denser at once by the dust and debris shot out by the explosion. Then figures raced across the hall, the figures of Frenchmen, coming from some point beyond, where Jules and his party had failed to discover them, while, quickly following them, could be seen German infantry – men of the Brandenburg Corps.

"Up here, up here!" shouted Henri, dashing down the stairs at once, and calling to the men running towards him. "Here are friends; come up the stairs and join us."

In rapid succession those men dashed through the opening of the hall, leapt up the stairs three at a time, and were dragged over the parapet which the veteran poilu had had erected. Then Henri retreated slowly, and, having rejoined his friends, sat down, rifle in hand, to see what would happen.

"Tell me," he asked one of the men who had just joined their ranks, and who was gasping for breath near him, "what has happened?"

"What has happened? Ah! They have driven our folks back from the fort, which is now isolated. We were holding on – I and perhaps a hundred of my comrades – near the eastern end, and then the Germans, having blasted the corner of the fort to pieces with that last shot, charged from some trenches in which they were lying, within a hundred metres perhaps, and burst their way into the place. We could not hold on any longer. It was a case of flight, or death, or capture."

"And so you chose flight! Good!" said Henri. "We chose the same. Here we are, snug in this place, with plenty of ammunition, and ready and eager to continue fighting. If any of you men understand a machine-gun, get to the one we have, at once, and man it; the rest, who have no rifles, can assist in any way that appeals to them. Ah! Watch those fellows. They are streaming into the hall. There are fifty – more – perhaps a hundred of them."

There were indeed considerably more of the Brandenburgers to be seen when the dust from that shattered wall had subsided. They came streaming in to the darkened hall, dishevelled, their Pickelhaubes gone in many cases, their rifles missing, their grey clothing now a mass of caked mud, and their hands and faces of the same colour. Shouting and bellowing their triumph, they massed in the room till an officer made himself apparent.

"Those men? Those Frenchmen who passed before us?" he asked in the arrogant manner of the Prussian; "you killed them – eh?"

"No! They went on ahead of us, up those stairs yonder," one of the men answered.

"Then no doubt they are cut off, like rats in a trap. Go in and kill them."

Henri turned and whispered to his friends.

"You heard that?" he asked them. "But perhaps you do not speak German. Then I will translate; they say they have us here like rats in a trap, and the order has been passed to come and kill us. Well, personally, I have a great objection to being killed, and I have every wish indeed to kill our enemies. Get ready! Load! Two hundred Germans shan't turn us out of these quarters."