MOBILISATION—FAREWELLS—WE LEAVE RHEIMS

Of all my experiences, of all the unforgettable memories which the war has woven with threads of fire unquenchable in my mind, of all the hours of feverish expectancy, joy, pain, anguish and glorious action, none stands out—nor ever will—more clearly in my recollection than the day when we marched out of Rheims. Nothing remains, except a confusion of disconnected memories of the days of waiting and of expectation, days nevertheless when one’s heart beat fast and loud. A bugle-call sounding the “fall-in” lifts the curtain on a new act in which, the empty years behind us, we are spurring our horses on into the eternal battle between life and death.

On the thirtieth of July, 1914, I did not believe in the possibility either of war or of mobilisation—nor even of partial mobilisation—and I refused to let my thoughts dwell on it.

The good folk of Rheims, excited and anxious, gathered from time to time in dense crowds outside the building of the SociÉtÉ GÉnÉrale, on the walls of which the latest telegrams were posted up, then broke up into knots of people who discussed the situation with anxiety and even consternation. At the Lion d’Or, where I turned in for dinner on the terrace under the very shadow of the cathedral, I called for a bottle of Pommery, saying jocularly that I must just once more drink champagne; a message telephoned from a big Paris newspaper reassured me, and in the peaceful quiet of a fine summer’s night I returned to my quarters with a light heart.

As I was turning into bed I caught a glimpse through the barrack window of the two Gothic towers of the cathedral, standing high above the city as if in the act of blessing and guarding it.

All was quiet: the silence was only broken from time to time by the cry of the swallows as they skimmed through the clear air.

War, I repeated to myself, it is foolish even to think of, and this talk of war is but the outcome of some disordered pessimistic minds; and with that I went to sleep on my hard little webbed bed ... for the last time.

Towards midnight I woke with a start, as though someone had shaken me roughly. Yet all was still: the barracks were rapt in sleep. Near by me only the loud and heavy breathing of the twelve men who made up the number occupying the room could be heard, as I lay on my back, wide awake, waiting, for I now felt that the signal would surely come which should turn the barracks into a very hive of bees.

Five minutes passed—perhaps ten—then a deafening bugle call which made the very walls vibrate, calling first the first squadron, growing in volume as it called the second, louder still the third, like the roar of some beast of prey as it summoned ours; then it died away as it got farther off across the barrack square where the fifth squadron was quartered.

It was the call to arms.

The sleepy troopers, half awake, sat up in their beds with a start—“Hulloa!—what? What is the matter?... Are we really mobilising?”

Then followed the sound of heavy boots in the corridors, heavy knocks on the doors, the silence of the night was a thing of the past and had given place to deafening clatter.

In a few seconds every man was on his feet without any clear idea as to what was forward. The sergeant-major called to me: “Mallet—run and warn the officers of the squadron to strap on their mess tins with their equipment and assemble in barracks as quickly as possible.”

So it’s serious, is it? and in a flash the truth, the very reverse of what I had been trying to believe, forced itself upon me and paralysed all other power of thought. Whether it breaks out to-morrow or in a month’s time, it is war—relentless war—that I seem to see like a living picture revealed.

The impression masters my mind as I turn each corner of the dark streets and open spaces, and the cathedral with its twin towers, so peacefully standing there, is transformed into a giant fortress watching over the safety of the country-side.

A man comes out of a house on the place and runs after me, I hear his heavy shoes striking the pavement behind me; breathless he blurts out the question, “Is war declared?”

“War ... yes ... that is to say, I don’t know.”

I continue on my way to carry out my orders with enough time left to run up to my own rooms and get some money and clean linen.

I got back to barracks as dawn was spreading over the sky, and found our commandeered horses being brought in by civilians and soldiers in fatigue overalls. An elderly non-commissioned officer shrugged his shoulders and said in a low voice, “Commandeered horses being brought in already!—that does not look very healthy.”

At the time of the Agadir affair things did not get as far as that, and the incident forced itself on my mind as proof that war was inevitable.

Packing and preparation were over and the men, waiting for orders, were wandering about the square, and in the canteen, which they filled—still half dark as it was—one heard shouts of joy and high-pitched voices telling the oldest and most threadbare stories.

But the canteen-keeper—friend of us all—with red eyes and shaking voice, was talking of Bazeille, her own village, burned by the Germans in 1870, where her old father and mother still lived. She is horrified at the thought of another invasion of the soil of France.

“The Bosches here? No, indeed, Flora, you are talking wildly; never you doubt, we will send them to the right-about and back to Berlin at the point of our toes—give us another glass of white wine—the best—that’s better worth doing.”

“Well, well!”

At the table where I sat with my own particular friends, all were in high spirits, all talking the greatest nonsense, becoming intoxicated with their own words as they romanced of heroic charges, of wonderful forced marches and highly fantastic battles; I alone remained somewhat serious and heavy of heart, and abused myself for being less free of care than they in the face of this triumph of manliness and youthful high spirits; yet in spite of myself, I watched them, these comrades of mine, day in, day out, to whom I should become more closely allied still by war, and tried to pierce the mists of the future, grey and threatening, and to discern what was to be the fate of each.

There they sat: Polignac, who was to be taken prisoner a short four weeks later, and who still languishes in a Westphalian fortress; Laperrade, who was to fall dead with a lance head through his chest as he defended his officer; Magrin, fated to die, when spring came, with a bullet through his heart; ClÈre, whom death was to claim three days after having heroically won his commission, and all the rest of them, too many to name here, but of all of whom I cherish in my heart a recollection not only tender but full of pride that they were my friends.

Yet the day passed in a fever of expectation and excitement. The smallest piece of news, or the greatest absurdity told by the latest man from the guard-room of the 5th, or the stables of the 2nd, or by “the adjutant’s orderly,” flew like the wind round the barracks, increased in volume, became distorted, took shape no one knew how and in the end was believed by all—until some still more ridiculous tale took its place.

There were waggish fellows, too, who wandered from group to group with a serious look on their faces, saying, “Well, it’s come now; I have just heard the Colonel give the order to stand to horses,” and until evening, when we were again crowded inside the canteen, it was the same hunger for news, the same excitement, the same desperate longing to know what was happening.

Only at seven o’clock did we get the official news, and although it came as no surprise, the whole barrack was stunned by it. Squadron orders issued at seven o’clock gave us three hours to prepare to march, as prescribed by the rules governing the movements of covering troops, to which we belonged. In three hours we should be on the way to an unknown destination; to ourselves fell the honour of being the advance guard; to us the task of guarding and watching the frontiers whilst the rest of the army was mobilising; and with keen pride in the fact, we held up our heads and thrust out our chests, whilst our faces took on a look of confidence in our power to conquer. Even the humblest trooper seemed transfigured, and in that moment I realised, perhaps for the first time, the high soul of France.

But the news soon spread beyond the barracks. Rheims, although some twenty minutes’ walk away, somehow learned it, and almost immediately all the town flocked to the barrack gates. I say all the town because all classes together hurried there pell-mell—not only those with a brother or son or a friend amongst the troops about to set off, but those who were drawn by ties of friendship with the regiment, and those who came from mere curiosity. The crowd, which got larger and larger, beat upon the iron gates like waves breaking vast and black on a rocky shore. Old women came to give a last kiss to their sons; old men, too, pensioners who had fought in ’70, whose hands trembled as they pressed those of their boys, distracted little shop girls who held their lovers passionately in their arms—silk frocks and broadcloth mingled together in one vast crowd swayed by deep emotion, brave and placid, though its heart was near breaking—every sob was stifled, every mouth drawn with sorrow yet tried to laugh, and it was cheerily that the last partings took place, the last touching and heartfelt “God speed” was said.

How great a country to possess such children! Soon the gates could no longer bar the passage of the crowd which swept like a torrent through the outer square, overwhelmed the sentries, and threatened to engulf everything.

As the hour of departure grew nearer, the farewells became more animated. Then the bugles sounded through the barracks the order for “majors to join the Colonel,” next captains and others of commissioned rank; there was a scurrying of officers to and fro before the orderly room, and Colonel Robillot himself could be seen standing on the doorstep watching the scene with a look of pride and indulgence in his eyes.

At nine o’clock, as I was standing some distance apart in a corner of the square with friends who had come to bid me a last farewell, a non-commissioned officer, touching me on the shoulder, warned me that my troop was about to fall in, and I had to break off my adieux.

From that moment I was to think no more of myself. All was over with affairs that bound heart or fancy. The supreme moment had come when words no longer count, and when the eyes try to fill themselves with one last gaze upon those whom one is leaving—goodbye to family, to love, to self, to the joy of the living—all one’s soul goes out in this last gaze.

This look would say, “Farewell, I will be brave, never doubt it, don’t cry, don’t suffer regrets.” This look embraces all that life has meant up to now, whether of joy or sorrow. It is final—a farewell, a promise—it signifies the end—all one’s very soul is in one’s eyes.

And, in effect, no sooner was my back turned and I stood at my horse’s side than all other thoughts left me. I forgot that I had perhaps said a last farewell, in face of the essential importance of assuring myself that nothing of my equipment should be forgotten, that my horse is soundly shod, of tightening up the girths and seeing that my blanket was properly folded, and, automatically, I went on repeating to myself, “Let me see ... I have my lance, my sword, my carbine[1] ... have I thought of everything?” and seemed to look disaster in the face on finding that I had no water-bottle—what was I to do? The very bottle that Flora, the canteen-keeper, had filled with boiling soup in her motherly way—“Oh, my water-bottle”—a real calamity it seemed—empires might crumble; I should have no soup to-morrow morning—all my outlook on war is shrouded in gloom.

Still it was no time to behave like a child. One by one each trooper led his horse into the huge barrack square, where spots of light from electric torches carried by the officers indicated where each troop was to take up its position.

On the chalky ground of the square, showing grey in the darkness, what looked like parallel black lines were growing longer. They were lines of troops, growing into squadrons and increasing until they became the whole regiment. Behind them were the baggage waggons, the travelling forges, machine-guns, commandeered carts, the cyclists’ detachment and all the rest.

The riding school lay between us and the outer square, which was filled with light and alive with the impatient crowd crushing forward to see us ride out of the narrow way kept open for us, and the time dragged as we waited for every man to be in his place and for the signal to move out.

The horses, impatient at standing still, would paw the ground, and now and again a long-drawn neigh would break the silence. At last a figure appeared in silhouette—it was the Colonel.

“Mount!” The two majors repeated the command, and in each half-regiment its two captains, first, then the subalterns and non-commissioned officers repeated it.

A wave seemed to flow from troop to troop like an eddy in a pool, and, sitting rigid in our saddles, our lances held upright, we waited the final order, which was to decide our future and direct us towards the unknown.

“March!” Quitting the dim light of the inner, we came suddenly into the brightly lit outer square, where thousands of hands were held up to bid us a frenzied farewell.

A cry from the crowd followed as we dragoons, sitting like statues, our helmets drawn well down over our faces lest we should betray any sign of emotion, passed out of the barracks which many were never to see again, amid the cheers of a multitude, and the noise of thousands of feet which grew less and less distinct as we rode on.

“I say, old pals, don’t forget your sweethearts,” cried a little street girl standing on the edge of the foot-path, and that was the last word I heard as Rheims became more and more indistinct in the darkness, whilst we pushed on towards the east.