September 22, 1914.

There are more than a thousand of them squatting on the grass. The sun rages down on this quadrilateral, as big as the Place des Victoires, enclosed by the steep slopes of the scarp. Every one is nodding. The German flag and the Bavarian flag hang inertly along their twin staves. This frippery has been hoisted to celebrate the taking of ?. There is not a breath of wind. The heat is stifling. Sentinels pace to and fro. What is going on behind the forbidden slopes? Above the parapets crowned with flowers we can see nothing but the sky—a wide sky, barely blue. Some prisoners are chatting as they sit on a pyramid of grenades.

“How short our campaign was!” exclaims Sergeant Foch of the 10th Chasseurs, a fine fellow who seems modelled in bronze. His dark, golden-speckled eyes seem to devour you. He speaks harshly, and one feels that his wrath is intense. He spits out his phrases, with long intervals of silence.

“And all this happened through an idiot who led us straight to Raon-l’Etape, a regular Boche ambush!…

“As for me, tonnerre de Dieu, I could not help thinking of our captain. Captain B.! He was a soldier, if you like—first man of his year in the Ecole de Guerre, certain to become a general. One day he showed us the photo of his children, seven children, all in a row. He had tears in his eyes. He was a man! He could do what he liked with us. He was brave and prudent, and we had nothing to do but to follow where he led. One felt safe with him. There was a man who knew how to take care of his company.

“I wish you’d seen what happened at Vallerystal! Such a rain of shells we had there. I counted five hundred on my own section alone. I lost my two chums there. One of them came from my own village, and he and I were like brothers—always together. All of a sudden there came a pig of a melinite shell. There was a hell of a noise and a lot of smoke. I was knocked out of time, bowled over and over. Then I got up and dusted myself. Absolutely unhurt! Oh, how that black smoke stank! And on either side of me my two chums, blown to bits, their guts bulging out all over the place. CrÉ nom de nom! My knapsack did me good service that time! It stopped a shell splinter which set the collar of my coat on fire behind. Just look.

“While this was going on, what do you think our captain was doing? He was walking quietly up and down, pipe in mouth, in front of our rifles.

“‘Better lie down, captain,’ we said to him.

“‘What’s the use? One’s just as likely to be hit lying down as standing.’

“By the evening he had a wound in the head and a torn biceps. Do you think he left us on that account? His wounds were temporarily dressed.

“‘You must go to the field hospital,’ said the surgeon. But he did not go! There’s a fellow for you. If they were all like this B.…”

“Did it do well, your section?” asked PiÉtri, a red-haired sergeant-major, sturdy, with bloodshot eyes, a Corsican with the trick of staring you in the face, seeming to listen with his eyes, greedily, like a deaf man.

“Did they do well? I believe you! My reservists were splendid. ‘The beasts!’ they cried. They were spoiling for the fight; they clenched their fists. The 10th battalion was proverbial. ‘The men at ProvenchÈres are devils,’ said the Boches; it was we.

“At the start it was like playing at soldiers. The Uhlans were coming on in little groups, their gloves spotless with pipeclay, wheeling to right and to left, as if on parade. Bram! Bram! Down goes one of them. The others perform a fantasia of retreat. We pursue. They dismount. I say to my men: ‘Lie down!’ Not a bit of it! They kneel to take better aim. ‘Fire!’ A lieutenant is killed; there are six dead or wounded. Another time, four Uhlans are trotting quietly along the road, as if on scouting duty. ‘Fire!’ Ten shots: patrol gone! Yes, it was funny at first. One might have imagined oneself at the summer manoeuvres. But from the 10th to the 25th, oh Lord! Nothing but artillery fire. It rained! It rained, I tell you!”

“Did you kill any Boches yourself?” asks big Corporal Durupt, compared in the 2nd to a buffalo’s head on a pikestaff. “In my section at Mesnil, near Senones, I handed my rifle to the bugler, a record shot. In a quarter of an hour, at two hundred yards, he brought down ten.”

“I did my share,” answers Foch. “But the shot of which I am proudest was one which I fired at twelve hundred yards, just for a lark, at a Uhlan patrol. There were three of them; I bowled one of them over. But I will tell you about a shot of which my old comrade Kaiser was especially proud. An Alsatian like myself. I always gave him his orders in German. I don’t know if he’s still alive. I have not seen him since August 25th, when we were under machine gun fire in Bertrichamps wood.

“In my section we had one odd sort of beast who was always in a blue funk. I kept him by my side as I led my section. The captain says to me: ‘Foch, see if you can’t stop this machine gun which is worrying us.’ Off we go, and soon the bullets are flying thickly. I meet an old territorial. He has his handkerchief pressed to a bleeding wound. I want to dress it for him. ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘don’t bother about me. Go ahead with your brave fellows!’ All at once my trembler falls down, crying out:

“‘Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!’

“‘Are you wounded?’

“‘No, a sprain!’

“‘Don’t you try to gammon me; up with you!’ He gets up; he can walk all right. ‘You see,’ I tell him, ‘I beat God Himself. I’ve cured you in half a tick.’ But now, at two hundred yards, I see the German section with the machine gun. I fire, once, twice; I pick off two of them. Then, close at hand, on the right, appears a bunch of Germans. The devil! I call Kaiser, who is acting as my orderly. A Boche advances on him. ‘Look out!’ I cry. The Boche shoulders his rifle and fires. Down goes Kaiser. The Boche advances, but Kaiser is only shamming dead. Suddenly he rises on his knee. Bram! Head over heels goes the other, and Kaiser hurls himself on the Boche. ‘I’ve got him all right,’ he shouts, as pleased as Punch.

“The German squad retreats. My section sends them some parting shots. Two wounded Germans come to us, and I dress their wounds. One of them wants to kiss me, but I’m not having any.

“I say to my funker, ‘Get behind that little ridge. You will be close to me.’ I have hardly spoken when he begins to bleat: ‘Wounded! I am wounded! I’ve been shot in my behind. Let’s escape!’ Next minute, ‘Mon Dieu! hit again! Let’s escape!’ Two bullets in his behind; oh dear! He did not know what to do with himself; he had not enough hands to stop the holes. He let go of one leg in order to seize the other. We who looked on were screaming with laughter. I’ve never laughed so much in my life. And all this was under fire! Girard was laughing with the rest. Then, suddenly, ‘I am hit,’ he says; ‘lend a hand!’—‘You must wait a moment, old boy; the fire is too hot.’ The blood was pouring from his wound, making a lather like soapsuds. Two minutes later the bugle sounds ‘Cease firing.’ But they don’t want to cease firing. They simply will not stop. I have to get up and shout at them, to brandish my arms. At length they assemble around me. And here is my funker, who gets up quite easily, notwithstanding the two bullets in his behind. The firing continued from the German side, and the leaves were falling on us from the trees, for the aim was too high. We were able to withdraw with our eight wounded.

“Ah, it was a fine time, but oh, how tired I was! Had it not been for ? I should have gone through the war till the last shot was fired. I no longer gave a thought to my wife or my children.”