Part 8 (1/2)

In the afternoon a heavy shower rather damped the excitement evoked by the enemy's dramatic failure to hold his own. Sounds of a fierce encounter were heard in front, and the Brigade was hurried down a steep and wooded decline to the scene of action. They arrived too late to share in the actual infliction of defeat upon the enemy, but they were immediately sent in pursuit, as the other Brigade was very tired and rather shaken.

A man told the Subaltern that some unfortunate company, marching in fours up a village street, had been fired upon by a machine-gun controlled by a few men left behind by the enemy to inflict the greatest possible damage before discovery and capture. They had done their work well, for, concealed in the roof of a house, they had swept the street at point-blank range and literally mown down a whole company before they had been located, and ”put out of action.” Still they must have been brave men, for the personal result of such an exploit is certain death.

The state of that street had better not be described. The Aftermath of Battle! It is depressing, cold and pa.s.sionless, dirty and b.l.o.o.d.y; the electricity of life has gone from the air, and the wine of life-blood is spilt, it seems, so needlessly upon the ground. Perhaps the spirits of the dead linger over it. Their presence is instinctively felt. As, overpowered with the sorrow of it, you pa.s.s by, the thought steals into your mind, ”When will my turn come?” This Aftermath of Battle is a.s.suredly the most awful thing in war.

As soon as the men began to scale the steep incline opposite, they saw that the costs had not been paid by the British alone. Figures, covered in most cases by their own grey overcoats, lay out upon the ground.

Leaning up against a wall a body was still lolling. It was a sight that no one who saw it will ever forget. There was no head; it had been shorn oft as cleanly as if the man had been guillotined. An unburst sh.e.l.l had probably swept the man's head from his shoulders as he looked over the wall, and the aimless-looking trunk was still leaning against the wall as if ”waiting for further orders.”

The pursuit was continued until it was quite dark. The Companies wheeled into the fields, and slept where they stood. The Colonel delivered a short address, which showed that all was not as well as it looked. But what really _did_ worry them was lack of straw. The Colonel was of the opinion that the enemy would take his stand on the opposite bank of the Marne, which, he told them, was only half a mile ahead. To-morrow there would be a fight, the like of which neither they nor any one else had seen before.

They were disturbed that night, not indeed by the fear of what to-morrow might hold in store, but by a small stampede of escaped horses, who careered madly over the sleeping lines, injuring one man very severely.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CROSSING OF THE MARNE

As soon as dawn broke--a dawn exceptionally cold and cheerless--the cavalry pushed forward to effect some sort of reconnaissance. Meanwhile the infantry had nothing better to do than to conceal themselves behind the copses that covered the slope, and await their turn. In about an hour's time they were deployed and moved cautiously forward to the attack, the Batteries being already placed in readiness for the beginning of the ”show.”

No army in the world can execute this movement as scientifically or as safely as the British Army. Memories of South Africa and Indian frontier fights have left us undoubtedly the finest scouting army in Europe. We were, of course, hopelessly outmatched in artillery and numbers. But artillery being equal, there was not a Brigade in any army in the world that could have held its own against a British Brigade. That, however, is by the way.

They pressed steadily forward, and, having breasted the slope, the valley of the Marne burst suddenly upon their view. It was at least three miles in breadth, and the opposite heights were screened by woods. A small town marked the bridge. The country was ”open”--painfully open; there was not an atom of real cover between them and the heights opposite.

But no sh.e.l.ls came whistling towards them. No doubt the enemy was holding his fire until they were within closer range. (Not a pleasant thought, this, by any means.) But no, they went on scrambling down the deep slope, and still no sound of firing disturbed the morning silence.

As each moment fled by the Subaltern thought to himself, ”Not yet! Well, the next minute will bring things about our heads!” But the next minute kept on pa.s.sing as uneventfully as its predecessors.

At last they reached the bridge and found it absolutely undamaged. Even then the Subaltern could not repress the thought that all this was only a trick, and that they were being lured on to destruction. But his sanguinary forebodings were not justified, and the opposite heights were scaled without opposition.

He afterwards learnt, that, however much the Germans might have wanted to hold this magnificent line, the strategical situation had become so pressing that on this sector nothing could save them from disaster except a complete and hurried retreat. They were all but outflanked on their right, which was already very seriously bent back; while in the centre General Foch had driven in a wedge which bade fair to crumple up the whole line.

There was nothing in any way remarkable about the little town on the other side of the river. It had the air of a neglected gutter-child, dirty and disconsolate. There were the usual signs of German occupation--broken windows, ravaged shops, and, of course, the inevitable bottles.

Here it was that the Subaltern noticed for the first time that the Huns had a distinctive smell of their own. It was a curious smell, completely baffling description. If it is true that certain odours suggest certain colours, one would have described this as a brown smell, preferably a reddish-brown smell. Certain it was that the enemy left it behind him wherever he had been, as sure a clue to his pa.s.sing as broken wine-bottles!

The Subaltern always a.s.sociates the climbing of the opposite slope with pangs of a thirst so intense that he almost forgot to wonder why the Germans had evacuated so excellent a position without firing a single shot. But Headquarters were evidently not going to allow them to push forward into some previously arranged trap. Having by three o'clock in the afternoon firmly established themselves on the wooded crests of the slope, they were ”pulled up” while a further reconnaissance was being made. Meanwhile, a sort of outpost position was taken up.

The Subaltern's Platoon was to guard the back edge of a wood, and as he established his supports in a farm, most of his men were able to fill their water-bottles, have a wash and brush up, and generally prepare themselves for whatever the next move might be. The farmer and his wife, who had remained in their home, did everything that was required of them; but he could not help noticing that the old couple did not seem as pleased at their Allies' success as one would have naturally expected. The reason was soon forthcoming. Following his usual plan of getting as much information as possible out of the French, he heard the old man, who seemed unaccountably shy and diffident, mutter casually--

”J'ai pense que vous etiez tous partis hier soir.”

”Comment?” said he, ”tous partis? Mais, Monsieur, nous sommes les premiers Anglais qui sont arrives ici.”

”Mais, Monsieur! Anglais? Ce n'est pas possible!”

”C'est vrai, a.s.surement.”

”Mais, L'Armee Anglaise porte toujours les habits rouges!”