the camp of mailly was a busy place. at the aeroplane sheds the biplanes and blériots were constantly going and coming, circling in the air, or making ready in long rows upon the level field. the vast plain was filled with troops of all sorts in seemingly inextricable confusion: chasseurs, on horseback, in pale blue tunics, the alpine chasseurs, with drooping blue berets on their heads, and leggings; cuirassiers with their breastplates and long horsehair plumes, and zouaves with embroidered jackets and baggy red trousers. the twentieth regiment, tattered and tired, with many heads bandaged and many with69 feet through their shoes, dusty, hollow-eyed, marched past, not yet too despairing, as fresh troops greeted them, to cry in answer “vive la france!” they were not boys now, they were soldiers tempered in the crucible of war. and among them marched georges cucurou, with a prussian helmet tied to his knapsack with a shoestring—a prussian helmet with a hole through its brass front!
already rumors were flying fast from column to column. why this concentration of troops? why this wide circle swung around the camp of mailly? mon dieu! could it be that they were to retreat no longer? that, at last, they were to make a stand? a hope like a gaining fire sprang up and swept from man to man.
it was early in the morning of sunday, september 6, that on the heights south of mailly the regiment was assembled for re70view. to the accompaniment of an incessant, raging bombardment from the german cannon, the colonel read aloud this message from general joffre, commander in chief of the allied forces:
children of france, the hour of the great battle has arrived! lift up your hearts! if you wish your country everlasting honor, let every man die at his post, if necessary, rather than surrender another inch of ground, and the victory will be ours.
it was not gallic sentimentality now. it was the voice of a leader who wasted no words.
there was a shout of rejoicing—“vive la france!” emotion swept the ranks and men wept without shame. the tremendous suggestion put into those thousands of minds had a terrible potency. georges said that71 morning he felt as if he were intoxicated; he grew suddenly like a giant. it seemed as if nothing on earth could possibly resist them, now.
bread and biscuits were handed out and the twentieth regiment was hurried to a wood two miles away. already they had begun to move northward. but again it was their fate to be held in reserve, while the brunt of the attack was given to other troops. the twentieth was held in the woods all day, all night, while the shells rained in from every direction. most fell in front or behind, but occasionally a “marmite” would hit the column with devastating fury, and send its mutilated victims flying. there was nothing for it, however, but to stay and stay on, till the last man was killed if need were. whatever happened, the germans must not get by!
at dawn, they advanced to the edge of the72 woods; but, the instant they emerged into the fields, shells and shrapnel poured on them in a torrent. so they held their post. monday passed without their stirring from those woods. no commissary wagons came with food—nothing could live in the open. they munched their emergency rations, dry biscuits. monday night, tuesday, tuesday night, and still they stayed. a dispatch rider, wounded in the arm, brought orders for them to hold hard and never flinch.
nothing to eat now but grains of coffee. the water was gone from their canteens, long ago; but the men stretched out their overcoats in the rain, and drank the pools of water as fast as they collected. and, always, night and day, the thunder of the german guns about them. the din was so terrific that the men had fairly to shout to each other—they were almost deaf.
