"Halt! About face! And now have at the enemy!"
And they faced about. Those dying men recovered their strength. From the humblest to the most illustrious, each summoned up his will and fought as though the safety of France depended upon him alone. There were as many glorious heroes as there were soldiers. They were asked to conquer or die. They conquered.
Paul shone in the front rank of the fearless. He himself knew that what he did and what he endured, what he tried to do and what he succeeded in doing surpassed the limits of reality. On the 6th and the 7th and the 8th and again from the 11th to the 13th, despite his excessive fatigue, despite the deprivations of sleep and food which it seemed impossible for the human frame to resist, he had no other sensation than that of advancing and again advancing – and always advancing. Whether in sunshine or in shade, whether on the banks of the Marne or on the woody slopes of the Argonne, whether north or east, when his division was sent to reinforce the troops on the frontier, whether lying flat and creeping along in the plowed fields or on his feet and charging with the bayonet, he was always going forward and each step was a delivery and each step was a conquest.
Each step also increased the hatred in his heart. Oh, how right his father had been to loathe those people! Paul now saw them at work. On every side were stupid devastation and unreasoning destruction, on every side arson, pillage and death, hostages shot, women murdered, bestially, for the love of the thing. Churches, country-houses, mansions of the rich and cabins of the poor: nothing remained. The very ruins had been razed to the ground, the very corpses tortured.
O the delight of defeating such an enemy! Though reduced to half its full strength, Paul's regiment, released like a pack of hounds, never ceased biting at the wild beast which it was hunting. The quarry seemed more vicious and formidable the nearer it approached to the frontier; and our men kept rushing at it in the mad hope of giving it the death-stroke.
One day Paul read on a sign-post at a cross-roads:
Corvigny, 14 Kil.
Ornequin, 31 Kil. 400.
The Frontier, 33 Kil. 200.
Corvigny! Ornequin! A thrill passed through his frame when he saw those unexpected words. As a rule, absorbed as he was by the heat of the conflict and by his private cares, he paid little attention to the names of the places which he passed; and he learnt them only by chance. And now suddenly he was within so short a distance of the Château d'Ornequin! "Corvigny, 14 kilometers: " less than nine miles!.. Were the French troops making for Corvigny, for the little fortified place which the Germans had taken by assault and taken under such strange conditions?
That day, they had been fighting since daylight against an enemy whose resistance seemed to grow slacker and slacker. Paul, at the head of a squad of men, was sent to the village of Bléville with orders to enter it if the enemy had retired, but go no farther. And it was just beyond the last houses of the village that he saw the sign-post.
At the time, he was not quite easy in his mind. A Taube had flown over the country a few minutes before. There was the possibility of an ambush.
"Let's go back to the village," he said. "We'll barricade ourselves while we wait."
But there was a sudden noise behind a wooded hill that interrupted the road in the Corvigny direction, a noise that became more and more definite, until Paul recognized the powerful throb of a motor, doubtless a motor carrying a quick-firing gun.
"Crouch down in the ditch," he cried to his men. "Hide yourselves in the haystacks. Fix bayonets. And don't move any of you!"
He had realized the danger of that motor's passing through the village, plunging in the midst of his company, scattering panic and then making off by some other way.
He quickly climbed the split trunk of an old oak and took up his position in the branches a few feet above the road.
The motor soon came in sight. It was, as he expected, an armored car, but one of the old pattern, which allowed the helmets and heads of the men to show above the steel plating.
It came along at a smart pace, ready to dart forward in case of alarm. The men were stooping with bent backs. Paul counted half-a-dozen of them. The barrels of two Maxim guns projected beyond the car.
He put his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the driver, a fat Teuton with a scarlet face that seemed dyed with blood. Then, when the moment came, he calmly fired.
"Charge, lads!" he cried, as he scrambled down from his tree.
But it was not even necessary to take the car by storm. The driver, struck in the chest, had had the presence of mind to apply the brakes and pull up. Seeing themselves surrounded, the Germans threw up their hands:
"Kamerad! Kamerad!"
And one of them, flinging down his arms, leapt from the motor and came running up to Paul:
"An Alsatian, sergeant, an Alsatian from Strasburg! Ah, sergeant, many's the day that I've been waiting for this moment!"
While his men were taking the prisoners to the village, Paul hurriedly questioned the Alsatian:
"Where has the car come from?"
"Corvigny."
"Any of your people there?"
"Very few. A rearguard of two hundred and fifty Badeners at the most."
"And in the forts?"
"About the same number. They didn't think it necessary to mend the turrets and now they've been taken unprepared. They're hesitating whether to try and make a stand or to fall back on the frontier; and that's why we were sent to reconnoiter."
"So we can go ahead?"
"Yes, but at once, else they will receive powerful reinforcements, two divisions."
"When?"
"To-morrow. They're to cross the frontier, to-morrow, about the middle of the day."
"By Jove! There's no time to be lost!" said Paul.
While examining the guns and having the prisoners disarmed and searched, Paul was considering the best measures to take, when one of his men, who had stayed behind in the village, came and told him of the arrival of a French detachment, with a lieutenant in command.
Paul hastened to tell the officer what had happened. Events called for immediate action. He offered to go on a scouting expedition in the captured motor.
"Very well," said the officer. "I'll occupy the village and arrange to have the division informed as soon as possible."
The car made off in the direction of Corvigny, with eight men packed inside. Two of them, placed in charge of the quick-firing guns, studied the mechanism. The Alsatian stood up, so as to show his helmet and uniform clearly, and scanned the horizon on every side.
All this was decided upon and done in the space of a few minutes, without discussion and without delaying over the details of the undertaking.
"We must trust to luck," said Paul, taking his seat at the wheel. "Are you ready to see the job through, boys?"
"Yes; and further," said a voice which he recognized, just behind him.
It was Bernard d'Andeville, Élisabeth's brother. Bernard belonged to the 9th company; and Paul had succeeded in avoiding him, since their first meeting, or at least in not speaking to him. But he knew that the youngster was fighting well.
"Ah, so you're there?" he said.
"In the flesh," said Bernard. "I came along with my lieutenant; and, when I saw you getting into the motor and taking any one who turned up, you can imagine how I jumped at the chance!" And he added, in a more embarrassed tone, "The chance of doing a good stroke of work, under your orders, and the chance of talking to you, Paul.. for I've been unlucky so far… I even thought that.. that you were not as well-disposed to me as I hoped.."
"Nonsense," said Paul. "Only I was bothered.."
"You mean, about Élisabeth?"
"Yes."
"I