Paths of Glory (8 page)

Major Vignon's distant thunderstorm was appreciably nearer now. It seemed to have been brought nearer, in one bound, by the order to stop smoking. The rumble of artillery was no longer a rumble, for it had broken up into its component parts of battery salvos. The Very lights were on the other side of a hill and they still produced their collective rather than their individual effect, an effect no longer quite like sheet lightning, however, because it now seemed to die out too slowly.

Colonel Dax cursed the moonlight. He knew it was childish of him to do so, but he couldn't help feeling that his regiment must be more visible to the enemy gunners. Anyway, he wanted to curse it, and he didn't care how unreasonable he was. Vignon, on the other hand, and most of the rank and file felt quite the other way about it. They welcomed a visibility which would spare them the minor, but none the less exasperating accidents of a relief made in pitch darkness.

 

“Hey there! 181st?” The hail was at the same time a challenge and a question; it came from behind the glow of a burning cigarette in the roadside shadow.

Colonel Dax swung round in his stride and shouted “Halt!” Then he added in an even louder voice: “Don't close up. Keep your intervals. Company commanders forward, at the double. Pass the word back!” He turned towards the roadside shadow.

“181st, yes. And put that cigarette out.” The cigarette dropped to the ground and went out under a boot.

“Guides from the Tirailleurs, to take you in, sir. Lieutenant Trocard speaking.”

“All right, lieutenant, you stay here with me and the headquarters details. Headquarters details, fall out on the right. Fix bayonets. Pass the word back to fix bayonets!”

A noise of clicking metal broke out at once and spread off down the road. Here and there the sound of a rifle breech being opened and closed showed that there were, as usual, some men still shy enough of firearms to postpone loading them until the last possible moment. Desultory machine-gun fire could be heard on the other side of the low hill, now and then a muffled crump. There was a certain amount of furtive sibilance in the air, a weird, ghostly sound to which no one paid any attention. A star shell, rising higher than the rest, burst and began to fall gracefully, outlining the crest of the low hill. Four doors banged suddenly, not quite in unison, but so near they made everybody start.

“Where the devil are they?” the colonel asked.

“Just a few paces down the road, sir. There are two batteries of seventy-fives there.”

“Fools,” said the colonel. “Don't they know there's a relief on tonight? They'll draw fire. Herbillon! Herbillon! Where's that adjutant?”

“Here, sir.”

“Go down and see if you can get that idiot to stop firing till this relief is over. And tell him not to stir up any more trouble than he—”

The four doors banged again.

“Hurry up, please . . .Whose signal is that?” The colonel was pointing at three coloured lights which were rising from the other side of the hill. “Red over green over red. That's not ours, is it, lieutenant?”

“No, sir. That's the Boche signal for a barrage.”

“Just as I thought. I knew that fool would start something.”

To be exact, it was not just as the colonel thought, but more how the colonel felt. He was an old enough soldier to know that the greater part of those barrage signals were, as often as not, prompted by the nervousness of an outpost or a sentry who had heard a rat moving and thought he was going to be fallen on by a raiding party. The S O S rocket was a straw that a man could not resist clutching in a moment of panic. The lieutenant of Tirailleurs reminded the colonel of this, obliquely:

“It's a jumpy sector, sir, especially after these attacks we've been making on the Pimple.”

“Here are the officers. Let's get started. Paolacci, are you there? Captain Charpentier? All right, lieutenant, any particular instructions?”

“Only this, sir. There's a chalk pit about a kilometre up the road, where the narrow-gauge track crosses it. The Boches shell it from time to time with five-nines. They've been quiet so far this evening, but that S O S will probably start things up. The shells usually come at thirty-second intervals. There's nothing to do but to try to rush it, a half a section at a time, between shells. You can't go round it, the ground's all chewed up and tangled with old wire. Are you ready, sir?”

“Yes, yes. You heard that, gentlemen. Act accordingly then, and positively no closing up. Report to my dugout in the Tranchée des Zouaves as soon as you have completed your reliefs. Password tonight is—what's the password, lieutenant?”

“Calais, sir.”

“Calais. Back to your posts, gentlemen. Charpentier, you stay with me. I have a job for you. First Company forward, by sections!”

The column began to move again, this time in single file. The guides came out one by one from the roadside shadow and took their places with the company commanders as each one drew level with the headquarters group. Colonel Dax personally held up each detachment until the preceding one had created an interval to his liking. Then he released it: “All right, forward! Remember, no bunching up. Keep your distances!”

The machine-gun fire on the other side of the hill was no longer desultory. The interims between crumps were getting shorter, too, by the time half the regiment had disappeared up the road. The crest of the hill was now almost a constant outline against the festoons of star shells, and the air was filled with a profound uneasiness, an uneasiness which communicated itself to the men, made them fidgety and made their words, actions, and thoughts even, come in jerks.

Three bright-red flares rose perpendicularly and deliberately into the sky. They reached their zenith, paused there for an instant, then, losing their alignment, they began to sink sedately back to earth.

“Red over red over red,” said the lieutenant of Tirailleurs. “That one's our S O S. It's going to be a bad night.” Then he added to himself: “And I've got to pass that chalk pit twice . . .”

“At last they're spaced properly, and in single file,” the colonel was thinking. “The worst is over, for me anyway. Soon they'll be between the protecting walls of the communication trench . . .” A feeling of deep relief came over him.

Eight doors banged, not quite in unison. They were answered by eight others, farther away. The first eight banged again . . . and again . . . and again . . .

The colonel was shouting at the top of his lungs now, trying to make himself heard: “Intervals . . . chalk pit . . . bunching . . . intervals . . .”

 

The chalk pit was a circular excavation situated in the southeast right angle formed by the intersection of the road and the narrow-gauge track. Had a balloon been placed in it, it would have looked like a good-sized egg in its nest. As you went up the road towards the Pimple sector, the chalk pit was on your right. It was near enough to the road for you to spit into, if you wanted to. Many of the men who passed it did want to do so, for it was an inviting spittoon. Also it had an evil reputation, and spitting into it was one way of expressing your opinion of it. Few did, however, because even the trivial act of spitting made it necessary to turn the head and the attention away, for an instant, from the exceedingly important business of getting past the place as quickly as possible. To turn your head aside, moreover, was to lose your acoustic orientation for a moment, and, no matter how short that moment might be, it might easily prove to be too long.

The regimental formation being in numerical order, the first section of Number 1 Company was the first to approach the chalk pit. The Tirailleur was walking in front, with the section strung out in single file behind him. Duval, who had been separated from Langlois and assigned to this section, was near the end of the line. As the detachment drew near the chalk pit, the Tirailleur's pace increased. He was crouching a little, and he walked as if he were treading barefoot on pebbles. He was tense throughout his body, the blood was throbbing in his head and pounding in his heart. His breath came quickly because he was too preoccupied to draw it down deeply into his lungs; it also tasted sour. His eyes were focused straight in front of him, but his head was turned slightly to the left so that his right ear could better catch any sound which came to him from that direction. He had adjusted his acoustic orientation nicely, and he was now straining to keep it attuned.

By the time the guide had reached the chalk pit, he was going at a jog-trot. The narrow-gauge line was crossed at a run, the section keeping pace with him and cursing him for a panicky fool. Even if their curses had reached him, he wouldn't have heard them, for his ears were busy with other sounds and his thoughts were too engrossing:

“Twenty metres more and I'll be past the place, safely past it. Fifteen . . . twelve . . . ten . . . eight . . .”

Already his run had slowed to a jog-trot, already his jog-trot was slowing to a walk, for he could see banks begin to rise ahead of him, the protecting banks of what would soon be a sunken road. The tenseness of his whole body eased a little, all except that of his ears. They were still straining to remain attuned to the first warning sound....

A sibilance began high in the air above them. It had hardly begun before it had grown to a piercing whistle, it was hardly a whistle before it became a tremendous, fearful sound, rushing with terrific speed straight at the section. Everyone flattened out in his tracks, including Duval who had the feeling that something enormous was going to hit him. The terrifying thing seemed to pass right down the length of each cringing spine, then it went off with a roar to burst behind them. The explosion seemed to Duval to be strangely far away for something which had been right on top of him. He raised his head, preparing to get up now that it was all over. He had just time to note that the rest of the section was still flattened out on the ground when the air around him became alive with pieces of flying, humming metal. He flattened out again and listened to the flying metal being abruptly silenced by the earth into which it embedded itself.

“Baptism of fire,” he said. He bestowed the accolade upon himself without self-consciousness but with a passing surge of pride.

The minute the flying metal had subsided, the men got up and made off along the road, without pausing to look back, all except Duval. He turned to look at the spot where he had been lying as if to preserve it in his memory. Then he ran after his section. He had a feeling that he was, somehow, a different person. Time, however, had to pass before he could define the change, and only then did it come to him that that spot on the road was the place where he had ceased to be a boy.

Lieutenant Paolacci, temporarily in command of Number 2 Company while Captain Charpentier was being detained by the colonel, approached the chalk pit in his turn. He had the reputation among the men of being strict but brave, among the officers of being conscientious to the point of foolhardiness. He prided himself on never flinching or ducking under fire if he could possibly help it. He also prided himself on the care he took of his men. So it was that, while most of the other officers contented themselves with giving the necessary orders and then letting their sections manage the chalk-pit obstacle as they chose, Paolacci considered it his duty to remain at the danger point himself so that he could personally direct the rushes of his men. This he did so skilfully from his position on the lip of the excavation that he was able to pass three sections safely through the shellfire—shellfire to which he himself was constantly exposed during the running of the gauntlet.

He was passing his men across a half section at a time. The last shell had burst on the other side of the track, a little to the side of the road. The range, he had noted, seemed to be a bit short of the track, so he eased his sections up nearer to it before giving the word to go. His last section was now lying in single file, prone to the road. He was waiting for one more shell.

“Are you ready there? After the next one then, when I give the word, run for it.”

The next one came and burst squarely on the track.

“Go!” he shouted.

The file rose and started to run forward, crouching. The second half of the section rose at the same moment to move up closer to the track.

A whistling began high in the air above them. It came down with terrific speed, swelling to a tremendous roar. The men wavered, sensing a direct hit, then closed in together, instinctively seeking protection from each other's flesh. Paolacci watched them, transfixed, unable to utter a sound. He saw some of them sprawl headlong, some turn their backs and cower, others start to run, in any direction. He saw that in the few seconds it took the shell to come down, the two half-sections had, incredibly, managed to form into a confused bunch.

There were two detonations, so nearly simultaneous that they seemed to be one. The flash of the explosions photographed a fantastic picture of hurtling chaos on his mind. A chunk of jagged, revolving metal was travelling with speed and precision in Paolacci's direction. It tore through his pelvis, carried his whole right hip away, and knocked him over the edge into the chalk pit. He tumbled down, down, down....

When the smoke cleared away no one was left to see that, where the section had been, there was now nothing but two tangent, smouldering holes in the centre of some scattered bundles of motionless clothing.

 

The relief had been completed by midnight, and the high tide of a double congestion of men in the trenches was already ebbing fast. Thirty-two men of the 181st had been killed on the way in, and seventeen Tirailleurs were being killed on the way out. None of them were killed as a result of the crowding caused by the other regiment, but everybody, from the two commanding officers down, entered into the passing and automatic sophism of blaming the casualties on the congestion, notwithstanding. Reason told them that the chances of a certain man being killed at any given moment were the same, whether he was standing alone or in a group. Reason, however, was not uppermost, but feeling was. And feeling was too strong to take heed of the paradox it engendered, the paradox of men rushing together for protection in the face of shellfire, and their being convinced that if they were in a group, no matter how invisible to the enemy, they would attract shellfire and suffer the more from it.