Covered with mud and glory

Front matter

GE0EGE3

Class _

Book

Preface

SERGEANT-MAJOR GEORGES LA- FOND, of the Territorial Hussars, the author of this book, was in South America at the time of mobilization. He returned to France as soon as possible and joined his corps, but asked to be assigned as intelligence officer to the machine-gun sections of the . . . first regiment of Colonial Infantry.

With this picked corps, which has been decimated several times, he took part in the engagements in Champagne, on the Somme, at Lihons, Dompierre, Herbecourt, and notably in the days from the first to the fifth of July, where the regiment earned its second citation and received the fourragi're.

Lafond was discharged after the battles of Maisonnette, and wrote this book of recollections in the hospital at Abbeville, and afterwards at Montpellier, where he had to undergo a severe operation.

PREFACE

Sergeant-Major Lafond's narrative makes no claim to literary pretension, but it is simply a collection of actual occurrences. It is a series of short narratives which give the life of a company of machine gunners from the day of its formation to the hour when it was so decimated that it had to be reorganized with men from other corps.

What pictures the following titles call to mind: " A Reconnaissance in the Fog," " The Aeroplane," " Our First Engagement," " ' We Have Taken a Picket Post,' " " The Attack," " The Echelon," " A Water Patrol " ! No man who has lived at the front and has taken part in an attack will fail to recognize the accuracy of these narratives and to experience, as well, emotion, enthusiasm, and pride in having been among " those who were there."

This record of adventure was very successful when it appeared in the Petit Parisien, and I feel sure that it will be successful in book form. I beg Sergeant-Major Georges Lafond to accept my hearty congratulations on his fine talent and his bravery.

Maurice Barres, of the French Academy.

Contents

Chapter Page

I The Search for My Company . . i

II The Quartermaster's Billets ... ii

Chapter I

REMEMBER the exact date and I have reason to, for on that Monday, February fifteenth, I joined the second company of machine guns of the . . . first Colonials at the front. It was snowing and the fields of Picardy were one vast white carpet on which the auto-trucks traced a multitude of black lines to the accompaniment of pyrotechnics of mud.

Two days before I had left my depot in a small garrison town in the center of Provence, which lay smiling in the sun and already bedecked with the first flowers of spring. At Lyons I found rain, at Saint-Just-en-Chaussee, snow, and I got off the train in a sea of mud.

In the dim light of a February dawn, the station at Villers appeared to be encumbered with the supplies of half-a-dozen regiments. My car was high on its wheels and at the end of the train farthest from the unloading platform. At the other end of the platform near the entrance to the station, I found a rolling bridge for unloading animals, but it was useless to ask those busy people to help me push this weighty contrivance to the car.

So I looked at Kiki — Kiki is my horse — who had but recently arrived from Canada and was scarcely broken after his two months' training at the depot.

" Kiki, mon vieux/'' I said, " you must make up your mind to do as I did and jump. Remember that you are a Canadian, and every selfrespecting Canadian should know how to jump as soon as he is born."

I delivered this kind invitation from the ground and I urged him on by pulling on the reins. Kiki was not at all frightened. He came to the edge of the car, snuffed the air, carefully calculated the distance, bent lightly on his hind legs, and jumped to the ground without a flutter.

"The . . . first Colonials? " the military commissioner said to me. " I don't know exactly, but you '11 find it somewhere along twenty or thirty miles to the east at Proyart or Harbonnieres, or perhaps at Morcourt. There 's a little of it all about there."

So Kiki and I, in the morning mist, went slowly along roads covered with snow and grease in search of the second company of machine guns.

Proyart is a small village hidden in a hollow of this plain of Picardy which from a distance resembled a well-stretched, vast white carpet. Here the villages are sheltered in depressions and one only sees them when he reaches the level of their steeples. It was at Proyart that altogether accidentally, thanks to a sign about as large as my hand and already partly rubbed out, I found the staff of the . . . first Colonials.

An orderly condescended to move a few steps and point out to me at the end of the street to the right the billets of the quartermaster of the second company of machine guns.

There was a court — a sewer, as a matter of fact — which was completely filled by a pool of filth which left only a narrow passage of a foot or two by each wall. In a corner was a tangle of barrels, farm implements, and broken boxes, and on that a mass of wet straw, manure, snow, and mud.

At the farther end of the court was a small door with glass panels — with a glass panel — for only one remained. The spaces were conveniently filled by thick layers of the Petit Parisien, Matin, Le Journal, Echo de Paris, the great dailies which arrived intermittently at Proyart.

I went in. Kiki wanted to go in, too, but the door was low and he was carrying his complete pack. Inside was a ruined kitchen. The chimney still remained, and there was a large table made of a door stretched on two barrels, which took up the middle of the room. In each corner, against the walls, were improvised beds, straw mattresses, and heaps of clothes under which I surmised there were bodies.

*' The door, nom de Dieu ! " shouted a voice.

In front of the chimney was a man struggling desperately with a fire. The watersoaked wood refused to burn, and the man flooded it with shoe grease, which, when it melted, threw out jets of yellow flame and filled the room with a pungent odor and smoke.

" The door, the door ! What did he tell you ! " [4]

cried in different tones voices which came from the heaps of covers.

It was true that a breath of cold air and a swirl of snow had rushed into the smoky dark hall when I came in. I shut the door and asked,

" Is this the second company of machine guns? "

"What of it? What do you want of the second machine guns? It 's here. And after that what do you want? Papers, again? Zut! They have no idea of bothering people at this hour. Leave them on the table and come back in half an hour."

This diatribe emanated from a pile thicker than the rest, in the chimney corner. At this obsession of papers, of lists to be signed, I guessed he was a sergeant or a quartermaster, and I kept on:

" Don't worry. There are no papers. I am the mounted intelligence officer attached to this company."

" M . . . 1 " shouted several voices in the four corners of the room, while I watched arms and muffled heads rise up.

" Mince! So we have a mounted officer now! Wonderful ! They 're certainly fitting us out in style. What won't they do next? Then, that's all right, vieux. Come on in and let us see you. And you have a horse? Where is your horse? Bring him in; make him come. It must be cold out in the court."

The first burst of curiosity soon passed, the torrent of words exhausted itself, and the forms which had stirred a moment ago quieted down anew. A more peremptory voice now started in shouting invectives at the orderly who was still struggling with the rebellious wood.

" Say, Dedouche. Do you think we 're Boche sausages that you want to smoke us out? Don't you know anything? We '11 have to wear glasses. That 's no way to light a fire. What did you learn when you were a boy? "

" The grease is full of water and won't even burn."

" Use the oil in the lamp, then."

The first result of the immediate execution of this order was to fill the room with a black stifling cloud which was enough to make one weep. In the middle of this smoke the orderly, Dedouche, coughed, spat, sputtered, while I heard him storm :

'* In God's name, how that stinks ! How that stinks ! "

The quartermaster, doubtless on account of the smoke and the smell, now deigned to get up. He was a young man, large, light complexioned, and his cheeks were red and fat. He had just a suspicion of a moustache. His ears were hidden in a cap which had wings that pulled down. One could scarcely see his eyes they were so puffed out with sleep and smoke.

" So you 're the intelligence officer? Sit down. Dedouche, make a cup of coffee. I '11 make a note of your transfer, and then you can try to find a place for yourself until the lieutenant comes. Oh, you 've time, you know. He never comes before ten o'clock."

*' But, Quartermaster, it 's nearly ten now."

" No, you 're joking. Ten o'clock. My word, it 's true. Oh, there, get up all of you. It 's ten o'clock. And that salaud of a Dedouche has n't lighted the fire. Come, come, hurry up, the lieutenant is coming! "

And as though this were the magic word, the [7]

lieutenant came in, leaving the door wide open behind him. It was time; they were almost suffocated.

The lieutenant was a large man, thin and well set up. His bearing indicated resolution. His brown hair was cut very short, according to the regulations. A close-cropped black moustache streaked his sunburned face. The general effect of his personality was that of a man cool and headstrong.

" Oh, he has the coolness of a Colonial," the machine gunners repeated ad nauseam.

"Isn't there any way to get you up?" exclaimed the lieutenant. " You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. It 's after ten o'clock."

Then he saw me through the cloud of smoke and questioned me with a glance. The quartermaster broke in before I could reply,

" It 's the mounted intelligence officer, Lieutenant."

"Oh, good! . . . Good morning. . . . Welcome."

He extended a large, vigorous hand v/hich confirmed the first impression of his personality — frankness and will.

"Have you found a place for your horse?" he asked.

" Not yet, Lieutenant. I Ve just come."

I pointed out Kiki through the door to the courtyard where he waited, stoically and calmly, under the snow. Perhaps he remembered the times not long ago that he waited for hours at the doors of the ranch under more wintry winds. Perhaps he imagined that he was still waiting for the rough Canadian pioneer who tarried for long discussions about business, warming himself the while with whiskey. At any rate Kiki waited stoically and quietly. He scarcely condescended to welcome us by a glance when I presented him to the lieutenant, who stroked his head.

" This is Kiki, Lieutenant. I don't know his real name, for his record bore only his number, but that fits him and he seems to like it. He is a Canadian, seven years old, thin but strong, very gentle and a good jumper."

*' He 's pretty. Come along. We '11 put him in with mine. They '11 get along all right together."

So I took Kiki by the bridle and the lieutenant and I went along talking, until we reached an improvised stable where the officer's horse and his groom were quartered.

Zebre was a great brown horse, with a huge, calm face. Everything here certainly gives an impression of calmness.

I took leave of the officer for the time being and returned to the quartermaster's, where a steaming soup and scalding coffee were waiting for me. It was nearly noon and I had eaten nothing hot for the last forty-eight hours. It was four above zero and it was time.

[lO]

Chapter II

1WAS seated under a shed of loose boards in the courtyard of Cantonment No. 77, and just tasting some excellent macaroni which the cook had warmed up for me, when Dedouche, the orderly, came to find me.

" Say, Sergeant," he asked, " are you the intelligence officer? "

The title of " sergeant " sounds strange in the ears of a cavalryman, and I felt a little hurt in my esprit de corps; but I at once answered Dedouche's summons, for the orderly, In spite of being at the beck and call of everyone, enjoys a certain prestige. He has a real importance, small though it be, but an importance which carries weight when he gives his opinion in the discussions of the " little staff " of the company.

This staff is the household of the quartermaster's billets. With some slight differences it is in general composed of the quartermaster-

[II]

sergeant, lacking a sergeant-major which companies of machine guns rarely have, a quartermaster-corporal, an adjutant and a mess corporal. I was admitted to the honor of taking part in the discussions of the staff on account of the detached and unusual character of my duties.

But Dedouche was summoning me. I turned and observed him leisurely. Dedouche is an excellent fellow. Without even knowing him one would guess it at first glance. He is goodnatured, never in a hurry, no matter how urgent his errand, and indifferent alike to blows and invectives. He smiles under torrents of abuse and threats of the most terrible punishments, and does his duty as man of all work silently. In a word, he possesses all the qualities inherent in his duty. He is tall and spare; his face is beardless and sanctimonious; his eyes smile, but they look far away under his great round glasses with their large rims. All in all Dedouche looks like a lay brother. To complete the illusion, when he talks he has a habit of thrusting his hands into the large sleeves of his jacket and lowering his head to look over his spectacles. In civil life Dedouche was an assistant in a pharmacy in one of the large provincial cities. He knows the art of making up learned formulae. His long slim fingers manage the most fragile things with skill, and his grave voice is accustomed to the mezzotints of the laboratory.

" Yes," I answered at last, " it is L"

" The lieutenant wants you."

I gulped down my plate of macaroni in two mouthfuls, swallowed the coffee which the cook, already attentive to my wants, held out to me, and followed Dedouche the two hundred yards which separated us from the billets.

Two hundred yards is nothing, and yet it is a world. In less time than it takes to tell it I learned a mass of things from Dedouche.

First, what part of the country we are from. The . . . first Colonials was organized in the South. So, in the hope of finding in each newcomer another " countryman," Dedouche asked the new arrival at once,

" What part of the country are you from? "

He had some doubt about my reply. A Hussar of a regiment with an unknown number, who had given little opportunity to study his accent, might be a man from the North or the East. ** One never knows with these cavalrymen," he seemed to say, " they 're so uncertain." So he changed the form and varied his traditional question somewhat,

" You 're not from the South, by chance, Sergeant? "

At this repetition of his offense about my title, I thought that I ought to slip in a discreet observation, so I said,

" In the cavalry, my friend, the sergeant is called ' marechal des logis' " And then having satisfied my slightly offended esprit de corps, I replied, " Yes, mon vieiix, I am from the South, in fact from the Mediterranean, from L'Herault."

" How things happen ! " exclaimed Dedouche. " I 'm from Le Clapas."

Le Clapas is the nickname given to Montpellier in the territory. And at that there came all at once a bewildering flow of words. Dedouche began to tell me, mixing it all up in an incredible confusion, about his birthplace, his adventures, his former regular occupation, in the depths of a pharmacy in a small street under the shadow of the University, his transfer from the auxiliary to active service, his wound in Champagne. All this was interspersed with frequent exclamations and repetitions, " Say, tell me, Marechal, will this war ever be over? " and then regrets for his home land, " Say, tell me, Logis, would n't it be better down there in the good sun?"

In these different attempts to get nearer to the term " marechal de loj^is,^^ I observed Dedouche's obvious good will, but what interested me most was a little advance knowledge about the company.

So Dedouche sketched in a few words a picture of it, which was absolutely accurate, as I was able to appreciate later.

" The lieutenant is a very chic type. No one would think to look at him that he is from the South, too. He appears cold and hard, like that, but it 's not natural; he puts it on. He 's good-hearted at bottom. He 's a Basque and is n't afraid of anything. You ought to have seen him in Champagne at Massiges. Oh, and then we have besides his fellow countryman, Sub-Lieutenant Delpos, a blond. He's not here now; he 's down at Morcourt with the echelon. He 's a type too, not stuck-up, but he 's agreeable and good-humored.

" Oh, those in the billets," Dedouche sketched with a vague wave of the hand, as if to say something like this: "They're of no importance; they 're brothers, friends, and not worth talking about." Perhaps his gesture meant something else, but that 's what I thought it meant.

And as if he were responding to my implied question, he went on :

" — there is only the drummer who 's from the South, too; he 's what they call the ' quartermaster corporal,' I don't know why. He 's a good fellow, but he does not talk. At least he only talks rarely, and he 's from Marseilles, too; no one would think it to see him. He makes me mad most of the time.

"Oh, the rest! The corporal of infantry is from Paris. I don't know him. He only came five or six days ago. He has n't told us anything yet ; he only sings. And what songs ! Good God, they 're enough to make one blush !

" The juteux — the adjutant," interrupted Dedouche, for he rarely used slang. With the exception of " pinard " and " tacot^ which have become hallowed and have taken an official place even in the most refined language of the armies,

Dedouche rarely used a vulgar or misplaced word in his conversation. This was not because he was opposed to it nor from false modesty, but because his occupation as a *' scientist " had given him the habit of using good language.

*' The adjutant," went on Dedouche, " he 's not an adjutant. He 's a brother, a father, a friend, a man, what! Never a word of anger, never a punishment, always agreeable and kind. And in spite of that he 's had a career. He 's been in Morocco, China, and Madagascar, and no one knows where else. He 's been in the service eleven years, but you would n't think it to look at him."

This running biography brought us to the open door which framed the lieutenant's tall figure.

" Say, Margis " (the lieutenant knew his military terminology and this abbreviation was not without zest), "are you rested from your journey? "

** I was n't tired, Lieutenant."

" How about your horse? "

" No more than I was. Do you think that after three days stretched out on the straw in his car, without moving ... ? "

*' Then, if you are willing, we '11 both go to the echelon."

" All right, Lieutenant."

A question must have framed itself on my face, for he added almost at once :

*' Yes, the echelon, the fighting train, the cavalry. You '11 be more at home there. We left it below at Morcourt, seven or eight miles away, on account of the shells that fall here sometimes. Horses, you know, cost more than men, so we have to economize them. It is understood, then? We '11 go about noon. Saddle both horses. Meet me here."

Then he strode off and joined a group of officers who were coming up the main street of the village to the church.

Dedouche was already full of attention for me — just think of a man from home on the " little staff " — and he now burst forth eagerly:

" Don't trouble yourself, Logis. I '11 tell the groom to saddle the horses and bring them here."

The smoke still persisted in the dark, littered confusion of the room, but combined with it now was an odor of burnt grease mixed with the moldy smell of a ragout with onions and strong cheese. In addition, spread out on the table, were the remnants of a meal, which had just been finished, the rolls, the account books and reports.

The quartermaster-corporal, the silent fellow from Marseilles, immersed in reading Le Soleil du Midi, did not even condescend to look up. In response to my friendly good-by, he let a scarcely perceptible " adieu " slip through his lips.

The quartermaster was stretched out on a dirty mattress thrown on the ground, and juggling two packages of English cigarettes, while he sang at the top of his lungs — and what a voice he had! — the latest song:

C'est aussi mon avis.

This intellectual refrain must have given him extreme pleasure, for he began it again and again without any interruption.

" Well," I said, " judging from the looks of things, you aren't often disturbed here?"

At this the drummer cast me a searching look, cold, disdainful and commiserating, as much as to say to me,

" One can see that you Ve just come I " As for the quartermaster, he replied to everything in the repertoire of the Eldorado. Without stopping his jugghng, he shouted at me in his amazing voice :

He was going on when the infernal noise of some aerial trolley tore through space.

" Attention ! " he cried, without moving from his mattress. " There 's the Metro! "

Almost at the same moment, a great shell, a "310" at least, burst in the court of the house opposite, demolished the roof, and crushed a dozen horses.

The adjutant was just crossing the street and he stopped at the door to estimate the damage.

" They missed the steeple again," he said, with a disdainful shrug for the Boche artillery.

And Morin, the drummer, by way of commentary, without interrupting his reading:

" Close the door. If they send any more shells, that will make a draft."

Chapter III

FROM Proyart to Morcourt is five miles by a crossroad which in its many curves and windings cuts across trenches, communication trenches and barbed wire.

The snow had stopped, but it still covered the ground, the trees and the farms with its regular white covering. The communication trenches showed black on this vast screen.

The crows circled in innumerable flights and sought in vain for the carrion which had been so abundant for months and which, to-day, was buried.

We went along, boot to boot, slowly, for the roads were slippery. Kiki wanted to dance about, for the keen air made him lively. But Z^bre's sedateness dismayed him, and Kiki wisely ranged alongside and regulated the pace by his.

The lieutenant talked but little — a few detached words, chopped phrases, about the company, an observation on the weather, a reflection on the horses.

The road was almost deserted save for a few Territorials, muffled in their sheepskins, who dragged along their heavy wooden shoes which were made even higher by a thick sole of snow. From time to time a company wagon, driven like an express train, grazed us with its wheels and splashed us with mud.

Then, abruptly, without having had to climb the slightest hill, we saw Morcourt, as one sees suddenly from the top of a cliff the sea at his feet, in the midst of the thousand windings of the Somme, of the canal and the turf-pits. Morcourt Is a village scarcely as large as Proyart, and like it hidden in a gully sheltered from the winds on all sides, and also like it, hidden under the snow.

A blacksmith had set up his forge in the open air against the walls of a tottering tile-kiln. All around the snow had melted in great black puddles where the waiting horses had pawed the ground. The smoke from his fire rose red-tinted and dark in the heavy air which seemed to muffle the ring of the hammers on the anvil.

We come to a stop before a house nearly in ruins, whose tottering remains are a constant menace. A corporal rushes out — nimble, short and thick-set, a small Basque cap binding his sunburned forehead — and then some men come from the neighboring stables.

The houses in the country which were invaded for a short time and in which troops have had their cantonments for long weary months all look alike. Their doors and windows are gone, but these are replaced by tent canvas.

The drivers of the echelon and the war train in the machine-gun companies are nearly always sailors, the older classes of the Territorials, who after many changes have been assigned to the Colonial regiments. No one knows why, but it is probably because the bureaucratic, stay-at-home mental worker finds some relationship between the Colonials and the sea. And so they make these men, accustomed to the management of ships, infantrymen, or drivers, or even cavalrymen. But with the unfailing readiness and the ingenuity of their kind they make up so much for all that, that far from appearing unready and badly placed, one would say that they were veterans already broken to all the tricks of the trade.

Their long ship voyages and the necessities of critical hours have taught them to replace with the means at hand most things in material existence. From an old preserve box and a branch of a tree, squared and split with a hatchet, they make a strong and convenient table. With a scantling and a bit of wire lattice taken from a fence, they make an elastic mattress which, covered with straw and canvas, becomes a very comfortable bed.

The sailor is carpenter: the hatchet in his hand takes the place of the most ingenious tools of the joiner; painter: he has painted and refitted his boat from its tarry keel to the scroll work of the bulwarks and the figures and the beloved words they put on the stern; mender: he mends his sails and nets artistically; cook: during the long days at sea on his frail craft with its limited accommodations, he makes the most savory dishes from the fruits of his fishing and a few simple spices. His qualities and his knowledge are numerous and wide: astronomer and healer, and, as well, singer of beautiful songs which cradle his thought at the will of the rhythms, as the sea rocks his boat at the will of the waves.

But in this multiplicity of talents he lacks that of a driver, and what is more, a driver of a machine gun. That is a job which combines the heavy and the mountain artillery. A machine-gun driver should be able to drive in the saddle the leading team of horses and put the heavy caisson of ammunition through the most difficult evolutions. Again, he should be able to drive on foot the mule loaded with his pack-saddle and through the most impossible and sometimes the most dangerous paths.

We had scarcely begun to swallow a cup of thick, smoking, regulation coffee in a room of the cantonment, furnished with special skill, when Sub- Lieutenant Delpos — smart, carefree, smiling, a cap on the back of his head and a song on his lips — arrived.

Dedouche's description seemed to me to be exact. He was indeed a very young man, very quick, very blond and very gay. He was already an officer when others of his age had scarcely left college; he was already a hero counting in his active service a thousand feats of prowess when his rather sceptical contemporaries were content to read about them in books. Open merriment shone in his eyes. He had gained his promotion in the field far from the stifling atmosphere of study halls. Yesterday he was still a sergeant in Madagascar, Senegal, and Morocco; to-day he is an officer who has fought since the beginning of the Great War; to-morrow he will be a trainer of men. He knows them all; many are his old bedfellows or companions of the column. His remarks are keen and unrhetorical and they please the men. They love him and fear him; they are free with him and respect him. They know that he understands his trade perfectly and that they can deceive him in nothing.