Altsheler Joseph Alexander
The Forest of Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne
More trumpets sounded, much nearer now, and a messenger galloped up, handing a note to General Vaugirard, who glanced at it hastily, uttered a deep Ah! of relief and joy and thrust it into his pocket.
Then saying to his staff, "Gentlemen, we march at once," he put one hand on his horse's shoulder, and, to John's immense surprise, leaped as lightly into the saddle as if he had been a riding master. He settled himself easily into his seat, spoke a word to his staff, and then he rode with his regiments toward that great mass of men on the horizon who were steadily marching forward.
John kept by the side of de Rougemont. There were brief introductions to some of the young officers nearest him, and he felt an air of friendliness about him. As de Rougemont told them he had already given ample proof of his devotion to the cause, and he was accepted promptly as one of them.
John was now conscious how strongly he had projected himself into the life of the French. He was an American for generations back and his blood by descent was British. He had been among the Germans and he liked them personally, he had served already with the English, and their point of view was more nearly like the American than any other. But he was here with the French and he felt for them the deepest sympathy of all. He was conscious of a tie like that of blood brotherhood.
He knew it was due to the old and yet unpaid help France had given to his own country, and above all to the conviction that France, minding her own business, had been set upon by a greater power, with intent to crush and destroy. France was attacked by a dragon, and the old similes of mythology floated through his mind, but, oftenest, that of Andromeda chained to the rock. And the figure that typified France always had the golden hair and dark blue eyes of slim, young Julie Lannes.
They advanced several hours almost in silence, as far as talk was concerned, but two hundred thousand men marching made a deep and steady murmur. General Vaugirard kept well in front of his staff, riding, despite his immense bulk, like a Comanche, and occasionally putting his glasses to those fiery little red eyes. At length he turned and beckoned to John, who promptly drew up to his side.
"You speak good French?" he said in his native tongue.
"Yes, sir," replied John promptly.
"I understand that you came with the flying man, Lannes, who brought the message responsible for this march, and that it is not the only time you've done good service in our cause?"
John bowed modestly.
"Did you see any German troops on the way?"
"Only a band of Uhlans."
"A mere scouting party. It occurred to me that you might have seen masses of troops belonging to the foe, indicating perhaps what is awaiting us at the end of our march."
"I know nothing, sir. The Uhlans were all the foes we saw from the air, save the man who shot Lannes."
"I believe you. You belong to the youngest of the great nations. Your people have not yet learned to say with the accents of truth the thing that is not. I am sixty years old, and yet I have the curiosity to know where I am going and what I am expected to do when I get there. Behold how I, an old man, speak so frankly to you, so young."
"When I saw your excellency leap into the saddle you did not seem to me to be more than twenty."
John called him "your excellency" because he thought that in the absence of precise knowledge of what was fitting the term was as good as another.
A smile twinkled in the eyes of General Vaugirard. Evidently he was pleased.
"That is flattery, flattery, young man," he said, "but it pleases me. Since I've drawn from you all you know, which is but little, you may fall back with your comrades. But keep near; I fancy I shall have much for you to do before long. Meanwhile, we march on, in ignorance of what is awaiting us. Ah, well, such is life!"
He seemed to John a strange compound of age and youth, a mixture of the philosopher and the soldier. That he was a real leader John could no longer doubt. He saw the little red eyes watching everything, and he noticed that the regiments of Vaugirard had no superiors in trimness and spirit.
They marched until sundown and stopped in some woods clear of undergrowth, like most of those in Europe. The camp kitchens went to work at once, and they received good food and coffee. As far as John could see men were at rest, but he could not tell whether the whole army was doing likewise. It spread out much further to both right and left than his eyes could reach.
The members of the staff tethered their horses in the grove, and after supper stood together and talked, while the fat general paced back and forth, his brow wrinkled in deep thought.
"Good old Papa Vaugirard is studying how to make the best of us," said de Rougemont. "We're all his children. They say that he knows nearly ten thousand men under his command by face if not by name, and we trust him as no other brigade commander in the army is trusted by his troops. He's thinking hard now, and General Vaugirard does not think for nothing. As soon as he arrives at what seems to him a solution of his problem he will begin to whistle. Then he will interrupt his whistling by saying: 'Ah, well, such is life.'"
"I hope he'll begin to whistle soon," said John, "because his brow is wrinkling terribly."
He watched the huge general with a sort of fascinated gaze. Seen now in the twilight, Vaugirard's very bulk was impressive. He was immense, strong, primeval. He walked back and forth over a line about thirty feet long, and the deep wrinkles remained on his brow. Every member of his staff was asking how long it would last.
A sound, mellow and soft, but penetrating, suddenly arose. General Vaugirard was whistling, and John's heart gave a jump of joy. He did not in the least doubt de Rougemont's assertion that an answer to the problem had been found.
General Vaugirard whistled to himself softly and happily. Then he said twice, and in very clear tones: "Ah, well, such is life!" He began to whistle again, stopped in a moment or two and called to de Rougemont, with whom he talked a while.
"We're to march once more in a half-hour," said de Rougemont, when he returned to John and his comrades. "It must be a great converging movement in which time is worth everything. At least, General Vaugirard thinks so, and he has a plan to get us into the very front of the action."
"I hope so," said John. "I'm not anxious to get killed, but I'd rather be in the battle than wait. I wonder if I'll meet anywhere on the front that company to which I belong, the Strangers."
"I think I've heard of them," said de Rougemont, "a body of Americans and Englishmen, volunteers in the French service, commanded by Captain Daniel Colton."
"Right you are, and I've two particular friends in that company—I suppose they've rejoined it—Wharton, an American, and Carstairs, an Englishman. We went through a lot of dangers together before we reached the British army near Mons, and I'd like to see them again."
"Maybe you will, but here comes an extraordinary procession."
They heard many puffing sounds, uniting in one grand puffing chorus, and saw advancing down a white road toward them a long, ghostly train, as if a vast troop of extinct monsters had returned to earth and were marching this way. But John knew very well that it was a train of automobiles and raising the glasses that he now always carried he saw that they were empty except for the chauffeurs.
General Vaugirard began to whistle his mellowest and most musical tune, stopping only at times to mutter a few words under his breath. John surmised that he was expressing deep satisfaction, and that he had been waiting for the motor train. War was now fought under new conditions. The Germans had thousands and scores of thousands of motors, and perhaps the French were provided almost as well.
"I fancy," said de Rougemont, who was also watching the arrival of the machines, "that we'll leave our horses now and travel by motor."
De Rougemont's supposition was correct. The line of automobiles began to mass in front, many rows deep, and all the chauffeurs, their great goggles shining through the darkness, were bent over their wheels ready to be off at once with their armed freight. It filled John with elation, and he saw the same spirit shining in the eyes of the young French officers.
General Vaugirard began to puff like one of the machines. He threw out his great chest, pursed up his mouth and emitted his breath in little gusts between his lips, "Very good! Very good, my children!" he said, "Oil and electricity will carry us now, and we go forward, not backward!"
True to de Rougemont's prediction, the horses were given to orderlies, and the staff and a great portion of the troops were taken into the cars. General Vaugirard and several of the older officers occupied a huge machine, and just behind him came de Rougemont, John and a half-dozen young lieutenants and captains in another. Before them stretched a great white road. Far overhead hovered many aeroplanes. John had no doubt that the Arrow was among them, or rather was the farthest one forward. Lannes' eager soul, wound or no wound, would keep him in front.
They now moved rapidly, and John's spirits continued to rise. There was something wonderful in this swift march on wheels in the moonlight. As far back as he could see the machines came in a stream, and to the left and right he saw them proceeding on other roads also. All the country was strange to John. He could not remember having seen it from the aeroplane, and he was sure that the army, instead of going to Paris, was bound for some point where it would come in instant contact with the German forces.
"Do you know the road?" he asked of de Rougemont.
"Not at all. I'm from the Gironde country. I've been in Paris, but I know little of the region about it. A good way to reach the front, is it not, Mr. Scott?"
"Fine. I fancy that we're hurried forward to make a link in a chain, or at least to stop a gap."
"And those large birds overhead are scouting for us."
"Look! One of them is dropping down. I dare say it's making a report to some general higher in rank than ours."
He pointed with a long forefinger, and John watched the aeroplane come down in its slanting course like a falling star. It was a beautiful night, a light blue sky, with a fine moon and hosts of clear stars. One could see far, and soon after the plane descended John saw it rise again from the same spot, ascend high in air, and shoot off toward the east.
"That may have been Lannes," he said.
"Likely as not," said de Rougemont.
John now observed General Vaugirard, who sat erect in the front of his automobile, with a pair of glasses, relatively as huge as himself, to his eyes. Occasionally he would purse his lips, and John knew that his favorite expression was coming forth. To the young American's imaginative mind his broad back expressed rigidity and strength.
The great murmuring sound, the blended advance of so many men, made John sleepy by-and-by. In spite of himself his heavy eyelids drooped, and although he strove manfully against it, sleep took him. When he awoke he heard the same deep murmur, like the roll of the sea, and saw the army still advancing. It was yet night, though fine and clear, and there before him was the broad, powerful back of the general. Vaugirard was still using the glasses and John judged that he had not slept at all. But in his own machine everybody was asleep except the man at the wheel.
The country had grown somewhat hillier, but its characteristics were the same, fertile, cultivated fields, a small wood here and there, clear brooks, and church spires shining in the dusk. Both horse and foot advanced across the fields, but the roads were occupied by the motors, which John judged were carrying at least twenty thousand men and maybe forty thousand.
He was not sleepy now, and he watched the vast panorama wheel past. He knew without looking at his watch that the night was nearly over, because he could already smell the dawn. The wind was freshening a bit, and he heard its rustle in the leaves of a wood as they pushed through it.
Then came a hum and a whir, and a long line of men on motor cycles at the edge of the road crept up and then passed them. One checked his speed enough to run by the side of John's car, and the rider, raising his head a little, gazed intently at the young American. His cap closed over his face like a hood, but the man knew him.
"Fortune puts us on the same road again, Mr. Scott," he said.
"I don't believe I know you," said John, although there was a familiar note in the voice.
"And yet you've met me several times, and under exciting conditions. It seems to me that we're always pursuing similar things, or we wouldn't be together on the same road so often. You're acute enough. Don't you know me now?"
"I think I do. You're Fernand Weber, the Alsatian."
"And so I am. I knew your memory would not fail you. It's a great movement that we've begun, Mr. Scott. France will be saved or destroyed within the next few days."
"I think so."
"You've deserted your friend, Philip Lannes, the finest of our airmen."
"Oh, no, I haven't. He's deserted me. I couldn't afford to be a burden on his aeroplane at such a time as this."
"I suppose not. I saw an aeroplane come down to earth a little while ago, and then rise again. I'm sure it was his machine, the Arrow."
"So am I."
"Here's where he naturally would be. Good-bye, Mr. Scott, and good luck to you. I must go on with my company."
"Good-bye and good luck," repeated John, as the Alsatian shot forward. He liked Weber, who had a most pleasing manner, and he was glad to have seen him once more.
"Who was that?" asked de Rougemont, waking from his sleep and catching the last words of farewell.
"An Alsatian, named Fernand Weber, who has risked his life more than once for France. He belongs to the motor-cycle corps that's just passing."
"May he and his comrades soon find the enemy, because here is the day."
The leaves and grass rippled before the breeze and over the eastern hills the dawn broke.
CHAPTER IV
THE INVISIBLE HAND
It was a brilliant morning sun, deepening the green of the pleasant land, lighting up villages and glinting off church steeples. In a field a little distance to their right John saw two peasants at work already, bent over, their eyes upon the ground, apparently as indifferent to the troops as the troops were to them.
It was very early, but the sun was rising fast, unfolding a splendid panorama. The French army with its blues and reds was more spectacular than the German, and hence afforded a more conspicuous target. John was sure that if the war went on the French would discard these vivid uniforms and betake themselves to gray or khaki. He saw clearly that the day of gorgeous raiment for the soldier had passed.
The great puffing sound of primeval monsters which had blended into one rather harmonious note ceased, as if by signal, and the innumerable motors stopped. As far as John could see the army stretched to left and right over roads, hills and fields, but in the fields behind them the silent peasants went on with their work—in fields which the Republic had made their own.
"I think we take breakfast here," said Rougemont. "War is what one of your famous American generals said it was, but for the present, at least, we are marching de luxe. Here comes one of those glorious camp-kitchens."
An enormous motor vehicle, equipped with all the paraphernalia of a kitchen, stopped near them, and men, trim and neatly dressed, served hot food and steaming coffee. General Vaugirard had alighted also, and John noticed that his step was much more springy and alert than that of some officers half his age. His breath came in great gusts, and the small portion of his face not covered by thick beard was ruddy and glowing with health. He drank several cups of coffee with startling rapidity, draining each at a breath, and between times he whistled softly a pleasing little refrain.
The march must be going well. Undoubtedly General Vaugirard had received satisfactory messages in the night, while his young American aide, and other Frenchmen as young, slept.
"Well, my children," he said, rubbing his hands after his last cup of coffee had gone to its fate, "the day dawns and behold the sun of France is rising. It's not the sun of Austerlitz, but a modest republican sun that can grow and grow. Behold we are at the appointed place, set forth in the message that came to us from the commander-in-chief through Paris, and then by way of the air! And, look, my children, the bird from the blue descends once more among us!"
There were flying machines of many kinds in the air, but John promptly picked out one which seemed to be coming with the flight of an eagle out of its uppermost heights. He seemed to know its slim, lithe shape, and the rapidity and decision of its approach. His heart thrilled, as it had thrilled when he saw the Arrow coming for the first time on that spur of the Alps near Salzburg.
"It's for me," said General Vaugirard, as he looked upward. "This flying demon, this man without fear, was told to report directly to me, and he conies at the appointed hour."
Something of the mystery that belongs to the gulf of the infinite was reflected in the general's eyes. He, too, felt that man's flight in the heavens yet had in it a touch of the supernatural. Lannes' plane had seemed to shoot from white clouds, out of unknown spaces, and the general ceased to whistle or breathe gustily. His chest rose and fell more violently than usual, but the breath came softly.
The plane descended rapidly and settled down on the grass very near them. Lannes saluted and presented a note to General Vaugirard, who started and then expelled the breath from his lungs in two or three prodigious puffs.
"Good, my son, good!" he exclaimed, patting Lannes repeatedly on the shoulder; "and now a cup of coffee for you at once! Hurry with it, some of you idle children! Can't you see that he needs it!"
John was first with the coffee, which Lannes drank eagerly, although it was steaming hot. John saw that he needed it very much indeed, as he was white and shaky. He noticed, too, that there were spots of blood on Lannes' left sleeve.
"What is it, Philip?" he whispered. "You've been attacked again?"
"Aye, truly. My movements seem to be observed by some mysterious eye. A shot was fired at me, and again it came from a French plane. That was all I could see. We were in a bank of mist at the time, and I just caught a glimpse of the plane itself. The man was a mere shapeless figure to me. I had no time to fight him, because I was due here with another message which made vengeance upon him at that time a matter of little moment."
He flecked the red drops off his sleeve, and added:
"It was but a scratch. My weary look comes from a long and hard flight and not from the mysterious bullet. I'm to rest here an hour, which will be sufficient to restore me, and then I'm off again."
"Is there any rule against your telling me what you've seen, Philip?"
De Rougemont and several other officers had approached, drawn by their curiosity, and interest in Lannes.
"None at all," he replied in a tone all could hear, "but I'm able to speak in general terms only. I can't give details, because I don't know 'em. The Germans are not many miles ahead. They're in hundreds of thousands, and I hear that this is only one of a half-dozen armies."
"And our own force?" said de Rougemont eagerly.
Lannes' chest expanded. The dramatic impulse was strong upon him again.
"There is another army on our right, and another on our left," he replied, "and although I don't know surely, I think there are others still further on the line. The English are somewhere with us, too."
John felt his face tingle as the blood rose in it. He had left a Paris apparently lost. Within a day almost a tremendous transformation had occurred. A mighty but invisible intellect, to which he was yet scarcely able to attach a name, had been at work. The French armies, the beaten and the unbeaten, had become bound together like huge links in a chain, and the same invisible and all but nameless mind was drawing the chain forward with gigantic force.
"A million Frenchmen must be advancing," he heard Lannes saying, and then he came out of his vision. General Vaugirard bustled up and gave orders to de Rougemont, who said presently to John:
"Can you ride a motor cycle?"
"I've had some experience, and I'm willing to make it more."
"Good. In this army, staff officers will no longer have horses shot under them. We're to take orders on motor cycles. They've been sent ahead for us, and here's yours waiting for you."
The cycles were leaning against trees, and the members of the staff took their places beside them. General Vaugirard walked a little distance up the road, climbed into an automobile and, standing up, looked a long time through his glasses. Lannes, who had been resting on the grass, approached the general and John saw him take a note from him. Then Lannes went away to the Arrow and sailed off into the heavens. Many other planes were flying over the French army and far off in front John saw through his own glasses a fleet of them which he knew must be German.
Then he heard a sound, faint but deep, which came rolling like an echo, and he recognized it as the distant note of a big gun. He quivered a little, as he leaned against his motor cycle, but quickly stiffened again to attention. The faint rolling sound came again from their right and then many times. John, using his glasses, saw nothing there, and the giant general, still standing up in the car and also using his glasses, saw nothing there either.
Yet the same quiver that affected John had gone through this whole army of two hundred thousand men, one of the huge links in the French chain. There was none among them who did not know that the far note was the herald of battle, not a mere battle of armies, but of nations face to face.
General Vaugirard did not show any excitement. He leaped lightly from the car, and then began to pace up and down slowly, as if he were awaiting orders. The men moved restlessly on the meadows, looking like a vast sea of varied colors, as the sun glimmered on the red and blue of their uniforms.
But no order came for them to advance. John thought that perhaps they were saved to be driven as a wedge into the German center and whispered his belief to de Rougemont, who agreed with him.
"They are opening on the left, too," said the Frenchman. "Can't you hear the growling of the guns there?"
John listened and soon he separated the note from other sounds. Beyond a doubt the battle had now begun on both flanks, though at distant points. He wondered where the English force was, though he had an idea that it was on the left then. Yet he was already thoroughly at home with the staff of General Vaugirard.
The growling on either side of them seemed soon to come a little closer, but John knew nevertheless that it was many miles away.
"Not an enemy in sight, not even a trace of smoke," said de Rougemont to him. "We seem to be a great army here, merely resting in the fields, and yet we know that a huge battle is going on."
"And that's about all we do know," said John. "What has impressed me in this war is the fact that high officers even know so little. When cannon throw shells ten or twelve miles, eyesight doesn't get much chance."
A wait for a full half-hour followed, a period of intense anxiety for all in the group, and for the whole army too. John used his glasses freely, and often he saw the French soldiers moving about in a restless manner, until they were checked by their officers. But most of them were lying down, their blue coats and red trousers making a vast and vivid blur against the green of the grass.
All the while the sound of the cannon grew, but, despite the power of his glasses, John could not see a sign of war. Only that roaring sound came to tell him that battle, vast, gigantic, on a scale the world had never seen before, was joined, and the volume of the cannon fire, beyond a doubt, was growing. It pulsed heavily, and either he or his fancy noticed a steady jarring motion. A faint acrid taint crept into the air and he felt it in his nose and throat. He coughed now and then, and he observed that men around him coughed also. But, on the whole, the army was singularly still, the soldiers straining eye or ear to see something or hear more of the titanic struggle that was raging on either side of them.
John again searched the horizon eagerly with his glasses, but it showed only green hills and bits of wood, bare of human activity. The French aeroplanes still hovered, but not in front of General Vaugirard. They were off to right and left, where the wings of the nations had closed in combat. He was ceasing to think of the foes as armies, but as nations in battle line. Here stood not a French army, but France, and there stood not a German army, but Germany.
As he looked toward the left he picked out a narrow road, running between hedges, and showing but a strip of white even through the glasses. He saw something coming along this road. It was far away when he first noticed it, but it was coming with great speed, and he was soon able to tell that it was a man on a motor cycle. His pulse leaped again. He felt instinctively that the rider was for them and that he bore something of great import. The figure, man and cycle, molded into one, sped along the narrow road which led to the base of the hill on which General Vaugirard and his staff stood.
The huge general saw the approaching figure too, and he began to whistle melodiously like the note of a piccolo, with the vast thunder of the guns accompanying him as an orchestra. John knew that the cyclist was a messenger, and that he was eagerly expected. An order of some kind was at hand! All the members of the staff had the same conviction.
The cyclist stopped at the bottom of the hill, leaped from the machine and ran to General Vaugirard, to whom he handed a note. The general read it, expelled his breath in a mighty gust, and turning to his staff, said:
"My children, our time has come. The whole central army of which we are a part will advance. It will perhaps be known before night whether France is to remain a great nation or become the vassal of Germany. My children, if France ever had need for you to fight with all your hearts and souls, that need is here today."
His manner was simple and majestic, and his words touched the mind and feeling of every one who heard them. John was moved as much as if he had been a Frenchman too. He felt a profound sympathy for this devoted France, which had suffered so much, to which his own country still owed that great debt, and which had a right to her own soil, fertilized with so many centuries of labor.
General Vaugirard, resting a pad on his knee, wrote rapid notes which he gave to the members of his staff in turn to be delivered. John's was to a Parisian regiment lying in a field, and expanding body and mind into instant action, he leaped upon the cycle and sped away. It was often hard for him now to separate fact from fancy. His imagination, vivid at all times, painted new pictures while such a tremendous drama passed before him.
Yet he knew afterward that the sound of the battle did increase in volume as he flew over the short distance to the regiment. Both east and west were shaking with the tremendous concussion. One crash he heard distinctly above the others and he believed it was that of a forty-two centimeter.
He reached the field, his cycle spun between the eager soldiers, and as he leaped off in the presence of the colonel he fairly thrust the note into his hand, exclaiming at the same time in his zeal, "It's an order to advance! The whole Army of the Center is about to attack."
He called it the Army of the Center at a guess, but names did not matter now. The colonel glanced at the note, waved his sword above his head and cried in a loud voice:
"My lads, up and forward!"
The regiment arose with a roar of cheering and began to advance across the fields. John caught a glimpse of a petty officer, short and small, but as compact and fierce as a panther, driving on men who needed no driving. "Geronimo is going to make good," he said to himself. "He'll do or die today."
As he raced back for new orders, if need be, he knew now that fact not fancy told him the battle was growing. The earth shook not only on right and left but in front also. A hasty look through the glasses showed little tongues of fire licking up on the horizon before them and he knew that they came from the monster cannon of the Germans who were surely advancing, while the French were advancing also to meet them.
General Vaugirard sprang into his automobile, taking only two of his senior officers with him, while the rest followed on their motor cycles. As far as John could see on either side the vast rows of French swept across hills and fields. There was little shouting now and no sound of bands, but presently a shout arose behind them: "Way for the artillery!"
Then he heard cries, the rumble of wheels and the rapid beat of hoofs. With an instinctive shudder, lest he be ground to pieces, he pulled from the road, and saw the motor of General Vaugirard turn out also. Then the great French batteries thundered past to seek positions soon in the fields behind low hills. He saw them a little later unlimbering and making ready.
The French advance changed from a walk to a trot. John saw the Parisian regiment, not far away, but at the very front and he knew that among all those ardent souls there was none more ardent than that of the little Apache, Bougainville. Meanwhile, Vaugirard in his motor kept to the road and the staff on their motor cycles followed closely.
On both flanks the thunder of massed cannon was deepening, and now John, who used his glasses occasionally, was able to see wisps and tendrils of smoke on the eastern and northern horizons. The tremor in the air was strong and continuous. It played incessantly upon the drums of his ears, and he found that he could not hear the words of the other aides so well as before. But there was no succession of crashes. The sound was more like the roaring of a distant storm.
