the forest of sword 7

the forest of sword 7

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.

 

They advanced another mile, two hundred thousand men, afire with zeal, a

whole vast army moved forward as the other French armies were by the

hidden hand which they could not see, of which they knew nothing, but

the touch of which they could feel.

 

John heard a whizzing sound, he caught a glimpse of a dark object,

rushing forward at frightful velocity, and then he and his wheel reeled

beneath the force of a tremendous explosion. The shell coming from an

invisible point, miles away, had burst some distance on his right,

scattering death and wounds over a wide radius. But Vaugirard's brigades

did not stop for one instant. They cheered loudly, closed up the gap in

their line, and went on steadily as before. Some one began to sing the

Marseillaise, and in an instant the song, like fire in dry grass, spread

along a vast front. John had often wished that he could have heard the

armies of the French Revolution singing their tremendous battle hymn as

they marched to victory, and now he heard it on a scale far more

gigantic than in the days of the First French Republic.

 

The vast chorus rolled for miles and for all he knew other armies, far

to right and left, might be singing it, too. The immense volume of the

song drowned out everything, even that tremor in the air, caused by the

big guns. John's heart beat so hard that it caused actual physical pain