Part 13 (1/2)
Down below, towards the foot of the lower slopes of the Cote du Poivre, overlooking the village of Champneuville and the Cote de Talou, stretched a strip of wooded country, those same evergreens which, towards the north and elsewhere, had given the Germans such tremendous opportunities for completing preparations for their attack upon the salient. Sliding down the hill, diving from one sh.e.l.l-hole to another--for already the German artillery had turned its attention to this new French position--creeping along any fold in the ground which offered even the smallest shelter, Henri and Jules soon gained the woods, and plunged into them.
”It's as likely as not that the Germans have already sent reconnoitring-parties here,” said Henri in a whisper, as they crouched at the edge of the wood and gathered breath again after their exertions. ”That is a thing which one would antic.i.p.ate, and of course our commanders will expect that just as we do, so that it seems to me our duty is to steer clear of such parties, as we should do in any case, to push beyond them, and to ascertain what's happening towards the north.”
”Quite so! At your orders, Henri,” smiled Jules, as full of merriment as ever. Indeed, the fiercer the conflict had grown, the more desperate the efforts of the Germans had become, and the more terrifically the fighting had developed, the higher had this young fellow's spirits risen. Of fear he showed not a trace, though of excitement he showed every evidence. Sparkling with wit, as lively as a cricket, wonderfully cheery, he had stood in the forefront of the battle, not grim like many a comrade, not with teeth set and hands and fingers clenching his rifle, but jovial, smiling, yet with a deadly earnestness masked by his merry manner.
”Lead on, my Henri,” he said. ”Under your directions we made not such a bad success of that affair in Germany. Let's see now what you can do in this part of France when we have soldiers and not civilians to deal with!”
Plunging on into the wood, it was not long before they heard voices to their left, and, creeping forward, discovered a German officers' patrol sheltering under the trees and munching their breakfast. A dozen yards farther on there were some seven or eight men, while voices still farther to the left demonstrated the fact that there were other parties.
”No matter,” said Henri; ”we have already said that we expected Germans to be in the wood. What we want to know is where the main force is.
Let's push on and do our duty.”
CHAPTER XII
A Reconnoitring-party
For perhaps half an hour Henri and Jules crept through the wood which they had gained from the heights of the Cote de Poivre, turning and twisting here and there as German voices warned them of the proximity of enemy parties, and sometimes stealing past a group of men from whom they were separated by only a few feet of thick undergrowth.
”There's the edge of the wood yonder, the northern edge,” said Henri in a little while, stopping and looking upward. ”It's lighter in that direction, and without doubt we are now getting down to the road which runs from Beaumont to Vacherauville--a road likely enough to be used by the enemy in his advance on our positions. Look out that we don't expose ourselves at the edge, and let us talk only in whispers.”
Jules gripped him a moment later by the sleeve and pulled him down forcibly to the ground, then he shot one hand out and pointed.
”See them,” he whispered; ”hundreds of men sheltering at the edge of the wood. But why? What's the reason? And listen to those guns!
German--eh?”
”No. French 75's, without a question,” answered Henri when they had listened for a few moments. ”There's nothing else on earth in the artillery line that snaps and barks quite like our soixante-quinze, and it seems to me that they are opened in this direction. Hope to goodness they won't turn their muzzles on this wood, for they would rake it from end to end with shrapnel. Now let's move on a little. I can see the men you have pointed out, and without a doubt they are sheltering under the trees and hiding, I should say, from our gunners.
Let's turn from the road a little and push on to the northern point of the wood, for in that direction it almost joins with the Bois des Fosses, and should give us greater opportunities.”
They turned slightly to their right, and crept through the ma.s.s of trees not yet levelled by the gun-fire of either of the combatants--different, indeed, from the Bois des Caures and the Herbebois, where gigantic German sh.e.l.ls had sent trees and earth hurtling skywards, had severed trunks in all directions, and had left but a tangled ma.s.s of fallen tree-tops and shattered stumps, smouldering here and there, and masking the trenches and dug-outs and redoubts obliterated during the earlier fighting, masking, too, the bodies of those gallant Frenchmen who had given their lives for the cause, and of the Germans, who had fought to achieve the ambitions of their Kaiser.
Sneaking forward, and keeping well away from the direction of voices, it was not long before Henri and Jules discovered a dell--a deep depression in the ground--heavily wooded and overhung by fir-trees, at the foot of which splashed a stream, which pa.s.sed from rock to rock, twisting and twining as it flowed towards the Meuse traversing the ground down below.
”Might give us an opportunity of seeing far more than if we went on in the wood,” suggested Jules, again catching Henri by the sleeve.
”Why not? Certainly! Why not?” echoed Henri. ”Quite a good idea; capital! Let's try it.”
”Then down we go! Looks like a splendid place,” declared Jules as he gained the stream and splashed into it. ”I'll lead, for a change.
Suppose we'd better go cautiously?”
There was, indeed, need of caution all the while, for as they traversed that narrow gully, and descended towards the plain which stretches at the foot of the Hill of Poivre, and, crossing the foot of the Cote de Talou, reaches the River Meuse, they found themselves in the midst of a veritable army of Germans--figures in field-grey could be seen in the twilight beneath the trees, sitting on fallen branches or on the ground waiting for orders. There were figures in the same colour to the right and to the left of them in that ravine, and once, as the two halted suddenly and crouched beneath an overhanging bush, they saw a German soldier actually drinking from the stream within a few yards of them; but a guttural voice above, a sharp command, sent the man scrambling up the bank of the ravine to join his company. Then, as they boldly advanced, the voices of German troops grew less distinct, and presently, as the light increased in brightness and they gained the very edge of the wood, it was to discover that they had pa.s.sed through the enemy's lines, and were, it appeared, alone once more and almost in the open.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THEY SAW A GERMAN SOLDIER ACTUALLY DRINKING FROM THE STREAM WITHIN A FEW YARDS OF THEM”]
Creeping beneath a bush, the two now stared out in every direction, while, taking a pencil from a pocket, and a tattered envelope also, Henri roughly sketched in the situation before him; and, helped by the un.o.bstructed view he could obtain from the opening of the ravine, marked spots in the near distance, where, beneath the shelter of other trees, in folds of the ground, in a farm across the road, he could discern enemy troops hiding.
”There must be thousands of them,” he told Jules after a while, ”thousands of them; and look over there, to what I believe to be Samogneux, where we were yesterday, and from which the German guns literally blew us, watch the roads there and the edge of the Bois de Caures--what do you see, Jules?”
”See!” exclaimed Jules; ”almost hear them, you mean. Thousands of Boches--literally thousands of them, Henri. What's that mean? They are turning in this direction, and though it's hard to make it out quite clearly, I should say that they are waiting for the dusk to fall, fearing our guns across the river. It looks precisely what one would expect it to be--an intended advance on Vacherauville--a descent on a line directly from the north towards Verdun--the city for which they are making.”