Part 11 (2/2)

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 sh.e.l.ls 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 gla.s.ses 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 gra.s.s.

All the while the sound of the cannon grew, but, despite the power of his gla.s.ses, 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 t.i.tanic struggle that was raging on either side of them.

John again searched the horizon eagerly with his gla.s.ses, 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 gla.s.ses. 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 va.s.sal 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.ses 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.

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