“ CHAPTER XXII STRATEGY AS YOU LIKE IT
Dawn found them already paraded in the farmyard, shivering, and not much better rested than when they had entered the barn of dreadful memory the night before. Each day the accumulation of fatigue and nerve-strain became greater; each day it grew harder to drag the weary body to its feet, and trudge onwards. Though the tide of victory had turned, though every yard they covered was precious ground re-won, they longed very intensely for a lull. The Subaltern felt in a dim way that the point beyond which flesh and blood could not endure was not very far ahead. ”

“ No Officer was in future to draw any rations from the Company Cookers, and the Mess Sergeant had somehow procured and victualed a mess-cart.
That night must have been the most fateful night in the history of France. All the world was watching with bated breath, watching to see whether France was really a "back number"—whether the Prussian was truly the salt of the earth. If Paris fell, the French Armies in the field were cut off from their base; defeat was certain, and the national history of France, or, at any rate, the glory of it, would be stamped out for ever under the Kaiser's heel. ”

“ The Subaltern himself was so tired that he had to lie down on the cold road at each hourly halt of ten minutes, and, with his cap for a pillow, sleep soundly for at least eight of those minutes. Then whistles were sounded ahead, the men would rise wearily, and shuffle on their equipment with the single effort that is the hall-mark of a well-trained soldier. The Captain, passing along the Company, called his attention to the village they were passing. It was Malplâquet. The grey light of dawn revealed large open fields. ”

“ And now, before the campaign was a month old, the enemy were within an ace of the most complete victory of modern times. Many men will never forget that night—men on either side with high commands.
How the Kaiser must have chuckled when the French Cabinet left for Bordeaux! Bombastic phrases were perchance chasing themselves through his perverted mind. How fine he would look at Versailles, strutting about the Hall of Victories. He would sleep in the bed of the "Grand Monarque"—and in Les Invalides how he would smile at the tomb of Napoleon! ”

“ The brain was constantly at war with the lazy feet, striving to keep them from stumbling and the eyelids from closing. Sound was peculiarly muffled, as if darkness repressed and shut it in. The brain was not commanding the limbs with the instantaneous co-ordination of the daytime. The sensation that this produced—it is very difficult to give any definite idea of it—was an impression of physical and mental incompetence and uncertainty. And all the time every ounce of the body was crying out to the mind to let it lie down and rest. ”

“ When at length he found himself at rest in his new bed, he sighed with contentment. Everything was so quiet, and clean, and orderly. After the dirty estaminet, and the feverish hurry of the Clearing Hospital, this was indeed Peace. They gave him real broth to drink and real chicken to eat. And that night, as he sank almost for the first time into real sleep, he felt that heaven had been achieved.
Life began to creep slowly into his paralysed limbs. With infinite labour he could force his first finger and thumb to meet and separate again. ”

“ The sight of these carcases burning in the sun, with buzzing myriads of flies scintillating duskily over their unshod hides, excited a pity that was almost as deep as his pity for slain human beings. After all, men came to the war with few illusions, and a very complete knowledge of the price to be paid. They knew why they were there, what they were doing, and what they might expect. They could be buoyed up by victory, downcast by defeat. ”

“ One morning, the Subaltern forgets whether it was the first or second day of their stay, the old man took him into his library. It was a long, low room, fragrant with the smell of old books, and it looked out upon the leafy orchard. All the volumes were beautifully bound and nearly all were standard classics. He was surprised at the culture of this little spot, tucked away in the intellectual desert of rural France, and at the refinement of this man, who had been a farmer all his life. All the while a great battle was being fought outside; one could not be sure of life for a consecutive hour ”

“ To press on towards Paris would have been suicidal. To linger in his present position would have been to court capture. He, therefore, began the famous march across the French front, by which he hoped to gain touch with the army on his left, and as he turned, the British and French fell upon him simultaneously, as in a vice. For a day the line wavered irresolutely, then Von Kluck realised that the pendulum of success was beginning to swing the other way. He had to retire or face irretrievable disaster. ”

“ The retreat of the Brigade had been cut off by the breaking of the canal bridge the previous evening, so the Battalion had to retire to the east, and not to the west. As the Subaltern marched along he reflected with grim amusement on the ease with which the most confirmed Sybarite can get accustomed to hardships. At home, if he did anything early on an empty stomach, he very soon felt faint and tired. Now, this was taken as a matter of course; one was only too glad to restore the circulation to the limbs, cramped with the cold and damp of dawn. ”

“ Days passed; no attempt was made to check the enemy's advance, and the passing of each day left Paris more exposed. The world gasped at the breathless swiftness with which disaster seemed to be swooping down upon the Capital. But every day de Castlenau was consolidating his defence of Verdun, in face of tremendous odds; and every day the ferocity of the German onrush waned. The line continued to swing resolutely back, until such time as a completed mobilisation should allow the Allies to turn upon the enemy in greater force, in their own time, and on chosen ground. ”

“ The march through the cobbled streets of Havre rapidly developed into a fiasco. This was one of the first, if not the very first, landing of British Troops in France, and to the French it was a novelty, calling for a tremendous display of open-armed welcome. Children rushed from the houses, and fell upon the men crying for "souvenirs." Ladies pursued them with basins full of wine and what they were pleased to call beer. Men were literally carried from the ranks, under the eyes of their Officers, and borne in triumph into houses and inns. ”

“ Otherwise the pain and the paralysis were the same, and all the time the fever raged within him.
Somehow, when he awoke from his horrible dreams it was always dark. And the remarkable thing was that the same nightmares seemed to haunt him with persistent regularity. Always he lay down upon a hillside—nebulous black, and furry. Always too, he had been "left," and the enemy was swooping quickly down upon him. He would wake up to find himself once more inert upon the bed, would curse himself for a fool, and vow that never again would he allow his mind to drift towards that terrible thought again. ”

“ None of the men who heard it that night will ever forget it. It will give them a memory of energy, promoted by the desire for safety, clogged by heat and fatigue.
At about eleven or twelve at night a fair cover had been made, and the long-sought rest became possible at last—not, however, the sleep that the Subaltern had been longing for all day, not complete oblivion to body and mind, for the fear of surprise was upon him even in his sleep, and he knew that if his precautions should prove insufficient, he would have to answer for sixty good lives. ”

“ Things grew from bad to worse. The men could no longer keep their places in the ranks. If one had seen them and not known the spirit of the British Army, one would have thought that they were a dispirited, defeated rabble. Yet, in their own minds, the Officers and men had no doubts about what was going to happen: they were going to fight even though they might not sleep; and their determination was shaken not one whit.
There was a very welcome halt for an hour in the town, for the men to fill their water-bottles and rest. ”

“ The bells of the village churches were ringing, and the women and children, decked in their Sunday best, were going calmly to church, just as if the greatest battle that, up to then, history had ever seen were not about to be fought around their very homesteads.
A waterworks was passed, and at last the crossroads were reached. There was a wait while the Battalion in front of them deployed. Officers were loading their revolvers, the men charging their magazines. One Company left as advanced guard, and very soon the Battalion was on its way to its appointed sector of the battlefield. ”

“ At last, after interminable feeling in the darkness, and balancing himself on sacks of grain, he attained the corner where the bottles lay buried, and threw himself down to sleep.
But sleep was impossible. In spite of the insupportable atmosphere he remained cold. Every second some one was moving! One instant a man would shuffle and cough in one corner, then some one would grunt and groan as he turned restlessly in his sleep, and the happier few who had achieved slumber would snore laboriously. ”

“ All the time the rain was streaming down, and all the time their clothes grew wetter and wetter. Just before dusk a halt was made by the roadside, and at last the booming of the guns died down to a silence that was only broken by the incessant patter of the rain upon the sodden earth.
There was not much to eat, only biscuits, whose freshness and crispness had been lost in moist pockets. Nobody was thirsty: there was too much water externally!
It was quite dark when they moved on. Somehow the darkness used to come to them as a tremendous relief, as an armistice. ”

“ The Subaltern imagined the long wait while the shells shrieked over the heads of the infantry towards an enemy as yet unseen. Then the enemy shells would begin to feel their way to the thin brown line of trenches, and under cover of their fire the infantry, now deployed into fighting formations, would "advance." Then our men would begin firing, firing with cool precision. The landscape would soon be dotted with grey ants. Machine-guns would cut down whole lines of grey ants with their "plop-plop-plop." ”

“ The Army, with the rest of the world, realised that, after all, the heart of the nation was in the right place. Nevertheless, the tremendous wave of patriotism that had swept so splendidly over Britain caused, at first, not a little suspense.
"Good Heavens! he's asking for a million men," gasped the Subaltern.
"Well, if he doesn't get them, this Company will go over and fight for Germany," said the Captain. "The country isn't worth fighting for if it can't raise a million men." ”

“ There were plenty of people in the village street, but the Subaltern could not get coherent speech out of any one of them. Fear makes an uneducated Englishman suspicious, quickwitted and surly. It drives the French peasant absolutely mad. That village street seemed to have less sense, less fortitude, less coolness than a duck-run invaded by a terrier. The Subaltern caught a man by the arm and pushed him into a doorway.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est, le nom de cette village?" he said, with as much insistence and coolness as he could muster. ”

“ A night of veritable horror lay in front of them; they were appalled with the prospect of it. The rain seemed to mock at the completeness of their misery.
However, the Fates were kind, for the General, happening to pass, took pity on them and allowed them to be billeted in the outhouses of a farm near by. The sense of relief which this move gave to the Subaltern was too huge to describe. Contentment took possession of him utterly. The tension of his nerves and muscles relaxed: he thought that the worries and hardships of that day, at least, were over. ”

“ The march went on through the stifling heat of the afternoon, and the Subaltern knew that he, and most of the men as well, were feeling about as bad as it is possible to feel without fainting. They marched through a very dense wood, and then out once more into the open. Even the longest day has its ending, and at last they found themselves halted in the usual lines of companies in the usual stubble field. A Taube flew overhead and all sorts of fire were concentrated on it. ”

“ He had never drawn his sword in a triumphant charge, never blazed his revolver in a face, never twisted a bayonet on a body. It would require courage, he told himself, to admit these things when he was back again at home.
You must not laugh at the stories of the Machine-Gunner. He believed what he wanted to believe. Remember, too, that the Allies were then at the zenith of the greatest victory that was achieved in the first eighteen months of the war. ”

“ The wonder was that a human life was spared. The Subaltern had a fleeting feeling that every one except himself must be dead. When the storm seemed for a moment to have abated, he looked around him and was surprised to see that very little damage had been done to the men. An inexperienced eye would possibly not have detected any casualties at all. From a Kipling point of view, the scene was an artistic failure. Not a man was shrieking; not a man "clawing up the ground." Here and there men had rolled over on their sides, and were groaning quite softly to themselves. ”

“ One's legs and arms are not the same listless limbs that were crying for rest only a short hour ago. One is envigoured; the excitement stimulates. One feels great, magnanimous, superb. The difficulty lies not in forcing oneself to be brave, but in curbing ridiculous impulses, and in forcing the brain to work slowly and smoothly. The smallest natures rise to great heights. An ordinary self-centred creature performs acts of dazzling generosity towards fellows he does not even know—with everything to lose and nothing to gain. ”