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Page 32
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.
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