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Page 36
While the general read and pondered, Lannes turned toward the wheel on
which John sat. Although he tried to preserve calm, John knew that he
was tremendously excited. He had taken off his heavy glasses and his
wonderful gray eyes were flashing. It was obvious to his friend, who now
knew him so well, that he was moved by some tremendous emotion.
John rode up by the side of Lannes and said:
"What have you seen, Philip? You can tell a little at least, can't you?"
"More than a little! A lot! The _Arrow_ and I have looked over a great
area, John! Miles and miles and yet more miles! and wherever we went we
gazed down upon armies locked in battle, and beyond that were other
armies locked in battle, too! The nations meet in wrath! You can't see
it here, nor from anywhere on the earth! It's only in the air high
overhead that one can get even a partial view of its immensity! The
English army is off there on the flank, a full thirty miles away, and
you're not likely to see it today!"
He would have said more, but General Vaugirard beckoned to him, gave him
a note which he had written hastily, and in a few more minutes Lannes
was flitting like a swallow through the heavens. Then General
Vaugirard's car moved forward and brigade after brigade of the French
army resumed its advance also.
John felt that the great German machine had been met by a French machine
as great. Perhaps the master mind that thrills through an organism of
steel no less than one of human flesh was on the French side. He did not
know. The invisible hand thrusting forward the French armies was still
invisible to him. Yet he felt with the certainty of conviction that the
eye and the brain of one man were achieving a marvel. In some mysterious
manner the French defense had become an offense. The Republican troops
were now attacking and the Imperial troops were seeking to hold fast.
He seemed to comprehend it all in an instant, and a mighty joy surged
over him. De Rougemont saw his glistening eye and he asked curiously:
"What is it that you are feeling so strongly, Mr. Scott?"
"The thrill of the advance! The unknown plan, whatever it is, is
working! Your nation is about to be saved! I feel it! I know it!"
De Rougemont gazed at him, and then the light leaped into his own eyes.
"A prophet! A prophet!" he cried. "Inspired youth speaks!"
A great crisis may call into being a great impulse, and de Rougemont's
words were at once accepted as truth by all the young aides. Words of
fire, words vital with life had gone forth, predicting their triumph,
and as they rode among the troops carrying orders they communicated
their burning zeal to the men who were already eager for closer battle.
The storm of missiles from the cannon was increasing rapidly. John now
distinctly saw the huge German masses, not advancing but standing firm
to receive the French attack, their front a vast line of belching guns.
He knew that they would soon be within the area of rifle fire and he
knew with equal truth that it would take the valor of immense numbers,
wielded by the supreme skill of leaders to drive back the Germans.
The guns, some drawn by horses and others by motors, were moving forward
with them. When the horses were swept away by a shell, men seized the
guns and dragged them. Then they stopped again, took new positions and
renewed the rain of death on the German army.
They began to hear a whistle and hiss that they knew. It was that of the
bullets, and along the vast front they were coming in millions. But the
French were using their rifles, too, and at intervals the deep
thundering chant of the Marseillaise swept through their ranks. In spite
of shell, shrapnel and bullets, in spite of everything, the French army
in the center was advancing and John believed that the armies on the
other parts of the line were advancing, too.
The bullets struck around them, and then among them. One aide fell from
his cycle, and lay dead in the road, two more were wounded, but two
hundred thousand men, their artillery blazing death over their heads,
went on straight at the mouths of a thousand cannon.
Companies and regiments were swept away, but there was no check. Nor did
the other French armies, the huge links in the chain, stop. A feeling of
victory had swept along the whole gigantic battle front. They were
fighting for Paris, for their country, for the soil which they tended,
alive, and in which they slept, dead, and just at the moment when
everything seemed to have been lost they were saving all. The heroic age
of France had come again, and the Third Republic was justifying the
First.
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