The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Volunteer Poilu, by Henry Sheahan

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Title: A Volunteer Poilu

Author: Henry Sheahan

Release Date: May 12, 2004 [EBook #12330]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VOLUNTEER POILU ***

Produced by A. Langley

A VOLUNTEER POILU

by Henry Sheahan

To Professor Charles Townsend Copeland of Harvard University

Dear Copey,

At Verdun I thought of you, and the friendly hearth of Hollis 15 seemed very far away from the deserted, snow-swept streets of the tragic city. Then suddenly I remembered how you had encouraged me and many others to go over and help in any way that we could; I remembered your keen understanding of the Epic, and the deep sympathy with human beings which you taught those whose privilege it was to be your pupils. And so you did not seem so far away after all, but closer to the heart of the war than any other friend I had.

I dedicate this book to you with grateful affection after many years of friendship.

Henry

Topsfield, September, 1916

Preface

I have ventured to call this book A Volunteer Poilu principally because we were known to the soldiers of the Bois-le-Prêtre as "les Poilus Américains." Then, too, it was my ambition to do for my comrades, the French private soldiers, what other books have done for the soldiers of other armies. The title chosen, however, was more than complimentary; it was but just. In recognition of the work of the Section during the summer, it was, in October, 1915, formally adopted into the French army; a French officer became its administrative head, and the drivers were given the same papers, pay, and discipline as their French comrades.

I wish to thank many of my old friends of Section II, who have aided me in the writing of this book.

HENRY SHEAHAN

Contents

I. THE ROCHAMBEAU S'EN VA-T-EN GUERRE

I A war-time voyage—The Rochambeau—Loading ammunition and food supplies—Personalities on board—The dyestuffs agent—The machine lathes man—The Swede from Minnesota who was on his way to the Foreign Legion—His subsequent history—The talk aboard—The French officer—His philosophy of war—Ernest Psichari—Arrival at Bordeaux—The Arabs at the docks—The convalescent soldiers— Across La Beauce—The French countryside in war-time.

II. AN UNKNOWN PARIS IN THE NIGHT AND RAIN.

Paris, rain, and darkness—The Gardens of the Tuileries—The dormitory—The hospital at night—Beginning of the Champagne offensive—The Gare de la Chapelle at two in the morning—The wounded—The Zouave stretcher-bearers—The Arabs in the abandoned school—Suburban Paris at dawn—The home of the deaconesses.

III. THE GREAT SWATHE OF THE LINES

Nancy—The porter's story—Getting to the front—What the phrase "the front" really means—The sense of the front—The shell zone—The zone of quiet—My quarters in the shelled house—The fire shells—Bombarded at night—Death of the soldier fireman.

IV. LA FORET DE BOIS-LE-PRETRE

Le Bois-le-Prêtre—Description—History—Les Glycines, "Wisteria Villa"—The Road to the trenches—At the trenches—The painter's idea of "le sinistre dans l'art"—The sign post—The zone of violence—The Quart-en-Réserve—The village caught in the torment of the lines—The dead on the barbed wire—"The Road to Metz."

V. THE TRENCHES IN THE "WOOD OF DEATH."

The Trenches—Organization—Nature of the war—Food, shelters, clothing, ammunition, etc.—A typical day in the trenches—Trench shells or "crapouilots"—In the abri—The tunnel—The doctrinaire lieutenant of engineers.

VI. THE GERMANS ATTACK

The piano at Montauville—An interrupted concert—At the Quart—The battle for the ridge of the Wood—Fall of the German aeroplane—Psychology of the men in the trenches—Religion in the trenches—

VII. THE TOWN IN THE TRENCHES

Poor old "Pont"—Description of the town—A civilian's story—The house of the Captain of the Papal Zouaves—Church of St. Laurent—The Cemetery and its guardian.

VIII. MESSIEURS LES POILUS DE LA GRANDE GUERRE

En repos—A village of troops—Manners and morals—The concert—journal of the Bois-le-Prêtre—Various poilus.

IX. PREPARING THE DEFENSE OF VERDUN

En permission—State of France—The France of 1905 and the France of 1915—The class of 1917—Bar-le-Duc—The air raid—Called to Verdun.

X. THE GREAT DAYS OF VERDUN

Verdun in 1912—Verdun on the night of the first great attack—The hospital—The shelled cross road—The air shell—The pastry cook's story—The cultivateur of the Valois and the crater at Douaumont—The pompiers of Verdun—"Do you want to see an odd sight?"—Verdun in storm and desolation.

A Volunteer Poilu

Chapter I

The Rochambeau S'en Va-t-en Guerre

Moored alongside a great two-storied pier, with her bow to the land, the cargo and passenger boat, Rochambeau, of the Compagnie Générale was being loaded with American supplies for the France of the Great War. A hot August sun struck spots and ripples of glancing radiance from the viscous, oily surface of the foul basin in which she lay inert; the air was full of sounds, the wheezing of engines, the rattling of cog-checks, and the rumble of wheels and hoofs which swept, in sultry puffs of noise and odor, from the pavements on the land. Falling from the exhausts, a round, silvery-white cascade poured into the dark lane between the wharf and the deck, and sounded a monotonous, roaring underchord to the intermingled dins. At the sun-bathed bow, a derrick gang lowered bags of flour into the open well of the hold; there were commands in French, a chugging, and a hissing of steam, and a giant's clutch of dusty, hundred-kilo flour-bags from Duluth would swing from the wharf to the Rochambeau, sink, and disappear. In some way the unfamiliar language, and the sight of the thickset, French sailor-men, so evidently all of one race, made the Rochambeau, moored in the shadow of the sky-scrapers, seem mysteriously alien. But among the workers in the hold, who could be seen when they stood on the floor of the open hatchway, was a young, red-headed, American longshoreman clad in the trousers part of a suit of brown-check overalls; sweat and grime had befouled his rather foolish, freckled face, and every time that a bunch of flour-bags tumbled to the floor of the well, he would cry to an invisible somebody—"More dynamite, Joe, more dynamite!"

Walking side by side, like ushers in a wedding procession, two of the ship's officers made interminable rounds of the deck. Now and then they stopped and