Joseph Altsheler - The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne

The members of the staff tethered their horses in the grove, and after supper stood together and talked, while the fat general paced back and forth, his brow wrinkled in deep thought.

"Good old Papa Vaugirard is studying how to make the best of us," said de Rougemont. "We're all his children. They say that he knows nearly ten thousand men under his command by face if not by name, and we trust him as no other brigade commander in the army is trusted by his troops. He's thinking hard now, and General Vaugirard does not think for nothing. As soon as he arrives at what seems to him a solution of his problem he will begin to whistle. Then he will interrupt his whistling by saying: 'Ah, well, such is life.'"

"I hope he'll begin to whistle soon," said John, "because his brow is wrinkling terribly."

He watched the huge general with a sort of fascinated gaze. Seen now in the twilight, Vaugirard's very bulk was impressive. He was immense, strong, primeval. He walked back and forth over a line about thirty feet long, and the deep wrinkles remained on his brow. Every member of his staff was asking how long it would last.

A sound, mellow and soft, but penetrating, suddenly arose. General Vaugirard was whistling, and John's heart gave a jump of joy. He did not in the least doubt de Rougemont's assertion that an answer to the problem had been found.

General Vaugirard whistled to himself softly and happily. Then he said twice, and in very clear tones: "Ah, well, such is life!" He began to whistle again, stopped in a moment or two and called to de Rougemont, with whom he talked a while.

"We're to march once more in a half-hour," said de Rougemont, when he returned to John and his comrades. "It must be a great converging movement in which time is worth everything. At least, General Vaugirard thinks so, and he has a plan to get us into the very front of the action."

"I hope so," said John. "I'm not anxious to get killed, but I'd rather be in the battle than wait. I wonder if I'll meet anywhere on the front that company to which I belong, the Strangers."

"I think I've heard of them," said de Rougemont, "a body of Americans and Englishmen, volunteers in the French service, commanded by Captain Daniel Colton."

"Right you are, and I've two particular friends in that company—I suppose they've rejoined it—Wharton, an American, and Carstairs, an Englishman. We went through a lot of dangers together before we reached the British army near Mons, and I'd like to see them again."

"Maybe you will, but here comes an extraordinary procession."

They heard many puffing sounds, uniting in one grand puffing chorus, and saw advancing down a white road toward them a long, ghostly train, as if a vast troop of extinct monsters had returned to earth and were marching this way. But John knew very well that it was a train of automobiles and raising the glasses that he now always carried he saw that they were empty except for the chauffeurs.

General Vaugirard began to whistle his mellowest and most musical tune, stopping only at times to mutter a few words under his breath. John surmised that he was expressing deep satisfaction, and that he had been waiting for the motor train. War was now fought under new conditions. The Germans had thousands and scores of thousands of motors, and perhaps the French were provided almost as well.

"I fancy," said de Rougemont, who was also watching the arrival of the machines, "that we'll leave our horses now and travel by motor."

De Rougemont's supposition was correct. The line of automobiles began to mass in front, many rows deep, and all the chauffeurs, their great goggles shining through the darkness, were bent over their wheels ready to be off at once with their armed freight. It filled John with elation, and he saw the same spirit shining in the eyes of the young French officers.

General Vaugirard began to puff like one of the machines. He threw out his great chest, pursed up his mouth and emitted his breath in little gusts between his lips, "Very good! Very good, my children!" he said, "Oil and electricity will carry us now, and we go forward, not backward!"

True to de Rougemont's prediction, the horses were given to orderlies, and the staff and a great portion of the troops were taken into the cars. General Vaugirard and several of the older officers occupied a huge machine, and just behind him came de Rougemont, John and a half-dozen young lieutenants and captains in another. Before them stretched a great white road. Far overhead hovered many aeroplanes. John had no doubt that the Arrow was among them, or rather was the farthest one forward. Lannes' eager soul, wound or no wound, would keep him in front.

They now moved rapidly, and John's spirits continued to rise. There was something wonderful in this swift march on wheels in the moonlight. As far back as he could see the machines came in a stream, and to the left and right he saw them proceeding on other roads also. All the country was strange to John. He could not remember having seen it from the aeroplane, and he was sure that the army, instead of going to Paris, was bound for some point where it would come in instant contact with the German forces.

"Do you know the road?" he asked of de Rougemont.

"Not at all. I'm from the Gironde country. I've been in Paris, but I know little of the region about it. A good way to reach the front, is it not, Mr. Scott?"

"Fine. I fancy that we're hurried forward to make a link in a chain, or at least to stop a gap."

"And those large birds overhead are scouting for us."

"Look! One of them is dropping down. I dare say it's making a report to some general higher in rank than ours."

He pointed with a long forefinger, and John watched the aeroplane come down in its slanting course like a falling star. It was a beautiful night, a light blue sky, with a fine moon and hosts of clear stars. One could see far, and soon after the plane descended John saw it rise again from the same spot, ascend high in air, and shoot off toward the east.

"That may have been Lannes," he said.

"Likely as not," said de Rougemont.

John now observed General Vaugirard, who sat erect in the front of his automobile, with a pair of glasses, relatively as huge as himself, to his eyes. Occasionally he would purse his lips, and John knew that his favorite expression was coming forth. To the young American's imaginative mind his broad back expressed rigidity and strength.

The great murmuring sound, the blended advance of so many men, made John sleepy by-and-by. In spite of himself his heavy eyelids drooped, and although he strove manfully against it, sleep took him. When he awoke he heard the same deep murmur, like the roll of the sea, and saw the army still advancing. It was yet night, though fine and clear, and there before him was the broad, powerful back of the general. Vaugirard was still using the glasses and John judged that he had not slept at all. But in his own machine everybody was asleep except the man at the wheel.

The country had grown somewhat hillier, but its characteristics were the same, fertile, cultivated fields, a small wood here and there, clear brooks, and church spires shining in the dusk. Both horse and foot advanced across the fields, but the roads were occupied by the motors, which John judged were carrying at least twenty thousand men and maybe forty thousand.

He was not sleepy now, and he watched the vast panorama wheel past. He knew without looking at his watch that the night was nearly over, because he could already smell the dawn. The wind was freshening a bit, and he heard its rustle in the leaves of a wood as they pushed through it.

Then came a hum and a whir, and a long line of men on motor cycles at the edge of the road crept up and then passed them. One checked his speed enough to run by the side of John's car, and the rider, raising his head a little, gazed intently at the young American. His cap closed over his face like a hood, but the man knew him.