A Visit to Three Fronts by Arthur Conan Doyle
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Arthur Conan Doyle >> A Visit to Three Fronts
Yet another type of French general takes us round this morning! He,
too, is a man apart, an unforgettable man. Conceive a man with a large
broad good-humoured face, and two placid, dark seal's eyes which gaze
gently into yours. He is young and has pink cheeks and a soft voice.
Such is one of the most redoubtable fighters of France, this General of
Division D. His former staff officers told me something of the man. He
is a philosopher, a fatalist, impervious to fear, a dreamer of distant
dreams amid the most furious bombardment. The weight of the French
assault upon the terrible labyrinth fell at one time upon the brigade
which he then commanded. He led them day after day gathering up Germans
with the detached air of the man of science who is hunting for
specimens. In whatever shell-hole he might chance to lunch he had his
cloth spread and decorated with wild flowers plucked from the edge. If
fate be kind to him he will go far. Apart from his valour he is
admitted to be one of the most scientific soldiers of France.
From the Observatory we saw the destruction of a German trench. There
had been signs of work upon it, so it was decided to close it down. It
was a very visible brown streak a thousand yards away. The word was
passed back to the '75's' in the rear. There was a 'tir rapide' over
our heads. My word, the man who stands fast under a 'tir rapide,' be he
Boche, French or British, is a man of mettle! The mere passage of the
shells was awe-inspiring, at first like the screaming of a wintry wind,
and then thickening into the howling of a pack of wolves. The trench
was a line of terrific explosions. Then the dust settled down and all
was still. Where were the ants who had made the nest? Were they buried
beneath it? Or had they got from under? No one could say.
There was one little gun which fascinated me, and I stood for some time
watching it. Its three gunners, enormous helmeted men, evidently loved
it, and touched it with a swift but tender touch in every movement.
When it was fired it ran up an inclined plane to take off the recoil,
rushing up and then turning and rattling down again upon the gunners
who were used to its ways. The first time it did it, I was standing
behind it, and I don't know which moved quickest--the gun or I.
French officers above a certain rank develop and show their own
individuality. In the lower grades the conditions of service enforce a
certain uniformity. The British officer is a British gentleman first,
and an officer afterwards. The Frenchman is an officer first, though
none the less the gentleman stands behind it. One very strange type we
met, however, in these Argonne Woods. He was a French-Canadian who had
been a French soldier, had founded a homestead in far Alberta, and had
now come back of his own will, though a naturalised Briton, to the old
flag. He spoke English of a kind, the quality and quantity being
equally extraordinary. It poured from him and was, so far as it was
intelligible, of the woolly Western variety. His views on the Germans
were the most emphatic we had met. 'These Godam sons of'--well, let us
say 'Canines!' he would shriek, shaking his fist at the woods to the
north of him. A good man was our compatriot, for he had a very recent
Legion of Honour pinned upon his breast. He had been put with a few men
on Hill 285, a sort of volcano stuffed with mines, and was told to
telephone when he needed relief. He refused to telephone and remained
there for three weeks. 'We sit like a rabbit in his hall,' he
explained. He had only one grievance. There were many wild boars in the
forest, but the infantry were too busy to get them. 'The Godam
Artillaree he get the wild pig!' Out of his pocket he pulled a picture
of a frame-house with snow round it, and a lady with two children on
the stoop. It was his homestead at Trochu, seventy miles north of
Calgary.
* * * * *
It was the evening of the third day that we turned our faces to Paris
once more. It was my last view of the French. The roar of their guns
went far with me upon my way. Soldiers of France, farewell! In your own
phrase I salute you! Many have seen you who had more knowledge by which
to judge your manifold virtues, many also who had more skill to draw
you as you are, but never one, I am sure, who admired you more than I.
Great was the French soldier under Louis the Sun-King, great too under
Napoleon, but never was he greater than to-day.
And so it is back to England and to home. I feel sobered and solemn
from all that I have seen. It is a blind vision which does not see more
than the men and the guns, which does not catch something of the
terrific spiritual conflict which is at the heart of it.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
--He is trampling out the vineyard where the grapes of wrath are stored.
We have found no inspired singer yet, like Julia Howe, to voice the
divine meaning of it all--that meaning which is more than numbers or
guns upon the day of battle. But who can see the adult manhood of
Europe standing in a double line, waiting for a signal to throw
themselves upon each other, without knowing that he has looked upon the
most terrific of all the dealings between the creature below and that
great force above, which works so strangely towards some distant but
glorious end?
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.