"What do you estimate the strength of the attacking force in our section to be?" I asked Captain Peyron.
"Two thousand odd," he replied, "and they have all of them fallen into the trap. As our men ran away through the wood, they followed in masses, blindly and stupidly--_les imbéciles_! Not one of them will escape, Moreau?"
"Not a soul," replied the chief engineer. Then, glancing at his luminous watch and turning to Chabert, he added, "One more minute, and we shall see what we shall see."
We kept our eyes fixed intently on the dark Bois de Caures. Someone, somewhere, was pressing a button; for all at once huge tongues of flames, accompanied by a series of explosions which rent the cold night air, leapt into the sky. Simultaneously a mental vision must have occurred to every one of us, as it certainly did to me--a vision of hundreds upon hundreds of Germans, caught like rats in a trap, blown to pieces amidst the shattered trees of that fatal wood.
So ended the story of the "_Coup_ of the Caures Wood" as related to me by Lieutenant R----. Hardly had he uttered the last words when the departure bell rang and we hurried away to the train which was to take us to Paris.
This touching bit of genuine literature, penned by a poetic Scot "somewhere in France," deserves to rank as a classic among war letters.
Out here in the land of war we sometimes feel very far from those we love; and then, as though we had walked somehow right through reality, our thoughts are lifted oversea, and the mirage of home floats like a dream before us. The magic stop is touched in many ways. Little do the brave lads speaking to us in camp or hospital know how often they brought us underneath its spell.
Just a week ago, in a tent where the wounded lay, I was beside the bed of a fine young Scottish soldier, stricken down in the prime of his manhood, yet full of hope. The thought of the faces far away was always with him upholdingly. In fact, the whole tent seemed vibrant with the expectation of the journey across the narrow strip of blue which sunders us from home. This Scottish youth had been talking, and it was all about what to-morrow held for him. His mother, and the girl that was to share life with him--these were foremost in his thought. His face shone as he whispered, "I'm going home soon." Everything would be all right then. What a welcome would be his, what stories would be told by the fireside in the Summer evenings! But he made the greater journey that very night. We buried him two days later, where the crosses, with precious names upon them, are growing thick together. Surely that is a place most holy. There will be a rare parade there on Judgment Day of the finest youth and truest chivalry of Britain and of France. Soft be their sleep till that reveillé!