Soldier of the Queen (20 page)

To the west the road lifted sharply towards a plateau then fell gently through densely wooded ground. In the centre of the valley was the French town of Forbach and to the left a series of heights terminating in a hill called the Spicherenberg. All along the line, pickets were confronting each other, cavalry vedettes circling in the distance, their lance pennons fluttering. A few hundred yards further on was a big blockhouse where the French had gathered in large numbers, their scouts out in front of them. Von Hartmann’s lancers had already cut the railway line that connected Metz with Strasbourg, but there was nothing to see and the only excitement came when Colby went out with a feldwebel’s patrol that was set upon by French North African troops, fortunately far too excited to shoot straight. As they returned, von Hartmann was looking eager. ‘The French are moving cannon over the Spicherenberg,’ he announced. ‘They reconnoitred it last evening. Something is clearly coming.’

Nothing did, however, beyond a salvo from the French guns which scattered a watching crowd and demolished a beerhouse, and a bout of spy-fever which resulted as often as not in the Germans arresting men of their own side sent forward to watch the French or a local yokel romping in the bushes with his girl.

As August came, a few infantry and guns arrived and the nervously-clicking telegraph at the station warned that more were needed. Armed with cigars, which they had already found an excellent introduction to German soldiers, Colby and Ackroyd headed for the front. The artillery was drawn up in line with the ammunition wagons and horses in the rear. A forge was alight and the farriers were busy shoeing, while von Hartmarm’s officers sat in the sunshine drinking coffee, their colour in its cover stuck in the ground with the drum major’s halberd. Behind were knapsacks and rolled greatcoats in straight rows. A crowd had gathered round carts carrying beer and casks of wine, and a few men were singing, the camp kettles simmering on the fires for their meal. The whole place seemed drowsy with summer.

Crossing the valley, they climbed the slope. There was no sign of excitement, but as they neared the Exerciseplatz they saw men running about, then an officer came hurtling down the slope on a horse. Streaming down the roads from France were dense and glittering columns of troops, the sun striking sharply on bayonets and scarlet trousers. They were advancing swiftly, six abreast, with no pretence at formation, and as the head of the column reached the valley it broke apart like spray, file after file dispersing into the trees, until an unbroken line of skirmishers was drawn up in front. Squadrons of cavalry poured down after them, then, forming line at the gallop, overtook them, passed through their intervals, reformed and covered the flanks.

As the tirailleurs opened a spattering volley, the German infantry retaliated and the whole French force began to fire.

‘I think we’d better get out of here,’ Colby said.

As a riderless horse went careering away, its tail over its back, and the bullets began to strike the trees above their heads, they bolted for the dip. As they reached the road beneath, one of the Prussians, hit in the back, came crashing down on the shrubs at their feet. The lancers, drawn up in the shelter formed by a bend of the road, began to retreat through Saarbrücken and a knot of fusiliers hurrying after them were caught by a shell which struck down a sergeant and five men at once. By this time, the French were on the heights and driving the Germans back. As they reached Saarbrücken, shells from French guns began to crash among the houses, and, though the side streets were safe, there was a constant shower of tiles and chimney pots.

Reaching the station, they discovered von Hartmann deciding to make his final stand there and bolted instead towards the Hotel Hagen. There were three or four Englishmen inside, with several women who had been touring the frontier. As the hotel was knocked to pieces about their ears, the landlord was making sure they all paid for their drinks. A shell had burst in the kitchen to spatter the ceiling with potatoes and send gravy flowing across the floor. The landlady and the maids were having hysterics and Colby and Ackroyd helped to carry them into a cellar under the backyard. The front of the hotel was riddled by this time and they could hear the French mitrailleuses going like a policeman’s rattle.

They left the Englishmen playing whist in the breakfast room, ran across an open space, crossed a deep cutting, and began to follow the railway towards Duttweiler. All around them straggling German soldiers who had lost their regiments were heading for a rendezvous at Lebach.

‘Cross between a spectacle and a farce.’ Colby decided he was probably mistaken about Prussian efficiency, because if the French pushed on now they could reach the Rhine without a pitched battle. There wasn’t an officer within two days of Duttweiler, he decided, who wouldn’t be girding up his loins for when they appeared.

Duttweiler was packed with people, and the hotel, a rambling erection with wing after wing of bedrooms on corridors along which you could drive a coach and pair, was full of foreign waifs and strays. The four Englishmen they had left playing whist in Saarbrücken were just obtaining rooms and there were several Englishwomen who were trying to get home. An officer of the American army was also there to see the fun and several British officers in mufti, as well as an English student from Bonn university who informed them that the French had not occupied Saarbrücken, had not even crossed the bridges in case they were mined, and had made no attempt to destroy the telegraph.

They didn’t stop any longer than was necessary to eat a meal, then they hired horses and rode towards Pirmasens where they picked up a train to the Rhine and headed north to Cologne and into Belgium. The French newspapers there were full of the affair. ‘Tremendous battle at Saarbrücken,’ they announced. ‘Our army has taken the offensive, crossed the frontier and invaded Prussian territory.’ The British newspapers echoed the story, even the
Morning Advertiser
, which was clearly not trusting Colby’s reports, so that he had to send Ackroyd to Brussels to insist that he was correct and that the ‘great battle’ was nothing more than a skirmish, and a very uncertain and unprofessional skirmish at that.

It appeared that Napoleon III had been present with his son, the Prince Imperial, having appeared in Metz only a few days before to lead the triumphal march of the army into Germany, so, sending two despatches to London – one to the
Morning Advertiser
, one to Wolseley – Colby joined Ackroyd in Brussels and they reached Metz the next evening.

The place was awash with soldiers and tricolours; in every square and on every one of the green islands on which the city was built, tents, horses and wagons crammed every available space. The city was still wild with excitement after the scuffle at Saarbrücken. ‘Tremendous Battle,’ the paper claimed. ‘Frossard wins Great French Victory. Prince Imperial Receives Baptism of Fire.’ But, despite the bells and the people singing and cheering in the street, Colby noticed that the newspapers were curiously empty of details and there was no sign of prisoners.

Though the army had moved to the frontier, the city was still a great camp, and a boarding house for the civilian population who had arrived to watch the war. Rattling carts and plodding companies of soldiers kept the place awake at night and military bands played all day in the Place d’Armes. It was impossible to get away from soldiers. They were everywhere, in every bar, every café, every restaurant, every square and every street. There seemed to be thousands of them – dim-eyed yokels from the Midi, boastful veterans of the Crimea, Mexico and Italy, and noisy young officers with bold eyes and tight jackets covered with braid, all eager to take advantage of the blazing emotions of the women.

Colby had managed to find beds in the hotel opposite the station. The foyer was packed with the families of officers newly arrived and desperately searching for rooms in the red-stone streets that were still strident with bugles and noisy with the tramp of feet, the clatter of rifles and the rolling of drums. Kicking, biting cavalry remounts and great Norman draught animals from the Paris buses clattered past in a bedlam of noise, and soldiers piled barrels of wine and brandy on the pavements with pyramids of boxes of navy biscuits marked with square English letters. Every alley was impeded by baggage wagons, and trains continued to chug in with lost reservists, the carriages decorated with branches of willow jammed into the lamp stanchions and wreathed round door handles. Lining up under the gas globes and spade-shaped jets in the sooty walls, the men moved off under showers of smuts from the engines, squeezing concertinas, embracing women, exchanging bread and wine and sausage, the crimson pompoms of their shakoes glowing, their voices echoing under the high, vaulted glass-and-iron of the roof. The whole city seemed to be waiting for the Napoleonic masterstroke that would bring the war to a glorious conclusion.

Among the clapping and the waving of handkerchieves, however, Colby noticed that the dour Lorrainers, almost more German than French and never enthusiastic about Napoleon, remained curiously aloof, as if they suspected that somewhere underneath the fuss things weren’t quite as they should be. How right they were he discovered at head-quarters in the Hotel Europa. A hard-bitten old brigadier was storming at a young staff officer whose buttons crowded his not very broad chest.

‘There are no palliasses and the blankets are mildewed,’ he was raging. ‘The food stinks and you can smell nothing but dishwater, rifle oil and camphor! The damned brigade’s complaining and backbiting and the commanding officers are all suffering from spavins or pains in the chest! I’d like to shoot the lot of them – you, too!’

The place was filled with bustle and the slap of saluting sentries, the clatter of wheels and hooves noisy in the courtyard, the corridors a bedlam of messengers and officials moving in a great show of efficiency which to Colby’s practised eye only hid a great deal of confusion. There were no passes available to watch the fighting. It happened to be one of de Polignac’s duties to issue them and he made no attempt to disguise his ill-will towards Colby.

‘None are being given out,’ he announced. ‘It will all be over before they can become effective!’

Since Colby had come across other men with passes, he could only assume that de Polignac, knowing of the relationship that had once existed between himself and Germaine, was eaten away with jealousy.

‘I’m here to represent my government,’ he tried. ‘I have the necessary papers.’

De Polignac stared coldly at him. ‘It makes no difference,’ he said. ‘In any case, I am suspicious of your intentions, and I would advise you to be careful. People spreading rumours or asking questions have been set on by the crowd.’

He was adamant in his refusal, continuing to claim that the war would soon be over. His manner was arrogant and confident, but the manner of the other officers made Colby suspect that headquarters was hiding facts – not only from him but from the Lorrainers and the rest of France, and he sent Ackroyd out to listen round the bars.

‘Half the bloody divisions are nothing more than the expression of a pious hope,’ he pointed out. ‘And half the reservists who’ve turned up are without uniforms or weapons.’

It didn’t take long to discover the plain unvarnished truth: regiments were without transport, whole divisions without ambulances. Rations, ammunition and supplies were short. The famous new mitrailleuse, the mechanical gun which was confidently expected to win the war, was useless because nobody knew how to work it. Thousands of reservists were still missing somewhere on the chaotic railways, drinking and plundering stores to stay alive, and the camps, seas of mud in the heavy showers, were full of other reservists without the slightest idea where their regiments were. ‘Not–’ Ackroyd added ‘–that it’ll make much difference. Most of ’em are badly led and worse clothed. Some of them what I’ve seen must ’ave had to cut their uniforms down to see out of ’em.’

Batteries were without guns, guns without horses, and horses without harness. Half the men on the muster rolls had been discharged the year before and, because its railways ran the wrong way, the French army was having to do most of its journeying on foot. Von Hartmann had been dead right, and the exhilaration of the first days seemed to be dying rapidly in an anti-climax as the young bloods of the staff, who for the first two weeks had lounged with their absinthes under the pomegranate and oleander on the Esplanade, desperately tried to bring order to the confusion.

An oasis of sanity was provided by Germaine de Maël in the house in Avenue Serpenoise. It looked over rows of little lime trees towards the Ile du Saulcy, with glimpses among the steep-roofed mansions of the wooded slopes beyond the Ban St Martin. Unaware of the chaos, Germaine was sparkling with happiness and clearly enjoying the excitement, revelling in the sound of trumpets and drums that echoed across the narrow waterways cutting up the city. Intoxicated by the war and the fact that you could stand on any corner of any street and guarantee something exciting happening within a minute, she had given willingly in her warm-hearted way to the collections for the widows and orphans of Saarbrücken.

‘It’s all so wonderful,’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘More than I ever expected. When the Emperor left for the front, they had a parade in the Place Royale and I went to watch.’ She clapped her hands with delight. ‘The square was
filled
with soldiers! Like huge rows of flowers!’

‘And the Emperor?’ Colby asked.

Her face fell. ‘I saw him clearly,’ she said slowly. ‘He was in an open carriage behind an escort of Cent Gardes.’ Her expression became worried. ‘Colbee, his face was grey and painted and he were ill.’

They were still talking when de Polignac appeared. He was nervous and irritable and eager for a quarrel. His manner was subdued and over-excited at the same time, as if he had received news that depressed him but nevertheless involved him deeply in desperate events. For half an hour he and Colby glared hostilely at each other, hardly hearing what Germaine had to say, facing each other like dogs circling for a fight.