Weighed down by their sacks, prostrated by the heat, men fell by hundreds along the road. Hardly twenty of the 200 forming the company arrived without having left the column. Seeger was one of these few. He told me afterward of the terrible effort he had had to make not to give up. At every halt he drank a drop of "tafia" (rum and coffee) to "give himself heart," and when he reached the end of the march he was worn out, but proud--he had not left the ranks.
We passed the eight days of repose at Bayonviller, almost always together, seeking the greatest possible enjoyment in our life at the moment and making dreams for the future after the war. Alan confided to me that "after the war" caused him fear--that he could not tell what destiny reserved for him, but that if the fates smiled on him it was toward the Orient that he would make. He loved the Orient--Constantinople, Cairo, Damascus, Beirut had a powerful fascination for him; their names would plunge him into profound reverie.
"It is in the mysterious frame of the Orient," he used to say, "in its dazzling light, in its blue, blue nights, among the perfumes of incense and hashish, that I would live, love and die."
And then the talk would turn again on the war and he would say: "My only wish now is to make a bayonet charge. After that I shall see. Death may surprise me, but it shall not frighten me. It is my destiny. 'Mektoub' (it is written)." He was a real fatalist and drew courage and resignation from his fatalism.
During the night of June 30-July 1 (1916) we left Bayonviller to move nearer the firing line. We went to Proyart as reserves.
At 8 o'clock on the morning of July 1 there was roll call for the day's orders and we were told that the general offensive would begin at 9 without us, as we were in reserve, and that we would be notified of the day and hour that we were to go into action.
When this report was finished we were ordered to shell fatigue, unloading 8 inch shells from automobile trucks which brought them up to our position.
All was hustle and bustle. The Colonial regiments had carried the first German lines and thousands and thousands of prisoners kept arriving and leaving. Ambulances filed along the roads continuously. As news began to arrive we left our work to seek more details, everything we could learn seemed to augur well.