River Marne, France 1914
“Sir, the reserve citizen soldiers are here,” said Second Lieutenant Emile Girard, as he climbed down into the crudely made trench during a break in the bombardment.
Captain Serge Leblanc peered over the back of the trench and couldn’t believe his eyes. In the distance a fleet of taxis were heading toward his position.
“What is this?” Leblanc asked.
“I believe it’s due to the truck shortage sir,” replied Girard.
The black cabs pulled up a kilometre from the front and out of the second car stepped Fabian Fortin who wore, underneath a black greatcoat, the light-coloured French uniform. He carried a rifle; trench knife and kit bag as did the rest of the troops alighting from the vehicles.
“Have you men had any training,” said Leblanc to the troops when they lined up in front of him.
“Yes sir, bellowed a Sergeant standing alongside the first line of men.
“Well, you will be assigned to the trenches along the front line. The aim is as you can see to halt the German advance through our country.”
German bombing began again as the new arrivals spread out along the trenches to the west of the river Marne. The French retaliated with big gun bombardment and machine gun fire, but were not as effective as the more accurate Germans.
Fortin lowered himself into his assigned trench and was immediately showered with earth as a shell exploded on impact a few metres away.
“Welcome to hell, said a soldier, reloading his rifle.
“I’ve come to do my patriotic duty,” said Fortin.
“Well, be my guest, said another soldier, making room at the front of the trench.
Fortin peered over the pock marked no-man’s-land and saw the German trenches. Metal filled the air: whistling then exploding. He rested his left elbow, which supported the rifle, on the piled earth and shot toward the German trenches.
The bombardment and shooting continued for hour after hour, occasionally stopping for short periods. When a trench was hit screams filled the air, and weary looking young men took away dead and dying men on stretchers to the hospital tent.
The young soldier who moved over for Fortin had just turned around to climb down off the earthy platform when a bullet tore through his body spraying blood out of his chest. Fortin caught him as he fell, stared into his eyes and detected darkness.
“Hell can’t be worse than this depravity,” the young man said.
“You will follow me,” said Fortin, with flashes of red in his eyes.
But before the transfer was completed a bullet hit his helmet, which knocked him over into the mud at the bottom of the trench. The boy fell on top coughing up blood over Fortin as he died.
Fortin pushed the body off and stood up, brushing mud off his jacket. These bastards will have to do better than that if they want to do some real harm to me, he thought.
The blanket of night hid the scenes of devastation, but the sounds of fighting kept on: the constant chatter of machine gun fire and the occasional ground shaking explosion. A million fast moving deadly fire flies filled the air.
At two in the morning Fabian Fortin stepped down from the platform to relieve himself when there was a loud whistling followed by a blinding light and terrible heat; then darkness… utter darkness.
He came too, what seemed like minutes later with wetness on his chest. Looking down there was a grimacing face staring up at him with dead eyes. He realised it was a severed head so he pushed it off and stood up. A direct hit destroyed the trench. There were body parts lying in the mud and a terrible stench. He looked himself over; and grinned when he discovered no damage.
There was something different, thought Fortin. The fighting had stopped; there were no sounds of
shooting. Also, the sky was lightening as dawn was breaking. Time to collect German souls, he thought, his eyes turning flame red and skin a greyish yellow. He then rose into the air with great coat, now in tatters, clinging to him. Over no-man’s-land he flew upright, a metre above the scarred and smoking ground toward the biggest of the enemy trenches.
A young German soldier on lookout quivered as he saw the dark figure with the red eyes of certain death approach. He alerted his comrade, and they took aim and pulled their triggers. But the rifles blew up in their faces killing them instantly.
As an officer appeared from a well-cut underground bunker to see what the commotion was, Fortin moved into the trench and hovered. The man rose into the air with flailing arms and then flew away over into no-man’s-land to die tangled in barbed wire.
All around Fabian Fortin German soldiers shrugged off sleep and, not believing what they saw before them, loaded their rifles only to find they shot each other. One soldier threw a live grenade at Fortin, but before it reached its target, it flew back at the dispatcher–exploding between his legs.
Fortin then moved along the trench, looking menacingly from side to side amid the scenes of confusion. On he flew, amid the smoke, over the back of the trench. Soldiers poured over the back of the trenches and ran toward him. One soldier carried a machine gun into position and blasted away, but he lost control and mowed down his own men. Even worse he could not release the trigger and was finally stopped by a bullet to the head from an officer.
The hovering Fortin had taken up a position a kilometre behind the German trenches and was now facing the advancing troops. A shaking ground threw the soldiers around as if they were dolls. The earth then opened and swallowed the artillery, leaving wheels and the occasional gun barrel protruding above the soil.
Over on the other side of no-man’s-land the French, puzzled as to what was happening, were preparing to take full advantage of the situation. The troops were attaching bayonets and hooking grenades onto their belts.
A cry of ‘vive la France’ filled the air as the cream uniformed soldiers poured over on to no-man’s-land and charged toward the German lines.
There was little resistance as the French jumped over the front of the enemy trenches and took up position at the back. They shot the vulnerable German troops, who were recovering from what they thought was an earth quake.
The French drove the Germans back over the river Marne; a decisive victory achieved by help from what was called, in some quarters, the Demon of Marne.