General Foch opened a drawer of the desk and showed me, day by day,
the charts of the battle. They were bound together in a great book,
and each day had a fresh page. The German Army was black. The French
was red. Page after page I lived that battle, the black line
advancing, the blue of the British wavering against overwhelming
numbers and ferocity, the red line of the French coming up. "The Man
of Ypres," they call General Foch, and well they may.
"They came," said General Foch, "like the waves of the sea."
It was the second time I had heard the German onslaught so described.
He shut the book and sat for a moment, his head bent, as though in
living over again that fearful time some of its horror had come back
to him.
At last: "I paced the floor and watched the clock," he said.
How terrible! How much easier to take a sword and head a charge! How
much simpler to lead men to death than to send them! There in that
quiet room, with only the telephone and the ticking of the clock for
company, while his staff waited outside for orders, this great
general, this strategist on whose strategy hung the lives of armies,
this patriot and soldier at whose word men went forth to die, paced
the floor.
He walked over to the clock and stood looking at it, his fine head
erect, his hands behind him.
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