“This is my last pigeon.”  The following day communication is partly re-established, and a few fragmentary messages are received.  “The enemy”—­signals the fort—­“is working on a mine to the west of the fort.  Turn on the guns—­quick.” ...  “We don’t hear your artillery.  Are attacked by gas, and flame throwers.  Are at the last extremity.”  Then one message gets through from below—­“Courage! we shall soon attack.”  The fort waits, and at night another fragmentary message comes from Raynal asking for water and relief.  “I am nearly at the end of my powers.  The troops—­men and officers—­have in all circumstances done their duty....  You will come, no doubt ... before we are completely exhausted. Vive la France!”

But death and thirst—­thirst, above all—­are victors.  On the 6th, a few hours before the inevitable end, Marshal Joffre flashed his message to the heights—­in the first place, a message of thanks to troops and Commander for their “magnificent defence,” in the next, making Commandant Raynal a Commander of the Legion of Honour.

On the 7th a last heroic effort was made to relieve the fort.  It failed, and Raynal—­wounded, with a handful of survivors—­surrendered, the Germans, in acknowledgment of the heroism of the defence, allowing the Commandant to retain his sword.

What manner of men were they that fought this fight?  What traditions did they represent?  What homes did they come from?

M. Henri Bordeaux, himself an eye-witness, to whose admirable and moving book on The Last Days of Fort Vaux, I am indebted for the preceding details, to some extent answers the question by quoting a letter, addressed by his mother to the stretcher-bearer, Roger Vamier, decorated in 1915 by General Joffre himself.

“Et toi, mon tresor—­you must have a great deal to do....  Well, do all you can to save those poor wounded!—­left there in the snow and blood.  My blood boils to be staying on here, when there is so much to do over there, in picking up those poor fellows.  Why won’t they have a woman?—­there, where she could really help!  It is the business of mothers to pick up those poor lads, and give them a good word.  Well, you must replace the mothers, you, mon cheri, you must do all you can—­do the impossible—­to help.  I see you running—­creeping along—­looking for the wounded.  If I could only be there too!—­Yes, it is my place, mon petit, near you.  Courage, courage!—­I know it is the beginning of the end—­and the end will be grand for all those who have fought in the just cause.”

A month later thousands of English, Scotch, Welsh and Irish lads, men from Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, were passing on the Somme through a similar furnace of death and suffering to that borne by the French at Verdun.  But the English ways of expression are not the French; and both differ from the American.  The instinct for ringing and