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Updated: June 17, 2025
The rest of us were able to raise only a faint smile, and we felt his disappointment at our lack of humour. "Ah, but it is most funny!" he said. "I will tell everyone. In future they shall for us be 'saucissons' forever. I suppose it is not so funny for you, because the sight of these dead towns has made you sad. I am almost afraid to take you on to Chauny. You will be much sadder there.
Perhaps it was its unexpectedness, for I was sure that the guns had not been heard in this area since before the Marne. The noise must be travelling down the Oise valley, and I judged there was big fighting somewhere about Chauny or La Fere. That meant that the enemy was pressing hard on a huge front, for here was clearly a great effort on his extreme left wing. Unless it was our counter-attack.
In the career of Guynemer nothing was left to chance, and everything won by effort, pursuit, and implacable will. On Sunday, December 5, 1915, as he was making his rounds in the Compiègne region, he saw two airplanes more than 3000 meters above Chauny. As the higher one flew over Bailly he sprang upon it and attacked it: at 50 meters, fifteen shots from his machine-gun; at 20 meters, thirty shots.
It is only now that one knows what a price Chauny paid for the advantage. Instead of a beautiful town there remains a heap of cinders, with here and there a wrecked façade of pitiful grace or broken dignity to tell where stood the proudest buildings.
It was a very sad spectacle, all the women and children weeping and not enough trains to save them. At last we go away, and destroy line and station of Essigny-le-Grand and at Montescourt, where we destroy bridge already mined. Arrive in afternoon at Tergnier. Sleep there, and set out on afternoon of 28th for Chauny and Noyon.
"But we're going to Soissons day after to-morrow!" said Father Beckett. "And there'll be a moon presently," added Dierdre. She had heard of the ruined convent at Chauny and was determined not to miss it. "Yes, there'll be a moon," reluctantly admitted Monsieur le Lieutenant. "Is there still another reason?" I tried to help him. "Well, yes, there is one, Mademoiselle," he blurted out.
The above message received by us at ten o'clock last night. Jussy is on the main road between Saint Quentin and Chauny. I expect to go back to the infantry soon. Sincerely, E. A. MARSHALL. Escadrille N. 124, Secteur Postal 182, March 25, 1917.
Quentin, Ternier, Chauny each with a tale of horror and sorrow sought refuge for the night. Madame Guix was permanently established in the dispensary, and a line was formed as in front of the city clinics, each one waiting his turn, hoping that she might be able to relieve his suffering.
I wish when Chauny is rebuilt this convent might be left as a monument historique, for, ringed by its perfumed pleasance, it is a glimpse of "fairylands forlorn." One half believes there must have been some fairy charm at work which kept the fire-breathing German dragon from laying this garden waste when he was forced out of his stolen lair in the convent!
In happy days before the war, whose joys we took comfortably for granted, Chauny had several châteaux of beauty and charm. It had pretty houses and lots of fine shops and a park. But Chauny was on the direct road between Cologne and Paris. Nobody thought much about this fact then, except that it helped travel and so was good for the country.
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