CHAPTER XII
THE BLOOD-RED DAY OF WÖRTH
A figure as of the blood-red day seemed to pass through the sleeping woods and to awaken them with a voice that terrified and a command which quickened the laggard’s heart. Above the murmur of leaves and the babbling of the brooks the cry “Aux armes!” brought men staggering to their feet from the stupor of dreams now broken, from victories, perchance, that sleep had numbered. There was still the shivering woodland life, the dark places of the thickets, the merry splash of streams, the note of birds; but these were things apart. The herald of the breaking day had breathed upon the passions of those who slept; the rising sun shone upon the faces of fifty thousand whose pulses quickened already with the ferocity of combat. As fire leaping from brake to brake and dell to dell, that spirit of the battle moved. Children ran from it to their homes as before the outposts of a spectre army. Women pressed babes to their breasts and prayed to the saints. From the height of Froeschweiler in the north to the marshy brookland by Gunstett in the south that thunder of the new day rolled. To arms! The very sky, in changing lights of crimson and of purple and of grey-black cloud, gave canopies of storm to the tumult that it looked upon.
To Beatrix, standing at the gate of the châlet as the night merged into day, the torrent of sounds was as some cataclysm which swept away all thought of self, of her own life and her own safety. She saw the things about her; she beheld men running wildly through the woods; she could have touched the mud-stained horses of the cuirassiers; the dark faces of the Africans looked into her own; the swinging, impetuous march of infantry delighted her—yet the meaning of these things, the reality of it all, the import of it was not realised. There stood her own little house with its girdle of tree and thicket; there below were the vineyards and the rivers. War and battle must be something far distant from the homes of these children that she knew. And Edmond! The jeopardy of her husband’s life she dared not contemplate. An irony of fate which had given her this good measure of happiness that she might suffer through the years was not to be believed in.
Edmond had exhorted her to leave the châlet instantly and ride westward to Saverne. It had been his last word to her as he lifted her to his saddle for a lover’s farewell. She gave him half a promise; and when he turned at the bend of the road to repeat his wish, her laughing face answered it. He did not see that other look, the tears lingering in the pretty eyes, the girl’s true self written there in lines of grief untold. The road hid the aftermath of farewell from his sight. “We shall drive the Prussians to the Rhine, and you will see me to-night,” he had said with a new courage of the morning. She knew not that many days of grief must pass before she heard his voice again, and that when he came back to her it would be to turn from her caress and to tell her that love was no more.
All her thought was of the moment; of the awakening in the woods, of the news that the trooper had brought. The Germans were at Gunstett. Then there would be a battle beyond the river! Men would die. A nation would hear of victory to-morrow. That mighty host of armed men, whose voice was the thunder of the hills, stood sentinel of the homes of France. She had a great pride in the thought that Edmond was one of those to whom the children looked so confidently. And he would return victorious at sunset. The sword of France was drawn. It would never be sheathed until the honour of France was saved.
Day had not broken when the trooper waked them from their sleep, nor was the sun lifted above the hills when Edmond rode down to his regiment. She watched the spreading light while it showed her the rain-drops glistening upon the leaves, and the little pools which the showers of the night had filled again. After the first mad awakening a hush fell upon the forest; the flowers lifted their heads anew, the trembling leaves made their voices heard—it was the Niederwald of the old home, the Niederwald of solitude remote and the haven of rest. She lingered at the gate, hoping she knew not what. When Guillaumette came to tell her that the coffee was ready, she did not hear her. Her thoughts were away in Strasburg, at the altar of the Minster where her love-vow had been spoken.
“You called me, Guillaumette?”
“If I called you, Madame—when the coffee spoils and the bread is hot and the clock strikes six!—”
“Six o’clock—is it six o’clock? Then I have been here an hour, Guillaumette.”
A strange voice chimed in with the answer:
“To the tick, Madame. I have watched you from my windows—it is impossible to look another way when Madame Lefort stands at her garden gate. And pardon me—I have said, ‘She is waiting for her pony; she is going to Saverne when that rascal Jacob is ready.’”
She turned to see old Jules Picard, snuff-box in hand, astride his great weedy horse. He had ridden up from the château at her husband’s request, and he began already to take fatherly possession of her.
“Madame,” he continued, shutting his golden box with a snap, “Guillaumette is right. We will take a cup of coffee and then we will ride to Saverne. Those fellows là-bas are going to fight. The glory will come afterwards. We shall return for that—you and I. There is always the glory for those who know how to come back. And we shall find Monsieur a colonel. I have just passed him on the road and told him so. ‘Madame and I are going to Saverne while you send those Prussians to the devil,’ I said. He is of my opinion. He has confidence in me, Monsieur votre mari. And Madame will share it. I have no doubt of it. She has ordered her pony already. She will give old Jules Picard a cup of coffee—and then, en avant. Oh, my child, what a cry is that when your back is towards the enemy and the guns are beyond the hills!”
He climbed from his horse laboriously and stood beside her, his enormous sombrero hat in his hand. There was no braver man in France, and she knew it, but she laughed at his assumption of her assent and did not seek to hide that laughter from him.
“Come,” she said, “we will have our coffee in the garden. We shall see the valley from there. And we can talk about Saverne afterwards. You will stay to déjeuner, Monsieur Picard?”
The old man raised his hands melodramatically.
“Madame,” he asked, “do I hear you aright?”
“I hope so.”
“And you will not ride to Saverne?”
“Not for all the soldiers in Prussia.”
“Then God be praised for His mercies.”
“You mean—”
“I mean, my child, that here is a brave heart, and wherever a brave heart beats there is the love of old Jules Picard.”
He bent and kissed her hand. His bantering mood had passed. From the valley below there came the dull echoing roar of artillery. An aide-de-camp, with mud even upon his face, went by at a gallop, and disappeared in the hither wood. Some Turcos came down the hill at a double, crying to each other that the Prussians were crossing the river. In the wood at the bend of the road they could distinguish between the trees the red trousers and blue coats of infantrymen. A bivouac had been broken up there. Fires still smoked, but the cooking-pots were overturned, and the grass trampled in the haste of assembly. A pair of horses drawing a battery caisson overpowered their driver and dashed blindly down the hill to the Strasburg road. The thunder of their hoofs was to be heard for a long time. Then silence fell again upon the thickets.
Old Jules Picard was gaily dressed that morning. A coat of dark blue carried the button of an order; his vest was in the old style, with embroidery upon it. He wore smart gaiters and white breeches; a diamond circlet sparkled about his cravat. The excitement that he suffered betrayed itself in gesture alone. He talked incessantly, that the others might share his confidence. And Beatrix, in her turn, listened to him wonderingly. This, then, was the day of battle! The unchanging forest seemed to mock the thought. The distant roar of the awakening artillery was as an echo of ill speaking beyond the river.
They took their coffee in the arbour of the roses. Looking down thence over the woods and the vineyards they could see the river at Gunstett, the mill in the marsh, the distant heights whereon the Prussians lurked, the white villages and the fields of maize. Everywhere the eye could find a panorama of wood and hill land. Such troops as were to be perceived appeared neither hasting nor active. A few puffs of smoke hung above the opposing heights. The horses of cavalry, even the sturdy figures of cuirassiers passed in and out between the trees. But there was no panoply of war—no charge and countercharge. The interval of waiting had come; the hush before the storm.
“Monsieur is là-bas, in the wood,” said old Picard, as Beatrix, with trembling hand, filled him a cup of coffee; “we shall see him presently, and he will take déjeuner with us. I do not account this a day of any importance. You were wise to remain, Madame—wise and brave.”
She smiled at his compliment.
“I am brave because there is no danger. You think that there is none, then, Monsieur Picard?”
There was a note of anxiety in the question which she could not hide from him. No moment spared her. A voice said always that Edmond might never return to the châlet.
Old Picard observed it and turned to banter again.
“I think it, Madame?—I think nothing. That is for the generals of France, who will begin presently. Why should I do their work when there is good coffee at the Niederwald, and Madame Lefort is happy there? I am the man in the fauteuil. When the play begins I will applaud or hiss as the mood takes me.”
He dipped his bread into the bowl and made a pretence of eating ravenously. But her own cup was unlifted. She gazed over the valley with eyes full of pity for France and her people, and the children of the woods.
“I cannot believe it,” she said earnestly. “I cannot believe that men are to die to-day—”
“Do not think of it, my child. They die every day. Is our coffee less good for that? Ask Monsieur when he comes home to-night—”
She buried her face in her hands.
“God grant that he will come home, Monsieur Picard!”
The old man stood up and bared his head to the generous sunshine.
“Amen to that, my child—God save all dear to us.”
For a little while there was silence between them, but anon, a thunderous report of cannon began to resound on their own side of the stream, and at the first discharge both rose to their feet. When the smoke from the guns had rolled away they could see the river again. Little dark figures, the figures of Bavarians, were on its banks now. All about the old mill in the marsh, puffs of white smoke were making clouds for the cloudless day.
Old Jules Picard watched the scene with devouring eyes. The lid of his snuff-box snapped incessantly.
“They are Prussians, my child,” he exclaimed; “they are crossing the river to kill those who defend our homes. Some of them will not go back. I count ten—eleven—twelve. Ah, one is up again! And it is at the mill, then. Ma foi, if my eyes were not so old!”
He stood quite still with his excitement for a moment, and then turned eagerly to her.
“It would be a mile from here where we could see it, Madame. A mile nearer to Monsieur, votre mari. He has forbidden it, but you may wish it. Ah, Madame, if you should wish it!”
A strange light filled her eyes. Woman that she was, a desire of battle was already in her heart. She would see Edmond’s victory. She would be nearer to him.
“Where you will,” she said quickly, “if only the day could end—now. If only one could know—”
He led her by the hand from the garden, and they brought her pony to the gate.
“I prescribe knowledge, Madame,” said he. “It is those who wait that suffer.”
Side by side the old man encouraging her, the girl very silent, yet with courage in her heart, they passed through the woods towards that height above the Sauer where the battle-field would reward them. For some way the thickets muffled all sounds to their ears. They met a regiment of the line marching quickly. Here and there in the woods infantry stood waiting; some busy with their rifles, some white with fear, some with prayers upon their lips. Artillery waggons thundered down the road to the valley. Where the woods were riven apart by gully and chasm the vineyards could be seen, green and golden in the sunlight. The roar of battle burst upon them in such moments. It was lost once more when again they entered the glade. And the path carried them upward now. They struck upon a woodland track so narrow that old Picard must follow her at hazard, complaining of his horse. At the end of it the thickets terminated abruptly in a little plateau of grass land. The battle-field of Wörth was before them. They looked down upon it as from a watch-tower of the heights.
The valley spread out below them as a golden river in the heart of the hills intensely green. They could see the town of Wörth, the river winding through it, the great outstanding mount at Froeschweiler. Villages stood up as little white pictures against the background of maize and vines. There were brooks and mills at the foot of the slope before them—but, everywhere along those miles of valley road, the blue tunics and the red breeches of the soldiers of France were visible. Now dashing forward at the charge; now deploying and seeking the shelter of mound and hill; now marching through the villages; those little blue and red figures were as men that moved upon some mighty board. Impossible to believe that they were to slay and be slain; that the destinies of a nation followed the puffs of white smoke and the concatenation of terrible sounds which marked their path. For those upon the heights, distance put a mask upon the face of death. The girl’s heart beat fast, but it was with hope. The eyes of the old man were lighted as the eyes of an animal which hunts its prey.
“Did not I say that I prescribed knowledge, Madame?” he cried, pointing joyfully with his lean finger to the spectacle below; “and here is the medicine. Look well at it, for you will never see its like. The army of France—it is there. The glory of France—it is there also. You cannot understand that, my child, you who are not a Frenchwoman. You do not know why an old man’s cheeks are red. Ma foi—that I must sit here—I, whose father was at Jena.”
She did not hear him. There was a hard expression upon her face very foreign to it.
“Where is the cavalry?” she asked. “Where is Edmond?”
He pointed southward to a thicket distant from them a mile or more.
“Lartigue is there with the eighth and ninth cuirassiers and two squadrons of the lancers. Your husband is with him, be sure of it. He could not find a safer place. There will be nothing for him to do to-day. Look how those black fellows run. Ma foi!—they are crossing the river again—those that have the legs. They fall like the trees—I count fifty. Ah, what a thing to tell your children, Madame, that the Prussians ran at Wörth.”
She had been looking at the wood wherein the lancers stood, but now she turned, and down at the valley’s heart the spectacle rewarded her. A great veil of smoke was lifted from the mill in the marsh, and beneath it she beheld the red and blue line advancing and still advancing, while black figures were seen to stumble and to fall, and the roar of the guns upon the height was as a crash of doom. A surpassing joy of the glory of France came to her. These men who advanced with terrible cries and bayonets brandished, they were driving the enemy from the place where Edmond stood. She cared not that dead and dying lay in their path. The faint cries of ultimate agony which were heard at the watching place were nothing to her. Edmond was not there. The victory was being won. He would come back to her.
Old Jules Picard talked always, but she did not listen to him. The wavering lines, retreating, advancing, fascinated her beyond any spectacle she had ever beheld. A battery of artillery, crashing through the wood behind them, seemed a new tribute to the glory of her new country. She did not quail when the guns belched flame and the shot hurtled toward the distant hills. The answering note from the German guns beyond the Sauer inspired her to an emotion as of defiance. A shell of theirs cutting the branches of a tree and sending a shower of brown leaves upon her pony left her with flaming cheeks and laughter in her eyes.
“They run away—they run from Wörth,” she cried delightedly, “and they are firing at us! Is it not splendid, Monsieur Picard? Do you not understand now why men can say that war is a noble thing? Oh, I do. If one could remember the children and the homes of France and forget everything else. Who could be a coward then?”
She sat with glistening eyes and fast-beating heart, and he applauded her.
“Ah,” he said, “if it were the children of France and not the adventurers! If one were quite sure that the Prussians ran, Madame.”
“But I see them!”
“As the tide of the sea, my child—now a little way receding, now surging again; but the tenth wave, that is the fellow. Look well at Wörth and tell me what you make of it. Those black helmets were beyond the river an hour ago. Now they are coming through the vineyards—they creep up inch by inch; the dead lie thick, but the living do not heed them. Is the battle won because our soldiers are brave, because there are blue coats and red breeches in the valleys? Ah!—if the wish could help us.”
A strange gloom took possession of him. He sat very still upon his horse, and she, in turn, began for the first time to experience a vague doubt which she had not known before, even when Edmond left her at the châlet. How, indeed, if a nation should rejoice upon a victory to-morrow and that nation should not be France? How, if the Prussians really were creeping up those declivities towards the woods and her home? The belching guns, which made the earth tremble about her, were no longer living forces for the glory of her country. She began to fear them. She started when a spent bullet brought down a branch from the tree beside her. She was conscious of danger, and it appalled her.
“Monsieur Picard,” she said, “let us go—I believe I am afraid.”
He awoke from his lethargy.
“You are right to be afraid, my child; nevertheless—”
He half wheeled his horse and then turned him back again.
“Nevertheless, Madame, there is Captain Lefort with his regiment. They are about to charge. Do you wish to go now?”
She did not speak. An icy chill crept over her. She feared to look, yet dare not turn her eyes away. The ambulance passed close by her, with a wounded gunner, his breast open and bleeding, to be seen in the winding sheet. A great pity for the man brought tears to her eyes. If they should carry her lover as that brave fellow was being carried!
Trumpets were blaring then in the valley below. It was the crisis of the day. The cuirassiers, and with them the squadrons of the lancers, rode out from the shelter of the woods to charge the Prussians who were swarming in the gardens above the villages.