The King, in a few words, had just asked for some information. He wished to know every move that was made, hold in his hand, as it were, the human dust that he commanded on that colossal chessboard. On his right a flight of swallows, frightened by the cannonade, rose whirling, ascended to a great height, and vanished southward.
Henriette was at first able to walk rapidly along the road leading to Balan. It was barely more than nine o'clock, and for some distance the broad paved highway, edged with houses and gardens, was still free; though towards the village it was becoming more and more obstructed by the flight of the inhabitants and the movements of the troops. At each fresh stream of the crowd that she encountered, she pressed close against the walls, or glided hither and thither, invariably contriving to pass on, no matter what obstacles there might be. And slight of figure as she was, unobtrusive, too, in her dark dress, with her beautiful fair hair and her little pale face half-hidden by Gilberte's black lace fichu, she escaped the notice of those she met; and nothing was able to stay her light and silent steps.
At Balan, however, she found the road barred by a regiment of Marine Infantry—a compact mass of men who were waiting for orders, under the shelter of some large trees which hid them from the enemy. She rose on tip-toe, but the column was of such length that she could not even see the end of it. Nevertheless, she tried to slip by, seeking to make herself even smaller than she was. Elbows pushed her back, however; the butt-ends of guns digged her in the sides, and when she had taken a score of steps, loud shouts and protests rose up around her. A captain turned his head and angrily demanded: 'Here! woman, are you mad? Where are you going?'
'I am going to Bazeilles.'
'What! to Bazeilles?'
A general roar of laughter ensued. The men pointed her out to one another, and jested. The captain, whom her answer had also enlivened, exclaimed: 'Well, if you are going to Bazeilles you ought to take us with you, little one! We were there just now, and I hope we are going to return there. But I warn you that it's warm.'
'I am going to Bazeilles to join my husband,' declared Henriette in a gentle voice, her pale blue eyes retaining their expression of quiet decision.
At this the men ceased laughing; and an old sergeant extricated her from the ranks and compelled her to retrace her steps. 'You can see very well, my poor child,' said he, 'that it is impossible for you to pass. It isn't a woman's place to be at Bazeilles just now. You'll find your husband again later on. Come, be reasonable!'
She had to give way, and step back to the rear of the column; and there she remained standing, at each minute rising upon tip-toe to look along the road; for she was stubbornly bent upon resuming her journey as soon as this became possible. From the talk around her she derived some knowledge of the situation. Several officers were bitterly complaining of the orders to retreat which had caused them to abandon Bazeilles at a quarter-past eight that morning, when General Ducrot on succeeding the marshal had resolved to concentrate the entire army upon the plateau of Illy. The worst was that the First Corps in surrendering the valley of the Givonne to the Germans, had fallen back too soon, so that the Twelfth Corps, already hotly attacked in front, had also been overlapped on the left. And, now that General de Wimpffen had succeeded General Ducrot, the original plan was again in the ascendant, and orders were coming to reconquer Bazeilles at any cost, and to throw the Bavarians into the Meuse. Was it not really idiotic, however, that they should have had to abandon this position, and now have to reconquer it when it was in possession of the enemy? They were quite willing to give their lives, but not for the mere fun of doing so.
All at once there was a great rush of men and horses, and General de Wimpffen galloped up, erect in his stirrups, his face aglow and his voice greatly excited as he shouted: 'We cannot fall back, my lads; it would be the end of everything. If we must retreat we will retire on Carignan and not on Mézières. But we will win! You beat them this morning, and you will beat them again!'
Then away he galloped, going off by a road that ascended towards La Moncelle; and the rumour spread that he had just had a violent discussion with General Ducrot, during which each had upheld his own plan and attacked the other's; one declaring that a retreat on Mézières had been an impossibility since the night before, whilst the other predicted that if they did not now retire to the plateau of Illy the entire army would be surrounded before evening. And they also accused one another of knowing neither the district nor the real state of the troops. The worst was, that both of them were in the right.
For a moment or so, pressing as was Henriette's desire to go forward, her attention had been diverted from her purpose. She had just recognised some fugitives from Bazeilles stranded by the roadside—a family of poor weavers, the husband, the wife and their three girls, the eldest of whom was only nine years old. They were so overcome, so utterly distracted by weariness and despair, that they had been able to go no farther, but had sunk down against a wall. 'Ah! my dear lady,' said the woman to Henriette, 'we have nothing left. Our house, you know, was on the Place de l'Eglise. A shell set it on fire, and I don't know how the children and we two didn't leave our lives there.'
At this remembrance the three little girls again began sobbing and shrieking, whilst the mother, with the gestures of one deranged, gave a few particulars of their disaster: 'I saw the loom burn like a faggot of dry wood,' said she; 'the bed, the furniture flamed up faster than straw—and there was the clock too; yes, the clock which I didn't even have time to carry away with me.'
'Thunder!' swore the man, with his eyes full of big tear-drops, 'what on earth will become of us?'
To tranquillise them, Henriette replied in a voice that quivered slightly: 'At all events, you are together; neither of you has come to any harm, and you have your little girls with you too. You must not complain.'
Then she began to question them, anxious to know what was taking place at Bazeilles, whether they had seen her husband there, and what had been the condition of her house at the time they came away. In their shivering fright, however, they gave contradictory answers. No, they had not seen Monsieur Weiss. But at this, one of the little girls declared that she had seen him; he was lying on the footway, said she, with a big hole in his head. Her father thereupon gave her a smack to teach her not to tell such stories, for a story it was, undoubtedly. As for the house, that must have been standing when they came away; in fact, they now remembered noticing, as they passed it, that the door and the windows were all carefully closed, as if nobody were there. Besides, at that time, the Bavarians were only in possession of the Place de l'Eglise, and they had to conquer the village, street by street, house by house. Since then, however, they must have made no little progress, and at the present time, no doubt, all Bazeilles was on fire.[27] And the wretched couple continued talking of all these things with fumbling gestures of fear, evoking the whole frightful vision of flaming roofs, flowing blood, and corpses strewing the ground.
'And my husband?' repeated Henriette.
They no longer answered her, however; they were sobbing, with their hands before their eyes. And she remained there consumed by atrocious anxiety, but erect and without weakening, merely a faint quiver causing her lips to tremble. What ought she to believe? In vain did she repeat that the child must have been mistaken; still and ever she seemed to see her husband lying across the road with a bullet in his head. Then, too, she was disquieted on thinking of the house where, so it seemed, every shutter was closed. Why was that? Was he no longer there? All at once a conviction that he was dead froze her heart to the core. Perhaps, though, he was only wounded, and at this thought her urgent longing to go there and be with him seized hold of her once more, and so imperiously that she would again have tried to make her way through the ranks of the soldiers had not the bugles at that moment sounded the advance.
Many of the young fellows gathered together here had come from Toulon, Rochefort, or Brest, barely drilled, without ever having fired a shot in their lives, and yet they had been fighting since the morning as bravely and as stoutly as veterans. They, who had marched so badly from Rheims to Mouzon, weighed down by the unwonted task, were proving themselves the best disciplined, the most fraternally united of all the troops—linked together in presence of the enemy by a solid bond of duty and abnegation. The bugles had merely to sound and they were returning to the fight, marching once more to the attack despite all the anger that swelled their veins. Thrice had they been promised the support of a division which did not come, and they felt that they were being abandoned, sacrificed. To send them back to Bazeilles, like this, after making them evacuate the village, was equivalent indeed to asking each one of them for his life. And they all knew it, and they all gave their lives without a thought of revolting. The ranks closed up, and they advanced beyond the trees that screened them, to find themselves once more among the bullets and the shells.
Henriette gave a deep sigh of relief. So at last they were marching! She followed, hoping to reach Bazeilles in company with the troops, and quite prepared to run, should they, on their side, do so. But they had already halted again. The enemy's projectiles were now fairly raining around them, and to reoccupy Bazeilles each yard of the road had to be conquered, the lanes, houses, and gardens recaptured both on the right and on the left. The men in the first ranks had opened fire, and they now only advanced by fits and starts, long minutes being consumed in overcoming the slightest obstacles. And Henriette soon realised that she would never get there if she continued remaining in the rear waiting for victory. So she made up her mind, and threw herself between two hedges on the right hand, taking a path that descended towards the meadows.
Her project now was to get to Bazeilles by way of those vast pasture-lands skirting the Meuse. But she had no very distinct idea how she should manage this, and all at once she found her way barred by a little sea of still water. It was the inundation, the defensive lake formed by flooding the low ground, which she had altogether forgotten. For a moment she thought of retracing her steps; then, skirting the edge of the water, at the risk of leaving her shoes in the mud, she continued on her way through the drenched grass, in which she sank up to her ankles. This was practicable for a hundred yards or so; but she was then confronted by a garden wall. The ground descended at this spot, and the water washing the wall was quite six feet in depth. So it was impossible to pass that way. She clenched her little fists, and had to put forth all her strength to bear up against this crushing disappointment and refrain from bursting into tears. However, when the first shock was over, she skirted the inclosure and found a lane running along between some scattered houses. And she now thought herself saved, for she was acquainted with that labyrinth, those bits of tangled paths whose skein, perplexing though it was, ended at last at the village.
So far there had been no shells to impede her progress, but all at once, with her blood curdling and her face very pale, she stopped short amid the deafening thunderclap of a frightful explosion, the blast of which enveloped her. A projectile had just burst a few yards ahead. She looked round and examined the heights on the left bank of the river, where the smoke of the German batteries was ascending to the sky; then realising whence the shell had come, she once more started off, with her eyes fixed upon the horizon, watching for the projectiles so as to avoid them. Despite the mad temerity of her journey she retained great sang-froid, all the brave tranquillity that her little housewife's soul was capable of showing. Her desire was to escape death, to find her husband, and bring him away that they might yet live together and be happy. The shells were now falling without a pause, and she glided along close to the walls, threw herself behind border-stones, and took advantage of every nook that afforded the slightest shelter. But at last there came an open space, a stretch of broken-up road which was already covered with splinters; and she was waiting at the corner of a shed, when all at once, level with the ground, she espied a child's inquisitive face peeping out of a hole. It was a little boy some ten years old, barefooted, and wearing simply a shirt and a pair of tattered trousers—some ragamuffin of the roads whom the battle was greatly amusing. His narrow black eyes were sparkling with delight, and at each detonation he gleefully exclaimed: 'Oh! how funny they are! Don't move, there's another one coming! Boum! Didn't that one make a row? Don't move! Don't move!' And, for his own part, he would dive into his hole, reappear raising his wren-like head, and then dive again each time a projectile fell.[28]
Henriette now remarked that the shells were coming from the Liry hill, and that the batteries of Pont-Maugis and Noyers were firing only on Balan. She could distinctly perceive the smoke of each discharge, and almost immediately afterwards she heard the hissing of the shell, followed by the detonation. A short pause must have occurred in the firing, for at last she could only see some light vapour which was slowly dispersing.
'They must be drinking a glass,' said the youngster; 'make haste, give me your hand; we'll get off.'
He took her hand and forced her to follow him, and bending low they both galloped, side by side, across the open space. At its farther extremity, as they were throwing themselves for shelter behind a rick, they glanced round and saw another shell arrive, which fell right upon the shed, at the very spot where they had been waiting a moment before. The crash was frightful, the shed itself fell in a heap to the ground.
At this spectacle the urchin danced with senseless delight, considering it extremely funny. 'Bravo! there's a smash! All the same, it was time we crossed!'
And now Henriette, for a second time, came upon impassable obstacles—garden walls with never a lane between them. Her little companion, however, kept on laughing, and declared that it was easy enough to pass if one chose to do so. Climbing on to the coping of a wall he assisted her over, and they jumped down into a kitchen garden among beds of beans and peas. There were walls all round, and in order to get out again they had to pass through a gardener's low house. Whistling and swinging his arms, the lad went on ahead, showing no surprise at anything he saw. He opened a door, found himself in a room, and made his way into another one, where an old woman, probably the only living creature who had remained in the place, was standing near a table with a look of stupor. She gazed at these two strangers who were thus passing through her house; but she did not say a word to them, nor did they speak to her. Once out of the house they found themselves in a lane which for a moment they were able to follow. Then, however, came other obstacles, and for half a mile or more, according to the chances of the road they contrived to make for themselves, it was frequently necessary to climb over walls or creep through gaps in hedges, and pass out by cart-shed doors, or ground-floor windows, by way of taking a short cut. They could hear dogs howling, and once they were almost knocked down by a cow, which was fleeing at a mad gallop. However, they must have been getting nigh, for a smell of fire was wafted to them, and large stretches of ruddy smoke were every minute veiling the sun, like light, wavy fragments of crape.
All at once, however, the urchin stopped, and, confronting Henriette, inquired: 'I say, Madame, pray where are you going like that?'
'You can see very well. I'm going to Bazeilles.'
He whistled and burst into a shrill laugh, like a scapegrace playing the truant from school, and having a fine time of it: 'To Bazeilles! Oh! that's not my direction. I'm going another way. Good day.'
And thereupon he turned on his heels and went off as he had come, and she never knew where he had sprung from or whither he went. She had found him in a hole, and she lost sight of him round a corner, and never set eyes upon him again.
Henriette experienced a singular sensation of fear when she once more found herself alone. No doubt that puny child had scarcely been of any protection, but his chatter had diverted her thoughts. And now she, who was naturally so brave, had begun to tremble. The shells were no longer falling, the Germans had ceased firing on Bazeilles, no doubt for fear of killing their own men, who were masters of the village. But for a few minutes already she had heard the whistling of bullets, that blue-bottle kind of buzzing which she had been told about, and recognised. So confused were all the noises of the rageful fight afar off, so violent was the universal clamour, that she could not distinguish the crackling of the fusillade. All at once, whilst she was turning the corner of a house, a dull thud resounding near her ear abruptly arrested her steps. A bullet had chipped some plaster from the corner of the house-front, and she turned very pale. Then, before she had time to ask herself if she would have sufficient courage to persevere, it seemed to her as though she were struck on the forehead by a blow from a hammer, and she fell on both knees, half stunned. A second bullet, in ricochetting, had grazed her forehead just above the left eyebrow, badly bruising it, and carrying away a strip of skin. And when she withdrew her hands which she had raised to her forehead, she found them red with blood. Beneath her fingers, however, she had felt her skull intact, quite firm; and to encourage herself she repeated aloud: 'It is nothing, it is nothing. Come, I am surely not frightened; no, I am not frightened.'
And 'twas true; she picked herself up, and henceforth walked on among the bullets with the indifference of one detached from herself, who has ceased to reason and gives her life. And she no longer even sought to protect herself, but went straight before her with her head erect, hastening her steps only because of her desire to reach her destination. The projectiles were falling and flattening around her, and she narrowly missed being killed a score of times without apparently being aware of it. Her lightsome haste, her silent feminine activeness seemed to assist her as it were, to render her so slight and so agile amid the peril that she escaped it. At last she had arrived at Bazeilles, and she at once cut across a field of lucern to reach the high road which passes through the village. Just as she was turning into it, on her right hand, a couple of hundred paces away, she recognised her house, which was burning, the flames not showing in the brilliant sunlight, but the roof already half fallen in, and the windows vomiting big whirling coils of black smoke. Then a gallop carried her along; she ran breathlessly.
At eight o'clock, Weiss had found himself shut up there, separated from the retreating troops. Immediately afterwards it had become impossible for him to return to Sedan, for the Bavarians, streaming forth from the park of Montivilliers, intercepted the road. He was alone, with his gun and his remaining cartridges, when he suddenly espied at his door a small detachment of soldiers, who, parted from their comrades, had remained behind like himself, and were seeking some place of shelter where they might, at any rate, sell their lives dearly. He hastily went down to open the door, and the house henceforth had a garrison: a captain, a corporal, and eight men, all of them beside themselves, quite maddened, and resolved upon no surrender.
'What! are you one of us, Laurent?' exclaimed Weiss, surprised to see among the soldiers a young man in blue linen trousers and jacket, who carried a chassepot which he had picked up beside some corpse.
Laurent, a tall, thin fellow, thirty years of age, was a journeyman gardener of the neighbourhood. He had lately lost his mother and his wife, both carried away by the same malignant fever. 'Why shouldn't I be one of you?' he answered. 'I've only my carcase left, and I can very well give it. Besides, it amuses me, you know, for I'm not a bad shot, and it would be good sport to bring down one of those brutes each time I fire.'
Meanwhile, the captain and the corporal had already begun to inspect the house. Nothing could be done on the ground floor, so they contented themselves with pushing a quantity of furniture before the door and the windows, with the view of barricading them as stoutly as possible. Then they organised the defence in the three little rooms on the first floor and the garret up above; approving, by the way, of the preparations that Weiss had already made, the mattresses placed against the shutters, and the loopholes devised in the latter between the transverse laths. Whilst the captain was venturing to peep out to examine the surroundings, he heard a child calling and crying. 'Who's that?' he asked.
Then Weiss, in his mind's eye, again espied poor little Auguste in the adjacent dyeworks, his face purple with fever as he lay between his white sheets asking for something to drink, and calling for his mother, who could never more answer him; for she was lying across the tiled threshold with her head smashed to pieces. And as this vision rose up before him he made a sorrowful gesture, and replied: 'It's a poor little fellow whose mother has been killed by a shell, and who is crying there, next door.'
'Thunder!' muttered Laurent. 'What a price we shall have to make them pay for it all!'
As yet only some stray bullets had struck the house-front. Weiss and the captain, accompanied by the gardener and two soldiers, had gone up to the garret, whence they could keep watch over the road. They could see it obliquely as far as the Place de l'Eglise, which was now in the possession of the Bavarians, who only continued advancing, however, with great difficulty and extreme caution. A handful of soldiers, at the corner of a lane, kept them at bay during nearly a quarter of an hour, with so galling a fire that there was soon quite a heap of slain. Then, at the other corner, there was a house which they had to secure possession of before proceeding any farther. At one moment, as the smoke blew off, a woman could be espied firing with a gun from one of the windows. It was the house of a baker; some other soldiers had been forgotten there, mingled with the occupants; and when the place was at last captured by the foe, loud shouts resounded, and a frightful scramble whirled to the wall over the way—a rush, amid which the woman's skirt and a man's jacket and bristling white hair suddenly appeared to view. Then came the sound of platoon firing, and blood spurted to the coping of the wall. The Germans were inflexible; every person, not belonging to the belligerent forces, who was captured with arms in his hand, was shot down there and then, as having placed himself beyond the pale of the law of nations. And their wrath was rising in presence of the furious resistance offered by the village. The frightful losses they had sustained during nearly five hours' combat urged them on to atrocious reprisals. The gutters were running red with blood, corpses were barring the streets, and some crossways were like charnel-houses, whence the rattle of death could be heard ascending to the sky. And they were seen to throw lighted straw into each house they carried by force. Some of them ran about with torches, others smeared the walls with petroleum, and soon entire streets were on fire—Bazeilles blazed.
At last, in the central part of the village there only remained Weiss's house, with its closed shutters, that retained the threatening appearance of a citadel resolved upon no surrender.
'Attention! here they come,' exclaimed the captain.
A volley from the garret and the first-floor stretched on the ground three of the Bavarians who were stealthily advancing close to the walls. The others thereupon fell back, placing themselves in ambush at the corners of the road, and the siege of the house began, such a shower of bullets pelting the front that one might have thought there was a hailstorm. For nearly ten minutes this fusillade went on without cessation, denting the plaster without doing much damage. One of the two soldiers, whom the captain had taken with him into the garret, imprudently showed himself, however, at a dormer window, and was instantly killed by a bullet, which struck him full in the forehead.
'Curse it! that's one less!' growled the captain. 'Be cautious, we are not numerous enough to get ourselves killed for the fun of the thing.' He himself had taken a chassepot, and was firing from behind a shutter.
Laurent, the gardener, particularly excited his admiration. On his knees, as though he were stalking game, with the barrel of his gun resting in a narrow loophole, the young fellow only fired when he was sure of bringing down his man, and he himself predicted the result of each shot before it took effect. 'That little blue officer over there,' said he, 'in the heart. That other one, the skinny chap, farther off, between the eyes. That fat fellow with the carroty beard—I can't stand him—in the stomach.'
And the man he named invariably fell, struck in the very spot he had mentioned; and he quietly continued firing, without the least haste, having plenty of work before him, as he said, and requiring, indeed, more time than he could command, to pick them all off in that fashion.
'Ah! if I could only see,' Weiss kept on repeating, in a furious voice. He had just broken his spectacles, and was in despair at this untimely accident. Certainly, he still had his eye-glasses, but with the perspiration that was streaming down his face he was unable to fix them firmly on his nose; and in a feverish state, with his hands trembling, he frequently fired quite at random. Increasing passion was now sweeping away all that remained of his accustomed calmness.
'Don't be in such a hurry; it does no good,' remarked Laurent. 'There! see that one who no longer has his helmet, at the corner by the grocer's. Aim at him carefully. Why! that's first rate; you have broken his leg! See how he's floundering about in his blood.'
Weiss, who was rather pale, looked at the man, and muttered, 'Finish him off.'
'Waste a bullet? Not if I know it! Far better bring down another one.'
The attacking party had observed the galling fire directed upon them from the garret windows. Not one of their men could advance without being hit, and accordingly they brought up some fresh troops, who received orders to riddle the roof with bullets. The garret then became altogether untenable. The slates were transpierced as easily as though they had been mere sheets of paper; and, with a buzzing like that of bees, the projectiles flew into the attic here, there, and everywhere. At each moment the defenders were in danger of being killed.
'Let's go down,' said the captain. 'We can still hold out on the first floor.' As he was stepping towards the ladder, however, a bullet struck him in the groin and he fell: 'Too late! Curse it!' he muttered.
With the help of the remaining soldier, Weiss and Laurent insisted upon carrying him down, although he told them not to waste time in attending on him. His account was settled, he remarked, and he might just as well kick the bucket up there as down below. However, when they had laid him on a bed, in a room on the first floor, he became desirous of still directing the defence.
'Fire into the lot of them—don't trouble about anything else. They are too prudent to risk coming forward as long as your fire doesn't slacken.'
And, indeed, the siege of the little house continued as though it were to last for ever. A score of times it seemed upon the point of being carried by the tempest of lead that assailed it; but through the hurricane and the smoke it again and again appeared to view, still standing, dented, perforated, and lacerated, but none the less vomiting bullets from every aperture. Exasperated at losing so many men, at being kept so long at bay by such a paltry shanty, the assailants were fairly howling with rage, but they continued firing from a distance, lacking the courage to rush forward and burst open the door and windows below.
'Look out!' suddenly exclaimed the corporal; 'a shutter is falling.'
The violence of the bullets had, indeed, torn one of the shutters from its hinges. Weiss, however, darted forward, pushing a wardrobe against the window, and Laurent, in ambush behind it, was able to continue firing. One of the soldiers, whose jaw had been shattered, was lying at his feet losing a great quantity of blood. Another, hit by a bullet in the throat, rolled over to the wall, beside which he lay with a convulsive shudder shaking him from head to foot, whilst from his parted lips escaped an endless rattle. Without counting the captain, who—lying on the bedstead with his back resting against the head of it—was already too weak to speak, but still gave some orders by signs—there were at present only eight of them left. And now the three rooms on the first floor were, like the garret, becoming untenable, for the mattresses had been reduced to shreds, and no longer kept out the projectiles; at each moment bits of plaster fell from the walls and the ceiling, corners were chipped off the articles of furniture, whilst the wardrobe was being slit and rent as though with a hatchet. Worst of all, however, ammunition was failing.
'What a pity!' growled Laurent; 'it's been going on so well.'
'Wait a bit!' replied Weiss, as an idea flashed through his mind.
He had just remembered the dead soldier lying in the garret upstairs, and he went up to search the body and take the cartridges that must be upon it. He found that a large piece of the roof had now fallen in, and he could see the blue sky, a bright sunshiny expanse, at sight of which he was very much astonished. To avoid being killed he dragged himself over the floor on his knees, and when he had secured the cartridges, some thirty or thereabouts, he made all haste and bounded down again.
Whilst he was dividing these new supplies with the gardener, however, one of the soldiers gave a shriek and fell on his knees. There were now only seven, and a moment afterwards there were only six of them left, for the corporal was hit in the left eye by a bullet, which blew out his brains.
From that moment Weiss was no longer conscious of anything. He and the five others continued firing like madmen, consuming the remaining cartridges without a thought even of the possibility of surrendering. The tiled floors of the three little rooms were now littered with remnants of furniture. Corpses blocked the doorways, and in one corner a wounded man was giving vent to a frightful, continuous moan. Wherever they stepped blood stuck to the soles of their shoes; and some of it, after coursing through the rooms, was even trickling down the staircase. Moreover, it was no longer possible to breathe up there; the atmosphere was dense and hot with powder-smoke, a pungent, nauseating dust plunging them into almost complete obscurity, which was streaked, however, by a ruddy flame each time a shot was fired.
'Thunder!' exclaimed Weiss; 'why, they are bringing cannon!'
It was true. Despairing of reducing the handful of madmen, who thus delayed their advance, the Bavarians were now placing a gun in position at the corner of the Place de l'Eglise. And the honour thus shown them, that artillery pointed at them from over yonder, made the besieged furiously mirthful. They jeered contemptuously: Ah! those dirty cowards with their cannon! Laurent, meanwhile, was still on his knees, carefully aiming at the gunners and bringing a man down at each shot he fired, so that for a time the gun could not be worked; in fact, five or six minutes elapsed before the first discharge. And even then, the gun being pointed too high, merely a strip of the roof was carried away.
But the end was at hand. In vain did they search the dead; there was not a cartridge left! Haggard and exhausted, the six men fumbled here and there, seeking for something which they might fling from the windows to crush the enemy. One of them, on showing himself at a window, vociferating and brandishing his fists, was riddled by a volley of lead, and then only five of them were left. What could they do? Go down—try to escape by way of the garden and the meadows? But at that moment there was a loud uproar below, and men streamed furiously up the stairs. The Bavarians had at last crept round the house, broken open the back door, and invaded the ground floor. A terrible mêlée ensued in the little rooms, among the corpses and the shattered furniture. The chest of one of the French soldiers was transpierced by a bayonet thrust, and the two others were taken prisoners, whilst the captain, who had just vented his last gasp, lay there with his mouth open and his arm still raised, as though to give an order.
However, a German officer, a stout, fair man, armed with a revolver, and whose bloodshot eyes seemed to be starting from his head, had caught sight of Weiss and Laurent, the one in his black coat and the other in his blue linen jacket, and savagely asked them in French: 'Who are you? What the —— are you doing here?'
Then, seeing that they were black with powder, he realised the truth, and stammering with fury, heaped insults upon them in German. He had already raised his weapon to blow their brains out, when the soldiers he commanded rushed forward, caught hold of the two civilians and pushed them before them down the stairs. The two men were carried along by the human wave which flung them upon the road, where they rolled over as far as the opposite wall, amid such vociferous shouts that the voices of the officers could be no longer heard. Then, during two or three minutes which elapsed whilst the stout fair officer was endeavouring to clear a space, in view of proceeding with their execution, they were able to pick themselves up and look about them.
Other houses were now blazing—all Bazeilles was becoming a furnace. Flames were beginning to stream through the lofty windows of the church. Some soldiers were driving an old lady out of her house after compelling her to give them some matches that they might set her bed and her curtains on fire. What with all the lighted wisps of straw flung here and there, and all the petroleum poured upon the walls, the conflagrations were spreading from street to street. It was warfare as waged by savages—savages infuriated by the duration of the struggle, and avenging their dead, their heaps of dead over whom they had to march. Bands of men were yelling amid the smoke and the sparks, amid all the fearful uproar compounded of dying groans and shrieks, falling walls, and discharges of musketry. They could scarcely see one another; large clouds of livid dust, impregnated with an insufferable stench of fat and blood, as though laden indeed with all the abominations of the massacre, flew up, obscuring the sun. And they were still killing, still destroying in every corner; the human beast was let loose, all the idiotic anger, all the furious madness of man preying upon man.
And, at last, in front of him, Weiss could see his own house burning. Soldiers had hurried up with torches, and others were feeding the flames with the remnants of the furniture. The ground floor speedily blazed, and the smoke poured forth from all the gaping wounds of the roof and the front. The adjacent dyeworks, too, were already catching fire; and—oh, the pity of it!—little Auguste, lying in bed, delirious with fever, could still be heard calling for his mother, whose skirts were beginning to burn as her corpse, with its head pounded to pieces, lay there across the threshold.
'Mother, I'm so thirsty; mother, give me some water.'
But the flames roared, the plaint ceased, and then nothing could be distinguished save the deafening hurrahs of the conquerors!
All at once, however, above every noise, above all the shouting, there arose a terrible cry. It was Henriette arriving—Henriette, who had just espied her husband standing with his back to a wall, in front of a platoon which was loading its weapons.
She sprang upon his neck: 'My God! what is it? They are not going to kill you!'
Weiss gazed at her in stupefaction. 'Twas she, his wife whom he had so long desired, whom he had adored with such idolising tenderness. And with a shudder he awoke, distracted, to the awful reality. Why had he tarried there firing upon the foe instead of returning to her, as he had sworn to do? His lost happiness flashed before his dizzy eyes; they were to be torn asunder, parted for evermore. Then he was struck by the sight of the blood upon her forehead, and in a mechanical voice he stammered, 'Are you wounded? It was madness for you to come——'
With a wild gesture, however, she interrupted him. 'Oh! me; it's nothing, a mere scratch—but you, why are they keeping you? I won't have them shoot you!'
The officer who was struggling in the middle of the obstructed road, trying to clear a space so that the platoon might fall back a few paces, turned round on hearing the sound of voices; and when he perceived the woman hanging on the neck of one of the prisoners, he again savagely shouted in French: 'No, no—no humbug, please! Where have you come from? What do you want?'
'I want my husband.'
'Your husband, that man there? He has been condemned; justice must be done.'
'I want my husband.'
'Come, be reasonable—move aside, we don't wish to do you any harm.'
'I want my husband.'
Renouncing his attempts at persuasion, the officer was about to give orders that she should be torn from the prisoner's arms, when Laurent, hitherto silent and impassive, ventured to intervene: 'I say, captain, it was I who knocked so many of your men over, and it's right enough that you should shoot me. Besides, I've nobody to think of, neither mother, nor wife, nor child—but this gentleman's married—why not let him go, and settle my affair?'
'What's that tomfoolery!' yelled the captain, quite beside himself; 'are you making fun of me? Here! a man here to take this woman away.'
He had to repeat the order in German, whereupon a soldier stepped forward, a short, broad-chested Bavarian, whose enormous head was bushy with carroty beard and hair, amidst which one could only distinguish a broad square-shaped nose, and a pair of big blue eyes. He was a frightful object, stained all over with blood, looking like some bear from a mountain cavern—one of those hairy monsters, red with the blood of the prey whose bones they have just been crunching.
'I want my husband; kill me with my husband!' repeated Henriette, in a heartrending cry.
But, dealing himself heavy blows on the chest with his clenched fist, the officer declared that he was not a murderer, and that if there were some who slaughtered the innocent, he at all events was not one of them. She had not been condemned, and he would cut off his hand rather than touch a hair of her head.
Then, as the soldier was approaching her, Henriette distractedly coiled her limbs round Weiss: 'Oh! I beseech you, dear, keep me, let me die with you.'
Weiss was shedding big tears, and without answering was trying to unloosen the unhappy woman's convulsive grasp upon his shoulder and his loins.
'Do you no longer care for me,' she pleaded, 'that you wish to die without me? Keep me here; it will tire them out, and they will shoot us both.'
He had now succeeded in detaching one of her little hands, and was pressing it to his mouth, covering it with kisses, whilst still striving to loosen the grasp of the other one.
'No, no! Keep me,' she cried, 'I want to die.'
At last, however, after infinite trouble, he held both her hands in his own. And, hitherto silent, having purposely refrained from answering her, he now said but three words: 'Farewell, dear wife!'
He himself had thrown her into the arms of the Bavarian who carried her away. She struggled and shrieked, whilst the soldier, doubtless for the purpose of calming her, gave vent to a stream of gruff words. With a violent effort she had managed to disengage her head, and she saw everything.
In less than three seconds it was over. Weiss, whose glasses had slipped down while he was parting from his wife, had hastily set them on his nose again, as though he wished to look death full in the face. He stepped back and leant against the wall, with his arms crossed; and this stout peaceable fellow, in his coat torn to shreds, had a wildly excited face, aglow with all the beauty of courage. Near him was Laurent, who had contented himself with shoving his hands into his pockets. The cruel scene, the abominableness of those savages who shot men down before the very eyes of their wives, seemed to fill him with indignation. He drew himself up, scanned the firing party, and in a contemptuous tone spat forth the words: 'You filthy pigs!'
But the officer had raised his sword, and the two men fell like logs, the gardener with his face on the ground, the book-keeper on his flank, alongside the wall. The latter, before expiring, experienced a final convulsion, his eyelids blinked, his mouth writhed. Then the officer stepped up to him, and stirred him with his foot, desirous of making sure that he was quite dead.
Henriette had seen everything: those dying eyes seeking for her, that frightful quiver of the death-pangs, that big boot pushing the corpse aside. She did not cry out, but she silently, furiously bit at what was near her mouth; and it was a hand that her teeth caught hold of. The Bavarian roared, the pain was so atrocious. He threw her down, almost felling her. Their faces met, and never was she able to forget that red hair and beard splashed with blood, and those blue eyes dilated and swimming with fury.
Later on, Henriette could not clearly remember what had happened after her husband's death. She, herself, had had but one desire, to return to his corpse, take it, and watch over it. However, as happens in nightmares, all sorts of obstacles rose up before her, staying her course at every step. Again had a brisk fusillade broken out, and there was a great stir among the German troops who occupied Bazeilles. The French Marine Infantry was, at last, again reaching the village, and the engagement began afresh with so much violence that the young woman was thrown into a lane on the left, among a crazed, terrified flock of villagers. There could be no doubt, however, as to the issue of the struggle; it was too late to reconquer the abandoned positions. During another half-hour the men of the Marine Infantry fought with the utmost desperation, sacrificing their lives in a superb, furious transport; but at each moment the foe received reinforcements which streamed forth from all sides, the meadows, the roads, and the park of Montivilliers. Nothing could now have dislodged them from that village, which they had secured at such fearful cost, where several thousands of their men were lying dead amid blood and flames. Destruction was now completing its work, the place had become but a charnel-house of scattered limbs and smoking ruins. Slaughtered, annihilated, Bazeilles was dwindling into ashes.
For a last time did Henriette espy in the distance her little house, the floors of which were falling into a vortex of fiery flakes. And ever, alongside the wall facing the house, could she see her husband's corpse. But another human stream caught her in its flow, the bugles sounded the retreat, and she was carried away, how she knew not, among the troops as they gradually fell back. And then she became as it were a thing, a mere rolling waif borne onward amid the confused tramping of a multitude that was streaming along the highway. And she was conscious of nothing further, till at last she found herself at Balan, in the house of some strangers, where she sat sobbing in a kitchen, with her head resting upon a table.
At ten o'clock the men of Captain Beaudoin's company were still lying in the cabbage field on the plateau of Algeria, whence they had not stirred since early morning. The cross fire from the batteries on the Hattoy hill and the peninsula of Iges was increasing in violence, and had again just killed a couple of soldiers; but still no orders came to advance. Were they going to remain there all day then, allowing themselves to be pounded like that, without making any attempt at fighting?
The men were no longer even able to relieve their feelings by firing their chassepots, for Captain Beaudoin had succeeded in putting a stop to that furious and useless fusillade, directed upon the little wood over yonder, where not a single Prussian seemed to have remained. The sun was now becoming most oppressive; the men fairly roasted as they lay there under the flaming sky.
Jean, on turning round, felt anxious on seeing that Maurice's head had sunk to the ground. The young fellow's eyes were closed, and his cheek was close pressed to the soil; he looked, too, extremely pale and did not stir. 'Hallo, what's up?' asked Jean.
Maurice, however, had simply fallen asleep. He had been overcome by waiting and weariness, although death was on the wing all around. When he suddenly awoke again there was a calm look in his widely opened eyes, but the scared, wavering expression of the battlefield immediately returned to them. He had no notion how long his slumber had lasted; it seemed to him as though he were emerging from delightful, infinite nihility.
'Ah! that's funny,' he muttered, 'I've been asleep—it has done me good.'
Indeed, he now felt less of that painful oppression, the bone-splitting clasp of fright upon his temples and his ribs; and he began to poke fun at Lapoulle, who had not merely been expressing anxiety about Chouteau and Loubet, ever since their disappearance, but had even talked of going to look for them. That was a fine idea; all he wanted, no doubt, was to shelter himself behind a tree and smoke a pipe there! Pache opined that the two men had been detained at the ambulance, where there was probably a lack of bearers. Ah! that business of picking up the wounded under the enemy's fire was by no means a pleasant one. Full of the superstitious notions of his native village, Pache added that it was very unlucky to touch a corpse—whoever did so would soon die.
'Thunder! will you just shut up?' cried Lieutenant Rochas, who had overheard this remark. 'Does anybody die?'
Colonel de Vineuil, erect on his big charger a few paces away, turned his head at this, and smiled for the first time that morning, Then he again subsided into his motionless attitude, still impassively waiting for orders, whilst the shells continued raining around him.
Maurice, who had now become interested in the bearers, watched them as they searched about in the various folds of the ground. A field ambulance was being installed behind a bank, at the edge of the hollow road near by, and the bearers attached to it were beginning to explore the plateau. A tent was promptly pitched whilst the necessary matériel was removed from a van waiting on the road. Instruments, apparatus, and linen were produced—the few things, in fact, that were requisite for summary dressings pending the despatch of the wounded to Sedan, whither they were sent as rapidly as could be managed. Vehicles, however, were already becoming scarce. There were only some assistant surgeons in charge of the ambulance, and it was more particularly the bearers who gave proof of a stubborn, inglorious courage. Clad in grey, with the red cross of Geneva on their caps and their arm-badges, they could be seen venturing slowly and quietly under the projectiles, as far as the spots where the soldiers had fallen. They often crawled along on hands and knees, and endeavoured to take advantage of the various ditches and hedges, of all the protection that the ground afforded, never evincing any braggardism in unnecessarily exposing themselves to peril. As soon as they found any men on the ground their laborious task began, for many of those who were lying there had simply fainted, and it was necessary to distinguish the wounded from the dead. Some men had remained face downwards, and were stifling with their mouths in pools of blood; others had their throats full of earth, as though they had bitten the ground; others, again, were lying in a heap, pell-mell, with their arms and legs contracted and their chests half crushed. The bearers carefully extricated and picked up those who were still breathing, stretching their limbs and raising their heads, which they cleaned as well as they could manage. Each bearer carried a can of water, in the use of which he was extremely sparing. And one or another of them would often be seen kneeling on the same spot for many minutes together, trying to revive some wounded man and waiting for him to open his eyes.
At fifty yards or so, on his left hand, Maurice noticed one bearer looking for the wound of a little soldier, from one of whose sleeves a streamlet of blood trickled continuously. This was a case of hæmorrhage, and the man with the red cross having at last found the wound managed to stop the flow of blood by compressing the artery. In this manner the bearers attended to all urgent cases. Whenever there was a fracture they were not only particularly careful how they moved the man, but they fixed and bandaged his damaged limb, so that his condition might not be aggravated by transport. The conveyance of the wounded to the ambulance was indeed the great affair; the bearers supported those who could still walk, and carried others either in their arms like babies or in pick-a-back fashion. At times also, according to the difficulties of the case, two, three, or four of them assembled and formed a seat with their joined hands, or carried the sufferer away in a horizontal position, by his legs and shoulders. To supplement the regulation stretchers, recourse was had to all sorts of ingenious devices; at times a stretcher would be formed by linking a couple of chassepots together with knapsack-straps. And all over the bare plateau which the shells were ploughing the bearers could be seen, now single, now in small parties, gliding along with their burdens, bending their heads, testing the ground with their feet, and displaying prudent but admirable heroism.
Whilst Maurice was watching one of them on his right hand, a thin, puny fellow, who, like some toilsome ant burdened with too large a grain of wheat, was staggering along with bended legs, carrying a heavy sergeant whose arms were entwined around his neck, he suddenly saw both men topple over and disappear amid the explosion of a shell. When the smoke had cleared off the sergeant again appeared to view, lying on his back and without any fresh wound, whereas the bearer was stretched beside him with his flank ripped open. And thereupon another bearer came up, another busy ant, who after turning his comrade over and finding him dead, again picked up the wounded sergeant and carried him away.
Maurice thereupon remarked to Lapoulle: 'Well, if you like their job better than ours, just go and lend them a hand.'
For a moment or so the batteries of St. Menges had been firing their utmost, and the hailstorm of projectiles was becoming more violent. Captain Beaudoin, who was still nervously walking up and down in front of his company, at last ventured to approach the colonel. It was pitiful, said he, that the spirits of the men should be worn out like that, by long hours of idle waiting.
'I have no orders,' stoically repeated the colonel.
Just then General Douay was again seen galloping past, followed by his staff. A few minutes previously he had met General de Wimpffen, who had hastened to this part of the field to beg him to hold out; and this he had thought he might promise to do, on the express condition, however, that the Calvary of Illy, on his right, should be defended. If the position of Illy were lost, he should be unable to answer for anything; for a retreat would then become unavoidable. General de Wimpffen declared that some troops of the First Corps were about to occupy the Calvary, and, in fact, almost immediately afterwards a regiment of Zouaves was seen to establish itself there; whereupon General Douay, feeling more at his ease, consented to send Dumont's division to the support of the Twelfth Corps, which was being hard pressed. A quarter of an hour afterwards, however, he was returning from an inspection of his left wing, which still presented a firm front, when, on raising his eyes, he gave vent to a cry of dismay, for the Calvary was bare: not a Zouave remained there. Under the terrific fire from the Fleigneux batteries the position was not tenable, and had consequently been abandoned. In despair, foreseeing the disaster that must overwhelm the army, General Douay was galloping off to rejoin his right wing, when he encountered Dumont's division falling back in disorder, panic-stricken, and mingled with some remnants of the First Corps. The latter, after its early retreat, had failed to reconquer the positions it had held at dawn, and, leaving Daigny in possession of the Saxons, and Givonne in that of the Prussian Guard, it had been obliged to proceed northwards through the wood of La Garenne, cannonaded by the batteries which the enemy planted upon every crest from one to the other end of the valley. The terrible circle of flame and iron was closing up. Whilst a portion of the Prussian Guard turned the heights and proceeded on its westward march towards Illy, the Fifth German Corps, screened by the Eleventh, which was in possession of St. Menges, still continued on its easterly course, already leaving Fleigneux behind it, and incessantly throwing its artillery forward with the most impudent temerity; its commanders being so convinced, indeed, of the ignorance and powerlessness of the French generals that they did not even wait for infantry to support their gunners. It was now midday, and the whole horizon was glowing and thundering, raining cross fires upon the Seventh and First French Corps.
And now, whilst the foe's artillery was in this wise preparing for the supreme attack on the Calvary, General Douay determined upon a last desperate effort to reconquer it. He despatched orders, threw himself in person among the fugitives of Dumont's division, and succeeded in forming a column which he hurled upon the plateau. It held out there for a few minutes, but the bullets rained so thickly, and such an avalanche of shells swept the bare, treeless fields, that a panic speedily broke out, and carried the men down the slopes again, whirling them away like bits of straw caught in a storm. The general was obstinate, however, and ordered up other regiments.
An estafette, galloping past, shouted some order to Colonel de Vineuil amid the fearful uproar. The colonel was already erect in his stirrups with his face aglow; and brandishing his sword and pointing to the Calvary, he cried: 'It's our turn at last, my boys! Forward, up yonder!'
Inspirited by the colonel's manner, the 106th set out. Beaudoin's men had been among the first to spring to their feet, jesting together, and remarking that they felt quite rusty, and had every joint clogged with earth. They had taken but a few steps, however, when so violent became the enemy's fire that they had to dive into a shelter-trench which they luckily came upon. They filed along it, bending double.
'Take care, youngster,' said Jean to Maurice; 'here's the rub. Don't show the tip of your nose even; if you do, it will surely be carried away. And get your bones well together if you don't want to drop any of them on the road. Those who come back from this affair will be lucky ones.'
Amid the buzzing, mob-like clamour that filled his head, Maurice could scarcely hear the corporal. He no longer knew whether he was afraid or not; he ran along, carried onward by the gallop of his comrades and destitute of any personal will, having but one desire, that of finishing the business at once. And so completely had he become a mere wave of this marching torrent, that he felt panic seize hold of him and was ready to take to flight as soon as a sudden recoil set in at the farther end of the trench, at view of the bare ground remaining to be climbed. The instinct of self-preservation broke loose within him; swayed by the impulses around him his muscles rebelled against his duty.
Some men were already turning back, when the colonel threw himself in their way. 'Come, my boys,' said he, 'you don't mean to grieve me like that; you are surely not going to behave like cowards! Remember, that the 106th has never recoiled; you would be the first to stain our colours!'
Urging on his horse he barred the way, expostulating in turn with each of the fugitives, and speaking of France in a voice that was tremulous with tears.
Lieutenant Rochas was so affected by the scene that he flew into a violent passion, and, raising his sword, began beating the men with it, as though it were a stick. 'You dirty curs!' he shouted, 'I'll kick you all the way up—that I will! Mind you obey orders, or I'll smash the jaw of the first man who turns tail.'
This violence, however, this idea of kicking soldiers into fighting, was not to the colonel's taste. 'No, no, lieutenant,' he said; 'they'll all follow me. Isn't that so, my boys? You won't let your old colonel face the Prussians all alone? Forward then, up yonder!'
Thereupon he set out, and they one and all followed him, feeling that he had talked to them like a father whom they could not abandon without showing themselves to be arrant cowards. And he quietly rode across the bare fields on his big charger, whilst his men scattered and spread themselves out like skirmishers, taking advantage of the slightest cover. The ground rose, and more than five hundred yards of stubble and beetroot fields had to be crossed before reaching the Calvary. Instead of the correct lines of the classical assault, such as is witnessed in sham-fighting, all that could be seen in a minute or two was the backs of the men as they bent double and glided along close to the ground, now singly, and now in little groups, now crawling on their knees, and now suddenly springing forward like insects, making their way to the summit, by dint of agility and cunning. The hostile batteries must have perceived them, for the soil was ploughed up by the shells which fell so frequently that there was no pause in the detonations. On the way five of the men were killed, and a lieutenant was cut clean in half.
Maurice and Jean were lucky enough to come upon a hedge, behind which they were able to run on without being seen. A bullet, however, here penetrated the temple of one of their comrades, who, in falling, almost tripped them up. They had to push him aside with their feet. They no longer paid any attention to the dead; there were too many of them. The horrors of the battlefield—a wounded man whom they perceived howling and holding in his entrails with both hands, a horse, which was still dragging itself along although its haunches were broken—all the frightful agonies displayed to view had ended by no longer affecting them. Their only sufferings were occasioned by the oppressive heat of the midday sun which was biting into their shoulders.
'How thirsty I am!' stammered Maurice; 'it seems as if my throat were full of soot. Can't you smell that horrible stench of burning wool?'
Jean nodded: 'It was the same at Solferino. Perhaps it's the smell of war. Wait a bit; I've still some brandy left, we'll drink a drop together.'
They quietly halted for a minute behind the hedge, but the brandy burnt their stomachs, instead of quenching their thirst. That burning taste in their mouths was quite exasperating. And, besides, they felt famished, and would willingly have devoured the half-loaf which Maurice still had in his knapsack. But was there any possibility of getting at it? Other men were each moment coming up behind them, and pushing them onward. At last, they too bounded over the last slope and found themselves upon the plateau, at the very foot of the Calvary, the old stone cross reared between two meagre lime-trees, and eaten away here and there by the wind and the rain.
'Ah, dash it! here we are at last!' Jean exclaimed; 'but the thing is to stop here.'
He was right. As Lapoulle, in a plaintive voice, remarked to the amusement of his comrades, the spot was hardly a pleasant one. And now, once again, they all stretched themselves among some stubble. Nevertheless three more men were speedily killed. A perfect hurricane was raging up there; the projectiles came from St. Menges, Fleigneux, and Givonne, in such numbers that vapour seemed to issue from the soil, as happens during a heavy storm of rain. Evidently enough, the position could not be long retained unless artillery promptly arrived to support the men who had been so daringly sent to the front. General Douay, it was said, had given orders to run up a couple of batteries of the reserve artillery; and the men looked round anxiously every moment, waiting for these guns which did not arrive.
'It's ridiculous, ridiculous!' repeated Captain Beaudoin, who had again resumed his jerky promenade. 'A regiment ought not to be sent to an exposed position like this without being at once supported.' Then, noticing a dip in the ground on his left, he called out to Rochas: 'I say, lieutenant, the company might lie down there.'
Rochas, erect and motionless, shrugged his shoulders: 'Oh! captain, here or there, it's all the same. The best is not to stir.'
Thereupon Beaudoin, who as a rule never swore, flew into a passion. 'But, d—— it, we shall all leave our carcases here,' said he; 'we can't allow ourselves to be destroyed in this fashion.'
And, getting obstinate, he determined to inspect the position which he had pointed out as a preferable one. He had not taken a dozen steps, however, when he disappeared in a sudden explosion. His right leg was smashed by a splinter of a shell, and he fell upon his back, raising a shrill cry, like a woman surprised.
'It was a dead certainty,' muttered Rochas; 'so much moving about does no good. Besides, there's no escape from fate.'
Some of the men raised themselves up on seeing their captain fall; and as he called for help, begging that they would carry him away, Jean at last ran to him, immediately followed by Maurice.
'In heaven's name, my friends, don't abandon me; carry me to the ambulance.'
'Well, sir, it won't be an easy job. However, we'll try.'
They were already concerting as to how they should lift him, when, sheltered behind the hedge which they had previously skirted, they noticed a couple of bearers who appeared to be waiting for employment. Jean and Maurice signed to them energetically and prevailed upon them to approach. If these men could only carry the captain to the ambulance without mishap, he might be saved. The road was a long one, however, and the storm of iron hail was increasing in violence.
As the bearers, after tightly bandaging the wounded limb, were carrying the captain away on their joined hands, one of his arms being passed round each of their necks, Colonel de Vineuil, who had been informed of the casualty, rode up, urging on his horse. He had a liking for the young officer, whom he had known ever since he had left St. Cyr, and he showed himself much affected. 'Keep up your courage, my poor fellow,' said he; 'it won't be anything serious. They'll save you.'
The captain made a gesture of relief, as though a great deal of courage had at last come to him. 'No, no,' he answered; 'it's all over, and I prefer it should be so. The exasperating thing is having to wait for what we cannot avoid.'
He was carried away, and the bearers were lucky enough to reach the hedge without any mishap. They swiftly skirted it with their burden, and when the colonel saw them disappear behind the clump of trees, where the ambulance was established, he gave a sigh of relief.
'But you yourself are wounded, sir,' Maurice suddenly exclaimed. He had just noticed that the colonel's left boot was covered with blood. The heel had been carried away, and a piece of leather had penetrated into the flesh of the leg.
M. de Vineuil quietly leant over his saddle and looked for a moment at his foot, which must have felt both burning hot and terribly heavy. 'Yes, yes,' he muttered, 'I caught that just now. But it's nothing, it doesn't prevent me from keeping in the saddle.' And as he rode off to take his place again at the head of his regiment, he added: 'A man can always get on when he's in the saddle and can stay there.'
The two batteries of the reserve artillery were now at last coming up, to the intense relief of the anxious soldiers, to whom it seemed as though these guns were bringing salvation, a rampart and thunder that would speedily silence the cannon of the foe over yonder. It was, moreover, a superb sight, so correctly were the batteries run up in order of battle, each gun followed by its caisson, the drivers astride the near-horses, and holding the off-horses by the bridle; the gunners seated on the boxes; and the corporals and sergeants galloping alongside in their respective places. It might have been thought they were parading, anxious to preserve the regulation distances as they dashed at full speed over the stubble, with a dull rumbling like that of a storm.
Maurice, who was again lying in a furrow, raised himself up, enraptured, and said to Jean: 'There, that is Honoré's battery on the left. I recognise the men.'
With a back-hander, Jean threw him to the ground again. 'Lie flat, and keep still,' he said.
With their cheeks resting on the soil, however, they both continued watching the battery, feeling greatly interested in the manœuvres that were being executed, and with their hearts beating quickly at sight of the calm, active bravery of the artillerymen from whom they yet expected victory.
The battery had suddenly halted on a bare summit, on their left hand, and in a moment everything was ready; the gunners sprang from the boxes and unhooked the limbers, and the drivers, leaving the pieces in position, wheeled their horses and withdrew to a distance of some fifteen yards, where they remained motionless, facing the enemy. The six guns were already levelled, set wide apart, in three sections, commanded by lieutenants, and united under the orders of a captain whose slim, extremely tall figure rose up, unluckily for him, like some conspicuous landmark. And when he had rapidly made a calculation, he was heard to exclaim: 'Sight at 1,700 yards.'
The mark was to be a Prussian battery established behind some bushes on the left of Fleigneux, and whose terrible fire was rendering the plateau of Illy untenable.
'Do you see,' again began Maurice, who was quite unable to hold his tongue, 'Honoré's gun is in the central section. There he is, leaning forward with the gun-layer—little Louis—we drank a glass together at Vouziers, as you may remember. And that driver over there who sits so stiffly on his horse, a beautiful chestnut, is Louis' chum, Adolphe.'
The whole stream of men, horses and matériel, was disposed in a straight line about a hundred yards in depth. First was the gun with its six gunners and its quartermaster,[29] farther off the limber and its four horses and its pair of drivers; then the caisson with its six horses and its three drivers; further still the ammunition and forage waggons and the field smithy; whilst the spare caissons and spare men and horses, provided to fill up any gaps in the battery, waited at some distance on the right, so that they might not be unnecessarily exposed in the enfilade of the firing.
Honoré was now attending to the loading of his gun. Two of his men were already bringing the charge and the projectile from the caisson, over which the corporal and the artificer were watching; and two other gunners, after inserting the serge-covered charge by the muzzle, at once rammed it carefully into position and then slipped in the shell, the points of which grated as they slid along the grooves. Then the assistant gun-layer, after pricking the cartridge with the priming-wire, swiftly applied the match to the touch-hole. Honoré was desirous of aiming this first shot himself, and half-lying on the block-trail, he worked the regulating screw to obtain the correct range, indicating the proper direction by a gentle, continuous wave of the hand, whilst the gun-layer, holding the lever behind him, imperceptibly moved the piece more to the right or more to the left.
'That must be right,' said Honoré, rising up.
The captain, with his lofty figure bent double, inspected the sighting. At each piece the assistant gun-layer was in position, holding the lanyard in readiness to pull the saw-like blade that ignited the fulminate. And the command was then given slowly, and in due order: 'Number one, fire! Number two, fire!'
The six shells were hurled into space, the guns recoiled and were brought back into position, whilst the quartermasters noted that their fire had not nearly reached the required distance. They rectified it; the practice began afresh in the same orderly fashion as before; and it was this precise routine, this mechanical labour that needed to be calmly and deliberately accomplished, that sustained the men's firmness. That beloved creature, the gun, grouped a little family around her, whose members were closely united by the bonds of a common occupation. The gun was indeed the connecting link, the one object of concern; it was for her that they all existed, the caisson, the waggons, the horses, even the men themselves. And from all this sprang the great cohesion of the battery, a steadfastness and tranquillity such as prevail in happy families.