Part Second - Chapter 2

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_ PART SECOND. CHAPTER II

In the dense fog up on the plateau of Floing Gaude, the bugler, sounded reveille at peep of day with all the lung-power he was possessed of, but the inspiring strain died away and was lost in the damp, heavy air, and the men, who had not had courage even to erect their tents and had thrown themselves, wrapped in their blankets, upon the muddy ground, did not awake or stir, but lay like corpses, their ashen features set and rigid in the slumber of utter exhaustion. To arouse them from their trance-like sleep they had to be shaken, one by one, and, with ghastly faces and haggard eyes, they rose to their feet, like beings summoned, against their will, back from another world. It was Jean who awoke Maurice.

"What is it? Where are we!" asked the younger man. He looked affrightedly around him, and beheld only that gray waste, in which were floating the unsubstantial forms of his comrades. Objects twenty yards away were undistinguishable; his knowledge of the country availed him not; he could not even have indicated in which direction lay Sedan. Just then, however, the boom of cannon, somewhere in the distance, fell upon his ear. "Ah! I remember; the battle is for to-day; they are fighting. So much the better; there will be an end to our suspense!"

He heard other voices around him expressing the same idea. There was a feeling of stern satisfaction that at last their long nightmare was to be dispelled, that at last they were to have a sight of those Prussians whom they had come out to look for, and before whom they had been retreating so many weary days; that they were to be given a chance to try a shot at them, and lighten the load of cartridges that had been tugging at their belts so long, with never an opportunity to burn a single one of them. Everyone felt that, this time, the battle would not, could not be avoided.

But the guns began to thunder more loudly down at Bazeilles, and Jean bent his ear to listen.

"Where is the firing?"

"Faith," replied Maurice, "it seems to me to be over toward the Meuse; but I'll be hanged if I know where we are."

"Look here, youngster," said the corporal, "you are going to stick close by me to-day, for unless a man has his wits about him, don't you see, he is likely to get in trouble. Now, I have been there before, and can keep an eye out for both of us."

The others of the squad, meantime, were growling angrily because they had nothing with which to warm their stomachs. There was no possibility of kindling fires without dry wood in such weather as prevailed then, and so, at the very moment when they were about to go into battle, the inner man put in his claim for recognition, and would not be denied. Hunger is not conducive to heroism; to those poor fellows eating was the great, the momentous question of life; how lovingly they watched the boiling pot on those red-letter days when the soup was rich and thick; how like children or savages they were in their wrath when rations were not forthcoming!

"No eat, no fight!" declared Chouteau. "I'll be blowed if I am going to risk my skin to-day!"

The radical was cropping out again in the great hulking house-painter, the orator of Belleville, the pothouse politician, who drowned what few correct ideas he picked up here and there in a nauseous mixture of ineffable folly and falsehood.

"Besides," he went on, "what good was there in making fools of us as they have been doing all along, telling us that the Prussians were dying of hunger and disease, that they had not so much as a shirt to their back, and were tramping along the highways like ragged, filthy paupers!"

Loubet laughed the laugh of the Parisian gamin, who has experienced the various vicissitudes of life in the Halles.

"Oh, that's all in my eye! it is we fellows who have been catching it right along; we are the poor devils whose leaky brogans and tattered toggery would make folks throw us a copper. And then those great victories about which they made such a fuss! What precious liars they must be, to tell us that old Bismarck had been made prisoner and that a German army had been driven over a quarry and dashed to pieces! Oh yes, they fooled us in great shape."

Pache and Lapoulle, who were standing near, shook their heads and clenched their fists ominously. There were others, also, who made no attempt to conceal their anger, for the course of the newspapers in constantly printing bogus news had had most disastrous results; all confidence was destroyed, men had ceased to believe anything or anybody. And so it was that in the soldiers, children of a larger growth, their bright dreams of other days had now been supplanted by exaggerated anticipations of misfortune.

"_Pardi_!" continued Chouteau, "the thing is accounted for easily enough, since our rulers have been selling us to the enemy right from the beginning. You all know that it is so."

Lapoulle's rustic simplicity revolted at the idea.

"For shame! what wicked people they must be!"

"Yes, sold, as Judas sold his master," murmured Pache, mindful of his studies in sacred history.

It was Chouteau's hour of triumph. "_Mon Dieu!_ it is as plain as the nose on your face. MacMahon got three millions and each of the other generals got a million, as the price of bringing us up here. The bargain was made at Paris last spring, and last night they sent up a rocket as a signal to let Bismarck know that everything was fixed and he might come and take us."

The story was so inanely stupid that Maurice was disgusted. There had been a time when Chouteau, thanks to his facundity of the faubourg, had interested and almost convinced him, but now he had come to detest that apostle of falsehood, that snake in the grass, who calumniated honest effort of every kind in order to sicken others of it.

"Why do you talk such nonsense?" he exclaimed. "You know very well there is no truth in it."

"What, not true? Do you mean to say it is not true that we are betrayed? Ah, come, my aristocratic friend, perhaps you are one of them, perhaps you belong to the d--d band of dirty traitors?" He came forward threateningly. "If you are you have only to say so, my fine gentleman, for we will attend to your case right here, and won't wait for your friend Bismarck, either."

The others were also beginning to growl and show their teeth, and Jean thought it time that he should interfere.

"Silence there! I will report the first man who says another word!"

But Chouteau sneered and jeered at him; what did he care whether he reported him or not! He was not going to fight unless he chose, and they need not try to ride him rough-shod, because he had cartridges in his box for other people beside the Prussians. They were going into action now, and what discipline had been maintained by fear would be at an end: what could they do to him, anyway? he would just skip as soon as he thought he had enough of it. And he was profane and obscene, egging the men on against the corporal, who had been allowing them to starve. Yes, it was his fault that the squad had had nothing to eat in the last three days, while their neighbors had soup and fresh meat in plenty, but "monsieur" had to go off to town with the "aristo" and enjoy himself with the girls. People had spotted 'em, over in Sedan.

"You stole the money belonging to the squad; deny it if you dare, you _bougre_ of a belly-god!"

Things were beginning to assume an ugly complexion; Lapoulle was doubling his big fists in a way that looked like business, and Pache, with the pangs of hunger gnawing at his vitals, laid aside his natural douceness and insisted on an explanation. The only reasonable one among them was Loubet, who gave one of his pawky laughs and suggested that, being Frenchmen, they might as well dine off the Prussians as eat one another. For his part, he took no stock in fighting, either with fists or firearms, and alluding to the few hundred francs that he had earned as substitute, added:

"And so, that was all they thought my hide was worth! Well, I am not going to give them more than their money's worth."

Maurice and Jean were in a towering rage at the idotic onslaught, talking loudly and repelling Chouteau's insinuations, when out from the fog came a stentorian voice, bellowing:

"What's this? what's this? Show me the rascals who dare quarrel in the company street!"

And Lieutenant Rochas appeared upon the scene, in his old _kepi_, whence the rain had washed all the color, and his great coat, minus many of its buttons, evincing in all his lean, shambling person the extreme of poverty and distress. Notwithstanding his forlorn aspect, however, his sparkling eye and bristling mustache showed that his old time confidence had suffered no impairment.

Jean spoke up, scarce able to restrain himself. "Lieutenant, it is these men, who persist in saying that we are betrayed. Yes, they dare to assert that our generals have sold us--"

The idea of treason did not appear so extremely unnatural to Rochas's thick understanding, for it served to explain those reverses that he could not account for otherwise.

"Well, suppose they are sold, is it any of their business? What concern is it of theirs? The Prussians are there all the same, aren't they? and we are going to give them one of the old-fashioned hidings, such as they won't forget in one while." Down below them in the thick sea of fog the guns at Bazeilles were still pounding away, and he extended his arms with a broad, sweeping gesture: "_Hein_! this is the time that we've got them! We'll see them back home, and kick them every step of the way!"

All the trials and troubles of the past were to him as if they had not been, now that his ears were gladdened by the roar of the guns: the delays and conflicting orders of the chiefs, the demoralization of the troops, the stampede at Beaumont, the distress of the recent forced retreat on Sedan--all were forgotten. Now that they were about to fight at last, was not victory certain? He had learned nothing and forgotten nothing; his blustering, boastful contempt of the enemy, his entire ignorance of the new arts and appliances of war, his rooted conviction that an old soldier of Africa, Italy, and the Crimea could by no possibility be beaten, had suffered no change. It was really a little too comical that a man at his age should take the back track and begin at the beginning again!

All at once his lantern jaws parted and gave utterance to a loud laugh. He was visited by one of those impulses of good-fellowship that made his men swear by him, despite the roughness of the jobations that he frequently bestowed on them.

"Look here, my children, in place of quarreling it will be a great deal better to take a good nip all around. Come, I'm going to treat, and you shall drink my health."

From the capacious pocket of his capote he extracted a bottle of brandy, adding, with his all-conquering air, that it was the gift of a lady. (He had been seen the day before, seated at the table of a tavern in Floing and holding the waitress on his lap, evidently on the best of terms with her.) The soldiers laughed and winked at one another, holding out their porringers, into which he gayly poured the golden liquor.

"Drink to your sweethearts, my children, if you have any and don't forget to drink to the glory of France. Them's my sentiments, so _vive la joie_!"

"That's right, Lieutenant. Here's to your health, and everybody else's!"

They all drank, and their hearts were warmed and peace reigned once more. The "nip" had much of comfort in it, in the chill morning, just as they were going into action, and Maurice felt it tingling in his veins, giving him cheer and a sort of what is known colloquially as "Dutch courage." Why should they not whip the Prussians? Have not battles their surprises? has not history embalmed many an instance of the fickleness of fortune? That mighty man of war, the lieutenant, added that Bazaine was on the way to join them, would be with them before the day was over: oh, the information was positive; he had it from an aid to one of the generals; and although, in speaking of the route the marshal was to come by, he pointed to the frontier of Belgium, Maurice yielded to one of those spasmodic attacks of hopefulness of his, without which life to him would not have been worth living. Might it not be that the day of reckoning was at hand?

"Why don't we move, Lieutenant?" he made bold to ask. "What are we waiting for?"

Rochas made a gesture, which the other interpreted to mean that no orders had been received. Presently he asked:

"Has anybody seen the captain?"

No one answered. Jean remembered perfectly having seen him making for Sedan the night before, but to the soldier who knows what is good for himself, his officers are always invisible when they are not on duty. He held his tongue, therefore, until happening to turn his head, he caught sight of a shadowy form flitting along the hedge.

"Here he is," said he.

It was Captain Beaudoin in the flesh. They were all surprised by the nattiness of his appearance, his resplendent shoes, his well-brushed uniform, affording such a striking contrast to the lieutenant's pitiful state. And there was a finicking completeness, moreover, about his toilet, greater than the male being is accustomed to bestow upon himself, in his scrupulously white hands and his carefully curled mustache, and a faint perfume of Persian lilac, which had the effect of reminding one in some mysterious way of the dressing room of a young and pretty woman.

"Hallo!" said Loubet, with a sneer, "the captain has recovered his baggage!"

But no one laughed, for they all knew him to be a man with whom it was not well to joke. He was stiff and consequential with his men, and was detested accordingly; a _pete sec_, to use Rochas's expression. He had seemed to regard the early reverses of the campaign as personal affronts, and the disaster that all had prognosticated was to him an unpardonable crime. He was a strong Bonapartist by conviction; his prospects for promotion were of the brightest; he had several important salons looking after his interests; naturally, he did not take kindly to the changed condition of affairs that promised to make his cake dough. He was said to have a remarkably fine tenor voice, which had helped him no little in his advancement. He was not devoid of intelligence, though perfectly ignorant as regarded everything connected with his profession; eager to please, and very brave, when there was occasion for being so, without superfluous rashness.

"What a nasty fog!" was all he said, pleased to have found his company at last, for which he had been searching for more than half an hour.

At the same time their orders came, and the battalion moved forward. They had to proceed with caution, feeling their way, for the exhalations continued to rise from the stream and were now so dense that they were precipitated in a fine, drizzling rain. A vision rose before Maurice's eyes that impressed him deeply; it was Colonel de Vineuil, who loomed suddenly from out the mist, sitting his horse, erect and motionless, at the intersection of two roads--the man appearing of preternatural size, and so pale and rigid that he might have served a sculptor as a study for a statue of despair; the steed shivering in the raw, chill air of morning, his dilated nostrils turned in the direction of the distant firing. Some ten paces to their rear were the regimental colors, which the sous-lieutenant whose duty it was to bear them had thus early taken from their case and proudly raised aloft, and as the driving, vaporous rack eddied and swirled about them, they shone like a radiant vision of glory emblazoned on the heavens, soon to fade and vanish from the sight. Water was dripping from the gilded eagle, and the tattered, shot-riddled tri-color, on which were embroidered the names of former victories, was stained and its bright hues dimmed by the smoke of many a battlefield; the sole bit of brilliant color in all the faded splendor was the enameled cross of honor that was attached to the _cravate_.

Another billow of vapor came scurrying up from the river, enshrouding in its fleecy depths colonel, standard, and all, and the battalion passed on, whitherward no one could tell. First their route had conducted them over descending ground, now they were climbing a hill. On reaching the summit the command, halt! started at the front and ran down the column; the men were cautioned not to leave the ranks, arms were ordered, and there they remained, the heavy knapsacks forming a grievous burden to weary shoulders. It was evident that they were on a plateau, but to discern localities was out of the question; twenty paces was the extreme range of vision. It was now seven o'clock; the sound of firing reached them more distinctly, other batteries were apparently opening on Sedan from the opposite bank.

"Oh! I," said Sergeant Sapin with a start, addressing Jean and Maurice, "I shall be killed to-day."

It was the first time he had opened his lips that morning; an expression of dreamy melancholy had rested on his thin face, with its big, handsome eyes and thin, pinched nose.

"What an idea!" Jean exclaimed; "who can tell what is going to happen him? Every bullet has its billet, they say, but you stand no worse chance than the rest of us."

"Oh, but me--I am as good as dead now. I tell you I shall be killed to-day."

The near files turned and looked at him curiously, asking him if he had had a dream. No, he had dreamed nothing, but he felt it; it was there.

"And it is a pity, all the same, because I was to be married when I got my discharge."

A vague expression came into his eyes again; his past life rose before him. He was the son of a small retail grocer at Lyons, and had been petted and spoiled by his mother up to the time of her death; then rejecting the proffer of his father, with whom he did not hit it off well, to assist in purchasing his discharge, he had remained with the army, weary and disgusted with life and with his surroundings. Coming home on furlough, however, he fell in love with a cousin and they became engaged; their intention was to open a little shop on the small capital which she would bring him, and then existence once more became desirable. He had received an elementary education; could read, write, and cipher. For the past year he had lived only in anticipation of this happy future.

He shivered, and gave himself a shake to dispel his revery, repeating with his tranquil air:

"Yes, it is too bad; I shall be killed to-day."

No one spoke; the uncertainty and suspense continued. They knew not whether the enemy was on their front or in their rear. Strange sounds came to their ears from time to time from out the depths of the mysterious fog: the rumble of wheels, the deadened tramp of moving masses, the distant clatter of horses' hoofs; it was the evolutions of troops, hidden from view behind the misty curtain, the batteries, battalions, and squadrons of the 7th corps taking up their positions in line of battle. Now, however, it began to look as if the fog was about to lift; it parted here and there and fragments floated lightly off, like strips of gauze torn from a veil, and bits of sky appeared, not transparently blue, as on a bright summer's day, but opaque and of the hue of burnished steel, like the cheerless bosom of some deep, sullen mountain tarn. It was in one of those brighter moments when the sun was endeavoring to struggle forth that the regiments of chasseurs d'Afrique, constituting part of Margueritte's division, came riding by, giving the impression of a band of spectral horsemen. They sat very stiff and erect in the saddle, with their short cavalry jackets, broad red sashes and smart little _kepis_, accurate in distance and alignment and managing admirably their lean, wiry mounts, which were almost invisible under the heterogeneous collection of tools and camp equipage that they had to carry. Squadron after squadron they swept by in long array, to be swallowed in the gloom from which they had just emerged, vanishing as if dissolved by the fine rain. The truth was, probably, that they were in the way, and their leaders, not knowing what use to put them to, had packed them off the field, as had often been the case since the opening of the campaign. They had scarcely ever been employed on scouting or reconnoitering duty, and as soon as there was prospect of a fight were trotted about for shelter from valley to valley, useless objects, but too costly to be endangered.

Maurice thought of Prosper as he watched them. "That fellow, yonder, looks like him," he said, under his breath. "I wonder if it is he?"

"Of whom are you speaking?" asked Jean.

"Of that young man of Remilly, whose brother we met at Osches, you remember."

Behind the chasseurs, when they had all passed, came a general officer and his staff dashing down the descending road, and Maurice recognized the general of their brigade, Bourgain-Desfeuilles, shouting and gesticulating wildly. He had torn himself reluctantly from his comfortable quarters at the Hotel of the Golden Cross, and it was evident from the horrible temper he was in that the condition of affairs that morning was not satisfactory to him. In a tone of voice so loud that everyone could hear he roared:

"In the devil's name, what stream is that off yonder, the Meuse or the Moselle?"

The fog dispersed at last, this time in earnest. As at Bazeilles the effect was theatrical; the curtain rolled slowly upward to the flies, disclosing the setting of the stage. From a sky of transparent blue the sun poured down a flood of bright, golden light, and Maurice was no longer at a loss to recognize their position.

"Ah!" he said to Jean, "we are on the plateau de l'Algerie. That village that you see across the valley, directly in our front, is Floing, and that more distant one is Saint-Menges, and that one, more distant still, a little to the right, is Fleigneux. Then those scrubby trees on the horizon, away in the background, are the forest of the Ardennes, and there lies the frontier--"

He went on to explain their position, naming each locality and pointing to it with outstretched hand. The plateau de l'Algerie was a belt of reddish ground, something less than two miles in length, sloping gently downward from the wood of la Garenne toward the Meuse, from which it was separated by the meadows. On it the line of the 7th corps had been established by General Douay, who felt that his numbers were not sufficient to defend so extended a position and properly maintain his touch with the 1st corps, which was posted at right angles with his line, occupying the valley of la Givonne, from the wood of la Garenne to Daigny.

"Oh, isn't it grand, isn't it magnificent!"

And Maurice, revolving on his heel, made with his hand a sweeping gesture that embraced the entire horizon. From their position on the plateau the whole wide field of battle lay stretched before them to the south and west: Sedan, almost at their feet, whose citadel they could see overtopping the roofs, then Balan and Bazeilles, dimly seen through the dun smoke-clouds that hung heavily in the motionless air, and further in the distance the hills of the left bank, Liry, la Marfee, la Croix-Piau. It was away toward the west, however, in the direction of Donchery, that the prospect was most extensive. There the Meuse curved horseshoe-wise, encircling the peninsula of Iges with a ribbon of pale silver, and at the northern extremity of the loop was distinctly visible the narrow road of the Saint-Albert pass, winding between the river bank and a beetling, overhanging hill that was crowned with the little wood of Seugnon, an offshoot of the forest of la Falizette. At the summit of the hill, at the _carrefour_ of la Maison-Rouge, the road from Donchery to Vrigne-aux-Bois debouched into the Mezieres pike.

"See, that is the road by which we might retreat on Mezieres."

Even as he spoke the first gun was fired from Saint-Menges. The fog still hung over the bottom-lands in shreds and patches, and through it they dimly descried a shadowy body of men moving through the Saint-Albert defile.

"Ah, they are there," continued Maurice, instinctively lowering his voice. "Too late, too late; they have intercepted us!"

It was not eight o'clock. The guns, which were thundering more fiercely than ever in the direction of Bazeilles, now also began to make themselves heard at the eastward, in the valley of la Givonne, which was hid from view; it was the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony, debouching from the Chevalier wood and attacking the 1st corps, in front of Daigny village; and now that the XIth Prussian corps, moving on Floing, had opened fire on General Douay's troops, the investment was complete at every point of the great periphery of several leagues' extent, and the action was general all along the line.

Maurice suddenly perceived the enormity of their blunder in not retreating on Mezieres during the night; but as yet the consequences were not clear to him; he could not foresee all the disaster that was to result from that fatal error of judgment. Moved by some indefinable instinct of danger, he looked with apprehension on the adjacent heights that commanded the plateau de l'Algerie. If time had not been allowed them to make good their retreat, why had they not backed up against the frontier and occupied those heights of Illy and Saint-Menges, whence, if they could not maintain their position, they would at least have been free to cross over into Belgium? There were two points that appeared to him especially threatening, the _mamelon_ of Hattoy, to the north of Floing on the left, and the Calvary of Illy, a stone cross with a linden tree on either side, the highest bit of ground in the surrounding country, to the right. General Douay was keenly alive to the importance of these eminences, and the day before had sent two battalions to occupy Hattoy; but the men, feeling that they were "in the air" and too remote from support, had fallen back early that morning. It was understood that the left wing of the 1st corps was to take care of the Calvary of Illy. The wide expanse of naked country between Sedan and the Ardennes forest was intersected by deep ravines, and the key of the position was manifestly there, in the shadow of that cross and the two lindens, whence their guns might sweep the fields in every direction for a long distance.

Two more cannon shots rang out, quickly succeeded by a salvo; they detected the bluish smoke rising from the underbrush of a low hill to the left of Saint-Menges.

"Our turn is coming now," said Jean.

Nothing more startling occurred just then, however. The men, still preserving their formation and standing at ordered arms, found something to occupy their attention in the fine appearance made by the 2d division, posted in front of Floing, with their left refused and facing the Meuse, so as to guard against a possible attack from that quarter. The ground to the east, as far as the wood of la Garenne, beneath Illy village, was held by the 3d division, while the 1st, which had lost heavily at Beaumont, formed a second line. All night long the engineers had been busy with pick and shovel, and even after the Prussians had opened fire they were still digging away at their shelter trenches and throwing up epaulments.

Then a sharp rattle of musketry, quickly silenced, however, was heard proceeding from a point beneath Floing, and Captain Beaudoin received orders to move his company three hundred yards to the rear. Their new position was in a great field of cabbages, upon reaching which the captain made his men lie down. The sun had not yet drunk up the moisture that had descended on the vegetables in the darkness, and every fold and crease of the thick, golden-green leaves was filled with trembling drops, as pellucid and luminous as brilliants of the fairest water.

"Sight for four hundred yards," the captain ordered.

Maurice rested the barrel of his musket on a cabbage that reared its head conveniently before him, but it was impossible to see anything in his recumbent position: only the blurred surface of the fields traversed by his level glance, diversified by an occasional tree or shrub. Giving Jean, who was beside him, a nudge with his elbow, he asked what they were to do there. The corporal, whose experience in such matters was greater, pointed to an elevation not far away, where a battery was just taking its position; it was evident that they had been placed there to support that battery, should there be need of their services. Maurice, wondering whether Honore and his guns were not of the party, raised his head to look, but the reserve artillery was at the rear, in the shelter of a little grove of trees.

"_Nom de Dieu!_" yelled Rochas, "will you lie down!"

And Maurice had barely more than complied with this intimation when a shell passed screaming over him. From that time forth there seemed to be no end to them. The enemy's gunners were slow in obtaining the range, their first projectiles passing over and landing well to the rear of the battery, which was now opening in reply. Many of their shells, too, fell upon the soft ground, in which they buried themselves without exploding, and for a time there was a great display of rather heavy wit at the expense of those bloody sauerkraut eaters.

"Well, well!" said Loubet, "their fireworks are a fizzle!"

"They ought to take them in out of the rain," sneered Chouteau.

Even Rochas thought it necessary to say something. "Didn't I tell you that the dunderheads don't know enough even to point a gun?"

But they were less inclined to laugh when a shell burst only ten yards from them and sent a shower of earth flying over the company; Loubet affected to make light of it by ordering his comrades to get out their brushes from the knapsacks, but Chouteau suddenly became very pale and had not a word to say. He had never been under fire, nor had Pache and Lapoulle, nor any member of the squad, in fact, except Jean. Over eyes that had suddenly lost their brightness lids flickered tremulously; voices had an unnatural, muffled sound, as if arrested by some obstruction in the throat. Maurice, who was sufficiently master of himself as yet, endeavored to diagnose his symptoms; he could not be afraid, for he was not conscious that he was in danger; he only felt a slight sensation of discomfort in the epigastric region, and his head seemed strangely light and empty; ideas and images came and went independent of his will. His recollection of the brave show made by the troops of the 2d division made him hopeful, almost to buoyancy; victory appeared certain to him if only they might be allowed to go at the enemy with the bayonet.

"Listen!" he murmured, "how the flies buzz; the place is full of them." Thrice he had heard something that sounded like the humming of a swarm of bees.

"That was not a fly," Jean said, with a laugh. "It was a bullet."

Again and again the hum of those invisible wings made itself heard. The men craned their necks and looked about them with eager interest; their curiosity was uncontrollable--would not allow them to remain quiet.

"See here," Loubet said mysteriously to Lapoulle, with a view to raise a laugh at the expense of his simple-minded comrade, "when you see a bullet coming toward you you must raise your forefinger before your nose--like that; it divides the air, and the bullet will go by to the right or left."

"But I can't see them," said Lapoulle.

A loud guffaw burst from those near.

"Oh, crickey! he says he can't see them! Open your garret windows, stupid! See! there's one--see! there's another. Didn't you see that one? It was of the most beautiful green."

And Lapoulle rolled his eyes and stared, placing his finger before his nose, while Pache fingered the scapular he wore and wished it was large enough to shield his entire person.

Rochas, who had remained on his feet, spoke up and said jocosely:

"Children, there is no objection to your ducking to the shells when you see them coming. As for the bullets, it is useless; they are too numerous!"

At that very instant a soldier in the front rank was struck on the head by a fragment of an exploding shell. There was no outcry; simply a spurt of blood and brain, and all was over.

"Poor devil!" tranquilly said Sergeant Sapin, who was quite cool and exceedingly pale. "Next!"

But the uproar had by this time become so deafening that the men could no longer hear one another's voice; Maurice's nerves, in particular, suffered from the infernal _charivari_. The neighboring battery was banging away as fast as the gunners could load the pieces; the continuous roar seemed to shake the ground, and the mitrailleuses were even more intolerable with their rasping, grating, grunting noise. Were they to remain forever reclining there among the cabbages? There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be learned; no one had any idea how the battle was going. And _was_ it a battle, after all--a genuine affair? All that Maurice could make out, projecting his eyes along the level surface of the fields, was the rounded, wood-clad summit of Hattoy in the remote distance, and still unoccupied. Neither was there a Prussian to be seen anywhere on the horizon; the only evidence of life were the faint, blue smoke-wreaths that rose and floated an instant in the sunlight. Chancing to turn his head, he was greatly surprised to behold at the bottom of a deep, sheltered valley, surrounded by precipitous heights, a peasant calmly tilling his little field, driving the plow through the furrow with the assistance of a big white horse. Why should he lose a day? The corn would keep growing, let them fight as they would, and folks must live.

Unable longer to control his impatience, the young man jumped to his feet. He had a fleeting vision of the batteries of Saint-Menges, crowned with tawny vapors and spewing shot and shell upon them; he had also time to see, what he had seen before and had not forgotten, the road from Saint-Albert's pass black with minute moving objects--the swarming hordes of the invader. Then Jean seized him by the legs and pulled him violently to his place again.

"Are you crazy? Do you want to leave your bones here?"

And Rochas chimed in:

"Lie down, will you! What am I to do with such d----d rascals, who get themselves killed without orders!"

"But you don't lie down, lieutenant," said Maurice.

"That's a different thing. I have to know what is going on."

Captain Beaudoin, too, kept his legs like a man, but never opened his lips to say an encouraging word to his men, having nothing in common with them. He appeared nervous and unable to remain long in one place, striding up and down the field, impatiently awaiting orders.

No orders came, nothing occurred to relieve their suspense. Maurice's knapsack was causing him horrible suffering; it seemed to be crushing his back and chest in that recumbent position, so painful when maintained for any length of time. The men had been cautioned against throwing away their sacks unless in case of actual necessity, and he kept turning over, first on his right side, then on the left, to ease himself a moment of his burden by resting it on the ground. The shells continued to fall around them, but the German gunners did not succeed in getting the exact range; no one was killed after the poor fellow who lay there on his stomach with his skull fractured.

"Say, is this thing to last all day?" Maurice finally asked Jean, in sheer desperation.

"Like enough. At Solferino they put us in a field of carrots, and there we stayed five mortal hours with our noses to the ground." Then he added, like the sensible fellow he was: "Why do you grumble? we are not so badly off here. You will have an opportunity to distinguish yourself before the day is over. Let everyone have his chance, don't you see; if we should all be killed at the beginning there would be none left for the end."

"Look," Maurice abruptly broke in, "look at that smoke over Hattoy. They have taken Hattoy; we shall have plenty of music to dance to now!"

For a moment his burning curiosity, which he was conscious was now for the first time beginning to be dashed with personal fear, had sufficient to occupy it; his gaze was riveted on the rounded summit of the _mamelon_, the only elevation that was within his range of vision, dominating the broad expanse of plain that lay level with his eye. Hattoy was too far distant to permit him to distinguish the gunners of the batteries that the Prussians had posted there; he could see nothing at all, in fact, save the smoke that at each discharge rose above a thin belt of woods that served to mask the guns. The enemy's occupation of the position, of which General Douay had been forced to abandon the defense, was, as Maurice had instinctively felt, an event of the gravest importance and destined to result in the most disastrous consequences; its possessors would have entire command of all the surrounding plateau. This was quickly seen to be the case, for the batteries that opened on the second division of the 7th corps did fearful execution. They had now perfected their range, and the French battery, near which Beaudoin's company was stationed, had two men killed in quick succession. A quartermaster's man in the company had his left heel carried away by a splinter and began to howl most dismally, as if visited by a sudden attack of madness.

"Shut up, you great calf!" said Rochas. "What do you mean by yelling like that for a little scratch!"

The man suddenly ceased his outcries and subsided into a stupid silence, nursing his foot in his hand.

And still the tremendous artillery duel raged, and the death-dealing missiles went screaming over the recumbent ranks of the regiments that lay there on the sullen, sweltering plain, where no thing of life was to be seen beneath the blazing sun. The crashing thunder, the destroying hurricane, were masters in that solitude, and many long hours would pass before the end. But even thus early in the day the Germans had demonstrated the superiority of their artillery; their percussion shells had an enormous range, and exploded, with hardly an exception, on reaching their destination, while the French time-fuse shells, with a much shorter range, burst for the most part in the air and were wasted. And there was nothing left for the poor fellows exposed to that murderous fire save to hug the ground and make themselves as small as possible; they were even denied the privilege of firing in reply, which would have kept their mind occupied and given them a measure of relief; but upon whom or what were they to direct their rifles? since there was not a living soul to be seen upon the entire horizon!

"Are we never to have a shot at them? I would give a dollar for just one chance!" said Maurice, in a frenzy of impatience. "It is disgusting to have them blazing away at us like this and not be allowed to answer."

"Be patient; the time will come," Jean imperturbably replied.

Their attention was attracted by the sound of mounted men approaching on their left, and turning their heads they beheld General Douay, who, accompanied by his staff, had come galloping up to see how his troops were behaving under the terrible fire from Hattoy. He appeared well pleased with what he saw and was in the act of making some suggestions to the officers grouped around him, when, emerging from a sunken road, General Bourgain-Desfeuilles also rode up. This officer, though he owed his advancement to "influence" was wedded to the antiquated African routine and had learned nothing by experience, sat his horse with great composure under the storm of projectiles. He was shouting to the men and gesticulating wildly, after the manner of Rochas: "They are coming, they will be here right away, and then we'll let them have the bayonet!" when he caught sight of General Douay and drew up to his side.

"Is it true that the marshal is wounded, general?" he asked.

"It is but too true, unfortunately. I received a note from Ducrot only a few minutes ago, in which he advises me of the fact, and also notifies me that, by the marshal's appointment, he is in command of the army."

"Ah! so it is Ducrot who is to have his place! And what are the orders now?"

The general shook his head sorrowfully. He had felt that the army was doomed, and for the last twenty-four hours had been strenuously recommending the occupation of Illy and Saint-Menges in order to keep a way of retreat open on Mezieres.

"Ducrot will carry out the plan we talked of yesterday: the whole army is to be concentrated on the plateau of Illy."

And he repeated his previous gesture, as if to say it was too late.

His words were partly inaudible in the roar of the artillery, but Maurice caught their significance clearly enough, and it left him dumfounded by astonishment and alarm. What! Marshal MacMahon wounded since early that morning, General Ducrot commanding in his place for the last two hours, the entire army retreating to the northward of Sedan--and all these important events kept from the poor devils of soldiers who were squandering their life's blood! and all their destinies, dependent on the life of a single man, were to be intrusted to the direction of fresh and untried hands! He had a distinct consciousness of the fate that was in reserve for the army of Chalons, deprived of its commander, destitute of any guiding principle of action, dragged purposelessly in this direction and in that, while the Germans went straight and swift to their preconcerted end with mechanical precision and directness.

Bourgain-Desfeuilles had wheeled his horse and was moving away, when General Douay, to whom a grimy, dust-stained hussar had galloped up with another dispatch, excitedly summoned him back.

"General! General!"

His voice rang out so loud and clear, with such an accent of surprise, that it drowned the uproar of the guns.

"General, Ducrot is no longer in command; de Wimpffen is chief. You know he reached here yesterday, just in the very thick of the disaster at Beaumont, to relieve de Failly at the head of the 5th corps--and he writes me that he has written instructions from the Minister of War assigning him to the command of the army in case the post should become vacant. And there is to be no more retreating; the orders now are to reoccupy our old positions, and defend them to the last."

General Bourgain-Desfeuilles drank in the tidings, his eyes bulging with astonishment. "_Nom de Dieu!_" he at last succeeded in ejaculating, "one would like to know-- But it is no business of mine, anyhow." And off he galloped, not allowing himself to be greatly agitated by this unexpected turn of affairs, for he had gone into the war solely in the hope of seeing his name raised a grade higher in the army list, and it was his great desire to behold the end of the beastly campaign as soon as possible, since it was productive of so little satisfaction to anyone.

Then there was an explosion of derision and contempt among the men of Beaudoin's company. Maurice said nothing, but he shared the opinion of Chouteau and Loubet, who chaffed and blackguarded everyone without mercy. "See-saw, up and down, move as I pull the string! A fine gang they were, those generals! they understood one another; they were not going to pull all the blankets off the bed! What was a poor devil of a soldier to do when he had such leaders put over him? Three commanders in two hours' time, three great numskulls, none of whom knew what was the right thing to do, and all of them giving different orders! Demoralized, were they? Good Heavens, it was enough to demoralize God Almighty himself, and all His angels!" And the inevitable accusation of treason was again made to do duty; Ducrot and de Wimpffen wanted to get three millions apiece out of Bismarck, as MacMahon had done.

Alone in advance of his staff General Douay sat on his horse a long time, his gaze bent on the distant positions of the enemy and in his eyes an expression of infinite melancholy. He made a minute and protracted observation of Hattoy, the shells from which came tumbling almost at his very feet; then, giving a glance at the plateau of Illy, called up an officer to carry an order to the brigade of the 5th corps that he had borrowed the day previous from General de Wimpffen, and which served to connect his right with the left of General Ducrot. He was distinctly heard to say these words:

"If the Prussians should once get possession of the Calvary it would be impossible for us to hold this position an hour; we should be driven into Sedan."

He rode off and was lost to view, together with his escort, at the entrance of the sunken road, and the German fire became hotter than before. They had doubtless observed the presence of the group of mounted officers; but now the shells, which hitherto had come from the front, began to fall upon them laterally, from the left; the batteries at Frenois, together with one which the enemy had carried across the river and posted on the peninsula of Iges, had established, in connection with the guns on Hattoy, an enfilading fire which swept the plateau de l'Algerie in its entire length and breadth. The position of the company now became most lamentable; the men, with death in front of them and on their flank, knew not which way to turn or which of the menacing perils to guard themselves against. In rapid succession three men were killed outright and two severely wounded.

It was then that Sergeant Sapin met the death that he had predicted for himself. He had turned his head, and caught sight of the approaching missile when it was too late for him to avoid it.

"Ah, here it is!" was all he said.

There was no terror in the thin face, with its big handsome eyes; it was only pale; very pale and inexpressibly mournful. The wound was in the abdomen.

"Oh! do not leave me here," he pleaded; "take me to the ambulance, I beseech you. Take me to the rear."

Rochas endeavored to silence him, and it was on his brutal lips to say that it was useless to imperil two comrades' lives for one whose wound was so evidently mortal, when his better nature made its influence felt and he murmured:

"Be patient for a little, my poor boy, and the litter-bearers will come and get you."

But the wretched man, whose tears were now flowing, kept crying, as one distraught that his dream of happiness was vanishing with his trickling life-blood:

"Take me away, take me away--"

Finally Captain Beaudoin, whose already unstrung nerves were further irritated by his pitiful cries, called for two volunteers to carry him to a little piece of woods a short way off where a flying ambulance had been established. Chouteau and Loubet jumped to their feet simultaneously, anticipating the others, seized the sergeant, one of them by the shoulders, the other by the legs, and bore him away on a run. They had gone but a little way, however, when they felt the body becoming rigid in the final convulsion; he was dying.

"I say, he's dead," exclaimed Loubet. "Let's leave him here."

But Chouteau, without relaxing his speed, angrily replied:

"Go ahead, you booby, will you! Do you take me for a fool, to leave him here and have them call us back!"

They pursued their course with the corpse until they came to the little wood, threw it down at the foot of a tree, and went their way. That was the last that was seen of them until nightfall.

The battery beside them had been strengthened by three additional guns; the cannonade on either side went on with increased fury, and in the hideous uproar terror--a wild, unreasoning terror--filled Maurice's soul. It was his first experience of the sensation; he had not until now felt that cold sweat trickling down his back, that terrible sinking at the pit of the stomach, that unconquerable desire to get on his feet and run, yelling and screaming, from the field. It was nothing more than the strain from which his nervous, high-strung temperament was suffering from reflex action; but Jean, who was observing him narrowly, detected the incipient crisis in the wandering, vacant eyes, and seizing him with his strong hand, held him down firmly at his side. The corporal lectured him paternally in a whisper, not mincing his words, but employing good, vigorous language to restore him to a sense of self-respect, for he knew by experience that a man in panic is not to be coaxed out of his cowardice. There were others also who were showing the white feather, among them Pache, who was whimpering involuntarily, in the low, soft voice of a little baby, his eyes suffused with tears. Lapoulle's stomach betrayed him and he was very ill; and there were many others who also found relief in vomiting, amid their comrade's loud jeers and laughter, which helped to restore their courage to them all.

"My God!" ejaculated Maurice, ghastly pale, his teeth chattering. "My God!"

Jean shook him roughly. "You infernal coward, are you going to be sick like those fellows over yonder? Behave yourself, or I'll box your ears."

He was trying to put heart into his friend by gruff but friendly speeches like the above, when they suddenly beheld a dozen dark forms emerging from a little wood upon their front and about four hundred yards away. Their spiked helmets announced them to be Prussians; the first Prussians they had had within reach of their rifles since the opening of the campaign. This first squad was succeeded by others, and in front of their position the little dust clouds that rose where the French shells struck were distinctly visible. It was all very vivid and clear-cut in the transparent air of morning; the Germans, outlined against the dark forest, presented the toy-like appearance of those miniature soldiers of lead that are the delight of children; then, as the enemy's shells began to drop in their vicinity with uncomfortable frequency, they withdrew and were lost to sight within the wood whence they had come.

But Beaudoin's company had seen them there once, and to their eyes they were there still; the chassepots seemed to go off of their own accord. Maurice was the first man to discharge his piece; Jean, Pache, Lapoulle and the others all followed suit. There had been no order given to commence firing, and the captain made an attempt to check it, but desisted upon Rochas's representation that it was absolutely necessary as a measure of relief for the men's pent-up feelings. So, then, they were at liberty to shoot at last, they could use up those cartridges that they had been lugging around with them for the last month, without ever burning a single one! The effect on Maurice in particular was electrical; the noise he made had the effect of dispelling his fear and blunting the keenness of his sensations. The little wood had resumed its former deserted aspect; not a leaf stirred, no more Prussians showed themselves; and still they kept on blazing away as madly as ever at the immovable trees.

Raising his eyes presently Maurice was startled to see Colonel de Vineuil sitting his big horse at no great distance, man and steed impassive and motionless as if carved from stone, patient were they under the leaden hail, with face turned toward the enemy. The entire regiment was now collected in that vicinity, the other companies being posted in the adjacent fields; the musketry fire seemed to be drawing nearer. The young man also beheld the regimental colors a little to the rear, borne aloft by the sturdy arm of the standard-bearer, but it was no longer the phantom flag that he had seen that morning, shrouded in mist and fog; the golden eagle flashed and blazed in the fierce sunlight, and the tri-colored silk, despite the rents and stains of many a battle, flaunted its bright hues defiantly to the breeze. Waving in the breath of the cannon, floating proudly against the blue of heaven, it shone like an emblem of victory.

And why, now that the day of battle had arrived, should not victory perch upon that banner? With that reflection Maurice and his companions kept on industriously wasting their powder on the distant wood, producing havoc there among the leaves and twigs. _

Read next: Part Second: Chapter 3

Read previous: Part Second: Chapter 1

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