Tales by Polish Authors Part 3

The line of fire began to embrace it more closely, however. The bullets hummed in the distance like gnats and flies, or pa.s.sed near with a terrible whizz. More and more of them came:--hundreds, thousands, whistling round their heads, their noses, their eyes, their shoulders; it was astonishing there should be a man left standing.

Suddenly Bartek heard a groan close by: 'Jesu!' then 'Stand ready!'

then again 'Jesu!' 'Stand ready!' Soon the groans went on without intermission, the words of command came faster and faster, the lines drew in closer, the whizzing grew more frequent, more uninterrupted, more terrible. The dead covered the ground. It was like the Judgment Day.

'Are you afraid?' Wojtek asked.

'Why shouldn't I be afraid?' our hero answered, his teeth chattering.

Nevertheless both Bartek and Wojtek still kept their feet, and it did not even enter their heads to run away. They had been commanded to stand still and receive the enemy's fire. Bartek had not spoken the truth; he was not as much afraid as thousands of others would have been in his place. Discipline held the mastery over his imagination, and his imagination had never painted such a horrible situation as this. Nevertheless Bartek felt that he would be killed, and he confided this thought to Wojtek.

'There won't be room in Heaven for the numbers they kill,' Wojtek answered in an excited voice.

These words comforted Bartek perceptibly. He began to hope that his place in Heaven had already been taken. Re-a.s.sured with regard to this, he stood more patiently, conscious only of the intense heat, and with the perspiration running down his face. Meantime the firing became so heavy that the ranks were thinning visibly. There was no one to carry away the killed and wounded; the death rattle of the dying mingled with the whizz of sh.e.l.ls and the din of shooting. One could see by the movement of the tricolour flags that the infantry hidden by the vines was coming closer and closer. The volleys of mitrailleuse decimated the ranks; the men were beginning to grow desperate.

But underlying this despair were impatience and rage. Had they been commanded to go forward, they would have gone like a whirlwind. It was impossible to merely stand still in one spot. A soldier suddenly threw down his helmet with his whole force, and exclaimed:

'Curse it! One death is as good as another!'

Bartek again experienced such a feeling of relief from these words that he almost entirely ceased to be afraid. For if one death was as good as another, what did anything matter? This rustic philosophy was calculated to arouse courage more rapidly than any other. Bartek knew that one death was as good as another, but it pleased him to hear it, especially as the battle was now turning into a defeat. For here was a regiment which had never fired a single shot, and was already half annihilated. Crowds of soldiers from other regiments which had been scattered, ran in amongst and round theirs in disorder; only these peasants from Pognebin, Great and Little Krzywda, and Mizerw still remained firm, upholding Prussian discipline. But even amongst them a certain degree of hesitation now began to be felt. Another moment and they would have burst the restraint of discipline. The ground under their feet was already soft and slippery with blood, the stench of which mingled with the smell of gunpowder. In several places the lines could not join up closely, because the dead bodies made gaps in them.

At the feet of those men yet standing, the other half lay bleeding, groaning, struggling, dying, or in the silence of death. There was no air to breathe in. They began to grumble:

'They have brought us out to be slaughtered!'

'No one will come out of this!'

'Silence, Polish dogs!' sounded the officer's voice.

'I should just like you to be standing in my shoes!'

'Where is that fellow?'

Suddenly a voice began to repeat:

'Beneath Thy Shadow....'

Bartek instantly took it up:

'We flee, O holy Son of G.o.d!'

And soon on that field of carnage a chorus of Polish voices was calling to the Defender of their nation:

'Of Thy favour regard our prayers.'

while from beneath their feet there came the accompaniment of groans: 'Mary! Mary!' She had evidently heard them, for at that moment the Aide-de-Camps came galloping up, and the command rang forth: 'Arms to the attack! Hurrah! Forward!' The crest of bayonets was suddenly lowered, the column stretched out into a long line and sprang towards the hill to seek with their bayonets the enemy they could not discover with their eyes. The men were, however, still two hundred yards from the foot of the hill, and they had to traverse that distance under a murderous fire. Would they not perish like the rest? Would they not be obliged to retreat? Perish they might, but retreat they could not, for the Prussian commander knows what tune will bring Polish soldiers to the attack. Amid the roar of cannon, amid the rifle fire and the smoke, the confusion and groaning, loudest of all sounded the drums and trumpets, playing the hymn at which every single drop of blood leapt in their veins. 'Hurrah!' answered the Macki[6] 'as long as we live!' Frenzy seized them. The fire met them full in the face. They went like a whirlwind over the prostrate bodies of men and horses, over the wrecks of cannon. They fell, but they went with a shout and a song. They had already reached the vineyard and disappeared into its enclosure. Only the song was heard, and at times a bayonet glittered.

On the hill the firing became increasingly fierce. In the valley the trumpets kept on sounding. The French volleys continued faster and faster,--still faster,--and suddenly--

Suddenly they were silent.

Down in the valley that old wardog, Steinmetz, lighted his clay pipe, and said in a tone of satisfaction:

'You have only to play to them! The daredevils will do it!'

And actually in a few moments one of the proudly waving tricolours was suddenly raised aloft, then drooped, and disappeared.

'They are not joking,' said Steinmetz.

Again the trumpets played the hymn, and a second Polish regiment went to the help of the first. In the enclosure a pitched battle with bayonets was taking place.

And now, oh Muse, sing of our hero, Bartek, that posterity may know of his deeds! The fear, impatience, and despair of his heart had mingled into the single feeling of rage, and when he heard that music each vein stood out in him like cast iron. His hair stood on end, his eyes shot fire. He forgot everything that had made up his world; he no longer cared whether one death was as good as another. Grasping his rifle firmly in his hands, he leapt forward with the others. Reaching the hill he fell down for the tenth time, struck his nose, and, bespattered with mud and the blood flowing from his nose, ran on madly and breathlessly, catching at the air with open mouth. He stared round, wishing to find some of the French in the enclosure as quickly as possible, and caught sight of three standing together near the flags. They were Turcos. Would Bartek retreat? No, indeed; he could have seized the horns of Lucifer himself now! He ran towards them at once, and they fell on him with a shout; two bayonets, like two deadly stings, had actually touched his chest already, but Bartek lowered his bayonet. A dreadful cry followed,--a groan, and two dark bodies lay writhing convulsively on the ground.

At that moment the third, who carried the flag, ran up to help his two comrades. Like a Fury, Bartek leapt on him with his whole strength.

The firing flashed and roared in the distance, while Bartek's hoa.r.s.e roar rang out through the smoke:

'Go to h.e.l.l!'

And again the rifle in his hand described a fearful semi-circle, again groans responded to his thrusts. The Turcos retreated in terror at the sight of this furious giant, but either Bartek misunderstood, or they shouted out something in Arabic, for it seemed to him that their thick lips distinctly uttered the cry: 'Magda! Magda!'

'Magda will give it you!' howled Bartek, and with one leap he was in the enemy's midst.

Happily at that moment some of his comrades ran up to his a.s.sistance.

A hand to hand fight now took place in the enclosure of the vineyard.

There was the crack of rifles at close quarters, and the hot breath of the combatants sounded through their nostrils. Bartek raged like a storm. Blinded by smoke, streaming with blood, more like a wild beast than a man, and regardless of everything, he mowed down men at each blow, broke rifles, cracked heads. His hands moved with the terrible swiftness of a machine sowing destruction. He attacked the Ensign, and seized him by the throat with an iron grip. The Ensign's eyes turned upwards, his face swelled, his throat rattled, and his hands let the pole fall.

'Hurrah!' cried Bartek, and, lifting the flag, he waved it in the air.

This was the flag raised aloft and drooping, which Steinmetz had seen from below.

But he could only see it for half a second, for in the next--Bartek had trampled it to shreds. Meanwhile his comrades were already rushing on ahead.

Bartek remained alone for a moment. He tore off the flag, hid it in his breast pocket, and, having seized the pole in both hands, rushed after his comrades.

A crowd of Turcos, shouting in a barbarous tongue, now fled towards the gun placed on the summit of the hill, the Macki after them, shouting, pursuing, striking with b.u.t.t-end and bayonet.

The Zouaves, who were stationed by the guns, received the first men with rifle fire.

'Hurrah!' shouted Bartek.

The men ran up to the guns, and a fresh struggle took place round these. At that moment the second Polish regiment came to the aid of the first. The flag pole in Bartek's powerful hands was now changed into a kind of infernal flail. Each stroke dealt by it opened a free pa.s.sage through the close lines of the French. The Zouaves and Turcos began to be seized with panic, and they fled from the place where Bartek was fighting. Within a few moments Bartek was sitting astride the gun, as he might his Pognebin mare.

But scarcely had the soldiers had time to see him on this, when he was already on the second, after killing another Ensign who was standing by it with the flag.

'Hurrah, Bartek!' repeatedly exclaimed the soldiers.

The victory was complete. All the ammunition was captured. The infantry fled, and after being surrounded by Prussian reinforcements on the other side of the hill, laid down their arms.

Bartek captured yet a third flag during the pursuit.

It was worth seeing him, when exhausted, covered with blood, and blowing like a blacksmith's bellows, he now descended the hill together with the rest, bearing the three flags on his shoulder. The French? Why, what had not he alone done to them! By his side went Wojtek, scratched and scarred, so he turned to him and said: