The Blockade of Phalsburg Part 20

The sergeant saw them and made a little sign to them with his head. As I was going in I said to him, "Sergeant, don't forget your gla.s.s of cherry-brandy."

"Don't worry, Father Moses," said he.

The detachment went on to break ranks at the Place d'Armes as usual, and I went up home at a quarter to four. I was scarcely in the room before Zeffen, Sorle, and Safel threw their arms round me as if I had come back from the war; little David clung to my knee, and they all wanted to know the news.

I had to tell them about the attack, the grape-shot, the routing of the Cossacks. But the table was ready. I had not had my breakfast, and I said, "Let us sit down. You shall hear the rest by and by. Let me take breath."

Just then the sergeant entered in fine spirits, and set the b.u.t.t-end of his musket on the floor. We were going to meet him when we saw a tuft of red hair on the point of his bayonet, that made us tremble.

"Mercy, what is that?" said Zeffen, covering her face.

He knew nothing about it, and looked to see, much surprised.

"That?" said he, "oh! it is the beard of a Cossack that I touched as I pa.s.sed him--it is not much of anything."

He took the musket at once to his own room; but we were all horror-struck, and Zeffen could not recover herself. When the sergeant came back she was still sitting in the arm-chair, with both hands before her face.

"Ah, Madame Zeffen," said he sadly, "now you are going to detest me!"

I thought, too, that Zeffen would be afraid of him, but women always like these men who risk their lives at random. I have seen it a hundred times. And Zeffen smiled as she answered: "No, sergeant, no; these Cossacks ought to stay at home and not come and trouble us! You protect us--we love you very much!"

I persuaded him to breakfast with us, and it ended by his opening a window, and calling out to some soldiers pa.s.sing by to give notice at the cantine that Sergeant Trubert was not coming to breakfast.

So we were all calmed down, and seated ourselves at the table. Sorle went down to get a bottle of good wine, and we began to eat our breakfast.

We had coffee, too, and Zeffen wanted to pour it out herself for the sergeant. He was delighted.

"Madame Zeffen," said he, "you load me with kindness!"

She laughed. We had never been happier.

While he was taking his cherry-brandy, the sergeant told us all about the attack in the night; the way in which the Wurtemberg troops had stationed themselves at La Roulette, how it had been necessary to dislodge them as they were forcing open the two large gates, the arrival of the Cossacks at daybreak, and the sending out two companies to fire at them.

He told all this so well that we could almost think we saw it. But about eleven o'clock, as I took up the bottle to pour out another gla.s.sful, he wiped his mustache, and said, as he rose: "No, Father Moses, we have something to do besides taking our ease and enjoying ourselves; to-morrow, or next day, the sh.e.l.ls will be coming; it is time to go and screen the garret."

We all became sober at these words.

"Let us see!" said he; "I have seen in your court some long logs of wood which have not been sawed, and there are three or four large beams against the wall. Are we two strong enough to carry them up? Let us try!"

He was going to take off his cape at once; but, as the beams were very heavy, I told him to wait and I would run for the two Carabins, Nicolas, who was called the _Greyhound_, and Mathis, the wood-sawyer.

They came at once, and, being used to heavy work, they carried up the timber. They had brought their saws and axes with them; the sergeant made them saw the beams, so as to cross them above in the form of a sentry-box. He worked himself like a regular carpenter, and Sorle, Zeffen, and I looked on. As it took some time, my wife and daughter went down to prepare supper, and I went down with them, to get a lantern for the workmen.

I was going up again very quietly, never thinking of danger, when, suddenly, a frightful noise, a kind of terrible rumbling, pa.s.sed along the roof, and almost made me drop my lantern.

The two Carabins turned pale and looked at each other.

"It is a ball!" said the sergeant.

At the same time a loud sound of cannon in the distance was heard in the darkness.

I had a terrible feeling in my stomach, and I thought to myself, "Since one ball has pa.s.sed, there may be two, three, four!"

My strength was all gone. The two Carabins doubtless thought the same, for they took down at once their waistcoats, which were hanging on the gable, to go away.

"Wait!" said the sergeant. "It is nothing. Let us keep at our work--it is going on well. It will be done in an hour more."

But the elder Carabin called out, "You may do as you please! _I_ am not going to stay here--I have a family!"

And while he was speaking, a second ball, more frightful than the first, began to rumble upon the roof, and five or six seconds after we heard the explosion.

It was astonishing! The Russians were firing from the edge of the Bois-de-Chenes, more than a half-hour distant, and yet we saw the red flash pa.s.s before our two windows, and even under the tiles.

The sergeant tried to keep us still at work.

"Two bullets never pa.s.s in the same place," said he. "We are in a safe spot, since that has grazed the roof. Come, let us go to work!"

It was too much for us. I placed the lantern on the floor and went down, feeling as if my thighs were broken. I wanted to sit down at every step.

Out of doors they were shouting as if it were morning, and in a more frightful way. Chimneys were falling, and women running to the windows; but I paid no attention to it, I was so frightened myself.

The two Carabins had gone away paler than death.

All that night I was ill. Sorle and Zeffen were no more at ease than myself. The sergeant kept on alone, placing the logs and making them fast. About midnight he came down.

"Father Moses," said he, "the roof is screened, but your two men are cowards; they left me alone."

I thanked him, and told him that we were all sick, and as for myself I had never felt anything like it. He laughed.

"I know what that is," said he. "Conscripts always feel so when they hear the first ball; but that is soon over--they only need to get a little used to it."

Then he went to bed, and everybody in the house, except myself, went to sleep.

The Russians did not fire after ten o'clock that night; they had only tried one or two field-pieces, to warn us of what they had in store.

All this, Fritz, was but the beginning of the blockade; you are going to hear now of the miseries we endured for three months.

XIII

A DESERTER CAPTURED

The city was joyful the next day, notwithstanding the firing in the night. A number of men who came from the ramparts about seven o'clock, came down our street shouting: "They are gone! There is not a single Cossack to be seen in the direction of Quatre-Vents, nor behind the barracks of the Bois-de-Chenes! _Vive l'Empereur_!"

Everybody ran to the bastions.

I had opened one of our windows, and leaned out in my nightcap. It was thawing, the snow was sliding from the roofs, and that in the streets was melting in the mud. Sorle, who was turning up our bed, called to me: "Do shut the window, Moses! We shall catch cold from the draught!"