The Downfall Part 32

"You dirty loafers, I'll see whether you will go up there or not! I'll kick you up! About face! and I'll break the jaw of the first man that refuses to obey!"

But such an extreme measure as kicking a regiment into action was repugnant to the colonel.

"No, no, lieutenant; they will follow me. Won't you, my children? You won't let your old colonel fight it out alone with the Prussians! Up there lies the way; forward!"

He turned his horse and left the trench, and they did all follow, to a man, for he would have been considered the lowest of the low who could have abandoned their leader after that brave, kind speech. He was the only one, however, who, while crossing the open fields, erect on his tall horse, was cool and unconcerned; the men scattered, advancing in open order and availing themselves of every shelter afforded by the ground. The land sloped upward; there were fully five hundred yards of stubble and beet fields between them and the Calvary, and in place of the correctly aligned columns that the spectator sees advancing when a charge is ordered in field maneuvers, all that was to be seen was a loose array of men with rounded backs, singly or in small groups, hugging the ground, now crawling warily a little way on hands and knees, now dashing forward for the next cover, like huge insects fighting their way upward to the crest by dint of agility and address. The enemy's batteries seemed to have become aware of the movement; their fire was so rapid that the reports of the guns were blended in one continuous roar.

Five men were killed, a lieutenant was cut in two.

Maurice and Jean had considered themselves fortunate that their way led along a hedge behind which they could push forward unseen, but the man immediately in front of them was shot through the temples and fell back dead in their arms; they had to cast him down at one side. By this time, however, the casualties had ceased to excite attention; they were too numerous. A man went by, uttering frightful shrieks and pressing his hands upon his protruding entrails; they beheld a horse dragging himself along with both thighs broken, and these anguishing sights, these horrors of the battlefield, affected them no longer. They were suffering from the intolerable heat, the noonday sun that beat upon their backs and burned like hot coals.

"How thirsty I am!" Maurice murmured. "My throat is like an ash barrel.

Don't you notice that smell of something scorching, a smell like burning woolen?"

Jean nodded. "It was just the same at Solferino; perhaps it is the smell that always goes with war. But hold, I have a little brandy left; we'll have a sup."

And they paused behind the hedge a moment and raised the flask to their lips, but the brandy, instead of relieving their thirst, burned their stomach. It irritated them, that nasty taste of burnt rags in their mouths. Moreover they perceived that their strength was commencing to fail for want of sustenance and would have liked to take a bite from the half loaf that Maurice had in his knapsack, but it would not do to stop and breakfast there under fire, and then they had to keep up with their comrades. There was a steady stream of men coming up behind them along the hedge who pressed them forward, and so, doggedly bending their backs to the task before them, they resumed their course. Presently they made their final rush and reached the crest. They were on the plateau, at the very foot of the Calvary, the old weather-beaten cross that stood between two stunted lindens.

"Good for our side!" exclaimed Jean; "here we are! But the next thing is to remain here!"

He was right; it was not the pleasantest place in the world to be in, as Lapoulle remarked in a doleful tone that excited the laughter of the company. They all lay down again, in a field of stubble, and for all that three men were killed in quick succession. It was pandemonium let loose up there on the heights; the projectiles from Saint-Menges, Fleigneux, and Givonne fell in such numbers that the ground fairly seemed to smoke, as it does at times under a heavy shower of rain. It was clear that the position could not be maintained unless artillery was dispatched at once to the support of the troops who had been sent on such a hopeless undertaking. General Douay, it was said, had given instructions to bring up two batteries of the reserve artillery, and the men were every moment turning their heads, watching anxiously for the guns that did not come.

"It is absurd, ridiculous!" declared Beaudoin, who was again fidgeting up and down before the company. "Who ever heard of placing a regiment in the air like this and giving it no support!" Then, observing a slight depression on their left, he turned to Rochas: "Don't you think, Lieutenant, that the company would be safer there?"

Rochas stood stock still and shrugged his shoulders. "It is six of one and half a dozen of the other, Captain. My opinion is that we will do better to stay where we are."

Then the captain, whose principles were opposed to swearing, forgot himself.

"But, good G.o.d! there won't a man of us escape! We can't allow the men to be murdered like this!"

And he determined to investigate for himself the advantages of the position he had mentioned, but had scarcely taken ten steps when he was lost to sight in the smoke of an exploding sh.e.l.l; a splinter of the projectile had fractured his right leg. He fell upon his back, emitting a shrill cry of alarm, like a woman's.

"He might have known as much," Rochas muttered. "There's no use his making such a fuss over it; when the dose is fixed for one, he has to take it."

Some members of the company had risen to their feet on seeing their captain fall, and as he continued to call l.u.s.tily for a.s.sistance, Jean finally ran to him, immediately followed by Maurice.

"Friends, friends, for Heaven's sake do not leave me here; carry me to the ambulance!"

"_Dame_, Captain, I don't know that we shall be able to get so far, but we can try."

As they were discussing how they could best take hold to raise him they perceived, behind the hedge that had sheltered them on their way up, two stretcher-bearers who seemed to be waiting for something to do, and finally, after protracted signaling, induced them to draw near. All would be well if they could only get the wounded man to the ambulance without accident, but the way was long and the iron hail more pitiless than ever.

The bearers had tightly bandaged the injured limb in order to keep the bones in position and were about to bear the captain off the field on what children call a "chair," formed by joining their hands and slipping an arm of the patient over each of their necks, when Colonel de Vineuil, who had heard of the accident, came up, spurring his horse. He manifested much emotion, for he had known the young man ever since his graduation from Saint-Cyr.

"Cheer up, my poor boy; have courage. You are in no danger; the doctors will save your leg."

The captain's face wore an expression of resignation, as if he had summoned up all his courage to bear his misfortune manfully.

"No, my dear Colonel; I feel it is all up with me, and I would rather have it so. The only thing that distresses me is the waiting for the inevitable end."

The bearers carried him away, and were fortunate enough to reach the hedge in safety, behind which they trotted swiftly away with their burden. The colonel's eyes followed them anxiously, and when he saw them reach the clump of trees where the ambulance was stationed a look of deep relief rose to his face.

"But you, Colonel," Maurice suddenly exclaimed, "you are wounded too!"

He had perceived blood dripping from the colonel's left boot. A projectile of some description had carried away the heel of the foot-covering and forced the steel shank into the flesh.

M. de Vineuil bent over his saddle and glanced unconcernedly at the member, in which the sensation at that time must have been far from pleasurable.

"Yes, yes," he replied, "it is a little remembrance that I received a while ago. A mere scratch, that don't prevent me from sitting my horse--" And he added, as he turned to resume his position to the rear of his regiment: "As long as a man can stick on his horse he's all right."

At last the two batteries of reserve artillery came up. Their arrival was an immense relief to the anxiously expectant men, as if the guns were to be a rampart of protection to them and at the same time demolish the hostile batteries that were thundering against them from every side.

And then, too, it was in itself an exhilarating spectacle to see the magnificent order they preserved as they came dashing up, each gun followed by its caisson, the drivers seated on the near horse and holding the off horse by the bridle, the cannoneers bolt upright on the chests, the chiefs of detachment riding in their proper position on the flank. Distances were preserved as accurately as if they were on parade, and all the time they were tearing across the fields at headlong speed, with the roar and crash of a hurricane.

Maurice, who had lain down again, arose and said to Jean in great excitement:

"Look! over there on the left, that is Honore's battery. I can recognize the men."

Jean gave him a back-handed blow that brought him down to his rec.u.mbent position.

"Lie down, will you! and make believe dead!"

But they were both deeply interested in watching the maneuvers of the battery, and never once removed their eyes from it; it cheered their heart to witness the cool and intrepid activity of those men, who, they hoped, might yet bring victory to them.

The battery had wheeled into position on a bare summit to the left, where it brought up all standing; then, quick as a flash, the cannoneers leaped from the chests and unhooked the limbers, and the drivers, leaving the gun in position, drove fifteen yards to the rear, where they wheeled again so as to bring team and limber face to the enemy and there remained, motionless as statues. In less time than it takes to tell it the guns were in place, with the proper intervals between them, distributed into three sections of two guns each, each section commanded by a lieutenant, and over the whole a captain, a long maypole of a man, who made a terribly conspicuous landmark on the plateau. And this captain, having first made a brief calculation, was heard to shout:

"Sight for sixteen hundred yards!"

Their fire was to be directed upon a Prussian battery, screened by some bushes, to the left of Fleigneux, the sh.e.l.ls from which were rendering the position of the Calvary untenable.

"Honore's piece, you see," Maurice began again, whose excitement was such that he could not keep still, "Honore's piece is in the center section. There he is now, bending over to speak to the gunner; you remember Louis, the gunner, don't you? the little fellow with whom we had a drink at Vouziers? And that fellow in the rear, who sits so straight on his handsome chestnut, is Adolphe, the driver--"

First came the gun with its chief and six cannoneers, then the limber with its four horses ridden by two men, beyond that the caisson with its six horses and three drivers, still further to the rear were the _prolonge_, forge, and battery wagon; and this array of men, horses and _materiel_ extended to the rear in a straight unbroken line of more than a hundred yards in length; to say nothing of the spare caisson and the men and beasts who were to fill the places of those removed by casualties, who were stationed at one side, as much as possible out of the enemy's line of fire.

And now Honore was attending to the loading of his gun. The two men whose duty it was to fetch the cartridge and the projectile returned from the caisson, where the corporal and the artificer were stationed; two other cannoneers, standing at the muzzle of the piece, slipped into the bore the cartridge, a charge of powder in an envelope of serge, and gently drove it home with the rammer, then in like manner introduced the sh.e.l.l, the studs of which creaked faintly in the spirals of the rifling.

When the primer was inserted in the vent and all was in readiness, Honore thought he would like to point the gun himself for the first shot, and throwing himself in a semi-rec.u.mbent posture on the trail, working with one hand the screw that regulated the elevation, with the other he signaled continually to the gunner, who, standing behind him, moved the piece by imperceptible degrees to right or left with the a.s.sistance of the lever.

"That ought to be about right," he said as he arose.

The captain came up, and stooping until his long body was bent almost double, verified the elevation. At each gun stood the a.s.sistant gunner, waiting to pull the lanyard that should ignite the fulminate by means of a serrated wire. And the orders were given in succession, deliberately, by number:

"Number one, Fire! Number two, Fire!"

Six reports were heard, the guns recoiled, and while they were being brought back to position the chiefs of detachment observed the effect of the shots and found that the range was short. They made the necessary correction and the evolution was repeated, in exactly the same manner as before; and it was that cool precision, that mechanical routine of duty, without agitation and without haste, that did so much to maintain the _morale_ of the men. They were a little family, united by the tie of a common occupation, grouped around the gun, which they loved and reverenced as if it had been a living thing; it was the object of all their care and attention, to it all else was subservient, men, horses, caisson, everything. Thence also arose the spirit of unity and cohesion that animated the battery at large, making all its members work together for the common glory and the common good, like a well-regulated household.

The 106th had cheered l.u.s.tily at the completion of the first round; they were going to make those b.l.o.o.d.y Prussian guns shut their mouths at last!

but their elation was succeeded by dismay when it was seen that the projectiles fell short, many of them bursting in the air and never reaching the bushes that served to mask the enemy's artillery.

"Honore," Maurice continued, "says that all the other pieces are popguns and that his old girl is the only one that is good for anything. Ah, his old girl! He talks as if she were his wife and there were not another like her in the world! Just notice how jealously he watches her and makes the men clean her off! I suppose he is afraid she will overheat herself and take cold!"

He continued rattling on in this pleasant vein to Jean, both of them cheered and encouraged by the cool bravery with which the artillerymen served their guns; but the Prussian batteries, after firing three rounds, had now got the range, which, too long at the beginning, they had at last ciphered down to such a fine point that their sh.e.l.ls were landed invariably among the French pieces, while the latter, notwithstanding the efforts that were made to increase their range, still continued to place their projectiles short of the enemy's position. One of Honore's cannoneers was killed while loading the piece; the others pushed the body out of their way, and the service went on with the same methodical precision, with neither more nor less haste.