With An Ambulance During The Franco-German War Part 13

CHAPTER XXII.

BATTLE OF PATAY.--THE FRENCH RETREAT.--KNIGHTS TEMPLARS.--THE BATTLE CONTINUED.--ATTACK ON ORLEANS BY THE GERMANS.--BURNING OF THE PONTOON BRIDGE.

Time went by in the ordinary routine of Hospital work, until the 1st December, when the news of a successful sortie from Paris, made by Trochu and Ducrot, put the whole town into a fever of excitement. Report said that the Army of Paris was already approaching etampes.

Next day, 2nd December, we heard heavy firing going on all along the lines, so far as we could judge, from Neuville and Chevilly on the right, to Patay on the left. A severe frost had set in during the past fortnight, and there had been a heavy fall of snow during the last few days. The ground was hard, and the air clear, so that the roar of the guns thundered in our ears as if they had been only a few furlongs instead of eight miles away. Of course, it was devoutly held by the Orleaners that Trochu was fighting his way through the Prussian lines, and would be in Orleans to-morrow.

We, however, guessed what the real state of things was. During the last week we had obtained permission from the French authorities to have the old Church of St. Euverte, in the Rue St. Aignan, fitted up as a Hospital, and the Mayor had provided about 300 beds with their bedding.

We had been actively employed the past three days in transferring our wounded from D'Allaine's to our new abode; and by the evening of the 3rd all our arrangements were made to receive the wounded. The cooking department was seen to by an energetic Frenchman, M. Bonjour, whose services throughout our stay at Orleans can never be forgotten by us.

Towards the evening of that same day, the firing became fierce and continual; it appeared to come nearer than it had been in the morning.

Both sides had heavy guns, eighteen and twenty-four pounders, hard at work. Nor were the mitrailleuses inactive. It was not until long after dark that the cannonading ceased. As may be supposed, no one knew, though every one pretended to know, the result of this long engagement.

Some I heard saying that Prince Frederick Charles had been taken prisoner with 20,000 men; while others ventilated equally foolish reports. But ere long convoys of wounded arrived, and we soon had no doubt as to what had happened. The French were evidently getting the worst of it.

Next day, the 4th December, a furious cannonade raged outside the town, making a most terrific din, though still several miles away. It told us that the French were making a determined stand. Early in the morning our Ambulance, minus Tilghman, Mackellar, Hayden and myself, quitted Orleans, and went on to the battlefield. We four were left behind to receive the wounded, as well as to look after those who were already on our hands. I had been under orders to go; but Dr. Warren, who was burning to be in the thick of it, asked me to effect an exchange with him; and I consented to the arrangement, subject to the necessary permission of our chief. My friend had never been among the bullets; and great was his anxiety to receive what Louis Napoleon called in a famous despatch, the "baptism of fire". As I had a great deal of useful work to do, I was quite willing to stay. After my late experience, curiosity alone, without the call of duty, never would prompt me to go again into a battlefield; but I had had my baptism. As regards the success of this expedition, I may add that, when they arrived on the scene of action, they found the French were fighting in retreat, and there was no possibility of establishing a temporary field Hospital. They had, therefore, to content themselves with bringing home as many of the wounded as they could accommodate in their waggons.

The description which they gave of the slaughter was fearful. The Prussian artillery had raked the French lines through and through before their eyes; and Dr. Warren confessed to me that, short as was the time they had been on the battlefield, he had seen sights so horrible that the recollection of them would haunt him till his dying day.

Long before the return of our comrades, we became aware that the French must be fighting in retreat, by the extended convoys of provision and baggage waggons, that streamed down the Rue Royale and across the Loire.

For upwards of ten hours the baggage, provision, and ammunition train of the French army continued to pour across that bridge in unbroken succession. It was a sight to fill one with amazement; one could hardly believe that it was not all a dream.

In the middle of the day, while going to see some of my wounded who were quartered in a neighbouring street, I met a convoy of Prussian prisoners being hurried along by a detachment of marines. They must have been some time in the hands of the French, for they looked thin and worn; and it made my blood boil to see the malignant delight which beamed in the faces of the townsfolk as they scanned these famished and half-frozen wretches pa.s.sing along.

But an hour later, I witnessed in the Rue Jeanne d'Arc a scene, the novelty of which, to my mind, was without a parallel. Moving down the street towards me at a slow hand-gallop,--almost at a walking pace,--came a troop of African cavalry, from the borders of the Sahara.

I don't know that anything had ever excited in me so much curiosity as did the sight of these Spahis; and a more strange and wild-looking collection of men and beasts it would be impossible to conceive. They halted opposite the Cathedral, so that I had ample time to take stock of them. The townspeople displayed as much astonishment as I did, and flocked after them in crowds, just as if they had been the outriders of some great circus.

They were tall, fine-looking men, with bronzed faces, but of various tints, some light, some almost black, some handsome, others square-faced, and, one had almost said, ugly. There were those among them who had well-chiselled features, with dark eyes, and so piercing a look as to give one the idea that they could see right through one.

Their outer dress consisted of long-flowing mantles in white flannel, which trailed along the ground when they dismounted, and were fastened over one shoulder, somewhat after the fashion of the Roman toga. This garment, however, had attached to it a hood and a short cape. On their heads I saw what appeared to be a high coil of whitewashed rope, entangled in the hair, which, so far as I could judge, they wore long.

This coil was looped up about their head-dress like the ordinary turban. The hood, of which I have spoken, was partly drawn up over the turban or coil, just far enough to catch the apex, and the whole appeared as if each man carried on his head a small turret. Add to these details, a lean, ugly, big-boned, square-hipped, straight-shouldered Arab horse, with a wooden frame set on a large pad for a saddle, and having a high piece going up behind, so as to reach half-way up the rider's back. The whole thing looked more like a diminutive chair than a saddle. The girths by which it was secured pa.s.sed round saddle, horse and all. Wooden shoes came out at each side, with strips of hide for stirrups; there was a strong crupper behind, and blinkers were set on the bridles of untanned leather. It was, I think, the oddest specimen of an equestrian turn-out that ever showed on a European battlefield.

These men are supposed to be about the best riders in the world. As they moved on, I remarked that they all rocked in their saddles in the most curious fashion, and thrust out their toes in tailorlike style. They each carried a musket about the length of one's arm, a brace of pistols, and a sword, which did not look like a sword, it was so much bent. Yet this is their favourite weapon. I could well imagine an enemy being taken aback when he approached these mysterious foes, and beheld their grim dark faces peering through a small loophole at the top of a tower of white flannel. They certainly had more the resemblance of cowled monks than of a troop of cavalry, and might have been introduced by Sir Walter Scott in _Ivanhoe_, as Moslem Knights Templars.

When I had seen this curious sight, I went on my way to look after a captain of the Garde Mobile, who was shot through the foot, and a young corporal of the Line, shot through the left lung. The latter was a very bad case, not likely to recover; the ball had descended in the cavity of the chest, and the air which the poor lad was breathing entered and escaped through the perforation. Presently, a boy of about sixteen came in, the friend and companion of the dying corporal. He had but a few minutes to remain, and in this short time he learned from me that his friend's wound was mortal, and that he must now bid him a hasty farewell. The parting scene between them was most touching, for they were attached comrades.

Among the number brought in to-day by our ambulance was one who came under my charge, and whose case was of interest by reason of his tender years. He was a fine lad, only seventeen, and had served in the Garde Mobile. He had been shot through the leg; but the princ.i.p.al cause of his lamentation was not his wound; it was that he had not fired a shot the whole day, nor even so much as got a chance of bowling over a German, though all the while sh.e.l.ls and bullets were falling about him like rain, and dealt wholesale destruction on his company. The account which he gave of the fighting outside was terrible; it seemed to have made a deep impression on his imagination, yet did not in the least take from his courage. He told me he had not eaten for twenty-four hours. How, I often said to myself, could soldiers fight, who were habitually suffering from hunger, cold, and fatigue, like these poor fellows?

All this time the ground literally shook from the conflict which was going on outside the town. I think that, as an artillery fight, it was second only to Sedan.

It had been freezing very hard every night, and snow was lying deep on the ground.

If people at home (and there are some who talk much around their comfortable fires about going to war on every paltry provocation) could have seen the waggon-loads of half-frozen wounded which were brought in to us on the night of the 4th, and those again who lay outside the town without a.s.sistance, their wounds uncared for, and exposed to the bitterly cold night air, how soon they would change their idle tone! how they would loathe and abominate the very name of war!

I can understand that men find a pleasure in studying the art of fighting, as they do in playing a game of chess; and I have allowed in my own case the fascination which even its horrid reality is capable of exercising over one. But for the man who deems it a pleasure and a glory to use the science of war as a weapon wherewith to annihilate thousands of human beings, for the delusion called "prestige," or in the game of politics, I would have him to know that it is a foul and monstrous thing, full of hideous suffering, cruelty, and injustice, with nothing to redeem it, save the courage whereby such miseries are endured.

However, let me go on with my proper theme. Immediately the darkness set in on the 3rd, the cannonading ceased. This night we s.n.a.t.c.hed but a few hours' sleep; for, at the first dawn of daylight, a repet.i.tion of yesterday's performance began with redoubled vigour. From the belfry tower of our church, during the past two days, we had been able to get a fair idea how the battle was going. It commanded a fine view of the country around. But now that the Germans had driven the French back on the outskirts of the town we could see much more of the contest. Early on the 4th we beheld the whole cavalry, numbering about 3000 men, come down the Rue Royale and pa.s.s over the bridge on the Quai du Chatelet,--some at a swinging trot, others at a gallop. It was a rare sight, for here were represented men of every regiment in France--Cuira.s.siers, Lancers, Cha.s.seurs d'Afrique and the rest. This host of armed men and horses, extending as far as the eye could reach (which was certainly half a mile), formed a _coup d'oeil_ not easily forgotten; and the clatter they made on the pavement, during their stampede, was loud enough to have been heard far outside the town.

Towards evening I availed myself of a few minutes' leisure to ascend the church tower and watch the battle, which still continued. The roar of the fighting, which was now going on in the vineyards and entrenchments at the end of the Faubourg Bannier, baffles description. The heavy French marine guns were all going simultaneously, while on each side of the town the infantry also were in close conflict. Quite near us, at the end of our own Faubourg St. Vincent, just where the convent stood in which Miss Pearson and Miss McLoughlin were at work, the fighting seemed heaviest. On some portion of the ground that was not so thickly covered with vineyards, the dead were strewn in heaps, many being the victims of their own mitrailleuses which the Germans had captured, and were now using with more precision and deadly effect than their original possessors. But all this time, the French, though retreating, kept up a continuous and well-directed fire upon the advancing Prussians, whose losses, as we afterwards discovered, were quite as great as those of the vanquished.

This they attributed themselves to the great tact and ability which the French marines displayed in the management of their heavy guns. But for these, indeed, as I have heard the French say, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for them to have covered the retreat of their army.

The sun shone brilliantly that afternoon of the 4th, and the arms and accoutrements of the contending forces were flashing brightly, as they moved about among the vineyards. In the distance we could see in several places the field-artillery galloping along in different directions, wheeling round suddenly, and stopping, when the little puffs of smoke told us their reason for doing so. But these reports were lost in the general tumult of the battle. One or two more repet.i.tions of these little puffs, then a limber-up, and a dash ahead as before in their onward course, only to repeat the same manoeuvres further on; such were the tactics which, as from a box at the theatre, we repeatedly noticed, standing in the belfry of Ste. Euverte.

And here I may mention an incident witnessed by Drs. May and Tilghman.

There was a hot contest being waged close to the Hospital, among the double rows of trees on the Boulevard St. Vincent, when, in the midst of the confusion, a young lieutenant of the Line was seen stepping out from a house just beside the church. He had gone but a few paces, when a young girl rushed out after him and took a last embrace, after which he moved quickly out of her sight. But evidently he was not yet out of the mind of the young girl; for she stood as if rooted to the spot, gazing after her lover, heedless of the bullets which were whistling past, and of the storm of the battle raging round her. In another moment, May and Tilghman realised her frightful situation. May sprang over the paling which was between them, but arrived only in time to receive her bleeding and senseless into his arms. A spent bullet had struck her between the angle of the eye and the cheek bone, and had stripped back the soft parts of the side of the face as far as the ear, with a portion of the scalp.

The wound, though not so very dangerous,--for the bone of the head was only grazed and not broken,--was, nevertheless, an ugly one. The girl was at once taken into her own house, where May and Tilghman skilfully adjusted the torn portions of the scalp by a neat operation, bestowing on the case every attention in their power. It will doubtless be gratifying to my reader when I tell him that this girl made a splendid recovery. I had the privilege of watching her convalescence in the absence of Dr. May. Nor was she much disfigured; for, in consequence of the prompt treatment, the parts united admirably, leaving an almost imperceptible scar, which was, however, sufficiently well marked to remind her of that romantic, but perilous, moment at Orleans. Love is proverbially blind. In this case, love was blind and deaf too.

I was kept hard at work in the Hospital, and could steal only a moment to observe the stirring scenes which were going on around. Each new-comer brought with him, in addition to his own sad story, a list of harrowing details from the day's battlefield. But things were all going one way. Early in the afternoon, the main body of the French army had fallen back upon the town. The Germans had gained possession of the two princ.i.p.al approaches of the Faubourgs Bannier and St. Vincent, and had already demolished numerous buildings on the outskirts. They did not, however, sh.e.l.l the town itself, as we feared they were on the point of doing; and when night set in, there was a temporary armistice. Both sides, by mutual consent, desisted, on the understanding that the bridges were not to be blown up.

Now it was that the whole French army commenced their hurried march across the Loire, by the pontoon bridge, and the two permanent ones. It was a bright, still, moonlight night, and nothing was to be heard but the trampling of feet, as that mighty host hurried along. I stood at the corner of the Quai du Chatelet and watched them. Some of the regiments, which had happened to lag behind, doubled down the Rue Royale, but they marched over the pontoons at the regulation pace.

Not a word was spoken,--an unusual state of things among Frenchmen,--and all, as they well might, seemed dispirited. Some of the men had no arms; many had lost their kepis; and all showed visible signs of having lately seen hard times. Tired, at length, of watching them pa.s.s in that unbroken stream, I went to my quarters at No. 64 on the Quai hard by.

I had hardly entered, when my attention was called by the tramp of feet on the pavement outside the open window. On looking out, I beheld what appeared to be the remains of several regiments. Most of them were without arms, and all went limping along, evidently quite foot-sore, while numbers were slightly wounded, to judge from various bandages, which they displayed round their heads, legs, and arms. They looked more like a procession of invalids out for a walk, than soldiers still capable of fighting. The poor fellows were dead beat, and did not so much march as shuffle along, some in a tottering condition, and lagging behind the rest, having evidently done as much as was in their power.

But what was my rage and indignation, when a captain, in the rear, who carried in his hand not a sword, but a thick cane, belaboured with it, again and again, any unfortunate who did not keep up with the rest! One of these poor fellows made a sign to me for something to drink. Swiftly as possible, I seized a large can of water which stood beside the window, and poured it slowly on the footway. Several that were near put their mouths under the little jet, and then began a sort of scramble for what one of them told me he had not tasted during fourteen hours. But their gallant leader, having dealt half a dozen blows at random with his stick among this thirsty crowd, dispersed them, indulging the while in strong language, and gesticulated at me in the most excited manner.

However, the frame of mind I was in--to say nothing of my safe position--made me equal to the occasion. I complimented him on the able style in which _Monsieur le Marechal_ used his _baton_; and he slunk away, muttering curses, as he did so, at me and his men.

This piece of excitement over, I went to the pontoon bridge, where the stream of soldiers continued to pour across. Although I had been on duty the previous night and all that day, I could not but stay up to watch this historic and interesting spectacle,--the retreat of 200,000 men, composing the whole Army of the Loire, across that river. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and they had been pa.s.sing for hours. But the living current flowed on unceasingly during the night, until the last of the troops were over. When this had been accomplished, then the silence of the frosty scene was broken by the sound of hammers, hatchets, and saws; and the air resounded with the hacking and the chopping of the sappers, who were busily engaged cutting the moorings and the cross planks, while others set fire to the bridge in about a dozen places.

Just at the same hour, there was a great tramp and rattle of horses and waggons over the permanent bridge to our right, caused by a number of batteries of artillery, which galloped furiously onwards in headlong career. They were the last of the fugitive army. The battle of Patay had been lost and won.

Now the Loire was much flooded, and the blocks of ice borne down in the current were very large, so that when the different sections of the bridge were cut loose,--and, later on, when they became again subdivided, as well as during the process of freeing themselves,--the grating, groaning, creaking, and crashing of one against the other, and also against the great blocks of ice, was unlike any other sound I ever heard. Moreover, every raft of boats and planks formed the base of a pillar of fire, which brilliantly illuminated the snow-covered slopes, the trees, and the ice-bound banks of the river,--reflecting in the water above and below us, as if in a looking-gla.s.s, the arches and the battlements of two of the finest bridges in France, which now stood out, in all their architectural beauty, relieved against the pitchy darkness of the night.

As each of these burning sections of the pontoon became disconnected from its fellow, it turned round on its own axis, and staggered about in the river for a short time, until finally, having arrived in mid stream, it swept down with the current,--making a loud grating noise as it struck the ice blocks,--and at last with a tremendous crash was hurled against the mighty granite bulwarks of the bridge. There it either became a total wreck, or, being broken up into fragments, swirled hither and thither till it pa.s.sed out of view. It was a strange and magnificent spectacle, unequalled by anything I have seen before or since, in the combination of light and dark, the enormous power displayed, and the gigantic ruin upon the waters.

When I was taking a last look at all this before retiring to rest, a number of soldiers came up, intending to cross over; but they found the bridge demolished, and themselves cut off from retreat.

These, I heard afterwards, were some few hundred men, inclusive of the Foreign Legion, who formed the rear guard of the army, and had got lost in the darkness. They neglected to avail themselves of the railway bridge nearest them, which, like that in our neighbourhood, was also, during this night, taken and guarded by the Prussians.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FIGHTING IN THE STREETS.--THE TOWN CARRIED BY a.s.sAULT.--NARROW ESCAPES.--THE RED PRINCE ENTERS WITH HIS WHOLE ARMY.

Overcome by fatigue and excitement, I had thrown myself on my bed just as I was, and never stirred until daylight, when Warren awoke me with the news that fighting was going on in the streets. I rubbed my eyes and went to the window, when, to my utter astonishment, I beheld six Prussians confronting about fifteen Frenchmen. They had come upon the latter by surprise round a corner, and the French looked at first as if they were going to fire; but, on seeing a large body of Prussians advancing under cover of the trees, they lowered their rifles, and coolly stacked their arms not twenty paces from my window. The six Germans, meanwhile, quietly stood round them with fixed bayonets. In another minute they were walking off up a by-street as prisoners.

All this came upon a man who had been just awakened rather by surprise; but, when I heard some desultory firing in different parts of the town, I made up my mind that we were to have hot work in the streets. Having performed a hasty toilette, I sallied forth, eager not to lose the sight of what was going on. I had not proceeded many yards up the Quai, when I perceived a body of Prussians stationed near the bridge at the end of the Rue Royale. Seeing these drawn up in battle array, and finding myself the only person on the Quai du Chatelet, I paused for a moment or two, and looked down in the other direction towards the railway bridge.

There I beheld a goodly number of Frenchmen, ranged over against the church of St. Aignan at the other extremity of the Quai. Thinking that this looked like business I remarked to Dr. Warren that we were in an awkward position, and had better retire. The words were no sooner out of my mouth, and we had only just stepped back into the hall, when a volley of bullets whizzed along by us in the direction of a French officer, who was galloping across the bridge at that moment. Some of the b.a.l.l.s must have gone very close to him, for he ducked his head repeatedly behind his horse's neck and redoubled his speed. Shot after shot went after him until he lay quite flat on his saddle. How he rushed the guard on the bridge was a mystery I could never solve; but that he did escape I can certify.

This was the signal for a general fusilade. The Germans at the end of the Rue Royale, advancing on the bridge, knelt down behind the parapets, so that we could see nothing but the spikes of their helmets and the muzzles of their rifles which glittered in the morning sun. The French answered from behind the trees on the Quai, and from the corners of the by-streets. We now perceived that a company of Prussians were advancing in single file down the Quai towards us, and were entering the houses.

This was more than we could stand. So slipping out of No. 64 up the nearest lane, we ran out by the rear into our headquarters at No. 66.