The Downfall Part 31

He had to repeat his order in German, whereon a soldier came forward from the ranks, a short stocky Bavarian, with an enormous head surrounded by a bristling forest of red hair and beard, beneath which all that was to be seen were a pair of big blue eyes and a ma.s.sive nose.

He was besmeared with blood, a hideous spectacle, like nothing so much as some fierce, hairy denizen of the woods, emerging from his cavern and licking his chops, still red with the gore of the victims whose bones he has been crunching.

With a heart-rending cry Henriette repeated:

"Give me my husband, or let me die with him."

This seemed to cause the cup of the officer's exasperation to overrun; he thumped himself violently on the chest, declaring that he was no executioner, that he would rather die than harm a hair of an innocent head. There was nothing against her; he would cut off his right hand rather than do her an injury. And then he repeated his order that she be taken away.

As the Bavarian came up to carry out his instructions Henriette tightened her clasp on Weiss's neck, throwing all her strength into her frantic embrace.

"Oh, my love! Keep me with you, I beseech you; let me die with you--"

Big tears were rolling down his cheeks as, without answering, he endeavored to loosen the convulsive clasp of the fingers of the poor creature he loved so dearly.

"You love me no longer, then, that you wish to die without me. Hold me, keep me, do not let them take me. They will weary at last, and will kill us together."

He had loosened one of the little hands, and carried it to his lips and kissed it, working all the while to make the other release its hold.

"No, no, it shall not be! I will not leave thy bosom; they shall pierce my heart before reaching thine. I will not survive--"

But at last, after a long struggle, he held both the hands in his. Then he broke the silence that he had maintained until then, uttering one single word:

"Farewell, dear wife."

And with his own hands he placed her in the arms of the Bavarian, who carried her away. She shrieked and struggled, while the soldier, probably with intent to soothe her, kept pouring in her ear an uninterrupted stream of words in unmelodious German. And, having freed her head, looking over the shoulder of the man, she beheld the end.

It lasted not five seconds. Weiss, whose eye-gla.s.s had slipped from its position in the agitation of their parting, quickly replaced it upon his nose, as if desirous to look death in the face. He stepped back and placed himself against the wall, and the face of the self-contained, strong young man, as he stood there in his tattered coat, was sublimely beautiful in its expression of tranquil courage. Laurent, who stood beside him, had thrust his hands deep down into his pockets. The cold cruelty of the proceeding disgusted him; it seemed to him that they could not be far removed from savagery who could thus slaughter men before the eyes of their wives. He drew himself up, looked them square in the face, and in a tone of deepest contempt expectorated:

"Dirty pigs!"

The officer raised his sword; the signal was succeeded by a cras.h.i.+ng volley, and the two men sank to the ground, an inert ma.s.s, the gardener's lad upon his face, the other, the accountant, upon his side, lengthwise of the wall. The frame of the latter, before he expired, contracted in a supreme convulsion, the eyelids quivered, the mouth opened as if he was about to speak. The officer came up and stirred him with his foot, to make sure that he was really dead.

Henriette had seen the whole: the fading eyes that sought her in death, the last struggle of the strong man in agony, the brutal boot spurning the corpse. And while the Bavarian still held her in his arms, conveying her further and further from the object of her love, she uttered no cry; she set her teeth, in silent fury, into what was nearest: a human hand, it chanced to be. The soldier gave vent to a howl of anguish and dashed her to the ground; raising his uninjured fist above her head he was on the point of braining her. And for a moment their faces were in contact; she experienced a feeling of intensest loathing for the monster, and that blood-stained hair and beard, those blue eyes, dilated and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with hate and rage, were destined to remain forever indelibly imprinted on her memory.

In after days Henriette could never account distinctly to herself for the time immediately succeeding these events. She had but one desire: to return to the spot where her loved one had died, take possession of his remains, and watch and weep over them; but, as in an evil dream, obstacles of every sort arose before her and barred the way. First a heavy infantry fire broke out afresh, and there was great activity among the German troops who were holding Bazeilles; it was due to the arrival of the infanterie de marine and other regiments that had been despatched from Balan to regain possession of the village, and the battle commenced to rage again with the utmost fury. The young woman, in company with a band of terrified citizens, was swept away to the left into a dark alley. The result of the conflict could not remain long doubtful, however; it was too late to reconquer the abandoned positions. For near half an hour the infantry struggled against superior numbers and faced death with splendid bravery, but the enemy's strength was constantly increasing, their re-enforcements were pouring in from every direction, the roads, the meadows, the park of Montivilliers; no force at our command could have dislodged them from the position, so dearly bought, where they had left thousands of their bravest. Destruction and devastation now had done their work; the place was a shambles, disgraceful to humanity, where mangled forms lay scattered among smoking ruins, and poor Bazeilles, having drained the bitter cup, went up at last in smoke and flame.

Henriette turned and gave one last look at her little house, whose floors fell in even as she gazed, sending myriads of little sparks whirling gayly upward on the air. And there, before her, p.r.o.ne at the wall's foot, she saw her husband's corpse, and in her despair and grief would fain have returned to him, but just then another crowd came up and surged around her, the bugles were sounding the signal to retire, she was borne away, she knew not how, among the retreating troops. Her faculty of self-guidance left her; she was as a bit of flotsam swept onward by the eddying human tide that streamed along the way. And that was all she could remember until she became herself again and found she was at Balan, among strangers, her head reclined upon a table in a kitchen, weeping.

V.

It was nearly ten o'clock up on the Plateau de l'Algerie, and still the men of Beaudoin's company were resting supine, among the cabbages, in the field whence they had not budged since early morning. The cross fire from the batteries on Hattoy and the peninsula of Iges was hotter than ever; it had just killed two more of their number, and there were no orders for them to advance. Were they to stay there and be sh.e.l.led all day, without a chance to see anything of the fighting?

They were even denied the relief of discharging their cha.s.sepots.

Captain Beaudoin had at last put his foot down and stopped the firing, that senseless fusillade against the little wood in front of them, which seemed entirely deserted by the Prussians. The heat was stifling; it seemed to them that they should roast, stretched there on the ground under the blazing sky.

Jean was alarmed, on turning to look at Maurice, to see that he had declined his head and was lying, with closed eyes, apparently inanimate, his cheek against the bare earth. He was very pale, there was no sign of life in his face.

"Hallo there! what's the matter?"

But Maurice was only sleeping. The mental strain, conjointly with his fatigue, had been too much for him, in spite of the dangers that menaced them at every moment. He awoke with a start and stared about him, and the peace that slumber had left in his wide-dilated eyes was immediately supplanted by a look of startled affright as it dawned on him where he was. He had not the remotest idea how long he had slept; all he knew was that the state from which he had been recalled to the horrors of the battlefield was one of blessed oblivion and tranquillity.

"Hallo! that's funny; I must have been asleep!" he murmured. "Ah! it has done me good."

It was true that he suffered less from that pressure about his temples and at his heart, that horrible constriction that seems as if it would crush one's bones. He chaffed Lapoulle, who had manifested much uneasiness since the disappearance of Chouteau and Loubet and spoke of going to look for them. A capital idea! so he might get away and hide behind a tree, and smoke a pipe! Pache thought that the surgeons had detained them at the ambulance, where there was a scarcity of sick-bearers. That was a job that he had no great fancy for, to go around under fire and collect the wounded! And haunted by a lingering superst.i.tion of the country where he was born, he added that it was unlucky to touch a corpse; it brought death.

"Shut up, confound you!" roared Lieutenant Rochas. "Who is going to die?"

Colonel de Vineuil, sitting his tall horse, turned his head and gave a smile, the first that had been seen on his face that morning. Then he resumed his statue-like att.i.tude, waiting for orders as impa.s.sively as ever under the tumbling sh.e.l.ls.

Maurice's attention was attracted to the sick-bearers, whose movements he watched with interest as they searched for wounded men among the depressions of the ground. At the end of a sunken road, and protected by a low ridge not far from their position, a flying ambulance of first aid had been established, and its emissaries had begun to explore the plateau. A tent was quickly erected, while from the hospital van the attendants extracted the necessary supplies; compresses, bandages, linen, and the few indispensable instruments required for the hasty dressings they gave before dispatching the patients to Sedan, which they did as rapidly as they could secure wagons, the supply of which was limited. There was an a.s.sistant surgeon in charge, with two subordinates of inferior rank under him. In all the army none showed more gallantry and received less acknowledgment than the litter-bearers. They could be seen all over the field in their gray uniform, with the distinctive red badge on their cap and on their arm, courageously risking their lives and unhurriedly pus.h.i.+ng forward through the thickest of the fire to the spots where men had been seen to fall. At times they would creep on hands and knees: would always take advantage of a hedge or ditch, or any shelter that was afforded by the conformation of the ground, never exposing themselves unnecessarily out of bravado. When at last they reached the fallen men their painful task commenced, which was made more difficult and protracted by the fact that many of the subjects had fainted, and it was hard to tell whether they were alive or dead. Some lay face downward with their mouths in a pool of blood, in danger of suffocating, others had bitten the ground until their throats were choked with dry earth, others, where a sh.e.l.l had fallen among a group, were a confused, intertwined heap of mangled limbs and crushed trunks.

With infinite care and patience the bearers would go through the tangled ma.s.s, separating the living from the dead, arranging their limbs and raising the head to give them air, cleansing the face as well as they could with the means at their command. Each of them carried a bucket of cool water, which he had to use very savingly. And Maurice could see them thus engaged, often for minutes at a time, kneeling by some man whom they were trying to resuscitate, waiting for him to show some sign of life.

He watched one of them, some fifty yards away to the left, working over the wound of a little soldier from the sleeve of whose tunic a thin stream of blood was trickling, drop by drop. The man of the red cross discovered the source of the hemorrhage and finally checked it by compressing the artery. In urgent cases, like that of the little soldier, they rendered these partial attentions, locating fractures, bandaging and immobilizing the limbs so as to reduce the danger of transportation. And the transportation, even, was an affair that called for a great deal of judgment and ingenuity; they a.s.sisted those who could walk, and carried others, either in their arms, like little children, or pickaback when the nature of the hurt allowed it; at other times they united in groups of two, three, or four, according to the requirements of the case, and made a chair by joining their hands, or carried the patient off by his legs and shoulders in a rec.u.mbent posture. In addition to the stretchers provided by the medical department there were all sorts of temporary makes.h.i.+fts, such as the stretchers improvised from knapsack straps and a couple of muskets. And in every direction on the unsheltered, sh.e.l.l-swept plain they could be seen, singly or in groups, hastening with their dismal loads to the rear, their heads bowed and picking their steps, an admirable spectacle of prudent heroism.

Maurice saw a pair on his right, a thin, puny little fellow lugging a burly sergeant, with both legs broken, suspended from his neck; the sight reminded the young man of an ant, toiling under a burden many times larger than itself; and even as he watched them a sh.e.l.l burst directly in their path and they were lost to view. When the smoke cleared away the sergeant was seen lying on his back, having received no further injury, while the bearer lay beside him, disemboweled. And another came up, another toiling ant, who, when he had turned his dead comrade on his back and examined him, took the sergeant up and made off with his load.

It gave Maurice a chance to read Lapoulle a lesson.

"I say, if you like the business, why don't you go and give that man a lift!"

For some little time the batteries at Saint-Menges had been thundering as if determined to surpa.s.s all previous efforts, and Captain Beaudoin, who was still tramping nervously up and down before his company line, at last stepped up to the colonel. It was a pity, he said, to waste the men's morale in that way and keep their minds on the stretch for hours and hours.

"I can't help it; I have no orders," the colonel stoically replied.

They had another glimpse of General Douay as he flew by at a gallop, followed by his staff. He had just had an interview with General de Wimpffen, who had ridden up to entreat him to hold his ground, which he thought he could promise to do, but only so long as the Calvary of Illy, on his right, held out; Illy once taken, he would be responsible for nothing; their defeat would be inevitable. General de Wimpffen averred that the 1st corps would look out for the position at Illy, and indeed a regiment of zouaves was presently seen to occupy the Calvary, so that General Douay, his anxiety being relieved on that score, sent Dumont's division to the a.s.sistance of the 12th corps, which was then being hard pushed. Scarcely fifteen minutes later, however, as he was returning from the left, whither he had ridden to see how affairs were looking, he was surprised, raising his eyes to the Calvary, to see it was unoccupied; there was not a zouave to be seen there, they had abandoned the plateau that was no longer tenable by reason of the terrific fire from the batteries at Fleigneux. With a despairing presentiment of impending disaster he was spurring as fast as he could to the right, when he encountered Dumont's division, flying in disorder, broken and tangled in inextricable confusion with the debris of the 1st corps. The latter, which, after its retrograde movement, had never been able to regain possession of the posts it had occupied in the morning, leaving Daigny in the hands of the XIIth Saxon corps and Givonne to the Prussian Guards, had been compelled to retreat in a northerly direction across the wood of Garenne, hara.s.sed by the batteries that the enemy had posted on every summit from one end of the valley to the other. The terrible circle of fire and flame was contracting; a portion of the Guards had continued their march on Illy, moving from east to west and turning the eminences, while from west to east, in the rear of the XIth corps, now masters of Saint-Menges, the Vth, moving steadily onward, had pa.s.sed Fleigneux and with insolent temerity was constantly pus.h.i.+ng its batteries more and more to the front, and so contemptuous were they of the ignorance and impotence of the French that they did not even wait for the infantry to come up to support their guns. It was midday; the entire horizon was aflame, concentrating its destructive fire on the 7th and 1st corps.

Then General Douay, while the German artillery was thus preparing the way for the decisive movement that should make them masters of the Calvary, resolved to make one last desperate attempt to regain possession of the hill. He dispatched his orders, and throwing himself in person among the fugitives of Dumont's division, succeeded in forming a column which he sent forward to the plateau. It held its ground for a few minutes, but the bullets whistled so thick, the naked, treeless fields were swept by such a tornado of shot and sh.e.l.l, that it was not long before the panic broke out afresh, sweeping the men adown the slopes, rolling them up as straws are whirled before the wind. And the general, unwilling to abandon his project, ordered up other regiments.

A staff officer galloped by, shouting to Colonel de Vineuil as he pa.s.sed an order that was lost in the universal uproar. Hearing, the colonel was erect in his stirrups in an instant, his face aglow with the gladness of battle, and pointing to the Calvary with a grand movement of his sword:

"Our turn has come at last, boys!" he shouted. "Forward!"

A thrill of enthusiasm ran through the ranks at the brief address, and the regiment put itself in motion. Beaudoin's company was among the first to get on its feet, which it did to the accompaniment of much good-natured chaff, the men declaring they were so rusty they could not move; the gravel must have penetrated their joints. The fire was so hot, however, that by the time they had advanced a few feet they were glad to avail themselves of the protection of a shelter trench that lay in their path, along which they crept in an undignified posture, bent almost double.

"Now, young fellow, look out for yourself!" Jean said to Maurice; "we're in for it. Don't let 'em see so much as the end of your nose, for if you do they will surely snip it off, and keep a sharp lookout for your legs and arms unless you have more than you care to keep. Those who come out of this with a whole skin will be lucky."

Maurice did not hear him very distinctly; the words were lost in the all-pervading clamor that buzzed and hummed in the young man's ears. He could not have told now whether he was afraid or not; he went forward because the others did, borne along with them in their headlong rush, without distinct volition of his own; his sole desire was to have the affair ended as soon as possible. So true was it that he was a mere drop in the on-pouring torrent that when the leading files came to the end of the trench and began to waver at the prospect of climbing the exposed slope that lay before them, he immediately felt himself seized by a sensation of panic, and was ready to turn and fly. It was simply an uncontrollable instinct, a revolt of the muscles, obedient to every pa.s.sing breath.

Some of the men had already faced about when the colonel came hurrying up.

"Steady there, my children. You won't cause me this great sorrow; you won't behave like cowards. Remember, the 106th has never turned its back upon the enemy; will you be the first to disgrace our flag?"

And he spurred his charger across the path of the fugitives, addressing them individually, speaking to them, of their country, in a voice that trembled with emotion.

Lieutenant Rochas was so moved by his words that he gave way to an ungovernable fit of anger, raising his sword and belaboring the men with the flat as if it had been a club.