The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (89 page)

As soon as Zébédé saw that the Prussians were all dead, he went down again, saying to me, “Come, there is nothing more to do here.”

We went out and found that our column had already passed the church, and thousands of musket-shots crackled against the bridge like the fire breaking out from a coal-pit.

The second column had come down the broad street on our right and joined ours, and in the meantime, one of those Prussian columns which we had seen on the hill in the rear of Ligny, came down to drive us out of the village.

Here it was that we had the first encounter in force. Two staff officers rode down the street by which we had come.

“Those men,” said Zébédé, “are going to order up the guns. When they arrive, Joseph, you will see whether they can rout us.”

He ran and I followed him. The fight at the bridge continued. The old church clock struck five. We had destroyed all the Prussians on this side the stream except those who were in ambush in the great old ruin at the left, which was full of holes. It had been set on fire at the top by our howitzers, but the fire continued from the lower stories, and we were obliged to avoid it.

In front of the church we were in force. We found the little square filled with troops ready to march, and others were coming by the broad street, which traversed the whole length of Ligny. Only the head of the column was engaged at the little bridge. The Prussians tried hard to repulse them. The discharges in file followed each other like running water. The square was so filled with smoke that we could see nothing but the bayonets, the front of the church, and the officers on the steps giving their orders. Now and then a staff officer would set off at a gallop, and the air round the old slated spire was full of rooks whirling about affrighted with the noise. The cannon at St. Amand roared incessantly.

Between the gables on the left, we could see on the hill, the long blue lines of infantry and masses of cavalry coming from Sombref to turn our columns. It was there in our rear that the desperate combats took place between the Uhlans and our hussars. How many of these Uhlans we saw next morning stretched dead on the plain!

Our battalion having suffered the most, we fell back to the second rank. We soon found our own company commanded by Captain Florentin. The guns were arriving by the same street on which we were; the horses at full gallop foaming and shaking their heads furiously, while the wheels crushed everything before them. All this produced a tremendous uproar, but the thunder of cannon and the crash of musketry was all that could be distinguished. The soldiers were all shouting and singing, with their guns on their shoulders, but we knew this only by seeing their open mouths.

I had just taken my place by the side of Buche and had begun to breathe, when a forward movement began.

This time the plan was to cross the little stream, push the Prussians out of Ligny, mount the hill behind and cut their line in two, and the battle would be gained. Each one of us understood that, but with such masses of troops as they held in reserve, it was no small affair.

Everything moved toward the bridge, but we could see nothing but the five or six men before us, and I was well satisfied to know that the head of the column was far in front.

But I was most delighted when Captain Florentin halted our company in front of an old barn with the door broken down, and posted the remnant of the battalion behind the ruins in order to sustain the attacking columns by firing from the windows.

There were fifteen of us in that barn and I can see it now, with the door hanging by one hinge, and battered with the balls, and the ladder running up through a square hole, three or four dead Prussians leaning against the walls, and a window at the other end looking into the street in the rear.

Zébédé commanded our post, Lieutenant Bretonville occupied the house opposite with another squad, and Captain Florentin went somewhere else. The street was filled with troops quite up to the two corners near the brook.

The first thing we tried to do was to put up the door and fasten it, but we had hardly commenced when we heard a terrible crash in the street, and walls, shutters, tiles, and everything were swept away at a stroke. Two of our men who were outside holding up the door, fell as if cut down with a scythe.

At the same moment we could hear the steps of the retreating column rolling over the bridge, while a dozen more such explosions made us draw back in spite of ourselves. It was a battery of six pieces charged with canister which Blücher had masked at the end of the street, and which now opened upon us.

The whole column—drummers, soldiers, officers, mounted and foot, were in retreat, pushing and jostling each other, swept along as by a hurricane. Nobody looked back, those who fell were lost. The last ones had hardly passed our door when Zébédé, who looked out to see what had happened, shouted in a voice of thunder, “The Prussians!”

He fired, and several of us rushed for the ladder, but before we could think of climbing they were upon us. Zébédé, Buche, and all who had not had time to get up the ladder drove them back with their bayonets. It seems to me as if I could see those Prussians still, with their big mustaches, their red faces and flat shakos, furious at being checked.

I never had such a shock as that. Zébédé shouted, “No quarter,” just as if we had been the stronger. But immediately he received a blow on the head from the butt of a musket and fell.

I saw that he was going to be murdered and I burned for revenge. I shouted, “To the bayonet,” and we all fell upon the rascals, while our comrades fired at them from above, and a fusillade commenced from the houses opposite.

The Prussians fell back, but a little distance away there was a whole battalion. Buche took Zébédé on his shoulders and started up the ladder. We followed him, shouting “Hurry!” while we aided him with all our strength to climb the ladder with his burden. I was next to the last, and I thought we should never get up. We heard the shots already in the barn, but we were up at last, and all inspired with the same idea, we tried to draw the ladder up after us. To our horror we found, as we endeavored to pull it through the opening between the shots, one of which took off the head of a comrade, that it was so large we could not get it into the loft. We hesitated for a moment, when Zébédé, recovering himself, exclaimed, “Shoot through the rounds!” This seemed to us an inspiration from heaven.

Below us the uproar was terrible. The whole street, as well as our barn, was full of Prussians.

They were mad with rage, and worse than we; repeating incessantly, “No prisoners!”

They were enraged by the musket-shots from the houses; they broke down the doors, and then we could hear the struggles, the falls, curses in French and German, the orders of Lieutenant Bretonville opposite, and the Prussian officers commanding their men to go and bring straw to fire the houses. Fortunately the harvest was not yet secured, or we should all have been burned.

They fired into the floor under our feet, but it was made of thick oak plank and the balls tapped on it like the strokes of a hammer. We stood one behind the other and continued our fire into the street, and every shot told.

It appeared as if they had retaken the church square, for we only heard our fire very far away. We were alone, two or three hundred men in the midst of three or four thousand. Then I said to myself, “Joseph! you will never escape from this danger. It is impossible! your end has come!” I dared not think of Catherine, my heart quaked. Our retreat was cut off, the Prussians held both ends of the street and the lanes in the rear, and they had already retaken several houses.

Suddenly the hubbub ceased; they were making some preparation we thought; they have gone for straw or fagots or they are going to bring up their guns to demolish us.

Our gunners looked out of the window, but they saw nothing, the barn was empty. This dead silence was more terrible than the tumult had been a few minutes before.

Zébédé had just raised himself up, and the blood was running from his mouth and nose.

“Attention! we are going to have another attack. The rascals are getting ready. Charge!”

He hardly finished speaking when the whole building, from the gables to the foundation, swayed as if the earth had opened beneath it, and beams and lath and slate came down with the shock, while a red flame burst out under our feet and mounted above the roof. We all fell in a heap.

A lighted bomb which the Prussians had rolled into the barn had just exploded. On getting up I heard a whizzing in my ears, but that did not prevent me from seeing a ladder placed at the window of the barn. Buche was using his bayonet with great effect on the invaders.

The Prussians thought to profit by our surprise to mount the ladder and butcher us; this made me shudder, but I ran to the assistance of my comrade. Two others who had escaped, ran up shouting, “
Vive l’Empereur!
”

I heard nothing more, the noise was frightful. The flashes of the muskets below and from the windows lighted up the street like a moving flame. We had thrown down the ladder, and there were six of us still remaining, two in front who fired the muskets, and four behind who loaded and passed the guns to them.

In this extremity I had become calm. I resigned myself to my fate, thinking I would try to sell my own life as dearly as possible. The others no doubt had the same thoughts, and we made great havoc.

This lasted about a quarter of an hour, when the cannon began to thunder again, and some seconds after our comrades in front looked out the window and ceased firing. My cartridge-box was nearly empty, and I went to replenish it from those of my dead comrades.

The cries of “
Vive l’Empereur!
” came nearer and nearer, when suddenly the head of our column with its flag all blackened and torn, filed into the little square through our street.

The Prussians beat a retreat. We all wanted to go down, but two or three times the column recoiled before the grape and canister. The shouts and the thunder of the cannon mingled afresh. Zébédé, who was looking out, ran to the ladder. Our column had passed the barn and we all went down in file without regarding our comrades who were wounded by the bursting of the bomb, some of whom begged us piteously not to leave them behind.

Such are men! the fear of being taken prisoners, made us barbarians.

When we recalled these terrible scenes afterward, we would have given anything if we had had the least heart, but then it was too late.

CHAPTER XIX

An hour before, fifteen of us had entered that old barn, now there were but six to come out.

Buche and Zébédé were among the living; the Pfalzbourgers had been fortunate.

Once outside it was necessary to follow the attacking column.

We advanced over the heaps of dead. Our feet encountered this yielding mass, but we did not look to see if we stepped on the face of a wounded man, on his breast, or on his limbs; we marched straight on. We found out next morning, that this mass of men had been cut down by the battery in front of the church; their obstinacy had proved their ruin. Blücher was only waiting to serve us in the same manner, but instead of going over the bridge we turned off to the right and occupied the houses along the brook. The Prussians fired at us from every window opposite, but as soon as we were ambushed we opened our fire on their guns and they were obliged to fall back.

They had already begun to talk of attacking the other part of the village, when the rumor was heard that a column of Prussians forty thousand strong had come up behind us from Charleroi. We could not understand it, as we had swept everything before us to the banks of the Sambre. This column which had fallen on our rear, must have been hidden in the forest.

It was about half-past six and the combat at St. Amand seemed to grow fiercer than ever. Blücher had moved his forces to that side, and it was a favorable moment to carry the other part of the village, but this column forced us to wait.

The houses on either side of the brook were filled with troops, the French on the right and the Prussians on the left. The firing had ceased, a few shots were still heard from time to time, but they were evidently by design. We looked at each other as if to say, “Let us breathe awhile now, and we will commence again presently.”

The Prussians in the house opposite us, in their blue coats and leather shakos, with their mustaches turned up, were all strongly built men, old soldiers with square chins and their ears standing out from their heads. They looked as if they might overthrow us at a blow. The officers, too, were looking on.

Along the two streets which were parallel with the brook and in the brook itself, the dead were lying in long rows.

Many of them were seated with their backs against the walls. They had been dangerously wounded in the battle but had had sufficient strength to retire from the strife, and had sunk down against the wall and died from loss of blood.

Some were still standing upright in the brook, their hands clutching the bank as if to climb out, rigid in death. And in obscure corners of the ruined houses, when they were lighted up with the sun’s rays, we could see the miserable wretches crushed under the rubbish, with stones and beams lying across their bodies.

The struggle at St. Amand became still more terrible, the discharges of cannon seemed to rise one above the other, and if we had not all been looking death in the face, nothing could have prevented us from admiring this grand music.