The Blockade of Phalsburg: An Episode of the End of the Empire

by Erckmann-Chatrian

  XII

  THE ENEMY REPULSED

  About one o'clock in the morning of the sixth of January, the day ofthe feast of the Kings, the enemy arrived on the hill of Saverne.

  It was terribly cold, our windows under the persiennes were white withfrost. I woke as the clock struck one; they were beating the call atthe infantry barracks.

  You can have no idea how it sounded in the silence of the night.

  "Dost thou hear, Moses?" whispered Sorle.

  "Yes, I hear," said I, almost without breathing.

  After a minute some windows were opened in our street, and we knew thatothers too were listening; then we heard running, and suddenly the cry,"To arms! to arms!"

  It made one's hair stand on end.

  I had just risen, and was lighting a lamp, when we heard two knocks atour door.

  "Come in!" said Sorle, trembling.

  The sergeant opened the door. He was in marching equipments, with hisgaiters on his legs, his large gray cap turned up at the sides, hismusket on his shoulder, and his sabre and cartridge-box on his back.

  "Father Moses," said he, "go back to bed and be quiet: it is thebattalion call at the barracks, and has nothing to do with you."

  And we saw at once that he was right, for the drums did not come up thestreet two by two, as when the National Guard was called in.

  "Thank you, sergeant," I said.

  "Go to sleep!" said he, and he went down the stairs.

  The door of the alley below slammed to. Then the children, who hadwaked up, began to cry. Zeffen came in, very pale, with her baby inher arms, exclaiming, "Mercy! What is the matter?"

  "It is nothing, Zeffen," said Sorle. "It is nothing, my child: theyare beating the call for the soldiers."

  At the same moment the battalion came down the main street. We heardthem march as far as to the Place d'Armes, and beyond it toward theGerman gate.

  We shut the windows, Zeffen went back to her room, and I lay down again.

  But how could I sleep after such a start? My head was full of athousand thoughts: I fancied the arrival of the Russians on the hillthis cold night, and our soldiers marching to meet them, or manning theramparts. I thought of all the blindages and block-houses, andbatteries inside the bastions, and that all these great works had beenmade to guard against bombs and shells, and I exclaimed inwardly:"Before the enemy has demolished all these works, our houses will becrushed, and we shall be exterminated to the last man."

  I took on in this way for about half an hour, thinking of all thecalamities which threatened us, when I heard outside the city, towardQuatre-Vents, a kind of heavy rolling, rising and falling like themurmur of running water. This was repeated every second. I raisedmyself on my elbow to listen, and I knew that it was a fight far moreterrible than that at Mittelbronn, for the rolling did not stop, butseemed rather to increase.

  "How they are fighting, Sorle, how they are fighting!" I exclaimed, asI pictured to myself the fury of those men murdering each other at thedead of night, not knowing what they were doing. "Listen! Sorle,listen! If that does not make one shudder!"

  "Yes," said she. "I hope our sergeant will not be wounded; I hope hewill come back safe!"

  "May the Lord watch over him!" I replied, jumping from my bed, andlighting a candle.

  I could not control myself. I dressed myself as quickly as if I weregoing to run away; and afterward I listened to that terrible rolling,which came nearer or died away with every gust of wind.

  When once dressed, I opened a window, to try to see something. Thestreet was still black; but toward the ramparts, above the dark line ofthe arsenal bastions, was stretched a line of red.

  The smoke of powder is red on account of the musket shots which lightit up. It looked like a great fire. All the windows in the streetwere open: nothing could be seen, but I heard our neighbor the armorersay to his wife, "It is growing warm down there! It is the beginningof the dance, Annette; but they have not got the big drum yet; thatwill come, by and by!"

  The woman did not answer, and I thought, "Is it possible to jest aboutsuch things! It is against nature."

  The cold was so severe that after five or six minutes I shut thewindow. Sorle got up and made a fire in the stove.

  The whole city was in commotion; men were shouting and dogs barking.Safel, who had been wakened by all these noises, went to dress himselfin the warm room. I looked very tenderly on this poor little one, hiseyes still heavy with sleep; and as I thought that we were to be firedupon, that we must hide ourselves in cellars, and all of us be indanger of being killed for matters which did not concern us, and aboutwhich nobody had asked our opinion, I was full of indignation. Butwhat distressed me most was to hear Zeffen sob and say that it wouldhave been better for her and her children to stay with Baruch atSaverne and all die together.

  Then the words of the prophet came to me: "Is not this thy fear, thyconfidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

  "Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent, or where werethe righteous cut off.

  "No, they that plough iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same.

  "By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils arethey consumed.

  "But thee, his servant, he shall redeem from death.

  "Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corncometh in his season."

  In this way I strengthened my heart, while I heard the great tumult ofthe panic-stricken crowd, running and trying to save their property.

  About seven o'clock it was announced that the casemates were open, andthat everybody might take their mattresses there, and that there mustbe tubs full of water in every house, and the wells left open in caseof fire.

  Think, Fritz, what ideas these orders suggested.

  Some of our neighbors, Lisbeth Dubourg, Bevel Ruppert, Camus'sdaughters, and some others, came up to us exclaiming, "We are all lost!"

  Their husbands had gone out, right and left, to see what they couldsee, and these women hung on Zeffen and Sorle's necks, repeating againand again, "Oh, dear! oh, dear! what misery!"

  I could have wished them all to the devil, for instead of comforting usthey only increased our fears; but at such times women will gettogether and cry out all at once; you can't talk reason to them; theylike these loud cryings and groanings.

  Just as the clock struck eight, Bailly the armorer came to find hiswife: he had come from the ramparts. "The Russians," he said, "havecome down in a mass from Quatre-Vents to the very gate, filling thewhole plain--Cossacks, Baskirs, and rabble! Why don't they fire downupon them from the ramparts? The governor is betraying us."

  "Where are our soldiers?" I asked.

  "Retreating!" exclaimed he. "The wounded came back two hours ago, andour men stay yonder, with folded arms."

  His bony face shook with rage. He led away his wife; then others camecrying out, "The enemy has advanced to the lower part of the gardens,upon the glacis." I was astonished at these things.

  The women had gone away to cry somewhere else, and just then a greatnoise of wheels was heard from the direction of the rampart. I lookedout of the window, and saw a wagon from the arsenal, some citizengunners; old Goulden, Holender, Jacob Cloutier, and Barrier galloped atits sides; Captain Jovis ran in front. They stopped at our door.

  "Call the iron-merchant!" cried the captain. "Tell him to come down."

  Baker Chanoine, the brigadier of the second battery, came up. I openedthe door.

  "What do you want of me?" I asked in the stairway.

  "Come down, Moses," said Chanoine. And I went down.

  Captain Jovis, a tall old man, with his face covered with sweat, inspite of the cold, said to me, "You are Moses, the iron-merchant?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Open your storehouse. Your iron is required for the defence of thecity."

  So I had to lead all these people into my court, under the shed. Thecaptain on looking round, saw some cast-iron bars, whic
h were used atthat time for closing up the backs of fireplaces. They weighed fromthirty to forty pounds each, and I sold a good many in the vicinity ofthe city. There was no lack of old nails, rusty bolts, and old iron ofall sorts.

  "This is what we want," said he. "Break up these bars, and take awaythe old iron, quick!"

  The others, with the help of our two axes, began at once to break upeverything. Some of them filled a basket with the pieces of cast-iron,and ran with it to the wagon.

  The captain looked at his watch, and said, "Make haste! We have justten minutes!"

  I thought to myself, "They have no need of credit; they take what theyplease; it is more convenient."

  All my bars and old iron were broken in pieces--more than fifteenhundred pounds of iron.

  As they were starting to run to the ramparts, Chanoine laughed, andsaid to me, "Capital grape-shot, Moses! Thou canst get ready thypennies. We'll come and take them to-morrow."

  The wagon started through the crowd which ran behind it, and I followedtoo.

  As we came nearer the ramparts the firing became more and morefrequent. As we turned from the curate's house two sentinels stoppedeverybody, but they let me pass on account of my iron, which they weregoing to fire.

  You can never imagine that mass of people, the noise around thebastion, the smoke which covered it, the orders of the infantryofficers whom we heard going up the glacis, the gunners, the lightedmatch, caissons with the piles of bullets behind! No, in all thesethirty years I have not forgotten those men with their levers, runningback the cannon to load them to their mouths; those firings in file, atthe bottom of the ramparts; those volleys of balls hissing in the air;the orders of the gun-captains, "Load! Ram! Prime!"

  What crowds upon those gun-carriages, seven feet high, where thegunners were obliged to stand and stretch their arms to fire thecannon! And what a frightful smoke!

  Men invent such machines to destroy each other, and they would thinkthat they did a great deal if they sacrificed a quarter as much toassist their fellow-men, to instruct them in infancy, and to give thema little bread in their old age.

  Ah! those who make an outcry against war, and demand a different stateof things, are not in the wrong.

  I was in the corner, at the left of the bastion, where the stairs godown to the postern behind the college, among three or four willowbaskets as high as chimneys, and filled with clay. I ought to havestayed there quietly, and made use of the right moment to get away, butthe thought seized me that I would go and see what was going on belowthe ramparts, and while they were loading the cannon, I climbed to thelevel of the glacis, and lay down flat between two enormous baskets,where there was scarcely a chance that balls could reach me.

  If hundreds of others who were killed in the bastions had done as Idid, how many of them might be still living, respectable fathers offamilies in their villages!

  Lying in this place, and raising my nose, I could see over the wholeplain. I saw the cordon of the rampart below, and the line of ourskirmishers behind the palankas, on the other side of the moat; theydid nothing but tear off their cartridges, prime, charge, and fire.There one could appreciate the beauty of drilling; there were only twocompanies of them, and their firing by file kept up an incessant roll.

  Farther on, directly to the right, stretched the road to Quatre-Vents.The Ozillo farm, the cemetery, the horse-post-station, and GeorgeMouton's farm at the right; the inn of La Roulette and the greatpoplar-walk at the left, all were full of Cossacks, and such-likerascals, who were galloping into the very gardens, to reconnoitre theenvirons of the place. This is what I suppose, for it is againstnature to run without an object, and to risk being struck by a ball.

  These people, mounted on small horses, with large gray cloaks, softboots, fox-skin caps, like those of the Baden peasants, long beards,lances in rest, great pistols in their belts, came whirling on likebirds.

  They had not been fired upon as yet, because they kept themselvesscattered, so that bullets would have no effect; but their trumpetssounded the rally from La Roulette, and they began to collect behindthe buildings of the inn.

  About thirty of our veterans, who had been kept back in the cemeterylane, were making a slow retreat; they made a few paces, at the sametime hastily reloading, then turned, shouldered, fired, and beganmarching again among the hedges and bushes, which there had not beentime to cut down in this locality.

  Our sergeant was one of these; I recognized him at once, and trembledfor him.

  Every time these veterans gave fire, five or six Cossacks came on likethe wind, with their lances lowered; but it did not frighten them: theyleaned against a tree and levelled their bayonets. Other veterans cameup, and then some loaded, while others parried the blows. Scarcely hadthey torn open their cartridges when the Cossacks fled right and left,their lances in the air. Some of them turned for a moment and firedtheir large pistols behind like regular bandits. At length our menbegan to march toward the city.

  Those old soldiers, with their great shakos set square on their heads,their large capes hanging to the back of their calves, their sabres andcartridge-boxes on their backs, calm in the midst of these savages,reloading, trimming, and parrying as quietly as if they were smokingtheir pipes in the guard-house, were something to be admired. At last,after seeing them come out of the whirlwind two or three times, itseemed almost an easy thing to do.

  Our sergeant commanded them. I understood then why he was such afavorite with the officers, and why they always took his part againstthe citizens: there were not many such. I wanted to call out, "Makehaste, sergeant; let us make haste!" but neither he nor his men hurriedin the least.

  As they reached the foot of the glacis, suddenly a large mass ofCossacks, seeing that they were escaping, galloped up in two files, tocut off their retreat. It was a dangerous moment, and they formed in asquare instantly.

  I felt my back turn cold, as if I had been one of them.

  Our sharpshooters behind the ammunition wagons did not fire, doubtlessfor fear of hitting their comrades; our gunners on the bastion leaneddown to see, and the file of Cossacks stretched to the corner near thedrawbridge.

  There were seven or eight hundred of them. We heard them cry, "Hurra!hurra! hurra!" like crows. Several officers in green cloaks and smallcaps galloped at the sides of their lines, with raised sabres. Ithought our poor sergeant and his thirty men were lost; I thoughtalready, "How sorry little Safel and Sorle will be!"

  But then, as the Cossacks formed in a half-circle at the left of theoutworks, I heard our gun-captain call out, "Fire!"

  I turned my head; old Goulden struck the match, the fusee glittered,and at the same instant the bastion with its great baskets of clayshook to the very rocks of the rampart.

  I looked toward the road; nothing was to be seen but men and horses onthe ground.

  Just then came a second shot, and I can truly say that I saw thegrape-shot pass like the stroke of a scythe into that mass of cavalry;it all tumbled and fell; those who a second before were living beingswere now nothing. We saw some try to raise themselves, the rest madetheir escape.

  The firing by file began again, and our gunners, without waiting forthe smoke to clear away, reloaded so quickly that the two dischargesseemed to come at once.

  This mass of old nails, bolts, broken bits of cast-iron, flying threehundred metres, almost to the little bridge, made such slaughter that,some days after, the Russians asked for an armistice in order to burytheir dead.

  Four hundred were found scattered in the ditches of the road.

  This I saw myself.

  And if you want to see the place where those savages were buried, youhave only to go up the cemetery lane.

  On the other side, at the right, in M. Adam Ottendorf's orchard, youwill see a stone cross in the middle of the fence; they were all buriedthere, with their horses, in one great trench.

  You can imagine the delight of our gunners at seeing this massacre.They lifted up their sponges and shouted, "Vive l'E
mpereur!"

  The soldiers shouted back from the covered ways, and the air was filledwith their cries.

  Our sergeant, with his thirty men, their guns on their shoulders,quietly reached the glacis. The barrier was quickly opened for them,but the two companies descended together to the moat and came up againby the postern.

  I was waiting for them above.

  When our sergeant came up I took him by the arm, "Ah, sergeant!" saidI, "how glad I am to see you out of danger!"

  I wanted to embrace him. He laughed and squeezed my hand.

  "Then you saw the engagement, Father Moses!" said he, with amischievous wink. "We have shown them what stuff the Fifth is made of!"

  "Oh, yes! yes! you have made me tremble."

  "Bah!" said he, "you will see a good deal more of it; it is a smallaffair."

  The two companies re-formed against the wall of the _chemin de ronde_,and the whole city shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!"

  They went down the rampart street in the midst of the crowd. I keptnear our sergeant.

  As the detachment was turning our corner, Sorle, Zeffen, and Safelcalled out from the windows, "Hurrah for the veterans! Hurrah for theFifth!"

  The sergeant saw them and made a little sign to them with his head. AsI was going in I said to him, "Sergeant, don't forget your glass ofcherry-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 roombefore Zeffen, Sorle, and Safel threw their arms round me as if I hadcome back from the war; little David clung to my knee, and they allwanted to know the news.

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

  Just then the sergeant entered in fine spirits, and set the butt-end ofhis musket on the floor. We were going to meet him when we saw a tuftof 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 Ipassed him--it is not much of anything."

  He took the musket at once to his own room; but we were allhorror-struck, and Zeffen could not recover herself. When the sergeantcame back she was still sitting in the arm-chair, with both handsbefore 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 alwayslike these men who risk their lives at random. I have seen it ahundred times. And Zeffen smiled as she answered: "No, sergeant, no;these Cossacks ought to stay at home and not come and trouble us! Youprotect us--we love you very much!"

  I persuaded him to breakfast with us, and it ended by his opening awindow, and calling out to some soldiers passing by to give notice atthe cantine that Sergeant Trubert was not coming to breakfast.

  So we were all calmed down, and seated ourselves at the table. Sorlewent down to get a bottle of good wine, and we began to eat ourbreakfast.

  We had coffee, too, and Zeffen wanted to pour it out herself for thesergeant. 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 aboutthe attack in the night; the way in which the Wurtemberg troops hadstationed themselves at La Roulette, how it had been necessary todislodge them as they were forcing open the two large gates, thearrival of the Cossacks at daybreak, and the sending out two companiesto fire at them.

  He told all this so well that we could almost think we saw it. Butabout eleven o'clock, as I took up the bottle to pour out anotherglassful, he wiped his mustache, and said, as he rose: "No, FatherMoses, we have something to do besides taking our ease and enjoyingourselves; to-morrow, or next day, the shells will be coming; it istime 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 ofwood which have not been sawed, and there are three or four large beamsagainst the wall. Are we two strong enough to carry them up? Let ustry!"

  He was going to take off his cape at once; but, as the beams were veryheavy, 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 thetimber. They had brought their saws and axes with them; the sergeantmade them saw the beams, so as to cross them above in the form of asentry-box. He worked himself like a regular carpenter, and Sorle,Zeffen, and I looked on. As it took some time, my wife and daughterwent down to prepare supper, and I went down with them, to get alantern for the workmen.

  I was going up again very quietly, never thinking of danger, when,suddenly, a frightful noise, a kind of terrible rumbling, passed alongthe 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 inthe darkness.

  I had a terrible feeling in my stomach, and I thought to myself, "Sinceone ball has passed, 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 thegable, to go away.

  "Wait!" said the sergeant. "It is nothing. Let us keep at ourwork--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_ amnot going to stay here--I have a family!"

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

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

  The sergeant tried to keep us still at work.

  "Two bullets never pass in the same place," said he. "We are in a safespot, 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 wentdown, feeling as if my thighs were broken. I wanted to sit down atevery step.

  Out of doors they were shouting as if it were morning, and in a morefrightful way. Chimneys were falling, and women running to thewindows; 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 thanmyself. The sergeant kept on alone, placing the logs and making themfast. About midnight he came down.

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

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

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

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

  The Russians did not fire after ten o'clock that night; they had onlytried 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 goingto hear now of the miseries we endured for three months.