The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories

by Émile Erckmann

  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 encounte
red 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.

  At every discharge hundreds of men perished, but there was no interruption, the solid earth trembled under our feet. We could breathe again now, and very soon we began to feel a most intolerable thirst. During the fight nobody had thought of it, but now everybody wanted to drink.

  Our house formed the corner at the left of the bridge, but the little water that was running over the muddy bottom of the brook was red with blood. Between our house and the next there was a little garden, where there was a well from which to water it. We all looked at this well with its curb and its wooden posts; the bucket was still hanging to the chain in spite of the showers of shot, but three men were already lying face downward in the path leading to it. The Prussians had shot them as they were trying to reach it.

  As we stood there with our loaded muskets, one said, “I would give half my blood for one glass of that water;” another, “Yes, but the Prussians are on the watch.”

  This was true, there they were, a hundred paces from us, perhaps they were as thirsty as we, and were guessing our thoughts.

  The shots that were still fired came from these houses, and no one could go along the street, they would shoot him at once, so we were all suffering horribly.

  This lasted for another half hour, when the cannonade extended from St. Amand to Ligny, and we could see that our batteries had opened with grape and canister on the Prussians by the great gaps made in their columns at every discharge.

  This new attack produced a great excitement. Buche, who had not stirred till that moment, ran down through the path leading to the well in the garden and sheltered himself behind the curb. From the two houses opposite a volley was fired, and the stones and the posts were soon riddled with balls.

  But we opened our fire on their windows and in an instant it began again from one end of the village to the other, and everything was enveloped in smoke.

  At that moment I heard some one shout from below, “Joseph, Joseph!”

  It was Buche; he had had the courage after he had drank himself, to fill the bucket, unfasten it, and bring it back with him.

  Several old soldiers wanted to take it from him, but he shouted, “My comrade first! let go, or I’ll pour it all out!”

  They were compelled to wait till I had drank, then they took their turn, and afterward the others who were upstairs drained the rest.

  We all went up together greatly refreshed.

  It was about seven o’clock and near sunset, the shadows of the houses on our side reached quite to the brook—while those occupied by the Prussians were still in the sunlight, as well as the hill-side of Bry, down which we could see the fresh troops coming on the run. The cannonade had never been so fierce as at this moment from our side.

  Every one now knows, that at nightfall between seven and eight o’clock the Emperor, having discovered that the column which had been signalled in our rear was the corps of General d’Erlon, which had missed its route between the battle of Ney with the English at Quatre-Bras and ours here at Ligny, had ordered the Old Guard to support us at once.

  The lieutenant who was with us said, “This is the grand attack. Attention!”

  The whole of the Prussian cavalry was swarming between the two villages. We felt that there was a grand movement behind us, though we did not see it. The lieutenant repeated, “Attention to orders! Let no one stay behind after the order to march! Here is the attack!”

  We all opened our eyes. The farther the night advanced the redder the sky grew over St. Amand. We were so absorbed in listening to the cannonade that, we no longer thought of anything else. At each discharge you would have said the heavens were on fire. The tumult behind us was increasing.

  Suddenly the broad street running along the brook was full of troops, from the bridge quite to the end of Ligny. On the left in the distance the Prussians were shooting from the windows again, while we did not reply. The shout rose—“The Guard! the Guard!” I do not know how that mass of men passed the muddy ditch, probably by means of plank thrown across, but in a moment they were on the left bank in force.

  The batteries of the Prussians at the top of the ravine between the two villages, cut gaps through our columns, but they closed up immediately, and moved steadily up the hill. What remained of our division ran across the bridge, followed by the artillerymen and their pieces with the horses at a gallop.

  Then we went down to the street, but we had not reached the bridge when the cuirassiers began to file over it, followed by the dragoons and the mounted grenadiers of the guard. They were passing everywhere, across and around the village. It was like a new and innumerable army.

  The slaughter began again on the hill, this time the battle was in the open fields, and we could trace the outlines of the Prussian squares on the hill-side at every discharge of musketry.

  We rushed on over the dead and wounded, and when we were clear of the village we could see that there was an engagement between the cavalry, though we could only distinguish the white cuirasses as they pierced the lines of the Uhlans; then they would be indiscriminately mingled and the cuirassiers would re-form and set off again like a solid wall.

  It was dark already, and the dense masses of smoke made it impossible to see fifty paces ahead. Everything was moving toward the windmills, the clatter of the cavalry, the shouts, the orders of the officers and the file-firing in the distance, all were confounded. Several of the squares were broken. From time to tim
e a flash would reveal a lancer bent to his horse’s neck, or a cuirassier, with his broad white back and his helmet with its floating plume, shooting off like a bullet, two or three foot soldiers running about in the midst of the fray,—all would come and go like lightning. The trampled grain, the rain streaking the heavens, the wounded under the feet of the horses, all came out of the black night—through the storm which had just broken out—for a quarter of a second.

  Every flash of musket or pistol showed us inexplicable things by thousands. But everything moved up the hill and away from Ligny; we were masters.

  We had pierced the enemy’s centre, the Prussians no longer made any defence, except at the top of the hill near the mills and in the direction of Sombref, at our right. St. Amand and Ligny were both in our hands.

  As for us, a dozen or so of our company there alone among the ruins of the cottages, with our cartridge-boxes almost empty;—we did not know which way to turn.

  Zébédé, Lieutenant Bretonville, and Captain Florentin had disappeared, and Sergeant Rabot was in command. He was a little old fellow, thin and deformed, but as tough as steel; he squinted and seemed to have had red hair when young. Now, as I speak of him, I seem to hear him say quietly to us, “The battle is won! by file right! forward, march!”

  Several wanted to stop and make some soup, for we had eaten nothing since noon and began to be hungry. The sergeant marched down the lane with his musket on his shoulder, laughing quietly, and saying in an ironical tone:

  “Oh! soup, soup! wait a little, the commissary is coming!”

  We followed him down the dark lane; about midway we saw a cuirassier on horseback with his back toward us. He had a sabre cut in the abdomen and had retired into this lane, the horse leaned against the wall to prevent him from falling off.