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

by Émile Erckmann

  From every window of the farm-house, and from the garden, and walls which had been pierced with holes, came fiery showers, and at every step men were left stretched on the road. General Ney on horseback with the corners of his great hat pointing over his shoulders, watched the action from the middle of the road. I said to Buche:

  “That is Marshal Ney, the second brigade will go to support the first, and we shall come next.”

  But I mistook; at that very moment the first battalion of the second brigade received orders to march in line on the right of the highway, the second in the rear of the first, the third behind the second, and the fourth following in file.

  We had not time to form in column, but we were solidly arrayed after all, one behind the other, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men in line in front, the captains between the companies, and the commandants between the battalions. But the balls instead of carrying off two men at a time would now take eight. Those in the rear could not fire because those in front were in the way and we found too that we could not form in squares. That should have been thought of beforehand, but was overlooked in the desire to break the enemy’s line and gain all at a blow.

  Our division marched in the same order: as the first battalion advanced, the second followed immediately in their steps, and so on with all the rest. I was pleased to see, that, commencing on the left, we should be in the twenty-fifth rank, and that there must be terrible slaughter before we should be reached.

  The two divisions on our right were also formed in close column, at three hundred paces from each other.

  Thus we descended into the little valley, in the face of the English fire. We were somewhat delayed by the soft ground, but we all shouted, “To the bayonet!”

  As we mounted on the other side, we were met by a hail of balls from above the road at the left. If we had not been so crowded together, this terrible volley would have checked us. The charge sounded and the officers shouted, “Steady on the left!”

  But this terrible fire made us lengthen our right step more than our left, in spite of ourselves, so that when we neared the road bordered by the hedges, we had lost our distances and our division formed a square, so to speak, with the third.

  Two batteries now swept our ranks, and the shot from the hedges a hundred feet distant pierced us through and through; a cry of horror burst forth and we rushed on the batteries, overpowering the redcoats who vainly endeavored to stop us.

  It was then that I first saw the English close at hand. They were strong, fair, and closely shaved, like well-to-do bourgeois. They defended themselves bravely, but we were as good as they. It was not our fault—the common soldiers—if they did defeat us at last, all the world knows that we showed as much and more courage than they did.

  It has been said that we were not the soldiers of Austerlitz and Jena, of Friedland and of Moskowa. It was because they were so good, perhaps, that they were spared. We would have asked nothing better, than to have seen them in our place.

  Every shot of the English told, and we were forced to break our ranks. Men are not palisades, and must defend themselves when attacked.

  Great numbers were detached from their companies, when thousands of Englishmen rose up from among the barley and fired, their muskets almost touching our men, which caused a terrible slaughter. The other ranks rushed to the support of their comrades, and we should all have been dispersed over the hill-side like a swarm of ants, if we had not heard the shout, “Attention, the cavalry!”

  Almost at the same instant, a crowd of red dragoons mounted on gray horses, swept down upon us like the wind, and those who had straggled were cut to pieces without mercy.

  They did not fall upon our columns in order to break them, they were too deep and massive for that; but they came down between the divisions, slashing right and left with their sabres, and spurring their horses into the flanks of the columns to cut them in two, and though they could not succeed in this, they killed great numbers and threw us into confusion.

  It was one of the most terrible moments of my life. As an old soldier I was at the right of the battalion, and saw what they were intending to do. They leaned over as far as possible when they passed, in order to cut into our ranks; their strokes followed each other like lightning, and more than twenty times I thought my head was off my shoulders, but Sergeant Rabot closed the file fortunately for me; it was he who received this terrible shower of blows, and he defended himself to the last breath. At every stroke he shouted, “Cowards, Cowards!”

  His blood sprinkled me like rain, and at last he fell. My musket was still loaded, and seeing one of the dragoons coming with his eye fixed on me and bending over to give me a thrust, I let him have it full in the breast. This was the only man I ever saw fall under my fire.

  The worst was, that at that moment their foot-soldiers rallied and recommenced their fire, and they even were so bold as to attack us with the bayonet. Only the first two ranks made a stand. It was shameful to form our men in that manner.

  Then the red dragoons and our columns rushed pell-mell down the hill together.

  And still our division made the best defence, for we brought off our colors, while the two others had lost two eagles.

  We rushed down in this fashion through the mud and over the cannon, which had been brought down to support us, and had been cut loose from the horses by the sabres of the dragoons.

  We scattered in every direction, Buche and I always keeping together, and it was ten minutes before we could be rallied again near the road in squads from all the regiments.

  Those who have the direction of affairs in war should keep such examples as these before their eyes, and reflect that new plans cost those dear who are forced to try them.

  We looked over our shoulders as we took breath, and saw the red dragoons rushing up the hill to capture our principal battery of twenty-four guns, when, thank God! their turn came to be massacred.

  The Emperor had observed our retreat from a distance, and as the dragoons mounted the hill, two regiments of cuirassiers on the right, and a regiment of lancers on the left fell on their flanks like lightning, and before they had time to look, they were upon them. We could hear the blows slide over their cuirasses, hear their horses puff, and a hundred paces away we could see the lances rise and fall, the long sabres stretch out, and the men bend down to thrust under; the furious horses, rearing, biting, and neighing frightfully, and then men under the horses’ feet were trying to get up, and sheltering themselves with their hands.

  What horrible things are battles! Buche shouted, “Strike hard!”

  I felt the sweat run down my forehead, and others with great gashes, and their eyes full of blood, were wiping their faces and laughing ferociously.

  In ten minutes, seven hundred dragoons were hors-de-combat; their gray horses were running wildly about on all sides, with their bits in their teeth. Some hundreds of them had retired behind their batteries, but more than one was reeling in his saddle and clutching at his horse’s mane.

  They had found out that to attack was not all the battle, and that very often circumstances arise which are quite unexpected.

  In all that frightful spectacle, what impressed me most deeply, was seeing our cuirassiers returning with their sabres red to the hilt, laughing among themselves; and a fat captain with immense brown mustaches, winked good-humoredly as he passed by us, as much as to say, “You see we sent them back in a hurry, eh!”

  Yes, but three thousand of our men were left in that little hollow. And it was not yet finished: the companies and battalions and brigades were being re-formed, the musketry rattled in the vicinity of Haie-Sainte, and the cannon thundered near Hougoumont. “It was only just a beginning,” the officers said. You would have thought that men’s lives were of no value!

  But it was necessary to get possession of Haie-Sainte, and to force a passage from the highway to the enemy’s centre just as an entrance must be effected into a fortification through the fire of the outworks and the demil
unes. We had been repulsed the first time, but the battle was begun, and we could not go back. After the charge of the cuirassiers, it took a little time for us to re-form: the battle continued at Hougoumont, and the cannonade re-opened on our right, and two batteries had been brought up to sweep the highway in the rear of Haie-Sainte, where the road begins to mount the hill. We all saw that that was to be the point of attack.

  We stood waiting with shouldered arms, when about three o’clock Buche looked behind him on the road and said, “The Emperor is coming!”

  And others in the ranks repeated, “Here is the Emperor.”

  The smoke was so thick that we could barely see the bear-skin caps of the Old Guard on the little hill of Rossomme. I turned round also to see the Emperor, and immediately recognized Marshal Ney, with five or six of his staff officers. He was coming from head-quarters and pushed straight down upon us across the fields. We stood with our backs to him; our officers hurried to meet him, and they conversed together, but we could not hear a word in consequence of the noise which filled our ears.

  The marshal then rode along the front of our two battalions, with his sword drawn. I had never seen him so near since the grand review at Aschaffenbourg; he seemed older, thinner, and more bony, but still the same man; he looked at us with his sharp gray eyes, as if he took us all in at a glance, and each one felt, as if he were looking directly at him.

  At the end of a second he pointed toward Haie-Sainte with his sword, and exclaimed:

  “We are going to take that, you will have the whole at once, it is the turning-point of the battle. I am going to lead you myself. Battalions by file to the left!”

  We started at a quick step on the road, marching by companies in three ranks. I was in the second. Marshal Ney was in front, on horseback, with the two colonels and Captain Florentin: he had returned his sword to the scabbard. The balls whistled round our ears by hundreds, and the roar of cannon from Hougoumont and on our left and right in the rear was so incessant, that it was like the ringing of an immense bell, when you no longer hear the strokes, but only the booming. One and another sank down from among us, but we passed right on over them.

  Two or three times the marshal turned round to see if we were marching in good order; he looked so calm, that it seemed to me quite natural not to be afraid, his face inspired us all with confidence, and each one thought, “Ney is with us, the others are lost!” which only shows the stupidity of the human race, since so many others besides us escaped.

  As we approached the buildings the report of the musketry became more distinct from the roar of cannon, and we could better see the flash of the guns from the windows, and the great black roof above in the smoke, and the road blocked up with stones.

  We went along by a hedge, behind which crackled the fire of our skirmishers, for the first brigade of Alix’s division had not quitted the orchards; and on seeing us filing along the road, they commenced to shout, “Vive l’Empereur.”

  The whole fire of the German musketry was then turned on us, when Marshal Ney drew his sword and shouted in a voice which reached every ear, “Forward!”

  He disappeared in the smoke with two or three officers, and we all started on a run, our cartridge-boxes dangling about our hips, and our muskets at the “ready.”

  Far to the rear they were beating the charge; we did not see the marshal again till we reached a shed which separated the garden from the road, when we discovered him on horseback before the main entrance.

  It appeared that they had already tried to force the door, as there was a heap of dead men, timbers, paving stones, and rubbish piled up before it, reaching to the middle of the road. The shot poured from every opening in the building, and the air was heavy with the smell of the powder.

  “Break that in,” shouted the marshal. Fifteen or twenty of us dropped our muskets, and seizing beams we drove them against the door with such force, that it cracked and echoed back the blows like thunder. You would have thought it would drop at every stroke; we could see through the planks the paving stones heaped as high as the top inside. It was full of holes, and when it fell it might have crushed us, but fury had rendered us blind to danger. We no longer had any resemblance to men, some had lost their shakos, others had their clothes nearly torn off; the blood ran from their fingers and down their sides, and at every discharge of musketry the shot from the hill struck the paving stones, pounding them to dust around us.

  I looked about me, but I could not see either Buche or Zébédé or any others of our company, the marshal had disappeared also. Our rage redoubled; and as the timbers went back and forth, we grew furious to find that the door would not come down, when suddenly we heard shouts of “Vive l’Empereur” from the court, accompanied with a most horrible uproar. Every one knew that our troops had gained an entrance into the enclosure. We dropped the timbers, and seizing our guns we sprang through the breaches into the garden to find where the others had entered. It was in the rear of the house through a door opening into the barn. We rushed through one after the other like a pack of wolves.

  The interior of this old structure, with its lofts full of hay and straw, and its stables covered with thatch, looked like a bloody nest which had been attacked by a sparrow-hawk.

  On a great dung-heap in the middle of the court, our men were bayoneting the Germans who were yelling and swearing savagely.

  I was running hap-hazard through this butchery, when I heard some one call, “Joseph, Joseph!” I looked round, thinking, “That is Buche calling me.” In a moment I saw him at the door of a woodshed, crossing bayonets with five or six of our men.

  I caught sight of Zébédé at that same instant, as our company was in that corner, and rushing to Buche’s assistance, I shouted, “Zébédé!” Parting the combatants, I asked Buche what was the matter.

  “They want to murder my prisoners!” said he. I joined him, and the others began to load their muskets to shoot us. They were voltigeurs from another battalion.

  At that moment Zébédé came up with several men from our company, and without knowing how the matter stood, he seized the most brutal one by the throat and exclaimed, “My name is Zébédé, sergeant of the Sixth light infantry. When this affair is settled, we will have a mutual explanation.”

  Then they went away, and Zébédé asked:

  “What is all this, Joseph?”

  I told him we had some prisoners. He turned pale with anger against us, but when he went into the wood-shed he saw an old major, who presented him the guard of his sabre in silence, and another soldier, who said in German, “Spare my life, Frenchman; don’t take my life.”

  The cries of the dying still filled the court, and his heart relenting, Zébédé said, “Very well, I take you prisoners.”

  He went out and shut the door. We did not quit the place again until the assembly began to beat.

  Then, when the men were in their ranks, Zébédé notified Captain Florentin that we had taken a major and a soldier prisoners.

  They were brought out and marched across the court without arms, and put in a room with three or four others. These were all that remained of the two battalions of Nassau troops which were intrusted with the defence of Haie-Sainte.

  While this had been going on, two other battalions from Nassau, who were coming to the assistance of their comrades, had been massacred outside by our cuirassiers, so that for the moment we were victorious: we were masters of the principal outpost of the English and could begin our attack on their centre, cut their communication by the highway with Brussels, and throw them into the miserable roads of the forest of Soignes. We had had a hard struggle, but the principal part of the battle had been fought. We were two hundred paces from the English lines, well sheltered from their fire; and I believe, without boasting, that with the bayonet and well supported by the cavalry, we could have fallen upon them, and pierced their line. An hour of good work would have finished the affair.

  But while we were all rejoicing over our success, and the officers, sold
iers, drummers, and trumpeters were all in confusion, amongst the ruins, thinking of nothing but stretching our legs and getting breath, the rumor suddenly reached us that the Prussians were coming, that they were going to fall on our flank, and that we were about to have two battles, one in front and the other on our right, and that we ran the risk of being surrounded by a force double our own.

  This was terrible news, but several hot-headed fellows exclaimed:

  “So much the better, let the Prussians come! we will crush them all at once.”

  Those who were cool saw at once what a mistake we had made by not making the most of our victory at Ligny, and in allowing the Prussians quietly to leave in the night without being pursued by our cavalry, as is always done.

  We may boldly say that this great fault was the cause of our defeat at Waterloo. It is true, the Emperor sent Marshal Grouchy the next day at noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it was quite too late. In those fifteen hours they had time to re-form, to communicate with the English, and to act on the defensive.

  The next day after Ligny, the Prussians still had ninety thousand men, of whom thirty thousand were fresh troops, and two hundred and seventy-five cannon. With such an army they could do what they pleased; they could have even fought a second battle with the Emperor, but they preferred falling on our flank, while we were engaged with the English in front. That is so plain and clear, that I cannot imagine how any one can think the movement of the Prussians surprising.

  Blücher had already played us the same trick at Leipzig—and he repeated it now in drawing Grouchy on to pursue him so far. Grouchy could not force him to return, and he could not prevent him from leaving thirty or forty thousand men to stop his pursuers, while he pushed on to the relief of Wellington.

  Our only hope was that Grouchy had been ordered to return and join us, and that he would come up in the rear of the Prussians; but the Emperor sent no such order.

  It was not we, the common soldiers, as you may well think, who had these ideas; it was the officers and generals; we knew nothing of it; we were like children, utterly unconscious that their hour is near.