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

by Émile Erckmann

  CHAPTER XIII

  ROUND THE WATCHFIRES

  That night, which was on a Friday, the anabaptist’s little farm-house never ceased for an instant to be filled with people coming in and going out.

  Hullin had established his head-quarters in the large room on the ground floor, to the right of the barn, facing Framont: on the other side of the passage was the ambulance: the upper part was inhabited by the farm people.

  Although the night was very still and the stars were shining in myriads, the cold was so intense that there was nearly an inch of ice on the panes.

  Outside, one could hear the challenge of the sentinel, the passing of the patrols, and, on the surrounding peaks, the howling of the wolves, who followed our armies in hundreds since 1812. These wild beasts crouched on the ice, their sharp muzzles between their paws, with hunger at their entrails, calling each other, from the Grosmann to the Donon, with moaning sounds like that of the north wind.

  It made more than one mountaineer grow pale.

  “It is Death who calls,” thought they; “he scents the battle, he summons us!”

  The oxen lowed in the stables, and the horses gave frightful neighs.

  About thirty fires blazed on the plateau; all the anabaptist’s wood was taken; fagots were heaped one upon another. Their faces were scorched, and their backs frozen; they warmed their backs, and the ice hung from their mustaches.

  Hullin, alone, before the great pinewood table, was taking thought for all. According to the latest tidings of the evening, announcing the arrival of the Cossacks at Framont, he was convinced that the first attack would take place the next day. He had distributed cartridges, doubled the sentries, appointed patrols, and marked all the posts along the outworks. Every one knew beforehand what place he was to occupy.

  Hullin had also sent orders to Piorette, Jérome of St. Quirin, and Labarbe, to send him their best marksmen.

  The little dark pathway, lit by a dim lantern, was full of snow, and passing under the immovable light every instant one could see the chiefs of the ambush, with their hats pressed down to their ears, the ample sleeves of their great-coats pulled down over their wrists, with their dark eyes and beards stiffened with ice.

  Pluto no longer growled at the heavy step of these men. Hullin, with his head between his hands and his elbows on the table, listened thoughtfully to all their reports:

  “Master Jean-Claude, there is a movement in the direction of Grandfontaine; and the sounds of galloping are distinguishable.”

  “Master Jean-Claude, the brandy is frozen.”

  “Master Jean-Claude, many of the men are in want of powder.”

  “They are in want of this: they are in want of that.”

  “Let some one be sent to watch Grandfontaine, and let the sentries on that side be changed every half-hour.”

  “Let the brandy be brought to the fire.”

  “Wait until Divès comes: he brings us ammunition. Let the remainder of the cartridges be distributed. Let those who have more than twenty give some to their comrades.”

  And so it went on all the night.

  At five in the morning, Kasper, Materne’s son, came to tell Hullin that Marc Divès, with a load of cartridges, Catherine Lefèvre on a cart, and a detachment from Labarbe, had just arrived together, and that they were already on the plateau.

  The tidings pleased him, especially on account of the cartridges, for he had feared delay.

  He immediately rose and went out with Kasper. The plateau presented a curious spectacle.

  On the approach of day, clouds of mist began to rise from the valley, the fires hissed with the damp, and all around could be seen sleeping men: one stretched on his back, with his arms thrown under his hat, a blue face, and doubled-up legs; another with his cheek on his arm and his back to the fire; the greater number seated, with bent heads and their muskets slung across their shoulders. All was silent, wrapped in purple light or gray tints, just as the fire blazed or smouldered. Then, in the distance, could be discerned the profile of the sentinels, with their muskets across their arms or clubbed upon the ground, gazing into the cloud-filled abyss beneath them.

  To the right, fifty paces from the last fire, could be heard the neighing of horses, and people stamping with their feet to warm themselves, and talking aloud.

  “Master Jean-Claude is coming,” said Kasper, going toward them.

  One of the partisans having thrown a few sticks of dry wood on to the fire, there was a bright blaze; and Marc Divès’s men on horseback, twelve tall fellows, wrapped in their long gray cloaks, their felts slouched back over their shoulders, with their long mustaches either turned up or falling down to their necks, their sabres in their grasp, stood motionless round the load of cartridges. Farther on Catherine Lefèvre crouched down in her cart, her hood over her face, her feet in the straw, her back against a large barrel. Behind her was a caldron, a gridiron, a fresh-killed pig, scalded all white and red, with some strings of onions and cabbages for making soup. All stood out of the darkness for a second, and then relapsed into night.

  Divès, having quitted the convoy, advanced on his powerful horse.

  “Is it you, Jean-Claude?”

  “Yes, Marc.”

  “I have some few thousand cartridges there. Hexe-Baizel is working day and night.”

  “Good!”

  “Yes, old fellow. And Catherine Lefèvre brings provisions as well; she killed yesterday.”

  “All right, Marc: we shall want all that. The battle is impending.”

  “Yes, yes, I thought so; we came quickly. Where is the powder to be put?”

  “There, under the cart-house behind the farm. Ah, is that you, Catherine?”

  “Of course, Jean-Claude. It is dreadfully cold this morning!”

  “You are always the same. Have you no fear?”

  “What! should I be a woman if I were not curious? I must poke my nose everywhere.”

  “Yes, you always make excuses for the fine and noble things you do.”

  “Hullin, you are wearisome with your repetitions; let me alone with your compliments. Must not all those people eat? Can they live on air in such weather as this? And is not air fattening on a day so cold—like needles and razors. So I took my measures. Yesterday we slaughtered an ox—poor Schwartz, you know—he weighed a good nine hundred. I have brought his hind-quarters for this morning’s soup.”

  “Catherine, it is in vain I have known you so long,” cried Jean-Claude, quite touched; “you are always astonishing me. No sacrifice is too great for you, neither money, care, nor trouble.”

  “Ah,” replied the old farm-wife, rising and springing from her cart, “you tease and worry me, Jean-Claude. I am going to warm myself.”

  She gave Dubourg the reins of her horse, and looking back, said, “Jean-Claude, those fires are a pleasure to behold. But where is Louise?”

  “Louise spent the night cutting and sewing bandages with Pelsly’s two daughters. She is at the ambulance: over there you see, where the light is shining.”

  “Poor child!” said Catherine, “I will go and help her. That will warm me.”

  Hullin watched her retreating figure, and made a gesture, as though saying, “What a woman!”

  At this moment, Divès and his people were carrying the powder into the shed, and as Jean-Claude approached the nearest fire, what was his surprise to see, among the crowd of partisans, Yégof the madman, crowned as usual, gravely seated on a stone, with his feet in the ashes, and draped in his rags as though they were a royal mantle.

  Anything more strange than this figure by the fire-light could not be imagined. Yégof was the only one awake of the crowd, and might readily have been taken for some barbarian king musing in the midst of his sleeping horde.

  Hullin only saw in him a madman, and laying his hand softly on his shoulder, said, ironically:

  “I salute thee, Yégof! Thou art come, then, to lend us the help of thy invincible arm and of thy countless armies?”

  Th
e madman, without showing the least surprise, replied: “That depends on thee, Hullin; thy fate, and that of all these people, is in thy hands. I have suspended my anger, and I will allow thee to pronounce sentence.”

  “What sentence?” demanded Jean-Claude.

  The other, without replying, continued, in a low solemn voice: “Behold us two on the eve of a great battle, as we were sixteen hundred years ago. At that time, I, the chief of so many people, came among thy tribe to ask a passage.”

  “Sixteen hundred years ago!” said Hullin. “Zounds! Yégof, that makes us terribly old! But it is of no consequence—each to his taste.”

  “Yes,” rejoined the madman, “but, with thy usual obstinacy, thou wouldst hear nothing. Men died on the Blutfeld—men who now call for vengeance!”

  “Ah, the Blutfeld!” said Jean-Claude. “Yes, yes, an old story; I seem to have heard it before.”

  Yégof reddened, and his eyes sparkled.

  “Thou pridest thyself on thy victory!” cried he; “but take care—take care! blood calls for blood!” And in a calmer tone, “Listen,” he added. “I am not angry with thee. Thou art brave; the children of thy race might mingle with those of mine. I am anxious for an alliance with thee—thou knowest it.”

  “There, he is going to begin about Louise,” thought Jean-Claude. And, foreseeing a formal demand, he said: “Yégof, I am sorry, but I must leave thee. I have so much to see after—”

  The madman did not wait the end of this leave-taking, and rising, with his face distorted by indignation, “Thou refusest me thy daughter?” cried he, lifting his finger solemnly.

  “We will talk of that later on.”

  “Thou refusest!”

  “Yégof, thy shouts will awaken every one.”

  “Thou refusest, and it is for the third time! Beware! beware!”

  Hullin, despairing of making him become more reasonable, walked rapidly away, but the madman furiously pursued him with these strange words:

  “Huldrix, woe on thee! Thy last hour is at hand; the wolves are coming to feed upon thy carcass. All is over. I let loose the tempests of my wrath; and neither to thee nor thine shall mercy, pity, or pardon be shown. Thou hast so willed it.”

  And, flinging his rags over his shoulder, the poor wretch went away in the direction of the peak of Donon.

  Some of the volunteers, awakened by his cries, looked up drowsily, and saw him disappearing in the darkness. They heard the fluttering of wings round the fire; then, as though it were a dream, they turned round and fell asleep again.

  About an hour later, Lagarmitte sounded the reveille; and in a few minutes all were on their feet.

  The chiefs of the ambuscade collected their men: some went toward the shed, to obtain cartridges; others filled their gourds with brandy from the cask. All this was done in good order, their chiefs being at the head of each body of men; then the several companies disappeared in the gray morning light toward the out-posts on the hill-sides.

  When the sun rose, the plateau was quite deserted, and, with the exception of five or six fires which were still burning, there was no sign that the partisans were in possession of all the posts on the mountain, or in what place they had passed the night.

  Hullin hurriedly ate a crust and drank a glass of wine with his friends Doctor Lorquin and Pelsly the anabaptist.

  Lagarmitte was with them, for he was not allowed to leave Master Jean-Claude all day, and had to transmit his orders in case of need.

  CHAPTER XIV

  “FORWARD! FORWARD!”

  At seven o’clock there was no sign of any movement in the valley.

  From time to time, Doctor Lorquin opened one of the windows in the large room and looked out. Nothing was stirring; the fires had smouldered away; all was still.

  In front of the farm, on a bank, about a hundred feet distant, the Cossack could be seen who had been killed the previous evening by Kasper. He was white with the frost, and as hard as a stone.

  In the interior, a fire had been made in the great iron stove.

  Louise sat near her father, looking at him with an inexpressible affection, as though she feared never to see him again. Her red eyes showed that she had been crying.

  Hullin, though firm, looked not a little moved. The doctor and the anabaptist, both grave and serious, talked over the present position of affairs, and Lagarmitte, from behind the stove, listened to them with deep interest.

  “We are not only right, but it is our duty to defend ourselves,” said the doctor. “Our fathers cleared these woods and cultivated them: they are our legitimate inheritance.”

  “No doubt,” returned the anabaptist, sententiously; “but it is written, ‘Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not shed thy brother’s blood!’”

  Catherine Lefèvre, who was in the act of cutting a slice of ham, evidently felt impatient at this conversation, and, turning round sharply, replied to him: “If that were true, and your religion were right, the Germans, Russians, and all these red men might take the clothes off our backs. ‘Tis fine, that religion of yours; yes, fine, for it gives the rogues such an advantage! It helps them to pillage people of substance. I am sure the allies would wish for us no better religion than yours. Unfortunately, everybody does not care to live like sheep. As for me, Pelsly—and I say it without wishing to annoy you—I consider it folly to grow rich for the benefit of others. But, after all, you are honest folks; one cannot be angry with you: you have been brought up from father to son in the same notions: what the grandfather thought, the grandson thinks also. But we will defend you in spite of yourselves; and afterward we will let you tell us of the peace eternal. I am fond of discourses on peace, when I have nothing else to do, and when I am thinking after dinner: then it rejoices my heart.”

  After having said this, she turned round and went on carving her ham.

  Pelsly opened his mouth and eyes, and Doctor Lorquin burst out laughing.

  Just then the door opened, and one of the sentries who had been stationed on the edge of the plateau, cried out, “Master Jean-Claude, come and see. I believe they are mounting the hill.”

  “It is well, Simon; I am coming,” said Hullin, rising. “Louise, kiss me. Have courage, my child. Do not fear; all will go well.”

  He pressed her to his breast, her eyes swollen with tears. She seemed more dead than alive.

  “Above all,” said the worthy man, addressing Catherine, “let no one go outside or near the windows.”

  Then he darted out into the road.

  All those present turned pale.

  When Master Jean-Claude had reached the verge of the hill, and cast his eyes over Grandfontaine and Framont, three thousand mètres below, the following sight presented itself to his eyes:

  The Germans, who had arrived the evening before, a few hours after the Cossacks, and had passed the night (about five or six thousand of them) in the barns, stables, and sheds, were moving about like ants. They appeared on all sides in bodies of ten, fifteen, and twenty, buckling their knapsacks and swords, and fixing their bayonets.

  Besides these, the cavalry—the Uhlans, Cossacks, Hussars—in green, blue, and gray uniforms striped with red and yellow—with their glazed linen and sheepskin caps, colbacks, and helmets—were saddling their horses and hastily rolling up their long cloaks.

  Meanwhile the officers, in their great military cloaks, came down the small staircase: some were looking up at the country; others were embracing the women on the doorsteps.

  Trumpeters, with their hands on their sides, were sounding the roll-call at all the corners of the streets, and the drummers tightening the cords of their instruments.

  In short, through the broad expanse, one could see all their military attitudes as they were on the point of starting.

  A few peasants, leaning out of their windows, were watching the scene; women were showing themselves at the loopholes of the garrets; and the innkeepers were filling the gourds, Corporal Knout watching them meanwhile.

  Hullin’s sight was keen,
and nothing escaped him; besides, for years he had been accustomed to this sort of thing; but Lagarmitte, who had never seen anything like it, was stupefied: “There are great numbers of them,” he exclaimed, shaking his head.

  “Bah! what does that matter?” said Hullin. “In my days we exterminated three armies of them, of fifty thousand each, in six months; we were not one against four. All that thou seest there would not have been a breakfast for us. And besides, you may be sure, we shall not have to kill them all; they will run like hares. I have seen it before.”

  After these remarks, he resolved to inspect his men. “Come on,” he said to the herdsman.

  Then the two made their way behind the abatis, following a trench made two days before in the snow, which had been frozen as hard as ice: the felled trees in front of it, formed an insurmountable barrier, which extended about six hundred mètres. Below this was the broken-up road.

  On coming near, Jean-Claude saw the mountaineers of Dagsburg crouching at distances of twenty paces from each, other, in a sort of round nests which they had dug out for themselves.

  All these fine fellows were sitting on their knapsacks, with their gourds to their right hand, their felts or foxskin caps drawn down upon their heads, and their guns between their knees. They had only to rise to have a clear view of the road fifty feet below, at the foot of a slippery descent.

  Jean-Claude’s arrival pleased them much.

  “Ho, Master Hullin, shall we soon begin?”

  “Yes, my boys, never fear; before an hour we shall be at it.”

  “Ah, so much the better!”

  “Yes, but take care to aim at the breast: do not hurry, and show yourselves no more than you can help.”

  “You may rest assured, Master Jean-Claude.”

  He passed on; but everywhere he met with a like reception.

  “Do not forget,” said he, “to stop firing when Lagarmitte sounds his horn: it would be only powder lost.”

  Coming up to old Materne, who commanded all these men—numbering about two hundred and fifty—he found him smoking his pipe, his nose fiery red, and his beard stiffened with the cold.