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

by Émile Erckmann

  One could see distinctly the two field-pieces with their cramp-irons, levers, sponges, artillerymen, and the officer commanding, a great lanky fellow, with broad shoulders and fair mustaches floating in the wind. The blue shades of the valley seeming to diminish the distance, they looked as though you might have touched them; but Hullin and Materne were not to be deceived; it was a good six hundred mètres across. No carbine could reach so far. Nevertheless, the old hunter, before returning to the abatis, wished to have his mind set quite at rest. He advanced as close as possible to the ravine, followed by his-son Kasper and a few mountaineers; and, leaning against a tree, he raised his gun deliberately and took aim at the tall officer with the fair mustaches. All those about him held their breath for fear of balking the attempt.

  Materne fired, but when he laid down his weapon to see what had occurred, no change had taken place.

  “It is astonishing how age weakens the sight,” he said.

  “Your weakened sight!” cried Kasper. “There is not a man from the Vosges to Switzerland who can boast of hitting his mark at two hundred mètres like you!”

  The old hunter knew well it was the case, but he did not wish to discourage the others.

  “Well,” he replied, “we have no time for disputing. Here is the enemy again; let each do his duty.” Although these words seemed simple and calm enough, Materne was very much troubled in reality. On entering the trench confused sounds met his ear—the clattering of arms and the regular tramp of many feet. He looked down over the steep bank, and now saw the Germans, who this time carried long ladders with hooks at the end.

  It was not a pleasant sight for the brave fellow: he made a sign to his son to approach, and said to him, in a low voice, “Kasper, that looks bad—very bad; the rascals are coming with ladders. Give me thy hand! I should like to have thee near me, and Frantz as well; but we must defend ourselves with steadiness.”

  At this moment a great explosion shook the abatis, and a hoarse voice was heard crying out, “Ah, my God!” Then a hundred paces distant there was a heavy sound, and a fine tree bent down slowly and fell into the abyss. It was the first cannon-ball: it had cut off old Rochart’s legs. It was followed by another immediately after, which covered all the mountaineers with broken ice, and made a great rumbling. Old Materne himself had bent down under the force of the explosion, but raising himself quickly, he shouted, “Let us revenge ourselves, my children. They are before you. To conquer or die!”

  Fortunately the panic of the mountaineers only lasted a second: they all understood that the slightest hesitation and they were lost. Two ladders had already been raised, notwithstanding the fusillade, and were being attached to the bank by their iron hooks. This sight made the partisans furious, and the fight became more terrible and desperate than before.

  Hullin had noticed the ladders before Materne had, and his wrath against Divès increased; but as in such a case indignation is of no avail, he had sent Lagarmitte to tell Frantz Materne, who had been posted on the other side of the Donon, to come to him quickly with half his men. We may well believe the brave fellow, warned of the danger his father was in, lost not a moment. Already their large black hats could be seen climbing the hill-side amid the snows, their carbines slung across their shoulders. They came with all despatch, nevertheless Jean-Claude met them, with a haggard expression in his eyes, and shouted in a vibrating voice, “Come quicker! at that rate you will never reach us.”

  He was in a towering passion, and attributed all the misfortune to the smuggler.

  Meanwhile Marc Divès, in about half an hour, had gone round the ravine, and, from the back of his tall horse, began to perceive the two companies of Germans, with grounded arms, about a hundred feet behind the guns, which were being fired upon the trench. Then, approaching the mountaineers, he said to them, in a stifled voice, while the reports of the cannon were re-echoed in the gorge and in the distance the noise of battle was heard: “Comrades, you must attack the infantry with your bayonets: I and my men will be answerable for the rest. Is it understood?”

  “Yes, it is understood.”

  “Then, forward!”

  The whole troop advanced in good order toward the outskirts of the wood, big Piercy of Soldatenthal at their head. Nearly at the same instant the Wer da? (“Who there?”) of a sentinel was heard; then two shots; a loud cry of “Vive la France!” and the trampling of many feet in a charge. The brave mountaineers threw themselves like wolves on the enemy.

  Divès stood up in his stirrups and watched them with great glee. “That is well,” said he.

  The mêlée was a terrible one; the ground trembled with it. The Germans were firing no more than the partisans: the affair was passing in silence; the clashing of bayonets and the sound of sabre-strokes, with here and there a rifle-shot, shouts of anger and a great tumult: except these, one could hear nothing else. The smugglers, with outstretched necks and sword in hand, sniffed the carnage and awaited the signal from their chief with impatience.

  “Now, it is our turn,” said Divès, at length. “The guns must be ours.”

  And out of the underwood they sprang, and their large cloaks flying behind them like wings, they dashed forward, bending in their saddles and pointing their swords.

  “Never mind cutting! Run them through!” cried Divès once more.

  That was all he said.

  In a second, the twelve vultures were down upon the guns. Among their number were four old Spanish dragoons and two cuirassiers of the guard, whom a life of danger had attached to Marc: so I leave you to imagine how they fought. Blows from lever, rammer, and sabre, the only arms the gunners had to hand, rained upon them like hail; they parried them all, and every cut they made brought down a man.

  Marc Divès received two pistol-shots, of which one singed his left cheek and the other carried away his hat. But, at the same time, bending over his saddle, his long arms stretched out, he transfixed the big officer with the fair mustaches to his gun; then raising himself deliberately, and gazing round him with a frown, said, in a sententious manner: “We have cleared out the rubbish! the guns are ours.”

  To get a good idea of this terrible scene, you must imagine the crowd on the plateau of Minières. The cries, the neighings of horses, the flight of some, who threw down their arms in order to run the faster, the desperation of others;—beyond the ravine, the ladders covered with white uniforms and bristling with bayonets; the mountaineers above the escarpment defending themselves with obstinacy; the hill-sides, the road, and, above all, the space outside the breastworks, encumbered with dead and wounded;—the great numbers of the enemy, their muskets over their shoulders and their officers in the midst of them, pressing forward into action; and, finally, Materne standing on the crest of the hill, his bayonet in the air, his mouth opened wide, shouting wildly to his son Frantz, who was advancing with his troop, Master Jean-Claude at their head, to aid the mountaineers. You should have heard the fusillade, the platoon and file firing, and, above all, the distant confused shouts, intermixed with sharp wails dying away among the mountain echoes. To gain a good idea of the scene, you should imagine all these as concentrated into one moment and surveyed with a rapid glance.

  But Divès was not of a contemplative turn: he lost no time in making poetical reflections on the uproar and savagery of the battle. With one look he had taken in the whole situation; so, springing from his horse, he went up to the first gun, which was still loaded, aimed it at the ladders, and fired.

  Then there arose wild clamors, and the smuggler, peering through the smoke, saw that fearful havoc had been made in the enemy’s ranks. He waved his hands in sign of triumph, and the mountaineers on the breastworks answered with a general hurrah.

  “Now then, dismount,” said he to his men, “and don’t go to sleep. A cartridge, a ball, and some turf. We will sweep the road. Look out!”

  The smugglers put themselves in position, and continued to fire with enthusiasm upon the white coats. The bullets rained into their ranks. At t
he tenth discharge there was a general sauve-qui-peut.

  “Fire! fire!” shouted Marc.

  And the partisans, now supported by Frantz’s troop, regained, under Hullin’s directions, the positions which they had for the moment lost.

  The whole of the hill-side was soon covered with dead and wounded. It was then four in the evening; night was approaching. The last ball fell into the street of Grandfontaine, and rebounding on the angle of the pavement, knocked down the chimney of the “Red Ox.”

  About six hundred men perished that day: there were, of course, many mountaineers among them, but the greater number were “kaiserlichs.” Had it not been for the fire of Marc Divès’s cannon, all would have been lost; the partisans were not one against ten, and the enemy had already begun to gain on the trenches.

  CHAPTER XVI

  PAINFUL SCENES

  The Germans, huddled together in Grandfontaine, fled in crowds in the direction of Framont, on foot and on horseback, hurrying, dragging along their ammunition-wagons, strewing the road with their knapsacks, and looking behind as though they feared to find the partisans at their heels.

  In Grandfontaine they destroyed everything out of sheer revenge; they smashed in doors and windows, maltreated the people, demanded food and drink indiscriminately. Their shouts and curses, the commands of their officers, the murmurs of the townsfolk, the artillery rolling over the bridge of Framont, the shrill cries of the wounded horses, were heard as a confused murmur at the breastworks.

  The hill-side was covered with arms, shakos, and dead; in fact, with all the signs of a great rout. In front was Marc Divès’s cannon directed down the valley, ready to fire in case of a fresh attack.

  All was finished, and finished well. Yet no shout of triumph rose from the intrenchments: the losses of the mountaineers, in this last assault, had been too great for that. There was something solemn in this silence succeeding to the uproar; all these men who had escaped the carnage, looked grave, as though astonished to see each other again. Some few called a friend, others a brother, who did not answer; and then they searched for them in the trenches, along the breastworks, or on the slopes, calling “Jacob, Philip, is it thou?”

  Night came on; and the gray shadow creeping over everything, added mystery to these fearful scenes. The people came and went among the wrecks of the battle without recognizing each other.

  Materne, having wiped his bayonet, called hoarsely to his boys: “Kasper! Frantz!” and seeing them approach in the darkness, he asked, “Is that you?”

  “Yes, we are here.”

  “Are you safe? are you wounded?”

  “No.”

  The old hunter’s voice became hoarser and more trembling still: “Then we are all three united once more,” said he, in a low tone.

  And he, whom none would have thought to be so tender, embraced his sons warmly. They could hear his chest heaving with suppressed sobs. They were both much moved, and said to each other, “We never dreamed that he loved us so much!”

  But the old man, soon recovering from his emotion, called out, “It was a hard day, though, my boys. Let us have something to drink, for I am thirsty.”

  Then, casting one last look on the dark slopes, and seeing that Hullin had placed sentinels at short distances apart, they proceeded toward the farmhouse.

  As they were picking their way carefully through the trenches, encumbered with the dead, they heard a stifled voice, which said to them, “Is it thou, Materne?”

  “Ah! forgive me, my poor old Rochart,” replied the hunter, bending over him, “if I touched thee. What, art thou still here?”

  “Yes, I cannot get away, for I have no longer any legs to carry me.”

  They remained silent for a moment, when the old wood-cutter continued, “Thou wilt tell my wife that in a bag behind the closet, there are five pieces of six. I have saved them up, in case we either of us fell ill. I no longer need them.”

  “That is to say—that is to say—But thou mayst recover still, my poor old fellow. We will carry thee away.”

  “No; it is not worth the trouble: I cannot last more than an hour. It would only make me linger.”

  Materne, without answering, signed to Kasper to place his carbine with his own, so as to form a stretcher, and Frantz placed the old wood-cutter upon them, notwithstanding his moans. In this way they arrived at the farm.

  All the wounded who during the combat had had strength to drag themselves to the ambulance were now assembled there; and Doctor Lorquin and his comrade Dubois, who had arrived during the day, had work enough to do. But all was far from being over yet.

  As Materne, his boys, and Rochart were traversing the dark alley under the lantern, they heard to their left a cry which made their blood run cold, and the old wood-cutter, half dead, called out, “Why do you take me there? I will not go; I will not have anything done to me.”

  “Open the door, Frantz,” said Materne, his face streaming with perspiration. “Open it! Be quick!”

  Frantz having pushed open the door, they beheld in the centre of the low room with its large brown beams, Colard’s son stretched out full length on a great kitchen-table, a man at each arm and a bucket beneath him. Doctor Lorquin, his shirtsleeves turned up to his elbows, and a short saw in his hand, was cutting off the poor fellow’s leg, while Dubois stood by with a large sponge. The blood trickled into the pail. Colard was as white as death.

  Catherine Lefèvre was there with a roll of lint on her arm. She seemed calm; but her teeth were clinched, and she fastened her eyes on the ground as though determined to witness nothing.

  “It is finished,” said the doctor, turning round; and perceiving the new-comers, “Ha! it is you, Father Rochart!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes, it is I; but I will not let any one touch me. I would rather die as I am.”

  The doctor lifted up a candle, looked at him, and made a grimace.

  “It is time to see to you, my poor old fellow. You have lost much blood, and if we wait longer it will be too late.”

  “So much the better! I have suffered enough in my life.”

  “As you like. Let us pass on to another.”

  He cast his eyes over a long line of straw mattresses at the end of the room; the two last were empty, but covered with blood. Materne and Kasper laid the old wood-cutter down on the last, while Dubois, approaching another wounded man, said, “Nicolas, it is thy turn!”

  Nicolas Cerf raised his pale face and his eyes glistened with fright.

  “Let him have a glass of brandy,” said the doctor.

  “No, I would rather smoke my pipe.”

  “Where is thy pipe?”

  “In my waistcoat pocket.”

  “Good, I have found it. And the tobacco?”

  “In my trousers.”

  “All right. Fill his pipe, Dubois. He is a plucky fellow; it gives one pleasure to see a man like that. We are going to take off thy arm in a trice.”

  “Is there no way of saving it, Monsieur Lorquin, to bring up my poor children? It is their only resource.”

  “No; it is no use; the bone is smashed. Light the pipe, Dubois. Now, Nicolas, smoke away.”

  The unhappy fellow began, though evidently without relish.

  “Is all ready?” asked the doctor.

  “Yes,” replied Nicolas, in a husky voice.

  “Good. Attention, Dubois! Sponge away.”

  And he made a rapid turn in the flesh with a great knife. Nicolas ground his teeth. The blood spurted up, and Dubois bound up something tightly. The saw grated for two seconds, and the arm fell heavily on the boards.

  “That is what I call a well-performed operation,” said Lorquin.

  Nicolas was no longer smoking; the pipe had fallen from his lips. David Schlosser, of Walsch, who had held him, let go. They bound up the stump with linen, and, all unaided, Nicolas went to lie down on the straw.

  “One more finished! Sponge the table well, Dubois, and let us go on to another,” said the doctor, washing his hands i
n a large bowl.

  Each time that he said, “Let us go on to another,” the wounded moved uneasily, terrified by the screams they heard and the glittering knives they saw. But what was to be done? Every room in the farm, the granary, and the lofts was full. They were thus obliged to operate under the eyes of those who would soon in their turns come beneath the painful knife.

  The operation had taken but a few seconds. Materne and his sons looked on for the same reason as one looks at other horrible things,—to know what they are like. Then in the corner, under the old china clock, they saw a heap of amputated limbs.

  Nicolas’s arm had already been cast among them, and a ball was now being extracted from the shoulder of a red-whiskered mountaineer of the Harberg. They opened deep gashes in his back; his flesh quivered, and the blood coursed down his powerful limbs.

  The dog Pluto, behind the doctor, looked on with an attentive air, as though he understood, and from time to time stretched himself and yawned loudly.

  Materne could look on no longer.

  “Let us get out of this,” said he.

  Hardly were they outside the door, when they heard the doctor exclaim, “I have got the ball!” which must indeed have been satisfactory to the man from the Harberg.

  Once outside, Materne, inhaling the cold air with, delight, exclaimed: “Only think that the same might have happened to us!”

  “True,” said Kasper; “to get a ball in one’s head is nothing; but to be cut up in that style, and then to beg one’s bread for the rest of one’s days!”

  “Bah! I should do the same as old Rochart,” said Frantz. “I should die quietly. The old fellow was right. When one has done one’s duty, why should one be afraid?”

  Just then the hum of voices was heard on their right.

  “It is Marc Divès and Hullin,” said Kasper, listening.

  “Yes; they must be just returning from throwing up breastworks behind the pine-wood, to protect the cannon,” added Frantz.