The Whites and the Blues (21 page)

"What shall I do to win them, general?"

"You must bring two Prussian prisoners to your cap tain to-morrow, or rather, to-day."

"Soldiers or officers, general?"

"Officers would be better, but privates will do."

"I shall do my best, general."

THE WHITES AND THE BLUES

"Who has some brandy?" asked Picliegru.

"I have," said Doumerc.

"Well, give this coward a drink; he has promised to bring us two prisoners to-morrow."

"Suppose I only make one, general?"

"Then you will only be half a corporal, and will only have one stripe to wear.''

"Oh! that would make me squint! To-morrow evening I shall have them both, general, or you may say, 'Faraud is dead.' To your health, general!"

"General," said Charles to Pichegru, "it was with words like those that Caesar made his Gauls invincible.''

CHAPTEB XXII

THE BATTLE

THE army was awake and desirous of marching; and as it was nearly five o'clock, the general gave the order to start, telling the soldiers that they should breakfast at. Dawendorif, and that they were to have a double ration of brandy«

Skirmishers were thrown out to capture the sentinels as they passed; then they left the woods in three columns, one of which seized and occupied Kaltenhausen, while the other two, to the right and left of the village, drawing their light artillery after them, spread out over the plain, and marched straight for Dawendorff.

The enemy had been surprised in Kaltenhausen, and had therefore made little resistance; but the firing had given the alarm to Dawendorff, and the troops could be seen drawn up in line of battle.

A slight eminence rose at a distance of about half a can non-shot from the village; the general put his horse to a gallop, and, followed by his staff, gained the summit of the rise, whence he could see the whole field of battle.

When he left, he directed General Macdonald to take

the first battalion of the Indre, which formed the head of the column, and dislodge the enemy from DawendorfL

He kept the eighth chasseurs near him as a reserve, and in front he posted a battery of six guns. The battalion of the Indre, followed by the rest of the army, strategically disposed, marched straight upon the enemy. Intrench-ments had been thrown up outside the village. When the Eepublicans were not more than two hundred yards away, Pichegru made a sign, and his artillery covered the breast works with a leaden hail. The Prussians on their side re plied with a well-directed fire, which killed about fifty. But the brave battalions which formed the attacking col umn went steadily forward, and, preceded by beating drums, charged the enemy with the bayonet.

Already harassed by the grapeshot which the general had turned upon them, the enemy abandoned the intrench-ments, and the Eepublicans poured into the village with the Prussians. But in the meantime two large bodies of troops appeared on either side of the village; they were the roy alist cavalry and infantry, commanded by the Prince de Conde* and the Due de Bourbon. The two bodies threat ened to attack the little army in the rear, as it stood ranged in battle, as it were, behind the battalion of the Indre, of which a part was following it.

Pichegru immediately despatched Captain Gaume, one of his aides-de-camp, to order General Michaud, who com manded the centre, to form his men in a hollow square, and to receive the enemy's charge with the bayonet.

Then calling Abatucci on the other side, he ordered him to put himself at the head of the second regiment of chas seurs and to charge the royalist infantry when he judged that the grape-shot had thrown their lines into sufficient disorder.

From the top of the little hill where he stood fearlessly beside the general, Charles saw, below him, Pichegru and the Prince de Conde, or, in other words, the revolution and the counter-revolution, play at that terrible game of chess which is called war.

He saw Captain Gaume cross at a gallop the broad open space which lay to the left of the hill occupied by Pichegru, to carry the general-in-chief's order to the adjutant-general, Michaud, who had at that very moment perceived that his left was threatened by the Prince de Conde' and had antici pated the order sent him.

On the right he saw Captain Abatucci take the head of the chasseurs, and descend the hill at a gentle trot, while three volleys of the cannon, fired one after the other, raked the mass of infantry which was approaching.

There was a movement of hesitation in the royalist ranks by which Abatucci profited. He ordered his men to draw their swords, and on the instant six hundred blades glit tered in the rays of the sun.

The Due de Bourbon attempted to form his men into a square, but either the confusion was too great or the order was given too late. The charge came like the del uge of a waterspout, and cavalry and infantry were seen fighting hand to hand, while, on the other side, Adjutant-General Michaud's men fired when they were not twenty-five feet away.

It would be impossible to describe the effect of this vol ley, fired at such close quarters. More than a hundred riders fell, some, impelled by their own momentum, roll ing as far as the first ranks of the square. The prince then retired to reform his cavalry out of range of the cannon-shot.

At the same moment the battalion of the Indre was seen to retreat, although slowly. They had found the village occupied in force, and had been received by firing from every window, and also from two pieces of cannon which were set up within the village as a battery. The regiment had been obliged to fall back.

The general sent his fourth aide-de-camp, Chaumette, at full gallop to find out what had happened and to direct Macdonald to hold the position at any cost.

Chaumette crossed the field under fire of both the

royalists and the Kepublicans, and halted within a few feet of the intrenchments to deliver his message. Mac-donald replied that he certainly should not yield the posi tion, and that furthermore, as soon as the men had taken breath, he should make a new attempt to recapture the village of Dawendorff. But in order to facilitate the suc cess of the movement he wished that some diversion could be made to draw off the enemy's attention for a few moments.

Chaumette returned to Pichegru, who was stationed so near the battlefield that it took only a few moments to deliver his messages and return to him with the answers.

"Take twenty-five chasseurs and four trumpeters from Abatucci," said Pichegru; "go round the village and enter the street opposite to where Doumerc will charge; have the trumpets blown as loudly as possible while Macdonald charges; the enemy will thus think it is caught between two fires and will yield."

Chaumette rode down the slope of the hill again, reached Abatucci, exchanged a few words with him, took the twenty-five men, and sent another to tell Macdonald to charge, and that he was to attack the enemy in the rear at the same time.

Macdonald immediately raised his sword, the drums beat the charge, and, amid a terrible rattle of musketry, he boldly re-entered the village. Almost at the same mo ment Chaumette's trumpets were heard at the other end of the village.

The disorder now became general. The Prince de Conde* turned upon Michaud and his battalion, which had formed in a square. The royalist infantry began to beat a retreat before Abatucci and the eighth chasseurs; and Pichegru sent half of. his reserve, about four or five hundred men, to the assistance of the battalion of the Indre, keeping the other four or five hundred with him to use in case of some unexpected emergency. As the royalist infantry retreated they fired a last volley, not at Abatucci and his chasseurs,

but at the group upon the hill, where the Eepublican general was easily recognized by his plume and his gold epaulets.

Two men fell. The general's horse, struck in the chest, leaped in the air. Charles uttered a sigh and fell forward in his saddle.

"Ah! poor child!" cried Pichegru; "Larrey, Larrey!"

A young surgeon about twenty-six or seven approached. They held the boy upon his horse, and, as in falling he had pressed his hand to his breast, they opened his vest. The general's surprise was great when they discovered a forag ing cap between the waistcoat and his shirt. They shook the cap and a bullet fell out.

"It is useless to seek further/' said the surgeon; "the shirt is intact and there is no blood. The boy is not strong and the violence of the blow has made him faint. This foraging cap, which would have been of no protection in its proper place, has saved his life here. Give him some brandy and he will be all right.''

"How strange," said Pichegru; "this cap belongs to the chasseurs of Conde's army."

Just then Charles revived, and his first movement, on coming to himself, was to look for the foraging cap. He was about to ask for it when he saw it in the general's hand. "Ah! general," he said, "pardon me."

"You may well ask pardon for having given us such a fright."

"Oh! not that," said Charles, smiling and pointing to the cap which Pichegru held in his hand.

"You must explain this to me," said Pichegru.

Charles came close to the general and said in a low voice: "That belongs to the Comte de Sainte-Hermine, that young noble who was shot; and when he was dying he asked me to give it to his family 0 "

"But," said Pichegru, feeling it, "there is a letter inside."

"Yes, general; to his brother. The poor fellow feared it might be lost if he gave it to a stranger."

"While in confiding it to some one from his own part of the country he had nothing to fear, I suppose.''

"Have I done wrong, general?"

"It is never wrong to fulfil the wish of a dying man, particularly when that wish is an honorable one. I may even say that it is a sacred duty to do so as soon as possible.''

"But I shall probably not return to Besan§on at once."

"If I try, perhaps I can find some excuse for sending you there."

"Not because you are displeased with me, general?" asked the boy, with tears in his eyes.

"No; I will give you some commission which shall prove to your compatriots that the Jura has still another boy in the service of the Eepublic. Now let us see what is going on yonder."

In a few moments Charles forgot his own accident as his eyes wandered over the battlefield and the town; he held his breath in the absorbing interest of the sight, and, touch ing the general on the arm, pointed to the men running over roofs, jumping out of windows, and climbing over garden walls in their haste to reach the plain.

"Good," said Pichegru, "we are masters of the town, and the day is ours." Then, turning to Lieber, the only one of his officers near him, he said: "Take command of the reserve and prevent these men from rallying."

Lieber put himself at the head of the four or five hun dred men and descended upon the village.

"Now," continued Pichegru with his usual calmness, "let us go to the village and see what is happening."

And accompanied only by twenty-five or thirty chas seurs of the rearguard, together with General Boursier and Charles, he set off at a gallop on the road to Dawendorff.

Charles cast a last glance at the plain; the enemy were fleeing in all directions. This was the first time that he had seen a battle; he was now to see a battlefield. He had seen the poetical side—the movement, the fire, the smoke;

but the distance had concealed all the details. He was now to see the hideous side—the agony, the immobility of death: he was about to enter upon the bloody reality.

CHAPTEB XXIII

AFTER THE BATTLE

THE short distance that the little troop was obliged to cover in order to reach the plain was entirely bare, except for the wounded, the dead, and the dying. The fight had lasted barely an hour and a half, but more than fifteen hundred men lay strewn upon the battlefield.

Charles approached the line of dead with a certain de gree of apprehension; at the first corpse that his horse encountered the animal shied so violently that the boy was nearly thrown. Pichegru's horse, held in better check, or perhaps better accustomed to such scenes, leaped over the obstacles; in time Charles's horse was forced to follow his example and to leap over the dead.

It was not, however, the dead that made the most im pression upon Charles, but the wounded, who sought to drag themselves from beneath the hoofs of the horses of the general and his staff, by a supreme effort, or lay horribly mutilated and muttering, the death-rattle in their throats: ''Comrades, for mercy's sake despatch me! de spatch me!"

Others again, those who were not so grievously wounded, raised themselves upon their elbows, and, waving their caps, cried: "Long live the Republic!"

"Is this the first time that you have ever seen a battle field?" asked Pichegru.

"No, general," replied the boy.

"Where have you seen one before?"

"In Tacilus—that of Teutberg, with Germanicus and Cecina."

"Ah, yes," replied Pichegru, "I remember: it is when Germanicus, just before he reaches the forest, finds the eagle of the nineteenth legion which was lost with Varus."

"And do you remember that passage, general, which I understand so well now—'All the army were filled with pity as they thought of relatives, friends, the chances of war, and the destiny of men'?"

"Yes," said Pichegru. " 'There were,' said Tacitus, 'in the midst of the vast clearing, whitening bones scattered where the men had fled, and lying in heaps where they had fought.' Oh! I wish I could remember the Latin text, which no translation can equal; wait: 'Medio—' '

"I remember it, general," said Charles; " 'Medio campi albentia ossa ut fugerant, ut resisterant.' ''

"Well done, Charles," said Pichegru; "your father made me a fine gift when he sent you to me!"

"General," asked Charles, "are you not going to send help to these poor wounded men ?''

"Don't you see the surgeons who are going from one to the other, regardless of whether they are friends or enemies ? We have gained at least this much in eighteen hundred years of civilization; we do not cut the throats of prisoners upon the altars of Teutates, as in the time of Armin and Marbod.''