The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (147 page)

“Then you think Hullin will be compelled to abandon the road?”

“Possibly, if Piorette does not come to his assistance.”

The partisans had approached near the fire. Marc Divès bent over the cinders to light his pipe; on rising, he exclaimed: “I ask thee one thing only, Jérome; I know beforehand that they fought well under thy command—”

“We have done our duty,” replied the shoemaker. “There are sixty men stretched on the slopes of the Grosmann who will tell you so at the last day.”

“Yes; but who, then, guided the Germans? They could not have discovered the pass of the Blutfeld by themselves.”

“Yégof the madman—Yégof,” said Jérome, whose gray eyes, encircled by deep wrinkles and thick white eyebrows, seemed to sparkle in the darkness.

“Ah! art thou certain of it?”

“Labarbe’s men saw him climbing up; he led the others.”

The partisans looked at each other with indignation.

At this moment Doctor Lorquin, who had remained outside to unharness the horse, opened the door, shouting: “The battle is lost! Here are our men from the Donon. I have just heard Lagarmitte’s horn.”

It is easy to imagine the emotion of the recipients of these tidings. Each thought of the relations and friends that he might never see again; and from the kitchen and the granary everybody at once rushed on to the “plateau.” At the same time Robin and Dubourg, posted as sentinels above Bois-de-Chênes, cried out, “Who goes there?”

“France!” replied a voice.

Notwithstanding the distance, Louise, fancying she could recognize her father’s voice, was seized with such a fit of trembling that Catherine was compelled to support her.

Just then the noise of many footsteps resounded over the hardened snow, and Louise, unable to contain herself any longer, exclaimed, “Papa Jean-Claude!”

“I am coming,” replied Hullin, “I am coming.”

“My father?” exclaimed Frantz Materne, rushing to meet Jean-Claude.

“He is with us, Frantz.”

“And Kasper?”

“He has received a slight scratch, but it is nothing. Thou wilt see them both again.”

Catherine threw herself into Jean-Claude’s arms.

“Oh, Jean-Claude, what joy to behold you once more!”

“Yes,” replied the worthy man, in a suppressed voice, “there are many who will never see their friends again.”

“Frantz,” said old Materne, “here, this way!”

And one could only see, on all sides, people seeking each other in the dim light, squeezing hands, and embracing. Some called for, “Niclau! Sapheri!” but many did not answer to their names.

Then the voices became hoarse, as though stifled, and relapsed into silence. The joy of some, and the consternation of others, produced a terrible sensation. Louise was in Hullin’s arms, sobbing bitterly.

“Ah, Jean-Claude,” said Mother Lefèvre, “you will hear strange things about that child. I will say no more now, but we have been attacked—”

“Yes, we will talk of that later; our time is short,” said Hullin. “The road to the Donon is lost, the Cossacks may be here at daylight, and we have many things to arrange.”

He turned the corner and entered the farm, all following him. Duchêne had just thrown a fagot on the fire. All these people, with faces blackened by powder, still animated by the combat, their clothes torn by bayonet-thrusts, some blood-stained, advancing from the darkness into the light, presented a strange spectacle. Kasper, whose forehead was bandaged with his handkerchief, had received a sabre-cut; his bayonet, buff facings, and high blue gaiters, were stained with blood. Old Materne, thanks to his imperturbable presence of mind, returned safe and sound from the fray. The remains of Jérome’s and Hullin’s troops were thus once more united. They wore the same wild physiognomies, animated by the same energy and desire for vengeance. But Hullin’s men, harassed by fatigue, sat down right and left, on the fagots, on the stone sink, on the low pavement of the hearth—their heads in their hands and elbows on their knees; while Jérome’s, who could not be convinced of the disappearance of Hans, Joson, and Daniel, looked about everywhere, exchanging questions, broken by long pauses. Materne’s two sons held each other by the arm, as though afraid of losing one another, and their father, behind them, leaning against the wall, with his elbow on his gun, watched them with an expression of satisfaction.

“There they are, I see them,” he seemed to say: “two famous fellows! They have saved their skins, both of them.” If any one came to ask him about Pierre, Jacques, or Nicolas, his son or his brother, he would reply hap-hazard—“Yes, yes, there are several lying down there on their backs. What can you expect? It is war! Your Nicolas has done his duty. You must console yourself.” Meanwhile he thought—“Mine are out of the scrimmage; that is the chief thing.”

Catherine and Louise were busy preparing supper. Duchêne came up from the cellar with a barrel of wine on his shoulder. He set it down, and knocked out the bung; and each partisan presented his flask or cup to be filled with the purple liquid which glittered in the firelight.

“Eat and drink,” said the old dame to them: “all is not lost yet; you will have need of your strength again. Here, Frantz, unhook those hams for me. Here is bread and knives. Sit down, my children.”

Frantz reached down the hams in the chimney with his bayonet.

The benches were brought forward; they sat down, and notwithstanding their sorrows, they ate with that vigorous appetite which neither present griefs nor thoughts for the future can make a mountaineer forget. But it did not prevent a bitter sadness from filling the hearts of these brave men; and first one and then another would stop suddenly, letting fall his fork, and leave the table, saying—“I have had enough!”

While the partisans were thus engaged in recruiting their strength, the chiefs were assembled in the next room to make some last resolutions for the defence. They sat round the table, on which was placed a tin lamp: Doctor Lorquin, with his dog Pluto, looking inquiringly into his master’s face; Jérome, in the corner of the window to the right; Hullin to the left, very pale; Marc Divès, his elbow on the table and cheek in his hand, and his back turned to the door, showed only his brown profile and the tip of his long mustache. Materne alone remained standing, leaning, as was his custom, against the wall behind Lorquin’s chair, with his carbine at his feet. The noise of the men in the kitchen could be distinctly heard.

When Catherine, summoned by Jean-Claude, entered the room, she heard a sort of groan which made her shudder. It was Hullin who was speaking.

“All these brave lads—all these fathers of families, who fell one after the other,” he cried, in a heartrending voice, “do you think I did not feel it? Do you think that I would not rather a thousand times have been killed myself? You do not know what I have suffered this night! To lose one’s life is nothing; but to bear alone the weight of such a responsibility—”

He paused: his trembling lips, the tear which trickled slowly down his cheek, his attitude, all showed the scruples of the worthy man, in face of one of those situations where conscience itself hesitates and seeks further support. Catherine went and sat down quietly in the big arm-chair. A few seconds later Hullin continued in a calmer tone:—“Between eleven o’clock and midnight, Zimmer came up, shouting, ‘We are turned! The Germans are coming down the Grosmann! Labarbe is crushed! Jérome can hold out no longer!’ What was to be done! Could I beat a retreat? Could I abandon a position which had cost us so much blood—the road to the Donon, the road to Paris? If I had done so, should I not have been a coward? But I had only three hundred men against four thousand at Grandfontaine, and I know not how many descending from the mountain! Well, I decided at any cost to hold it; it was our duty. I said to myself, ‘Life is nothing without honor! We will all die; but they shall not say that we have yielded the high-road to France. No, no; they shall not say that.’”

At this moment Hullin’s voice faltered, and his eyes filled with tears, as he continued—“We held out; my brave children held out till two o’clock. I saw them fall: they fell shouting, ‘Vive la France!’ I had warned Piorette in the beginning of the action. He came up quickly, with fifty stout men. It was too late. The enemy poured in on every side; they held three parts of the plain, and forced us back among the pine-forests on the Blanru side; their fire burst upon us. All I could do was to assemble my wounded, those who could still drag along, and put them under Piorette’s escort; a hundred of my men joined him. For myself, I only kept fifty to occupy the Falkenstein. We had to pass right through the Germans, who wanted to cut off our retreat. Happily, the night was dark; had it not been for that, not one of us would have escaped. That is how we are situated. All is lost! The Falkenstein alone remains ours, and we are reduced to three hundred men. Now the question is, shall we go on to the end? I have already told you that I dread to bear alone such a responsibility. So long as it concerned defending the road to the Donon, there was no doubt about it: every man belongs to his country. But this road is lost. We should need ten thousand men to retake it; and at this very moment the enemy is entering Lorraine. Come, what is to be done?”

“We must go on to the end,” said Jérome.

“Yes, yes!” cried the others.

“Is that your opinion, Catherine?”

“Certainly,” exclaimed the old dame, whose features expressed an inflexible tenacity.

Then Hullin, in a firmer tone, explained his plan:—“The Falkenstein is our point of retreat. It is our arsenal; it is there that we have our ammunition; the enemy knows it; he will attempt an attack on that side, therefore all of us here present must make an effort to defend it, so that the whole country may see us and say, ‘Catherine Lefèvre, Jérome, Materne and his boys, Hullin, and Doctor Lorquin are there. They will not lay down their arms.’ This idea will give fresh courage to all manly hearts. Besides, Piorette will remain in the woods; his troops will grow more numerous day by day: the country will be filled with Cossacks and marauders of every description; when the enemy’s army shall have entered Lorraine I will signal to Piorette; he will throw himself between the Donon and the highway, so that all the laggers behind scattered over the mountains will be caught as in a trap. We shall also be able to profit by favorable chances to carry off the convoys of the Germans, to harass their reserves, and, if fortune aids us, as we must hope it will, and all these ‘kaiserlichs’ are beaten in Lorraine by our army, then we can cut off their retreat.”

Everybody got up, and Hullin going into the kitchen, pronounced this simple address to the mountaineers: “My friends, we have decided that we must push our resistance to the end. Nevertheless, every one is free to do as he likes; to lay down his arms and return to his village; but let those who wish to revenge themselves join us; they will share our last morsel of bread and our last cartridge.”

Colon, the old wood-floater, arose and said, “Hullin, we are all with thee; we began to fight together, and so will we finish.”

“Yes, yes!” they all shouted.

“Have you all decided? Well, listen. Jérome’s brother will take the command.”

“My brother is dead,” interrupted Jérome; “he lies on the slopes of the Grosmann.”

There was a moment’s pause; then in a loud voice Hullin continued: “Colon, thou wilt take the command of all those that remain, with the exception of the men who formed Catherine Lefèvre’s escort, and whom I shall keep with me. Thou wilt go and rejoin Piorette in the valley of Blanru, passing by the ‘Two Rivers.’”

“And the ammunition?” said Marc Divès.

“I have brought up my wagon-load,” said Jérome; “Colon can use it.”

“Let the dray be loaded,” said Catherine; “the Cossacks are coming, and will pillage everything. Our men must not leave empty-handed; let them take away the cows, oxen, and calves—everything: it will be so much gained on the enemy.”

Five minutes later the farm was being ransacked; the dray was loaded with hams, smoked meats, and bread; the cattle were led out of the stables, the horses harnessed to the great wagon, and soon the convoy began its march, Robin at the head, blowing on his horn, with the partisans behind pushing at the wheels. When it had disappeared in the road, and silence had succeeded to all the noise, Catherine turning round, beheld Hullin behind her.

“Well, Catherine,” said he, “all is finished! We are now going to make our way up there.”

Frantz, Kasper, and those of the escort, with Marc Divès and Materne, all armed, were waiting in the kitchen.

“Duchêne,” said the good woman, “go down to the village; you must not be ill-treated by the enemy on my account.”

The old servant shook his white head, and, with his eyes full of tears, replied: “I may as well die here, Madame Lefèvre. It is nearly fifty years since I came to the farm. Do not make me leave; it would be the death of me.”

“Do as you like, my poor Duchêne,” replied Catherine, softly; “here are the keys of the house.”

And the poor old man sat down in the chimney-corner, on a settee, with fixed eyes and half-open mouth, as though lost in some painful reverie.

Then began the journey to the Falkenstein. Marc Divès, on horseback, sword in hand, formed the rear-guard. Frantz and Hullin watched the plateau to the left; Kasper and Jérome the valley to the right: Materne and the men of the escort surrounded the women. It was a singular sight. Before the cottages of the village of Charmes, on the door-steps, at the windows and loopholes, appeared the faces of young and old, looking at the flight of Mother Lefèvre; nor did their evil tongues spare her: “Ah! they are turned out at last,” cried some; “another time, do not meddle with what does not concern you.”