The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (91 page)

We looked into the kettles of the five conscripts, and winked, for they had nothing but rice and water in them, while we had a good rich soup, the odor of which filled the air around us.

At eight we took our breakfast with an appetite, as you can imagine.

Not even on my wedding-day did I eat a better meal, and it is a pleasure even now to think of it. When we are old we are not so enthusiastic about such things as when we are young, but still we always recall them with satisfaction.

This breakfast sustained us a long time, but the poor conscripts with only a few crumbs as it were soaked in rain water, had a hard time next day—the 18th. We were to have a short but terrible campaign.

Though all is over now, yet I cannot think of those terrible sufferings without emotion, or without thanking God that we escaped them. The sun shone again and the weather was fine,—we had hardly finished our breakfast when the drums began to beat the assembly along the whole line.

The Prussian rear-guard had just left Sombref, and it was a question whether we should pursue them. Some said we ought to send out the light-horse, to pick up the prisoners. But no one paid any attention to them,—the Emperor knew what he was doing.

But I remember that everybody was astonished notwithstanding, because it is the custom to profit by victories. The veterans had never seen anything like it. They thought that the Emperor was preparing some grand stroke; that Ney had turned the enemy’s line, and so forth.

Meanwhile the roll commenced and General Gérard reviewed the Fourth corps. Our battalion had suffered most, because in the three attacks we had always been in the front.

The Commandant Gémeau and Captain Vidal were wounded, and Captains Grégoire and Vignot killed, seven lieutenants and second lieutenants, and three hundred and sixty men
hors de combat
.

Zébédé said that it was worse than at Montmirail, and that they would finish us up completely before we got through.

Fortunately the fourth battalion arrived from Metz under Commandant Délong and took our place in the line.

Captain Florentin ordered us to file off to the left, and we went back to the village near the church, where a quantity of carts were stationed.

We were then distributed in squads to superintend the removal of the wounded. Several detachments of chasseurs were ordered to escort the convoys to Fleurus as there was no room for them at Ligny; the church was already filled with the poor fellows. We did not select those to be removed, the surgeons did that, as we could hardly distinguish in numbers of cases, between the living and the dead. We only laid them on the straw in the carts.

I knew how all this was, for I was at Lutzen, and I understand what a man suffers in recovering from a ball, or a musket-shot, or such a cut as our cuirassiers made.

Every time I saw one of these men taken up, I thanked God that I was not reduced to that condition, and, thinking that the same thing might befall me, I said to myself: “You do not know how many balls and slugs have been near you, or you would be horrified.” I was astonished that so many of us had escaped in the carnage, which had been far greater than at Lutzen or even at Leipzig. The battle had only lasted five hours, and the dead in many places were piled two or three feet deep. The blood flowed from under them in streams. Through the principal street where the artillery went, the mud was red with blood, and the mud itself was crushed flesh and bones.

It is necessary to tell you this, in order that the young men may understand. I shall fight no more, thank God, I am too old, but all these young men who think of nothing but war, instead of being industrious and helping their aged parents, should know how the soldiers are treated. Let them imagine what the poor fellows who have done their duty think, as they lie in the street, wanting an arm or a leg, and hear the cannon, weighing twelve or fifteen thousand pounds, coming with their big well-shod horses, plunging and neighing.

Then it is that they will recall their old parents who embraced them in their own village, while they went off saying:

“I am going, but I shall return with the cross of honor, and with my epaulettes.”

Yes, indeed! if they could weep and ask God’s pardon, we should hear their cries and complaints, but there is no time for that; the cannon and the caissons with their freight of bombs and bullets arrive—and they can hear their own bones crack beforehand—and all pass right over their bodies, just as they do through the mud.

When we are old, and think that such horrible things may happen to the children we love, we feel as if we would part with the last sou before we would allow them to go.

But all this does no good, bad men cannot be changed, while good ones must do their duty, and if misfortune comes, their confidence in the justice of God remains. Such men do not destroy their fellows from the love of glory, they are forced to do so, they have nothing with which to reproach themselves, they defend their own lives and the blood which is shed is not on their hands.

But I must finish my story of the battle and the removal of the wounded.

I saw sights there which are incredible; men killed in a moment of fury, whose faces had not lost their horrible expression, still held their muskets in their hands and stood upright against the walls, and you could almost hear them cry, as they stared with glazed eyes, “To the bayonet! No quarter!”

It was with this thought and this cry that they appeared before God. He was awaiting them, and He may have said to them, “Here am I. Thou killest thy brethren—thou givest no quarter? None shall be given thee!”

I have seen others mortally wounded strangling each other. At Fleurus we were obliged to separate the French and the Prussians, because they would rise from their beds, or their bundles of straw, to tear each other to pieces. Ah! war! those who wish for it, and those who make men like ferocious beasts, will have a terrible account to settle above.

CHAPTER XX

The removal of the wounded continued until night. About noon shouts of
Vive l’Empereur
extended along the whole line of our bivouac from the village of Bry to Sombref. Napoleon had left Fleurus with his staff and had passed in review the whole army on the plateau. These shouts continued for an hour, and then all was quiet and the army took up its march.

We waited a long time for the orders to follow, but as they did not come, Captain Florentin went to see what was the matter, and came back at full speed shouting, “Beat the assembly!” The detachments of the battalion joined each other and we passed through the village at a quick step.

All had left, many other squads had received no orders, and in the vicinity of St. Amand the streets were full of soldiers.

Several companies remained behind, and reached the road by crossing the fields on the left, where we could see the rear of the column as far as the eye could reach—caissons, wagons, and baggage of every sort.

I have often thought that we might have been left behind, as Gérard’s division was at St. Amand, and nobody could have blamed us, as we followed our orders to pick up the wounded, but Captain Florentin would have thought himself dishonored.

We hurried forward as fast as possible. It had commenced to rain again and we slipped in the mud and darkness. I never saw worse weather, not even at the retreat from Leipzig when we were in Germany. The rain came down as if from a watering pot, and we tramped on with our guns under our arms with the cape of our cloaks over the locks, so wet that if we had been through a river it could not have been worse; and such mud! With all this we began to feel the want of food. Buche kept saying:

“Well! a dozen big potatoes roasted in the ashes as we do at Harberg would rejoice my eyes. We don’t eat meat every day at home, but we always have potatoes.”

I thought of our warm little room at Pfalzbourg, the table with its white cloth, Father Goulden with his plate before him, while Catherine served the rich hot soup and the smoked cutlets on the gridiron. My present sufferings and troubles overwhelmed me, and if wishing for death only had been necessary to rid me of them, I should have long ago been out of this world.

The night was dark, and if it had not been for the ruts, into which we plunged to our knees at every step, we should have found it difficult to keep the road; as it was, we had only to march in the mud to be sure we were right.

Between seven and eight o’clock we heard in the distance something like thunder. Some said: “It is a thunder-storm!” others, “It is cannon!”

Great numbers of disbanded soldiers were following us.

At eight o’clock we reached Quatre-Bras. There are two houses opposite each other at the intersection of the road from Nivelles to Namur with that from Brussels to Charleroi. They were both full of wounded men. It was here that Marshal Ney had given battle to the English, to prevent them from going to the support of the Prussians along the road by which we had just come. He had but twenty thousand men against forty thousand, and yet Nicholas Cloutier, the tanner, maintains to-day even, that he ought to have sent half his troops to attack the Prussian rear, as if it were not enough to stop the English.

To such people everything is easy, but if they were in command, it would be easy to rout them with four men and a corporal.

Below us the barley and oat fields were full of dead men. It was then that I saw the first red-coats stretched out in the road.

The captain ordered us to halt, and he went into the house at the right. We waited for some time in the rain, when he came out with Dauzelot, general of the division, who was laughing, because we had not followed Grouchy toward Namur; the want of orders had compelled us to turn off to Quatre-Bras. Notwithstanding, we received orders to continue our march without stopping.

I thought I should drop every moment from weakness, but it was worse still when we overtook the baggage, for then we were obliged to march on the sides of the road, and the farther from it we went the more deeply we sank in the soft soil.

About eleven o’clock we reached a large village called Genappe, which lies on both sides of the route.

The crowd of wagons, cannon, and baggage was so great that we were forced to turn to the right and cross the Thy by a bridge, and from this point we continued to march through the fields of grain and hemp, like savages who respect nothing. The night was so dark that the mounted dragoons, who were placed at intervals of two hundred paces like guide-posts, kept shouting, “This way, this way!”

About midnight we reached a sort of farm-house thatched with straw, which was filled with superior officers. It was not far from the main road, as we could hear the cavalry and artillery and baggage wagons rushing by like a torrent.

The captain had hardly got into the house, when we jumped over the hedge into the garden. I did like the rest, and snatched what I could. Nearly the whole battalion followed this example in spite of the shouts of the officers, and each one began digging up what he could find with his bayonet. In two minutes there was nothing left. The sergeants and corporals were with us, but when the captain returned we had all regained our ranks.

Those who pillage and steal on a campaign ought to be shot; but what could you do? There was not a quarter enough food in the towns through which we passed to supply such numbers. The English had already taken nearly everything. We had a little rice left, but rice without meat is not very strengthening.

The English troops received sheep and beeves from Brussels, they were well fed and glowing with health. We had come too late, the convoys of supplies were belated, and the next day when the terrible battle of Waterloo was fought the only ration we received was brandy.

We left the village, and on mounting a little elevation we perceived the English pickets through the rain. We were ordered to take a position in the grain fields with several regiments which we could not see, and not to light our fires for fear of alarming the English, if they should discover us in line, and so induce them to continue their retreat.

Now just imagine us lying in the grain under a pouring rain like regular gypsies, shivering with cold and bent on destroying our fellows, and happy in having a turnip or a radish to keep up our strength and tell me if that is the kind of life for honest people. Is it for that, that God has created us and put us in the world? Is it not abominable that a king or an emperor, instead of watching over the affairs of the state, encouraging commerce, and instructing the people in the principles of liberty and giving good examples, should reduce us to such a condition as that by hundreds of thousands. I know very well that this is called glory, but the people are very stupid to glorify such men as those. Yes, indeed, they must have first lost all sense of right, all heart, and all religion!

But all this did not prevent my teeth from chattering, or from seeing the English in our front warming and enjoying themselves around their good fires, after receiving their rations of beef, brandy, and tobacco. And I thought, “It is we poor devils, drenched to our very marrow, who are to be compelled to attack these fellows who are full of confidence, and want neither cannon nor supplies, who sleep with their feet to the fire, with their stomachs well lined, while we must lie here in the mud.” I was indignant the whole night. Buche would say:

“I do not care for the rain, I have been through many a worse one when on the watch; but then I had at least a crust of bread and some onions and salt.”