The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (93 page)

We saw him in this way every day, at least when we were on guard.

After he had passed, the shouts continued along our right farther and farther away, and we all thought the battle would begin in twenty minutes.

But we were obliged to wait a long time and we grew impatient. The conscripts in d’Erlon’s corps, who were not in battle the day before, began to shout “Forward!” At last, about noon, the cannon thundered on the left and were followed by the fire from the battalion and then the file. We could see nothing, for it was on the other side of the road. The attack had commenced on Hougoumont. Immediately shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” broke out. The cannoneers of our four divisions were standing the whole length of the hill-side, at twenty paces from each other. At the discharge of the first gun, they all commenced to load at once. I see them still, as they put in the charge, ram it home, raise up, and shake out their matches as by a single movement. This made us shiver. The captains of the guns, nearly all old officers, stood behind their pieces and gave orders as if on parade; and when the whole twenty-four guns went off together, the report was deafening, and the whole valley was covered with smoke.

At the end of a second, we heard the calm voices of these veterans above the whistling in our ears saying “Load! take aim! fire!” And that continued without interruption for half an hour. We could see nothing at all, but the English had opened their fire, and we heard their bullets scream in the air and strike with a dull sound in the mud; and then we could hear another sound too, that of the muskets striking against each other, and the sound of the bodies of wounded men as they were thrown like boneless sacks twenty paces in the rear, or sank in a heap with a leg or an arm wanting. All this mingled with the dull rumbling; the destruction had commenced.

The groans of the wounded mingled also with these sounds, and with the fierce terrible neighing of the horses, which are naturally ferocious, and delight in slaughter. We could hear this tumult half a league in the rear; and it was with great difficulty the animals could be restrained from setting off to join in the battle.

For a long time we had been able to see nothing but the shadows of the gunners as they manoeuvred in the smoke, on the border of the ravine, when we heard the order, “Cease firing!” At the same moment we heard the piercing voices of the colonels of our four divisions shout, “Close up the ranks for battle!” All the lines approached each other.

“Now it is our turn,” said I to Buche.

“Yes,” he replied, “let us keep together.”

The smoke from our guns rose up into the air, and then we could see the batteries of the English, who still continued their fire all along the hedges which bordered the road.

The first brigade of Alix’s division advanced at a quick step along the road leading to Haie-Sainte. In the rear I recognized Marshal Ney with several of the officers of his staff.

From every window of the farm-house, and from the garden, and walls which had been pierced with holes, came fiery showers, and at every step men were left stretched on the road. General Ney on horseback with the corners of his great hat pointing over his shoulders, watched the action from the middle of the road. I said to Buche:

“That is Marshal Ney, the second brigade will go to support the first, and we shall come next.”

But I mistook; at that very moment the first battalion of the second brigade received orders to march in line on the right of the highway, the second in the rear of the first, the third behind the second, and the fourth following in file.

We had not time to form in column, but we were solidly arrayed after all, one behind the other, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men in line in front, the captains between the companies, and the commandants between the battalions. But the balls instead of carrying off two men at a time would now take eight. Those in the rear could not fire because those in front were in the way and we found too that we could not form in squares. That should have been thought of beforehand, but was overlooked in the desire to break the enemy’s line and gain all at a blow.

Our division marched in the same order: as the first battalion advanced, the second followed immediately in their steps, and so on with all the rest. I was pleased to see, that, commencing on the left, we should be in the twenty-fifth rank, and that there must be terrible slaughter before we should be reached.

The two divisions on our right were also formed in close column, at three hundred paces from each other.

Thus we descended into the little valley, in the face of the English fire. We were somewhat delayed by the soft ground, but we all shouted, “To the bayonet!”

As we mounted on the other side, we were met by a hail of balls from above the road at the left. If we had not been so crowded together, this terrible volley would have checked us. The charge sounded and the officers shouted, “Steady on the left!”

But this terrible fire made us lengthen our right step more than our left, in spite of ourselves, so that when we neared the road bordered by the hedges, we had lost our distances and our division formed a square, so to speak, with the third.

Two batteries now swept our ranks, and the shot from the hedges a hundred feet distant pierced us through and through; a cry of horror burst forth and we rushed on the batteries, overpowering the redcoats who vainly endeavored to stop us.

It was then that I first saw the English close at hand. They were strong, fair, and closely shaved, like well-to-do bourgeois. They defended themselves bravely, but we were as good as they. It was not our fault—the common soldiers—if they did defeat us at last, all the world knows that we showed as much and more courage than they did.

It has been said that we were not the soldiers of Austerlitz and Jena, of Friedland and of Moskowa. It was because they were so good, perhaps, that they were spared. We would have asked nothing better, than to have seen them in our place.

Every shot of the English told, and we were forced to break our ranks. Men are not palisades, and must defend themselves when attacked.

Great numbers were detached from their companies, when thousands of Englishmen rose up from among the barley and fired, their muskets almost touching our men, which caused a terrible slaughter. The other ranks rushed to the support of their comrades, and we should all have been dispersed over the hill-side like a swarm of ants, if we had not heard the shout, “Attention, the cavalry!”

Almost at the same instant, a crowd of red dragoons mounted on gray horses, swept down upon us like the wind, and those who had straggled were cut to pieces without mercy.

They did not fall upon our columns in order to break them, they were too deep and massive for that; but they came down between the divisions, slashing right and left with their sabres, and spurring their horses into the flanks of the columns to cut them in two, and though they could not succeed in this, they killed great numbers and threw us into confusion.

It was one of the most terrible moments of my life. As an old soldier I was at the right of the battalion, and saw what they were intending to do. They leaned over as far as possible when they passed, in order to cut into our ranks; their strokes followed each other like lightning, and more than twenty times I thought my head was off my shoulders, but Sergeant Rabot closed the file fortunately for me; it was he who received this terrible shower of blows, and he defended himself to the last breath. At every stroke he shouted, “Cowards, Cowards!”

His blood sprinkled me like rain, and at last he fell. My musket was still loaded, and seeing one of the dragoons coming with his eye fixed on me and bending over to give me a thrust, I let him have it full in the breast. This was the only man I ever saw fall under my fire.

The worst was, that at that moment their foot-soldiers rallied and recommenced their fire, and they even were so bold as to attack us with the bayonet. Only the first two ranks made a stand. It was shameful to form our men in that manner.

Then the red dragoons and our columns rushed pell-mell down the hill together.

And still our division made the best defence, for we brought off our colors, while the two others had lost two eagles.

We rushed down in this fashion through the mud and over the cannon, which had been brought down to support us, and had been cut loose from the horses by the sabres of the dragoons.

We scattered in every direction, Buche and I always keeping together, and it was ten minutes before we could be rallied again near the road in squads from all the regiments.

Those who have the direction of affairs in war should keep such examples as these before their eyes, and reflect that new plans cost those dear who are forced to try them.

We looked over our shoulders as we took breath, and saw the red dragoons rushing up the hill to capture our principal battery of twenty-four guns, when, thank God! their turn came to be massacred.

The Emperor had observed our retreat from a distance, and as the dragoons mounted the hill, two regiments of cuirassiers on the right, and a regiment of lancers on the left fell on their flanks like lightning, and before they had time to look, they were upon them. We could hear the blows slide over their cuirasses, hear their horses puff, and a hundred paces away we could see the lances rise and fall, the long sabres stretch out, and the men bend down to thrust under; the furious horses, rearing, biting, and neighing frightfully, and then men under the horses’ feet were trying to get up, and sheltering themselves with their hands.

What horrible things are battles! Buche shouted, “Strike hard!”

I felt the sweat run down my forehead, and others with great gashes, and their eyes full of blood, were wiping their faces and laughing ferociously.

In ten minutes, seven hundred dragoons were
hors-de-combat
; their gray horses were running wildly about on all sides, with their bits in their teeth. Some hundreds of them had retired behind their batteries, but more than one was reeling in his saddle and clutching at his horse’s mane.

They had found out that to attack was not all the battle, and that very often circumstances arise which are quite unexpected.

In all that frightful spectacle, what impressed me most deeply, was seeing our cuirassiers returning with their sabres red to the hilt, laughing among themselves; and a fat captain with immense brown mustaches, winked good-humoredly as he passed by us, as much as to say, “You see we sent them back in a hurry, eh!”

Yes, but three thousand of our men were left in that little hollow. And it was not yet finished: the companies and battalions and brigades were being re-formed, the musketry rattled in the vicinity of Haie-Sainte, and the cannon thundered near Hougoumont. “It was only just a beginning,” the officers said. You would have thought that men’s lives were of no value!

But it was necessary to get possession of Haie-Sainte, and to force a passage from the highway to the enemy’s centre just as an entrance must be effected into a fortification through the fire of the outworks and the demilunes. We had been repulsed the first time, but the battle was begun, and we could not go back. After the charge of the cuirassiers, it took a little time for us to re-form: the battle continued at Hougoumont, and the cannonade re-opened on our right, and two batteries had been brought up to sweep the highway in the rear of Haie-Sainte, where the road begins to mount the hill. We all saw that that was to be the point of attack.

We stood waiting with shouldered arms, when about three o’clock Buche looked behind him on the road and said, “The Emperor is coming!”

And others in the ranks repeated, “Here is the Emperor.”

The smoke was so thick that we could barely see the bear-skin caps of the Old Guard on the little hill of Rossomme. I turned round also to see the Emperor, and immediately recognized Marshal Ney, with five or six of his staff officers. He was coming from head-quarters and pushed straight down upon us across the fields. We stood with our backs to him; our officers hurried to meet him, and they conversed together, but we could not hear a word in consequence of the noise which filled our ears.

The marshal then rode along the front of our two battalions, with his sword drawn. I had never seen him so near since the grand review at Aschaffenbourg; he seemed older, thinner, and more bony, but still the same man; he looked at us with his sharp gray eyes, as if he took us all in at a glance, and each one felt, as if he were looking directly at him.

At the end of a second he pointed toward Haie-Sainte with his sword, and exclaimed:

“We are going to take
that
, you will have the whole at once, it is the turning-point of the battle. I am going to lead you myself. Battalions by file to the left!”

We started at a quick step on the road, marching by companies in three ranks. I was in the second. Marshal Ney was in front, on horseback, with the two colonels and Captain Florentin: he had returned his sword to the scabbard. The balls whistled round our ears by hundreds, and the roar of cannon from Hougoumont and on our left and right in the rear was so incessant, that it was like the ringing of an immense bell, when you no longer hear the strokes, but only the booming. One and another sank down from among us, but we passed right on over them.

Two or three times the marshal turned round to see if we were marching in good order; he looked so calm, that it seemed to me quite natural not to be afraid, his face inspired us all with confidence, and each one thought, “Ney is with us, the others are lost!” which only shows the stupidity of the human race, since so many others besides us escaped.