CHAPTER XV
FIRST BLOOD
On the third morning after our entry into the Ricciotti's first foreignlegion, both Hugh and I awoke stiff and chilled by the frost. The luckyamong us had early found quarters in byres and cattle-sheds, where theclosely packed animals kept the place warm. We had to make the best ofit on a floor of beaten earth, still sparsely strewn with heads of wheatand flecks of straw. The fodder had been requisitioned to the lastarmful, and not enough was left to build a nest for a sparrow. The barnwas doorless, and, except for the shelter of the roof, we might as wellhave slept in the open air. At least so we thought, but next day men onthe outposts told us a different tale. That night the head-quartersthermometers had showed twenty below zero, and many men slept neveragain to waken, under the open sky--slept leaning on their chassepots,and so died standing up, no one guessing they were dead till they fellover all in one piece like an icicle snapped.
But even Hugh Deventer and I were sorely tried in our open barn. We hadlain soft and fed well all our lives. We were not yet broken to the worklike the campaigners of Sicily, or even like those who had passedthrough the war since the autumn.
"If I bored a hole or two where the joints are," groaned Hugh, "one ofJack Jaikes's oil cans might easy my bearings greatly this morning!"
"From what I can guess," said Victor Dor, "you will find it warm enoughin an hour or two. Manteuffel is going to make a push for it to-day.Ricciotti managed to capture a couple of Werder's Uhlans, and one of our_franc-tireurs_ says that the whole Pomeranian army corps is coming uponus as fast as the men can march."
"A _franc-tireur_ always lies," said another Valtelline man, MariusGirr, scornfully, but enunciating a principle generally received in thearmy.
"Still, it is possible that this one told the truth by mistake--at anyrate, it is not a safe thing to lie to Ricciotti about a matter which,in a few days, will prove itself true or untrue. Ricciotti knows the useof a firing party at twelve yards just as well as Bordone."
The morning grew more and more threatening as time passed. The chilltang of coming snow clung to the nostrils. We had breakfasted meagrelyon the last rinds of bacon and scraps of sausage in our haversacks. Welonged for hot coffee till we ached, but had to content ourselves withsucking an icicle or two from the roof of the barn, good for the thirst,but very afflicting to the tongue at a temperature of minus twenty.
Presently the inexorable bugles called us forward to the trenches, whichextended in a vast hollow crescent from the Arroux bank opposite Autunto the hills above St. Leger on the borders of the Nievre. We could seeagainst the snow dark masses of overcoated Prussians defiling this wayand that among the valleys, and at sight of them our field-guns began tospeak. With eyes that hardly yet understood we watched the shellsbursting and the marching columns shred suddenly apart to be reformedautomatically only an instant after, as the narrow strips of dark blueuncoiled themselves towards the plain.
Hugh and I lay close against a railway embankment from which the railshad been ruthlessly torn up. I was inclined to make an additionalshelter of these, and indeed Hugh and I had begun the work when VictorDor stopped us.
"As much earth as you like," he said; "earth or sand stops bullets, butiron only makes them glance off, and often kill two in place of one.Scatter all the rails, plates, and ties down our side of the slope. Iwill show you something that is far better!"
And with the edge of the shallow iron saucepan which he carried like atarge at his back, he scooped up the earth so that we soon had in frontof us a very competent breastwork, giving sufficient cover for our headsand shoulders as well as a resting-place for our rifles.
During the next hour we heard the roar of the German artillery away inthe direction of St. Leger, and the resounding "boom-boom" of our heavymortars and twelve-pounders answering them.
"What would Jack Jaikes give to see these in action," I said in Hugh'sear.
"And still more my father," he answered.
Our outposts began to be driven in, but they had stubbornly defended ourfront, nor did they yield till the masses of blue battalions showedthickly, and then only to give the artillery free play.
It was in waiting behind us, and the first crash as the shells hurtledover our heads made Hugh and I feel very strange in the pits of ourstomachs--something like incipient sea-sickness. The veterans never oncelooked aloft, but only cuddled their rifles and wriggled their bodies tofind a comfortable niche from which to fire.
"Dig your toes into the embankment, you English," Marius Girr of ourcompany called to us; "if you don't, the first recoil of the rifle willsend you slipping down into the ditch."
It was good advice, and with a few kicks we dug solid stances for ourfeet, in which our thick marching shoes were ensconced to the heels. Weexcavated also hollow troughs for our knees, and, as Hugh said, webehaved generally like so many burying beetles instead of gallantsoldiers. All this was not done easily, for the ground was frozen hard,and in the river behind us we could hear the solid blocks of iceclinking and crunching together as the sullen grey-green current sweptthem along.
It was Sunday, and upon the town road a little behind our line, butquite within the zone of fire, comfortable mammas and trim littledaughters were trotting to Mass with their service books wrapped inwhite napkins. Hugh and I yelled at them to go home, but it was no use.Luckily I remembered their fear of the Iron Chancellor, and assured themby all the saints that "Bismarck was coming," whereupon they kiltedtheir petticoats and made off homeward, their fat white-stockinged legstwinkling in the pearl-grey twilight. It was like a Dutchpicture--trampled snow, low brooding sky, white-capped matrons andlittle girls wrapped in red shawls.
But in a few moments we had other matters to occupy us. The Tanararegiment was on our right, and the sweep of the crescent being fartheradvanced than at our position, they received the first rush of thePomeranians.
But there was no waiting, for suddenly out of the woods in front of usstiff lines of blue emerged and began moving forward with the Noah's Arkregularity of marionettes. It seemed impossible that these could besoldiers charging. But we were soon convinced. The dip of the ground hidthem for a long time, and then suddenly they appeared not four hundredyards off, no longer in column, but in two lines close together, with asupporting third some distance in the rear.
We could see them extending companies far away on either side. But thiswe knew to be in vain, for the river protected us on the right, while onthe left our entrenchments reached as far as the St. Leger hills whichwere crowned with our forts.
Then came the splitting growl of the mitrailleuses behind us. These werestill held to be rather uncertain weapons. Men familiarly called thempepper-pots, and it was as likely as not that a few bullets might comespattering our way, spread-eagled as we were on the railway embankment,and offering a far more practicable target than the advancing Germans.
But there were no casualties, at least near us, and in a moment theGermans fired a volley which swept the embankment like hail. The riflesof the first Milanese cracked on every side, but I bade Hugh hold hisfire till the charging enemy was only a hundred yards away. Our Henryrifles gave us an immense advantage in speed of firing. They came on,breaking at last through a dark barrier of yew and poplar hedge, and asthey came we could see their bayonets flash like silver in the dulllight. Their colonel was mounted on a black charger, a tall fine-lookingman who pushed his horse up every knoll in order the better to see whomand what he was attacking.
But he dropped a little way from the yew hedge, and almost before hereached the ground two men with a stretcher were lifting up theirofficer, while a third had taken the horse by the bridle and was leadinghim to the rear, as composedly as a groom in a stable-yard.
"Now, then, Hugh," I cried, "you take the right of the line and I willtake the left. But sight carefully and don't aim high."
"_Crack_--_crack_--_crack!_!" went our magazine rifles, and the bigPomeranians went down as if an invisible sickle had mown them. As Iexpected, Hugh w
as finished before me, but we had scarcely time toadjust our new cartridge holders before the line broke and the bluecoats turned and ran. A few officers and a man or two immediately intheir wake got as far as the curve of the embankment--only, however, tobe shot down.
The air rang with the shouts of "Evivva Garibaldi!" And a few minutesafterwards the Tanara regiment, encouraged by our success, repulsed theenemy's bayonet charge, so that in an instant our whole line wasdisengaged. Only out in the open the trampled earth and the glisteningcrushed-sugar snow were starred here and there with spots and splotchesof red and the contorted bodies of men, some still moving, but mostlystricken into the strange stiff attitudes of death.
It was our first battle in the service of Garibaldi. It was destined tobe our last. For that night the news of the fall of Paris and thesigning of the armistice stopped the fighting everywhere, except atBelfort and along the desperate rear-guard line of Bourbaki's army,which was being driven like a pack of famished wolves into the passes ofthe Jura.