The Downfall

north of Floing on the left, and the Calvary of Illy, a stone cross with a linden tree on either side, the highest bit of ground in the surrounding country, to the right. General Douay was keenly alive to the importance of these eminences, and the day before had sent two battalions to occupy Hattoy; but the men, feeling that they were 'in the air' and too remote from support, had fallen back early that morning. It was understood that the left wing of the 1st corps was to take care of the Calvary of Illy. The wide expanse of naked country between Sedan and the Ardennes forest was intersected by deep ravines, and the key of the position was manifestly there, in the shadow of that cross and the two lindens, whence their guns might sweep the fields in every direction for a long distance.

Two more cannon shots rang out, quickly succeeded by a salvo; they detected the bluish smoke rising from the underbrush of a low hill to the left of Saint-Menges.

'Our turn is coming now,' said Jean.

Nothing more startling occurred just then, however. The men, still preserving their formation and standing at ordered arms, found something to occupy their attention in the fine appearance made by the 2d division, posted in front of Floing, with their left refused and facing the Meuse, so as to guard against a possible attack from that quarter. The ground to the east, as far as the wood of la Garenne, beneath Illy village, was held by the 3d division, while the 1st, which had lost heavily at Beaumont, formed a second line. All night long the engineers had been busy with pick and shovel, and even after the Prussians had opened fire they were still digging away at their shelter trenches and throwing up epaulments.

Then a sharp rattle of musketry, quickly silenced, however, was heard proceeding from a point beneath Floing, and Captain Beaudoin received orders to move his company three hundred yards to the rear. Their new position was in a great field of cabbages, upon reaching which the captain made his men lie down. The sun had not yet drunk up the moisture that had descended on the vegetables in the darkness, and every fold and crease of the thick, golden- green leaves was filled with trembling drops, as pellucid and luminous as brilliants of the fairest water.

'Sight for four hundred yards,' the captain ordered.

Maurice rested the barrel of his musket on a cabbage that reared its head conveniently before him, but it was impossible to see anything in his recumbent position: only the blurred surface of the fields traversed by his level glance, diversified by an occasional tree or shrub. Giving Jean, who was beside him, a nudge with his elbow, he asked what they were to do there. The corporal, whose experience in such matters was greater, pointed to an elevation not far away, where a battery was just taking its position; it was evident that they had been placed there to support that battery, should there be need of their services. Maurice, wondering whether Honore and his guns were not of the party, raised his head to look, but the reserve artillery was at the rear, in the shelter of a little grove of trees.

'Nom de Dieu!' yelled Rochas, 'will you lie down!'

And Maurice had barely more than complied with this intimation when a shell passed screaming over him. From that time forth there seemed to be no end to them. The enemy's gunners were slow in obtaining the range, their first projectiles passing over and landing well to the rear of the battery, which was now opening in reply. Many of their shells, too, fell upon the soft ground, in which they buried themselves without exploding, and for a time there was a great display of rather heavy wit at the expense of those bloody sauerkraut eaters.

'Well, well!' said Loubet, 'their fireworks are a fizzle!'

'They ought to take them in out of the rain,' sneered Chouteau.

Even Rochas thought it necessary to say something. 'Didn't I tell you that the dunderheads don't know enough even to point a gun?'

But they were less inclined to laugh when a shell burst only ten yards from them and sent a shower of earth flying over the company; Loubet affected to make light of it by ordering his comrades to get out their brushes from the knapsacks, but Chouteau suddenly became very pale and had not a word to say. He had never been under fire, nor had Pache and Lapoulle, nor any member of the squad, in fact, except Jean. Over eyes that had suddenly lost their brightness lids flickered tremulously; voices had an unnatural, muffled sound, as if arrested by some obstruction in the throat. Maurice, who was sufficiently master of himself as yet, endeavored to diagnose his symptoms; he could not be afraid, for he was not conscious that he was in danger; he only felt a slight sensation of discomfort in the epigastric region, and his head seemed strangely light and empty; ideas and images came and went independent of his will. His recollection of the brave show made by the troops of the 2d division made him hopeful, almost to buoyancy; victory appeared certain to him if only they might be allowed to go at the enemy with the bayonet.

'Listen!' he murmured, 'how the flies buzz; the place is full of them.' Thrice he had heard something that sounded like the humming of a swarm of bees.

'That was not a fly,' Jean said, with a laugh. 'It was a bullet.'

Again and again the hum of those invisible wings made itself heard. The men craned their necks and looked about them with eager interest; their curiosity was uncontrollable-would not allow them to remain quiet.

'See here,' Loubet said mysteriously to Lapoulle, with a view to raise a laugh at the expense of his simple- minded comrade, 'when you see a bullet coming toward you you must raise your forefinger before your nose-like that; it divides the air, and the bullet will go by to the right or left.'

'But I can't see them,' said Lapoulle.

A loud guffaw burst from those near.

'Oh, crickey! he says he can't see them! Open your garret windows, stupid! See! there's one-see! there's another. Didn't you see that one? It was of the most beautiful green.'

And Lapoulle rolled his eyes and stared, placing his finger before his nose, while Pache fingered the scapular he wore and wished it was large enough to shield his entire person.

Rochas, who had remained on his feet, spoke up and said jocosely:

'Children, there is no objection to your ducking to the shells when you see them coming. As for the bullets, it is useless; they are too numerous!'

At that very instant a soldier in the front rank was struck on the head by a fragment of an exploding shell. There was no outcry; simply a spurt of blood and brain, and all was over.

'Poor devil!' tranquilly said Sergeant Sapin, who was quite cool and exceedingly pale. 'Next!'

But the uproar had by this time become so deafening that the men could no longer hear one another's voice; Maurice's nerves, in particular, suffered from the infernal charivari. The neighboring battery was banging away as fast as the gunners could load the pieces; the continuous roar seemed to shake the ground, and the mitrailleuses were even more intolerable with their rasping, grating, grunting noise. Were they to remain forever reclining there among the cabbages? There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be learned; no one had any idea how the battle was going. And was it a battle, after all-a genuine affair? All that Maurice could make out, projecting his eyes along the level surface of the fields, was the rounded, wood-clad summit of Hattoy in the remote distance, and still unoccupied. Neither was there a Prussian to be seen anywhere on the horizon; the only evidence of life were the faint, blue smoke-wreaths that rose and floated an instant in the sunlight. Chancing to turn his head, he was greatly surprised to behold at the bottom of a deep, sheltered valley, surrounded by precipitous heights, a peasant calmly tilling his little field, driving the plow through the furrow with the assistance of a big white horse. Why should he lose a day? The corn would keep growing, let them fight as they would, and folks must live.

Unable longer to control his impatience, the young man jumped to his feet. He had a fleeting vision of the batteries of Saint-Menges, crowned with tawny vapors and spewing shot and shell upon them; he had also time to see, what he had seen before and had not forgotten, the road from Saint-Albert's pass black with minute moving objects-the swarming hordes of the invader. Then Jean seized him by the legs and pulled him violently to his place again.

'Are you crazy? Do you want to leave your bones here?'

And Rochas chimed in:

'Lie down, will you! What am I to do with such d--d rascals, who get themselves killed without orders!'

'But you don't lie down, lieutenant,' said Maurice.

'That's a different thing. I have to know what is going on.'

Captain Beaudoin, too, kept his legs like a man, but never opened his lips to say an encouraging word to his men, having nothing in common with them. He appeared nervous and unable to remain long in one place, striding up and down the field, impatiently awaiting orders.