How The Redoubt Was Taken | Page 2

might be thought so. These passing bullets aided my heroic coolness, while my self-respect assured me that the danger was a real one, since I was veritably under fire. I was delighted at my self-possession, and already looked forward to the pleasure of describing in Parisian drawing-rooms the capture of the redoubt of Cheverino.
The colonel passed before our company. "Well," he said to me, "you are going to see warm work in your first action."
I gave a martial smile, and brushed my cuff, on which a bullet, which had struck the earth at thirty paces distant, had cast a little dust.
It appeared that the Russians had discovered that their bullets did no harm, for they replaced them by a fire of shells, which began to reach us in the hollows where we lay. One of these, in its explosion, knocked off my shako and killed a man beside me.
"I congratulate you," said the captain, as I picked up my shako. "You are safe now for the day."
I knew the military superstition which believes that the axiom "non bis in idem" is as applicable to the battlefield as to the courts of justice, I replaced my shako with a swagger.
"That's a rude way to make one raise one's hat," I said, as lightly as I could. And this wretched piece of wit was, in the circumstances, received as excellent.
"I compliment you," said the captain. "You will command a company to-night; for I shall not survive the day. Every time I have been wounded the officer below me has been touched by some spent ball; and," he added, in a lower tone, "all the names began with P."
I laughed skeptically; most people would have done the same; but most would also have been struck, as I was, by these prophetic words. But, conscript though I was, I felt that I could trust my thoughts to no one, and that it was my duty to seem always calm and bold.
At the end of half an hour the Russian fire had sensibly diminished. We left our cover to advance on the redoubt.
Our regiment was composed of three battalions. The second had to take the enemy in flank; the two others formed a storming party. I was in the third.
On issuing from behind the cover, we were received by several volleys, which did but little harm.
The whistling of the balls amazed me. "But after all," I thought, "a battle is less terrible than I expected."
We advanced at a smart run, our musketeers in front.
All at once the Russians uttered three hurrahs--three distinct hurrahs--and then stood silent, without firing.
"I don't like that silence," said the captain. "It bodes no good."
I began to think our people were too eager. I could not help comparing, mentally, their shouts and clamor with the striking silence of the enemy.
We quickly reached the foot of the redoubt. The palisades were broken and the earthworks shattered by our balls. With a roar of "Vive l'Empereur," our soldiers rushed across the ruins.
I raised my eyes. Never shall I forget the sight which met my view. The smoke had mostly lifted, and remained suspended, like a canopy, at twenty feet above the redoubt. Through a bluish mist could be perceived, behind the shattered parapet, the Russian Grenadiers, with rifles lifted, as motionless as statues. I can see them still,--the left eye of every soldier glaring at us, the right hidden by his lifted gun. In an embrasure at a few feet distant, a man with a fuse stood by a cannon.
I shuddered. I believed that my last hour had come.
"Now for the dance to open," cried the captain. These were the last words I heard him speak.
There came from the redoubts a roll of drums. I saw the muzzles lowered. I shut my eyes; I heard a most appalling crash of sound, to which succeeded groans and cries. Then I looked up, amazed to find myself still living. The redoubt was once more wrapped in smoke. I was surrounded by the dead and wounded. The captain was extended at my feet; a ball had carried off his head, and I was covered with his blood. Of all the company, only six men, except myself, remained erect.
This carnage was succeeded by a kind of stupor. The next instant the colonel, with his hat on his sword's point, had scaled the parapet with a cry of "Vive l'Empereur." The survivors followed him. All that succeeded is to me a kind of dream. We rushed into the redoubt, I know not how, we fought hand to hand in the midst of smoke so thick that no man could perceive his enemy. I found my sabre dripping blood; I heard a shout of "Victory"; and, in the clearing smoke, I saw the earthworks piled with dead and dying.