How The Redoubt Was Taken | Page 2

the captain looked at me
intently. I stroked my sprouting mustache with an air of unconcern; in

truth, I was not frightened, and only dreaded lest I 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