THE DREAM IN THE BIVOUAC.
In talking over the stirring events of the past day, Captain
Schönforst sat drawing out his fair fly-away whiskers to their full
length, and then stuffing them into his mouth, as if to stifle his
indignation at the Emperor Napoleon, for, like many other German
officers at this time, he was loud in condemning him for bringing the
Prince Imperial, a mere boy, under fire.
'You forget, Herr Captain,' said Charlie, 'that princes have a great
political game to play in this world, and that the heir of a throne
should always be a soldier.'
'But a boy--a mere boy--to be brought into action!' persisted the
Captain.
'Well. The sooner his nerves are strung, the better, I think; and we
must remember that boys are employed in navies as well as in armies,
and it is no more inhuman to have a prince under fire than a
midshipman or drummer boy.'
So the worthy captain was convinced, though much against his will.
We have no intention of afflicting the reader with a history of the
terrible Franco-Prussian war; but we cannot omit the details of some
of those events in which Charlie Pierrepont and his comrades, the
Thuringians, bore a share.
Serious disasters followed the slight success won by the French at
Saarbrück, when the Crown Prince of Prussia, two days after, made a
furious attack on their right flank, which rested on a high hill
called the Geisberg, just within the frontier of France and a little
south-east of Saarbrück. All round the Geisberg the country is hilly
and woody, with cultivated fields, detached cottages nestling among
vines and flowers, and here and there pretty little hamlets.
Just as grey dawn stole in on the morning of the 4th of August, and
when the French troops on the Geisberg were cooking their breakfasts
and drinking their coffee quietly between their piles of arms, and
looking from time to time into the beautiful pastoral valley,
suddenly a storm of shells burst over them. The air seemed alive
with fire and falling bombs, while, at the same moment, the whole
town of Weissenburg, close by, burst into flames.
Unseen by, and unknown to the French, the Crown Prince of Prussia had
established a terrible battery of guns on the heights of Schweigen, a
village on the other side of the river, and these guns were supported
by a vast force, variously estimated from 50,000 to 100,000 men.
On and about the Geisberg were only 10,000 French troops.
The country on the Bavarian side of the Lauter is so thickly wooded,
that the approach of the Crown Prince's army was quite concealed; not
a bayonet flashed out from amid the foliage; not a standard was seen
to waver; hence the men on the Geisberg suddenly found themselves
confronted by a vast host that crossed the river at various points,
the first to plunge in being the Thuringians, with stentorian shouts
of
'Vorwarts! Vorwarts! Hoch Germania!'
A young fähnrich (or ensign), a mere boy, carrying the King's colour,
was shot through the head, and was being swept down the stream with
the pole in his grasp, when Schönforst wrenched it away; and the
standard, all bloody and dripping, was shouldered by another
subaltern.
Pierrepont could see nothing of what was being done at any other
point than where his regiment crossed; but in a few minutes he found
himself out of the water, and into clouds of smoke, through gaps in
which, when made by the morning breeze, he could see the dusky
columns of the enemy--the red-breeched Zouaves in their variegated
Oriental costume, their necks bare, and their bearded faces dark and
brown, and a corps of Voltigeurs in blue faced with white.
Up the Geisberg went the Prussian troops, cheering, and with a
rush--up so fast that the mounted officers were cantering their
horses--and with a rush the hill was carried, after a short, sharp
hand-to-hand conflict, though here the dark, savage Turcos fought
with desperation and incredible bravery, charging many times with the
bayonet, though their ranks were torn to pieces by grape-shot.
General Douay, commanding the French, was here killed by a shell.
His fate was a very melancholy one, and a noble instance of
self-sacrifice.
On seeing the battle hopelessly lost, he stood sadly apart on a
little mound, watching the last desperate struggles of his
fast-falling infantry. He then issued some final orders to the
officers of his staff, and began to descend the slope of the mound
alone. At its base he dismounted, and slaying his horse, as Roland
did at the battle of Roncesvalles (but with a pistol), he drew his
sword, and began to ascend the opposite slope of the Geisberg.
'Where are you going, Monsieur le General?' cried some of his
soldiers, in astonishment.
'To meet the enemy,' he replied, through his clenched teeth.
They continued to dissuade him, but in vain. Sword in hand he
continued to advance, calmly and alone, till a passing shell struck
him dead.
General Montmarie, and many other brave officers, fell at the head of
their men; and, on this day, was inaugurated that series of rapid
disasters to France that never ended till the Prussian drums woke the
echoes of the Arc de Triomphe at Paris.
The troops were considerably broken as they fought their way up the
hill, and some of the King's Grenadiers got mingled among the 95th.
Carl missed Heinrich from his place on the left of the company.
'Heavens!' thought he, 'has he fallen?'
Looking round, even at the risk of being struck by a bullet from
behind, he saw him about fifty yards in the rear, in the grasp of a
savage-looking and powerfully built Turco, whose left hand was on
Heinrich's throat, while, with his unfixed bayonet, the socket of
which he grasped dagger-fashion in his right, he was making vain
efforts to stab and thrust--we say vain efforts, for, though Heinrich
had lost his sword in the fray, he had firm possession of the Turco's
right wrist.
While the two were wrenching and swaying to and fro, the black eyes
of the swarthy Turco flashing fire, and his teeth glistening white as
he hissed and muttered curses through them, a second Turco, not far
off, took aim at Heinrich with his chassepot, and fired, but missed.
He threw open the breech of the weapon to insert another cartridge;
but ere he could close it, Pierrepont, quick as thought, snatched a
needle-gun from the nearest soldier, took steady aim at him, and
fired. The ball pierced the left side of the Turco, who bounded
three feet from the ground, made a kind of half-turn in the air, and
then fell flat on his face motionless.
When the smoke cleared away, Charlie saw his friend with a breathless
and half-strangled expression hurrying towards him, having been freed
from the Turco by the bayonet of a Westphalian. He had saved her
brother; and from that gory field, his heart--his thoughts--flashed
home to Ernestine.
It was now two o'clock p.m.; by this time the French were in full and
rapid retreat, followed by the Prussian flying artillery, as they
fell back upon the line of Bitsch. The Geisberg was won, but the
slaughter on both sides was terrible. The French fought nobly.
Fourteen men of the 24th regiment were all that were left _alive_ of
that corps at the close of the day; and even those refused to
surrender, but kept fighting on at the point of the bayonet until the
Prussians, not liking to kill them, rushed upon them in a body and
threw them down by wrestling.
On the corpse-encumbered Geisberg the glorious old valour of France
was conspicuous as ever; but her troops were badly officered and
badly led.
Night came down on the field; the quiet stars were reflected in the
placid bosom of the river, and heavy were the moans, and loud
sometimes the screams of anguish from the wounded. The sisters of
charity began to flit about like good angels, and the bells were rung
in Weissenberg to muster the firemen for the burial of the dead.
To follow the 96th in detail through all the subsequent operations
would be foreign to our story; suffice it that after the attack by
the Crown Prince on the 6th of August, and the outflanking of Marshal
MacMahon, after the desperate battle at Worth, Charlie Pierrepont and
young Frankenburg found themselves still without a wound, hurrying in
pursuit of the fugitive French, who were in full retreat towards
Strasburg.
Their brigade halted for the night, and bivouacked among some
vineyards near a little village.
Now that he had been so often under fire, Charlie Pierrepont looked
back with surprise to the days when, in Frankenburg, he had hoped
that a French bullet might kill him! But that was before he had told
his love and had been accepted; before that happy day in the Dom
Kirche.
Life seemed very different now; it was both precious and valuable!
The staff officers occupied all the cottages in the village, so
Charlie, like other regimental officers, had to sleep among his men;
and thus, weary and worn, Charlie muffled himself in his ample blue
cloak, and with his sword and revolver beside him, went to roost
under the shelter of a haystack. Undisturbed by the falling dew, by
the occasional beat of a drum or sound of a trumpet, as the
field-officers of the night paraded and inspected the out-pickets,
the hoarse challenges of the German sentinels, and the clatter of
ambulance waggons carrying wounded to the rear, he slept soundly, yet
not so soundly as not to have after some strange rambling flights
about old Rugby, and a delicious dream of Ernestine, which from its
vividity made a great impression on him then, and was to make a still
greater, when a future episode came to pass.
In the visions of the night she came to him as distinctly as she had
ever appeared to him in reality, and bent over him tenderly and
pityingly, as he lay there in that miserable bivouac, with a bundle
of hay under his head, and he heard her murmuring softly--oh, so
softly, in his ear--
'My darling, my own darling!'
Then, as a gush of her nature, which was ever passionate, deep, and
earnest, came over her, she knelt by his side ere he could rise, and
drew his head lovingly and caressingly on her soft breast, with her
hands clasped under his chin--
'Oh, my Carl, how weary and how worn you look!' she continued,
kissing his cheek, on which her tears were falling, while the light
of love, triumph, and joy shone in her beautiful eyes.
'I think of you by day and night, my love, my wife, my own wife that
is to be,' murmured Carl in his sleep; 'you are indeed my guardian
angel.'
He pressed her to his breast, and starting, awoke, to find it all but
a _dream_; that the clock of the French village was striking the hour
of _three_, and that around him were the weary Thuringians, sleeping
in their blue greatcoats and spiked helmets, between their piles of
loaded muskets, but to his half-awakened senses her voice seemed to
linger in his ear, and he still felt her soft warm kiss on his lips.
He closed his eyes and strove to sleep, in the hope of that dear
vision coming back again; but he strove in vain: he was thoroughly
awakened now; so dreams or slumber come no more to Charlie Pierrepont.
The dawn of the 7th August came in, and the Prussian troops began
their march on Forbach.