THE CONTINUING BATTLE
The _Arrow_ bore in toward the _Omnibus_. Wharton had put his rifle
aside and was staring downward as if he would see the wreck that he had
made. Lannes called to him loudly:
"You've saved us all!"
Wharton looked rather white, but he shouted back:
"I had no other choice."
The French aeroplanes were around them now, their motors drumming
steadily and the aviators shouting congratulations to Lannes and
Caumartin, whom they knew well. It was a friendly group, full of pride
and exultation, and the _Arrow_ and the _Omnibus_ had a triumphant
escort. Soon they were directly over the French, and then they began
their descent. As usual, when they reached the army they made it amid
cheers, and the first man who greeted John was short and young but with
a face of pride.
"You have come back to us out of the air, Monsieur Scott," he said, "and
I salute you."
It was Pierre Louis Bougainville, made a colonel already for
extraordinary, almost unprecedented, valor and ability in so young a
man. John recognized his rank by his uniform, and he acknowledged it
gladly.
"It's true, I have come back, Colonel Bougainville," he said, "and right
glad I am to come. I see that your country has had no cause to complain
of you in the last week."
"Nor of hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen," said Bougainville. "Your
company, the Strangers, is close at hand, and here is your captain now."
Captain Daniel Colton, thin and ascetic, walked forward. John gave him
his best salute and said:
"Captain Colton, I beg to report to you for duty."
A light smile passed swiftly over Cotton's face.
"You're a little late, Lieutenant Scott," he said.
"I know it, sir, but I've brought Lieutenant Carstairs and Lieutenant
Wharton with me. There have been obstacles which prevented our speedy
return. We've done our best."
"I can well believe it. You left on horseback, and you return by air.
But I'm most heartily glad to see all three of you again. I feared that
you were dead."
"Thank you, sir," said John. "But we don't mean to die."
"Nevertheless," said Captain Colton, gravely, "death has been all about
us for days and nights. Many of the Strangers are gone. You will find
the living lying in the little valley just beyond us, and you can resume
your duties."
Lannes, after a word or two, left them, and Caumartin took the
_Omnibus_ to another part of the field. Lannes' importance was
continually growing in John's eyes, nor was it the effect of
imagination. He saw that under the new conditions of warfare the ability
of the young Frenchman to carry messages between generals separated
widely could not be overrated. He might depart that very night on
another flight.
"May I ask, sir," he said to Captain Colton, "to what command or
division the Strangers are now attached?"
"To that of General Vaugirard, a very able man."
"I'm glad to hear it, sir. I know him. I was with him before I was taken
by the Germans."
"It seems that you're about to have a general reunion," said Carstairs
to young Scott, as they walked away.
"I am, and I'm mighty happy over it. I'll admit that I was rather glad
to see you, you blooming Britisher."
About one-third of the Strangers were gone forever, and the rest, except
the higher officers, were prostrate in the glade. White, worn and
motionless they lay in the same stupor that John had seen overtake the
German troops. Some were flat upon their backs, with arms outstretched,
looking like crosses, others lay on their faces, and others were curled
up on their sides. Few were over twenty-five. Nearly all had mothers in
America or Great Britain.
While they slept the guns yet grumbled at many points. The sound on the
horizon had gone on so long now that it seemed normal to John. He knew
that it would continue so throughout the night, and maybe for many more
days and nights. Unless it came near and made him a direct personal
menace he would pay no attention to it.
It was growing late. Night was spreading once more over the vast battle
field, stretching over thirty leagues maybe. The common soldier knew
nothing, majors and colonels knew little more, but the silent man whose
invisible hand had swept the gigantic German army back from Paris knew
much. While the fire of the artillery continued under the searchlights
the exhausted infantry sank down. Then the telephones began to talk over
a vast stretch of space, dazzling white lights made signals, the
sputtering wireless sent messages in the air, and the flying machines
shot through the heavens. Commanders talked to one another in many ways
now, and they would talk all through the night.
John and his comrades ate supper, while most of the Strangers slept
around them. Those who were awake recognized them, shook hands and said
a few words. They were a taciturn lot. After supper Carstairs and
Wharton dropped upon the grass and were soon sound asleep. Scott was
inclined to be wakeful and he walked along the edge of the glade,
looking anxiously at the sleeping forms.
He saw the loom of a fire just beyond the ridge and going to the crest
to look at it he beheld outlined before it a gigantic figure that he
recognized at once. It was General Vaugirard, and John would have been
glad to speak to him, but he hesitated to approach a general. While he
stood doubting a hand fell upon his shoulder and a glad voice said in
his ear:
"And our young American has come back! Ah, my friend, let me shake your
hand!"
It was Captain de Rougemont, trim, erect and without a wound. John
gladly let him shake. Then in reply to de Rougemont's eager questions he
told briefly of all that had happened since they parted.
"The general has asked twice if we had any news of you," said de
Rougemont. "He does not forget. A great mind in a vast body."
"Could I speak to him?"
"Of a certainty, my friend; come."
They advanced toward the fire. General Vaugirard was walking up and
down, his hands clasped behind his back, and whistling softly. His huge
figure looked yet more huge outlined against the flames. He heard the
tread of the two young men and looking up recognized John instantly.
"Risen from the dead!" he exclaimed with warmth, clasping the young
man's hand in his own gigantic palm. "I had despaired of ever seeing you
again! There are so many more gallant lads whom I will certainly never
see! Ah, well, such is life! The roll of our brave young dead is long,
very long!"
He reclasped his hands behind his back and walking up and down began to
whistle again softly. His emotion over the holocaust had passed, and
once more he was the general planning for victory. But he stopped
presently and said to John:
"The Strangers, to whom you belong, have come under my command. You are
one of my children now. I have my eye on all of you. You are brave lads.
Go and seek rest with them while you can. You may not have another
chance in a month. We have driven the German, but he will turn, and then
we may fight weeks, months, no one knows how long. Ah, well, such is
life!"
John saluted respectfully, and withdrew to the little open glade in
which the Strangers were lying, sleeping a great sleep. Captain Colton
himself, wrapped in a blanket, was now a-slumber under a tree, and
Wharton and Carstairs near by, stretched on their sides, were deep in
slumber too. Fires were burning on the long line, but they were not
numerous, and in the distance they seemed mere pin points. At times bars
of intense white light, like flashes of lightning, would sweep along the
front, showing that the searchlights of either army still provided
illumination for the fighting. The note of the artillery came like a
distant and smothered groan, but it did not cease, and it would not
cease, since the searchlights would show it a way all through the night.
John sat down, looked at the faint flashes on the far horizon and
listened to that moaning which grew in volume as one paid close
attention to it. Europe or a great part of it had gone mad. He was
filled once more with wrath against kings and all their doings as he
looked upon the murderous aftermath of feudalism, the most gigantic of
all wars, made in a few hours by a few men sitting around a table. Then
he laughed at himself. What was he! A mere feather in a cyclone!
Certainly he had been blown about like one!
His nervous imagination now passed quickly and throwing himself upon the
ground he slept like those around him. All the Strangers were awakened
at early dawn by the signal of a trumpet, and when John opened his eyes
he found the air still quivering beneath the throb of the guns. As he
had foreseen they had never ceased in the darkness, and he could not
remember how many days and nights now they had been raining steel upon
human beings.
He was refreshed and strengthened by a night of good sleep, but his mind
was as sensitive as ever. In the morning no less bitterly than at night
he raged against the folly and ambition of the kings. But the others
paid no attention to the cannon. They were light of heart and easy of
tongue. They chaffed one another in the cool dawn, and cried to the
cooks for breakfast, which was soon brought to them, hot and plentiful.
"I suppose it's forward again," said Carstairs between drinks of coffee.
"I fancy you're right," said Wharton. "Since we've been put in the
brigade of that giant of a general, Vaugirard, we're always going
forward. He seems to have an uncommon love of fighting for a fat man."
"It's an illusion," said John, "that a fat man is more peaceful than a
thin one."
"How are you going to prove it?" asked Wharton.
"Look at Napoleon. When he was thin he was a great fighter, and when he
became stout he was just as great a fighter as ever. Fat didn't take
away his belligerency."
"I hear that the whole German army has been driven across the Marne,"
said Carstairs, "and that the force we hoped to cut off has either
escaped or is about to escape. If that's so they won't retreat much
further. The pride of the Germans is too great, and their army is too
powerful for them to yield much more ground to us."
"I think you're right, or about as near right as an Englishman can be,
Carstairs," said John. "What must be the feelings of the Emperor and the
kings and the princes and the grand dukes and the dukes and the martial
professors to know that the German army has been turned back from Paris,
just when the City of Light seemed ready to fall into their hands?"
"Pretty bitter, I think," said Carstairs, "but it's not pleasant to have
the capital of a country fall into the hands of hostile armies. I don't
read of such things with delight. It wouldn't give me any such
overwhelming joy for us to march into Berlin. To beat the Germans is
enough."
Another trumpet blew and the Strangers rose for battle again with an
invisible enemy. All the officers, like the men, were on foot, their
horses having been killed in the earlier fighting, and they advanced
slowly across the stubble of a wheat field. The morning was still cool,
although the sun was bright, and the air was full of vigor. The rumbling
of the artillery grew with the day, but the Strangers said little.
Battle had ceased to be a novelty. They would fight somewhere and with
somebody, but they would wait patiently and without curiosity until the
time came.
"I suppose Lannes didn't come back," said Carstairs. "I haven't heard
anyone speak of seeing him this morning."
"He may have returned before we awoke," said John. "The _Arrow_ flies
very fast. Like as not he delivered his message, whatever it was, and
was off again with another in a few minutes. He may be sixty or eighty
miles from here now."
"Odd fellow that Lannes," said Carstairs. "Do you know anything about
his people, Scott?"
"Not much except that he has a mother and sister. I spent a night with
them at their house in Paris. I've heard that French family ties are
strong, but they seemed to look upon him as the weak would regard a
great champion, a knight, in their own phrase, without fear and without
reproach."
"That speaks well for him."
John's mind traveled back to that modest house across the Seine. It had
done so often during all the days and nights of fighting, and he thought
of Julie Lannes in her simple white dress, Julie with the golden hair
and the bluest of blue eyes. She had not seemed at all foreign to him.
In her simplicity and openness she was like one of the young girls of
his own country. French custom might have compelled a difference at
other times, but war was a great leveler of manners. She and her mother
must have suffered agonies of suspense, when the guns were thundering
almost within hearing of Paris, suspense for Philip, suspense for their
country, and suspense in a less degree for themselves. Maybe Lannes had
gone back once in the _Arrow_ to show them that he was safe, and to tell
them that, for the time at least, the great German invasion had been
rolled back.
"A penny for your dream!" said Carstairs.
"Not for a penny, nor for a pound, nor for anything else," said John.
"This dream of mine had something brilliant and beautiful and pure at
the very core of it, and I'm not selling."
Carstairs looked curiously at him, and a light smile played across his
face. But the smile was sympathetic.
"I'll wager you that with two guesses I can tell the nature of your
dream," he said.
John shook his head, and he, too, smiled.
"As we say at home," he said, "you may guess right the very first time,
but I won't tell you whether you're right or wrong."
"I take only one guess. That coruscating core of your dream was a girl."
"I told you I wouldn't say whether you were right or wrong."
"Is she blonde or dark?"
"I repeat that I'm answering no questions."
"Does she live in one of your Northern or one of your Southern States?"
John smiled.
"I suppose you haven't heard from her in a long time, as mail from
across the water isn't coming with much regularity to this battle
field."
John smiled again.
"And now I'll conclude," said Carstairs, speaking very seriously. "If
it is a girl, and I know it is, I hope that she'll smile when she thinks
of you, as you've been smiling when you think of her. I hope, too, that
you'll go through this war without getting killed, although the chances
are three or four to one against it, and go back home and win her."
John smiled once more and was silent, but when Carstairs held out his
hand he could not keep from shaking it. Then Paris, the modest house
beyond the Seine, and the girl within it, floated away like an illusion,
driven from thought in an instant by a giant shell that struck within a
few hundred yards of them, exploding with a terrible crash and filling
the air with deadly bits of flying shell.
There was such a whistling in his ears that John thought at first he had
been hit, but when he shook himself a little he found he was unhurt, and
his heart resumed its normal beat. Other shells coming out of space
began to strike, but none so near, and the Strangers went calmly on. On
their right was a Paris regiment made up mostly of short, but
thick-chested men, all very dark. Its numbers were only one-third what
they had been a week before, and its colonel was Pierre Louis
Bougainville, late Apache, late of the Butte Montmartre. All the
colonels, majors and captains of this regiment had been killed and he
now led it, earning his promotion by the divine right of genius. He, at
least, could look into his knapsack and see there the shadow of a
marshal's baton, a shadow that might grow more material.
John watched him and he wondered at this transformation of a rat of
Montmartre into a man. And yet there had been many such transformations
in the French Revolution. What had happened once could always happen
again. Napoleon himself had been the son of a poor little lawyer in a
distant and half-savage island, not even French in blood, but an Italian
and an alien.
Crash! Another shell burst near, and told him to quit thinking of old
times and attend to the business before him. The past had nothing more
mighty than the present. The speed of the Strangers was increased a
little, and the French regiments on either side kept pace with them.
More shells fell. They came, shrieking through the air like hideous
birds of remote ages. Some passed entirely over the advancing troops,
but one fell among the French on John's right, and the column opening
out, passed shudderingly around the spot where death had struck.
Two or three of the Strangers were blown away presently. It seemed to
John's horrified eyes that one of them entirely vanished in minute
fragments. He knew now what annihilation meant.
The heavy French field guns behind them were firing over their heads,
but there was still nothing in front, merely the low green hills and not
even a flash of flame nor a puff of smoke. The whistling death came out
of space.
The French went on, a wide shallow valley opened out before them, and
they descended by the easy slope into it. Here the German shells and
shrapnel ceased to fall among them, but, as the heavy thunder
continued, John knew the guns had merely turned aside their fire for
other points on the French line. Carstairs by his side gave an immense
sigh of relief.
"I can never get used to the horrible roaring and groaning of those
shells," he said. "If I get killed I'd like it to be done without the
thing that does it shrieking and gloating over me."
They were well in the valley now, and John noticed that along its right
ran a dense wood, fresh and green despite the lateness of the season.
But as he looked he heard the shrill snarling of many trumpets, and, for
a moment or two, his heart stood still, as a vast body of German cavalry
burst from the screen of the wood and rushed down upon them.
It was not often in this war that cavalry had a great chance, but here
it had come. The ambush was complete. The German signals, either from
the sky or the hills, had told when the French were in the valley, and
then the German guns had turned aside their fire for the very good
reason that they did not wish to send shells among their own men.
John's feeling was one of horrified surprise. The German cavalry
extending across a mile of front seemed countless. Imagination in that
terrific moment magnified them into millions. He saw the foaming mouths,
the white teeth and the flashing eyes of the horses, and then the tense
faces and eyes of their riders. Lances and sabers were held aloft, and
the earth thundered with the tread of the mounted legions.
"Good God!" cried Wharton.
"Wheel, men, wheel!" shouted Captain Colton.
As they turned to face the rushing tide of steel, the regiment of
Bougainville whirled on their flank and then Bougainville was almost at
his side. He saw fire leap from the little man's eye. He saw him shout
commands, rapid incisive, and correct and he saw clearly that if this
were Napoleon's day that marshal's baton in the knapsack would indeed
become a reality.
The Paris regiment, kneeling, was the first to fire, and the next
instant flame burst from the rifles of the Strangers. It was not a
moment too soon. It seemed to many of the young Americans and Englishmen
that they had been ridden down already, but sheet after sheet of bullets
fired by men, fighting for their lives, formed a wall of death.
The Uhlans, the hussars and the cuirassiers reeled back in the very
moment of triumph. Horses with their riders crashed to the ground, and
others, mad with terror, rushed wildly through the French ranks.
John, Carstairs and Wharton snatched up rifles, all three, and began to
fire with the men as fast as they could. A vast turmoil, frightful in
its fury, followed. The German cavalry reeled back, but it did not
retreat. The shrill clamor of many trumpets came again, and once more
the horsemen charged. The sheet of death blazed in their faces again,
and then the French met them with bayonet.
The Strangers had closed in to meet the shock. John felt rather than saw
Carstairs and Wharton on either side of him, and the three of them were
firing cartridge after cartridge into the light whitish smoke that hung
between them and the charging horsemen. He was devoutly thankful that
the Paris regiment was immediately on their right, and that it was led
by such a man as Bougainville. General Vaugirard, he knew, was farther
to their left, and now he began to hear the rapid firers, pouring a rain
of death upon the cavalry.
"We win! we win!" cried Carstairs. "If they couldn't beat us down in the
first rush they can't beat us down at all!"
Carstairs was right. The French had broken into no panic, and, when,
infantry standing firm, pour forth the incessant and deadly stream of
death, that modern arms make possible, no cavalry can live before them.
Yet the Germans charged again and again into the hurricane of fire and
steel. The tumult of the battle face to face became terrific.
John could no longer hear the words of his comrades. He saw dimly
through the whitish smoke in front, but he continued to fire. Once he
leaped aside to let a wounded and riderless horse gallop past, and
thrice he sprang over the bodies of the dead.
The infantry were advancing now, driving the cavalry before them, and
the French were able to bring their lighter field guns into action. John
heard the rapid crashes, and he saw the line of cavalry drawing back.
He, too, was shouting with triumph, although nobody heard him. But all
the Strangers were filled with fiery zeal. Without orders they rushed
forward, driving the horsemen yet further. John saw through the whitish
mist a fierce face and a powerful arm swinging aloft a saber.
He recognized von Boehlen and von Boehlen recognized him. Shouting, the
Prussian urged his horse at him and struck him with the saber. John,
under impulse, dropped to his knees, and the heavy blade whistled above
him. But something else struck him on the head and he fell senseless to
the earth.