_Done into English by the Editor_
A friend of mine, a military man, who died of a fever some years ago
in Greece, described for me one day the first engagement in which he
had taken part. His recital so struck me that I wrote it from memory as
soon as I had the leisure. Here it is:
I joined the regiment the 4th September at evening. I found the colonel
in the camp. He received me rather bruskly; but after having read the
letter of recommendation from General B---- he changed his manner and
spoke to me a few courteous words.
I was presented by him to my captain, who had returned at that instant
from a reconnoissance. This captain, with whom I had had scarcely time
to become acquainted, was a tall, dark man, of hard, repellent visage.
He had been a private, and had won his epaulets and his cross upon the
field of battle. His voice, which was hoarse and feeble, contrasted
singularly with his almost gigantic stature. They told me he owed that
strange voice to a ball which had pierced him through and through at
the battle of Jena.
On learning that I had just left the school at Fontainebleau, he made a
grimace and said:
“My lieutenant died yesterday.”
I understood that he meant to say, “It is you who must take his place,
and you are not capable of it.” A sharp retort leaped to my lips, but I
contained myself.
The moon was rising behind the redoubt of Cheverino, which was situated
two cannon-shots from our bivouac. She was large and red, as usual at
her rising. But, on this evening, she seemed to be of extraordinary
grandeur. For one instant the redoubt stood out sharply in black
against the glittering disk of the moon. It resembled the cone of a
volcano at the moment of eruption.
An old soldier, beside whom I found myself, remarked upon the color of
the moon.
“She is very red,” said he; “it’s a sign that it will cost us dear to
take that famous redoubt!”
I have always been superstitious, and that augury, above all at that
moment, affected me. I sought my couch, but I was not able to sleep. I
arose, and for some time I walked, watching the immense line of fires
which covered the heights above the village of Cheverino.
When I believed that the fresh and sharp air of the night had
sufficiently cooled my blood, I returned to the fire; I enveloped
myself carefully in my mantle, and I closed my eyes, hoping not to open
them before day. But slumber refused to come. Insensibly my thoughts
took on a doleful hue. I told myself that I had not one friend among
the hundred thousand men who covered that plain. If I were wounded, I
should be in a hospital, treated without regard by ignorant surgeons.
All that I had heard said of surgical operations recurred to my memory.
My heart thumped with violence, and mechanically I arranged like a
kind of cuirass the handkerchief and the portfolio I had in my bosom.
Weariness overwhelmed me, I nodded every instant, and every instant
some sinister idea reproduced itself with renewed force and startled me
out of my sleep.
However, fatigue carried the day, and when they beat the reveille,
I was sound asleep. We were drawn up in battle array, the roll was
called, then we stacked arms, and everything indicated that we should
pass a tranquil day.
About three o’clock, an aide-de-camp arrived, bringing an order. We
were ordered to take up arms again; our skirmishers spread themselves
over the plain; we followed slowly, and in about twenty minutes we saw
all the Russian advance-posts fall back and reënter the redoubt.
One battery of artillery was established on our right, another at
our left, but both well in advance of us. They opened a very lively
fire upon the enemy, who replied vigorously, and soon the redoubt of
Cheverino disappeared under the dense clouds of smoke.
Our regiment was almost covered from the Russian fire by a rise of
ground. Their bullets, rarely aimed at us (for they preferred to fire
at our gunners), passed over our heads, or at worst showered us with
earth and little stones.
As soon as we had received the order to march forward, my captain
looked at me with an attention which obliged me to pass my hand two or
three times over my youthful mustache with an air as unconcerned as
was possible to me. In truth, I was not frightened, and the sole fear
that I experienced was lest he should imagine that I was afraid. The
harmless bullets contributed still more to maintain me in my heroic
calm. My self-esteem told me that I was going into real danger, since
at last I was under battery fire. I was enchanted to be so at my ease,
and I dreamed with pleasure of telling in the salon of Madame B----,
rue de Provence, how the redoubt of Cheverino was taken.
The colonel passed before our company; he said to me: “Well, you are
going to have hot work for your début.”
I smiled with a perfectly martial air as I brushed the sleeve of my
coat, on which a bullet that had struck the earth thirty yards away had
cast a little dust.
It appeared that the Russians had observed the ill success of their
cannon-balls; for they replaced them with shells, which could more
easily reach us in the hollow where we were posted. One rather big
explosion knocked off my shako, and killed a man near me.
“My compliments,” said the captain, as I picked up my shako. “You are
safe now for the day.” I knew that military superstition which believes
that the axiom, _non his in idem_[12], finds its application on a
field of battle as in a court of justice. I jauntily replaced my shako.
“That is making a man salute, without ceremony,” I said, as gaily as I
could. That bad joke, in the circumstances, seemed excellent.
“I felicitate you,” responded the captain. “You will get nothing
worse, and to-night you will command a company; for well I know that
the oven is being heated for me. Every time that I have been wounded
the officer nearest me[13] has been touched by a spent ball, and,” he
added, in a lower tone, and almost as though ashamed, “their names
always commenced with a P.”
I pretended to feel brave; many persons would have done as I did; many
persons too would have been as deeply impressed by those prophetic
words. Conscript as I was, I realized that I could not confide my
sentiments to any one, and that I must always appear coolly intrepid.
After about a half-hour, the Russian fire diminished perceptibly;
whereupon we sallied from our cover to march upon the redoubt.
Our regiment was composed of three battalions. The second was ordered
to turn the redoubt on the side of the entrance; the two others were to
make the assault. I was in the third battalion.
In coming out from behind the species of ridge which had protected us,
we were received by several discharges of musketry which did but little
damage in our ranks. The whistling of the balls surprised me: often I
turned my head, and so drew upon myself divers pleasantries on the part
of my comrades who were more familiar with that sound.
“Take it all in all,” I said to myself, “a battle is not such a
terrible matter.”
We advanced in double-time, preceded by skirmishers: all at once the
Russians gave three hurrahs--three distinct hurrahs--then remained
silent, and without firing.
“I don’t like this silence,” said my captain. “It bodes no good for us.”
I thought that our men were a trifle too noisy, and I could not help
mentally comparing their tumultuous clamor with the imposing silence of
the enemy.
We quickly attained the foot of the redoubt; the palisades had been
shattered, and the earth ploughed up by our balls. The soldiers rushed
upon these new ruins with cries of “_Vive l’Empereur!_” with more
vigor than one would have expected to hear from men who had already
cheered so much.
I raised my eyes, and never shall I forget the spectacle that I saw.
Most of the smoke had lifted and remained suspended like a canopy about
twenty feet above the redoubt. Through a bluish vapor, behind their
half-ruined parapet, one could descry the Russian grenadiers, firearms
raised, immobile as statues. I think I can see each soldier yet, the
left eye fastened upon us, the right hidden behind his levelled musket.
In an embrasure, a few feet from us, a man holding a lighted fuse stood
beside a cannon.