THE BASTION DE LOUISE.
Dundrennan, Sir Quentin Home, the Chevalier Livingstone, and other
gallant gentlemen of the troop were anxious to share with me the
honour of this perilous enterprise; but, aware of the danger--the
almost certain death--to be incurred, I peremptorily declined all
assistance, and resolved to achieve the deed alone, or pay the
penalty of my own folly.
The firing languished as usual after sunset, and before nightfall had
completely ceased. I clasped on my cuirass and gorget, buttoning
over them the doublet of a Lorrainer who had been killed last night
in the trenches. It was of dark cloth, faced and trimmed with the
colours of duke Charles. I put on a light helmet, stuck four pistols
in my girdle, and leaving my sword, took only a dagger. I had a
light ladder, ten feet long; a rope, a hammer, and a pocketful of
spike nails; and with this apparatus, when the miners were at work,
and the out-guards or covering parties sleeping in their blankets,
capôtes, or rocquelaures, I issued from the camp, and leaving all
behind, advanced on my solitary and desperate enterprise towards the
Bastion de Louise.
Frequently I paused to listen; but no sound came from the town, the
ramparts and church spire of which--for it had but one--towered above
me in the dark and moonless sky, across which the clouds were
hurrying in black and broken masses.
As I crept on my mission, strange thoughts of home and of other times
_would_ force themselves vividly upon me; and I remembered the green
breezy braes, and the grassy dells, where the mountain runnel brawled
under the broad-leaved water docks or the purple heather, and bright
yellow broom, where as a boy I had played among the lambs, and
gathered the white daisy and the golden buttercup, or watched the
white smoke curling from the huge hall chimney of my father's old
grey tower. To-night I might be slain--slain far, far away; and I
thought of the quiet green grave where my father and mother slept so
peacefully side to side in the old kirkyard at Glenkens, and a wild,
deep wish rose from my heart to my lips that I was at rest beside
them, and away from the selfish hurry of life and all the horror of
war!
Anon came hope of success, and prouder thoughts arose within me, and
grasping my dagger, I continued to creep stealthily forward.
Rearward, I heard the grating sound of the shovel and pickaxe in the
trenches, as the sappers of the Chevalier de Ville replaced the
gabions, or batted down the earthen banks, which the cannonade of the
past day had disturbed. Perhaps a lantern might throw out a
momentary gleam; but even momentary was too much; for then a lurid
flash would break from the citadel, lighting all the sky with
instantaneous redness, and a ball would whiz over my head towards the
miner's lamp; or a shell would curve high in air, distinctly
traceable, as it soared from the mouth of the mortar and sunk
downward to its destination, by the fuse that flamed upward through
its touch-hole, and now the terrible Bastion de Louise arose before
me in massive strength, with its row of twenty brass guns frowning
en-barbette, over the slope of the rampart.
Anxiety and shame filled my heart on finding that the bastion was
full of men; sentinels, too, were on the parapet, as their outline,
with helmet and arquebuse, were distinctly visible. For me to
proceed was impossible, as the least sound might draw a volley
towards the spot where I was lurking; but to return to the camp,
merely to report that I had failed, and that my attempt, however rash
and gallant, had proved a mere bravado, was more than I could think
of, or endure with patience.
Creeping on, I came close to a stockade, which rose at the angle of
forty-five degrees to the height of five feet in front of the ditch
before the bastion, some shrubs and bushes grew at its base, and
among these I lay close; so close, indeed, that I heard the words of
command given, as the Lorrainers marched into the town, and, to my
inexpressible relief, left none in the bastion, save the four
sentinels. Four men were more easily to be met than four hundred;
but even by this reckoning how was I to dispose of them? To pistol
them all in succession was next to an impossibility, situated as I
was; moreover, the discharge of a single shot would suffice to rouse
the whole town, and man the walls from flank to flank in five minutes.
The darkness had increased, and fortunately for me the night bore
every indication of becoming a stormy one. A high wind swept the
side of the mountain; the river hurried over its bed of rocks with a
hoarse brawl towards the Maese; and the gusty blasts, as they came in
fierce and fitful squalls, piled the clouds in black and inky masses
above La Mothe, the black outline of which--tower, spire, and
rampart--stood forth black and sharply, at times as broad glares of
sheet lightning flashed across the sky, seeming to whiten the summits
of the distant hills, and to tip with fire the dewy leaves of the
shrubs that covered all the rocky ground; and now, to my joy, came a
broad, blinding, and united torrent of rain, falling slowly but
surely, as if it would last for hours.
The frightful and oppressive stench of the partially-buried slain
that lay before the stockade was not the least of my troubles; for in
some of the places I had crept over, the men of Ramsay and of Hepburn
were interred only a foot deep; and where the rain had washed away
the soil, their toes and fingers, and more horrible still, their
white skulls and ghastly teeth, were visible among the soft mould and
sprouting grass!
I crept through a small aperture formed by some chance bullet in the
stockade, and drawing my ladder after me reached the edge of the
fosse that engirt the bastion; and now I could perceive that the dark
figures of the four sentinels had disappeared; they had withdrawn to
their stone turrets, one of which terminated each angle of the
ravelin.
Still crawling serpentwise, I dropped my ladder into the fosse,
(which on my side was only twelve feet deep,) and descending crossed
it, over splinters of fallen masonry and exploded shells. Placing
the ladder against the sloping face of the bastion, which was sixteen
feet in height, I easily reached the stone cordon that girdled it,
and from thence, all wet and slippery though it was, by the drenching
rain, I swung myself up to the cope; but not daring to cross it
erect, I crept inwards, keeping close alongside the nearest cannon,
and at length stood _within_ the parapet of the dreaded Bastion de
Louise!
My heart leaped within me!
The rain was still pouring downward or aslant as the gusts blew it;
not a sentinel was visible; each was in his box, or stone turret,
within a pistol shot of me, but the bellowing wind, and the rain that
smoked along the parapet, and bubbled in the gorged gutters,
concealed every sound, and with my spike nails and hammer (the face
of which I had carefully covered with thick leather to preclude the
faintest sound of _clinking_) I proceeded at once to remove the
leaden aprons from the touch-holes, and to complete my dangerous
task, by crawling from gun to gun, and keeping my figure as much as
possible below the upper line of the parapet--a precaution almost
needless, as the darkness was so great.
I had spiked four culverins, when suddenly a light flashed along the
wet and shining pavement, and two dark figures drew near me. My
pulses stood still--but relinquishing my hammer for a pistol, with
the resolution to sell my poor life dearly and desperately, I shrank
close under a gun-carriage and lay _en perdu_, while two officers,
cloaked and helmeted, evidently making a nightly round, passed within
a yard of me, responding to the challenges of the various sentinels.
One was undoubtedly the Prince of Vaudemont; and the other, who bore
the lantern, I discovered in a moment to be my acquaintance the
Chevalier d'Ische.
'So M. le Governeur, you will only let him have this place as a pile
of ruins,' said the Prince as they passed; but I did not hear the
reply.
'Good,' said the Prince again, 'but the vivres--'
'O--the rats are good--the cats most excellent--we have no want of
provision,' responded the gay Chevalier, and as they turned the angle
of the works and disappeared, despite the rain and discomfort of the
night, I heard him singing his invariable song--
'O vive le fils d'Harlette!
Normands,
Vive le fils d'Harlette!'
I resumed my task, and in less than five minutes, by twenty blows of
my heavy hammer, had driven twenty spike nails home to the head,
firmly and securely, in the vents of as many pieces of cannon,
unheard and unseen; though I expected every instant to hear a shout,
or receive a shot from the dark recesses of the angle-turrets. Had
the night been fine or fair, this feat had never been accomplished;
but I should have perished in attempting it. I now descended the
parapet, and from the projecting cordon reached my ladder, recrossed
the fosse, and on ascending the opposite side, left my means of
ascent, together with my hammer, as a legacy to the enemy. The
stockade was easily surmounted from the inside, and half blinded by
the pouring rain and by the excitement of my own feelings, I rushed
over the half-buried dead, and back towards the trenches to report
that the Bastion de Louise had been deprived of its teeth.
As the reward of my enterprise, I narrowly escaped being shot by my
friends. On hurrying towards our lines, a voice crying _qui va là?_
from the angle of a trench, and the rattle of a musket made me pause;
but being breathless by my race down hill, I was unable to speak. I
had stumbled upon a trench guard of the young Marquis de Tonein's
regiment.
'Qui va là?' shouted the sentinel again. 'Stand, monsieur, and
deliver the parole.'
'_Saint Louis._'
'Bon--good,' he replied, shouldering his musket.
'The countersign, if you please?' said I.
'_Paris._'
'Thank you, friend musketeer.'
'_Saint Louis et Paris_. Bon! a thousand thanks, Monsieur Ecossais.
A rash fellow would have fired at once on any man rushing thus from
the enemy's lines. And now, brave comrade, what of the Bastion de
Louise?'
'It is fangless now.'
'Mordieu! you have accomplished your task. O monsieur, that I were
you! we shall dance a cotillon there in the morning.'
All blackened, muddy, and drenched, I hurried to the quarters of Sir
John Hepburn, whom I found ensconced in the lower story of a ruined
windmill, with the Viscounts Dundrennan, de Turenne, and Arpajou; the
Marquis de Toneins; and Colonels Ramsay and Lesly, some sleeping,
some smoking and drinking Rhenish and stroh wine by the light of a
stable lantern; and to them I reported my success. The tall and
stately Hepburn embraced me, all soiled as I was. He made me drain
his cup filled with wine, and taking from his own breast the cross of
St. Lazare, said--
'Wear this for me; and be assured, Arthur Blane, that on my
recommendation king Louis will more than confirm the gift. I here
proclaim you the premier cuirassier of the Scottish guard!'
The first man who invented the plan of nailing up cannon, by driving
an iron spike into the touch-hole, was Caspar Vimercalus, a soldier
of Bremen, who thus destroyed the artillery of Sigismund Malatesta.
There have been many contrivances suggested to force out nails that
were thus inserted, but none have been found of general use.