The Forest of Swords Part 32

"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 sh.e.l.l that struck within a few hundred yards of them, exploding with a terrible crash and filling the air with deadly bits of flying sh.e.l.l.

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 sh.e.l.ls coming out of s.p.a.ce 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 b.u.t.te 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.

Cras.h.!.+ Another sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.ls fell. They came, shrieking through the air like hideous birds of remote ages. Some pa.s.sed entirely over the advancing troops, but one fell among the French on John's right, and the column opening out, pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce.

The French went on, a wide shallow valley opened out before them, and they descended by the easy slope into it. Here the German sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls," 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d!" cried Wharton.

"Wheel, men, wheel!" shouted Captain Colton.

As they turned to face the rus.h.i.+ng 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 cuira.s.siers 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 hors.e.m.e.n. 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 n.o.body heard him. But all the Strangers were filled with fiery zeal. Without orders they rushed forward, driving the hors.e.m.e.n 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.

CHAPTER XII