THE TAKING OF THE REDOUBT
(L’ENLÈVEMENT DE LA REDOUTE)
By Prosper Mérimée
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.
I shuddered, and I believed that my last hour had come.
“The dance is about to commence,” cried out my captain. “Good-night!”
These were the last words that I heard him utter.
A roll of drums resounded within the redoubt. I saw every musket lowered. I closed my eyes, and I heard an appalling crash, followed by cries and groans. I opened my eyes, surprised to find myself still living. The redoubt was anew enveloped in smoke. I was surrounded with the bleeding and the dead. My captain was stretched out at my feet: his head had been crushed by a bullet, and I was covered with his brains and his blood. Of all my company none remained but six men and me.
To this carnage succeeded a moment of stupor. The colonel, putting his hat on the point of his sword, was the first to scale the parapet, crying: “Vive l’Empereur!” He was followed instantly by all the survivors. I do not remember clearly just what followed. We entered within the redoubt, how I do not know. We fought body to body amid a smoke so dense that we could not see one another. I believe that I smote, for I found my sabre was all bloody. At last I heard the cry, “Victory!” and, the smoke diminishing, I saw blood and dead bodies completely covering the earthworks of the redoubt. The cannons especially were buried beneath piles of corpses. About two hundred men, in the French uniform, were grouped without order, some loading their muskets, others wiping their bayonets. Eleven hundred Russian prisoners were with them.
The colonel was lying all covered with blood upon a broken caisson near the entrance. Several soldiers bestirred themselves around him: I approached.
“Where is the senior captain?” he inquired of a sergeant.
The sergeant shrugged his shoulders in a manner most expressive.
“And the senior lieutenant?”
“This gentleman here, who arrived yesterday,” said the sergeant, in a perfectly calm tone.
The colonel smiled bitterly.
“Come, sir,” he said to me, “you are now in chief command; promptly fortify the entrance of the redoubt with these wagons, for the enemy is in force; but General C—— will see that you are sustained.”
“Colonel,” I said to him, “you are severely wounded?”
“Pish, my dear fellow, but the redoubt is taken!”
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Latin: not twice in the same (place).
[13] In rank.