Little comrade: a tale of the great war

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Surely, Stewart told himself, the bridge will be cleared; that close-packed column will not be exposed to a risk so awful. But it pressed on, without a pause, without a break. What must be the soldiers’ thoughts, as they waited for the third shell!

Again that high, hideous, blood-curdling shriek split through the air, and the next instant a shell exploded squarely in the middle of the bridge. Stewart had a moment’s vision of a tangle of shattered bodies, then he saw that the bridge was gone and the river filled with drowning men, weighed down by their heavy accouterments. He could hear their shrill cries of terror as they struggled in the current; then the cries ceased as the river swept most of them away. Only a very few managed to reach the bank.

Stewart hid his face in his trembling hands. It was too hideous! It could not be! He could not bear it—the world would not bear it, if it knew!

A sharp cry from his companion told him that the awful drama was not yet played to an end. She was pointing beyond the river, where the cavalry and the small body of infantry which had got across seemed thrown into sudden confusion. Horses reared and fell, men dropped from their saddles. The infantry threw themselves forward upon their faces; and then to Stewart’s ears came the sharp rattle of musketry.

“The Belgians are attacking them!” cried the girl. “They are driving them back!”

But that cavalry, so superbly trained, that infantry, so expertly officered, were not to be driven back without a struggle. The Uhlans formed into line and swept forward, with lances couched, over the ridge beyond the river and out of sight, in a furious charge. But the Belgians must have stood firm, for at the end of a few moments, the troopers straggled back again, sadly diminished in numbers, and rode rapidly away down the river, leaving the infantry to its fate.

Meanwhile, on the eastern bank of the river, a battery of quick-firers had already been swung into position, and was singing its deadly tune to hold the Belgians back. Already the men of that little company on the farther side had found a sort of refuge behind a line of hummocks. Already some heavier guns were being hurried into position to defend the bridge which the engineers began at once to rebuild farther down the stream, where it would be better masked from the fort’s attack.

Evidently the Belgians did not intend to enter that deadly zone of fire, and the fight settled down to a dogged, long-distance one.

“We cannot get across here,” said the girl at last. “We shall have to work our way downstream until we are past the Germans. If we can join the Belgians, we are safe.”

But to get past the Germans proved a far greater task than they had anticipated. There seemed to be no end to the gray-clad legions. Brigade after brigade packed the stretch of level ground along the river, while the road was crowded with an astounding tangle of transport wagons, cook wagons, armored motors, artillery, tractors, ambulances, and automobiles of every sort, evidently seized by the army in its advance.