A Girl of the Commune

by G. A. Henty

"You are right, Pierre, there is certainly a movement of some sort going on in front, but I fancy it is some distance away; if they were marching on the village in front we should hear it more plainly. You had better send out three or four men from your right let them go some distance along before they attempt to creep forward. The Prussian sentries are too thick along there facing us, but the men might possibly crawl pretty close up to their outposts farther along, they won't be so thick there. Pick four good men, it is a dangerous service. Tell them to get as near as they can to their sentries without being observed, and then to lie and listen attentively. They will have a better chance of hearing there than we have. There is no getting the men to lie perfectly quiet here."

"Can I take three men and go myself with them, Des Valles?"

"Yes, if you like. I will stop with the company until you return."

The lieutenant went along the line, stopping at each man to ask his name. He chose Cuthbert and two men, one from each of the principal art schools, as he thought it might look like favoritism if he took all from among his own comrades. The sentries became more and more scattered as he went along, the main body being posted in front of the village. The last few men were warned that he was going forward, and that they were not to fire until he returned. He sent the last man on the line to communicate with the outposts, furnished by the corps occupying the ground farther to the right, that some men were going out to reconnoitre. Then he and his companions cautiously crawled forward.

They were rather more than half-way across the ground, when Cuthbert uttered an exclamation as he came in sudden contact with a figure advancing with similar caution in the opposite direction. It needed not a guttural oath in German to inform him that it was an enemy. Touching as they were, neither could use their arms, and instinctively they grappled with each other as they lay on the ground.

"Look out, Leroux, I have got hold of a German," Cuthbert said in a low voice, while at the same moment his antagonist said something to the same effect in German.

The lieutenant and the other two men leapt to their feet, and as they did so, four or five men sprang up close in front of them.

"Fire!" Leroux exclaimed, and the two men discharged their pieces! Some shots flashed out in front of them but in the darkness none were hit, and in a moment they were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with their foes.

In the meantime Cuthbert and his antagonist were rolling over and over, locked closely in each other's arms. Seizing a moment when he came uppermost, Cuthbert steadied himself, relaxed his hold of his opponent, and, half-kneeling, managed to free himself from his embrace, and gripped him by the throat.

The fight between the others was a short one. The lieutenant had run one of his opponents through the body, but a German had equalized matters by bringing the butt of his musket down on the head of one of the Franc-tireurs, and being now but two against four, Pierre called to the other to retreat. The Germans followed a few yards and then halted. As they passed him Cuthbert gave a final squeeze to his antagonist's throat, and, feeling sure that he would not be able to speak for some time, he crept away for a few yards and lay still among the cabbages that covered the field.