By eleven o'clock the line of the Franc-tireurs had been thickened by the fresh arrivals, and the roar of rifles along the wall was continuous. The French, who had hitherto fought silently, now began to cheer, and when a regiment came up in something like fair order through the gardens, its colonel shouted, "Forward men, and drive the Germans out."
With a cheer of anticipated triumph those who had so stubbornly defended the position sprang up, and the whole rushed forward against the enemy. A tremendous volley flashed from the wall in front of them. Cuthbert felt that he was falling. The thought flashed through his mind that his foot had caught in something, and then he knew nothing more. When he recovered consciousness he was lying with a score of others on the floor of a kitchen. There was a gaping hole in the roof and loop-holes in the walls, but of this at present he saw nothing. A man with a lantern was standing beside him? while another was doing something, he didn't know what, to him.
"What is it?" he muttered.
"You are wounded, mon brave, and seriously I am afraid, but not fatally—at least I hope not."
"Is this Champigny?"
"Yes."
"Then we have held the village?"
"Yes, we beat the Prussians back all along the line, they could not stand our artillery-fire. There, I have bandaged you up for the present, to-morrow morning you will be taken into Paris."
"I should like to go to the American ambulance, if you can manage it, Doctor," Cuthbert said. "I am an Englishman and have friends there."
"I will manage it if I can for you, lad. Your corps has done splendidly to-day. Everyone says if it had not been for you, Champigny would have been lost. So you well deserve anything I can do for you."