"From my heart," was all I had time to reply, for at that instant up rode the leader of the assault, and Ropsley's voice was calm and measured, his manner cold and cynical as ever, while he answered the short and military catechism usual on such occasions.
"Then it's all right," was the remark of the mounted officer, in as good-humoured and jovial a tone as if the affair in hand were a mere question of one of his own Norfolk battues; "and what a fine morning we've got for the business," he added, dismounting, and patting his horse as it was led away, ere he turned round to put himself at the head of the storming party.
I watched him as one watches a man whose experiences of danger have given him a fascination perfectly irresistible to inferior minds. It was the same officer whom I have already mentioned as the latest arrival to disturb the dinner-party in the grotto, but to-day he looked, if possible, more cheerful, and in better spirits than his wont. I thought of his antecedents, as they had often been related to me by one of his oldest friends,--of his unfailing good-humour and kindliness of disposition--of his popularity in his regiment--of his skill and prowess at all sports and pastimes, with the gloves, the foils, the sharp-rowelled spurs of the hunting-field, or the velvet cap that fails to protect the steeplechaser from a broken neck--of his wanderings in the desert amongst the Bedouin Arabs, and his cold bivouacs on the prairie with the Red Indians--of his lonely ride after the Alma, when, steering by the stars through a country with which he was totally unacquainted, he arrived at the fleet with the news of the famous flank march to Balaklava--of his daring sang-froid when "the thickest of war's tempest lowered" at Inkermann, and of the daily dangers and privations of the weary siege, always borne and faced out with the same merry light-hearted smile; and now he was to lead the assault.
None but a soldier knows all that is comprised in those three simple words--the coolness, the daring, the lightning glance, the ready resource, the wary tactics, and the headlong gallantry which must all be combined successfully to fill that post of honour; and then to think that the odds are ten to one he never comes back alive!
As I looked at his athletic frame and handsome, manly face, as I returned his cordial, off-hand greeting, as courteous to the nameless Interpreter as it would have been to General Pelissier himself, my heart tightened to think of what might--nay, what must surely happen on that fire-swept glacis, unless he bore indeed a life charmed with immunity from shot and steel.
Man by man he inspected the Forlorn Hope,--their arms, their ammunition pouches, their scaling-ladders, all the tackle and paraphernalia of death. For each he had a word of encouragement, a jest, or a smile. Ropsley and his company were to remain in support in the advanced trenches. All was at length reported "ready," and then came the awful hush that ever ushers in the most desperate deeds--the minutes of pale and breathless suspense, that fly so quickly and yet seem to pass like lead--when the boldest cheek is blanched, and the stoutest heart beats painfully, and the change to action and real peril is felt to be an unspeakable relief to all.
A cold wet nose was poked into my hand. Bold had tracked me from the camp, and had followed me even here; nothing would induce him now to quit my side, for even the dog seemed to think something awful was impending, and watched with red, angry eyes and lowered tail and bristling neck, as if he too had been "told off" for the attack.
A roar of artillery shakes the air; our allies have opened their fire on the Malakhoff, and their columns are swarming like bees to the assault. Battalion after battalion, regiment after regiment, come surging through the ditch, to break like waves on the sea-shore, as the depressed guns of the enemy hew awful gaps in their ranks--to break indeed but to re-form, and as fresh supports keep pressing them on from the rear, to dash upwards against the earthwork, and to overflow and fling themselves from the parapet in the face of the Russian gunners below.
The Muscovite fights doggedly, and without dream of surrender or retreat. Hand to hand the conflict must be decided with the bayonet, and the little Zouaves shout, and yell, and stab, and press onward, and revel, so to speak, in the wild orgy of battle.
But the Northman is a grim, uncompromising foe, and more than once the "red pantaloons" waver and give back, and rally, and press on again to death. Instances of gallantry and self-devotion are rife amongst the officers. Here, a young captain of infantry flings himself alone upon the bayonets of the enemy, and falls pierced with a hundred wounds; there, an old white-headed colonel, décoré up to his chin, draws an ominous revolver, and threatens to shoot any one of his own men through the head that shows the slightest disinclination to rush on. "Ma foi," says he, "c'est pour encourager les autres!" The southern blood boils up under the influence of example, and if French troops are once a little flushed with success, their élan, as they call that quality for which we have no corresponding expression, is irresistible. The Russians cannot face the impetuosity of their charge; already many of the guns are spiked, and the gunners bayoneted; the grey-coated columns are yielding ground foot by foot; fresh troops pour in over the parapet, for the living are now able to pass unscathed over the dead, with whom the ditch is filled. The fire of the Russians is slackening, and their yell dies away fainter on the breeze. A French cheer, wild, joyous, and unearthly, fills the air,--it thrills in the ears of Pelissier, sitting immovable on his horse at no great distance from the conflict; his telescope is pressed to his eye, and he is watching eagerly for the well-known signal. And now he sees it! A gleam of fierce joy lights up his features, and as the tricolor of France is run up to the crest of the Malakhoff, he shuts his glass with a snap, dismounts from his horse, and rolling himself round in his cloak, lies down for a few minutes' repose, and observes, with a zest of which none but a Frenchman is capable, "Tenez! voilà mon bâton de Maréchal!"