The ambulance entered the wood now, and Giraud was the first to be lifted on it. He lay as one asleep, his mangled hand nursed as a babe nurses a little wounded limb. Lefort bent over him. He wondered how many of his friends would sleep like that before the sun set. And he himself—would he see the dawn again, the home he loved, or her who had made it a home to him? A burning hatred of those who had made the war steeled his heart to action and to courage. He would fight for his little wife—for the homes of France and the children waiting there.
The cavalry fell back into the heart of the wood, but, without, the sounds of battle magnified and came nearer. Bullets sang among the trees always. Shells came hurtling over the thickets, or fell in the open places of the vineyards. A little while, and men laughed at those fellows. You could see them afar, black specks, as comets, with tails of steam, hissing through the air. The bullets were more to be feared, the song of death wailing in flight, the unseen blow ending in a gasp and a stagger and a crimson stain upon the earth. And the delay was intolerable to those troops of horsemen who must be spectators while their comrades fell in the open places of the fields and marsh lands. Brave horses pawed the ground or became restive at the thunder of sounds. Old troopers, who had been in Africa, and had won triumphs at Masena, shrugged their shoulders and asked what sort of a general that was who forgot his cavalry. They watched the batteries spitting fire from the trenches below them and mocked the spectacle. Every aide-de-camp galloping by, every driver of a waggon who passed them was followed by a hundred questions.
“How goes it, comrade? Do they fall back? When are we to ride?”
Lefort heard the questions of his fellows and did not rebuke them. He shared their impatience. Sitting there idly upon his horse with that old fire-eater Captain Quirat by his side, he thought how odd it was to see those glittering ranks of motionless troopers and to know that men were falling by thousands in the vineyards below. What held them back? The Prussians were in the villages now. Those cursed guns were putting a girdle of fire about the heights. Was this the victory of which an aide-de-camp, dashing up to Froeschweiler, spoke as he went by? The very word seemed an irony.
“What a tale,” he said to Quirat savagely; “we hold them at all points. How does Morsbronn burn them? And look at the mill. We had it an hour ago. Where are our fellows now?”
Quirat pulled his long moustache fiercely.
“The men are saying that von Kirchback is through Wörth with the fifth corps. That would be the eleventh corps yonder. We are fighting the heads of columns, mon ami—two hundred thousand men if I have any eyes to see. Why do we sit here like fools? Is the cavalry for an autumn manœuvre, then? It’s nonsense to hear them. A charge would settle it; but we are more ornamental. We shall remain in this wood to applaud when the Germans ride through to Paris.”
Lefort took a cigar from his case and lighted it.
“If we were at the opera, I would say bravo,” he exclaimed ironically. “As we are not, we must count our fingers until the time comes. There is plenty to see, at least. They are burning the farmhouse now to amuse the poor fellows up in the wood. Ma foi, what flames! If the weather were not so hot, the farmer could warm himself at his own fireside. As it is, he is probably saying to himself that the army knows how to protect the people. You let the Prussians burn their houses, Quirat, and then they have no anxieties.”
A great white farmhouse, the Albrechtshauser, situated upon the edge of the wood, burst into flames as he spoke. Smoke curled above its thatch; tongues of fire licked its gables, and spread from barn to barn and rick to rick. All about the house the shrieks of the dying were to be heard. Red breeches and blue gave colour to every yard. Bayonets flashed in the sunlight; the spiked helmets were everywhere. Foot by foot the Prussians drove those others before them. The din of battle, resounding as a crash of thunder, mingled with voices of woe and cries of agony and the blaring of trumpets and the baying of the guns. Through the whole length of the valley the French were retreating. Up the rugged slopes, leaping from trench to trench, Vorwärts, their song of battle, on their lips, von Werder’s men came on. It was the culminating hour. The cavalry would wait idling no longer.