Were they Prussian bullets or French? At the moment, the question did not interest him. He had pocketed his map and crawling on his belly towards the southern edge of his platform, looked cautiously over, meditating descent. Beyond was a sandwich-shaped stretch of woodland climbing to a ridge; and beyond the ridge a considerable expanse of bush-dotted common bordered by a stream and speckled with a few farm-buildings. Quite a decent-sized town lifted its Norman church-tower nearly a mile away.
The town must be Gorze. Withdrawing his eyes from it, they dropped into a deep ravine or combe running parallel with the western and southern sides of the giant limestone rock he sprawled on. Ferns clothed the deep, hollow sides, and oaks and birches, springing from the bottom, lifted their bushy heads to the level of his face. Spying between the branches, he saw that the ravine was full of garishly colored lights and shadows, and that a steady current of glittering white metal snaked in and out between the tree-trunks, setting from west to east.
Bayonets, carried on the shoulders of red-breeched French soldiers, moving with startling rapidity over the dry leaves at the bottom of the ravine. A battalion, at least, of wiry, active-looking Voltigeurs, a mitrailleuse-battery, each weapon hauled by a team of three gunners.... Green-coated Chasseurs à pied, with cocks' plumes shading the peaks of their képis followed. Would a surprise be intended for the cavalry-brigades that had crossed the railway-bridge and ridden eastward down the river-road a few minutes previously? In that case, what ought one to do?
Even as he asked, the advanced company of Voltigeurs discovered the Prussian squadrons. He saw a ripple of excitement pass down the ranks, and the Voltigeurs hurry forward at the double. He saw the mitrailleuse-batteries string out in line, push up the sloping sides of the ravine, and scatter among the trees of the plantation that climbed the ridge. The Chasseurs followed. Their intention was obvious. They were going to enfilade the passing brigades from the cover of the wood.
Even as the hounds of hell seemed to break loose, and a sheet of pure yellow-white flame ran from end to end of the ridge where the trees ended, the foremost brigade of three Hussar regiments came in view, trotting over a track that traversed the common, became a road, and plunged between deep woodlands trending west. His map had told him that the road led to Rezonville and Gravelotte.
He heard the Prussian trumpets sound through the ear-splitting racket of the French rifle-fire. He saw through the thin haze of powder-smoke that hung above the wood, the massed columns split into squadrons, the squadrons divide into troops, the troops become units—scattered over the common, galloping to re-form again upon the road that led through the woods to Rezonville.
They were two of the brigades forming Rheinbaben's Fifth Division, under Von Barby and Von Bredow, pushing forward to join General von Redern in the neighborhood of Mac La Tour. Their mobility saved them from decimation on a grand scale, but they left dead horses and men and officers dead and wounded. Their retreat was covered by one of their batteries of Horse Artillery, and two squadrons of a Uhlan regiment.
In the distance a riderless gray charger galloped wildly over the common, and a prone figure in a brilliant scarlet coat lay motionless beside the track. More could not be observed just then, for the battery of Horse Artillery got into position, while the Uhlans dismounted and coolly returned with carbine-fire the enfilade from the chassepots in the wood.
They knelt, and aimed and shot without hurry, and that their shooting was effective was demonstrated to the noncombatant onlooker, by half a dozen French Artillerymen and Chasseurs à pied who came staggering or limping back through the trees, and got down into the ravine. One toppled over in the act of negotiating the descent, and lay sprawling and head downward. Another, who kept putting a hand to his streaming cheek, and taking it away to stare at the blood upon it, was shot again in a vital part, spun around, and collapsed in a heap.
"Lee-ee eer!"