My heart beat furiously; but there was no retreat. Rather than be left standing on the ground, I would have died there. In a moment we were moving on elbow to elbow, with a stern, heavy step. Some one struck up a Swedish psalm, and to the thunder of its rhythm we strode on--on to the very foot of the hill; on, until we reached the rough shale, and the rugged steep stood above us. With a gallant shout an officer flung his hat on to the slope, a score of Ritt-Meisters sprang forward together; and then for a moment we and all things seemed to stand still. The wood above us belched fire, the eyes were blinded, the ears stunned, rocks and stones rolled down, all creation seemed to be falling on us in fearful ruin. Men were hurled this way and that, or fell in their places, or, reeling to and fro, clutched one another. For an instant, I say, we stood still.
But for an instant only. Then with a shout of rage the Swedes sprang forward, and grasping boughs, stumps, rocks, swung themselves up, doing such things in their fury as no cool man could do. A row of jagged stakes barred the way; men set their naked breasts against them, and others climbed over on their shoulders. Bleeding, wounded, singed, torn by splinters, all who lived climbed. To get up--up--up--higher, in face of the storm of shot and iron; up, over the bursting mines and through the smoke; up, to where they stood and butchered us, was the only instinct left.
And we did get up--to a bastion, jutting from the hillside, where a company of picked men with pikes and three cannons waited for us behind a breastwork. They thought to stop us, and stood firm; our men were mad. Flinging themselves against the mouths of the cannon, they scaled the work in a moment, and left not one defender alive!
God with us!
Stern and high the shout rang out; but breath was everything, and the scarp still rose above us and the shot still tore our ranks! On! Up a torrent bed now, round one corner and another, to where we were a little out of the line of fire, and an overhanging shoulder covered us. Here we had room to take breath; and for the first time, some hope of life, of ultimate escape, entered my breast. The officer who led us--I learned afterwards that he was the great General Torstensohn--cried, 'Well done, Swedes!' and with the confidence of giants we were once more breasting the ascent, when a withering volley, poured in at short range, checked the head of the column. Before we could recover way, a body of pikes rushed to meet us, and in an instant, having the vantage of the ground, rolled us, still fighting desperately, down the steep. The general was swept away, the Ritt-Meisters were down. Once we rallied, but ineffectually. The enemy were reinforced, and in a moment the rout was complete.
At the moment the tide turned and our men fell back, I happened to be against the rock-wall, in something of a niche; and the stream passed me by. I had two slight wounds, and I stood an instant, giddy and confused, taking breath. The instant showed me my comrades in the act of being slaughtered one by one, and a great horror seized me. I found no hope anywhere. Below were the cruel pikes, in a moment their savage bearers would be reascending; above were the enemy. But above, if I climbed on, I might live a little while; and in that desperate hope I scrambled out of the torrent bed and up the sheer hill on the right. Two or three saw me from the torrent bed, and fired at me; and others shouted, and began to follow. But I only pressed on, right up the scarp, which was there like the side of a house.
A dozen times I all but fell back; still in a fever of dread I kept on. The sweat poured down me; I had no hope or aim, I thought only of the pikes behind. Presently I came to a jutting shoulder that all but overhung me; to pass it seemed to be impossible. But in my frenzy I did the impossible. I swung myself from root to root; where one stone gave, I clutched another, and yet another; I hung on with tooth and nail. I flattened myself against the rock. I heard the pursuers rail and curse, heard the bullets strike the earth round me, and then in a moment I was up.
Up; but only to come instantly on a wall crossing the steep and barring my way, and to find a dozen pikes levelled at my breast. Desperate, giving up hope at last--I had long dropped my weapon--I cried mechanically, 'God with us!' and threw up my arms.
I nearly fell backwards--for what did it matter? But the men were quick. In a moment one had me by the collar. 'And God! They were friends! They were friends, and I was saved.
One of the first faces that I saw, as I leaned breathless against the wall, unable for the time to answer the questions that poured upon me, was the Waldgrave's--the Waldgrave's, with the light of battle in his eyes, a laugh of triumph on his lips. He was wounded, bandaged, blackened, his fair hair singed; but he was happy. Presently I understood why; and why I was safe and among friends.