"KAMERADS"!—CAPTURING HUNS IN THE ALPS WITHOUT A FIGHT
An Extract from the Diary of a Lieutenant of Alpine Chasseurs
Set down by Henri Viard
A racy story told by a young French subaltern, showing how six Alpine Chasseurs bluffed three hundred Huns, with eight officers, into surrendering without a fight.—In the Wide World Magazine.
I—STORY OF SCOUTING IN THE ALPS
At 5 a.m. on a certain day orders were received for an attempt to drive the enemy from certain strong entrenchments.
To baffle observation, we went forward through the woods. Connection between units was very awkward to maintain, and, many a time, the direction would have been lost were we not guided by the sound of the guns. Nothing but the distant booming of Fritz's cannon and the occasional explosion of a shell broke the forest hush. In Indian file, with scouts some distance ahead, we scrambled through the undergrowth, our feet frequently caught by roots and all kinds of clinging impedimenta, our faces lashed by brambles. We were eager and silent. When exasperated by obstacles, the men swore in dumb show. The orders were to keep mum; so mum we kept.
One's imagination was at work, though, and this warpath-treading business was to me a sort of reminiscence. Had I not lived it before? When a boy, reading Fenimore Cooper and similar authors, I sometimes played at "Pathfinder"; now as a man I felt as if I really was a "paleface" leading a surprise party through virgin backwoods after redskins. Of a truth, the savages that had come upon us from the northern prairies were far worse than Sioux, Cheyennes, Hurons, or Kickapoos. They had sung the She-go-dem, they had sent out the tomahawk and yearned for our scalps. Well, we'll have theirs instead.
At last, the two leading companions, Captain B——'s and my own, reached the edge of the woods and espied the village, four hundred yards away, all bright in the morning sun. The bulk of the battalion had not come up yet. Captain B—— turned and asked, "What next?"
"Allons-y!" we replied; "the others will follow suit." Accordingly we massed up quickly in two columns, just outside the cover, and then, "Forward!"