Sight of that flag was a signal for renewed fighting. Two French batteries had, happily, arrived, and having taken up a position close to them, opened fire upon the citadel from the rear. The enemy’s flag had roused the defenders to fury, and one of the first shots from the French field-guns cut the German flag right across, at which the Belgians cheered wildly to the echo. The French batteries threw their sheik upon the ancient citadel with marvellous accuracy, and the fire was heavy and incessant.
Another French line regiment arrived to reinforce the Belgians, marching gaily in those fatal red trousers of theirs, and then so smothering was their fire that, through his glasses, Edmond could see the heads of the Germans, dotting the ramparts of the fort, begin to gradually disappear.
For four long hot hours the desperate struggle continued without a moment’s cessation. The Belgians were determined to drive the enemy from their position, while the enemy were equally determined to hold it, and the slaughter on all sides became terrible. One of Edmond’s men fell forward, dead, with a bullet in his brow.
Suddenly heavier firing was heard from across the river. The French were shelling the citadel from the other side of the Meuse, and this they continued to do until, at six o’clock, a long pontoon bridge, just completed by the Germans a little higher up the river, was suddenly swept by a hail of shell and destroyed. A regiment of German infantry, who were at that moment upon it, in the act of crossing, were shattered and swept into the river, the clear waters of which became tinged with their blood. The French had waited until that moment, allowing the Germans to construct the pontoon, and had then wiped it out.
So heavy had now become the attack of the Allies upon the citadel, that not a living thing was to be seen upon the ramparts. Shell after shell fell upon them, exploding, shattering the thick masonry everywhere, and sending up columns of dense black smoke which hovered in the still evening air.
Then, of a sudden, there was a roar, and a terrific explosion of greater force than all the others before, which completely tore out one angle of the fortress, some of the heavy masonry falling with a huge crash down the hill-side into the Place below, which was already thick with dead and dying.
A great cheer sounded somewhere in French, for another fresh regiment had suddenly arrived.
Orders were swiftly given to the Sixth Brigade to re-advance, and in half an hour Edmond found that victory was theirs after all—they had retaken the fort! The German flag was hauled down and, in wrath, destroyed, and amid vociferous cheering, the Belgian red, black, and yellow tricolour was hoisted again in its place, Edmond at last regaining the position he had held in the early morning.
Looking down upon the stricken town once again, he saw at what frightful cost the fort had been retaken. That morning peace had reigned—but alas, now?
The streets and the river-banks were dotted with the dead, French, Belgian and German, lying in all sorts of contorted attitudes, the blue coats of the French infantry splashed with red, and their red trousers, alas! stained a deeper hue.