The Chevalier looked at him, smiled, and galloped away.
It was past seven o’clock. André paused to cast a hasty eye out towards Maubray and Veyon, whence the foe must come. Around him staff officers cantered this way and that; hoarse orders were being shouted, regiments were falling in, deploying, lining the entrenchments, one, two, three deep. Everywhere the strenuous confusion and fierce excitement of an army hurriedly preparing for battle. Over the plain hung a soft grey mist gently rolling up as the day grew, but dimly in the distance, past the enclosures and the coppices in the midst of which the wrecked hamlet of Bourgeon still smoked sullenly in the raw air, troops—cavalry mainly—were collecting. Yes, the enemy really meant business. It was to be an assault along the whole front and there was no time to waste.
With the Chevau-légers de la Garde André found St. Benôit.
“Where the devil have you been?” his friend demanded. “We looked for you everywhere last night. Jeannette and Gabrielle supped in my coach.”
“Two assignations,” André laughed. “Such fun, I can tell you.”
“And you got that slit between the two, I suppose?”
“Yes, and a good deal more. Hullo! What’s that?”
The guns from the citadel and the redoubts on the slopes had begun in real earnest, answered as yet feebly from the enemy’s left. St. Benôit and André trotted forward to make the position out.
“Mark you there!” cried St. Benôit. “Those are English cavalry forming up and see—see! There come the red-coated blackguards behind ’em. By God! they’re going to let us give ’em a taste of our quality.”
“Do you imagine they will dare to march across the plain in the teeth of our artillery?” André asked.