White Lies

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER XXII.

  A few wounded soldiers of the brigade lay still till dusk. Then theycrept back to the trenches. These had all been struck down or disabledshort of the bastion. Of those that had taken the place no one camehome.

  Raynal, after the first stupefaction, pressed hard and even angrily foran immediate assault on the whole Prussian line. Not they. It was onpaper that the assault should be at daybreak to-morrow. Such leaders asthey were cannot IMPROVISE.

  Rage and grief in his heart, Raynal waited chafing in the trenches tillfive minutes past midnight. He then became commander of the brigade,gave his orders, and took thirty men out to creep up to the wreck of thebastion, and find the late colonel's body.

  Going for so pious a purpose, he was rewarded by an important discovery.The whole Prussian lines had been abandoned since sunset, and, mountingcautiously on the ramparts, Raynal saw the town too was evacuated, andlights and other indications on a rising ground behind it convincedhim that the Prussians were in full retreat, probably to effect thatjunction with other forces which the assault he had recommended wouldhave rendered impossible.

  They now lighted lanterns, and searched all over and round the bastionfor the poor colonel, in the rear of the bastion they found many Frenchsoldiers, most of whom had died by the bayonet. The Prussian dead hadall been carried off.

  Here they found the talkative Sergeant La Croix. The poor fellow wassilent enough now. A terrible sabre-cut on the skull. The colonel wasnot there. Raynal groaned, and led the way on to the bastion. The ruinsstill smoked. Seven or eight bodies were discovered by an arm or a footprotruding through the masses of masonry. Of these some were Prussians;a proof that some devoted hand had fired the train, and destroyed bothfriend and foe.

  They found the tube of Long Tom sticking up, just as he had shown overthe battlements that glorious day, with this exception, that a greatpiece was knocked off his lip, and the slice ended in a long, broadcrack.

  The soldiers looked at this. "That is our bullet's work," said they.Then one old veteran touched his cap, and told Raynal gravely, he knewwhere their beloved colonel was. "Dig here, to the bottom," said he. "HELIES BENEATH HIS WORK."

  Improbable and superstitious as this was, the hearts of the soldiersassented to it.

  Presently there was a joyful cry outside the bastion. A rush was madethither. But it proved to be only Dard, who had discovered that SergeantLa Croix's heart still beat. They took him up carefully, and carried himgently into camp. To Dard's delight the surgeon pronounced him curable.For all that, he was three days insensible, and after that unfit forduty. So they sent him home invalided, with a hundred francs out of thepoor colonel's purse.

  Raynal reported the evacuation of the place, and that Colonel Dujardinwas buried under the bastion, and soon after rode out of the camp.

  The words Camille had scratched with a pencil, and sent him from theedge of the grave, were few but striking.

  "A dead man takes you once more by the hand. My last thought, thank God,is France. For her sake and mine, Raynal. GO FOR GENERAL BONAPARTE. Tellhim, from a dying soldier, the Rhine is a river to these generals, butto him a field of glory. He will lay out our lives, not waste them."

  There was nothing to hinder Raynal from carrying out this sacredrequest: for the 24th brigade had ceased to exist: already thinned byhard service, it was reduced to a file or two by the fatal bastion. Itwas incorporated with the 12th; and Raynal rode heavy at heart to Paris,with a black scarf across his breast.