Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

There were perhaps two hundred men around him when they reached the Clamart route, but the Zouaves were firing now by platoons, and the Turcos fell like leaves in a storm, till a dip in the road and a long ridge gave them a moment’s shelter. Sarre glared about him like a trapped wolf. On the other side of the road stood a solitary stone farm-house set back among the trees of an orchard. At a glance he saw that here he must stand at bay. There was no use going farther, although they were within sight of the fortifications of Paris. Ten minutes more of the Zouaves’ fusilade would leave absolutely nothing of his command. It was a choice of dying in the open road or of dying behind the stone walls of a house. Sarre chose the latter, not because he had the faintest hope of help from Duval, the fort of Issy, or from Paris, but because here he could longer stave off death and have more time to kill Zouaves. With a deadly glance at the red fezes of the Zouaves which began to bob up over the crest of the ridge, he led his men, now numbering possibly fifty, into the orchard near the farm-house.

  “A man to every tree!” he shouted; “ten men to hold that hedge; six men behind the well-curb. Is there a captain here? What! Have they peppered all my captains? Hey! You there, — you lieutenant, d — n you, I forget your name, — take command in the orchard and hold out! Hold out! You’d better if you know what’s good for you — the Zou-Zous don’t take any prisoners. We’ve got to hold until they send from Paris and get us out of this frying-pan.” Then noticing Philip standing silently beside McBarron and Con Daily, he walked up to him with a grin. “You here?” he demanded; “well! well! You have no luck at all. It’s very funny to think that you are going to be spitted on one of your own bayonets. They give no quarter.”

  Philip turned away without answering, and Sarre walked over to the shelter of the well-curb, for the shots began to patter among the trees, and the Turcos down by the hedge were firing frantically.

  “Lie down,” said McBarron, “lie down, both of you!”

  Daily, instead of obeying, coolly brought his rifle to his cheek and dropped a distant Zouave in his tracks.

  “What d’ ye think av that!” he shouted, shoving in another cartridge.

  “Lie down, Con Daily, you fool!” growled McBarron, taking long aim at an officer of Zouaves and knocking him clean over with a bullet through the face.

  “Fool!” yelled Daily, “I’m no fool I’ ll have ye know — whurroo! d’ ye mark that, McBarron?” as his rifle spit flame again and another Zouave sprang into the air and fell, turning and twisting over the ground.

  And now the fire grew close and deadly. From behind every tree, every hummock, every hedge-row, the Turcos poured streams of bullets into the charging Zouaves. The orchard smoked like a bonfire. Three times the Zouaves came on, up to the very hedge-rows, but they could not stand the deadly storm. The trees and hedges were fringed with flame, and death swept out of the rolling puffs of smoke, mowing the Zouaves into rows and heaps, until they broke and sought cover behind the ridge. Far away across the country the Hussars of Death were flitting toward Paris; in the west, Issy spurted flame and smoke; and beyond, in the direction of Clamart, a great battle was going on, for the steady crash of volley firing rose above the thunder of the forts.

  At three o’clock in the afternoon the Turcos, reduced to twenty men, were still holding out, but they were beginning to suffer the tortures of thirst. Two men, shot in the act of lowering the bucket to draw water, had fallen into the well carrying the bucket with them. One of them, still alive, was clinging to some cranny, calling piteously for help, but there was no rope to lower, nor if there had been, was there any time to lower it, for the Zouaves swarmed now about the orchard like angry wasps, just outside of the drifting smoke and rifle flashes, only waiting for the moment to break in and hack the life from the last living Turco.

  Of the two dozen who were left, four held the hedge, ten crouched behind the trees, and three or four lurked about the well-curb. Sometimes for ten minutes not a shot would be fired on either side until a gleam of red breeches, a twinkle of white-gaitered legs, and a loud cheer would bring each Turco to his feet; and then such a cyclone of lead would sweep down the orchard slope, that the Zouaves always halted, and deployed in open order, firing instead of using the bayonet.

  Once, however, six Zouaves crept up under cover of the smoke and started cautiously across the northern angle of the orchard, but before they had gone ten paces they stumbled over McBarron, Con Daily, Philip, Sarre, and two other Turcos, who had left the trees and were making for a spring in the meadow behind the house. Sarre clutched a Zouave by his blue sash and cut his throat before he could scream. Con Daily knocked another’s skull in with the butt of his rifle, McBarron bayoneted two more, and another was shot in the stomach by Sarre. Philip was not pressed so he did not fire until the last Zouave suddenly sprang on him with an unearthly yell and seized him by the hair. Then Philip caught him around the waist and bent him back until his muscles cracked, and Sarre deliberately ran him through the neck with his sticky sabre. The Zouave fell a dead weight in Philip’s arms, writhed a moment on the young grass, then, as Sarre struck him savagely over the temple with the butt of his revolver, he quivered and died.

  “Curse them, the slinking wolves!” muttered Sarre, glancing toward the ridge; “we haven’t time to get to the spring — no by God! for here they come! Look out!”

  The Zouaves were upon the hedge before Sarre could reach the well-curb, and this time they went through it, beat out the brains or butchered with their bayonets every Turco behind it, and swept on toward the orchard. Here, however, they were met with a scorching fire, and they fell back to the shelter of the hedge.

  Then Sarre led his fourteen men into the stone house, for he knew the jig was up and they could only die like rats in their corners, fighting to the last.

  The house, a two-storied building, was deserted. McBarron, Daily, and Philip were posted in the bedroom which commanded the orchard and well, while the others piled chests, armoires, and beds against the single door, and stuffed every window with pillows, mattresses, and bedclothes. Sarre nosed about for something to drink, but found nothing, not even a drop of water.

  “Here!” he cried, “we’ve got to have water — who will volunteer for the spring? Here are three buckets! — come now, three men of good will!”

  “I’ll go,” said McBarron, quietly, looking down over the banisters.

  “Good!” growled Sarre, “who next?”

  “I have two comrades up here, — they will go,” replied McBarron; “send up three men to watch the orchard and we can drop out of the back window.” Sarre nodded, detailed three men to mount the stairs to hold the bedroom window, and sent the buckets up by them. McBarron handed Philip and Daily each a bucket, slung his rifle across his shoulders, stepped to the rear window, and opened it. Then he quietly dropped to the ledge, rested his feet on the shutter below, and sprang lightly into the kitchen garden. Daily and Philip followed him, and in a moment they were creeping through the overgrown gully which had been used as a drain, toward the little spring in the meadow below. The drain led to a deep ditch which wound through the meadow and received the tiny stream of water from the spring. In single file, bent nearly double, they crept along until they came to a rivulet which flowed into the drain from the spring above.

  “This will do, — we can’t crawl over to the spring, that’s certain,” said McBarron, and tipped the edge of his pail under the rivulet. Daily and Philip drank their fill, and when McBarron’s bucket was full they shoved theirs under the little stream of water while McBarron peered through the weeds and dried brush-heaps toward the orchard.

  “They are keeping very quiet,” he said.

  Daily picked up his pail which was full and started toward the house.

  “Wait for me!” said Philip, who had just placed his pail under the stream of water.

  “No, Con Daily and I had better go back and get these buckets hoisted up safe while we can. You can’t tell, — waiting for you might delay us a second too long
. They ‘re keeping so d — n quiet in the orchard that there must be something up.”

  “Then am I to follow you as soon as I get this filled, or shall I wait until you come back for more?”

  “We’ve wather enough!” said Daily,”come when ye’re tin’s full, — we’ll pull ye up, me cherub b’y.” Philip sat down while his pail was filling and watched ‘his two comrades creeping through the drain. When they reached the kitchen garden they crossed it to the house and looked up at the window. Presently a Turco’s head was thrust out, and in a moment more Daily had climbed to McBarron’s shoulders and was lifting his pail to the man at the window. Then a rifle cracked, and a puff of smoke shot from a tuft of dead weed-stalks in the open meadow. McBarron reeled and fell against the stone side of the house and Daily tumbled to the ground, his bucket of water splashing all over him. In a second the Turco at the window whipped his piece to his shoulder and fired, and an answering bullet sped from the tuft of weeds. McBarron threw up his hands and stumbled forward on his face. Daily was on his feet like a cat, and, unslinging his rifle, blazed away at the hidden sharpshooter, but again the tongue of flame leaped from the weed cover, and Con Daily whirled around on his heels and pitched headlong into the ditch.

  The water in Philip’s bucket was running over now but he didn’t see it. His eyes were fixed on that tuft of weeds. After a moment he saw a Zouave cautiously rise to his knees and creep up toward the house. Then other figures bobbed up all over the meadow; every hillock, every ditch, held its man; and now the orchard, the hedge-rows, the fields were swarming with red-legged Zouaves all moving silently and swiftly on the stone house. The farm was completely surrounded, and Philip saw that he was already far in the rear of the advancing Zouaves.

  The first thought that came to him was that he must return and share the fortune of his battalion. This was mere instinct, and the next moment he knew that he owed nothing to his battalion, and his debt to his Colonel could only be paid in bullets. But although he felt that now at last he was out of the clutches of the Commune, his sympathies, strangely enough, were with the little garrison in that stone house; for they had been his companions in danger, and now they were about to die. He did not think of escape for the moment, nor yet of his own personal safety. He crouched in the ditch watching those closing lines of scarlet. Would the Zouaves take the house by storm? Ah? he understood now, for the red lines had halted and a section of a light battery trotted across the meadow toward a ridge half sheltered by the orchard. An officer who sat his horse beautifully was directing the two guns, and his indifference to the frenzied volleys from the windows of the farm nearly cost him his life, for his horse sank under him and he was pulled to his feet by a Zouave, who himself fell a second later. But now the guns were in position and the signal was given.

  “No. I, fire!” Bang!

  “No. 2, fire!” Bang! Crash!

  The house, for a moment enveloped in dust, tottered, then simply crumbled to the ground, and a dozen Turcos tumbled out like rats from a sack. But the Zouaves were upon them and they died hard, fighting to the end. Philip saw Sarre strike down three Zouaves, then stagger about as though dazed, until a sabre - bayonet pinned him to the earth. And that was the end; for the 1st Paris Turcos had been, with the exception of Weser’s fifth company, and possibly fifty stragglers from Bas-Meudon woods, absolutely wiped off the face of the earth.

  CHAPTER XX. THE WHITE ROAD.

  PHILIP’S pail was running over and the cool water soaked his shoes. Scarcely knowing what he did, he dropped to his knees, thrust his face into the bucket, drank long and deep, then bathed his hot face and neck. Then he laid his rifle and bayonet beside the pail, rose to his feet, bending low, and started to follow the ditch across the fields to where the Paris military road wound like a white ribbon in the distance. He intended to get back to the city because the Versaillists, under Thiers, had started to out-Nero Nero; and, although he had recognized in the officer who commanded the battery section Alain de Carette, the ferocious butchery by the Zouaves had sickened him, and he almost hated the Versailles troops as much as he did the Federals. To run to Alain in his uniform of a Turco and cry, “I am innocent,” might possibly be practicable, but if he should happen to meet a Zouave on the way, Philip knew that killing would come first and questions afterwards. And now Alain de Carette had ridden away with his guns and the Zouaves were leaving a guard about the house, while the main body had already moved out toward the Clamart road, where, above the trees, the smoke rolled up from Clamart village, and the distant bellow of cannon told a tale of fierce and stubborn fighting.

  The ditch grew deeper and broader as it approached the Paris route. Philip followed it slowly, for the drain was full of briers and puddles of water. Three times he was obliged to creep on his stomach through long stone culverts partially choked with weeds. Once, on emerging from a culvert, he had to crawl over an obstruction which proved to be a corpse. The dead man lay face downwards in the mud, and as Philip stumbled on, shuddering, sleek brown river rats scuttled away through the undergrowth on either side.

  When at last he reached the culvert that tunnelled the Paris route, he ventured to raise his head above the edge of the ditch and look back across the plain. Two miles away the ruins of the stone farm-house lay white in the sunshine beside the orchard, and far beyond, the smoke of the battle hung like a huge mushroom over the trees which hid Clamart village. On the slopes of Bas-Meudon he could see the sparkle of sunlight on bayonets, but, except for that, and a single dark square patch on the hillside which he knew to be troops in motion, the immediate vicinity appeared to be safe enough. He supposed that the ditch ran down to the Seine not far beyond the Paris route, so he crouched again, wriggled through the culvert, and started on. The river was nearer than he had thought it could be, for ten minutes more brought him to the muddy bank. But before he had time to pull himself out of the mud and climb to the field above, a voice hailed him harshly, and a gaunt creature sprang upon him, crying: “Halt! halt!” He looked up. A Hussar of Death was covering him with a revolver. He was safe at last! To his tired hot eyes the man clothed in his fantastic uniform seemed an angel of mercy. The Hussar of Death eyed him for an instant, slowly lowered his revolver, and burst into a horrible silent laugh. Philip crept out of the ditch and stumbled to his feet beside the trooper.

  “I am the last of the battalion,” he said, wearily,—” the Colonel and the rest lie yonder. Can I get across the river?”

  The hussar turned and pointed through the trees to a pontoon bridge below them. “There is time,” he croaked, and Philip hurried on.

  When he reached the bridge, a company of Federals were beginning to dismantle it, but they drew aside to let him pass, and in a few moments he had reached the other bank, and stood safe and sound, but tired and feverish and terribly footsore. He saw a group of houses, red-roofed and stucco-walled, on the bank above, and when he had climbed up to them he found himself in a tiny village. The village was occupied by Federal infantry, and the single street was full of officers, who stared at him very hard as he passed. One of the houses seemed to be the headquarters of some general, for aides were passing in and out, sentinels patrolled the garden, ‘ and the horses of an escort stood patiently in the shade of a budding chestnut tree by the garden wall. As he passed the gate a trooper ran up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “The General wants to see you, comrade,” he said.

  “What General?” said Philip, nervously.

  “General Dombrowski.”

  “What for?” demanded Philip.

  “Now I don’t know — how should I? He heard that a Turco had come in and Colonel Wilton sent me to find you.”

  At the name of Wilton, Philip turned away sharply.

  “You’d better come,” suggested the soldier, fingering his rifle. A group of soldiers and officers had formed around them and Philip saw that he could not hesitate any longer; but, as he made a motion to follow the soldier, the group parted and a grayhaired officer who held
himself very erect stepped into the circle, followed by a file of brilliantly uniformed aides-de-camp. It was General Dombrowski.

  “Are you from Colonel Sarre’s battalion?” he asked pleasantly.

  Philip saluted respectfully. “I am, mon Général.”

  “Where is Colonel Sarre?”

  “Dead, General.”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago.”

  “And the battalion?”

  “Exterminated.”

  “In Meudon?”

  “Partly in Bas-Meudon woods, partly while retreating. We held the stone farm and the orchard on the Clamart route until they brought cannon.

  We left Bas-Meudon woods with two hundred men; we reached the farm with fifty. They are all dead.” —

  “All?”

  “All — except Captain Weser’s men.”

  General Dombrowski stood silent and thoughtful for a moment, then his short military figure straightened up and he looked kindly at Philip.

  “How did you escape, mon enfant?”

  Philip told him very simply.

  “And you say that it was the Zouaves who did this shocking business?”

  “The Zouaves of Charette.”

  Angry murmurs began to rise from the crowd around them: “The butchers! So Thiers gives no quarter! We will remember the Zouaves of Charette!”

  At a signal from Dombrowski an officer summoned the escort — a troop of Polish cavalry, — and a moment later the General’s horse and the horses of the staff were brought out, girths tightened, and the order given to mount. The crowd parted, the cavalcade trotted away toward the river bank, and Philip started on trudging wearily to Paris. As he passed into the village street a woman dressed in the regimental uniform of a Vivandière stepped to his side.

  “Citizen,” she said, “you need food and drink.”

  Philip turned slowly and looked her in the face. It was Fàustine Courtois. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes were soft and pitiful. Very gently she slipped a loaf of bread, a piece of beef, and a bottle of red wine into his empty haversack, still walking along beside him.