Chapter XIII: The Dream in the Bivouac

In talking over the stirring events of the past day, Captain Schönforst sat drawing out his fair fly-away whiskers to their full length, and then stuffing them into his mouth, as if to stifle his indignation at the Emperor Napoleon, for, like many other German officers at this time, he was loud in condemning him for bringing the Prince Imperial, a mere boy, under fire.

'You forget, Herr Captain,' said Charlie, 'that princes have a great political game to play in this world, and that the heir of a throne should always be a soldier.'

'But a boy--a mere boy--to be brought into action!' persisted the Captain.

'Well. The sooner his nerves are strung, the better, I think; and we must remember that boys are employed in navies as well as in armies, and it is no more inhuman to have a prince under fire than a midshipman or drummer boy.'

So the worthy captain was convinced, though much against his will.

We have no intention of afflicting the reader with a history of the terrible Franco-Prussian war; but we cannot omit the details of some of those events in which Charlie Pierrepont and his comrades, the Thuringians, bore a share.

Serious disasters followed the slight success won by the French at Saarbrück, when the Crown Prince of Prussia, two days after, made a furious attack on their right flank, which rested on a high hill called the Geisberg, just within the frontier of France and a little south-east of Saarbrück. All round the Geisberg the country is hilly and woody, with cultivated fields, detached cottages nestling among vines and flowers, and here and there pretty little hamlets.

Just as grey dawn stole in on the morning of the 4th of August, and when the French troops on the Geisberg were cooking their breakfasts and drinking their coffee quietly between their piles of arms, and looking from time to time into the beautiful pastoral valley, suddenly a storm of shells burst over them. The air seemed alive with fire and falling bombs, while, at the same moment, the whole town of Weissenburg, close by, burst into flames.

Unseen by, and unknown to the French, the Crown Prince of Prussia had established a terrible battery of guns on the heights of Schweigen, a village on the other side of the river, and these guns were supported by a vast force, variously estimated from 50,000 to 100,000 men.

On and about the Geisberg were only 10,000 French troops.

The country on the Bavarian side of the Lauter is so thickly wooded, that the approach of the Crown Prince's army was quite concealed; not a bayonet flashed out from amid the foliage; not a standard was seen to waver; hence the men on the Geisberg suddenly found themselves confronted by a vast host that crossed the river at various points, the first to plunge in being the Thuringians, with stentorian shouts of

'Vorwarts! Vorwarts! Hoch Germania!'

A young fähnrich (or ensign), a mere boy, carrying the King's colour, was shot through the head, and was being swept down the stream with the pole in his grasp, when Schönforst wrenched it away; and the standard, all bloody and dripping, was shouldered by another subaltern.

Pierrepont could see nothing of what was being done at any other point than where his regiment crossed; but in a few minutes he found himself out of the water, and into clouds of smoke, through gaps in which, when made by the morning breeze, he could see the dusky columns of the enemy--the red-breeched Zouaves in their variegated Oriental costume, their necks bare, and their bearded faces dark and brown, and a corps of Voltigeurs in blue faced with white.

Up the Geisberg went the Prussian troops, cheering, and with a rush--up so fast that the mounted officers were cantering their horses--and with a rush the hill was carried, after a short, sharp hand-to-hand conflict, though here the dark, savage Turcos fought with desperation and incredible bravery, charging many times with the bayonet, though their ranks were torn to pieces by grape-shot.

General Douay, commanding the French, was here killed by a shell. His fate was a very melancholy one, and a noble instance of self-sacrifice.

On seeing the battle hopelessly lost, he stood sadly apart on a little mound, watching the last desperate struggles of his fast-falling infantry. He then issued some final orders to the officers of his staff, and began to descend the slope of the mound alone. At its base he dismounted, and slaying his horse, as Roland did at the battle of Roncesvalles (but with a pistol), he drew his sword, and began to ascend the opposite slope of the Geisberg.

'Where are you going, Monsieur le General?' cried some of his soldiers, in astonishment.

'To meet the enemy,' he replied, through his clenched teeth.

They continued to dissuade him, but in vain. Sword in hand he continued to advance, calmly and alone, till a passing shell struck him dead.

General Montmarie, and many other brave officers, fell at the head of their men; and, on this day, was inaugurated that series of rapid disasters to France that never ended till the Prussian drums woke the echoes of the Arc de Triomphe at Paris.

The troops were considerably broken as they fought their way up the hill, and some of the King's Grenadiers got mingled among the 95th. Carl missed Heinrich from his place on the left of the company. 'Heavens!' thought he, 'has he fallen?'

Looking round, even at the risk of being struck by a bullet from behind, he saw him about fifty yards in the rear, in the grasp of a savage-looking and powerfully built Turco, whose left hand was on Heinrich's throat, while, with his unfixed bayonet, the socket of which he grasped dagger-fashion in his right, he was making vain efforts to stab and thrust--we say vain efforts, for, though Heinrich had lost his sword in the fray, he had firm possession of the Turco's right wrist.

While the two were wrenching and swaying to and fro, the black eyes of the swarthy Turco flashing fire, and his teeth glistening white as he hissed and muttered curses through them, a second Turco, not far off, took aim at Heinrich with his chassepot, and fired, but missed. He threw open the breech of the weapon to insert another cartridge; but ere he could close it, Pierrepont, quick as thought, snatched a needle-gun from the nearest soldier, took steady aim at him, and fired. The ball pierced the left side of the Turco, who bounded three feet from the ground, made a kind of half-turn in the air, and then fell flat on his face motionless.

When the smoke cleared away, Charlie saw his friend with a breathless and half-strangled expression hurrying towards him, having been freed from the Turco by the bayonet of a Westphalian. He had saved her brother; and from that gory field, his heart--his thoughts--flashed home to Ernestine.

It was now two o'clock p.m.; by this time the French were in full and rapid retreat, followed by the Prussian flying artillery, as they fell back upon the line of Bitsch. The Geisberg was won, but the slaughter on both sides was terrible. The French fought nobly. Fourteen men of the 24th regiment were all that were left _alive_ of that corps at the close of the day; and even those refused to surrender, but kept fighting on at the point of the bayonet until the Prussians, not liking to kill them, rushed upon them in a body and threw them down by wrestling.

On the corpse-encumbered Geisberg the glorious old valour of France was conspicuous as ever; but her troops were badly officered and badly led.

Night came down on the field; the quiet stars were reflected in the placid bosom of the river, and heavy were the moans, and loud sometimes the screams of anguish from the wounded. The sisters of charity began to flit about like good angels, and the bells were rung in Weissenberg to muster the firemen for the burial of the dead.

To follow the 96th in detail through all the subsequent operations would be foreign to our story; suffice it that after the attack by the Crown Prince on the 6th of August, and the outflanking of Marshal MacMahon, after the desperate battle at Worth, Charlie Pierrepont and young Frankenburg found themselves still without a wound, hurrying in pursuit of the fugitive French, who were in full retreat towards Strasburg.

Their brigade halted for the night, and bivouacked among some vineyards near a little village.

Now that he had been so often under fire, Charlie Pierrepont looked back with surprise to the days when, in Frankenburg, he had hoped that a French bullet might kill him! But that was before he had told his love and had been accepted; before that happy day in the Dom Kirche.

Life seemed very different now; it was both precious and valuable!

The staff officers occupied all the cottages in the village, so Charlie, like other regimental officers, had to sleep among his men; and thus, weary and worn, Charlie muffled himself in his ample blue cloak, and with his sword and revolver beside him, went to roost under the shelter of a haystack. Undisturbed by the falling dew, by the occasional beat of a drum or sound of a trumpet, as the field-officers of the night paraded and inspected the out-pickets, the hoarse challenges of the German sentinels, and the clatter of ambulance waggons carrying wounded to the rear, he slept soundly, yet not so soundly as not to have after some strange rambling flights about old Rugby, and a delicious dream of Ernestine, which from its vividity made a great impression on him then, and was to make a still greater, when a future episode came to pass.

In the visions of the night she came to him as distinctly as she had ever appeared to him in reality, and bent over him tenderly and pityingly, as he lay there in that miserable bivouac, with a bundle of hay under his head, and he heard her murmuring softly--oh, so softly, in his ear--

'My darling, my own darling!'

Then, as a gush of her nature, which was ever passionate, deep, and earnest, came over her, she knelt by his side ere he could rise, and drew his head lovingly and caressingly on her soft breast, with her hands clasped under his chin--

'Oh, my Carl, how weary and how worn you look!' she continued, kissing his cheek, on which her tears were falling, while the light of love, triumph, and joy shone in her beautiful eyes.

'I think of you by day and night, my love, my wife, my own wife that is to be,' murmured Carl in his sleep; 'you are indeed my guardian angel.'

He pressed her to his breast, and starting, awoke, to find it all but a _dream_; that the clock of the French village was striking the hour of _three_, and that around him were the weary Thuringians, sleeping in their blue greatcoats and spiked helmets, between their piles of loaded muskets, but to his half-awakened senses her voice seemed to linger in his ear, and he still felt her soft warm kiss on his lips.

He closed his eyes and strove to sleep, in the hope of that dear vision coming back again; but he strove in vain: he was thoroughly awakened now; so dreams or slumber come no more to Charlie Pierrepont.

The dawn of the 7th August came in, and the Prussian troops began their march on Forbach.