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Page 38
John kept by his side, but Bougainville, still waving his sword, while
the red cap sank lower and lower on the blade, addressed his men in
terms of encouragement and affection.
"Forward, my children!" he shouted. "Men, without fear, let us be the
first to make the enemy feel our bayonets! Look, a regiment on the right
is ahead of you, and another also on the left leads you! Faster!
Faster, my children!"
An angle of the German line was thrust forward at this point where a
hill afforded a strong position. Bullets were coming from it in showers,
but the Bougainville regiment broke into a run, passed ahead of the
others and rushed straight at the hill.
It was the first time that men had come face to face in the battle and
now John saw the French fury, the enthusiasm and fire that Napoleon had
capitalized and cultivated so sedulously. Shouting fiercely, they flung
themselves upon the Germans and by sheer impact drove them back. They
cleared the hill in a few moments, triumphantly seized four cannon and
then, still shouting, swept on.
John found himself shouting with the others. This was victory, the first
real taste of it, and it was sweet to the lips. But the regiment was
halted presently, lest it get too far forward and be cut off, and a
general striding over to Bougainville uttered words of approval that
John could not hear amid the terrific din of so many men in battle--a
million, a million and a half or more, he never knew.
They stood there panting, while the French line along a front of maybe
fifty miles crept on and on. The French machine with the British wheels
and springs co�perating, was working beautifully now. It was a match and
more for their enemy. The Germans, witnessing the fire and dash of the
French and feeling their tremendous impact, began to take alarm. It had
not seemed possible to them in those last triumphant days that they
could fail, but now Paris was receding farther and farther from their
grasp.
John recovered a certain degree of coolness. The fire of the foe was
turned away from them for the present, and, finding that the glasses
thrown over his shoulder, had not been injured by his fall, he examined
the battle front as he stood by the side of Bougainville. The country
was fairly open here and along a range of miles the cannon in hundreds
and hundreds were pouring forth destruction. Yet the line, save where
the angle had been crushed by the rush of Bougainville's regiment, stood
fast, and John shuddered at thought of the frightful slaughter, needed
to drive it back, if it could be driven back at all.
Then he glanced at the fields across which they had come. For two or
three miles they were sprinkled with the fallen, the red and blue of the
French uniform showing vividly against the green grass. But there was
little time for looking that way and again he turned his glasses in
front. The regiment had taken cover behind a low ridge, and six rapid
firers were sending a fierce hail on the German lines. But the men under
orders from Bougainville, withheld the fire of their rifles for the
present.
Bougainville himself stood up as became a leader of men, and lowered his
sword for the first time. The cap had sunk all the way down the blade
and picking it off he put it back on his head. He had obtained glasses
also, probably from some fallen officer, and he walked back and forth
seeking a weak spot in the enemy's line, into which he could charge with
his men.
John admired him. His was no frenzied rage, but a courage, measured and
stern. The springs of power hidden in him had been touched and he stood
forth, a born leader.
"How does it happen," said John, "that you're in command?"
"Our officers were all in front," replied Bougainville, "when our
regiment was swept by many shells. When they ceased bursting upon us and
among us the officers were no longer there. The regiment was about to
break. I could not bear to see that, and seizing the sword, I hoisted my
cap upon it. The rest, perhaps, you saw. The men seem to trust me."
"They do," said John, with emphasis.
Bougainville, for the time at least, was certainly the leader of the
regiment. It was an incident that John believed possible only in his own
country, or France, and he remembered once more the famous old saying of
Napoleon that every French peasant carried a marshal's baton in his
knapsack.
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