The Forest of Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne by Joseph A. Altsheler (i like reading TXT) 📖

Another giant shell burst near them, and two more members of the staff fell from their cycles, dead before they touched the ground. That convulsive shudder seized John again, but the crash of tremendous events was so rapid that fear and horror alike passed in an instant. A piece of the same shell struck General Vaugirard's car and put it out of action at once. But the general leaped lightly to the ground, then swung his immense bulk across one of the riderless motor cycles and advanced with the surviving members of his staff. Imperturbable, he still swept the field with his glasses. Two aides were now sent to the right with messages, and a third, John himself, was despatched to the left on a similar errand.

It was John's duty to tell a regiment to bear in further to the left and close up a vacant spot in the line. He wheeled his cycle into a field, and then passed between rows of grapevines. The regiment, its ranks much thinned, was now about a hundred yards away, but shell and bullets alike were sweeping the distance between.

Nevertheless, he rode on, his wheel bumping over the rough ground, until he heard a rushing sound, and then blank darkness enveloped him. He fell one way, and the motor cycle fell another.

John's period of unconsciousness was brief. The sweep of air from a gigantic shell, passing close, had taken his senses for a minute or two, but he leaped to his feet to find his motor cycle broken and puffing out its last breath, and himself among the dead and wounded in the wake of the army which was advancing rapidly. The turmoil was so vast, and so much dust and burned gunpowder was floating about that he was not able to tell where the valiant Vaugirard with the remainder of his staff marched. In front of him a regiment, cut up terribly, was advancing at a swift pace, and acting under the impulse of the moment he ran forward to join them.

When he overtook the regiment he saw that it had neither colonel, nor captains nor any other officers of high degree. A little man, scarcely more than a youth, his head bare, his eyes snapping fire, one hand holding aloft a red cap on the point of a sword, had taken command and was urging the soldiers on with every fierce shout that he knew. The men were responding. Command seemed natural to him. Here was a born leader in battle. John knew him, and he knew that his own prophecy had been fulfilled.

"Geronimo!" he gasped.

But young Bougainville did not see him. He was still shouting to the men whom he now led so well. The point of the sword, doubtless taken from the hand of some fallen officer, had pierced the red cap which was slowly sinking down the blade, but he did not notice it.

John looked again for his commander, but not seeing him, and knowing how futile it was now to seek him in all the fiery crush, he resolved to stay with the young Apache.

"Geronimo," he cried, and it was the last time he called him by that name, "I go with you!"

In all the excitement of the moment young Bougainville recognized him and something droll flashed in his eyes.

"Did I boast too much?" he shouted.

"You didn't!" John shouted back.

"Come on then! A big crowd of Germans is just over this hill, and we must smash 'em!"

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 coöperating, 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.

Now he recalled, too, that Napoleon had fought some of his greatest defensive battles in the region they faced. Doubtless the mighty emperor and his marshals had trod the very soil on which Bougainville and he now stood. Surely the French must know it, and surely it would give them superhuman courage for battle.

"I belong to the command of General Vaugirard," he said to Bougainville. "I'm serving on his staff, but I was knocked off my motor cycle by the rush of air from a shell. The cycle was ruined and I was unconscious for a moment or two. When I revived, my general and his command were gone."

"You'd better stay with me a while," said Bougainville. "We're going to advance again soon. When night comes, if you're still alive, then you can look for General Vaugirard. The fire of the artillery is increasing. How the earth shakes!"

"So it does. I wish I knew what was happening."

"There comes one of those men in the air. He is going to drop down by us. Maybe you can learn something from him."

John felt a sudden wild hope that it was Lannes, but his luck did not hold good enough for it. The plane was of another shape than the Arrow, and, when it descended to the ground, a man older than Lannes stepped out upon the grass. He glanced around as if he were looking for some general of division for whom he had an order, and John, unable to restrain himself, rushed to him and exclaimed:

"News! News! For Heaven's sake, give us news! Surely you've seen from above!"

The man smiled and John knew that a bearer of bad news would not smile.

"I'm the friend and comrade of Philip Lannes," continued John, feeling that all the flying men of France knew the name of Lannes, and that it would be a password to this man's good graces.

"I know him well," said the air scout. "Who of our craft does not? My own name is Caumartin, and I have flown with Lannes more than once in the great meets at Rheims. In answer to your question I'm able to tell you that on the wings the soldiers of France are advancing. A wedge has been thrust between the German armies and the one nearest Paris is retreating, lest it be cut off."

Bougainville heard the words, and he ran among the men, telling them. A fierce shout arose and John himself quivered with feeling. It was better, far better than he had hoped. He realized now that his courage before had been the courage of despair. Lannes and he, as a last resort, had put faith in signs and omens, because there was nothing else to bear them up.

"Is it true? Is it true beyond doubt! You've really seen it with your own eyes?" he exclaimed.

Caumartin smiled again. His were deep eyes, and the smile that came from them was reassuring.

"I saw it myself," he replied. "At the point nearest Paris the gray masses are withdrawing. I looked directly down upon them. And now, can you tell me where I can find General Vaugirard?"

"I wish I could. I'm on his staff, but I've lost him. He's somewhere to the northward."

"Then I'll find him."

Caumartin resumed his place in his machine. John looked longingly at the aeroplane. He would gladly have gone with Caumartin, but feeling that he would be only a burden at such a time, he would not suggest it. Nevertheless he called to the aviator:

"If you see Philip Lannes in the heavens tell him that his friend John Scott is here behind a low ridge crested with trees!"

Caumartin nodded, and as some of the soldiers gave his plane a push he soared swiftly away in search of General Vaugirard. John watched him a moment or two and then turned his attention back to the German army in front of them.

The thudding of the heavy guns to their left had become so violent that it affected his nerves. The waves of air beat upon his ears like storm-driven rollers, and he was glad when Bougainville's regiment moved forward again. The Germans seemed to have withdrawn some of their force in the center, and, for a little while, the regiment with which John now marched was not under fire.

They heard reserves now coming up behind them, more trains of motor cars, bearing fresh troops, and batteries of field guns advancing as fast as they could. Men were busy also stringing telephone wires, and, presently, they passed a battery of guns of the largest caliber, the fire of which was directed entirely by telephone. Some distance beyond it the regiment stopped again. The huge shells were passing over their heads toward the German lines,