Volume 5 — From the French of Augustin Chevalier. Decimated.

I.

It was seven in the evening when we arose from the table, where the conversation had for an hour or more run on the civil war which had just desolated Germany. General Bourdelaine, a tall, wiry specimen of the ancien officier, whom no one would imagine to be verging upon his eighty-fourth year, and who very probably will in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight celebrate the eighty-second anniversary of his leaving the military school in 1806, invited us for coffee into the study where ordinarily none but his most intimate friends are admitted; for the general, although on the retired list since 1845, has not yet begun to seek the repose of inactivity, and I have seen in that study of his an entire series of strategical plans (afterward published by the minister of war) of the principal battles of Napoleon in Champagne against the allied forces.

The study is large, although it seems small, so filled is every piece of furniture, shelf, and hook with coins, arms, plans, papers, portraits, busts, statuettes in marble and in bronze, books, globes, and drawing instruments, and all these not in absolute disorder, but in an apparent confusion which the general finds very convenient, inasmuch as everything is within reach.

It was not the first time I had been there. For the first time, however, on this particular evening, my eyes fell upon a plain boxwood frame hung on the wall opposite the chimney-piece, in a recess formed by two large book-cases. A brilliant point in the centre, which reflected the light of the lamp, attracted my attention. It was the enamel of a cross of the Legion of Honor, to which was attached, under the glass, a large band of crape which stretched to the four corners of the frame. On the left of the frame, on the outside, hung a huge silver watch, and on the right the golden acorn of a sword-knot.

The daughter of the general entered at this moment, followed by a servant bearing coffee and all the accessories upon a tray. There were now five of us in the room: the general, his daughter and his son-in law, a government clerk, and myself. Each one began in silence to discuss the smoking coffee; when the general, whose glance had unconsciously taken the same direction as mine, suddenly exclaimed:

"What a horrible thing war is! I did not enter the service until the time had come when men no longer went forth to meet the enemy through patriotism, but moved merely by the desire of winning rank or fortune, or by the love of glory and honor. I was present at some frightful butcheries and routs still more frightful; I have seen nearly all the miracles of the emperor's genius, and I bore my part in the reverses fickle fortune inflicted upon him. Well, after all, what did it amount to? The fortune of war is one of the chances of the trade. You conquer or are conquered, kill or are killed. The ranks close up, and then—room for the bravest or most favored, the most skilful or the luckiest! But to be forced to fire upon your own men; to be compelled to decimate pitilessly your own brave companions; to kill in cold blood excellent soldiers, whose only crime was a single day's mutiny, but whose example might risk the discipline and safety of the entire army; to kill, I say, men whom the very intoxication of victory led to believe that their fault would go unpunished; men we sorely needed; this, this is most fearful and saddest of all; this it is that still makes my old heart bleed more than fifty years after it happened; and when my thoughts revert to it, even though conscience remain tranquil, something very like remorse pursues me."

"It seems, then, general," I said, "that yonder cross and crape recall cruel memories."

He put down his cup without replying, filled a small glass with cognac and swallowed it at one gulp.

"Have you finished the notes I wished you to make from Jomini and Vandoncourt?"

"Yes, mon général."

"Very good; give them me. And now service for service. I will confide to you an episode in my military life of which you may make what use you think proper. I authorize you to do so."

And General Bourdelaine thereupon related what follows.

II.

My rank in the service dates from October, 1805. Jena and Austerlitz won me my epaulettes of sous-lieutenant. In 1807 I made the Polish campaign, and in 1808 the Spanish. The following year I was recalled to Germany, and saw Ratisbon and Wagram. Napoleon after the battle halted in front of my regiment to learn the names of those who had distinguished themselves.

"All did," cried the colonel; "but, if your majesty will permit me, I would especially recommend the Lieutenant Bourdelaine to your favor."

The emperor looked at me.

"You come from Saint-Cyr?"

"Yes, sire."

"How many campaigns?"

"Three."

"And still a lieutenant."

"I have had no chance to rise before this."

"Which do you prefer, the cross or promotion?"

"Promotion, sire."

My reply was not that of a courtier. But he loved the young men of his schools, and those, above all, who, like me, had not awaited the end of their course before becoming officers.

"Ah! you prefer promotion."

"Sire, they say that things are not going well in Spain since your majesty left there. Send me thither; give me a company, and I will win death or the cross."

"Very well."

I received the company I sought, not, however, in a French, but in an Italian regiment. I was ordered to Arragon in November, 1810, and made part of the army commanded by Suchet. My colonel, San-Polo, received me warmly.

"You will find more than one of your countrymen in my regiment," said he; "and you had better have them give an account of your men. I warn you that they are very devils. You must be vigilant and firm; just but inflexible; if not, you will find yourself exposed to strange surprises, and I be put to the necessity of punishing you."

The colonel was no false prophet. Those Italians are terrible soldiers. Rash, useful principally for an assault or coup-de main, never flinching under fire, but, once out of it, quarrelsome, intractable and given to pillaging, ours, I confess, more than once seemed to sack and destroy for the mere pleasure of doing so. I can yet see the comical though moving scene which took place in Burgos, where my battalion, in 1808, boiled their pots with all the mandolines and guitars they could find in the city, notwithstanding the despair of the inhabitants, who hastened to bring them coals and wood. But the soup, seasoned with jokes and bursts of laughter, seemed to them the better for it.

Before I return to my story, a few words on the situation of the army of Arragon.

General Suchet had taken one after another the towns of Mequinenza; on the southern confines of the province of Huesca; Lareda, in Lower Catalonia, to the north-west of Mequinenza; and Tortosa, south of Lerida, at the extremity of the province of Tarragona. He thus commanded part of the rivers Ebro, the Segre, and the Cinca; and, moreover, the capture of those cities had enabled him to collect a complete park of siege artillery at Tortosa. Unfortunately, the commandant of Figuera having allowed himself to be surprised in Upper Catalonia, our forces there were compelled to fall back toward Girona, and the Spanish General Campoverde, beaten before Figueras by Baraguay d'Hilliers, had profited by our mishap, not only to rally his troops, but also to annoy our magazines and communications. Therefore, although he had received orders from the emperor, on the 10th of March, to invest Tarragona, whose capture, completing our occupation of the principality of Catalonia, would have opened the road to Valentia to us, General Suchet did not yet dare attempt an enterprise of such importance. The task of keeping the two districts of Mora and Alcuniz in subjection— the first in Lower Catalonia, to the north of Tortosa, and the second in Arragon to the north-west of Mequinenza, and in the province of Ternel— paralyzed his forces. His artillery, too, had been retarded. In short, instead of an effective force of over forty thousand men, which the junction of the army of Arragon with that of Catalonia should have formed, he had not more than thirty battalions at his service.

You are not a soldier, and you do not understand how even the lowest officer racks his head over the probabilities of some approaching expedition, and with what feverish impatience the men in the ranks await the signal of departure. Headquarters were established at Lareda, and magazines already were placed at Reus, Monblanch, and Alcobar, to the north and west of Tarragona; but it was reported that an English fleet under Admiral Adams was preparing to re-provision the last-named city, and to interrupt our communications by transporting to our rear the troops of Campoverde and Sarsfield by the mouths of the Ebro. Our park of siege artillery remained motionless at Tortosa, and as yet Suchet had not begun to move.

I was at Mora, where my battalion was to remain, if the jokers about camp were to be believed; an absurd rumor, for wherever a vigorous blow was to be struck the Italians never failed to come in for their share. I had formed a close friendship with Lieutenant Polidoro, a reckless individual, but one of the best-hearted fellows in the service. He was from Milan, and had commenced life as a choir-boy. A reverendissimo, almost unknown to him, was in the habit of sending him from time to time fifty scudi by way of pocket-money. The day he received this little remittance was a gala-day for the whole battalion. Wine flowed through the camp. Not a man was forgotten. The next day he was without a sou, but he had had his fun, and drunk many times to the health of Monsignor Capellini, as he called his friend.

His father was unknown to him, and often would he cry, twirling his shako on his sword, when asked why he did not assume the paternal cognomen:

"Why should I recognize an old fellow who shows so little pride in having a grenadier of my height for a son?"

The gayety of Polidoro, the friendship of his comrades for him, the attachment of his men, whose enthusiasm was excited by his bravery and liberality, inspired me, at last, with the most unlimited confidence in him; and, well satisfied with never having to inflict the slightest punishment, thanks to the excellent reports he always brought me of the company, I placed matters of mere discipline entirely in his hands.

Suddenly, one fine morning, at roll-call, not one of my men, with the exception of the Sous-Lieutenant Brocard—a Frenchman like myself—appeared on the parade-ground. He, sad and crest-fallen, informed me that our company had filed away during the night toward Batea, to the north of Casserras, on the Arragon frontier. At the same time he handed me a letter addressed to me by Polidoro. Judge of my astonishment when I cast my eye upon its contents:

"Captain: It is certainly an ill proceeding on my part to leave Mora, with your whole company, without first informing you of our intention. Life in Mora is not very lively, and our men were growing shockingly tired of it. I am responsible for their health, and found myself forced to adopt violent measures to preserve it. We are going a league from here to Batea, where they say good wine abounds. It is even reported that there is a guerilla roving through the mountains, and that he has been joined by some disbanded soldiers of Sarsfield and Campoverde. What a chance for fun! We will thus be enabled to indulge in a little diversion while waiting for the march on Tarragona. I do not ask you to put yourself at the head of our expedition. I suppose, even, that, if you were ordered to bring us back, your honor would only permit you to speak to us through the throats of muskets. Be good enough, however, to advise our brave colonel of our departure, and tell him that, whatever may happen, we are all devoted to him, for life and for death, and that each one of us (I was always remarkable for foresight) has ten rounds of cartridge at his service. If we are let alone, be assured that the entire company, including your humble servant, will be en route for Lareda at the first roll of the drum.

"Your faithful friend, "The Lieutenant Polidoro."

This letter filled me with consternation. I felt that I had been guilty of weakness and negligence. I was not only puzzled; I suspected perfidy, treason. I did not yet understand the singular forms which insubordination often takes among Italian troops. The Russian soldier is little more than a savage; the German, when he quarrels with his officers in the field, becomes gross and brutal; the Frenchman pushes familiarity to insolence; the Spaniard heroically disbands, placing every reverse to the account of the ignorance or cowardice of his officers, and then sets about making head individually against the enemy in some defile of his mountains; the Englishman shows himself, in war as in everything else, a close calculator, weighing the pros and cons long together, and, above all others, complains of the insufficiency or bad quality of his provisions, as witness the mutiny of the fleet in the reign of George III., when it became necessary to hang an admiral, and which was only suppressed by the coolness of Pitt. But, when the Italian mutinies, he does it with incredible niceness, and, unless he has some vengeance to execute, (which he will carry out with uncommon ferocity,) he remains an artist to the last.

"Corbleu!" cried I to Brocard. "We are in a pretty box; exposed, too, to the ridicule of our comrades. And I thought this Polidoro my friend!"

"And he is your friend, captain; doubt it not," replied Brocard; "only you have not yet formed a true idea of the audacious recklessness and impulsiveness of these Italians. All this would be but a pleasantry, without evil results, if the necessity of maintaining discipline at the outset of a new campaign did not give the affair importance; and what makes it worse is, that they say the colonel since his return an hour ago has been making preparations to repel an attack from Campoverde. He is furious against you, and wishes to have a private interview with you."

Shame and anger almost choked me. I was beside myself with rage, and, if at that moment a man had but given me a look of ridicule, I would have run him through the body.

"I come to receive your orders, colonel," said I, as I entered San-Polo's quarters. "I confess that I deserve no consideration. You told me what I had to expect. Punish me. I ask of you but one favor—that you would permit me to go alone to those mutineers and bring them back."

"What I hear is then true, sir," replied San-Polo, whose appearance of concentrated anger boded me no good. But, having given me this thrust, he added, softening a little:

"Listen to me, Bourdelaine, notwithstanding your fault in allowing Polidoro to gain such a hold upon the company, you are nevertheless an officer whom I esteem both for head and heart, and I heard a very flattering account of you before you joined the regiment. I am sincerely sorry for you, and that rogue of a Polidoro has so bewitched the men that after all you are not so inexcusable."

"Thanks, my colonel."

"But," continued San-Polo, "we must lay aside such considerations in camp. You had the want of tact to prefer a grade, when the emperor offered you with his own hand the Cross of the Legion. That was in his eyes a fault which, be assured, he will not soon forget, and I am sure that you would have received both if you had chosen the cross."

I bowed my head, but did not reply.

"Your conduct after that, if you wished to rise, should have been irreproachable, so that your mistake, which seemed to the emperor a piece of youthful stupidity, might have changed its guise and shone forth as the generous impulse of a soul born to command.

"I speak not now, captain, as your superior officer, but as your friend. Speak privately to Lieutenant Brocard. Present yourself to these mutineers, and let a bloody example recall them to duty. I have full power from the commanding general to manage my Italians as I think proper. You will decimate your company."

I started, horror-stricken.

"You have your orders, sir. Now, no delay or pity. Remember that prompt and vigorous action is necessary not only to reestablish your reputation, but to replace upon those men the yoke of discipline, so rashly broken. Under our present régime little is said and less written about army affairs, and the news of the insubordination of a handful of Italians in an obscure corner of the peninsula will scarcely reach the emperor's ears. I will see that it is kept out of the bulletins. It is too small a matter for headquarters to be troubled about, and in ten days all will be the same as if nothing of the kind ever happened. Well! you have heard me; what more do you desire?" asked San-Polo, astonished at my immobility and silence.

"Pardon, mon colonel!" I replied, with many misgivings. "How can we decimate men of whom we have such immediate need before the enemy?" And I showed him Polidoro's letter.

He read it through rapidly, and shrugged his shoulders; but, when he came to the part where the lieutenant, while protesting his own devotion and that of his men for their colonel, boasted nevertheless of his foresight in furnishing each man with ten rounds of ammunition, San-Polo cried out, a passing smile lighting up his face for a moment:

"Poor fellow! it is a pity, for he has the stuff soldiers are made of in him. Unshrinking under fire, fascinating and raising the spirits of all around him by his good humor, always ready, full of resources, yet ridiculing glory and fortune. God grant that this trick do not cost him too dear. What is the effective force of the company?"

"Ninety-nine men in all, with the officers and drummer."

"Very well; then it is reduced to ninety-six, since you and Brocard are not in the affair, and the drummer, who is but a boy, does not count. This letter will not modify my instructions. You will draw by lot four men and a corporal for the firing party, and one man to dig the grave; ninety will remain—nine to be shot; it is enough. As to Polidoro, if his stars should favor him, you will put him under arrest for two weeks. I will attend to him hereafter if necessary."

I turned with a heavy heart to leave the tent.

"Ah! one word more," said the colonel: "In case any chance should put you on the track of the guerilla who has been seen between Casserras and Batea, drag out the execution to the greatest possible length, without, however, letting it seem that you do so. I love those good-for-nothings after all, and would to God that a brush with the enemy may deliver them from their scrape, for they would fight as they always do, and we would have a good excuse for indulgence. Be easy, even if you find yourself surrounded by the Spaniards, and open fire on them boldly, for I have taken my measures, and help will be at hand. Au revoir, captain, and fortune favor you!"

Brocard and I immediately set out for Batea. It was yet early morning, and the road was almost deserted. We could not perceive in the direction of Casserras a single trace that might remind us of the recent passage of a body of armed men. It seemed scarcely probable that the guerillas would dare return toward Batea, which was at furthest a league to the north-west.

On the road I confided to my comrade the cruel mission with which we were charged, and as I had never seen a military execution, and had never expected to see so horrible a one as this, the slaying of every tenth man in my own company, the conversation ran on the best mode of conducting the business in which we were engaged so as to gain time, as the colonel had recommended.

"Oh!" said Brocard, "I was 'decimated' my self once. It was in Portugal, under Junot, for a trick our battalion played the commandant—a lion under fire, but an ill-natured dog. We gave him a free bath in the Tagus. I was then only a corporal. They commenced by surrounding and disarming the mutineers; then, if any officers were found in the number, their names were proclaimed aloud, or they were degraded. Then the ranks were broken, and we were aligned in single file, each man taking his place according to chance. A sergeant, drawn by lot and blindfolded, then approached the line, and, starting from the first man he chanced to touch, without including him, counted off ten, twenty, thirty, until he reached the end of the line, when he continued in the other direction, commencing again with the man he first touched, and if that poor fellow happened to be the tenth, or twentieth, or thirtieth, psit! his doom was clear."

"Great heavens!" thought I, "how terribly cool he takes it!"

"While the counting went on," continued my imperturbable sous-officier, "a roll of the drum accompanied each tenth man as he stepped out; he was led to the edge of the trench dug for his grave; a sufficient amount of lead lodged in his head or breast, and his affair was ended. You see that much time is not lost, and the business even becomes amusing sometimes; for every man's pride is up, and he chats, jokes, laughs, appoints a rendezvous under ground a year, a month, or perhaps only a day off; and all the while the regimental band regales you with the merriest symphonies, the most alluring marches!"

"You would not make a mockery of death!" cried I, interrupting him.

"Mockery!" he returned. "Diable! we won't have much chance to do so here. We haven't yet even disarmed our friends, captain. San-Polo evidently honors us both with his particular esteem, to send us two alone to decimate more than eighty jokers, each of whom carries ten rounds of ammunition to answer our polite proposition with."

"Nevertheless, the enterprise amuses you a little, does it not?"

"Humph! whether a man leaves his skin here or elsewhere, what matters it? although it is disagreeable to be sent out of the world by your old comrades, your friends at the bivouac, fellows whose elbows you are accustomed to feel in the ranks. But, after all, those fellows haven't treated us right; that is a consolation."

"But the other proceeding the colonel mentioned," said I—"the drawing —you have not explained that."

"Ah! I can only teach you what I know myself; though I was something more than a mere amateur scholar. I have heard that they sometimes mix up the names in a helmet or shako, and shoot the man that owns every tenth name that comes out. But, ma foi! that way is shorter than the other, but, if it suits you better, you may use it. H st!" [sic]

He stopped short in the middle of the road and brought the musket he had brought with him from Mora to his shoulder, as a bullet whistled by our ears, and a thread of white smoke rose from a ravine some little distance off; a moment after, a tall, wild-looking man, enveloped in a long cloak, and wearing a countryman's shoes and a red woollen cap, sprang toward the mountain side, where in the twinkling of an eye he disappeared.

"Don't fire!" I cried, as Brocard was about to pull trigger; "you will give those wretches the alarm. Wait until they attack us at Batea. That fellow will simplify our business, and the colonel will be delighted. Forward— gallop! Remember the mission we have to fulfil."

Ten minutes later we were in Batea. The company had stacked their arms about a hundred paces from the mountain, and had spread themselves through the village. The drummer alone, a boy of fifteen, stood guard over the arms, under the protection of some old grognards, who, cooler-blooded than their comrades, walked leisurely about, smoking their pipes.

I rode straight to the drummer, and, without dismounting, said:

"Beat the recall, Zanetto, I am in haste."

The smokers at this order approached us, and stared at us with an abashed air. The most insolent of them gave the military salute, through force of habit, apparently. But they seemed thoughtful, twisted their mustaches without speaking, and continued to smoke.

Zanetto, uneasy as the others, rose, hooked on his drum, and replied by a prolonged roll, which did not cease until the whole company stood behind their stacks.

"What is all this noise about? Are you a fool, drummer?" cried Polidoro, coming up last of all, at a run, from the further end of the village, and carrying a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.

The sight of two horsemen redoubled his speed, and when he reached us, he could scarcely gasp, in his astonishment and want of breath:

"You, Bourdelaine! You here! Glad to see you, caro mio. Welcome! We scarcely expected so agreeable a surprise. What can we do for you, captain? Will you try a glass of rum?"

I spurred my horse toward Polidoro, and, with a sudden blow breaking the glass and bottle he held, said briefly and sternly:

"Your sword, lieutenant!"

Polidoro turned pale, and, recoiling a couple of paces, said in a husky voice:

"My sword! Was it to demand my sword that you came from Mora, you and your countryman Brocard?"

"We come to decimate you. The colonel has ordered it."

And I dismounted, placing myself in their power, to prove to the mutineers the fixedness of my resolve to carry out my orders or die in the attempt.

The idea seemed, however, to excite their mirth.

"Decimate us!" cried one.

"Beautiful!" laughed another.

And cries of "Prodigious!" "What a farce!" "Whom will he do it with?" "He hasn't even a corporal's guard!" rang on every side. The men left the stack's of arms and began to gather round us with menacing looks and gestures. Brocard threw himself among the most furious, but his words availed nothing to restrain them. The situation was becoming critical.

Suddenly a thought struck me. I signed to Zanetto to beat his drum, so that its continued roll might drown their voices, and the more desperate be thus prevented from urging on those who hesitated.

Anything which brings the habits of discipline to the minds of old soldiers acts with wonderful power. Before the roll of the drum ceased, every man had regained his place; the tumult was ended and quiet reigned.

"We are come to decimate you," I continued, coldly and sternly as before, "and we are alone. Do you ask why? Because the colonel wishes the execution to be secret; he would not have the company dishonored before their comrades—dishonored for having turned their backs when all was ready to march upon the enemy."

"But we did not do so!" cried one of the men.

"Silence! The captain is right," replied several.

"Then Polidoro deceived us; he told us the captain would protect us," said a young soldier.

Their tone had already changed. It was no longer hostile.

"I!" cried Polidoro. "Did I ever say aught to make you doubt the captain's honor?"

"No! no!" cried voice after voice. "It is our fault. Let us suffer the penalty! Decimate us, captain!" cried several, "and let us have it over as soon as may be. We are ready."

"Lieutenant," I continued, advancing to Polidoro, "I demand your sword."

He moved his hand to the buckle of his belt as if to take it off, but the struggle was too great for his proud heart; his youthful blood was in arms, and, carried away by passion, he shouted hoarsely:

"Then come and take it!"

And drawing it from its sheath, he threw himself on guard.

"Bravo, lieutenant! Let him come and take it!" cried a voice at his side.

"Who spoke then?" I asked, feigning ignorance of the man.

"I!" cried an old soldier; one of the grognards of the company.

"Very well, Matteo; I will attend to you presently."

There was no time for consideration; I at once fell on guard myself. Polidoro awaited my attack with his blade low, after the manner of the Italians, but at my first lunge, breaking down his parade before we had even crossed swords, whether it was that remorse for his act prevented his exerting his usual skill or through unlucky mischance on his part, I disarmed him, catching his guard on the point of my sword and forcing his weapon from his hand.

"Maleditto!" he exclaimed angrily, blushing with shame and wrath, and turning to Zanetto, who could not forbear laughing at his mishap, with a blow of his heavy boot, he crushed the drum to pieces, and, tearing off his epaulettes, mingled with the ranks.

"Lieutenant, I have not degraded you," I said softly. "It is even possible that, if chance favors you, I may restore your sword."

This indulgence shown to Polidoro, whose guilt was aggravated by an attack on his superior officer, made a greater impression than severity could. The fascination he exercised over the men, their belief in him, his prestige were considerably lessened. I felt that I was master of the troop.

"As for you," I said to Matteo, "as a punishment for your insolence, you must dig the trench."

"I, my captain?"

"You."

"Shoot me first, captain, I implore you," sobbed Matteo, pale with shame and despair.

He was one of the oldest and best soldiers in the company; his mustache almost white, and his face seamed with scars. He thought himself degraded before his comrades, and did not see that my aim was to save him.

"Not so," I replied. "Go find a pickaxe and spade in the village and quickly!"

"You are very hard on me, captain."

"Obey: no more words!"

All this while the sous-lieutenant Brocard, who guessed my purpose, was writing the names of the company upon slips of paper, which he threw into a shako.

"But that is not the way it is done." cried Polidoro, in a bantering tone. "Permit me to instruct you."

"Silence in the ranks!" I cried.

"But we will never get through at this rate, captain."

"I am not responsible to you, sir. It is the order of the colonel. Now, come hither," said I to the drummer, "and draw four names for the firing party."

"Am I not included, captain," returned Zanetto, drawing himself up proudly to his full height.

"Boy, you do not count," said Brocard.

"It seems to me that I counted before the enemy," replied the boy.

"Be still, child!" cried Polidoro. "The drummer's duty is to follow the company."

"That is true," said an old grognard. "Come, Zanetto, stick your hand into the bag, but don't draw my name."

But it was the old man's name that he drew.

"The grenadier Sampierri!"

"I never had any luck," growled Sampierri, stamping angrily upon the ground.

He took up his musket.

"The grenadiers Nicolo, Mordini, Ruspone!" continued Brocard.

Matteo, while this was going on, had returned from the village, and was silently digging a trench to our left, about two hundred paces from the mountain, where the earth was soft and offered but little resistance.

"Ha! Matteo! there are ninety of us," cried Corporal Campana; "nine men to mount guard underground today. Make it wide enough, my old friend."

"A corporal is wanted to command the firing party," said Brocard, "and I have mixed up all the names again in the shako."

"Well, let it be Campana," I replied.

"Me, mon capitaine? What have I done more than my comrades? Why choose me?"

"What have you done? Have you not three chevrons? Are you not the oldest corporal? You should have set the example of subordination. Go!"

"So be it, then," said the corporal gloomily. "Come attention, firing party!"

He marched to the trench at the head of his four grenadiers.

"Attention!" cried I. "Draw the names; the tenth—"

"Enough!" said Zanetto; "let him beware. The business is becoming less amusing, captain."

He drew nine slips successively, which Brocard did not read, so that the suspense continued to the end. The tenth he held up.

"The Sergeant Gasparini!"

"Good! This is the day of the grognards," said Gasparini, making the military salute. "May I embrace Zanetto, mon capitaine?"

"Do as you will," I said; "I would rather be a hundred feet underground than here."

"Thanks, captain. We all see how this business grieves you. Thanks!"

He bent over the drummer, and the tears, spite of his proud endeavors to restrain them, dropped on his gray mustache.

"Here; take this for thy trouble, my boy," he said, giving the drummer his silver watch.

He dashed the tears from his eyes shamefacedly, and with a steady step marched to the edge of the trench.

"Ready!" cried Corporal Campana.

"Aim! Fire!" cried Gasparini.

A flash and report followed, and the old sergeant fell dead on his face in the trench, where Matteo pushed him with his foot to the place where he was to rest.

Zanetto continued, drawing from eleven to nineteen. Brocard, still without reading them, tore them up one after another. Twenty reached, he took the slip, lifted it above his head, and sobbed, rather than spoke, in his endeavors to conceal his emotion:

"The Sergeant-Major Gambetta!"

It was the best instructed under-officer perhaps in the regiment; calm, well knowing his duties, laborious—so useful, in fact, in the humble post he held that his superiors through pure selfishness had never proposed him for promotion. He was forty years of age at least, had received the cross as far back as 1805, and with the money of his pension relieved many a little want of his comrades.

"Ah! poor Gasparini!" he cried with a sort of mournful merriment; "if today is the day of the old growlers, it is also the day of sergeants. What is the matter, mon capitaine?" said he as he passed me. "You seem to be in trouble."

He was not far wrong. I was in despair. My eyes were fixed upon the mountain as if they would pierce through it, and at every changing shadow, every breath of wind which sighed among the trees, my heart bounded painfully with the hope that the long wished for guerilla was about making his appearance on the heights.

"Adieu, Zanetto! take my cross, I have no watch. Show yourself some day worthy to wear it. May it be long ere we meet again, captain. God guard you!"

He crossed himself devoutly, and walked to the trench, his hands in his pockets, bent one knee to the earth, and gave the word "Fire!"

We heard a report; Gambetta, his head shattered by the bullets, rolled like a lump of lead into the trench.

"Will those beggarly Spaniards never appear?" said I to Brocard aside. "I have had more than enough of this."

"Hush!" replied Brocard. "You do not know them yet as well as I, who have been in the peninsula since 1807. I have just discovered the whole band in the declivity yonder before us. They are climbing along above, so as to attack us in front and on both flanks at once. I have counted three hundred muskets and carbines. We will have hot enough work in a few minutes."

"God grant it! Continue, but more slowly, so that we need not kill any more."

Slowly, however, as he proceeded to tear up the names drawn, slowly as the drawing went on, number thirty at length came forth. He lifted it up to read the name, but remained for an instant silent.

"Who? who?" resounded on all sides.

"To the devil with it! Let whom it concerns read it," cried Brocard, flinging it upon the ground.

"I will wager it is I," said Polidoro, springing forward to pick it up. "Yes, it is indeed. The Lieutenant Polidoro!"

"Did you not make a mistake, Zanetto?" asked I. "I think it is only twenty-nine."

"Yes, yes, captain, it is only twenty-nine," cried a soldier. "Don't, for heaven's sake, decimate an officer."

"Corpo di Bacco, do you take me for a fool?" shouted Polidoro. "I counted them, and it is thirty. Come, come! Every one in his turn. No joking! Your hand, Bourdelaine. You forgive me?"

He had scarcely spoken when a signal shot was heard on the mountain, and following upon it two fierce blazes of fire crashed on our right and left and concealed our assailants in their thick smoke.

It was indeed the guerilla band the colonel had spoken of, which, augmented by some of Campoverde's men, whom the English had disembarked at the mouth of the Ebro, had filed toward the mountain, going from Cacia, below Tortosa, as far as Casserras, intending from that point to surprise us at Mora. Learning that a company was at Batea, they halted on their way in the hope of capturing us.

At the crash of the discharge, Polidoro sprang forward like a lion. The smell of battle seemed to intoxicate him. His eyes flashed fire, and his face glowed with ardor. His was a true warrior-soul.

"Captain," said he, "it is through my fault that the company is brought into this danger; let it be mine to extricate it. Give me twenty men. I know the country round, and this morning I discovered a little by-path opening on a level space, from which we can turn the enemy's right. You attack him in front; let Brocard see to his left, and in less than a quarter of an hour all that rabble will be cut to pieces or dispersed. If I remain alive, I will return and place myself at your disposal."

"If you return alive," I replied, "the colonel will decide upon your case. San-Polo foresaw this attack and ordered me not to push the execution further. Here is your sword, Polidoro, but be not rash; the colonel will not deprive himself, for any whim, of an officer with such a future as yours before him."

"I have no future, Bourdelaine," he returned gloomily. "I do not deceive myself with false hopes. Preferment is closed against me. I will die at least with honor, and bear with me the regret of my chief."

Corporal Campana had returned with his four grenadiers during this colloquy, and Matteo walked slowly in the rear.

"Five men for the advance, and fifteen more for the lieutenant," I cried to Brocard.

"All right, captain! You hold the centre and I the right, deployed as skirmishers is that it?" asked Brocard.

"Right!"

"And I?" said Matteo, confounded as Polidoro, advancing at a run to the mountain, gained some distance up its declivity without being perceived by the enemy. "Am I good for nothing, captain, but to bury my comrades?"

"Thou old graybeard! March at the head of the column," I replied, "since instead of awaiting us in their stronghold those fools have been silly enough to come down to surround us. Thou seest I did not do ill to reserve you for a better chance."

"Much obliged!" he returned. "Then we are going to cool their hot blood, captain?"

The guerilla chief, not having perceived our movement, and there only being fifty men at most before him, pressed confidently forward, never doubting that he could easily compel us to lay down our arms. We waited until part of his men had reached the foot of the mountain, and then we fell upon them in a solid column, while Brocard, his men deployed as skirmishers, attacked and drove back their left, and Polidoro, having gained his position, forced their right to retreat, shooting down all who had not rejoined the main body. Suddenly I heard the drums beat the charge behind me. It was a company, led by San-Polo himself, which had taken the Batea road, and so cut off the advance-guard of the guerillas thrown forward toward Mora.

The Spaniard is brave, obstinate, and sober; inured to privations and fatigues. He will fight long and well behind a rock or a wall, but in the open field he generally lacks steadiness, and is easily discouraged if he meets an unforeseen resistance in an attack. He will disband to meet his fellows at some other point and plan some new surprise—the only species of warfare which he conducts well. This, indeed, is the result of that provincial spirit of independence, of that character of individuality, which so deeply penetrates the masses and forms the distinguishing characteristic of the nation.

The panic soon became general, and the village was filled with wounded and dead.

Those who fled from the fire of one party of our men were received upon the bayonets of another, finding no outlet through which to make their escape; about a hundred of the guerillas, however, succeeding in forcing their way toward Casserras, scattering as they went, and giving us a few parting shots. All the rest were taken. San-Polo forced his way to us, pitilessly shooting down all who refused to yield. He soon joined us, and cast his eyes toward the open trench.

"Aha!" he cried, darting a look of intelligence to me; "you are cautious, captain. You would not have the enemy know the number of your killed. How many?" asked he in a low tone.

"Two, mon colonel; the lot unfortunately fell upon Sergeants Gasparini and Gambetta."

San-Polo could not restrain a gesture of vexation.

"And Polidoro?"

"Ma foi, my colonel; he escaped well; we were going to shoot him when the skirmish commenced. He is now upon the mountain, where I can vouch he gave us some famous help."

"He is here," said Brocard, "and in a sad condition. Here are his men bringing him upon their muskets."

When he reached us, Polidoro raised his head, not without great pain, and lifting his still bantering glance to the face of San-Polo, who stood grave and motionless, he cried with an attempt at his old gayety:

"Hit, colonel, hit! I am sorry, my colonel, that you can no longer break or even put me under arrest."

"I will have chance enough to do both yet," replied San-Polo, with an affected roughness which betrayed his anxiety to encourage the wounded soldier.

"O colonel! my account is closed this time," returned Polidoro. "Six bullets through the body, and two of them at least through my lungs. 'Tis enough for one, mon colonel."

Then some long-banished remembrances seemed to return, and a sad smile played over his features.

"Sancta Maria, mater Dei." he continued, in a tone still tinged with a sort of sorrowful gayety, "ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen."

San-Polo threw himself from his horse, and pressed a flask of brandy to the lips of the wounded lieutenant, holding him up in his arms for a moment to help him to swallow a few drops.

"How kind you are to me!" murmured the dying man, in a scarcely audible voice; "you seem to think that, in spite of my follies, I was not so bad an officer after all. Keep, I pray you, my colonel, my sword in remembrance of me; only unfasten the sword-knot and give it to Bourdelaine. Ah! I wish you would give Zanetto fifteen francs for—the drum—I broke."

A cough interrupted him, and a bloody froth appeared upon his lips. His features were pinched with pain; he gasped; his eyes grew glassy, and, after a few slight convulsions, all that remained of Polidoro fell back in the colonel's arms.

San-Polo took the lieutenant's sword, pulled the knot off, and hastily handed it to me; then springing into the saddle he rode off at full gallop, without speaking a word or even turning his head.

"Quick, Brocard! Mount and accompany the colonel," I said. "You know how dangerous those guerillas are even in a rout. I shall not need you until we return to Mora."

III.

"And now that I have ended," said the general after a pause, "let us talk, if you please, about the rain and the weather. It is strange," he continued, pressing his hand to his brow, "how all these memories return, at the time when, thank God, our days of joy and trouble are nearly past."

"Yours?" the government clerk hastened to reply. "You are good for twenty years yet."

There are some honest people who always speak thus to old men.

"Good! very good!" growled the general, bending over the table to pour out another wine-glass of cognac. "In twenty years I will be no more thought of than if I had never lived. To the devil with wars and those who make them."

While his daughter and son-in-law were lifting their voices in protest against such an idea, I discreetly took up the lamp, and approached the frame to examine it more closely.

"These, very probably," I said, half to myself, "are the watch of the grenadier Gasparini, the cross of the sergeant-major Gambetta, and sword-knot of Lieutenant Polidoro."

"Yes, yes," replied the general, without looking toward them; "I bought the watch and the cross from the drummer Zanetto. Poor child! The first bullet sent him to his account in the assault on Fort Olivo, the 29th of May, before Tarragona. For goodness' sake, let it alone."

I saw that my curiosity made him impatient, so I returned the lamp and took up my hat to retire.

"You are leaving us very soon, my friend," said the general.

"You know, general, that I must be home by half-past nine."

"Right. Duty before all. I hope you don't intend to put all I have said upon paper."

"You have authorized me to do so, general."

"So be it, then; but upon one condition."

"Name it."

"That you will add nothing of your own to it, as most of you men of letters do; and that you will not pervert my words."

"I will try not to do so."