Military Honors
There was no noise in the forest except the light trembling of the snow falling upon the trees. It had fallen since midday: a soft, fine snow which powdered the branches with a glittering moss and threw upon the dead leaves of the thicket a covering of silver, spreading along the way an immense carpet, soft and white, and making still greater the illimitable silence in this ocean of trees.
Before the door of the forest house a young woman with bare arms was cutting wood, between the heavy blows of the ax and a great stone. She was tall, thin, and strong, a daughter of the forest, daughter and wife of foresters.
A voice cried from the interior of the house: “We are alone tonight, Berthine, you must come in, for it is getting dark and the Prussians or wolves may be prowling around.”
The woodcutter responded, striking a stump a great blow and then another, which obliged her to straighten her neck at each movement of the arms:
“I have finished, mamma. I’m coming, I’m coming, have no fear; it is still day.”
Then she entered with some fagots and the logs of wood and piled them up beside the fireplace, going out again to close the outer doors, enormous doors of the heart of oak, and finally came in and pushed the bolts.
Her mother was knitting before the fire, a wrinkled old woman whom age had rendered full of fear. “I do not like it when your father is away,” said she. “Two women are not very strong.”
The young woman answered: “Oh! I could kill a wolf or a Prussian, the one as well as the other.”
And she cast her eye at a large revolver hanging above the hearth. Her husband had been drafted into the army at the beginning of the Prussian invasion, and the two women were left alone with the father, the old keeper, Nicholas Pichon, called “Longlegs,” who had absolutely refused to leave his dwelling and go into the town.
The nearest town was Rethel, an old stronghold perched upon a rock. They were patriotic there; and the citizens, having decided to resist the invaders, had shut themselves up in their houses for a siege, according to the traditions of the city. Twice already, under Henry IV and under Louis XIV, the inhabitants of Rethel had distinguished themselves for their heroic defense. They could do it again this time, be sure of that! or they would let themselves be burned within their walls.
So, they had bought some cannons and some guns, equipped a milita, formed some battalions and companies and drilled them every day in the square. Everybody, bakers, grocers, woodcutters, notaries, attorneys, carpenters, librarians, chemists even, took turns in the role at regular hours under the orders of Monsieur Lavigne, a former sub-officer of dragoons, now a merchant, having married the daughter and inherited the shop of the elder Monsieur Ravaudan.
He took the rank of major, and as all the young men were away in the army, he enrolled all others who had any power of resistance. The large ones were no longer in the streets but were now always in the gymnasium trying to reduce their fat and prolong their breath, the weak striving to increase their strength and harden their muscles.
And now they were waiting for the Prussians. But the Prussians nowhere appeared. They were not far off, nevertheless; for twice already their spies had pushed across the woods as far as the house of Nicholas Pichon, the forester, called “Longlegs.”
The old keeper, who could run like a fox, had come to warn the town. The cannons were pointed but the enemy did not show itself. The dwelling of the forester, in the Aveline forest, served as an outpost of the citizen soldiers. And Nicholas, twice a week, went for provisions and brought the news of the surrounding country.
He had set out on this particular day to announce that a small detachment of German infantry had stopped at his house on the day before, toward two o’clock in the afternoon, and had immediately gone away again. The sub-officer could speak French.
When the old man left home, he always led with him his two big dogs, with jaws like lions, from fear of the wolves, which were beginning to be ferocious, and left the two women to depend upon barricading themselves in the house at the approach of night. The young woman was afraid of nothing, but her mother was always afraid, saying:
“It will end badly, all this. You will see that will end badly.”
On this particular evening she was more disturbed than usual:
“Do you know what time your father will return?” she asked.
“Oh! not before eleven o’clock, surely. When he dines with the commander, he always returns late.”
And she was about to put her saucepan over the fire to make the soup, when she stopped short, listening to a vague noise that seemed to come through the chimney.
She murmured: “There is somebody walking through the woods, as many as seven or eight men, at least.”
The mother, frightened, stopped her spinning, stammering:
“Oh! Lord-’a-mercy! and your father is not here yet.”
She had not finished speaking when violent blows made the door tremble. As the women did not respond, a strong guttural voice cried:
“Oben!” Then after a silence, the same voice continued: “Oben, or I will preak the door.”
Then Berthine slid into the pocket of her skirt the great revolver and, having placed her ear against the crack of the door, asked:
“Who are you?”
The voice responded: “I am the tetachment of the other day.”
The young woman asked: “What is it you wish?”
“I am lost since this morning in the woods, with my tetachment. Oben, or I preak the door down.”
The forest woman had no choice; she quickly slipped the great bolt, then drawing back the heavy folding door, she perceived in the pale light of the snow six men, Prussian soldiers, the same that were there the day before. In a resolute tone she asked:
“Why have you come here at this hour?”
The sub-officer answered: “I am lost, entirely lost, and I regognized the house. I have had nothing to eat since morning, no more has my tetachment.”
Berthine declared: “It happens that I am all alone with my mother this evening.”
The soldier, who appeared to be an honest fellow, answered: “That is no matter. I shall do no harm, but you will gif us something to eat. We are dying of hunger and fatigue.”
The woman of the forest drew back, saying: “Enter.”
They entered, powdered with snow, carrying on their helmets a kind of creamy moss, which made them look as if covered with meringue. They seemed weary and exhausted.
The young woman showed them wooden benches beside the large table. “Sit down,” she said, “it is true that you are worn out. I am going to make soup for you.”
Then she replaced the bolts of the door. Again she took up the saucepan, threw in some butter and some potatoes, then taking down a piece of bacon that hung in the chimney, she cut off half and plunged it into the water.
The six men followed every motion, with an awakened hunger in their eyes. They had placed their guns and their helmets in the corner, and were waiting, with as wise a look as children on school benches.
The mother began to spin again, casting every moment a look at the invaders. Nothing could be heard the but light rumble of the wheel and the crackling of the fire and the murmur of the boiling water.
But suddenly a strange noise made them all tremble, something like a raucous breath under the door, strong and wheezing. The German officer made a bound for his gun. The forester’s daughter stopped him with a gesture, smiling: “It is the wolves,” said she. “They are hungry like you, they are wandering around and are hungry.”
The man, incredulous, wished to see for himself, and as soon as the outer door was opened, he perceived two great gray beasts running away at a rapid trot. He returned, and murmured as he sat down:
“I would not haf pelieved it.” And he waited till his supper was ready.
They ate voraciously, with mouths open to the ears in order to swallow more at a time, their round eyes opening wide in unison with the jaw, and a noise in their throats like the gurgling in a rainspout.
The two silent women watched the rapid movements of their great red beards, the potatoes having the appearance of forcing themselves into the moving fleece. And as they were thirsty, the daughter of the forest descended to the cellar to draw some cider. She was there a long time. It was a little arched cave which, during the Revolution, was said to have served as a prison and a place of concealment. It was reached by means of a flight of steep steps which closed with a trapdoor at the end of the kitchen.
When Berthine reappeared, she laughed to herself with a sly air. And she gave to the Germans her pitcher of drink. Then she ate her supper, with her mother, at the other end of the kitchen.
The soldiers had finished eating and were asleep, all six of them, about the table. From time to time, a head would fall upon the board with a heavy sound, then the man, brusquely awakened, would sit up again.
Berthine said to the officer, “Lie down before the fire, pray, there is room enough there for six. As for me, I shall climb up to my room with my mother.”
And the two women mounted to the loft. They were heard locking the door and walking about for some time; then there was no more sound.
The Prussians stretched out upon the floor, feet to the fire, their heads supported by their knapsacks, and soon were snoring, all six of them, in six different tones, weak or sonorous, but continued and formidable.
They must have been asleep a long time when a gunshot resounded, so powerful that one would believe it had been fired into the walls of the house. The soldiers were on their feet in an instant. Again two shots were heard, followed by three others.
The door at the staircase opened suddenly and the forester’s daughter appeared, barefooted, in a chemise and a short petticoat, a candle in her hand, with an air of fright.
“Here are the French,” she stammered, “at least two hundred of them. If they find you here they will burn the house. Go down into the cellar quickly, and make no noise. If you make any noise, we are lost.”
The officer, much frightened, murmured: “I will so, I will so, but where can we descend?”
The young woman raised the trapdoor with haste, and the six men disappeared by the little flight of steps, forcing themselves into the hole one after the other, backward, testing each step with the feet.
When the point of the last helmet had disappeared, Berthine replaced the heavy plank of oak, thick as a wall, hard as steel, held in place by some hinges and dungeon lock, of which she gave two long turns to the key, and then she laughed, a mute, triumphant laugh, with a mad desire to dance over the heads of the prisoners.
They made no noise, shut in there as in a solid box of stone, receiving the air only from the venthole, which was protected by bars of iron.
Berthine immediately relighted the fire, put on the saucepan again, and made some more soup, murmuring: “Father will be tired tonight.” Then she sat down and waited. The pendulum of the clock, going back and forth with its regular ticktack, alone broke the silence.
From time to time the young woman cast a look at the dial, an impatient look which seemed to say: “You don’t go quickly enough!”
But soon there seemed to be a murmuring under her feet. Some low, confused words came to her through the arch of the cellar. The Prussians had surmised her ruse, and the officer now mounted the steps and began to pound on the trapdoor with his fists. He cried anew: “Oben!”
She got up and approached him, imitating his accent:
“What iss it you vant?”
“Oben!”
“I vill not oben.”
The man was angry. “Oben or I vill preak the door.”
She began to laugh. “Break, my good man, break,” she said.
He began to strike with his gun upon the oaken trapdoor closed over his head. But it would have resisted the blows of a catapult.
The woman of the forest heard him descend again. Then the soldiers came, one after the other, to try their strength and inspect the opening. But, without doubt judging their attempts useless, they descended again into the cellar and began to talk among themselves.
The young woman listened to them, and then she opened the outside door and hearkened out into the night. She heard a barking afar off. She whistled as a hunter does, and presently two enormous dogs bounded out of the shadow upon her, frisking about in joy. She seized them by the neck and hindered them from running, crying with all her force:
“Oh! Father!”
A voice afar off responded: “Berthine!”
She waited a few seconds, then repeated:
“Oh! Father!”
The voice nearer repeated:
“Oh! Berthine!”
The daughter shouted: “Don’t pass before the venthole. There are Prussians in the cellar.”
And suddenly the great silhouette of a man outlined itself at the left, stopped between the trunks of two trees, and a voice cried hurriedly:
“Prussians in the cellar? What are they doing there?”
The young woman began to laugh: “They are those of yesterday,” she answered. “They were lost in the forest, and I have put them in the cellar to keep fresh.”
And she related the adventure, how she had frightened them with the shots from the revolver and shut them up.
The old man gravely asked: “What do you want me to do now?”
She answered: “Go and get Monsieur Lavigne with his troops. He will take them prisoners. That will please him greatly.”
And father Pichon smiled: “It is true, it would please him.”
His daughter continued: “Take some soup, eat quickly, and then go.”
The old keeper seated himself and began to eat, after placing two platefuls on the floor for the dogs.
The Prussians, hearing them talk, were silent.
Father “Longlegs” set out a quarter of an hour later, and Berthine waited, her head in her hands.
The prisoners began to stir again. They now cried out, they called, and beat furiously against the unbreakable trapdoor with their guns, unceasingly. Then they began to shoot off their guns through the venthole, hoping without doubt to be heard by some German detachment that might be passing in the neighborhood.
The forester’s daughter did not move. But all this noise unnerved and irritated her. A wicked anger awoke in her; she wished to assassinate them, the scoundrels, in order to make them silent. Then, as her impatience grew, she fell to watching the clock and counting the minutes.
Her father had been gone an hour and a half. He had now reached the town. She believed she saw him. He was relating the story to Monsieur Lavigne, who paled with emotion and rung up his maid to get his uniform and his arms. She heard, it seemed to her, the drum as it went beating through the streets. Frightened heads appeared at the windows. The citizen soldiers came out of their houses, scarcely clothed, breathless, buckling their belts, and running, at gymnastic pace, toward the house of their commander.
Then the troop, “Longlegs” at the head, began to march, through the snow toward the forest. She looked at the clock. “They can get here in an hour,” she thought.
A nervous impatience took possession of her. The minutes seemed interminable.
Finally, the time that she had fixed for arrival was marked by the clock. Again she opened the door to see whether she could hear them approaching. She perceived a shadow moving with precaution. She was frightened and uttered a cry. It was her father. He said:
“They sent me ahead to see if anything had changed.”
“No, nothing.”
Then he sent into the night air a prolonged and strident whistle. And immediately something dark came toward him, approaching slowly from the shadow of trees: it was the advance guard of ten men.
“Longlegs” called out instantly: “Do not pass before the venthole.”
Then the first detachment showed to the next the dangerous venthole. Finally, the whole troop showed itself, two hundred men in all, each carrying two hundred cartridges.
Monsieur Lavigne, disturbed and trembling, placed them in such a way as to watch the house and leave a large free space before the little black hole where the sod was cleared to give air to the cellar.
Then he entered the dwelling and informed himself with regard to the force and attitude of the enemy, now so mute that one could have believed that they had disappeared, vanished, escaped through the venthole.
Monsieur Lavigne struck the trapdoor and called: “Mr. Prussian officer!”
The German did not answer.
The commander repeated: “Mr. Prussian officer!”
It was in vain. For twenty minutes he summoned this silent officer to surrender his arms and baggage, promising to spare his life and the lives of his men, and military honors for him and his soldiers. But he obtained no sign of consent or of hostility. The situation was becoming difficult.
The citizen soldiers stamped their feet in the snow, struck their shoulders great blows with their arms, like cabmen trying to keep warm, and looked at the venthole with a growing and childish desire to pass before it.
One of them, finally, Potdevin by name, took the hazard, as he was very swift. He made a leap and ran past it like a deer. The feat was a success. The prisoners seemed dead.
One voice cried: “There is no one there.”
And then another soldier crossed the free space before the dangerous hole. Then it was like a game. From minute to minute some man would throw himself past the troop, as children play jumping bars, hurling behind them lumps of snow from their swiftly moving feet. For comfort, someone lighted a great fire of dead wood, which seemed to illuminate this profile of the national guard in its rapid journey from the camp on the right to the camp on the left.
Someone cried: “Now you, Maloison!”
Maloison was a big baker whose rotundity was a source of laughter to his comrades. He hesitated. They teased him. Then, straightening up, he started, with the little, regular, gymnastic step, puffing so that it shook his powerful corporosity.
All the detachment laughed until they cried. To encourage him, they called out: “Bravo, bravo, Maloison!”
He had made about two thirds of his distance when a long flame, rapid and red, sprang out of the venthole. A report sounded, and the vast body of the baker fell face downward, while he gave a frightful cry.
No one dared go to his aid. They saw him dragging himself along on all fours, in the glistening snow, and, when he had passed the terrible opening, he vanished.
He had received a ball in the thick part of the thigh, but near the surface.
After the first surprise and the first fright, a new laugh went round. But Commander Lavigne appeared upon the doorsill of the forest house. He came to stop his plan of attack. In a vibrating voice, he commanded:
“The zinc-worker and his workmen come here.”
Three men approached.
“Unfasten the gutters of the house.”
In a quarter of an hour they had carried to the commander twenty meters of gutter pipe. Then he made them, with a thousand precautions, fit one into a little round hole at the edge of the trapdoor, and, attaching a pipe from the pump to this conduit, he declared, with an enchanted air:
“Now we are going to drink to the health of these German gentlemen.”
A frenzied hurrah of admiration went up, followed by shouts of joy and wild laughter. The commander organized squads for the work, who should relieve each other every five minutes. Then he gave the order:
“Pump!”
The iron handle having been put in motion, a little sound glided along the length of pipe and fell into the cellar with the murmur of a cascade.
They listened. One hour passed, then two, then three.
The commander walked about the kitchen in a feverish state of mind, placing his ear to the floor from time to time, seeking to find out what the enemy was doing, and asking himself if they were going to capitulate.
Now the enemy was moving about. They heard them moving the barrels and talking. Then, toward eight o’clock in the morning: a voice came from the venthold:
“I vish to speak to the French officer.”
Lavigne responded from the window, without putting his head too far out: “What do you wish?”
“I surrender myself.”
“Pass out the guns, then.”
And immediately a gun came out of the hole upon the snow, then two, three, and all the others. The same voice said:
“I hav no more. Hurry! I am drowning.”
The commander ordered:
“Stop pumping.”
The handle of the pump fell motionless. And, having filled the kitchen with soldiers armed to the teeth, he slowly raised the oaken trapdoor.
Four heads appeared, soaked, four blond heads with long, pale hair; and they saw come out, rushing as if frightened, six Germans, shivering with cold.
They were seized and bound. Then, as they feared a surprise from another detachment, they formed into two convoys, one conducting the prisoners and the other carrying Maloison on a mattress placed upon poles.
They returned triumphant into Rethel.
Monsieur Lavigne was decorated for having captured an advance guard of the Prussians, and the great baker received a military medal for wounds received before the enemy.