"Listen!" he murmured, "how the flies buzz; the place is full of them." Thrice he had heard something that sounded like the humming of a swarm of bees.
"That was not a fly," Jean said, with a laugh. "It was a bullet."
Again and again the hum of those invisible wings made itself heard. The men craned their necks and looked about them with eager interest; their curiosity was uncontrollable-would not allow them to remain quiet.
"See here," Loubet said mysteriously to Lapoulle, with a view to raise a laugh at the expense of his simple-minded comrade, "when you see a bullet coming toward you you must raise your forefinger before your nose-like that; it divides the air, and the bullet will go by to the right or left."
"But I can't see them," said Lapoulle.
A loud guffaw burst from those near.
"Oh, crickey! he says he can't see them! Open your garret windows, stupid! See! there's one-see! there's another. Didn't you see that one? It was of the most beautiful green."
And Lapoulle rolled his eyes and stared, placing his finger before his nose, while Pache fingered the scapular he wore and wished it was large enough to shield his entire person.
Rochas, who had remained on his feet, spoke up and said jocosely:
"Children, there is no objection to your ducking to the shells when you see them coming. As for the bullets, it is useless; they are too numerous!"
At that very instant a soldier in the front rank was struck on the head by a fragment of an exploding shell. There was no outcry; simply a spurt of blood and brain, and all was over.
"Poor devil!" tranquilly said Sergeant Sapin, who was quite cool and exceedingly pale. "Next!"
But the uproar had by this time become so deafening that the men could no longer hear one another's voice; Maurice's nerves, in particular, suffered from the infernal charivari. The neighboring battery was banging away as fast as the gunners could load the pieces; the continuous roar seemed to shake the ground, and the mitrailleuses were even more intolerable with their rasping, grating, grunting noise. Were they to remain forever reclining there among the cabbages? There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be learned; no one had any idea how the battle was going. And was it a battle, after all-a genuine affair? All that Maurice could make out, projecting his eyes along the level surface of the fields, was the rounded, wood-clad summit of Hattoy in the remote distance, and still unoccupied. Neither was there a Prussian to be seen anywhere on the horizon; the only evidence of life were the faint, blue smoke-wreaths that rose and floated an instant in the sunlight. Chancing to turn his head, he was greatly surprised to behold at the bottom of a deep, sheltered valley, surrounded by precipitous heights, a peasant calmly tilling his little field, driving the plow through the furrow with the assistance of a big white horse. Why should he lose a day? The corn would keep growing, let them fight as they would, and folks must live.
Unable longer to control his impatience, the young man jumped to his feet. He had a fleeting vision of the batteries of Saint-Menges, crowned with tawny vapors and spewing shot and shell upon them; he had also time to see, what he had seen before and had not forgotten, the road from Saint-Albert's pass black with minute moving objects-the swarming hordes of the invader. Then Jean seized him by the legs and pulled him violently to his place again.
"Are you crazy? Do you want to leave your bones here?"
And Rochas chimed in:
"Lie down, will you! What am I to do with such d--d rascals, who get themselves killed without orders!"
"But you don't lie down, lieutenant," said Maurice.
"That's a different thing. I have to know what is going on."
Captain Beaudoin, too, kept his legs like a man, but never opened his lips to say an encouraging word to his men, having nothing in common with them. He appeared nervous and unable to remain long in one place, striding up and down the field, impatiently awaiting orders.
No orders came, nothing occurred to relieve their suspense. Maurice's knapsack was causing him horrible suffering; it seemed to be crushing his back and chest in that recumbent position, so painful when maintained for any length of time. The men had been cautioned against throwing away their sacks unless in case of actual necessity, and he kept turning over, first on his right side, then on the left, to ease himself a moment of his burden by resting it on the ground. The shells continued to fall around them, but the German gunners did not succeed in getting the exact range; no one was killed after the poor fellow who lay there on his stomach with his skull fractured.
"Say, is this thing to last all day?" Maurice finally asked Jean, in sheer desperation.
"Like enough. At Solferino they put us in a field of carrots, and there we stayed five mortal hours with our noses to the ground." Then he added, like the sensible fellow he was: "Why do you grumble? we are not so badly off here. You will have an opportunity to distinguish yourself before the day is over. Let everyone have his chance, don't you see; if we should all be killed at the beginning there would be none left for the end."
"Look," Maurice abruptly broke in, "look at that smoke over Hattoy. They have taken Hattoy; we shall have plenty of music to dance to now!"
For a moment his burning curiosity, which he was conscious was now for the first time beginning to be dashed with personal fear, had sufficient to occupy it; his gaze was riveted on the rounded summit of the mamelon, the only elevation that was within his range of vision, dominating the broad expanse of plain that lay level with his eye. Hattoy was too far distant to permit him to distinguish the gunners of the batteries that the Prussians had posted there; he could see nothing at all, in fact, save the smoke that at each discharge rose above a thin belt of woods that served to mask the guns. The enemy's occupation of the position, of which General Douay had been forced to abandon the defense, was, as Maurice had instinctively felt, an event of the gravest importance and destined to result in the most disastrous consequences; its possessors would have entire command of all the surrounding plateau. This was quickly seen to be the case, for the batteries that opened on the second division of the 7th corps did fearful execution. They had now perfected their range, and the French battery, near which Beaudoin's company was stationed, had two men killed in quick succession. A quartermaster's man in the company had his left heel carried away by a splinter and began to howl most dismally, as if visited by a sudden attack of madness.
"Shut up, you great calf!" said Rochas. "What do you mean by yelling like that for a little scratch!"
The man suddenly ceased his outcries and subsided into a stupid silence, nursing his foot in his hand.
And still the tremendous artillery duel raged, and the death-dealing missiles went screaming over the recumbent ranks of the regiments that lay there on the sullen, sweltering plain, where no thing of life was to be seen beneath the blazing sun. The crashing thunder, the destroying hurricane, were masters in that solitude, and many long hours would pass before the end. But even thus early in the day the Germans had demonstrated the superiority of their artillery; their percussion shells had an enormous range, and exploded, with hardly an exception, on reaching their destination, while the French time-fuse shells, with a much shorter range, burst for the most part in the air and were wasted. And there was nothing left for the poor fellows exposed to that murderous fire save to hug the ground and make themselves as small as possible; they were even denied the privilege of firing in reply, which would have kept their mind occupied and given them a measure of relief; but upon whom or what were they to direct their rifles? since there was not a living soul to be seen upon the entire horizon!