The Young Franc Tireurs Part 7

They were soon seated at a well-spread table--waited upon by the daughter of the family--while their host and hostess sat and chatted with them, as to their corps, while the meal went on.

"Excuse another remark upon your personal appearance," the lady said, smiling, "but two of you look more like Alsatians than French. You have the fair complexion and brown, wavy hair. You do not look like Frenchmen."

"Nor are we," Ralph laughed. "My brother and myself, although French born, are actually English. Our father is an English officer, but our mother is French and, as you see, we take after him rather than her."

"But I wonder that, as your father is English, he lets you go out upon this expedition--which is very perilous."

"We wished to go--that is, we thought it was our duty," Ralph said; "and although they were very sad at our leaving, they both agreed with us."

"I wish all Frenchmen were animated by the same feeling," their host said warmly. "Your gallant example should shame hundreds of thousands of loiterers and skulkers.

"You speak French perfectly. I should have had no idea that you were anything but French--or rather, from the way you speak German, that you were Alsatian."

"We have lived in France all our lives, except for two years which we pa.s.sed in Germany; and two years at one time, together with one or two shorter visits, in England."

"And do you speak English as well as French?"

"Oh yes, we always speak English at home. Our father made a rule that we should always do so; as he said it would be an immense disadvantage to us, when we returned to England, if we had the slightest French accent. Our mother now speaks English as purely and correctly as our father."

"Are your friends any relations of yours?"

"They are our cousins," Ralph said; "their father is our mother's brother."

For some time longer they chatted, and then their host said:

"It is half-past nine; and we are early people, here. You will have to be up by five, so I think that it is time you were off to bed. We shall scarcely be up when you start; but you will find a spirit lamp on the table, with coffee--which only requires heating--together with some bread and b.u.t.ter. You will have some miles to march before you breakfast.

"And now, you must all promise me that, if you come to this place again, you will come straight up here, and look upon it as your home. If you get ill or wounded--which I hope will not happen--you will, of course, go home; but something may occur not sufficiently important for you to leave the corps, but which could be set straight by a few days' nursing, and rest. In that case, you will come to us, will you not?"

The boys all gratefully promised to avail themselves of the invitation, in case of need; and then said good night and goodbye to their host, and went off to the room prepared for them. In the morning they were up in good time, dressed as quietly as they could--so as not to disturb their host--and went downstairs; lit the spirit lamp under a gla.s.s bowl full of coffee and milk and, in ten minutes, were on their way towards the town.

"We shall be lucky if we are often as comfortable as that," Percy said, looking back; and there was a general a.s.sent.

"There goes the bugle," Louis Duburg said; "we have a quarter of an hour, yet.

"What pretty girls those were!"

Louis was nearly seventeen and, at seventeen, a French lad considers himself a competent judge as to the appearance and manners of young ladies.

"Were they?" Percy said carelessly, with the indifference of an English boy of his age as to girls. "I did not notice it. I don't care for girls; they are always thinking about their dress, and one is afraid of touching them, in case you should spoil something.

There is nothing jolly about them."

The others laughed.

"I am sure Milly is jolly enough," Philippe Duburg said.

"Yes, Milly is jolly," Percy answered. "You see, she has been with us boys, and she can play, and doesn't screech if you touch her, or mind a bit if she tears her frock. So are our cousins in England--some of them. Yes, there are some jolly girls, of course; still, after all, what's the good of them, taking them altogether?

They are very nice in their way--quiet and well behaved, and so on--but they are better indoors than out."

The clock was just striking half-past five, as the boys reached the place of a.s.sembly. Most of the men were already upon the spot, and the bugler was blowing l.u.s.tily. In another five minutes all were a.s.sembled; including Tim Doyle, with his horse and cart.

"Good-morning, Tim," the boys said, as they came up to him. "I hope you had as comfortable quarters as we had, last night."

"Splendid, your honor--downright splendid; a supper fit for a lord, and a bed big enough for a d.u.c.h.ess."

The boys laughed at the idea of a d.u.c.h.ess wanting a bed bigger than anyone else, and Tim went on:

"Ah, your honor, if campaigning was all like this, sure I'd campaign all my life, and thank you; but it's many a time I shall look back upon my big supper, and big bed. Not that I should like it altogether entirely; I should get so fat, and so lazy, that I shouldn't know my own shadow."

And now the bugle sounded again, and the men fell in. As they started, they struck up a lively marching song; and several windows opened, and adieus were waved to them as they pa.s.sed down the street into the open country. Everyone was in high spirits. The weather, which had for some time been unfavorable, had cleared up; the sun was rising brightly, and they felt that they had fairly started for work. The road was rough, the country wild and mountainous, thick forests extended in every direction, as far as the eye could carry.

"There is one comfort, Percy," Ralph said, "if we are beaten and driven back, we might get into this forest, and laugh at the Prussians."

Percy cast rather a doubtful eye at the dark woods.

"The Prussians might not be able to discover us, Ralph; but I would as leave be killed by Prussian b.a.l.l.s as die of hunger, and our chances of getting food there, for a hundred men, would be very slight."

"They don't look hospitable, certainly, Percy. I agree with you. We had better keep in the open country, as long as possible."

The first village at which they arrived was Deyvilliers. Here a halt was called for ten minutes, five miles having already been marched. Many of the men--less fortunate than the Barclays and Duburgs--had had nothing to eat upon starting and, when the arms were piled, there was a general dispersal through the village, in search of provisions. Bread had been bought over night, at Epinal, and brought on in the cart; which was fortunate, for the village was a very small one, and there would have been a difficulty in obtaining more than a loaf or two. Cheese and fruit were in abundance; and the boys bought some apples, and sat down by the little feeder of the Moselle which pa.s.ses through the village, and watched it tumbling past on its way to join the main stream, a few miles below Epinal.

In a quarter of an hour, they were again on the march. In another five miles they reached Fontaine, lying a little off the road to their right. They had now marched ten miles, and Major Tempe ordered a halt for three hours. A piece of level ground was chosen, arms were piled, blankets and haversacks taken off, and then preparations began for their first meal. Men were sent off with kettles, for water. Others went up to the village with cans for wine--or beer for, in Alsace, beer is more common than wine. Tim took the horse out of the shafts, and gave him some oats. Some of the men were sent from each company to fetch wood, and the old soldiers prepared for the important operation of cooking.

Several little fireplaces were made, with stones and turf, open on the side facing the wind. In these sticks were placed and, when they were fairly alight, the saucepans--each holding the allowance of ten men--were placed on them. In these the meat--cut up in pieces of about half a pound--was placed; with pepper, salt, onions, rice, and potatoes peeled and cut up, and the whole filled up with water.

When the preparations were finished, the men threw themselves down under the shade of some trees; and smoked and chatted until, in about an hour, the cooking was complete. Each man then brought up his tin canteen, and received his portion of soup in the deep side, and his meat and vegetables in the shallow can. The bread had already been cut up. The tin drinking pots which, with knives, forks, and spoons, were carried in the canteens, were filled with beer and, with much laughing and fun, each man sat down on the gra.s.s, or scattered rocks, to eat his breakfast.

Many of the villagers had come down; and these brought, for the most part, little presents: a few apples, a little fresh cheese, or a bunch of grapes. It was a merry meal, and the boys agreed that it was the jolliest picnic that they had ever been at.

At two o'clock the bugle sounded. The cooking things were packed up and placed in the cart again; the blankets and haversacks slung on, and the rifles shouldered and, with many a good wish from the peasants, they marched forward again.

Eight miles further marching brought them to the end of their day's journey, the village of Destord. It was a tiny place, with scarcely over a half-dozen houses. Major Tempe in consequence determined, as the weather was fine, upon bivouacking in the open air. For a time, all were busy collecting wood. A sheltered place was chosen, for the village lay very high, close to the source of a little stream running into the river Mortagne.

The cooking places were again prepared for supper. At seven o'clock the meal was served, differing but little from that of the morning; except that after the men had eaten the soup, and the meat from it (in France called bouilli), they fried some thin slices of meat in the lids of their canteens, and concluded the meal with a cup of coffee.

Then four large fires were lit--one for each company--and a smaller one for the officers. Blankets were spread out on the ground round these fires, and the men lit their pipes and chatted gaily. All were more or less tired for, although their month's hard drill had accustomed them to work, eighteen miles with arms, ammunition, and accouterments had tired them more than they had antic.i.p.ated.

As this was their first night out, Major Tempe told them that he should not place a regular cordon of sentries; but that in future he should do so, whether they were near the enemy or not. By nine o'clock the fires began to burn low, the talking gradually ceased, and the men--rolling themselves up in their blankets, and putting their haversacks under their heads, for pillows--soon dropped off to sleep; a solitary sentry keeping guard against pilferers.

A short march of ten miles took them, next day, to Rambervillers, where they were billeted among the inhabitants; and fourteen miles on the day after to Baccarat, on the river Meurthe, where they also obtained quarters. They were now approaching the neighborhood of the enemy, and Major Tempe advised a halt for the next day; in order that he might make inquiries, and investigate thoroughly the best route to be pursued.

Chapter 5: The First Engagement.

The news which the commandant of the franc tireurs heard, at Baccarat, determined him to change his intentions; and to push on without delay to Halloville--a tiny hamlet on the lower spurs of the Vosges, some four miles from Blamont; and overlooking the valley of the Vexouse, in which the latter town was situated.

It was a long march, and the weather had again changed, the rain descending all day in a steady pour. The men--in their light, waterproof cloaks, and the flaps of their forage caps down--plodded steadily on; their spirit sustained by the thought that, ere another twenty-four hours, they might be in action. The news which hurried them forwards had been to the effect that a body of two hundred Uhlans had left Sarrebourg, and were advancing towards Blamont. They were going quietly, stopping to levy contributions at the villages on the way. It was probable that they would enter Blamont on the same evening that the franc tireurs reached Halloville. It was supposed that they would proceed, with the sheep and cattle that they had swept up, by the valley of the Vexouse to Luneville.