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There was something in his attitude, in his look, which swept over them, seeing none of them, in the eager lifting of his head, in the excited fire in his eyes, that arrested all from the dullest muleteer, plodding on with his string of patient beasts, to the most volatile French girl laughing on her way with a group of fantassins.
For Admiral Blake hath been collecting his ships at Portsmouth, and our informant says that they were to sail to-day, eighty vessels of war. They carry a strong force of fantassins, pikemen, and arquebussiers, with the new snaphaunces devised in the low countries. Their commander is Major-General Haine, Prynne is there as commissioner, and, best of all, Michael Lempriere is on board!"
It was a little after noon when the regiment halted on the Saint-Avold highway, blocked in front by a train of Guard artillery, and on either flank by columns of infantry voltigeurs, red-legged fantassins loaded with camp equipment, engineers in crimson and bluish-black, and a whole battalion of Turcos, scarlet fez rakishly hauled down over one ear, canvas zouave trousers tucked into canvas leggings that fitted their finely moulded ankles like gloves.
Around the Château the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi, grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue overcoats.
Their dragoons and fantassins are not merely more real in what they do, but in how they look. Vernet's look like tin soldiers by comparison; certainly like soldiers de convenance. Aimé Morot evidently used instantaneous photography, and his magnificent cavalry charges suggest not only carnage, but Muybridge as well.
Serrez les rangs, tas de bleus!" yelled an officer, riding along the edge of the road, revolver in one hand, naked sabre flashing in the other. A dozen artillerymen were pushing a mitrailleuse up behind the overturned wagon. It stuck in the ditch. "À nous, la ligne!" they shouted, dragging at the wheels until a handful of fantassins ran out and pulled the little death machine into place.
Now they could distinguish the drivers, blue-bloused and tattered, swinging their long whips; now they saw the infantry, plodding on behind the wagons, stringing along on either flank, their officers riding with bent heads, the red legs of the fantassins blurred through the red dust. At the junction of the two roads stood a boundary post.
The Battalion first did a month alternating in position between the front line and the village. For some days while in the front line the Battalion was in touch with the 27ième Régiment d'Infanterie, which had a sentry post in its area composed of men from one of the companies who readily fraternised with the fantassins.
Not here to see the darling of the Douars; the pride of every Chacal, Zephyr, and Chasseur in Africa; the Amie du Drapeau, who was adored by everyone, from Chefs de Bataillons to fantassins, and toasted by every drinker, from Algiers to Oran, in the Champagne of Messieurs les Generaux as in the Cric of the Loustics round a camp-fire!
After such projectiles what signified the famous ball which, at Coutras, in 1587, disabled twenty-five men; and the one which, at Zorndorff, in 1758, killed forty fantassins; and in 1742, Kesseldorf's Austrian cannon, of which every shot levelled seventy enemies with the ground? What was the astonishing firing at Jena or Austerlitz, which decided the fate of the battle?
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