Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ of the past campaign, but in a state of rudest indiscipline and disorganisation. If left to himself, he would have trusted much to time and circumstances for the reform of abuses that had been the growth of many months long. But Régnier, the second in command, was made of ‘different stuff’; he was a harsh and stern disciplinarian, who rarely forgave a first, never a second, offence, and who, deeming the ‘Salle de Police’ as an encumbrance to an army on service, which, besides, required a guard of picked men, that might be better employed elsewhere, usually gave the preference to the shorter sentence of ‘four paces and a fusillade.’ Nor was he particular in the classification of those crimes he thus expiated: from the most trivial excess to the wildest scheme of insubordination, all came under the one category. More than once, as we drew near to Strasbourg, I heard the project of a mutiny discussed, day after day. Some one or other would denounce the ‘scélérat Régnier,’ and proclaim his readiness to be the executioner; but the closer we drew to headquarters, the more hushed and subdued became these mutterings, till at last they ceased altogether, and a dark and foreboding dread succeeded to all our late boastings and denunciations.

      This at first surprised and then utterly disgusted me with my companions. Brave as they were before the enemy, had they no courage for their own countrymen? Was all their valour the offspring of security, or could they only be rebellious when the penalty had no terrors for them? Alas! I was very young, and did not then know that men are never strong against the right, and that a bad cause is always a weak one.

      It was about the middle of June when we reached Strasbourg, where now about forty thousand troops were assembled. I shall not readily forget the mingled astonishment and disappointment our appearance excited as the regiment entered the town. The Tapageurs, so celebrated for all their terrible excesses and insubordination, were seen to be a fine corps of soldierlike fellows, their horses in high condition, their equipments and arms in the very best order. Neither did our conduct at all tally with the reputation that preceded us. All was orderly and regular in the several billets; the parade was particularly observed; not a man late at the night muster. What was the cause of this sudden and remarkable change? Some said that we were marching against the enemy; but the real explanation lay in the few words of a general order read to us by our colonel the day before we entered the city: —

      ‘The 9th Hussars have obtained the unworthy reputation ofbeing an ill-disciplined and ill-conducted regiment, relyingupon their soldierlike qualities in face of the enemy tocover the disgrace of their misconduct in quarters. This isa mistake that must be corrected. All Frenchmen are brave; none can arrogate to themselves any prerogative of valour.If any wish to establish such a belief, a campaign canalways attest it. If any profess to think so without suchproof, and, acting in conformity with this impression, disobey their orders or infringe regimental discipline, Iwill have them shot.

      ‘Régnier, Adjutant-General.’

      This was, at least, a very straightforward and intelligible announcement, and as such my comrades generally acknowledged it. I, however, regarded it as a piece of monstrous and intolerable tyranny, and sought to make converts to my opinion by declaiming about the rights of Frenchmen, the liberty of free discussion, the glorious privilege of equality, and so on; but these arguments sounded faint in presence of the drumhead; and while some slunk away from the circle around me, others significantly hinted that they would accept no part of the danger my doctrines might originate.

      However I might have respected my comrades had they been always the well-disciplined body I now saw them, I confess that this sudden conversion through fear was in nowise to my taste, and rashly confounded their dread of punishment with a base and ignoble fear of death. ‘And these are the men,’ thought I, ‘who talk of their charging home through the dense squares of Austria – who have hunted the leopard into the sea, and have carried the flag of France over the high Alps?’

      A bold rebel, whatever may be the cause against which he revolts, will always be sure of a certain ascendency. Men are prone to attribute power to pretension, and he who stands foremost in the breach will at least win the suffrages of those whose cause he assumes to defend. In this way it happened that exactly, as my comrades fell in my esteem, I was elevated in theirs; and while I took a very depreciating estimate of their courage, they conceived a very exalted opinion of mine.

      It was altogether inexplicable to see these men, many of them the bronzed veterans of a dozen campaigns – the wounded and distinguished soldiers in many a hard-fought field, yielding up their opinions and sacrificing their convictions to a raw and untried stripling who had never yet seen an enemy.

      With a certain fluency of speech I possessed also a readiness at picking up information, and arraying the scattered fragments of news into a certain consistence, which greatly imposed upon my comrades. A quick eye for manoeuvres, and a shrewd habit of combining in my own mind the various facts that came before me, made me appear to them a perfect authority on military matters, of which I talked, I shame to say, with all the confidence and presumption of an accomplished general. A few lucky guesses, and a few half hints, accidentally confirmed, completed all that was wanting; and what says ‘Le Jeune Maurice,’ was the inevitable question that followed each piece of flying gossip, or every rumour that rose of a projected movement.

      I have seen a good deal of the world since that time, and I am bound to confess, that not a few of the great reputations I have witnessed have stood upon grounds very similar, and not a whit more stable than my own. A bold face, a ready tongue, a promptness to support, with my right hand, whatever my lips were pledged to, and, above all, good-luck, made me the king of my company; and although that sovereignty only extended to half a squadron of hussars, it was a whole universe to me.

      So stood matters when, on the 23rd of June, orders came for the whole corps d’armée to hold itself in readiness for a forward movement. Rations for two days were distributed, and ammunition given out as if for an attack of some duration. Meanwhile, to obviate any suspicion of our intentions, the gates of Strasbourg, on the eastern side, were closed – all egress in that direction forbidden – and couriers and estafettes sent off towards the north, as if to provide for the march of our force in that direction. The arrival of various orderly dragoons during the previous night, and on that morning early, told of a great attack in force on Mannheim, about sixty miles lower down the Rhine, and the cannonade of which some avowed that they could hear at that distance. The rumour, therefore, seemed confirmed, that we were ordered to move to the north, to support this assault.

      The secret despatch of a few dismounted dragoons and some riflemen to the hanks of the Rhine, however, did not strike me as according with this view, and particularly as I saw that, although all were equipped, and in readiness to move, the order to march was not given, a delay very unlikely to be incurred if we were destined to act as the reserve of the force already engaged.

      Directly opposite to us, on the right bank of the river, and separated from it by a low flat of about two miles in extent, stood the fortress of Kehl, at that time garrisoned by a strong Austrian force; the banks of the river, and the wooded islands in the stream, which communicated with the right by bridges, or fordable passes, being also held by the enemy in force.

      These we had often seen, by the aid of telescopes, from the towers and spires of Strasbourg; and now I remarked that the general and his staff seemed more than usually intent on observing their movements. This fact, coupled with the not less significant one that no preparations for a defence of Strasbourg were in progress, convinced me that, instead of moving down the Rhine to the attack on Mannheim, the plan of our general was to cross the river where we were, and make a dash at the fortress of Kehl. I was soon to receive the confirmation of my suspicion, as the orders came for two squadrons of the 9th to proceed, dismounted, to the bank of the Rhine, and, under shelter of the willows, to conceal themselves there. Taking possession of the various skiffs and fishing-boats along the bank, we were distributed in small parties, to one of which, consisting of eight men under the orders of a corporal, I belonged.

      About an hour’s march brought us to the river-side, СКАЧАТЬ