CHAPTER XIII.
CHESTER SAVES THE DAY.
The day was at its noon!
From the first break of dawn the battle had raged; now, at mid-day, itwas at its height. Hour after hour the fighting had continued under ashadowless sky, blue as steel, hard as a sheet of brass. The Germans hadattacked the Belgians and French with the first streak of light.
Circling, sweeping, silently, swiftly, a marvelous whirlwind of force,the Germans had rushed on. Swift, as though wind-driven, they moved. Aninstant, and the Allies broke into violent movement. Half-clothedsleepers poured out. Perfect discipline did the rest.
With marvelous and matchless swiftness and precision they got under arms.There were but fifteen hundred or so in all--six squadrons of FrenchLancers, the only French troops yet to reach Belgian soil, and a smallbody of infantry, without artillery.
Yet, rapid as the action of the Allies was, it was not as rapid as thedownward sweep of the German horde that rushed to meet them.
There was a crash, as if rock were hurled upon rock, as the Lancers, theflower of the French cavalry, scarce seated in the saddle, rushed forwardto save the pickets, to encounter the first blind ford of the attack andto give the Belgian infantry, farther in, time to prepare for defense.
The hoofs of rearing chargers struck each other's breasts, and these bitand tore at each other's throats and manes, while their riders reeleddown dead. The outer wings of the Germans were spared the shock, andswept on to meet the bayonets of the infantry.
The cavalry was enveloped in the overwhelming numbers of the center. Itwas a frightful tangling of men and brutes.
The Lancers could not charge; they were hemmed in, packed between bodiesof horsemen that pressed them together as between iron plates; now andthen they cut their way through clear enough to reach their comrades, butas often as they did so, so often the overwhelming numbers of the Germanssurged in on them afresh like a flood, and closed upon them, and drovethem back.
It was bitter, stifling, cruel work; with their mouths choked with dust,with their throats caked with thirst, with their eyes blind with smoke;while the steel was thrust through nerve and sinew, or the shot plowedthrough bone and flesh.
The answering fire of the infantry kept the Germans farther at bay, andmowed them down faster--but in the Lancers' quarter of the field--partedfrom the rest of their comrades, as they had been by the rush of thatbroken charge with which they had sought to save the town and arrest thefoe--the worst pressure of the attack was felt, and the fiercest of theslaughter fell.
The general in command of the cavalry had been shot dead as they hadfirst swept out to encounter the advance of the German horsemen; one byone the officers had been cut down, singled out by the keen eyes of theirenemy, and throwing themselves into the deadliest of the carnage withimpetuous self-devotion characteristic of their service.
At the last there remained but a bare handful of the brilliant squadronsof 600 men that had galloped down in the gray of dawn to meet thewhirlwind of German fury. At their head was Captain Derevaux, and besidehim rode Hal.
It was not the gallant captain's fault that Hal was thus in the thick ofthe battle. This had been an accident, and had come about in this manner:
Late the night before Hal and Chester had been called to the quarters ofthe commanding general and dispatched on separate missions. Their waysled past the outposts--even beyond the farthest--where the six squadronsof French Lancers and a small body of infantry had been thrown out, underorders, to make a reconnaissance in force in the morning. Advancingbeyond this line, Hal had turned east and Chester west.
His mission accomplished, Hal had just reached the Allies' line upon hisreturn, when the Germans bore down on them. Hal saw that his one chancefor safety lay in throwing in his fortunes with the troops.
Accordingly he turned his horse, just as the Lancers swept past on theirfirst charge, and reined in beside Captain Derevaux. The latter hadrecognized the danger and realized that the boy's keen wit had detectedhis one hope of life. He had greeted him with a smile; nor had he blamedhim for his choice.
And so Hal had swept forward in the charge. Seizing a sword from afalling trooper, Hal, riding at the captain's side, was soon in the thickof the terrible carnage, and, in spite of the terrible fighting, hadescaped injury.
Two horses had been killed under Captain Derevaux. Twice he had thrownhimself across fresh, unwounded chargers, whose riders had fallen in thefray, and at whose bridles he caught as he shook himself free of the deadanimal's stirrups. His head was uncovered; his uniform, hurriedly thrownon, had been torn aside, and his chest was bare; he was drenched withblood, not his own, that had rained on him as he fought, and his face andhands were black with smoke and with powder.
Hal could not see a yard in front of him; he could not tell how the daywent anywhere save in that corner where the Lancers were hemmed in. Asfast as they beat the enemy back, and forced themselves to some clearerspace, the Germans closed in afresh.
No orders reached the little troop, and Hal could not tell whether theBelgian battalions were holding their own or had been cut utterly topieces under the immense numerical superiority of their foes.
Glancing about the field, Captain Derevaux could see that every officerof the Lancers save himself was down, and that, unless he took the vacantplace and rallied them, the few troopers still left would scatter.
With Hal at his side, he spurred the horse he had just mounted againstthe dense crowd opposing him--against the hard black wall of dust andsmoke and steel and savage faces, which were all that either couldsee. He thrust his horse against the mob, while he waved his swordabove his head:
"_En avant_!" he shouted.
His voice reached the troopers, clear and ringing in its appeal. Hal,turning in his saddle at this moment, caught from the hands of a reelingtrooper the Eagle of France, and as he raised it aloft, the light,flashing upon the golden wings, brought an answering shout from thosethat remained of the troop.
"_En avant_!" came the rallying cry.
The young French captain glanced back on this little troop, guardinghis head the while from the blows that were rained on him, and hisvoice rang out:
"Charge!"
Like arrows launched from a hundred bows they charged, Hal and the youngcaptain still slightly in advance, Hal striking aside the steel aimed athim, as they pushed on, and with the other hand holding high the Eagleof France.
The effort was superb.
Dense bodies of Germans parted them in the front from the part of thefield where the infantry still was engaged, harassed them in the rearwith flying shots and forced down on them on either side, like theclosing jaws of a trap.
Their fierce charge was, for a moment, irresistible; it bore headlong allbefore it. For a moment the Germans gave way, shaken and confused. For amoment they recoiled under the shock of that desperate charge.
As Captain Derevaux spurred his horse against the enemy, twenty bladesglittered against him. The first would have pierced his chest had not Halstruck up the blade with a quick move.
To pause was impossible. Though the French horses were forced through abristling forest of steel, the charge availed little.
Hal waved the Eagle aloft, as the captain looked around at the few whowere left and shouted:
"You are the sons of the Old Guard! Die like them!"
"Surrender!" came a cry from in front.
Hal looked back once more on the fragment of the troop, and raised theflag higher aloft, as he muttered to himself:
"This will be the end. I wish I could have seen Chester once more; goodold Chester!"
Hot and blinded, with an open gash in his shoulder where a sword hadstruck a moment before, but with his eyes flashing and a smile on hislips, the young captain cried his reply to the command to surrender:
"Have we fought so poorly that you think we shall give up now?"
Then, with upraised swords, the troop awaited the onward rush ofthe Germans; and, as they waited the young capt
ain found time tomurmur to Hal:
"I am sorry to see you here now, but you are a fighter after myown heart."
Hal was unable to speak. He put out his hand and the young Frenchmangrasped it warmly.
"I guess it is good-by," he said quietly.
Then came the shock. With a yell the Germans threw themselvesforward. A moment more and the onrushing horde would have massacredthem like cattle. But, even at the moment of impact a voice rang outover the field:
"Forward! Charge!"
Above the din of shouting and rifle shots it came; and from behind camea full troop of Belgian light cavalry; and in front, with drawn sword,rode Chester.
The troop came on at a whirlwind rush; and, even as they did so, CaptainDerevaux urged his men into another charge, and pressed forward into thethickest of the conflict. And Hal rode by his side.
Blow after blow was aimed at them, but none found its mark. Parrying andstriking, they pushed on; and then a German bugle sounded a recall, andthe enemy drew off.
Panting, Chester rode to Hal's side.
"I was afraid we would be too late!" he exclaimed.
"I am not even scratched," returned Hal, grasping his friend's hand.
A Belgian officer hurried up to Captain Derevaux.
"You have this lad to thank for our opportune arrival," he declared,indicating Chester. "He told us of your plight, or we would not havearrived in time."
The captain grasped Chester's hand.
"You saved the day!" he said simply.