Old Hornus.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 41, 17 February 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

Old Hornus.

A single French regiment, on an unsheltered railroad bank, stood like a targot for the Prussian Army, massed in the woods some 80 yards away. As tho bullets fell thick about them, the French officers ordered their men to lie down, but not one would obey. All remained standing about their flag. In that broad expanse or green pastures and waving corn fields illumined by the setting sun, that body of tormented men, enveloped in a cloud of smoke, looked like a flock surprised iv the open field by the first gust of a terrible tempest. It did, indeed, rain lead on that hillside. Nothing could be heard but the crackling discharge of musketry, the heavy rumbling of shells, and the ceaseless vibration of balls all over the battle-field, like the tense chords of some sinister, Bonorous instrument. Again and again the flag fell, but every time a clear, bold voice rang out abovo the den of the musketry, tho oaths of the wounded, the death-rattle of the dying — "To the flag, boys ! To the flag !" And instantly, like a vague shadow in that fiery fog, an officer would spring forward, and the dauntless ensign, as if restored to life, would look down again upon the battle. Twenty-two times it fell. Twenty-two times its staff, still warm as it slipped from a dying hand, was caught and raised again, and when- at sunset the remnant of the regiment, a little handful of men, slowly retreated the flag was but a tattered rag in the hands of Sergeant Hornus, the 23rd ensign of the day. This Sergeant Hornus, an old fellow who could scarcely sign his name, had been 20 years in gaining the rank of a noncommissioned offlenr. The miseries of the foundling and the brutality of the barracks had left their impression on his low, obstinate biv>w, hU back bent by the knapsack, and that unscrupulous air of the trooper in the ranks. Ho stammered a little, too, but eloquence is not essential in an ensign. That same evening of the battle his Colonel said to him — "You have the flag, my gallant fellow—- well, keep it." And on his shabby army coat, worn and faded by rain and powder, the suiter placed at once thtS golrieu badge of the ensign This was the one glory of his life. From this time the ojri trooper hold up his bead. The poor soul, who hitherto had walked with bent back and downcast glance, henceforth stood proudly erect, with eyes ever lifted to watch the scrap of cloth fluttering in the breeze, and to hold it very high, very upright, above death, defeat and treachery. Never was there a man so happy as Hornus when he stood on the battle-field, his hands clasped about his flagstaff in its leathern sheath. Silent, motionless, grave as a priest, one would have said that he was holding something sacred- His whole life, his whole being, oouiiod in the Angers gripped about the beautiful golden rag upon which the balls seemed to hurl themselves, and in his defiant eyes that looked the Prussians straight iv the face, as if to say, "Just try now to take it from me ?" No one did try — not even death. After those deadly battles of Borny and Gravelotte, the flag left the fiold cut to pieces, literally riddled with bullet-holes, but it was still old Hornus who bore it, Then came September, the army at Metz, the siege, and that long encampment in the mud till the oannon rusted, and the finest troops iv the world, demoralised by inaction, by lack of provisions and of news, died in the trenches of fever and despair and 4eadly we,arineßH. Leaders and men alike lest couftdsnep. Hornus alone still had faith. His tri-co!our'rag 'w.q.3 all the world to him, and as lung an he kept that, it seemed to him that nothing was lost. Unfortunately, r.s thero was no more fighting, the Colonel kept the flag at his quarters in on« of the suburbs of Metz, and honest Hornus was very like a mother whose child "h out at nurse. He thought of it continually, nnd when his longing for it became Unendurable ho would rush off to the Colou--l\s house, where the mere sight of his Hag, resting tranquilly in its place against the wall, would send him back with courage leisewcd, to dream, under hia soaking tout, of marches, of battles, of the flag floating gayly down there on the Prussian trenches. An order of Marshal B^zaine destroyed these illusions. Ono morning Hornus awoke to fiud the camp in uproar, the soldiers in excited groups shouting and talking angrily and gesticulating towards one part of the town. " Off with him ! Shoot him !" they cried, and the officers, -walking apart with heads bowed in shame before the men, let them talk on unheedpd. It was, indeed, shameful! To ipO.OQO well-armed, able-bodied men hud just been read an order surrendering them to the enemy without a blow. "And the flags " demanded Hornus with whitening faoe. "The flags were surrendered with the rest— the guns, the remains of the waggon trains— everything." "Th-th-thunder;" stammered the poor fallow; " they shao't keep mine, though.*' And he set off on the run toward the other side of the town. There, too, all was confusion. National guards, civilians, nnd gardes mobiles were walking about. Deputations passed, trembling, on their way to the Marshal's houso. Hornussaw nothing, heard nothing. He hurried up the street, muttering to himself — "To take my flag from me ! Come now, can this bo possible P Let him give the Prussians what is his own — his silver plate and his gilded coaches— but this is mine. It is my honour. I forbade any ono to touch it. His sentences were broken up by his hurried pace and stammering tongue, bat, after all, the old fellow had a plan, a clear and fixed purpose to take his flag, to carry it into the midst of the regiment, and, with any who would follow him, to fall upon the Prussians, and destroy them utterly. When he reached the Colonel's house, he was not even allowed to enter. The Colonel, too, wob furious, and would admit no one, but Hornus did not understand this. He wept, he swore, he tried to push past the orderly. "My flag ! I want my flag !" he shouted. Finally a window was thrown open. " Is it you, Hornus P" " Yes, Colonel — I " " All tho flags are at the atrenal. You have only to go there for a receipt." " A receipt - for what P" " It is tho Marshal's order." " But, Colonel " " Gi—m— peace !" and down went- the window. Old Hornns staggered like a drunken man. " A receipt. A receipt," he repeated mechanically. Finally he went off with but one clear idea iv his head— that his flag was at the arsenal, and that, come what would, he must see it again. The arsenal gates were opened wide for the passage otXho Prussian waggons, which were ranged in the yayd. A chill passed over Hornus as he entered. All the other ensigns were there, and 50 or 60 officers, silent and heart-broken. With the sombre waggons standing in the rain, and the groups of men with bared heads, it was like a funeral. All the flags of Bazaine's army were lying in a heap on one corner of the muddy pavement. Nothing could be sadder 'than thqse strips of bright-hued'silk, that debris of golden fringe and carded stioka, all that glorious paraphernalia thrown on the ground, soiled with mud and rain.

An officer picked them up, one by one, and as his regiment was called each ensign went forward to get a receipt. Hard and unsympathetic, two Prussian officers watched the registration. "And you are going away thus! — O, sacred, glorious tatters— displaying your rents, trailing sadly over the pavement, Hkp birds with broken wings 1 You are going away with the shame of beautiful things soiled, and each of you will carry away a little of France. In your worn folds the sunshine of the long marches still lingers. In your bullet-holes you preserve the memory of the unknown dead, fallen perchance beneath the banner, struck " "Hornus, you — they are calling you. Go get your receipt." There was the flag befoi.* him. It was really his, the most beautiful, the most mutilated of them all, and, seeing it once more, he seemed to be standing again on the railroad bank. He heard the balls sing, the shells burst, and the Colonel's voice, " To the flag, boys !" His 22 comrades lay there onjthe ground, and he, the 23rd, was springing forward in his turn to seize it, to lift the peor flag, tottering for want of a sustaining arm. Ah ! ho swore that day to defend it — to guard it till death. And now— the thought of all this sent every drop of blood in his body to his head. Maddened, desperate, he sprang upon the Prussian officer, tore fiom his grasp his beloved ensign, and tried to lift it very high, very upright, crying, "To the ft—," but his" voice died in his throat. The staff trembled and slipped from his fingers. In that weary air, that deadly air that weighed so heavily on the surrendered towns, no flag could wave, no pride could live, and old Hornus fell, crushed. — From the French of Alphons Daudet.