A CAVALRY CHARGE AT SEDAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9022, 29 October 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

A CAVALRY CHARGE AT SEDAN.

[from zola's new book.] Then the colonel of the first regimen raising aloft his sabre, shouted in a voice of thunder, "Charge!" The trumpets . sounded, the column broke into a trot and was &way. Prosper was in the leading squadron, but almost at the extreme right of the right wing, a position of less danger than the centre, upon which the enemy always naturally concentrate their hottest fire. When they had topped the summit of the Calvary and began to descend tho slope beyond that led downward into the broad plain, he had a distinct view, some two-thirds of a mile away, of tho Prussian squares that were to bo the object of their attack. Beside that vision all the rest was dim and confused before his eyes ; he moved onward as one in a dream, with a strange ringing in his ears, a sensation of voidness in his mind that left him incapable of framing an idea. Ho was part of the great engine that tore along, controlled by a superior will. Tho command ran along the line : "Keep touch of knees ! Keep touch of knees !" in order to keep the men closed up and give their ranks the resistance and rigidity of a wall of granite, and as their trot became swifter and swifter and finally broke into a mad gallop, the chasseurs d'Afrique gave their wild Arab cry that excited their wiry steeds to the verge of frenzy. Onward they tore faster and faster still, until their gallop was a race of unchained demons, their shouts the shrieks of souls in mortal agony; onward they plunged amid a storm of bullets that rattled on casque and breast-plate, on buckle and scabbard, with a sound like hail; into the bosom of that hailstorm flashed that thunderbolt beneath which the earth shook and trembled, leaving behind it, as it passed, an odour of burned woollen and tho exhalations of wild beasts. At five hundred yards the lino wavered an instant, then swirled and broke in a frightful eddy that brought Prosper to the ground. Ho clutched Zephyr by the mane and succeeded in recovering his seat. Tho centre had given way, rit'dled, almost annihilated, as it was, by the musketry fire, while the two wings had wheeled and ridden back a little way to renew their formation. It was foreseen, foredoomed destruction of the leading squadron. Disabled horses covered the ground, some quiet in death, but many struggling violently in their strong agony ; and everywhere dismounted riders could be seen, running as fast as their short legs would let them, to capture themselves another mount. Many horses that had lost their masters came galloping back to the squadron, and took their place in line of their own accord, to rush with their comrades back into the fire again, as if there was some strangeattraefcion for them in the smell of gunpowder. The charge was resumed ; the second squadron went forward, like tho first, at a constantly accelerated rate of speed, the men bending upon their horses' necks, holding the sabre along the thigh, ready for use upon the j enemy. Two hundred yards more gained this time, amid the thunderous, deafening uproar, bub again tho centre broke under the storm of bullets ; men and horses went down in heaps, and the piled corpses made an insurmountable barrier for those who followed. Thus was the second squadron in its turn mown down, annihilated, leaving its task to bo accomplished by those who came after. When for the third timo tho men were called upon to charge, and responded with invincible heroism, Prosper found that his companions were principally hussars and chasseurs do France. Regiments and squadrons, as organisations, had ceased to exist; their constituent elements wero drops in the mighty wave that alternately broke and reared its crest again, to swallow up all that lay in its destructive path. Ho had long since lost distinct consciousness of what was going on around him, aud suffered his movements to bo guided by his mount, faithful Zephyr, who had received a wound in the ear that seemed to madden him. He was now in the centre, where all about him horses wero rearing, pawing the air, and falling backward ; men wero dismounted as if torn from their saddle by tho blast of a tornado, while others, shot through some vital part, retained their seat and rodo onward in tho ranks with vacant, sightless eyes. And looking back over the additional two hundred yards that this effort had won for them they could see the field of yellow stubble strewn thick with dead and dying. Some there were who had fallen headlong from their saddle and buried their face in tho soft earth. Others had alighted on their back and were staring up into the sun with terror-stricken eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets. Thero was a handsome black horse, an officer's charger, that had been disembowelled, and was making frantic efforts to rise, his forefeet entangled in his entrails. Beneath the fire, that became constantly mure murderous as they drew nearer, tho survivors in tho wings wheeled their horses and fell back to concentrate their strength for a fresh onset. Finally, it was the fourth squadron which, on tho fourth attempt, reached tho Prussian lines. Prosper made play with his sabre, hacking away at helmets and dark uniforms as well as he could distinguish them, for all was din before him, as in a dense mist. Blood flowed in torrents ; Zephyr's mouth was smeared with it, anil to account for it he said to himself that the good horse must have been using his teeth on the Prussians. The clamour around him became so great that ho could.not hear his own voice, although his throat seemed splitting from the yells that issued from it. But behind tho first Prussian line thero was another, and then another, and then another still. Their gallant efforts went for nothing ; those dense masses of men were like a tangled jungle that closed around the horses and riders who entered it, and buried them in its rank growths. They might hew down those who were within reach of their sabres ; others stood ready to take their place ; the last squadrons were lost and swallowed up in their vast numbers. The firing, at point-blank range, was so furious that the men's clothing was ignited. Nothing could stand before it, all went down ; and the work that it left unfinished was completed by bayonet and anuskct-butt. Of tho brave inon who rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield, and the solo end achieved by that mad charge was to add another glorious page to history. And then Zophyr, struck by a musket-ball full in the chest, dropped in a heap, crushing beneath him Prosper's right thigh ; and tho pain was so acute that tho young man fainted.