Then he gave me half of a package which he had and I saw that he loved
me still, in spite of the difference in our rank, and that touched me.
He was beside himself with delight at the thought of attacking the
Prussians.
"We'll be revenged!" he cried. "No quarter! they shall pay for all,
from Katzbach even to Soissons."
You would have thought that those English and Prussians were not going
to defend themselves, and that we ran no risk of catching bullets and
canister as at Lutzen and at Gross-Beren, at Leipzig and everywhere
else. But what could you say to a man who remembered nothing and who
always looked on the bright side?
I smoked my pipe quietly and replied, "Yes! yes! we'll settle the
rascals, we'll push them! They'll see enough of us!"
I left Jean Buche with his pipe, and as we were on guard, Zebede went
about nine o'clock to relieve the sentinels at the head of the picket.
I stepped a little out of the circle and stretched myself in a furrow a
few steps in the rear with my knapsack under my head. The weather was
warm, and we heard the crickets long after the sun went down. A few
stars shone in the heavens. There was not a breath of air stirring
over the plain, the ears of grain stood erect and motionless, and in
the distance the village clocks struck nine, ten, and eleven, but at
last I dropped asleep. This was the night of the 14th and 15th of
June, 1815. Between two and three in the morning Zebede came and shook
me. "Up!" said he, "come!" Buche had stretched himself beside me
also, and we rose at once. It was our turn to relieve the guard. It
was still dark, but there was a line of light along the horizon at the
edge of the grain fields. Thirty paces farther on, Lieutenant
Bretonville was waiting for us, surrounded by the picket. It is hard
to get up out of a sound sleep after a march of ten hours. But we
buckled on our knapsacks as we went, and I relieved the sentinel behind
the hedge opposite Roly. The countersign was "Jemmapes and Fleurus,"
this struck me at once, I had not heard this countersign since 1813.
How memory sleeps sometimes for years! I seem to see the picket now as
they turn into the road, while I renew the priming of my gun by the
light of the stars, and I hear the other sentinels marching slowly back
and forth, while the footsteps of the picket grew faint and fainter in
the distance. I marched up and down the hedge with my gun on my arm.
There was nothing to be seen but the village with its thatched roofs
and the slated church spire a little farther on; and a mounted sentinel
stationed in the road with his blunderbuss resting on his thigh looking
out into the night. I walked up and down thinking and listening.
Everything slept. The white line along the horizon grew broader.
Another half hour and the distant country began to appear in the gray
light of morning. Two or three quails called and answered each other
across the plain. As I heard these sounds I stopped and thought sadly
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