Стрелок Додд

Down on the river's brink there was a dull red glow like a fire. On each side of it were a row of twinkling points of light, like candles. As he watched, one of these points of light expanded and brightened and reddened. There was another point of light moving about down there. Someone was setting fire to the bridge- the bridge was on fire already!

'Guard, turn out!' roared Godinot. 'Turn out, you bastards. Quick!'

He kicked the men awake as they turned over sleepily.

He grabbed the drummer by the collar and stood him, still half-asleep, on his feet.

'Beat to arms! Do you hear me? Beat to arms! Come on, you others.' He dashed down the slope with the sleepy guard trailing behind. As he ran, he saw tall flames shoot up from the cable sheds. As a gust of wind blew, the sound of the burning rose to a roar. Then he tripped and fell with a crash over a dead body. He paid it no attention, but plunged on to try to save the precious bridge.

The cables were the most precious, and were burning the strongest. He plunged into the mass of flames, and tried to drag the stuff out, but the heat drove him back. He turned to the men who came up behind him.

'Buckets! Water!' he said. 'Use your hats-anything.'

Up the bank the roll of the drum roused the sleeping soldiers. Soon they were all pouring down to the river. Men ran with buckets, with cooking cauldrons. A bucket chain- a double bucket chain- was formed from the river's brink to the rope sheds. But it was not with mere bucketfuls of water that that blaze could be extinguished. Men dragged out masses of burning rope and tried to beat out the flames with bits of wood. But there was so much to do. There were flames roaring up the sides of stacks of pontoons. The timber for the road-bed- dry brittle stuff was burning in its huge piles, each the size of a cottage. Gusts of wind were carrying sparks everywhere. Men with crowbars tried to tear the great heaps to pieces and roll the burning stuff down the bank, but that was stopped after two great masses of timber had been swept away to be lost in the wide waters of the Tagus. Timber adrift in the Tagus would be as much lost to the French as if it had been burned.

The officers had come ru

The heat and smoke were terrible- at one time and another there were as many as a score of men stretched out on the bank recovering from their effects. No one in the mad struggle noticed the coming of the dawn. No one paid any attention to the despatch rider, who turned up in the middle of the confusion calling for Colonel Gille. The colonel merely snatched the note and crammed it into his pocket before plunging into the battle with the flames again.

They got the fire under at last, but it was a hopeless sight on which their eyes rested in the bleak light of the early morning. Quite three-quarters of the cable were burned, and half the pontoons; the other half were burned in patches where flames had licked up the sides of the stacks of pontoons. Pontoons with one side burned off lay about here and there above the water's edge. A little tangle of rope represented all that remained of the heaps of neat coils which had lain in the sheds. A good deal of the road-bed timber remained, but that was the most easily replaced of all.

Taking it all in all, the bridge was utterly ruined. To rebuild it would call for much time-and all available materials had already been used. The men and the officers, utterly worn out, lay about exhausted on the bank, looking gloomily at the charred remains. No one said anything, no one did anything. Gloom and depression had settled upon them all. No one even stirred when white-haired old General Eble came trotting up the slope on his emaciated horse. They looked dully at him as he cast his eyes hither and thither over the scene of destruction. Sergeant Godinot was too tired and sick at heart even to feel the apprehension which as sergeant of the guard he ought to have felt. With Dubois dead he had no heart for anything. Colonel Gille and the other officers rose to their feet as General Eble rode up, and stood shakily at attention. Everyone heard what the general said.

'There is still a lot of timber, boats, rope, all over the place. Why have you left them like this?'

Colonel Gille's teeth showed white in his smoke-blackened face as his lips writhed at this bitter irony.

'Yes, my general,' was all he was able to say.

'Do you call this complete destruction, Colonel Gille? It is as well I came here to see that my orders were obeyed.'

Colonel Gille could only stand to attention and try to take this chastisement unmoved.

'Come on, speak up, man. The men ought to have been on the move an hour ago. Why did you not finish your work?'

By this time doubt had begun to display itself in the expressions of the sapper officers. In this nightmare campaign anything might happen. The general might be mad, or they themselves might be mad.

'Oh, for God's sake, colonel,' snapped General Eble, showing anger at last. 'Pull yourself together, man, and your men too. Why have you not obeyed my orders?'

'Orders?' repeated Colonel Gille stupidly.

'I sent you orders three hours back that the bridge was to be burnt down to the last stick and the bridging detachment returned to their units. The army retreats to-morrow.'

A lightning change came over the officers' faces. Even Colonel Gille smiled. With a flash of recollection he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the despatch which had been handed him in the middle of the rush to extinguish the flames.

'Get these pontoons stacked together again,' he ordered briefly. 'Bring that rope and pile the whole lot together and burn it. And set fire to the roadway timber again. You see, it was like this, my general-' But there is no need to follow Colonel Gille into the ramifications of his explanation to General Eble on how the bridge came to be set on fire prematurely and extinguished again. When an army is about to set out on a dangerous retreat in face of an active enemy there is little time for explanation.

Once more the crackle and roar of the flames made themselves heard above the gurgle of the river, and the wind blew a long streamer of smoke across the countryside. Soon all that was left of the bridge on which hundreds of men had laboured for three months was a long row of piles of white ashes, still smoking a little.

Down on the high road there was already a long string of artillery marching down towards the concentration point at Santarem. They were the guns which had been brought up to be set in batteries at the confluence of the rivers to cover that hypothetical crossing.

After the guns went the two battalions of infantry who had been waiting here for the same purpose. It was easy to see that they were intended to be battalions, for each was divided into six companies, and of each six one company wore the bearskins of grenadiers and one company the green plumes of the voltigeurs. Had it not been for that it might have been guessed that the column represented a single battalion, so short was it. That was the effect of a winter without food. General Eble pointed down to the moving column and spoke to Colonel Gille. 'Hurry up and give these men their orders, colonel,' he said. 'They ought to have left before those. Now half of them will never reach their regiments.' It took some time to issue feuilles de route to every non- commissioned officer in charge of a detachment. Nearly every regiment in the French army was represented in the bridge-building column. However, there were no rations to be issued as well; the army staff could not be expected to have sent up from their almost non-existent store rations for men who were to march in towards them that very day.