Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume II

The dreadful operations of surgery – for which, in the events of every-day life, every provision of delicate secrecy, and every minute detail which can alleviate dread, are so rigidly studied, – were here going forward on every side; the horrible preparations moved from bed to bed with a rapidity which showed that where suffering so abounded there was no time for sympathy; and the surgeons, with arms bare to the shoulder and bedaubed with blood, toiled away as though life no longer moved in the creeping flesh beneath the knife, and human agony spoke not aloud with every motion of their hand.

“Place there! move forward!” said an hospital surgeon, as they carried up the litter on which Pioche lay stretched and senseless.

“What’s this?” cried a surgeon, leaning forward, and placing his hand on the sick man’s pulse. “Ah! take him back again; it ‘s all over there!”

“Oh, no!” cried I, in agony, “it can scarcely be; they lifted him alive from the wagon.”

“He’s not dead, sir,” replied the surgeon, in a whisper, “but he will soon be; there’s internal bleeding going on from that wound, and a few hours, or less perhaps must close the scene.”

“Can nothing be done? nothing?”

“I fear not.” He opened the jacket of the wounded man as he spoke, and slitting the inner clothes asunder with a quick stroke of his scissors, disclosed a tremendous sabre-wound in the side. “That is not the worst,” said he. “Look here,” pointing to a small bluish mark of a bullet hole above it; “here lies the mischief.”

An hospital aid whispered something at the instant in the surgeon’s ear, to which he quickly replied, “When?”

“This instant, sir; the ligature slipped, and – ”

“Remove him,” was the reply. “Now, sir, I have a bed for your poor fellow here; but I have little hope to give you. His pulse is stronger, otherwise the endeavor would be lost time.”

While they carried the litter forward, I perceived that another party were lifting from a bed near a figure, over whose face the sheet was carelessly thrown. I guessed from the gestures that the form they lifted was lifeless; the heavy sumph of the body upon the ground showed it beyond a doubt. The bearers replaced the dead man by the dying body of poor Pioche; and from a vague feeling of curiosity, I stooped down and drew back the sheet from the face of the corpse. As I did so, my limbs trembled, and I leaned back almost fainting against the wall. Pale with the pallor of death, but scarcely altered from life, I beheld the dead features of Amédée Pichot, the captain whose insolence had left an unsettled quarrel between us. The man for whose coming I waited to expiate an open insult, now lay cold and lifeless at my feet. What a rush of sensations passed through my mind as I gazed on that motionless mass! and oh, what gratitude my heart gushed to think that he did not fall by my hand!

“A brave soldier, but a quarrelsome friend,” said the surgeon, stooping down to examine the wound, with all the indifference of a man who regarded life as a mere problem. “It was a cannon-shot carried it off.” As he said this, he disclosed the mangled remains of a limb, torn from the trunk too high to permit of amputation. “Poor Amédée! it was the death he always wished for. It was a strange horror he had of falling by the hand of an adversary, rather than being carried off thus. And now for the cuirassier.”

So saying, he turned towards the bed on which Pioche lav, still as death itself. A few minutes’ careful investigation of the case enabled him to pronounce that although the chances were many against recovery, yet it was not altogether hopeless.

“All will depend on the care of whoever watches him,” said the surgeon. “Symptoms will arise, requiring prompt attention and a change in treatment; and this is one of those cases where a nurse is worth a hundred doctors. Who takes charge of this bed?” he called aloud.

“Minette, Monsieur,” said a sergeant. “She has lain down to take a little rest, for she was quite worn out with fatigue.”

“Me voici!” said a silvery voice I knew at once to be hers. And the same instant she pierced the crowd around the bed, and approached the patient. No sooner had she beheld the features of the sick man than she reeled back, and grasped the arms of the persons on either side. For a few seconds she stood, with her hands pressed upon her face, and when she withdrew them, her features were almost ghastly in their hue, while, with a great effort over her emotion, she said, in a low voice, “Can he recover?”

“Yes, Minette!” replied the surgeon, “and will, if care avail anything. Just hear me for a moment.”

With that he drew her to one side, and commenced to explain the treatment he proposed to adopt. As he spoke, her cloak, which up to this instant she wore, dropped from her shoulders, and she stood there in the dress of the vivandière: a short frock coat, of light blue, with a thin gold braid upon the collar and the sleeve; loose trousers of white jean, strapped beneath her boots; a silk sash of scarlet and gold entwined was fastened round her waist, and fell in a long fringe at her side; while a cap of blue cloth, with a gold band and tassel, hung by a hook at her girdle. Simple as was the dress, it displayed to perfection the symmetry of her figure and her carriage, and suited the character of her air and gesture, which, abrupt and impatient at times, was almost boyish in the wayward freedom of her action.

The surgeon soon finished his directions, the crowd separated, and Minette alone remained by the sick man’s bed. For some minutes her cares did not permit her to look up; but when she did, a slight cry broke from her, and she sank down upon the seat at the bedside.

“Minette, dear Minette, you are not angry with me?” said I, in a low and trembling tone. “I have not done aught to displease you, – have I so?”

She answered not a word, but a blush of the deepest scarlet suffused her face and temples, and her bosom heaved almost convulsively.

“To you I owe my life,” continued I, with earnestness; “nay more, I owe the kindness which made of a sick-bed a place of pleasant thoughts and happy memories. Can I, then, have offended you, while my whole heart was bursting with gratitude?”

A paleness, more striking than the blush that preceded it, now stole over her features, but she uttered not a word. Her eyes turned from me and fell upon her own figure, and I saw the tears till up and roll slowly along her cheeks.

“Why did you leave me, Minette?” said I, wound up by her obstinate silence beyond further endurance. “Did the few words of impatience – ”

“No, no, no!” broke she in, “not that! not that!”

“What then? Tell me, for Heaven’s sake, how have I earned your displeasure? Believe me, I have met with too little kindness in my way through life, not to feel poignantly the loss of a friend. What was it, I beseech you?”

“Oh, do not ask me!” cried she, with streaming eyes; “do not, I beg of you. Enough that you know – and this I swear to you, – that no fault of yours was in question. You were always good and always kind to me, – too kind, too good, – but not even your teaching could alter the waywardness of my nature. Speak of this no more, I ask you, as the greatest favor you can bestow on me. See here,” cried she, while her lips trembled with emotion; “I have need of all my courage to be of use to him; and you will not, I am sure, render me unequal to my task.”

“But we are friends, Minette; friends as before,” said I, taking her hand, and pressing it within mine.

“Yes, friends!” muttered she, in a broken voice, while she turned her head from me. “Adieu! Monsieur, adieu!”

“Adieu, then, since you wish it so, Minette! But whatever your secret reason for this change towards me, you never can alter the deep-rooted feeling of my heart, which makes me know myself your friend forever.”

The more I thought of Minette’s conduct, the more puzzled I was. No jealousy on the part of Pioche could explain her abrupt departure from Elchingen, and her resolve never to rejoin the Fourth. She was, indeed, a strange girl, wayward and self-willed; but her impulses all had their source in high feelings of honor and exalted pride. It might have been that some chance expression had given her offence; yet she denied this. But still, her former frankness was gone, and a sense of coldness, if not distrust, had usurped its place. I could make nothing of it. One thing alone did I feel convinced of, – she did not love Pioche. Poor fellow! with all the fine traits of his honest nature, the manly simplicity and openness of his character, he had not those arts of pleasing which win their way with a woman’s mind. Besides that, Minette, from habit and tone of voice, had imbibed feelings and ideas of a very different class in society, and with a feminine tact, had contrived to form acquaintance with, and a relish for, the tastes and pleasures of the cultivated World. The total subversion of all social order effected by the Revolution had opened the path of ambition in life equally to women as to men; and all the endeavors of the Consulate and the Empire had not sobered down the minds of France to their former condition. The sergeant to-day saw no reason why he might not wear his epaulettes to-morrow, and in time exchange his shako even for a crown; and so the vivandière, whose life was passed in the intoxicating atmosphere of glory, might well dream of greatness which should be hers hereafter, and of the time when, as the wife of a marshal or a peer of France, she would walk the salons of the Tuileries as proudly as the daughter of a Rohan or a Tavanne.

There was, then, nothing vain or presumptuous in the boldest flight of ambition. However glittering the goal, it was beyond the reach of none; and the hopes which, in better-ordered communities, had been deemed absurd, seemed here but fair and reasonable. And from this element alone proceeded some of the greatest actions, and by far the greatest portion of the unhappiness, of the period. The mind of the nation was unfixed; men had not as yet resolved themselves into those grades and classes, by the means of which public opinion is brought to bear upon individuals from those of his own condition. Each was a law unto himself, suggesting his own means of advancement and estimating his own powers of success; and the result was, a general scramble for rank, dignity, and honors, the unfitness of the possessor for which, when attained, brought neither contempt nor derision. The epaulette was noblesse; the shako, a coronet. What wonder, then, if she, whose personal attractions were so great, and whose manners and tone of thought were so much above her condition, had felt the stirrings of that ambition within her heart which now appeared to be the moving spirit of the nation!

Lost in such thoughts, I turned homewards towards my quarters, and was already some distance from the convent when a dragoon galloped up to my side, and asked eagerly if I were the surgeon of the Sixth Grenadiers. As I replied in the negative, he muttered something between his teeth, and added louder, “The poor general; it will be too late after all.”

So saying, and before I could question him further, he set spurs to his horse, and dashing onwards, soon disappeared in the darkness of the night. A few minutes afterwards I beheld a number of lanterns straight before me on the narrow road, and as I came nearer, a sentinel called out, —

“Halt there! stand!”

I gave my name and rank, when the man, advancing towards me, said in a half whisper, —

“It is our general, sir; they say he cannot be brought any farther, and they must perform the operation here.”

The soldier’s voice trembled at every word, and he could scarcely falter out, in reply to my question, the name of the wounded officer.

“General St. Hilaire, sir, who led the grenadiers on the Pratzen,” said the poor fellow, his sorrow struggling with his pride.

I pressed forward; and there on a litter lay the figure of a large and singularly fine-looking man. His coat, which was covered with orders, lay open, and discovered a shirt stained and clotted with blood; but his most dangerous wound was from a grapeshot in the thigh, which shattered the bone, and necessitated amputation. A young staff surgeon, the only medical man present, was kneeling at his side, and occupied in compressing some wounded vessels to arrest the bleeding, which, at the slightest stir of the patient, broke out anew. The remainder of the group were grenadiers of his own regiment, in whose sad and sorrow-struck faces one might read the affection his men invariably bore him.

“Is he coming? can you hear any one coming?” said the young surgeon, in an anxious whisper to the soldier beside him.

“No, sir; but he cannot be far off now,” replied the man.

“Shall I ride back to Reygern for assistance?” said I, in a low voice, to the surgeon.

“I thank you, sir,” said the wounded man, in a low, calm tone, – for with the quick ear of suffering he had overheard my question, – “I thank you, but my orderly has already been sent thither. If you could relieve my young friend here from his fatiguing duty for a little, you would render us both a service. I am truly grieved to see him so much exhausted.”

“No, no, sir!” stammered the youth, as the tears ran fast down his cheeks; “this is my place. I will not leave it.”

“Kind fellow!” muttered the general, as he pressed his hand gently on the young man’s arm; “I can bear this better than you can.”

“Ah, here he comes now,” said the sentinel; and the same moment a man dismounted from his horse, and came forward towards us.

It was Louis, the surgeon of the Emperor himself, despatched by Napoleon the moment he heard of the event. At any other moment, perhaps, the abrupt demeanor of this celebrated surgeon would have savored little of delicacy or feeling; nor even then could I forgive the sudden announcement in which he conveyed to the sufferer that immediate amputation must be performed.

“No chance left but this, Louis?” said the general.

“None, sir,” replied the doctor, while he unlocked an instrument case, and busied himself in preparation for the operation.

“Can you defer it a little; an hour or two, I mean?”

“An hour, perhaps; not more, certainly.”

“But am I certain of your services then, Louis?” said the general, trying to smile. “You know I always promised myself your aid when this hour came.”

“I shall return in an hour,” replied the doctor, pulling out his watch; “I am going to Rapp’s quarters.”

“Poor Rapp! is he wounded?”

“A mere sabre-cut; but Sebastiani has suffered more severely. Now then, Lanusse,” said he, addressing the young surgeon, “you remain here. Continue as you are doing, and in an hour – ”

“In an hour,” echoed the wounded man, with a shudder, as though the anticipation of the dreadful event had thrilled through his very heart. Nor was it till the retiring sounds of the surgeon’s horse had died away in the distance that his features recovered their former calm and tranquil expression.

“A prompt fellow is Louis,” said he, after a pause; “and though one might like somewhat more courtesy in the Faubourg, yet on the field of battle it is all for the best; this is no place nor time for compliments.”

The young man answered not a word, either not daring to criticise too harshly his superior, or perhaps his emotion at the moment was too strong for utterance. In reply to my offer to remain with him, however, he thanked me heartily, and seemed gratified that he was not to be left alone in such a trying emergency.

“Come,” said St. Hilaire, after a pause, “I have asked for time, and am already forgetting how to employ it. Who can write here? Can you, Guilbert?”

“Alas, no, sir!” said a dark grenadier, blushing to the very eyes.

“If you will permit a stranger, sir,” said I, “I will be but too proud and too happy to render you any assistance in my power. I am on the staff of General d’Auvergne, and – ”

“A French officer, sir,” interrupted he; “quite enough. I ask for no other guerdon of your honor. Sit down here, then, and – But first try if you can discover a pocket-book in my sabretache; I hope it has not been lost.”

“Here it is, General,” said a soldier, coming forward with it; “I found it on the ground beside you.”

“Well, then, I will ask you to write down from my dictation a few lines, which, should this affair,” – he faltered slightly here, – “this affair prove unfortunate, you will undertake to convey, by some means or other, to the address I shall give you in Paris. It is not a will, I assure you,” continued he with a faint smile. “I have no wealth to leave; but I know his Majesty too well to fear anything on that score. But my children, I wish to give some few directions – ” Here he stopped for several minutes, and then, in a calm voice, added, “Whenever you are ready.”

It was with a suffering spirit and a faltering hand I wrote down, from his dictation, some short sentences addressed to each member of his family. Of these it is not my intention to speak, save in one instance, where St. Hilaire himself evinced a wish that his sentiments should not be a matter of secrecy.

“I desire,” said he, in a firm tone of voice, as he turned round and addressed the soldiers on either side of him, – “I desire that my son, now at the Polytechnique, should serve the Emperor better than, and as faithfully as, his father has done, if his Majesty will graciously permit him to do so, in the grenadier battalion, which I have long commanded; it will be the greatest favor I can ask of him.” A low murmur of grief, no longer repressible, ran through the little group around the litter. “The grenadiers of the Sixth,” continued he, proudly, while for an instant his pale features flushed up, “will not love him the less for the name he bears. Come, come, men! do not give way thus; what will my kind young friend here say of us, when he joins the hussar brigade? This is not their ordinary mood, believe me,” said he, addressing me. “The Russian Guard would give a very different account of them; they are stouter fellows at the pas dé charge than around the litter of a wounded comrade.”

While he was yet speaking, Louis returned, followed by two officers, one of whom, notwithstanding his efforts at concealment, I recognized to be Marshal Murat.

“We must remove him, if it be possible,” said the surgeon, in a whisper. “And yet the slightest motion is to be dreaded.”

“May I speak to him?” said Murat, in a low voice.

“Yes, that you may,” replied Louis, who now pushed his way forward and approached the litter.

“Ah, so soon!” said the wounded man, looking up; “a man of your word, Louis. And how is Rapp? Nothing in this fashion, I hope,” added he, pointing to his fractured limb with a sickly smile.

“No, no,” replied the surgeon. “But here is Marshal Murat come to inquire after you, from the Emperor.”

A flush of pride lit up St. Hilaire’s features as he heard this, and he asked eagerly, “Where, where?”

“We must remove you, St. Hilaire,” said Murat, endeavoring to speak calmly, when it was evident his feelings were highly excited; “Louis says you must not remain here.”

“As you like, Marshal. What says his Majesty? Is the affair as decisive as he looked for?”

“Far more so. The allied army is destroyed; the campaign is ended.”

“Come, then, this is not so bad as I deemed it,” rejoined St. Hilaire, with a tone of almost gayety; “I can afford to be invalided if the Emperor has no further occasion for me.”

While these few words were interchanging, Louis had applied a tourniquet around the wounded limb, and having given the soldiers directions how they were to step, so as not to disturb or displace the shattered bones, he took his place beside the litter, and said, —

“We are ready now, General.”

They lifted the litter as he spoke, and moved slowly forward. Murat pressed the hand St. Hilaire extended to him without a word; and then, turning his head away, suffered the party to pass on.

Before we reached Beygern, the wounded general had fallen into a heavy sleep, from which he did not awake as they laid him on the bed in the hospital.

“Good-night, sir, – or rather, good-morning,” said Louis to me, as I turned to leave the spot. “We may chance to have better news for you than we anticipated, when you visit us here again.”

And so we parted.