Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [379]
A company of infantry of the line had come in and occupied the extremity of the street, in the rear of the gun. The soldiers tore up the pavement, and with the stones constructed a little low wall, a sort of breastwork, which was hardly more than eighteen inches high, and which fronted the barricade. At the corner on the left of this breastwork, they saw the head of the column of a battalion of the banlieue massed in the Rue St.-Denis.
Enjolras, on the watch, thought he distinguished the peculiar sound which is made when canisters of grapeshot are taken from the caisson, and he saw the gunner change the aim and incline the piece slightly to the left. Then the cannoneers began to load. The gunner seized the linstock himself and brought it near the touch-hole.
“Heads down, keep close to the wall!” cried Enjolras, “and all on your knees along the barricade!”
The insurgents, who were scattered in front of the tavern, and who had left their posts of combat on Gavroche’s arrival, rushed pell-mell towards the barricade; but before Enjolras’ order was executed, the discharge took place with the fearful rattle of grapeshot. It was so in fact.
The charge was directed at the opening of the redoubt, it ricocheted upon the wall, and this terrible ricochet killed two men and wounded three.
If that continued, the barricade was no longer tenable. It was not proof against grapeshot.
There was a sound of consternation.
“Let us prevent the second shot, at any rate,” said Enjolras.
And, lowering his carbine, he aimed at the gunner, who, at that moment, bending over the breech of the gun, was correcting and finally adjusting the aim.
This gunner was a fine-looking sergeant of artillery, quite young, of fair complexion, with a very mild face, and the intelligent air peculiar to that predestined and formidable arm which, by perfecting itself in horror, must end in killing war.
Combeferre, standing near Enjolras, looked at this young man.
“What a pity!” said Combeferre. “What a hideous thing these butcheries are! Come, when there are no more kings, there will be no more war. Enjolras, you are aiming at that sergeant, you are not looking at him. Just think that he is a charming young man; he is intrepid; you see that he is a thinker; these young artillery-men are well educated; he has a father, a mother, a family; he is in love probably; he is at most twenty-five years old; he might be your brother.”
“He is,” said Enjolras.
“Yes,” said Combeferre, “and mine also. Well, don’t let us kill him.”
“Let me alone. We must do what we must.”
And a tear rolled slowly down Enjolras’ marble cheek.
At the same time he pressed the trigger of his carbine. The flash leaped forth. The artillery-man turned twice round, his arms stretched out before him, and his head raised as if to drink the air, then he fell over on his side upon the gun, and lay there motionless. His back could be seen, from the centre of which a stream of blood gushed upwards. The ball had entered his breast and passed through his body. He was dead.
It was necessary to carry him away and to replace him. It was indeed some minutes gained.
8 (9)
USE OF THAT OLD POACHER’S SKILL, AND THAT INFALLIBLE AIM WHICH INFLUENCED THE CONVICTION OF 1796
THERE WAS confusion in the counsel of the barricade. The gun was about to be fired again. They could not hold out a quarter of an hour in that storm of grapeshot. It was absolutely necessary to deaden the blows.
Enjolras threw out his command:
“We must put a mattress there.”
“We have none,” said Combeferre, “the wounded are on them.”
Jean Valjean, seated apart on a block, at the corner of the tavern, his musket between his knees, had, up to this moment, taken no part in what was going on. He seemed not to hear the combatants about him say: “There is a musket which is doing nothing.”
At the order given by Enjolras, he got up.
It will be remembered that on the arrival of the company in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing bullets, had put her mattress before her window.