A vast turmoil, frightful in
its fury, followed. The German cavalry reeled back, but it did not
retreat. The shrill clamor of many trumpets came again, and once more
the horsemen charged. The sheet of death blazed in their faces again,
and then the French met them with bayonet.
The Strangers had closed in to meet the shock. John felt rather than saw
Carstairs and Wharton on either side of him, and the three of them were
firing cartridge after cartridge into the light whitish smoke that hung
between them and the charging horsemen. He was devoutly thankful that
the Paris regiment was immediately on their right, and that it was led
by such a man as Bougainville. General Vaugirard, he knew, was farther
to their left, and now he began to hear the rapid firers, pouring a rain
of death upon the cavalry.
"We win! we win!" cried Carstairs. "If they couldn't beat us down in the
first rush they can't beat us down at all!"
Carstairs was right. The French had broken into no panic, and, when,
infantry standing firm, pour forth the incessant and deadly stream of
death, that modern arms make possible, no cavalry can live before them.
Yet the Germans charged again and again into the hurricane of fire and
steel. The tumult of the battle face to face became terrific.
John could no longer hear the words of his comrades. He saw dimly
through the whitish smoke in front, but he continued to fire. Once he
leaped aside to let a wounded and riderless horse gallop past, and
thrice he sprang over the bodies of the dead.
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