An angle of the German line was thrust forward at this point where a hill afforded a strong position. Bullets were coming from it in showers, but the Bougainville regiment broke into a run, passed ahead of the others and rushed straight at the hill.
It was the first time that men had come face to face in the battle and now John saw the French fury, the enthusiasm and fire that Napoleon had capitalized and cultivated so sedulously. Shouting fiercely, they flung themselves upon the Germans and by sheer impact drove them back. They cleared the hill in a few moments, triumphantly seized four cannon and then, still shouting, swept on.
John found himself shouting with the others. This was victory, the first real taste of it, and it was sweet to the lips. But the regiment was halted presently, lest it get too far forward and be cut off, and a general striding over to Bougainville uttered words of approval that John could not hear amid the terrific din of so many men in battle--a million, a million and a half or more, he never knew.
They stood there panting, while the French line along a front of maybe fifty miles crept on and on. The French machine with the British wheels and springs coöperating, was working beautifully now. It was a match and more for their enemy. The Germans, witnessing the fire and dash of the French and feeling their tremendous impact, began to take alarm. It had not seemed possible to them in those last triumphant days that they could fail, but now Paris was receding farther and farther from their grasp.
John recovered a certain degree of coolness. The fire of the foe was turned away from them for the present, and, finding that the glasses thrown over his shoulder, had not been injured by his fall, he examined the battle front as he stood by the side of Bougainville. The country was fairly open here and along a range of miles the cannon in hundreds and hundreds were pouring forth destruction. Yet the line, save where the angle had been crushed by the rush of Bougainville's regiment, stood fast, and John shuddered at thought of the frightful slaughter, needed to drive it back, if it could be driven back at all.
Then he glanced at the fields across which they had come. For two or three miles they were sprinkled with the fallen, the red and blue of the French uniform showing vividly against the green grass. But there was little time for looking that way and again he turned his glasses in front. The regiment had taken cover behind a low ridge, and six rapid firers were sending a fierce hail on the German lines. But the men under orders from Bougainville, withheld the fire of their rifles for the present.