It was not often in this war that cavalry had a great chance, but here it had come.  The ambush was complete.  The German signals, either from the sky or the hills, had told when the French were in the valley, and then the German guns had turned aside their fire for the very good reason that they did not wish to send shells among their own men.

John’s feeling was one of horrified surprise.  The German cavalry extending across a mile of front seemed countless.  Imagination in that terrific moment magnified them into millions.  He saw the foaming mouths, the white teeth and the flashing eyes of the horses, and then the tense faces and eyes of their riders.  Lances and sabers were held aloft, and the earth thundered with the tread of the mounted legions.

“Good God!” cried Wharton.

“Wheel, men, wheel!” shouted Captain Colton.

As they turned to face the rushing tide of steel, the regiment of Bougainville whirled on their flank and then Bougainville was almost at his side.  He saw fire leap from the little man’s eye.  He saw him shout commands, rapid incisive, and correct and he saw clearly that if this were Napoleon’s day that marshal’s baton in the knapsack would indeed become a reality.

The Paris regiment, kneeling, was the first to fire, and the next instant flame burst from the rifles of the Strangers.  It was not a moment too soon.  It seemed to many of the young Americans and Englishmen that they had been ridden down already, but sheet after sheet of bullets fired by men, fighting for their lives, formed a wall of death.

The Uhlans, the hussars and the cuirassiers reeled back in the very moment of triumph.  Horses with their riders crashed to the ground, and others, mad with terror, rushed wildly through the French ranks.

John, Carstairs and Wharton snatched up rifles, all three, and began to fire with the men as fast as they could.  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.