Harper's Young People, October 3, 1882 An Illustrated Weekly

THE SOLDIER'S CHEESE.

BY DAVID KER.

Any one who had come down the St. Gothard to the village of Andermatt, just at daybreak one cold winter morning in 1799, would have seen a very curious sight. All night long the village folks had been busy packing up and carrying away in carts or on horse and mule back whatever they could most easily remove. The first gleam of dawn saw the hindmost fugitives slinking away into the passes of the northern hills, looking fearfully back every now and then at the towering crest of the St. Gothard, as if expecting the whole mountain to fall upon them at once, or to send forth a torrent of fire that would sweep them all away.

The danger from which they were flying was not long behind them. Scarcely had the sun peered above the surrounding hill-tops when the great white slope of the St. Gothard seemed to grow black all at once, like a white cloth swarmed over by flies. Instantly the whole mountain-side was alive with bear-skin caps, and glittering bayonets, and prancing horses, and bright epaulets, and rumbling wheels, and shining cannon.

Down they came, still downward, thousands upon thousands--tall sallow grenadiers in long overcoats of gray frieze, sharp-faced, narrow-eyed Cossacks with long lances in their hands, black-capped gunners, glittering hussars, blue-nosed, shivering staff officers--and high above all, fluttering gayly in the keen morning breeze, the bullet-torn standard that bore the imperial ensign of Russia.

At sight of the deserted village there was a murmur of satisfaction among the Russian soldiers; for it was now forty-eight hours since any of them had touched a morsel of food, and they were all as hungry as wolves.

"These mountain goats have run away at the very sound of our coming," said a big grenadier; "but so long as they've left some food behind them, it's all right."

"Isn't this the place where they said the famous cheese was made?" suggested a gaunt, red-bearded Cossack.

"Sure enough!" cried one of his comrades, joyfully. "Hey, brothers! won't we have a good feed when we get down there!"

A good feed they certainly did have, a few minutes later. Scarcely had the foremost battalion entered the village when a shout of "Cheese! cheese!" from the front drew every one in that direction. The little shop into which the starving men had rushed was hardly big enough to hold twenty of them at a time; but Russian soldiers, after a two days' fast, are not the men to be over ceremonious. In a trice the plank front of the store was beaten in and torn down, the shining yellow blocks which made such a tempting show were tossed into the street by hundreds, and there began such a feast as Andermatt had not seen, for many a year, even upon a market-day.

But just as they were at the busiest, munching and gnawing away like so many rats, a few dropping shots in front, followed by the roll of a full volley, made them all spring up and seize their arms.

"Infantry, form!" roared an officer, galloping in among them. "Skirmishers, advance! Forward! march!"

And now the work began in earnest. The French had covered their retreat by filling the wood beyond the village with sharp-shooters, and as the Russians moved on, the pine-clumps around them seemed alive with crackling musketry and quick puffs of white smoke, while the gray coats of fallen soldiers dotted the snow on every side.

But presently up came three or four light guns at a hard trot, and sent a shower of grape-shot rattling into the thickets, stirring the crouching marksmen from their covert like rabbits. On pressed the Russians; back fell the French; when suddenly a deep, hoarse roar was heard above all the din of the firing, and right in front of the charging Russians, as they broke from the wood, yawned a chasm as deep and narrow as if made by the cut of a sword. A quaint old bridge of moss-grown stone spanned the gulf, over which the last of the French soldiers were just filing at a run.

No time to lose, evidently. Forward sprang the Russians with a loud hurrah, when suddenly there came a report, sharp as a thunder-clap, while the whole air was filled with smoke and dust and whizzing masses of stone. The bridge had been blown up, leaving an impassable gulf between the two armies; and a taunting laugh from the French, accompanied by a volley of musketry, answered the yell of rage that broke from their pursuers.

What was to be done? Unless they could reach the enemy with the bayonet, the superior numbers of the Russians would avail them nothing; and if they stayed where they were they would be shot down like sparrows.

"This won't do, lads," cried a tall, handsome man in a rich gold-laced uniform, turning to the Cossacks who stood around him. "Follow me."

All obeyed without a word, for the speaker was no other than Prince Bagration, one of the best generals in the Russian army. Creeping round behind the thickets, that the enemy might not see what they were about, they came out again upon the river about half a mile higher up, at a point where the edge of the precipice, though quite bare and rocky on their side of the gap, was thickly wooded on the other.

"If we had three or four of those trees over here," said the Prince, "they'd bridge this gap for us famously. But how are we to get at them?"

"Twist the officers' sashes into a rope, your Highness," suggested a Cossack beside him, "knot a stone in the end of it, fling it across so as to catch in one of the branches, and send somebody over on it. I once robbed a house that way myself at home in Russia."

"_Did_ you?" said the General, with a broad grin. "Well, then, you shall make up for it by being the first man to cross. Off with your sashes, gentlemen."

The impromptu rope was soon twisted, the stone knotted in it, and flung so dexterously across the chasm that it caught in the fork of a tree at the first cast. The daring Cossack, with a sapper's axe slung round his neck, swung himself nimbly over the fearful gulf, and went to work upon the trees with such vigor that it was not long before three of them lay right across the gap, bridging it completely.

Then the Prince and his men, stirred to frenzy by the increasing uproar of the battle below, scrambled like mad-men across the perilous bridge, and rushing up the heights beyond, commenced firing down upon the French on the other side. Confounded by this unexpected attack, the enemy broke and fled, and the fight was won.