French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
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Chapter III > > >
PART III
Chapter II
THE HORRORS OF CAPTIVITY—STARVATION, MURDER, AND DISEASE
There was such a scramble whilst the column of prisoners was leaving Torcy that Maurice was separated from Jean. And, run as he might afterwards, he only lost himself the more. When he at last reached the bridge thrown across the canal at the base of the peninsula of Iges, he found himself among some Chasseurs d’Afrique and was unable to rejoin his regiment.
The bridge was defended by a couple of guns pointed towards the peninsula; and the Prussian staff had turned a private residence, just beyond the canal, into a guard-house, where was stationed a commandant appointed to receive and guard the prisoners. The formalities were of a very summary description; the men arriving were simply counted like sheep, just as they came along, but little attention being paid either to the different uniforms or the different numbers; and the various flocks having scrambled past began to encamp wheresoever the chances of the road led them.
Maurice thought he might venture to apply to a Bavarian officer who sat there, astride a chair, smoking: ‘In which direction, sir, shall I find the 106th of the Line?’
Was this officer an exception to the rule, and did he not understand French? Or did he think it amusing to send a poor devil of a prisoner astray? At all events he smiled, raised his hand and signed to Maurice to go straight on.
Although Maurice belonged to that part of the country he had never previously set foot on the peninsula, and he walked onward upon a journey of discovery much as though he had been thrown by a squall upon some far-away island. He at first skirted Glaire Tower, a handsome estate on his left, whose little park, planted beside the Meuse, was extremely charming. Then the road followed the river which flowed by on the right hand, below steep and lofty banks. Little by little the road sloped upwards, winding round the hillock in the centre of the peninsula; and here were some old quarries, excavations towards which strayed narrow pathways. Farther on stood a mill beside the water. Then the road turned, and came back to the village of Iges, built on a slope and connected with the opposite bank of the Meuse by a ferry just in front of the spinning works of St. Albert. Finally patches of cultivated ground and meadows were spread out—quite an expanse of flat, treeless land, limited by the rounded loop of the river. In vain did Maurice scan the undulating hill slope: he could only see some artillery and cavalry taking up their quarters there. Thereupon he again made inquiries, applying to a corporal of Chasseurs d’Afrique, who, however, could tell him nothing. Night was gathering and, feeling weary, he sat down for a moment on a mile-stone.
Then, in the despair which all at once came over him, he perceived across the Meuse those accursed fields where he had fought two days before. In the waning light of that rainy day everything had a livid hue—a dismal, mud-smeared vista was offered to his eyes. The defile of St. Albert, the narrow road by which the Prussians had approached, skirted the loop of the river as far as some whitish quarry pits. The crests of the wood of La Falizette waved beyond the slopes of the Seugnon hill; and almost in front of him, just a little on the left, was St. Menges with its road sloping down to the ferry. In the centre, just opposite, rose the Hattoy hill. Illy was far away in the rear. Fleigneux nestled behind a bend of the ground; whilst Floing was nearer in, on the right hand. He recognised the field in which he had waited, for so many hours, lying among the cabbages; the plateau which the reserve artillery had attempted to defend; and the crest where he had seen Honoré expire, stretched upon his shattered gun. And all the abomination of the disaster seemed to be coming to life again, filling him with anguish and disgust till he felt sick at heart.
A fear lest he should be overtaken by the darkness induced him to resume his search. Perhaps the 106th was camping on the low ground, beyond the village. But he only found some prowlers there, and accordingly resolved to make the circuit of the peninsula, following the loop of the river. Whilst crossing a potato field he took the precaution to tear up some of the plants and fill his pockets with potatoes; they were not yet ripe, but he had nothing else to eat, for it unluckily happened that Jean had taken charge of the two loaves which Delaherche had given them when starting. What especially struck Maurice was the large number of horses he met on the bare land sloping gently, from the central hillock, to the Meuse in the direction of Donchery. Why had all these animals been brought there? How were they to be fed? Black night had fallen when he reached a little wood, beside the water, where he was surprised to find the Cent-Gardes of the Emperor’s escort already installed, drying themselves around large fires. These ‘gentlemen,’ who thus camped apart from the other troops, had good tents, pots full of boiling soupe, and even a cow, tethered to a tree. Maurice at once noticed that they gazed askance at him, wretched-looking Linesman that he was, with his uniform in tatters and covered with mud. Still they allowed him to cook his potatoes among the ashes of one of their fires; after which, withdrawing to a tree a hundred yards away, he sat himself down to eat. It was no longer raining, the sky had cleared and the stars were shining very brightly in the depths of the bluey darkness. He then reflected that it would be best for him to spend the night there, and to resume his search in the morning. Besides he was quite overcome with fatigue, and the tree would always afford him some shelter should the rain begin falling again.
He did not manage to sleep, however, haunted as he was by thoughts of that vast prison open to the night air, in which he realised he was confined. The Prussians had displayed remarkable acumen in driving thither the eighty thousand men who remained of the army of Châlons. The peninsula was a league[37] or so in length, with a width of about a mile, ample space in which to pen the immense disbanded flock of vanquished soldiers. And Maurice clearly realised that water surrounded them without a break, the loop of the Meuse winding round them on three sides, whilst at the base of the peninsula was the derivational canal, linking the two adjacent river-beds. At this point only was there an outlet, the bridge guarded by a couple of cannon. And thus, despite its extent, nothing would be easier than to guard this camp. He had already noticed the German sentries, who had been posted in a cordon on the opposite bank of the Meuse, near the water’s edge, at intervals of fifty yards or so, with orders to fire upon every man who might try to escape by swimming across the river. Uhlans, moreover, galloped along in the rear connecting the various pickets; and farther away, scattered over the country-side, were the black lines of the Prussian regiments, so that a triple living enceinte penned in the captive army.
At present, however, although insomnia kept his eyes wide open, Maurice could only see the darkness, amid which the bivouac fires were being lighted, together with the silhouettes of the motionless sentries, ranged beyond the pale ribbon of the Meuse. These sentries stood there erect and black in the starlight, and at regular intervals Maurice heard their guttural call, a threatening watch-cry which died away, afar off, amid the loud gushing of the river. As he heard those harsh foreign syllables speeding along beneath a lovely starlit night of France, all the nightmare of two days previously was born anew within him; he once more seemed to behold all that he had again seen whilst it was light an hour or so previously—that plateau of Illy still strewn with slain, those accursed outskirts of Sedan, where a world had crumbled away. Lying on the damp soil at the verge of the wood, his head resting on the root of a tree, he again sank into the despair which had taken possession of him on Delaherche’s sofa the previous morning; and that which now tortured him, increasing the anguish of his pride, was the question of the morrow, a desire to measure the depth of that great Downfall, to ascertain amid what ruins that world of yesterday had sunk. Was that abominable war not over, as the Emperor had surrendered his sword to King William? But he remembered what two Bavarian soldiers had said whilst conducting him and his comrades to Iges: ‘We all in France, we all to Paris!’ Amid his semi-somnolence there came to him a sudden vision of what was happening—the Empire swept away, carried off by universal execration; the Republic proclaimed amidst an outburst of patriotic fever; the shadows of the Legend of ’92 arising, the soldiers of the levée en masse, the armies of volunteers driving the invader from the soil of France. And everything was intermingled in his poor, ailing head—the demands of the victors; the harshness of the conquest; the obstinacy of the vanquished, intent on resisting even to the last drop of their blood; and the captivity reserved to those eighty thousand men, of whom he was one, first on that peninsula, and then in the fortresses of Germany during weeks, months, and perhaps years. Everything was splitting to pieces—falling for evermore into the depths of limitless misfortune.
The call of the sentries, growing gradually louder and louder, burst forth in front of him and then slowly died away, afar off. He had awakened from a short doze, and was turning over on the hard ground when the profound silence was suddenly rent by the report of a firearm. Then a death-rattle sped through the black night, and there came a sound of splashing water, the brief struggle of a body sinking head-foremost in the stream. Some unlucky fellow had, no doubt, been hit by a bullet in the chest, whilst attempting to escape by swimming across the Meuse.
At sunrise on the morrow Maurice arose. The sky was clear, and he was eager to join Jean and his comrades. For a moment he had an idea of again scouring the interior of the peninsula, but on reflection he resolved to complete his round. And just as he again reached the bank of the canal, he perceived the remnants of the 106th, a thousand men or so, encamped on the bank, which was screened only by a meagre row of poplars. Had he turned to the left on the previous day instead of going straight before him he would at once have overtaken his regiment. Indeed, nearly all the infantry were heaped together here, along that bank stretching from Glaire Tower to the château of Villette, another country seat, surrounded by a few old houses, in the direction of Donchery; and they were all bivouacking near the bridge, near the only outlet, in that same instinctive desire for liberty which causes a flock of sheep to press near the gate of the fold.
At sight of Maurice, Jean raised a cry of delight: ‘Ah! here you are at last! I fancied you were in the river.’
With the corporal were the remaining men of his squad, Pache and Lapoulle, Loubet and Chouteau, who, after sleeping here and there under the doorways of Sedan, had eventually been swept together by the Prussian patrols. So far as their company was concerned, the corporal was the only superior they had left them, for death had carried away Sergeant Sapin, Lieutenant Rochas, and Captain Beaudoin; and although the victors had abolished all distinctions of rank among the prisoners, deciding that they henceforth owed obedience only to the German officers, the four men had none the less drawn together around Jean, knowing that he was prudent and experienced, a man to cling to in difficult circumstances. And thus, that morning, in spite of the stupidity of some and the ill will of others, concord and good humour were paramount among the little party. To begin with, Jean had found them a spot between two water furrows where the ground was almost dry; and since they had only half a shelter tent left between them all, they had here stretched themselves out to pass the night. Then, too, Jean had just managed to procure some wood and a pot, in which Loubet had made them some nice warm coffee, which had quite inspirited them. The rain was no longer falling, the day seemed likely to be a very fine one, and they still had a little biscuit and bacon left; moreover, as Chouteau remarked, it was delightful to have no orders to obey, and to be able to loaf about just as one chose. They were captives, no doubt, but all the same there was plenty of room. Besides, in two or three days’ time they would be off on the road to Germany. And thus that first day, September 4, which chanced to be a Sunday, proved a gay one.
Maurice, himself, in better spirits since he had joined his comrades, experienced but little suffering, save such as was caused him by the Prussian bands, which played throughout the afternoon on the other side of the canal. There was psalm-singing in chorus towards the evening; and, beyond the cordon of sentries, the German soldiers strolled to and fro in little groups, slowly and loudly chanting in celebration of the Sabbath.
‘Oh, that music!’ Maurice exclaimed at last in his exasperation. ‘It pierces me through and through.’
Jean, whose nerves were less susceptible, shrugged his shoulders: ‘Well, they have good reason to be pleased. Besides, they perhaps think that they are entertaining us. The day hasn’t been an unpleasant one, we mustn’t grumble.’
At the fall of night, however, the rain came down again. It was a perfect disaster. Some soldiers had taken possession of the few abandoned houses on the peninsula. A few others had managed to set up tents. But the greater number, lacking any kind of shelter, destitute even of blankets, had to spend the night in the open air under the torrential downpour. At about one in the morning, Maurice, who had dozed off with fatigue, awoke, and found himself in a perfect lake. The water furrows, swollen by the rain, had overflowed, submerging the ground where he had stretched himself to sleep. Chouteau and Loubet were swearing with rage, whilst Pache began shaking Lapoulle, who was still sound asleep amid all this flood. Then Jean, bethinking himself of the poplars planted alongside the canal, hastened to them for shelter with his men, who, bending down, spent the remainder of that frightful night with their backs against the trunks, and their legs doubled under them to protect them from the big rain drops.
And the morrow and the following day proved really abominable; so heavy and so frequent were the showers that the men’s clothes never once had time to dry. Famine was beginning, too; there was not a biscuit, not a bit of bacon, not a grain of coffee left. During those two days, the Monday and the Tuesday, they lived on potatoes stolen from the neighbouring fields; and even these became so scarce at the close of the second day that men with money bought them at the rate of five sous apiece. It is true that bugles sounded to rations, and the corporal had in all haste repaired to a large shed at Glaire Tower, where, so it was rumoured, rations of bread were being distributed. But on the first occasion he had waited there to no purpose for three hours, and on the second he had had a quarrel with a Bavarian. The French officers being unable to do anything to assist their men, in the powerless position to which they were reduced, it really seemed as though the German staff had herded the vanquished army together there in the rain with the intention of starving it to death. No steps apparently were taken, not an attempt was made to feed those eighty thousand men, whose agony was now beginning in that frightful hell which was to acquire the name of the Camp of Misery, a name of woe which in after times the bravest could not recall without a shudder.
On returning from his long, useless waits before the shed, Jean, as a rule so calm, flew into quite a passion. ‘Are they playing the fool with us, sounding to rations like that when there’s nothing? I’m dashed if I’ll trouble to go there again.’
And yet at the first call he again hastened thither. These regulation bugle-calls were positively inhuman, and they produced another result which wrung Maurice’s heart. Each time that the bugles sounded, the abandoned French horses, at large on the other side of the canal, galloped up and leaped into the water, as excited by those well-known flourishes as by the prick of the spur. Exhausted by hunger, however, they were mostly carried off by the current, few of them managing to reach the bank of the peninsula. They could be seen struggling lamentably, and so large a number of them was drowned that at last their floating, inflated carcases obstructed the canal. As for those that managed to land, they were seized with madness, as it were, and galloped away across the waste fields.
‘Some more meat for the crows!’ said Maurice sorrowfully, remembering the horses that he had already seen in such alarming numbers during the first night of his captivity. ‘If we remain here many days longer, we shall all be eating one another. Ah! the poor animals.’
The Tuesday proved, indeed, terrible. Jean, who was getting seriously anxious at Maurice’s feverish condition, compelled the young fellow to wrap himself in a shred of a blanket which he had purchased from a Zouave for ten francs: whilst, for his own part, with his overcoat soaked like a sponge, he remained all night exposed to the downpour to which there was no cessation. The position under the poplars became untenable, a river of mud was streaming along on all sides, and the earth was so gorged, so saturated, that it now retained the water on its surface in deep puddles. The worst was that the six men had their stomachs empty, their evening meal having been limited to two beets, which for lack of dry wood they had not even been able to cook. And the sweetish roots, fresh though they were to the palate, had developed an insupportable burning sensation in their stomachs. Moreover, dysentery was now breaking out, caused by fatigue, bad living, and incessant dampness. With his back to the trunk of the same tree as Maurice, and with his legs quite under water, Jean stretched out his hand a dozen times that night to make sure that the young fellow had not uncovered himself in his agitated slumber. Since Maurice had saved him from the Prussians, by carrying him in his arms across the plateau of Illy, the corporal had been paying back his debt a hundredfold. Without reasoning what he did, he freely gave himself to Maurice, entirely forgot himself in his affection for him. It was an unmeasured, ever active attachment on the part of this peasant, who was but slightly removed from the soil, and could not even find words to express his feelings. For Maurice, he had already taken food from his own mouth, as the men of the squad expressed it; and now, had there been need of it, he would have given him his skin as a covering, to protect his shoulders, and warm his feet. And amid all the savage egotism that surrounded them, amid the suffering of appetite, maddened by hunger, he was possibly indebted to his self-abnegation for the unexpected advantage that he reaped in retaining his quiet good-humour, and good health; for he alone still gave proof of strength, and lost but little of his wits.
Thus it happened that, after that fearful night, he put into execution an idea that had been haunting him. ‘I say, youngster,’ said he to Maurice, ‘as we get nothing given us to eat, and are being forgotten, so it seems, in this cursed hole, we must bestir ourselves a bit, if we don’t want to die of hunger. Can you walk?’
The sun was fortunately shining again and had made Maurice feel quite warm. ‘Oh! yes, I can walk well enough,’ said he.
‘Then we’ll go on a journey of discovery. We have some money, and we shall have to be precious unlucky if we don’t find something to buy. And we mustn’t burden ourselves with the others, they are not straight enough, let them take care of themselves.’
He was, in fact, disgusted with the crafty egotism of Loubet and Chouteau, who stole whatever they could lay their hands on and never shared anything with their comrades. And in the same way there was nothing to be done with either that brute Lapoulle or that black-beetle Pache.
So Jean and Maurice went off by the road which the latter had already followed, alongside the Meuse. The park and house of Glaire Tower were already devastated and pillaged, the lawns ravined as by a storm, the trees felled, and the buildings invaded. A crowd of ragged, mud-splashed soldiers, with hollow cheeks and eyes that glittered with fever, were camping there in gipsy fashion, living like wolves in the filthy rooms, which they were afraid to leave lest they should lose their places for the night. On the slopes farther on Jean and Maurice passed through the cavalry and artillery, formerly so smart and jaunty, but now sadly down-fallen, disorganised by the torture of hunger which maddened the horses and scattered the men over the fields in plundering bands. Outside the mill, on their right hand, they saw a procession of artillerymen and Chasseurs d’Afrique slowly defiling along: the miller was selling them flour at the rate of a franc for every two handfuls which he emptied into their handkerchiefs. The fear, however, of having to wait too long for any of this, induced Jean and Maurice to proceed farther on; besides they hoped that they might find something better in the village of Iges. And they were in consternation when they had visited the hamlet and found it bare and desolate, just like some Algerian village after a flight of locusts has fallen upon it. Not a crumb remained there, neither bread, nor vegetables, nor meat; it was as though the wretched houses had been scraped bare with the finger nails. It appeared that General Lebrun had taken up his quarters at the mayor’s. To facilitate the provisioning of the troops he had vainly endeavoured to organise a system of tickets, the value of which would have been reimbursed by the State after the war; but no provisions were obtainable, money was utterly useless. On the previous day a biscuit had fetched two francs, a bottle of wine seven francs, a small liqueur glass of brandy one franc,[38] and a pipeful of tobacco half a franc. And now officers had to mount guard over the general’s quarters and the adjacent hovels, with drawn swords, for frequent bands of prowlers burst open the cottage doors, stealing even the colza oil from the lamps and drinking it!
Three Zouaves called to Maurice and Jean in the idea that if five of them banded together they might bring some enterprise or other to success. ‘Come with us!’ they cried. ‘There are some horses kicking the bucket, and if we could only get some dry wood——’
But Maurice and Jean did not go, and the Zouaves rushed upon a peasant’s house, broke open the cupboards and tore the thatch off the roof. Some officers, however, came up at a run, threatening them with their revolvers, and put them to flight.
Finding the few people who had remained at Iges as wretched and as hungry as the soldiers themselves, Jean regretted that he had disdained the flour at the mill: ‘We must go back, perhaps there’s still some left,’ said he.
Maurice, however, was growing so weary, so exhausted by hunger, that Jean left him in a quarry hole, sitting on a rock in full view of the far-spreading horizon of Sedan. For his own part, after a wait of three-quarters of an hour he at last returned with a duster full of flour. They could devise no other plan than to eat it as it was by the handful. It wasn’t nasty, in fact it had no smell and merely the insipid taste of dough. This breakfast, though a poor one, revived them somewhat. And they were even lucky enough to find on the rock a pool of rain water, fairly clean, with which they quenched their thirst.
However, on Jean proposing that they should stay and spend the afternoon there, Maurice made a violent gesture of refusal. ‘No, no, not here! It would make me ill if I had that long before my eyes.’ So saying, he pointed with his trembling hand to the immense horizon, the Hattoy hill, the plateaux of Floing and Illy, the wood of La Garenne, all those hateful fields of slaughter and defeat. ‘Just now whilst I was waiting for you,’ he added, ‘I had to turn my back on it all, for I should have ended by howling with rage, yes, howling like an exasperated dog. You can’t imagine the pain it gives me, it drives me mad!’
Jean gazed at him, astonished that his pride should bleed like that, anxious too on again espying in his eyes that wild, mad look which he had previously noticed in them. He thought it best to treat the matter lightly: ‘Well, we can easily settle all that,’ said he, ‘we’ll go to another part.’
Then they wandered about until evening, wheresoever the paths led them, visiting the low ground of the peninsula in the hope that they might still find some potatoes there. The artillerymen, however, had appropriated the ploughs and turned up the fields, reaping and gleaning and taking everything away. They thereupon retraced their steps, and again passed through idle, agonising flocks of captives, soldiers who were promenading their hunger, strewing the soil with their numbed bodies, falling from sheer exhaustion by hundreds in the broad sunlight. Not an hour went by but Jean and Maurice themselves were overcome and had to sit down. Then all at once exasperation set them on their feet again, and they once more began prowling round as though spurred on by the instinct of the animal that seeks its food. This agony seemed to have been lasting for months, yet the minutes were rapidly flying by. In the fields in the direction of Donchery, they were frightened by the wandering horses, and had to seek shelter behind a wall, where they remained for a long time in an exhausted state, gazing with dim eyes at those maddened animals tearing along against the red background of the sunset.
As Maurice had foreseen, the thousands of horses which had been led into captivity with the army, and could not be fed, proved a source of daily increasing danger. They had first eaten the bark of the trees, then they had attacked the trelliswork, the fences, all the planks they came upon, and now they were becoming cannibals. They could be seen throwing themselves upon one another and tearing off the hair of each other’s tails, chewing it furiously with foaming jaws. But it was especially at night time that they became terrible, as though the darkness oppressed them with a nightmare. They gathered together in bands and rushed upon the few tents that had been pitched, attracted by the straw there. In vain had the men lighted large fires to keep them away; these fires only seemed to excite them the more. Their neighing was so dolorous, so frightful at times that it seemed like the roaring of wild beasts. Driven away, they returned yet more numerous and more ferocious. And at every moment there sped through the darkness the long cry of agony of some soldier gone astray whom they had knocked over and crushed in their wild gallop.
The sun was still above the horizon when Jean and Maurice, on their way back to the camping ground, were surprised to come upon the four men of their squad, crouching in a ditch as though plotting some evil stroke. Loubet at once called to them, and Chouteau proceeded to explain: ‘It’s about to-night’s dinner,’ said he. ‘We shall all end by kicking the bucket, we haven’t had anything to eat for six-and-thirty hours. But there are some horses, you know, and as horseflesh is by no means bad——’
‘Eh, you’ll join us, corporal, won’t you?’ broke in Loubet, ‘for with such a big animal to handle, the more we are the better it will be. Look! there’s one over yonder whom we’ve been watching for an hour or so—that big roan who seems ailing. It will be easier to finish him off.’
So saying, he pointed to a horse which had just fallen from hunger at the edge of a ravaged field of beets. Lying on its side, the animal from time to time raised its poor head, breathing loudly and mournfully, and gazing around with glassy eyes.
‘Ah! what a time to wait!’ growled Lapoulle, tortured by his voracious appetite: ‘I’ll go and settle him, shall I?’
Loubet prevented him, however: No, thanks! They were not at all anxious to have a row with the Prussians, who, under penalty of death, had forbidden the prisoners to kill a single one of the horses, for fear lest the abandoned carcase might foment a pestilence. It was necessary to wait till night had closed in. And this was why they were all four gathered in that ditch, watching with glittering eyes which did not stir from the animal.
‘I say, corporal,’ suddenly asked Pache in a somewhat faltering voice, ‘you are a man of ideas, couldn’t you kill him without hurting him?’
With a gesture of revolt Jean declined the cruel task. Kill that poor, agonising beast? No, no! His first impulse was to flee and carry Maurice away with him, so that neither might take any part in that frightful butchery. But at sight of his companion’s pallor he scolded himself for his sensibility. After all, animals were intended for the food of man. A fellow ought not to let himself die of hunger when there was meat available. And pleased to see that Maurice was some what inspirited by the prospect of dining, he put on a good-humoured air and answered: ‘Well, no, I have no idea as to that, and if he’s got to be killed without being hurt——’
‘Oh! I don’t care a fig about that,’ interrupted Lapoulle, I’ll manage it, you’ll see.’
When Jean and Maurice had seated themselves in the ditch, the waiting was resumed. From time to time one of the party rose up to make sure that the horse was still on the same spot, stretching its neck towards the fresh breezes from the Meuse, towards the setting sun, as though to drink in the life that lingered there. Then, as the twilight slowly fell, all six men rose up to continue their savage watch, impatient for the laggard night, and glancing on all sides with wild anxiety to ascertain if anyone were observing them.
‘Ah! dash it!’ suddenly exclaimed Chouteau, ‘now’s the time.’
The surrounding landscape was still broadly defined in the equivocal owl’s light which now prevailed. And Lapoulle ran up the first, followed by the five others. He had picked up a large round stone in the ditch, and he rushed upon the horse and began to batter its skull, with his arms stiffly outstretched as though they had formed a club. At the second blow, however, the horse made an attempt to get up. Chouteau and Loubet, standing over its legs, were trying to hold them down, and calling to the others to help them. The animal neighed in a terrified, dolorous, almost human voice, struggled to rise, and would have shattered them like glass had it not been already half dead of starvation. Its head continued moving, and Lapoulle’s blows missed their aim, so that he was unable to despatch it.
‘Curse it! how hard the brute’s bones are! Hold him so that I can settle him.’
Jean and Maurice, whose hearts were frozen, did not hear Chouteau calling to them, but stood by with hanging arms, unable to make up their minds to intervene. And, all at once, Pache dropped upon his knees—in an instinctive impulse of religious pity—joined his hands, and began stammering prayers such as are said at the bedside of the dying.
Once more did Lapoulle miss his aim, merely tearing off one of the ears of the wretched horse, which fell back, giving vent to a loud cry.
‘Wait a bit,’ growled Chouteau. ‘We must settle him, or we shall be caught. Don’t let go, Loubet.’
He had just taken his knife from his pocket, a little knife, the blade of which was not much longer than the finger. And, stretched upon the animal’s body, with one arm passed round its neck, he dug this blade into the live flesh, and searched it, cutting and hacking, until he had found and severed the artery. He had bounded aside when the blood spurted forth, gushing as from a pipe, whilst the animal’s feet stirred feebly, and great convulsive shudders coursed over its skin. Nearly five minutes elapsed before it was dead. Its large dilated eyes were turned, with an expression of doleful fright, upon the haggard men who were waiting for its death. At last they grew dim, and, all at once, their light was extinguished. Pache was still upon his knees stammering a prayer.
When the animal no longer stirred, they were greatly embarrassed as to how they could cut a nice joint off it. Loubet, who had plied every calling, certainly pointed out how they ought to proceed if they wanted to secure the fillet; but it was dark, and having nothing but that little knife, he proved a clumsy butcher, and fairly lost himself amid all that warm flesh, still palpitating with life. And the impatient Lapoulle, having decided to help him by opening the belly, when there was no necessity to do so, the carnage became something abominable; all was ferocious haste amid the spilt blood and strewn entrails; they were like wolves raking the carcase of the prey with their fangs.
‘I don’t know what piece it can be,’ at last said Loubet, rising up, his arms laden with a huge chunk of meat. ‘At any rate, there’s enough here to fill us up to our eyes.’
Overcome with horror, Jean and Maurice averted their heads. Hunger was torturing them, however, and they followed the band when it galloped away in dread lest it should be surprised near the slaughtered horse. Chouteau, by the way, had just made a find—two large beets, which had been overlooked in the field, and which he carried away. To disburden his arms Loubet flung the meat upon Lapoulle’s shoulders, whilst Pache carried the squad’s pot which they had been lugging about with them so as to have it handy should their hunt be successful. And the six men galloped and galloped along without drawing breath, as though they were being pursued.
All at once, however, Loubet stopped his comrades. ‘This is stupid; the question is, where are we going to cook it?’
Jean, who was recovering his wits, suggested the quarries, which were not more than three hundred yards away; in one or another of the cavities there they could kindle a fire without being seen. When they reached the spot, however, all sorts of difficulties arose. First came the question of wood. Fortunately they discovered a roadmender’s barrow, the planks of which Lapoulle split with his heels. Then there was no drinkable water. The little pools of rain-water had been dried up by the sun during the afternoon. No doubt there was a pump, but it was much too far away, at Glaire Tower; and besides, to get any water from it you had to join a procession and wait for hours, and might deem yourself fortunate if, just as your turn had come to fill your tin, some comrade did not upset it with his elbow in the scramble. As for the few wells in the neighbourhood, these had been dry for a couple of days past, and the buckets only brought up so much mud. Thus the only available water was that of the Meuse, the bank of which was just across the road.
‘I’ll go there with the pot,’ suggested Jean.
But the others protested. ‘No, no, we don’t want to be poisoned, the river’s full of corpses.’
This was true, large numbers of dead men and horses were drifting down the Meuse. They passed by at every moment, inflated, green, already mortifying. Many of them had caught in the herbage near the banks, and remained there, poisoning the atmosphere, whilst the current stirred them with a continuous quivering. And nearly all the soldiers who had drunk of that abominable water had been seized with nausea and dysentery, following upon frightful colics.
Still they had to resign themselves to it, Maurice explaining that it would hardly be dangerous after being boiled. ‘Then I’ll go,’ repeated Jean, taking Lapoulle with him.
Black night had fallen by the time the pot, full of meat and water, had been got on the fire. Loubet had peeled the beets to cook them in the broth; ”twould make a ragout fit for the other world,’ he remarked. And they all of them urged on the flames, slipping the remnants of the barrow under the pot, whilst their big shadows danced about in a fantastic way in the depths of the rocky cavity. At last it became impossible for them to wait any longer, they threw themselves on the filthy broth and tore the meat to pieces with their trembling, clutching fingers, too impatient even to use Chouteau’s little knife. But, despite all their efforts, their stomachs rose. It was the lack of salt that caused them the most disgust; their stomachs refused to retain that insipid, pappy beetroot, that half-cooked glutinous flesh with an argillaceous flavour. They almost immediately began to vomit. Pache could not go on eating, Chouteau and Loubet heaped insults on that brute of a horse which they had had so much trouble to kill, and which now made their stomachs ache. Lapoulle was the only one who dined copiously; however, he almost died of it during the night, after he had gone back with the three others to sleep under the poplars of the canal.
On the way, Maurice, catching hold of Jean’s arm, had, without speaking, dragged him into a by-path. He felt furiously disgusted with his comrades, and had formed the plan of sleeping in the little wood where he had spent his first night on the peninsula. The idea was a good one, and Jean strongly approved of it when he stretched himself in the sloping soil, which he found quite dry, under the thick foliage. They remained there till it was broad daylight, falling even into a deep sleep which brought them back some strength.
The next day was Thursday, but they no longer knew how they were living, they simply felt pleased at observing that the fine weather seemed to have set in again. Despite Maurice’s repugnance, Jean prevailed on him to return to the canal bank to see if their regiment would not leave the peninsula that morning. Every day now some of the prisoners, columns a thousand and twelve hundred strong, were being sent off to the German fortresses. A couple of days previously, in front of the Prussian guard-house, Jean had seen a convoy of officers and generals who were going to Pont-à-Mousson to take the train there. A feverish, furious longing to get away from that frightful Camp of Misery prevailed among one and all. Ah! if their own turn could only have come, thought Maurice and the corporal; and they were quite in despair when they found the 106th still encamped on the canal bank, in the growing disorder caused by so much suffering.
That day, however, they thought they would succeed in getting something to eat. Quite a trade had sprung up since the morning between the prisoners and the Bavarians on the other side of the canal. Money was flung to the latter in handkerchiefs, which were thrown back wrapped round some coarse brown bread or common damp tobacco. Even the prisoners who had no money managed to secure something by throwing over their white regulation gloves, which seemed to have taken the Bavarians’ fancy. For a couple of hours this barbarous mode of exchange was kept up all along the canal, across which packets were continually flying. However, when Maurice flung over a five-franc piece, wrapped in his necktie, the Bavarian who sent him a loaf in exchange threw it in such a clumsy or tricky fashion that it fell flop into the water, whereat the Germans burst into a loud guffaw. Twice did Maurice repeat the experiment, and twice the loaf sent back to him dived into the canal. On hearing the roars of laughter which arose, some Bavarian officers ran up and prohibited their men from selling anything to the prisoners under penalty of severe punishment. The traffic then ceased, and Jean had to exert himself to calm Maurice, who was shaking his fists at those thieves yonder, shouting to them to throw him back his five-franc pieces.
In spite of its bright sunshine the day proved a terrible one. There were two alerts, two bugle calls, on hearing which Jean hastened to the shed, where rations were said to be distributed. But on both occasions, he only secured some digs in the ribs, during the scramble. The Prussians, so remarkably well organised themselves, continued displaying a brutal indifference with regard to the vanquished army. Generals Douay and Lebrun having protested against this inhuman treatment, they certainly sent a few sheep and some cart-loads of bread to the peninsula, but there was such an absence of method and precaution that the sheep were carried off and the carts ransacked as soon as they had crossed the bridge, so that the troops encamped more than a hundred yards away were no better off than before. In fact, the prowlers and pillagers were about the only ones who succeeded in filling their maws. Jean scented the trick, and ended by leading Maurice towards the bridge, so that they might wait and watch there for the arrival of provisions.
It was already four o’clock and they had as yet eaten nothing that lovely, sunshiny day, when all at once they were delighted to catch sight of Delaherche. A few of the townspeople of Sedan had, with great difficulty, obtained permission to go and see the prisoners, to whom they carried provisions; and Maurice had several times already expressed surprise at receiving no news of his sister. As soon as they espied Delaherche, carrying a large basket and with a loaf of bread tucked under either arm, they sprang forward to meet him, but once again they came up too late. Such was the rush, indeed, that the basket and one of the loaves vanished without the manufacturer himself being able to understand how they had been torn away from him.
Eager as he was for popularity, he had crossed the bridge with a smile on his lips and an air of affable good fellowship, but now he was altogether upset and stupefied. ‘Ah! my poor friends,’ he stammered.
Jean had already taken possession of the remaining loaf, and vigorously defended it; and whilst he and Maurice were devouring the bread by the roadside, Delaherche told them the news. His wife, thank Heaven! was very well; but he was anxious about the colonel, who had become extremely depressed, although Madame Delaherche, senior, continued keeping him company from morn till night.
‘And my sister?’ asked Maurice.
‘Your sister, ah yes! She came with me, it was she who brought the two loaves. Only she had to stay yonder, on the other side of the canal. Beg as we might, the sentries would not let her pass. The Prussians, you know, have given strict orders that women are not to be allowed on the peninsula.’
Then he went on talking of Henriette and of her futile endeavours to see her brother and assist him. One day, in the streets of Sedan, chance had brought her face to face with cousin Gunther, the captain in the Prussian Guards. He was passing along with that stern forbidding air of his, pretending not to recognise her, and she herself, feeling her heart rise as though she were in presence of one of her husband’s murderers, had at the first moment hastened her steps. Then in a sudden veering which she could not account for, she had turned back after him, and in a harsh, reproachful voice, had told him everything, especially how her husband had been shot at Bazeilles. And on thus hearing of his relative’s frightful death, he had made but an ambiguous gesture; it was the fortune of war, he also might have been killed. His soldier’s face barely twitched as he learnt the news. Then, when she spoke to him of her brother who was a prisoner, begging that he would intervene so that she might obtain permission to see him, he refused to do so. Such intervention was not allowed, he said; the orders were strict; and he spoke of his superior’s orders as though they were Divine commandments. On leaving him, Henriette clearly realised that he deemed himself a justiciar, and was swayed by all the intolerance and arrogance of an hereditary enemy, who had grown up hating the race which he was now chastising.
‘Well,’ concluded Delaherche, ‘at all events you will have had some little to eat this evening. What worries me is that I fear I sha’n’t be able to get another permit to come here.’
He then asked them if they had any commissions, and obligingly took charge of some letters, written in pencil, which other soldiers confided to him, for the Bavarians had been seen laughing and lighting their pipes with the missives which they had promised to forward. Then, whilst Maurice and Jean were accompanying him back to the bridge, he suddenly exclaimed: ‘Look! there’s Henriette yonder. Can’t you see her waving her handkerchief?’
Indeed, among the throng behind the line of sentinels, a thin little face could be espied, a white speck, as it were, palpitating in the sunlight. Greatly affected, with their eyes moist, both soldiers immediately raised their arms and answered with an energetic wave of the hand.
The morrow, a Friday, proved the most fearful day that Maurice had spent on the peninsula. True enough, after passing another quiet night in the little wood, he had been lucky enough to get some bread to eat; Jean having discovered an old woman at the château of Villette who had some for sale, at the moderate price of ten francs the pound. Later on that day, however, they both witnessed a frightful scene, the nightmare-like memory of which long haunted them.
Chouteau had noticed the previous evening that Pache no longer complained, but was going about with a lightsome, contented air, like a man who has eaten his fill. The idea at once occurred to him that the slyboots must have a hidden store somewhere; and he was confirmed in this impression in the morning when he saw Pache go off for nearly an hour, and come back smiling slyly, with his mouth still full. Some windfall must certainly have come to him; he had probably got hold of some provisions or other in one of the scrambles. Thereupon Chouteau set himself the task of stirring up Loubet and Lapoulle, especially the latter. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘what a dirty cur that fellow Pache must be, to have some grub and not to share it with his comrades. I’ll tell you what, we’ll follow him this evening. We’ll just see if he’ll dare to gorge himself all alone, when other poor devils are kicking the bucket all round him.’
‘Yes, yes, we’ll follow him!’ Lapoulle angrily repeated. ‘We’ll just see what it means.’
So saying, the colossus clenched his fists, maddened by the idea of getting something to eat. He experienced even greater suffering than the others, on account of his terrible appetite; indeed, his torment became at times so intense that he had even tried to chew the grass. He had secured nothing else to eat since two days previously, since the night, in fact, when the horseflesh and beetroot had given him such a frightful attack of dysentery. Despite his great strength, he was so clumsy with his big limbs that he had not been able to secure anything when the provision carts were pillaged. He would now have given his blood for a pound of bread.
When night was falling Pache glided away among the trees of Glaire Tower, and the three others cautiously crept after him. ‘We mustn’t rouse his suspicions,’ repeated Chouteau. ‘Be careful, he might look back.’
However, after going another hundred yards or so, Pache evidently fancied himself alone, for he began walking rapidly without casting a glance behind. They were thus easily able to follow him to the neighbouring quarries, and came up behind him just as he was moving two large stones to take a half loaf of bread from under them. This was all that remained of his hoard, just enough to make one more meal.
‘You dirty black-beetle!’ shouted Lapoulle. ‘So that’s why you hide yourself, is it? You’ll just give me that. It’s my share.’
Give his bread, indeed! Why should he give it? However puny he might be, his anger made him draw himself erect, pressing the bread to his heart with all the strength he possessed. He, also, was hungry. ‘Mind your own business!’ he answered, ‘it’s mine!’
Then, at sight of Lapoulle’s raised fist, he darted away, galloping down from the quarries towards the bare fields in the direction of Donchery. The three others pursued him, panting, as fast as their legs could carry them. He gained ground, however, being lighter than they were, so frightened too, and so bent on not losing his bread, that it seemed as though the wind were carrying him away. He had already gone more than a thousand yards, and was nearing the little wood on the river bank, when he overtook Jean and Maurice, who were returning to their night quarters there. As he rushed by he raised a cry of distress, whilst they, astounded at sight of this man-hunt so wildly galloping past them, stopped short at the edge of a field, where they remained watching. And thus it was that they saw everything.
Stumbling against a stone, Pache unhappily fell to the ground. The three others were already coming up, swearing and howling, maddened by their run, like wolves overtaking their prey.
‘Give it me, thunder!’ shouted Lapoulle, ‘or I’ll settle your hash!’ And he was again raising his fist when Chouteau, after opening the little knife that had served to slaughter the horse, passed it to him, exclaiming: ‘Here! take the knife.’
Meantime, however, Jean had darted forward to prevent an affray. He also was losing his head, and talked of sending them all to the guard-room; whereat Loubet, with an evil grin, told him he must be a Prussian, for there were no officers left, so to say, the Prussians alone now exercising authority.
‘D——!’ repeated Lapoulle, ‘will you give me that bread?’
Despite the terror that blanched his face, Pache hugged the bread yet more closely to his chest, with the obstinacy of a famished peasant, who will never part with anything belonging to him.
‘No!’
Then in a trice it was all over; the brute planted the knife in his throat with such violence that he did not even raise a cry. His arms relaxed, and the hunk of bread rolled to the ground, into the blood that had spurted from the wound.
At sight of this mad, imbecile murder, Maurice, hitherto motionless, seemed all at once to lose his reason. Shaking his fists at the three men, he called them assassins with such vehemence that his frame shook from head to foot. Lapoulle, however, did not even seem to hear him. Still crouching on the ground near the corpse, he was devouring the blood-splashed bread with an air of fierce stupor, as though stunned by the loud noise of his own jaws; and he appeared so terrible whilst he thus satisfied his craving appetite, that Chouteau and Loubet did not even dare to ask him for their share.
Night had now completely gathered in, a clear night with a beautiful starry sky; and Maurice and Jean, who had betaken themselves to the little wood, were soon only able to see Lapoulle, who went wandering up and down the river-bank. Chouteau and Loubet had disappeared, they had no doubt gone back to the canal-bank, uneasy with regard to that corpse which they were leaving behind them. Lapoulle, on the contrary, seemed afraid to go and join his comrades. Oppressed by the weight of that big chunk of bread which he had swallowed too fast, he was now, too, after the dizziness of the murder-moment, seized with an anguish which made motion a necessity; and not daring to turn back along the road, across which the corpse was lying, he tramped incessantly along the steep river-bank, with a wavering, irresolute step. Was remorse already dawning in the depths of that dark soul? Or was it not simply the fear of discovery? He paced up and down like a wild beast before the bars of its cage, with a sudden, growing longing to flee, a longing which was painful like a physical ailment, and which he felt would cause his death if he did not satisfy it. Quick, quick, he must at once get out of that prison where he had killed. And yet, despite that eager desire, he all at once sank down, and for a long time remained wallowing among the rushes on the bank.
Meantime Maurice, in his horror and disgust, was saying to Jean: ‘Listen, I can’t stay here a moment longer. It will drive me mad, I assure you—I’m astonished that my body has held out—my health is not so bad—but I’m losing my head, I’m losing it sure enough—I shall be lost if you leave me another day in this hell. Let’s get off, I beg of you, let’s get off.’ And thereupon he began unfolding various extravagant plans of escape which he had formed. They would swim across the Meuse, spring upon the sentinels, and strangle them with a bit of rope which he had in his pocket; or else they would stone them to death; or else bribe them and put on their uniforms so as to make their way through the Prussian lines.
‘Be quiet, youngster,’ repeated Jean, despairingly. ‘It frightens me to hear you say such foolish things. Is there any sense in it all, is it possible to get away as you think? Wait till to-morrow, we’ll see what happens. And now don’t talk about it any more.’
For his own part, although his heart was overflowing with anger and disgust, although he was greatly weakened by privation, he still retained his common sense amid all that nightmare-kind of life which verged on the profoundest depths of human misery. And as his comrade became more and more desperate and wished to fling himself into the Meuse, he had to hold him back and even do him violence, alternately scolding and supplicating, with tears standing in his eyes. ‘There! look!’ he exclaimed all at once.
The water had just splashed, and they saw that Lapoulle had made up his mind to slip into the river after doffing his capote, for fear lest it might impede his movements. His shirt could be plainly descried, forming a whitish spot on the bosom of the black, flowing water. He was swimming slowly upstream, doubtless on the look-out for some spot where he might land. Meantime, on the opposite bank, the slim silhouettes of the motionless sentinels could be plainly distinguished. Then, all at once, a flash rent the night asunder, and a report crackled, re-echoing as far as the rocks of Montimont. The river merely bubbled as though struck downward by a pair of oars, and that was all; forsaken and inert, Lapoulle’s body, the white speck on the dark water, began floating away, carried along by the current.
At daybreak on the morrow, which was Saturday, Jean again brought Maurice back to the camping-ground of the 106th in the hope that they might be leaving the peninsula that day. But there were no orders; it seemed as though the regiment had been forgotten. Many had now taken their departure, the camp was emptying, and those who were still left in it sank more and more deeply into the blues. For eight long days insanity had been germinating and spreading in that hell. The rain, no doubt, had given over, but the oppressive, burning sunlight had only wrought a change of torture. The excessive heat put the finishing touch to the men’s exhaustion, and imparted an alarming epidemical character to the attacks of dysentery. What with nausea and diarrhœa, this army of sick men quite poisoned the atmosphere in which it lived. It was no longer possible to skirt the banks either of the Meuse or the canal, so foul had become the stench of the drowned horses and soldiers rotting among the herbage. Moreover, the horses which had died of starvation lay putrefying in the fields, exhaling such a pestilence that the Prussians began to fear for themselves, and bringing picks and shovels, compelled the prisoners to bury the bodies.
That Saturday, by the way, the famine ceased. As their numbers were now greatly reduced, and provisions were coming in from all sides, the captives passed, all at once, from extreme destitution to the most abundant plenty. There was no lack of bread or meat, or even wine, and they ate from dawn till sunset, to the point of killing themselves. Night fell and some were still eating, and even went on eating till the following morning. And naturally enough many of them gave up the ghost.
Throughout the day Jean’s one preoccupation was to keep a watch on Maurice, for he realised that the young fellow was now ripe for any extravagant action. Heated by wine he had even talked of cuffing a German officer in order that he might be sent away. Accordingly, in the evening, having discovered a vacant corner in the cellar of one of the outbuildings of Glaire Tower, Jean thought it prudent to go and sleep there with his companion, in the hope that the latter would be calmed by a good night’s rest. But it proved the most fearful night of their whole sojourn in the camp, a perfect night of horrors, during which they were not once able to close their eyes. Other soldiers helped to fill the cellar, and among them were two men lying side by side in the same corner, and dying of dysentery. As soon as the darkness had come, these two did not cease complaining, with hollow groans, inarticulate cries, followed at last by a death-rattle which became louder and louder, sounding so awful in the pitchy darkness that the other men who were lying there, longing to sleep, became quite enraged, and called to the dying soldiers to hold their peace. But the latter did not hear, and the rattle went on, ceasing for a moment perhaps every now and then, but suddenly breaking forth anew, and then drowning every other sound; whilst, in the intervals, the drunken clamour of the comrades who were still eating, unable to satisfy themselves, was wafted from without.
Then Maurice’s agony began. He had tried to flee from that plaint of atrocious pain, which brought the sweat of anguish to his brow; but whilst he was rising and fumbling he stumbled over some outstretched limbs and fell to the ground again, walled up, as it were, with those dying men. And he made no further attempt to escape. A vision of the whole frightful disaster was rising up before him, from the time of their departure from Rheims to the crushing blow of Sedan. It seemed to him also as though the passion of the Army of Châlons were only that night coming to an end, amid the inky blackness of that cellar, resounding with the death-rattle of those two soldiers who prevented their comrades from sleeping. The army of despair, the expiatory flock, offered up as a holocaust, had, at each of its Stations,[39] paid for the faults of all with the red flood of its blood. And, now, ingloriously slaughtered and beslavered, it was sinking to martyrdom beneath a more brutal chastisement than it had deserved. ‘Twas too much, Maurice was boiling over with anger, hungering for justice, burning to avenge himself on Destiny.
When the morning twilight appeared one of the two soldiers was dead, but the other’s throat was still rattling.
‘Come on, youngster,’ said Jean, gently; ‘we’ll go and get some fresh air, that will be best.’
Strolling along in the pure morning air, which was already warm, they skirted the steep river-bank till they again found themselves near the village of Iges. And then Maurice suddenly became more excited than ever, shaking his fist at the far-spreading, sunlit horizon of the battlefield, which was spread out before him, the plateau of Illy just opposite, St. Menges on his left, and the wood of La Garenne on his right hand.
‘No, no!’ he cried. ‘I cannot—I cannot bear the sight of all that any longer! It pierces my heart and drives me mad! Take me away, take me away at once!’
That day was again a Sunday; the pealing of church bells was wafted from Sedan, and a German regimental band could already be heard playing in the distance. However, there were still no orders for the 106th, and, frightened by Maurice’s growing delirium, Jean made up his mind to try a plan which he had been nursing since the previous day. On the road, in front of the German guard-house, preparations were being made for the departure of another regiment, the 5th of the Line. Great confusion prevailed in the column, which an officer, who spoke very indifferent French, could not succeed in counting. And thereupon Jean and Maurice, having torn off both the collars and buttons of their uniforms, in order that the number of their regiment might not betray them, slipped into the midst of the throng, crossed the bridge, and thus at last found themselves on the road. The same idea must have occurred to Chouteau and Loubet, whom they espied behind them, glancing nervously on either side, like the murderers they were.
Ah! how great was the relief of those first happy moments! Now that they were outside their prison, it seemed like a resurrection, a return to living light and boundless air, the flowery awakening of every hope. And whatever might be their misfortunes now, they feared them not, they could afford to laugh at them, for had they not emerged unscathed from the frightful nightmare of the Camp of Misery?
< < < Chapter I
Chapter III > > >
French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
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