French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
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PART III
Chapter III
THE SLAVE-DRIVERS—A BID FOR FREEDOM
That morning, for the last time, had Jean and Maurice heard the gay calls of the French bugles, and now they were marching along the road to Germany among the drove of prisoners, which was preceded and followed by platoons of Prussian soldiers, others of whom, with fixed bayonets, kept a watch upon the captives on either hand. And now they only heard the shrill, dismal notes of the German trumpets at each guard-post that they passed.
Maurice was delighted to find that the column turned to the left, so that it would evidently pass through Sedan. Perhaps he would be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of his sister there. However, the three-mile march from the peninsula of Iges to the town, sufficed to damp the joy he felt at having emerged from that cesspool where he had been agonising for nine long days. This pitiable convoy of prisoners, of disarmed soldiers with hanging arms, led away like so many sheep, at a hasty, timorous scamper, was but a fresh form of torture. Clad in rags, soiled with the filth in which they had been abandoned, emaciated by more than a week’s privation, they now looked like so many vagabonds, suspicious tramps picked up along the roads by some scouring party of gendarmes. By the time they had reached the suburb of Torcy, where men paused on the side-walks and women came to their doors to gaze at them with an expression of gloomy compassion, Maurice already felt stifling, and bowed his head, his mouth twitching with the bitterness of his sensations.
Jean, however, endowed with a practical mind and a tougher skin, thought only of their foolishness in neglecting to bring a couple of loaves of bread away with them. In the wild haste of their departure they had come away, indeed, with their stomachs empty, and hunger was once again weakening their legs. Other captives must have been similarly situated, for many of them held out money, begging the people of Torcy to sell them something. One very tall fellow, who looked extremely ill, waved a bit of gold, with his long arm raised over the heads of the soldiers of the escort, and was in despair that he could find nothing to buy. Just then Jean, who was watching, espied a dozen loaves in a pile, outside a baker’s shop, some little distance ahead. Before any of the others he threw down a five-franc piece, intending to take a couple of the loaves. Then, as one of the Prussian soldiers brutally pushed him back, he obstinately made an effort to regain his money. But the captain in charge of the column, a bald-headed little man with a brutal face, was already rushing up. Raising his revolver with the butt downward over Jean’s head, he declared with an oath that he would split the skull of the first man who dared to stir. And thereupon they all bent their backs and lowered their eyes, continuing their march with a subdued tramp, the quailing submissiveness of a flock of sheep.
‘Oh! how I should like to slap him,’ muttered Maurice savagely, ‘box his ears, and smash his teeth with a back-hander.’
From that moment he could not bear to look at that captain, whose scornful face he so desired to smack. They were now entering Sedan, crossing the bridge over the Meuse, and not a moment passed without some fresh scene of brutality. A woman, a mother doubtless, was desirous of embracing a young sergeant, but was pushed back so violently with the butt of a gun, that she fell to the ground. On the Place Turenne some well-to-do townsfolk were belaboured because they compassionately threw provisions to the prisoners. In the High Street one of the captives, having slipped down in trying to take a bottle of wine offered to him by a lady, was kicked to his feet again. And although, during the last eight days, Sedan had frequently seen the miserable herds of the defeat driven through its streets in this same brutal fashion, it could not accustom itself to the spectacle, but at each fresh défilé was stirred by a fever of compassion and resentment.
Jean, who by this time had grown calm again, was, like Maurice, thinking of Henriette; and, all at once, too, the idea that they might see Delaherche occurred to him. He nudged his comrade and remarked: ‘Keep your eyes open by-and-by if we pass down the street.’
And, indeed, as soon as they entered the Rue Maqua, they caught sight of several heads peering forth from one of the monumental windows of the factory, and as they drew nearer, they recognised Delaherche and his wife Gilberte, with their elbows resting on the window bar, whilst behind them stood Madame Delaherche senior, erect, with a stern expression on her face. They all three had some loaves with them, and these Delaherche flung to the famished captives who were holding up trembling, imploring hands.
Maurice immediately noticed that his sister was not one of the party; whilst Jean, on seeing so many loaves rain down, became all anxiety, fearing that none would remain for them. He waved his arm frantically and called: ‘For us! For us!’
The Delaherches evinced an almost joyous surprise. Their faces, pale with pity, immediately brightened, and gestures expressive of their pleasure at the meeting escaped them. Gilberte herself wished to throw the last loaf into Jean’s arms, and did so in such a charmingly awkward way that she could not restrain a pretty laugh at her own expense.
Unable to halt, Maurice turned his head, and with the greatest rapidity called in an anxious, questioning tone: ‘And Henriette? Henriette?’
Delaherche answered in a long phrase which was drowned by the tramping of the men. He must have realised that the young fellow had not heard him, for immediately afterwards he began making a variety of signs, pointing especially towards the South. However, the column was already entering the Rue du Ménil, and the factory façade was lost to sight, together with the three heads protruding from the window, and a hand which was waving a handkerchief.
‘What did he say to you?’ asked Jean.
Maurice, sorely worried, was still vainly looking behind him. ‘I don’t know, I didn’t understand—I shall be anxious now, as long as I don’t get some news.’
And meantime the tramping continued, the Prussians hastened the march with the brutality of conquerors, and the wretched flock, stretched into a narrow file, passed out of Sedan by the Ménil Gate, scampering along like sheep in fear of the dogs.
As they passed through Bazeilles, Jean and Maurice bethought themselves of Weiss, and looked for the ashes of the little house which had been so valiantly defended. During their sojourn at the Camp of Misery some comrades had told them of the devastation of the village, the fires and the massacres, but the sight they beheld surpassed all the abomination they had pictured. Although twelve days had now elapsed since the disaster, the piles of ruins were still smoking. Many damaged walls had fallen in, and in all this village of two thousand souls there were now not ten houses standing. The captive soldiers were consoled somewhat, however, on meeting numerous barrows and carts full of Bavarian helmets and rifles, which had been picked up since the struggle. This proof that a large number of these cut-throats and incendiaries had been slain, in some measure relieved the prisoners’ feelings.
They were to halt at Douzy, nominally for the purpose of breakfasting, and did not get there without having suffered. Exhausted, indeed, by their long fast, the captives were speedily fatigued. Those who had gorged themselves with food on the previous day, became giddy and heavy, and felt their legs sink beneath them; their gluttony, far from restoring their lost strength, had, in fact, only weakened them the more. And so, when the column halted in a meadow on the left of the village of Douzy, the unfortunate fellows flung themselves on the grass, lacking even the energy to eat. There was no wine, and some charitable women who endeavoured to approach, bringing a few bottles, were driven away by the sentries. One of them, badly frightened, fell and sprained her ankle, and then there were cries and tears, quite a revolting scene, whilst the Prussians, who had confiscated the bottles of wine, proceeded to drink their contents. This tender compassion of the peasants for the poor soldiers who were being led away into captivity, was constantly manifested along the route; but on the other hand they were said to display great harshness towards the general officers. A few days previously the inhabitants of that very village of Douzy had hissed a convoy of generals who were proceeding on parole to Pont-à-Mousson. The roads were not safe for officers; men in blouses, soldiers who had escaped the foe, or who had possibly deserted before the fight, sprang upon them with pitchforks to massacre them, shouting that they were cowards and had sold themselves; thus helping to ingraft that legend of treachery which twenty years later still caused the folks of these districts to speak with execration of all who were in command during that disastrous campaign.
Seated on the grass, Maurice and Jean ate half of their loaf, and were luckily able to wash it down with a drop of brandy, with which a worthy farmer managed to fill a flask they had. Then the starting off again proved a terrible business. They were to sleep at Mouzon, but although the march was a short one, the effort they must needs make appeared more than they could accomplish. They were unable to rise without groaning, to such a point were their weary limbs stiffened by the slightest rest. Several men whose feet were bleeding took off their boots to be able to resume the march. Dysentery was still wreaking havoc among them; they had gone but a thousand yards or so when a first man fell and was pushed against the wayside bank. Farther on two others sank down beside a hedge, and it was night before an old woman came along and succoured them. Those who kept up were tottering, leaning on sticks which the Prussians, possibly in a spirit of derision, had allowed them to cut on the verge of a little wood. They had become a mere band of beggars covered with sores, emaciated, and scarce able to breathe. Yet their custodians continued treating them with great brutality; those who stepped aside even to satisfy a want of nature were whacked into the ranks again. The escort-platoon in the rear had orders to drive on the laggards at the bayonet’s point. A sergeant having refused to go any farther, the captain commanded two of his men to catch hold of him under the arms, and drag him along till he consented to walk afresh. Especially were the captives tortured by that bald-headed little officer, whose face they longed to slap, and who abused his knowledge of French to insult them in their own language, in curt galling phrases, as cutting as the lashes of a whip.
‘Oh! how I should like to hold him,’ Maurice passionately repeated, ‘hold him, and drain him of all his blood, drop by drop.’
The young fellow could no longer endure it all; he suffered, however, far more from the anger he was compelled to restrain than from physical exhaustion. Everything exasperated him, even those jarring calls of the Prussian trumpets at which, in his enervated condition, he could have howled like a dog. He felt that he should be unable to accomplish this cruel journey without getting his skull cracked. Even now in passing through the smallest hamlets he experienced intense suffering at sight of the women who looked at him with so deep an expression of pity. What would it be then when they got to Germany, and the townsfolk scrambled to see them, and greeted them, as they greeted the other prisoners, with insulting laughter? He pictured the cattle-trucks in which they would be heaped together, the nauseating abominations and tortures of the road, the dreary life in the fortresses under the snow-laden sky of winter. No, no! rather death at once, rather the risk of leaving his skin at the turn of a road on the soil of France than rot over yonder, in some black casemate, possibly for long months.
‘Listen,’ said he, in a low voice to Jean, who was walking beside him, ‘we’ll wait till we pass a wood, and then we’ll jump aside and slip between the trees. The Belgian frontier isn’t far, we shall surely find some one or other to guide us.’
Jean shuddered; despite the feeling of revolt which was making him also dream of escape, he yet retained his calmer, more practical mind. ‘You are mad,’ he said. ‘They would fire on us, and we should both be shot.’
But there was a chance that they might not be hit, retorted Maurice; besides, even supposing they were shot down, well, so much the better.
‘But supposing we escaped,’ continued Jean, ‘what would become of us in our uniforms? You can see very well that the country is covered with Prussian pickets. It would, at any rate, be necessary to have some other clothes. Yes, it’s too dangerous, youngster. I can’t let you do anything so foolish.’
It became necessary that he should restrain the young fellow, and whilst he strove to calm him with chiding but affectionate words, he caught hold of his arm and pressed it closely to his side, so that they appeared to be mutually supporting one another. They had taken but a few steps, however, when some words exchanged in an undertone behind them made them turn their heads. The whisperers were Chouteau and Loubet, who had started from the peninsula that morning at the same time as themselves, and whom they had hitherto avoided. The two rascals were now at their heels, however, and Chouteau must have heard what Maurice had said of trying to escape through a plantation, for he adopted the idea on his own account. ‘I say,’ he muttered, craning his head forward so that they felt his breath on their necks, ‘we’ll join you. That idea of sloping’s a capital one. Some of the comrades have already gone off, and we certainly can’t let ourselves be dragged like so many dogs to the country where these pigs live. Is it agreed, eh? Shall we four fellows take a breath of fresh air?’
Maurice was again growing feverish, and Jean turned round to say to the tempter: ‘Well, if you’re in a hurry, you can go on in front. What do you hope for?’
Under the corporal’s searching gaze, Chouteau became disconcerted, and imprudently let the cat out of the bag. ‘Well! it would be easier if there were four of us,’ said he. ‘One or two would always manage to get off.’
Thereupon, with an energetic shake of the head, Jean altogether declined taking part in the venture. He mistrusted Monsieur Chouteau, said he, and feared some act of treachery. However, he had to exert all his authority over Maurice to prevent the young fellow from yielding to his desire, for just then an opportunity presented itself; they were passing a very leafy little wood, which was merely separated from the road by a field thickly dotted with bushes. To gallop across that field and disappear in the thickets, would not that mean safety and freedom?
Loubet had so far said nothing. Firmly resolved, however, not to go and moulder in Germany, he was sniffing the air with his restless nose, and watching for the favourable moment with those sharp eyes of his, like the crafty fellow he was. Doubtless he relied on his legs and his artfulness, which had so far always helped him out of his scrapes. And all at once he made up his mind. ‘Ah! dash it! I’ve had enough. I’m off.’
At one bound he had sprung into the neighbouring field, and Chouteau, following his example, galloped off beside him. Two men of the escort at once started in pursuit, without either of them thinking of stopping the runaways with a bullet. It was all over so quickly that at the first moment one could hardly understand what had happened. However, it seemed as though Loubet, who had taken a zigzag course through the bushes, would certainly escape, whereas Chouteau, who was less nimble, already appeared on the point of being recaptured. But with a supreme effort he all at once gained ground, and, on overtaking his comrade, contrived to trip him up. And then, whilst the two Prussians were springing upon the prostrate man to hold him down, the other bounded into the wood and disappeared. A few shots were fired after him, the escort suddenly remembering its needle-guns, and a battue was even attempted among the trees, but with no result.
Meanwhile the two German soldiers were belabouring the prostrate Loubet. The captain had rushed to the spot, quite beside himself, and shouted that an example must be made; at which encouragement the men continued raining such savage kicks and blows with the butts of their guns upon the recaptured prisoner, that, on being raised from the ground, he was found to have his skull split and an arm broken. Before they reached Mouzon he expired in the little cart of a peasant, who had been willing to take him up.
‘There, you see,’ Jean contented himself with muttering in Maurice’s ear.
They both darted towards the impenetrable wood a glance which expressed all their hatred of the bandit who was now galloping off in liberty; and they ended by feeling full of pity for the poor devil, his victim; a lickerish tooth, no doubt, not of much value certainly, but all the same good company, full of expedients, and by no means a fool. Yet his fate had shown that no matter how artful a man might be, he inevitably found his master and came to grief at last.
In spite of this terrible lesson, however, Maurice, on reaching Mouzon, was still haunted by that fixed idea of escaping. They were all so frightfully weary on their arrival that the Prussians had to help them pitch the few tents which were placed at their disposal. The camp was formed near the town, on some low, marshy ground, and the worst was that another column having occupied the same spot on the previous day, it was covered with filth, to protect themselves from which the men had to spread out a number of large flat stones, which they luckily found in a heap, near by. The evening proved less trying, as the watchfulness of the Prussians relaxed somewhat when their captain had gone off to take up his quarters at an inn. The sentries began by letting some children throw apples and pears to the prisoners, and at last even allowed the inhabitants of the neighbourhood to enter the camp, so that there was soon quite a little crowd of improvised hawkers there, men and women, selling bread, wine, and even cigars. All those who had any money ate, drank, and smoked, and in the pale twilight the scene was like some corner of a village market, full of noisy animation.
Maurice, however, seated behind one of the tents, was growing more and more excited, again and again saying to Jean: ‘I cannot stand it any longer. I shall bolt as soon as it is dark. To-morrow we shall be going farther and farther away from the frontier, and it will then be too late.’
‘All right, we’ll try it then,’ at last replied Jean, unable to resist the young fellow’s entreaties any longer, and giving way, on his own side, to this same haunting idea of escape. ‘We shall soon see if we leave our skins behind us.’
From that moment, however, he began scanning all the vendors around him. Some comrades had procured blouses and pants, and it was rumoured that some charitable folks of Mouzon had got together large stocks of clothes in view of facilitating the escape of the captives. Jean’s attention was almost immediately attracted by a pretty girl, a tall stag-eyed blonde of some sixteen summers, who had on her arm a basket, in which three loaves of bread were to be seen. She did not call out what she had for sale like the others did, but stepped along in a hesitating way, with a smile which, although engaging, was somewhat tinged with anxiety. Jean gazed steadily in her face, and at last their eyes met, and for a moment commingled. Then the pretty girl came forward, still smiling in her embarrassed way: ‘Do you want some bread?’ she asked.
Jean did not answer, but questioned her with a wink. And as she nodded her head in an affirmative way, he popped the question in a very low voice: ‘There are some clothes?’
‘Yes, under the loaves,’ she answered, thereupon making up her mind to call out: ‘Bread! bread! Who’ll buy bread?’
When Maurice, however, wished to slip twenty francs into her hand, she hastily withdrew it, and ran off, leaving them the basket. Still, before she disappeared, they saw her turn round and dart on them the tender, sympathetic laugh of her lovely eyes.
Although they had the basket they were still as perplexed as ever. They had strayed from their tent, and were so bewildered that they could not find it again. Where should they stow themselves away? How could they change their clothes? It seemed to them that everyone was prying into that basket, which Jean was carrying in such an awkward manner, and could plainly detect what it contained. At last, however, they made up their minds, and entered the first empty tent they came upon, where in desperate haste each of them divested himself of his regimentals and slipped on a pair of trousers and a blouse. They placed their uniforms under the loaves in the basket and left the latter in the tent. However, they had only found one cap among the garments provided, and this Jean had compelled Maurice to put on. For his own part, he was bareheaded, and, exaggerating the danger, he fancied himself lost. So he was still lingering there, wondering how he could obtain any headgear, when the idea suddenly came to him to buy the hat of a dirty old man whom he saw selling cigars. ‘Three sous apiece, Brussels cigars, five sous a couple, Brussels cigars!’
There had been no customs’ service on the frontier, since the battle of Sedan, so that Belgian articles were flooding the country-side without let or hindrance. The ragged old fellow had already realised a handsome profit, but he nevertheless manifested exorbitant pretensions when he understood why Jean wished to buy his hat, a greasy bit of felt with a hole in the crown. A couple of five-franc pieces had to be handed him before he would part with it, and even then he whimpered that he should certainly catch cold.
Another idea, however, had just occurred to Jean, that of purchasing the remainder of the old fellow’s stock in trade, the three dozen cigars or so which he was still hawking through the camp. And having accomplished this, the corporal in his turn began walking about, with the old hat drawn over his eyes, whilst in a drawling voice he called: ‘Three sous a couple, three sous a couple, Brussels cigars!’
This meant salvation, and he signed to Maurice to walk on before him. The young fellow, by great good fortune, had just picked up an umbrella dropped or forgotten by one of the hawkers, and as a few drops of rain were falling, he quietly opened it so that it might screen him whilst passing the line of sentinels.
‘Three sous a couple, three sous a couple, Brussels cigars!’ cried Jean, who in a few minutes had rid himself of his stock. The other prisoners laughed and pressed around him; here at all events, said they, was a reasonable dealer who didn’t rob poor folks! Attracted too by the cheapness of the cigars some of the Prussians even approached, and Jean had to supply them. He manœuvred so as to pass the guarded camp-line, and eventually sold his two last cigars to a big-bearded Prussian sergeant, who did not speak a word of French.
‘Don’t walk so quick, dash it all!’ he repeated as he walked on behind Maurice; ‘you’ll get us caught if you do.’
Their legs were almost running away with them, and only a great effort induced them to pause for a moment on reaching a crossway, where some clusters of people were standing outside an inn. Some French gentlemen were there, peaceably chatting with several German soldiers; and Jean and Maurice pretended to listen and even ventured to say a few words about the rain, which it seemed likely would fall heavily during the night. Meantime, a fat gentleman, who was among the persons present, looked at them so persistently that they trembled. As he ended, however, by smiling in a good-natured way, they ventured to ask him in an undertone: ‘Is the road to Belgium guarded, sir?’
‘Yes, but go through that wood and then bear to the left, across the fields.’
When they found themselves in the wood, amid the deep, dark silence of the motionless trees, when they could no longer hear a sound, when nothing more stirred and they believed that they were really saved, a feeling of extraordinary emotion threw them into one another’s arms. Maurice wept, sobbing violently, whilst tears slowly gathered in Jean’s eyes and trickled down his cheeks. Their nerves were relaxing after their prolonged torments, they hopefully thought that perhaps suffering would now take some compassion on them and torture them no longer. And meantime they clasped each other closely in a distracted embrace, fraught with the fraternity born of all that they had suffered together; and the kiss that they exchanged seemed to them the most loving, the most ardent of their life, a kiss such as they would never receive from a woman, the kiss of immortal friendship exchanged in the absolute certainty that their two hearts no longer formed but one, for ever and ever more.
‘Youngster,’ resumed Jean in a trembling voice, when they had ceased clasping one another, ‘it’s already a good deal to be here, but we are not at the end of the job. We must take our bearings a little.’
Although he was not acquainted with this point of the frontier, Maurice declared that they need only go on before them; and thereupon gliding along, one behind the other, they stealthily made their way to the verge of the plantations. Here they remembered the directions given them by the obliging fat gentleman, and resolved to turn to the left and cut across the stubble. But they almost at once came upon a road edged with poplars, and perceived the watchfire of a Prussian picket barring the way. A sentinel’s bayonet glistened in the firelight; the other men were chatting and finishing their evening meal. At this sight Jean and Maurice at once retraced their steps and again plunged into the wood, with the fear of being pursued. They fancied indeed they could hear voices and footsteps behind them, and continued beating about the thickets during more than an hour, losing all idea of the directions they took, turning round and round, at times breaking into a gallop like hares scampering under the bushes, and at others stopping short and perspiring with anguish in front of some motionless oak trees which they mistook for Prussians. And at last they once more debouched into the road lined with poplars, at ten paces or so from the sentinel, and near the other men who were now quietly warming themselves around the watchfire.
‘No luck!’ growled Maurice, ‘it’s an enchanted wood.’
This time, however, they had been heard. They had broken a few twigs in passing, and some stones were rolling away. And as, upon hearing the sentinel’s ‘Wer da?’ they immediately took to their heels without answering, the picket rushed to arms and fired in their direction, riddling the thicket with bullets.
‘Curse it!’ swore Jean in a hollow voice, restraining a cry of pain. The calf of his left leg had received a stinging blow, not unlike the cut of a whip, but so violent that it had thrown him to the ground against a tree.
‘Are you hit?’ asked Maurice anxiously.
‘Yes, in the leg—it’s done for.’
They both listened again, panting, with the fear of hearing the tumult of pursuit at their heels. But no further shots were fired, and nothing more stirred in the great quivering silence, which was falling around them again. The Prussians evidently did not care to venture among the trees. However, in trying to set himself erect Jean was hardly able to restrain a groan. Maurice held him up, and asked:
‘Can you walk?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ He, as a rule so calm, was now becoming enraged. He clenched his fists, and felt inclined to hit himself: ‘Ah! good Lord! how fearfully unlucky to get one’s leg damaged when there’s so much running to be done! I may just as well fling myself on a rubbish heap at once! Go on by yourself.’
Maurice, however, contented himself with answering gaily: ‘How silly you are!’
He had taken his friend by the arm and was now helping him along, both of them being eager to get away. By an heroic effort they had managed to take a few steps, when they again halted, alarmed at seeing a house in front of them, a little farm, so it seemed, on the verge of the wood. There was no light in any of the windows, the yard-gate was wide open, and the building looked black and empty. And when they had mustered sufficient courage to enter the yard, they were astonished to find a horse standing near the house, saddled and bridled, but with nothing to show why or how it had come there. Perhaps its master would soon return; perhaps he was lying behind some bush with his head split. But whatever the truth was, they never learned it.
A new plan, however, had suddenly dawned on Maurice’s mind and quite inspirited him. ‘Listen,’ said he, ‘the frontier is too far away; and besides, we should really require a guide to reach it. But if we went to Remilly now, to uncle Fouchard’s, I’m sure that I could take you there with my eyes shut, for I know all the lanes and by-ways. Is it agreed, eh? I’ll hoist you on to this horse, and we’ll get uncle Fouchard to take us in.’
Before starting, however, he wished to examine Jean’s leg. There were two holes in it, so that the bullet must have passed out again, probably after fracturing the tibia. Fortunately, the hæmorrhage was but slight, and Maurice contented himself with binding his handkerchief tightly round the calf of the leg.
‘Go on by yourself!’ repeated Jean.
‘Be quiet, you silly!’
When Jean was firmly perched on the saddle Maurice took hold of the horse’s bridle and they started off. It must now have been about eleven o’clock, and he hoped to accomplish the journey in three hours, even should he have to walk the horse the entire distance. But all at once he relapsed into despair at thought of a difficulty which had not previously occurred to him. How would they be able to cross over to the left bank of the Meuse? The bridge at Mouzon must certainly be guarded. At last he remembered that there was a ferry lower down at Villers, and deciding to chance it, in the hope that they would at last meet with a little luck, he directed his course towards that village through the meadows and ploughed fields on the right bank. All went fairly well at first; they merely had to avoid a cavalry patrol, which they escaped by remaining motionless for a quarter of an hour or so, in the shadow thrown by a wall. The only worry was that, the rain having begun to fall again, walking became very difficult for Maurice, who had to trudge through the heavy soil of the drenched fields, beside the horse, which was fortunately a good-natured, docile animal. At Villers luck did at first declare itself in their favour, for, although the hour was late, the ferryman had but a few minutes before brought a Bavarian officer across the river, and was able to take them aboard at once, and land them on the opposite bank without difficulty. It was only at the village of Villers that their terrible troubles began, for they here narrowly missed falling into the clutches of the sentries who were posted at intervals right along the road to Remilly. They, therefore, again had to take to the fields and trust to the chances of the little lanes and narrow pathways, which often were scarcely practicable. Occasionally some trivial obstacle would compel them to take a most circuitous course; still they contrived to make their way over ditches and through hedges, and at times even forced a passage through some thick plantation.
Seized with fever amid the drizzling rain, Jean had sunk across the saddle in a semi-conscious state, clinging with both hands to the horse’s mane, whilst Maurice, who had slipped the reins round his right arm, had to support his friend’s legs in order to prevent him from falling. Over more than a league of country, during nearly a couple of hours, was this exhausting march kept up, amid incessant jolting and slipping, both the horse and the men losing their balance again and again, and almost toppling over together. They became a picture of abject wretchedness; all three of them were covered with mud, the animal’s legs trembled, the man he carried lay upon him inert, like a corpse that had just given up the ghost, whilst if the other man, distracted and haggard, still managed to trudge along, it was solely through an effort of his fraternal love. The dawn was breaking; it was about five o’clock when they at last arrived at Remilly.
In the yard of his little farmhouse overlooking the village, near the outlet of the defile of Haraucourt, old Fouchard was already loading his cart with two sheep which he had slaughtered the previous day. The sight of his nephew in so sorry a plight upset him to such a point that after the first words of explanation he brutally exclaimed: ‘Let you stay here, you and your friend? To have a lot of worry with the Prussians; no, no, indeed! I’d rather kick the bucket at once.’
All the same, he did not dare to prevent Prosper and Maurice from taking Jean off the horse and laying him on the large table in the living-room. The wounded man was still unconscious, and Silvine went to fetch her own bolster and slipped it under his head. Meanwhile uncle Fouchard continued growling, exasperated at seeing this fellow on his table, which, said he, was by no means the proper place for him. And he asked them why they did not at once take him to the ambulance, since they were lucky enough to have an ambulance at Remilly, in the disused school-house, which had once formed part of an old convent. It stood near the church and contained a large and commodious gallery.
‘Take him to the ambulance!’ protested Maurice, in his turn, ‘for the Prussians to send him to Germany as soon as he’s cured, since all the wounded belong to them! Are you joking with me, uncle? I certainly didn’t bring him here to give him back to them.’
Things were getting unpleasant, and Fouchard talked of turning them out of the house, when all at once Henriette’s name was mentioned.
‘Eh, what—what about Henriette?’ asked the young man.
He ended by learning that his sister had been at Remilly since a couple of days, having become so terribly depressed by her bereavement that she now found life at Sedan, where she had lived so happily with her husband, quite unbearable. A chance meeting with Dr. Dalichamp of Raucourt, whom she knew, had induced her to come and stay in a little room at Fouchard’s, with a view of giving all her time to the wounded at the neighbouring ambulance. This occupation, she said, would divert her thoughts. She paid for her board, and was the source of many little comforts at the farm, so that the old man looked on her with a kindly eye. Everything was first-rate when he was making money.
‘Oh, so my sister’s here!’ repeated Maurice. ‘So that’s what Monsieur Delaherche meant by that wave of the arm which I couldn’t understand. Well, as she’s here, it will all be easy. We shall stay.’
Thereupon, despite his fatigue, he himself resolved to go and fetch her from the ambulance where she had spent the night, and his uncle meantime grew the more angry because he could not take himself off with his cart and his two sheep, to ply his calling as an itinerant butcher through the surrounding villages, until this annoying affair was settled.
When Maurice came back with Henriette, they surprised old Fouchard carefully examining the horse which had carried Jean to the farm and which Prosper had just led into the stable. The animal was no doubt tired out, but it was a sturdy beast, and Fouchard liked the look of it. Thereupon, Maurice told him with a laugh that he might keep it if it pleased him, whilst Henriette drew him aside and explained that Jean would pay for his lodging, and that she herself would take charge of him and nurse him in the little room behind the cowhouse, where certainly no Prussian would go to look for him. The old man remained sullen, hardly believing as yet that he would derive any real profit from the business; still, he ended by climbing into his cart and driving off, leaving Henriette free to do as she pleased.
With the assistance of Silvine and Prosper, Henriette then got the room ready, and had Jean carried to it and laid in a clean, comfortable bed. Opening his eyes, the corporal looked round him, but seemed to see nobody, and merely stammered a few incoherent words. Maurice was now quite overwhelmed by the reaction following on his exhausting march; however, whilst he was finishing a bit of meat and drinking a glass of wine, Dr. Dalichamp came in, as was his custom every morning, prior to visiting the ambulance; and, thereupon, the young fellow, anxious to know what injury Jean had received, found strength enough to follow the doctor and his sister to the bedside.
M. Dalichamp was a short man with a big round head. His hair and fringe of beard were getting grey; his ruddy face, like the faces of the peasants, with whom he mixed, had become hardened by his constant life in the open air, for he was always on the road to alleviate some suffering or other. His keen eyes, obstinate nose, and kindly mouth told what his life had been—the life of a thoroughly worthy, charitable man, inclined, at times, to be rather headstrong. He was not, as a doctor, endowed with genius, but long practice had made him a first-rate healer.
‘I’m much afraid that amputation will be necessary,’ he muttered, when he had examined Jean, who was still dozing; whereupon Maurice and Henriette were greatly grieved. However, the doctor added, ‘Perhaps we may manage to save that leg, but in that case he will need very careful nursing, and it will be a long job. At present he is in such a state of physical and moral prostration that the only thing is to let him sleep. We’ll see how he is to-morrow.’ Then, having dressed the wound, he interested himself in Maurice, whom he had formerly known as a lad. ‘And you, my brave fellow, you would be better in bed than on that chair,’ he said.
The young man was gazing fixedly in front of him, with his eyes afar, as though he did not hear. Fever was mounting to his brain in the intoxication of his fatigue, an extraordinary nervous excitement, the outcome of all the sufferings, all the disgusting experiences he had passed through since the outset of the campaign. The sight of his agonising friend, the consciousness of his own defeat, the idea that he was unarmed, good for nothing, having nothing left him but his skin, the thought that so many heroic efforts had merely resulted in such misery—all filled him with a frantic longing to rebel against Destiny. At last he spoke: ‘No, no! it is not finished yet! No, indeed! I must go away. Since he must lie there now for weeks and perhaps for months, I cannot stay. I must go away at once. You will help me, doctor, won’t you? You’ll find me some means of escaping and getting back to Paris?’
Henriette, who was trembling, caught him in her arms. ‘What is that you say? Weak as you are, after suffering so dreadfully? But I mean to keep you—I will not let you go! Haven’t you paid your debt to France? Think of me a little—think that I should be all alone, and that now I have only you left me!’
Their tears mingled. They embraced distractedly, with that tender adoring affection which unites twins more closely than others, as though it originated prior even to birth. Far from becoming calmer, however, Maurice grew still more excited. ‘I assure you that I must go!’ he stammered. ‘They are waiting for me. I should die of anguish if I did not go! You cannot imagine how my brain boils at the thought of remaining here in peace and quietness. I tell you that it cannot end like this—that we must avenge ourselves—on whom or what I know not, but, at any rate, obtain vengeance for so many misfortunes, so that we may yet have the courage to live!’
Dr. Dalichamp, who had been watching the scene with keen interest, made Henriette a sign not to answer. Maurice would no doubt be calmer when he had slept; and he slept indeed all through that day and through the following night—in all more than twenty hours—without moving a finger. However, when he awoke the next morning, his resolution to go away came back, unshakeable. His fever had subsided, but he was gloomy, restless, eager to escape from all the tempting inducements to a quiet life that he divined around him. His tearful sister realised that it would be useless to insist. And Dr. Dalichamp, when he came that day, promised to facilitate his flight by means of the papers of an ambulance assistant, who had recently died at Raucourt: Maurice was to don the grey blouse with the red-cross badge, and go off through Belgium to make his way back to Paris, which was still open.
He did not leave the farm all that day, but hid himself there, waiting for the night. He scarcely opened his mouth, and then only to ascertain if he could induce Prosper to go away with him. ‘Aren’t you tempted to go and see the Prussians again?’ he asked.
The ex-Chasseur d’Afrique, who was finishing some bread and cheese, set his fist on the table with his knife upraised.
‘Well, for what we saw of them it’s hardly worth while,’ he answered. ‘Since cavalrymen are nowadays good for nothing except to get themselves killed when it’s all over, why should I go back? ‘Pon my word, no, they disgusted me too much in not giving me any decent work.’ There was a pause, and then he resumed, doubtless in order to silence the voice of his soldier’s heart: ‘Besides, there’s too much work to be done here, now. The ploughing is just coming on, later on there’ll be the sowing. We must think of the soil, too, eh? It’s all very well to fight, but what would become of us if we didn’t plough? You will understand very well that I can’t turn the work up. Not that old Fouchard’s a good master, for I don’t expect I shall ever see any of his brass, but the horses are beginning to know and like me, and this morning, ‘pon my word, whilst I was up yonder in the old enclosure, I looked down on that cursed Sedan, and felt quite comforted at finding myself with my horses, driving my plough all alone, in the sunshine.’
Dr. Dalichamp arrived in his gig at nightfall. He wished to drive Maurice to the frontier himself. Old Fouchard, delighted to find that, at any rate, one of the men was taking himself off, went to watch on the road, so as to make sure that no patrol was lurking there; whilst Silvine repaired some rents in the old ambulance blouse with the red-cross badge. Before starting, the doctor again examined Jean’s leg, and as yet he could not promise to save it. The wounded man was still in a somnolent state, recognising nobody, and not saying a word. And thus it seemed as though Maurice must go off without exchanging a farewell with his comrade. On leaning forward to embrace him, however, he suddenly saw him open his eyes, and move his lips. ‘You are going?’ asked Jean in a weak voice, adding, as the others expressed their astonishment: ‘Oh! I heard you very well, though I couldn’t stir. But since you are going, old man, take all the money with you. It’s in my trousers’ pocket.’
Each of them now had about a couple of hundred francs left of the treasury money, which they had shared together. ‘The money!’ exclaimed Maurice; ‘but you need it more than I do. My legs are all right! With a couple of hundred francs I’ve ample to take me to Paris and get my skull cracked, which, by the way, won’t cost me anything. Well, all the same, till we meet again, old man, and thanks for all your kindness and good counsel, for, if it hadn’t been for you, I should certainly be lying at the edge of some field like a dead dog.’
Jean silenced him with a gesture. ‘You don’t owe me anything—we are quits,’ said he; ‘the Prussians would have picked me up over there, if you hadn’t carried me away on your back. And again, the other day, too, you saved me from their clutches. That’s twice you’ve paid me, and it’s rather my turn to risk my life for you. Ah! I shall be anxious now at not having you with me any longer.’ His voice was trembling, and tears started from his eyes: ‘Kiss me, youngster.’
And they kissed; and, as it had been in the wood on the night of their escape, their embrace was instinct with the fraternity born of the dangers that they had incurred together, during those few weeks of heroic life in common, which had united them far more closely than years of ordinary friendship could have done. The days of starvation, the sleepless nights, the excessive fatigues, the constant peril of death—with all of these was their emotion fraught. Can two hearts ever take themselves back when by a mutual gift they have thus been blended together? Nevertheless, the kiss which they had exchanged amid the darkness of the trees had partaken of the new hope that flight had opened to them; whereas this kiss, now, quivered with the anguish of parting. Would they meet again, some day? And how—in what circumstances of grief or joy?
Dr. Dalichamp, who had climbed into his gig again, was already calling Maurice. Then, with all his soul, the young fellow at last embraced his sister, Henriette, who, extremely pale in the black garments of her widowhood, was looking at him and silently weeping. ‘I confide my brother to you,’ said he; ‘take good care of him, and love him, as I love him myself!’
< < < Chapter II
Chapter IV > > >
French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
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