Germinal - Emile Zola [185]
By the time they had reached La Fourche-aux-Bœufs, Étienne had taken charge. Without interrupting their advance, he shouted out commands and organized the march. Jeanlin raced along in front, playing barbarous tunes on his horn. Then came the women, in rows, some armed with sticks: La Maheude had a wild look in her eye, as though she were straining to catch a distant glimpse of the promised land of justice, while La Brûlé, La Levaque and La Mouquette strode out in their tattered skirts like soldiers marching off to war. If they ran into any opposition, they’d soon see if the gendarmes would dare to hit a woman. The men followed, a disorderly herd that spread wider and wider as it stretched away into the distance: and among the forest of crowbars Levaque’s solitary axe stood out, its blade glinting in the sunlight. Étienne, in the middle, was keeping an eye on Chaval, whom he made walk in front of him; while behind him Maheu looked thunderous and kept casting dirty looks at Catherine, who was the only woman back here among the men and who had insisted on running along beside her lover to prevent any harm coming to him. Some were without caps, their hair tousled by the breeze; and apart from the wild blasts of Jeanlin’s horn all that could be heard was the clatter of clogs, which sounded like cattle stampeding.
But all at once a new cry rang out.
‘We want bread! We want bread!’1
It was midday: the hunger consequent on six weeks of strike was gnawing at empty bellies, and appetites had been whetted by all this rushing about the countryside. The odd crust eaten that morning and the few chestnuts brought by La Mouquette were already a distant memory; stomachs were crying out to be fed, and the pain of it added to their fury against the traitors.
‘To the pits! Everybody out! We want bread!’
Étienne, who had earlier refused his share of food in the village, felt an unbearable wrenching sensation in his chest. He said nothing, but every so often he would automatically raise his flask to his lips and take a mouthful of gin: he felt so shaky that he had convinced himself he needed it if he were to carry on. His cheeks were burning, and a fire shone in his eyes. Nevertheless he continued to keep his head, and he was still determined to try and prevent pointless destruction.
When they reached the Joiselle road, a hewer from Vandame who had joined the mob to get his own back on his boss screamed to the comrades to turn right:
‘Let’s go to Gaston-Marie! We’ll stop the pump and flood Jean-Bart!’
The crowd, easily led, was already turning, even though Étienne protested and begged them not to stop the drainage. What was the point of destroying the roadways? Despite all his grievances it offended the workman in him. Maheu, too, thought it not right to vent anger on a machine. But the hewer continued to call for vengeance, and Étienne had to shout even louder:
‘Let’s go to Mirou. There are still scabs down there…Mirou! Mirou!’
With a sweep of his arm he had steered the mob on to the road that led off to the left, while Jeanlin resumed his position at the head and blew even harder on his horn. There was a great commotion and, for the time being, Gaston-Marie was saved.
They covered the four kilometres to Mirou in half an hour, proceeding almost at the double over the boundless plain. On this side the canal cut across it like a long ribbon of ice; and only the bare trees along its banks, looking like giant candelabras in the frost, interrupted the flat monotony of the landscape as it stretched away into the distance and eventually merged with the sky like a sea. A slight undulation in the terrain hid Montsou and Marchiennes from view, leaving nothing but a vast featureless space.
As they reached the pit, they saw a deputy take up position on the overhead railway next to the screening-shed, waiting for them. Everybody recognized Quandieu, who was the senior deputy in Montsou, an old man getting on