The Debacle - Emile Zola [100]
‘Now look,’ he said, repeating his gesture with arms out wide and hands coming together, ‘that’s what it’s going to be like if your generals don’t watch it… They’re just keeping you amused at Bazeilles.’
But he put it badly and in a muddled way, and the lieutenant, who did not know the district, could not follow. So he shrugged his shoulders impatiently, full of scorn for this bourgeois with his overcoat and glasses who thought he knew more about it than the marshal. Annoyed at hearing him say again that the attack on Bazeilles was probably only intended as a diversion to conceal the real plan, he cut it short by saying:
‘Oh shut up!… We’ll chuck those Bavarians of yours into the Meuse and then they’ll see whether we’re being kept amused!’
In the last few minutes the enemy snipers seemed to have got nearer, for bullets were hitting the brick wall of the dyeworks with a thud, and now the soldiers protected by the low wall of the yard were replying. Every second was marked by the sharp crack of rifle fire.
‘Chuck them into the Meuse, yes, no doubt,’ murmured Weiss, ‘and walk over their bodies to get back on to the Carignan road, very nice too!’
Then, to Delaherche who had ducked behind the pump to avoid the bullets:
‘I don’t care what they say, the real plan should have been to get away last night to Mézières, and if I were them I’d rather be there than here… Anyway, they’ll have to fight because now any retreat is impossible.’
‘Are you coming?’ asked Delaherche, who for all his burning curiosity was beginning to wilt. ‘If we hang about any longer we shan’t be able to get back to Sedan.’
‘Yes, just a minute and I’ll follow you.’
In spite of the danger he stood on tiptoe, determined to see for himself. On the right, the meadows had been flooded by order of the governor, and the vast lake stretching from Torcy to Balan protected the town, a sheet of water, pale blue in the morning sun. But the water stopped at the beginning of Bazeilles, and the Bavarians had in fact advanced through the grass, taking advantage of every hollow or tree. They might be about five hundred metres away, and what struck him was the deliberateness of their movements, the patience with which they gained ground, exposing themselves as little as possible. Moreover they were supported by powerful artillery, and the fresh, pure air was full of the screaming of shells. He looked up and saw that the battery at Pont-Maugis was not the only one firing at Bazeilles: two others, halfway up Le Liry, had opened fire, shelling the village and even raking with fire the open ground of La Moncelle where the reserves of the 12th corps were, as far as the wooded slopes of Daigny, occupied by a division of the 1st corps. Moreover all the hilltops along the left bank seemed to be bursting into fire. Guns seemed to be springing up out of the ground, it was like a ring steadily extending: a battery at Noyers firing on Balan, a battery at Wadelincourt firing on Sedan, a battery at Frénois, under La Marfée, a formidable battery whose shells passed over the town to burst among the troops of the 7th corps on the plateau of Floing. These beloved hills, this line of crests he had always thought of as there for the beauty of the view, enclosing the valley with such lovely greenery, Weiss was now looking at with anguish and terror, for they had suddenly turned into a frightful, gigantic fortress busily smashing the useless fortifications of Sedan.
A little fall of plaster made him look up. It was a bullet that had chipped a bit off his house, one side of which he could see over the party wall. This annoyed him very much, and he fumed:
‘Are those bastards going to demolish it for me?’
Then he was startled by another little thud behind him. He looked round and saw a soldier, who had been shot through the heart, falling on his back. The legs made a few convulsive movements, the face stayed young and calm, suddenly still. This was the first man