The Debacle - Emile Zola [133]
But as he was making for the ladder a bullet got him in the groin and knocked him backwards.
‘Too late, dammit!’
Weiss and Laurent, helped by the one remaining soldier, insisted on getting him down although he shouted that they were not to waste their time over him: he had got his ticket and he could peg out up there just as well as downstairs. Yet when they had laid him on a bed in a first-floor room he was still determined to direct the defence.
‘Fire into the middle of them and don’t bother about anything else. So long as your fire doesn’t slacken they’re much too prudent to take any risks.’
The siege of the little house indeed looked like going on and on for ever. A score of times it had seemed on the point of being taken in the storm of iron beating upon it, and in the midst of these squalls and through the smoke it still was standing, holed and gashed, torn to bits and yet spitting forth bullets from every crack. The attackers were exasperated at being held up for so long and losing so many men over a shanty like this, and they yelled and fired from a distance without daring to charge forward and smash in the ground-floor door and windows.
‘Look out!’ shouted the corporal, ‘that shutter’s coming down!’
The impact of the bullets had forced a shutter off its hinges. But Weiss rushed and pushed a cupboard against the window, and Laurent could go on firing, shielded by that. One of the soldiers lay at his feet, his jaw smashed and losing a lot of blood. Another was hit in the throat by a bullet and reeled over to the wall where he made a continual snoring noise, with his whole body jerking in convulsions. They were now down to eight, not counting the captain, who was too weak to speak but propped up on the bed was still giving orders by signs. The three first-floor rooms were beginning to be as untenable as the loft, for the tattered mattresses were no longer stopping the bullets: bits of plaster jumped from the walls and ceiling, furniture was being broken and sides of cupboards splitting as though under the axe. Worst of all, ammunition was running short.
‘What a pity!’ grumbled Laurent. ‘It’s going so well.’
Weiss had a sudden idea.
‘Wait a moment.’
He had thought of the dead soldier up there in the loft. He went up and searched him for the ammunition he must have. A whole section of roofing had fallen in and he could see the blue sky, a patch of gay light which astonished him. To avoid being killed he crawled along on his knees. Then, when he had the ammunition, another thirty or so rounds, he hurried down at full speed.
Down below, as he was sharing this new supply with the gardener, a soldier uttered a scream and fell on his face. They were now only seven, and immediately after only six, the corporal getting a bullet through his left eye which blew out his brains.
From then on Weiss lost all consciousness of what was happening. He and the five others went on shooting like mad things, finishing off the ammunition and not even thinking they could surrender. The floors of the three little rooms were strewn with bits of furniture. The dead blocked the doorways and one wounded man in a corner went on and on with his pitiful moaning. Everywhere blood stuck to their feet. A red trickle had gone down the stairs. The air was scarcely breathable, thick and with a burning taste of gunpowder, an acrid, sickening smoke, almost total darkness streaked by the flames of the rifle-fire.
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Weiss. ‘They’re bringing up cannon!’
It was true. Feeling they would never be able to liquidate this handful of fanatics who were holding them up like this, the Bavarians were bringing up a cannon into position at the corner of the Place de l’Eglise. Perhaps they would get through once they had demolished the house with gunfire. The honour they were being done by having artillery trained on them put the finishing touch to the wild glee of the besieged men, who sneered in utter scorn. The cowardly lot of sods with their cannon! Still on his knees, Laurent took careful aim at the gunners,