The Debacle - Emile Zola [146]
Just then an officer appeared over the brow of the hill, on his horse, wounded and supported by two men. At first they did not recognize him. Then a muttering began, which spread into a deafening clamour. It was General Margueritte, shot through the jaw by a bullet and near to death. He could not speak. He waved his arm towards the enemy.
The clamour grew louder still.
‘Our general! Revenge, revenge!’
Then the colonel of the first regiment raised his sword in the air and shouted in a voice like thunder:
‘Charge!’
The trumpets sounded and the mass began to move, at first at a trot. Prosper was in the front rank, but almost at the end of the right wing. The greatest danger was in the centre, where the enemy instinctively concentrates his fire. When they had scaled the top of the Calvary hill and were beginning to go down the further side towards the broad plain he had a clear view, some thousand metres ahead, of the Prussian squares against which they were being hurled. For all that, he was riding in a dream, feeling as light and disembodied as a man in his sleep, with an extraordinary vacuum in his brain which left him without a single idea – in fact a machine functioning with irresistible impetus. They kept repeating ‘Close up! Close up!’ so as to close the ranks as tightly as possible and give them a granite-like solidity. Then as the pace quickened and changed into a mad gallop, the Chasseurs d’Afrique, as in the Arab fashion, uttered wild yells that maddened their mounts. This furious gallop soon turned into a diabolical race, hell’s own stampede, with its savage catcalls accompanied by the patter of bullets like hailstones on metal things, messtins, water-bottles, the brass on uniforms and harness. In this hail blew a hurricane of wind and din that made the earth tremble, and into the sunshine rose a smell of scorching wool and the sweat of savage beasts.
After five hundred metres Prosper took a fall when a dreadful swerving movement sent everything flying. He seized Zephir by the mane and managed to get back into the saddle. The centre raked by the enemy fire and forced back, had faltered, while the two wings whirled round and fell back in order to recover their impetus. It was the inevitable, foreseeable annihilation of the first squadron. The ground was littered with dead horses, some killed outright, others still writhing in violent death-throes, and unhorsed men could be seen running as fast as their little legs would carry them, looking for another horse. The plain was already strewn with dead, many riderless horses were still careering about and making of their own accord for their place in the line and dashing on into the enemy fire at a mad pace as if drawn on by the smell of powder. The charge was resumed and the second wave was now advancing with increasing fury, men bent low along their horses’ necks, holding their sabres at the knee, ready to slash. Two hundred metres more were covered amid the deafening clamour. But once again the centre gave way, men and animals fell and stopped the charge with the inextricable clutter of their corpses. So the second squadron was mown down in its turn, annihilated, yielding its place to those who followed.
Then, in the heroic determination of the third charge, Prosper found himself involved with hussars and French chasseurs. Regiments no longer meant anything, and now there was simply an enormous wave continually breaking and re-forming to carry away all it met. He no longer had any notion of what was happening, but abandoned himself to his horse, that good old Zephir he loved so much and who seemed to have been driven crazy by a wounded ear. He was in the centre now, other horses were rearing and falling round him, some men were thrown to the ground as though they were blown down, while others, killed instantly,