The Debacle - Emile Zola [147]
So it was at last only the fourth squadron, the fourth wave, that came into contact with the Prussian lines. Prosper, with raised sabre, slashed on helmets and dark uniforms which he saw through a haze. Blood was flowing, and he noticed that Zephir’s mouth was bleeding, and thought it was from biting into the enemy ranks.The clamour all round was such that he could not hear himself shout, though his throat felt lacerated by the yelling that must be coming out of it. But behind the first Prussian line there was another, and another and yet another. Heroism was unavailing, for these deep masses of men were like tall vegetation into which horses and men disappeared. However many you mowed down there were still plenty there. Fire continued with such intensity at point-blank range that some uniforms were set alight. Everything collapsed and was swallowed up amid the bayonets, chests cut open and skulls split. Regiments were going to leave two thirds of their strength there, and all that remained of this famous charge was the glorious folly of having attempted it. All of a sudden Zephir was hit by a bullet full in the chest and down he went, crushing beneath him Prosper’s right haunch, and the pain was so intense that he lost consciousness.
Maurice and Jean had looked on at the heroic gallop of the squadrons, and they exclaimed in anger:
‘Good God, what’s the use of being brave?’
They went on firing their rifles as they crouched behind the brushwood on the little hillock where they found themselves sniping. Rochas himself had picked up a rifle and was shooting. But this time the Illy plateau was well and truly lost, and the Prussian troops were swarming on to it from all sides. It must have been about two o’clock, the junction was now completed, and the Vth corps and the Prussian Guard had met and closed the trap.
Jean was suddenly knocked over.
‘I’ve got my ticket,’ he muttered.
It had been like a violent hammer-blow on the top of his head, and his képi was knocked off and lay in shreds on the ground behind him. For a moment he thought his skull was open and his brains exposed, and for a second or two he dared not feel with his hand for he was certain there would be a hole. When he did venture his fingers came away red from a copious bleeding. The pain was so terrible that he fainted.
Just then Rochas was ordering them to fall back. There was a Prussian company not more than two or three hundred metres away. They would be caught.
‘Don’t rush, turn round and fire as you go. We’ll find each other down there by that low wall.’
But Maurice was in desperation.
‘Sir, we aren’t going to leave our corporal here, are we?’
‘If his number’s up what do you propose to do about it?’
‘No, no, he’s breathing all right… Let’s carry him!’
With a shrug of the shoulders Rochas suggested that they couldn’t clutter themselves up with everybody who fell. On the battlefield the wounded cease to count. So Maurice implored Pache and Lapoulle:
‘Come on, give me a hand. I’m not strong enough on my own.’
They took no notice, couldn’t hear, were only concerned with themselves, with the sharpened instinct of self-preservation. Already they were moving along on their knees as fast as they could go, out of sight behind the wall. The Prussians were now only a hundred metres away.
Weeping with rage, Maurice, now alone with the unconscious Jean, took him in his arms and tried to carry him. But he was indeed too weak, fragile in build as well as overcome