The Debacle - Emile Zola [165]
Lieutenant Rochas was outraged.
‘Just you wait, you swine. I’ll give you booze! And while all the rest of us are pegging out in the thick of it all!’
But Chouteau refused to accept the reprimand.
‘Look here, you silly old sod, there’s no more lieutenant about it, there’s only free men… Haven’t the Prussians given you enough, then? Do you want a bit more?’
They had to hold back Rochas, who was threatening to do him in. Loubet, of all people, bottle in hand, was trying to keep the peace.
‘Now, now, give over, no point in scrapping, we’re all brothers together!’
Catching sight of Lapoulle and Pache, two of their mates in the squad:
‘Don’t you be soft, come in here, you two. Let’s give your throats a rinse for you.’
Lapoulle had a moment’s hesitation, feeling vaguely that it was wrong to have a good time while other poor buggers were at their last gasp. But he was so all in and knocked up with hunger and thirst! He suddenly made up his mind, and with one bound and without a word he nipped into the pub, shoving Pache in front of him, who was just as silent and tempted, and gave in. They never reappeared.
‘Lot of swine!’ repeated Rochas. ‘They should all be shot!’
Now he only had Jean, Maurice and Gaude left with him, and all four were more or less swept along in spite of themselves by the torrent of fugitives filling the whole width of the road. The pub was already far behind. It was a rabble pouring down into the ditches of Sedan in a muddy stream, like the earth and stones washed down into the valleys when a storm strikes the hills. From all the neighbouring uplands, down all the slopes and coombs, along the Floing road, through Pierremont, past the cemetery and the parade ground, as well as through Fond-de-Givonne, the same mob rushed on and on in an ever quickening gallop of panic. How could you blame these wretched men who had been waiting motionless for twelve hours, exposed to the shattering artillery of an invisible enemy against whom they could do nothing? Now the batteries were catching them in front, on either side and in the rear, and their fire converged more and more as the army retreated into the town, until whole heaps of men were being flattened out into a human mush in the foul hole into which they had been swept. A few regiments of the 7th corps, especially on the Floing side, did fall back in reasonable order. But in Fond-de-Givonne there were neither ranks nor officers, the troops shoved each other along in a desperate herd made up of all sorts: Zouaves, Turcos, light cavalry and infantry, mostly unarmed, in dirty and ragged uniforms, with black hands and faces, staring bloodshot eyes and thick lips swollen through having bawled so many oaths. Now and again a riderless horse would come rearing along, knocking soldiers over and leaving behind it a wake of terror where it had cut through the crowd. Cannons would tear through like mad things, batteries in confusion whose drivers behaved as though they were mad drunk and ran over everything without warning. On and on went the herd in a solid procession shoulder to shoulder, a mass flight in which gaps were immediately filled with the instinctive haste to get to shelter, behind a wall.
Jean looked up westwards again. Through the thick cloud of dust kicked up by feet the sun’s rays still shone on sweating faces. The weather was lovely, the sky wonderfully blue.
‘But it doesn’t half get you down,’ he kept saying, ‘this fucking sun that won’t make up its mind to go.’
Then Maurice, seeing a young woman being pushed back against a house and almost crushed to death by the crowd, was suddenly horrified to realize that it was his sister Henriette. For nearly a minute he just saw her and remained gaping. She it was who spoke first, without seeming to be surprised.
‘They shot him at Bazeilles… Yes, I was there… So as I want to get his body back I thought…’
She never named the Prussians or Weiss. Everybody