The Debacle - Emile Zola [170]
For the last time, Jean looked up westwards where the sky was filling with a great pink light, and at last he sighed with immense relief:
‘Oh, that bloody sun, at last it’s going down!’
They were now all three running and running without stopping for breath. Round them the tail end of the fugitives was still filling the roadway with a constantly mounting pressure like a torrent in spate. When they reached the Balan gate they had to wait in an appalling mêlée. The chains of the drawbridge were broken and the only way open was a pedestrian footway, so that guns and horses could not get through. At the castle postern and the Cassine gate they said the crush was even more frightening. It was the headlong rush of all the remnants of the army pelting down the slopes and throwing themselves into the town with a noise like an open sluicegate or water going down a drain. The fatal attraction of these city walls corrupted even the bravest.
Maurice seized Henriette in his arms, and trembling with impatience:
‘Surely they aren’t going to shut the gate before everyone’s got in.’
This was what the crowd was afraid of. But to right and left soldiers were already camping on the grass slopes, while the batteries of artillery had tumbled into the ditches in a jumble of pieces of equipment, ammunition waggons and horses.
Repeated bugle-calls resounded, soon to be followed by the clear notes of the retreat. Straggling soldiers were being called in. Some were still running up at full speed, and isolated shots went off in some outlying neighbourhoods, but fewer and fewer. Detachments were left on the benches inside the parapet to defend the approaches, and eventually the gate was closed. The Prussians were not more than a hundred metres away. They could be seen coming and going on the Balan road, calmly setting about occupying houses and gardens.
Maurice and Jean, pushing Henriette in front of them to protect her from being jostled, were among the last to enter Sedan. It was striking six and already nearly an hour since the bombardment had stopped. Gradually even the isolated rifle shots gave over. Then nothing was left of the deafening noise and hateful thunder that had been roaring ever since sunrise – nothing but the peace of death. Night was coming, falling into a mournful, frightening silence.
8
AT about half past five, before the closing of the gates, Delaherche had gone back yet again to the Sub-Prefecture in his anxiety about what was going to happen now that he knew the battle was lost. He stayed there nearly three hours, tramping up and down the paved courtyard on the watch and questioning any passing officer, and in this way he learned about the rapid sequence of events: General de Wimpffen’s resignation tendered and then withdrawn, the plenary powers he had received from the Emperor to go to the Prussian General Headquarters and obtain for the beaten army the least harsh conditions, then the meeting of the war council to decide whether they should attempt to carry on the war by defending the fortress. During this meeting, attended by a score of high-ranking officers, which seemed to him to last a century, he went up the flight of steps twenty times. At eight-fifteen General de Wimpffen suddenly emerged looking very flushed and with swollen eyes, followed by a colonel and two other generals. They leaped into the saddle and rode off over the Meuse bridge. It was capitulation, accepted as