The Debacle - Emile Zola [171]
Delaherche, feeling reassured, realized that he was dying of hunger and decided to go home. But as soon as he was outside he was pulled up short by the terrible confusion that had developed. The streets and open spaces were jammed and bursting, so full of men, horses and equipment that the compact mass looked as though it must have been forced in by some gigantic ram. While the regiments that had retired in good order were camping on the ramparts, the scattered remnants of every corps, the fugitives from all arms, a milling throng, had submerged the town and piled up like a tidal wave that had congealed and frozen solid, in which you could not move arms or legs. The wheels of guns, waggons and countless vehicles had fouled each other. Horses, whipped and shoved in all directions, had no room to go forwards or backwards. And the men, taking no notice of threats, were breaking into houses, devouring whatever they found and lying down wherever they could, in rooms or in cellars. Many had fallen asleep in doorways and were blocking entries. Some, too weak to go any further, were lying on the pavement dead asleep, not even stirring under feet that bruised their limbs, preferring to be trodden on rather than to have to make the effort to go somewhere else.
This made Delaherche realize the urgent necessity of surrender. At certain road junctions ammunition waggons were touching each other, and just one Prussian shell, if it landed on one of them, would blow up the others, and the whole of Sedan would flare up like a torch. Besides, what could be done about such a collection of desperate men, overcome with exhaustion and hunger and with no ammunition and no supplies? It would have needed a whole day simply to clear the streets. The fortress itself had no armament and the town had no provisions. At the meeting these had been the reasons given by the wiser men who kept a clear view of the situation in spite of their deep patriotic grief, and even the, most hot-headed officers, the ones who shouted emotionally that no army could give in like this, had had to hang their heads, being unable to think of any practical measures to start the fight again next day.
Delaherche managed with difficulty to fight his way through the pack and cross the Place Turenne and the Place du Rivage. As he passed the Hôtel de la Croix d’Or he caught a depressing glimpse of the dining-room, in which some generals were sitting in silence at an empty table. There was nothing left, not even any bread. But General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who was storming about in the kitchen, must have found something, for he stopped talking and then ran up the stairs awkwardly holding in both hands something in greasy paper. There was such a crowd staring in from the pavement through the window at this glum board, swept clean by famine, that Delaherche had to shove with his elbows, feeling caught in a web, and sometimes being pushed back and losing what headway he had gained. But when he got to the Grande-Rue, the wall of people was impassable, and for a moment he gave up hope. Here all the guns in a battery seemed to have been piled on top of each other. So he made up his mind and climbed up on to the gun-carriages, stepped over the guns themselves, leaping from wheel to wheel at the risk of breaking his legs. Then there were horses in the way, and he stooped down and was reduced to making his way between the legs and under the bellies of these poor, half-starved creatures. After struggling for a quarter of an hour he reached the top of rue Saint-Michel, but there the growing number of obstacles frightened him, and he thought he would go along that street and get round via rue des Laboureurs, hoping that these back streets would be less crowded. But as ill-luck would have it there was a brothel down there, besieged by a lot of drunken soldiers, and fearing he might fare badly in some shindy he retraced his steps. So then he fought on and got to the end of the Grand-rue, sometimes balancing on cart-shafts, sometimes climbing over vans. In the Place du College he