The Debacle - Emile Zola [18]
‘It comes from Bâle… Our first division destroyed… Twelve hours of fighting, the whole army in retreat…’
The shadowy figure of the colonel stopped and hailed another shade hurrying along, athletic, slim and dapper.
‘That you, Beaudoin?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Oh my dear man, MacMahon beaten at Froeschwiller, Frossard beaten at Spickeren, de Failly immobilized and powerless between the two… At Froeschwiller a single corps against a whole army -did miracles. But everything swept away, rout, panic, France wide open…’
His voice was choking with tears, the words died away and the three shades melted and vanished.
Maurice had leapt to his feet, his whole being shuddering.
‘Oh my God!’ he muttered.
That was all he could find to say, while Jean, with death in his heart, whispered:
‘Oh bloody hell! So that gentleman, your relation, was right when he said they are stronger than us!’
Maurice could have strangled him, for he was beside himself. The Prussians stronger than the French! It made his heart bleed. But the peasant, in his calm and deliberate way, went straight on:
‘But it doesn’t make any difference, don’t you see? You don’t give up just because you’ve had one knock… We’ve got to bash ’em just the same.’
At that moment a lanky figure rose up in front of them. It was Rochas, still draped in his greatcoat, who had been awakened out of his heavy sleep by the vague noises, and possibly by the wind of defeat. He questioned them, wanted to know.
When after a great struggle he had grasped it, his childlike eyes showed an immense bewilderment.
More than ten times he repeated:
‘Beaten! Beaten how? Why?’
Now the eastern sky was lightening; it was a weird and infinitely mournful light on the sleeping tents, in one of which you could begin to pick out the grey faces of Loubet and Lapoulle, Chouteau and Pache, still snoring open-mouthed. A funereal dawn was coming up out of the sooty mists rising from the distant river.
2
BY about eight the sun dispersed the heavy clouds and a clear, blazing August Sunday shone out over Mulhouse in the middle of the great, fertile plain. From the camp, now awake and buzzing with activity, the bells of all the parishes could be heard hurling their chimes through the limpid air. That lovely Sunday, day of appalling disaster, had its own gaiety, its brilliant holiday sky.
Suddenly Gaude sounded rations and Loubet was amazed. What was up? Was this the chicken he had promised Lapoulle the day before? Born in the rue de la Cossonnerie, in the central markets, by-blow of a costermonger, he had enlisted ‘for a few coppers’, as he put it and, after a go at all sorts of trades, he was the cook and his nose was always sniffing out something good to eat. So he went off to find out, while Chouteau the artist – a house-painter from Montmartre, a good-looking chap and a revolutionary, furious at having been called back to the colours after serving his time – was ferociously taking it out of Pache, whom he had come across on his knees behind the tent, saying his prayers. There was a reverend for you! Couldn’t he ask that God of his for a hundred thousand a year? But Pache, who came from some outlandish village in Brittany, a puny little specimen with a pear-shaped head, just let himself be teased, with the long-suffering silence of a martyr. He was the butt of the squad, he and Lapoulle, a hulking great brute who had grown up in the marshes of Sologne, who was so ignorant about everything that on the day he had joined the regiment he had asked to see the king. Although the news of the disaster of Froeschwiller had been going round since reveille, the four men were laughing away and going through the usual jobs with their mechanical unconcern.
But then a growl of surprise and jeering went up as Jean, the corporal, accompanied by Maurice, came back from the ration issue with some firewood. At last they were handing out the wood that the troops had waited