The Debacle - Emile Zola [195]
In the sudden fit of depression that came over him he saw on the far side of the Meuse the hated fields where he had fought two days before. In the fading light of this day of rain everything took on a ghastly appearance, a horizon of mud stretching on endless and dismal. The Saint-Albert gap, the narrow road along which the Prussians had come, ran parallel with the bend of the river as far as the whitish screes of some quarries. Beyond the slopes of the Seugnon were the feathery treetops of the Falizette wood. But straight ahead of him, a little further to the left, Saint-Menges stood out, with the road coming down to the ferry, and then the summit of Le Hattoy in the middle. Illy was far away in the distance, Fleigneux buried behind a fold in the land, Floing nearer and to the right. He recognized the field in which he had waited for hours lying among the cabbages, the plateau that the reserve artillery had tried to defend, the crest where he had seen Honoré die on his smashed gun. The abomination of the disaster all came back and filled him with pain and disgust until he felt sick.
But for fear of being caught in the dark he had to go on with his quest. Perhaps the 106th was encamped in the low-lying part beyond the village, but all he found there was a few characters on the prowl, so he decided to go right round the peninsula, following the loop of the river. As he crossed a field of potatoes he took the precaution of pulling up a few plants and filling his pockets. The potatoes were unripe, but it was all he had, as most unfortunately Jean had insisted on carrying both the loaves Delaherche had given them when they left. What struck him now was the number of horses he met on the bare slopes that went gently down from the little hill in the middle to the Meuse in the Donchery direction. Why had all these animals been brought here, and how were they going to be fed? It was quite dark by the time he came to a little wood by the river, in which he was surprised to find the Emperor’s Household Cavalry already encamped and drying their things round big fires. These gentlemen camping on their own had good tents, bubbling saucepans and a cow tethered to a tree. He at once noticed that they were looking askance at him in his ragged infantry uniform covered with mud. But they did let him bake his potatoes in the ashes, and he withdrew and sat under a tree a hundred metres away to eat them. It had stopped raining, the sky had cleared and the stars were shining very bright in the dark blue vault. He realized that he would be spending the night here and would have to continue his search in the morning. He was collapsing with fatigue, and the tree would at least give him some shelter should the rain start again.
But he could not get to sleep and was haunted by the thought of the huge prison open to the night air in which he felt shut in. The Prussians had had a really bright idea in herding into this place the eighty thousand men left of the army of Châlons. The peninsula might be three kilometres long by one and a half wide, plenty of room to park the huge rabble of disarmed men. He was well aware of the continuous barrier of water surrounding them, with the loop of the Meuse on three sides and at the base the by-pass canal linking the closest points of the river. Just there was the only way through, the bridge defended by two guns. So it was the simplest thing in the world to guard this camp in spite of its great area. He had already noticed the line of German sentries strung along by