The Debacle - Emile Zola [200]
As Maurice had foreseen, the thousands of horses interned with the army and which could not be fed were a menace that increased in seriousness each day. They had begun by eating the bark of trees, then they had attacked trellises and fences, any sort of planks they could find, and now they were devouring each other. They could be seen hurling themselves on each other to tear the hair from their tails, which they chewed madly, foaming at the mouth. But it was above all at night that they became terrible, as though darkness brought them nightmares. They would gather together and charge at the few tents standing, looking for straw. It was useless for the men to light big fires to keep them off; the fires seemed to excite them still more. Their whinnyings were so pitiful and unnerving that they seemed like the roaring of wild beasts. If you drove them away they came back fiercer and more numerous than ever. And every minute during the hours of darkness you could hear a long cry of agony from some stray soldier trampled to death in this mad stampede.
The sun was still on the horizon when Jean and Maurice, on their way back to camp, were surprised to come upon the four other members of the squad lying in a ditch and looking as though they were hatching some evil plot. Loubet called them over and Chouteau said:
‘It’s about tonight’s meal… We are starving and it’s thirty-six hours since we’ve had anything inside us… Well, as there are some horses, and as horsemeat’s not bad…’
‘You will be in on it, won’t you, corporal?’ went on Loubet. ‘Because the more of us there are the better, with such a big animal… Look, there’s one over there we’ve been trailing for an hour, that big chestnut that looks sick. It’ll be easier to finish him off.’
He pointed to a horse struck down by hunger on the edge of a ravaged beet field. The horse was on his side and now and again he raised his head and looked round dolefully with a great sigh of misery.
‘Oh what a long wait!’ grumbled Lapoulle, tortured by his huge appetite. ‘I’ll knock him out, shall I?’
But Loubet stopped him. No thank you! And get into a row with the Prussians, who had forbidden the killing of a single horse on pain of death, for fear that an abandoned carcass might start off plague… So they had to wait until it was quite dark, which was why all four were now in the ditch keeping watch with glittering eyes, which were never taken off the animal.
‘Corporal,’ ventured Pache in a slightly quavery voice, ‘you know all about these things, could you kill him without hurting him?’
With a gesture of disgust Jean refused to do the cruel job. That poor dying creature, oh no, no! His first impulse had been to run away and take Maurice with him so that neither should take part in this horrible butchery. But seeing how ill his friend looked, he reproached himself for being so squeamish. After all, good heavens, that’s what animals are for, to feed men. They couldn’t let themselves die of starvation when there was meat there. He was glad to see Maurice cheering up a little in the hope that they would get a meal, so he said in his good-humoured way:
‘Well, really, I’ve no idea, and if we’ve got to kill him without pain…’
‘Oh balls!’ cut in Lapoulle. ‘You watch me!’
The two newcomers sat in the ditch and the wait was resumed. Every so often one of them stood up and made sure that the horse was still there stretching his neck towards where the cool air of the Meuse came from, towards the setting sun, to drink in what life was left there. At last,