The Debacle - Emile Zola [201]
‘Oh blast it all!’ cried Chouteau. ‘Now’s the time!’
The countryside could still be seen in the dim light of dusk. Lapoulle ran first, followed by the five others. He had taken with him from the ditch a big round stone, and he rushed at the horse and began bashing in his skull with both arms straight as though using a club. But at the second blow the horse attempted to stand up. Chouteau and Loubet threw themselves across the horse’s legs, trying to hold him down and shouting for the others to help. The horse whinnyed in an almost human voice in his bewildered grief, and began to struggle and would have broken the men like glass if he had not already been half dead with starvation. But his head was moving too much and the blows were going wide. Lapoulle could not finish him off.
‘Christ, his bones aren’t half hard! Hold on to him and let me do him in!’
Jean and Maurice were frozen with horror and did not hear Chouteau calling, but stood there with arms dangling and unwilling to join in.
All of a sudden Pache, in an instinctive burst of religious compassion, fell on his knees, put his hands together and began to mumble some prayers as people do at the bedside of the dying:
‘Lord, have mercy upon him…’
Once again Lapoulle missed his aim and only took an ear off the wretched horse, who fell over with a loud cry.
‘What a minute,’ growled Chouteau, ‘we’ve got to finish this off, he’ll get us pinched… Don’t you let go, Loubet!’
He had taken a knife out of his pocket, a little knife with a blade hardly longer than your finger. And sprawling on top of the animal’s body, with one arm round its neck, he buried the blade, digging about in the living flesh, hacking lumps out until he found and severed the artery. He jumped to one side as the blood spurted out like water from a spout, while the feet pawed about and convulsive twitchings ran along the skin. It took nearly five minutes for the horse to die. His great staring eyes, full of grief and terror, were fixed on the grim-faced men waiting for his death. They grew dim and went out.
‘Oh God,’ muttered Pache, still on his knees, ‘succour him, take him into Thy holy keeping…’
Then, when the horse had stopped moving, they were very hard put to it as to how to get the best cuts. Loubet, who was a jack of all trades, did show them how to set about getting the fillet. But he was a clumsy butcher and in any case only had the little knife, and he floundered about in this warm flesh, still pulsing with life. Lapoulle, impatient as always, started helping him by opening up the belly quite unnecessarily and the carnage became appalling. They rummaged with furious haste in the blood and entrails like wolves worrying the carcass of the prey with their fangs.
‘I don’t know what cut this can be,’ Loubet finally said, straightening up, his arms burdened with an enormous lump of meat. ‘But anyhow here’s enough to fill us all up to the eyes.’
Sick with horror, Jean and Maurice had turned away. Nevertheless hunger was driving them, and they followed the rest when they ran away so as not to be caught near a horse that had been cut open. Chouteau had made a discovery, three large beetroots somebody had dropped, and took them. Loubet, to get his arms free, had thrown the meat over Lapoulle’s shoulders, and Pache carried the squad’s saucepan, which they took about with them in case they had any lucky find. All six ran and ran without stopping to breathe, as though they were being chased.
Loubet suddenly stopped them all.
‘This is silly, we’ve got to think where we can cook it.’
Jean, who was beginning to feel better now, suggested the quarries. They weren’t more than three hundred metres away, and there were hidden caves where you could light a fire without being seen. But when they got there all sorts of difficulties cropped up. First there was the question of wood; fortunately they