The Debacle - Emile Zola [214]
fields and ploughed land on the right bank, hoping luck would be on their side. Everything went pretty well at first, and they only had one patrol of cavalry to avoid, and that they did by staying quite still for nearly a quarter of an hour in the shadow of a wall. Rain was falling again and walking became very trying for him as he was obliged to tramp in sodden earth beside the horse, which fortunately was a very good fellow of a horse and very docile. At Villers luck really was on their side, for the ferry at this late hour happened to have just brought over a Bavarian officer, and so could take them at once to the other side with no trouble. The dangers and fatigues only really began at the village, and they nearly stayed there for good in the hands of sentries stationed along the Remilly road. Once again they took to the fields, going where the little paths took them, narrow paths hardly used. The slightest obstacles forced
them to make enormous detours. They crossed hedges and ditches and cut through impenetrable thickets. Jean, now feverish in the drizzling rain, was slumped over the saddle, half fainting and clinging with both hands to the horse’s mane, while Maurice, with the reins over his right arm, had to hold on to his friend’s legs to prevent him from slipping off. For nearly a league and two more hours this exhausting journey dragged on, with jolts, sudden slips and loss of balance which every minute almost threw over the horse and the two men. They were the most miserable little procession imaginable, mud-stained, the horse tottering, the man he was carrying inert and looking as if he had breathed his last, and the other man wild-eyed and haggard, only kept going by brotherly love. Day was breaking, and it must have been about five when at last they reached Remilly.
In the yard of his little farm which overlooked the village as you emerged from the Haraucourt defile, old Fouchard was loading on to his cart two sheep killed the day before. The sight of his nephew in such a sorry set-up was such a shock to him that after the first words of explanation he brutally exclaimed:
‘What, me keep you and your friend here? And get myself into trouble with the Prussians? Oh no, certainly not! I’d rather die straight away!’
Yet he dared not prevent Maurice and Prosper from getting Jean down from the horse and laying him on the big kitchen table. Silvine ran off and got her own bolster, which she slipped under the wounded man’s head, for he was still unconscious. But the old boy, annoyed at seeing this man on his table, grumbled away, saying that he was very uncomfortable like that and why didn’t they take him straight to the field hospital, as they were lucky enough to have one at Remilly, near the church, in the old schoolhouse which had once been a convent and in which there was a very convenient large hall.
‘To the hospital!’ It was Maurice’s turn to object. ‘For the Prussians to send him off to Germany when he’s better, since every wounded man belongs to them!… What do you take me for, uncle? I haven’t brought him all the way here so as to give him up to them!’
Things were turning ugly and Uncle Fouchard was talking of turning them out when the name of Henriette was mentioned.
‘Henriette! What’s that?’ asked Maurice.
He then learned that his sister had been at Remilly since the day before yesterday, being so mortally heartbroken by her loss that to live in Sedan, where she had been so happy, had become unthinkable. A chance meeting with Dr Dalichamp of Raucourt, whom she knew, had made her decide to come and live at Uncle Fouchard’s in one little room and devote her whole time to the wounded in the neighbouring field hospital. It was the only thing, she said, that would take her mind off it all. She paid for her keep and as she contributed all sorts of comforts at the farmhouse the old man looked on her with a kindly eye. When there was something to be made out of it things were always lovely.
‘Oh, so my sister’s here! So that’s