The Debacle - Emile Zola [23]
Shouts of protest went up, but the corporal went on with extraordinary vehemence:
‘When a man’s been educated he shows it. If we are yokels and clods you should be setting us all an example because you know more about everything than we do… Now pick up your gun again, fuck you, or I’ll have you shot at the end of the march.’
Maurice picked up the gun, thoroughly cowed. There were tears of rage in his eyes. He marched on, staggering like a drunken man, surrounded by his mates who were now jeering because he had knuckled under. Oh, how he hated that Jean with an undying hate, wounded to the quick by such a hard lesson which he felt he deserved. And when Chouteau muttered at his side that with a corporal like that you waited for a battle and then put a bullet through his head, he saw red and had a clear vision of himself bashing Jean’s head in behind some wall.
But then there was a diversion. Loubet noticed that during the row Pache, too, had quietly got rid of his rifle, putting it down at the foot of a bank. Why? He didn’t attempt to find an explanation, laughing sheepishly, half pleased with himself and half ashamed like a good little boy being scolded for his first naughtiness. He walked along with arms hanging free, very jolly and cock-a-hoop. Along the interminable sun-baked roads, between the fields of ripe corn or hops, one after another and all looking the same, the stampede went on, and the stragglers, with neither packs nor rifles, were nothing but a wandering rabble tramping along, a hotchpotch of rascals and beggars at whose approach village doors shut in panic.
Just then they met something which put the finishing touch to Maurice’s exasperation. A distant heavy rumbling could be heard coming nearer; it was the reserve artillery which had set off last, and suddenly its head appeared round a bend in the road. The demoralized stragglers just had time to throw themselves into the nearby fields. The artillery was moving in column, coming along at a proud canter in fine correct order, a whole regiment of six batteries, the colonel on the outside and near the middle, and the officers in their places. The guns clanked by, keeping strict spacing, each with its ammunition waggon, horses and men. In the fifth battery Maurice recognized his cousin Honoré’s cannon. There was the sergeant, proudly mounted on his horse, to the left of the leader, a handsome, fair chap called Adolphe on a sturdy chestnut beautifully matched with the off-horse trotting alongside. In his correct position among the six gunners, sitting in pairs on the cases of the gun itself and its ammunition waggon, was Louis, the gun-layer, a dark little man and Adolphe’s mate, his other half, as they said, following the established custom of marrying a mounted man and a foot-slogger. They seemed much taller to Maurice, who had met them in camp, and the gun, with its four horses, followed by the waggon drawn by six more, looked as dazzling as a sun, polished and cherished by all its little world, men and beasts, closely surrounding it with the discipline and tenderness of a well-ordered family. And what hurt him most was the haughty glance his cousin Honoré cast on the stragglers and his sudden amazement when he caught sight of him in the midst of this rabble of unarmed men. The procession was nearly past, with the material for the batteries – waggons, forage-carts, smithies. Then in a final cloud of dust went the reserves, the spare men and horses, who trotted out of sight round another bend in the road with a gradually diminishing din of hoofs and wheels.
‘Blimey!’ declared Loubet. ‘Easy enough to be cocky when you’re going by coach!’
The headquarters staff had found Altkirch unoccupied. No Prussians yet. Nevetheless, afraid of being dogged and of seeing them appear at any moment General Douay had decided that the march should go on as far as Dannemarie, which the leading detachments had not reached until five in the afternoon. It was eight and getting dark, and yet the regiments, in a terrible state of confusion and reduced