The Debacle - Emile Zola [24]
As soon as he did manage to rejoin his regiment Jean set about finding Lieutenant Rochas to make his report. He found him and Captain Beaudoin confering with the colonel. All three were in front of a little inn and very concerned about the roll-call and anxious to know the whereabouts of their men. The first words of the corporal to the lieutenant were overheard by Colonel de Vineuil, and he called him over and forced him to tell him the whole story. His long sallow face, in which the eyes looked very black against his snow-white hair and drooping moustache, expressed silent misery.
‘Sir,’ said Captain Beaudoin, without waiting for his commanding officer’s opinion, ‘we must shoot half a dozen of these thugs.’
Lieutenant Rochas nodded his agreement, but the colonel made a gesture of helplessness.
‘Too many of them… what can you do? Nearly seven hundred of them! Who can you pick on out of that lot?… And besides, if you please, the general won’t hear of it. He goes all fatherly and says he never punished a single man in Africa… No, no, there’s nothing I can do. It’s terrible.’
The captain made so bold as to repeat after him:
‘Yes it is terrible… It’s the end of everything.’
Jean was taking himself off when he heard Major Bouroche, whom he had not noticed standing on the steps of the inn, mutter softly: no more discipline, no more punishment, army done for! Before a week was out the officers would get a few kicks up the backside, whereas if they had coshed one or two of those blighters straight away the rest might have had second thoughts.
Nobody was punished. Officers bringing up the rear, escorting the vehicles of the baggage-train, had had the happy foresight to get the packs and rifles picked up from the roadside. There were only a few missing, and the men were rearmed at dawn on the quiet to hush the matter up. Orders were to strike camp at five, but by four the soldiers were awakened and the retreat on Belfort was pushed forward on the assumption that the Prussians were only a league or two away. Once again the troops had had to put up with biscuits, and they were still dead beat after the short and restless night, with nothing warm in their bellies. That morning, once again, the orderly conduct of the march was jeopardized by this sudden departure. That day was worse still, utterly miserable. The character of the country had changed, and they had entered a mountainous region with roads up hill and down dale through fir plantations and narrow valleys all tangled with gorse and a mass of golden blossom. But through this gaily-coloured countryside beneath a brilliant August sun, a wind of panic had blown ever more fiercely since the day before. A dispatch advising mayors to warn the inhabitants that they would do well to put away their valuables had just increased the terror to fever-pitch. So the enemy was here? Would there even be time to escape? Everybody thought he could hear the mounting roar of invasion, like the dull thunder of a river in spate, gathering strength at every village from some fresh scare, amid general clamour and lamentation.
Maurice moved on like a sleepwalker, his feet bleeding and his shoulders weighed down with his pack and rifle. His mind had ceased to function and he trudged on through the nightmare that he could see around him. He had lost all consciousness of the tramping of his mates and only felt Jean on his left, worn out by the same fatigue and grief. It was heartbreaking, these villages they went through, the pity of it gripped your heart with anguish. As soon as they saw the troops in retreat, this rabble of exhausted soldiers dragging their feet, the inhabitants got busy and hastened their own flight. And they were so quietly confident