The Debacle - Emile Zola [28]
Yet a little further on the filthy songs and savage yellings began again. A little beyond Chaumont the train happened to pass another one full of artillerymen being taken to Metz. Speed had been reduced, and the soldiers in the two trains fraternized in an infernal din. And possibly because they were more drunk, it was the artillerymen who won as they stood waving their fists out of the trucks and shouting everything else down with the violence of desperation:
‘To the slaughterhouse! To the slaughterhouse! To the slaughterhouse!’
A great chill, the icy wind of a charnel-house, seemed to be blowing through. A sudden silence fell, in which Loubet’s sneering voice could be heard:
‘Our chums aren’t all that lively!’
‘But they’re right.’ Chouteau took up the point in his pub-orator’s voice. ‘It’s wicked to send off a lot of ordinary chaps to get killed for a lot of balls they don’t know the first thing about.’
And so on and so on. He was the typical agitator, the bad workman from Montmartre, the house-painter who took time off and went on the binge, who half digested bits of speeches heard at public meetings and mixed up a lot of asinine rubbish with the great principles of equality and liberty. He was the know-all and he indoctrinated his comrades, especially Lapoulle, whom he had promised to turn into quite a bloke.
‘Can’t you see, old cock, it’s quite simple. If old Badinguet and Bismarck have a row then let them have it out between them with fists without upsetting hundreds of thousands of men who don’t even know each other and don’t want to fight.’
The whole truckload laughed and was won over, and Lapoulle, with no idea who Badinguet was and unable to say even whether he was fighting for an emperor or a king, took up the strain like a baby colossus:
‘Sure! With fists, and have a drink afterwards.’
But Chouteau had turned towards Pache and was giving him his turn:
‘Like you and that God of yours… He said you mustn’t fight, that God of yours did. So what are you doing here, you silly sod?’
‘Well, er…’ said Pache, quite taken aback, ‘I’m not here for my enjoyment… Only there’s the police…’
‘The police! Coo, listen to him! Fuck the police! Don’t you know, all you chaps, what we should do if we had any sense? When they unload us later on we should piss off – yes, just quietly slope off! And leave that great swine Badinguet and all his crew of tuppenny-ha’penny generals to work it out as they like with their bloody Prussians!’
There was a burst of applause, the brainwashing was working, and Chouteau triumphantly trotted out his theories, a muddied stream in which floated the Republic, the Rights of Man, the corruption of the Empire that had to be thrown down, the treasons of all these men in command of them, each one bribed with a million, as had been proved. He proclaimed himself a revolutionary – the others didn’t even know whether they were republicans, nor, for that matter, how you set about becoming one, except Loubet the guzzler, who also knew what he believed, never having been for anything but food. However, they were all carried away and shouted against the Emperor none the less, and against the officers and the whole bloody show that they would walk out of, straight they would, at the first sign of trouble. Working on their mounting drunkenness, Chouteau kept his eye on Maurice, the gent, for he was making him laugh and was proud to have him on his side. And so as to work him up as well, he hit on the idea of baiting Jean, who so far was standing still and half asleep, with eyes half