The Debacle - Emile Zola [29]
‘I have heard tell of them as talked about shooting us,’ Chouteau went on menacingly. ‘Swine who treat us worse than animals, and don’t realize that when you’ve had enough of your pack and rifle it’s good-bye, you chuck the whole fucking lot into the field to see if some more’ll grow! Well, chums, what would those people say if now we’ve got them in a corner we chucked them out as well on to the railway line? What about it? Must have an example so that they stop tormenting us with this bleeding war! Death to old Badinguet’s lice! Death to the sods who want us to fight!’
Jean had gone very red, with the blood rushing up to his face as it sometimes did in his rare fits of temper. Although he was pinned by his neighbours in a living vice, he got up and went forward with clenched fists and blazing eyes, and he looked so terrible that the other man cringed.
‘Christ Almighty! Will you shut your trap, you swine! I haven’t said anything for hours because there’s nobody left in command and I can’t even put you in clink. Yes, one thing is certain, I would have done a good turn to the regiment if I had rid it of a filthy shit like you. But just you listen, if punishments are only talk now you’ll have me to deal with. It isn’t a matter of corporal any more – just an ordinary bloke who’s sick to death of you and is going to shut your jaw. You miserable coward, you don’t want to fight! Just say that again and I’ll sock you one!’
At once the whole waggon-load turned round, and, caught up by Jean’s fine burst of confidence, they left Chouteau high and dry, spluttering and backing away from Jean’s big fists.
‘I don’t give a damn for Badinguet, nor for you either, d’you see? Me, I’ve never cared two hoots about politics, Republic or Empire, and today, just the same same as when I was working in my field, I never wanted but one thing – happiness for all, law and order and prosperity… Of course it gets everybody down to have to fight, but that’s not to say we shouldn’t deal with these slobs coming up discouraging us when it’s hard enough to carry on properly as it is. Good God, mates, don’t you get worked up when you’re told the Prussians are in your own country and that they must fucking well be kicked out?’
With the fickleness of mobs who swing from one passion to another the soldiers applauded the corporal as he repeated his promise to bash the face in of the first man in the squad to talk of refusing to fight. Bravo corporal! We’ll soon cook that Bismarck’s goose!
And in the middle of this wild oration Jean calmed down and politely said to Maurice, as though he weren’t talking to one of the men:
‘Now you, sir, you can’t be one of these skunks. Come on, we’re not beaten yet, and we’ll end up by giving these Prussians what for.’
At that moment Maurice felt a warm ray of sunshine pierce him to the heart, and he felt troubled and humbled. So this chap wasn’t just a clod, then? He recalled the burning hatred he had felt when he picked up the rifle he had thrown away in an unthinking moment. But he also remembered the revelation when he had seen the two big tears forming in the corporal’s eyes when the old grandma with grey hair flying in the wind had insulted them and pointed to the Rhine over there, beyond the horizon. Was it a sense of brotherhood from having gone through the same fatigues and the same sorrows together, which was now carrying away his resentment? Belonging to a Bonapartist family, he had never considered a republic except in a theoretical way; and he felt a certain affection for the person of the Emperor, and he was for war, the essential of nations. Suddenly hope came back to him in one of those leaps of the imagination he knew so well, and the enthusiasm that had made him enlist one evening surged through him once again, filling his heart with the certainty of victory.
‘Yes, that’s a fact, corporal,’ he