The Debacle - Emile Zola [48]
So Chouteau, who had heard Captain Beaudoin carrying on about the disappearance of the provision van, had a good sneer when, from the depths of the carcass of the goose, he saw him go by with his stiff, unbending air. He indicated him with a look out of the corner of his eye.
‘Just look at him, his nose is twitching… he’d give five francs for the parson’s nose.’
They all roared at the captain’s hunger, for he had never managed to be popular with his men, being too young and too strict, a real slave-driver they called him. For a moment it looked as though he was going to tell the squad off for the scandal they were creating with their goose. But probably the fear of giving away his own hunger made him move on, head in the air as though he had seen nothing.
But as for Lieutenant Rochas, his guts were just as tormented with terrible hunger, and he was prowling round the blissful squad openly laughing. He was worshipped by the men, first because he loathed the captain for being a puppy from Saint-Cyr, and also because he himself had shouldered the knapsack the same as the rest of them. Not that he was always as easy-going as that, being so rude sometimes that you could punch his head.
Jean first glanced for confirmation from his mates and then stood up and made Rochas follow him to the back of the tent.
‘I say, sir, no offence meant, but if you would like…’
And he slipped him half a loaf of bread and a messtin in which he put a thigh of the goose sitting on six large potatoes.
They didn’t need rocking to sleep that night either. All six were digesting the bird for all they were worth. And they had the corporal to thank for the solid way he had pitched the tent, for they didn’t even notice a violent squall at about two in the morning, with a deluge of rain; tents were blown away, men woke up in a panic, soaked to the skin and forced to run for it in the dark, but theirs stood up to it and they were perfectly sheltered, without a single drop of wet, thanks to the gulleys that took away the storm water.
Maurice woke up at dawn, and as they were not to start off again until eight he thought he would go up to the top of the hill to where the reserve artillery were camped and have a word with his cousin Honoré. After a good night’s rest his foot was not so painful. It was still a matter of wonderment to him how well the parking was done, the six guns of each battery correctly in line, and behind them the ammunition waggons, gun-carriages, forage waggons and smithies. Further off the tethered horses were neighing with their nostrils turned towards the rising sun. He found Honoré’s tent at once, thanks to the perfect order allocating a line of tents to all the men on the same gun, so that the first glance at a camp tells you the number of guns.
When Maurice arrived the artillerymen were up already and having their coffee, and a row was going on between Adolphe, the leading driver and the gun-layer Louis, his mate. They had been together for three years, according to the custom that coupled a driver and a gunner, and all the time theirs had been a perfect marriage except when they were eating. Louis, who was better educated and more intelligent, accepted the dependent position in which any horseman keeps a foot-slogger, and he it was who put up the tent, did fatigues, looked after the cooking, while Adolphe saw to his two horses with an air of absolute superiority. But Louis, a swarthy, thin type cursed with a ravenous appetite, rebelled when the other, a very tall man with a big fair moustache, was by way of helping himself as though he was the master. That particular morning the squabble was because Louis, who had made the coffee, accused Adolphe of drinking the lot. Someone had to see that they made it up.
Every morning as soon as he woke