The Debacle - Emile Zola [51]
Anyhow, they set off at last, and that day as it happened the army pivoted on its left, the 7th corps only covered the two short leagues between Contreuve and Vouziers, whilst the 5th and 12th stood still at Rethel and the 1st stopped at Attigny. From Contreuve to the Aisne valley the plains began again and were even barer; as it neared Vouziers the road wound through the grey earth between desolate hillocks with never a tree or a house, as depressing as a desert, so that the very short march was fatiguing and boring and seemed to be terribly long. By noon a halt was called on the left bank of the Aisne and they bivouacked on the barren ground of the last escarpments overlooking the valley and commanding the Monthois road which ran along the river and by which the enemy was expected to come.
Maurice was completely thunderstruck when he saw coming along the Monthois road the Margueritte division – all the reserve cavalry whose job was to support the 7th corps and scout for the left flank of the army. It was rumoured that it was making for Le Chêne-Populeux. Why leave unprotected the one wing that was threatened? Why take these two thousand horsemen, who should have been deployed as scouts many leagues away, and move them to the centre where they must be absolutely useless? The worst of it was that as they blundered right into the manoeuvres of the 7th they nearly cut up its columns into an inextricable muddle of men, guns and horses. Some of the Chasseurs d’Afrique had to wait nearly two hours outside Vouziers.
By sheer chance Maurice caught sight of Prosper, who had taken his horse to a pond, and they could talk for a moment. He seemed quite lost and dazed, knowing nothing and having seen nothing since Rheims. Oh, but yes, he had seen two Uhlans, chaps who appeared and disappeared and nobody knew where they came from or where they went. Stories were already going round about four Uhlans galloping into a town with revolvers in their hands, dashing through it, conquering it, and twenty kilometres away from their own army corps at that. They were everywhere, they preceded the enemy columns like a swarm of buzzing bees, a moving curtain behind which the infantry could disguise its movements, marching with complete security as in peace time. Maurice felt sick at heart as he saw the road jammed with cavalry and hussars being so badly employed.
‘Oh well, so long,’ he said, shaking Prosper’s hand. ‘Perhaps they’ll still need you up there.’
But the cavalryman seemed to be exasperated at the job they were making him do. He patted Zephir sorrowfully and said:
‘Don’t you believe it! They work the horses to death and do nothing with the men. It’s disgusting.’
That evening when Maurice went to take off his boot to look at his heel which was throbbing and burning hot, he tore away the skin. The blood came and he uttered a cry of pain. Jean was close by and seemed full of anxious sympathy.
‘Look here, this is getting bad, you’ll find yourself laid up… must look after it. Let me have a go.’
He knelt down, washed the place himself and dressed it with some clean material from his knapsack. And his movements were like a mother’s, he had the gentleness of a man of long experience whose big hands can be delicate when need arises.
Maurice could not help being overcome by a great tenderness, his eyes went misty, and the language of friendship rose from his heart to his lips in an immense longing for affection, as though in this clodhopper he had loathed some time ago and despised only yesterday he had found a lost brother.
‘You’re a bloody good chap, you are… thank you, mate.’
Jean, beaming with pleasure, answered with his