The Debacle - Emile Zola [54]
There was an alert at about four. The 4th hussars returned after a long detour, and tales of fights with Uhlans went the rounds, getting magnified as they went, and this endorsed everybody’s conviction that an attack was imminent. Two hours later another dispatch rider came in, explaining in scared tones that General Bordas daren’t leave Grand-Pré now because he was sure that the Vouziers road was cut. This was not yet the case, since the rider himself had come through freely, but at any minute it could be a fact, and General Dumont, in command of the division, left at once with the one brigade he had remaining, to relieve his other brigade in peril. The sun was going down behind Vouziers, whose line of roofs stood out black against a great cloud of red. For a long time the brigade could be seen moving between the double row of trees until in the end it was lost in the deepening shadows.
Colonel de Vineuil came to make sure that his regiment was in a good position for the night. He was astonished not to find Captain Beaudoin at his post; and as he came back at that very moment from Vouziers, giving the excuse that he had been to lunch with the Baroness de Ladicourt, he received a severe reprimand, which he heard in silence, looking the essence of the good officer.
‘My boys,’ the colonel kept saying as he moved about among the men, ‘we may be attacked tonight and certainly shall be tomorrow at dawn… Hold yourselves ready and remember that the 106th has never run away.’
They all applauded him, for in the mood of fatigue and discouragement that had been growing on them since their departure they all preferred a showdown to put an end to it. Rifles were checked and pins changed. As they had had a hot meal in the morning they made do with coffee and biscuit. The order had been not to go to bed. Outposts were placed at fifteen hundred metres, and sentries posted as far as the banks of the Aisne. All the officers sat up round camp fires. And every now and then the flickering light of one of these fires picked out against a low wall glimpses of the gaudy uniforms of the Commander-in-Chief and his staff – shadowy figures darting to and fro, running towards the road, listening out for the sound of horses’ hoofs in this intense anxiety about the fate of the third division.
At about one in the morning Maurice was posted as an advance sentinel on the edge of a plum orchard between the road and the river. The night was as black as ink. As soon as he was alone in the crushing silence of the sleeping countryside he was conscious of a feeling of fear creeping over him, an awful fear he had never known before and could not overcome, and it made him shake with anger and humiliation. He turned round to reassure himself with the sight of the camp fires, but they must have been hidden by a little wood, and all he had behind him was a wall of blackness; the only lights were a few very distant ones still burning in Vouziers, where the inhabitants, who had no doubt been alerted, were terrified at the thought of a battle and were staying up. What really froze him with fear was to find out when he brought his rifle to his shoulder that he could not even see the sights. Then the most cruel period of waiting set in, with all the strength of his being concentrated on the sense of hearing alone, his ears straining for imperceptible sounds and ending by roaring in his head like thunder. Some distant running water, a light rustling of leaves, the flight of an insect, all became huge, reverberating noises. Was it a galloping of horses, an endless rumbling of artillery coming straight at him from over there? To his left had he heard a cautious whisper, voices being kept down, some advance column crawling through the darkness, preparing a surprise attack? Three times he was on the point of firing to raise the alarm. His uneasiness was increased by the fear of being mistaken and looking ridiculous. He had knelt down with his left shoulder propped against a tree, and it seemed to