• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2031 0

some rifle fire had broken out – shots between the rearguard of the 7th corps and the advance guard of the German troops – and all eyes had been turned towards the valley of the Aisne in which swirling clouds of thick black smoke were rising into a clear patch of sky. They realized it was the village of Falaise, set on fire by the Uhlans. The men were filled with rage. What! The Prussians were there now! They had waited for them for two days, to give them time to get there, and then decamped! In a dim sort of way, even in the dullest heads, there developed a fury at the irreparable error that had been committed, this idiotic delay, this trap into which they had fallen: the scouts of the IVth German army keeping the Bordas brigade busy and so halting and paralysing one by one all the corps of the army of Châlons in order to give the Crown Prince of Prussia time to hurry along with the IIIrd army. And now, thanks to the marshal’s ignorance, for he still didn’t know what troops he had confronting him, the junction was being effected, and the 7th and 5th corps were going to be harried with a continual threat of disaster.

Maurice watched Falaise blazing on the horizon. But there was one bit of comfort: the baggage train they thought was lost made its appearance from the Le Chêne road. At once, while the first division remained at Quatre-Champs to wait for the interminable baggage train and protect it, the second set off again and made for Boult-aux-Bois through the forest, while the third took up a position to the left, on the heights of Belleville, to safeguard communications. As the 106th at last left the plain just when the rain redoubled its fury and continued the iniquitous march to the Meuse and the unknown, Maurice had another vision of the shadow of the Emperor pacing up and down wearily behind old Madame Desroches’s little curtains. Oh, this army of hopelessness, this doomed army being sent to certain annihilation to save a dynasty! March on! March on, never looking behind, in rain, through mud, to extermination!

6

‘GOD’S truth!’ said Chouteau, waking up next morning aching and frozen in the tent, ‘I could do with some broth with lots of meat all round!’

At Boult-aux-Bois, where they had camped, all they had had issued to them the night before had been a meagre ration of potatoes, for the commissariat was more and more crazy and disorganized by continual marches and counter-marches, and never met the troops at the prearranged times and places. With the roads all out of action they never knew where to take the travelling herds of cattle, which meant that there would soon be famine.

‘Yes, bugger it, roast geese are all over and done with,’ groaned Loubet as he stretched himself.

The squad was sulky and sullen. When you didn’t eat it wasn’t so good. And besides, there was this incessant rain and this mud they had been sleeping in.

Having spotted Pache making the sign of the cross after silently saying his morning prayer, Chouteau exploded again:

‘Why don’t you ask that God of yours to send us each a couple of bangers and half a pint?’

‘Oh, if only I had a loaf and as much bread as I wanted,’ sighed Lapoulle, who suffered more from hunger than the others, and was tortured by his enormous appetite.

But Lieutenant Rochas made them shut up. They should be ashamed of themselves, always thinking about their bellies! He quite simply tightened his trouser-belt. Since things had gone decidedly to the bad and they could now hear distant gunfire he had regained all his obstinate confidence. Since those Prussians were now here, well, it was simple, they were going to fight them! He shrugged his shoulders behind Captain Beaudoin, this youngster as he called him, who was terribly put out by the definite loss of his baggage, tight-lipped, pale-faced, always in a temper. Going without food, well, that could be managed, but what outraged him was not being able to change his shirt.

Maurice had woken up feeling depressed and nervous, though his foot was no longer inflamed thanks to the wide fitting boots. But after yesterday