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By Root 1926 0

raw mass, they had marched so far. In front of the doctor’s house I saw a lot of them sitting down in the gutter with their boots off and winding round their feet women’s chemises trimmed with lace, no doubt stolen from Madame Lefèvre, the wife of the manufacturer… The looting went on until the evening. Houses had no doors left, and through all the openings on the ground floor gaping on to the road you could see the remains of the furniture inside, an absolute shambles that infuriated ordinary sensible people. I was so beside myself that I couldn’t stay there any longer. They tried to keep me, saying the roads were blocked, that I would get killed for certain, but it was no use, and I left, and took to the fields on the right as soon as I got out of Raucourt. Cartloads of French and Prussians were coming in from Beaumont. Two of them passed quite close to me in the darkness and there were shouts and moans, and oh, I ran and ran over fields and through woods, I don’t remember where, but I did a big detour round Villers… Three times I hid when I thought I could hear soldiers. But I only met one woman who was running too. She was getting away from Beaumont, and she told me things that would make your hair stand on end… Anyway, here I am and feeling miserable, just miserable!’

Once again she was choked with sobs. Some obsession kept bringing her back to these things, and she repeated what the woman from Beaumont had told her. This woman, who lived in the main street of the village, had seen the German artillery going through since nightfall. Along both sides was a hedge of soldiers holding resin torches, lighting the roadway fiery red. And in the middle the stream of horses, cannon and ammunition waggons tore through at a furious gallop. It was a hell-for-leather ride to victory, a devilish hunt for French troops to finish off and do to death in some black hole. Nothing was respected, they smashed everything and simply went on. Horses that stumbled had their harness cut off at once and were rolled over, trampled on and thrown out as bits of bleeding wreckage. Some men trying to cross the road were similarly knocked down and cut to pieces by the wheels. In this hurricane the drivers, who were dying of hunger, did not stop but caught loaves of bread thrown to them while the torch-bearers held out joints of meat for them on the points of their bayonets. Then with the same points they gave the horses a dig so they reared up in terror and galloped faster still. The night went on and on and still the artillery passed through with the increasing violence of a tempest, amid frantic cheering.

In spite of listening attentively to this story Maurice, overcome with fatigue after the voracious eating, had dropped his head between his arms on the table. Jean struggled on a little longer and then he too gave in and went off to sleep at the other end. Old Fouchard had gone down the road again, and so Honoré found himself alone with Silvine who was sitting quite still now, facing the wide open window.

Then he stood up and went over to the window. The night was still immense and black, swollen as it were with the laboured breathing of the troops. But louder noises, knockings and crackings, were coming up now because the artillery was crossing down there over the half-submerged bridge. Horses were rearing, scared by the running water. Ammunition waggons slipped over to one side and had to be pushed completely into the river. As he saw this painful, slow retreat to the opposite bank which had been going on since the day before and would certainly not be completed by dawn, the young man thought of the other artillery tearing through Beaumont like a rushing torrent, overwhelming everything, pounding man and beast so as to go faster.

Honoré went up to Silvine and said softly, in the frightening darkness:

‘Are you unhappy?’

‘Oh yes, I am unhappy.’

She sensed that he was going to refer to the thing, the abominable thing, and lowered her eyes.

‘Tell me, how did it happen? I’d like to know.’

She could not answer.

‘Did he force you?… Did you