The crush was so great as the column of prisoners was leaving Torcy
that Maurice, who had stopped a moment to buy some tobacco, was parted
from Jean, and with all his efforts was unable thereafter to catch up
with his regiment through the dense masses of men that filled the road.
When he at last reached the bridge that spans the canal which
intersects the peninsula of Iges at its base, he found himself in a
mixed company of chasseurs d’Afrique and troops of the infanterie de
marine.
There were two pieces of artillery stationed at the bridge, their
muzzles turned upon the interior of the peninsula; it was a place easy
of access, but from which exit would seem to be attended with some
difficulties. Immediately beyond the canal was a comfortable house,
where the Prussians had established a post, commanded by a captain,
upon which devolved the duty of receiving and guarding the prisoners.
The formalities observed were not excessive; they merely counted the
men, as if they had been sheep, as they came streaming in a huddle
across the bridge, without troubling themselves overmuch about uniforms
or organizations, after which the prisoners were free of the fields and
at liberty to select their dwelling-place wherever chance and the road
they were on might direct.
The first thing that Maurice did was to address a question to a
Bavarian officer, who was seated astride upon a chair, enjoying a
tranquil smoke.
“The 106th of the line, sir, can you tell me where I shall find it?”
Either the officer was unlike most German officers and did not
understand French, or thought it a good joke to mystify a poor devil of
a soldier. He smiled and raised his hand, indicating by his motion that
the other was to keep following the road he was pursuing.
Although Maurice had spent a good part of his life in the neighborhood
he had never before been on the peninsula; he proceeded to explore his
new surroundings, as a mariner might do when cast by a tempest on the
shore of a desolate island. He first skirted the Tour à Glaire, a very
handsome country-place, whose small park, situated as it was on the
bank of the Meuse, possessed a peculiarly attractive charm. After that
the road ran parallel with the river, of which the sluggish current
flowed on the right hand at the foot of high, steep banks. The way from
there was a gradually ascending one, until it wound around the gentle
eminence that occupied the central portion of the peninsula, and there
were abandoned quarries there and excavations in the ground, in which a
network of narrow paths had their termination. A little further on was
a mill, seated on the border of the stream. Then the road curved and
pursued a descending course until it entered the village of Iges, which
was built on the hillside and connected by a ferry with the further
shore, just opposite the rope-walk at Saint-Albert. Last of all came
meadows and cultivated fields, a broad expanse of level, treeless
country, around which the river swept in a wide, circling bend. In vain
had Maurice scrutinized every inch of uneven ground on the hillside;
all he could distinguish there was cavalry and artillery, preparing
their quarters for the night. He made further inquiries, applying among
others to a corporal of chasseurs d’Afrique, who could give him no
information. The prospect for finding his regiment looked bad; night
was coming down, and, leg-weary and disheartened, he seated himself for
a moment on a stone by the wayside.
As he sat there, abandoning himself to the sensation of loneliness and
despair that crept over him, he beheld before him, across the Meuse,
the accursed fields where he had fought the day but one before. Bitter
memories rose to his mind, in the fading light of that day of gloom and
rain, as he surveyed the saturated, miry expanse of country that rose
from the river’s bank and was lost on the horizon. The defile of
Saint-Albert, the narrow road by which the Prussians had gained their
rear, ran along the bend of the stream as far as the white cliffs of
the quarries of Montimont. The summits of the trees in the wood of la
Falizette rose in rounded, fleecy masses over the rising ground of
Seugnon. Directly before his eyes, a little to the left, was
Saint-Menges, the road from which descended by a gentle slope and ended
at the ferry; there, too, were the mamelon of Hattoy in the center, and
Illy, in the far distance, in the background, and Fleigneux, almost
hidden in its shallow vale, and Floing, less remote, on the right. He
recognized the plateau where he had spent interminable hours among the
cabbages, and the eminences that the reserve artillery had struggled so
gallantly to hold, where he had seen Honoré meet his death on his
dismounted gun. And it was as if the baleful scene were again before
him with all its abominations, steeping his mind in horror and disgust,
until he was sick at heart.
The reflection that soon it would be quite dark and it would not do to
loiter there, however, caused him to resume his researches. He said to
himself that perhaps the regiment was encamped somewhere beyond the
village on the low ground, but the only ones he encountered there were
some prowlers, and he decided to make the circuit of the peninsula,
following the bend of the stream. As he was passing through a field of
potatoes he was sufficiently thoughtful to dig a few of the tubers and
put them in his pockets; they were not ripe, but he had nothing better,
for Jean, as luck would have it, had insisted on carrying both the two
loaves of bread that Delaherche had given them when they left his
house. He was somewhat surprised at the number of horses he met with,
roaming about the uncultivated lands, that fell off in an easy descent
from the central elevation to the Meuse, in the direction of Donchery.
Why should they have brought all those animals with them? how were they
to be fed? And now it was night in earnest, and quite dark, when he
came to a small piece of woods on the water’s brink, in which he was
surprised to find the cent-gardes of the Emperor’s escort, providing
for their creature comforts and drying themselves before roaring fires.
These gentlemen, who had a separate encampment to themselves, had
comfortable tents; their kettles were boiling merrily, there was a
milch cow tied to a tree. It did not take Maurice long to see that he
was not regarded with favor in that quarter, poor devil of an
infantryman that he was, with his ragged, mud-stained uniform. They
graciously accorded him permission to roast his potatoes in the ashes
of their fires, however, and he withdrew to the shelter of a tree, some
hundred yards away, to eat them. It was no longer raining; the sky was
clear, the stars were shining brilliantly in the dark blue vault. He
saw that he should have to spend the night in the open air and defer
his researches until the morrow. He was so utterly used up that he
could go no further; the trees would afford him some protection in case
it came on to rain again.
The strangeness of his situation, however, and the thought of his vast
prison house, open to the winds of heaven, would not let him sleep. It
had been an extremely clever move on the part of the Prussians to
select that place of confinement for the eighty thousand men who
constituted the remnant of the army of Châlons. The peninsula was
approximately three miles long by one wide, affording abundant space
for the broken fragments of the vanquished host, and Maurice could not
fail to observe that it was surrounded on every side by water, the bend
of the Meuse encircling it on the north, east and west, while on the
south, at the base, connecting the two arms of the loop at the point
where they drew together most closely, was the canal. Here alone was an
outlet, the bridge, that was defended by two guns; wherefore it may be
seen that the guarding of the camp was a comparatively easy task,
notwithstanding its great extent. He had already taken note of the
chain of sentries on the farther bank, a soldier being stationed by the
waterside at every fifty paces, with orders to fire on any man who
should attempt to escape by swimming. In the rear the different posts
were connected by patrols of uhlans, while further in the distance,
scattered over the broad fields, were the dark lines of the Prussian
regiments; a threefold living, moving wall, immuring the captive army.
Maurice, in his sleeplessness, lay gazing with wide-open eyes into the
blackness of the night, illuminated here and there by the smoldering
watch-fires; the motionless forms of the sentinels were dimly visible
beyond the pale ribbon of the Meuse. Erect they stood, duskier spots
against the dusky shadows, beneath the faint light of the twinkling
stars, and at regular intervals their guttural call came to his ears, a
menacing watch-cry that was drowned in the hoarse murmur of the river
in the distance. At sound of those unmelodious phrases in a foreign
tongue, rising on the still air of a starlit night in the sunny land of
France, the vision of the past again rose before him: all that he had
beheld in memory an hour before, the plateau of Illy cumbered still
with dead, the accursed country round about Sedan that had been the
scene of such dire disaster; and resting on the ground in that cool,
damp corner of a wood, his head pillowed on a root, he again yielded to
the feeling of despair that had overwhelmed him the day before while
lying on Delaherche’s sofa. And that which, intensifying the suffering
of his wounded pride, now harassed and tortured him, was the question
of the morrow, the feverish longing to know how deep had been their
fall, how great the wreck and ruin sustained by their world of
yesterday. The Emperor had surrendered his sword to King William; was
not, therefore, the abominable war ended? But he recalled the remark he
had heard made by two of the Bavarians of the guard who had escorted
the prisoners to Iges: “We’re all in France, we’re all bound for
Paris!” In his semi-somnolent, dreamy state the vision of what was to
be suddenly rose before his eyes: the empire overturned and swept away
amid a howl of universal execration, the republic proclaimed with an
outburst of patriotic fervor, while the legend of ’92 would incite men
to emulate the glorious past, and, flocking to the standards, drive
from the country’s soil the hated foreigner with armies of brave
volunteers. He reflected confusedly upon all the aspects of the case,
and speculations followed one another in swift succession through his
poor wearied brain: the harsh terms imposed by the victors, the
bitterness of defeat, the determination of the vanquished to resist
even to the last drop of blood, the fate of those eighty thousand men,
his companions, who were to be captives for weeks, months, years,
perhaps, first on the peninsula and afterward in German fortresses. The
foundations were giving way, and everything was going down, down to the
bottomless depths of perdition.
The call of the sentinels, now loud, now low, seemed to sound more
faintly in his ears and to be receding in the distance, when suddenly,
as he turned on his hard couch, a shot rent the deep silence. A hollow
groan rose on the calm air of night, there was a splashing in the
water, the brief struggle of one who sinks to rise no more. It was some
poor wretch who had attempted to escape by swimming the Meuse and had
received a bullet in his brain.
The next morning Maurice was up and stirring with the sun. The sky was
cloudless; he was desirous to rejoin Jean and his other comrades of the
company with the least possible delay. For a moment he had an idea of
going to see what there was in the interior of the peninsula, then
resolved he would first complete its circuit. And on reaching the canal
his eyes were greeted with the sight of the 106th—or rather what was
left of it—a thousand men, encamped along the river bank among some
waste lands, with no protection save a row of slender poplars. If he
had only turned to the left the night before instead of pursuing a
straight course he could have been with his regiment at once. And he
noticed that almost all the line regiments were collected along that
part of the bank that extends from the Tour à Glaire to the Château of
Villette—another bourgeois country place, situated more in the
direction of Donchery and surrounded by a few hovels—all of them having
selected their bivouac near the bridge, sole issue from their prison,
as sheep will instinctively huddle together close to the door of their
fold, knowing that sooner or later it will be opened for them.
Jean uttered a cry of pleasure. “Ah, so it’s you, at last! I had begun
to think you were in the river.”
He was there with what remained of the squad, Pache and Lapoulle,
Loubet and Chouteau. The last named had slept under doorways in Sedan
until the attention of the Prussian provost guard had finally restored
them to their regiment. The corporal, moreover, was the only surviving
officer of the company, death having taken away Sergeant Sapin,
Lieutenant Rochas and Captain Beaudoin, and although the victors had
abolished distinction of rank among the prisoners, deciding that
obedience was due to the German officers alone, the four men had,
nevertheless, rallied to him, knowing him to be a leader of prudence
and experience, upon whom they could rely in circumstances of
difficulty. Thus it was that peace and harmony reigned among them that
morning, notwithstanding the stupidity of some and the evil designs of
others. In the first place, the night before he had found them a place
to sleep in that was comparatively dry, where they had stretched
themselves on the ground, the only thing they had left in the way of
protection from the weather being the half of a shelter-tent. After
that he had managed to secure some wood and a kettle, in which Loubet
made coffee for them, the comforting warmth of which had fortified
their stomachs. The rain had ceased, the day gave promise of being
bright and warm, they had a small supply of biscuit and bacon left, and
then, as Chouteau said, it was a comfort to have no orders to obey, to
have their fill of loafing. They were prisoners, it was true, but there
was plenty of room to move about. Moreover, they would be away from
there in two or three days. Under these circumstances the day, which
was Sunday, the 4th, passed pleasantly enough.
Maurice, whose courage had returned to him now that he was with the
comrades once more, found nothing to annoy him except the Prussian
bands, which played all the afternoon beyond the canal. Toward evening
there was vocal music, and the men sang in chorus. They could be seen
outside the chain of sentries, walking to and fro in little groups and
singing solemn melodies in a loud, ringing voice in honor of the
Sabbath.
“Confound those bands!” Maurice at last impatiently exclaimed. “They
will drive me wild!”
Jean, whose nerves were less susceptible, shrugged his shoulders.
“_Dame_! they have reason to feel good; and then perhaps they think it
affords us pleasure. It hasn’t been such a bad day; don’t let’s find
fault.”
As night approached, however, the rain began to fall again. Some of the
men had taken possession of what few unoccupied houses there were on
the peninsula, others were provided with tents that they erected, but
by far the greater number, without shelter of any sort, destitute of
blankets even, were compelled to pass the night in the open air,
exposed to the pouring rain.
About one o’clock Maurice, who had been sleeping soundly as a result of
his fatigue, awoke and found himself in the middle of a miniature lake.
The trenches, swollen by the heavy downpour, had overflowed and
inundated the ground where he lay. Chouteau’s and Loubet’s wrath vented
itself in a volley of maledictions, while Pache shook Lapoulle, who,
unmindful of his ducking, slept through it all as if he was never to
wake again. Then Jean, remembering the row of poplars on the bank of
the canal, collected his little band and ran thither for shelter; and
there they passed the remainder of that wretched night, crouching with
their backs to the trees, their legs doubled under them, so as to
expose as little of their persons as might be to the big drops.
The next day, and the day succeeding it, the weather was truly
detestable, what with the continual showers, that came down so
copiously and at such frequent intervals that the men’s clothing had
not time to dry on their backs. They were threatened with famine, too;
there was not a biscuit left in camp, and the coffee and bacon were
exhausted. During those two days, Monday and Tuesday, they existed on
potatoes that they dug in the adjacent fields, and even those
vegetables had become so scarce toward the end of the second day that
those soldiers who had money paid as high as five sous apiece for them.
It was true that the bugles sounded the call for “distribution”; the
corporal had nearly run his legs off trying to be the first to reach a
great shed near the Tour à Glaire, where it was reported that rations
of bread were to be issued, but on the occasion of a first visit he had
waited there three hours and gone away empty-handed, and on a second
had become involved in a quarrel with a Bavarian. It was well known
that the French officers were themselves in deep distress and powerless
to assist their men; had the German staff driven the vanquished army
out there in the mud and rain with the intention of letting them starve
to death? Not the first step seemed to have been taken, not an effort
had been made, to provide for the subsistence of those eighty thousand
men in that hell on earth that the soldiers subsequently christened
Camp Misery, a name that the bravest of them could never hear mentioned
in later days without a shudder.
On his return from his wearisome and fruitless expedition to the shed,
Jean forgot his usual placidity and gave way to anger.
“What do they mean by calling us up when there’s nothing for us? I’ll
be hanged if I’ll put myself out for them another time!”
And yet, whenever there was a call, he hurried off again. It was
inhuman to sound the bugles thus, merely because regulations prescribed
certain calls at certain hours, and it had another effect that was near
breaking Maurice’s heart. Every time that the trumpets sounded the
French horses, that were running free on the other side of the canal,
came rushing up and dashed into the water to rejoin their squadron, as
excited at the well-known sound as they would be at the touch of the
spur; but in their exhausted condition they were swept away by the
current and few attained the shore. It was a cruel sight to see their
struggles; they were drowned in great numbers, and their bodies,
decomposing and swelling in the hot sunshine, drifted on the bosom of
the canal. As for those of them that got to land, they seemed as if
stricken with sudden madness, galloping wildly off and hiding among the
waste places of the peninsula.
“More bones for the crows to pick!” sorrowfully said Maurice,
remembering the great droves of horses that he had encountered on a
previous occasion. “If we remain here a few days we shall all be
devouring one another. Poor brutes!”
The night between Tuesday and Wednesday was most terrible of all, and
Jean, who was beginning to feel seriously alarmed for Maurice’s
feverish state, made him wrap himself in an old blanket that they had
purchased from a zouave for ten francs, while he, with no protection
save his water-soaked capote, cheerfully took the drenching of the
deluge which that night pelted down without cessation. Their position
under the poplars had become untenable; it was a streaming river of
mud, the water rested in deep puddles on the surface of the saturated
ground. What was worst of all was that they had to suffer on an empty
stomach, the evening meal of the six men having consisted of two beets
which they had been compelled to eat raw, having no dry wood to make a
fire with, and the sweet taste and refreshing coolness of the
vegetables had quickly been succeeded by an intolerable burning
sensation. Some cases of dysentery had appeared among the men, caused
by fatigue, improper food and the persistent humidity of the
atmosphere. More than ten times that night did Jean stretch forth his
hand to see that Maurice had not uncovered himself in the movements of
his slumber, and thus he kept watch and ward over his friend—his back
supported by the same tree-trunk, his legs in a pool of water—with
tenderness unspeakable. Since the day that on the plateau of Illy his
comrade had carried him off in his arms and saved him from the
Prussians he had repaid the debt a hundred-fold. He stopped not to
reason on it; it was the free gift of all his being, the total
forgetfulness of self for love of the other, the finest, most delicate,
grandest exhibition of friendship possible, and that, too, in a
peasant, whose lot had always been the lowly one of a tiller of the
soil and who had never risen far above the earth, who could not find
words to express what he felt, acting purely from instinct, in all
simplicity of soul. Many a time already he had taken the food from his
mouth, as the men of the squad were wont to say; now he would have
divested himself of his skin if with it he might have covered the
other, to protect his shoulders, to warm his feet. And in the midst of
the savage egoism that surrounded them, among that aggregation of
suffering humanity whose worst appetites were inflamed and intensified
by hunger, he perhaps owed it to his complete abnegation of self that
he had preserved thus far his tranquillity of mind and his vigorous
health, for he among them all, his great strength unimpaired, alone
maintained his composure and something like a level head.
After that distressful night Jean determined to carry into execution a
plan that he had been reflecting over since the day previous.
“See here, little one, we can get nothing to eat, and everyone seems to
have forgotten us here in this beastly hole; now unless we want to die
the death of dogs, it behooves us to stir about a bit. How are your
legs?”
The sun had come out again, fortunately, and Maurice was warmed and
comforted.
“Oh, my legs are all right!”
“Then we’ll start off on an exploring expedition. We’ve money in our
pockets, and the deuce is in it if we can’t find something to buy. And
we won’t bother our heads about the others; they don’t deserve it. Let
them take care of themselves.”
The truth was that Loubet and Chouteau had disgusted him by their
trickiness and low selfishness, stealing whatever they could lay hands
on and never dividing with their comrades, while no good was to be got
out of Lapoulle, the brute, and Pache, the sniveling devotee.
The pair, therefore, Maurice and Jean, started out by the road along
the Meuse which the former had traversed once before, on the night of
his arrival. At the Tour à Glaire the park and dwelling-house presented
a sorrowful spectacle of pillage and devastation, the trim lawns cut up
and destroyed, the trees felled, the mansion dismantled. A ragged,
dirty crew of soldiers, with hollow cheeks and eyes preternaturally
bright from fever, had taken possession of the place and were living
like beasts in the filthy chambers, not daring to leave their quarters
for a moment lest someone else might come along and occupy them. A
little further on they passed the cavalry and artillery, encamped on
the hillsides, once so conspicuous by reason of the neatness and
jauntiness of their appearance, now run to seed like all the rest,
their organization gone, demoralized by that terrible, torturing hunger
that drove the horses wild and sent the men straggling through the
fields in plundering bands. Below them, to the right, they beheld an
apparently interminable line of artillerymen and chasseurs d’Afrique
defiling slowly before the mill; the miller was selling them flour,
measuring out two handfuls into their handkerchiefs for a franc. The
prospect of the long wait that lay before them, should they take their
place at the end of the line, determined them to pass on, in the hope
that some better opportunity would present itself at the village of
Iges; but great was their consternation when they reached it to find
the little place as bare and empty as an Algerian village through which
has passed a swarm of locusts; not a crumb, not a fragment of anything
eatable, neither bread, nor meat, nor vegetables, the wretched
inhabitants utterly destitute. General Lebrun was said to be there,
closeted with the mayor. He had been endeavoring, ineffectually, to
arrange for an issue of bonds, redeemable at the close of the war, in
order to facilitate the victualing of the troops. Money had ceased to
have any value when there was nothing that it could purchase. The day
before two francs had been paid for a biscuit, seven francs for a
bottle of wine, a small glass of brandy was twenty sous, a pipeful of
tobacco ten sous. And now officers, sword in hand, had to stand guard
before the general’s house and the neighboring hovels, for bands of
marauders were constantly passing, breaking down doors and stealing
even the oil from the lamps and drinking it.
Three zouaves invited Maurice and Jean to join them. Five would do the
work more effectually than three.
“Come along. There are horses dying in plenty, and if we can but get
some dry wood—”
Then they fell to work on the miserable cabin of a poor peasant,
smashing the closet doors, tearing the thatch from the roof. Some
officers, who came up on a run, threatened them with their revolvers
and put them to flight.
Jean, who saw that the few villagers who had remained at Iges were no
better off than the soldiers, perceived he had made a mistake in
passing the mill without buying some flour.
“There may be some left; we had best go back.”
But Maurice was so reduced from inanition and was beginning to suffer
so from fatigue that he left him behind in a sheltered nook among the
quarries, seated on a fragment of rock, his face turned upon the wide
horizon of Sedan. He, after waiting in line for two long hours, finally
returned with some flour wrapped in a piece of rag. And they ate it
uncooked, dipping it up in their hands, unable to devise any other way.
It was not so very bad; It had no particular flavor, only the insipid
taste of dough. Their breakfast, such as it was, did them some good,
however. They were even so fortunate as to discover a little pool of
rain-water, comparatively pure, in a hollow of a rock, at which they
quenched their thirst with great satisfaction.
But when Jean proposed that they should spend the remainder of the
afternoon there, Maurice negatived the motion with a great display of
violence.
“No, no; not here! I should be ill if I were to have that scene before
my eyes for any length of time—” With a hand that trembled he pointed
to the remote horizon, the hill of Hattoy, the plateaux of Floing and
Illy, the wood of la Garenne, those abhorred, detested fields of
slaughter and defeat. “While you were away just now I was obliged to
turn my back on it, else I should have broken out and howled with rage.
Yes, I should have howled like a dog tormented by boys—you can’t
imagine how it hurts me; it drives me crazy!”
Jean looked at him in surprise; he could not understand that pride,
sensitive as a raw sore, that made defeat so bitter to him; he was
alarmed to behold in his eyes that wandering, flighty look that he had
seen there before. He affected to treat the matter lightly.
“Good! we’ll seek another country; that’s easy enough to do.”
Then they wandered as long as daylight lasted, wherever the paths they
took conducted them. They visited the level portion of the peninsula in
the hope of finding more potatoes there, but the artillerymen had
obtained a plow and turned up the ground, and not a single potato had
escaped their sharp eyes. They retraced their steps, and again they
passed through throngs of listless, glassy-eyed, starving soldiers,
strewing the ground with their debilitated forms, falling by hundreds
in the bright sunshine from sheer exhaustion. They were themselves many
times overcome by fatigue and forced to sit down and rest; then their
deep-seated sensation of suffering would bring them to their feet again
and they would recommence their wandering, like animals impelled by
instinct to move on perpetually in quest of pasturage. It seemed to
them to last for years, and yet the moments sped by rapidly. In the
more inland region, over Donchery way, they received a fright from the
horses and sought the protection of a wall, where they remained a long
time, too exhausted to rise, watching with vague, lack-luster eyes the
wild course of the crazed beasts as they raced athwart the red western
sky where the sun was sinking.
As Maurice had foreseen, the thousands of horses that shared the
captivity of the army, and for which it was impossible to provide
forage, constituted a peril that grew greater day by day. At first they
had nibbled the vegetation and gnawed the bark off trees, then had
attacked the fences and whatever wooden structures they came across,
and now they seemed ready to devour one another. It was a frequent
occurrence to see one of them throw himself upon another and tear out
great tufts from his mane or tail, which he would grind between his
teeth, slavering meanwhile at the mouth profusely. But it was at night
that they became most terrible, as if they were visited by visions of
terror in the darkness. They collected in droves, and, attracted by the
straw, made furious rushes upon what few tents there were, overturning
and demolishing them. It was to no purpose that the men built great
fires to keep them away; the device only served to madden them the
more. Their shrill cries were so full of anguish, so dreadful to the
ear, that they might have been mistaken for the howls of wild beasts.
Were they driven away, they returned, more numerous and fiercer than
before. Scarce a moment passed but out in the darkness could be heard
the shriek of anguish of some unfortunate soldier whom the crazed
beasts had crushed in their wild stampede.
The sun was still above the horizon when Jean and Maurice, on their way
back to the camp, were astonished by meeting with the four men of the
squad, lurking in a ditch, apparently for no good purpose. Loubet
hailed them at once, and Chouteau constituted himself spokesman:
“We are considering ways and means for dining this evening. We shall
die if we go on this way; it is thirty-six hours since we have had
anything to put in our stomach—so, as there are horses plenty, and
horse-meat isn’t such bad eating—”
“You’ll join us, won’t you, corporal?” said Loubet, interrupting, “for,
with such a big, strong animal to handle, the more of us there are the
better it will be. See, there is one, off yonder, that we’ve been
keeping an eye on for the last hour; that big bay that is in such a bad
way. He’ll be all the easier to finish.”
And he pointed to a horse that was dying of starvation, on the edge of
what had once been a field of beets. He had fallen on his flank, and
every now and then would raise his head and look about him pleadingly,
with a deep inhalation that sounded like a sigh.
“Ah, how long we have to wait!” grumbled Lapoulle, who was suffering
torment from his fierce appetite. “I’ll go and kill him—shall I?”
But Loubet stopped him. Much obliged! and have the Prussians down on
them, who had given notice that death would be the penalty for killing
a horse, fearing that the carcass would breed a pestilence. They must
wait until it was dark. And that was the reason why the four men were
lurking in the ditch, waiting, with glistening, hungry eyes fixed on
the dying brute.
“Corporal,” asked Pache, in a voice that faltered a little, “you have
lots of ideas in your head; couldn’t you kill him painlessly?”
Jean refused the cruel task with a gesture of disgust. What, kill that
poor beast that was even then in its death agony! oh, no, no! His first
impulse had been to fly and take Maurice with him, that neither of them
might be concerned in the revolting butchery; but looking at his
companion and beholding him so pale and faint, he reproached himself
for such an excess of sensibility. What were animals created for after
all, _mon Dieu_, unless to afford sustenance to man! They could not
allow themselves to starve when there was food within reach. And it
rejoiced him to see Maurice cheer up a little at the prospect of
eating; he said in his easy, good-natured way:
“Faith, you’re wrong there; I’ve no ideas in my head, and if he has got
to be killed without pain—”
“Oh! that’s all one to me,” interrupted Lapoulle. “I’ll show you.”
The two newcomers seated themselves in the ditch and joined the others
in their expectancy. Now and again one of the men would rise and make
certain that the horse was still there, its neck outstretched to catch
the cool exhalations of the Meuse and the last rays of the setting sun,
as if bidding farewell to life. And when at last twilight crept slowly
o’er the scene the six men were erect upon their feet, impatient that
night was so tardy in its coming, casting furtive, frightened looks
about them to see they were not observed.
“Ah, _zut_!” exclaimed Chouteau, “the time is come!”
Objects were still discernible in the fields by the uncertain,
mysterious light “between dog and wolf,” and Lapoulle went forward
first, followed by the five others. He had taken from the ditch a
large, rounded boulder, and, with it in his two brawny hands, rushing
upon the horse, commenced to batter at his skull as with a club. At the
second blow, however, the horse, stung by the pain, attempted to get on
his feet. Chouteau and Loubet had thrown themselves across his legs and
were endeavoring to hold him down, shouting to the others to help them.
The poor brute’s cries were almost human in their accent of terror and
distress; he struggled desperately to shake off his assailants, and
would have broken them like a reed had he not been half dead with
inanition. The movements of his head prevented the blows from taking
effect; Lapoulle was unable to despatch him.
“_Nom de Dieu!_ how hard his bones are! Hold him, somebody, until I
finish him.”
Jean and Maurice stood looking at the scene in silent horror; they
heard not Chouteau’s appeals for assistance; were powerless to raise a
hand. And Pache, in a sudden outburst of piety and pity, dropped on his
knees, joined his hands, and began to mumble the prayers that are
repeated at the bedside of the dying.
“Merciful God, have pity on him. Let him, good Lord, depart in peace—”
Again Lapoulle struck ineffectually, with no other effect than to
destroy an ear of the wretched creature, that threw back its head and
gave utterance to a loud, shrill scream.
“Hold on!” growled Chouteau; “this won’t do; he’ll get us all in the
lockup. We must end the matter. Hold him fast, Loubet.”
He took from his pocket a penknife, a small affair of which the blade
was scarcely longer than a man’s finger, and casting himself prone on
the animal’s body and passing an arm about its neck, began to hack away
at the live flesh, cutting away great morsels, until he found and
severed the artery. He leaped quickly to one side; the blood spurted
forth in a torrent, as when the plug is removed from a fountain, while
the feet stirred feebly and convulsive movements ran along the skin,
succeeding one another like waves of the sea. It was near five minutes
before the horse was dead. His great eyes, dilated wide and filled with
melancholy and affright, were fixed upon the wan-visaged men who stood
waiting for him to die; then they grew dim and the light died from out
them.
“Merciful God,” muttered Pache, still on his knees, “keep him in thy
holy protection—succor him, Lord, and grant him eternal rest.”
Afterward, when the creature’s movements had ceased, they were at a
loss to know where the best cut lay and how they were to get at it.
Loubet, who was something of a Jack-of-all-trades, showed them what was
to be done in order to secure the loin, but as he was a tyro at the
butchering business and, moreover, had only his small penknife to work
with, he quickly lost his way amid the warm, quivering flesh. And
Lapoulle, in his impatience, having attempted to be of assistance by
making an incision in the belly, for which there was no necessity
whatever, the scene of bloodshed became truly sickening. They wallowed
in the gore and entrails that covered the ground about them, like a
pack of ravening wolves collected around the carcass of their prey,
fleshing their keen fangs in it.
“I don’t know what cut that may be,” Loubet said at last, rising to his
feet with a huge lump of meat in his hands, “but by the time we’ve
eaten it, I don’t believe any of us will be hungry.”
Jean and Maurice had averted their eyes in horror from the disgusting
spectacle; still, however, the pangs of hunger were gnawing at their
vitals, and when the band slunk rapidly away, so as not to be caught in
the vicinity of the incriminating carcass, they followed it. Chouteau
had discovered three large beets, that had somehow been overlooked by
previous visitors to the field, and carried them off with him. Loubet
had loaded the meat on Lapoulle’s shoulders so as to have his own arms
free, while Pache carried the kettle that belonged to the squad, which
they had brought with them on the chance of finding something to cook
in it. And the six men ran as if their lives were at stake, never
stopping to take breath, as if they heard the pursuers at their heels.
Suddenly Loubet brought the others to a halt.
“It’s idiotic to run like this; let’s decide where we shall go to cook
the stuff.”
Jean, who was beginning to recover his self-possession, proposed the
quarries. They were only three hundred yards distant, and in them were
secret recesses in abundance where they could kindle a fire without
being seen. When they reached the spot, however, difficulties of every
description presented themselves. First, there was the question of
wood; fortunately a laborer, who had been repairing the road, had gone
home and left his wheelbarrow behind him; Lapoulle quickly reduced it
to fragments with the heel of his boot. Then there was no water to be
had that was fit to drink; the hot sunshine had dried up all the pools
of rain-water. True there was a pump at the Tour à Glaire, but that was
too far away, and besides it was never accessible before midnight; the
men forming in long lines with their bowls and porringers, only too
happy when, after waiting for hours, they could escape from the jam
with their supply of the precious fluid unspilled. As for the few wells
in the neighborhood, they had been dry for the last two days, and the
bucket brought up nothing save mud and slime. Their sole resource
appeared to be the water of the Meuse, which was parted from them by
the road.
“I’ll take the kettle and go and fill it,” said Jean.
The others objected.
“No, no! We don’t want to be poisoned; it is full of dead bodies!”
They spoke the truth. The Meuse was constantly bringing down corpses of
men and horses; they could be seen floating with the current at any
moment of the day, swollen and of a greenish hue, in the early stages
of decomposition. Often they were caught in the weeds and bushes on the
bank, where they remained to poison the atmosphere, swinging to the
tide with a gentle, tremulous motion that imparted to them a semblance
of life. Nearly every soldier who had drunk that abominable water had
suffered from nausea and colic, often succeeded afterward by dysentery.
It seemed as if they must make up their mind to use it, however, as
there was no other; Maurice explained that there would be no danger in
drinking it after it was boiled.
“Very well, then; I’ll go,” said Jean. And he started, taking Lapoulle
with him to carry the kettle.
By the time they got the kettle filled and on the fire it was quite
dark. Loubet had peeled the beets and thrown them into the water to
cook—a feast fit for the gods, he declared it would be—and fed the fire
with fragments of the wheelbarrow, for they were all suffering so from
hunger that they could have eaten the meat before the pot began to
boil. Their huge shadows danced fantastically in the firelight on the
rocky walls of the quarry. Then they found it impossible longer to
restrain their appetite, and threw themselves upon the unclean mess,
tearing the flesh with eager, trembling fingers and dividing it among
them, too impatient even to make use of the knife. But, famishing as
they were, their stomachs revolted; they felt the want of salt, they
could not swallow that tasteless, sickening broth, those chunks of
half-cooked, viscid meat that had a taste like clay. Some among them
had a fit of vomiting. Pache was very ill. Chouteau and Loubet heaped
maledictions on that infernal old nag, that had caused them such
trouble to get him to the pot and then given them the colic. Lapoulle
was the only one among them who ate abundantly, but he was in a very
bad way that night when, with his three comrades, he returned to their
resting-place under the poplars by the canal.
On their way back to camp Maurice, without uttering a word, took
advantage of the darkness to seize Jean by the arm and drag him into a
by-path. Their comrades inspired him with unconquerable disgust; he
thought he should like to go and sleep in the little wood where he had
spent his first night on the peninsula. It was a good idea, and Jean
commended it highly when he had laid himself down on the warm, dry
ground, under the shelter of the dense foliage. They remained there
until the sun was high in the heavens, and enjoyed a sound, refreshing
slumber, which restored to them something of their strength.
The following day was Thursday, but they had ceased to note the days;
they were simply glad to observe that the weather seemed to be coming
off fine again. Jean overcame Maurice’s repugnance and prevailed on him
to return to the canal, to see if their regiment was not to move that
day. Not a day passed now but detachments of prisoners, a thousand to
twelve hundred strong, were sent off to the fortresses in Germany. The
day but one before they had seen, drawn up in front of the Prussian
headquarters, a column of officers of various grades, who were going to
Pont-a-Mousson, there to take the railway. Everyone was possessed with
a wild, feverish longing to get away from that camp where they had seen
such suffering. Ah! if it but might be their turn! And when they found
the 106th still encamped on the bank of the canal, in the inevitable
disorder consequent upon such distress, their courage failed them and
they despaired.
Jean and Maurice that day thought they saw a prospect of obtaining
something to eat. All the morning a lively traffic had been going on
between the prisoners and the Bavarians on the other side of the canal;
the former would wrap their money in a handkerchief and toss it across
to the opposite shore, the latter would return the handkerchief with a
loaf of coarse brown bread, or a plug of their common, damp tobacco.
Even soldiers who had no money were not debarred from participating in
this commerce, employing, instead of currency, their white uniform
gloves, for which the Germans appeared to have a weakness. For two
hours packages were flying across the canal in its entire length under
this primitive system of exchanges. But when Maurice dispatched his
cravat with a five-franc piece tied in it to the other bank, the
Bavarian who was to return him a loaf of bread gave it, whether from
awkwardness or malice, such an ineffectual toss that it fell in the
water. The incident elicited shouts of laughter from the Germans. Twice
again Maurice repeated the experiment, and twice his loaf went to feed
the fishes. At last the Prussian officers, attracted by the uproar,
came running up and prohibited their men from selling anything to the
prisoners, threatening them with dire penalties and punishments in case
of disobedience. The traffic came to a sudden end, and Jean had hard
work to pacify Maurice, who shook his fists at the scamps, shouting to
them to give him back his five-franc pieces.
This was another terrible day, notwithstanding the warm, bright
sunshine. Twice the bugle sounded and sent Jean hurrying off to the
shed whence rations were supposed to be issued, but on each occasion he
only got his toes trod on and his ribs racked in the crush. The
Prussians, whose organization was so wonderfully complete, continued to
manifest the same brutal inattention to the necessities of the
vanquished army. On the representations of Generals Douay and Lebrun,
they had indeed sent in a few sheep as well as some wagon-loads of
bread, but so little care was taken to guard them that the sheep were
carried off bodily and the wagons pillaged as soon as they reached the
bridge, the consequence of which was that the troops who were encamped
a hundred yards further on were no better off than before; it was only
the worst element, the plunderers and bummers, who benefited by the
provision trains. And thereon Jean, who, as he said, saw how the trick
was done, brought Maurice with him to the bridge to keep an eye on the
victuals.
It was four o’clock, and they had not had a morsel to eat all that
beautiful bright Thursday, when suddenly their eyes were gladdened by
the sight of Delaherche. A few among the citizens of Sedan had with
infinite difficulty obtained permission to visit the prisoners, to whom
they carried provisions, and Maurice had on several occasions expressed
his surprise at his failure to receive any tidings of his sister. As
soon as they recognized Delaherche in the distance, carrying a large
basket and with a loaf of bread under either arm, they darted forward
fast as their legs could carry them, but even thus they were too late;
a crowding, jostling mob closed in, and in the confusion the dazed
manufacturer was relieved of his basket and one of his loaves, which
vanished from his sight so expeditiously that he was never able to tell
the manner of their disappearance.
“Ah, my poor friends!” he stammered, utterly crestfallen in his
bewilderment and stupefaction, he who but a moment before had come
through the gate with a smile on his lips and an air of
good-fellowship, magnanimously forgetting his superior advantages in
his desire for popularity.
Jean had taken possession of the remaining loaf and saved it from the
hungry crew, and while he and Maurice, seated by the roadside, were
making great inroads in it, Delaherche opened his budget of news for
their benefit. His wife, the Lord be praised! was very well, but he was
greatly alarmed for the colonel, who had sunk into a condition of deep
prostration, although his mother continued to bear him company from
morning until night.
“And my sister?” Maurice inquired.
“Ah, yes! your sister; true. She insisted on coming with me; it was she
who brought the two loaves of bread. She had to remain over yonder,
though, on the other side of the canal; the sentries wouldn’t let her
pass the gate. You know the Prussians have strictly prohibited the
presence of women in the peninsula.”
Then he spoke of Henriette, and of her fruitless attempts to see her
brother and come to his assistance. Once in Sedan chance had brought
her face to face with Cousin Gunther, the man who was captain in the
Prussian Guards. He had passed her with his haughty, supercilious air,
pretending not to recognize her. She, also, with a sensation of
loathing, as if she were in the presence of one of her husband’s
murderers, had hurried on with quickened steps; then, with a sudden
change of purpose for which she could not account, had turned back and
told him all the manner of Weiss’s death, in harsh accents of reproach.
And he, thus learning how horribly a relative had met his fate, had
taken the matter coolly; it was the fortune of war; the same thing
might have happened to himself. His face, rendered stoically impassive
by the discipline of the soldier, had barely betrayed the faintest
evidence of interest. After that, when she informed him that her
brother was a prisoner and besought him to use his influence to obtain
for her an opportunity of seeing him, he had excused himself on the
ground that he was powerless in the matter; the instructions were
explicit and might not be disobeyed. He appeared to place the
regimental orderly book on a par with the Bible. She left him with the
clearly defined impression that he believed he was in the country for
the sole purpose of sitting in judgment on the French people, with all
the intolerance and arrogance of the hereditary enemy, swollen by his
personal hatred for the nation whom it had devolved on him to chastise.
“And now,” said Delaherche in conclusion, “you won’t have to go to bed
supperless to-night; you have had a little something to eat. The worst
is that I am afraid I shall not be able to secure another pass.”
He asked them if there was anything he could do for them outside, and
obligingly consented to take charge of some pencil-written letters
confided to him by other soldiers, for the Bavarians had more than once
been seen to laugh as they lighted their pipes with missives which they
had promised to forward. Then, when Jean and Maurice had accompanied
him to the gate, he exclaimed:
“Look! over yonder, there’s Henriette! Don’t you see her waving her
handkerchief?”
True enough, among the crowd beyond the line of sentinels they
distinguished a little, thin, pale face, a white dot that trembled in
the sunshine. Both were deeply affected, and, with moist eyes, raising
their hands above their head, answered her salutation by waving them
frantically in the air.
The following day was Friday, and it was then that Maurice felt that
his cup of horror was full to overflowing. After another night of
tranquil slumber in the little wood he was so fortunate as to secure
another meal, Jean having come across an old woman at the Château of
Villette who was selling bread at ten francs the pound. But that day
they witnessed a spectacle of which the horror remained imprinted on
their minds for many weeks and months.
The day before Chouteau had noticed that Pache had ceased complaining
and was going about with a careless, satisfied air, as a man might do
who had dined well. He immediately jumped at the conclusion that the
sly fox must have a concealed treasure somewhere, the more so that he
had seen him absent himself for near an hour that morning and come back
with a smile lurking on his face and his mouth filled with unswallowed
food. It must be that he had had a windfall, had probably joined some
marauding party and laid in a stock of provisions. And Chouteau labored
with Loubet and Lapoulle to stir up bad feeling against the comrade,
with the latter more particularly. _Hein!_ wasn’t he a dirty dog, if he
had something to eat, not to go snacks with the comrades! He ought to
have a lesson that he would remember, for his selfishness.
“To-night we’ll keep a watch on him, don’t you see. We’ll learn whether
he dares to stuff himself on the sly, when so many poor devils are
starving all around him.”
“Yes, yes, that’s the talk! we’ll follow him,” Lapoulle angrily
declared. “We’ll see about it!”
He doubled his fists; he was like a crazy man whenever the subject of
eating was mentioned in his presence. His enormous appetite caused him
to suffer more than the others; his torment at times was such that he
had been known to stuff his mouth with grass. For more than thirty-six
hours, since the night when they had supped on horseflesh and he had
contracted a terrible dysentery in consequence, he had been without
food, for he was so little able to look out for himself that,
notwithstanding his bovine strength, whenever he joined the others in a
marauding raid he never got his share of the booty. He would have been
willing to give his blood for a pound of bread.
As it was beginning to be dark Pache stealthily made his way to the
Tour à Glaire and slipped into the park, while the three others
cautiously followed him at a distance.
“It won’t do to let him suspect anything,” said Chouteau. “Be on your
guard in case he should look around.”
But when he had advanced another hundred paces Pache evidently had no
idea there was anyone near, for he began to hurry forward at a swift
gait, not so much as casting a look behind. They had no difficulty in
tracking him to the adjacent quarries, where they fell on him as he was
in the act of removing two great flat stones, to take from the cavity
beneath part of a loaf of bread. It was the last of his store; he had
enough left for one more meal.
“You dirty, sniveling priest’s whelp!” roared Lapoulle, “so that is why
you sneak away from us! Give me that; it’s my share!”
Why should he give his bread? Weak and puny as he was, his slight form
dilated with anger, while he clutched the loaf against his bosom with
all the strength he could master. For he also was hungry.
“Let me alone. It’s mine.”
Then, at sight of Lapoulle’s raised fist, he broke away and ran,
sliding down the steep banks of the quarries, making his way across the
bare fields in the direction of Donchery, the three others after him in
hot pursuit. He gained on them, however, being lighter than they, and
possessed by such overmastering fear, so determined to hold on to what
was his property, that his speed seemed to rival the wind. He had
already covered more than half a mile and was approaching the little
wood on the margin of the stream when he encountered Jean and Maurice,
who were on their way back to their resting-place for the night. He
addressed them an appealing, distressful cry as he passed; while they,
astounded by the wild hunt that went fleeting by, stood motionless at
the edge of a field, and thus it was that they beheld the ensuing
tragedy.
As luck would have it, Pache tripped over a stone and fell. In an
instant the others were on top of him—shouting, swearing, their passion
roused to such a pitch of frenzy that they were like wolves that had
run down their prey.
“Give me that,” yelled Lapoulle, “or by G-d I’ll kill you!”
And he had raised his fist again when Chouteau, taking from his pocket
the penknife with which he had slaughtered the horse and opening it,
placed it in his hand.
“Here, take it! the knife!”
But Jean meantime had come hurrying up, desirous to prevent the
mischief he saw brewing, losing his wits like the rest of them,
indiscreetly speaking of putting them all in the guardhouse; whereon
Loubet, with an ugly laugh, told him he must be a Prussian, since they
had no longer any commanders, and the Prussians were the only ones who
issued orders.
“_Nom de Dieu!_” Lapoulle repeated, “will you give me that?”
Despite the terror that blanched his cheeks Pache hugged the bread more
closely to his bosom, with the obstinacy of the peasant who never cedes
a jot or tittle of that which is his.
“No!”
Then in a second all was over; the brute drove the knife into the
other’s throat with such violence that the wretched man did not even
utter a cry. His arms relaxed, the bread fell to the ground, into the
pool of blood that had spurted from the wound.
At sight of the imbecile, uncalled-for murder, Maurice, who had until
then been a silent spectator of the scene, appeared as if stricken by a
sudden fit of madness. He raved and gesticulated, shaking his fist in
the face of the three men and calling them murderers, assassins, with a
violence that shook his frame from head to foot. But Lapoulle seemed
not even to hear him. Squatted on the ground beside the corpse, he was
devouring the bloodstained bread, an expression of stupid ferocity on
his face, with a loud grinding of his great jaws, while Chouteau and
Loubet, seeing him thus terrible in the gratification of his wild-beast
appetite, did not even dare claim their portion.
By this time night had fallen, a pleasant night with a clear sky
thick-set with stars, and Maurice and Jean, who had regained the
shelter of their little wood, presently perceived Lapoulle wandering up
and down the river bank. The two others had vanished, had doubtless
returned to the encampment by the canal, their mind troubled by reason
of the corpse they left behind them. He, on the other hand, seemed to
dread going to rejoin the comrades. When he was more himself and his
brutish, sluggish intellect showed him the full extent of his crime, he
had evidently experienced a twinge of anguish that made motion a
necessity, and not daring to return to the interior of the peninsula,
where he would have to face the body of his victim, had sought the bank
of the stream, where he was now tramping to and fro with uneven,
faltering steps. What was going on within the recesses of that darkened
mind that guided the actions of that creature, so degraded as to be
scarce higher than the animal? Was it the awakening of remorse? or only
the fear lest his crime might be discovered? He could not remain there;
he paced his beat as a wild beast shambles up and down its cage, with a
sudden and ever-increasing longing to fly, a longing that ached and
pained like a physical hurt, from which he felt he should die, could he
do nothing to satisfy it. Quick, quick, he must fly, must fly at once,
from that prison where he had slain a fellow-being. And yet, the coward
in him, it may be, gaining the supremacy, he threw himself on the
ground, and for a long time lay crouched among the herbage.
And Maurice said to Jean in his horror and disgust:
“See here, I cannot remain longer in this place; I tell you plainly I
should go mad. I am surprised that the physical part of me holds out as
it does; my bodily health is not so bad, but the mind is going; yes! it
is going, I am certain of it. If you leave me another day in this hell
I am lost. I beg you, let us go away, let us start at once!”
And he went on to propound the wildest schemes for getting away. They
would swim the Meuse, would cast themselves on the sentries and
strangle them with a cord he had in his pocket, or would beat out their
brains with rocks, or would buy them over with the money they had left
and don their uniform to pass through the Prussian lines.
“My dear boy, be silent!” Jean sadly answered; “it frightens me to hear
you talk so wildly. Is there any reason in what you say, are any of
your plans feasible? Wait; to-morrow we’ll see about it. Be silent!”
He, although his heart, no less than his friend’s, was wrung by the
horrors that surrounded them on every side, had preserved his mental
balance amid the debilitating effects of famine, among the grisly
visions of that existence than which none could approach more nearly
the depth of human misery. And as his companion’s frenzy continued to
increase and he talked of casting himself into the Meuse, he was
obliged to restrain him, even to the point of using violence, scolding
and supplicating, tears standing in his eyes. Then suddenly he said:
“See! look there!”
A splash was heard coming from the river, and they saw it was Lapoulle,
who had finally decided to attempt to escape by the stream, first
removing his capote in order that it might not hinder his movements;
and his white shirt made a spot of brightness that was distinctly
visible upon the dusky bosom of the moving water. He was swimming
up-stream with a leisurely movement, doubtless on the lookout for a
place where he might land with safety, while on the opposite shore
there was no difficulty in discerning the shadowy forms of the
sentries, erect and motionless in the semi-obscurity. There came a
sudden flash that tore the black veil of night, a report that went with
bellowing echoes and spent itself among the rocks of Montimont. The
water boiled and bubbled for an instant, as it does under the wild
efforts of an unpracticed oarsman. And that was all; Lapoulle’s body,
the white spot on the dusky stream, floated away, lifeless, upon the
tide.
The next day, which was Saturday, Jean aroused Maurice as soon as it
was day and they returned to the camp of the 106th, with the hope that
they might move that day, but there were no orders; it seemed as though
the regiment’s existence were forgotten. Many of the troops had been
sent away, the peninsula was being depopulated, and sickness was
terribly prevalent among those who were left behind. For eight long
days disease had been germinating in that hell on earth; the rains had
ceased, but the blazing, scorching sunlight had only wrought a change
of evils. The excessive heat completed the exhaustion of the men and
gave to the numerous cases of dysentery an alarmingly epidemic
character. The excreta of that army of sick poisoned the air with their
noxious emanations. No one could approach the Meuse or the canal, owing
to the overpowering stench that rose from the bodies of drowned
soldiers and horses that lay festering among the weeds. And the horses,
that dropped in the fields from inanition, were decomposing so rapidly
and forming such a fruitful source of pestilence that the Prussians,
commencing to be alarmed on their own account, had provided picks and
shovels and forced the prisoners to bury them.
That day, however, was the last on which they suffered from famine. As
their numbers were so greatly reduced and provisions kept pouring in
from every quarter, they passed at a single bound from the extreme of
destitution to the most abundant plenty. Bread, meat, and wine, even,
were to be had without stint; eating went on from morning till night,
until they were ready to drop. Darkness descended, and they were eating
still; in some quarters the gorging was continued until the next
morning. To many it proved fatal.
That whole day Jean made it his sole business to keep watch over
Maurice, who he saw was ripe for some rash action. He had been
drinking; he spoke of his intention of cuffing a Prussian officer in
order that he might be sent away. And at night Jean, having discovered
an unoccupied corner in the cellar of one of the outbuildings at the
Tour à Glaire, thought it advisable to go and sleep there with his
companion, thinking that a good night’s rest would do him good, but it
turned out to be the worst night in all their experience, a night of
terror during which neither of them closed an eye. The cellar was
inhabited by other soldiers; lying in the same corner were two who were
dying of dysentery, and as soon as it was fairly dark they commenced to
relieve their sufferings by moans and inarticulate cries, a hideous
death-rattle that went on uninterruptedly until morning. These sounds
finally became so horrific there in the intense darkness, that the
others who were resting there, wishing to sleep, allowed their anger to
get the better of them and shouted to the dying men to be silent. They
did not hear; the rattle went on, drowning all other sounds, while from
without came the drunken clamor of those who were eating and drinking
still, with insatiable appetite.
Then commenced for Maurice a period of agony unspeakable. He would have
fled from the awful sounds that brought the cold sweat of anguish in
great drops to his brow, but when he arose and attempted to grope his
way out he trod on the limbs of those extended there, and finally fell
to the ground, a living man immured there in the darkness with the
dying. He made no further effort to escape from this last trial. The
entire frightful disaster arose before his mind, from the time of their
departure from Rheims to the crushing defeat of Sedan. It seemed to him
that in that night, in the inky blackness of that cellar, where the
groans of two dying soldiers drove sleep from the eyelids of their
comrades, the ordeal of the army of Châlons had reached its climax. At
each of the stations of its passion the army of despair, the expiatory
band, driven forward to the sacrifice, had spent its life-blood in
atonement for the faults of others; and now, unhonored amid disaster,
covered with contumely, it was enduring martyrdom in that cruel
scourging, the severity of which it had done nothing to deserve. He
felt it was too much; he was heartsick with rage and grief, hungering
for justice, burning with a fierce desire to be avenged on destiny.
When daylight appeared one of the soldiers was dead, the other was
lingering on in protracted agony.
“Come along, little one,” Jean gently said; “we’ll go and get a breath
of fresh air; it will do us good.”
But when the pair emerged into the pure, warm morning air and, pursuing
the river bank, were near the village of Iges, Maurice grew flightier
still, and extending his hand toward the vast expanse of sunlit
battlefield, the plateau of Illy in front of them, Saint-Menges to the
left, the wood of la Garenne to the right, he cried:
“No, I cannot, I cannot bear to look on it! The sight pierces my heart
and drives me mad. Take me away, oh! take me away, at once, at once!”
It was Sunday once more; the bells were pealing from the steeples of
Sedan, while the music of a German military band floated on the air in
the distance. There were still no orders for their regiment to move,
and Jean, alarmed to see Maurice’s deliriousness increasing, determined
to attempt the execution of a plan that he had been maturing in his
mind for the last twenty-four hours. On the road before the tents of
the Prussians another regiment, the 5th of the line, was drawn up in
readiness for departure. Great confusion prevailed in the column, and
an officer, whose knowledge of the French language was imperfect, had
been unable to complete the roster of the prisoners. Then the two
friends, having first torn from their uniform coat the collar and
buttons in order that the number might not betray their identity,
quietly took their place in the ranks and soon had the satisfaction of
crossing the bridge and leaving the chain of sentries behind them. The
same idea must have presented itself to Loubet and Chouteau, for they
caught sight of them somewhat further to the rear, peering anxiously
about them with the guilty eyes of murderers.
Ah, what comfort there was for them in that first blissful moment!
Outside their prison the sunlight was brighter, the air more bracing;
it was like a resurrection, a bright renewal of all their hopes.
Whatever evil fortune might have in store for them, they dreaded it
not; they snapped their fingers at it in their delight at having seen
the last of the horrors of Camp Misery.