The Debacle: (1870-71) Page 9

  But just then there was a noise of laughing and screaming, of a girl struggling with a man and enjoying the fun. It was Lieutenant Rochas in the old dark kitchen with its gay Epinal prints, and he was holding the pretty waitress in his arms, like a conquering hero. He came out into the arbour, where he had a coffee brought to him, and as he had overheard the last words of Coutard and Picot he gaily chipped in:

  ‘Nonsense, my boys, that’s nothing! It’s just the opening of the ball, and now you are going to see our bloody revenge… Well, I ask you, up to now they’ve been five to one! But that’s going to change, you can take it from me. We are three hundred thousand here. All these movements we are carrying out and you don’t understand are meant to draw the Prussians after us while Bazaine, who’s got his eye on them, will catch them in the rear, and then we’ll squash ’em – crack, like this fly!’

  He crushed a fly with a loud clap of his hands, and his mirth grew louder and louder for, innocent that he was, be believed in this simple plan, and he was now quite happy again with his faith in unconquerable courage. He kindly pointed out to the two soldiers exactly where their regiments were, then, with a cigar in his mouth, sat down to his coffee in perfect bliss.

  ‘The pleasure was mine, chums,’ Maurice said to Coutard and Picot, who thanked him for his cheese and bottle of wine and went off.

  He had ordered a cup of coffee too, and looked at the lieutenant, catching a bit of his good humour, though somewhat surprised about the three hundred thousand men when they were hardly one hundred thousand, and at the singular ease with which he crushed the Prussians between the army of Châlons and that of Metz. But he, too, needed illusion so much! Why not still go on hoping, when the glorious past was still singing so loud in his memory? The old inn was so gay with its trellis from which hung the pale grapes of France, golden with sun! Once again he had an hour of confidence that lifted him out of the great, heavy sadness that had been building up in him.

  Maurice’s eye had momentarily followed an officer of the Chasseurs d’Afrique and an orderly who had cantered out of sight round the corner of the silent house occupied by the Emperor. Then, as the orderly came back alone and stopped with the two horses outside the inn, he called out in surprise:

  ‘Prosper!… And I thought you were at Metz!’

  He was a man from Remilly, a simple farm-hand he had known when he was a child and used to spend his holidays at Uncle Fouchard’s. He had drawn a call-up and had served in Africa for three years when the war broke out, and he looked well in his sky-blue tunic, wide red trousers with blue stripes and red worsted belt, with his long sallow face and his supple, strong yet wonderfully graceful limbs.

  ‘Well, fancy meeting you, Monsieur Maurice!’

  But he was in no hurry and led the steaming horses round to the stable, giving a fatherly look, especially at his own. Love of horses, acquired no doubt in childhood when he led the animals to the plough, had made him choose the cavalry.

  ‘We’ve just come from Monthois, over ten leagues at one go,’ he went on when he came back, ‘and Zephir will be glad to have something.’

  Zephir was his horse. But he himself refused to have anything to eat and just accepted a coffee. He was waiting for his officer, who was waiting for the Emperor. It might be five minutes or two hours. So his officer had told him to put the horses in the shade. And when Maurice’s curiosity was aroused and he tried to find out more, he shrugged it off:

  ‘I dunno… some errand of course… papers to deliver.’

  Rochas looked with a kindly eye at the cavalryman, whose uniform brought back his memories of Africa.

  ‘Where were you over there, my boy?’

  ‘Medeah, sir.’

  Medeah! That made them fall to chattering as friends, in spite of rank. Prosper had taken to this life of continual alarms, always on horseback, off to battle as some people go off to the shoot, for some big battue of Arabs. They had one messtin for a gang of ten men, and each gang was a family: one did the cooking, another did the washing, the others set up the tent, looked after the animals, kept the weapons polished. They rode morning and afternoon, loaded with enormous kit, with suns shining down like lead. In the evening they lit big fires to keep off the mosquitoes, and round them they sang the songs of France. Often in the middle of the starlit night they had to get up and pacify the horses who, irritated by the hot wind, would suddenly bite each other and pull out their tethering posts with furious whinnyings. And then there was the coffee, lovely coffee, which was quite a business to make – they crushed it in a messtin and strained it through a red uniform belt. But there were dark days too, far from any inhabited place and facing the enemy. And then no more singing, no more fun. Sometimes they suffered terribly from lack of sleep, from thirst and hunger. Never mind, they loved this existence of improvisation and adventure, this war of skirmishes, just the kind to bring out the glory of personal bravery, and as much fun as taking over a desert island, enlivened by forays, wholesale theft and looting and the petty pilfering of scroungers, whose legendary feats made everybody laugh, even the generals.

  ‘Ah,’ said Prosper, coming over quite serious, ‘it isn’t like it was there. Here they fight quite differently.’

  Answering a fresh question from Maurice, he told of their disembarking at Toulon and long and difficult journey to Lunéville, where they had heard about Wissembourg and Froeschwiller. After that he wasn’t sure, he got the towns all mixed up: from Nancy to Saint-Mihiel, from Saint-Mihiel to Metz. On the 14th there must have been a big battle, the horizon was on fire, but all he had seen was four Uhlans behind a hedge. On the 16th more fighting and heavy gunfire from six in the morning, and he had been told that on the 18th the dance had started up again, more terrible still. But the Chasseurs weren’t there then because on the 16th, while they were waiting by the roadside at Gravelotte to go up to the line, the Emperor, tearing off in his carriage, had picked them up to escort him to Verdun. A nice ride that was, forty-two kilometres at the gallop for fear of being cut off by the Prussians at every moment.

  ‘And what about Bazaine?’ asked Rochas.

  ‘Bazaine? They say he was jolly glad the Emperor had left him alone.’

  But the lieutenant meant was Bazaine coming? Prosper made a vague gesture: how could anyone say? Since the 16th they had been spending the days in marches and counter-marches in the rain, reconnaissances, outposts that had never seen an enemy. Now he was attached to the army of Châlons. His regiment, two others of the Chasseurs de France and one of the Hussars, made up one of the reserve cavalry divisions, the first, commanded by General Margueritte, whom he spoke of with enthusiasm and affection.

  ‘The old bugger! He’s one of the best! But what’s the good? All they could think about was making us paddle about in the mud.’

  There was a silence. Then Maurice talked for a minute or two about Remilly and Uncle Fouchard, and Prosper was sorry he couldn’t go and have a look at Honoré, the sergeant, whose battery must be in camp more than a league away, on the further side of the Laon road. But then the snorting of a horse made him prick up his ears and he got up and went off to make sure Zephir was all right. Gradually soldiers of all arms and ranks were filling the inn, this being the time for coffee and drinks. There wasn’t a single table left free and the uniforms made gay splashes of colour against the greenery of creepers flecked with sunshine. Major Bouroche had just sat down next to Rochas when Jean appeared with an order.

  ‘Sir, the captain will expect you at three about duty rosters.’

  Rochas nodded to indicate that he would be punctual, and Jean did not go off at once, but grinned at Maurice, who was lighting a cigarette. Since the scene in the train there had been a tacit truce between the two men, as though they were studying each other, but in an increasingly friendly way.

  Prosper had come back and was impatient.

  ‘I’m going to have something to eat if my officer won’t come out of that dump… It’s no use, the Emperor is just as likely not t
o come back tonight at all.’

  ‘I say,’ asked Maurice, whose curiosity was aroused, ‘perhaps it’s news of Bazaine you’ve brought?’

  ‘Could be, they were talking about it at Monthois.’

  But at that moment there was a sudden commotion and Jean, who had stopped at one of the entrances to the arbour, turned round and said:

  ‘The Emperor!’

  In a moment they were all on their feet. Between the rows of poplars on the white road, a detachment of bodyguards appeared in their uniforms still wonderfully smart and resplendent, with the blazing gold of their cuirasses. Then suddenly came the Emperor followed by another detachment of bodyguard.

  Heads were uncovered and a few cheers rang out. As he went by the Emperor looked up; he was very pale and his face was already drawn, his eyes blinking, vague and watery. He seemed to wake up out of a dream, smiled wanly when he saw this sunlit inn and saluted.

  At that moment Jean and Maurice distinctly heard Bouroche behind them, muttering after thoroughly examining the Emperor with his practised eye:

  ‘He’s a goner!’

  Jean, with his limited common sense, had shaken his head: damn bad luck for an army to have a chief like that! Ten minutes later when Maurice, after saying good-bye to Prosper, went off for a stroll and another cigarette or two, feeling contented after his good lunch, he carried with him this picture of the Emperor, so pallid and ineffectual, trotting past on his horse. This was the conspirator, the dreamer lacking the energy when the moment comes for action. He was said to be a very good man, quite capable of a great and generous thought and very tenacious in his silent determination; he was very brave too, a fatalist scorning danger, always prepared to face his destiny. But at times of crisis he seemed all in a daze, as though paralysed when faced with having to do anything and powerless to react against fortune if she turned against him. It made Maurice wonder whether there was not some special physiological condition underlying this, aggravated by pain, whether the illness from which the Emperor was obviously suffering was not the cause of the increasing indecision and impotence he had been showing since the outset of the campaign. It might have been the explanation of it all. A stone in a man’s flesh, and empires collapse.

  That evening after roll-call there was a sudden activity in the camp, with officers running to and fro giving orders, fixing the departure for the following morning at five. It was for Maurice a shock of surprise and disquiet to realize that everything was altered once again. They were not now going to fall back on Paris but march to Verdun to link up with Bazaine. There was a rumour that a dispatch had come from him during the day indicating that he was putting into effect his movement of retreat; and then Maurice remembered Prosper and the officer who had come from Monthois, it might well have been to bring a copy of that dispatch. So, thanks to the continual vacillation of Marshal MacMahon, it was the Empress-Regent and the council of ministers who were having their way, in their fear of seeing the Emperor return to Paris and their obstinate determination to drive the army forward at all costs in order to make a supreme attempt to salvage the dynasty. And the wretched Emperor, this poor man who no longer had a job in his own empire, was to be carried round like some useless clutter in the baggage of his troops, condemned to drag after him the irony of his imperial establishment, his lifeguards, coaches, horses, cooks, vanloads of silver utensils and champagne, all the pomp of his robe of state, embroidered with imperial bees, trailing the roads of defeat in the blood and mire.

  Midnight came and Maurice was still not asleep. A feverish dozing with nightmare dreams kept him tossing and turning in his tent. In the end he got up and went out, and was relieved to be on his feet and breathing the cool air, feeling the wind lash his face. The sky was now overcast with thick clouds and the night was very dark, an endless waste of shadows lit only occasionally by the dying fires of the colour-lines, like stars. Yet in this black peace, heavy with silence, you could sense the steady breathing of the hundred thousand men lying there. Then Maurice’s distress melted away and there came upon him a feeling of brotherhood, full of indulgent affection for all these living, sleeping men, thousands of whom would soon sleep the sleep of death. They were a decent lot of chaps really. Not very well disciplined, and they stole and drank. But how much they were already going through, and what an excuse they had in the general break-up of their country! The glorious veterans of Sebastopol and Solferino were already only a small minority mixed in with troops who were too young and incapable of a long resistance. These four army corps, hastily bodged together, with no firm links between them, were the army of desperation, the scapegoats sent to the sacrifice in an effort to avert the wrath of destiny. That army was about to climb its Calvary to the very end and redeem the sins of all with the red stream of its blood and find its greatness in the very horror of disaster.

  It was then, in that expectant darkness, that Maurice became aware of a great duty. He ceased entertaining vainglorious hopes of winning fabulous victories. This march to Verdun was a march to death, and he accepted it with a cheerful, firm resignation, since one has to die anyway.

  4

  ON 23 August, a Tuesday, at six in the morning, camp was struck and a hundred thousand men of the army of Châlons were on the move and soon flowing in an immense stream, a river of men momentarily spreading out into a lake and then resuming its course. In spite of yesterday’s rumours it came as a great surprise to many of them that instead of continuing the retreat they were turning their backs on Paris and going somewhere eastwards into the unknown.

  By five in the morning the 7th corps still had no ammunition. For the past two days the artillerymen had half killed themselves unloading the horses and supplies in the goods yard cluttered with material coming in from Metz. And it was only at the last minute that some trucks loaded with cartridges were discovered in the inextricable confusion of trains, and a fatigue party, including Jean, managed to shift two hundred and forty thousand of them in hastily requisitioned carts. Jean issued the regulation hundred rounds to each man in his squad at the very moment when the bugler Gaude sounded the order to march.

  The 106th was not to go through Rheims itself, the order being to go round the city and rejoin the main Châlons road. But once again they had not thought of staggering the times, so that the four army corps set out at the same time and a terrible muddle ensued where they had to get on to the same sections of road. At every moment artillery and cavalry cut across lines of infantry and brought them to a halt. Whole brigades had to stand by for an hour. Worst of all, a terrible storm broke scarcely ten minutes after departure, with deluges of rain that soaked the men to the skin and added to the weight of their packs and capes. However, the 106th had been able to set off again as the rain eased off, while in a field nearby some Zouaves, obliged to wait longer still, had thought out a game to keep themselves in a good humour; they bombarded each other with clods of earth, great lumps of mud which spattered all over their uniforms, giving rise to gales of mirth.

  The sun came out again almost at once, a glorious sun on this hot August morning. And cheerfulness returned; the men were like a line of washing hanging out in the open air, and very soon they were dry, like muddy dogs fished out of a pond, joking about the festoons of caked mud they were carrying on their red trousers. There was a fresh halt at every road junction. At the last outlying houses of Rheims there was a final halt in front of a pub which was doing a roaring trade.

  Maurice thought he would treat the squad, by way of wishing them all good luck.

  ‘Do you mind, corporal?’

  Jean hesitated a moment and then accepted a glass. Loubet and Chouteau were there too, the latter now all obsequious since the corporal had made himself felt, and also Pache and Lapoulle, both good types so long as you didn’t get across them.

  ‘Here’s to your very good health, corporal,’ said Chouteau in smarmy tones.

  ‘And to you, and we must all try to bring back our heads and our feet,’ answered Jean politel
y, and everyone laughed in agreement.

  But they were off again and Captain Beaudoin came by with a shocked air, while Rochas looked the other way, for he was indulgent towards his men’s thirsts. Already they were out on the Châlons road, an endless, tree-lined ribbon running straight ahead across the vast plain – interminable cornfields, broken here and there by big hayricks and wooden windmills turning their sails. Further northwards lines of telegraph poles marked other roads where they could make out the dark columns of other regiments on the march. There were even quite a few cutting straight across the fields in dense masses. Ahead to the left a brigade of cavalry was trotting along in the dazzling sun. The whole great featureless horizon, empty, depressing and limitless, was coming to life and peopling itself with streams of men pouring from all sides, like continuous runs from some gigantic anthill.

  By about nine the 106th left the Châlons road and took the one to Suippes, on the left, another straight ribbon going on for ever. They marched in two files with a space between, leaving the middle of the road clear. Only officers used that, as they wished, and Maurice noticed their worried look, which contrasted with the good humour and contented jollity of the soldiers, who were as happy as children to be on the move at last. As the squad was almost at the head he even had a distant glimpse of the colonel, Monsieur de Vineuil, and was struck by his despondent look as his tall and stiff figure swayed gently with his horse’s step. The band had been left in the rear, together with the regimental kitchens. Then with the division came the ambulances and equipment, followed by the supply column of the whole corps – an immense convoy, forage waggons, covered vans for provisions, carts for baggage – a procession of vehicles of all kinds more than five kilometres long, the endless tail of which could be seen at the rare bends of the road. And finally at the very end of the column the livestock brought up the rear, a ragged herd of huge oxen tramping along the road in a cloud of dust, the meat, still alive and whipped along, for a migrating tribe of warriors.