The Downfall (La Débâcle). Emile Zola
they were even at Buzancy. Driven in this way towards the north, the Seventh Corps had consequently received orders to proceed to La Besace, some fourteen or fifteen miles from Boult-aux-Bois, with the view of reaching and crossing the Meuse at Mouzon on the morrow. The start was a dreary one; the men, with their stomachs almost empty and their limbs unrested, exhausted by the fatigue and waiting of the previous days, were audibly growling; and the gloomy officers, giving way to uneasiness at thought of the catastrophe to which they were marching, talked complainingly of their inaction, and were indignant that they had not been sent to Buzancy to support the Fifth Corps, whose guns had been heard there. This corps must also be retreating—no doubt towards Nouart, whilst the Twelfth, bound for Mouzon, was setting out from La Besace, and the First was taking the road to Raucourt.
All these masses of men now tramped along like so many flocks, urged on and worried by dogs, and hustling one another, as they at last advanced towards the longed-for Meuse, after endless dawdling and delay.
When the 106th started from Boult-aux-Bois, following the cavalry and artillery—the three divisions streaking the plain with a long stream of marching men—the sky again became covered with large, livid clouds, the gloom of which put the finishing stroke to the men's sadness. For a time the regiment followed the high road to Buzancy, which was edged with superb poplars. At Germond, a village where heaps of manure were smoking before the doors on either side of the road, the women sobbed, and taking their children in their arms, held them out to the passing troops as though begging the latter to carry them away. Not a morsel of bread or a potato remained in the place. And now, instead of proceeding any farther in the direction of Buzancy, the 106th wheeled to the left towards Authe; and when on a hill across the plain, the men again saw Belleville, through which they had marched the day before, they at once became conscious that they were retracing their steps.
'Thunder!' growled Chouteau; 'do they take us for spinning tops?'
And Loubet added, 'There are generals for you! Pulling first one way, then another! One can easily see that they don't care a fig for our legs.'
They all became angry. It was too bad to weary men out in this fashion simply for the purpose of promenading them up and down. They were now marching across the barren plain in a column of two files, one on either side of the road, the centre of which was reserved to the officers; but no jokes were cracked, no songs were sung to enliven the march as on the day when they had left Rheims—the day when they carried their knapsacks so jauntily, their shoulders lightened by the hope of outstripping the Prussians and beating them. Now they were silent and irritated, and crawled along wearily, hating their guns, which made their shoulders sore, and their knapsacks, which weighed them down; no longer, moreover, having any confidence in their commanders, but giving way to such despair that they were like cattle, which only fear of the goad can impel onward. The wretched army was now beginning to ascend its Calvary.
For a few minutes, however, something had greatly interested Maurice. He had seen a horseman ride out of a little wood, far away on the left, where the ground rose in a succession of ridges of increasing height, parted by narrow valleys. Almost immediately afterwards a second horseman appeared and then another. They all three remained there motionless, looking no larger than the fist, like toys, sharply and precisely outlined. Maurice thought they must belong to some outpost of Hussars, or to some returning reconnoitring-party, but he was suddenly astonished to see some brilliant specks on their shoulders—the glitter, no doubt, of brass epaulettes.
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