The Debacle: (1870-71)

by Emile Zola

  ‘Sir, is the road to Belgium guarded?’

  ‘Yes, but go through this wood first, and then turn left across the fields.’

  In the wood, in the great dark stillness of the trees, when they could not hear a sound and nothing stirred and they thought they were secure, an extraordinary emotion made them fall into each other’s arms. Maurice was crying like a child, and tears rolled slowly down Jean’s cheeks. It was the reaction after their long torment, the joy of telling themselves that suffering might perhaps take pity on them at last. They hugged each other in a passionate embrace, made brothers by all they had gone through together, and the kiss they exchanged seemed the gentlest yet the strongest in their lives, a kiss the like of which they would never have from a woman, undying friendship and absolute certainty that their two hearts were henceforth one for ever.

  ‘My dear boy,’ Jean said in a shaky voice when they had let each other go, ‘it’s already a great deal to be here, but we’re not through yet… We ought to take our bearings.’

  Although he did not know this bit of the frontier, Maurice swore it was all right to go straight ahead. So they very carefully slipped along, one after the other, until they came to the edge of the woods. Then, bearing in mind the directions given by the helpful man, they wanted to turn left and cut across the fields. But as they came to a road lined with poplars they saw the fires of a Prussian post barring the way. The light gleamed on a sentry’s bayonet, and the soldiers were talking while finishing their supper. So they went back on their tracks and buried themselves in the woods in terror of being pursued. They thought they could hear voices and footsteps, and beat about in the bushes for nearly an hour, losing all sense of direction, turning round in circles, sometimes tearing off at a gallop like animals fleeing through the undergrowth and sometimes standing quite still, sweating with nerves, faced by motionless oaks they took for Prussians. Finally they came out again on to the poplar-lined road ten paces from the sentry and near the soldiers who were peacefully having a warm.

  ‘Our luck’s out!’ muttered Maurice. ‘This wood’s bewitched!’

  This time they had been heard. Branches had been snapped and stones dislodged. As, challenged by the sentry, they began to run without answering, the whole post took up arms and shots were fired which whistled through the thicket.

  ‘Oh Christ!’ Jean swore under his breath, stifling a cry of pain.

  He had felt a whiplash on his left calf, and it was so violent that it made him fall against a tree.

  ‘Got you?’ Maurice anxiously asked.

  ‘Yes, in the leg. I’m done for!’

  They were still listening, panting with fear of hearing the Prussians in full chase behind them. But the shooting had stopped and nothing was stirring again in the great eerie silence. Clearly the post was not anxious to get involved among the trees.

  Jean tried to stand up and stifled a groan. Maurice held him up.

  ‘Can’t you walk any more?’

  ‘Afraid not.’

  Normally so placid he began to fly into a rage. He clenched his fists and could have hit himself.

  ‘Oh Lor, oh Lor! Of all the bloody bad luck! To go and get your leg mucked up just when you’ve got to run!… Really it’s enough to make you go and chuck yourself in the shit! You go on alone.’

  Maurice laughed gaily and just said:

  ‘Bloody fool!’

  He took his arm and helped him along, for they both were anxious to get away from there. After a few painful steps done with a heroic effort, they stopped and were again disturbed as they saw a house in front of them, a kind of little farmhouse on the edge of the wood. There was no light in the windows but the gate into the yard was wide open, showing the building black and empty. When they plucked up enough courage to venture into this farmyard they were astonished to find a horse, all saddled ready, with nothing to show the why and the wherefore of its being there. Perhaps the owner was coming back, perhaps he was lying behind some bush with a bullet through his head. They never knew.

  Maurice had a sudden idea which seemed to make him quite jolly.

  ‘Look here, the frontier is too far away, and besides, we should certainly have to have a guide. But suppose we were to make for Uncle Fouchard’s at Remilly. I could really take you there with my eyes shut, for I know even the little by-roads inside out… Isn’t that an idea? I’m going to lift you up on to this horse, and Uncle Fouchard is sure to take us in.’

  First he wanted to have a look at the leg. There were two holes, the bullet must have come out again after breaking the tibia. There was very little bleeding, and he simply bandaged the calf tightly with a handkerchief.

  ‘You go on your own,’ Jean said again. ‘Shut up, don’t be a fool!’

  When Jean had been comfortably settled in the saddle Maurice took the horse’s reins and they set off. It must have been about eleven, and he reckoned he could do the journey easily in three hours, even if they only went at a walking pace. But for a moment he was dashed when he thought of an unforeseen difficulty: how were they going to cross the Meuse and get over to the left bank? The bridge at Mouzon was guarded for certain. But then he remembered that there was a ferry downstream at Villers, and so he made his way to this village more or less by dead reckoning across the

  fields and ploughed land on the right bank, hoping luck would be on their side. Everything went pretty well at first, and they only had one patrol of cavalry to avoid, and that they did by staying quite still for nearly a quarter of an hour in the shadow of a wall. Rain was falling again and walking became very trying for him as he was obliged to tramp in sodden earth beside the horse, which fortunately was a very good fellow of a horse and very docile. At Villers luck really was on their side, for the ferry at this late hour happened to have just brought over a Bavarian officer, and so could take them at once to the other side with no trouble. The dangers and fatigues only really began at the village, and they nearly stayed there for good in the hands of sentries stationed along the Remilly road. Once again they took to the fields, going where the little paths took them, narrow paths hardly used. The slightest obstacles forced

  them to make enormous detours. They crossed hedges and ditches and cut through impenetrable thickets. Jean, now feverish in the drizzling rain, was slumped over the saddle, half fainting and clinging with both hands to the horse’s mane, while Maurice, with the reins over his right arm, had to hold on to his friend’s legs to prevent him from slipping off. For nearly a league and two more hours this exhausting journey dragged on, with jolts, sudden slips and loss of balance which every minute almost threw over the horse and the two men. They were the most miserable little procession imaginable, mud-stained, the horse tottering, the man he was carrying inert and looking as if he had breathed his last, and the other man wild-eyed and haggard, only kept going by brotherly love. Day was breaking, and it must have been about five when at last they reached Remilly.

  In the yard of his little farm which overlooked the village as you emerged from the Haraucourt defile, old Fouchard was loading on to his cart two sheep killed the day before. The sight of his nephew in such a sorry set-up was such a shock to him that after the first words of explanation he brutally exclaimed:

  ‘What, me keep you and your friend here? And get myself into trouble with the Prussians? Oh no, certainly not! I’d rather die straight away!’

  Yet he dared not prevent Maurice and Prosper from getting Jean down from the horse and laying him on the big kitchen table. Silvine ran off and got her own bolster, which she slipped under the wounded man’s head, for he was still unconscious. But the old boy, annoyed at seeing this man on his table, grumbled away, saying that he was very uncomfortable like that and why didn’t they take him straight to the field hospital, as they were lucky enough to have one at Remilly, near the church, in the old schoolhouse which had once been a convent and in which there was a very convenient large hall.

  ‘To the hospital!’ It was Maurice’s turn to object. ‘For the
Prussians to send him off to Germany when he’s better, since every wounded man belongs to them!… What do you take me for, uncle? I haven’t brought him all the way here so as to give him up to them!’

  Things were turning ugly and Uncle Fouchard was talking of turning them out when the name of Henriette was mentioned.

  ‘Henriette! What’s that?’ asked Maurice.

  He then learned that his sister had been at Remilly since the day before yesterday, being so mortally heartbroken by her loss that to live in Sedan, where she had been so happy, had become unthinkable. A chance meeting with Dr Dalichamp of Raucourt, whom she knew, had made her decide to come and live at Uncle Fouchard’s in one little room and devote her whole time to the wounded in the neighbouring field hospital. It was the only thing, she said, that would take her mind off it all. She paid for her keep and as she contributed all sorts of comforts at the farmhouse the old man looked on her with a kindly eye. When there was something to be made out of it things were always lovely.

  ‘Oh, so my sister’s here! So that’s what Monsieur Delaherche meant by the big gesture I couldn’t understand! Oh well, if she’s here it goes without saying, we stay!’

  At once he insisted on going himself, tired as he was, to find her at the hospital, where she had been on duty all night, and his uncle fumed because now he could not get away with his cart and two sheep on his butcher’s round through the villages until this dratted business of the wounded man who had landed on him was settled.

  When Maurice brought back Henriette they caught old Fouchard carefully looking over the horse that Prosper had taken to the stable. A very tired animal, but jolly strong, and he liked the look of it! The young man laughed as he said he would make him a present of it. Henriette meanwhile took her uncle to one side and explained that Jean would pay, and that she would look after him in her little room behind the cowshed where certainly no Prussian would ever go and look for him. Old Fouchard, sulking and still unconvinced that there would be any real profit for him in all this, did eventually jump into his cart and go off, leaving her to do as she thought fit.

  Then, with the help of Silvine and Prosper, Henriette only took a few minutes to rearrange her room and have Jean carried there, where he was put into a clean bed, but still he gave no sign of life beyond a few vague mutterings. He opened his eyes and looked round but did not appear to see anybody. Maurice was just finishing a glass of wine and a bit of meat and was suddenly overcome with fatigue, when Dr Dalichamp came, as he did every morning on his way to the hospital, and Maurice did just find the strength to go with him and his sister to the wounded man’s bedside, in his anxiety to find out.

  The doctor was a short man with a big round head fringed by greying hair and beard. His fresh face had gone leathery like those of the peasants, with his continual open-air life of journeys to alleviate suffering, and his keen eyes, inquisitive nose and kindly mouth spoke of the whole life of a good, charitable man, a bit off the target sometimes, and no medical genius, but long experience had made him an excellent healer.

  Having examined the still semi-conscious Jean he murmured:

  ‘I’m afraid there’ll have to be an amputation.’

  This was grievous news to Maurice and Henriette. But he did add:

  ‘Perhaps it will be possible to save his leg, but it will need a great deal of care and it will be a very long job… Just now his vitality and morale are in such a low state that the only thing to do is to let him sleep… We’ll see tomorrow.’

  Having dressed the wound he turned his attention to Maurice, whom he had known as a child long ago.

  ‘And you too, my boy, would be better in a bed than on that chair.’

  The young man stared straight in front of him with unseeing eyes, as though he had not heard. In his utterly exhausted state his own feverishness was coming back in the form of abnormal nervous excitement due to all the accumulated sufferings and revulsions since the beginning of the campaign. The sight of his stricken friend, the sense of his own defeat, naked, disarmed, good for nothing, the thought that so many heroic efforts had ended in such distress, all threw him into a frantic need to rebel against fate. Then at length he answered:

  ‘No, no! It’s not all over, no! I’ve got to go… No, as he has got to be here for weeks and perhaps months I can’t stay, I must go at once. You will help me, won’t you, doctor? You will give me the means to escape and get back to Paris.’

  Terrified, Henriette threw her arms round him.

  ‘What are you talking about? Weak as you are, after going through so much! I shall keep you here, I’ll never let you go! Haven’t you paid your debt? Think of me as well, you are leaving me alone and now I’ve nobody left but you.’

  They wept together. They kissed each other desperately with that adoring love of twins, closer than normal love as if it dated from before birth. But he worked himself up more and more.

  ‘But I tell you, I must go… They’re waiting for me and I should die of distress if I didn’t go. You can’t imagine what a ferment goes on inside me at the thought of staying inactive. It can’t end up like this, I tell you, we must have our revenge, but on whom, on what? I’ve no idea, but we must have our revenge for so much suffering, so as to find once again the courage to live!’

  Dr Dalichamp, who was watching the scene with keen interest, made a sign to prevent Henriette from answering. When Maurice had had some sleep he would no doubt be calmer, and indeed he did sleep all that day and the following night, for more than twenty hours without moving a finger. Nevertheless, when he woke on the following morning, his resolve to go away was still there and unshakable. There was no more feverishness, but he was gloomy, restless and anxious to escape from all the temptations to a quiet life that he felt round him. His sister wept but realized that she must not insist. And Dr Dalichamp, when he came, promised to facilitate his flight, using the papers of an ambulance man who had died at Raucourt. Maurice would put on the grey shirt and red-cross armband and go through Belgium and thence back to Paris, which was still open.

  He did not leave the farmhouse that day, but remained in hiding, waiting for night. He hardly opened his mouth, but he did try to take Prosper with him.

  ‘Look, aren’t you tempted to go back and see the Prussians again?’

  The ex-Chasseur d’Afrique, who was finishing some bread and cheese, lifted his knife in the air.

  ‘Well, from what we’ve seen of them it’s not much use… Since the cavalry is no good for anything except to get killed after it’s all over, what do you want me to go back for? Oh no, I’ve got so fed up with them never giving me anything worth doing!’

  After a pause he went on, possibly to stifle the misgivings in his soldier’s heart:

  ‘Besides, there’s too much work to do here. The big ploughing is coming soon, and then there will be the sowing. You’ve got to think of the land as well, haven’t you? Because of course it’s all very well to fight, but what would become of us all if we didn’t plough the fields?… You see, I can’t just leave the job. It isn’t that old Fouchard is much good, for I very much doubt whether I shall ever see the colour of his money, but the animals are beginning to take to me, and really this morning when I was up there in the Vieux-Clos and looked down at that bloody old Sedan in the distance I felt jolly glad to be on my own again in the bright sunshine with my animals and pushing my plough!’

  As soon as it was dark Dr Dalichamp was there with his trap. He proposed to drive Maurice himself as far as the frontier. Fouchard, glad to see the back of one at least, went down to keep an eye on the road to make sure that no patrol was about, while Silvine finished mending the ambulance man’s old shirt and putting the red-cross armband on the sleeve. Before they left the doctor examined Jean’s leg again and could not yet promise to save it. The wounded man was still in a state of complete somnolence, recognizing nobody and not speaking. Maurice was going to leave without saying good-bye, but when he bent down to give him a kiss he saw him open his eyes very wide
, his lips moved and he said in a weak voice,

  ‘You’re off?’

  And as they were all surprised:

  ‘Yes, I heard you all but I couldn’t move… Maurice, you take all the money. Look in my trouser pocket.’

  There remained about two hundred francs each out of the money from the regimental cash, which they had shared.

  ‘Money!’ Maurice expostulated. ‘But you need it more than I do, for I’ve got my two legs. With two hundred francs I’ve got enough to get me back to Paris, and to be killed after that won’t cost me anything… But we’ll be seeing each other again, my dear Jean, and bless you for all the sensible and good things you’ve done, for without you I should certainly now be in some field like a dead dog.’

  Jean stopped him with a gesture.

  ‘You don’t owe me anything, we’re quits. I’m the one the Prussians would have picked up out there if you hadn’t carried me on your back. And only yesterday again you got me out of their clutches. You’ve paid twice over and it should be my turn to give my life for you… Oh I’m going to be miserable at not still being with you!’

  His voice faltered and his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Kiss me, boy.’

  They kissed each other, and as in the woods the day before there was in this kiss a brotherly love born of dangers shared, of these few weeks of heroic life in common which had united them more intimately than years of ordinary friendship could have done. Days without food, nights without sleep, exhaustion, ever-present death, all played a part in their affection. Can two hearts ever take themselves back again when a mutual gift has thus welded them to each other? But the kiss exchanged in the darkness among the trees had been full of the new hope opened up by escape, whereas this one now was full of the anguish of parting. Would they see each other again some day? And how, in what circumstances of grief or joy?