When their commanding officers found out what was going on, they gave orders for a halt.
Now a halt of two hours gave time enough for the first effects of the alcohol to pass off, and they resumed the march, already regretting their indiscreet conduct. Towards five in the morning, the hunger they fancied they had staved off began to attack them cruelly. They could scarcely manage to drag themselves as far as Damanhour, which was reached on the 9th at eight in the morning.
They had some hopes of finding food in that town, but it had been completely evacuated. They ransacked every house, and, as the harvest was just over, they found a morsel of threshed wheat; but the hand-mills wherewith the Arabs ground their corn were broken, having been purposely put out of gear. They managed to put several in order, and succeeded in procuring a small quantity of flour, but if distributed it would not have amounted to above half an ounce per man.
Discontent now began to spread through the troops, and hunger, that evil counsellor, whispered suggestions of rebellion among the men, and even among the officers.
So, amidst dejection and complaints, they began to march towards Rhamanieh.
It was no good the soldiers being impatient, since they had themselves alone to blame for their lack of provisions. Almost dying with hunger, they at last reached Rhamanieh, where they learnt they must halt for the 11th and 12th, to wait for provisions, which had been ordered in the Delta. These duly arrived, and the fresh food and the nearness to the Nile, into which the soldiers plunged the moment they reached it, somewhat restored courage to the army.
My father managed to procure two or three water-melons, and invited several generals of his acquaintance to eat them in his tent. They were not slow to respond to his invitation.
We have seen how badly the campaign had opened and how much the troops had already undergone since they left Alexandria. The Egypt that they had seen from afar, as a large emerald green riband unrolled in the midst of the desert, no longer appeared in its ancient fertility, as the granary of the world, but in its modern poverty, its shifting populations, its ruined and deserted villages.
Desaix's complaints were re-echoed by the whole army.
The gathering under my father's tent, which had met for the purpose of consuming the melons, very soon took a political turn, as each general gave vent to the ill-humour all shared alike.