Inside Sedan, however, their progress was greatly impeded. As soon as they were within the fortifications they found themselves in a foul atmosphere reeking with filth. For three days the town had been the cesspool of a hundred thousand men; and to complete the insufferable stench there were the carcases of the horses, which had been slaughtered and cut up on the various open spaces, and whose entrails were now rotting in the sunlight, their heads, their bones lying here and there about the pavements and swarming with flies. A pestilence would assuredly break out if proper diligence were not shown in sweeping into the sewers all those horrible beds of manure which in the Rue du Ménil, the Rue Maqua, and even on the Place Turenne were a quarter of a yard high. As it happened, printed notices placarded by the German authorities already requisitioned the inhabitants for the following day, ordering all of them, no matter what their position might be, workmen, shopkeepers, merchants, and magistrates, to assemble with brooms and shovels and set about this necessary work, under threat of heavy penalties if the town were not clean by the evening. And the chief judge of the local court was already to be seen at his door, scraping the pavement and throwing the filth into a barrow, with a fire-shovel!
Silvine and Prosper, who had turned into the High Street, could walk but slowly through the fœtid slime. Moreover, a great commotion reigned in the town, and at every moment the road was blocked. The Prussians were now searching the houses for such of the French soldiers as had hidden themselves, obstinately intent on not surrendering. At about two o'clock on the previous day, when General de Wimpffen had returned from the château of Bellevue after signing the capitulation there, a rumour had circulated that the captive army was to be confined on the peninsula of Iges, until convoys could be organised to escort it to Germany. Merely a few officers intended to avail themselves of the clause which accorded them their liberty on condition that they pledged their word in writing not to serve again during the war. Among these, it appeared, there was only one general—Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who alleged his rheumatism as an excuse. And that same morning he had been saluted with jeers and hisses on taking his departure from the Golden Cross Hotel in a vehicle. Since dawn the operation of disarming the French troops had been in progress; the soldiers having to defile across the Place Turenne, and throw their guns and bayonets in a pile which, amid a crashing like that of old iron, kept rising higher and higher in one corner of the square. A detachment of German troops was assembled there under the orders of a young officer, a tall, pale fellow in a sky-blue tunic, a plumed cap and white gloves, who superintended the disarmament with an air of haughty smartness. A Zouave having refused, with a mutinous gesture, to surrender his chassepot, the officer gave orders for his removal, exclaiming, in perfect French: 'That man to be shot at once!' With dejected faces the other Frenchmen continued defiling, throwing their guns upon the pile with a mechanical gesture, anxious as they were to have done with it all. But how many there were who no longer had any weapons, whose chassepots lay scattered over the country-side! And how many who were hiding since the previous day, in the vain hope of escaping surrender amid the inexpressible confusion. The houses they had invaded still swarmed with these obstinate fellows, who refused to answer when called and squeezed themselves into corners, imagining that they would not be found there. The German patrols which scoured the town came upon some of the vanquished hidden under articles of furniture. Others who had taken refuge in cellars refused to come out even when discovered, and the patrols at last fired upon them through the vent-holes. Never was there such a man-hunt, such an abominable battue.
On reaching the bridge over the Meuse the donkey was stopped by the crush there. A suspicious officer, commanding the picket, which guarded the bridge, fancied that the little cart might be leaving the town with some bread or meat, and wished to make sure of its contents. When he had pulled the blanket aside and saw the corpse, he gazed at it for an instant as though thunderstruck; then with a wave of his arm he signed that the vehicle might proceed on its way. But it was still impossible to advance, in fact the obstruction was increasing. A German detachment was conducting one of the first convoys of prisoners to the peninsula of Iges. There seemed no end to this flock of captives. Onward they pressed, hustling one another, treading on one another's heels, with their uniforms in tatters, their heads bowed, their eyes darting hangdog, sidelong glances, their backs bent and their arms swinging listlessly, like the vanquished men they were, no longer possessed of even a knife to cut their own throats with. The harsh voices of their guards rang out urging them onward, like whips raining lashes through their silent scramble, amid which the only sound was the plashing of their heavy shoes in the thick mud. Another shower had begun to fall, and there could be no more sorrowful sight than that flock of vanquished soldiers, trudging along in the rain, like tramps and beggars of the highways.
All at once Prosper, who, like the old Chasseur d'Afrique he was, felt his heart beating so violently with restrained rage that it seemed likely to burst, nudged Silvine in order to call her attention to two of the passing soldiers. He had recognised Maurice and Jean, marching fraternally, side by side, among their comrades; and the little cart having resumed its journey in the wake of the convoy, he was able to follow the two friends with his eyes as far as the suburb of Torcy, whilst they proceeded along the level road which conducts to Iges between gardens and plots of vegetables.
'Ah!' murmured Silvine, lowering her eyes upon Honoré's corpse, profoundly distressed by all she had seen. 'Perhaps the dead are the happier.'
Nightfall surprised them at Wadelincourt, and it had long since been pitch dark when they once more reached Remilly. Old Fouchard was stupefied on beholding his son's corpse, for he had felt certain that it would not be found. For his own part he had employed his day in driving a good bargain. Officers' horses, stolen on the battlefield, were being readily sold at twenty francs apiece, and he had given but five-and-forty francs for three of them.
[CHAPTER II]
THE HORRORS OF CAPTIVITY—STARVATION, MURDER, AND DISEASE
There was such a scramble whilst the column of prisoners was leaving Torcy that Maurice was separated from Jean. And, run as he might afterwards, he only lost himself the more. When he at last reached the bridge thrown across the canal at the base of the peninsula of Iges, he found himself among some Chasseurs d'Afrique and was unable to rejoin his regiment.