The Downfall (La Débâcle): A Story of the Horrors of War

by Émile Zola

At sunrise on the morrow Maurice arose. The sky was clear, and he was eager to join Jean and his comrades. For a moment he had an idea of again scouring the interior of the peninsula, but on reflection he resolved to complete his round. And just as he again reached the bank of the canal, he perceived the remnants of the 106th, a thousand men or so, encamped on the bank, which was screened only by a meagre row of poplars. Had he turned to the left on the previous day instead of going straight before him he would at once have overtaken his regiment. Indeed, nearly all the infantry were heaped together here, along that bank stretching from Glaire Tower to the château of Villette, another country seat, surrounded by a few old houses, in the direction of Donchery; and they were all bivouacking near the bridge, near the only outlet, in that same instinctive desire for liberty which causes a flock of sheep to press near the gate of the fold.

At sight of Maurice, Jean raised a cry of delight: 'Ah! here you are at last! I fancied you were in the river.'

With the corporal were the remaining men of his squad, Pache and Lapoulle, Loubet and Chouteau, who, after sleeping here and there under the doorways of Sedan, had eventually been swept together by the Prussian patrols. So far as their company was concerned, the corporal was the only superior they had left them, for death had carried away Sergeant Sapin, Lieutenant Rochas, and Captain Beaudoin; and although the victors had abolished all distinctions of rank among the prisoners, deciding that they henceforth owed obedience only to the German officers, the four men had none the less drawn together around Jean, knowing that he was prudent and experienced, a man to cling to in difficult circumstances. And thus, that morning, in spite of the stupidity of some and the ill will of others, concord and good humour were paramount among the little party. To begin with, Jean had found them a spot between two water furrows where the ground was almost dry; and since they had only half a shelter tent left between them all, they had here stretched themselves out to pass the night. Then, too, Jean had just managed to procure some wood and a pot, in which Loubet had made them some nice warm coffee, which had quite inspirited them. The rain was no longer falling, the day seemed likely to be a very fine one, and they still had a little biscuit and bacon left; moreover, as Chouteau remarked, it was delightful to have no orders to obey, and to be able to loaf about just as one chose. They were captives, no doubt, but all the same there was plenty of room. Besides, in two or three days' time they would be off on the road to Germany. And thus that first day, September 4, which chanced to be a Sunday, proved a gay one.

Maurice, himself, in better spirits since he had joined his comrades, experienced but little suffering, save such as was caused him by the Prussian bands, which played throughout the afternoon on the other side of the canal. There was psalm-singing in chorus towards the evening; and, beyond the cordon of sentries, the German soldiers strolled to and fro in little groups, slowly and loudly chanting in celebration of the Sabbath.

'Oh, that music!' Maurice exclaimed at last in his exasperation. 'It pierces me through and through.'

Jean, whose nerves were less susceptible, shrugged his shoulders: 'Well, they have good reason to be pleased. Besides, they perhaps think that they are entertaining us. The day hasn't been an unpleasant one, we mustn't grumble.'

At the fall of night, however, the rain came down again. It was a perfect disaster. Some soldiers had taken possession of the few abandoned houses on the peninsula. A few others had managed to set up tents. But the greater number, lacking any kind of shelter, destitute even of blankets, had to spend the night in the open air under the torrential downpour. At about one in the morning, Maurice, who had dozed off with fatigue, awoke, and found himself in a perfect lake. The water furrows, swollen by the rain, had overflowed, submerging the ground where he had stretched himself to sleep. Chouteau and Loubet were swearing with rage, whilst Pache began shaking Lapoulle, who was still sound asleep amid all this flood. Then Jean, bethinking himself of the poplars planted alongside the canal, hastened to them for shelter with his men, who, bending down, spent the remainder of that frightful night with their backs against the trunks, and their legs doubled under them to protect them from the big rain drops.

And the morrow and the following day proved really abominable; so heavy and so frequent were the showers that the men's clothes never once had time to dry. Famine was beginning, too; there was not a biscuit, not a bit of bacon, not a grain of coffee left. During those two days, the Monday and the Tuesday, they lived on potatoes stolen from the neighbouring fields; and even these became so scarce at the close of the second day that men with money bought them at the rate of five sous apiece. It is true that bugles sounded to rations, and the corporal had in all haste repaired to a large shed at Glaire Tower, where, so it was rumoured, rations of bread were being distributed. But on the first occasion he had waited there to no purpose for three hours, and on the second he had had a quarrel with a Bavarian. The French officers being unable to do anything to assist their men, in the powerless position to which they were reduced, it really seemed as though the German staff had herded the vanquished army together there in the rain with the intention of starving it to death. No steps apparently were taken, not an attempt was made to feed those eighty thousand men, whose agony was now beginning in that frightful hell which was to acquire the name of the Camp of Misery, a name of woe which in after times the bravest could not recall without a shudder.

On returning from his long, useless waits before the shed, Jean, as a rule so calm, flew into quite a passion. 'Are they playing the fool with us, sounding to rations like that when there's nothing? I'm dashed if I'll trouble to go there again.'

And yet at the first call he again hastened thither. These regulation bugle-calls were positively inhuman, and they produced another result which wrung Maurice's heart. Each time that the bugles sounded, the abandoned French horses, at large on the other side of the canal, galloped up and leaped into the water, as excited by those well-known flourishes as by the prick of the spur. Exhausted by hunger, however, they were mostly carried off by the current, few of them managing to reach the bank of the peninsula. They could be seen struggling lamentably, and so large a number of them was drowned that at last their floating, inflated carcases obstructed the canal. As for those that managed to land, they were seized with madness, as it were, and galloped away across the waste fields.