'We saw the guns,' so the Provençal asserted, 'and those devils must be madmen to risk sending them along the forest roads, in which one sinks to the shins on account of the late rain.'
'Somebody is guiding them, that's certain,' declared the ex-process-server, in his turn.
Since their experiences at Vouziers, however, the general no longer believed in the reported concentration of the two German armies, which had been dinned into his ears, he said, till he was sick and tired of it. And he did not even consider it worth his while to send the Francs-tireurs to the commander of the Seventh Corps, to whom, by the way, the men thought they were speaking. If one had listened to all the peasants and prowlers who came with so-called information, the army would no longer have taken a step without being turned to right or left, and launched into unheard-of adventures. However, as the three Francs-tireurs knew the country, the general ordered them to remain and accompany the column.
'All the same,' said Jean to Maurice as they were returning to the camp to fold up their tent; 'all the same, those are good fellows to have come four leagues across country to warn us.'
The young man assented; he considered that the Francs-tireurs were in the right. He also knew the country, and felt extremely uneasy at the thought that the Prussians were in the Dieulet woods advancing upon Sommauthe and Beaumont. In the dawn of what he instinctively felt would be a terrible day, he had seated himself on the ground, weary already, although they had not yet started on the march; but his stomach was empty, and his heart oppressed with anguish.
Worried to see him look so pale, the corporal, in a fatherly way, inquired: 'Still queer, eh? Is it your foot again?'
Maurice shook his head. Thanks to the broad shoes he was now wearing, his foot was very much better.
'You are hungry, then?' And, as he did not reply, Jean, without being observed, took one of the two remaining biscuits out of his knapsack, and then, frankly lying, said, 'There, I kept your share for you. I ate the other one just now.'
The dawn was breaking when the Seventh Corps left Oches, on the way to Mouzon, through La Besace, where it ought to have slept. First of all, the terrible convoy had gone off escorted by the First Division, and whilst the train waggons, drawn by capital horses, set out at a good pace, the vehicles that had been requisitioned, empty for the most part and useless, dawdled in the strangest way between the ridges of the defile of Stonne. The road rises—more particularly after passing the hamlet of La Berlière—between wooded hills which overlook it. At about eight o'clock, just as the two other divisions were at last setting out, Marshal MacMahon made his appearance, and was exasperated at still finding there the troops, whom he fancied would have left La Besace at dawn with only a few miles to cover in order to reach Mouzon. And, not unnaturally, he had a lively altercation with General Douay. It was decided that the First Division and the convoy should be allowed to continue their march on Mouzon, but that the other division should take the road to Raucourt and Autrecourt, so as to pass the Meuse at Villers, by which plan they would no longer be retarded by that heavy, slow-travelling advance-guard. Once more, then, they had to take a northerly direction, so eager was the marshal in his desire to place the Meuse between his army and the enemy. They must, at any cost, be on the right bank of the river that evening. Yet the rear-guard was still at Oches, when a Prussian battery on a distant summit, in the direction of St. Pierremont, again began the game of the day before, and fired. At first the French unwisely returned the fire, but eventually the last troops fell back.