Jean was again gazing at the pontoon bridge below them. 'Look!' said he, 'it will all give way. We shall never get across.'
The fires were now burning higher on both banks, and their glow had become so bright that the frightful scene was clearly visible. The pontoons, supporting the timbers, had ended by sinking beneath the weight of all the artillery and cavalry that had passed over them since the morning, and the brow or platform of the bridge was a few inches under water. Two by two, in endless files went the Cuirassiers, who were now crossing the stream, slowly emerging from the darkness on one bank, and passing at last into that on the other. As the bridge could no longer be seen, it seemed as though they were marching on the water, on the brightly illumined river, in which a lurid conflagration was dancing. The neighing horses, with their manes raised and their legs stiffened by fright, advanced but slowly over the swaying bridge, which seemed to be gliding away beneath them. Erect in their stirrups, and with tightened reins, still did the Cuirassiers pass and pass, all uniformly draped in long white cloaks, and their helmets blazing with fiery reflections. They looked like phantom horsemen, with flaming hair, marching away to some tenebrous warfare.
A deep plaint escaped from Jean's contracted throat: 'Oh! how hungry I am!'
The men around him, despite the complaining groans of their empty stomachs, had now fallen asleep. Their weariness was so intense that it had finally mastered their fears, and had stretched them on their backs with open mouths, overwhelmed beneath the dark sky which no moon illumined. From one to the other end of those bare hills, waiting and expectancy had now given place to a death-like silence.
'Oh! how hungry I am, so hungry I could eat the very earth.' Such was the cry which Jean, so inured to hardship and usually so silent, was no longer able to restrain; a cry which he raised despite himself, in the delirium caused by privation; for six-and-thirty hours had now elapsed since he had partaken of any food. Then Maurice, who realised that their regiment would not cross the Meuse at least for another two or three hours, made up his mind to speak: 'Listen,' said he, 'I have an uncle living near here; uncle Fouchard, whom I told you about. His place is over there, some five or six hundred yards away. I hesitated about going, but since you are so hungry we had better try him. He will give us some bread at all events.' Thereupon he led his unresisting comrade away.
Old Fouchard's little farm was situated on the outskirts of the defile of Haraucourt, near the plateau where the reserve artillery was encamped. There was a low house, with outbuildings of considerable extent, a barn, a cowshed, and a stable: and, in a kind of coach-house on the other side of the road, the old peasant had installed his butcher's business. It was there that he slaughtered the animals which he subsequently hawked through the surrounding villages in his cart. As the two men drew near to the place Maurice was surprised not to see any light in the house. 'The old miser!' he muttered; 'he must have barricaded himself indoors—he won't open.'
On reaching the road, the young fellow stopped short at sight of a dozen marauding soldiers—hungry rascals, no doubt, on the prowl for something to fill their maws with—who were moving hither and thither in front of the farmhouse. They had begun by calling; then they had knocked; and now, as the house remained quite black and silent, they were battering the door with the butt-ends of their guns with the object of breaking the lock open. Gruff voices could be heard roaring: 'Thunder! Hit harder! Break the cursed door down, since there's no one inside.'
Suddenly, however, the shutter of a garret window was flung back, and a tall old man, wearing a blouse and with his head bare, appeared carrying a tallow candle in one hand and a gun in the other. He had coarse white hair and a square, broadly wrinkled face, with a prominent nose, large light-coloured eyes and a chin expressive of obstinate self-will.
'Are you fellows thieves, that you are smashing everything like that?' he shouted in a harsh voice. 'What on earth do you want?'
The soldiers drew back, somewhat abashed: 'We are dying of hunger. We want something to eat,' they answered.