'No truth in it? What! it isn't true that we have been sold? It wouldn't be surprising if a toff like you happened to belong to that band of swinish traitors. If that's the case,' continued Chouteau, stepping forward in a threatening way, 'you had better say so, Mr. Gentleman, because we can settle your hash at once, without waiting for your friend Bismarck.'
The others also were beginning to growl, and Jean thought it his duty to intervene: 'Keep quiet, all of you: I'll report the first one who stirs.'
But Chouteau, with a sneer, began to hoot him. He didn't care a rap for his report. He'd fight or not, just as he pleased, and they'd better not bother him, for his cartridges would do just as well for others as for the Prussians. Now that the battle was beginning, the little discipline that fear had still maintained would be swept away. What could they do to him? He meant to skedaddle as soon as he had had enough of it. And he went on talking in an insulting fashion, exciting the others against the corporal, who suffered them to die of hunger. Yes, it was Jean's fault if the squad had had nothing to eat for three days past, whereas the comrades had soupe and meat. Mr. Jean and the toff, however, had gone to feast with some wenches. Yes, indeed, others had seen their goings-on at Sedan.
'You've spent the squad's money,' shouted Chouteau at last; 'you daren't deny it, you cursed jobber!'
Matters were getting serious. Lapoulle clenched his fist, and even Pache, usually so gentle but now maddened by hunger, demanded an explanation of Jean. The only sensible one was Loubet, who began to laugh, saying that it was idiotic for Frenchmen to fall out when the Prussians were there close by. He wasn't a partisan of quarrelling either with fists or with guns, and, alluding to the few hundred francs he had received as a substitute, he added: 'Well, if they fancy my skin's worth no more than that I'll undeceive them. I'm not going to give them more than their money's worth.'
Maurice and Jean, however, exasperated by Chouteau's idiotic onslaught, replied in violent terms, and were spurning the charges levelled at them, when all at once a loud voice rang out through the fog: 'What's the row there? Who are the stupid clowns disputing like that?'
Then Lieutenant Rochas appeared to view, with his cap discoloured by the rain, his overcoat merely retaining a button here and there, and the whole of his lank, awkward person in a pitiable condition of neglect and wretchedness. And yet he had none the less assumed a victorious swagger, his moustaches bristling and his eyes flaring.
'Please, sir,' replied Jean, quite beside himself, 'it's these men who are shouting that we are sold. Yes, they say our generals have sold us.'
To the narrow mind of Rochas this idea of treachery did not appear altogether unreasonable, for it explained defeats which he did not consider admissible. 'Well, what the deuce is it to them if they have been sold?' he answered. 'What business is it of theirs? At any rate, it doesn't alter the fact that the Prussians are here now, and that we are going to give them one of those lickings that are remembered.'