Vachérauville. It is broad daylight. We have called a halt on a piece of uncultivated land on the side of a hill. I am still feeling dull and knocked up after the long night passed in the box-like carriage.
There are about a thousand of us altogether. The men, having piled arms and thrown themselves down on the ground, are sleeping, too tired even to ask questions. Indeed, the detachment commander himself appears to be ignorant as to our final destination. He is a dear old fellow in spectacles. I can just imagine him by his own fireside, his feet in slippers, poking away and smoking a big pipe. I shall never get used to seeing him on horseback!
That nuisance, L … promoted medical officer, fusses about here and there, his tongue wagging ceaselessly:
"What is this water? It's bad! Typhoid! Typhoid!—And where do you come from, young man? Have you any cartridges?—Give that horse something to drink!—This chasseur is ill.—You are ill, my friend!—Yes, yes. You are ill!—Just show me your tongue!—Ah, we must dose you. Yes!—Yes! What, not ill? No? Not ill? More's the pity! They should have taken away his spurs!…"
A lamenting voice rings out:
"Where's the officer! Where's the officer!"
An old woman hastens up, her cap all awry, her hands raised to the skies.
"What shall I do? They have taken away the canopy of my well to make a fire. Who is going to indemnify me for it?…"
Loss, damage, indemnity; words, alas, we are to hear often enough!
Midday. Conveyances are passing along the road at the foot of the hill: huge four-wheeled wains, each drawn by a thin, mangy horse. Wickerwork baskets, bales of household goods, rabbit hutches, have hastily been flung into them. On the top, mattresses, pillows, eiderdowns of a faded red have been piled. And on these are sitting women with backs hunched and bent, their clasped hands drooping over their knees, their eyes dull and blank. One cannot tell from their expressionless faces whether or not they are suffering. They seem to be immersed in reflections purely animal and without end. Here and there from amid this lamentable medley of goods protrude the heads of dirty-nosed urchins, with light hair tangled and matted. A few bellowing cows follow the wagon, dragging at the ropes by which they are tied, and lowing. An awkward youth with large hands and immense feet, whip in hand, drives them forward by kicking them lustily in the haunches.