The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Desnoyers saw approaching along the highroad the last stragglers from the infantry. They were not walking, they rather appeared to be dragging themselves forward, with the firm intention of advancing, but were betrayed by emaciated legs and bleeding feet. Some had sunk down for a moment by the roadside, agonized with weariness, in order to breathe without the weight of their knapsacks, and draw their swollen feet from their leather prisons, and wipe off the sweat; but upon trying to renew their march, they found it impossible to rise. Their bodies seemed made of stone. Fatigue had brought them to a condition bordering on catalepsy so, unable to move, they were seeing dimly the rest of the army passing on as a fantastic file—battalions, more battalions, batteries, troops of horses. Then the silence, the night, the sleep on the stones and dust, shaken by most terrible nightmare. At daybreak they were awakened by bodies of horsemen exploring the ground, rounding up the remnants of the retreat. Ay, it was impossible to move! The dragoons, revolver in hand, had to resort to threats in order to rouse them! Only the certainty that the pursuer was near and might make them prisoners gave them a momentary vigor. So they were forcing themselves up by superhuman effort, staggering, dragging their legs, and supporting themselves on their guns as though they were canes.

Many of these were young men who had aged in an hour and changed into confirmed invalids. Poor fellows! They would not go very far! Their intention was to follow on, to join the column, but on entering the village they looked at the houses with supplicating eyes, desiring to enter them, feeling such a craving for immediate relief that they forgot even the nearness of the enemy.

Villeblanche was now more military than before the arrival of the troops. The night before a great part of the inhabitants had fled, having become infected with the same fear that was driving on the crowds following the army. The mayor and the priest remained. Reconciled with the owner of the castle through his unexpected presence in their midst, and admiring his liberality, the municipal official approached to give him some news. The engineers were mining the bridge over the Marne. They were only waiting for the dragoons to cross before blowing it up. If he wished to go, there was still time.

Again Desnoyers hesitated. Certainly it was foolhardy to remain there. But a glance at the woods over whose branches rose the towers of his castle, settled his doubts. No, no. . . . “We must finish what we have begun!”

The very last band of troopers now made their appearance, coming out of the woods by different paths. They were riding their horses slowly, as though they deplored this retreat. They kept looking behind, carbine in hand, ready to halt and shoot. The others who had been occupying the barricade were already on their mounts. The division reformed, the commands of the officers were heard and a quick trot, accompanied by the clanking of metal, told Don Marcelo that the last of the army had left.

He remained near the barricade in a solitude of intense silence, as though the world were suddenly depopulated. Two dogs, abandoned by the flight of their masters, leaped and sniffed around him, coaxing him for protection. They were unable to get the desired scent in that land trodden down and disfigured by the transit of thousands of men. A family cat was watching the birds that were beginning to return to their haunts. With timid flutterings they were picking at what the horses had left, and an ownerless hen was disputing the banquet with the winged band, until then hidden in the trees and roofs. The silence intensified the rustling of the leaves, the hum of the insects, the summer respiration of the sunburnt soil which appeared to have contracted timorously under the weight of the men in arms.

Desnoyers was losing exact track of the passing of time. He was beginning to believe that all which had gone before must have been a bad dream. The calm surrounding him made what had been happening here seem most improbable.

Suddenly he saw something moving at the far end of the road, at the very highest point where the white ribbon of the highway touched the blue of the horizon. There were two men on horseback, two little tin soldiers who appeared to have escaped from a box of toys. He had brought with him a pair of field glasses that had often surprised marauders on his property, and by their aid he saw more clearly the two riders clad in greenish gray! They were carrying lances and wearing helmets ending in a horizontal plate . . . They! He could not doubt it: before his eyes were the first Uhlans!

For some time they remained motionless, as though exploring the horizon. Then, from the obscure masses of vegetation that bordered the roadside, others and still others came sallying forth in groups. The little tin soldiers no longer were showing their silhouettes against the horizon’s blue; the whiteness of the highway was now making their background, ascending behind their heads. They came slowly down, like a band that fears ambush, examining carefully everything around.

The advisability of prompt retirement made Don Marcelo bring his investigations to a close. It would be most disastrous for him if they surprised him here. But on lowering his glasses something extraordinary passed across his field of vision. A short distance away, so that he could almost touch them with his hand, he saw many men skulking along in the shadow of the trees on both sides of the road. His surprise increased as he became convinced that they were Frenchmen, wearing kepis. Where were they coming from? . . . He examined more closely with his spy glass. They were stragglers in a lamentable state of body and a picturesque variety of uniforms—infantry, Zouaves, dragoons without their horses. And with them were forest guards and officers from the villages that had received too late the news of the retreat—altogether about fifty. A few were fresh and vigorous, others were keeping themselves up by supernatural effort. All were carrying arms.