The Downfall

“Here we are! This way, this way!”

The Delaherches seemed delighted to see them in the midst of their surprise. Their faces, pallid with emotion, suddenly brightened, and they displayed by the warmth of their gestures the pleasure they experienced in the encounter. There was one solitary loaf left, which Gilberte insisted on throwing with her own hands, and pitched it into Jean’s extended arms in such a charmingly awkward way that she gave a winsome laugh at her own expense. Maurice, unable to stop on account of the pressure from the rear, turned his head and shouted, in a tone of anxious inquiry:

“And Henriette? Henriette?”

Delaherche replied with a long farrago, but his voice was inaudible in the shuffling tramp of so many feet. He seemed to understand that the young man had failed to catch his meaning, for he gesticulated like a semaphore; there was one gesture in particular that he repeated several times, extending his arm with a sweeping motion toward the south, apparently intending to convey the idea of some point in the remote distance: Off there, away off there. Already the head of the column was wheeling into the Rue du Minil, the facade of the factory was lost to sight, together with the kindly faces of the three Delaherches; the last the two friends saw of them was the fluttering of the white handkerchief with which Gilberte waved them a farewell.

“What did he say?” asked Jean.

Maurice, in a fever of anxiety, was still looking to the rear where there was nothing to be seen. “I don’t know; I could not understand him; I shall have no peace of mind until I hear from her.”

And the trailing, shambling line crept slowly onward, the Prussians urging on the weary men with the brutality of conquerors; the column left the city by the Minil gate in straggling, long-drawn array, hastening their steps, like sheep at whose heels the dogs are snapping.

When they passed through Bazeilles Jean and Maurice thought of Weiss, and cast their eyes about in an effort to distinguish the site of the little house that had been defended with such bravery. While they were at Camp Misery they had heard the woeful tale of slaughter and conflagration that had blotted the pretty village from existence, and the abominations that they now beheld exceeded all they had dreamed of or imagined. At the expiration of twelve days the ruins were smoking still; the tottering walls had fallen in, there were not ten houses standing. It afforded them some small comfort, however, to meet a procession of carts and wheelbarrows loaded with Bavarian helmets and muskets that had been collected after the conflict. That evidence of the chastisement that had been inflicted on those murderers and incendiaries went far toward mitigating the affliction of defeat.

The column was to halt at Douzy to give the men an opportunity to eat breakfast. It was not without much suffering that they reached that place; already the prisoners’ strength was giving out, exhausted as they were by their ten days of fasting. Those who the day before had availed of the abundant supplies to gorge themselves were seized with vertigo, their enfeebled legs refused to support their weight, and their gluttony, far from restoring their lost strength, was a further source of weakness to them. The consequence was that, when the train was halted in a meadow to the left of the village, these poor creatures flung themselves upon the ground with no desire to eat. Wine was wanting; some charitable women who came, bringing a few bottles, were driven off by the sentries. One of them in her affright fell and sprained her ankle, and there ensued a painful scene of tears and hysterics, during which the Prussians confiscated the bottles and drank their contents amid jeers and insulting laughter. This tender compassion of the peasants for the poor soldiers who were being led away into captivity was manifested constantly along the route, while it was said the harshness they displayed toward the generals amounted almost to cruelty. At that same Douzy, only a few days previously, the villagers had hooted and reviled a number of paroled officers who were on their way to Pont-a-Mousson. The roads were not safe for general officers; men wearing the blouse – escaped soldiers, or deserters, it may be – fell on them with pitch-forks and endeavored to take their life as traitors, credulously pinning their faith to that legend of bargain and sale which, even twenty years later, was to continue to shed its opprobrium upon those leaders who had commanded armies in that campaign.

Maurice and Jean ate half their bread, and were so fortunate as to have a mouthful of brandy with which to wash it down, thanks to the kindness of a worthy old farmer. When the order was given to resume their advance, however, the distress throughout the convoy was extreme. They were to halt for the night at Mouzon, and although the march was a short one, it seemed as if it would tax the men’s strength more severely than they could bear; they could not get on their feet without giving utterance to cries of pain, so stiff did their tired legs become the moment they stopped to rest. Many removed their shoes to relieve their galled and bleeding feet. Dysentery continued to rage; a man fell before they had gone half a mile, and they had to prop him against a wall and leave him. A little further on two others sank at the foot of a hedge, and it was night before an old woman came along and picked them up. All were stumbling, tottering, and dragging themselves along, supporting their forms with canes, which the Prussians, perhaps in derision, had suffered them to cut at the margin of a wood. They were a straggling array of tramps and beggars, covered with sores, haggard, emaciated, and footsore; a sight to bring tears to the eyes of the most stony-hearted. And the guards continued to be as brutally strict as ever; those who for any purpose attempted to leave the ranks were driven back with blows, and the platoon that brought up the rear had orders to prod with their bayonets those who hung back. A sergeant having refused to go further, the captain summoned two of his men and instructed them to seize him, one by either arm, and in this manner the wretched man was dragged over the ground until he agreed to walk. And what made the whole thing more bitter and harder to endure was the utter insignificance of that little pimply-faced, bald-headed officer, so insufferably consequential in his brutality, who took advantage of his knowledge of French to vituperate the prisoners in it in curt, incisive words that cut and stung like the lash of a whip.

“Oh!” Maurice furiously exclaimed, “to get the puppy in my hands and drain him of his blood, drop by drop!”

His powers of endurance were almost exhausted, but it was his rage that he had to choke down, even more than his fatigue, that was cause of his suffering. Everything exasperated him and set on edge his tingling nerves; the harsh notes of the Prussian trumpets particularly, which inspired him with a desire to scream each time he heard them. He felt he should never reach the end of their cruel journey without some outbreak that would bring down on him the utmost severity of the guard. Even now, when traversing the smallest hamlets, he suffered horribly and felt as if he should die with shame to behold the eyes of the women fixed pityingly on him; what would it be when they should enter Germany, and the populace of the great cities should crowd the streets to laugh and jeer at them as they passed? And he pictured to himself the cattle cars into which they would be crowded for transportation, the discomforts and humiliations they would have to suffer on the journey, the dismal life in German fortresses under the leaden, wintry sky. No, no; he would have none of it; better to take the risk of leaving his bones by the roadside on French soil than go and rot off yonder, for months and months, perhaps, in the dark depths of a casemate.

“Listen,” he said below his breath to Jean, who was walking at his side; “we will wait until we come to a wood; then we’ll break through the guards and run for it among the trees. The Belgian frontier is not far away; we shall have no trouble in finding someone to guide us to it.”

Jean, accustomed as he was to look at things coolly and calculate chances, put his veto on the mad scheme, although he, too, in his revolt, was beginning to meditate the possibilities of an escape.

“Have you taken leave of your senses! the guard will fire on us, and we shall both be killed.”

But Maurice replied there was a chance the soldiers might not hit them, and then, after all, if their aim should prove true, it would not matter so very much.

“Very well!” rejoined Jean, “but what is going to become of us afterward, dressed in uniform as we are? You know perfectly well that the country is swarming in every direction with Prussian troops; we could not go far unless we had other clothes to put on. No, no, my lad, it’s too risky; I’ll not let you attempt such an insane project.”

And he took the young man’s arm and held it pressed against his side, as if they were mutually sustaining each other, continuing meanwhile to chide and soothe him in a tone that was at once rough and affectionate.

Just then the sound of a whispered conversation close behind them caused them to turn and look around. It was Chouteau and Loubet, who had left the peninsula of Iges that morning at the same time as they, and whom they had managed to steer clear of until the present moment. Now the two worthies were close at their heels, and Chouteau must have overheard Maurice’s words, his plan for escaping through the mazes of a forest, for he had adopted it on his own behalf. His breath was hot upon their neck as he murmured:

“Say, comrades, count us in on that. That’s a capital idea of yours, to skip the ranch. Some of the boys have gone already, and sure we’re not going to be such fools as to let those bloody pigs drag us away like dogs into their infernal country. What do you say, eh? Shall we four make a break for liberty?”

Maurice’s excitement was rising to fever-heat again; Jean turned and said to the tempter:

“If you are so anxious to get away, why don’t you go? there’s nothing to prevent you. What are you up to, any way?”

He flinched a little before the corporal’s direct glance, and allowed the true motive of his proposal to escape him.

“Dame! it would be better that four should share the undertaking. One or two of us might have a chance of getting off.”

Then Jean, with an emphatic shake of the head, refused to have anything whatever to do with the matter; he distrusted the gentleman, he said, as he was afraid he would play them some of his dirty tricks. He had to exert all his authority with Maurice to retain him on his side, for at that very moment an opportunity presented itself for attempting the enterprise; they were passing the border of a small but very dense wood, separated from the road only by the width of a field that was covered by a thick growth of underbrush. Why should they not dash across that field and vanish in the thicket? was there not safety for them in that direction?

Loubet had so far said nothing. His mind was made up, however, that he was not going to Germany to run to seed in one of their dungeons, and his nose, mobile as a hound’s, was sniffing the atmosphere, his shifty eyes were watching for the favorable moment. He would trust to his legs and his mother wit, which had always helped him out of his scrapes thus far. His decision was quickly made.

“Ah, zut! I’ve had enough of it; I’m off!”

He broke through the line of the escort, and with a single bound was in the field, Chouteau following his example and running at his side. Two of the Prussian soldiers immediately started in pursuit, but the others seemed dazed, and it did not occur to them to send a ball after the fugitives. The entire episode was so soon over that it was not easy to note its different phases. Loubet dodged and doubled among the bushes and it appeared as if he would certainly succeed in getting off, while Chouteau, less nimble, was on the point of being captured, but the latter, summoning up all his energies in a supreme burst of speed, caught up with his comrade and dexterously tripped him; and while the two Prussians were lumbering up to secure the fallen man, the other darted into the wood and vanished. The guard, finally remembering that they had muskets, fired a few ineffectual shots, and there was some attempt made to search the thicket, which resulted in nothing.

Meantime the two soldiers were pummeling poor Loubet, who had not regained his feet. The captain came running up, beside himself with anger, and talked of making an example, and with this encouragement kicks and cuffs and blows from musket-butts continued to rain down upon the wretched man with such fury that when at last they stood him on his feet he was found to have an arm broken and his skull fractured. A peasant came along, driving a cart, in which he was placed, but he died before reaching Mouzon.

“You see,” was all that Jean said to Maurice.

The two friends cast a look in the direction of the wood that sufficiently expressed their sentiments toward the scoundrel who had gained his freedom by such base means, while their hearts were stirred with feelings of deepest compassion for the poor devil whom he had made his victim, a guzzler and a toper, who certainly did not amount to much, but a merry, good-natured fellow all the same, and nobody’s fool. And that was always the way with those who kept bad company, Jean moralizingly observed: they might be very fly, but sooner or later a bigger rascal was sure to come along and make a meal of them.

Notwithstanding this terrible lesson Maurice, upon reaching Mouzon, was still possessed by his unalterable determination to attempt an escape. The prisoners were in such an exhausted condition when they reached the place that the Prussians had to assist them to set up the few tents that were placed at their disposal. The camp was formed near the town, on low and marshy ground, and the worst of the business was that another convoy having occupied the spot the day before, the field was absolutely invisible under the superincumbent filth; it was no better than a common cesspool, of unimaginable foulness. The sole means the men had of self-protection was to scatter over the ground some large flat stones, of which they were so fortunate as to find a number in the vicinity. By way of compensation they had a somewhat less hard time of it that evening; the strictness of their guardians was relaxed a little once the captain had disappeared, doubtless to seek the comforts of an inn. The sentries began by winking at the irregularity of the proceeding when some children came along and commenced to toss fruit, apples and pears, over their heads to the prisoners; the next thing was they allowed the people of the neighborhood to enter the lines, so that in a short time the camp was swarming with impromptu merchants, men and women, offering for sale bread, wine, cigars, even. Those who had money had no trouble in supplying their needs so far as eating, drinking, and smoking were concerned. A bustling animation prevailed in the dim twilight; it was like a corner of the market place in a town where a fair is being held.

But Maurice drew Jean behind their tent and again said to him in his nervous, flighty way:

“I can’t stand it; I shall make an effort to get away as soon as it is dark. To-morrow our course will take us away from the frontier; it will be too late.”

“Very well, we’ll try it,” Jean replied, his powers of resistance exhausted, his imagination, too, seduced by the pleasing idea of freedom. “They can’t do more than kill us.”

After that he began to scrutinize more narrowly the venders who surrounded him on every side. There were some among the comrades who had succeeded in supplying themselves with blouse and trousers, and it was reported that some of the charitable people of the place had regular stocks of garments on hand, designed to assist prisoners in escaping. And almost immediately his attention was attracted to a pretty girl, a tall blonde of sixteen with a pair of magnificent eyes, who had on her arm a basket containing three loaves of bread. She was not crying her wares like the rest; an anxious, engaging smile played on her red lips, her manner was hesitating. He looked her steadily in the face; their glances met and for an instant remained confounded. Then she came up, with the embarrassed smile of a girl unaccustomed to such business.

“Do you wish to buy some bread?”

He made no reply, but questioned her by an imperceptible movement of the eyelids. On her answering yes, by an affirmative nod of the head, he asked in a very low tone of voice:

“There is clothing?”

“Yes, under the loaves.”

Then she began to cry her merchandise aloud: “Bread! bread! who’ll buy my bread?” But when Maurice would have slipped a twenty-franc piece into her fingers she drew back her hand abruptly and ran away, leaving the basket with them. The last they saw of her was the happy, tender look in her pretty eyes, as in the distance she turned and smiled on them.

When they were in possession of the basket Jean and Maurice found difficulties staring them in the face. They had strayed away from their tent, and in their agitated condition felt they should never succeed in finding it again. Where were they to bestow themselves? and how effect their change of garments? It seemed to them that the eyes of the entire assemblage were focused on the basket, which Jean carried with an awkward air, as if it contained dynamite, and that its contents must be plainly visible to everyone. It would not do to waste time, however; they must be up and doing. They stepped into the first vacant tent they came to, where each of them hurriedly slipped on a pair of trousers and donned a blouse, having first deposited their discarded uniforms in the basket, which they placed on the ground in a dark corner of the tent and abandoned to its fate. There was a circumstance that gave them no small uneasiness, however; they found only one head-covering, a knitted woolen cap, which Jean insisted Maurice should wear. The former, fearing his bare-headedness might excite suspicion, was hanging about the precincts of the camp on the lookout for a covering of some description, when it occurred to him to purchase his hat from an extremely dirty old man who was selling cigars.

“Brussels cigars, three sous apiece, two for five!”

Customs regulations were in abeyance since the battle of Sedan, and the imports of Belgian merchandise had been greatly stimulated. The old man had been making a handsome profit from his traffic, but that did not prevent him from driving a sharp bargain when he understood the reason why the two men wanted to buy his hat, a greasy old affair of felt with a great hole in its crown. He finally consented to part with it for two five-franc pieces, grumbling that he should certainly have a cold in his head.

Then Jean had another idea, which was neither more nor less than to buy out the old fellow’s stock in trade, the two dozen cigars that remained unsold. The bargain effected, he pulled his hat down over his eyes and began to cry in the itinerant hawker’s drawling tone:

“Here you are, Brussels cigars, two for three sous, two for three sous!”

Their safety was now assured. He signaled Maurice to go on before. It happened to the latter to discover an umbrella lying on the grass; he picked it up and, as a few drops of rain began to fall just then, opened it tranquilly as they were about to pass the line of sentries.

“Two for three sous, two for three sous, Brussels cigars!”

It took Jean less than two minutes to dispose of his stock of merchandise. The men came crowding about him with chaff and laughter: a reasonable fellow, that; he didn’t rob poor chaps of their money! The Prussians themselves were attracted by such unheard-of bargains, and he was compelled to trade with them. He had all the time been working his way toward the edge of the enceinte, and his last two cigars went to a big sergeant with an immense beard, who could not speak a word of French.

“Don’t walk so fast, confound it!” Jean breathed in a whisper behind Maurice’s back. “You’ll have them after us.”