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“My stars, if here ain’t the gang! Hallo, boys, how are you? My stars, I’m glad to see you!”

They turned, and recognized Chouteau, leaning from a window of the ground floor of the inn. He seemed to be very drunk, and went on, interspersing his speech with hiccoughs:

“Say, fellows, don’t stand on ceremony if you’re thirsty. There’s enough left for the comrades.” He turned unsteadily and called to someone who was invisible within the room: “Come here, you lazybones. Give these gentlemen something to drink–”

Loubet appeared in turn, advancing with a flourish and holding aloft in either hand a full bottle, which he waved above his head triumphantly. He was not so far gone as his companion; with his Parisian blague, imitating the nasal drawl of the coco-venders of the boulevards on a public holiday, he cried:

“Here you are, nice and cool, nice and cool! Who’ll have a drink?”

Nothing had been seen of the precious pair since they had vanished under pretense of taking Sergeant Sapin into the ambulance. It was sufficiently evident that since then they had been strolling and seeing the sights, taking care to keep out of the way of the shells, until finally they had brought up at this inn that was given over to pillage.

Lieutenant Rochas was very angry. “Wait a bit, you scoundrels, just wait, and I’ll attend to your case! deserting and getting drunk while the rest of your company were under fire!”

But Chouteau would have none of his reprimand. “See here, you old lunatic, I want you to understand that the grade of lieutenant is abolished; we are all free and equal now. Aren’t you satisfied with the basting the Prussians gave you to-day, or do you want some more?”

The others had to restrain the lieutenant to keep him from assaulting the socialist. Loubet himself, dandling his bottles affectionately in his arms, did what he could to pour oil upon the troubled waters.

“Quit that, now! what’s the use quarreling, when all men are brothers!” And catching sight of Lapoulle and Pache, his companions in the squad: “Don’t stand there like great gawks, you fellows! Come in here and take something to wash the dust out of your throats.”

Lapoulle hesitated a moment, dimly conscious of the impropriety there was in the indulgence when so many poor devils were in such sore distress, but he was so knocked up with fatigue, so terribly hungry and thirsty! He said not a word, but suddenly making up his mind, gave one bound and landed in the room, pushing before him Pache, who, equally silent, yielded to the temptation he had not strength to resist. And they were seen no more.

“The infernal scoundrels!” muttered Rochas. “They deserve to be shot, every mother’s son of them!”

He had now remaining with him of his party only Jean, Maurice, and Gaude, and all four of them, notwithstanding their resistance, were gradually involved and swallowed up in the torrent of stragglers and fugitives that streamed along the road, filling its whole width from ditch to ditch. Soon they were at a distance from the inn. It was the routed army rolling down upon the ramparts of Sedan, a roily, roaring flood, such as the disintegrated mass of earth and boulders that the storm, scouring the mountainside, sweeps down into the valley. From all the surrounding plateaus, down every slope, up every narrow gorge, by the Floing road, by Pierremont, by the cemetery, by the Champ de Mars, as well as through the Fond de Givonne, the same sorry rabble was streaming cityward in panic haste, and every instant brought fresh accessions to its numbers. And who could reproach those wretched men, who, for twelve long, mortal hours, had stood in motionless array under the murderous artillery of an invisible enemy, against whom they could do nothing? The batteries now were playing on them from front, flank, and rear; as they drew nearer the city they presented a fairer mark for the convergent fire; the guns dealt death and destruction out by wholesale on that dense, struggling mass of men in that accursed hole, where there was no escape from the bursting shells. Some regiments of the 7th corps, more particularly those that had been stationed about Floing, had left the field in tolerably good order, but in the Fond de Givonne there was no longer either organization or command; the troops were a pushing, struggling mob, composed of debris from regiments of every description, zouaves, turcos, chasseurs, infantry of the line, most of them without arms, their uniforms soiled and torn, with grimy hands, blackened faces, bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets and lips swollen and distorted from their yells of fear or rage. At times a riderless horse would dash through the throng, overturning those who were in his path and leaving behind him a long wake of consternation. Then some guns went thundering by at breakneck speed, a retreating battery abandoned by its officers, and the drivers, as if drunk, rode down everything and everyone, giving no word of warning. And still the shuffling tramp of many feet along the dusty road went on and ceased not, the close-compacted column pressed on, breast to back, side to side; a retreat en masse, where vacancies in the ranks were filled as soon as made, all moved by one common impulse, to reach the shelter that lay before them and be behind a wall.