It was Maurice who, at a bend of the road, on the hill over yonder, had at last caught sight of the Seventh Corps. For a couple of hours he had been scouring the country, deceived by what a peasant had told him, and taken out of his way by the covert ill-will of the young fellow driving him, who was in quite a fever of fear lest they should meet the Prussians. As soon as Maurice reached the farm he sprang out of the vehicle and immediately joined his regiment.
'What! you here!' exclaimed Jean, quite stupefied. 'Why's that? We were going to call for you on the road.'
With a gesture Maurice expressed all his anger and his grief. 'Ah, yes! But the march is no longer that way; we are going over _there_ to find our graves.'
'All right,' the corporal, turning quite pale, replied after an interval of silence. 'At least we shall get our heads cracked together.'
And, as they had parted, so did they meet again with an embrace. Under the beating downpour the private sought his place in the ranks, whilst the corporal, streaming with rain-water, set an example of stoicism by abstaining from all complaint.
The news, however, was now spreading. The rumour had become a certainty. They were no longer retreating upon Paris, but again marching upon the Meuse. One of the marshal's aides-de-camp had just brought the Seventh Corps orders to proceed to Nouart and encamp there, whilst the Fifth, advancing on Beauclair, was to form the right wing of the army, and the First was to make for Le Chêne, there to replace the Twelfth, now marching on La Besace, on the left. And if thirty and odd thousand men had been waiting on that plateau with arms grounded for nearly three hours and exposed to that furious hurricane, it was because General Douay, amid the lamentable confusion occasioned by this change of front, experienced intense disquietude as to the fate of the convoy which on the previous day he had sent forward to Chagny. It was necessary to wait until it joined the corps, and it was reported that it had been cut in two at Le Chêne by the Twelfth Corps' convoy. On the other hand, a portion of the _matériel_--including all the field smithies--having taken the wrong direction, was now returning from Terron by the road to Vouziers, where it would certainly fall into the hands of the Germans. Never was there greater disorder, never was anxiety more keen.