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They demanded our papers and took us before the mayor, and the rascals forced us to shout "Vive le Roi!" It was shameful, and the old soldiers rather than do it allowed themselves to be taken to prison. Buche wanted to follow their example, but I said to him, "What harm will it do us to shout Vive Jean Claude, or Vive Jean Nicholas?
I wanted Buche to eat with us too, and the six men belonging to our mess, who had all escaped with only bruises and scratches, consented. Padoue, the drum-major, said, laughing, "Veterans are always veterans, they never come empty-handed."
Everybody rose and the sun came up splendidly over the grain fields, and we could feel beforehand how hot it would be at noon. Buche and all the detailed men set off with their canteens for water, while others were lighting handfuls of straw with tinder for their fires. There was no lack of wood, as each one took an armful from the piles that were already cut.
Toward five o'clock we reached a village where the battalions and squadrons filed over a bridge built of brick. This village had been taken by our vanguard, and in going through it, we saw some of the Prussians stretched out in the little streets on the right and left, and I said to Jean Buche: "Those are Prussians, I saw them at Lutzen and Leipzig, and you are going to see them too, Jean."
Buche would say: "I do not care for the rain, I have been through many a worse one when on the watch; but then I had at least a crust of bread and some onions and salt." I was quite absorbed with my own troubles and said nothing, but he was angry. The rain ceased between two and three in the morning.
He shook my hand, and I said: "I promise." "Well!" he added, "it is here on my breast. You must carry it to Harberg and hang it up in the chapel in remembrance of Jean Buche, dead in the faith of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." He spoke very earnestly, and I thought his wish very natural.
I said to Buche: "Let us leave the whole thing, and return to Pfalzbourg and Harberg, let us go back to our trades and live like honest people. If the Austrians and Russians come there, the mountaineers and villagers will know how to defend themselves. We shall need no great battles to destroy thousands of them, let us go!"
Zébédé was not always with me now, and my closest comrade was Jean Buche, the son of a sledge-maker at Harberg, who had never eaten anything better than potatoes before he became a conscript. Buche turned in his feet in walking, but he never seemed to know the meaning of being tired, and in his own fashion was a wonderful pedestrian.
On getting up I heard a whizzing in my ears, but that did not prevent me from seeing a ladder placed at the window of the barn. Buche was using his bayonet with great effect on the invaders. The Prussians thought to profit by our surprise to mount the ladder and butcher us; this made me shudder, but I ran to the assistance of my comrade.
The brandy made us look at everything on the bright side already, and I said to Buche: "Jean, now the worst is over and we shall see Pfalzbourg and Harberg again. We are on a good road which will take us back to France.
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