CHAPTER IV
AND the troop went off over the flat plain, white with frost beneath the pale winter sun, and overflowed the path as they passed through the beetroot fields.
From the Fourche-aux-Bœufs, Étienne had assumed command. He cried his orders while the crowd moved on, and organised the march. Jeanlin galloped at the head, performing a barbarous music on his horn. Then the women came in the first ranks, some of them armed with sticks: Maheude, with wild eyes seemed to be seeking afar for the promised city of justice, Mother Brûlé, the Levaque woman, Mouquette, striding along beneath their rags, like soldiers setting out for the seat of war. If they had any encounters, we should see if the police dared to strike women. And the men followed in a confused flock, with a roar that grew larger and larger, bristling with iron bars and dominated by Levaque's single axe, with its blade glistening in the sun. Étienne, in the middle, kept Chaval in sight, forcing him to walk before him; while Maheu, behind, gloomily kept an eye on Catherine, the only woman among these men, obstinately trotting near her lover for fear that he would be hurt. Bare heads were dishevelled in the air; only the clank of sabots could be heard, like the movement of released cattle, carried away in Jeanlin's wild trumpeting.
But suddenly a new cry arose:
"Bread! bread! bread!"
It was mid-day; the hunger of six weeks on strike was awaking in these empty stomachs, whipped up by this race across the fields. The few crusts of the morning and Mouquette's chestnuts had long been forgotten; their stomachs were crying out, and this suffering was added to their fury against the traitors.
"To the pits! No more work! Bread!"
Étienne, who had refused to eat his share at the settlement,
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