But the most terrible thing of all was the great ambulances in the middle of the road filled with the wounded. The drivers had cut the traces and fled with the horses for fear of being taken prisoners. The poor half-dead wretches, with their arms hanging down, looked at us as we passed with despairing eyes. When I think of all this now, it reminds me of the tufts of straw and hay which lodge among the bushes after an inundation. We say "That is our harvest, this is our crop, that is what the tempest has left us." Ah! I have had many such reflections during fifty years! What grieved me most and made my heart bleed in the midst of this rout was that I could not discover a single man of our battalion besides ourselves. I said to myself, "They cannot all be dead;" and I said to Buche: "If I could only find Zebede it would give me back my courage." But he replied: "Let us try to save ourselves, Joseph. As for me, if I ever see Harberg again, I will not complain because I have to eat potatoes. No, no. God has punished me. I shall be contented to work and go into the woods with my axe on my shoulder. If only I do not go home maimed, and if I am not compelled to hold out my hand at the roadside in order to live, like so many others. Let us try to get home safe and sound." I thought he showed great good sense. At about half-past ten, as we reached the environs of Genappe, terrible cries were heard in the distance. Fires of straw had been lighted in the middle of the principal street to give light to the multitude, and we could see from where we were, that the houses were full of people and the streets so full of horses and baggage that they could not move a step. We knew that the Prussians might come at any moment, and that they would have cannon; and that it would be better for us if we went round the village than to be taken prisoners altogether. This was why we turned to the left across the grain fields with a great many others. We crossed the Thy in water up to our waists, and toward midnight we reached Quatre-Bras. We had done well not to stop at Genappe, for we already heard the roar of the Prussian cannon and musketry near the village. Great numbers of fugitives came along the road, cuirassiers, lancers, and chasseurs. Not one of them stopped. We began to be terribly hungry. We knew very well that everything in these houses must have been eaten long ago, but still we went into the one on the left. The floor was covered with straw, on which the wounded were lying. We had hardly opened the door when they all began to cry out at once; to tell the truth, the stench was so horrible that we left immediately and took the road to Charleroi. The moon shone beautifully, and we could see on the right amongst the grain a quantity of dead men, who had not yet been buried.