nearly ten o'clock
And there , before her , prone at the wall 's foot , she saw her husband 's corpse , and in her despair and grief would fain have returned to him , but just then another crowd came up and surged around her , the bugles were sounding the signal to retire , she was borne away , she knew not how , among the retreating troops . Her faculty of self-guidance left her ; she was as a bit of flotsam swept onward by the eddying human tide that streamed along the way . And that was all she could remember until she became herself again and found she was at Balan , among strangers , her head reclined upon a table in a kitchen , weeping . It was nearly ten o'clock up on the Plateau de l'Algerie , and still the men of Beaudoin 's company were resting supine , among the cabbages , in the field whence they had not budged since early morning . The cross fire from the batteries on Hattoy and the peninsula of Iges was hotter than ever ; it had just killed two more of their number , and there were no orders for them to advance . Were they to stay there and be shelled all day , without a chance to see anything of the fighting ? They were even denied the relief of discharging their chassepots .