Seven Men of Gascony

by R. F Delderfield

  “And what is your opinion?”

  “Men will do most things for money. This man was well paid by an old customer.”

  “Is that all, Corporal?”

  “No, sire, the smuggler was a deserter from the navy and like most of the pressed men he had been barbarously treated by officers. He had had his patriotism flogged out of him!”

  Napoleon sat bolt upright with disconcerting suddenness. Constant, accustomed to his Imperial master’s nervous movements, made a deft sidestep, raising the lather-crusted blade level with his shoulder.

  “Yet their navy continues to win victories. It beats our navy off the seas! Can you explain that, Corporal?”

  “By another opinion, sire,” said Nicholas doggedly.

  “Come, come—I’m asking you!”

  Jean held his breath and felt his palms sweating. Roustam, the Emperor’s gorgeously attired Mameluke, came in with silent tread and stood behind his master’s chair, his white eyeballs gleaming in the light of the hanging lamps.

  Nicholas spoke slowly, as though considering every word.

  “The English are a family, and families quarrel furiously until one of their number is attacked by somebody outside the circle. Pressed men hate the service until they are within range of an enemy vessel. Then the habit of discipline and their own temperament are too strong for them. They fight as well as anyone in the world. Afterwards, if they survive, they persuade themselves that they share the glory with their officers.”

  Napoleon was silent for a moment, ruminating. Finally he said: “I shall want you to return to Paris and take up duties in the Intelligence Section of the Marine Office. Summon my secretary, Roustam!”

  Nicholas set his jaw. Old Jean wished that he could faint.

  “With your permission, sire, I would prefer to stay with my company.”

  A dark cloud seemed to settle on the Emperor’s face. The lather dried and flaked on the side that Constant had yet to shave.

  “You’re a fool,” he barked. “I need intelligent, educated men. Thousands of ex-peasants can do your work in the skirmishers’ line!” He broke off and studied Nicholas closely. “The transfer would mean officer’s rank and a special rate of pay!”

  “Both of us have previously refused promotion, sire!”

  A tired secretary came in, giving his black breeches a perfunctory dust as he crossed to the desk.

  Suddenly Jean spoke up, his voice nervously high-pitched, “We are a unit, sire. We have been together a long time.”

  His words sounded lame enough, but the shaft was well aimed. Jean might be illiterate but he understood Napoleon’s psychological make-up as well as Berthier, Chief of Staff. The cloud on the Emperor’s round white face disappeared, chased away by a warm smile. Nicholas recognized the transition, knowing that diplomats from all over Europe and the East had been fascinated by that rapid change of expression.

  “Go back to your company, both of you. Roustam!” The Emperor settled back in his chair and by a swift gesture of his right hand indicated that Constant could resume shaving. “Give these men ten napoleons apiece!”

  The Mameluke padded over to the secretary’s desk and took from the civilian twenty pieces of gold. The money had been extracted from the desk coffer almost before the Emperor had finished speaking. Jean and Nicholas saluted, the former taking the money. Nicholas handed his report to the Mameluke, who passed it to the secretary. Then they saluted, wheeled about and went out, past the bent red head of Marshal Berthier and the silent grenadiers at the entrance of the tent, through the gutted streets towards their own quarters.

  Finally Nicholas said: “Divide the money with the others, Jean. I don’t want gold from him!”

  Jean opened his mouth to speak but closed it again. He had never understood this big, unpredictable schoolmaster. He supposed now that he would never understand him. But he reflected that a few moments since he had felt sick at the prospect of losing him to the Marine Office in Paris.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The voltigeurs did not take part in the great battle of Borodino, where the Russians made their desperate stand a few days’ march from the capital. They were held in reserve with the Imperial Guard and so were spared the decimation that overtook most of the regiments engaged. Jean, who walked over the battlefield the following day, said that the slaughter appeared to have been on an even greater scale than at Eylau. The ground was strewn with mangled men and horses, shattered equipment, overturned cannon, drums, helmets and all the litter of a major engagement. Cannon fire had ploughed up the plain, and in the fresh earth of the furrows looting of the dead proceeded openly. Here and there a wounded man called piteously for help.

  Jean, who had lost a number of old comrades, shook his head.

  “We can’t afford these losses at this distance from base,” he told them, “where are replacements to come from?”

  “At least the campaign isn’t being bungled like the Portuguese fiasco,” said Gabriel; but Nicholas gave a short laugh.

  “It isn’t over yet!”

  They caught sight of Louis, trotting after Murat’s squadrons in pursuit of the retreating Russians. The coachman’s son was in high spirits. He told them he had taken part in the recent affair and had charged the Great Redoubt, where casualties were heaviest. He and his mare, Roxy, had come through without a scratch, although the troop had lost their sergeant, nine troopers killed and a dozen more wounded.

  “She behaved magnificently,” said Louis, patting Roxy’s sleek neck, “minding cannon no more than pop-guns. Up, my beauty, hey, up there!” And, waving his hand, he rode off across the debris, saddle creaking, brass helmet glittering in the early morning sun, his thickset body rising and falling in the rhythm of a practised horseman.

  Jean looked after him regretfully. “We’ve lost Louis all right,” he muttered, and continued looking about for a likely piece of horseflesh to grill. There had been no bread issue since the day after they had left Smolensk.

  The old sergeant was immensely cheered, however, when, a day or so later, the voltigeurs topped the rise of Mont du Salut and paused, alongside thousands of others, to look down on the fantastic spectacle of the holy city, its cluster of gilded domes and spires rising in fairytale splendour below them. The rays of the afternoon sun fell directly on the gilded onions of the great churches and on the varnished iron roofs of a dozen immense palaces. The whole panorama was unreal and stupendous.

  “I’ve marched into Milan, Cairo, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna and Warsaw, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jean. “It was well worth the tramp!”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Nicholas, but Gabriel noticed that he too was looking down on Moscow with parted lips and an expression of fascination.

  Gabriel would have liked to take out his sketchbook on the spot, but there was no opportunity. The Ninth Regiment, at this time temporarily attached to the Imperial Guard, had received orders to parade within the hour, wearing full-dress uniforms.

  “Triumphal entry!” grunted Nicholas with a curse. He was right. The same evening the French marched gaily into the deserted city over the elegant Moskva bridge, a drum-major ahead of each regiment, the advance bands played “Roland à Roncevalles,” a patriotic melody of Rouget de Lisle, and the bands behind them striking up “The Marseillaise” and “The Victory Is Ours.”

  It was a hollow triumph. The battalions’ tread resounded through empty streets; no women peeped from the curtained windows of the wooden houses, as at Vienna. The sole inhabitants of the great city seemed to be half a dozen bearded peasants, who stood solemnly at the town end of the bridge watching the progress of the columns with stupid, melancholy eyes.

  “I hope those Roman plebs gave Titus a better showing than this!” said Nicholas, with a sidelong grin at Old Jean, but the sergeant grunted and said nothing. He was depressed by the strangeness of their entry—an hour’s marching through broad, vacant streets, without so much as a glimpse of a woman, or a vehicle, not even one of the hi
gh-slung, two-wheeled carriages they had seen in Smolensk and Mozhaisk.

  They were quartered, with some of the Guard, in the vast courtyard of the Governor’s Palace. The palace was a huge, rambling building, built in European style and magnificently furnished. In the ground-floor reception rooms were immense pieces of furniture, tables capable of seating two hundred at a time, sideboards where as many dishes might have been set. Fine oil-paintings hung on the walls, including large portraits of the Czar and Czarina. The floor was covered with thick rugs and beautifully woven Ottoman carpets.

  Immediately the companies broke ranks, organized looting commenced. The Imperial decree was ignored, first by the Guard, then by the line regiments. Men scattered in groups, ranging through the deserted buildings, turning out drawers and cupboards, scampering down into cellars and smashing off the necks of bottles of wine and vodka that were found there in thousands. The Russians seemed to have made little or no effort to carry away their valuables. In less than an hour the centre court of the palace looked more like an Oriental market than a battalion bivouac. Stacks of furs and costly clothing were piled breast high round the neat pyramids of arms; exquisitely made caskets inlaid with mother-of-pearl lay scattered on a profusion of rugs dragged out to serve as bedding on the flagstones. There were wines of all kinds, cases of liqueurs and boxes of sweet cakes; most of the rich confectionery was only half-eaten and flung down in the straw to be trampled to paste. Stragglers came in with sacks of sugar, large boxes of preserved fruits and garishly decorated ikons. Here and there valuable oil-paintings were hacked from their frames with sword-bayonets. The vast courtyard was full of shouting, stamping men, running in and out of the buildings and staggering under the weight of valuables that they could not hope to transport home without teams of oxen. Old Jean looked in dismay.

  “We used to be an army,” he said. “We’ve become a rabble of brigands!”

  Assisted by a few of the older N.C.O.s, he endeavoured to restore some sort of order in the courtyard. Sentries were posted at various points, but they left their posts as soon as the sergeants’ backs were turned and went off looting, terrified of missing such a unique opportunity. Nicholas watched the scene with an expression of amused contempt.

  “Gabriel,” he said, “observe mankind, whilst you may. Take out your sketchbook and preserve their frolics for posterity. The French, they say, are the most civilized people on earth!”

  Gabriel watched two Imperial Guardsmen staggering out of the larger palace entrances, panting under the weight of a huge sandalwood chest, its lid beautifully inlaid with ivory and costly stained woods. He was struck by the similarity of the two men, who might have been twins. The eyes of both were alight with greed, their bearded lips parted with childish excitement. He unstrapped his knapsack and took out some crayons and his book. Sitting down on a pile of rugs, he started to sketch, quickly and decisively, keeping his eyes on the guardsmen, who had begun to attack the lid of the chest with engineers’ hatchets.

  Dominique watched him sketch, his ruddy cheeks daubed with the remains of a pastry he had been cramming into his mouth. Nicholas threw himself down on some furs and slept. Jean moved here and there, exhorting and reasoning, but nobody paid him the slightest attention except a corporal of the Second Battalion, who thrust a solid silver crucifix into his hand, presumably with the object of silencing his criticism.

  The orgy of looting would undoubtedly have continued all night had it not been interrupted, towards sundown, by the sudden crackle of musketry coming from one of the side streets that branched off the Place du Gouvernement, immediately outside the gilded gates of the palace. Automatically the men sprang for their arms, while Soutier, taking Jean, went off to investigate. They returned within five minutes, dragging between them a figure that looked less like a human being than like a gorilla. The face was almost covered with filthy matted hair, and the lunatic eyes peering out of this tangle resembled the eyes of a trapped wild beast. The man’s beard reached below his waist and his sole garment was an unflayed sheepskin, worn in a single piece, holed in the middle to allow the head to poke through, and belted at the waist by a red woollen belt.

  Guardsmen and voltigeurs gathered round this hideous creature with lively curiosity.

  “He ran right into our arms at the corner,” explained Jean. “The rascal was carrying a lighted torch!”

  “He’s one of the convicts they’ve left here,” said a corporal who had been over the Kremlin earlier in the afternoon. “We bayonetted four over yonder. They were trying to set the place on fire. You’d better kill him.”

  Jean protested. “I’m not a savage,” he said. “Lock him up until we get ‘soup’ orders!”

  “Soup” orders were the instructions issued to companies each evening at about the time the men usually prepared their evening meal. They generally dealt with the programme for the following day.

  “We’ve already had orders to kill incendiaries on capture,” argued the corporal.

  “I’ll wait to be told first,” replied Jean. “He’s my prisoner!”

  He tried questioning the man in French and German, but elicited no reply. The Russian’s breath reeked of brandy. While the corporal who had been to the Kremlin was beginning to argue again, the convict settled the dispute himself. Darting out of the group, he grabbed a musket and bayonet from a pile standing against the wall, lunged recklessly at Soutier and stabbed him in the fleshy part of the thigh. The sergeant-major roared with pain and a dozen men sprang at the convict, who went down fighting like a madman. The men, most of whom were half-drunk with liquor they had consumed during the afternoon, got in one another’s way in their eagerness to finish him off, but the coarse thickness of the Russian’s sheepskin prevented him from receiving a mortal thrust.

  Suddenly Nicholas burst into the centre of the group. He was holding his musket without its bayonet attached. “In God’s name … !” he screamed.

  The intoxicated infantrymen fell back a step, and Nicholas, standing astride the snarling convict, shot him through the neck. The man twitched a moment and then lay still. His blood spread across the littered paving-stones. Nicholas threw down his musket and, turning, stalked out of the gates into the Grande Place. Gabriel, following, saw him sit down on the low wall that bordered the carriageway. The schoolmaster cupped his chin in his hands and stared straight ahead.

  Gabriel went over and, after a moment’s hesitation, sat down beside him.

  “What is it, Nicholas?”

  He noticed that the older man’s face was white as chalk. Gabriel wondered why this incident, no more brutal than a thousand occurrences that Nicholas had witnessed or participated in during the last few years, should have had this effect upon him.

  “It’s the abysmal folly of it all,” said Nicholas, as though to himself. “We gather together half a million men. We equip them at a fabulous cost. We march them God knows how many leagues to occupy an empty city. And at the end of it what do we do? What is there to do? Run about the streets like greedy children squabbling over sweets and drive our bayonets into an intoxicated old man who has probably been turned loose from an asylum. I tell you I’m sick to death of it. What could be worse anyway?”

  Gabriel said nothing. There was nothing that he could say. He only wondered whether these remarks had any connection with the insolent bearing that Nicholas invariably adopted towards officers, and with the long gloomy silences that the schoolmaster sometimes maintained in bivouac and on the march.

  “We’d have done better to remain in England,” growled Nicholas. “I was a fool to let myself be persuaded.”

  Gabriel, to change the subject, remarked that they ought to walk towards the river and find out whether the baggage wagons had entered the city. Nicholette had kept pace with them as far as Borodino but afterwards had dropped behind. They expected her within twenty-four hours.

  “She’s going to have a child,” muttered Nicholas, and then, with one of his short, contemptuous laughs, “a child! Merciful
heaven! In this!”

  As he spoke there was an outburst of shouting from some houses on the far side of the Place. They saw several figures running, one of them carrying a torch and others, armed and uniformed, in hot pursuit. The figures disappeared round an angle of the buildings, but thick smoke began to pour from the upper windows of one of the houses. At the same time they noticed a red glow slowly spreading across the sky towards the west.

  A party of foot chasseurs doubled by, trundling a hand-cart piled with concertinaed horse buckets.

  Jean came out of the palace gates.

  “They’re firing the city … a hussar has just ridden over from the Kremlin; it’s fire-piquets for all of us!”

  As he spoke a shower of sparks burst from the roof of the house across the Place and more columns of smoke could be seen rising behind. In the stiff westerly breeze the smoke beat across the Place, advancing like a grey sea towards the shining white walls of the Governor’s Palace.

  They ran, in twos and threes, towards the fire. They were not much interested in the fate of Moscow. It could burn ten times over for all they cared, but there was not one of them who failed to realize what a general destruction of the city would involve. First there would be incalculable loss of loot, loot which they had marched and fought hundreds of leagues to stow in their knapsacks; secondly, a gutted city could offer no winter billets if the army, as it was already rumoured, were to remain in Russia throughout the approaching winter.

  The block on the far side of the Place was now well alight, and in several side-streets the flames were already dislodging plated roofs. The heavy sheets crashed down onto the cobbles, sending up vast clouds of sparks. As the infantrymen advanced the wind blew showers of hot ash in their faces and the roar and crackle of an even bigger conflagration came from the direction of the Kremlin. It was obvious that the city had been fired at a dozen different points.

  They fought the fire all that night, all the next day and part of the following night. General Milhaud, of the heavy cavalry, had been made governor of the city and organized all regiments into fire-fighting squads, but the unremitting efforts of the men were greatly handicapped by their lack of fire-fighting equipment. Before evacuating the city the Russian Governor, Rostopchin, had destroyed all the hand-pumps so that most of the bigger fires raged unchecked for want of hose and water supplies.