Or so I thought.
I learned immediately that it’s uncomfortable being an infantryman. The cloth is rough and the equipment heavy, the gun alone a cumbersome ten pounds. I wandered a good two miles in the dark to seek the safest refuge, finally sneaking into the bivouac of the 14th Line, Colonel Jacques Mazas commanding.
It was midnight when I picked a likely campfire, its ordinaire of eight men lying in their greatcoats around it like spokes on a wheel, some asleep and others smoking and quietly talking. This was the basic French infantry squad that had occupied each hut at the vast military camp at Boulogne, where soldiers were paired two to a bed for warmth and economy.
There’s a mood to armies, from exhalation to defeatism. Napoleon’s Grand Army had quiet confidence. It had trained in the Channel camps for three years. It had overrun half the Austrian empire. Casualties had been light. Now this rugged professionalism was overlaid by the subdued seriousness that comes before a major battle. Men were increasingly absorbed by thoughts of mortality or, should fortune favor them, victory, plunder, or a convenient wound to send them home. While the Russians fantasized that Napoleon was on the brink of retreat, his own soldiers knew better. There would be a ferocious fight on a scale not seen for centuries. This they must win.
I’d seen the reverse at sea, with British confidence and French fatalism.
A sergeant challenged me. “Are you lost, Private?”
“And found, I hope.” I had to lie persuasively, lest I be asked too many questions. “I’m separated from Davout’s corps. I was knocked unconscious in the fighting near Melk and have been trying to catch up ever since. I’ve been wandering for a week.”
“Davout! He’s in Vienna. What’s your unit?”
“Saint Raymond’s 33rd.” I’d heard this colonel briefly mentioned.
“You’ve still got a concussion if you think you’re near that regiment. I haven’t heard of them for a month. So you’re a straggler? Or a deserter?” He gave me a challenging scowl in the firelight, to see if I’d blink or glance away.
I stoutly focused on his eyes. “I’m trying to avoid an accusation of desertion, Sergeant. François Digeon, reporting for duty.” Having practiced looking doggedly earnest, I snapped to attention and gave a salute. My interrogator seemed less impressed by my military bearing than by my tonnelet of brandy. Besides, every unit was understrength. “Can I spend the night here? Perhaps I can march back to Vienna in the morning.”
“We’re about to fight a battle, imbecile. We don’t have time for you to stumble about like a postman looking for an address.”
I squatted without asking. “The army is spread for miles and miles. It’s hardly my fault I can’t find the part that is mine.”
The sergeant eyed the width of my shoulders like a trader evaluating horseflesh. “You’re big enough for the Imperial Guard. Can you shoot?”
“I’ll match any man in this company. Not a great cook, but a scrounger.” I nudged the brandy keg. “And my wife tells me I don’t snore. Much.”
“If so, you’re the only soldier in the army who doesn’t. To hell with the 33rd—welcome to the 14th Line. We’ve got stragglers of our own, two dozen men sick, and the enemy on our neck. Fight with us until the army sorts itself out after battle. I’ll vouch for you if you stand like a man.”
“Thanks to Mother Mary that I’ve found a good sergeant like you. I won’t let you down.” Until I desert, I silently amended.
“You must carry your share, Digeon. I’ll not have shirkers.”
“I am the most reliable of men. You are Sergeant . . .”
“Hulot. Martin Hulot.” He gestured to the marmite, the campfire’s kettle. “You can dip from the pot if there’s brandy in that keg of yours. Have some bread and captured chicken. We spitted it on a bayonet.”
“I’m starving.” I held forth my tonnelet. “To new comrades.”
“Ha, here’s a soldier!” He took the gaily colored keg.
“A half-frozen one,” I said, rummaging for my tin. “Why war in the darkest part of the year? I’ve considered the matter at great length, Sergeant, and concluded that our generals are as stupid as our commissary is corrupt, our doctors incompetent, and our whores diseased.” Complaint is the badge of the enlisted man.
“We haven’t gone into winter quarters because the Austrians keep fleeing instead of fighting,” Hulot replied. “But the Russians want a battle, I think. They’re barbarians, bred to the snow and as brave as they are stupid. We’ve learned to bayonet the wounded, because they’ll shoot you in the back if you don’t. Their princes preen like Oriental despots, but their men are slaves. We’ll bring the Revolution to them, all right.”
I’d no doubt he would, and planned to read about it in the newspapers. So I let myself become a temporary infantryman until battle actually commenced, playing the role, and in that way found an unlikely friend.
The camaraderie of an emperor’s battle staff is male and rough, but its manners are genteel compared with the crass society of line soldiers. My new companions were cynical, foulmouthed, and obsessed with food and sex, given that they got too little of the former and almost none of the latter. I was in a fraternity that would remain dirty, cold, and hungry until the campaign ended. They also had fanatical loyalty to company and regiment, and respect for discipline. They hated malingerers, because a man who slacked put their own lives at risk. They slept closer than lovers, scrounged like bandits, and could outmarch a horse in rough country.
But while there was loyalty in the pack, there could also be cruelty. The strong tended to pick on the weak like pups in a litter and were suspicious of anyone too different. So a brutish corporal named Cheval stole a cloak from a private named Dray, and cursed him as a Jew, a moneylender, and a Christ killer when Dray dared protest.
I’m no knight, and know it’s best to avoid the quarrels of others. What the devil, for example, was I doing in a war between three emperors? It was all bad luck and capricious fate. But to take a man’s cloak on the first of December struck me as more murderous than prankish, and possible only because the corporal was half a head higher and fifty pounds heavier than the man he’d decided to persecute.
Army conscription had swept up some of France’s forty thousand Jews, most of whom live either in Bordeaux, where they work as sailors, or in Alsace and Lorraine, near the Rhine, where they are craftsmen and shopkeepers. Until the Revolution, the Jews sustained a government within a government, living by their own laws and customs. But they also paid taxes and were renowned for their skill in provisioning armies. Citizenship was granted in 1791, to end riots against the Jews in Alsace—some three thousand had been injured—and integrate them into the national economy. Suddenly they could migrate, settle in new cities such as Paris, or be drafted.
Napoleon had shocked Europe by throwing open the gates of ghettos he conquered. To him, the problem of Jewry would be solved by assimilation and emigration. He’d contemplated creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine when he campaigned in Syria in 1799. I’d helped put a stop to his Israel plans at the Siege of Acre, forcing his retreat, but I had no quarrel with the idea of a Jewish state. It seemed likely to eliminate friction all around, creating a permanent island of peace in the heart of the Ottoman Empire.
Napoleon had told me once that Jews were clever and industrious, and thus a resource to be coveted instead of a plague to be quarantined. Within his armies, anti-Semitism was discouraged.
The French army had shed its Catholicism with the Revolution, and little had been done since to restore religion. While the slander that the French were an invasion of atheists was untrue, matters of faith were of considerably less interest in our company than the physical charms of rumored milkmaids (somehow we never encountered these beings in the flesh) or the gold that might be salvaged from a dead Russian count or general.
But tolerance of minorities was grudging. Decrees did not end prejudice. So Gideon Dray found himself without support when he demanded the cloak back.
“Who says it’s yours?” Cheval demanded.
“Every man recognizes it as mine, scoundrel.”
“Is that so?” Cheval put the question to his comrades, and several laughed. But an older soldier called out, “Give it back, Cheval.”
The bully shrugged. “Now I remember. You stole it from a millinery shop on the march in Linz, Dray, and bragged afterward. It’s hardly yours, hoarder. You’ve still got a stolen blanket, greedy Jew, when some of us have nothing.”
“That’s because you gambled your own blanket away last night,” Gideon replied, “and would have done the same with your greatcoat if your friends hadn’t stopped you. Now, in addition to being a fool and a drunk, you’re a thief of a fellow Frenchman. Give it back.”
“Or what? You’ll petition the Sanhedrin? You’re no more a real Frenchman than a Turk. Eat shit, Jew.” It was safe defiance. Several men had formed up behind Cheval.
I was an outsider like Dray. Reluctantly, I stood and moved next to him. “I watched you bet as foolishly as a mark, Corporal,” I said, even though I hadn’t seen the game at all. I just don’t like bullies. “Don’t blame a Jew for your own folly.”
“Shut your mouth, Digeon—you don’t even belong here. Damned deserter, I’m guessing, afraid to show your face to your own regiment.”
“I’m not afraid to show it to you.”
Now we were in a circle of interested men, shouting support for one side or the other. Cheval tried to keep the focus on Dray. “The Jew boy refuses to eat what normal men eat, pray what normal men pray, and drink what normal men drink.”
“You mean he reads instead.” I’d seen Gideon with his nose in a book, and he was conspicuous for wearing spectacles, which were rare in the ranks. His family must have had money, which was another point against him. I noticed now that he’d put the spectacles away.
“I mean I won’t shiver while a Jew is warm.” Cheval spat and turned away, ostentatiously buttoning the stolen cloak around his neck. His companions grinned, waiting to see what we’d do.
“Robber!” Dray howled, and despite the difference in size, he ran to tackle him.
The corporal whirled, the coveted cape lifting like a skirt, and met the charge with a thick fist, knocking Gideon to the mud. The men roared, always ready for tumult to relieve the tedium. Cheval spat in dismissal and turned to leave again, but Gideon grabbed his ankle and yanked, tripping him. The thief went down with a thud and a growl. The Jew clawed on top.
They wrestled, but it was no match. The bigger man rolled the smaller over and began to pummel with obvious relish, his comrades cheering him on. I knew it was better not to call undue attention to myself, but this was unfair. Sergeant Hulot put a warning hand on my arm, but I shook it off, strode forward, and gave the oaf a sharp kick in the ribs, lifting him off his victim and rolling him hard in the mud.
“Damn you as well, Jew lover!” Cheval leaped up, seething. “You’re joining our ranks? Let’s welcome you properly!”
He came at me with a bull’s rush, but I was quicker. I let him charge by as if I were a toreador, booting his backside for good measure, and danced away. Unfortunately, I backed into his crowd, and they briefly held me and then pushed me forward. Cheval charged to squeeze me like a bear.
I’d just a moment to reach the small of my back before he grabbed me. Talleyrand’s broken blade went up to Cheval’s face so that the jagged edge of its stump was inches from his eyes. “Let me go or I blind you.”
His thick arms gave a final constriction and reluctantly dropped. He backed off warily. “You threaten me with a knife, coward?”
“A broken sword will work well enough, if you don’t give the cloak back.”
“How brave to wave it when I’m unarmed!”
“And how brave of you to beat a Jew with no friends. Keep it up, Cheval, and I’ll gut you like a fish. I can outshoot you, outfence you, and outbox you.”
He studied me narrowly. I was unknown, and it was possible what I said was true. I was also a match for him in size, and demonstrably quicker.
“I should challenge you to a duel,” Cheval muttered.
“You’d gamble your life like you gambled your clothes.” I spoke to the crowd. “Listen, if the corporal is such a gambler, let him cut cards for ownership. If he gets the high card, he keeps the cloak. If Gideon wins, he gets it back.”
The assembly rumbled, debating this.
“Or do you want the three of us to kill each other over a piece of silly cloth on the eve of an important battle? Do you want to explain that to the colonel?”
Sergeant Hulot looked at me with distaste. I’d inserted myself where I didn’t belong and was displaying authority I hadn’t earned. He was beginning to regret his acceptance of me. But this was a way out of the quarrel. “Who has cards?”
Someone produced a deck, and I shuffled and held it out. Cheval took a stack and showed the bottommost card. “Ten,” he said, with truculence.
I turned to Gideon, who had stood and was breathing heavily, face bleeding, looking at the corporal with malevolence and at me in wonder. He made his own cut.
“Jack.”
The assembly gasped, a couple of men hooting at Cheval’s narrow loss. In fury, the corporal yanked the cloak from his neck and threw it at Dray. “Good riddance.”
“Don’t worry, Cheval,” Sergeant Hulot said. “You’ll soon have a battlefield of corpse clothes to choose from.”
“Yes.” The bully turned to me. “You shouldn’t cross new comrades, Digeon. Bullets can come from all sides.”
I gave him a look of deliberate contempt. “So you’re a murderer as well as a thief? Confessing before the bloody deed?” I raised my voice. “Remember his threat at his court-martial and execution!”
The soldier scowled, threw his cards into the mud, and stalked away.
Gideon gave me his stack of the deck, which I returned to the soldier who had lent it. I left that man to pick up Cheval’s share and blame the corporal for their soiling.
“Why did you do that?” Gideon asked as we walked away. “I can fight my own battles.”
“Not very well.”
“Are you Jewish?”
“Hardly. I like pork, prefer the Sabbath to be on Sunday, and think Moses was an imbecile for not finding the Holy Land for forty years. But I don’t like bandits or bullies, and men like Cheval are all bluster.” I slipped the sword stub behind me again. “He won’t bother us again.” Not that I believed that.
“I’m impressed. Surprised. Puzzled. Few Christians would come to my rescue.”
“Well, I’m a pagan. Or my wife is, at any rate.”
“Someday I’ll repay you.”
“No need. But no need to wait to do so, either.”
“What does that mean?”
“That cloak you liberated is good German wool, and wide as a blanket. I think the clouds threaten snow. I’m bedding with you tonight, Gideon. You need looking after, and I need to keep warm.” I also needed someone to watch my back.
He smiled. “Done. At which time you can explain to me how you rigged those cards.”
Chapter 15
I’d spent enough time around French army camps to be acquainted with regional stereotypes. Burgundians are the most jovial, which I attribute to their wine. Bretons are the most melancholic, and indeed, they’ve been in revolt against all sides, from royalist to revolutionary, for almost two decades. Men from Lorraine are infected by German ambition, the Gascons are the most boastful, and Parisians are the most presumptuous. Jews are assumed to be greedy, which was bad, and smart, which was worse, and secretly rich, which was enviable, and steadfast in their faith, which was most annoying of all, because it implied Christians were wrong in theirs. Such was Gideon’s problem.
In Paris, the Jewish conundrum had been a topic of salon discussion. Despite prejudice, Jewish society served a vital function. They were prohibited from owning land, and thus were not farmers; segregated from great companies, and thus were
not merchants; and barred from the aristocracy, many trades, and universities. Yet they were superb businessmen, working as shopkeepers, tailors, cobblers, and watch repairmen, to name a few. Napoleon wanted to harness their talents, as he wanted to harness all men.
When French revolutionaries granted Jews citizenship in 1791, Gideon told me, a few moved outside the traditional kehilla, or Jewish society in which law and diet are regulated by rabbis. Most Jewish men outside the army’s ranks still remained instantly recognizable, however, with long, dark coats, sidelocks, and beard. In uniform, clean-shaven Gideon Dray was as anonymous as I was, but he made no effort to hide his heritage. He was declared odd for admitting what he was, and combative for standing up for himself. Accordingly, I warmed to him. While I’m the most inoffensive and charming of men, I am often thrown into new countries and societies, making me an outsider. Here again, I was the newcomer in our company. As two outcasts, we bonded.
December 1, 1805, was a day of restless maneuvering. For the first time, I experienced this as a private being marched hither and yon, rather than as an American adviser comfortably ensconced at Napoleon’s headquarters, watching the display. I didn’t like being ordered about, and I kept alert for a chance to slip away.
We were roused at dawn, the camp coming awake with the habitual coughing, spitting, and groaning. A hot breakfast broke the chill, but we felt apprehensive when we were ordered to douse our fire. We assembled and stood impatiently for three hours, waiting for orders. Rumors flew, because none of us knew anything. Gray overcast scudded above our lines toward the Russians and Austrians, an enemy we couldn’t see. Snowflakes danced without accumulation, and my personal opinion would have been to wait for better weather, perhaps six months from now. No one asks a private.
We finally marched half a mile, stopped, broke to lunch and optimistically build new fires, were told to douse them, reformed, marched a quarter-mile more, waited two hours, marched back the way we had come, waited, and finally marched a final half-mile before darkness fell. I reckoned we’d finished a fifteen-minute stroll from where we’d started. Gideon and I remained paired, while Cheval cast murderous looks that didn’t intimidate either of us. The other men gave the Jew new respect for fighting back, and treated me like a magician. No one accused me of rigging the cut, but they assumed there was some sleight of hand. God wouldn’t allow a Jew to simply win.
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