‘I doubt Henri will let you anywhere near such lofty position, you sack of shit, especially if I die here, or disappear,’ I told him as resolutely I could, and pulled the trigger aimed at him. The gun did not fire, the powder was wet. Voclain’s eyes flickered to my other gun, and Didier shook his head empathetically.
He growled. ‘Do not. Live longer, at least, or die now.’
I took a deep, frightened breath, and then another, close to panic. I had been to battle, had faced fear, but here, stood death. ‘Mother?’
Voclain looked amused. ‘She will come to you later, and she will, doubt it not, for we will have time. Drop the guns.’ I did, carefully, glancing around for an escape. Didier was ready; he advanced, aiming the weapon, his leather helmet shadowing his animal-like eyes as he scanned the dark for possibilities for escape, like a wolf cornering a doe. He pushed me back, grabbed the guns and put them on his belt with a satisfied grunt.
‘Henri,’ I hissed, eyeing the large man near me, ‘will guard them. So, there is no man from Paris, then? Nobody coming to meet you tomorrow? What will you do to me?’
‘Oh,’ Voclain said. ‘There was a man from Paris. He gave us orders, finally. It’s been so long, love, to suffer you and the colonel and even Paul Barras, who trust men bought with coin, but we were more patient than you, after all. You will go on a trip, to Paris, and Didier here will take you. He has leave, you see, and you will go back home, to this place.’ He eyed a letter and the address in the torchlight. ‘Home to your relative, no doubt.’
‘Relax, girl,’ Didier said quietly. ‘Eat it all and bear his words. He will shove it down your throat anyway.’
I shook my head. ‘Henri…’
He slapped the letter on his thigh and threw the torch to the woods, and things got shadowy and mysterious. I saw his eyes glimmering in the dark as he leaned forward. ‘Henri, girl, will be killed today. Thierry and Poxy Fox will do it. Both shot, I say, and so will be that fucking Marcel and any other bastard you call friends. In the dark during a battle, it has happened before, it happens this night, and will happen again in the future, but not to me, since I will be the king of the killers, and keep an iron fist around the battalion.’ In the distance, musketry began, rattling, battle joined. ‘Perhaps, now? He is dead, possibly?’ Voclain asked, cocking his head, eyeing me with pleasurable look on his face.
Cold sweat was gathering on my forehead, as I feared for my friends. Cleft would pay for this, for surely, Henri would survive, if there were a forgiving God, and I prayed for him, even if I had made pledges to the devil. The captain nodded for the camp. ‘Downhill, we will walk quickly, in the dark so no enemy or friend comes to disturb us. Here,’ Voclain said harshly and threw a halter on the ground. ‘Take it, bow before me as you do, and let us ogle at your juicy tits.’ He was apparently a bit drunk and his tone was dangerous. Fear tore at my guts as I took the halter and placed it around my neck, tightening it. ‘Give the end here,’ he said. I walked to him and he grabbed the end, turned his horse, and started to pull me along like a dog. ‘Where is the wagon?’ He asked his soldier.
Didier grunted. ‘By the road a mile to west from the camp. Near the tavern. Hidden in the shabby barn.’
Voclain’s eyes glinted as he looked at me. ‘I know the place. Lead on then.’ In the distance, cannon roared, musketry rattled, and men died.
The captain was taking swigs from a small green bottle as his thick pallid face turned to look at me smugly. He was giggling to himself. ‘Humps cried, you know. We were facing a prolonged wait before we could act, and wanted to at least slap you. Thierry’s fine idea and I approved it. Oh, he whimpered. It is sad Skins did not.’
‘Skins?’ I asked, confused and scared. He had been guarding mother.
‘He followed you. That other bastard as well, Charles? They followed you, and left your mother guarded by some other cantiniére.’ His eyes looked hard at me, finding enjoyment in the despair on my face. Surely, they were not dead? ‘Here, look,’ he said and we passed a lump of flesh. Skins was lying on the ditch, his mouth open. I noticed an oozing hole in his throat; he had been stabbed. Voclain clapped his sword, pulled it, and showed the red tip. ‘He and that younger one were rushing, and it’s stupid to rush about, especially since we knew this hill, and Didier is one sly hunter. It took time, and much planning and patience, but your hungry brat finally gave us a solution. Perhaps, if Marcel survives, he gets to see me deal with your mother as I will deal with you.’
I shook tears off my cheeks, rage burning inside. ‘Deal with me? Where is Charles?’
‘He was hit, Didier shot at him,’ Voclain said, gesturing to the darkness with the bottle. ‘Ran to the woods to die, and yes, I will deal with you.’
‘You shoot your fellow soldiers,’ I yelled, hoping someone to hear me, even an enemy. ‘I am a cantiniére, a member of the army, and the colonel gave us the paper…’
‘You are not a member of the army!’ he screamed, pulling me so hard I flew on my face. His horse was walking around me. ‘Keep quiet you, or fall this night. You are a mistake, a freak of nature. You are the enemy of the Republic, a thief who escaped jail and hurt our master, but the Revenant is not dead. He will prosper again and you, his ill luck charm will be utterly broken and stomped down to the gutters you apparently threw him. I know he plans to do this, see, and he knows how to tie knots. That Barras who gave us coin for our services is no Jacobin, but a temporary problem soon done with. He will die. And the colonel? The noble fuck? Dead. Colonel was your pimp, girl, I know this, and he had exclusive rights to you, and guarded you like a horny bull his favorite cow. Now, you will have a new pimp, for tonight, at least.’
‘You will not touch me,’ I told him as I tried to get up, but he laughed harshly, dismissing my words as inconsequential. Didier was walking ahead resolutely, holding the musket on his shoulder, and not looking back.
‘I will see you there, in fifteen minutes,’ Voclain told his back. Didier nodded.
The captain pulled the horse to stand still, and waited for Didier to disappear to the dark. I tried to jerk the halter free, but he held it with a brutal strength. Suddenly, he spurred the horse, kicked my shoulder and I fell hard. I heard him dismounting, his spurs jingling and his bicorn was bobbing as he laughed. He was mad, enjoying his power over a seemingly helpless woman.
‘You struck me, girl, with a belt, and now you pay for that. Strip,’ he said. ‘Clothes off. Now. It will hurt girl, but you will live.’ He grinned lecherously, spittle on his clear, thin chin, his rat like face twitching in sadistic amusement. I shook my head as I got up painfully, but he took hold of the halter, and pulled me towards him. ‘Gilbert will want you, so you will live. As Didier said, I will shove it all down your throat anyway, anything I wish to do, so live now and enjoy even this, or feel pain unlike you have never felt, and still be humped. Your choice. I might be kind; I might be done quickly, for I have not had a woman for a while. I do not know, not yet. Do it.’ His rat like face was flushed with desire and his eyes were dangerous, hoping I resist.
I took a shuddering breath and prayed for strength. I shook in terrible fear and nauseating revulsion, cursing myself for a stupid bitch as my hands moved slowly and I looked away as I took off my jacket. I felt his eyes burn my skin, as I opened the belt holding my skirt, but with a rush of determination, I pulled the shirt off, standing there my breasts bared, nipples hardening for the cold. I looked at him, and he waited, his eyes resting on my nakedness. I cursed him and myself and pushed the skirt down, and my undergarment with it and stood there exposed, with only my boots on, my clothes in a heap around me. He quickly twirled the reins of the horse around a tree, his other hand opening his coat. He let go of the halter as his eyes spoke of what was going to happen.
My bravery betrayed me and I panicked.
‘No!’ I yelled like an animal, but he laughed viciously with perverse enjoyment. I turned to run, the halter coming off his hand and I felt brief hope, but he was fast, surprisingly
fast, and soon he kicked my legs from under me, and I fell hard on the stony ground and cursed in fear as a weight of the repulsive man dropped over me. It was a desperate struggle and for a small man he was strong. I cried and hissed in futile anger, raked his face but he pinned me down, grabbed me by my throat, and held me there, as he opened his pants, enduring my flailing hands and fingers scratching at his head, pulling at his hair. He forced my legs open. He was a rapist, and I often wonder if I was raped that night, for a mind tries to deny the truth and is quick to find excuses, and I often thought of it, and told myself he did not quite manage it. The truth is that he was erect, bared and he put his hand on my breasts, kissing my neck roughly, panting like an animal over me. Then he put his hand roughly between my legs, and touched me for a while as I wept in rage, unable to stop him, and he was hoping to make me wet, his eyes mocking the tears in my eyes. Brutally, he fondled my struggling body for a long time, in any way he liked, enjoying himself enormously, touching my breasts, biting my nipples, and putting his fingers inside me. Then he shifted weight, and I felt his penis touch my vagina, starting to enter me and that is when he put his thumb in my mouth, and I bit it so hard he screamed like an animal, the tip of his finger staying behind in my mouth as he pulled off me in agony. I turned to vomit it out with what was left of my meager dinner and I felt dizzy, utterly revolted and turning I saw him standing there, half-dressed. His face took an unholy look, mad, beyond reason. He took a rock, and perhaps I would have died, had it not been for Didier. A thump echoed in the forest as Voclain fell hard on his side, lying on a pile of dead wood, and I backpedalled away from them and saw the wide chasseur lean over the captain. Apparently the bastard lived for the man grunted, almost disappointed.
He nodded at my clothes. ‘Dress,’ he said harshly with a note of distress.
I did, looking at the man, who was wiping sweat off his face. He stole glances my way, but apparently, he was not going to do what Voclain had done, being a different kind of man. He looked indecisive, unsure, but then he evidently made up his mind, as he opened Voclain’s pockets, stole a fistful of coins and a cheap watch. When I was done dressing, he got up, he took the halter resolutely and cursing, picked up the fallen letter, and strode off, pulling me around and after him.
I protested, but he scoffed. ‘Silence. You are still going to Gilbert Baxa, and I think he will be grateful, no matter who brings you. I will tell him Voclain tried to kill you.’
‘Why did you not let him…’
‘I might be a sans-culotte, but I respect women. He and I, it is time to part ways, but it is a risk, girl, risk for me and you both and you should be happy it was not Thierry or Fox with him this night. You would have been double or thrice fucked, and it would have happened all the way to Paris, until you were entirely humbled and broken forever. But you saved me once and so I spared you, for no woman should endure something like that animal. I, for some reason, doubt Gilbert Baxa will do anything of the sort, for he seems to be carved from a frozen oak, likely unable to fuck anyone.’
He pulled me along, and soon, we came to a smaller cattle road leading to the main roads to Nice. He pushed me to a shabby barn, threw me down on a tall peasant wagon, tied me roughly down on the bed of the creaky thing, loaded packs supplies over me and off we went. We drove all that cold night and pale morning as he brutally whipped his horses. I begged to be relieved, but he did not stop, cursing, worried, and the wagon jumped up and down, and finally, I had to piss under myself. He grunted in disgust and stopped the wagon.
‘Now you stop? I am done,’ I told him bitterly.
‘I have to go,’ he mumbled. ‘Sorry for the discomfort, girl.’
I arched my neck to look in his eyes. ‘Henri would give you position, Didier, rank. Trust. Get me away.’
He took a shuddering breath. ‘Henri is dead, fool. Besides, I have some starving family, and I have to help them as well. I do not like your cousin, for I have heard enough of him to make me sick. I love the Republic and I think I am doing it ill favor by helping this Gilbert, but I have loved my family before Republic. They need favors and coin.’
‘There will be men on the roads, and they will stop you,’ I said, hoping it were true.
He waved the letter. ‘Here, the stamps and signatures of an influential man and I have a pass of leave. I doubt they will dare. And make clamor and I will risk injury to you as I make sure you stay silent.’
And then, men rode up on clattering horses.
I heard the horses whinny as Didier turned to regard them. ‘Help!’ I yelled, risking the injury he had threatened me with and Didier slumped, as the horses got closer.
‘Who is that?’ a voice asked, and I laughed for while most any other soldier would have obeyed the paper now hanging limply on Didier’s hand, lieutenant Boulton would not.
‘Lieutenant,’ Didier said, carefully.
‘Pull a gun on him!’ I screamed and saw Didier grab a musket, snake fast. I thumped myself on the seat he was sitting at and while the move held no force, it made him spend a second as he glanced my way and he cursed as he got up with the musket swinging for the riders. Then, a shot, and I was splattered by blood as the man twitched to death on the bench, his skull broken by a ball. Syphilis rode his horse clumsily next to the wagon and gaped at me, a pistol smoking in his hand.
‘Citizen Boulton! It’s Jeanette!’ Syphilis said, full of wonder and then Boulton’s boyish, yet grim face came to sight.
‘God! It is her!’ He said, gawking at my condition. They untied me, gave me water, Syphilis hugged me awkwardly, for he did not really know me that well, same as Boulton, but they were our family, I was theirs and I told them everything. They stared at me in disbelief as I cried over our friends.
‘It is terrible,’ Boulton said. ‘Captain could be dead? Skins and Humps? Charles.’
‘Colonel,’ I corrected him. ‘And Laroche, Marcel. I do not know!’
‘I don’t know this Laroche and the privates, I am sorry, but the sergeants…’
‘And there is a baby,’ Syphilis interrupted him, shaken.
‘Baby?’ I asked him, incredulous.
‘Your mother gave birth in the camp! God, I am happy I caught the malaria from a sailor in the hospital and was spared such a sight!’
I laughed like a fool, hugely relieved and I enjoyed their company. I took Danton’s pistols from Didier and then we abandoned the wagon and I climbed behind Boulton, and I would have my vengeance for their bolt was shot and it was our turn.
CHAPTER 18
It was midday when we rode to the camp through wooded trails, and saw the men were back from the attack and everyone was in a state of silent bewilderment. The general was sitting on a horse, and the battalion was standing in ragged ranks. I rode uneasily behind Boulton, and saw there had been losses in the battle at night. Apparently, a Hungarian brigade had savagely sortied against the battalion, I heard the men discussing, and the enemy had been reluctant to go home. I gazed at the men standing there, counting them as I did many times after. To my relief, I saw Marcel and Breadcrumbs, both leaning on their muskets, their faces grave. Cleft, the sorry bastard was standing behind the ranks, and so was grimacing Laroche, who was holding his side, bloody rag tied across his chest. I saw mother stalking frantically back and forth behind the ranks, holding Jacques. There was the bushy bearded Thierry with the fourth company, and I saw the gaunt, grease haired Poxy Fox sitting by a tree. The bastards had not killed the sergeants, but where was Henri? I felt tightness in my throat as I tried to find the colonel and his familiar cigar, but I did not see either. All I saw was an old general, standing over a long line of prone men.
There, wounded were moaning and the general of the brigade was talking softly to one of them. I whimpered as I saw a face that was sheet white, strangely weak where it had been strong and full of life, and no cigar was evident on the lips. It was dear Henri, I saw, and deep, unrelenting fear raked me as I saw he was only barely responding to the general.
The general rode to another man who was sitting down under the shade. It was Voclain. They were talking, and as we got closer, the men noticed me, got up, and perked, as there was something strange happening. They had been depressed over Henri, I saw, and for the many others lost, but now, they smelled trouble. Thierry and Fox froze, their mouths half open as I stared at them balefully. Thierry recovered, and made a throat slitting motion towards Henri, tapping his gun. I nodded at him, Marie. He knew I would kill him for that, or at least try.
Boulton guided the horse for the general, and Syphilis jumped awkwardly down from his own beast, apparently having loaned the horse from good Boulton.
The general was angry, as he addressed Voclain. ‘You are the only captain of the battalion, Voclain. Henri had precious little good to say about you,’ the old general was preaching icily, ‘and I know, you have had as little good to say about him, but as he is close to God, and the other captains are either sick of dead, wounded or drunk, so it will have to be you, no matter your thumb. This battalion is bereft of proper leadership, and you had better…’
‘Yes sir, I will rise to the task,’ Voclain was saying meekly, looking wobbly, holding a wrapped thumb.
‘Sir, citizen general?’ said Boulton neutrally.
The general turned, his bearded, pallid face looking at the youthful man saluting him from the horse. Voclain was getting up, suspicious of the officer. ‘Who are you then?’
‘I was a lieutenant of the fifth company.’
‘Was? And what are you now?’ the general said. Boulton leaned forward, handing over a yellowed paper to the old general. As he bent, Voclain saw me, and never, Marie, have I seen a man go sheet-white as he did. He stammered, got up quickly, holding his head in terror, apparently contemplating flight and lies, took an involuntary step back and shook in terror as he barely held his peace. I gazed at him calmly, enjoying the vacant look of absolute terror on his face.
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