Officer's Prey (The Napoleonic Murders)

by Armand Cabasson

  ‘It’s not beef.’

  ‘They wouldn’t poison us, would they?’ said Margont with a worried look.

  ‘It’s not horsemeat, is it? You wouldn’t have dared …’ asked Piquebois.

  The Russian nodded several times. ‘Good horse, yes. Killed yesterday.’

  Piquebois was a sorry sight. His slavering mouth gave him away but he declared: ‘Not for me.’

  ‘You won’t last long if you don’t eat as much as you can when you have the chance,’ Margont pointed out to him.

  ‘By chewing horsemeat I’d feel as if I were eating one of you because you and the horses are my best friends.’

  He walked off, a pitiful sight, while Saber was already skewering the slices with the bayonet of a musket found lying on the ground and was holding them over the still-glowing embers of a beam.

  As soon as Margont had eaten his fill, he abandoned Saber and went off in search of Lefine. He decided to do the rounds of the hospitals. He reached what had been a fine-looking square. Sappers were chopping down blackened trees to prevent them from crashing on to the buildings. The park was turning into a wasteland. Four blocks of houses gave the rectangle an elegant symmetry. But their façades were riddled with bullet holes and one of them had lost its roof. A phenomenal number of cannonballs were scattered on the ground. Württemberg gunners, easily recognisable by their black-crested helmets, were placing the ones that could still be used in a cart. They roared with laughter when someone held up a cannonball that had been flattened like a pancake or taken on a bizarre shape. This must be what Württemberg gunners found amusing.

  Carts were piling up at the foot of the three buildings left intact and more were constantly arriving. They were carrying all the world’s woes: the wounded. The forest of arms raised in pleas for help, the chorus of groans, the trails of blood, the mangled bodies … Margont had the greatest admiration for those who tended to these men: medical orderlies, helpers, surgeons, physicians, pharmacists … He wondered whether Lefine was somewhere among these unfortunates. One of them escaped by hopping from a wagon as if leaving this place meant escaping death itself. Two soldiers tried to reason with him but he yelled: ‘They’re going to cut my leg off! Without my leg who’s going to look after my farm?’ How far away the fine ideas about humanism and freedom now seemed …

  Margont noticed Jean-Quenin Brémond. The physician was going from cart to cart, a dazed look on his face. His dark blue uniform was spattered with bloodstains. Brémond pointed with his finger at those who were to be treated within the hour, specifying the exact order. The wounded were pleading with him, threatening him, insulting him, promising him a fortune … In exchange for an operation they were offering him a horse, a house, a daughter in marriage, a wife’s virtue … Who could blame them? When Brémond turned his gaze on a cart, the dying attempted to smile and joke in order to appear less as if they were dying, while the less seriously wounded pretended to be worse by swearing they had been bleeding for hours. It was unbearable, unbearable. Helpers took charge of those selected amidst insults, spitting and tears. ‘There’s room for all of you. We’ll settle you all in. It just needs time’ was their constant reply.

  Margont called out to Brémond but the medical officer took a while to recognise him. In hell it always takes time to realise there can still be good news.

  ‘You’re not wounded, are you, Quentin?’

  ‘No. Have you seen Fernand? He’s disappeared.’

  ‘Yes, he was wounded on 17 August in the assault on Smolensk. What was he doing there, so far from IV Corps?’

  ‘It’s my fault. He’s been helping me with my investigation. I’ll never forgive myself, damn it!’

  Brémond was exhausted. His intonation was dull and flat, out of keeping with what he was talking about.

  ‘It’s just cannon-shock syndrome. As of this morning he’s cured and he’s helping to settle in the wounded.’

  Margont was not reassured by these words. ‘But what’s cannon-shock syndrome?’

  ‘When a cannonball passes very close, really very close, to a soldier, it sometimes happens that the blast of air can knock him over. It’s not serious from a physical point of view but feeling death come so close often affects the mind. Fernand could not speak a single word. Either he screamed or he remained silent. As he was covered in the blood of the person blown up by the cannonball he ended up here.’

  ‘Will he suffer any aftereffects?’

  ‘Possibly. But he’s cheerful and confident by nature, so we can hope he won’t. Otherwise, he may lose his zest for life and start going on about the misery he has witnessed, thinking himself damaged by life and the army.’

  ‘I’ll let you get on with your work.’

  Brémond was so shattered that he had to struggle to keep his eyes open.

  ‘There are so many wounded that we’re short of everything. We’re using tow instead of lint, paper instead of linen. Even the medical orderlies are performing operations … and soldiers are being brought in who haven’t been wounded but are suffering from depression. They’ve lost their appetites, can’t sleep, don’t talk any more, cry all the time and have lost the will to live. Lost the will to live! And what about me? What am I supposed to do for them? I can’t operate on wounded minds, that’s for sure.’

  At last Margont found Lefine. He was going to and fro among the carts but there was no sense of purpose about his movements. He waved his arms around as he spoke and then walked off in the middle of a sentence, picked up a shako and handed it to its owner, who couldn’t have cared less. When he spotted Margont he rushed over to him, as happy as could be.

  ‘My favourite captain! Come here. I’ve got some news for you!’

  ‘Are you sure you’re going to—’

  ‘I’ve spoken to some friends of Colonel Pirgnon and our Italian colonel. I was in the process of talking to one of them when—’ Lefine stopped suddenly. His high spirits had evaporated. ‘I hadn’t realised we were exposed … The Russian cannonballs suddenly began to rain down. He was talking to me …’

  Margont put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Fernand, you should get some rest. We’ll talk about it tomorrow or another day.’

  His friend was puzzled. ‘No. It’s better to be active rather than sit alone in a corner thinking. Otherwise I keep imagining myself back there, talking to that lieutenant from the cuirassiers.’

  ‘Come on then!’ exclaimed Margont, taking his friend away from the place that had such a bad effect on him.

  ‘Are we still a long way from Moscow, Captain?’

  ‘Just over two hundred and forty miles.’

  ‘Two hundred and forty? What a swine of a country! What about going back for a swim in the Gardon?’

  Margont started speaking in conspiratorial tones, glancing around as he did so. ‘Talk more quietly. Some officers are having deserters shot by the dozen.’

  ‘If Jean-Quenin brought back a few broken skulls with their foreheads slashed by sabres and blasted by cannonballs or with all their bones broken by grapeshot, and exhibited them in the anatomy museum of the medical school in Montpellier, perhaps people would think twice before going off to tickle one another with bayonets …’

  ‘You must be joking. People would be only too eager to continue adding to the collection.’

  Margont was looking for a way of helping his friend to get over the emotional shock that seemed to have transformed him. It was as if the blast from the cannonball had made him lapse into a second childhood. Lefine found the slightest thing amusing, almost getting himself bitten by a stray dog when he tried to stroke it, and his naïve comments were in sharp contrast to the usual pragmatism of this wily old monkey.

  They settled themselves down in a house fortunate enough to have escaped the fire. Its good luck had not, however, extended as far as to protect it from looting. They picked up some chairs and sat down in the middle of a chaos of clothes and broken crockery. Someone had discovered a sack of flour. A quarrel had ensued and the sac
k had been torn open. The flour scattered on the floor was witness to human folly. There had been a fight and there were traces of blood amidst the confused pattern of footprints. The winners had then tried to gather up this precious powder. Judging by all that remained on the floor, both parties would have been better off sharing out the contents of the sack while it was still intact.

  ‘In Russia traces of flour are like bloodstains: it means someone is going to die,’ Lefine declared.

  ‘No! We aren’t going to die of hunger any more. We’re going to find enough food supplies here,’ Margont lied. ‘On the subject of our investigation, I’ve thought hard about Élisa Lasquenet’s murder. All the same, it’s very odd, a tongue cut out and slipped into the pocket of a cloak.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Do you remember the anagram “Acosavan”, “Casanova”? Well, the mutilation of this actress seems to be saying: “She would have done better to have held her tongue instead of provoking me by running it over her lips.”’

  Margont stopped talking to allow Lefine to express an opinion but the sergeant failed to respond.

  ‘If I’m right, then there really is a connection between these two crimes. It’s difficult to define: it’s a sort of signature in the form of a cruel and coded play on words, which must greatly amuse the murderer. A biting and humiliating form of mockery that looks as if it’s intended to add insult to injury. I admit that this is quite a bold piece of speculation but it seems to me far more credible than the “confessions” of that poor madman. There’s also another element in common: the mixture of love and death. In both cases, what would have aroused desire in normal people provoked extreme violence in the murderer.’

  Margont stretched out his legs and made himself more comfortable, trying to relax. If his hypothesis was right, his investigation was taking an even more sinister turn. On the one hand, there was the possibility of earlier crimes and on the other …

  ‘“Bad luck comes in threes”, as the saying goes,’ Lefine added, following the same train of thought.

  ‘Let’s put that to one side. What have you got to tell me?’

  Lefine admired his friend’s pugnacity. However, Margont did not know his own limits or how to avoid going too far and risking his own neck.

  ‘I had one sighting of the indefatigable Pirgnon.’

  ‘So he really does exist. I’d almost begun to doubt it.’

  ‘He was exhausted. He was leaning so far forward that his head was resting on the neck of his horse. I was able to talk to one of his lieutenants. His overwhelming vitality has made him very popular. He gets up at the crack of dawn and is the last to go to bed. He converses with the regimental doctor, inspects the wagons, interrogates the prisoners, goes off on reconnaissance, checks the stocks of ammunition … Apparently, his theory is that, in the face of such a shambles, one must react decisively. He frequently reviews his troops with the result that the 35th are a very handsome sight with their shining muskets and their trousers and gaiters as white as the Alps. Robert Pirgnon is forty-one and comes from a bourgeois Lyons family. He attended a military academy and came out placed near the bottom of the ranking. He was in the Prussian campaign and then served for a long period in Spain. It seems that he made a lot of money there by looting the palaces of captured Spanish generals …’

  Lefine’s eyes lit up, as if reflecting heaps of imaginary gold. Margont was pleased to see his friend’s normal look return.

  ‘Well, you see, if you’d been less lazy and if you’d worked hard at school you might have got into a military academy and would be a captain or a major by now and I’m sure you’d have helped yourself to booty like he did over there.’

  ‘Ah!’ sighed Lefine ruefully.

  He consoled himself with the thought that it was never too late to do the right thing.

  ‘He was living it up in Madrid …’

  ‘A seducer, was he, our Prince Charming?’

  ‘Not quite. He didn’t chase after the local beauties. He was more interested in high society, doing the rounds of dinners and balls, military parades and bowing and scraping at court.’

  Margont had difficulty disguising his disappointment.

  ‘For example, they say that one day Pirgnon invited the King, Joseph Bonaparte, to dinner. There were about thirty guests, including some bigwigs from the general staff. Pirgnon served a wonderful wine, a first-rate burgundy from before the Revolution! He uncorked it himself and served the King. Joseph emptied his glass and was fulsome with praise. Pirgnon served him again. Joseph again emptied his glass. Pirgnon was about to pour him a third but he refused because he had already had a few aperitifs and, as you know …’

  ‘Yes, the Spanish think he’s an alcoholic and nickname him “Pepe Botella”, “Joe the Bottle”. He must have wanted to avoid feeding the rumour. So then what?’

  ‘Then Pirgnon grabbed the neck of the bottle and tipped it upside down over a vase, declaring: “The King has finished drinking.” Everyone looked shocked while the roses soaked up the wine. Apparently the King found it very amusing. I would have had him shot.’

  ‘How can people waste their time at such social gatherings?’

  ‘It’s even worse than you think. Captain Suenteria, from the Joseph Napoleon Regiment, told me that one day Marshal Marmont decided to give a grand reception while he was passing through Madrid. Marshal Soult, who had quarrelled with Marmont and was also in the capital at that time, immediately arranged a ball on the same evening. All the cream of Madrid society was invited to both places so was forced to choose its camp. When evening came, Pirgnon went to Marmont’s, saluted the marshal, helped himself to a glass of punch, danced three waltzes, disappeared, reappeared at the other end of town, saluted Marshal Soult, drank a glass of port, joked with Soult’s general staff, left again, turned up once more at Marmont’s for a toast before downing champagne at Soult’s … and so on, for the whole night. Neither marshal suspected a thing and subsequently they never failed to invite the colonel on a regular basis.’

  ‘It’s absurd! I can’t understand the logic of it.’

  ‘But you’re going to like this Pirgnon, Captain. He has a passion for art and literature. He transformed his residence in Madrid into a veritable museum and loved showing people around. He also set up a literary salon, the Cervantes Club.’

  ‘Excellent! That’s how I’m going to meet him! I’m going to talk to him about literary salons! What more do you know about this?’

  ‘His club was quite open … to men. Women were excluded, with one or two exceptions. The members were French or Spanish, military personnel or civilians. They met regularly to talk about books, recite poetry, argue about the translation of such and such a line of Shakespeare … Just like your club.’

  ‘Except that in mine women are welcome. Does he have any brothers or sisters? Did he distinguish himself in any battle in particular?’

  ‘He’s an only son. From a military point of view, he’s not like Barguelot and Saber, who won every battle single-handed. Pirgnon has never displayed exceptional courage or tactical sense. But he’s an excellent organiser. He juggles with figures, manages the supplies, talks very little to his soldiers and officers. He treats people rather “mechanically”, so I’ve been told. For him, if a soldier is well dressed, well fed and well equipped, then he’s a machine that’s going to function properly.’

  ‘I see. He’s the “military metronome” sort. Then after that, for some unknown reason, he’ll babble away in his literary salon about humanism and the beauty of literature.’

  Lefine folded his arms, pleased with himself and waiting to be congratulated.

  ‘Yes, bravo. Good work, Fernand.’

  ‘So much for Pirgnon. On to our Italian. This one counts as two because Captain Nedroni sticks to him like a leech. Fidassio and his shadow Nedroni. Fidassio is an only son. He’s thirty-five. His mother’s a countess – a grand lady from the aristocracy of Rome, extremely wealthy, very beautiful and prematurely widowed. What do y
ou expect if you marry a man three times your age?’

  ‘So Fidassio had a very elderly father.’

  ‘You said it! Because the countess is such a charming woman – she’s reputed to have a fiery temper – Colonel Alessandro Fidassio was brought up by his “father”, who hated his wife for making him look ridiculous by having so many lovers. The count retired to his country estate, taking his son with him, and sent his wife money in exchange for promises of reasonable behaviour and discretion. He can’t have been paying enough. On the day of Alessandro’s fifteenth birthday, his mother made a sudden reappearance in his life. Finding him very presentable, she took him away with her like a pretty plaything to exhibit in Roman high society, which was beginning to tire of the countess’s love affairs.’

  ‘She redeemed herself by using her son to restore her image as a mother. Bravo.’

  ‘Yes, but according to the people I questioned she became deeply attached to Alessandro. From then on she had only one idea in her head: that he should become someone important. He was a very average student, so goodbye to being a scholar. He was clumsy, so goodbye to being a surgeon. He wasn’t a good public speaker, so goodbye to being a politician. So she decided to make a soldier of him and that seemed to please Alessandro. He did well in a prestigious Italian military academy and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Then I was given to understand that his mother used and abused her connections and her wealth and more besides …’

  ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘And so within a few years the lieutenant turned into a colonel. She was the one who forced him to volunteer for this campaign. Her son had never taken part in a battle or even been outside Italy, so his career was stagnating in a provincial garrison. She thought that the Russian campaign would be a jolly jaunt beneath triumphal arches and an ideal springboard for Alessandro to be promoted to general.’