Officer's Prey (The Napoleonic Murders)

by Armand Cabasson

  CHAPTER 27

  FOR four days Moscow burned. More than four-fifths of the city was destroyed. Twenty thousand people perished in the flames.

  Margont and his companions had set themselves up in a suburb that was relatively unscathed. Margont decided to go back to his original quarters in the hope of retrieving some belongings. Several times he got lost in this apocalyptic landscape. While some streets were blocked with fallen debris, elsewhere the flames had opened up the thoroughfare by wiping out entire blocks of houses. The residences and bell towers that had previously acted as landmarks had disappeared. Margont was surprised by the capriciousness of the flames: sometimes for no apparent reason a house had survived in the midst of a wasteland of destruction. Soldiers from every regiment were beavering away amidst the foul-smelling wreckage. They unearthed valuables, opened up trapdoors leading into cellars … Many were drunk – drunk on vodka, rum, beer, wine, kvass, punch or a mixture of them all. Margont came across infantrymen dressed up as marquises, strutting about in fur coats and sable hats, cashmere or fox fur jackets … The women they were with, canteen-keepers and sutlers or Muscovites, were laughing as they gazed at their silk dresses woven with gold and silver thread, and their fingers dripping with rings and precious stones. The streets were littered with an assortment of objects: mirrors with elaborate frames, paintings, ivory combs, crockery, statuettes, candelabra, rings and necklaces set with malachite or semi-precious stones, ceremonial pistols, clothes, books, samovars, carvings, pipes … The looters were picking up any item they could find, only to throw it away again twenty paces further on when they laid hands on something more valuable. Margont caught sight of Piquebois, who was also trying to find their former quarters.

  ‘Hey, comrade, what a sad sight!’ Piquebois exclaimed. ‘Looters and ashes. They’ve gone mad watching the city go up in smoke. It’s impossible to control anyone.’

  A smell of rose-tinted tobacco was coming from his silver Russian pipe.

  ‘The most ridiculous thing,’ he went on, ‘is that they haven’t understood a thing. What’s valuable today is not gold but food. They’ll make a fine sight when they try going back to France with their knapsacks overloaded and their stomachs empty …’

  What Margont had just heard seemed obvious to him, yet at the same time he refused to believe it.

  ‘Going back to France?’

  Piquebois’s face, usually so composed, looked worried. ‘If the Russians have deliberately burnt down their capital, there’s little chance that they’re intending to make peace.’

  Margont remained silent. Piquebois meanwhile was watching the few remaining inhabitants wandering amidst the wreckage. Most were desperate and in rags, alarmingly thin and starving. Some were tearing strips of flesh off the carcasses of animals to feed themselves. Others were diving into the Moskva to retrieve the wheat that the Russian soldiers had thrown in before evacuating the town. But the fermented grains made them ill.

  ‘We’ll soon look like them if we don’t get a move on before the winter,’ he prophesied.

  The two men carried on walking.

  ‘Lefine and Saber have managed to collect a considerable amount of food: cucumber, onions, beer, sugar, hams …’

  ‘Hams?’

  ‘Yes, hams. As much salted fish as you could wish for, fat and flour. But no bread. Potatoes as well.’

  ‘All the same, we’d be well advised to start rationing ourselves now.’

  Piquebois pointed at Margont with the end of his pipe to show his approval.

  ‘Fernand is trying to get some horses for us. We’ll need to be on our guard because, if the army really does have to withdraw, soon people will be killing one another for a mount.’

  ‘And they’ll end up slitting one another’s throats for a potato.’

  They stopped in front of a church that had been spared by the blaze. People were congregating there to pray and to find shelter. Margont gazed at the walls, which were painted red and a delicate green.

  ‘It’s incredible,’ said Piquebois in surprise. ‘There’s no soot on the walls. I’m going to start believing in God.’

  Margont pointed at the crowd dressed in rags.

  ‘They’re the ones who’ve cleaned it.’

  They eventually found their former quarters. There was nothing left. However, someone had propped up a charred beam. A message written in French was pinned to the wood:

  Frenchmen,

  My name is Yuri Lasdov and this house was mine. I was only a shopkeeper, and this building and my two grocery shops constituted all my worldly goods. Just before fleeing the city with my family, I personally threw all my stock into the depths of the Moskva. I left one of my employees behind in Moscow to set fire to my beloved home in case any French dogs should take up quarters in it. I asked him to burn it down during the night in the hope that some of your kind would be roasted alive.

  May Russia be the grave of France.

  Margont went back to his new quarters. A lieutenant was pacing to and fro at the front entrance, waiting for him. As soon as he caught sight of Margont he looked up to the heavens in gratitude and hurriedly took him inside. Colonel Delarse was dying and wanted to speak to him.

  ‘Has he been injured?’ Margont enquired.

  ‘No. An asthma attack. One of the worst he’s ever had. It’s because of the fire: he’s inhaled ash.’

  A Baden soldier dressed up as an Orthodox priest was drunkenly babbling away in made-up Latin, blessing the passers-by. The lieutenant angrily pushed him away with all his might as he passed, sending him flying on to the cobbles. The would-be priest called down on him all the curses of Heaven and Hell combined.

  ‘He’s spoken to the colonels in the division. Then he asked for you as well as several other officers.’

  ‘I feel flattered to have been sent for. What’s his reason for wanting to see me?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Colonel Delarse’s quarters were in a mansion whose architecture was modelled on Versailles. Margont reflected yet again on the number of ties there were between Russia and France. This war seemed crueller than ever. Delarse was lying in a four-poster bed draped with veils to filter the air. Before even catching sight of him at the far end of his dark bedroom, you could hear him wheezing. The exhausted colonel was holding a pencil between his fingers.

  ‘Good day, Captain Margont,’ he scribbled on one of the sheets of paper lying on his blanket.

  ‘Good day, Colonel.’

  ‘I think it’s the end. Spare me those “of course nots” and other such nonsense.’

  Margont nodded. The air entered Delarse’s lungs easily but then became trapped inside. Breathing out was slow and painful.

  ‘I’m not afraid. I have two mothers, my own mother and death. Both nurtured me as a child, both cradled me in their arms, both think of me constantly and both occupy my thoughts too much. I write this because my mother was so possessive that sometimes she was more stifling than my asthma. I tried everything to fight death: to deny its existence, to despise it, to plead with it, to taunt it … In combat I ran every possible risk as if to say to it: “Come on, come and get me! Do what you should have done long ago!” Sometimes I would even think that the fact of my still being alive was one of the many small things that were wrong with the world and that I should put it right. Sometimes, contrarily, I would expose myself to enemy fire to prove I was immortal.’

  The pencil moved across the sheets of paper with surprising speed and no sooner had Delarse covered one with writing than he let it drop to the floor and started on the next. It was true that time was short …

  ‘One day I understood that by behaving like this I was merely re-enacting my childhood. Because even when I was well I needed to dice with death by playing silly games: jumping from tall trees, swimming as far as I possibly could … Anyway, the fact is that after every battle, once the danger was over and my concentration wandered, I was always surprised that I was still alive. One step forwards, two s
teps backwards. What cruel game was death playing with me?’

  Delarse had become so emotional in writing these lines that his breathing quickened and became even wheezier, and his writing more untidy.

  ‘While thousands of soldiers were covering themselves in eternal glory at Austerlitz, I was choking at an inn. That says it all, doesn’t it? As an adolescent I read the biographies of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Both suffered from epilepsy and I thought that my asthma would not count against me any more than their fits did against them. It looks as if I was wrong. But you must be wondering why I’m telling you all this. Well, your colonel told me that you were keeping a journal about this campaign. Is that correct?’

  ‘Absolutely, Colonel. But I didn’t realise that Colonel Pégot knew about it.’

  Delarse’s face lit up. ‘So you’re writing your memoirs, are you?’

  ‘For the time being my plan is to launch a newspaper. Amongst other things, I shall recount the Russian campaign.’

  ‘Censorship will turn it into a walk in the country!’

  ‘In that case, instead of cutting out the censored passages, I’ll cover them in ink and people will go and protest beneath the windows of the prefect, brandishing the black pages.’

  Delarse smiled. He did not have enough breath to laugh.

  ‘On a more serious note, Colonel, I shall point out to my readers that it’s an “official” version of the campaign. Then, as soon as I can, I’ll publish the real version, in the form of articles, memoirs and first-hand accounts.’

  ‘That’s why I sent for you. I hope you will tell people who Colonel Delarse was. I have struggled to ensure that my life amounted to more than just my asthma. I do not want to be remembered as “the asthmatic colonel the Russians didn’t even have to kill themselves”. And then there’s the general staff! They look at me in the pitying and frustrated manner of those watching a man die whilst implicitly criticising him for not cutting short this moment which is “painful to all concerned”. Change that! Say what I did for the brigade. Talk about the Great Redoubt! Tell people that I lived life to the full, that I did great things, even though I was haunted by death.’

  ‘I shall do so. Is there anything else they should know about you, Colonel?’

  Delarse looked at him wearily. It was difficult to read his expression. Margont wanted to repeat his question but the colonel’s new adjutant was already ushering in the next visitor. The fellow had taken it upon himself, given the circumstances, to speed things up.

  *

  That same evening Margont had to move once more because his quarters had been requisitioned by the Pino Division. He refused to set himself up in the house allocated to him.

  ‘Too inflammable for my liking,’ he declared, patting the wooden walls with the flat of his hand.

  He discovered that Saber, almost as soon as he had been promoted, had pulled rank to take possession of a Moscow palace, driving out some Neapolitans who had angrily sworn to come back with King Murat in person.

  The building was vast. It was big enough to accommodate what was left of the 2nd Battalion of the 84th. It had only one storey but it boasted twenty French windows, with windows just as big above. The entrance was so high and so wide that a trooper could have passed through it without having to dismount. Above it was a triangular pediment. Two elegant covered walkways branched out from the central part. Unfortunately, this semicircular construction led only to piles of ashes, so that the palace resembled a bull whose horns had been amputated. The building had been white but was now covered with black soot, in mourning for Moscow.

  Margont climbed the steps leading to the entrance and turned round to survey the view of the garden. The rows of trees, the trimmed hedges, the pond, the colonnade surrounding a statue of Diana, the classical pavilion, the orchard: all that would have looked splendid were it not for the bodies that hung, swaying in the wind, from the branches of the fir trees and lampposts in the avenue.

  ‘They’re fire-raisers, Captain,’ explained a fusilier, sitting astride the banister while polishing his weapon.

  Margont did not rebuke him for failing to salute. This one was not disguised as an Orthodox priest, had not blessed him, was not drunk and was busy with his musket. That was already quite something. In the entrance hall a voltigeur let out a yell on seeing him. He had been assured that a Russian hussar had sliced Margont’s head off at the Moskva. He fell down on his backside with shock, and immediately helped himself to another ladleful of punch from a large bowl. Margont, who strongly disliked seeing drunken men with muskets in their hands, grabbed hold of the bowl and angrily overturned it. The punch spread out in a sweet-smelling pool of vanilla, lemon and cinnamon. The voltigeur raised his arms in protest.

  ‘Steady on there, Captain!’

  He took out a worn handkerchief and started to soak up the alcohol with it before wringing it out over the container. There would be no problem finding scores of men wanting to drink it.

  On the first floor, Margont came across a note pinned with a dagger to a rosewood door: ‘Strictly reserved for Captain Saber, Captain Margont and Lieutenant Piquebois.’ The room was long and narrow. Its walls, hung with red velvet, and its brown, carved ceiling added to its solemnity. A double row of candelabra provided the lighting but, for fear of fire, only a few candles had been lit. At the end of this corridor of darkness, in a pool of light, Lefine was sitting on a throne acting like the Tsar of all the Russias.

  A corporal, bowing respectfully, was listening to him as he declared majestically: ‘I dub you Knight of the Order of St Andrew, General of the Hussars of the Guard, Count of Smolensk and Prince of Siberia.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Prince of Siberia, is it?’ exclaimed Margont as he rushed forward to launch a palace revolution.

  Lefine, who had celebrated Moscow by drinking punch, pointed at Margont and exclaimed: ‘General, arrest this impudent fellow and send him to the salt mines!’

  The newly promoted Prince of Siberia preferred to slip away discreetly while Margont grabbed Lefine by the collar.

  ‘Well, what a sorry situation! You bestow all these honours on someone but as soon as the tide turns he just drops you.’

  ‘Fate is so fickle … “Tsar for starters, muzhik for afters.” Still, I unconditionally accept the armistice.’

  Having pushed Lefine from the throne, Margont interrupted his admonishment to admire the fine piece of carving, the back edges of which consisted of two perfectly straight tusks engraved with the family coat of arms.

  ‘According to a servant, these are the tusks of a narwhal,’ Lefine commented.

  ‘The tusks of a what?’

  ‘Of a narwhal, those nasty underwater creatures which have a long tusk on their head, like swordfish. They spear shipwrecked sailors.’

  ‘Oh, these aquatic animals don’t catch as many victims as you do. I know what a narwhal is … but a throne of narwhal tusks? Whose house are we in?’

  ‘A prince’s. Another one.’

  Margont went to sit down in a more modest armchair.

  ‘I’ve got a plan for unmasking our man: we’re going to set a trap for him.’

  Lefine instinctively threw his head back. ‘Ah.’

  ‘I’m going to send him a letter blackmailing him.’

  ‘But we don’t know who did it.’

  ‘Exactly. The idea is to send this note to the four suspects. I’ll sign it simply “C. M.”. Since the murderer knows my name he’ll decipher it as “Captain Margont”, whereas the others won’t understand a thing and will think that a note not intended for them accidentally ended up in their hands.’

  Lefine gave no sign of enthusiasm. ‘Even if he’s not the murderer, one of the suspects might still turn up at the rendezvous, out of curiosity …’

  ‘No, because I’ll choose as the meeting place “the Moscow home of the lady of Smolensk”. I’ve made enquiries: Countess Sperzof did have a residence here.’

  ‘Perhaps he killed her without even knowing
her name.’

  ‘It’s possible but unlikely because, according to the servants, the countess didn’t hide her identity from her casual lovers. In any case, the murderer stole her signet ring. I’m sure he kept it as a souvenir and a trophy. With a blazon it’s easy to find out a name and with a name you can obtain an address. Especially when your life’s at stake.’

  ‘If I were him I wouldn’t turn up.’

  ‘I’m going to claim that my spy never lost track of him in Smolensk, that he saw him in the company of “the lady of Smolensk” and that he followed him to her house. Our man won’t dare run the risk of not turning up in response to my “invitation”.’

  ‘He’s going to wonder why you’ve waited so long before taking action.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve already thought of an answer to that objection. It’ll be explained in the note.’

  Lefine stretched out his legs. They were still aching from all those forced marches.

  ‘In that case, if I were him, I’d turn up and I’d kill you.’

  ‘That’s one of the two problems. But we won’t be on our own. We need some trustworthy people who’ll be able to keep this business secret. I’ve thought of Saber, Piquebois, Captain Dalero and our friend the Red Lancer. Five men lying in wait, plus me. If there were more than that we might be discovered.’