The coaches in front set a course for those following but, apart from those that had been rough-shod for the ice by the farsighted Caulaincourt, most of the horses slipped constantly on the rolling ground covered with black ice; many fell from exhaustion and were abandoned. Nose pressed to the window, impassive now by force of habit, Sebastian studied a group of voltigeurs, blue with cold, whom the berline was passing. The soldiers cut open the belly of a mare that still had steam coming from its nostrils and sank their teeth into its flesh, blood running down their chins and onto their shabby clothes. A band of skirmishers were looting barouches that had become trapped in a ditch beside the road; they were tossing candela-bras, ball gowns and fine china into the snow while they loaded up with liqueurs. One of the barouches was on fire and surrounded by skinny, bearded ghosts; they were grilling chunks of dubious-looking meat on their sabres. Just at that moment Sebastian saw a body fall from the berline’s roof, one of the wounded they’d taken on at the abbey, who’d been poorly secured and knocked off balance by the jolting of the carriage. The young man opened the door and shouted at the postilion, ‘Stop! We’ve lost one of the wounded!’
‘Close that door, Monsieur Roque,’ said Baron Fain. ‘Unless you’re too hot?’
‘Very well, my lord.’
He glanced at his fellow passengers. The lieutenant and the one-legged officer weren’t moaning anymore, or drinking, or eating: living, were they still doing that? Mme Sautet and her daughter were curled up in each other’s arms, frozen stiff; the bookseller was clasping his black dog to him; the dog was panting. Baron Fain had wrapped a woollen scarf round his head. Their provisions had almost run out but they were still confident; in His Majesty’s entourage they couldn’t die of hunger; when they stopped they’d go to the canteens. From time to time an explosion rocked the berline; the gunners were setting fire to any caissons they couldn’t pull, so that at least the enemy wouldn’t get their hands on the powder. Suddenly a more powerful explosion, closer to, smashed one of the windows by the two wounded who were huddled together on the sacks of peas. Sebastian climbed up the baggage piled against that inaccessible door to try to cut off the icy wind. That was when he realized that the carriage had stopped moving and that the one-legged Dutchman was dead.
This time it was Baron Fain who got out to enquire about the latest setback. Sebastian followed after wrapping a cashmere scarf round his ears and nose, like him. Outside their eyes smarted, their hands turned white at the joints and they had to cling to the berline with numb fingers not to slip on the sheet ice. The postilion was stretched full length on a heap of snow at the side of the road; as it exploded the caisson had shot bits of wood into the air with the force of missiles; a splinter had split open his skull. They saw carriages with all their windows broken which the occupants were trying to board up. Barouches and supply wagons, impatient to pass these unfortunates blocking their path, were venturing into thicker, more unstable snow, sometimes tipping over. The Baron had crouched down next to the postilion to check he was dead. Sebastian offered to take the man’s place.
‘Do you know how to drive these contraptions, Monsieur Roque?’
‘I have driven my father’s charabanc in Rouen many times.’
‘I’m sure you have, but we’re not travelling by cart here; we have, thank heaven, two horses shoed with frost-nails.’
‘Do we have a choice, my lord?’
‘Get us out of here and then let’s catch up His Majesty’s carriages as fast as possible, they’ve left us behind.’
‘Very well, but you should know that one of our wounded is as dead as this postilion.’
‘I’ll get him out, you take care of the driving.’
Fain climbed back into the berline while his clerk took off the postilion’s cloaks and put them on; he relieved him of his fur gloves, picked up the whip, perched himself on the bench and took the reins. Barely had he sat down before some army stragglers had stripped the postilion and the one-legged officer, whom the Baron had pushed out into the snow. They were in no danger of losing their way: they just had to follow the trail of hundreds of naked, frozen corpses, male and female, lying on the ice, the burnt carriages and the mutilated horses that stained the snow pink.
*
The cold and the monotony of the journey numbed the stand-in coachman. Sebastian just gave the horses their head, letting them follow the supply wagons without any chance of going faster or hope of catching the other carriages of the Emperor’s household, which he had lost all sign of; they must be far ahead by now. There were too many corpses, too much carrion – how could one still feel pity? If one of the wounded fell from a carriage he let the berline drive over him; he couldn’t stop at any price or lose their place in the convoy. Many of these unfortunates died crushed by hundreds of wheels; the carriages jolted from side to side, other wounded fell off and were crushed in turn, to complete indifference. Sebastian sometimes actually envied these mutilated wretches their lot; that was them shot of it all, at peace somewhere a thousand leagues away from this endless plain. At other moments he conjured up happy memories of the time when, with a few other lucky fellows, he’d worked in the attics of the Ministry of War in the Hôtel d’Estrées. His days had been spent copying out duty sheets, notes and dispatches in an office in the conscription department, hunched over one of the desks that were arranged around the stove. In the morning he’d splash water on the floor to settle the dust and then put his feet up and sharpen his quill with a penknife, or else nip along to the porter’s lodge, where he’d had set up a canteen; from eleven in the morning the corridors would smell of the grilled sausages they’d take back to their desks and eat amongst the piles of letters and reports … He was hungry. He would have killed for some of that disgusting horse broth. He’d dream about it at the halting place, he knew, when night forced them to stop wherever they were, without a fire, rugged up in their blankets, with that black dog he kept seeing as a roast.
Fat snowflakes began to fall slowly, then thicker and faster, and soon a snowstorm was blowing. Sebastian bent his head so as not to be blinded. He put his trust in the horses, which plodded on into the wind and stopped when it got dark. The stand-in coachman scrambled down from his bench and sank into snow up to his thighs. The silence was total. He knocked on the misted-up window. ‘My lord, I think we are lost.’
‘Didn’t you follow the road?’
‘There is no road.’
Baron Fain lit a lantern and joined his clerk. The storm was abating somewhat and the light showed a group of isbas, some sort of barn and a cluster of low houses made out of fir trunks. The hamlet appeared uninhabited but they were wary; Russian peasants attacked anyone isolated from the main body of the army and butchered them with pitchforks.
‘Go and fetch your sabre from the carriage, Monsieur Roque.’
‘With pleasure, but I’ve never learnt how to use one.’
‘You pick it up in a flash when you’re in danger.’
As he turned in the darkness, Sebastian caught a whiff of smoke and warned the Baron. Somebody, they could see now, had a fire going in the furthest of the isbas. They didn’t dare move. Suddenly, Sebastian felt something metal pressing into his temple. The snow crunched and he and the Baron were surrounded by men with pistols in their hands.
‘Goodbye, my lord.’
‘Goodbye, my son …’
‘Parlare lé francé?’
It was soldiers from the Italian army lost in the storm. They weren’t very fearsome; they may still have had their weapons, but they didn’t have any ammunition. Sebastian drew breath. He hadn’t even been afraid. In the isba, the Italians were making the most of a clay stove, which was heaped with crackling logs. They had stabled the horses in the barn and pulled down part of the roof to fill the racks with thatch. The women lay down next to the fire on a broad bench, which ran all the way round the room, against wooden walls that were crawling with bugs. Opposite they put the wounded lieutenant, whose teeth were chattering with
cold or fever or both. Because there was no chimney, the room was filled with smoke that caught in their throats. The Italians had looted oats from a village, which they had reduced to flour with heavy stones and mixed with melted snow; they put balls of this paste in the embers and then picked off the ashes that stuck to the bread. It was flavourless and either underdone or burnt, but Sebastian set to ravenously. He wasn’t the only one. They all fell asleep dreaming of green, sunlit country, banquets and other improbable pleasures.
The Sautets’ dog had stayed in the berline. It woke everybody at dawn with its barking. Well, not quite everybody – the Italians had vanished. Sebastian had a hunch: ‘The horses!’
The Italians had cleared a path through the snow to the berline. They had taken the Russian sabre, the sacks of peas, the furs and the wine; disturbed by the barking they’d left the horses. They were running down through the snow to a frozen lake below, on the edge of a forest. A little later, as he was holding a travelling mirror in front of Baron Fain who was shaving, Sebastian decided to let his beard grow. He revealed this to the Baron, who answered in a detached way, ‘Are you eager to displease His Majesty?’
*
The army stragglers – dismounted troopers with boots bound up with rags, voltigeurs and hussars as tattered as scarecrows – had bushy beards on which the snow settled. At night they stole horses, which they rode with the intention of eating them later. If a carriage broke a wheel, they set it ablaze and formed a circle under tarpaulins and blankets, makeshift tents which soon grew heavy with snow. Mme Aurore owned a saucepan, which was making her an invaluable companion. On waking and leaving her tent, she went in search of a healthy horse and found several tethered to a clump of trees. Their owners didn’t see her coming, their backs were turned as they stood as close to their fire as possible; Mme Aurore took her penknife, slid it between the ribs of one of the animals, gently cut into the flesh and drew off the blood in her tinplate container. Over the dying embers of a stripped wagon which had kept them warm the previous night, she cooked the blood and shared out the sausage, a few mouthfuls each. Before setting off west again in the crowd of shirkers and civvies, three gunners stopped in front of the cook. One of them said he was a non-commissioned officer and opened his fur-lined coat to show a semblance of a uniform. ‘The horse harnessed to that cart there, is it yours?’
‘Yes,’ answered Mme Aurore.
‘Not anymore.’
‘Thief!’
‘We need it for our cannon.’
‘You don’t need cannon now!’
‘Someone’s just bled our horse, I don’t have a choice.’
‘How are we going to get anywhere if you take it?’
‘Walk, like the rest of us.’
The non-commissioned officer signalled to the men with him, who were still wearing shakoes. They unhitched the horse and started to lead it away by the bridle. The Great Vialatoux could be heard yelling, then moaning, then begging. Without letting go of her saucepan, Mme Aurore walked towards the cart, her boots sinking into the thick snow. Arguing was no use with these stubborn soldiers, she wanted to tell the juvenile lead, who was furiously holding onto the horse by its tail, but before the manageress could reason with the actor, the non-commissioned officer shot him in the head. The imbecile collapsed, losing what brains he had. ‘Just like a Russian prisoner!’ said the gunner, which amused his companions. Vialatoux was crying, sitting with his back to the useless shafts.
‘Get up!’ ordered the manageress.
‘You’re not suggesting we push the cart, are you?’
‘We’ll take what we can and follow the crowd.’
‘And leave him to the crows?’ said Vialatoux pointing to the body of his former stage partner.
In the cart, Ornella and Catherine had watched the murder and loss of their horse, but they had no tears or thoughts or feelings anymore; they obeyed Mme Aurore and bundled up what seemed essential, and not too heavy, in furs – candles and clothes mostly, which they sorted out on the floor of the cart; not the costumes or stage clothes, but caps and shawls. Then they set off on foot, sticking close to a group of skirmishers who were poking their ramrods in the snow at every step because of the ravines that were invisible now. On their left they saw a dead soldier, his mouth open, his eye-teeth buried in the thigh of a horse that was sprawled on the ground, its heart still beating. Further on, around a cold bivouac fire, they saw soldiers sitting, they weren’t moving anymore, they had frozen; Vialatoux went up to examine the contents of their bags, found a potato, pocketed it discreetly and promised himself he would eat it slowly later, in secret. The sky was pearl grey, the firs black, the ground terrifyingly white. On a crest, in shadow, the lances and tall astrakhan hats of the Black Sea Cossacks stood out, menacing them from a distance.
*
Baron Fain was congratulating himself on having invited the Sautet family to share his official carriage. The bookseller knew the district and could explain how to plot a route through that vastness without a compass to rejoin Imperial headquarters. The fat fellow had consulted the tree trunks; the side with the browner bark was north. Thanks to this cunning tip, the bookseller was forgiven his cantankerous moods and they reached the ruined chateau where His Majesty was encamped without too much trouble. Napoleon was waiting for his army to regroup and for news to arrive from Paris; Smolensk was only a few days away, with its well-stocked stores which everyone dreamed of when they wanted to raise their spirits. In any case, a convoy of rations from the city had already reached Marshal Ney’s rearguard. The news had spread.
Sawn into pieces, the chateau’s only furnishings, a billiard table and a lyre, were blazing in the hearth. In private, the Emperor was in a constant fury. Sebastian knew that the bad news outweighed the good. The mail left Napoleon deep in thought. Not only were the reserve troops, who had stayed in the rear, now yielding to the Russians and falling back, not only had Prince Eugène just lost his artillery fording a river, but he had also learnt that there had been an attempt in Paris to restore the Republic.
Two weeks earlier, General Malet had escaped from the mental home where he was interned. Equipped with false documents, he had released his accomplices: they had taken over the police and staff headquarters by starting a rumour that Napoleon was dead; Savary, the Minister of Police, had been arrested in his bedroom in his night shirt. Then the conspirators had demanded the Prefect of Paris allocate them a room in the Town Hall for their provisional government. They had almost succeeded; the capital’s garrison was within an ace of giving in. The Emperor couldn’t believe it. He read the dispatches and then read them again, overwhelmed. ‘They thought I was dead and lost their heads,’ he said to himself. ‘Malet, an old lag, a madman! What? Three unknowns spread any old story that no one checks and then they take over the government? What if they had tried to restore the Bourbons? Who thought about swearing an oath to the King of Rome? Who thought of the Imperial dynasty? Once the shout was, “The king is dead, long live the king!” But this time there was nothing. That is what happens when I’m away too long. Everything depends on me. On me alone. Will nothing that I undertake survive me?’ He waited for further couriers, agonizing over the affair constantly with Caulaincourt or Berthier. Sebastian and the Baron didn’t dare leave their travelling desks, but the Emperor didn’t dictate a line. He drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair, stuffed his nose with snuff and refused to sleep.
The following morning an intense cold added to the freezing fog. There was no time left to waste: they had to get to Smolensk and restore their strength there.
‘My boots!’ said the Emperor.
At this signal, a murmur went up amongst the valets, secretaries and officers in the draughty salons with their broken windows. Sebastian and the Baron left it to the other clerks to fold up their equipment. The Emperor hadn’t moved from his armchair. A major-domo brought him his cup of mocha coffee and Roustam ran up with his boots, crackled under the polish. The Mameluke knelt down in front
of Napoleon, who was holding out a leg, put on the first boot but then received a great kick in the chest; he fell over backwards, short-winded.
‘This how I am served!’ stormed the Emperor. ‘Didn’t you notice, you cretin, that you put the left boot on the right foot? You’re no better than those cowards in Paris who let themselves be tricked by a lunatic escaped from an asylum!’
Malet’s failed conspiracy continued to obsess him. What was Europe going to say of this ludicrous adventure? How would she turn it to her advantage? From now on the Empire was at the mercy of a handful of militants. It grieved him sorely.
*
Choked by a thousand carriages and by cannon covered with sacks, on emerging from a forest, the road followed the course of the Dnieper. D’Herbigny’s squadron had been reduced to a dozen or so mounted troopers; the others were on foot; their horses hadn’t held out against the hunger and thirst and the men had resigned themselves to eating their stringy flesh before it froze solid. A sheepskin muffling his ears under his imposing cap, the captain inhaled the cold air; the steam from his breath froze on his walrus moustache and the tangle of beard covering his cheeks. The fog hadn’t lifted until midday, when it was replaced by a raw wind. They were pushing blindly on, taking care not to lose one another.
Paulin reined in his emaciated donkey at a bend. ‘Mfffyuhh,’ he said to the captain.
‘If you have something to tell me, at least lift your cape! You look like a mummy from Cairo!’
The Retreat Page 15