The Retreat

by Patrick Rambaud

  ‘Pull yourself together! And let’s walk to get rid of this numbness, otherwise we’ll end up like the Sautet girl.’

  ‘I’d promised her parents …’

  ‘Are you a doctor? No?’

  ‘I can see the hospital, the straw, the squalor the sick and amputees were lying in …’

  ‘You can appeal to sentiment at the Tuileries. Now then, come on, look sharp, out of this wagon!’

  ‘I realized when the dog ran off howling.’

  ‘A naturalist, now, are we? Conducting a study of dogs’ behaviour?’

  ‘Everything’s dying around us, my lord.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks! As long as one shaves every morning, there’s hope. Come on! Even His Majesty is walking so as not to freeze to the marrow.’

  They squelched through the melted snow. In front of them the Emperor was indeed walking, on the grand equerry’s arm. They both leaned on sticks. Then came Berthier and the shivering headquarters staff, the canteen, the crates of beef and salt mutton on wagons driven by Masquelet the chef and his cook’s boys, and the baggage reduced to their minimum. As the hours passed, a ceaseless stream of dispatch riders informed the Emperor of events. One setback followed another. Minsk had fallen, with its well-stocked stores; the Borisov bridge, the only way across the Berezina, had been taken by the Cossacks; Oudinot’s regiments had driven them off, but the bridge had been partly destroyed and three Russian armies were closing on the river in a pincer movement.

  ‘If the cold set in again,’ the Emperor said to Caulain-court, ‘we could cross this river on foot.’

  ‘Can the Berezina freeze anew in two days?’

  ‘Berthier!’ the Emperor cried without turning round.

  ‘Sire,’ said the major general, having trouble keeping his balance in the mud.

  ‘Send word to Oudinot, he must find another way across, a ford, pontoon bridges …’

  In adversity, the Emperor exhibited impeccable calm; the fact that his plans were being thwarted by circumstances didn’t seem to affect him at all. He merely asked Caulain-court from time to time, ‘Marshal Ney?’

  ‘We have no news, sire.’

  ‘He is lost …’

  The Emperor continued on his way, head bowed, saddened more than frightened by his situation. He had been informed of the mood of the army. Davout had flown into a rage about this “diabolical campaign”; there’d even been seditious talk from some of the grenadiers. When Napoleon had made to warm himself at a bivouac fire, Caulaincourt had dissuaded him.

  A lancer riding at a fast trot overtook the carriages and passengers on foot, splashing them with mud. He had come from Orcha. As soon as he saw the Emperor he raced towards him. Sebastian saw Napoleon take Caulaincourt in his arms and shake him, a radiant smile on his face.

  ‘Apparently bad news isn’t the only news there is,’ remarked Baron Fain.

  ‘Perhaps we’ve captured Kutuzov …’

  ‘Why not the Tsar, while you’re on the subject?’

  Veterans, the first to be told, were raising their muskets and shouting, ‘Long live the Emperor!’ as at a review. The cry came closer and closer: ‘Marshal Ney has reached Orcha!’

  ‘He’s alive!’

  ‘He’s got a musket in his hand, he’s bringing back a handful of men, and he’s managed to slip past a brace of Russian armies!’

  It was a symbol. They could get through this. This unhoped-for survival revived soldiers who were on the point of rebellion; those who’d been throwing away their muskets a moment ago and talking of surrender now bawled ‘Long live the Emperor’ loud enough to strike fear into a thousand Cossacks. At the stopping place, amongst the trees, they told each other the epic of Marshal Ney in snatches.

  ‘Peppered with grapeshot from all sides,’ a clerk was saying, ‘he had fires lit at nightfall, so then the Russians thought he’d attack at dawn at that point …’

  ‘You weren’t there,’ mocked a major-domo.

  ‘I have it from somebody who was!’

  ‘Let him speak,’ Sebastian cut in, swigging brandy from the bottle.

  ‘Well, when it was pitch dark, he left without the guns or baggage and fell back by the byroads. There was hardly a hundred of them, and they crossed the rivers on foot, one by one, the ice was fragile …’

  As far as Borisov, this was the only subject of conversation. They forgot the danger they faced and believed in miracles.

  *

  It was midday. Bundled up in his green lined box coat, the Emperor appeared stouter than usual. Legs spread, eyes glued to his theatre glasses, he was staring at a white hillock behind which nestled the village of Borisov. There had been shouting in that direction; the major general had dispatched lancers to scout it out. They were coming back. They appeared on a snow-covered knoll, waving their flags. The Emperor drew breath. This signal confirmed that II and IX Army Corps, which had come from Lithuania, were holding the position. He got into his berline and the cortege set off again. An icebound landscape passed by outside the window: bare trunks, fir boughs and brushwood as fine, transparent and tapered as crystal. Napoleon was prepared for everything, even defending himself with his pistol; ready to abandon the remains of his baggage and carriages to make a break across the fields at the head of his Guard. The Berezina was drawing nearer; now it remained for them to cross it. He would stake his life and empire on this campaign but he wouldn’t leave his enemies any trophies. Yesterday he had organized a memorable ceremony; since the Bridge at Arcola he had known that men need powerful images, spectacles to stir and intensify their feelings of attachment. The colour-bearers of the dilapidated regiments had been assembled in open country. A great pyre of burning carts melted the snow. One after another they came forward to throw their eagles into the blaze. They kissed the emblem before watching it warp and melt in the flames; many wept. A drummer boy played, while an officer saluted, his sabre lowered in acknowledgement. Later the Emperor told Caulaincourt that he’d rather eat with his fingers than leave the Russians a single fork bearing his coat of arms, and so he had divided out among the members of his household the metal drinking cups and the forks and spoons with which he ate meals from the Imperial canteen.

  Napoleon’s carriage passed the first houses of Borisov. Vigorous, spotless men, without beards or lice, in new capes and plumed shakos, were greeting the wretched survivors of the Army of Moscow with consternation. They were staggered by such misery. The blind, their eyes scorched by the glare of the snows and the stinging smoke of bivouac fires, held onto one another’s shoulders. The wounded limped along, using their muskets as crutches. Their arms in makeshift slings, their fingers frozen, their ears missing, here they came – the herd of cripples, the army of ghosts. Oudinot’s soldiers broke ranks to support their brothers, give them coats, food; in the confusion, the survivors flung themselves on the ration bread, ravenous as hunting dogs, sprawling in the soft snow. Until now, the Emperor had seen no one apart from his Guard; he began to realize the lamentable state of the troops he was leading back west. He entered the shack where his campaign furniture was already set up. He sat on a folding stool, but made no move to consult the maps spread out before him. Constant lit his lamp.

  ‘Berthier?’ asked the Emperor. ‘Berthier, how are we to get out of here?’

  Tears were running down his cheeks; he didn’t even wipe them away with his sleeve. Murat stamped his feet to get warm; he answered in the major-general’s stead, ‘With an escort of Poles, since they know the region, we’ll follow the Berezina north. Five days and you are in Vilna.’

  ‘But what about the army?’

  ‘They will create a diversion, occupy the Russians.’

  The Emperor shook his head, dismissing this suggestion.

  ‘Sire,’ continued Berthier, ‘you have suggested on numerous occasions that you would be more useful to the army in Paris than in its midst.’

  ‘But not before it’s crossed this damned river!’

  ‘It’s impossible here. The oth
er bank’s teeming with Cossacks. Kutuzov is informed, the hills will soon be covered with cannon. Even if we repair the bridge, it won’t be enough, it would take days for everyone to cross.’

  ‘I had given instructions for fords to be found!’

  ‘You have been obeyed, sire.’

  ‘Where? Show me.’

  Berthier explained that some of Victor’s Poles had caught a peasant’s horse. The animal was wet to the stomach, so they knew it must have crossed the river somewhere. They’d found the peasant and he’d shown them the ford.

  ‘It’s upstream, opposite this village,’ said Berthier.

  He stuck a pin in the map.

  ‘Do what’s necessary, dismantle the village plank by plank, assemble enough material for at least two bridges so that the pontoneers and sappers can get to work tomorrow at the shallowest point.’

  The staff were about to withdraw when the Emperor entered into greater detail. ‘Let us make it seem we’re installing ourselves permanently in Borisov, so that the Russian spies think we want to repair their bridge.’

  Once alone, Napoleon bent over the map and spelled out the name of the famous village: Studienka.

  ‘Monsieur Constant, my Voltaire!’

  The valet was getting a fire to catch in the stove. He took the volume from an oblong mahogany trunk in which His Majesty’s books were stored in different compartments. The Emperor leafed through it and stopped at a chapter that he had read countless times. It was at Studienka that Charles XII had crossed the Berezina. He had had no more news of Sweden than Napoleon had of France; his army was disintegrating. Once again the Emperor compared these two scenarios a century apart. What Voltaire wrote of the Swedish troops could have been a description of this shadow of the Grande Armée: ‘The cavalry no longer had boots, the infantry were without shoes, and almost without coats. They were reduced to cobbling shoes together from animal skins, as best they could; they were often short of bread. The artillery had been compelled to dump all the cannon in the marshes and the rivers, for lack of horses to pull them …’ The Emperor snapped the book shut, as if touching it would put a curse on him. Slipping a hand under his waistcoat, he made sure that Dr Yvan’s pouch of poison was safely attached to its string.

  *

  The headquarters and the Guard installed themselves in the castle of a certain Prince Radziwill, a league from Berezina, the farms of whose estate contained forage, oxen and large quantities of dried vegetables. Armed grenadiers stood guard over this treasure, which they reserved for themselves; no one else was allowed into the farms. The other regiments and the flood of stragglers and civilians had to fend for themselves – no doubt they could beg for coats and for flour from Oudinot and Victor’s intendants, who would be amply supplied by the storehouses of Lithuania. This, therefore, is how the sentries came to turn away a bearded little chap with dark rings round his eyes, decked out in a red hat and ermine collar, who, on seeing a colour of the Guard nailed to the gate, had left the train of civilians and headed straight there.

  ‘You’ve no business here!’

  ‘The dragoons of the Guard …’

  ‘You’re in the cavalry, are you, flabby chops?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, I wanted to know if the dragoons of the Guard were bivouacking in this chateau.’

  ‘The whole Guard’s here – and nothing but the Guard.’

  ‘Then you’ve got to let me in.’

  ‘You’ve been told to scarper.’

  ‘I am Captain d’Herbigny’s batman.’

  ‘He hasn’t got much taste, this captain.’

  ‘At least check what I’m saying!’

  The corporal in command of the sentries shrugged his shoulders but turned to one of the grenadiers nonetheless. ‘Go and see if there is a Captain Derini.’

  ‘D’Herbigny! General Saint-Sulpice’s brigade.’

  ‘If you’ve been spinning us tales, my lad, you’ll get a thrashing.’

  ‘And if I haven’t, the captain’s likely to warm your ribs.’

  The grenadier soon came back with a big chap in a Turkoman cap whom Paulin didn’t recognize immediately. But by a stroke of luck it turned out to be Trooper Chantelouve; he confirmed the batman’s position and Paulin was reunited with his master. D’Herbigny was camped out with the brigade in one of the main farm buildings, on fresh straw. Paulin dropped his bag; the captain lit into him, as usual.

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I didn’t know where you’d got to, sir, I had to leave Krasnoie with the refugees…’

  ‘Chantelouve?’

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘Give this idiot some lentils.’

  In this brigade reduced to the size of a squadron, the few dragoons who still had their horses were combing them. Paulin tucked in and the captain lay down in the straw without closing his eyes.

  He got up soon after, when the drums sounded. In the moonlit meadow, staff officers were rushing between the farm buildings, alerting the Guard.

  A colonel in a cloak stuck his lantern under Captain d’Herbigny’s nose, who received a movement order to go to Studienka and reinforce Oudinot’s II Corps.

  ‘At dawn?’

  ‘Immediately.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘You’ll follow the heavy baggage train.’

  It wasn’t a question of understanding the orders, or their urgency, but simply of carrying them out. D’Herbigny rushed his dragoons; they gathered in front of the chateau where lines of vehicles stood harnessed. The cold was closing in again. A battalion of skirmishers were waiting around, not moving; sometimes there was a barely audible thud as an infantryman, not wrapped up well enough, fell frozen stiff into the snow. Paulin shivered, complaining, ‘I finally find you, sir, after terrible days and horrendous nights, and now I have to lose you again!’ The captain took his valet by the wrist and led him from wagon to wagon to find him a place, but no one wanted him. At that moment a group of administrators and secretaries were coming down the steps to crowd into some covered barouches. Sebastian was part of the nocturnal expedition; as he was passing under a carriage lantern, the captain saw him, called him over, and settled the matter so that Paulin had somewhere to sit this time. Squeezed between the clerks, he was asleep before the carriage had set off. Mumbling in his sleep, he amused the other passengers by proclaiming imperiously, ‘Driver, to Rouen!’

  *

  Transformed into carpenters, Oudinot’s men dismantled Studienka’s isbas and took them down to the riverbank. D’Herbigny and his dragoons, meanwhile, were assembling two rafts out of joists and doors. Four hundred skirmishers were to take up position on the other bank where, in light woods, they had glimpsed Russians, identifying them by their round hats with a yellow cross at the front. They had to protect the construction of the bridges. Troopers plunged into the river, sending off waves, and the captain watched them swimming at a diagonal, forced downstream by the current; they used their lances to fend off the sharp-edged drift ice that careered into their horses and cut their flanks. Some were thrown from the saddle and disappeared, especially towards the centre, where it was deeper and the animals completely under water. Two-thirds, however, managed to get to the other side, their horses’ hooves sinking in the mud.

  Once the rafts had been lashed together with ropes provided by an engineer, they were pushed into the water and a handful of Oudinot’s skirmishers clambered aboard. The men sat on the joists; navigation promised to be a rickety business. D’Herbigny got on the first raft with three of his dragoons. They were going to cross like this in groups, constantly fearing that a bigger or a sharper bit of broken ice would capsize them.

  They set off, rowing with the butts of their muskets to counter the current, but still the craft veered off course; d’Herbigny and the skirmishers, their bayonets in the water, repelled as best they could the blocks of ice speeding towards them. Partly deflected, one of these blocks jammed itself under the planking of the raft, causing it to lurch and
spin as if it was on a pivot. The men lay flat on their stomachs, grabbing knots in the ropes and hanging on as sheets of water hit them in the face; they ended up hurtling into the other bank and tried to moor, throwing out ropes to troopers who’d crossed before and could help pull them up. The second raft made land further downstream. There had been no casualties but already rowers were taking the battered craft back to Studienka. Incredulous, the captain exclaimed, ‘The carriages and cannon will never be able to move in this quagmire!’

  ‘We’ll have to extend the bridges,’ a non-commissioned officer replied.

  ‘There won’t be enough wood.’

  ‘What about the forest? We’ll break off the branches and lay them on the mud so the wheels won’t sink.’

  There was a crack of musket fire. Bullets crashed into the mire around them. The captain looked up and spotted two Russians under the cover of a clump of trees. He swore furiously, pushed out of the way one of the lancers who had dismounted to help with the landing, took his horse, mounted it without being able to get his feet in the stirrups because of the rags round his boots and rode hard towards the trees. The Russians made a run for it, not having had time to reload. He caught hold of one of them by the cross-belt, picked him with his one arm and, dragging him along like a package, brought him back, out of breath but overjoyed at his catch, who went sprawling in the mud.

  ‘This swine knows things His Majesty will be very glad to hear!’

  The Emperor had just appeared on the left bank, which was becoming crowded with people. He rode alongside Marshal Oudinot, Duke of Reggio, an uncouth fellow with a great thirst for glory, thirty times wounded and thirty times sewn back together again. D’Herbigny saw the cannon of the troops freshly arrived from Lithuania, climbing a knoll from where they would cover Studienka. He made out the long-limbed silhouette of General Eblé, whom he had known as a gunner at the siege of Almeida; he was tall, with a bony face and grey hair fluttering under his bicorne. At the head of his pontoneers he was bringing portable forges, wagons of charcoal and caissons of tools and nails found in Smolensk. Unfortunately, for lack of horses, he had been forced to burn his boats, which prevented him throwing a pontoon bridge across the Berezina, but in any case, would he have been able to? The wind was getting up and blowing hard. On the right bank, the captain cursed his spectator’s role; he wanted to be useful, manifold, everywhere at the same time. The Russians, having moved up from the boggy ground, were encamped on the heights and lighting fires. Opposite, the sappers and Poles were swelling the ranks of the pontoneers. They were nailing trestles together; D’Herbigny heard the mallet blows, the rasp of saws. Studienka was starting to look like a huge stack of wood. Eblé gave instructions for the first trestle to be set in the mud; it sank under the impatient gaze of Napoleon, who was almost unhorsed by a gust of wind.