‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘that man might make sergeant, or a corporal. If some other sergeant or corporal fell in battle, or while looting in dangerous places?’
Her eyes took me in, gauging at the depths of my words, and she finally nodded. ‘We shall see, perhaps, soon?’
Henriette hugged and thanked her. Marcel clawed his way in, so did the company, and no baby, not likely even Jesus had as happy a company by his birth bed as the drunken men admiring the little monster. In the end, I fell asleep with Jacques, for that was his name, and next morning, my plans almost came to nothing, for we had waited for too long and the Austrians came for us.
CHAPTER 17
God knows, Marie, how it was possible to lose all the Army of Italy had bitterly bled for, especially in such a short time. Yet, Carnot had been asking for it, and Austrians acted while we dozed in the woods.
That morning, Henri was yelling like a possessed man while he dressed, for not far, musketry could be heard and cannons roared. Soon, officers were running around like headless chicken, most important gear was being packed and I was helping mother to load our trusty wagon, for we had sold the one I stole. I tucked the whimpering baby on to her lap, assuring Marcel we were fine, which we, of course, were not.
For the next week and a half, we marched along the beautiful coast, though unable to enjoy the sights as close, but mostly unseen Austrian forces harried us. What was usually a trip of days was now a fighting nightmare. General Kellerman’s Army of Italy was entirely surprised, almost cut off from Niece, bullied mercilessly and it was only due to the hard-fighting chasseurs of the army we managed to avoid loosing many of the slower moving units, like the lumbering, elite artillery to the Austrians. All through the bitter nights and scorching hot days, men would turn about at a terse order to go drive back the relentless and unusually aggressive Austrians. Once, stealthy hussars rode around the demi-bridge in a very early morning. The baby cried, the enemy sortied brutally and charged half asleep camp in a confused mass, but our men got up, grabbed their muskets, the thin lines fired at the nick of time and even I shot at a horseman, who slumped on his small horse, guiding it away while bleeding. The cart filled with wounded and sick, and mother tried to take care of them as well as the unhappy baby.
Finally, after at least a hundred and fifty miles of hell, we stopped at Loano, where the French army had started from in 1794, before it had been victorious and glorious. There were rumors of Napoleon again at a role in the Ministry of War, and that there would be help, that Army of the Alps was coming with all its men, but for us, those few weeks, it was all about close calls and survival. We did not understand what was going on, other that general Kellerman got sacked in favor of Schérer, and all proper soldiers need such sensible gestures, for we were a madly superstitious lot and Kellerman was the scapegoat and a terrible bad luck charm.
We sat in the hills and valleys of Loano, tentatively wondering why the Austrian forces were dithering. We did not know it, but de Viens of the Austrians and Colli of Piedmont were foolishly indecisive, much surprised and not expecting such a success, not knowing what to do next and how to do it quickly and also waiting for their massive supply trains to catch up with their main forces, unaccustomed at living off the land. Their confusion and disagreement saved us, but it did not stop the war, and in the small, idyllic towns, thinly wooded hills and pristine, small valleys, we fought the savage enemy that was not sure how to proceed, but did advance when it saw an opportunity.
Mother was ill and weak, and Laroche had procured her much needed food, and she ate some thick soup, but the baby was unhappy and hungry, as Henriette was not producing enough milk. Laroche and I stole a goat from a fusilier company for its milk, but the unlucky goat disappeared, no doubt eaten by some more skillful thief than we were.
One cold evening Laroche was sitting on a stump, looking at a scratch made by a musket ball in his leather helmet. He smiled ruefully. ‘That bastard had a hiccup. It was a Hungarian. Jäger. Inch below and I would not be here starving.’
I smiled as I was wondering where to get milk for the baby. ‘God, imagine what they would be serving in the afterlife, Laroche; German ale, fat beef, French wine, and scrumptious white bread.’
‘Shut up, Jeanette,’ Skins moaned miserably from nearby. The skeletal man was even thinner after the grueling retreat. ‘Besides, I bet in heaven they serve severe, hourly prayers as entertainment while ugly virgins dish out some pure, tasteless porridge.’
‘Not our problem,’ Charles told him, ‘we won't see it. I bet the devil sets up an excellent fare. Only Cleft sees the holy lands and starves on prayers and heavenly choirs.’ Cleft had a deeply disapproving look at Charles’s mockery of his sensitive religious soul and I sighed, hoping he would find some humor in his ever-dour soul. He would be a victim forever, otherwise. I sat next to him, and he shut his eyes. We were all dead tired.
‘Baby? Is it ok?’ he asked, drowsy.
I snorted. ‘He is hungry. But otherwise, indeed.’
He smiled as he leaned back. ‘I shot a man today. I saw him fall hard, a tiny hole in his chest. A man became “it," a carcass. It is mad, but perhaps Marcel was right in his estimation that we have rules different from an ordinary man with an intact soul. Mine is torn by this life.’
‘It has been so, Victor, and likely not going to change at all,’ I told him, vaguely.
‘Yes, and I thank you for remembering my name, Jeanette,’ he told me, as if approving my surprisingly good memory.
‘I’m not an imbecile,’ I told him tartly, antagonized by his patronizing tone.
‘Thank you for being patient,’ he said more kindly, calmly eyeing me.
‘About the thing we discussed last year, you mean?’
He nodded. ‘That. Vivien and I have grown close, for Thierry has been away a lot, well, before the retreat that is. Didier and Fox have been busy as bees as well, training the new, apparently imbecile men in the fourth. I have slept with her.’ He did not seem happy by that, and said it like he was describing the most mundane activity in the world.
‘I see,’ I told him carefully. ‘Did it make you happy?’
‘It made me… sated.’ His eyes glittered as he gazed at me. ‘She is a hard woman who does not open up easily. I suppose it might work between her and me, but I think I love you.’
‘Ah?’ I said, looking away, knowing I loved Henri. ‘How do you know this?’
His lips trailed a small, insecure smile. ‘One’s first love feels different from loving Vivien, one who has so much sadness in her past, and memories that harden her outlook on life. She doesn’t smile, much. I thought about you and the kiss we shared, when I kissed her. So tell me, is there hope for us? Or have you now moved on, again.’
‘My past is not exactly a fanciful ball. First love?’ I said, trying to fathom what he was saying. ‘Are you saying I was your…’
He interrupted me, taking a deep, ragged breath. ‘I asked Henriette. She refused to say. She is your mother and did not want to lie, but I asked her, and Marcel, if you would marry me.’
Enraged, I turned on him. ‘They do not decide such things for me. I do.’
The smile on his lips was now sarcastic. ‘I could ask the colonel, perhaps?’
‘The colonel?’ I said, dreading he had done so already.
He was quiet for a long time as he gazed at me, but finally nodded, understanding what I was unwilling to share. ‘When you accosted me that day of Vivien and what happened between you and I, you led me to believe there was a chance for us. I asked you if you have slept with our illustrious leader.’
‘I did not lie,’ I lied, and his eyes took me in. He nodded sagely, doubting my words.
‘That does not matter. Perhaps I should have asked instead: are you in love with him?’
‘I am not,’ I lied again, my belly aching with the untruths, but my voice cracked and I knew he was bright enough to pick up subtle hints.
He spoke of nothing for a while, looking at
fat Laroche and agitated Skins, who were arguing over something insignificant, like the color of the sky. We were very tense and bored at the same time. Then Cleft got up, grunting with the effort, and squatted near me, looking deep into my orbs. ‘Yes, you were my first love. When we travelled here, to wonderful Italy, I had lost my foul father and had decided to love the nation, for there was nothing else to love, and I was very lost, more than angry and hoping for a better life than what my father left me with. You talked kindly with me that night, remember, when we travelled here? You sought me out. It was not a very romantic discussion, I admit, but you came to lean near me, treated me kindly, you were brilliant as the stars above us and I loved you from that night on. It is unexplainable thing, love. You are most beautiful, as I said, but there is a bright fire in you a man is drawn to, the quality of your brave soul more beautiful even above that of you looks. You are full of life, brave, amusing, savage and strangely innocent, with wonderful goodness and steely evil wound together in a most curious way. Sometimes, men burn in such fire, like father preached to me, in that he was right. To you, I seem mundane. To me, now, as I see the truth, you are high and precious, and I cannot hope to attain you.’
His words flustered me, and I was ashamed for my lies and for the fact I did not feel such torment and fire for him. ‘I said, there might be very well feelings from my side….’
‘Hush.’ He silenced me. ‘This night, we will go out to the woods to drive the Hungarians away, but tomorrow afternoon, Vivien told me Thierry and the fucker of a captain will meet with a man from Paris. Gilbert’s man, I think, at noon. I will show you where. Tomorrow. Then you will be free, and I will try to live my life with Vivien, for one must settle for lesser joy, and be humble.’
I nodded, miserable that he was keen enough to know of my truest feelings, but I could not change them, and cursed Henri for not speaking as he did. But if there was indeed a man of Gilbert’s out there, then Paul Barras had likely lost all control of Gilbert and we would act. I was grateful to him. ‘We will shoot them, Cleft, for they are evil men. Then we will see…’
‘I know,’ he smiled. ‘Vivien. She thinks I will keep her safe, and I will, if I can, and that means Thierry is going to have to turn into a rotting carcass. Oh, by the way. Vivien also worries about the baby.’ We listened to Jacques cry a heartbreakingly, his usual shuddering cry reverberating in the woods, for he was desperately hungry, and I felt tears come. Cleft leaned over to wipe some off my face.
‘Up there is a farm, two miles that way.’ He pointed at a distant hill that loomed up in the darkness. There was a light flickering bravely there, halfway to the summit. ‘On that hill, there is a farm. We skirmished near it today, and Vivien saw a man come down to the farm with a rake, his clothes muddied and dirty with fresh dung. He came down the track leading up to the summit, and I think he has animals there, perhaps a cow. We go and see what is up there after noon tomorrow, when we are all free. Milk for the little one, she thought it might entail, that place, and I agree.’ He smiled sadly at me, and I nodded thanks to him, feeling sorry for his earlier bitter words and deep disappointment.
Then Henri came forth, thinner I remembered him. His cigar was unlit in his mouth, his blade hanging low on his hip, bicorn loosely set on his head. He clapped his hands, drawing looks and groans from the sprawled company. ‘Now, now boys. We have a duty to go drive out some Hungarian bastards who are over fond of our woods. Get ready. Lefebvre! Citizen Lefebvre!’
‘Colonel?’ Marcel said from the darkness, where he had been relieving himself.
‘Get the men moving. How’s the little man?’ Henri’s eyes rested on me.
‘Jacques is hungry, but we are working on it,’ I told him woodenly
Marcel nodded. ‘The baby stole a bread from a grenadier yesterday, and didn’t give it back to the man, who surrendered entirely too quickly. The boy might think life is easy as eating pie.’
‘Light infantryman in the making,’ Henri growled. ‘There are many enemies creeping in the woods, so bring all the shot, but leave everything that makes noise. See to it, sergeant major. Whole battalion is going, so be ready in an hour. Take care, my friends. Oh, and leave someone to guard them.’ He nodded at us, his grey eyes lingering in the woods, where Didier and Fox were standing, and apparently getting ready. Captain Voclain was busily ordering his men to lines. Somewhere, not far, cannon roared and yells and screams of desperate pain could be heard. Tomorrow, we would be free to do what we wanted, I hoped, if we survived this war. Voclain’s eyes passed me by, moist and strange, and he grinned briefly. Yes, it would be a pleasure to see that bastard go still and breathless, I thought and smiled back at him.
The praying company marched, the thinned battalion filtered out of the sorry camp and Skins and Charles stayed to watch over us. Henriette was sleeping with the baby as Skins was sipping on some watery brandy, looking around the now silent woods. Charles was getting water from a stream. I threw more faggots on the fire and listened to the baby whimpering. It needed milk, I cursed. How hard could it be to find milk in Italy? I eyed the hill Cleft had mentioned and squinted at the brave light burning there. I heard Jacques again whimper in hunger and my heart was wrenched with bitter anger and bottomless pity for the small one, and so I made a decision. ‘I will go and take a shit,’ I told Skins, who looked mildly embarrassed. ‘What? You have seen us all do that,’ I asked him incredulously.
He looked embarrassed. ‘Still, you are a girl, though, and… go where I can see you.’
‘You want to see?’ I asked him, amused.
He grinned. ‘As I said, you are a girl. You are part of the bleeding company, Jeanette, but still a girl, and we all try to see when you take a piss or a bath. Which is not often enough, if I might add. A bath is a fine thing.’
‘But not when I am taking a shit? Then you prefer not to ogle?’ I growled at him as I took my belt where I tucked the two pistols Georges had left us with. He eyed me suspiciously.
‘No, not then, we do not like such sights; unnatural it seems to witness a beauty produce such fertilizer. You are not going far, right?’
I shrugged. ‘I need a good spot, just like a dog does. Just curious, but how do you know which it will be, piss or shit, since I am a girl and squat for both?’
‘Your mother belches before she does the big nasty, and you fidget before you have to go for one, and so you didn’t fidget, and I don’t trust you.’ His skinny face was hard as stone as he accosted me. ‘At least wait until Charles comes back.’
I took an indignant breath. ‘I cannot wait and don’t wish to talk about this with a mule like you. I will go or do it here. No, in fact, I will just go and you will not look and I will have a moment of blissful peace out of the prying eyes of the perverts and freaks.’
He shrugged and smiled; yet not daring to challenge me. ‘Don’t go far. There might be sneaky Hungarians and even some odd Austrians out there, and they like to see pretty girls pee just as much as we do.’
‘You are a nasty, dirty creature, Skins, but I love you. Don’t worry.’ He shrugged, took more brandy, and tried not to worry, cursing Charles for not being there to help him.
So I went.
I checked my guns and shot, tucked my skirt into the fine uhlan boots to prevent it from being caught on sharp rocks and stubborn, low-hanging boughs and started to hike carefully through the undergrowth. It was a scary trip, for there were both French and Austrians in the woods, probing, looking for things to eat and kill. I heard many shots and bitter laughter, and at one point I froze on a small bank of a swift, cold stream as some horsemen went past. I was so scared I had to relieve myself and I giggled silently as I noticed I had indeed fidgeted.
Finally, groping in the dark, I got to the farmhouse, where the light was burning on the porch, bright and smelling of rancid oil. Surprisingly, there was a hog squealing inside the house proper, having evaded robbery by being hidden with the people living there, and I smiled as I heard a man curse and the poor pig
squeal, as it was struck. I made my way through a wheat field, fell in a disgusting ditch, got up ponderously, cursing as a soldier, and crawled towards the summit. I found a slight path, rocky, the well-trod depression indignantly fighting weeds, but there were hoof marks, which I barely saw in the slight moonlight. I smiled and begged to good God ill-tempered dogs or even determined men would not guard the animals I hoped to find, but that is why I had the pistols and would use them, for the cow.
There were shots and yells of distress somewhere nearby, and I froze. They were likely enemy soldiers, being chased by our men, I decided and moved on for the summit. Up there, after a small, thick wood, I found a high rock formation, and on its root, a large shack, with a pile of hay next to it, covered by a shoddy wooden roof. I took out my pistol and cocked it with difficulty. Then I crept to the door, holding my breath, listening, and scanning around the darkness, I opened it, thinking how much the setting reminded me of the day Humps was killed. And that thought made me flinch and turn to run.
It was too late, for a torch flared behind me.
I turned, aimed the gun, and saw men’s silhouettes in the bright flare and one was on foot, aiming a musket my way, the other sitting on a horse holding the bright torch. If they were Italians, they would hurt me, maybe kill me. I hardened myself, determined to fight, not willing to die like this.
‘Put it down, girl,’ said Voclain calmly from his horse, as if utterly satisfied and finally at ease after months of waiting. A pure, all-encompassing fear filled me, disappointment burning me with cold despair, as Cleft had betrayed us. Apparently, I had disappointed him again, one final time, and he was a man not to take such things lightly, despite his apparent acceptance of the fact.
Reign of Fear: Story of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (Cantiniére Tales) Page 36