Perce was up and away before Sergei reached the stable. He was laughing as he rode, amused by Sergei’s motherly advice. Nonetheless, it was an enormous advantage to him to have so trustworthy a servant. Then he laughed again. Perhaps trustworthy was the wrong word. It would not surprise him in the least to discover that the food in his saddlebags as well as a great many other items he found of use and comfort were stolen. But Sergei did not steal from him.
He then gave his attention to his horse, who was very lively and was taking exception to the growing noise. Perce allowed Bravo to gallop up the road. The pace was scarcely safe on the rutted surface, but it was better to work off the animal’s surplus energy before they arrived at General Bennigsen’s command station than to have Bravo bucking and kicking in a crowd. The half-mile distance was just barely enough to accomplish this purpose. Perce was able to present himself and hand over Buxhöwden’s note without causing a disaster.
General Bennigsen read it swiftly and shoved it carefully into a pocket. “Did he say anything to you?” he asked.
Perce repeated Buxhöwden’s remarks.
Bennigsen’s mouth twisted. “I will pray for him,” he said caustically. “That is all the help I can send.”
While he spoke, his attention had never left the battlefield below them, and now he lifted his spyglass to his eye again. Perce looked out over the field, also. It was interesting from this distance, like watching a very large game with toy soldiers, except that the toys moved around by themselves. A shot from one of their guns struck a group of French infantrymen struggling through the morass, and half a dozen of the little figures threw up their hands, or twisted wildly, dropping their weapons as they fell. Perce felt a vague satisfaction. They were out of the game. There were no individual shrill cries; all the sounds blended into a dull roar punctuated and underlined by the repeated deep throb of the artillery.
“Kevern!” Bennigsen snapped.
“Sir?” Perce kicked Bravo forward. It was his turn. Pëtr Pavlovitch and Ivan Petrovitch had been sent out already with messages for the left wing and center. Matvei Semenovitch must have been sent off earlier, before Perce returned from Golymin; he had not yet returned.
The general pointed his baton down the hill and off to the right. “Tell the colonel of artillery there that I want a heavy barrage of grapeshot laid down ahead of the French. If he can lay the shot right on their front ranks, so much the better, but it is the forward ranks I wish to suffer now.”
Perce acknowledged the message and touched the horse with his heel. He discovered five minutes later that the most direct route to the guns was not practicable for a horse, so he rode northward to an easier slope then worked his way around. He had to force Bravo with whip and spur and realized it was not only the French who were suffering the effects of battle. Bodies had been dragged away from one gun lying on its side amid splintered wheels and carriage. Not all were dead. One man was screaming with the shrill regularity of a creaking wheel. The men working the other guns did not even turn their heads.
There was clearly no upper officer here. Perce bellowed a question, got a pointed finger in response. He drove Bravo on, almost lost control of him as a shot crashed into the ground not more than two hundred feet away. A shriek and roar of foul language followed. Perce did not look back to see what had happened, concentrating wholly on getting his horse to move forward. Another shell and then another fell, but both short of the target, possibly from guns farther away. At the next battery of guns, Perce found his colonel and delivered his message, adding the information that there were wounded at the battery he had passed.
He heard orders rapped out to the colonel’s aides, but his part was done. Now he was only in the way. A hasty survey of the area showed a rough road, probably the one the guns had come down on from Pultusk. He spurred toward that, Bravo going more readily as the immediate roar of the guns diminished. It seemed to Perce, however, that the overall noise of battle was louder. When he reached the general again, having gone nearly all the way back to town to find a place to climb the hill, it was apparent his perception was correct. The fighting had intensified. A powerful thrust was under way.
Before Perce had even reached Bennigsen’s side or could report that he had delivered the orders, the general was roaring further instructions for Perce to carry to Colonel Semorov on the left flank. Perce laid his whip to Bravo’s hindquarters and flew off back toward Pultusk and through it. It was like a town of the dead. He alone moved along the street. Those who could, had fled; those less fortunate—or more courageous—were hidden in their houses. Not far from the town another brigade of artillery was at work. There were fewer guns than in the batteries to the north and Perce did not remember any guns so close to the town when he had come back from Golymin. Also, many of the gunners seemed to be bandaged or bloody.
Then Perce realized that the guns had been pulled back from a more forward position. He raised his whip to bring it down on Bravo’s hindquarters again, in an attempt to wring more speed from him, but instead was forced to pull back slightly on the reins. Ahead the road was no longer clear and empty. Men with bloodstained uniforms crawled, limped, dragged others. Beyond them were carts laden with those who could not even crawl. For an instant, sickness rose in Perce’s throat as the fear of another rout like Austerlitz seized him. In the next moment that fear was gone. The column of wounded were, in fact, a guarantee that there was no rout. When an army breaks and runs, it is the unscathed who come first; the wound are left to die.
Perce drove Bravo right and then left, seeking safe ground that would avoid the road. It was essential that Bennigsen’s message reach his subordinate. Failure in communications had materially increased the disaster of Austerlitz, if it had not actually caused the disaster. On both sides of the road, however, the ground dropped away sharply, indicating that the land was boggy. It looked smooth and clean under its blanket of snow, but Perce knew better than to try it. The wounded would have to make way for him.
By now he was almost upon them. As far as Perce could see, there was little choice between the sides of the road. He stayed where he was, shouting, “Make way.” The walking wounded at the front pressed together and Perce passed; those farther back tried to move closer to the wagons or get between them; still farther back the screams and groans drowned Perce’s voice. He drew the pistol from his left holster, pointed it into the air and pulled the trigger. The flint sparked, but the priming powder failed to flash. Perce cursed with a fluency and heartfelt sincerity that would have done credit to any trooper—and in five languages. Sergei had reminded him to renew his charges, but he had forgotten.
Leaving Bravo to make his way forward as best he could, Perce fumbled for the small powderhorn and renewed the charges in both guns. The sound of the shot was helpful for a short distance. Those who could move, moved fast, assuming the officer had shot someone impeding his path. Even so Bravo could barely work up a trot, and a few poor devils were shouldered aside so that they rolled down into the bog. Perce was sorry; he hoped their companions would help them, but his message might mean all their lives and those of many others.
Still the shrieks of fear and pitiful cries for help upset him, and he could hear them in memory long after he had worked free and delivered his message. Coming back by a thin goat-track pointed out by one of the colonel’s aides, which would permit him to avoid the column of wounded, Perce ran headlong into a troop of enemy French struggling through the bog. They were spread out all over the place. Only two had actually reached the solid ground of the path he was on. Most of the men in the morass were too concerned with their own difficulties to bother about him, but the two on the path raised their muskets. Perce’s first shot took the nearest man full in the face, giving him a horrifying split-second view of a mouth open with surprise and a red ruin—eyeless, noseless—above it.
His second shot disconcerted or wounded the other soldier so that the bullet he fired at Perce went wide. Then Bravo reared, sc
reaming with pain as the man’s bayonet, aimed to split the horse in the throat, missed and tore his shoulder. Perce had managed to draw his sword, but he had no chance to use it because suddenly Bravo screamed again and bolted forward. Perce had all he could do to keep the animal on the track and save them both from floundering into the bog. The troop of French was behind them now, and it was not until another of them fired at him that Perce connected the crack of a musket with the burst of speed that saved them.
A few minutes later more men appeared. Perce, who had had no time to reload his pistols, could only hope that their speed and his swinging sword would get them through before anyone could shoot him. He had raised the weapon when he realized they wore Russian uniforms. He shouted identification and then warning about the enemy troop as the soldiers jumped off the path to give his horse room. Some sank to their knees in the swamp, but unless they lost their boots, not much harm would be done. Bravo, on the other, hand, could break a leg or sink, so deep, owing to the great weight and small hooves, that he would have to be abandoned.
Perce came in by the rear of Pultusk. The town was no longer silent. It rang with the cries of the wounded, with the blows of gun butts and other tools breaking doors as houses were forced open to shelter the wounded, with the rumbling of cartwheels as more maimed bodies were brought in. Perce glanced down at Bravo’s shoulder. Blood glistened red and wet down the whole leg, but the horse was still going strongly, not even favoring that side, apparently still too frightened to feel much pain. Unable to do more than curse, Perce turned north toward Bennigsen’s command post.
Now it seemed quieter again, much as it had been when he first rode out, but he could hear the general’s voice as he neared. It was strangely hoarse, as if he’d been shouting for a long time. Perce felt that was odd, but he could spare it no thought. Bravo had been stumbling for the last five minutes. Feeling the horse might go down, Perce swung out of the saddle and nearly fell on his face. His legs were numb, his feet totally without feeling, although sweat was trickling down his back and chest.
That, too, was odd, but it was far more important to get Bravo to Sergei and get atop Red before he had to ride out again. Perce closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to remember where they had decided Sergei would wait. The answer had not yet come to him when Bravo’s rein was pulled from his hand.
“Did you eat?” Sergei asked.
Perce looked at him blankly. “See what you can do for Bravo,” he said. “He may have a bullet in him somewhere in his left haunch.”
“The food. The food,” Sergei insisted. “Did you eat it?”
“No. You can have it if you’re hungry.” Perce reached for Red’s reins, but Sergei pulled them away.
“You need to eat,” he insisted, taking both sets of reins into one hand and fumbling in Bravo’s saddlebags.
He thrust the food packet at Perce, who pushed it away, protesting that he was not hungry and he had eaten at General Buxhöwden’s headquarters.
“That was six o’clock in the morning,” Sergei said slowly and clearly. “It is afternoon now.” He pointed to the sun.
Perce looked at it and then toward the town, which he knew to be southeast of where Bennigsen had stationed himself. He could hardly believe what he saw. It must be nearly three o’clock from the position of the sun. He took the package that Sergei was thrusting at him again and reached for the flap, but he could not open it. He heard the shrieks of the wounded, the screaming of injured horses, saw the half face of the man whose head he had shot away.
“Later,” he said.
“Later will be worse,” Sergei warned. “The French have pulled back, but they will come on again.”
“I can eat while I ride,” Perce insisted, pulling Red’s reins from Sergei’s hand.
“He pushed the food into Red’s saddlebags and transferred his pistols, powderhorn and bullets. As he did he cursed himself again for failing to take his Ellis repeaters. At the time he left England, it had not seemed appropriate. He had planned to play the part of an army-struck English dandy, stupid and impractical. He certainly had not planned to get mixed up in the war, and the Ellis pistols he had felt would strike too practical and efficient a note. His role had developed along other lines, however. Well, it was too late to worry now.
“See if you can find someone to sew up Bravo,” Perce ordered.
“There are plenty of horses,” Sergei shouted as Perce started to ride away. “Matvei Semenovitch is dead, and Pëtr Pavlovitch too badly wounded to ride. You be careful! You can get killed out there!”
Chapter Eleven
The month of January was one long nightmare of horror for Sabrina. The news of the battle at Pultusk reached Königsberg on the twenty-seventh of December. First it was heralded as a Prussian victory, but by the end of the year it was plain that the evaluation had been a gross exaggeration. All that could truly be said of Pultusk was that it had not been a defeat. The Russians had stood their ground against everything Bonaparte could send against them; however, they had been hit so hard that even Bennigsen acknowledged it would be suicide to attempt to throw the French back. In fact, he had been unwilling to remain so close to Bonaparte’s army and had pulled his own forces back to Preussisch Eylau, twenty-three miles south of Königsberg.
Only twenty-three miles. At first Sabrina had been overjoyed. Perce could come at any time his duties allowed. But Perce had not come, nor a letter, nor Sergei with a message, and as tales of the battle drifted in to Königsberg, a terrified conviction grew in Sabrina that Perce was dead. In her first anxiety she asked about him, saying he was an aide to Bennigsen. No one knew anything specific about Lord Kevern, but it was known that several of the general’s aides had been killed and one, badly wounded, had been sent back to Russia. Sabrina ceased to inquire. She believed Perce was dead, but as long as no one confirmed it, she could go on hoping.
It made no difference that the hope hurt more than certain knowledge that once she knew, she could try to begin remaking her life. She did not want to remake her life. She would rather endure the constant pricking of the tiny, sharp knife of hope than learn the truth. Thus, she did not approach Sir Robert and ask him to find out about Perce, nor did she write to General Bennigsen himself to ask. She waited, clutching her pain of hope to her, trying to avoid those who discussed the battle and the future moves the Russians and French might make.
The latter was growing quite easy, not because the war was less talked about but because fewer and fewer people seemed to want to talk to Sabrina. Many evenings now she sat at home, working at her embroidery or netting a purse for Leonie. Fewer and fewer invitations came, and the coldness toward the English was growing into something warmer—an active distaste.
The indecisive meeting at Pultusk had generated a fever of hope in the Prussians. If the Russians alone had been able to do so much, surely more might be accomplished with British help. Now was the time to send help, King Frederick William and his ministers insisted; supplies were needed, as were money and trained men. They pointed out angrily that the British had sent twenty-six thousand men to Cuxhaven by the Elbe River and had then withdrawn them without ever using them. Now the strength of the British army had increased from one hundred eighty-five thousand to two hundred thousand, and surely at least twenty-five thousand could be spared to fight Bonaparte directly.
There was little the British emissaries could do beyond make excuses, which were less and less graciously received. The truth was that War Secretary Windham had a dreadful proclivity for dispersing his forces on harebrained missions designed to snatch a pot of gold from places like Egypt or South America. To admit this would not have improved matters in any way. As the anger in the negotiators grew, they respected the confidentiality of the negotiations less and less. Outraged Prussian ministers expressed their feelings to their wives, who in turn grew outraged and expressed themselves to their friends and servants.
Although this tattling had no effect on the negot
iations, it had a great effect on Sabrina, who bore the brunt of the women’s spite against the English. Thus, she was not invited to the social functions that tried to welcome in the New Year with what cheer could be mustered. In addition, there were incidents at the house and on the street—insults called, a rock thrown. The English were no longer welcome to the nobility or the people. Sabrina knew she was useless should now go home, that she would be forced go home as soon as Lord Hutchinson and William had the time to think about her. She made herself small and inconspicuous, staying out of William’s sight as much as possible. She could not go home! She could not! Perce was still in East Prussia, his long, pale body, which had brought her such exquisite pleasure, smirched with earth…rotting… But she could not leave him alone, all alone.
The days dragged by, the weather grew worse and worse. By the beginning of February, howling storms of sleet during the day were followed by snowstorms at night, so that sheets of ice were deceptively covered with snow, and horse and man slipped and fell. No shipmaster in his right mind set sail and Sabrina stayed at home, huddling close to the stove in the sitting room. She could not bear to remain in her bedchamber, even though one particular bearskin had been removed from the floor and carefully rolled up in the closet.
In Russian headquarters the weather was regarded with far greater indulgence. The French may have been left to take Pultusk, but General Bennigsen had made sure that it was worthless to them, as was the whole area for miles around. Every animal capable of walking had been driven out, the towns and villages had been stripped, the houses burnt. Reports from the countryside informed the general that the French army was suffering horribly. Bonaparte was accustomed to letting his men live off the land by foraging, but the Russians made certain there was nothing to forage. Conditions were so bad that the supply trains sent out to relieve the needs of the front lines were set upon and robbed by equally starving troops farther back. The French, Bennigsen had heard, were dying like flies. What he had begun at Pultusk was being helped along mightily by the weather.
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