The Retreat (18 page)

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!'

‘Monsieur,' his batman repeated, obeying. ‘One doesn't notice when one's nose starts freezing and the next thing you know, it falls off, you should …'

‘Did you stop to give me advice?'

‘No, sir. I am just wondering if we are going to get across. It gets dark so early.'

Past the bend, the icy road fell steeply to a bridge, which spanned the river, and then rose just as sharply the other side. Grenadiers, their fingers soldered to their muskets,
were posted at the bridge's entrance to regulate the flow of traffic, but what could they do? Horses with worn shoes skidded down to the river's edge and did not get up again. They neighed deafeningly as heavy carriages crushed them, broke through the thin layer of ice and sunk into the grey water; men yelled and pushed and shoved, others hurtled down the slope or used the carcasses like the steps of a staircase, sometimes tumbling to the bottom with their bags that burst open; those behind caught their gaiters in samovars and bracelets and teapot handles.

‘The carts, sir, none of them are getting down in one piece.'

‘Unfortunately you're right, Bonet.'

‘And even the horses we've still got …'

‘We'll leave the carts,' ordered d'Herbigny. ‘We'll make for the bridge by the thicker snow on the bank, leading the horses.'

Some ingenious civilians were managing to lower their carriages by a system of ropes strung between birches, but even using that method the carts would have broken up, so the dragoons set about unloading them; they shared out the gold coins and the precious stones unset from icons; the wine had frozen, but they broke the bottles and set off again sucking Madeira or Tokay icicles. New arrivals, very unprovided for, divided out the rest of the carts' contents. Sighing, d'Herbigny had hung packets of tea from his saddle and strapped them across the backs of their mules, who were glad not to have to carry their full load any more. The squadron managed to regroup at the start of the bridge in order to force their way across in the throng.

‘Is that thunder?' asked Paulin.

The captain hadn't time to answer before a cannonball
smashed into the ground a few metres from them. In the distance, Cossacks were training light guns mounted on sledges on the bridge, shaking their whips and howling like wolves. Another cannonball fell in the river. That was it, stampede.