The Retreat (22 page)

‘Our reserves?'

‘Oudinot is still in Lithuania.'

‘Have him join us. How many men has he?'

‘Five thousand.'

‘And Victor?'

‘Fifteen thousand.'

‘Have him join us as well. Davout?'

‘He left Krasnoie this morning.'

‘With Ney?'

‘No, sire.'

‘That unreliable fool, who gave him the order?'

‘He did himself.'

‘He was to wait for Ney!'

‘He is marching on Orcha, burning the bridges as he goes.'

‘So Ney is lost?'

Berthier did not answer. The Emperor noticed Sebastian standing in the doorway. ‘What does that lump wringing his hands want?'

‘Sire,' said Sebastian as Napoleon glared at him, ‘a Polish officer is here, he has come from Lithuania …'

‘Well, send him in, you awkward lump!'

‘Sire,' said the captain as he entered, hat in hand, ‘a Russian army is advancing on Vilna.'

‘What of the Duke of Bassano?'

‘He is concerned and sent me to inform you.'

‘Let him stand fast!'

‘Will he able to?'

‘He must!'

‘The situation is perilous, I had to disguise myself to cross enemy lines.'

‘So those barbarians are everywhere, are they?'

‘Everywhere.'

‘How far to Vilna and the Niemen?'

‘A hundred and twenty leagues of wilderness.'

‘Which way should we go?'

‘The thaw means we have to take the bridges.'

‘Cross the Dnieper here?'

‘Yes, sire.'

‘Then?'

‘There is another bridge on a tributary of the Dnieper, at Borisov.'

‘How long to get there?'

‘A week, roughly.'

‘Can the Russians get there before us?'

‘Perhaps, sire, but it's the only way out.'

‘Is it broad, this river of yours?'

‘Not especially, about forty fathoms.'

‘Its name?'

‘The Berezina.'

*

Two grenadiers of the Guard came out of the convent occupied by the commissariat. Toting a big bundle, they were heading back to their cantonment with provisions for the battalion – keeping clear of the centre of town, where they would have been robbed by the starving even though they were armed – when they saw a tattered, mud-splashed young woman leaning against the wall of a wooden shack. She was giving them the glad eye. She had long, tousled black hair and a face as angelic as her pose was provocative: Ornella made a wickedly alluring picture. The grenadiers stopped in front of her and talked between themselves. ‘Do you think she speaks French?'

‘If she does or doesn't, what's it matter?'

‘Course, you're right, for what we're after.'

‘I'm from Paris and I'm hungry,' said Ornella, eyeing them.

‘That can be discussed,' said one of the grenadiers.

‘That can be paid for,' she answered.

‘What are you offering for our biscuits?'

‘You won't be disappointed!' she called, disappearing into the shack.

The grenadiers hesitated.

‘You go first, you're the sergeant.'

‘Keep an eye on our rations.'

‘Trust me,' said the other, cocking his pistol.

Then, in a state of high excitement, the sergeant entered a dark room.

‘Where are you?'

‘Come closer.'

The sergeant groped his way forward.

‘Ah, got you!'

He felt Ornella's hair under his fingers.

‘Got you too!'

She gripped his wrists as Dr Fournereau slit his throat from behind with a precise movement, without a sound. They conferred in a low voice. ‘The one guarding the sack of biscuits is armed,' said Ornella.

‘Call him …'

‘He won't come, he's waiting for his friend.'

‘Make him wait, then. Play your part, let's have some groans.'

Ornella started to moan; she lit one of the candles she'd taken when they left their cart. ‘Hey, old ham,' the doctor said to Vialatoux. ‘You're the same height, or near enough, as that dumb soldier, put on his cap and coat. It's getting dark …'

‘I understand my character,' Vialatoux murmured professionally.

The others spread out in the semi-darkness; they stripped the grenadier. Striking a variety of poses, Vialatoux put on the coat, jammed the tall bearskin on his head,
wrapped his face in the fur scarf, and then regretted not having a brighter light and mirror to check his costume. Fournereau whispered that it was perfect. After some extravagant trills, on Ornella's last scream, he pushed the actor outside.

‘Hey, Sergeant, you know how to make that hussy sing!' the other grenadier congratulated him, but as he held out the sack, he suddenly became suspicious and raised his pistol. ‘Where's that blood on your coat come from?'

Vialatoux made a sign that it was nothing.

‘Have you been struck dumb? Who are you? What about the sergeant? Where's the sergeant?'

Vialatoux jumped at him, wrenched his hand away and the bullet went into the ground. Fournereau and two or three strong men rushed out. The grenadier lost his footing; Fournereau pinned him to the ground, twisted his face into the liquid mud and held him under long enough for him to suffocate. His job done, he went back into the shack where the biscuits and rye bread were being handed out.

‘Don't eat it all, think of tomorrow,' said the doctor, dragging in the body of the second grenadier.

They had thrown themselves on the bread; sprawled on the floor, they were devouring it, stuffing their mouths so full they were almost choking. Fournereau joined them.

Suddenly they stopped. A bright light spilled though the door of their refuge. They picked up their share of the provisions and went outside. Carriages were burning in the middle of the street. Gunners were leading horses away by the bridle, others were smashing the windows of a berline; still others were running up with torches. Fournereau and his group went closer; perhaps there would be some clothes to salvage.

‘Here,' a soldier said to Vialatoux.

He handed him a torch. The actor was still wearing the grenadier's bearskin and now it seemed he had been enlisted. Why not? The Guard got fed, at least. He seized the chance to join this swirling crowd of incendiaries who were taking delight in destroying half the carriages: they started running, yelling, smashing and setting them on fire with Vialatoux in their midst. The Emperor had set an example by burning part of his baggage on a bonfire: any horses remaining he wanted for the few cannon and caissons that had come this far, not for the useless carriages which only got in the way.

*

Pedestrians and coachmen crossed the Dnieper on two bridges that Davout was going to burn. It couldn't be helped about Marshal Ney; they had to make haste towards Borisov, since the Russians could strike in numbers at any moment and cut off their route home. Oudinot and Victor had been ordered to wait at the Berezina with their reserve armies in winter clothes. After navigating a slushy road marked out by rows of birches, the cohort crossed Minsk's dark forest. In the secretariat's wagon, Sebastian and Baron Fain had cleared a space for themselves by destroying armfuls of archives in Orcha.

‘Monsieur Roque,' said the Baron, ‘your teeth are chattering.'

‘My teeth are chattering.'

‘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.