The Retreat (23 page)

‘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 other 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.

The captain set off back across the river to deliver his tied-up prisoner. The conditions were as dangerous as before, with only three rowers, the dragoons. The wind blew counter to the current, churning the water into eddies; the raft bucked, drift ice smashed into it, the ropes stretched
taut. Several times they almost capsized. In the commotion, the Russian manoeuvred himself until he lay flat on his stomach and, as the captain deflected the ice and the others struggled to keep the raft afloat, he rolled into the black water. D'Herbigny tried to catch him with his one hand.

‘Leave him, he'll drag you under!'

‘The bastard!'

‘Hang on!'

Picked up by the current, the raft rammed into the left bank at brutal speed, temporarily knocking the captain unconscious. His dragoons laid him in the snow, staggering under the weight. One of them smacked him to bring him round; he snarled, ‘Is that you slapping me, Chantelouve?'

‘No choice …'

‘Do you want to fight a duel?'

Still dazed, d'Herbigny realized the silliness of what he was saying, extricated himself with a ‘Let's not talk about it anymore …' and stood up. It was dark and clouds hid the moon. He couldn't see anything but he walked towards the sounds of building. The Emperor had forbidden fires so as not to alert the Russians to the heavy concentration on Studienka; the pontoneers worked by the distant glimmer of the enemy's campfires. They moved forward metre by metre on rafts. Hampered by the high water, which was still rising because of the thaw, they lost the ford countless times. Time and again they were forced to undress and wade into the river up to their shoulders to drive piles into the spongy bed, attach them, nail planks. Some would climb back onto the edifice bleeding, their backs cut by ridges of ice.

*

Crowded together to keep warm on the benches, cushions and floor of the covered barouche, Sebastian and the other clerks of the secretariat had only slept in snatches, woken by the roaring of the river, the shouted orders, the noise of hammers and mallets and the bouts of cramp. They had managed to drowse off when an unexpected cry jolted them all awake. ‘Cockadoodle do! Cock – a – doodle – do!'

‘Are we there?' asked Paulin, forgetting where he was.