The Retreat (25 page)

*

‘I don't understand these Russians at all.'

‘They are concentrating on Borisov, sire.'

‘For goodness' sake! They could have cut us off! Are they blind or stupid? What's left of our army at Borisov? A division!'

‘Perhaps they're manoeuvring on our rear …'

A booming explosion interrupted them, then another, both very close. Napoleon tied on his cap, went out of the cabin and ordered his staff to follow him onto a wooded rise. The snow was falling in a slow swirl but he could see the red points of the fires flecking the plain. The refugees were burning what they could; through carelessness, through ignorance, they had blown up some caissons of powder. The reckless must have been blown to pieces and plenty more wounded by splinters. The Emperor listened to the clamour of several thousand panic-stricken creatures,
the calls of distress carrying a long way. Other sounds, further off, muffled and more rhythmical, were coming from the forest; an aide-de-camp sent by Oudinot allowed them to be pinpointed: a Russian army was cannonading II Corps on the right bank. The Emperor ordered that the Guard be called to arms, hoisted himself into the saddle and, surrounded by his sacred squadron, set off to find the fighting. The sounds of battle revived him; he preferred them to uncertainty. Things were becoming clear-cut.

The forest: didn't seem like trees so much as free-standing colossi, in vast numbers, between which the cuiras-siers galloped. Cannon pounded Oudinot's regiments and giant branches, mangled by shellfire, rained on the men's heads, crushing some of them. When the Emperor reached Oudinot's headquarters amongst the trees, the marshal had just been gravely wounded in the groin; skirmishers were carrying him to the rear on a stretcher fashioned out of branches.

‘Let Ney take his place!'

‘Sire! Our cuirassiers have split the Army of Moldavia in two!'

‘Attack! Attack!'

‘Sire! Marshal Victor is coming from Borisov!'

Having transferred command to Ney, Napoleon returned to his cabin. Marshal Victor, Duke of Belluno and former Revolutionary general, was waiting for him, one of his sleeves torn, his curly hair plastered to his forehead and temples.

‘Have you seen action?'

‘Two Russian armies, between Borisov and Studienka, but I succeeded in separating them and here I am.'

‘At what cost?'

‘Saving four thousand men after enduring hours of grapeshot, but …'

‘But what, Your Grace?'

‘General Partouneaux …'

‘Killed?'

‘No, sire. He remained in Borisov as a diversion and was meant to rejoin me at Studienka, but he took the wrong turning at a fork in the road.'

‘Has that idiot let his division be massacred?'

‘No, sire, he has surrendered.'

‘The coward! If he lacked courage himself, all he had to do was give his grenadiers their head! A drummer would have sounded the charge! A canteen-woman would have shouted “Everyone for himself!”'

‘My remaining men …'

‘Have them cross the Berezina as quickly as possible.'

‘They are crossing now, sire, despite the chaos.'

‘Let them get a move on! The Russians are at your heels; they won't be long, and as soon as it's light we'll be seeing them appear on the hills of the left bank. Berthier! Tell Eblé to burn both bridges at seven in the morning. Caulaincourt! Have someone go and reconnoitre the road to Vilna!'

‘It's been done, sire.'

‘Feasible?'

‘For the moment, yes, sire, but it's not really a road, more an embankment through marshes with narrow bridges and crossings over a mass of streams. If someone set a bunch of gorse on fire, that would be enough to deprive us of this means of retreat.'

*

In the middle of the plain, separated from their companions by the pressure of the crowd, frozen stiff and white with snow, Ornella and Dr Fournereau climbed onto a berline whose driver was whipping his team like a demon; the horses were shaking their manes, rearing in their harness, scattering clusters of fugitives who fell under their hooves. The snow had stopped at daybreak but the cold wind was blowing twice as fiercely. Perched on the roof of the carriage Ornella and the doctor caught sight of the bridges. The one on the left had just broken under the weight of Victor's artillery. Hampered by bodies, the wagons were breaking up between the shattered planks. The river was full of corpses of men and horses; ammunition boxes floated among the bits of ice. Confronted with this wall of carts, baggage and dead, the fugitives made for the other bridge. In these competing tides, many people fell or dived into the water; a sutler sank as she held her baby in her outstretched arms. Desperados leapt onto sheets of ice, which opened up beneath them; screaming, they were picked up by the current and joined the other objects swept along on the surface of the water. Careering down the bank, a cart of wounded smashed into the mud. The berline to which Ornella and Fournereau were clinging broke an axle and tipped over, crushing some stragglers who weren't able to get out of the way in time. Hurled against the frame of a cart, the doctor banged the back of his head and started bleeding. Ornella thought: Don't let go! Don't let go! But her fingers were freezing; she slipped off.

Caught by the floodtide, she had lost the doctor. Already far away, he turned his head to look for her but the momentum was too strong. The fugitives knew the danger without being able to protect themselves from it; they were
packed so tightly that they had no choice but to keep moving towards the bridge; they surged forward with the force of an avalanche crushing everything in its way. They trod on charred fragments of caissons that had exploded in the night, severed limbs black with powder, bloody torsos sliced up by wheels, unidentifiable bits of flesh, rags, dented helmets, a lone boot ruined by the snow and without its sole. At the entrance to that famous bridge they turned savage; the roadway narrowed but they all tried to cross at once; deserters, vicious as anything, stabbed anyone who got in their way with their bayonets. Ornella's feet no longer touched the ground; wedged between the shoulders of those around her, she glimpsed the doctor on the overloaded roadway. The bridge had no parapet; Fournereau lost his balance, grabbed the pine planks as he fell, hung down into the water, buffeted by billets of ice; he screamed when a wagon drove over his clawing fingers. German latecomers from Victor's army lashed the wretched with their horsewhips; a woman clung to a horse's tail, until its rider cut it off with his sabre; the crowd trampled her underfoot. On the right bank, engineers were standing by braziers, waiting for the order to set the bridges on fire.

The Cossacks appeared on the hills and Kutuzov's artillery prepared to fire. As shells exploded at random in the helpless crowd, panic mounted. Frenzied figures butchered each other to reach the bridge, the wounded left their ambulances, a sleeve without an arm floated downstream. A brutal surge of the crowd felled a man with a bandaged forehead. Ornella jumped out of the way, her face distorted with fear, her eyes maddened; she climbed up a heap of corpses but when she put her foot down on one of those she thought dead, he grabbed her ankles; she'd have moved
away from the bridges if she could have, if the tide of fugitives hadn't been so dense. A roundshot fell on the baggage train. Ornella was dragged back with everyone else, suffocating in the vice-like grip of all the bodies. The wind whistled. The roundshot crashed down. The bridges gave way. When the soldiers on the right bank set fire to them, the choice became simple – burn or drown. Those nearest the bridges rushed through the flames, which caught quickly on the abandoned baggage, the supports, the broken-up carts and the wooden roadway. A tall man in a white cloak caught fire. Croats climbed onto the trestles and started crawling under the roadway; burning planks hit them on the head. Groups threw themselves onto pieces of ice, others swam a few metres before disappearing in the turbid water; still more were trapped between blocks of ice. A current in the crowd carried Ornella back; she stumbled with a hundred others over the carcasses of vehicles and they all fell pell-mell to the ground, lashing out and smothering one another. Ornella lost consciousness.

She came to when she felt someone tearing her furs off; she opened her eyes on her assailant, an Asiatic with a long, thin moustache, in an astrakhan cap. The Cossack pulled her up by her hair. Around her these barbarians were stripping the prisoners and piling their clothes atop their saddles.

T
HEY HEADED AWAY FROM
the Cossacks on the Vilna road, the only one that ran between immense forests and ice-bound lakes, on bridges over countless rivers and streams. At first, leaving the Berezina behind, they had struggled in peat bogs, and although they covered the road with boughs to make it easier for the cannon and transport wagons, the horses had found it awkward, and they had lost more.

Then the temperature fell eighteen degrees; the cold hardened the ground, strengthened the road and helped the Emperor; if it weren't for that, he would have left his entire transport in the marshes. Progress became steadier. There were no more unattached soldiers; instead they marched in close-knit groups, forcing each other to put one foot in front of the other. At night they took turns sleeping, never for more than half an hour at a time on pain of freezing on the spot.

‘Paulin, we're getting near Rouen.'

‘I can't see our spires this far away, sir.'

‘In Heaven's name, what would you rather think about?'

‘A good pair of fur-lined boots.'

‘We'll buy some in Vilna.'

‘You said that before Smolensk and Krasnoie and Orcha, and what happened then?'

‘Vilna is in Lithuania, civilization.'

‘If the Russians let us get there …'

‘The Russians? They're a long way behind us and just as frozen as we are, believe me!'

‘Sir, allow me to say that I couldn't give a hang and it's not warming me up. I think I'm actually congealing inside.'

After his successful offensive against the Russian Army of Moldavia, Marshal Ney had captured two thousand soldiers in a terrible state. D'Herbigny had seen them, their breeches worn through at the crotch from marching and their thighs exposed to the bitter air. Their guards had let them escape; those buggers could go and die in the woods, for all they cared.

‘It's getting dark, sir and I can see smoke.'

They had left the marshlands behind and from time to time they could stray from the road to launch armed raids against peaceable villages. Only a few days previously, the dragoons had returned with sleighs of salt meat and flour. The provisions had been wolfed down and the sleighs, pushed by hand, used to carry the weakest. The captain looked sadly at the fifty troopers on foot whom he called his brigade.

‘To the barn, lads.'

Paulin had spotted this barn with its halo of grey smoke. They headed towards it trustingly since the peasants there-abouts were no longer hostile, even if the pillaging they had to endure did not endear the former Grande Armée to them. The barn's occupants had blockaded the door and the dragoons couldn't force it open. Trooper Chantelouve drew his captain's attention to the trunk of a fir tree sticking out of a side window.

‘They haven't hung around, this lot, they've felled a tree and set fire to it straight off without chopping it up.'

‘Maybe they've suffocated, Captain?'

‘Come on, make that window bigger, you pack of surmisers!'

The dragoons busied themselves and the captain was the first to slip through the opening onto what he initially took to be a pile of sacks. Ahead of him, he glimpsed some bearded fellows, their faces flushed by the reluctant fire that had caught on a part of the tree trunk and now gave off a strong smell of resin. Then, through thick smoke, he could make out human forms appearing over the heaps and crawling, like him, towards that pathetic camp fire, the only attraction of which was that it was somewhere sheltered. The mountain of sacks was uneven; d'Herbigny rolled into a gap of sorts and rested his hand on an icy, hard object to lever himself up; he fingered the thing – what was it? A stone shell, no – an ear and the protuberance of a nose, a cold face. He shuddered. This was not baggage or sacks of grain but hundreds of dead soldiers who had frozen stiff before that confounded fire had been lit. They were what was blocking the doors. The least paralysed had been kept warm for a while by these bodies above them and were now emerging from the mounds like reptiles, slithering to the surface. Some managed to set light to another part of the trunk with a burning branch; bark sizzled and pine needles flew like sparks as the men blew on the fire to stoke it. In an instant the flames had reached the roof, which caught like tinder and began to rain down torches of burning thatch. Pulling himself along on his elbows, the captain hurried towards the window he'd come
from and pushed back those dragoons that had followed him; the roof beams were already crackling. Outside in the snow silhouettes were approaching the blazing barn; it would warm them and save them – for one night at least – from dying of cold.

*

In their blankets and white fur-lined coats, there was no differentiating generals from the rank and file – or men from women – any more. Everyone walked at a slow, laboured pace and fought the temptation to ride the surviving horses or travel in the carriages: the doctors had been categorical; immobility would be fatal, they had to go on foot and prevent numbness. Sebastian had knotted a handkerchief around his mouth and nose so his breath didn't freeze. The bitter air made eyes smart and water, and tears quickly turned to ice. Baron Fain had to hold him by the arm so he could cover his eyes with a fur scarf and generate some warmth to unstick his eyelids; Sebastian performed the same service for the Baron a few metres on. They passed the gutted barn, stumbled over colourless bodies without boots or greatcoats and found a game-bag containing a crust of rye bread. When they saw His Majesty's olive-green berline outside a sturdy wooden house, they knew they would be able to rest for a moment.

The driver brought out the bundle of hay, which he'd stowed under his seat, and shared it between the four broken-winded horses. On one side, in a courtyard, farriers had lit their portable forge. They were forging shoes through the night, and although they worked in gloves, they still had to keep stopping to rub their hands; the coal burnt white hot without giving off any heat. The Baron
and Sebastian followed the other staff into the house, into which the entire headquarters was crowded. The traditional stove was working badly; the wood was damp, the coal reserved for the forge and rationed since Smolensk.

Hung from the walls by string, three lanterns cast a weak light on the dormitory. The Baron and Sebastian lay down next to fellow administrators, officers or valets, on their side to take up less room, between a stomach and a back without being able to scratch themselves or squash the families of lice tormenting them. Sebastian had accustomed himself to the filth and perpetual itching, and he was so tired he was drifting off when a harrowing scream made his eyes snap open. He had recognized Prefect Bausset's piping voice crying, ‘Monstrous! I'm being murdered!' In the gloom, a clumsy chap had trodden on his foot – and he had been suffering from agonizing gout since Moscow. Explosions of laughter answered his protest, everyone guffawing at such a mismatch between an event and its description. Bausset himself realized what he'd said and joined in the laughter, as did Sebastian, despite the fact that his chapped lips started bleeding. After this moment of salutary hilarity, everyone sank back into their dreams for a few hours' respite.

The same images, the same voices weaved in and out of Sebastian Roque's sleep. Ornella filled his nights. He gave himself the starring role, elaborating on moments that had actually happened, modifying them to suit his advantage; he was courageous when he slept. He saw himself again in the box of the theatre in Moscow and her, at the front of the stage, scoffing at the raging, yelling, foul-mouthed soldiers. Her blouse undone, Ornella looked them up and down until her eyes met Sebastian's and, without hesitating,
he leapt to her side, thrusting aside the baying oafs as they knocked over the candles of the footlights to get to the actress. ‘Now you have to get dressed,' he was saying and then without any transition, according to the jerky logic of a dream, he was draping a silver-fox fur around her shoulders, which he had just bought with his diamonds from ‘At The Queen of Spain', a fashionable Parisian shop. ‘With this creation, you will be simply dazzling!' He put a little hat on her head like a crown, and stroked her black curls. They strolled among the blossoming limes of the Palais-Royal, which stood in rows like feather dusters, and met Mme Aurore on Baron Fain's arm. The manageress was dressed as a canteen-woman, with a barrel of brandy on a chain around her neck and a police cap on her head. ‘Leave! You must leave!' warned the manageress. ‘The fire has already reached the Solenka!'

‘The what?'

‘It's the saltfish-sellers' street, Monsieur Sebastian,' Ornella answered, lisping slightly.

‘Don't call me Monsieur!'

‘Leave! Leave! The Cossacks are going to burst out of nowhere!'

They ran to the Boulevard du Temple, where the crowd of passers-by slowed them down. These people were care-free and laughed when Ornella told them about the Cossacks. Throngs gathered at the foot of a stage: Sebastian and Ornella joined them to shudder at the Incombustible, a juggler who drank boiling oil, the double-headed calves, the bearded lady and the trained fleas harnessed to miniature carts.

‘Don't be afraid, Ornella,' said Sebastian. ‘These people will easily see off the Cossacks.'

‘But they're monsters …'

‘Ah, we are all monsters, you know,' he said with a studied air of gravity, which he affected in order to make himself stand out.

‘Even in the Tuileries?'

‘Even in the Emperor's innermost circle, yes, I'll take you to the next ball. Hey! You're scratching me!'

The dream was drawing its inspiration from reality; a mouse was running across Sebastian's cheeks and lips.

*

The prisoners from the Berezina were heading back into Russia in columns. If they weren't officers, and if they hadn't been captured by the regular army, they envied the dead. As was their wont, the Cossacks had stripped them completely, gone through their food, piled the furs and cashmeres on their saddles, filled their holsters with gold and scattered the rags. A band of Kalmuk cavalry flanked a party of captives who staggered, totally naked, over the white ground. An officer in a hat with earflaps, tall and rounded as a shell, lashed them with his whip. Her back and buttocks striped, Ornella no longer felt the blows; her feet were already frozen, her eyes half glued together by tears, there was ice on her eyelashes, her head, the bushy hair at her groin and armpits; she wanted to let herself fall to the ground and sleep, then die, feeling nothing – but any man or woman who fell was instantly riddled with arrows. These cavalrymen had full quivers with their saddlebows and the invaders had no right to a peaceful death from exhaustion or the cold; instead they had to atone for the burning of the holy city. The Kalmuks used their bows for sport as well, to batter around the head those who faltered.

Dimly Ornella became aware of the officer yelling; through the fog of her failing eyes she saw him stretch out an arm and the rest of the Cossacks started shouting in unison. In the direction the officer was pointing, Ornella saw a blurry vision of thickset forms emerging from a forest. They drew nearer, massive, bearded creatures, in sheepskin kaftans. Holding scythes, axes and clubs in their hands or slung across their shoulders, they came closer, until the officer wheeled his horse abruptly around and led his Cossacks away: he was handing the prisoners over to the moujiks.

Instinctively the captives huddled together but the peasants beat them apart and lined them up, seizing a dead baby from its mother's grasp and, as the woman began to howl uncontrollably, tossing it into the snow; they hit her in the stomach with a spade and she writhed about on the ground, leaving a trail of red in her wake. Not stopping to put her out her misery, the peasants forced the prisoners to set off again, thrashing them with sticks and scythe handles to keep the procession moving. They reached the forest and pushed their way through thorny bushes that scratched their bare skin. As she walked, Ornella looked at her legs and the beads of blood forming on them as if they were objects that didn't belong to her.

At the edge of a clearing, woodcutters were toiling over a fir tree, wood chips flying as they cut deep into the base of the trunk, their axes rising and falling in tandem and the blows ringing out in perfect, obsessive, relentless time. What did these Russians want? Were they going to line up their prisoners under this tree and crush them in its fall? A hundred or more villagers crowded into the centre of the clearing, where the prisoners stood waiting to discover their
fate. Most of the men had caps over their long hair, canvas patches at the knees of their trousers and rusty old guns slung over their shoulders; the women wore scarves and all had plaited bark shoes tied up with coloured bandages. When the fir came down, the moujiks lopped off its branches with axes. In no time the trunk was smooth and the villagers led the naked prisoners over to it; fifty stupefied, docile, broken men and women. A toothless peasant woman seized Ornella by the neck and forced her down with the back of her head on the trunk, looking up at the sky. All the captives were stretched out in the same fashion either side of the tree. The ceremony could begin.

Ornella thought that lying like that the cold would soon release her from her suffering, but the moujiks built large fires with the cut branches. A sudden pain coursed through her, as if her head was exploding. The trunk was vibrating. The peasant women were roaring songs, keeping time by hitting the tree with sticks as hard as their strength and rage permitted. The blows reverberated along the fir and roared in the prisoners' brains; the women beat and sang like furies and the hammering drilled Ornella into the snow, mute, seeking refuge in this shooting pain that, like the cold, made her whole body shudder. The men watched this bacchanal and smoked their pipes with the serenity of those who are certain they are carrying out God's will. Inflamed against these French by their priests, they were slowly murdering them in the name of Jesus Christ, the Tsar and all the saints of the Orthodox Church. And the termagants carried on hitting, full of hatred – hitting and bawling patriotic songs.