The Great White Army Part 21

VII

We did not return to the farm, nor have any further word with the Russians. Petrovka had recovered all her wits by this time, and she made it plain to us that such a course might be dangerous.

"I will do what I can for your friends," she said, "and afterwards I shall return to my father's house. You, meanwhile, go at once to Wilna, and say nothing of what you have seen. That must be a point of honour between us, messieurs. I give you your lives, and you pay me by your silence. G.o.d speed; and do not forget little Petrovka."

We swore that we would never do so. She led us to the stables thereafter, and so we found our horses. A word to the Cossack at the gate made everything easy for us; and be sure that Petrovka took good care to see that food and wine for the journey were found for us. It must have been ten of the day when we quitted the farm at last and waved a long farewell to the mistress of this singular adventure.

"A wonderful little woman," said Leon, as we turned our heads at length. "To think that she knew all the time who burned us out!"

"She did know!" I cried, looking at him with astonishment.

"Certainly; she has just told me. It was Anna, the farmer's daughter.

Petrovka meant to save her. Can you beat that for loyalty?"

I could make no reply. Woman's courage is always very wonderful. What man will pretend to understand it?

CHAPTER VIII

THE AFFAIR AT THE POST-HOUSE

I

There was very little order kept among us after the Battle of Krasnoe, and you may depict us as a scattered host going covertly in fear of the Cossacks.

Men made little attempt to keep up with their regiments. The Cha.s.seurs and Fusiliers of the Guard, with whom the Emperor marched, were, perhaps, the exception; but the rest of us went as we could, thinking more of food and shelter than of our own safety, and hardened to any feelings of pity.

The latter is a bold admission to make, but few of those who marched from Moscow will contest it. When comrades are perishing about you every day, when your milestones are the bodies of the frozen dead, the ultimate terror becomes the lesser thing and all the more brutal instincts are awakened. We could not help those who fell; we pushed on, deaf to their appeals. Let any man lag for an hour in this bitter cold, and he would sleep as they slept--so many thousands upon the great white highway.

Sometimes it befell that we did not see our regiment for many days together. This, I remember, happened to my nephew Leon and myself as we drew near the Berezina.

The army heard many disquieting stories at this time, and most of them had to do with the pa.s.sage of the famous river.

The timorous agreed that the Russians could not lose so favourable an opportunity of falling upon our disorganised units, and that he would be a lucky man who made the pa.s.sage of the stream in safety.

Others comforted us with the a.s.surance that our engineers would not fail us in this emergency, and were all ready at the Berezina to strengthen and to guard the ancient bridge. The tales were contradictory, and we knew not which to believe. The river had become our Rubicon, and we imagined that if we recrossed it the victory was won.

This was the condition of affairs on the morning of November 25th, when Leon and I rode a little way with a detachment of some thirty _pontonniers_ who were on their way to the Berezina.

I remember well that the captain of the little company warned us to look well after our horses; "for," said he, "the Emperor has given instructions that all the best are to be taken for the use of the artillery and the wounded." The Imperial Guard was then some five miles ahead of us, and we had no intention of overtaking it. To that end we soon parted company with the _pontonniers_, and stopped for an hour about midday in what had been a farmhouse upon the high road.

There we cooked a little of the rice we carried in our saddlebags, and drank of the brandy which I had carried out of Smolensk.

The repast gave us courage, and we rode on in better spirit afterwards.

Alas, that such a mood turned too swiftly to one of despair, when we found that we had lost the road and that the bodies of dead and dying Frenchmen indicated no longer the route to the Berezina.

II

We made this discovery about three o'clock of the afternoon.

The day was already done, and a great red sun sank into a billow of mist.

We saw nothing about us but vast fields of snow, gone crimson in the vanishing light, and woods which would tell no story but that of wolves.

A profound silence reigned in this frozen wilderness. We did not hear so much as the chime of a distant church bell, nor perceive a single human being upon all that waste. Yet it did not appear to us by the compa.s.s that we could be very far from the road to Bobr, through which the Emperor must pa.s.s; nor had we any misgivings that we should ultimately come to the banks of the Berezina if we held upon our course.

"There are no Cossacks here," says Leon, "and there is not much advantage got by company. We have a little food and brandy, and may as well keep it to ourselves. Come on, mon oncle. Let us try to believe that the spires of Notre Dame are to be seen from yonder road, and all the rest will be easy."

He had grown very thin these later days, my poor Leon, and was but a spectre of his former self. I thought of the dashing officer who had cut so brave a figure in Moscow, and heaved a sigh at all that had befallen us since. The word "woman" came no longer to his lips, as formerly, and I believe he would have bartered the whole s.e.x for a loaf of bread and a bottle of good French wine. Who would have had the heart to remind him how many thousand leagues we were from that Paris for which he longed so ardently?

"Imagine what you please," said I, "but throw in a comfortable farmhouse and a stove to sleep by, and I am your man. It is going to snow again, nephew, and a man may as well be in the Arctic wastes as upon this barren plain. We were wrong to leave the others; there is safety in numbers, and G.o.d knows what is about to befall us. Ah, my dear nephew, what would I not give for such a bed and such a supper as we had at the farm at Druobona!"

He sighed at the memory both of little Petrovka and of that night of adventure.

We had now approached the woods, and presently we found ourselves in the depths of a forest which must have been rarely trodden by man. The snow had drifted into vast heaps here, and encircled the trees in great mounds which would have engulfed a wagon. The stillness of it all was that of winter at her zenith. The wind had fallen, and in the distance we heard the howling of wolves. All this prepared us but little for the surprise which overtook us presently, when three mounted Cossacks suddenly appeared in our path and threatened us in guttural tones of which we did not understand a single word.

Of course, we had drawn rein directly the Russians appeared, and for my part I was quite prepared to surrender to them. These roving bands rarely numbered less than a squadron, and it was idle to believe that two armed men could oppose a hundred. The alternatives were death on the spot, or that intolerable suffering in a Russian prison of which we had heard such evil reports. I whispered as much to Leon, but got nothing from him but a guffaw in return.

"Va-t'en!" said he. "There are only three of them, mon oncle. Do you not see how they hesitate?"

I perceived it to be true, and drew a pistol from my holster. The Russians carried lances, but were in no hurry to descend upon us.

Either they looked for a.s.sistance in the vicinity or deemed their advantage in numbers insufficient. What they would have done if we had remained where we were I do not pretend to tell you; but before I could say another word Master Leon clapped spurs to his horse, and, riding up to the leader, he blew out his brains before a man could have counted two.

"A moi, mon oncle!" he cried; and be sure I was at his side immediately. Unhappily, my own pistol was badly aimed, and did no more damage than to blow the feather from the busby of the ruffian who now confronted me. In an instant he had thrust at me with his lance, and I felt the cold steel cut the sinews of my arm.

Now I wheeled my horse about, and, despite the wound, I drew my sword and aimed at the fellow. He answered me by a loud cry which brought three of his fellows from the wood, and so set five of them against our two. These odds were unexpected, and seemed to say that our onset had been very foolish. Still, there we were, and we must make the best of such folly as we had shown. I could do no better with my fellow than to slash his arm off at a single stroke; but Leon cut the second of the three clean out of the saddle, and found himself attacked by the others who had come from the wood.

I could imagine that, from a spectator's point of view, this fight would have been as pretty a thing as he could wish to see.

There were we two riding up and down the glade with three burly Cossacks at our heels, and devil of a wall against which we might set our backs.

To make matters worse, my own horse stumbled heavily over the solid roots of a magnificent beech tree, and anon I found myself on the ground, with a couple of Russians atop of me. They would have done for me but for an ally as unexpected as his appearance was grotesque. This man had been lying, seemingly dead, at the foot of the tree by which I fell. He was one of our _cha.s.seurs a pied_, and he seemed swathed from head to foot in fur. What had wakened him, whether a kick from a horse or the delirium of sickness, I cannot tell you, but, staggering to his feet, he ran at the Russians with his bayonet, and had pinned one to the snow almost before I was aware of his presence. The other waited for no such attention, but, setting his horse at a gallop, rode madly from the wood.

We had now accounted for five of the Russians--no mean achievement for men in such a condition. The poor fellow who had a.s.sisted us we discovered to be in a woeful state--his feet frost-bitten and two of the fingers of his left hand missing. He hardly seemed to know what he had done for us, but, sinking at the foot of the tree, he raved incoherently of his home at Chalons, and of his wife and children awaiting him there. We gave him some of the brandy, and tried to lift him upon my nephew's horse, but it was of no good, and presently he appeared to regain his senses and to be aware both of his situation and of our own.

"You cannot help me, my friends," said he. "The road is yonder; take it while you may. I am done for."

And upon this he threw back his head and seemed to die instantly.

This was a very sad thing to see, and sent us from the place in a worse spirit than I had hoped. My own wound had now begun to trouble me, and I discovered that the lance had penetrated the flesh below the shoulder, and left a gaping wound which in another climate might have proved troublesome. As it was, we bound it up stoutly with a piece torn from my tattered shirt, and, the darkness already gathering, and the snow beginning to fall, we prepared to leave the wood in the direction which the poor cha.s.seur had indicated to us.

III

I say that we prepared to leave the wood, but before we did so the idea came to me to take with us the capes and the busbies of the Cossacks we had slain, in the hope that they would be of service to us in so dangerous a place. Bidding my nephew imitate me, I stripped the fellow I had killed, and invited Leon to do the same to the other.

"The woods are full of these fellows," said I, "and who knows what this device may do for us? A la guerre comme a la guerre. Let us try our luck under the new colours, for it has been bad enough under the old."