The Great White Army Part 25

The arbour itself proved to be a s.p.a.cious summer-house, matted and thatched, and provided with a stove, in which a good fire had been kindled. I was presented immediately to a distinguished old gentleman, well advanced in years, but still wearing a uniform of the engineers.

He told me in a word that he had followed his son as far as Smolensk upon our outward journey, and there had waited for the army's return.

"His mother was with us then," he said--and so he indicated that his wife had perished during these dreadful days.

The son himself--a fine young man of n.o.ble presence--lay upon the floor by the stove, wrapped in a bearskin coat, but plainly the victim of delirium. I found him in a burning fever, his pulse running high, and his cheeks gone scarlet. He raved incessantly of the river and the bridge, and of the Russians who had hunted us.

It was no new thing to hear a man talk thus at a moment when the army perished by tens of thousands; but the spectacle of this bare place, and the glowing stove, and the stricken old man, and the child that was left to him, touched me beyond words, and I promised him immediately all the help that lay in my power.

"Yet, G.o.d knows," I exclaimed, "that is little enough, for we are all likely to be in a Russian prison to-morrow. You know, sir," I said, turning to him, "that the bridge is down and the army trapped."

"The bridge is down," he cried, "but another may be built. Save my son, major, and you may yet save France."

I had no idea of his meaning. If I thought of it at all, it was to remind myself that this family had suffered much, and that the father's talk might be little more rational than the son's at such a moment.

Bidding the child run back to the house I had quitted, and thence bring my nephew and my case of instruments, I a.s.sured the old gentleman that I would do my best and that he might count upon me. The young man, meanwhile, did not cease to rave in a voice which was most distressing to hear, and, catching me by the hand as I bent over him, he implored me, for G.o.d's sake, to let the Emperor know immediately. When I, however, asked him for a message he could give me none. "The bridge!"

he would cry, and repeat the words a hundred times. His very frenzy was a terrible thing to see.

My nephew and Mademoiselle Valerie returned to the arbour with the child anon, being anxious as to my whereabouts. Leon was frankly disgusted with the whole business, and would have had me return to the house immediately.

"There are a thousand worse than this man for every league you march,"

said he. "Really, mon oncle, this is no time for sentiment."

In her turn, Valerie told him to be silent, and seemed really concerned at the misfortunes of the unhappy family.

"I know them well," she said to me. "The mother is a relative of the Duke de Melun, and old General d'Izambert often came to my father's house. Imagine the madness which brought such old people to Russia because their boy was going!"

I rejoined that it was the kind of madness which had become common in France during recent years. And this was the truth, for many a family had gone out merely because sons or brothers were there. It was clear that an unusual bond of affection united these brave people, and that the memory of the dead mother provoked a sentiment very real. Father and daughter alike watched me with pitiful eyes while I bled the young _pontonnier_, and they hastened to obey me when I commanded them to melt snow in a cup and to give him a cooling drink.

"I will speak to General Roguet at dawn," said I. "You shall find a place for him in the house. G.o.d alone knows whether any of us will be here to help you then; it depends upon his fellows. If there is no ford discovered in the next twenty-four hours, the river is shut to us, and the army is lost. You, monsieur, know that as well as I."

He a.s.sented, looking at me with grave eyes.

"Major," he said very solemnly, "there is a ford. My son discovered it this day."

The news astounded me.

"Good G.o.d!" said I. "You are speaking the truth?"

"Look at me, major. Would I lie to you?"

"Then the Emperor knows. You have told him, monsieur?"

He shook his head.

"Swear by Almighty G.o.d that you will not desert us, and I will name the place to you," he said.

I knew not what to say to him--the dilemma was beyond all words. If I pledged myself to these people, then truly must I be a prisoner in Russia. If I did not pledge myself, the army was lost.

"But," I cried, "there is my regiment--my duty, Monsieur d'Izambert."

It was then that Valerie spoke.

"Go," she said to Leon, pointing to the door; "let the Emperor know. I will stay with these people."

III

Here was an astonishing turn, and one little looked for.

The idea of this dashing girl, clad in her hussar uniform, yet womanly beyond compare, the idea of her becoming the guardian of the sick man at first astounded and then delighted Monsieur d'Izambert. Helpless and infirm himself, the companion of a mere child caught in the toils of suffering, he responded warmly to such a pledge and thanked her most graciously.

The boy himself had now sunk into a kind of coma, and there were moments when I thought he was dead. Meanwhile, Leon did not return, and we waited in the silence of the night for the alarm which must presently attend the momentous tidings. When it came, it was as though the whole army woke upon the dawn of a feast-day. Bugles blared; a babel of voices arose in the street; the wagons of the engineers went through at a gallop; lights appeared in every house. Anon you heard men calling the news from door to door. A ford had been discovered; the army would cross the Berezina this day.

So they said, and such was my own belief. The young _pontonnier_ had given the clearest directions to old Monsieur d'Izambert before the fever overtook him, and these, marked upon his map, had gone to head-quarters. Nothing remained to be done that our engineers could not do. They would bridge the shallow stream, and the remnant of the six hundred thousand would pa.s.s over. I reflected that I should not be among them. The promise that Valerie had given bound me no less than her. Impossible to leave her here in this G.o.d-forsaken hamlet, with a sick man for her charge and a veteran of threescore years for her bodyguard. She had pledged herself to stay, and I must stand by her.

It seemed to me, then, that our liberty, if not our lives, depended upon the youth, who lay alternately burning with fever and shivering with cold upon the boards at our feet. His death would have set us free. I say it with truth that neither she nor I desired freedom at such a price.

You will have understood that it was day by this time.

The bruit of alarm was still to be heard in the street before the house where the remnants of the army pressed on headlong towards the river.

I did not suppose that we should be left to ourselves, we who possessed the precious secret of the ford, and in this I was not mistaken. Many from head-quarters came down to General Roguet's house when daylight appeared, and it must have been a little after eight o'clock when the Emperor himself strode into the arbour and demanded to see Gabriel d'Izambert.

I had not been unprepared for this, and be sure I made haste to explain the situation to His Majesty.

"Sire," I said, "the young man is overtaken by a fever, caught in the river yesterday. It will probably be but a pa.s.sing attack, but meanwhile his father knows all that your Majesty should know, and you will find him very much at your service. He has at the moment gone to the house yonder in quest of necessaries; but there is one here with whom you are acquainted and whom you will not be displeased to meet again under such circ.u.mstances."

With this I presented Mademoiselle Valerie to him, and he greeted her very warmly. The young _pontonnier_ was still asleep, and it seemed idle to wake him. Nevertheless, the Emperor insisted, with his usual impetuosity, and nothing would content him but an immediate audience of this unhappy Gabriel. Judge of my astonishment when, upon being awakened, the lad seemed in possession of his normal faculties and ready to answer as though he were fresh from a healthy sleep.

"The ford is below Studianka," he said, with a warmth of feeling which betrayed an ardent loyalty. "It is four miles above the old bridge, your Majesty, and, should the river remain as it is, the engineers could cross it before nightfall. I beg you now to let me accompany you, for I am quite well again."

And then he said, lifting pathetic eyes which betrayed his youthful earnestness, "Your Majesty will not refuse me this last favour?"

Such was his request, which won an immediate a.s.sent from the Emperor.

The lives of a hundred thousand men may have depended upon this youth's loyalty, and who would count the loss of his life if thereby the army could pa.s.s over? Not I, certainly--nor His Majesty, who never stood at a sentiment where his own interests were concerned. Half an hour had not elapsed when Gabriel d'Izambert had been lifted into one of the baggage wagons, and we had all set out for the Berezina.

Put briefly, it was a race where life or death was the stake. If we could neither ford nor bridge the river by nightfall, a.s.suredly was the Grand Army lost. There was not a man amongst us who did not know as much as we drew near to the fatal scene and set eyes for the first time upon those waters which had baffled us. Had the river risen during the night, or should we find it as Gabriel d'Izambert had found it yesterday? The lad himself put the question a hundred times as we tramped by the side of the wagon, and descended at length toward that gloomy Styx which was so soon to be the scene of our overwhelming desolation.

IV

Naturally, I considered myself released at this time from my understanding with the old gentleman. He, however, was of no such opinion, and, with an anxiety very natural under the circ.u.mstances, he reminded me frequently of the undertaking.

"You will not leave us, major," he said. "We are so very helpless, and you see what is about to happen to my son. We cannot leave him, and, if the bridge be built, naturally the army will be the first to cross.

Remember what you have promised me, and let it be an honourable understanding between us."

It was difficult to answer such an appeal, and, for that matter, a greater anxiety concerning the state of the river led me to dismiss it lightly. What mattered it whether we crossed early or late if the army could be saved and the honour of France upheld? These thoughts were in my mind when, at length, the Berezina came into view and all that gloomy panorama was unrolled before our wistful eyes. Let me tell you of this that you may understand more fully the calamity which subsequently overtook us.

As we first saw it, the Berezina did not appear to be a formidable river. It ran beneath a sky heavy with cloud and through a marsh, of which the thaws of recent days had made nothing but a treacherous bog.

When it first came into view there were some thousands of the Fusiliers and Cha.s.seurs of the Guard encamped upon its eastern bank. A drizzle of snow fell, and it was clear that the waters of the river had begun to flow with some rapidity. Little waves lapped the marshy sh.o.r.e; great blocks of ice went careering here and there as though they were monstrous fish at play. The wind moaned dismally and the damp searched our very bones.