The captain turned his leering face towards his men, and made an apparently crude joke, but when he turned, he screamed, for I had whipped him across the face with Humps belt. Blood flew from his nose as his men gazed at me in astonished surprise. I whipped Voclain again, drawing a helpless hiss of pain, which I enjoyed, but then strong Thierry grabbed my hand. ‘You little bitch. Humps had it coming, the traitor lover,’ he said, smiling from an inch away, his breath stinking. Voclain’s face was red from silent rage, but he let Thierry take control, as the sergeant slapped me hard, taking the belt away. I fell on my belly, and he hit me on the back with the thing, and I squirmed in anger, remembering similar beating in the tavern by the mason, when father had failed to stand up to me. Henriette was screaming in savage anger, challenging Thierry to do it again, men were turning to look at the sudden confrontation, but I pulled the gun and thrust it at Thierry’s balls. He did not move, his hand in mid-swing as I got up to my knees.
‘You need these, don’t you’ I asked him, pushing the gun deeper to his crotch. ‘You will pay for what you did to him.’
‘All your friends, they will dance like he danced,’ Thierry said silently. ‘They will scream and cry and beg like Humps did. And you will be last. Traitor.’
‘I am no traitor, not to the Republic that is, but perhaps I will promise you a swift death, and then betray your hopes and have you suffer like Humps did.’ He grinned and I decided to blow his balls off anyway, no matter the cost, when Henri grabbed the gun.
‘As much as that would please us, dear Jeanette, it makes no sense for you to kill yourself like this,’ he told me causally as he pushed Thierry further.
I pointed a finger at them. ‘They killed Humps!’
A silence followed. Voclain was staring at Henri indolently, his lip bleeding, daring him, and Henri was weighing the few options he had. Finally, Henri cleared his throat. ‘Have you disbanded the Jacobin club, captain?’
‘Oh!’ the captain raised his hands. ‘It is gone. We serve France. Only France, as commanded by our new masters in Paris, and by you, of course, citizen colonel.’
‘Did you hurt the sergeant?’ Henri asked, bored at the meaningless ritual.
‘No. Of course not. He was looting, perhaps? Got killed? Has happened before. She is an imaginative girl, as the captain likely knows.’ Voclain winked at Henri who tensed, but relaxed after visible struggle.
Henri waved his hand. ‘Form your company with the fifth, Voclain. You will take part in the skirmishing, and lead them up the hill.’
‘Yes, sir, may the Reason keep us safe, colonel,’ Voclain said. Thierry gazed at me with a vicious promise in his eyes as the men left. Henri looked around, and men turned their faces away.
Then he pushed me. ‘If you wish to hang, do something like that again. He would love to lose Thierry and see you swing.’
‘Why do you care,’ I asked him, angry, sulking. ‘I am just a peasant, no?’
‘You are my cantiniére,’ he said. Then he leaned closer. ‘I have a battalion to lead and cannot take part in every little skirmish you have with the meaningless bastards.’
‘They hung our friend and that holds meaning to us,’ I spat.
‘Of course it does. I know you decided to start fighting back, girl, but do so with a plan that does not force me to hang you as well.’
‘I doubt you would have any qualms about hanging me,’ I pouted.
‘I would smoke and give the order, Jeanette. I smoke when I need strength and God knows I have smoked in excess since you arrived.’
‘But you would hang me anyway,’ I said, feeling childish.
‘It would be a distasteful, hard duty. I do not know, girl, what I would do. Do not put me in such a position. They are watching me, you know. They do not forget my disdain of the regime and think, justly, that I am a loose cannon. They might not feed the guillotine with hapless officers anymore, but they can shoot me if I do what I would love to do. Then you are truly fucked. Of course, anything can happen in a damned battle and I keep sending the fourth company, meaning Voclain and his bastards into line, but so far, they have had the luck of the devil, but other than that, I have my hands tied. If you do try to kill them, do so with the devious bastards of chasseurs helping you, and do not get caught, girl. And nothing like this again. Or I will have to act.’
‘Yes sir,’ I told him abruptly and we looked at each other closely. He was trying to say something more, but cursed and fished out a cigar and walked away. I shook my head at the impossible colonel and walked to the wagon. I noticed Cleft looking on with an unreadable face, and I wondered if he was with our enemy. Had he not been the source of the information? Did he truly hate me that much as to help our foes to kill Humps? If he had helped them, he would meet his God. Humps had been popular.
Then, we had no more time for sorrow and indecision, for we went to war. It was to be the first terrible set-piece battle I saw, and I cannot remember ever being so horribly scared and utterly confused as I was that day, though it was in truth but a light affair, nothing like the great butchery-battles of the wars I took part later. The Austrians were deployed on a shallow hill, their flanks secured by mountains and higher hills. There were but eight thousand of them, but as we marched closer, they looked splendid in brilliant white, deep green and arrogant red, and we saw stubby cannon pointed our way.
‘We will have wounded,’ Marcel said, eyeing the enemy from a field where the light infantry demi-brigades was marching forward before the whole army. ‘You have to help get them to safety.’
‘You did not mention this when you proposed,’ Henriette said with nervous humor. The columns behind us were bristling with bayonets, the ranks approaching the Austrian enemy, a stubborn enemy not about to fall back easily. Some lonely cannons were firing, gauging the range. The colors of the demi-brigades were bright in the sun and drums rapped as sharp commands were echoing behind us with the regular infantry and soon amidst our light brigades. Enemy bristled and rippled, their columns moving to fine rows of determined men, their cavalry, dragoons were high in their saddles in the middle as the Austrian ranks. Suddenly some hundred enemies were running downhill towards us, in a haphazard fashion.
‘Jägers,’ Marcel said nervously. ‘Their hunters, much like we are, but few, too few.’ There looked like flowers as they settled downhill from the fabulous columns and lines of the enemy.
We halted at the orders of the general, apparently waiting for laggard units and the jägers started to fire at us. The men pretended not to notice as balls whipped past us, some finding victims. I saw a sergeant of one light brigade fall on his face and the men were casually conversing as they dragged the still corpse back.
‘Why do we not charge?’ I asked Marcel, my nerves already wrecked. ‘They just shoot at us!’
He huffed. ‘We go soon enough. Just wait Jeanette. I…’ A ball went past and sunk to a man of the company, who fell, screaming in pain. ‘Take him back!’ Marcel yelled and they did. ‘We go when we are ready. Now, serve the men drinks.’ I nodded and Henriette and I fetched our tonnelets and tin mugs and started to circulate the men, though it was terrifying to look at the deadly Austrian jägers calmly aiming and firing. It felt as if every one of them was aiming at you and I cursed my civilian gear, making me look different from the masses of soldiers.
The army waited for orders under fire, drums rapped every now and then and we were serving the men drinks as fast as we could. They were grateful, happy and it made me happy as well. Some were in fact drunk already. Most were smiling constantly, bravely, though all were scared, and so were we. I understood we would lose family that day. The men around us were our brothers.
Then, a aide-de-camp rode up, waved his hat, drums rapped, Henri raised his sword, yelling incoherently and Henriette and I were left there, as the men began to move towards the enemy, spreading out in twos. ‘Love!’ Marcel yelled to Henriette as he ran, and blew a kiss.
The French rag-tag army used hundreds and hundre
ds of skirmishers to snipe at the wonderfully brave Austrian skirmishers, and then, very soon, we saw the enemy jägers run away, leaving corpses behind, for the French tactics of skirmishing were overpowering. I saw some men fall on our side, but very few. Then the French were pushing up the hill, carefully aiming and firing in pairs at the massive lines and fine columns under the Austrian general Wallis. The white beast looked down at the French skirmishers advancing, the enemy officers on their horses giving encouragements to their men with brave voices. Behind us, we saw thousand fusiliers and grenadiers start to move up. We stood there, forgotten and saw how Austrians were falling in the enemy ranks, leaving gaps that were quickly filled, some horses were running free, the officers gone.
In the middle and right, enemy cannons roared, balls rolled across our marching units behind us and some hit the light infantry up the hill and few of our rag tag men fell. ‘Come, there are some wounded,’ Henriette said, white-faced from fear and I nodded, shaking with fear as well. We rode the wagon a bit up the hill, where the most timid men were firing at the enemy. Balls whistled past, a cannonball furrowed wet grass crazily nearby. Up hill, a fog of sorts was covering the company, behind us; the grenadiers were marching in order, ready to exploit the enemy weaknesses, if there were any. Then, apparently, the Austrians got tired of the pesky skirmishers, for a distant drum rapped, orders were heard, and a huge volley was fired at the scattered targets below them. Dozen spent bullets passed us, one whipped through the tonnelet on my back; another splintered the wagon’s side. Men were moaning, and we saw many staggering downhill, but mostly, the skirmishers stayed stubbornly on the attack. We moved to the haze to find wounded men. There were many. Some were dead, and Henriette took their valuables when nobody could see, shrugging apologetically at me. ‘Take only things none recognize.’
‘Mother,’ I chided her, wondering how pragmatic she had become, as we carried first men down to the wagon. The French grenadiers passed us now, their officers screaming brave words, flags pale in the smoke. Some begged for drink, but we had very little left. Cannons concentrated their fire at them, moving down men near us, leaving four dead and two with no legs right near the wagon, and the horses tried to take off in fear, and we had to struggle to stop them from running over the wounded.
A battle, Marie, is a terrible thing, for you do not understand what is going on. Things can be going extremely well, or horribly badly, and often the survivor is not much better off than the beaten. Confusion if rife, sometimes you lose a part of the battle, sustain terrible losses even if the overall battle is won. The determined men roared around us, now struggling uphill. Volleys were fired, the ranks rippled painfully as men fell. We were red from blood and saw Vivien at the same duty. She glanced at us briefly and nodded. We were not enemies on that field, not that day. I remember giving wine to two shivering men who went forward with others, having been too scared earlier. Then, a cannonball whipped them in half. I saw enemy cavalry riding down through the haze, and I cried and screamed as they were going to overcome some of the battalions on the hill, but the cavalry did not charge after all, but stayed off our friends. Henriette and I watched as terrifying hail of canister shot fired by two cannon moved down half of a brave grenadier company, the captain with it, dead under his screaming horse. A man lost his head near us, as we fetched a body of a gagging, bleeding lieutenant, and Henriette had to stop me from running away. She could not stop me from pissing myself for the cannonade did that even to the heartiest of men. In the end, the men went up that hill four painful times. By the end, we had won, and Henriette and I watched the companies filter downhill, as fresher men took up the chase. After that battle, Marie, we were red from the blood of our friends, brave as they were, doing our duty, a duty we were suddenly proud of.
Later, I found Didier under a pile of men.
I had intended to loot a dead jäger, but I spotted my enemy lying under some French dead. His brow was slashed and there was a hole in his shoulder, though it did not look very serious. I crouched next to him, bloody and fey, and placed a pistol on his forehead, and his eyes grew wide as he regarded first the pistol, then the face behind it. None would see, it was chaos, smoke and haze was still thick in the air and these things happened, and God had different rules for us, after all. ‘Did you hang him?’ I asked him matter-of-factly.
He thought about putting up a desperate fight. Hate smoldered in his eyes, his hands opened and closed, but he was too weak, and he looked away and spoke harshly. ‘I beat him, that much I did, and held him as Fox and Thierry hanged him. Bad luck for him, but one should not stray far from his bloody friends if one is helping enemies of the Republic.’ I hardened myself, he saw this and prepared, his eyes twitching. I saw the fear in his face, but that day, after a terrible battle, I could not kill a man. I was tired of his Republic, and the simmering hate the revolution had light in the hearts of men, but too many had died that day. I shrugged, deciding there would be another day, and dragged him off the pile. He cried from pain, but I did not care as I coaxed hit to sit.
‘Some other day, then,’ I told him and turned away.
He had a look of bewilderment on his face. ‘Why did you betray the Republic?’ he asked, braving his safety and life, for I still held a pistol. ‘Why did you take money from the good citizens of France, followed the corrupt Danton?‘
I laughed at him in derision, imagining Gilbert’s face smiling happily as he coaxed fools like this one to foul deeds for causes he did not believe in. ‘Gilbert, the Revenant is a piece of shit, Didier. He is the one growing fat on lies, not us. I was there, Didier, from the beginning. I served Georges Danton, for a while, and no matter who betrayed what, he made the Republic that you so glorify and try to defend. He schemed, plotted and got rid of most the bastards standing in its way, and perhaps he did grow wealthy from his toils, but as for mother and I, we did not see a sou. If you believe the Revenant, then you are a fool. We sat in the Temple for years, hidden from my cousin, prisoners to Danton. He made the Republic and here you think we profited from it. Fool. Your Revenant is not the deadly enemy of crown you think, but a cowardly boy who has nothing left but lies, but he is doing well when idiotic bastards heed his words.’ His eyes were hard as coals, fanatic and suspicious, but he waved me away and I went, willingly. I hated men and their inability to see the truth from simple lies. A man is never willing to admit a mistake, never willing to change his heart, unless great sorrow forces them to do so.
After the enemy had scampered off, the uncaring dead buried and the unhappy wounded moved to the so-called hospitals to die of disease, I saw Napoleon riding around with his aide-de-camps and the commander André Masséna. He looked chloric, no different from a poor merchant or seasick sailor. That day, he did not look the fabulous god of war he was to become, had little in a way of commanding air, his posture badly sloughing, and clothes simple, save for the jacket with the general’s braids, but he had a curious nervous energy about him, his eyes were keen and hungry as his hand flashed on map at some distant places, his voice was thin with anticipation of glory. He was like a very exited child who wanted to get his way. Marcel was collecting the company together, eyeing the new general. ‘That one is out to make a name for him.’
‘Good,’ I said, ashamed at my tears during the battle, and regretting I had not shot Didier. ‘We need men like that.’
‘Yes,’ Marcel said nonchalantly, ‘but he needs a lot of well-used tools to get his glory, and we are the tools he will use until only bones remain. We will lose many men if he succeeds, but hopefully it will be worth it, and some of the better ones survive him.’ Marcel was in a fatalistic mood, as the company had lost seven men dead, ten wounded.
‘You should take care, Marcel, so that mother does not become a widow again.’
‘I already spoke to her about this, after the battle,’ he said, sadly. ‘It cannot be helped, dear, in this profession. I am really proud of you two, by the way, though I knew you would fit in. I am sorry, that this is no
more special than it is. Grimy, dangerous, not provoking many happy memories, if one reminisces about all this at old age.’
I nodded at him, still unsure if I fully trusted him, but I tried. ‘You are wrong. I will never forget this, and there are plenty of good memories, if we live through it. It is home, Marcel.’
‘It is that, love,’ he mumbled.
After the battle, Masséna stopped the advance, as minister Carnot in Paris still forbid further risks being taken, and we reluctantly retreated to the vicinity of Savona and lingered there for two years of relative peace.
CHAPTER 16
During that time, we recovered from war. The companies were somewhat reinforced, though not by as many recruits as we needed. Many unhappy men deserted, you see, found foreign wives and forgot about soldiering, as the nation no longer seemed to be in danger.
True to his word, some months after we settled in around Savona, Marcel asked for permission for us to go look for Julie and Jean, but Henri refused. While mother was arguing with confused Marcel, I stormed to Henri’s barracks, for we had such things now, in a semi permanent camp. The guard took one look at me, and stepped aside, grinning like a damned imp as he opened the door for me.
Reign of Fear: Story of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (Cantiniére Tales) Page 33
