The Officer's Prey

by Armand Cabasson

  ‘I have been given to understand that you are an Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. I offer you my congratulations,’ Delarse declared warmly.

  Prince Eugène was right. This distinction immediately earned Margont the esteem of numerous soldiers, which opened many a door.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ the colonel went on. ‘I have almost twelve thousand men under my command – since I assist General Huard,’ he added somewhat reluctantly. ‘But I am anxious to get to know personally all the promising officers serving in my brigade. It’s a crime not to exploit everyone’s potential.’

  These last words were uttered with an energy bordering on anger.

  ‘My friend Colonel Pégot says that you are tenacious and resourceful but that you think too much.’

  ‘Is it possible, Colonel, to think too much?’

  ‘Let’s say that when a superior accuses you of thinking too much it’s because he resents the fact that you think differently from him.’

  ‘What about you, Colonel? Do you never happen to think too much?’

  ‘Every day.’

  Delarse took a bottle and filled two glasses.

  ‘I come from the Charentes. This cognac is a bit of my native land that follows me in my campaigns. I’ve got another bottle for Moscow. I’m longing to open that one.’

  The colonel cupped his glass in both hands to warm the alcohol.

  ‘What is the reason for your visit?’

  ‘Typhus.’ Margont handed over Brémond’s letter.

  The colonel read it carefully and responded immediately: ‘Typhus is only in an endemic state in the brigade. As soon as there is a suspected case, the soldier is isolated and put in a special field hospital. His kit and his tent – if he has one – are burnt. Those who have been sleeping alongside him are put into quarantine but are given double rations because malnutrition is a breeding ground for typhus.’

  ‘That seems ideal to me.’

  ‘To discover the exact number of people put into quarantine, you’ll need to speak to the physicians attached to each regiment. May I enquire why you have decided to concern yourself with typhus?’

  ‘I find inactivity a burden.’

  ‘Personally, I find it deadly. But before long the Russians are bound to stop falling back. They’ll fight to save Smolensk. It’ll be a slaughter. We’ll suffer too but their army will be blown to bits.’

  The colonel was becoming more and more excited.

  ‘The Tsar will be on his knees but the Emperor will be able to spare his dignity by throwing him a few crumbs. He’ll agree not to deprive Russia of the provinces she stole from the Poles; he won’t restore Greater Poland; he will be magnanimous. In exchange, he’ll force Alexander to implement the continental system. And where will the English ships go if Europe welcomes them with round shot? Without ports you lose control of the seas and oceans, and without control of the water, an island is lost. So – at last! – the English will also sign the peace treaty, one laden with punitive clauses that will weaken them. Thus we shall be able to expand our colonies and acquire new ones, and people in India, Africa, Asia or America will henceforth say “Bonjour, monsieur” instead of “Good morning, sir”.’

  The colonel raised his glass as if he were already celebrating the capture of Bombay. Margont did not like this vision of the campaign; it was too militaristic and political for his taste. There was no mention of freedom for the muzhiks, the peasant serfs; nothing about reforming Tsarist society, the dashing of the hopes of their Polish allies … Still, the two visions were not totally incompatible. He took a swig of cognac and tried to make the pleasant burning sensation last as long as possible.

  ‘I can see that you’re a great reader, Colonel.’

  ‘I’m finishing a book about Joan of Arc. What a fascinating destiny! And to think that she was even frailer than me. Colonel Pégot tells me that you also are a great reader.’

  Margont pointed at one of the books lying on the desk. ‘Yes, but not The Gallic War. You read Julius Caesar whereas I read Cicero.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? Isn’t a general worth as much as a philosopher?’

  ‘The only problem is that Caesar had Cicero executed.’

  ‘You have a sharp tongue, Captain. Too sharp. But that’s often the case with serving soldiers.’

  The colonel took a chessboard out of one of the chests. The wooden pieces were delicately carved: infantrymen armed with halberds for the pawns; caparisoned chargers for the knights; elaborate mitres for the bishops; and crenellated towers for the castles. As for the kings and queens, they looked truly regal. Delarse was delighted to have an opponent.

  How odd, thought Margont, that no sooner has he begun to respect someone, than he’s in a hurry to challenge them.

  ‘Let’s see if you’d make a good general. The guest has the first move.’

  After a courageous last stand, the white king capitulated on an almost deserted chessboard. Margont had been unsettled by Delarse’s game plan. The colonel had played a particularly aggressive game, never hesitating to exchange pawns, knights, etc. Margont had not even had time to bring his defensive game into play.

  ‘If only the Russians could attack instead of running away from one chessboard to the next,’ Delarse declared pensively.

  ‘Please allow me a return game, Colonel. I hate losing.’

  ‘I do understand.’

  Delarse was already enthusiastically setting up the board again. He was the type of officer who, in answer to the standard question, ‘Which regiment do you command?’ dreamt of one day being able to reply in all modesty, ‘All of them.’

  The sentry came bursting in.

  ‘Colonel, sir, the head of bread supplies and the head of meat supplies wish to speak to you.’

  The colonel stood up. ‘I’d forgotten about their visit. The return game will have to wait for another time.’

  Margont saluted him and, just as he was leaving, declared: ‘I’m very sorry I was not a more worthy opponent, Colonel.’

  At chess, only at chess, he added to himself.

  The man was not worrying about the investigation into Maria’s murder. He felt perfectly safe, hidden among the unending column of soldiers. In any case, crimes were so seldom solved … No, what bothered him was what was happening to him. As he walked on amongst the infantrymen and the dust, one thing became obvious to him: his fascination with death was not something recent.

  As a lieutenant he had often gone into hospitals to view the dying. He attempted to capture that fleeting moment between life and death, the moment when the body becomes immobilised, when breathing itself ceases. He tried to commit to memory the change of expression on those faces at that fateful instant. But even a few years before that, death and suffering had attracted him. He attended autopsies, giving as an excuse his intention to study medicine. At the time he had put it down to a morbid curiosity. He had even read up on different types of coma. He wondered if there was one deep enough to present all the outward signs of death. During the dissections he enjoyed imagining that the man whose muscles had been separated and whose gaping abdomen was being prodded by the doctor’s instrument was still alive and that, although his coma prevented him from moving, his conscious mind enabled him to have a clear idea of what was happening.

  In fact his fascination with death seemed to go even further back than that. As a child he had loved graveyards. He’d spent whole days in them. He knew where each tomb was, the names and dates of the dead … He was curious to know what corpses looked like after a day, a week, two weeks … He enjoyed watching apples on which he had drawn features rot away. They were his skulls whose skin withered as the flesh became damp and soft. He watched them shrivel and gradually disintegrate.

  Even as a child … he had revelled in the death throes of ducks wounded by his father when out hunting: their fruitless attempts to get off the ground and fly again; their long silky necks twisting in a dance of death; the sharp crack of their vertebrae when he b
roke their necks to put them out of their misery.

  The fact was that he had always been attracted by death, pain and blood, and he wondered why it had taken him so long to realise this obvious fact. It was yet one more question demanding an answer. His life seemed to have become a series of riddles.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE day of 22 July was particularly gruelling. IV Corps had covered fifteen miles and it was the third successive day that they had kept up such a pace. Margont spent the afternoon attempting to get hold of a horse. In vain. Even the mounted chasseurs had been ordered to give up their mounts to the gunners to enable them to make up full teams. So that evening he went to Colonel Barguelot’s on foot.

  Twenty or so officers – captains and majors as well as a lieutenant-colonel – were sitting on the grass around a long white tablecloth that had been placed on the ground and laid with extraordinarily luxurious tableware: plates of Dutch china, crystal wine glasses, decanters, silver cutlery … Servants in powdered wigs were bustling about filling glasses and carving a roasted pig coated with a creamy sauce.

  Margont put his shako and sword down on a table cluttered with headgear and bladed weapons of all shapes and sizes. He noticed a silver scabbard on which had been engraved in elaborate lettering, ‘Colonel Barguelot. Semper heroicus’. ‘Ever the hero.’

  The colonel spotted him and, pointing at a place not far from his right, exclaimed: ‘Here’s Captain Margont! I’m always pleased to welcome a man of merit. Let’s put an Officer of the Légion d’Honneur between a major and a lieutenant-colonel.’

  The higher one’s rank, the closer one was placed to the head of the table. As Margont was taking his place, he could sense he was being stared at by all the majors who had had to move down one place. Barguelot introduced his officers to him.

  ‘Captain Margont received his decoration in Spain,’ he explained. ‘Ah, Spain, what an ill-fated country. Believe it or not, I almost got torn to shreds in Madrid during the revolt of 2 May 1808, their wretched “dos de mayo”. The whole city went mad that day. I was calmly walking the streets with my friend Lieutenant Carré … Carrier … Damn, what was his name? Anyway, in a word, we were meeting up with two Madrid girls in a park when we noticed a sorry-looking dragoon. The poor chap had lost his helmet and his horse, and was breathless from running, sabre in hand. By the time I’d realised it was not a hallucination, a crowd had gathered at the end of the street and had started rushing towards us. Men and women, old people and children, some dressed in rags, others well dressed … One of the ringleaders was brandishing a rope with a noose at the end of it. My friend and I started to run. We fled down one narrow street after another until we emerged in a square, to be confronted by a horrific scene: the naked and emasculated bodies of two Mamelukes who had been hanged upside down on the façade of a house that some lunatics were setting fire to. The rabble was still on our tail. They caught up with the dragoon, who was out of breath, and tore him to pieces. When we reached the park where we had our rendezvous, we hid behind a hedge. But, believe it or not, the two traitors with whom we should have been billing and cooing pointed us out with their fans. ‘Por aquí! Por aquí!’ The bitches! Determined to die fighting, we turned to face our attackers. I ran my sword through three of the insurgents and my friend … Carsier, Carrier … did the same but, alas, he was pitchforked. I held out against this horde of fanatics for a few more minutes. Then, thank God, the cavalry of the Guard suddenly arrived in the park and cleared the area.’

  The conversation about Spain became heated. Why did the Spanish resist the French presence so fanatically? Why did they reject the fruits of the Revolution? Why did they rise up en masse to defend a society that oppressed them? Margont felt particularly unsettled by these questions. Another debate also occupied their minds: would it not have been better to have got out of the Spanish quagmire before launching the Russian campaign? The Spanish campaign was mobilising a considerable number of French and allied troops to face up to the Spanish, the Portuguese and the English. In addition, there was concern about the Emperor being such a long way from the battlefield, especially since the English were involved.

  Margont was watching Barguelot. It is said that all roads lead to Rome. Here, all comments led to Barguelot. So what if a captain had been at the battle of Roliça? He, Barguelot, had been at the battle of Gamonal. So what if someone admired Goya’s paintings but expressed doubts about their feelings for France? Colonel Barguelot announced that he knew the great painter well and, moreover, that the latter had started work on the colonel’s portrait. In a word, whenever someone had taken a hundred prisoners in one battle, Barguelot had captured three hundred in the next one, and it was as if each well-known person had said to himself, ‘Now that I’m famous, it’s time I met Colonel Barguelot.’

  A servant placed a thin slice of pork on each plate. The finest tableware could not make up for the lack of food … Margont was very surprised to note that Barguelot ate nothing. He was not even served any food and did not touch his wine even though the claret was excellent, despite leaving the slightly bitter aftertaste of homesickness. Margont discovered that Barguelot had distinguished himself in numerous battles, owned a château near Nancy and had married a wealthy baroness, Marie-Isabelle de Montecy. Barguelot also mentioned his ancestors. He was from a long line of Dutch soldiers, the Van Hessens. His grandfather, the youngest son, had inherited nothing and, out of spite, had settled in France. He had had only one child, a daughter, so the Dutch name had died out. A procedure was under way to add the name Van Hessen to that of Barguelot.

  At the end of the meal, Barguelot motioned discreetly to one of his servants. The man took his glass, poured a little more wine into it and placed it directly in the colonel’s hand. Barguelot rose to his feet and everyone did likewise, holding their glasses.

  ‘What a shame I haven’t had time to give you an account of the liberation of Copenhagen in 1638 by the Dutch fleet. One of my ancestors was involved as a ship’s captain. His ship was at the head of the squadron and distinguished itself by running the Swedish blockade. But it will have to wait for another time. Gentlemen!’

  He brandished his glass and twenty others did likewise.

  ‘To Moscow, soon to be Paris’s little sister!’

  ‘To Moscow!’ all the officers replied in unison.

  These fine words revitalised them as much as the good claret and they went their separate ways cheerfully enough, while all around them the horizon was studded with fires gleaming in the night sky. The next day the French would as usual be tramping through ashes.

  The days that followed proved particularly frustrating for Margont. Despite all his efforts, he was unable to meet the other two suspects.

  Colonel Fidassio was never available. Captain Nedroni, who assisted him, stood in the way. He played the role of compulsory go-between, the one who each time was sorry to say that the colonel was too busy for the time being but who would be delighted to pass on a message.

  Nedroni took pride in his appearance without being ostentatious. His dark hair made his complexion look even paler, a feature that distinguished him from the other Italians.

  Colonel Fidassio, whom Margont had managed to glimpse from a distance, seemed preoccupied. He rode alone, some way off from his regiment. The colonel was approaching thirty-five. His hair was brown, his huge face rendered even more thickset by his broad cheekbones. This brief portrait, sketched hurriedly and from afar, was all that Margont could obtain.

  As for Colonel Pirgnon, he seemed very elusive. He was only rarely to be found with his regiment. Sometimes he would accompany a detachment out foraging for food; sometimes he would engage in conversation with the chief physician or with the person in charge of fodder; sometimes he would go off on a reconnaissance mission or gallop around on a horse taken from a Cossack to try to break it in. Margont had not managed to catch sight of him even once.

  Lefine had recruited some men he could trust and the four suspects – four because Lefin
e, unlike Margont, considered that Delarse should not be ruled out – were watched discreetly day and night. Except for Pirgnon, who was followed whenever possible.

  Time went by agonisingly slowly. Until 26 July.

  On the morning of 26 July, IV Corps was in a state of feverish excitement. The Russians were there! Was it true? Or was it just a false rumour? No! The previous day the 1st Light Division of the 1st Reserve Cavalry Corps had engaged with the enemy in a serious skirmish. As was his custom, Marshal Murat, who was in command of this corps, had led a charge and wrought havoc. But the Russians were still there.

  Prince Eugène was deploying his troops. An assault seemed imminent. Margont was waiting patiently at his position, in the Huard Brigade. This brigade belonged to the Delzons Division and, since this division was the spearhead of IV Corps, it would be in the front line of the attack. Like most of the officers and soldiers, Margont was completely unaware of the situation. He did not know if he was going to charge ten thousand Russians, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand … or three hundred thousand. Many of the combatants had come to terms with their ignorance of what was really at stake in the fighting, but not Margont. No, not knowing anything was exasperating for someone like him, who was so eager for knowledge of even the most useless kind (although for him it was impossible for any knowledge to be useless). So he did his best to make judgements from what he could observe.

  Prince Eugène was prancing about from one end of his army to the other, followed by his flamboyant retinue of aides-de-camp, orderlies and generals. Everywhere troops were taking up position. The 8th Hussars, in their green pelisses, red breeches and shakos, had massed further ahead in the plain, in two lines. The Delzons Division was on the move – a long and broad column, dark blue and white in colour, topped by a forest of bayonets that glinted in the sunlight. Several regiments followed, wondering which of them would enter the combat and which would be held in reserve. The artillerymen were busy positioning their guns, crowding together to push a cannon or unloading munitions from the wagons. Elsewhere, squadrons of chasseurs were lining up, and regiments in column formation were hurrying forward. In the front line, skirmishers standing a few paces apart were taking shots at the Russians. The battlefield consisted of slopes, some of which were wooded, which meant that the Russians could not be seen. Only plumes of white smoke were visible from where their guns were firing.