Only seconds had elapsed after Roger had slain the man with the musket. With his left hand he pulled his pistol from his sash. Straightening his arm, he aimed at the man who was holding his horse’s head. It flashed and there was a loud report. The Prussian’s forehead was smashed in. The top of his skull lifted. Blood and brains spurted from it, his knees gave and he fell backwards in the snow.
Again Roger drove his knees with all his strength into his charger. Freed from restraint, it now trotted forward, dragging with it Roger’s two remaining assailants who were still clinging to his legs. Before it had covered twenty yards he had brought the barrel of his pistol cracking down on one man’s head and the hilt of his sword on that of the other. As their grip gave and they fell away, he pulled hard on his mount’s reins, so that the animal reared, turned and came down facing in the opposite direction. Within a minute he covered the short distance back to Mary. She was lying face down in the middle of the road near her dead horse.
His mind was in a whirl of agony. Was she dead or only injured? And, if injured, how badly? Would she be able to continue on their terrible march or, in a day or two, collapse and die by the roadside?
From the day she had attacked the guarda with her parasol outside the British Legation in Lisbon and enabled him to escape into it, he had known that she was a girl with courage; but, until they had made this ghastly trek together, he had not realised how steadfast and splendid that courage was. All through the exhausting days of alternate riding and foot-slogging in bitter winds or blinding blizzards, and nights when every limb ached and it was agony to expose hands or face to the blistering cold, she had shown extraordinary fortitude. Not once had she complained of the overwhelming weariness that everyone felt during the last hours of a day’s march, or the pain of twisting stomach muscles that, at times, they had had to endure before giving in to the temptation to stave off their hunger with some of their reserve of special supplies. Only the fact that she had been in excellent health when they left Moscow, and the occasional titbits with which he had been able to supplement her miserable rations, could have kept so small and frail a body alive for weeks on end in the terrible rigours of a temperature that had sometimes fallen as low as twenty-five degrees below zero. So he knew that her sufferings must have been worse than his; yet she had never faltered in her belief that he would bring her safely through their ghastly ordeal.
Her companionship on the seemingly endless days of tramping along the icy, snowbound roads, and during the frustrating halts when, somewhere ahead, a small bridge had broken down, or for some other reason they had had to stay stamping their feet and flogging themselves with their arms because the column had become snarled up, had been a constant tonic to him. Determinedly she had insisted on maintaining her role as his servant, cooked their scanty meals and, after Greuze had died, rubbed down his mount as well as her own. Time and again she had brightened the days by her cheerful chatter, not only for him and young Greuze, but also for the other officers-servants.
Then at nights they had been pressed body to body in their big sleeping bag. When they had not been too drained of energy to kiss and fondle each other, she had been sweetness itself. On other nights, when the sky was clear and the wind had dropped, side by side they had gazed up at the myriad of stars in the frosty sky, while they talked of things that had happened to them in the past.
These weeks of shared dangers and difficulties had brought about an intimacy between them that is often not achieved by couples who have been married for many years. He loved her little body and merry, piquant face, but he loved far more her sterling worth, her active, inquiring mind and her unfailing gaiety. The thought of losing her made tears start to his eyes. He could not bear it. He would rather have died himself.
The second he came up to her, he threw himself off his horse, thrust his arm through the bridle and knelt down, his eyes searching her face in terror that it would confirm his worst fears. One of the Prussians had hit her, probably with the butt of a musket. There was a big bruise on her forehead above her left eye and, although she was unconscious, that eye was open, bulging and bleeding.
Round about were scattered in their blood the four Prussians he had killed, the one Mary had shot and the two whose skulls he had fractured. The rest had passed on. For about fifty yards the road was empty. Approaching on it was the remnant of a battalion of the Guard. Thrusting a hand under Mary’s furs, he felt her heart and gave a great sigh of relief. It was still beating, and strongly.
As the officer leading the Guards came up, Roger called to him, ‘Be good enough to tell one of your men to hold my horse. I’ve trouble here that I can’t handle by myself, but I’ll not detain you long.’
With an eager eye on Mary’s dead mount, the officer willingly obliged and halted his squad of men, while those of other companies tramped past them. Quickly Roger got out from one of his saddle-bags the small first-aid kit he carried in it. Again kneeling he swabbed Mary’s injury with disinfectant lotion. The pain brought her to her senses and she began to moan fretfully. Covering her eye with a piece of wadding, he put a bandage round her head, then got out his flask of brandy and made her drink as much as he could get her to swallow.
Like ghosts the guards stood round, hollow-cheeked and sunken-eyed, watching him and already savouring in their minds the good supper they could make of the flesh of the dead horse; but Roger knew that they were still too well disciplined to attack him. The animal lay on its side, one pannier hidden beneath it, the other, exposed, had been nearly emptied by the Prussians. Having opened his furs so that the officer could see his A.D.C. sash, Roger said to him:
‘Tell some of your men to roll the horse over, then get those panniers across the withers of my charger. Is there any chance of my wounded servant being given a lift in one of your wagons?’
The officer shook his head. ‘There’s no hope of that, Colonel. We’ve had to abandon more than half of them already, and those that remain to us are now drawn by only two horses apiece. Even the weight of another sack of biscuits could prove too much for a pair of the poor beasts to draw for long. If we’d given lifts to one-tenth of the wounded we’ve passed, all our supplies would have had to be left with them scores of miles back, and the lot of us would have died of starvation by now.’
It was the reply Roger had expected. With a shrug he said, ‘I’m fond of the lad and would like to save him. We’ll get him up on to the saddle of my charger, and secure him there. Your men can then set about flaying the carcass.’
Without waiting for an order from their officer, the listening men readily freed the panniers and lifted them on to Roger’s horse. Into the nearly empty one he stuffed the fur sleeping bag. Then, having hoisted Mary, who had again become unconscious, on to the saddle, they tied a cord that was attached to both her ankles under the horse’s belly and another, tied to her wrists, under its neck; so that she could not fall off. Immediately the men had done as Roger asked, slobbering ravenously they attacked the dead horse with bayonets and hands, tearing strips of meat off the back, haunches and belly until, within a few minutes, it was reduced to a bloody skeleton.
Roger had already taken the reins of his charger and joined the ragged stream of men who were blindly trudging forward. Darkness had now fallen. Many of the marchers were lighting little fires at the roadside to cook bits of horsemeat they had managed to get hold of during the past few days; others, who had nothing to cook, were still doggedly tramping on, in the hope that they would reach some village that had not yet been stripped as clean as an empty iron cauldron of everything edible.
That, too, was Roger’s hope. From time to time he glanced back to make sure that Mary was still securely in the saddle, and saw how her bandaged head swayed from side to side with the horse’s motion, her face brushing its mane. The jerking movement must, he knew, be very bad for a head wound; but he dared not stop until he reached some place where she would be under shelter and he could tend her.
When he had walked for so
mething over a mile, not far off the road he saw a ruined farmstead. Light coming through gaps in the shattered wooden walls showed that it was occupied. Every night any such protection from the cutting wind was always eagerly seized upon and, at times, groups of soldiers of different nations fought for such meagre shelter. He thought it certain that he would find the place crowded to suffocation, but left the road to investigate.
As he approached, he was challenged by a sentry. In reply he called out, ‘I have a wounded man here. I pray you, in God’s name, let me take him inside.’
‘No room,’ the man called back gruffly. ‘Be on your way, soldier.’
‘I beg you, think again,’ Roger pleaded. ‘I’ve tea and sugar with me, so can pay for my lodging.’
At that the man told him to wait a minute, then went into the house and returned with another man who proved to be a young French Lieutenant. After a brief conversation he agreed to let Roger join the eight men who were all that were left of his platoon. Between them they untied Mary and the Lieutenant and the sentry carried her inside. Roger remained with his horse. It was irreplaceable and, without it, he knew that he would never be able to get Mary out of Russia; so it was essential to give it all the care that was possible.
The moon was coming up and the light reflected from the snow made it almost as light as day. Leading the horse round to the back of the farmhouse, he saw that the stabling had been burned down; but he found a large woodshed that still had about a third of its roof left. He was naturally loath to leave his mount, in case it was stolen in the night; but it was still uncertain whether Mary would live or die, so the first consideration was to be with her.
When he had tied up the horse, he gave it a drink from a bottle containing melted snow that he kept hung from his saddle, then he fished about in the still-full pannier until he came upon a canvas bag nearly full of crushed army biscuits, upon which he had fed the horses when no fodder or cereal were available. In two journeys, he then carried his saddle-bags, the panniers and the big sleeping bag into the only room in the house which still had a roof.
The soldiers had made Mary as comfortable as possible in a corner on some empty corn sacks that had been left there, and were now huddled round a fire on which an evil-smelling stew was simmering. Roger learned that they belonged to a regiment from Dijon; hardy fellows whose homes were in the Jura mountains. They liked and respected their young officer, so had agreed to remain together under his leadership, although they now treated him as one of themselves.
Trembling with anxiety, Roger knelt down beside Mary. As her uninjured eye was open, he saw that she had come round, but she was breathing in little, short gasps, and when he laid his hand on her forehead he found it to be burning. In a whisper, she said:
‘I … I killed one. I shot him. Then … then another of them … struck me down.’
‘I know …’ He was just about to add ‘darling’, but checked himself in time, and substituted, ‘Hipé. Yes, I know. You were splendid.’
‘My eye hurts,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, it hurts terribly.’
Rummaging in one of his saddle-bags, Roger produced a small pot of opium ointment that he had carried all the way from St Petersburg. Removing the bandage, he gently massaged some of the ointment on to the big bruise on Mary’s forehead and all round the injured eye. The eye was a terrible sight, and he feared she would never see with it again. Having replaced the bandage, he got her into their sleeping bag and said:
‘You must try to sleep, Hipé. Go to sleep if you possibly can. I know your eye must be very painful, but you have escaped any other injury and you’ll soon get back your strength. You’re quite safe here.’
She gave a slight nod, and obediently closed her good eye.
He now had a chance to find out what had been stolen from the panniers and, with his back turned to the soldiers, went through them. The remainder of the vegetables that he had hoarded for the horses was gone, so were a small bag of flour and a piece of salt pork that he had been given for rations, one of his cones of sugar and the last of the preserved fruit. There remained three packets of tea, two cones of sugar, the marzipan which they had hardly touched, most of the side of bacon that he had got hold of in Smolensk and six potatoes. They had used up six bottles of the brandy and two had been smashed when the horse had fallen on the pannier; but two remained unbroken and he had two more in his pistol holsters. There was also the bottle of blood that he had taken from the mule. Keeping out one packet of tea and about a quarter of a pound of sugar to give to the soldiers, he packed the rest of the things back into the panniers.
The Lieutenant and his men invited Roger to share in their stew and afterwards talked to him for a while in low voices, while the wind whistled outside; and, presently a wolf began to howl dismally. For a moment Roger feared it would attack his horse, but reassured himself with the thought that there must be the dead bodies of plenty of humans within the pack’s range.
The Dijon men spoke bitterly of their sufferings during the past seven weeks; but they were still hypnotised by the personality of Napoleon and, apparently, it did not occur to them to blame him. Roger told them some stories about the Emperor and his brilliant Court, then they all settled down for the night.
Early in the morning they roused up, ate a frugal meal from supplies they had obtained while in Orcha, then made ready to set out again on their terrible journey. By seven o’clock, although it was still dark, they wished Roger and his wounded servant well, and went on their way.
In the early part of the night Mary had become delirious, but later dropped asleep. Now she was again delirious and evidently in a high fever. For her to be moved that day was clearly out of the question. Roger bathed her eye, massaged some more of the opium ointment into the flesh round it, and put a cold compress round her head. Then he went out to see to his horse.
As daylight began to filter through the big hole in the roof of the woodshed, he was able to take stock of its contents. A big pile of logs, sufficient to last for the rest of the winter, filled one end of it. He was already deeply concerned about how he and Mary could remain at the farm in safety for at least two days. It was certain that another group of men would seek shelter there for the coming night, and they might not prove friendly as had the men from Dijon. Even more to be dreaded was the following day, when the last of the Grand Army would have passed and the pursuing Cossacks enter the area. Somehow he had to hide his horse and stores before nightfall; and, the day after, Mary and himself as well.
It then occurred to him that the logs might serve his purpose. Soon, he was hard at work carrying them from the end of the shed where they were stacked to build a four-foot-thick wall across the other end, leaving a good space behind it in which he could conceal the horse and, later, also Mary and himself.
Three times during the morning he went in to see how Mary was, and found her much the same. For the rest of the time he laboured on the logs and, half-way through his task, he met with a most welcome surprise. The owner of the farm had evidently had the same idea of using his stack of logs to conceal a cavity. Behind the pile, Roger found a space and, in it, two bales of hay and a sack of oats. There was enough fodder there to last for a fortnight, with care. At midday he was happily able to give his charger a luxury meal.
By this time his wall of logs was completed and the horse stalled, so he was able to return to and remain with Mary. She was still in a fever, but conscious. As he bent over her, she asked in a low voice:
‘My eye, Roger. Will it recover its sight?’
He had not the heart to tell her that he doubted it, so he said, ‘It is impossible to say as yet. We can only hope so.’ Then, as there was no-one else present he was able to kiss her gently, hold her hand and use endearments as he talked to her; but he would not let her tire herself by talking much.
The embers of the fire the soldiers had made were still glowing, so he put more fuel on them and some of the bacon to boil in an iron pot that he had found in the burnt-out stab
le. Knowing that Mary would not be able to get down anything solid, he poured half the bottle of mule’s blood into another bottle, filled them both up with brandy and fed her some of the mixture, a few sips at a time.
To his great relief, in the afternoon Mary’s fever abated and she slept; so, for a long time, he sat looking out through a rent in the wall at the marchers on the road, which was no more than fifty yards distant. For once it was not snowing and the light was good enough for him to see the endless stream of men clearly.
Now they looked much more like a whole nation of gipsies on the move than an army. When they had had to abandon most of their loot, many of them had kept richly-embroidered silk and satin robes which they had intended to take home to their wives and sweethearts, and now wore them round their shoulders for extra warmth. Many wore furs that were either too large and trailed along the ground, or too small. Others wore sheepskin kaftans or the padded jackets of peasants. Under this strange assortment of garments it was no longer possible to distinguish infantry from dismounted cavalry or gunners from sappers, let alone tell whether individual men came from the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, the rugged cantons of the Alps, the forests of the upper Rhine or the flat, windy plains of Poland.
Here and there a group of them had harnessed themselves to a gun or limber and were pulling it with the aid of a single horse. Now and then an officer passed, still mounted on an apology for a charger, consisting of little more than skin and bone. Hands buried deep in their pockets or muffs, and heads thrust forward at an unnatural angle, the marchers tramped soundlessly onward through the last fall of snow. To conserve their strength they looked neither to right nor left, and maintained complete silence, not uttering so much as a word to their companions. Under fur hats or shapeless busbies, their faces were swathed in wraps of wool, cloth or silk. Occasionally Roger caught a glimpse of long noses sticking out from pinched features above matted beards. They had been reduced to from three-quarters to half their normal weight and were little more than living skeletons. Many of them had bandaged heads, arms in slings or were limping along, supported by sticks or crutches. Only the inherent urge to survive kept them moving.
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware Page 37
