The Battle

by Patrick Rambaud

  Milanese dialect, as it dawned on him that not only had his officers given him orders and threatened him. hut that he had also complied. Would they have dared take him to the rear bv force : He put the question to Lejeune who replied that yes, thev would have. Then his tury died down and he began grumbling, 'You can t see a thing Irom here!'

  'It can be arranged, sire." said Lejeune.

  "What do you suggest : ' said the Emperor in an ugly voice.

  'That thick hr tree . . .'

  'Do you take me tor one of the chimpanzees in Schon-brunn's menagerie?'

  'We can fix a rope ladder to it and, trom up there, nothing will escape you."

  'Well then. prestoV

  An encampment, after a tashion, was improvised at the foot or the hr tree. The Emperor fell into an armchair. He didn't watch the young soldiers agilely climbing up through the branches to put a rope ladder in place, he barely heard the constant cannon fire or smelt the smell ot burning which came trom the plain. He stared impassively at the tip ot his boots, thinking: Thev all hate me! Berthier, Lannes, Massena, the others, all the rest of them, thev hate me! I'm not entitled to make a mistake. I'm not entitled to lose. It I lose, that rabble will betrav me. They'd even kill me' I'm the one they have to thank tor their tortunes and it's as though they resent me tor it' Thev teign loyaltv. but the only reason they march is to amass gold, titles, chateaux and women' They hate me and I love nobody. Not even my brothers. Xo, perhaps Joseph. From habit, and because he's the oldest. And Duroc as well. Why : Because he can't crv, because he is stern and resolute. \ nere is he : Whv

  isn't he here? What if he hated me too? And me? Do I detest myself? Not even that. I have no opinion about myself. I know that a force drives me and nothing can restrain it. I must proceed, in spite of myself and against the rest of them.

  The Emperor took a pinch of tobacco and sneezed over Lejeune who announced, 'Sire, the ladder is in position. With your campaign telescope, you will be able to cover the entire battlefield.'

  The Emperor glanced up at the fir tree and the flimsy ladder hanging from it, swaying slightly. It was so hard holding himself steady in the saddle, how was he going to climb up that high? He sighed. 'Go up, Lejeune, and give me a detailed account.'

  Lejeune was already on the lower branches when the Emperor added, 'Don't pay any attention to individuals, just concentrate on the masses, like you do in your damned pictures!'

  When he reached the top of the tree, the colonel wound the rope ladder round one hand, rested a foot on a stout branch and extended the telescope to scan the countryside. Masses, that was all he saw. Since serving with Berthier, he had learnt to recognize the Archduke's regiments by their insignia. He could name them all, and their commanding officers, and estimate the number of soldiers. With the Emperor's spyglass, he could even make out the uhlans' yellow pennons and the dragoons' helmets bound in black chenille. In the welter of troops, he saw the Hohenzollern infantry and Bellegarde's cavalry on the right flank, massing on Essling without breaking through. On the other wing, he saw Baron Hiller's formidable offensive closing on Aspern, which was still in flames. Between these two

  intact positions he also saw, slightly withdrawn and facing the fields, Marshal Bessieres's green standard slashed with silver, Espagne's motionless cuirassiers formed up in seventeen squadrons ready to attack, and Lasalle's chasseurs. Facing them, in the smoke, rows of cannon were spitting fire but there were fewer battalions and fewer cavalry. The Austrian troops were moving towards the two villages to bring the bulk of their effort to bear on them; at each moment their centre was becoming more depleted. Lejeune climbed back down the tree to give the Emperor this information. He reached the ground just as two horsemen rode up, one from Essling and the other from Aspern.

  The first, Perigord, was smiling. The second, Sainte-Croix, his hair scorched by flames, looked tired and grave. The Emperor quickly sized them up. 'Let's start with the good news. Perigord?'

  'Sire, Marshal Lannes is holding Essling. With Boudet's division, he hasn't lost a scrap of ground.'

  'Brave Boudet! Ever since the siege of Toulon, he has been brave, that one!'

  'You know, sire, that the Archduke was leading the attack in person . . .'

  'Was leading?'

  'He has been seized by one of his convulsive fevers.' 'Who is his replacement?' 'Rosenberg, sireV

  'La fortuna e cambiatal Where Charles has not succeeded, the unfortunate Rosenberg will fail!'

  'The Major-General thinks so too, sire.'

  'Rosenberg is courageous but rather too much so, and he lacks resolve too: his nature is to be cautious . . . Sainte-Croix?'

  'The Duke of Rivoli has urgent need of munitions, sire.'

  'He has experienced this manner of situation before.'

  'What reply should I give him, sire?'

  'That night falls at seven o'clock and that he is to find a way to hold Aspern — or its ruins — until then. By seven, the bridge will be repaired and the battalions kicking their heels on the left bank will have crossed the Danube. Then there will be sixty thousand of us . . .'

  'Not including the dead,' Sainte-Croix murmured.

  'You were saying?'

  'Nothing, sire, I was clearing my throat.'

  'Tomorrow morning Davout's army will arrive from Saint-Polten. We will have ninety thousand men and the Austrians will be exhausted . . .'

  The two messengers had scarcely remounted before the Emperor turned to Lejeune without a word: Lejeune instantly replied to this silent enquiry. 'Sire, the Austrians are heading for the villages en masse.'

  'So, they're lightening their position in the centre.'

  'Yes.'

  'Then they've got a soft underbelly! Berthier is bound to have remarked on it; go and find him at the tile factory in Essling, tell him that now is the moment to launch our cavalry against the Archduke's artillery. The major-general can sort out the details with Bessieres.Caulaincourt! Take Lejeune's place at the top of the fir tree.'

  The colonel left to deliver the order: the Emperor slumped sullenly into his armchair, muttering, 'I don't object to being accused of recklessness, but dilatoriness: if anyone so much as dared!'

  Exposed to the hot sun since morning, Fayolle was beginning to swelter under his breastplate and iron helmet. His horse stamped the ground to keep its blood circulating, or rubbed its neck against that of its neighbour. In the sixth rank of his squadron, appeared to the trooper as nothing but a muffled rumble, and on either side he saw the flames billowing up from houses that had been bombarded. Suddenly, up ahead, between the backs of his comrades, he glimpsed movement. The standard of Bess-ieres's chasseurs floated up over the troops, then Fayolle recognized the long powdered hair of the marshal, who was raising his sabre. The trumpets sounded, the officers' voices passed on the order to march and, across a front a kilometre wide, thousands of cavalrymen moved off towards the cannon hidden by a fog which reeked of gunpowder.

  Fayolle advanced. His heavy armour, jolted up and down by the trot, bruised his shoulders. He had rolled up his Spanish coat like a bolster and tied it across his chest. His sabre blade, held pointing downwards, hung slackly against the grey cloth of his breeches. He concentrated, imagining the imminent attack; the sight of his friend Pacotte with his throat slit came back to him and he felt ready to hack those filthy Austrians to pieces. When, at last, the trumpets blew f the order to charge, he dug his spurs into the flanks of his black horse and found himself galloping ferociously, neck and neck with his comrades, his sword outstretched, stung by the wind and the dust, his mouth twisted in an endless scream, howling to forget the danger, to insult death, to terrify it, to give himself courage, to make himself dizzy, to feel that he was nothing but one component of an invincible body of men. A previous charge

  by the chasseurs had clashed itself on the batteries, the bulk of them cut down by the burning roundshot, and they had to jump their horses over the shattered corpses in their path and make sure that they didn't stumble or l
ose their footing in the bloody pulp of intestines and bone. In the distance, they could make out the bright green plumes of Bade's dragoons, led by the corpulent Marulaz, and the heavy fur caps of Bessieres's non-commissioned officers who were re-forming their cavalrymen towards the rear, as the cuirassiers drove forward before the gunners had time to reload. The first ranks suffered the shock, and those behind, of which Fayolle, Verzieux and Brunei were a part, flew over the kegs and wheels of the limbers. Fayolle plunged his sword into one fellow's heart, trampled another who was carrying a cannonball, nailed a third to his gun and then kept on slashing at random with the cutting edge of his sabre until he came up against a square of white-uniformed infantrymen firing in his direction. As he pulled his horse about a bullet rapped on his helmet and he was poised to hurl himself against the bristling wall of bayonets when a trumpet sounded the retreat to make room for the next wave of attacks led by General Espagne in person. Disfigured by rage, alone at the head of his men, his eyes staring madly and completely exposed, it seemed as if Espagne wanted to prove right the ghosts which had been haunting his dreams ever since his misadventure at Bayreuth.

  Carried too far forward behind the line of artillery, Fayolle watched his general ride up like a fury; he tried to turn and rejoin his troop, but his horse was hit between the eyes and reared on its hind legs. Thrown to the ground, Fayolle fell on his back and the chinstrap of his helmet cut into his jaw. Lying half-stunned in the trampled wheat, he

  stretched out his hand to retrieve his sword, and as he propped himself up on one elbow he felt a sabre cut, partly cushioned by the plume of his helmet, that screeched across his metal backplate. The Austrian officer in a russet jacket, the cuirassier on all fours at his feet, and everything else was swept away by General Espagne's charge; Fayolle felt a hand grab hold of his arm and the next moment he w as riding pillion behind his comrade Verzieux. They surged to the rear with Espagne's squadron, leaving the field open for a fresh charge. Once out of range of the musketry and cannon fire, Fayolle let himself slide off onto the grass. He wanted to thank Verzieux, but the latter had slumped forward and was clinging to the pommel of his saddle, unable to move. Fayolle called to him. Verzieux had been hit by canister shot in the breastplate, on his left side, at stomach height. Fine jets of blood spurted out of the bullet holes, and ran down his leg. Fayolle and Brunei helped him off his horse, laid him on the ground and pulled off his coat, which was soaked in warm blood and stuck to the leather-straps of his breastplate. Verzieux groaned and then screamed when Fayolle jammed a handful of grass into his wound to stop the bleeding. With red, sticky hands, Fayolle stood and watched the wounded man being taken away to the ambulances by the little bridge. Would he get there? Was that all? Cuirassiers were carrying him on a stretcher made out of branches and greatcoats. Fayolle unfastened his helmet and threw it on the ground.

  'One thing's for sure,' said Brunei, 'he's not coming back.'

  Protected by the still warm, soft belly of a dead horse, Vincent Paradis was sniping at Baron Hiller's Austrians. Having been driven out of Aspern by a furious bayonet charge led by Molitor, they were returning in strength. Some of them were falling to the ground but fresh troops instantly took their place and closed the ranks. It was as if the Austrians were rising from the dead, as if it made no difference whether one aimed true or not. The exhilaration produced by the wine had worn off and Paradis was left with a rasping tongue, a throbbing pain in the nape of his neck and heavy eyelids. They weren't men any more at the end of the main street, he thought, but rabbits disguised in uniforms, or spectres masked by the smoke, demons from a nightmare or a fairground show 7 . After each round, he held out his musket, hands snatched it from him, and another was put in its place. In a doorway, soldiers were loading and reloading without pausing. 'Don't fall asleep,' Rondelet said.

  Tm trying not to,' Paradis answered, pulling the trigger, his right shoulder bruised by the countless recoils.

  'If you fall asleep, they'll butcher you. A dead man who snores: not that convincing.'

  To prove his point, he lifted up the limp arm of one of their companions, whose brains had been splattered across his face when his forehead was blown apart by a hail of bullets.

  'Look, he's not making any noise,' Rondelet went on. 'Yes, all right''

  Pounded by the salvoes from the Austrian muskets, the horse's body juddered. In front of them in the street, a group of voltigeurs had taken cover behind an overturned plough. Suddenly they got to their feet to fall back at a run.

  They dragged a wounded soldier behind them like a sack, holding him by the neck. He was groaning, his face contorted like a child's in a grimace of pain and he left a glistening red trail which was instantly soaked up by the dry ground. As they ran past the dead horse shielding Paradis, Rondelet and several badly mutilated corpses, the fugitives shouted, 'They've got cannon. Got to get out of here or we'll be blown sky high!'

  Pieces of ordnance had started enfilading the row of little houses: they'd best make themselves scarce. Rondelet and Paradis agreed to head for the church square, where the bulk of the battalion was assembled.

  'Got to go round the back, fast!'

  They crawled through the dirt and gravel back to the doorway, and once inside got to their feet. Their comrades were still biting open cartridges.

  'The powder's running out,' complained a tall moustachioed rifleman with his hair tied back in a queue at the nape of his neck.

  'We're clearing out through the gardens! Cannon!'

  'The sergeant agrees, does he.'' asked the moustachioed man.

  'Are you blind'' Paradis shouted at him, pointing at the corpses in the street.

  'Oh, no!' said the other obstinately. 'The sergeant moved his leg.'

  'He didn't move a bloody thing!' 'We can't leave him here!' 'Come back, you idiot!'

  The private was already running outside, crouching low, but before he could reach the body he'd seen moving, he was cut down by musketry; he span round, a trickle of

  blood at the corner of his mouth, and crumpled against the stiff legs of the horse they had been using as a barricade.

  'Very clever!' muttered Rondelet.

  'We're wasting time! Let's go!' shouted Paradis.

  The survivors of this position, now too far advanced, gathered up the muskets and slung them under their arms like bundles of firewood. Rondelet picked up a spit which had been left in the fireplace, and they ran out into the small garden. Scratching themselves, they forced their way through the low hedges, to bypass the lethal main street. They tried to take their bearings from the shell of Aspern's belfry, but instantly ran in the wrong direction and lost their way. They turned back on themselves, colliding with the debris of a low wall. They plunged into bushes, scaled heaps of rubble, twisted their ankles, limped, crashed into obstacles they couldn't see, tore themselves on brambles, but their terror of being buried under the splintered buildings or burnt to death filled them with a frenzied energy. They heard cannon fire raking the main street; a shell fell on the house they'd just run from and the roof beams burst into flames. They came upon other runaways in scorched uniforms and their numbers had swollen by the time they reached the cemetery walls; still with enough strength to climb them, they jumped down onto the tombs and, leaping from cross to cross, they reached the church. Massena and his officers were on their feet and, as roundshot blasted the tall elms, branches fell all around them.

  Fayolle had taken his friend Verzieux's horse, which was more highly strung than his own and needed to be kept on

  a tight rein, but the day was beginning to lengthen, and after nearly a dozen brutal charges the horseman and his mount were each as exhausted as the other. Riding back to their lines, setting off again, sabreing the enemy: their ranks were thinning out and still the Austrians did not withdraw. Fayolle's back hurt, his arm hurt, his whole body hurt and sweat ran into his eyes which he wiped with a sleeve encrusted with Verzieux's dried, brownish blood. As his horse baulked, he dug his spurs in hard en
ough to draw blood. With a sabre in one hand, a lit Austrian linstock in the other, and the bridle between his teeth, he was preparing to fall back with his troop for a minute's rest between charges, when a group of Lasalle's chasseurs brushed past him, bawling, 'This way! This way!'

  In the tumult and confusion of , who was in command? Fayolle and his fellow cavalryman Brunei glimpsed their captain, Saint-Didier, emerging from the smoke; he'd lost his helmet and was signalling to them and other cuirassiers from the scattered troop to follow the chasseurs. Forming up in a group, they rode their horses as hard as they could and swept down on the rear of the uhlans who were overwhelming Bessieres's cavalry. Caught by surprise, the Austrians turned their lances with the fluttering pennons towards their attackers but they hadn't time to manoeuvre their horses or mount a charge, and they took the thrust side on. Fayolle forced the flaming match of his linstock into an uhlan's open mouth, driving its shaft into the man's throat with all his might, and the uhlan toppled over onto the ground, writhing, his body convulsed by violent spasms, his eyes turned back into their sockets, his throat burnt black. A few paces away, Marshal Bessieres himself was on foot, hatless and with one of his sleeves torn,