dark fires and pale birches. It was all up and down and in the early stages some of the more heavily laden wagons had to be pushed very often. In all this time, they did not see a living soul. Such villages as they came across were deserted and more than half ruined.
They bivouacked at night round huge fires, for which there was never any shortage of wood, and slept as well as they could wrapped in blankets which, by morning, had turned into crackling, icy shells.
At each of these halts, Marianne did her best to keep as far from General Mourier as possible. It was not that he was openly unpleasant, but he seemed to take a mischievous pleasure in teasing the supposed secretary, subjecting him to a spate of humorous pleasantries of a military kind and so broad that for all her self-control Marianne could not help blushing to the roots of her hair, to the great delight of her tormentor. Beyle, meanwhile, was obliged to resort to the most devious methods to enable her to escape by herself from time to time to satisfy the needs of nature. Moreover, however often he repeated that Fabrice, as he called him, did not understand much French, Mourier would still persist in trying to acquaint him with the finer points of military slang, assuring him that this was an excellent way to learn. Having served in Italy, Mourier had some rudiments of Italian, which he could use with fiendish cunning.
One thing that particularly exercised his wit was the fact that Fabrice was never seen to remove his hat. The fur cap had remained firmly pulled down over his ears ever since leaving Moscow, and the general's witticisms rained down on the unfortunate headgear. If he was not hinting that the wretched Fabrice, besides his lack of physical endowments and courage, was also as bald as a coot, he was promising him a fine crop of lice as a result unless he took it off. Poor Marianne could only wish with all her heart that she had listened to Beyle's advice and had her hair cut short before she set out. She had not been able to bring herself to do it, and in this she had been upheld by Barbe's loud indignation at the very idea of parting with her crowning glory. Now she could only suffer in silence, for the sacrifice was no longer possible.
They were almost half-way to Smolensk when the first attack came. It was the evening of the twenty-fourth of October, the cooking fires had been lighted and the meagre daily ration of bacon and dried peas, for food was growing scarce, was stewing over them. The convoy had become a single, great encampment in a clearing in the forest, where the men huddled together, quarrels and bad temper forgotten, seeking only a little warmth and human comfort from one another. The camp was a little patch of France set down in the vast immensity of Russia and the men clung together for company. They had gained a few more leagues that day. It would not be long now before they were safe again behind the thick walls of Smolensk, where supplies of food were pouring in daily – or so Beyle hoped.
Then grey figures loomed up, without warning, under the trees. Simultaneously, there was a crackle of gunfire. A man dropped, headlong, just beside Marianne and was dragged back hastily before his hair caught fire, but he was already dead. She was staring down at him in horrified fascination when she heard General Mourier's voice bellowing: 'To arms! We are attacked! Each man take his weapon and fire at will—'
'Who is it?' Beyle asked, peering into the half-light. The cossacks?'
'No. Cossacks would have rushed up before now. These are on foot – and I've an idea there are peasants among them. I'm almost sure I saw the gleam of a pitchfork.'
With amazing speed, he succeeded in putting the camp in a posture of defence, running up and down the line, bent almost double, handing out ammunition and making sure that everyone had as much cover as possible, especially those of the wounded who could not move from where they lay. He had used his rank to take command automatically, the officer nominally in charge of the convoy being no more than a colonel, and Dutch to boot.
'Try to hold your fire unless you're sure of a hit,' he counselled them. 'Better not waste your powder. We're not at Smolensk yet.'
'If we ever get there at all,' Beyle muttered, drawing a long pistol from one of his valises. 'If the Russians attack in force, we'll never hold them.'
'Don't be so defeatist,' Marianne retorted sharply. 'You must have known we were likely to meet some of them. Or have you forgotten what you were always saying in Moscow, that we were practically surrounded?'
He mumbled something indistinct in answer and then devoted himself earnestly to the business of loading his pistol. Everything was very quiet now but Marianne, crouching behind the carriage and peering out into the gathering dusk, was able to make out stealthy figures creeping nearer. The grey-clad Russians melted into the twilight and it was not easy to distinguish them from the trees they were using as cover. They advanced in short dashes from one trunk to the next but the girl's sharp eyes soon learned to pick them out. All at once, without quite knowing why, she found herself eager to take part in the deadly game.
In the old days, when she was growing up at Selton, Dobs had seen to it that his 'tomboy pupil', as he called her, had acquired a pretty skill with firearms as well as with the foils. Consequently, when Mourier came back to take up a position behind his own carriage, she spoke to him outright, but still remembering to do it in Italian.
'Give me a pistol!'
He did not understand at first and said something coarse in answer. Then Beyle intervened.
'The boy is asking you for a weapon, a pistol,' he translated coldly, but the general only gave a shout of laughter.
'A pistol? What for? Those dainty hands of his could never hold it steady. Oh no, my friend, just you tell your young fire-eater that guns are for men. This is no time to be playing games. I don't know what the Russians are waiting for, but it won't be long now. I think they're coming. When they're close enough, every shot must go home.'
Some odd impulse of bravado made Beyle hand his own weapon to Marianne.
'Here you are, then,' he said, shrugging. 'It can't make a difference anyhow – we'll all die in the end.'
She took the gun without a word and studied it briefly. It was a duelling pistol and a magnificent piece of work.
'It's loaded,' Beyle said. Lowering his voice, he whispered a little anxiously: 'Are you sure you know how to use it? I don't want to make a fool of myself.'
Marianne's only answer was to draw herself up a little. As confidently as any experienced duellist, she laid the barrel on her forearm, took aim at one of the grey figures and fired. The grey shape dropped among the fallen leaves. The second shot followed almost instantaneously, with the same result.
There was a silence while Marianne returned the weapon coolly to its owner, conscious of the respect mingled with the startled amusement in his eyes.
'Good God! I'll think twice before I send my friends to wait upon you, my dear Fabrice.'
Marianne was turning away with a smile when another weapon was thrust at her. The hand that held it ended in a braided sleeve and the general's voice, sounding oddly hoarse, muttered in her ear: 'I apologize. I think I have been much mistaken in you.'
Then, before Marianne could stop him, he had expressed his contrition by grasping her impulsively by the shoulders and kissing her soundly on both cheeks. Marianne was conscious first of a strong smell of tobacco and then that his sudden action had been the ruin of her disguise. Under Mourier's brusque assault, the fur hat had tilted wildly and then fallen to the ground, revealing the plait of long hair wound about her head.
For an instant, Marianne and the general stared at one another, still half-kneeling on the muddy ground. She saw his eyes widen in amazement as they took in the head before him, but only for a moment, for he made a swift recovery. Quickly scooping up the hat, he placed it on her head again, as carefully as Barbe could have done, then glanced hurriedly round them, but every man was at his post and watching the wood beyond the camp.
'No one saw you,' he said softly. 'And no one shall know. Oh, you, translate, can't you?' he added impatiently, speaking to Beyle who was still too stunned by what had happened to open his mouth. Marianne laughed.
'It's not necessary now that you know my secret. You have found out so much that I may as well tell you the whole. I do speak French.'
She broke off then because a volley of musket fire rang out from the other side of the camp. Absorbed by the general's discovery, she had temporarily forgotten the danger they were in. Fortunately the Russians, shocked by the sudden death of two of their number, seemed to have halted their advance. Possibly they meant to withdraw now that they had lost the advantage of surprise.
All the same, as he knelt down at his post again, next to Marianne, Mourier could not help demanding, in an agonized whisper that made Marianne's lips twitch: 'Did you really understand all the time?'
For a moment, her better nature prompted her to say no, but the idea of that small vengeance at least was
