CHAPTER 25
HE was wandering amongst a vast expanse of corpses. To him, these bodies suggested dead leaves mistakenly carpeting a summer landscape. One scene had particularly struck him. Before his very eyes a cannonball had wrought havoc in a column of infantrymen. In a flash the projectile had blown off the left legs of seven soldiers who were advancing in single file. The man walked along in its wake, among the mangled victims, scattered limbs and pools of blood. Almost immediately he felt empty once more. A little further on, he noted the entangled bodies of combatants and imagined their struggle. However, the tumult of this slaughter soon faded from his mind, like a patch of fog dispersed by the wind. He crouched down to stroke the cheek of a Russian drummer boy barely twelve years old, hunched up, his stomach smashed to pieces by shell splinters. His gesture would have melted the hardest of hearts. It was not the child he wanted to caress, but death itself, and even that did not entertain him for long. He stood up, in a state of turmoil. He had witnessed an appalling butchery and yet he was already beginning to miss the suffering. He was afraid of no longer being able to escape detection. He felt the veneer wearing thin. He wondered how much bloodshed he would need to witness in order finally to feel assuaged.
*
The soldiers were marching stooped, their shoulders hunched. They looked like ghosts wandering in the night. Although he was as exhausted as the rest, Margont’s impatient pace was at odds with this spectacle and either surprised people or annoyed them. Under the pretext of asking for news about someone or other, Margont visited the 9th of the Line. He made sure that Colonel Barguelot noticed him and the colonel hailed him jovially. His uniform was gleaming and he looked triumphant.
‘Captain Margont! I’m glad you’ve survived. What a business! I was at the Great Redoubt during the afternoon assault, the successful one. I climbed up that wretched earthwork, sabre in hand, and there, with my fusiliers from the 9th, we caused a frightful slaughter. Frightful! It was indescribable! Indescribable! Everyone agrees that it was the fiercest part of the whole battle. You can’t imagine what it was like!’
‘I don’t need to, Colonel, because I was there.’
Barguelot’s jaw dropped. ‘You were there? No, the 84th couldn’t have been there because the Delzons Division … You’re mistaken.’
‘The fact is that for the day I was assigned to the 13th Light of the Morand Division.’
Barguelot was disconcerted. ‘The 13th Light … Well, yes, I did see them, of course. But there was so much smoke that you couldn’t make out a thing.’
‘Perhaps you noticed Colonel Pirgnon, from the 35th? He was also at the Great Redoubt.’
‘No. Not with all that smoke; it was worse than fog …’
It would have been difficult, though, not to have noticed Pirgnon perched on his breastwork. And, climbing up an earthwork without dirtying his uniform … Margont himself was so covered in soil that he looked as if he had just risen from the grave.
‘I must leave you because I have to check up on the state of my regiment. I look forward to seeing you again, Captain.’
The two men parted. Margont caught up with the 35th of the Line. He was unable to meet Colonel Pirgnon, who was being treated for a superficial wound to the arm, so he ended up going back to the 84th.
Soldiers surrounding Saber were singing:
Long live Saber! Long live Saber!
Our hero captured the Redoubt
Of that there ain’t the slightest doubt
Got himself a nice promotion
By his show of sheer devotion
Long live Saber! Long live Saber!
In the army no one’s braver!
Long live Saber! Long live Saber!
Saber motioned to him to join them but Margont kept on walking and caught up with Lefine, who had done the rounds of his spies. He was going to have to take on more. Those allotted to Pirgnon had all been killed or wounded, and only one of those keeping a watch on Colonel Fidassio had survived. The same was true for Barguelot and Delarse. Neither Margont nor Lefine could believe such a death toll.
‘Let’s start with Delarse,’ Margont declared.
‘Our surviving spy lost sight of him for three-quarters of the time. What he was able to tell me was that Delarse took insane risks. He was at the head of all possible attacks. I don’t know why the hell the general staff don’t get a move on and put him up a rank or two. At this moment he’s alone in his tent and won’t see anyone. His new adjutant took him a meal on a tray and came out soon after with soup all over his uniform.’
Margont sat down and leant against a tree. He couldn’t take any more. He thought he could still hear the sound of gunfire, distant and unreal. Lefine sat down cross-legged. His face, black with gunpowder, couldn’t be seen in the darkness, and Margont had the impression he was listening to a report by a soldier who had been decapitated by a cannonball. Death pervaded all his thoughts.
‘It’s because General Huard has been killed,’ Lefine continued. ‘Delarse already saw himself promoted to general and put in charge of the brigade but he found out that he was going to remain a colonel and that he would be assisting Huard’s replacement. Everyone found that disgraceful.’
Margont closed his eyes. ‘Don’t worry, I’m listening carefully. What about our Italians?’
‘Even if most of General Pino’s Italian Division couldn’t get there in time to take part in the battle, Colonel Fidassio was there right enough. He showed immense courage.’
Margont reopened his eyes. ‘What?’
‘All the time he stayed at the head of his regiment and personally ran his sword through a Russian captain who had just shot his horse and was trying to skewer him. He took the dead man’s gorget and put it around his neck.’
Margont instinctively touched his own gorget, the small horizontal metal crescent worn by infantry officers, that last vestige of medieval armour.
‘His soldiers nicknamed him “the lion”,’ Lefine added.
‘Not very imaginative! Anyway, I must recant. I judged Fidassio too hastily. Because he wasn’t coping with the responsibility of leadership and was panicking at the thought of it, I considered him incompetent and a coward. In fact he’s only incompetent.’
‘I personally don’t understand the mysteries of this transformation.’
‘He must have drunk some of that potion of yours.’
Lefine took his Austrian gourd – a trophy he had picked up on the battlefield at Austerlitz, so a sacred object and a lucky charm – and took a large swig.
‘What’s the second explanation?’
‘I’m still convinced that the responsibility of being a colonel is beyond Fidassio. He can’t make quick decisions and, when faced with a problem, hesitates like weighing scales that never manage to balance. But in a battle everything becomes clear. He’s ordered to attack in column a given point in the enemy line, so he attacks in column a given point in the enemy line. There’s no more self-questioning, no more decisions to make. Paradoxically, fear is the price he has to pay for his peace of mind. He makes up for his lack of judgement and competence with his courage. He’s even happy because for once he knows what to do.’
‘Close ranks.’
‘That’s more or less it. Obviously, if he has to take the initiative because everything’s not going as planned, then …’
‘Nedroni, help!’
Margont set about removing the soil from his uniform. ‘Exactly. And how did Nedroni conduct himself?’
‘As courageously as his master. The two of them are two sides of the same coin.’
‘Yes, except that one side is worth more than the other. We don’t know much about them, when it comes
