bed sheets and curtains made into clothes, dresses, dressing gowns …
Margont straightened up, exhausted, famished beyond words and surprised not to be dead. He had grown up in an area where snow was a rare sight, and in the summer the scorching heat made it look as if the scrubland was on fire without ever burning up and that you were moving forward surrounded by invisible flames. That climate had enabled him to withstand heat but had also made him sensitive to the cold. Were it not for his natural foresight and what he had read about Russia, he would long ago have fallen victim to the first flakes of snow. He was wearing silk stockings, woollen stockings, leggings, corduroy trousers, a silk shirt, two waistcoats including one in cashmere, a padded jacket and a bulky fur-lined cloak with an ermine collar that half hid his face and whose skirts trailed along the ground. He also had on a woollen hood, a hat and a double pair of gloves thrust into a fox-fur muff. His feet were swathed in several layers of stockings and socks and protected by bearskin boots. Encumbered with all these layers, which made him into a sort of fossil, he looked like a thickset, clumsy giant. The sword at his waist was the only indication that he was a soldier, apart from the epaulettes that he had sewn on to his cloak. But all this did not stop his teeth from chattering and he felt as if he were a little child who had fallen naked into the snow. He took a few steps and already felt exhausted. They had slept too little, in appalling conditions, with the fear of never waking up.
He heard shouting and wailing. Some exhausted soldiers had fallen asleep on the ground and their faces were now stuck to the snow. Others had frostbitten cheeks and noses, and large patches of frozen skin were peeling away from their faces. Some people came to their aid but not many, it must be said. They had been through so much horror and were so afraid for themselves that they were now insensitive to everything. The bivouac was littered with the dead. People were looking for food around the corpses – a vain hope – and taking the clothes. As Margont passed close to a victim being stripped of his trousers by an infantryman, he heard a murmur of ‘
‘He’s still alive!’ Margont exclaimed.
But the fusilier continued to tug at the trousers that the German was holding on to, a Wurttemberger to judge from the shape of his black-crested helmet.
‘He’s practically dead,’ retorted the looter.
‘So will you be if you continue,’ Margont warned, putting the frozen barrel of his pistol to the man’s temple.
The fusilier backed away, holding his bayonet because he’d thrown away his musket. The Wurttemberger was too weak to get up. Margont motioned to some Wurttemberg artillerymen, who were lamenting having had to abandon their guns in Smolensk because of the lack of horses to pull them. They referred to these pieces of ordnance as if they were human. When they recalled the moment they had spiked them – which involved driving a spike into the touch-hole to render them unusable by the enemy – they had tears in their eyes. The Wurttembergers moved forward suspiciously, then rushed to help their comrade as soon as they caught sight of him.
Lefine approached Margont.
‘I don’t even feel the cold any more!’ he shouted gleefully.
Nevertheless, he had been shivering for almost a week.
‘Don’t lose heart. We’ll pull through, Fernand!’
‘Well, of course we will. Everyone’s going to pull through! Talking of which, Pirgnon’s going to pull through too.’
‘No, not him.’
‘So, with all that’s happened you still believe in divine justice, do you? He’s a colonel, so he eats much better than us. One of these days he’ll step over our dead bodies laughing.’
Margont was trying to tread in the footprints in front of him so as not to exhaust himself unnecessarily by disturbing heaps of snow.
‘My investigation’s at a standstill for the moment but—’
‘What a bad loser you are! Pirgnon’s had us. He’s had us. That’s all there is to it.’
‘The game’s not over yet.’
Lefine pointed to a pile of corpses covered with snow. Men had huddled together to keep themselves warm but in the end the entire group had frozen.
‘Even if you were frozen stiff like them, you’d still believe in victory. The Emperor should take you into his Guard! We’re all going to kick the bucket! By the way, do you know what I think? That so many people are dying in this damned retreat that it could well happen to Pirgnon. A shot fired in a wood – by a Cossack, of course! – and that’s it. No more Pirgnon. A Cossack who’s as good a marksman as me, for example.’
Margont shuddered.
‘No, Fernand.’
‘Did you say something, Captain? With all this snow in my ears I can’t hear a thing.’
‘You heard perfectly well.’
‘Why? Because it’s wrong to kill a murderer?’
Margont stopped and turned towards his friend. ‘Because it’s meaningless. It would be absurd to become a murderer in order to eliminate a criminal.’
‘What a noble sentiment and how well put. Another fine idea to form the basis for a book.’
‘There’s another reason. You’d be bound to miss him – especially as you can’t stop shivering, like the rest of the army. But his escort wouldn’t miss you. The snow would slow down your escape: his men would catch up with you or would only have to take aim as you floundered about in a snowdrift.’
Trails of steam poured out of Lefine’s mouth.
‘If Pirgnon had killed Natalia you’d agree with me. The two of us would have gone to pump him full of lead. Bang, bang! Yes, we would have been shot immediately afterwards but at least we’d have gone out on a high note instead of ending up as blocks of ice!’
‘No!’
Margont had tried to shout but exhaustion took his breath away. Lefine was right and that unsettled him even more.
‘I’ll get him,’ he concluded simply.
Lefine made a snowball, waved it in front of him, stood stiffly to attention and said: ‘At your orders, Captain!’
The Grande Armee was now just one long caravan, a thick column of motley soldiers dressed up to fight the cold, and of carts and sledges interspersed with the occasional trooper. In some places people were crowded together and in others they were spread out, dangerously exposed and isolated, easy targets for the Cossacks. Only the Guard had kept up appearances. It advanced steadfastly in an orderly fashion, protecting the Emperor.
CHAPTER 32
ON 22 November, Margont was trudging through the middle of a wood of birch trees. It was foggy and it was snowing yet again. The soldiers’ faces were gaunt, exhausted, dazed and sometimes blackened by the frost. Each one looked like a walking corpse. They advanced amidst the shadows, ghosts amongst ghosts. The fear of straying was ever present, because if you got lost there were Cossacks or partisans out there who would slaughter or capture you, according to their mood.
Fanselin had been walking with Margont and his companions since morning. His worn-out horse had slowed down so much that in the end he got left behind by his squadron. After his mount had died, Fanselin tried to cut across a forest but was caught in a snowstorm. When he at last got back to the army he found himself with IV Corps. He was wearing an enormous pelisse, a red one, needless to say. He felt it his duty to set an example and warded off his fears by laughter and bravado. As a result, he had a constant following of soldiers.
‘I got completely lost in that forest and my only weapons were my two pistols and my lance,’ he
