CHAPTER VIII

THE AFFAIR AT THE POST-HOUSE

I

There was very little order kept among us after the Battle of Krasnoe, and you may depict us as a scattered host going covertly in fear of the Cossacks.

Men made little attempt to keep up with their regiments. The Chasseurs and Fusiliers of the Guard, with whom the Emperor marched, were, perhaps, the exception; but the rest of us went as we could, thinking more of food and shelter than of our own safety, and hardened to any feelings of pity.

The latter is a bold admission to make, but few of those who marched from Moscow will contest it. When comrades are perishing about you every day, when your milestones are the bodies of the frozen dead, the ultimate terror becomes the lesser thing and all the more brutal instincts are awakened. We could not help those who fell; we pushed on, deaf to their appeals. Let any man lag for an hour in this bitter cold, and he would sleep as they slept--so many thousands upon the great white highway.

Sometimes it befell that we did not see our regiment for many days together. This, I remember, happened to my nephew Leon and myself as we drew near the Berezina.

The army heard many disquieting stories at this time, and most of them had to do with the passage of the famous river.

The timorous agreed that the Russians could not lose so favourable an opportunity of falling upon our disorganised units, and that he would be a lucky man who made the passage of the stream in safety.

Others comforted us with the assurance that our engineers would not fail us in this emergency, and were all ready at the Berezina to strengthen and to guard the ancient bridge. The tales were contradictory, and we knew not which to believe. The river had become our Rubicon, and we imagined that if we recrossed it the victory was won.

This was the condition of affairs on the morning of November 25th, when Leon and I rode a little way with a detachment of some thirty _pontonniers_ who were on their way to the Berezina.

I remember well that the captain of the little company warned us to look well after our horses; "for," said he, "the Emperor has given instructions that all the best are to be taken for the use of the artillery and the wounded." The Imperial Guard was then some five miles ahead of us, and we had no intention of overtaking it. To that end we soon parted company with the _pontonniers_, and stopped for an hour about midday in what had been a farmhouse upon the high road. There we cooked a little of the rice we carried in our saddlebags, and drank of the brandy which I had carried out of Smolensk.

The repast gave us courage, and we rode on in better spirit afterwards. Alas, that such a mood turned too swiftly to one of despair, when we found that we had lost the road and that the bodies of dead and dying Frenchmen indicated no longer the route to the Berezina.

II

We made this discovery about three o'clock of the afternoon.

The day was already done, and a great red sun sank into a billow of mist.

We saw nothing about us but vast fields of snow, gone crimson in the vanishing light, and woods which would tell no story but that of wolves.

A profound silence reigned in this frozen wilderness. We did not hear so much as the chime of a distant church bell, nor perceive a single human being upon all that waste. Yet it did not appear to us by the compass that we could be very far from the road to Bobr, through which the Emperor must pass; nor had we any misgivings that we should ultimately come to the banks of the Berezina if we held upon our course.

"There are no Cossacks here," says Leon, "and there is not much advantage got by company. We have a little food and brandy, and may as well keep it to ourselves. Come on, mon oncle. Let us try to believe that the spires of Notre Dame are to be seen from yonder road, and all the rest will be easy."

He had grown very thin these later days, my poor Leon, and was but a spectre of his former self. I thought of the dashing officer who had cut so brave a figure in Moscow, and heaved a sigh at all that had befallen us since. The word "woman" came no longer to his lips, as formerly, and I believe he would have bartered the whole sex for a loaf of bread and a bottle of good French wine. Who would have had the heart to remind him how many thousand leagues we were from that Paris for which he longed so ardently?

"Imagine what you please," said I, "but throw in a comfortable farmhouse and a stove to sleep by, and I am your man. It is going to snow again, nephew, and a man may as well be in the Arctic wastes as upon this barren plain. We were wrong to leave the others; there is safety in numbers, and God knows what is about to befall us. Ah, my dear nephew, what would I not give for such a bed and such a supper as we had at the farm at Druobona!"

He sighed at the memory both of little Petrovka and of that night of adventure.

We had now approached the woods, and presently we found ourselves in the depths of a forest which must have been rarely trodden by man. The snow had drifted into vast heaps here, and encircled the trees in great mounds which would have engulfed a wagon. The stillness of it all was that of winter at her zenith. The wind had fallen, and in the distance we heard the howling of wolves. All this prepared us but little for the surprise which overtook us presently, when three mounted Cossacks suddenly appeared in our path and threatened us in guttural tones of which we did not understand a single word.

Of course, we had drawn rein directly the Russians appeared, and for my