Lefine looked around him anxiously. ‘What if he chops our heads off? Who’s to say we won’t end up one morning with mulberries smeared all over our faces?’
Margont was looking more and more composed. His coolness was a mystery to his friend. He could remain calm in a situation like this but, conversely, become panic-stricken by the inactivity that Lefine found pleasantly restful.
‘He must think that killing us would be a mistake. We’d be replaced by Captain Dalero and if he disappeared someone else would take over. It’s better for our suspect to know exactly who he’s dealing with. In fact, there’s even some good news.’
The 84th was passing through a village that the Russian army had set fire to as it fell back. It had left behind about sixty wounded who could not be transported. Almost all had died and Portuguese soldiers in brown uniforms were burying them.
Who can see any good news around here? wondered Lefine.
‘If our man had wanted to murder us,’ Margont went on, ‘he wouldn’t have let us know that he’d identified us.’
The argument did not allay Lefine’s fear.
‘Why, then, did he warn us that he knew who we were?’
‘For the pleasure of showing that he’s cleverer than us and to inform us that if we get too close, he knows who to strike.’
‘Better and better.’
‘We need to be on the look-out. Perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to spot someone spying on us. We’d need only to catch the rascal and make him talk in order to trace our man. But I don’t believe that will happen. He wouldn’t take such a risk. We’re probably no longer being watched.’
‘Really?’ replied Lefine, who’d already spotted three suspects.
‘And that’s not all. If the spy employed by our man has followed you, since you regularly visit our henchmen, it’s possible that the killer has discovered that we have three other suspects and that he now knows their names. Still, at least I’m now convinced that the person we’re after also killed Élisa Lasquenet.’
Smolensk was gradually receding into the distance, in a bluish haze that made it look unreal. The Grande Armée seemed like an immense shipwrecked vessel abandoning the island on which it had just run aground to sail off again into unknown waters.
CHAPTER 22
NOTHING, absolutely nothing was happening, and this nothing was making the French army desperate. The Russians continued to fall back. Whole regions were being invaded with hardly a shot fired, but all they found was ashes.
For many, the lack of action was an ordeal because it made the agonising wait before the fighting even longer. For Margont being inactive was like being dead. Advancing in a column was killing the days; all those regiments were grinding them to dust. He salvaged a few hours by talking to various people, but the march made those without horses short of breath. He made up short stories, plays and even changes to the Constitution. But tiredness drained his mind. These pointless, wasted days ebbed away like blood oozing from the veins of a wounded man. To combat his melancholy, he forced himself to shave every day and spent time dusting down his uniform. His theory was this: since a nice glass sometimes makes a drink taste better, why should the same not be true of uniforms and soldiers? His efforts paid off. A little. His smart appearance and the impeccable creases in his uniform – in the mornings, at the start of the day’s march – helped to contain his distress. In addition, he kept volunteering for things: patrolling to obtain provisions, sending messages … His Russian horse was sufficiently tough to withstand the extra miles and, paradoxically, the effort alleviated his own weariness and tiredness. Fortunately, the day of 2 September was so eventful that it managed to revive him just as he was teetering on the brink of depression.
The morning had begun in the normal, tedious way. Margont was spending – or rather wasting – his time roaming around. He was bringing deserters and marauders back to the ranks, knowing full well that they would slip away again as soon as his back was turned. He also expended a great deal of energy jollying the stragglers along. He tied their knapsacks to his saddle to lighten their load, used diplomacy, threats, encouragement … But hunger and fatigue dogged the soldiers’ steps. Margont gazed at the endless succession of columns on the plain. The ranks were slack, the uniforms filthy and a great many men were missing, a great many. The horizon, consisting of interminable stretches of plains, hills and forests, seemed to lead nowhere. Margont decided to fall back in with his battalion.
Of the many strange phenomena that occurred in armies, one of the most curious was rumour. News that was more or less true sprang up somewhere and developed like an epidemic, spreading joy, hope or fear and unfailingly nonsense. During this campaign, everything moved slowly apart from rumour. It had its own way of galloping from one mind to another, of disturbing the rearguard before, a moment later, exciting the vanguard. It was like a swarm of sparkling fireflies flitting from someone too talkative to someone else too credulous, before frightening the army corps commander himself. Today it was in one person’s head and tomorrow in the heads of the whole army; now in the Russian plains and in three weeks’ time in the Paris theatres. How did it perform its magic? No one knew. Margont lent an ear and reaped a good harvest.
The long-awaited great battle was going to take place because the Russian generals had become so exasperated at having to fall back that they had rebelled and hanged the Tsar in their anger. There was nothing left of the Russian army. Almost all its men had been killed at Austerlitz and its survivors had been exterminated at Eylau, Friedland and Smolensk. So they were chasing a ghost. There would at last be a confrontation in less than three days. This was bound to be the case because the Russians were ruined and desperate and could no longer retreat. But that rumour had been heard every day since the crossing of the Niemen two months earlier …
Another fashionable opinion was that Alexander was falling back so far that this campaign would end up in India. Margont smiled to himself as he imagined this bizarre scene. Would Napoleon meet the same fate as Alexander the Great, seeing his soldiers mutiny on the banks of the Ganges and refuse to continue their astonishing series of victories? Or, on the contrary, would he watch them scrambling aboard every imaginable vessel in their haste to add the other side of the river to the Empire? He would then be able to exclaim: ‘Now I am mightier than the great Alexander!’
Apart from rumour, there were constant conversations – but only in the mornings before tiredness took its toll. The problem was that by this point every soldier had already told his neighbour his life story, including details both real and invented. A scar-faced sergeant with a drooping moustache suggested attacking the Prussian and Austrian contingents ‘just to keep our hand in’. His joke produced gales of laughter in the battalion. Margont wondered if this reaction would be enough to start a rumour and, if so, whether he should note down how these strange psychological shifts of mood came about. Saber rebuked the sergeant sharply. A few minutes later, the man could be seen running along the column, red-faced and brandishing his musket in the air, tirelessly repeating as he paused for breath: ‘Long live our friends the Prussians! Long live our friends the Austrians!’
Lefine caught up with Margont.
‘So, Fernand? Anything new from your men?’
‘Naught but the dusty road and swaying sward.’
‘Very funny. And what about von Stils?’
‘Two of my friends are actively searching for him.’