‘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 Württemberger was too weak to get up. Margont motioned to some Württemberg 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 Württembergers 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 Armée 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 recounted.

He was so proud of his lance that every time he mentioned it, he flourished it and did battle with the branches of the birch trees.

‘Of course, I was thinking about the filthy Cossacks! They appear from nowhere, shoot you in the back and by the time you’ve turned round, they’re far away. And they can certainly gallop! It’s hard work catching up with those scoundrels! They’re devilish clever with their bark-coloured pelisses that make them invisible. You don’t see them, you don’t capture them and they vanish. In short, after a while, if you’ll pardon this unsavoury detail, I started to relieve my bladder against a tree trunk when all of a sudden I said to myself: “Watch out, Edgar, make sure you’re not pissing on a Cossack’s boots …”’

His audience laughed, he stopped talking to save his breath and then, a few minutes later, he came out with another anecdote or philosophical observation. Fanselin had such confidence in himself and in the French, and the Guard enjoyed such prestige, that his presence lifted the soldiers’ spirits a little.

The column was making slow progress. The road was littered with the frozen corpses of soldiers and half-eaten horses. There was also silver cutlery, vases and gold coins that people had dumped to lighten their load. Suddenly, there was a long whistling noise that became more and more piercing, followed by the roar of an explosion. A birch tree collapsed with a snapping sound and trapped some of the men in a tangle of branches. Cannonballs bounced this way and that. But the march continued. The troops were being bombarded at regular intervals by cannon that the Russians had had the detestable idea of mounting on sledges. The outline of a figure on horseback drew closer in the fog. Muskets were levelled in that direction because two times out of three a horse meant a Cossack. The figure suddenly emerged from the icy fog like an apparition. It probably was one. It was an adjutant, impeccably dressed, his trousers and gloves spotless. He was young and very angry.

‘Soldiers, they’re shelling us! Do something! Are you fighters or rabbits? Fix your bayonets and follow me!’

He galloped off in the direction of the enemy batteries, which were blasting away for all they were worth.

‘Who was that?’ asked a soldier wrapped in a series of shawls.

‘The phantom of the Grande Armée,’ replied a figure. ‘The one that haunts us all.’

Fanselin began to talk again. Margont could hardly hear his voice any more. His lips, welded together by ice, and his legs were giving him terrible pain. His legs were so heavy to lift that he looked at them often, convinced that they had caught on something. They felt stuffed and swollen with pain. Sometimes the pain exploded into thousands of pinpricks all over his body. It was almost more than he could bear because it made him think of death and being eaten by worms. Worse than that: sometimes he lost all sensation in his lower limbs. It was as if he had lost both legs and they now belonged to someone else. So he extricated his hands from the depths of his muff and frantically rubbed his thighs to bring back the circulation. When the pain returned he felt as if his body was at last whole again. He looked enviously at those being transported on carts or gun carriages. But rest proved to be a trap. Death crept up in silence. The cold gradually numbed their minds and the passengers fell into a pleasant sleep from which they never awoke. The choice was simple: march or freeze.