The Ravishing of Lady Jane Ware

'But it is not the end.' Mary was almost weeping. 'When Mr. Wicklow died, he owed the equivalent of a hundred and sixty pounds to Mr. Suslov. Believing him to be a good friend, in my desperation I have since borrowed from him a further sum upon my note of hand. To do so I must have been out of my wits, but I had not a penny and knew not which way to turn. And now… now, this Mr. Suslov… oh, Roger, he has turned out to be a horrid man, and is physically most repulsive. He has recently demanded that I pay all that is owed to him. or he'll have me sent to prison. That…that is, if I continue to refuse to marry him.'

'God's death!' Roger roared. 'I'll cut his ears off! I'll skin the bastard!'

Mary was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. After a moment she murmured, ' 'Twould serve him right, but that would not get me home.'

Roger leaned forward and patted her hand. 'Mary, my dear, I beg you, do not cry. Now I am here your troubles are over. I have ample money and will see to it that you lack for nothing.'

She sniffed and gave him a pathetic smile. 'Oh, Roger, 'tis wonderful. I had believed God deaf to my prayers, but He must have sent you to me. I can scarce believe it true. 'Tis little short of a miracle that you should be living in St. Petersburg.'

Her words suddenly reminded him that within a few hours, he should be on his way to Moscow. Gravely he said, 'I can pay your passage home, but would be loath to let you make the voyage without a woman companion, or some honest man known to you who would act as your protector. Do you know anyone at the Factory who is shortly leaving for England, and could act in such a role?'

She shook her head. 'No, and you are right, of course. Women are infrequent passengers in ships that ply the Baltic trade, and I'd be frightened to travel unaccompanied. Without conceit, I'd be surprised if the Captain or some other man aboard did not fancy me; and, maybe, tamper with the lock on my cabin door. But if you will pay my debts and make me a small allowance, I'd be happy to stay on here until you are ready to go home yourself.'

'My dear, I am not going home. I have to go to Moscow.'

'Moscow! Can you really mean that? 'Tis in the hands of the French.'

'Nevertheless, I have to go there, and must set out not later than tonight.'

Her eyes grew wide and her face crumpled. 'Oh, Roger, no! Please! Only a moment since, I thought myself saved and safe. I implore you, do not desert me.'

'I'll not do that,' he reassured her quickly. 'I mean, I'll not leave you stranded. I can give you ample money to pay off this brute Suslov, and to stay on here for some weeks, until you can find someone suitable with whom to return to England.'

'But, Roger dear, old Mr. Suslov is not the only one from whom Mr. Wicklow borrowed money. And they hold me responsible for his debts. Hardly a day passes but one or other of them pesters me. Recently, several of them have hinted that I am cheating them by refusing to marry; for Mr. Suslov has told them that, if I'll have him, he'll pay them off. If you must go to Moscow, cannot I come with you?'

'No, Mary. That is out of the question. When we were in Lisbon I concealed it from you; but I have lived for so many years in France that I can pass as a Frenchman, and have often done so in the service of our country. I'll come to no harm in Moscow, but how could I possibly take an Englishwoman with me?'

Round eyed, she stared at him. 'Do you.. do you mean that you are a spy?'

He nodded. 'Yes. Do you find such an activity despicable?'

'No. Oh, no. To risk his life in such a fashion a man must be very brave. But I've always known you to be that,'

'Thank you, my dear. The fact is that I am here only on a visit. I have been in Moscow ever since the French captured the city, and am expected back there. But you can see for yourself that, if I returned accompanied by an

English lady, I should seriously jeopardize my position.'

I think you wrong in that. I have a gift for languages and my best friend at my seminary was a French girl who, as a small child, had arrived in England as a refugee from the Revolution. To please her, we always talked together in French and, although I could not pass as a French woman, I feel sure no one would suspect me of lying if I said that I was Flemish, or from the Netherlands.'

Roger smiled. A sudden memory of Georgina had come into his mind. She had passed herself off in that way on their journey with Augereau from the Moselle to Paris. He then remained thoughtful for some moments.

Many women had accompanied the Grand Army on its march to Moscow; in a few cases even officers' wives, who refused to be parted from their husbands. That was also the case in the English and other armies. All Generals were most averse to the practice, but it was a custom that had come down through the centuries, so they could do no more than set a limit to the number of women that the troops should be allowed to take with them on a campaign.

He could say that he had met Mary in Brussels two years ago. That she had married a Russian who had taken her to St. Petersburg, but her husband had turned out to be a brute; that she loathed the Russians, was French at heart and worshipped the Emperor, so had begged him to take her to Moscow.

Everyone there would assume she was his mistress. That would not matter; but what did matter was the sort of life she would be forced to lead. Staff officers, such as himself, never took women to war with them. In fact, the only officers who did were men of junior rank who came from the poorer classes. When following the army she would find no companions with a similar upbringing to hers, and would have to live rough. Knowing her to be his property, no other man would dare lay a finger on her, but he thought it certain that the other women, realising that she was an 'aristo', would boycott her; and that he could not prevent.

He told her all this, adding that for the greater part of the time, his duties would prevent him from being with her, and that when the army marched, the women would follow far in the rear; so they might not even see each other for weeks at a stretch.

Tears starting to her eyes, she pleaded with him. It might be months before she could get a passage back to England, even if she could find an English couple who would act as her protectors; because Captains did not like to have unattached women on board, as the presence of an eligible female often led to trouble with the crew. Even if she could be with Roger only occasionally, and however hard the life, she was prepared to face it. She was also afraid of Mr. Suslov. Even if Roger gave her the money to pay her debt, she would not be rid of him. He was well off and many people were under obligations to him. She would hardly dare leave her lodging, lest some of them helped him to lay a trap for her. In Russia rich men and nobles often had girls carried off for them. That Suslov had not already attempted something of the kind was, she felt sure, only because he was hoping that she would marry him.

For once, Roger could not make up his mind what to do. He felt that he could not possibly leave her. On the other hand, he knew far better than she could even imagine the hardships and misery that she would have to endure if he took her with him.

Then an idea came to him. It was due to his recalling the lovely little 'Captain of Hussars' who had been living with Soult at his headquarters in Seville. No one would have taken her for a young man. She had not even attempted to disguise her sex, but still wore her dark hair long, and rouged her face. But if Mary cut her hair short she could, with her piquant eyebrows and slightly retrousse nose, pass for an impudent lad. She had such small breasts that, if bound flat, they would not give her away, and breeches that were too large for her would disguise her plump little bottom.

Standing up, he took her by the hand and, with a laugh, pulled her to her feet. 'Come along, Mary. We're going shopping. That will cheer you up.'

Mystified, she accompanied him downstairs and out into the street. Returning to the covered bazaar, they went to the stalls where every kind of clothes was on sale. There he bought her an outfit resembling those worn by the footmen of the Russian nobility. Next, they went to a horse dealer, where she tried out several mounts and settled on a sturdy little chestnut. He also bought suitable saddlery and two large panniers to hold Mary's belongings, then told the man to send his purchases round to the Laughing Tartar.

By then it was time for the midday meal. Afterwards they drove down to the docks in a drosky. Having been told that she must take only things she could not do without, Mary went into the English Factory to collect her bits and pieces. She was a long time doing so, and Roger became a little impatient; but when she came out, she told him that she had been giving away to needy people the clothes she could not take, and had had to talk to each of them for a while, giving as her reason for leaving that she was going to marry a rich Finnish gentleman who intended to buy her an entire new outfit, then take her to Helsinki. She had also had to say good bye to the Factor who, since her husband's death, had let her have their lodging free of rent, and had made her a small allowance from a fund to succor stranded British seamen.

By the time they got back to the Laughing Tartar, dusk was falling. Having decided that it was too late to start for Moscow that night, Roger said, 'I'll see the landlord and get him to have a room prepared for you.'

With a little laugh, Mary replied, 'I don't think that's necessary. In Russia it is customary for footmen to sleep outside their master's door. Although I'd prefer to sleep inside.'

He gave her a quick look. 'My dear, you must not think you owe me anything for what I am doing. I've not forgotten that I took from you something which I can never repay. And, anyway, I'd do the same for any English girl who was in your wretched position.' Then he ended, on a lighter note, 'The leopard does not change his spots, you know; and if you do sleep in my room, it will be at your peril.'

She laughed again. 'I can't say you did not warn me, I'm agreeable to risk it.'

The dining room of the hostelry was not crowded, and secured for them a corner table. Over a meal of grey caviar, borsch, bear steaks and jam omelette, washed down with Caucasian sparkling wine and old, hay scented vodka, they reminisced about their time in Portugal and mutual friends. Toward the end of their dinner, they fell silent and, after a few minutes, Mary said, 'I think I will go up to our room.'

Roger ordered himself another vodka and gave her twenty minutes, then he too went upstairs, his heart beating decidedly faster than usual He had expected to find her in his bed, and felt much disgruntled when he saw at she had collected the cushions from two easy chairs and one of the pillows from the bed, then wrapped herself in the eiderdown and was curled up, apparently already asleep, beside the porcelain stove. Frowning and greatly disappointed, he undressed, got to bed and blew out the candle. For a few minutes he lay there, unhappily considering this new development. As Mary had been married since their affair in Lisbon, and had refused his offer of a separate room, he thought it mean of her to deny herself to him. Contemplating the future made him still more unhappy, for with Mary in the role of his personal servant he would see a great deal of her, and she would prove a constant temptation to him.

Suddenly there was a rustle that came from near the stove. Fumbling hands grasped his bedclothes and pulled them aside. Next moment Mary had slipped into bed with him, her arms went round his neck and she kissed him hard on the mouth. When she lifted her head to draw breath, she gave a low laugh and whispered:

'Darling Roger, were you very angry with me? I fooled you beautifully, didn't I?'

'You little devil,' he retorted. 'You don't deserve to be made love to. Now get out of my bed. Go on, and be quick about it.'

'Oh, no!' she cried in protest. 'I want you, Roger, I really do. You warned me that I'd be in peril. I've got all my courage up ready to face it. You promised, so you can't disappoint me.'

'Ah, well, as I'm a man of my word, I suppose I must,' he conceded. Then, as she pressed herself to him, he exclaimed, 'Oh, Mary, what a beautiful little body you have! But damn it, girl, stop tickling me, or you'll spoil everything.'

When he woke in the morning, he found her snuggled up against him, warm and sweet smelling, like an overgrown child. Looking down at her dark eyelashes, spread like fans on her rosy cheeks, he thought her still asleep. But she was already awake. As he moved, she opened her eyes and asked:

'Roger, do you know something?'

'Yes, dearest,' he murmured. 'Believe it or not, this is Christmas Day. You were made in heaven and Father Christmas brought you to me in the dark from out of the porcelain stove.'

'Dear, foolish one; what a lovely thought. But I was thinking about Mr. Wicklow. He must have been a very poor lover. I found that out only a few hours ago. Most times with him it was all over before it had hardly started. I much prefer horrid, brutal men like you, who take advantage of trusting young girls and rape them. This is going to be my real honeymoon. Now rape me again, darling; gently and beautifully and going on for ages and ages, just as you did last night.'

When they got up, Roger cut Mary's hair to within an inch of her scalp. As it was naturally curly, it only changed her appearance, without lessening her attractions. After she had dressed she looked, as he had hoped, like an impudent young boy. Having packed their things in his valise and the two panniers he had bought to go on her horse, they went downstairs and ate an exceptionally hearty breakfast.

By half past nine they were on the road to Moscow. To Moscow, which they could only hope would be the first stage on the far longer road home.

22

Napoleon Signs his Army's Death Warrant

Roger had long been accustomed to riding fast and for long distances, so it had taken him only four days to get from Moscow to St. Petersburg. But with Mary he had to amend his pace, and it was six days before they came in sight of such spires and gilded domes as had survived the fires in Moscow.

While in St. Petersburg, Roger had given Mary no details of his secret activities, but on the first morning of their journey he divulged the fact that, for many years, he had led a double life. Later he whiled away many hours telling her what he had really done during the two periods he had been absent from Lisbon, and enthralling her with accounts of his earlier adventures.

They decided that henceforth she was to be known as Hippolyte Abrail, and he would call her Hipe for short. She was to have been born in a suburb of Antwerp, the bastard son of a washerwoman, gone to St. Petersburg as a cabin boy, run away from her ship because she had been very ill treated by her drunken captain, and got a job as a potboy at the Laughing Tartar, from which Roger had taken her. It was agreed that, in no circumstances, even when alone, should they talk in anything but French.

They had, by exercising great care, escaped molestation by the sotnias of Cossacks and foraging parties of the

French which clashed daily in the deep belt of no-man's-land that formed a semi circle to the north of the city. Clad again in his uniform, and now with his young servant riding sedately behind him, late on the evening of October 17th Roger dismounted in one of the great courtyards of the Kremlin that was overlooked by the Imperial apartments.

Throwing Mary the reins of his horse, Roger pointed to an archway that led into another courtyard and, as there were several people within earshot, said curtly:

'The stables are through there. Take our mounts to them, ask for the A.D.Cs' head groom and hand them over to him to be rubbed down, watered and fed. Then return here and wait until I come out of the Palace. If anyone asks who you are, just tell them that you belong to me. I don't expect to be much more than three-quarters of an hour.'

As he expected, within a few minutes of sending in his name, a Chamberlain told him that the Emperor would receive him. He found Napoleon holding a conference in his map room; but, on Roger being announced, he abruptly cut short an officer who was speaking, and beckoned Roger to follow him into the next room. The moment they were inside it, he slammed the door and asked harshly:

'Well! What news do you bring?'

Roger bowed deeply, then sadly shook his head. 'Alas, Sire, my mission was a failure. I cannot sufficiently express my regret, but the Czar proved adamant. He will not talk of peace, at any price. That is unless and until Your Imperial Majesty withdraws the whole of the Grand Army from his territories.'

Napoleon burst into a spate of curses, using, as he did at times, expressions as filthy as any that could have been heard from a party of drunken troopers who had been robbed of their money in a whore house. As his pallid face

became purple, Roger, who had once had to revive him from an epileptic fit, thought he was going to have another. But after some minutes, he quietened down and, his fine eyes still bulging, angrily blurted out:

'Why were you so long away? You left here on the 7th. It does not take eleven days to get to St. Petersburg and back.'

'At first the Czar refused to see me, Sire,⁵ Roger promptly lied.

'Then you should have stopped him and spoken to him when he was out for a walk.'

Staggered at this piece of evidence of how far the Emperor's mind had deteriorated when assessing plausibilities, Roger hid his surprise and replied, 'I had no opportunity to accost His Imperial Majesty. Fearing that if I took an escort, Cossacks might not respect a flag of truce, but murder the men and myself, I travelled alone and in civilian clothes. In consequence no one but the Czar would have believed me had I said I was your envoy. Being apparently a person of little account, it took me three days to find a Chamberlain who could be bribed to secure me an audience. I am lucky to have got back alive.'

Pacing up and down, Napoleon began to mutter to himself. When he stopped and again looked at Roger, his shoulders were bowed and there were tears in his eyes. Giving Roger's ear a tweak, he said with a sigh:

'Well, Breuc; no doubt you did your best. But I fear that stinking Romanoff has won this round. I'll make him crawl yet, of course, and burn St. Petersburg about his ears next year. Meanwhile, we must face it that our lines of communication are too long and vulnerable. Find Rapp. Tell him to summon the Marshals and other Corps Commanders for a conference at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. You may go.'

As Roger went off to find the A.D.C.-in-Chief, he almost felt sorry for Napoleon; but quickly put the thought from him. It was absurd to waste one iota of pity on a man who had brought such wholesale misery on the world.

Rapp was in the A.D.Cs' Mess. There had been very little for them to do since entering Moscow; so, after the fires had been put out and a day or two spent in exploring the city, they had been reduced to whiling away several hours a day at cards. On seeing Roger come through the door, Rapp got up from a table of vingt-et-un, walked over to him and said in a low voice:

'Welcome back, Breuc. I'm glad those verdamter Cossacks didn't get you. The King of Naples says they come charging out from every coppice, even against numbers superior to their own. He's losing scores of his men that way every day.'

'Our master told you, then, where he'd sent me?' Roger asked.

'Yes. He no longer troubles to hide it from those close to him that he's as jumpy as a cat on hot bricks, and he's been expecting you back these past three days. When you had still failed to appear yesterday, I told him I feared he might have to go on expecting, but he seemed convinced that as you speak some Russian you'd manage to look after yourself. Did you succeed in seeing the Czar?'

'I did, though it wasn't easy. That's why I was away for so long.'

'Have you brought us good news or bad? I'd wager ten to one in napoleons that it's bad.',

'Then you'd be ten gold pieces better off. The Czar has got the bit between his teeth. He's sworn to drive every one of us out of his kingdom.'

'I felt sure of it and, if the wits of you know who hadn't become addled, we'd have been out of this accursed city a month ago. Teufel-nochmal! What a mess he's made of this campaign! First he kicks his heels in Vilna for eighteen days, then for sixteen at Vitebsk, then for fourteen at Smolensk; and we've been here for over five weeks. What a way to fight a war! We could easily have got here by the first week in August instead of mid-September. It was crazy to come on here so late in the year. We ought to have wintered at Smolensk.'

'It was crazy to invade Russia anyhow,' Roger replied. 'Even if we'd won and forced a peace on the Czar, he wouldn't have carried out its terms, and we couldn't have made him. Russia's not like Holland or one of the German States. It's too vast for any army to hold down, and with our old commitments we are over extended already.'

The Alsatian nodded. 'That's what everyone is saying. From the Marshals down to the drummer boys, everyone is asking the same question. "What the devil are we doing here? There's naught to be gained, so why the hell can't the so-and-so let us march home?" Now you've brought him this final fart in the face from the Czar, I take it we'll be packing up tomorrow.'

'We will, unless he qualifies for a strait jacket. He ordered me to tell you to summon all our military Dukes who are available, for a conference at nine o'clock in the morning.'

'Good. I'll do that. Did you have a good time in St. Petersburg?'

Roger grinned. 'It meant a pleasant change of fare, anyhow. For dinner on my last night there I had caviar, borsch, a bear steak and a jam omelette.'

Donnerwetter! And with several nights there, I'll wager you found one or more pretty bottoms to smack after you'd got all that good food inside you.'

Roger gave a slight wink. 'As a matter of fact, I've brought one back with me, but not the kind of whom you're thinking. He's a young Flemish lad and on the way home, when the cold sets in, he'll serve as a fine hot-water bottle.'

'I didn't know you were one of those,' Rapp remarked in mild surprise.

'Not habitually, Roger laughed. 'But variety is the spice of life. The sort of women I care for are not to be had on this kind of campaign. And if I'd brought a girl she would soon have become an annoying liability; whereas this youngster will make himself useful as my servant.

Roger had been very loath to let his friends believe him to be a homosexual, but he had decided that it was the only way that he could give Mary maximum protection. When it got round that Hipe was his 'girl', no one would dare bully her. And few people would think the worse of him; for on long campaigns in which few women were available, homosexual relationships, although officially frowned upon, were by no means unusual. By this device, too, his companions would not think it strange if he spent much more time with Mary than he would have with an ordinary soldier servant.

Giving a little shrug, Rapp said, 'There's a lot in what you say, if one cares for that sort of fun. How about a drink?'

'Not for the moment, thanks. I have to see Sergeant Loriel about putting my young protégé on the strength for rations.'

A few minutes later he was saying to the Mess Sergeant, 'This youth I have taken on is a pleasant lad, but I don't think he is the sort who could stand up for himself very well, and I won't have him bullied. In fact, I've ordered him to let me know if anyone makes things unpleasant for him, and if anyone does I'll come down like a ton of bricks on them. But I'm sure I can leave it to you, Sergeant, to keep a fatherly eye on him.'

Roger had always treated his inferiors with an easy politeness, so he was popular with the N.C.O.s with whom he had to deal. The Sergeant replied at once, 'AyeColonel; you leave it to me. Tell him to come to me and make his number, and I'll take good care of him.'

Leaving the Mess, Roger walked down several long corridors to the Camp Commandant's office. There he told one of the soldier clerks that he had taken on a civilian servant whom he desired to sleep in his room, and said that a palliasse was to be sent there at once for the youth to doss down on.

Retracing his steps, he went down the magnificent grand staircase and ran into Duroc, who was on his way up. The Marshal of the Palace hailed him with evident pleasure, then said, 'Mon vieux, I am delighted to see you. The Emperor told me of the mission on which he sent you, and I feared you lost to us. I only pray that you were successful.'

Roger shook his head. 'Nay, the Czar proved adamant. There's to be a conference tomorrow at nine, and my bet is that afterwards we'll be ordered to pack up and go.

Glumly Duroc observed, 'If that is so, 'twill be none too soon. The days are shortening and, unless we make good speed, winter will be upon us. But we should have time to get back to Smolensk before the blizzards.'

'With luck, we should. But what then? We left the city in ruins, so will be little better off there than we are here.'

'At least we will be the best part of four hundred kilometers nearer the Polish frontier, so supplies will reach us with greater ease.'

'If Kutuzov lets them. I gather that he now has an army that in numbers exceeds ours.'

'Ah! That's the rub. But as we retreat we'll pick up reinforcements. The corps of Oudinot and Macdonald and Schwarzenberg's Austrians could be called in. That would again give us parity with the Russians.'

'Should we do that, how are we to feed such a host all through the winter months?'

'God knows, mon ami! God knows! We can only hope that Victor and St. Cyr will succeed in keeping our lines of communication open so that sufficient supplies will reach us. Augereau should be able to send several divisions across the frontier from north Germany, to assist in maintaining our hold on Vilna and Vitebsk.'

'Should we denude Germany, I'll warrant that country will blow up behind our backs.'

'To replace the garrisons there, His Majesty might decide to withdraw further troops from Spain.'

'Could he afford to do so? Are things going better in the Peninsula?'

'Alas, no. Suchet alone seems to have read the Spanish riddle, and Valencia remains peaceful under him. Soult has again fallen back on Seville, and has come no nearer to taking Cadiz. As you must have heard, after the fall of Badajoz, poor Marmont was heavily defeated outside Salamanca, and grievously wounded by a cannon ball. He brought his defeat upon himself by being too impetuous. Had he waited but another three days before giving battle, he would have had under his hand another fifteen thousand men that King Joseph was bringing up from Madrid. As things were, he came near to losing his whole army. It was only owing to the skill displayed by General Clausel, who took over after Marmont became a casualty, that a good part of the army was saved. But it received a terrible battering and, even with King Joseph's fifteen thousand, was in no condition to give battle again. Our latest information is that our people are still retiring, and milord Wellington advancing on Madrid.'

To Roger this was excellent news, but he naturally concealed his pleasure at hearing it, and simply said, 'Then things go really badly for us at both ends of Europe, and I know not in which army I would rather have to face the future. But you must excuse me now. Having but just returned I have a number of things to see to.'

His several conversations had each lasted only a few minutes. Mary was standing where he had left her, and he took her across to another big building in which his room was situated. All he wished to do for the moment was to show her where it was, and make certain she could find it again. When he had done so, they walked back the way they had come and into the main block. There he led her up to the second floor and along to the room in which the Mess waiters had their quarters. Halting outside, he told her to go in, ask for Sergeant Loriel and tell him who she was. She would then be given supper, and when she had finished it she was to go to their room.

The next thing he had to do was to deal with the soldier servant, a man named Greuze, who had looked after him since he had rejoined Napoleon at Vilna. Walking back to his quarters, he found Greuze there, unpacking his valise and the panniers from Mary's horse, which had been brought up from the stables by his groom. Greuze was a lad of only seventeen, and Roger had selected him from a number of applicants, because he came from a respectable family, so kept himself clean, and was by no means robust. For the latter reason Roger did not want to send him back to normal duty, which would mean a much harder life for him; so, having returned the lad's greeting, he said:

'While I was away from Moscow, I acquired another servant, a Flemish youth named Hipe Abrail. He has worked as a valet in a good hostelry, so will look after my clothes better than you can.'

Seeing Greuze's face fall, he went on with a smile, 'But that is a private arrangement, and I am still entitled to a soldier servant, so I intend to keep you on. My new lad is having supper now. He will be over here in half an hour or so. When he comes in, you are to show him where you keep your cleaning things, and tell him about the routine we normally follow. Then you can go to your quarters. After you have cleared up here, I'll not need you until tomorrow morning.'

Having established Mary in her new position in a way that he hoped would protect her from unpleasantness; he went back to the Mess and had a drink with Rapp. Soon afterwards they went in to supper and, as Roger had expected, he found himself the centre of interest. All his companions wanted to know about his journey and what St. Petersburg was like. Sitting over their wine, they continued to ply him with questions but, as soon as he decently could, by pleading fatigue, he got away.

In his room he found Mary, not in bed as he had expected, but curled up under a blanket on the straw palliasse that he had ordered to be brought. When he asked her why she had not made herself more comfortable, she said:

'I didn't dare undress and get into bed, in case that nice young servant of yours came back, or someone else came in.'

'You could have locked the door.'

She shook her now boyish head. 'No, darling. Servants don't lock themselves in their master's rooms. Anyone finding I had done that would have thought it very queer.'

'You're right,' he agreed. 'And I was stupid to suggest it. Bless you for starting off in your new role so conscientiously. How did you get on with Sergeant Loriel?'

'Very well. And with the others, too. They made me tell them about St. Petersburg and said I was a fool ever to have left it. But they were very pleasant to me, and think me lucky to be your servant. It's nice to know that you are so popular with the Mess orderlies.'

Oh, that's only because I am civil to them, and many officers don't bother to be.

Nevertheless, it's going to be a big help to me. I'll reap the reflected benefit of their liking for you. Young Jean Greuze is nice, too. He comes from Pontoise, near Paris, and his father owns a little news sheet and sweet shop. He absolutely worships you for having taken him from the hard life of an ordinary soldier.'

'He's a good lad, but delicate and not up to the hard life of the rank and file. As an officer's servant, too, he gets more and better food than he would if with his regiment.'

'The food I was given for supper surprised me. There was a good choice, it was well cooked and there was plenty of everything. I'd gathered from you that the troops in Moscow were half-starving.'

'They were when they got here. Since then they have not done too badly, but supplies are getting short again and you must not take the fare that Sergeant Loriel gives his boys as a criterion. Mess servants are the lucky ones, they feed nearly as well as the officers. The men in the regiments have to make do on biscuits, cheese and stew with only a few bits of meat in it. But come, my love, we must get some sleep.'

The room was one of many hundred in the vast Palace which, before the coming of the French, had been occupied by Court officials and officers of the Imperial Guard; so it was well furnished in the heavy Russian style, and they were soon snuggled up in the big, four-poster bed. The thought of what Mary might have to face by being brought to Moscow as his servant had greatly worried Roger. But he dropped off to sleep with the comforting thought that things had gone much better than he had expected.

When the bugles sounded the reveille, they got up. He told Mary where she could fill the water cans at a washroom along the corridor, then they washed and dressed and crossed the square to have their breakfasts. Before he left her he said that, as soon as she got back, she had better set to work polishing one of his pairs of field boots, so that when Greuze arrived he would find her busy.

On his return he found them both in his room, talking cheerfully and making the bed together. When they had finished he said, 'I am going out to make some purchases, and I wish you both to come with me.'

There were no longer shops in the city where one could buy things, but there was a strange market in the big square outside the Governor's Palace, where a part of the Imperial Guard was billeted. The vendors in the market were troops of many nations and camp-followers. When they needed money or drink or clothes, they brought pieces of their loot there and bartered them for whatever they wanted.

Many of them had small carts that they used as stalls, and Roger persuaded a Pole to part with his, which was a good, solid one in sound condition, for a tempting sum of money. When the man had emptied it of his things, Greuze placed himself between the shafts and pulled it along for Roger to put other purchases in.

Going from one stall to another, he bought high boots, sheepskin breeches, long fur coats and fur mittens for Mary and Greuze. His own clothes were of good, stout cloth, and he had a fine fur that he had bought the previous January in Stockholm, so he needed only a muff for himself when he bought muffs for them. His next purchase was two large fur carriage rugs and, after that a good supply of flints, tinder and six dozen candles. The choice of goods at the food stalls was limited; there was little meat or game, but he was not looking for perishable goods. There was plenty of tea, so he bought several pounds quite cheaply, but a supply of sugar and half a stone of oatmeal cost him a lot of money. By chance, on one stall he saw some boxes of candied fruit, so he bought them all and from another stall a dozen bottles of brandy. His final purchase, as an afterthought, was a block of salt. Except for the furs and the tea, he had had to pay from Five to twenty times the normal price for the things he had bought, so he had spent the greater part of his money; but he had big arrears of pay on which he could draw and he knew that if he had waited until the afternoon, by which time he thought it as good as certain that it would be announced that the army was leaving Moscow, he would have had to pay three times as much.

Back at the Kremlin, his two servants carried all the things upstairs, then he said to them, 'You, Greuze, arc to come with me and wheel the cart round to the stables. Then return here and give a hand to Hipe. I want the two of you to sew together the sides and one end of the two big fur carriage rugs, so that they will serve as a large sleeping bag.'

Ten minutes later he was talking to the Guards Sergeant-Major, who was in charge of the horses belonging to the Emperor's entourage. Producing all that remained of his gold, he pointed to the little cart and said, 'I want you to get me a small horse or, better still, a mule to draw that.'

The Sergeant-Major made a face. 'That won't be easy, sir. You know how terrible short we are of horses. The number we lost on the way here doesn't bear telling; and fodder being so short, a good third of the poor beasts that did get here have died from lack of it since.'

'I know, Joux,' Roger replied. 'But an animal I must have. Procure me a good one a good one, mind and there are thirty napoleons for you. If all else fails, commandeer a mule from the Italians.'

You shall have your beast, Colonel,' the Sergeant-Major grinned. 'Leave it to me.'

In the A.D.Cs Mess, Roger learned that the members of the conference the Emperor had called had wrangled for three hours, but the meeting was now over and the decision he had anticipated had been taken. The army was to evacuate Moscow and winter in Smolensk.

Opinion on the wisdom of retreating was sharply divided. Several of the younger A.D.Cs were young nobles: ex-émigrés with famous names, whom the Emperor had taken on his staff for his own aggrandizement. They were all in favour of retreat. The Niemen, which formed the frontier, was some six hundred miles distant, and Smolensk was getting on for half way to it; so, like Duroc, they argued that, being so much nearer Poland, it would be much easier both to keep open the lines of communication and keep the army supplied.

But the older A.D.Cs who had served through many campaigns, did not agree. In such conditions the army could not be expected to march more than fifteen miles a day. That meant that it would be the first week in November before it reached Smolensk. Just as the summer had proved exceptionally hot, so the autumn weather was unusually fine and sunny. But could it be expected to last? If the snow came early, it would slow down the speed of the march and, as the troops would have to sleep in the open, it would inflict terrible hardship upon them. A great part of Moscow was in ruins, but so was Smolensk, and it was a far smaller city, so was much less easy to defend. Even if the army was cut off and Moscow besieged, they could somehow hang out there. The hardened campaigners had tightened their belts before; up in the Alps, during the siege of Genoa, on the retreat from Acre to Egypt, and many other places. They could do so again, and stick it out until reinforcements reached them in the spring.

The midday meal over, everyone set about his preparations for departure. Roger had already made his, so had only to see the Paymaster and refill his money belt with gold. In the evening he went again to the stables.

Sergeant Major Joux had got for him a sturdy mule. Having made a careful examination of the animal's hooves, Roger willingly paid over the sum he had promised.

Over supper he learned that the Emperor had decided to leave Mortier and his Young Guard in the city, to give the enemy the impression that he meant only to strengthen his line of communication with part of the main army, then return. The Young Guard was to follow a few days later.

On the morning of October 19th, after occupying Moscow for thirty-nine days, the Grand Army began its evacuation of the city.

But it was a very different army from that which had entered it after Borodino. Then the battalions had marched in, column after column, in impressive military formation. Now, it was one vast horde, in which troops were mingled with camp followers. The men were determined to take their loot with them. Many of them were wearing women's furs, or had costly brocade curtains draped over them. There were hundreds upon hundreds of wagons, carts, carriages and hand barrows, in fact everything left in the city that had wheels. All of them were piled high with furniture, bronzes, pictures, china, carpets, clothes, cooking utensils, antiques, jewel-encrusted weapons and sacks of food. On the top of many of them were perched women, mostly Russian whores who, unlike the vivandieres, were unused to foot slogging. About a third of the carts and carriages were drawn by horses or large dogs. The rest were pulled and pushed by groups of men wearing the uniforms of many nations: French, Italian, Polish, Prussian, Czech, Hanoverian, Swiss, Hessian, Dutch, Westphalian, Croat, Wurttemberg’s, Albanian with, here and there, groups of Russian prisoners.

Only the Old Guard marched out in good order, with bands playing and tricolors fluttering beneath the gilded Eagles.

Of the five hundred thousand men and women who had crossed the Niemen toward the end of June, fewer than one in five were destined to live to recross it in December.

23

Death Takes Something on Account

On the advance from Kovno to Moscow, the Grand Army had cut a great swathe through the country, leaving not a thing to eat behind it and very little shelter. But the swathe did not extend for much more than twenty miles on either side of the highway, owing to the limited distances that forays of horsemen could cover and be back by night with the main force, secure from capture by the Cossacks. Well aware of this, the Russians had refrained from scorching the earth outside the limits within which Napoleon's troops could commit their depredations.

The Emperor had therefore decided that, instead of retreating by the way he had come, he would march south-east to Kalouga, as that would enable the army to march through unspoiled country, where there were still inhabited towns and villages, hay-filled barns and, with luck, a number of horses and cattle.

The thought of new territory to plunder greatly cheered the men, but the Generals and Staff were not so happy. They knew that Kutuzov's main army lay out on that flank and, only the previous day, Murat's cavalry had suffered a severe defeat in the neighborhood of Tarutino, which was not far off the route they were to take. But, after five weeks of inactivity, everyone seemed to have taken new heart at again being on the move.

Napoleon, riding his grey, wearing the plain uniform of the Guides and his undecorated tricorne hat, rode between two battalions of the Guard, immediately followed by his staff. Behind them, under Duroc's quartermaster, came the headquarters' baggage train. In addition to its own wagons, a number of others had been commandeered to carry the trophies, loot collected by the staff and a big supply of food reserved for the entourage. A number of them had also secured small vehicles to transport their personal belongings. These followed the wagons with, among them, Mary on her mount and Greuze walking beside the mule.

At midday the Emperor, his people and the Guard halted for a picnic meal at the roadside, clearing the highway for the endless stream of mixed units to continue their march. As Roger watched them going by, he decided they were in better trim than he had judged them to be earlier that morning. Although, at a casual glance, they had the appearance of an incredible rabble, their officers had got them into some sort of order, so that different units were at least distinguishable and, if attacked, could swiftly be called on to leave temporarily the motley collection of vehicles carrying their loot, supplies and women, and get into fighting formations. In general, too, the health of the men appeared better than it had after their long march to Moscow and the terrible battle of Borodino. The majority of those whose wounds had not been too serious for them to stagger as far as the city had since recovered. While in Moscow, for the first few weeks they had enjoyed an abundance of food and, even recently, their rations had been reasonably adequate. Rest and relaxation had put new spirit into them. Many of the groups were singing as they marched and, as they passed the Emperor, they cheered him with something of their old enthusiasm.

The worst weakness of the army was its shortage of horses. Roger noted that in most cases artillery units had had to leave behind their second line ammunition limbers and, in many cases, the guns and first line limbers were drawn by only four or two horses, instead of the normal six. A great part of the cavalry, too, was no longer mounted, but now sharing the lot of the foot slogging infantry. However, as relays of remounts were constantly being sent up from Poland, at least the French cavalrymen could hope to be in the saddle again by the time they reached Smolensk.

On their first night out of Moscow, the miles long column bivouacked at the roadside and had an opportunity to try out such arrangements as they had made to secure for themselves as much comfort as possible. The Emperor sent Roger and his other A.D.Cs to ride some way along the road and see how the men were faring. In the neighborhood there were many woods of pine and larch, among which fuel could be collected, so the hundreds of bivouac fires blazed merrily, and the A.D.Cs were able to report that morale was good; also that nearly everywhere, in addition to the rations with which the troops had been issued, they had brought with them stocks of food of their own.

But early in the morning the news that the staff had feared came in. Strong Russian forces, possibly Kutuzov's main army, were advancing toward them, so the Emperor, being most averse to fighting a battle at that moment, sent orders to the head of the column that it should leave the road for Kalouga and turn off to Malo-Jaroslavitz. Nevertheless, many attacks by Cossacks had to be beaten off, and it was clear that they were not going to be allowed to continue their march in immunity.

Then, on the 25th, Kutuzov launched General Dokhiurov's division against the centre of the marching column as it was passing through Malo-Jaroslavitz. The French were taken by surprise and the action very nearly proved fatal to the Emperor. Early that morning he had ridden out, accompanied by some fifty officers, to make a personal reconnaissance. Suddenly a horde of Cossacks broke from a wood, yelling their war cry, 'Hourra! Hourra!', and came galloping toward the little cavalcade.

Napoleon had never lacked for courage. He drew his sword and his companions followed his example. Next moment the Cossacks were upon them. The French were outnumbered three to one. There ensued a wild melee. Several men on both sides were killed or wounded. Roger escaped being run through with a lance only by throwing himself violently sideways. As he did so, he slashed out with his sword and severed the Cossack's arm at the elbow. Rapp was less fortunate. A lance dealt him his twenty-third wound and he was thrown from his horse. The fight raged furiously; but only for a few minutes. The Hetman of the Cossacks sighted a convoy of wagons in the near distance. Having failed to recognize the Emperor and realise what a prize he was forgoing, he called his men off and led them toward the wagons, more eager for loot than slaughter. At that moment, having heard the shouts of the combatants, two squadrons of Chasseurs and a troop of the Cavalry of the Guard came charging up. They fell upon the Cossacks and routed them. But the battle was on. Dokhturov was attacking all along the line.

For several hours the units of the Grand Army in the area were in grave peril; then Eugene arrived with his Italians and was followed by Davout. By then Kutuzov had brought up his main forces and a general engagement took place. All day there was desperate fighting. The battle continued until long after dark, and it was not until close on midnight that the French succeeded in driving the Russians out of Malo-Jaroslavitz.

Frantic with anxiety, Roger went in search of Mary. At last he found her. She and young Greuze had taken refuge under their cart. Twice they had been charged over. Only one Russian had spotted and attempted to kill them; but Greuze had brought up his musket and shot him dead at close quarters.

The Emperor was now faced with a question of paramount importance. Should he renew the battle next day and gamble everything on succeeding in breaking through to Kalouga-or should he abandon that route and take another?

It was known that General Tchitchagov had now brought up his army from the lower Danube and this reinforcement made the Russians much superior in numbers. On the morning of the 26th, Bessieres went out on a reconnaissance. His report was pessimistic and decided the Emperor to retreat north on Mojaisk. The decision was fatal. It drove the last nail into the coffin of the Grand Army.

In taking it, Napoleon had supposed that, though he must abandon the advantage of marching through country that had not been scorched, he would be compensated by the depots of stores that he believed to have been established in every town and village through which the army had marched to Moscow. Throughout August, September and the first half of October, thousands of head of cattle, quintals of wheat and tons of flour had been dispatched from Poland. By this time they should have been available at intervals all along the road, in readiness to supply the army should it be forced to retreat. But many of the depots had never been filled, and many more were empty. Millions of pounds' worth of supplies had simply vanished.

In many cases they had been carried off by raiding Cossacks before they reached their destination; but there had been a far more serious drain upon them. During the advance, the Grand Army had left in its wake tens of thousands of wounded and deserters. The wounded had had to be fed, and the deserters were determined not to starve as long as their weapons could obtain for them food and liquor. As bands of them, had made their way toward Poland, they had attacked the depots and carried off their contents. The Grand Army, still eighty thousand strong, and making up for the casualties it sustained by being joined by the troops who had guarded the lines of communication, must now retrace its steps along the scorched earth swathe in which neither food nor fodder was to be found.

Until the last days of October, the weather remained sunny; but then the skies became overcast, a biting wind got up that swept across the plain and the first flurries of snow gave a warning of what was to come. At Mojaisk the head of the column debouched on to the road by which it had marched to Moscow, and turned west toward Poland. Forty miles further on, the army suffered the most terrible blow possible to its morale. It had to cross the battlefield of Borodino.

For miles round lay the evidence of the cost of the Emperor's insatiable ambition: the price that comrades had paid and that, at any time, each man of them might be called on himself to pay. In every direction, as far as the eye could see, the grassy slopes, furrowed by countless cannon balls, were dotted with thousands upon thousands of seven week old corpses of men and horses, and below the great redoubt lay a solid, tangled mass of them. Lacking legs, feet, arms or heads, with broken skulls or disemboweled, their shrunken lips drawn back in hideous grimaces, their eye sockets black, empty pits, clusters of white worms feeding on their rotting flesh, they lay there in the awesome stillness of death, beneath a dark and threatening sky.

Even the most hardened of the old 'moustaches' who had followed the young Napoleon in Italy and Egypt and later fought at Marengo, Wagram, Jena, Austerlitz, Eylau and Friedland, had never seen such appalling destruction: so many smashed guns, overturned limbers, shattered wagons, abandoned muskets, swords, lances and pistols, or bloated horses, the ground beneath them dyed red with their blood. And the unburied humans were not alone in silently demanding vengeance for the cutting short of their lives. The rains had washed away the soil from the shallow graves in which the minority had been hastily interred. Among the litter of cuirasses, helmets, dolmans, sabretaches, saddlebags, knapsacks and entrenching tools, from the earth there stuck up solitary protesting arms, odd legs and grinning skulls.

The Grand Army passed on its way with bowed heads, heart stricken, weeping and with many of the men vomiting. Soon afterwards the first snowflakes drifted down.

Death now began to stalk the endless, snake like column. Horses rather than men were the first to be stricken, because, while no fresh supplies were obtainable for either, there were very few wagons containing fodder and this small quantity was reserved for the mounts of the senior officers. Before leaving Moscow the troops had scoured the city and brought with them all the livestock they could lay hands on: pigs, goats, tame rabbits and crates of geese, ducks and chickens; but these had now all been killed, cooked and eaten. A daily ration continued to be issued to all the men, although it had become a meagre one; and those who carried private supplies of food were now jealously hoarding them, so everyone was hungry. In consequence, whenever a horse staggered and, its knees giving way under it, slumped to the ground, a score of the nearest men fell upon it. With knives and bayonets, they hacked away the flesh before the body could become frozen by the fierce cold, and caught in their pannikins every drop of blood.

By the beginning of November there were sufficient biscuits left only to provide a small ration for the Guard, and horseflesh had become the staple diet of the army.

Berthier ordered all the cavalry that remained up to the van, so that no horse should die in the rear and remain uneaten. Through drinking horse blood, the beards that had sprouted on the faces of the men were soon stained red.

Apart from brewing tea, it was not until they actually began to feel the pangs of hunger that Roger permitted any of the private supplies he had brought to be broached for himself, Mary and Greuze. Moreover, much as he disliked horseflesh, whenever he could secure a hunk of it, he made Mary stew it for their supper, in order that their stock of special food should last longer. For such grim meals he was now thankful that he had bought the big slab of salt, as it counteracted the unpleasant, sweetish flavour of the meat.

The temperature had dropped to five degrees below, and was dropping further every day. The wind howled over the flat, desolate countryside, searing any portion of exposed flesh like fire. The flurries of snow increased to storms and, as each ceased, the sky was blue black, with more snow to come. The ground became one great sheet of white, with patches of snow covered trees in the distance. At night the men sat on their knapsacks, crouching over their bivouac fires, worn out and wretched; then slept either huddled in groups for mutual warmth, or sitting with their backs propped against the wheels of vehicles, for fear that if they lay down in the snow they would never wake up.

Owing to Roger's foresight, he and his two companions fared far better than the great majority. He had given his own sleeping bag to Greuze, and slept with Mary in the big one he had had made from the two fur carriage rugs. As a staff officer he still received a daily ration of cereal, a small portion of beef or pork, a potato and sometimes a carrot or other vegetable. The cereal he gave to the mule, in order to keep it alive as long as possible. The meat and vegetables went into the pot when they had a stew of horseflesh. On other nights Mary made a porridge out of their oatmeal or the flour that was issued to the N.C.O.s and men in the Emperor's entourage, and they nibbled a small piece of preserved fruit or marzipan, slowly so as to prolong the pleasure it gave them.

Apparently assuming that the men of the Grand Army would as soon die fighting as wait to be killed by cold, and would, therefore, put up a desperate resistance, Kutuzov husbanded the lives of his own men by refraining from launching a full scale attack. But every day and often at night the column was harassed by Cossacks; and, now that such horses of the Cavalry as remained were too weak to be spurred into more than an amble, and so could no longer charge, the raiders became ever more daring.

Men who had brought food of their own were now more than ever loath to share it with their comrades; so, to escape being begged for a trifle, or having to fight to keep what they had, many of them formed the habit of going off into the woods, where they lit small fires and cooked themselves a meal. But they did so at their peril. The snow muffled the sound of approaching hoof beats; so even in broad daylight any man who was out of sight of the column was liable to be surprised and slain by the Cossacks before he could get back to it.

Head bowed against the piercing wind, the Emperor rode, or often walked. The weaker men had to rest more frequently than their comrades. This was daily causing the units to become more inextricably mixed, and discipline had broken down to a point where many of the commanding officers had given up trying to keep their men together. Instinctively, they collected round Napoleon, spontaneously forming a body guard that, from lack of other occupation, helped to erect the headquarters' marquees every night and to collect fuel for the fires. As there was no organized fighting, the A.D.Cs had no duties, so Roger rode up to join the staff only for a short while two or three times a day, and was able to spend the rest of the time with Mary and Greuze. Both of them were well nourished so were able to keep going as gamely as the stronger men; but young Greuze felt the cold so badly that his face was often blue with it and, although Mary kept her hands in her muff whenever she could, she suffered severely from chilblains.

Ever since the battle of Malo-Jaroslavitz, the army had left behind an increasingly thick trail marking its passage. There were the skeletons of horses and, as more and more of them died, wagons, limbers and carts had to be abandoned. As the wounded and the less robust of the younger conscripts became weaker, more and more of them dropped behind to be butchered by the Cossacks. The men now had no use for women. As the number of carts that had to be pulled by hand increased, and the strength of the men declined, the Russian whores who had ridden out of Moscow were forced to walk. All but the most robust among them staggered on for a day or two then, fatigued beyond bearing, collapsed and died at the roadside. Even the toughest of the old soldiers found themselves unable to continue to carry the great loads of loot with which they had started out. Boxes, bundles and baskets were thrown down with bitter curses, and soon covered with the all pervading snow.

At last Vyazma came in sight. The pace of the column quickened. Eagerly the men hurried forward, expecting to find food and shelter. But the town was a burnt out wreck, the stores in it had been greatly depleted to maintain the garrison, and they were busily employed in sharing out what remained among themselves before joining in the great retreat.

The General commanding the garrison there had bad news for the Emperor. On the left General Tchitchagov had chased Schwarzenberg right back to Brest-Litovsk, and on the right St. Cyr had been driven out of Polotsk; so both flanks of the main army were now unprotected.

To escape the danger, Napoleon pushed ahead with only the Guard and the Westphalians. Miloradovitch attacked the corps of Poniatowski and Davout as they hurried after the Emperor, leaving behind hundreds of stragglers who were too weak to increase their pace. Ney's corps, hotly pursued by Platoff's Cossacks, was the last to get through the town, and, only by setting fire to what remained of it, succeeded in temporarily checking their pursuers.

The first week of November took a terrible toll of the marchers. At times blizzards of blinding snow made it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. The roads became icy. Scores of men slipped and broke ankles or legs and had to be left to perish where they fell. The troops were also afflicted by a strange sickness for which no one could provide an explanation. Men who were still comparatively hearty would suddenly appear to become drunk, stagger on for a few paces, then pitch forward, dead, into the snow. On the 7th of the month fifty of Ney's men perished in this way.

By then the road ahead was clear of obstacles only for the vanguard. Increasingly, toward the rear, men had to step over, or go round, others who were dead or dying; abandoned carts and wagons had been left in the middle of the highway because everyone was husbanding his strength and no one would give the effort needed to haul them off the road. Every step had to be watched by the marchers, who trudged on bent nearly double against the driving blizzards; otherwise they would have tripped over the endless variety of items, already half-hidden by the snow, that had been cast aside as too heavy to carry any longer.

Often at nights their blood was chilled by the eerie howling of wolves, and sometimes in the daytime they caught a glimpse of their grey shapes in the distance, or slinking through the trees. As men were constantly dropping out of the column to die, the packs had any number of newly dead bodies to feed on, so they never attacked those who were still capable of defending themselves. But it was a horrifying thought that, at times, men and women who had given up from exhaustion might be savaged and half eaten while there was still life in them,

From Moscow they had started out with eight hundred Russian prisoners. Not one of them now remained alive. Gruesome stories were in circulation that many of them had been taken into the woods by their Czech and Polish guards, murdered and eaten.

The 7th November proved a most unlucky day for Roger and his companions. Mules are much more sensible animals than horses. If driven to it, a horse will go on until he drops dead. Not so a mule. When he feels that he has done as much as can be expected of him, he will stop and refuse to go another step, even if severely beaten. Greuze had started out leading the animal, but after the first fortnight of the march, the youth had become so pallid and hollow eyed with fatigue that Roger feared he would soon die; so, to keep him going, he had told him to walk for two hours and every third sit in the cart and drive it. He was driving it when the mule came to an abrupt halt.

Scrambling down, he endeavoured to pull the animal forward by its bridle; but it refused to budge. Roger knew that it would be useless to whip it, and resorted to the classic way of making a mule move on. Taking his tinder box from his pocket, he struck a light and held it under the mule's tail. Greuze had seen perfectly well what his master was about to do but, probably bemused by the cold that racked his thin frame, he did not step away quickly enough from the mule's head. The little beast leapt forward like a Newmarket winner from the starting post. One of the shafts of the cart struck Greuze a frightful blow in the chest, sending him sprawling, and the cart ran over him.

Galvanized into a final spurt of vigour, the mule covered thirty yards at a gallop, knocking down two marching men and scattering others. When a sergeant grabbed at its bridle, in an attempt to stop the terrified animal, it swerved and carried the cart over a steep bank. Roger, fearing to lose the stores on which their lives depended, rowelled his mount into a fast trot. On riding up the bank over which the mule had disappeared, he saw that the cart had overturned and that one of the poor beast's forelegs was sticking out from under it at an acute angle, so was obviously broken.

The episode had roused a number of the marchers from their semi-stupor. Half a dozen of them were already scrambling down the bank, intent on looting the cart and killing the mule. Drawing his pistol, Roger yelled at them that he would shoot the first man who laid a hand on either. Then, as they reclimbed the bank, panting, the breath from their exertions making little clouds of vapour in the frosty air, he picked on a stalwart corporal and ordered him to stand guard over the cart while he rode back to look to his injured servant.

He found Greuze lying at the roadside with his head in Mary's lap. The poor youth's breastbone had been broken, and his jaw had been fractured by one of the cartwheels which had bumped over it. He was bleeding profusely and it was obvious that, in the low state to which he had been reduced by cold and hardship, he had not long to live. Roger poured enough brandy down his throat to dull his pain; then, in spite of Mary's protests he insisted that they must leave him and get to the cart in order to salvage the things it contained.

When they reached it, they found that a group of gaunt bearded soldiers, grotesquely muffled up to the ears in the rags of blankets, saddle cloths and looted finer, had knocked out the corporal whom Roger had left in charge, shot the mule and had already started to flay it. Drawing his pistol again, he drove them off, then promised them shares in the animal if they obeyed him. All of them were weak from privation and lacked the courage to attack an officer who appeared to be still full of vigour; so, with chattering teeth, a big fellow who appeared to be their leader told the others that they had better have patience.

Fortunately the cart had overturned completely, and the contents were under it, so none of the soldiers had had the chance to steal anything during Roger's brief absence. Fearful that, when they saw the food, desperate craving might lead one of them to attempt to kill him, he made Mary, whom he had armed with his second pistol before they set out, remain mounted a few yards back and keep them covered. Then he told two of them to turn the cart right side up.

When they had done so, he rummaged among the things until he found two bottles that had held brandy, but had since been filled with melted snow. Emptying them of the half frozen water, he had the big fellow open a vein in the mule's neck and drained off the blood into the bottles. He then cut a large hunk of meat from the saddle and told the men they were welcome to the rest of the beast.

While they fought ravenously over the carcass, he sorted out the stores they could take from those he must leave behind. The big sleeping bag was essential, and he strapped it under the saddle of his charger. They had used up most of the oatmeal., about a third of their tea, sugar, marzipan and preserved fruit and four of their bottles of brandy. By emptying the panniers hanging from Mary's saddle of all their spare clothes, they managed to cram into them all the provisions except the hunk of mule flesh, which would soon be frozen by the intense cold. That, and the remains of the block of salt, Roger lashed to the pommel of his saddle. Drawing in an icy breath, he heaved himself up on his horse and told Mary that they must now hurry on in order to catch up with the headquarters' cavalcade.

But she would not hear of it. The liking she had formed for the gentle young Greuze and pity for him had determined her not to allow him to die alone. Roger protested that the temperature now being twelve degrees below zero, the youth must soon fall into a coma, so to remain with him would be pointless. But Mary only shook her muffled head and turned her mount in the opposite direction to that in which the column was slowly plodding. Annoyed though he was by her stubbornness, Roger had no alternative but to follow her.

When they reached Greuze he was still conscious; but he had already been robbed of his fur coat, muff and stout, sheepskin lined boots. Mary wrapped his feet in a blanket that she took from under her saddle, and asked Roger to let her have their big sleeping bag to cover his body. But Roger refused, because he knew that it would be no kindness to prolong the lad's life and, had he been on his own, he would have covered him up to the chest with snow, so that he might the sooner become numb and oblivious to the fact that he was dying.

For over an hour Mary sat beside Greuze, holding his hand and endeavoring to comfort him. Now and then he opened his eyes and gave her a little, twisted smile; but gradually the gasps of his agonized breathing became less frequent, until his head rolled on one side and his grip on Mary's hand relaxed.

When she stood up, she was so cramped with cold that her legs would not support her. Roger had to shake and beat her to restore her circulation. For most of the time she had been crying and, as he helped her on to her horse, he saw that the tears had frozen on her cheeks, already red and peeling from the biting wind.

As they set off again, he faced the fact that their future was now grimmer than ever. Over two hours had elapsed since the accident and, by this time, the Headquarters Staff was several miles ahead of them. Both their horses had lost so much flesh that their ribs could be plainly seen, and to force them into a pace which would enable them to catch up would almost certainly result in their dropping dead. It was a risk he dared not take; but it meant that they would no longer be able to draw their ration which, up to that time, had provided about half their frugal sustenance.

Alternately leading their horses and riding, two days later, on the 9th, after having been twenty-one days on the road, they at last reached Smolensk. To the immense relief of everyone, the news soon spread that there were plentiful stocks of food in the city. But the great multitude of shivering marchers, many of who were now suffering from frostbite, was so famished that the men would not wait for rations to be issued in an orderly manner.

The ravenous troops thrust aside the sentries who had been posted to guard the warehouses, broke down the doors and helped themselves to everything they could lay hands on. In this melee, great quantities of food were trampled underfoot and ruined. Much was also wasted as nourishment, owing to the shrunken stomachs of the men rejecting quantities such as they had been unused to for so long, so they sicked it up. Others gorged themselves to a point where they were racked with such frightful indigestion that they died from it.

The garrison in Smolensk was in good shape, as they had lived well on a number of the convoys coming up from Poland, instead of letting them go on to Moscow. They also made a valuable replacement of the casualties that had fallen on the way from the capital, greatly strengthening the Grand Army's fighting power to resist further attacks by the Russians. After a few days with ample food and liquor and the shelter of the many buildings in the big city that had not been totally burned out, the scarecrows bundled in rags who had staggered or limped into it became different men. The Headquarters Staff and the Guards were quartered in the better mansions that remained undamaged, the remainder of the polyglot horde cheerfully set about making half-ruined buildings into snow and wind proof snuggeries, in which to spend the winter.

Then the terrible blow fell. The awful news came in that Vitebsk had been captured by the Russians. The supply route from Poland had been cut. If they remained in Smolensk for more than a few weeks, every man Jack of them would starve to death.

24

The Grim Reaper Gives No Respite

Forced to take a new decision, the Emperor told his staff that he now intended that the army should winter in the undamaged towns behind the Dvina and Dnieper. With this in view, he sent Poniatowski's Poles and Junot's Westphalians ahead with the trophies, on the road to Krasnoi. On November 14th, with the Guard and all that remained of the cavalry, he followed in a carriage.

On reaching Smolensk, Roger had thankfully rejoined Napoleon's staff and, with Mary, had for a few days fed well. He had also succeeded in getting hold of enough oats for their horses to fill one pannier and, for themselves, half a side of frozen bacon. The other pannier held most of their remaining stores; the rest were distributed in their saddle bags, pistol holsters and pockets.

Apart from unceasing harassing of outposts by the Cossacks, the Russians had for some days ceased attacking, so the three corps with the Emperor got away from Smolensk with few casualties. But Prince Eugene was less fortunate. When crossing the little river Vop, his corps had already suffered severely at the hands of Miloradovitch and now, as they followed Napoleon toward Krasnoi, it was again ferociously attacked.

Although Eugene's mother had been divorced by Napoleon, he had remained unshakably loyal to his stepfather. As a boy of fifteen, the young General Bonaparte of those days had taken him on the first victorious campaign in Italy, and he had since had many years' experience in commanding troops. Unlike the Emperor's troublesome, treacherous and futile brothers, who were incapable both of waging war and ruling, Eugene, as Viceroy of Italy, had shown himself to be a most capable administrator and an able General. Apart from the Imperial Guard, his Italians rivalled the Saxon corps which had been trained by Bernadotte and had been largely responsible for the victory at Austerlitz as the best disciplined and most reliable troops in the Grand Army. Now in this present campaign Eugene was proving himself to be, with the exception of Davout and Ney, the equal of any of the Marshals.

By the afternoon of the day that Eugene left Smolensk, he realised that Miloradovitch's force was only the vanguard of the main Russian army, and that he was faced with impossible odds. Nevertheless he fought his way on. By the time he was half-way to Krasnoi, he had lost eight thousand of the twelve thousand men who had left Smolensk under him. To continue the battle for another day could only mean complete annihilation. He then decided to attempt to save the remainder of his men by resorting to a stratagem, although it meant risking being caught flank on to the enemy, which would prevent him from even making a last stand effectively.

In the night, leaving his camp fires burning, he led his troops by a circuitous route round the enemy. He was challenged by a Russian sentry. The next hour might have seen his force cut to pieces, but he was saved by the quick wits of his Polish orderly, who at once rapped out, in faultless Russian:

'Quiet, you fool.'

The sentry then took Eugene's corps for another body of his own countrymen moving up to the front for a night attack, and let them pass.

The Emperor had reached Krasnoi on the 15th, and waited there for the main body of his army to join him. He then learned of the Russian advance that threatened to cut the road from Smolensk and divide the Grand Army in half, which would enable Kutuzov to defeat first one part, then the other. Temporarily regaining his old initiative, he at once directed the three corps he had with him to return along the road to Smolensk, and set out to free the way for Eugene, Davout and Ney.

He met the remnants of Eugene's corps, which had escaped the previous night; but Davout was still a day's march away, Ney had only just left Smolensk and both were desperately defending themselves in a pitched battle against Kutuzov's main army, which had by then come up.

Despite his greatly inferior forces, Napoleon decided that he must gamble everything to save the two corps separated from him, and hurried forward to attack. But, fortunately for him, the old 'fox of the north' preferred to save his men and let the devastating cold continue to destroy his enemies; so, rather than sacrifice further troops against Davout's fierce resistance, he let him get away.

Napoleon was now in a quandary. He had been saved from a battle that might have ended in the complete destruction of the Grand Army, and Ney was many miles distant. He could be rescued only by again challenging Kutuzov's eighty thousand Russians and defeating them. With great reluctance the Emperor decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Leaving Ney to his fate, he retired on Krasnoi.

There he realised that his plan for wintering in the towns behind the Dwina and Dnieper was no longer feasible. It had been only another pipe dream. If the Grand Army was to be saved, a new plan had swiftly to be formed. His choice was to cross the Dnieper at Orcha join Schwarzenberg, by way of Minsk, and winter behind the Berezina.

During the campaign Ney had already surpassed himself, eclipsing even the brilliant feats of arms he had achieved in Austria, Prussia and during Massena's retreat from Portugal. For having stormed the Great Redoubt at Borodino, the Emperor had recently made him Prince of Moscow. On leaving Smolensk, his corps had been reduced by having to leave behind six thousand wounded. As his men had hurried out of one side of the city, the Cossacks had come galloping in at the other, and had since never ceased to savage his rear battalions. Now, cut off from any hope of help, with exhausted troops, no cavalry and very few guns, he was called on to face the greatest challenge of his career.

He was beset by the whole Russian army, and it was rapidly closing in round him. Still fighting a heavy rearguard action, he battled his way toward Krasnoi; but, as he advanced, met with increasingly violent opposition. On his second day out of Smolensk, he launched an all out attack, in a forlorn hope of breaking through. But it failed, and he realised that his last chance of rejoining the Emperor was gone.

The Russians were well aware that they had him in a trap, and orders were sent out that in no circumstances must he be killed, but taken prisoner, so that this most famous of all Napoleon's fighting Marshals could grace a triumph for the Czar in St. Petersburg. Miloradovitch, who greatly admired Ney, sent an officer to him under a flag of truce, to impress upon him that his position was hopeless. The Russian General even offered a temporary armistice in which he would personally conduct Ney on a tour of the Russian front, so that he could see for himself the tremendous odds that were arrayed against him, and promised that, if he would surrender, his men should receive the honour’s of war. Ney's reply was:

'A Marshal of the Empire never surrenders.'

On Napoleon's right, up in the north-west, there had been severe fighting along the Dwina ever since July. Wittgenstein had had the better of it, capturing Chasniki and Vitebsk and forcing Victor to fall back on Senno. To the south-east Tchitchagov now had under his command Tormasov's army as well as the one he had brought up from the Danube. He had easily beaten off a half-hearted attack by Schwarzenberg’s Austrians, and had captured Minsk; thus frustrating Napoleon's latest plan of retiring on that city. The Emperor's situation between these two forces, and with Kutuzov's main army at no great distance from him, was, therefore, now very precarious.

Believing the bridge over the Berezina at Borisov was still guarded by the Polish General Dombrovski, he planned to cross that river instead of the Dnieper at Orcha, and ordered the pontoon bridges that had been assembled at the latter place to be destroyed. But on November 21st Tchitchagov arrived before Borisov and, faced by heavy odds, Dombrovski abandoned the town.

While retreating, Dombrovski ran into Oudinot's corps, by then reduced to eight thousand men. On hearing that the all important bridge had been given up, the Marshal was furious and, in spite of the odds against him, hurried forward to attack Tchitchagov. However, the Russian had become obsessed with the idea of the glory that would be his if only he could capture Napoleon; so he had marched off at a furious pace toward Orcha and, in his hurry, neglected to order the bridge to be destroyed.

This stroke of good fortune enabled Oudinot to save the line of retreat. In addition, Tchitchagov had set off at such a speed that his baggage train was far in his rear, so Oudinot captured it and was able to feed his hungry men and horses well for several days.

Meanwhile, the Emperor had reached Orcha and everyone at the headquarters there had accepted as inevitable that Ney's corps must have succumbed and that the Marshal was either dead or on his way to St. Petersburg as a prisoner. Napoleon constantly reproached himself for having abandoned his old friend, and could not be consoled for his loss, exclaiming from time to time, 'I can never replace him! He was the bravest of the brave!'

But on November 20th, to everybody's amazement Ney appeared out of the blizzard, leading nine hundred men-all that remained of the eight thousand who had left Smolensk with him.

In the two days of gruelling conflict that had followed his leaving the city, his already sadly depleted corps had been reduced to three thousand five hundred men. Realising the impossibility of breaking through the eighty thousand Russians who barred his way to Krasnoi, he had assembled his senior officers at night, and said to them;

'Messieurs. There is only one course open to us. We must do a right about turn, strike north and find a place where we can get across the Dnieper.'

They had all protested that it could not conceivably be done. There were no roads. Such an attempt meant condemning his whole force to die in the wastes of snow.

'Very well, Messieurs' he had replied, 'if you will not accompany me, I shall set off on my own.'

Invigorated by his indomitable courage, they agreed to his apparently crazy plan. The camp fires were left burning. Everything on wheels was abandoned: wagons, cartloads of loot, even such guns as remained to them. They then marched north into the illimitable forests.

In the morning, when the Russians realised that Ney's battered corps had made off during the night, Platoff s Cossacks and Miloradovitch's regular cavalry followed in hot pursuit. Day after day Ney and his men fought them off until at last, they reached the Dnieper. The broad river was frozen over, but only lightly. Hundreds of officers and men crashed through the treacherous ice and perished in the icy water. On the far bank, when they headed left, the survivors were again harassed night and day by Russian horsemen. As often as they could they kept to the woods, but every few miles they had to cross open spaces. At such times they formed square and continued to repel their enemies while still marching.

The most determined attack of all came when they were within a few miles of Orcha. It seemed that they were fated to be completely wiped out; but a Polish officer, mounted on one of the very few horses that they had got across the river, managed to break through the Russians and reach the town.

As he rode into it, shouting that Ney was coming but needed immediate help, the weary, starving troops in the streets were suddenly galvanized into activity. That Ney had fought his way through seemed impossible to believe, but they grabbed up their weapons and ran from the town to his assistance, cheering like madmen. Eugene and a handful of horsemen were the first to reach the nine hundred haggard men who, a few months before, had been a twenty-thousand strong Army Corps. The remnant was not the full strength of a single battalion, and there was scarcely a man among them that was not wounded; but the epic feat that these brave fellows had performed put new heart into the despairing army.

Only the day before, in his distress Napoleon had exclaimed, 'In the Tuileries I have millions in gold. I would have given it all to save Ney.' Now the Emperor of the French threw his arms about Marshal Ney, Duke of Elchingen, Prince of Moscow, Bravest of the Brave, and burst into tears of happiness on his strong shoulder.

On the day following Ney's return, the Grand Army left Orcha, and headed for Borisov. For the first few days the weather improved, but a rise in temperature brought new afflictions. The ice on the roads turned to slush, water seeped into the boots of the many men whose footwear was worn out, and the driving sleet created greater distress than the snow, because it soaked into clothes and, when the temperature fell at night, they froze on the men's bodies. But the thaw was only temporary. On the third day intense cold again made iron red-hot to the touch and inflicted frostbite on the unwary. By then the supplies they had obtained in Orcha were nearly exhausted. Famine again stalked the miles long, slowly moving column.

Alternately the wind howled like a hundred banshees, tugging at the wraps of the marchers and blowing little puffs of newly fallen snow from their feet with every step they took, or the myriad of big, white flakes fell steadily in utter silence. No one uttered an unnecessary word, or made an effort of any kind that was not essential to keeping alive and on the move. It was now mostly the younger conscripts who had joined the column from the garrisons along the route who fell out and died. But now and then one of the older soldiers, who had marched all the way from Moscow and for forty days and nights endured almost unbelievable suffering, could stand it no longer, put his musket beneath his chin, pulled the trigger and so committed suicide.

The Emperor and his staff were about half way to Borisov when ill fortune again struck at Roger. While on the march, he now rarely left Mary's side, except to ride forward each afternoon to draw his miserable ration and to pick up from Rapp such news as had come in.

On this occasion the early winter darkness was already falling when he dropped back to rejoin Mary; but she was not riding as usual among the headquarters baggage wagons, so must have fallen out, for some reason. Suddenly the hush of the gently falling snow was broken by the sound of distant shouting, followed by a shot. Spurring his horse into an amble, he rode a hundred yards in that direction then, through the drifting flakes, glimpsed a number of men fighting. By then the units had become so mixed up that a cluster of Prussians were marching not far behind the headquarters wagons. A minute later he realised that Mary was among them, and the centre of the commotion.

Thrusting forward on his mount, he took in the scene. Three days earlier they had fed their horses the last of the oats he had managed to get hold of in Smolensk. Since then they had had only a few vegetables and some frozen thistles that he had found and cut for them. From lack of fodder, Mary's horse had become very weak. Although she led it for most of the time, it had now collapsed and lay dead in the road.

Like a flock of vultures, half a dozen Prussians had fallen upon it to get themselves a meal. Not content with that, they were pillaging the panniers of the priceless stores. Mary had evidently made a gallant attempt to stop them, and had shot one of the would be robbers with her pistol. But another of the brutes had knocked her down.

Berserk with fury, Roger whipped out his sword, rowelled his horse and charged the group. Before they realised what was happening, his slashing blade struck one of the men from behind, slicing half through his neck, then its point pierced the breast of another. The remaining four, maddened with rage at the thought that they were about to be deprived of their feast, instantly attacked him.

Fortunately for Roger, the eagerness of all of them to grab as much as they could of the spoil before their companions got it had led to their throwing down their muskets; but, flinging themselves at Roger, they strove to drag him from his horse.

During the next few minutes it was touch and go whether he would succeed in driving them off or if they would pull him to the ground and kill him. He was able to keep in his saddle only because each of his legs had been seized by men on either side of him, and neither was strong enough to tug him away from the other. In an attempt to free himself, he urged his horse forward by digging his knees into its flanks, but a third man had grabbed the animal's bridle. Instead of responding normally to the jab of Roger's knees, it reared, almost lifting off his feet the man who grasped its bridle.

The fourth man had picked up his musket and was raising it to shoot Roger. Swiftly he lunged over the shoulder of the man who was hauling on his left foot. The stroke took the would be murderer in the mouth. His eyes bulged. His mouth, full of shattered teeth, gaped wide but, choked by his own blood, only a horrid gurgle came from it. Reeling back, he staggered a few steps and fell, a gush of his blood turning the snow beside his head crimson.

As Roger lunged, he yelled A moi A moi praying that some French soldiers would hear his cry for help and come to his rescue. But only Prussians notorious for their excesses and the most brutal of all the troops forming the Grand Army were within earshot. Most of them, their heads bowed, their ears muffled and their brains numbed by cold and misery, shuffled on. The few who heard him turned to stare for a moment and, no doubt feeling too weak to risk themselves in a fight, resumed their monotonous bid for life by forcing themselves to keep on putting one foot in front of the other.

Only seconds had elapsed after Roger had slain the man with the musket. With his left hand he pulled his pistol from his sash. Straightening his arm, he aimed at the man who was holding his horse's head. It flashed and there was a loud report. The Prussian's forehead was smashed in. The top of his skull lifted. Blood and brains spurted from it, his knees gave and he fell backwards in the snow.

Again Roger drove his knees with all his strength into his charger. Freed from restraint, it now trotted forward, dragging with it Roger's two remaining assailants who were still clinging to his legs. Before it had covered twenty yards he had brought the barrel of his pistol cracking down on one man's head and the hilt of his sword on that of the other. As their grip gave and they fell away, he pulled hard on his mount's reins, so that the animal reared, turned and came down facing in the opposite direction. Within a minute he covered the short distance back to Mary. She was lying face down in the middle of the road near her dead horse.

His mind was in a whirl of agony. Was she dead or only injured? And if injured, how badly. Would she be able to continue on their terrible march or, in a day or two, collapse and die by the roadside?

From the day she had attacked the guarda with her parasol outside the British Legation in Lisbon and enabled him to escape into it, he had known that she was a girl with courage; but, until they had made this ghastly trek together, he had not realised how steadfast and splendid that courage was. All through the exhausting days of alternate riding and foot-slogging in bitter winds or blinding blizzards, and nights when every limb ached and it was agony to expose hands or face to the blistering cold, she had shown extraordinary fortitude. Not once had she complained of the overwhelming weariness that everyone felt during the last hours of a day's march, or the pain of twisting stomach muscles that, at times, they had had to endure before giving in to the temptation to stave off their hunger with some of their reserve of special supplies. Only the fact that she had been in excellent health when they left Moscow, and the occasional titbits with which he had been able to supplement her miserable rations, could have kept so small and frail a body alive for weeks on end in the terrible rigours of a temperature that had sometimes fallen as low as twenty-five degrees below zero. So he knew that her sufferings must have been worse than his; yet she had never faltered in her belief that he would bring her safely through their ghastly ordeal.

Her companionship on the seemingly endless days of tramping along the icy, snowbound roads, and during the frustrating halts when, somewhere ahead, a small bridge had broken down, or for some other reason they had had to stay stamping their feet and flogging themselves with their arms because the column had become snarled up, had been a constant tonic to him. Determinedly she had insisted on maintaining her role as his servant, cooked their scanty meals and, after Greuze had died, rubbed down his mount as well as her own. Time and again she had brightened the days by her cheerful chatter, not only for him and young Greuze, but also for the other officers servants.

Then at nights they had been pressed body to body in their big sleeping bag. When they had not been too drained of energy to kiss and fondle each other, she had been sweetness itself. On other nights, when the sky was clear and the wind had dropped, side by side they had gazed up at the myriad of stars in the frosty sky, while they talked of things that had happened to them in the past.

These weeks of shared dangers and difficulties had brought about an intimacy between them that is often not achieved by couples who have been married for many years. He loved her little body and merry, piquant face, but he loved far more her sterling worth, her active, inquiring mind and her unfailing gaiety. The thought of losing her made tears start to his eyes. He could not bear it. He would rather have died himself.

The second he came up to her, he threw himself off his horse, thrust his arm through the bridle and knelt down, his eyes searching her face in terror that it would confirm his worst fears. One of the Prussians had hit her, probably with the butt of a musket. There was a big bruise on her forehead above her left eye and, although she was unconscious, that eye was open, bulging and bleeding.

Round about were scattered in their blood the four Prussians he had killed, the one Mary had shot and the two whose skulls he had fractured. The rest had passed on. For about fifty yards the road was empty. Approaching on it was the remnant of a battalion of the Guard. Thrusting a hand under Mary's furs, he felt her heart and gave a great sigh of relief. It was still beating, and strongly.

As the officer leading the Guards came up, Roger called to him, 'Be good enough to tell one of your men to hold my horse. I've trouble here that I can't handle by myself, but I'll not detain you long.'

With an eager eye on Mary's dead mount, the officer willingly obliged and halted his squad of men, while those of other companies tramped past them. Quickly Roger got out from one of his saddle bags the small first aid kit he carried in it. Again kneeling he swabbed Mary's injury with disinfectant lotion. The pain brought her to her senses and she began to moan fretfully. Covering her eye with a piece of wadding, he put a bandage round her head, then got out his flask of brandy and made her drink as much as he could get her to swallow.

Like ghosts the guards stood round, hollow cheeked and sunken eyed, watching him and already savouring in their minds the good supper they could make of the flesh of the dead horse; but Roger knew that they were still too well disciplined to attack him. The animal lay on its side, one pannier hidden beneath it, the other, exposed, had been nearly emptied by the Prussians. Having opened his furs so that the officer could see his A.D.C. sash, Roger said to him:

'Tell some of your men to roll the horse over, then get those panniers across the withers of my charger. Is there any chance of my wounded servant being given a lift in one of your wagons?'

The officer shook his head. 'There's no hope of that, Colonel. We've had to abandon more than half of them already, and those that remain to us are now drawn by only two horses apiece. Even the weight of another sack of biscuits could prove too much for a pair of the poor beasts to draw for long. If we'd given lifts to one-tenth of the wounded we've passed, all our supplies would have had to be left with them scores of miles back, and the lot of us would have died of starvation by now.'

It was the reply Roger had expected. With a shrug he said, 'I'm fond of the lad and would like to save him. We'll get him up on to the saddle of my charger, and secure him there. Your men can then set about flaying the carcass.'

Without waiting for an order from their officer, the listening men readily freed the panniers and lifted them on to Roger's horse. Into the nearly empty one he stuffed the fur sleeping bag. Then, having hoisted Mary, who had again become unconscious, on to the saddle, they tied a cord that was attached to both her ankles under the horse's belly and another, tied to her wrists, under its neck; so that she could not fall off. Immediately the men had done as Roger asked, slobbering ravenously they attacked the dead horse with bayonets and hands, tearing strips of meat off the back, haunches and belly until, within a few minutes, it was reduced to a bloody skeleton.

Roger had already taken the reins of his charger and joined the ragged stream of men who were blindly trudging forward. Darkness had now fallen. Many of the marchers were lighting little fires at the roadside to cook bits of horsemeat they had managed to get hold of during the past few days; others, who had nothing to cook, were still doggedly tramping on, in the hope that they would reach some village that had not yet been stripped as clean as an empty iron cauldron of everything edible.

That, too, was Roger's hope. From time to time he glanced back to make sure that Mary was still securely in the saddle, and saw how her bandaged head swayed from side to side with the horse's motion, her face brushing its mane. The jerking movement must, he knew, be very bad for a head wound; but he dared not stop until he reached some place where she would be under shelter and he could tend her.

When he had walked for something over a mile, not far off the road he saw a ruined farmstead. Light coming through gaps in the shattered wooden walls showed that it was occupied. Every night any such protection from the cutting wind was always eagerly seized upon and, at times, groups of soldiers of different nations fought for such meagre shelter. He thought it certain that he would find the place crowded to suffocation, but left the road to investigate.

As he approached, he was challenged by a sentry. In reply he called out, 'I have a wounded man here. I pray you, in God's name, let me take him inside.'

'No room,' the man called back gruffly. 'Be on your way, soldier.'

'I beg you, think again,' Roger pleaded. 'I've tea and sugar with me, so can pay for my lodging.'

At that the man told him to wait a minute, then went into the house and returned with another man who proved to be a young French Lieutenant. After a brief conversation he agreed to let Roger join the eight men who were all that were left of his platoon. Between them they untied Mary and the Lieutenant and the sentry carried her inside. Roger remained with his horse. It was irreplaceable and, without it, he knew that he would never be able to get Mary out of Russia; so it was essential to give it all the care that was possible.

The moon was coming up and the light reflected from the snow made it almost as light as day. Leading the horse round to the back of the farmhouse, he saw that the stabling had been burned down; but he found a large woodshed that still had about a third of its roof left. He was naturally loath to leave his mount, in case it was stolen in the night; but it was still uncertain whether Mary would live or die, so the first consideration was to be with her.

When he had tied up the horse, he gave it a drink from a bottle containing melted snow that he kept hung from his saddle, then he fished about in the still-full pannier until he came upon a canvas bag nearly full of crushed army biscuits, upon which he had fed the horses when no fodder or cereal were available. In two journeys, he then carried his saddle bags, the panniers and the big sleeping bag into the only room in the house which still had a roof.

The soldiers had made Mary as comfortable as possible in a corner on some empty corn sacks that had been left there, and were now huddled round a fire on which an evil-smelling stew was simmering. Roger learned that they belonged to a regiment from Dijon; hardy fellows whose homes were in the Jura Mountains. They liked and respected their young officer, so had agreed to remain together under his leadership, although they now treated him as one of themselves.

Trembling with anxiety, Roger knelt down beside Mary. As her uninjured eye was open, he saw that she had come round, but she was breathing in little, short gasps, and when he laid his hand on her forehead he found it to be burning. In a whisper, she said:

'I… I killed one. I shot him. Then… then another of them… struck me down.'

'I know…" He was just about to add 'darling, but checked himself in time, and substituted, 'Hipe. Yes, I know. You were splendid.'

'My eye hurts,' she murmured. 'Oh, it hurts terribly.'

Rummaging in one of his saddle-bags, Roger produced a small pot of opium ointment that he had carried all the way from St. Petersburg. Removing the bandage, he gently massaged some of the ointment on to the big bruise on Mary's forehead and all round the injured eye. The eye was a terrible sight, and he feared she would never see with it again. Having replaced the bandage, he got her into their sleeping bag and said:

'You must try to sleep, Hipe. Go to sleep if you possibly can. I know your eye must be very painful, but you have escaped any other injury and you'll soon get back your strength. You're quite safe here.'

She gave a slight nod, and obediently closed her good eye.

He now had a chance to find out what had been stolen from the panniers and, with his back turned to the soldiers, went through them. The remainder of the vegetables that he had hoarded for the horses was gone, so were a small bag of flour and a piece of salt pork that he had been given for rations, one of his cones of sugar and the last of the preserved fruit. There remained three packets of tea, two cones of sugar, the marzipan which they had hardly touched, most of the side of bacon that he had got hold of in Smolensk and six potatoes. They had used up six bottles of the brandy and two had been smashed when the horse had fallen on the pannier; but two remained unbroken and he had two more in his pistol holsters. There was also the bottle of blood that he had taken from the mule. Keeping out one packet of tea and about a quarter of a pound of sugar to give to the soldiers, he packed the rest of the things back into the panniers.

The Lieutenant and his men invited Roger to share in their stew and afterwards talked to him for a while in low voices, while the wind whistled outside; and, presently a wolf began to howl dismally. For a moment Roger feared it would attack his horse, but reassured himself with the thought that there must be the dead bodies of plenty of humans within the pack's range.

The Dijon men spoke bitterly of their sufferings during the past seven weeks; but they were still hypnotized by the personality of Napoleon and, apparently, it did not occur to them to blame him. Roger told them some stories about the Emperor and his brilliant Court, then they all settled down for the night.

Early in the morning they roused up, ate a frugal meal from supplies they had obtained while in Orcha, then made ready to set out again on their terrible journey. By seven o'clock, although it was still dark, they wished Roger and his wounded servant well, and went on their way.

In the early part of the night Mary had become delirious, but latter dropped asleep. Now she was again delirious and evidently in a high fever. For her to be moved that day was clearly out of the question. Roger bathed her eye, massaged some more of the opium ointment into the flesh round it, and put a cold compress round her head. Then he went out to see to his horse.

As daylight began to filter through the big hole in the roof of the woodshed, he was able to take stock of its contents. A big pile of logs, sufficient to last for the rest of the winter, filled one end of it. He was already deeply concerned about how he and Mary could remain at the farm in safety for at least two days. It was certain that another group of men would seek shelter there for the coming night, and they might not prove friendly as had the men from Dijon. Even more to be dreaded was the following day, when the last of the Grand Army would have passed and the pursuing Cossacks enter the area. Somehow he had to hide his horse and stores before nightfall; and, the day after, Mary and himself as well.

It then occurred to him that the logs might serve his purpose. Soon, he was hard at work carrying them from the end of the shed where they were stacked to build a four-foot-thick wall across the other end, leaving a good space behind it in which he could conceal the horse and, later, also Mary and himself.

Three times during the morning he went in to see how Mary was, and found her much the same. For the rest of the time he labored on the logs and, half way through his task, he met with a most welcome surprise. The owner of the farm had evidently had the same idea of using his stack of logs to conceal a cavity. Behind the pile, Roger found a space and, in it, two bales of hay and a sack of oats. There was enough fodder there to last for a fortnight, with care. At midday he was happily able to give his charger a luxury meal.

By this time his wall of logs was completed and the horse stalled, so he was able to return to and remain with Mary. She was still in a fever, but conscious. As he bent over her, she asked in a low voice:

'My eye, Roger. Will it recover its sight?'

He had not the heart to tell her that he doubted it, so he said, 'It is impossible to say as yet. We can only hope so.' Then, as there was no one else present he was able to kiss her gently, hold her hand and use endearments as he talked to her; but he would not let her tire herself by talking much.

The embers of the fire the soldiers had made were still glowing, so he put more fuel on them and some of the bacon to boil in an iron pot that he had found in the burnt out stable. Knowing that Mary would not be able to get down anything solid, he poured half the bottle of mule's blood into another bottle, filled them both up with brandy and fed her some of the mixture, a few sips at a time.

To his great relief, in the afternoon Mary's fever abated and she slept; so, for a long time, he sat looking out through a rent in the wall at the marchers on the road which was no more than fifty yards distant. For once it was not snowing and the light was good enough for him to see the endless stream of men clearly.

Now they looked much more like a whole nation of gypsies on the move than an army. When they had had to abandon most of their loot, many of them had kept richly embroidered silk and satin robes which they had intended to take home to their wives and sweethearts, and now wore them round their shoulders for extra warmth. Many wore furs that were either too large and trailed along the ground, or too small. Others wore sheepskin kaftans or the padded jackets of peasants. Under this strange assortment of garments it was no longer possible to distinguish infantry from dismounted cavalry or gunners from sappers, let alone tell whether individual men came from the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, the rugged cantons of the Alps, the forests of the upper Rhine or the flat, windy plains of Poland.

Here and there a group of them had harnessed themselves to a gun or limber and were pulling it with the aid of a single horse. Now and then an officer passed, still mounted on an apology for a charger, consisting of little more than skin and bone. Hands buried deep in their pockets or muffs, and heads thrust forward at an unnatural angle, the marchers tramped soundlessly onward through the last fall of snow. To conserve their strength they looked neither to right nor left, and maintained complete silence, not uttering so much as a word to their companions. Under fur hats or shapeless busbies, their faces were swathed in wraps of wool, doth or silk. Occasionally Roger caught a glimpse of long noses sticking out from pinched features above matted beards. They had been reduced to from three-quarters to half their normal weight and were little more than living skeletons. Many of them had bandaged heads, arms in slings or were limping along, supported by sticks or crutches. Only the inherent urge to survive kept them moving.

Yet even that could not impel many of them on indefinitely. Every quarter of an hour or so one of them would stumble and fall down in the snow, never to rise again, or just give up and sit down at the roadside on his knapsack, waiting for death to end his misery. Half a dozen times Roger saw a man halt, drop his musket, unfasten the bandolier carrying his ammunition and, with a sobbing curse, throw that down beside it. These arms and other objects that the men no longer had the strength to carry constantly added to the litter on the road. Along it, every fifty yards or so, there were mounds of snow covering the dead of yesterday or of the day before. And he knew that the road was like that for the whole of the four hundred and fifty miles back to Moscow.

In mid afternoon it began to snow again. Soon the heads and shoulders of the slowly-moving figures on the road were powdered with it. Then the fall increased to a blizzard and they were hidden from view. Suddenly apprehensive that the big, driven flakes would not provide a permanent and sufficiently thick curtain to conceal the farmhouse from the road, and that a group of men might seek refuge there, Roger hastily began to make preparations against that possibility.

First he took the panniers and saddle bags out to the woodshed, then he carried Mary there. In his wall of logs he had left a hole low down, large enough to wriggle her through, and he settled her behind it with the saddlebags beside her, and the panniers for a pillow. He then watered and fed his horse, and fed Mary for the third time on the warmed up mixture of mule's blood and brandy_; it had been his intention to remain there, but he feared that to have got into the sleeping bag with her would have prevented her from sleeping. After sitting with her for an hour, he became so cold that he was taken with bouts of shivering and his teeth began to chatter. Having decided that he mast return to the fire that he had left burning in the farmhouse, he told Mary why he was leaving her and promised to return once or twice during the night to see that she was all right.

It then occurred to him that if a group of men came to the farm and brought a horse with them, his own horse might neigh and give away the hiding place, so he tied a strip of sacking round his horse's muzzle. After crawling out through the hole, he camouflaged it with some loose logs and more sacking that he had left there for the purpose, then hurried into the house.

He had let the fire there die down, as he had not wanted the light from it to attract possibly unwelcome visitors; but he felt that he must now take that risk, for he judged that the temperature was in the neighborhood of twenty below and, with no sleeping bag, he feared he might otherwise freeze to death in the night.

Having made up the fire and warmed his chapped hands at it, he pounded up some of the oats he had found in the woodshed and cooked himself a meal of porridge, washing it down with a swig of brandy. Then, for a long time, he sat over the fire wondering for how long he would be able to keep Mary and himself alive. When it became dark outside, he decided to try to get some sleep under the sacking on which Mary had lain while in the house; but first went out to see her. The weather had worsened and on his way to the woodshed he was almost blown off his feet by the driving snow that was piling up in a drift against one side of it. He was thankful to find that Mary was asleep, so remained in the shed for only a few minutes, then fought his way back to his fireside.

He was still arranging the sacking when he caught the sound of voices. The door of the room was hanging on one hinge. A great hand forced it back, and an enormously fat man pushed his way in. Roger judged that before this human barrel started on the march he must have weighed at least twenty stone, and would still turn the scale at fifteen. The man's features were hardly distinguishable in the firelight, as his heavy eyebrows and beard were so thickly rimed by the frost; but his face was round and looked as if it would normally be cheerful. Stamping his feet to shake the snow off his wraps, he addressed Roger politely in Italian:

'Signor, for the past three hours, my companions and I have been lost and walking round this accursed white wilderness in circles. I know it, for we have passed this place before. Can you tell me, please, where is the road?'

Roger smiled and replied in the same language, 'It is no more than fifty yards in front of this building.'

The fat man considered for a moment, his eyes on the fire. Then he said, 'That is good, but all the same I think I and my men will stay here for the night. I am Sergeant Giuseppe Balderino, of the Second Mantua Regiment.'

Giving a nod of agreement, Roger replied, 'You are welcome, Sergeant.' Then he put into operation a plan that he had formed to win the goodwill of any soldiers who might arrive and take the place over, by adding, 'I am in the fortunate situation of being able to offer you a meal.'

Balderino's dark eyebrows shot up, 'But, Signor, this is most unexpected, most generous. You are a Prince. My men and I are your servants.' Then he turned and shouted through the half open doorway, 'Come in! Come in! The good St. Anthony of Padua has led us here. Be not deceived by the looks of this place. In reality it is a palace. We are invited to dine here, and our host can be no lesser person than the magician Cagliostro, for he conjured up food in a land where there is none.'

Roger had realised that his single horse could not possibly carry Mary, the sack of oats, a bale of hay and all their other things, so he had decided to give half the sack of oats to any soldiers who might come to the farm.

The Italians stumbled in. They were grateful and garrulous, politely shaking Roger by the hand before crowding round the fire to thaw out their clothes, which were frozen stiff. With them they had some onions, a piece of pork and four pig's trotters. Adding these to the pounded oats they made a savory stew that they sucked down with delight, followed by much belching.

Not long after they had all made themselves as comfortable as they could for the night, they were roused in a most unwelcome manner. A number of men emerged out of the darkness and endeavoured to force their way in. The Italians believed their would be intruders to be Montenegrins, but their fierce war cries gave no certain indication of their nationality.

Roger quietly slipped out of the back door to defend Mary should any of the menacing newcomers go round to the woodshed. He found her still asleep, and she did not even wake when several shots were fired. There followed a silence that lasted for a good five minutes. Gathering from it that the attackers had been driven off, Roger returned to the room and found that the Italians were settling down again. Sergeant Balderino chaffed him for his lack of courage, but he took no umbrage, being only too glad that Mary's safety had not been imperiled, and replied with a laugh that his guests owed him protection for having given them hospitality.

The only other disturbance during the night was the terrible hacking cough of one of the men named Carlo. Towards morning it ceased and, when the others roused, he was found to be dead. After carrying his body out, they made breakfast, which Roger shared with them, off some more of his oats; then, on departing, with the optimism of their carefree natures, invited him to come to see them in Mantua when the war was over.

Only too well Roger realised how fortunate he had been in the two groups of men who had shared the farmhouse with him during the past two nights; for, had either of them been Germans, their inbred brutality being so stimulated by their hatred for the French, they might well have killed him, and Czechs, Albanians or Poles could also have proved hostile and dangerous. For the night to come the chances were against his luck continuing, so he was hoping that Mary might have recovered sufficiently to take the road again with him that day.

When he went out to her he found that she had had a good night and was much better. Her eye still pained her badly, but when he had redressed it she said she felt well enough to get up. However, when she did, had crawled out from her hiding place and started to walk, she was very unsteady on her legs, so Roger reluctantly decided that she would not for long be able to ride the horse and they must remain there for at least another day.

By then the Emperor was well over a day's march ahead, and the bulk of the Grand Army had followed him. During the morning not even an apology for a formation went by. On the previous day there had been occasional irregular squads travelling in company, or a few guns and limbers led by an officer or N.C.O., but now there were only stragglers.

Soon after ten o'clock, Roger heard distant gunfire Hour by hour it grew nearer. Presently a body of a hundred or more men came up the road. They bore no re semblance to a company on the march, as they were no in fours or even attempting to keep step. All the same Roger realised that they were a unit and probably all that was left of a battalion. Several more groups of roughly the same size passed at about ten minute intervals. The were obviously the rearguard, falling back to take up the next position where the ground offered possibilities for good defense, while other units continued to hold the line from which they had retreated.

Within an hour of entering Orcha, the gallant Ney, with his nine hundred men, had offered himself to the Emperor as Commander of the rearguard for the army. No man was better suited for the task, and Roger well remembered how persistently the Marshal had fought off the pursuing British when he had commanded Massena's rearguard in Portugal. Napoleon had gladly accepted Ney's offer and allocated to him about a division of his best remaining troops.

But Roger did not wait to see the red headed Marshal go by. It was certain that he would be commanding the last unit of the Grand Army to fall back, and if the Russians were not actually engaging him they would be following up within a mile of his retreating men.

Roger had already taken everything he possessed into the woodshed. Now, having put out the fire, he went there himself, crawled through the hole he had left in the wall of logs, then filled it up behind him.

Soon after he had stretched himself out beside Mary, a succession of explosions sounded quite near the farm, and he told her that a French gun must have taken up its position nearby. There followed other explosions of various intensity, as the Russians shelled the French and their cannon balls exploded. Then there came bursts of musket fire. Once a man screamed and later they heard the wild war cry of charging Cossacks. The sounds of battle continued for half an hour, then faded away in the distance.

While the fighting had continued in their immediate vicinity, they had dreaded every moment that the farm buildings might be used as a strong point, bombarded and blown to pieces. Now they could breathe again. But Roger was wondering if he had not been foolish to have refrained from mounting Mary, weak as she was, on the horse the day before and joining the half frozen scarecrows of the Grand Army who had then still been passing.

Now there was no possible hope of rejoining them. He had Mary were cut off behind the Russian front. How, in the depths of winter, with only one horse, very little food and surrounded by illimitable wastes of snow, could they hope to survive?

25

Old Soldiers Sometimes Die

When the silence had continued for an hour or more Roger went out to reconnoiter. Snow was falling again, so visibility was bad. But through the ever-moving curtain of flakes he could make out blocks of infantry marching along the road at short intervals in good order. Even had he not been able to see them, he would have known them to be there from catching the sound of the melancholy Russian marching songs they were singing.

His dread now was that some body of signalers or a small battalion staff would decide to doss down in the farmhouse for the night. To have relit the fire would have drawn attention to the building, so there could be no hot meal for them that evening. Even though they found it difficult to get their teeth into the semi frozen bacon so had to hack it in bits and suck it, they made do on some of that and small pieces of the marzipan; but Roger gave his horse as much oats as it could be persuaded to eat.

He was now anxious to get away from the farm; as, apart from the risk of remaining there for another night, it was quite probable that next day the Russians would notice it and come there, not for shelter but to chop up the building for fire wood.

The pain in Mary's eye was now no more than a dull ache. In all other respects she was again as well as she had been when they left Moscow. By the light of a single candle they made their preparations. It was essential to travel as light as they could, so Roger decided to leave behind his saddle and, instead, tie the sleeping bag on his horse's back for Mary to ride on. As they would be moving only at a walking pace, she would not need stirrups. Into one of the panniers he packed the rest of the bacon, the sugar, tea, marzipan and a bundle of candles, and into the other oats and hay for the horse, three and a half bottles of brandy and another that had mule's blood mixed with it. He then fastened his sword belt round Mary's waist, in order to be free of his sword.

As he did so he recalled his civilian suit and greatly regretted having parted with it when the mule had died. If they ran into a solnia of Cossacks and he had been wearing it, he could have persuaded them that he was a Latvian business man, for his fur coat did not disguise the fact that he was a French officer.

Knowing that they no longer dared follow the road, and he must plod through deep snow, he would have given all the gold in his money belt for a pair of snow shoes. But even if he could have procured a pair, what of the horse? It was far heavier than he was and its hooves would sink deep into the snow. Still, Ney and his men had not had snow shoes when they had left the road to Krasnoye, and made their great detour round to Orcha. Perhaps the going would not be so hard as he expected.

After he had pulled away enough logs in the wall to get his horse through, he led it out and mounted Mary on it. The snow had stopped falling, but that by no means pleased him, as there was a rising sickle moon, and it gave enough light for them to be seen at some distance. But as some consolation there was no wind, and the sky was clear. So, with the help of the stars and the map that had been issued to him, he hoped to be able to keep direction. Returning for the last time to the woodshed, he passed round the back of his neck the thick strap that joined the two panniers, so that they hung down on either side of him. Taking the bridle of the horse he led it away from the refuge that had served them so well.

As they crossed the now deserted road, Mary asked, 'Where are we heading for?'

Roger gave a grim little laugh, 'For the Baltic coast, my dear. From here we go due north until we strike the river Dvina, then we follow its course until it reaches the sea at Riga.'

'How far is Riga?'

'The better part of three hundred miles.'

'Oh, Roger!' Mary exclaimed. 'We shall never get that far.'

'I think we shall,' he replied tersely. 'That is unless we fall in with some Russian troops and they find out that under my furs I am wearing a French uniform. We have already travelled nearly twice that distance.

'But, darling, it will take us weeks, and our stores will give out long before we could reach Riga.'

'My sweet, it is the only course open to us. To go east would take us deeper into Russia. To go west would bring us again into the battle zone, with the risk of being killed by one side or the other, or murdered for such supplies as we have left by some of those poor devils who are being driven mad by hunger. I tell you, Mary, that is our best chance, and I am determined not to die in this damnable country.'

The going proved easier than Roger had thought would be the case, because the intense cold froze the snow solid within a short time of it falling. The country was well wooded with larch, pine and fir trees, so there were plenty of small fallen branches to make fires with whenever they halted. The woods, too, were a god send in enabling them to avoid other people. After the first night and day they had little to fear from the Cossacks, as the

Russian army had passed on in its tireless pursuit of the enemy. But every hour or two they discerned in the distance solitary figures or groups rarely exceeding half a dozen who, although clad in the weirdest assortment of garments, they knew must be deserters. Whenever they were crossing an open space and such dubious characters came in sight, Roger quickly took the horse by the bridle, turned it and headed for the nearest wood, in which it was easy to disappear.

In order further to minimize the risk of dangerous encounters, they decided to travel mostly by night and lie up in a wood, snug in the big sleeping bag during a good part of each day. In the woods, too, they could light a fire where they halted, without its being seen from a distance and attracting unwelcome attention.

On their second day out, after having a meal they were both in the bag and Roger was just dozing off, when he was suddenly roused by a wail of misery from Mary. She was half sitting up, had got out a small mirror she carried, pushed up the bandage round her head and, for the first time, was examining her injured eye.

As Roger was unhappily aware after having dressed it each morning and night, where her eye had been there was now only a black pit containing a multi colored scab. Dropping the mirror, Mary burst into a passion of tears.

Wriggling up, Roger threw an arm about her shoulders and drew her to him as he said quickly, 'Don't cry, darling. Please don't cry. I know it is a terrible misfortune for you. But it might have been worse. You're not blind. You can still see with the other one.'

'It's not that!' she sobbed. 'It's not that. I'm hideous, hideous; and you'll never love me any more.'

'You absurd child.' He kissed her cold cheek. 'Say that again and I'll slap you. Of course I'll go on loving you. Your face has nothing to do with your personality, and it's that I love. Besides, when we get back to England we will have you fitted with a glass eye, and no one will realize that you've lost one of your own. Unless… yes. Stap me, I have it! You shall have a bright blue one. The contrast to your green one will prove most mightily intriguing, and make you the toast of the town.'

His attempt to take her mind off her misfortune by a joke brought a half smile to her cracked lips. But she could not stop crying, and it was a long time before his comforting and caresses persuaded her that her disfigurement would make no difference to his feelings for her.

That night the moon was obscured by clouds and they virtually stumbled on a little town that, from his map, Roger believed to be Zepel. If he was right they had covered twenty-five miles in a little over two days and nights, which he considered to be good going. The town was burned out and, having made a cautious reconnaissance, they reached the conclusion that it had been completely evacuated. The cold was almost petrifying, as a wind was blowing from the east, so they decided to seek shelter among the ruins. Near the far end of the single street they came upon a hovel that still had a roof, but from it moisture had dripped down during the daytime to form a curtain of icicles, two feet long, over the open doorway. Breaking them off they went inside, lit a fire and spent the remainder of the night there.

The next six days and nights were uneventful. At times they saw small towns or villages in the distance, but as soon as they entered still inhabited country they were careful to keep well away from them. The greater part of their way lay through forests where more icicles hung like stalactites from the branches of trees made feathery and sparkling by the snow, and an utter silence reigned. Even on nights when the moon was hidden, the all pervading snow gave them enough light to see their way without difficulty between the trunks of the trees, and these at least broke the force of the wind that never ceased to blow across the open areas. But they found the absolute silence, broken only by the occasional howling of wolves seeking the bodies of dead deserters, eerie and oppressive, and the climate tried them sorely.

Only when, still wearing their furs, they huddled together in the sleeping bag, were they really warm; and they came to dread having to leave it. Frostbite was a constant menace. Even a short exposure numbed their noses, ears and fingers. Not an hour passed but they had to rub these places on one another vigorously, with handfuls of snow, to restore the circulation. When they were on the march, Roger's beard and the eyebrows of them both were always rimed with frost. Often they had difficulty in keeping their teeth from chattering, and Mary's chilblains caused her agonies.

Just before dawn on the eighth day they reached the frozen Dvina. When they had followed its southern bank westward for a few miles they saw at intervals across the broad river palisades running along the lower part of big, snow covered mounds, and Roger realised that the mounds must be the earthworks thrown up to form von Phull's great redoubt, behind which lay Drissa. Since there had been constant fighting in that neighborhood until fairly recently, Roger wondered for a moment why they had not come upon broken gun carriages and other debris that always littered old battlefields; then he realised that such, jetsam would long since have become mounds covered with snow, and that some of the smaller ones they had passed over probably concealed the bodies of men and horses.

By reaching the river they had accomplished nearly a third of their terrible journey and since, apart from the constant gnawing of the cold, they had suffered no ill, they were cheered by the thought that, if their luck held for just over another fortnight, they should reach Riga. But misfortune was about to strike at them again.

With all the other things he had to carry, Roger had been able to bring only five days' rations for the horse. He had counted on coming upon some, means of renewing the supply-perhaps a solitary, still inhabited farmhouse with a barn he could raid, or a barrow of turnips buried for the winter. But such hopes had not materialized, and they had not dared go near any of the villages that were inhabited.

At the time that the Prussians had attacked Mary, Roger's horse had already become pitifully thin; and they had not been long enough at the farmhouse for the plentiful supply of oats there to put much weight on it. So, although Mary had walked for a good half of the time, the hundred mile trek to the Dvina had again reduced the animal to a living skeleton.

When they woke from their daily sleep on the third day they had been unable to give the poor beast any food, they found it dead. This blow necessitated a redistribution of the things on which their lives depended and, although the panniers were considerably lighter than when they had left the farm, much as Roger would now have liked to take the meat from a whole haunch of the horse, he had to limit himself to cutting off only a few pounds, as he would also have to carry the sleeping bag.

Following the course of the river, but now and then taking short cuts across the bends, they trudged on. Neither of them could decide whether the snow storms that half blinded them and sometimes caused them to lose their way but made the atmosphere a little warmer, or a clear sky under which a knife like wind often cut fiercely at their chapped faces, was the greater affliction. Mary's chilblains itched intolerably, then broke and bled and, for a time, Roger was stricken with snow blindness, so she had to lead him.

Their thirteenth day brought them within sight of the…city of Daugavpils. With terrible longing they gazed at the spires and towers. There lay food in plenty, warmth, rest and comfort. But such joys were not for them. To have entered the city would almost certainly have meant death for Roger. Turning away, they made a great detour round it.

With the detours to avoid towns that they had had to make and, from time to time, losing their way in buzzards, they were now averaging only about ten miles in each twenty-four hours, and they still had about a hundred and thirty miles to go before they could hope to reach the coast. Neither said so to the other but, at times, both of them began to wonder if their strength would last out long enough for them to complete the journey. Apart from the horseflesh, which they had not yet touched, their supplies were getting low and, although that lightened their burdens, having to ration themselves more strictly was undermining their stamina.

On their sixteenth day they at last had a piece of luck. They were by then passing through the country that Macdonald's corps had fought over and, here and there, the skeletons of burnt-out farmhouses rose starkly from the white sheet of the almost level plain. Since setting out they had come upon and searched a score or more of such ruins, but found nothing of use to them. On this occasion, they spent, from habit, a few minutes rummaging among the charred beams without result then walked on through a hedge enclosed plot that had once been the garden. At the bottom of it there was an orchard, the trees now bare and the snow on the branches glistening in the sunlight; but, among them, there were a number of beehives.

Assuming that they would be empty, Roger would have passed on, but Mary opened one and peered inside, then gave a cry of delight. The hives had not been taken in for the winter, so the bees were long since dead, but there were several combs of honey. Eagerly Roger set about hacking out lumps of the frozen honey, with his knife, then they happily sucked pieces of the sweet, sticky, life-giving food, devouring the wax as well. Having satiated their ravenous appetites, they started on a round of the hives to collect their contents. As they were about to open a third hive an angry, gutter-bred voice shouted in French:

'Hi! Lay off there, 'less you wants a bullet. That's my 'oney.'

Swinging round they saw that a tall, ragged figure had come up behind them and was pointing a musket at them. As the man had spoken in French, it was obvious that he was a deserter; so Roger called back:

'You have no more right to this honey than we have. But I've no wish to quarrel with you. What's your name

'Sergeant Gobbet, Sixth Grenadiers,' the man replied promptly.' 'Oo are you? Sounds from yer lingo as though you was an officer.'

'I am,' said Roger, and gave his name and rank.

The Sergeant grunted. 'So you're one of the bloody gilded Staff, eh? Well, I wouldn't give a cuss if you was a Marshal. We're all equals now. No difference 'tween you an' me if the Ruskies get us. They'd soon settle our 'ash. No difference neither if we freeze ter death in this bleedin' snow. What you got in them panniers?'

'Supplies of more value than this honey. Still, we might have a talk. I take it you're living in what is left of the farmhouse.'

'No. In the barn. It's got a bit of roof on.'

'Very well. Let's go back there.'

Sergeant Gobbet lowered his musket and they accompanied him to the barn. A low fire was burning there, and they squatted round it, gratefully warming their half-frozen hands by the glow of the embers, while the heat thawed out their frost stiffened furs and water from them made little puddles on the floor.

The Sergeant was a big, burly man with a full beard, small, pig like eyes, a receding forehead and a wonderful, flowing moustache. Roger discussed with him their respective aims. The main difference was that, while Roger had a plan for getting out of Russia, the Sergeant had not. He had simply made off, thinking that on his own he would stand a better chance of remaining alive than if he stayed with the Grand Army. Before the opening of the campaign, he had been stationed in Germany for the best part of two years and had picked up a smattering of the language. Knowing that to enter a Russian town in a French uniform was to ask to be set upon and killed, for several days past he had been keeping a look-out for a solitary Russian peasant whom he could shoot and rob of his clothes. Then he had meant to go into a village and hope to pass himself off as a Rhinelander. But no peasant had crossed his path. Half starving, he had reached the farm the previous day, found the honey, and meant to stay there for a few days, building himself up on it.

With a grim chuckle, he admitted that as Roger's uniform had been hidden by his furs, he had taken him and Hipe for Russians and, had either of them been alone, he would by now be dead; but he had not liked to risk shooting as, had they been armed, the survivor might have shot him before he could reload his musket.

Roger then spoke of his project of trying to reach the coast and getting away in a ship. Gobbet objected that, on arriving in Riga or some similar port, they would still be in French uniforms, so would either be killed or sent as slave labour to some camp where, before the winter was out, they would be knouted unmercifully and die of privation. To that Roger replied that to raid an inhabited house to obtain civilian clothes before they neared the end of their journey would be foolish, as a hue and cry after them might be started; but when they did come to the outskirts of a port, they must take that risk and bury their uniforms. He added that both he and Hipe could speak Russian well enough to pass as Ukrainians, and that he had ample money to buy passages in a ship for them; so if only they could come by enough food to keep them going on the way, he had good hopes of his plan succeeding.

The Sergeant's objections having been overcome, he became enthusiastic about the idea, so it was decided to pool their resources and travel together. Roger produced some strips of horseflesh, the fire was made up and twenty minutes later they were chewing the hard, unsavoury meat with as much gusto as if it had been chicken. Gobbet was a garrulous man and, while they ate, he gave them an account of how things had been with the Grand Army when he decided to desert.

'I was with Oudinot's corps "Old Blood and Guts" as we called 'im,' he told them. 'And a cracking good soldier 'e were, too. One what led 'is men in battle an' took good care of 'em other times. Back in the summer 'e got us all these sheepskin coats, like wot I'm wearin'. The weather was that 'ot then we didn't 'alf curse 'im. But come the autumn an' the snow, we was a durn sight better off than the chaps with the other corps.

'Things didn't go too bad until early November, then the Ruskies got atop of us an' pushed us east. Arter the middle o' the month we was down on the Berezina. Some dam' fool Polish General at Borisov ad given away the bridge over the river. But we got it back. Might 'ave made a stand there, too, if only Victor 'ad backed us up. But that red-faced drummer boy's a bad General an' a bad friend. 'E took 'is chaps across the river without a thought of anyone else. But our man, "Old Blood and Guts", 'e waited for the Emperor.

'About the 24th or 26th, wouldn't say which, the days 'as got a bit muddled in me mind, the main army came along an' started ter cross. The town bridge weren't the only one. It were said that General Eble im wot's the chief sapper-'ad 'ad orders ter burn 'is pontoons back at Orcha; but 'e 'adn't, an' 'e got two of 'em across the river 'igher up. All the same, things couldn't 'ave been worse wi'out 'em.

'The 'ole bleedin' Russian army came chargin' up, screamin' blue murder an' dead set ter finish us off. Old Kutuzov an' both 'is pals who'd been out on the wings. Both sides of the river, they were. They flung at us everything they'd got: cavalry/infantry, them bastards of Cossacks on their little ponies, thousands of cannon balls an' Gawd knows that. Davout's boys managed ter clear the far bank, then the crossin' began. Us lot an' the old sweats further along managed ter 'old the Ruskies off, but a 'ole mass of troops panicked. Jus' meant to get over the bloody river at any price an' devil take the 'indmost. There was lots of women among 'em. Yes, an' children they'd 'ad on the march, too, though 'ow they'd managed to keep 'em alive beats me. Any ow, the 'ole lot stampeded like a 'erd of cattle, 'undreds of 'em were tryin' to force their way across the bridges at the same time. Consequence was 'alf of 'em got pushed off the bridge inter the river.

'Gawd, yer never see such 'orrors in yer life. 'Ole divisions panicked. Wouldn't wait fer a chance ter cross by the bridge, but tried ter cross over the ice. The river weren't frozen all that 'ard. It cracked up under their weight, an' there was the poor devils strugglin' in the icy water. Tryin' ter climb on one another's shoulders ter get out, they was. But not a 'ope. Couple of minutes was enough. The freezin' water got 'em in the 'eart. They slipped back an' drowned.

'Then the biggest bridge, the one wot the vehicles was goin' over, gave way. Weight was too much fer it. You jus' can't imagine the nightmare ter be seen then. Screamin' men, women and kids was all mixed up in an 'orrible 'eap wi' the icy water closin' over 'em. We was all bein' shelled cruel by the Ruskies, so all them wot 'adn't got no discipline any longer was frantic ter get across the river. Them be'ind pushed them in front till the bloody river were so full of corpses you could 'a walked near dry-shod over 'em. An' the Ruskie shells blowing' them wot weren't drowned ter bits every minute. Then, ter put the lid on everything, the foot bridge that I an' my pals were about ter cross caught fire.

'That's when I opted out, that was. I says to myself I says, "Baptiste Gobbet, you old sod. You bin in Italy an Egypt an' 'Olland an' Austria an' God knows where else, an' you always got away with it. But this 'ere's too much. Among that mob of 'owling perishers you won't stand no chance. You'd best take care of Number One." Night were fallin' by then, so I jus' slipped away quiet like, an' 'ere I am.'

When the Sergeant had finished describing the awful scenes of chaos that had taken place during the crossing of the Berezina, it emerged that both he and Roger had been wounded at Marengo, so they talked about the old days for quite a time before settling down for a sleep.

On waking they ate another meal, then hacked all the frozen honey out of the hives and packed it into the cooking pot that Mary always carried. Leaving the farm they followed the course of the river, for most of the time walking along its hard-frozen surface, but where that was too broken by boulders and piled-up floes of ice, taking to the bank. The honey greatly benefited Roger and Mary, putting new energy into them, but the climate remained arctic. Just as the past summer had been exceptionally hot, so this winter was proving exceptionally cold.

For three days, accompanied by the Sergeant, they continued on their way north-westward, travelling mostly by night and, whenever they sighted a village, leaving the river for the woods. During their halts, when they ate their miserably small meals before sleeping through the middle of the day, Roger and Mary said little about themselves; but Gobbet proved a great raconteur and never tired of telling stories about adventures he had had during his many campaigns, He was typical of the old soldiers who had joined up in their youth as volunteers when the young Republic had been in danger of being overrun by the Monarchies. Tough, resourceful and unscrupulous, his language was foul and he was a born looter and lecher. Most of his stories and his accounts of how, when sacking cities, he had raped grandmothers and schoolgirls indiscriminately would have made Mary blush to the roots of her, now, six-inch long hair had she not become accustomed to hearing such talk during her weeks with the Grand Army.

On the fourth evening after they had met Gobbet, they had not been on their way long when, in the distance, they discerned a town; so, in order to go round it they left the river and entered a forest. Darkness fell soon afterwards and, several hours later, they ran into grave danger.

It was not snowing at the time and a now waning moon gave just enough light to see by. Suddenly, among the tree trunks ahead, Roger, who was leading, caught sight of low, moving shadows. Next moment the silence was shattered by a loud baying, and the shadows came bounding toward them. In terror they realised that they were about to be attacked by a pack of wolves.

Many times during the march from Moscow, and in recent weeks, they had heard the howling of wolves and seen them prowling in the distance; but the beasts had never threatened to molest the living, at least as long as they showed they had the strength to defend themselves. That was because, all through the winter, there had been innumerable corpses for them to feed on. But nowthe three weary, half-frozen travelers had left behind the country that had been fought over.

At the first sound made by the pack, the three had come to an abrupt halt. Fortunately they were within a few feet of a big birch tree, the lowest branch of which was within reach. Seizing Mary by the waist, Roger lifted her so that she could easily grasp the branch and swing herself up on to it. With a swift jump, he followed. Gobbet had unslung his musket. Aiming it at the leader of the pack, he fired. The beast leapt into the air, twisted and fell. Instantly the others were upon it, tearing it to pieces. To take his weight off the lowest branch, Roger had scrambled on to another, opposite it and a little higher up. With a blasphemous oath, the Sergeant clambered up between them, into the fork of the tree.

After tearing the dead wolf to shreds, the rest of the pack loped up to the base of the tree and milled round it. There seemed to be between fifteen and twenty of them. After a while they settled down on their haunches. Lifting their heads, so that their yellow eyes glistened in the faint moonlight, every few minutes one of them gave a bloodcurdling howl.

For a time the besieged travelers stared down in dismay, wondering how they could rid themselves of the menacing beasts. Then Gobbet muttered, 'Only thing ter do is to 'ave 'em feed on one another till they can't eat no more.' Reloading his musket he shot another wolf. Within five minutes it had been devoured by its companions.

In the half hour that followed, he shot three more and Roger shot three with his pistol. They, in turn, were torn limb from limb by the snarling pack, and their more succulent parts eaten; but there still remained nine of them and they showed no sign of going away. Giving vent to a spate of curses, Gobbet announced:

'Ain't got no more bullets. Wot fricking luck to 'ave run out. Their bellies must be near full by now. Bet another couple 'ull do the trick. Let that big grey brute 'ave it wiv yer pistol, Colonel.'

Roger had just reloaded, but he had only two bullets left, and he was loath to use them in case they were needed for some other emergency. Then he remembered that Mary was carrying his other pistol, so he called across to her, 'How many bullets have you got, Hipe?'

'I had eight,' she replied quickly. 'But they are in a little bag tied on to the pistol, and when you swung me up into the tree it fell out of my belt. I dropped the cooking pot with the honey, too.'

Turning to the Sergeant, Roger said, 'When we get near Riga and break into a house to get clothes we'll need both weapons, in case we are surprised and have to use them to get away, so I'm against firing the two bullets I've got just yet. We'll wait for another hour or so, in the hope that the brutes will tire of sitting there and leave us to return to their lair and sleep off the big meal they've already had.'

The hour that followed seemed never-ending. Occasionally one of the wolves would whine and prowl round for a few minutes. But for most of the time they were silent and remained sitting on their haunches, staring upward with unwinking eyes. From time to time Gobbet muttered an impatient curse and shifted restlessly, then he committed a terrible act that he had evidently been contemplating for some while.

Suddenly his hand shot out. Seizing the collar of Mary's fur coat, he gave it a swift, violent pull, designed to throw her backwards off her precarious perch, and snarled:

'Boy's no dam' good to us. The brutes can 'ave 'im, an' we'll save 'is rations.'

With a scream, Mary overbalanced and slipped from the branch. But as she fell she managed to catch hold of it. Next second there was pandemonium. Howling, the wolves hurled themselves into a solid mass and began to snap at her feet.

Roger's heart gave a lurch. He still had his loaded pistol in his hand. Yelling, 'You bastard!' he swung it round and fired straight into Gobbet's face.

Had there only been one wolf it would, by then, have buried its fangs in the calf of one of Mary's legs. But, as they leapt at her, they knocked one another aside. The moment Gobbet fell out of the tree, they swerved away from her and fought to get at the human flesh for which they had waited so long. Roger threw himself forward across the now empty fork of the tree and, with his free hand, seized Mary by the wrist. A moment later, sobbing and half fainting, she was hauled back to safety.

He had hardly done so and clasped her in his arms before the wolves had ripped away the Sergeant's clothes and were beginning to eat him. But their eagerness to gorge themselves had abated. They seemed satisfied to have secured a fair sample of the prey they had been determined to feed on. Almost with indifference they gnawed the flesh of Gobbet's limbs, then, as though instinctively obeying a common impulse, wandered off.

It was not until Roger had recovered from seeing Mary in such dire peril and the effort needed to rescue her that he realised that another misfortune had befallen them. As he had thrown himself across the fork of the tree, the two panniers had slipped from his shoulders and fallen to the ground. Anxiously he peered down to see what had happened to them. But the moon was now down, and the light had become so dim that he could make out only the hump that was the remains of Gobbet's corpse.

For quite a time, in case the wolves returned, he and Mary did not dare come down from the tree; but when it seemed safe they slithered to the ground. The panniers were there, but had been ripped to pieces, which were mingled with the Sergeant's half eaten limbs. To their great distress, there was little among the stores that could be salvaged. What remained of their sugar and tea had been spilt. The wolves had eaten most of the precious marzipan and chunks of honeycomb. Their last piece of horseflesh had been chewed and, as a final blow, their last bottle of brandy had smashed as it hit the ground.

Sadly depressed, they walked for an hour until they came upon a deserted charcoal burner's hut. Dawn was approaching. As they were by then famished, they lit a fire and cooked the mangled piece of horseflesh. Then they crawled into the sleeping bag which Roger had been carrying strapped to his back, and fell into a sleep of exhaustion.

They had been so tired after their ordeal with the wolves that it was not until the early twilight fell that they moved on again. The trek they made during that night was the worst they had ever endured. After their many days of travel they were desperately weary. It did not snow, but the cold was excruciating. They had had nothing left to cook before they set out, so they tried melting a candle and lapping up the fat, in the hope that it would warm them; but it was so greasy that it made them feel sick. They could not get it down, and their empty stomachs rumbled with hunger. Their faces were chapped, their feet bruised from stumbling on the uneven surface of the frozen river. Every time they stopped to rest, Mary was shaken with shivering fits and whimpered, 'It's so cold! Oh, it's so cold.'

At first light they came to a bend in the river. Boulders protruding from the ice showed that when the water was unfrozen there was a cataract there. When it had frozen in the late autumn, ice floes had piled up on top of one another, making the going very difficult and dangerous. Dreading, as he had so often during the past week, that one of them might slip and break an ankle, Roger led Mary to the bank of the river. It was steep, but they scrambled up it and continued on their way. The bank gradually rose, until it became a hundred-foot-high cliff. It had begun to snow again so, when they reached the summit of the rise, they decided to halt. Roger had been hoping that they would come upon a wood in which he could gather sticks for a fire, but it was barren ground. They sucked half of the few chunks of honey that the wolves had left them; then, silent and utterly miserable, crawled into their sleeping bag.

After a while Mary fell asleep, but hunger pains prevented Roger from doing so. He had to face it that Riga still lay at least seventy miles away, and that without further supplies it would be impossible for them to reach it. That left three possible alternatives. He could break into a house; but, if he were caught, he was too weak to put up a fight or, if he shot anyone, run far without collapsing. So, to adopt that course would be to risk leaving Mary alone and starving. They could give themselves up. Mary would be saved and come to no harm. But for him it meant death, and a far from pleasant one. Russian resentment at what the French had done to their country was so great that, when they saw his uniform, the odds were that they would kill him out of hand. If some humane official did protect him and send him to a prisoner-of-war camp, the chances of his getting a message to the Czar-as he had realized all along were infinitesimal, and it was as good as certain that he would suffer a lingering death from hardship. The third course was to throw in his hand and just lie down and die in the snow.

Had he been his normal, vigorous self he would never even have contemplated giving up and not making a last desperate endeavour to reach the coast. Had he been on his own he would still have elected to embark on that forlorn hope. But he had been sadly weakened by privation and he had Mary with him. The thought of seeing her fall by the wayside and die of starvation was unbearable, So he decided that he would save her if he could, and die himself.

About midday he eased himself out of the sleeping bag only temporarily disturbing her, stood up and looked about him. Although still freezing as hard as in Dante's lowest depth of Hell, the weather was fine and the atmosphere extraordinarily clear. From the top of the high cliff he could see a town down on the river, about four miles way. It was, he felt sure, Plavinas. For the first time in days his features, made rugged by the cold, broke into a smile. Their being within easy distance of it perfectly suited his intention.

But next moment his face had become sober again, at the thought of how difficult it was going to be to persuade Mary to leave him. He had no doubt that she could manage the four miles to the town on her own, and she had nothing whatever with her that would connect her with the French; so, out of charity, she would be taken in and cared for. Besides, although he had many times contemplated lightening his burdens by throwing away his money belt, he had resisted the temptation. The gold in it was sufficient both to enable her to reach Riga by sleigh and from there secure a passage home. His problem was that he did not believe for one moment that she would agree to walk off, leaving him to die.

After a while, the solution came to him. He must leave her. To make her do so would necessitate his playing a horrid part, and it greatly distressed him to think that, to the end of her life, she would believe that he had not loved her enough to remain with her but had sent her off on her own in order that he might have a better chance of saving himself. But there seemed no alternative.

Kneeling down beside the now almost empty panniers, he looked through their few remaining stores. There were a few bits of mangled honeycomb, about a quarter of a pound of marzipan and half a bottle of the mule's blood mixed with brandy. Taking off his money belt he put it with the stores.

When he had shaken Mary until she came out of her semi-coma, he said, 'My love, I have come to a decision. This is the parting of the ways.⁵

'What… what do you mean?' she stammered.

'That we are reduced to such extremities that I mean to leave you.¹

Her one eye opened wide with fright and through her cracked lips she whispered, 'Leave me! Oh, no, Roger, you can't mean that.⁵

'I do,' he replied in a firm, voice. 'We are still over seventy miles from Riga. For us to attempt to reach it together would be hopeless. We'd both be dead within the next few days. But if we separate there is still a good chance that we may both survive.

'No, Roger! she burst out, her face becoming panic-stricken. 'No! Please! Anything but that. I…'

'Mary, you must be sensible.⁵ He cut her short sharply, 'My life depends on this as well as yours. The town of Plavinas is down the river, only a few miles off. If I went into it wearing a French uniform, that would be the end of me. They would never believe that I am an Englishman. But there is no reason why they should harm you. I am going to give you half my money. That will easily enable you to get to Riga.⁵

'But, Roger… Roger, what about you?'

'There are plenty of villages along the river. I mean to break into a house each night and raid its larder. With luck, I'll also be able to steal some clothes.'

'Then I'll come with you. How can you ask me to go into that town, where there are warmth and food, while I know you still to be nearly starving and out in this freezing cold?'

'I am not asking you, Mary. I am telling you what you are going to do. To take you with me is out of the question. To be frank, you would be an embarrassment to me. I'd be worrying all the time that, if I were caught, you would be caught, too. I'll not risk having you tried as a thief and sent to a Russian prison.'

'But, darling, I just can't bear the thought of leaving you. I love you. I love you terribly.' Tears were running down Mary's cheeks and her face was the picture of misery.

Roger could hardly bear the sight of her distress. He was greatly tempted to give up his plan, take her in his arms and tell her that they would remain together. But he knew that would be fatal for them both. Anxious now only to be finished with playing his distasteful role, he decided to end matters, and said almost brutally:

'You say you love me. Very well then. Prove it by doing as I wish and give me a chance to save my life. I told you long ago that I was determined not to die in this damnable country.'

Choking on a sob, she remained silent for a moment, then said in a small voice, 'I see now that I was being selfish. Instead I should have thanked you for having borne with me all these weeks. If you had sent me into a town much earlier, you would by now be in Riga.'

Her pitiful surrender distressed him beyond measure, but he dared not show his feelings. With an effort he raised a smile, and replied hurriedly, 'That's better, Mary. Now, we have no time to lose. You must be in Plavinas before the light falls. While you were dozing I divided our things. I've put enough food in my pockets to keep me going for a day or two. You must take the rest. And here's my belt with half the money in it.'

With a word of thanks she took the belt, but added, 'I'll not need any food. You must keep it all.'

He shook his head. 'No. You must eat these bits of honeycomb and marzipan while you are on your way, to give you the strength for your long walk. I want you to take the mule's blood and brandy, too. There's just a chance that you might not reach the town before dark, and there is no moon now, so you could lose your way and have to spend the night in the open. You won't have the sleeping bag, but drinking this stuff will keep the life in you until morning.'

Submissively now, she agreed to do as he wished, stowed the things in her pockets and, a few minutes later, at his urging that she must make the most of the light, was ready to start. Tearfully, she looked at him and asked, 'Are you not coming with me for part of the way?'

'No,' he replied hoarsely. 'I did not sleep at all this morning, so I must get a good sleep this afternoon in order to be at my best for breaking into some farmhouse tonight.'

Now that the die was cast, he felt that he could afford to show his true feelings. Holding out his arms, he took her into them and said gently, 'Mary, my darling. Please don't think I am being altogether selfish about this. I do love you. For a long time now you have meant everything to me. But this is our only chance. Given a little luck, I'll get through, then in a month or so we'll be together again in England.'

She returned his kiss and murmured, 'I can only pray for that.' Then she suddenly broke away and added bitterly, 'But you don't love me as much as I love you, or you'd have let us die together.'

Turning her back, she stumbled away. He repressed his impulse to run after her; and, with an aching heart, watched her small figure until it was out of sight.

When she had disappeared down the slope, Roger did not get into the sleeping bag. Having resigned himself to death, he saw no point in prolonging his life, and the stomach cramps from, which he was suffering, for a few additional hours. But, as he lay down in the snow, he instinctively drew one end of the bag over his head, to save his lips and nose from, becoming frostbitten.

Now that he was lying still, his hunger pains eased and he was able to think more coherently. As there was no likelihood in the foreseeable future of his having been able to marry Georgina, and it was now out of his power to marry Mary, he decided that he did not greatly mind dying.

After all, he had had a wonderful life. He had met the majority of the most famous men of his time, travelled far and wide and, for many years past, had had more money than he needed. He had also been blessed more than most men in that many lovely women had found him very attractive. Amanda had been a sweet wife to him, and they had been happy until she had died in giving birth to Susan. Then there had been his dear Clarissa. What a tragedy that he had lost her when she was still so young. And Pauline. It was an intriguing thought that he might have married the sister of an Emperor. But Napoleon was really only a cardboard Emperor and, but for his remarkable achievements, Pauline would have remained only the little Corsican whore she was at heart. Yet nature had endowed her with the beauty of a fairytale Princess.

Other women drifted through his mind, not only ones he had loved, but his dear mother and young Susan. What a pity that his mother had not lived long enough to know Susan. She would have been so happy at having a charming granddaughter. What a pity, too, that until he returned from abroad as a grown man, he had so hated his stern and uncompromising father. Admiral Sir Chris, as King George used to call him, was really a very likeable sort of man. What a tragedy it was that so often young people and their parents failed to appreciate one another's good qualities, sometimes until it was too late.

He could take pride in the fact that both his father and himself had served their King well. Was the poor old madman still alive? But where would England be now without Billy Pitt? Frail and ill for a great part of the time, for over fourteen years, with indomitable courage he had fought to save Britain and all Europe from self seeking demagogues and spoliation under irresponsible mob rule.

Would Talleyrand and Metternich replace him, and destroy once and for all the demon power of Bonaparte to inflict untold misery on millions of men and women? What a good friend Talleyrand had been, and dear Droopy Ned, who had been closer than a brother to him, ever ready to welcome him back to London and help him with shrewd advice.

Then there were his friends the enemy, who had blindly followed the dynamic Corsican's star: Duroc, Rapp, Lavalette, Bourrienne, Lannes, Bernadotte, Eugene, and the rest. Several of them were now dead, the others Princes, Dukes and Counts. What a glorious company! Unrivalled in all history, they had fought and laughed their way into Brussels, Amsterdam, Mayence, Cologne, Milan, Rome, Venice, Madrid, Vienna, Hanover, Berlin and even Moscow.

What had happened to the Grand Army? That fabulous host that Napoleon had led across the Niemen six months ago. How many of them would recross it? From the scene Gobbet had described of the crossing of the Berezina, probably not more than a few thousand. How many of them had left their bones to crumble and fertilize the Russian soil? Well, he, Roger Brook, was just one of them.

Then it seemed as if the fur over his eyes dissolved and he saw Georgina standing beside him. She was enveloped in a halo of light. He wondered if she was dead and had come as an angel to carry his spirit away, united at last with his own. She was smiling down at him. In the warmth of her smile he fell asleep.

Epilogue

Roger had a terrible nightmare. He was being beaten unmercifully. Someone was alternately smashing fists into his ribs and slapping his face and thighs. Groaning and moaning, he made a feeble attempt to escape the blows by turning his head from side to side. Then he managed to open his eyes. Candlelight told him it was night.

An ugly giant of a man, naked to the waist and with beads of sweat standing out on his forehead was belaboring him vigorously. The ugly man grinned and said in Russian:

'That is better, friend. I feared we were going to lose you.'

Roger's breath was coming in painful gasps, so he could not reply or ask any questions. The pummeling and slapping continued. He became conscious that he was lying on a bed, nearly naked, and that there were hot water bottles at his feet and behind his neck.

Apparently at last satisfied with the result of his exertions, the giant stood back, covered Roger with blankets, then went to the door and shouted something. Two minutes later a middle aged man and a portly, well-dressed woman came into the room. She was carrying a pewter mug that held a steaming liquid. While they stood on either side of Roger, the lady fed the brew to him with a spoon, and he found it to be mulled wine. After he had had a few sips, he had the strength to ask in Russian:

'Where am I?'

To his surprise the man answered in English. 'My name is William Colgin. I am a fur trader and you are in my house. Our coachman, Jan, has been massaging you. We feared you dead, and are greatly pleased that you have recovered.'

Full realization of the past then flooded back to Roger and he asked anxiously, 'Have you seen aught of an English girl? She was wearing men's clothes. We parted up on the cliff, a few miles east of the town.'

It was the lady who replied. 'Yes. You have no need to be concerned for her. She now lies in bed in the next room. It was she who took my husband and others back the way she had come, to find and bring you in. By the time they returned she was near overcome with exhaustion and distraught with anxiety. I'd not have wagered a penny herring that we'd succeed in reviving you, but I told her I was confident we could; so she was persuaded by me to imbibe a sleeping draught. When you have finished this wine, I am going to prescribe one for you, too.'

It was daylight when Roger was roused by a soft kiss on his lips. Mary, clad in a dressing gown much too large for her, was smiling down at him. Quickly she told him how he had been rescued.

'After you had sent me off on my own,' she said, 'I suddenly had a feeling that 'twas not really your intent to try to get to Riga. My belief was confirmed by looking at the bits of honey and marzipan you had made me take. I felt certain you had given all we had left to me. You had already become so weak that, without sustenance of any kind, I doubt if you could have walked another ten miles, let alone muster the strength to break into a house and rob a larder. I was much of a mind to turn back. But I realised you were giving your life for me, so I decided that I ought to accept it and do my utmost to save yours as well.

'On the outskirts of the town I met a peddler and enquired of him the whereabouts of the town hall. He kindly took me there, and I asked if there was an English family living in the town. Good people there gave me hot soup and drove me in a sleigh here, to Mr. and Mrs. Colgin. To them I told the truth about you; that, although wearing a French uniform, you were an English gentleman in disguise. A party was quickly assembled and we went out with lanterns to search for you. In the dark I don't think we should ever have found you, but we saw a most strange light, like a will-o'-the-wisp, and we walked in that direction to find out what it could be. As we approached, it vanished, but below where it had been hovering was your body.'

Roger felt certain that the light must have been an emanation from Georgina's spirit, and that by the strange psychic link between them she had saved him yet again. But he could not spoil Mary's belief that she alone had been responsible on this occasion; and, indeed, his guardian angel could not have caused his half frozen body to be recovered and revived. Taking her hand, he squeezed it and said:

'My splendid Mary. 'Twas stupid in me not to have thought of sending you ahead of me, into a town earlier. But until we had been reduced to such desperate straits I would have been loath to allow you to face the dangers of the road alone. As long, too, as we were in the heart of Russia, we could scarce expect to come upon any English people who could believe me to be their countryman and give me their protection. It is to your courage and good sense that I owe my life.'

She shook her head. 'But, my love, 'tis to you that I owe mine. It was your willingness to die, so that I might live that saved us both.'

An hour later a doctor, who had been sent for to examine Mary's eye, arrived. Roger knew nothing of this until Mr. Colgin came in to tell him the result. Whether she would regain the sight of the injured eye was very dubious, but it was just possible. If so, that would be due to the fact that ever since she had sustained the injury she had kept a bandage over it, and no attempt had been made to remove the great scab that had formed in the socket above the eyeball. The doctor had eased off the congealed mass of dried blood and tissue and at once put on a new bandage, which was not to be taken off for a week or more, except for brief intervals in a darkened room.

For three days they remained, recruiting their strength, with the hospitable Golgins. By the end of that time, when removing the bandage, Mary could distinguish the flame of a candle; but the doctor would not encourage her to believe that the sight of the eye would ever be fully restored.

Now that they had recovered from their terrible ordeal Roger hired a sledge to take them in to Riga. On Boxing Day they crossed the Baltic to Stockholm. Bernadotte was in residence at the Castle. He received them most kindly and from him they learned the fate of the Grand Army.

Far out on the Eastern flank Schwarzenberg had retreated across the frontier of his own country, having lost comparatively few of his men. To the west, the bulk of Macdonald's corps had escaped down the Baltic coast, and out in that direction St. Cyr had also got most of his troops away. But the whole of the rest of the army had piled up at Borisov on the Berezina.

That it had not been totally destroyed was due to four things: Kutuzov, cautious as ever, had ignored the Czar's order to launch an all out offensive; he was content to let the weather continue to do its worst and drive the enemy out of Russia. The Generals under him were hypnotized by Napoleon's unique reputation and, fearing to fall into a trap, had failed to press home their individual attacks. The Emperor's genius for waging war was no myth; his energy and initiative returned to him; within the limits that were possible he handled magnificently such units as were still capable of putting up a resistance. The tireless energy, the skill and the valour with which, with his rearguard, Ney held the Cossack hordes at bay.

But the bridges for the crossing of the Berezina were hopelessly inadequate. Only a few thousand could cross each hour, while tens of thousands remained massed and waiting to do so on the eastern bank. Platoff, Maloradovitch, Tchitchagov, Wittgenstein and Tormasov had all closed in from different directions. For three days and nights their hundreds of guns shelled the helpless host, sending it stampeding on to the ice of the river, which broke under their weight. Sergeant Gobbett had not exaggerated in his account of the ghastly scenes that had been enacted there. On the banks of the Berezina and in its icy waters Napoleon left thirty-two thousand dead.

By December 2nd the Grand Army had been reduced to eight thousand eight hundred effectives. There was no longer any talk of wintering behind the Berezina. The only hope left to the survivors was that the Russians would not pursue them across the Niemen into Poland. On the 3rd Napoleon prepared the world for his defeat by issuing the 29th Bulletin. In it, he blamed the loss of his army on the early commencement of the Russian winter. After admitting that the greater part of the greatest army ever assembled was dead, the Bulletin ended with a statement the cynicism of which can rarely, if ever, have been surpassed, 'The Emperor's health has never been better.'

Shortly afterwards he received news from Paris that small group of conspirators, led by a General Malet had sought to take advantage of his absence to launch a coup d'etat. He used this as an excuse to leave the remnant of his army. On December 5th, he assembled those of his senior Generals who were available at Smorgoni and told them that he was returning to Paris to raise another army. Then he drove off in his sleigh, leaving Murat in command.

As the leader of a cavalry charge, the King of Naples had no equal, but he had no stomach for the task with which he had been entrusted. Without even appointing a successor, he made off as swiftly as he could for Poland. Realising the utter hopelessness of further attempts to stem the Russian tide, Davout, Eugene and Mortier went with him.

Brave Oudinot managed to keep a thousand or so men together, and Ney continued to perform prodigies with his rearguard. With him remained old Lefebvre, whose washerwoman wife had once laundered Lieutenant Bonaparte's small clothes for nothing and who, for old times' sake, the Emperor had made a Marshal and Duke of Danzig. In the retreat he displayed all the finest qualities of the courageous Sergeant Major he once had been, and above which rank he was never qualified to be promoted.

From the Berezina the rabble fell back on Vilna. When it left the ruined city the Grand Army numbered only four thousand three hundred men. By then everything that the French had managed to drag with them, the last guns, baggage and trophies, had been lost. The suffering of the men was beyond description. At times the temperature fell to forty-five below zero. From Vilna twelve thousand boy conscripts, most of whom had only just left their schools, came out to reinforce the army; within four days nine out of every ten of them were dead.

On December 14th a starved, freezing remnant reached the Niemen at Kovno. Of all the vast host that had crossed it in June, only one thousand of the Old Guard and Ney's rearguard, which numbered fewer than that,' remained disciplined units. Up to the bitter end the Russians continued to attack, but they had received orders from Alexander that they were not to invade Poland. During those desperate weeks Ney's deeds had won for him immortality. Musket in hand, he was the last man of the once Grande Armee to cross the bridge at Kovno to the safety of Polish soil.

During the campaign one hundred and fifty thousand reinforcements had reached the Grand Army, so the total number of men who took part in it was in the neighborhood of six hundred and fifty thousand. Only thirty thousand survivors succeeded one way or another, in reaching Poland. Of these only the corps on the flanks escaped the holocaust and only some ten thousand had made the journey to Moscow and back. To the dead must be added about one hundred thousand camp-followers. Horses to the number of one hundred and sixty thousand had been lost and over one thousand guns. It was the greatest military disaster in history.

When Bernadotte had given these particulars, acquired through his intelligence service, to Roger and Mary, he told them that the Swedish army would be ready to take the field in the spring, and would join with the Austrians and Prussians in a final campaign to crush the monster murderer. He then invited them to stay as long as they liked in Stockholm and promised, when they wished, to send them safely home.

Next day Roger took Mary into the city, to buy her suitable clothes, and an outfit for himself. In the Castle they had naturally been given separate rooms, and he observed the proprieties by not going into hers until the morning of the fourth day of their stay.

He then went in to her carrying an enormous cardboard box, put it on the bed and told her to open it. Packed in layers of tissue paper, it contained a magnificent wedding dress, which he had secretly ordered after the dressmaker had measured her. Mary had been sitting up in bed, a pink eye shade now covering her injured eye. At the sight of the dress she could not contain her delight, and kissed him fondly, as he said:

'Although you are a widow, I should like you to wear this today.'

For all their lives his relationship with Georgina would remain a thing apart; but he had no doubt whatever that she would be happy for him, and during the past four months he had come to love Mary very dearly. She had no dowry, no relations who moved in high society, was no great beauty; but she had courage, steadfastness and gaiety. He knew that she would make him a wonderful wife.

Later that morning, New Year's Day of 1813, when they met in the chapel of the Castle, Roger caught his breath with surprise and delight when he saw that Mary was no longer wearing pink eye shade. The only remaining sign of her injury was a white scar severing her left eyebrow, and she assured him that her sight was improving every day.

With the Swedish Royal Family as witnesses, they were married by a Lutheran pastor, and the Prince Royal of Sweden gave the divinely happy bride away.