Wolf Hunt

CHAPTER 7

LEFINE was furious. He was pacing back and forth under the roof of branches rigged up by Saber and Piquebois, near their tent.

‘We were almost killed by the partisans!’ It was the tenth time he had said that, as if he couldn’t get over it. This inquiry - it’s his battle, not ours!’ he exclaimed for the nth time.

Margont was leaning against a tree trunk. This was the miracle of being an officer: the Isle of Lobau was being transformed at speed into a fortification but here he was enjoying free time! Lefine, meanwhile, was covered in sweat.

‘What on earth did you want to get involved for? Is it because of that Austrian woman? That Luise Mitter-something ... Why go hankering after a beautiful girl with problems when you could easily find two without? Oh, it’s not only for her, is it? It’s those magnificent revolutionary ideas of yours again, that drive you to take crazy risks!’

He took off his shirt to change it. His right shoulder bore the scar

of a sabre blow, a souvenir of the Spanish campaign courtesy of an English light dragoon, and his stomach was scored with a gash from a bayonet attack badly parried. His collarbone had been shattered by a Prussian musket butt. The bone had knitted together strangely so that a bony ridge bulged under the skin as if trying to break free from his body. A pattern of burns carpeted his back, caused by fiery splinters from the explosion of a munitions box. The whole saga of the Empire could be read on the scarred skin of its soldiers.

'Being a Good Samaritan is not a quality, it’s a defect.’ He tugged on the new shirt so angrily he almost tore it.

Margont was cooling himself using a book as a fan. Assuredly, literature had many uses.

‘It’s not that. It’s not just that.’

‘Yes, it is, it’s always that! “We have to take the principles of the Revolution to the peoples of other countries!” “Down with monarchy, long live Liberty!” You’re always going on about it. You’re a product of the Revolution, but it’s not relevant any more. We were all so naive! Yes, I believed in it all too: liberty and equality for all, peace, progress, a constitution guaranteeing the same rights for everyone ... It’s utopia, and you’re still fighting for it! This army is full of soldiers who want to liberate the world. That suits the purposes of the Emperor who—’

Lefine stopped short mid-sentence, while Margont hastened to assure him that no one had heard. Criticising the Emperor was the quickest way of being taken for a subversive spy, a royalist, an agent of the Vendeens or a Jacobin plotter ... For the past few years freedom of expression in France had become more and more restricted.

Lefine went on more quietly: The Emperor abuses the army! Why is half our army in Spain along with the Spanish, the Portuguese and the English, all butchering each other? We only had to set foot in Spain for us to be mired there up to our necks. When will there finally be peace? When we’re all dead? And now there’s you embarking on this search! All because it arouses your pity and you still believe you have to help those around you! After four or five

more years’ war, when everyone else will have been killed or will have abandoned all hope, you will be the last republican humanist.’

Lefine spoke those last words with derision. He burst out laughing and leant one hand against a tree trunk, sneering.

The world has gone mad, but you are maddest of all!’

Margont was irritated. He was not easily offended, but even so ... In fact, yes, he was easily offended, and now he was cross.

‘I do as I please! Some people go and look after lepers or plague victims, others give all their money to the poor ... I don’t know, some people live just for themselves and others think a little about other people.’

‘You’re right, I agree. We just don’t agree about where the happy medium is. Let’s leave it to the Austrian police.’

‘I’ve thought of that. But where are they, the Austrian police?’

A fair point. They were on the other side of the Danube, with Archduke Charles. Or in the woods, keeping a lookout for any French who dared to venture there ...

‘It’s not as if the case will be solved if there’s peace,’ continued Margont heatedly. ‘You heard Relmyer as well as I did! No one cares about the lives of a few adolescent orphans! Better to botch the inquiry so as not to cause waves because some people prefer it that way. Life is so much simpler when one closes one’s eyes! And you, you ask me to do the same? Well, no, I’m not going to! Who stepped forward to help me when my family had me imprisoned against my will in the Abbey de Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert to force me to become a monk? I was six years old and I spent four years of my life there! Four years!’

Lefine was dismayed.

‘You’re comparing your story with Relmyer’s? Oh, now that’s dangerous! That’s catastrophic!’

‘Lots of people knew, but they said to themselves, “It’s nothing to do with us.” One day I appealed to the wine merchant who supplied the abbey. He told me, “I can’t help you, kid, you’re not my son.” But the problem was, my father was dead. So who was I supposed to turn to, God? Anyway, it wasn’t God who freed me, it was

the Revolution.’

Margont stopped shouting but his tone brooked no negotiation. ‘So I am going to involve myself in this matter; it will help me resolve some unfinished business, even if only indirectly. I’m convinced it will help me bury certain memories in drawers that I can finally close and forget.’

Now Margont smiled, laughed even. He felt better, having been able to formulate clearly what he felt in his deepest soul.

‘You’re not obliged to help me, Fernand. As you can see, I’m involved for very personal reasons.’ He rose and tried to straighten his uniform. ‘So, it’s not because I’m a Good Samaritan,’ he remarked. ‘Can I count on you?’

‘Of course. Because you’re my best friend. I’m not as selfish as all that ... unfortunately for me.’

Margont was openly delighted. His relationship with Lefine was complicated. Margont was too idealistic, too fond of dreaming and trying to make those dreams into reality. Lefine was the complete opposite. He was pragmatic, resourceful and his common sense rooted him firmly in the everyday. Margont needed Lefine; he helped him keep his feet on the ground. In exchange Margont provided the intoxicating excitement of his changing impulses and the grandeur of his Great Schemes. In short, together they found the balance between whimsy and reality, a balance that neither managed to achieve on his own. Several years of war had consolidated their friendship, especially since each had saved the other’s life.

‘So let’s go and find Relmyer, and get him to take us to his former orphanage,’ decreed Margont.

‘But I still say it’s dangerous to confuse this with your own personal history.’