Wolf Hunt

CHAPTER 35

RELMYER went back to the 8th Hussars. He had just parted from Margont and Lefine, who were on their way back to their own regiment. His profuse apologies to Margont had done little to lessen the latter’s anger. Relmyer was eaten up with guilt but told himself that Margont somehow understood and would in the end forgive him. After the campaign ended, the soldiers would be given leave of absence. Relmyer would ask Luise to receive him and Margont. The Viennese, in their joy at the newfound peace, would throw balls and parties, and organise plays. Everyone would be reconciled in the sparkling of crystal glasses. Until the next outbreak of war...

Relmyer was radiant. He was finally free! It was only today that he was coming out of that cellar. Life would go back to normal. At the end of his period of enlistment, he would leave the army. He would work as ... as ... He did not know as what, but at the moment that mattered little. He would like to start a family. He would go often to Vienna. The city was no longer cursed in his eyes. He would go and work for the French administration! A former officer of the hussars would not be refused a post. In Paris! Where he would teach German to rich people. But first he was going to travel. He wanted to go to Italy. His head was buzzing with plans. Life was magnificent because everything was possible.

Relmyer floated along in such a state of happiness that he had failed to notice the trooper who had been following him for a while now. The man attracted his attention by calling out loudly. 'Lieutenant Relmyer, it seems that you have forgotten me.’

Relmyer turned round. The man talking to him wore dark blue breeches, a scarlet dolman and a pelisse of the same blue as the breeches. His shako was decorated with a white crest. The trooper introduced himself.

‘Adjutant Grendet, fencing master of the 9th Hussars. Captain Margont must have let you know previously that I was looking for you. Tomorrow the Emperor is going to send us galloping after the Austrians, and we will chase them into hell if necessary! So we don’t have much time. Let’s settle this now and fight our duel straight away.’

Relmyer looked at him as if he were a being from the distant past, an old ghost forgotten in a corner.

‘It’s just that I’ve given up fencing, Adjutant Grendet.’

Grendet looked askance. ‘What did you say? That makes no sense to me. Can you give up your soul?’

‘Please leave me alone. I wish to rejoin my regiment.’

‘Good God, you will unsheathe your sword, Monsieur, or I will have your guts for garters! If you’re in such a hurry, let’s fight without dismounting.’

Grendet pointed his sabre, his elbow bent. His horizontal blade indicated that he wanted to run Relmyer through between the ribs and not merely to injure him lightly in a sabre contest. It signified a duel to the death.

Relmyer had no choice but to unsheathe his sabre. He had thought his past definitively dead and buried, but here was a part of it rising up again in the shape of this trooper.

The two hussars charged towards each other. Relmyer never took his eyes off Grendet’s sabre while directing his own blade to the right of the adjutant’s chest, covered by its blood-red dolman. Grendet was struck full in the heart by the metal flash. Relmyer also fell to the ground, his lung perforated. He took several minutes to die.