Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements (26 page)

He turned over onto his stomach, which nagged him, sniveling into the pillow with what he smelt was the return of his bad cold, and then he fell into a deep peace of mud which had the scent of summer Tilsit in it. He sank deeper and deeper into the deep peace and heard a quiet conference of insects that live in mud.
Not at all sure that total destruction of Bonaparte would be
best thing for Russia. Vacuum would be at once filled by perfidious England, terror of the seas
. He saw Alexander lying on a chaise longue molded cunningly by exquisite French workmanship out of mud. “This mud is truly delightful,” Alexander smiled, chewing a piece. “Who am I, my dear friend, to seek to prevail against nature? We will sit at home before our stoves with our muzhiks and samovars and let the winter rage outside. We will sing sad songs of poor men trying to get home through the raging blizzards. Go home, my dear friend. Nobody will
seriously
try to stop you.”

He awoke in time to stop the dream of the funeral procession to the Channel beginning again. The grotesque band of combs-and-paper and Jew’s harps had already struck up
There he lies ensanguinated tyrant
, and he was not going to have it, not death by water. He awoke aware of ridiculous confidence in an impending miracle, then saw that it was retrospectively concerned with Marshal Ney’s unexpected arrival at Orsha with the sizeable remnant of the Third Corps that had been given up for lost. He had saved his eagles. And then, at this same Orsha, he had received the news of Dombrowski’s loss of the Berezina bridgehead, and all the eagles of all the corps had to be destroyed, coaches burnt, a Sacred Squadron with generals as troop commanders formed, anything to lighten the burden of flight. A second lightening—first it had been convoys of booty but also, and who had allowed that to happen?, the pontoon train. It seemed to him that he had done his best and that now he deserved another miracle. He surprised himself by praying for one, very simply and humbly: “Please God grant the miracle of getting these men home safely to France, and then it will be enough to rule France and try no more mad adventures.” This produced the miracle of taking the whole load off his mind and enabling him to sink at once to dreamless sleep.

Berthier shook him gently and stuttered something. “What? What?” N stared wildly and at first took the other officer present to be the Tsar or Czar of all the Russias. But it was Marshal Oudinot. “Oudinot. What is it, Oudinot?”

“Good news, I think, Sire. There seems to be a ford near Studienka, about eight miles north of—”

“Borisov, I know, I know. A
ford
, you say?”

“About three or four feet deep, Sire.”

“
You
found this, Oudinot?”

“Brigadier-General Corbineau of the Second Corps light cavalry, attached to General Wredes’ command, having received orders to rejoin his parent unit, found a peasant on the west bank of the Berezina who showed him the ford by Studienka. Sire.” Oudinot had something of the policeman in him. “A stroke of luck. Sire.”

“Indeed.” He was wide awake, hugging his blanketed knees. “Get this down, Berthier. Diversions mounted at various points along the river—say, Stachov, Borisov and that place further south—”

“Uuucho—”

“Ucholodi, that’s it. Draw Tshitshagov’s attention away from Studienka. Get some cavalry and light infantry to cross on rafts or horseback and set up a covering position on the west bank opposite Studienka. Going to be a hell of a job.”

“The bbbr—”

“Yes, it’s the bridging I mean. Timber. Have to pull all the houses down in Studienka. I want to see the Engineers
now
. General Chasseloup. General Eblé. This is going to be
interesting
, Berthier. Human ingenuity, Oudinot. Oudinot, my compliments and thanks to this officer—”

“Corbineau, Sire?”

“That his name? And tell him he can command the cavalry and light infantry unit to be taken over the river. After all, he knows the way. Now, gentlemen, I’m getting up.” And he got up, lalling:

La la laaaah

la la la la la LAH LAH

LAAAAH

Lilla lilla LAH LAH

A
pprise the men of the inevitable difficulties of the constructive task that lies ahead, laying particular emphasis on the need for the utmost in improvisatory skill and stressing the importance of speed, General Eblé said, and the maintenance of sangfroid in the face of almost certain enemy harassment. Sergeant Rebour said: Right, lads, as you know, we lost the fucking pontoon train at Orsha, and all we have is a couple of field forges and a couple of wagons of charcoal and six truck-loads of nails. He says he wants three bridges but I don’t see how we can make him more than two. The primary need, General Eblé said, is to obtain the requisite structural materials and this will certainly entail the demolition of civilian housing in the adjacent township. Now the first job, Sergeant Rebour said, is to get planking, and the only way to get it is to pull down all those fucking houses. This place is called Studienka, if you want to know, but the name won’t matter a bugger by the time you’ve done with it. I don’t expect you’ll find many in the houses, but those you do find just give a kick in the arse and send on their way, Russ bastards. There is a formidable concentration of infantry and artillery under the command, General Eblé said, of Admiral Tshitshagov. Now you can expect this Russ admiral (though what the fuck an admiral’s doing in the army Christ alone knows) Shit Shag Off or whatever the bastard’s name is to give trouble, but that’s all being taken care of by the infantry and the gunners. I do not need to emphasize that the spirit of history is at this moment of time observing with the most concentrated of attention we’re sappers, lads, and it’s our job to get on with the job and let the other buggers get on with theirs indomitable courage and expertise of the Corps of Engineers.

It was already freezing at nightfall, not too much though, just enough to cake up the fucking mud, and it was at nightfall we got down to pulling this Studienka apart. The four hundred sappers available in a well-organized and rapidly executed operation demolished the wooden structures of the civilian housing, mostly already completely evacuated by the inhabitants. Hammer hammer hammer, and such as was left ran off shitscared, the place all dust and we coughed our bleeding lungs up, but we started laying the planks nice and neat to be laid on the carts. The next task was to construct the bridging trestles, it having been estimated that for the hundred yards to be doubly bridged something over twenty trestles would be necessary. The story got round and it turned out true for a change that Shitshagoff had got news that we were all going to cross at Bob whateveritwas, and the 25th was making a hell of a din, sounding like bridging, down towards Borisov, so off he goes down there. The Emperor was observed to indulge in gestures of exultation on receipt of the information that the enemy had been deceived by our subterfuge. Joy and cheers and dancing around and so on, but we had to get on with the fucking job.

The mixed assault force under the command of Brigadier-General Corbineau numbered somewhere in the region of four hundred men, and this effected the crossing without trouble and proceeded to repulse the Cossack rearguard patrols. We could hear them splashing over, going Jesus Christ my ballocks is gone all dead with the cold, because by now with the frost it was a bastard, and then it was the guns brought up to cover us. Some forty pieces of artillery deployed about the area of construction succeeded with a minimum of trouble in silencing the few enemy pieces that lingered in the vicinity. Bang bang bang and it soon shut the Russ bastards up. Well, we spent the whole of that fucking night hammering away at the trestles, warmed up by a drop of salty horse soup and of course we had the fires going hot and strong. The setting up of the initial bridging trestles on the bed of the Berezina was effected efficiently though not without evident discomfort. The fucking agony of wading into that water that was like liquid ice and right up to the fucking chin too doesn’t bear talking of. There was me and Rastel and Lagrange and Perottin and Renault and Le Bellec and the other buggers, can’t remember their names, manhandling the stuff with all nails sticking out that ripped the skin and meat off you but the bloody blood froze, but we got them stuck in there. I remember young Saytour going right under and couldn’t get his footing and Frere got some water on the lung and cough cough cough. We lost Tissot and Guennec. Numerous problems were encountered but the perseverance and ingenuity of the gallant body of sappers speedily overcame them.

We’d been at it all night when dawn came up and were already getting the planks laid when he himself came along. The Emperor graciously encouraged the engineers with quip and relevant question, recalling his own earlier ambitions in the scientific and technical fields and showing himself adept in the use of the sappers’ terminology. We could have got on with the job better if he hadn’t been breathing down our fucking necks, but he meant well. Despite evidence of physical exhaustion the work proceeded with hardly a hitch until one of the afternoon, when the first bridge was announced completed by General Eblé and the men were encouraged to throw their caps in the air, though most were too exhausted to indulge in this gesture of well-merited self-congratulation. At once work on the second bridge, the larger of the two, was redoubled and arrangements were set in train for the initial crossings. It was a flimsy fucking structure and everybody’s heart was in his mouth when Marshal Oudinot’s lot started over,
break step
being called all the time. Eleven thousand men marched over, under Marshal Oudinot and General Dombrowski the Pole with a fucking pole in his pants and the division of cuirassiers commanded by General Dumerc. And then everybody went
Jesus Christ
and near merded his breeches when these two guns went across, but they got over, and then the structure was speedily inspected for signs of inevitable impairment and such repairs as were required were immediately put into we got down to patching them up hammer and nails bang bang bang.

The combat strength of the remnant of the Great Army at this juncture was estimated at some forty-nine thousand, with artillery of some three hundred guns and an incomputable supplement of baggage trains, but there had to be taken into account a body of some forty thousand unarmed stragglers, dispirited and disillusioned and demoralized and proceeding at the rear of the combatant body in something like total automatism. We got on the job in two working groups, one to do running repairs on Bridge N as some of us called it and the other to get Bridge J ready for the crossing of the artillery by three in the afternoon (J, why J, kind of in memoriam somebody said, I think it was Chabenat). It was estimated that the enemy had at its disposal at this juncture at least seventy-five thousand regular troops and Cossacks, all within reasonable striking distance of the Berezina. At three in the afternoon, as promised, Bridge J was ready, and from then on it was a business of keeping both going day and night, that being his intention though after he crossed over and set up his HQ on the west bank
(break step break step
, that was the Guards marching across) he sort of lost all fucking interest, leaving us and Eblé of course to get on with it, and one or two said (I remember Duvivier and Eglenne and Tixier spitting on his initial that they’d pissed in the snow—the snow came next morning, just before dawn—crown and all on top) that all we wanted was a bit of fucking appreciation, those bastards marching and galloping off to safety while we were left up to our fucking chins in the water that was crusting over fast with chunks of ice you could see floating towards you as you tried to get on with the job with hands that had no feeling left in them.

At four of the afternoon of November 27 there was an unfortunate accident, the passage of troops over both bridges having been up to that point smoothly maintained, when the structure reserved to the transfer of the artillery suddenly collapsed. We were standing by, watching for strains, not liking too much the look of the trestles under Bridge J, when Cornevin yelled out
O fucking Jesus
, him being first to notice one of them wobbling, then it was all panic and screaming and yelling as three of the fucking trestles went down splash and thud, and the lot up there pushed and clawed their way back, hitting and screaming
O Jesus Christ almighty
as they saw the planks in front going down, troops clawing at sergeants and even officers (that’s when Captain Roeder nearly bought it forever, only his sergeant major thudded back at them) as they shoved back, thousands of the bastards, all arms and legs and screaming meatholes, trying to get to shore. And the guns trundling down the angled planks or over the sides, crashing into the ice, all of them clawing and screaming to shore. All discipline unfortunately failed at this juncture and there were some reprehensible gestures of insubordination which, granted the exceptional circumstances and the shock induced in personnel already in an advanced state of exhaustion, were, even when disciplinary action became a feasible consideration, taken no fucking notice of at all. Every bastard for himself. Hundreds of yelling bodies piling up on the east shore, the ones underneath squelched to buggery, you could see the blood pouring out and freezing at the same time, boots crunching into skulls and eyes popping out and one poor bastard trying to hold up both hands as a living witness to something or other, all the fingers broken, yelling as if he was the only one hurt.