The Marquis of Bolibar (13 page)

"The colonel," said Eglofstein, "has weighed his reasons well. I'm acquainted with his strategic plans, and —"

"Strategic plans?" Brockendorf said furiously. "Any fool can make strategic plans. You and I could do so quite as well as the colonel, and with less sweat and cogitation."

"General d'Hilliers is over yonder," said Donop, who had joined us and was pointing westward with his spade. "If the rebels give him time to attack, his advance guard will suffice to settle the issue."

"Spare us," said Brockendorf, looking him up and down. "Go teach your recruits to clean their muskets."

"Well, Brockendorf, tell us
your
strategic plan," Eglofstein said scathingly. "Don't leave your gun half-cocked, fire away!"

"My plan," said Brockendorf, stroking his moustache with a ferocious air, "is as follows: grenadiers on the right, skirmishers on the left. By the right and left, deploy! Present your muskets, take aim, fire! How else, pray, should a grenadier earn his daily groschen and two pounds of bread?"

"What then?" asked Eglofstein.

"What then? Why, I should relieve those brigands of a brewer's copper, a hand-mill, and hops and barley sufficient to make five barrels of beer when we're safe back home in our billets come nightfall."

"Is that all?"

"No, by the saints! I should see to it that you got your bag-wig, Eglofstein." That, it seemed, was the sum total of Brockendorf's strategic plan.

"You've forgotten one thing, Brockendorf," Eglofstein remarked, "and that's the order: 'Sound the retreat! Fall back, men! Run for your lives!'" His voice sank to a whisper. "We have only two packets of cartridges per man, didn't you know?"

"All I know," Brockendorf said sullenly, "is that I shall never win myself a Légion d'Honneur in this hell-hole, and that all my money is gone. The very thought of my impoverished state is a torment."

"Ten live rounds per man, that's the extent of our reserves," Eglofstein said in a low voice, looking round to satisfy himself that none of the rank and file could hear. "God alone knows how, but the Marquis of Bolibar must have learned that a consignment of sixty thousand cartridges was on its way to us.

"I spent all my pay at Tortoni's in Madrid," Brockendorf lamented. "There were some excellent stewed kidneys and a kind of little pie filled with mackerel roe, a delicacy unequalled anywhere else in the world."

"But how the devil did he get into the house and out again?"

"Who?" asked Donop.

"The Marquis of Bolibar," Eglofstein exclaimed. "I own I can find no answer to that question."

I could have answered his question with ease, but I preferred to keep what I knew to myself.

"In my opinion," Donop said firmly, "the Marquis is still hiding somewhere on the premises. How else could he have kindled the straw at precisely the right moment? You disagree? In that case, crack the nut for me."

"Salignac combed the whole house for him," Eglofstein objected. "He left neither cat nor mouse undisturbed. If Bolibar had been lurking on the premises, Salignac would have found him. "

"Strangely enough," said Brockendorf, "my men think it Salignac's fault that the convoy fell into rebel hands. I don't understand it. They say the regiment's fortunes have worsened since Salignac joined us. All the heart has gone out of them."

"The same may be said of the peasants and the townsfolk of La Bisbal," Donop chimed in. "They all go in mortal dread of Salignac. It's droll to see how they scuttle round the nearest corner and cross themselves whenever he comes along. They behave as if he had the smallpox or the evil eye."

Donop's remark, coupled with that of Brockendorf, had greatly perturbed Eglofstein.

"Is this true?" he demanded. "They cross themselves? They give him a wide berth?"

"Yes, and the womenfolk shoo their children indoors when they see him coming."

"Brockendorf," Eglofstein said after a brief silence, "do you remember when the Polish lancers mutinied at Vitebsk?"

"I do. They demanded good bread and no more floggings."

"No, you're mistaken. The Polish lancers banded together one night, crying out that their commander was accursed and that his presence was to blame for an outbreak of plague in the regiment. The Emperor had thirty of them shot as an example - they were made to draw strips of black and white paper from a bag. And who was their commanding officer? Salignac!"

We stood there in astonished silence. It was almost noon by now. A puff of warm wind sped across the fields, and the air seemed to herald a thaw. From around us came the clang of spades and shovels and the gentle whisper of subsiding soil.

"Gentlemen," said Eglofstein, squaring his shoulders with an air of decision, "I have harboured a certain notion for days, but this morning I find it nagging at me more insistently than ever. Can I trust you? May I speak my mind? Will you be discreet?"

We gave him our word and fixed him with a curious, expectant gaze.

"Knowing me as you do," he began, "you must be familiar with my contempt for every kind of foolish superstition. I care not a fig for God or the saints or the Auxiliaries or any of the other mythical creatures that inhabit the imaginary realm known as Paradise. No, Donop, don't interrupt me! Like you, I have read Arndt's
Wahres Christentum
and Brockes'
Irdisches Vergnügen
in
Gott.
They contain many fine phrases, but there's nothing of substance underlying them."

Donop shook his head. We were standing so close together that the white horsehair plumes on our helmet bosses met and mingled.

"I pour scorn," Eglofstein pursued, "on the dotards who drivel about inauspicious quarters of the sky, or inimical constellations, or the pernicious influence of Venus, the sun or the Triangle. As for the women hereabouts, who will read any man's hand for half a quarto and, with earnest mien, trace the course of his life-line, heart-line and luck-line, all such goings- on are either nonsensical or fraudulent, however seriously the Spaniards may take them."

"Go on, go on!" Donop urged him.

"But one thing I do believe. Laugh if you will, but I believe in it as firmly as any devout Christian believes in transubstantiation: there are those who are harbingers of destruction. They bring ruin and disaster wherever they go. Such people exist, Donop — I know it for a fact, even if you laugh and call me a phantast."

"Why should I laugh? There comes a time when everyone accompanies King Saul to Endor."

"And that is why I was so startled when Salignac appeared in our midst on Christmas Eve. Not that I showed it, I wished him and his orders in Hades or anywhere but here."

"What's amiss with Salignac?" asked Brockendorf, stifling a yawn.

"Brockendorf! You fought in the Prussian campaign like me — you must have heard of Salignac. I'll tell you what I know of him."

Eglofstein seated himself on an upturned gabion and rested his chin on his hands.

"In December of 1806, Augereau's corps crossed the Vistula at the village of Ukrst. Unopposed by the enemy, the crossing had gone well. Then, just as the last pontoon was casting off, up rode Salignac, who was carrying dispatches from Berthier to the Emperor, and took his place on board. The craft had reached the middle of the river when a stray musket ball struck the helmsman. Panic and confusion ensued. Salignac's horse reared, the boat capsized, and seventeen grenadiers from Colonel Albert's regiment drowned within sight of the entire corps. Salignac alone swam his horse to the farther bank. Those Polish lancers at Vitebsk knew what they were about when they mutinied."

"Do my ears deceive me, Captain?" Donop exclaimed. "Would you really draw conclusions from such a coincidence?"

"Was
it a coincidence? Perhaps, but the coincidences multiplied. Hear me out."

Eglofstein took a notebook from his pocket and glanced at it.

"What I shall now tell you relates to the destruction of the 16th of Foot in January 1807. The regiment was marching along the banks of the Warta to Bromberg, driving swarms of enemy cavalry before it. At nightfall on January 8th the men bivouacked at a spot protected by trees and clumps of willow. Not long after dawn the regiment was attacked by Prussian hussars. This being an almost daily occurrence, Colonel Fénérol would have beaten them off with little difficulty had he not, for some inexplicable reason, mistaken them for elements of Davout's corps until his men were hand-to-hand with them. Colonel Fénérol fell at the very outset of the engagement, and his fine regiment was cut to ribbons. All this may be well known to you. What you do not know, I'm sure, is that Salignac, with two squadrons of chasseurs from Murat's cavalry, had joined the regiment the previous day, and that he was the only officer who succeeded in fighting his way through to Bromberg. If you call
that
a coincidence ..."

"But Captain," said Donop, with mounting bewilderment, "there may be the most natural explanation in the world for all you say."

"Then listen to another instance — one that concerns myself. On February 11th of the same year I arrived in Pasewalk and went looking for a billet, for the night was bitter cold and the snow lay two feet deep. In the street I came across Salignac, who was again riding courier and, like me, had yet to find a night's lodging. Such was his reputation in the army, even then, that he was said always to be present when disaster struck and always to escape unscathed. I made some jocular allusion to this, I remember, but he did not reply. In the end we found a corner of a stable unoccupied and resolved to spend the night there.

"At one o'clock in the morning I was roused by an explosion so violent that the ground beneath us shook. A powder mill in the vicinity had gone up, together with half the neighbourhood. The screams of the injured and dying could be heard on all sides. A rafter had fallen on my arm and broken it, but Salignac, quite unhurt and fully dressed for the road, was pacing up and down, weeping."

"Weeping?" Donop exclaimed.

"So I fancied."

"That puts me in mind of something," said Donop, wrinkling his brow. "When I was a child my mother often told me of a man who wept because he was doomed to bring misfortune on the world. Who was it she spoke of?"

"But what alarmed me most," Eglofstein went on, "was that Salignac set off again within the hour. To me, in my bemused condition, it seemed that he had only been waiting for disaster to strike, and that, once it had done so, he was at liberty to ride on and wreak havoc elsewhere."

"The man that wept," Donop repeated slowly, lost in thought, "the one of whom my mother told me — who could it have been? Whoever it was, I've forgotten."

I recalled the singular utterances of the peasant and the beggars and the strange behaviour of the alcalde and the priest at the colonel's table. "Lord have mercy on the luckless man!" the priest had said, gazing distractedly at Salignac, and all at once I remembered Salignac's own words on Christmas morning: how he had muttered, half to himself, that no man ever lived long who travelled a part of the way with him. A thrill of fear ran through me - fear of what, I could not have said — together with an inkling of some weird and age-old mystery. I sensed it only for an instant; then it was gone.

All around me, the grenadiers' spades and shovels and muskets cheerfully reflected the winter sunlight. The church tower rising above the little village of Figueras, the snow-clad branches of the mulberry trees on the far-off hills — everything, even the most distant objects, stood out with crystalline clarity in the brilliant light of that fine winter's day. I continued for a moment longer to sense a hint of what had oppressed me; then it vanished and my spirits were restored.

"The day before yesterday," said Brockendorf, "I mislaid two bottles of claret and one of burgundy. It pays to get to the bottom of things, so I searched the house and found them under my landlady's bed. Salignac bears no blame for that, at least. Claret, I should add, is the meanest, thinnest, most watery stuff in the world, and I drink it only for want of anything else."

Just then, a stream of savage oaths came to our ears from the nearby demibastion. It was Günther, who had made a belated appearance and was urging the grenadiers to work faster. Brockendorf promptly hailed him.

"Günther," he bellowed, "come and join us. Tell us what honeyed words she lavished on you!"

Günther came, looking sullen and resentful. He threw me a venomous glance, I being the one whose duties he had, willy-nilly, to undertake, and sought out a dry place to sit down. Brockendorf went and stood over him, arms akimbo.

"Come now, no secrets. What did she tell you? That you were to visit her again soon? That no one would be more welcome in her bedchamber than you?"

"You're the most garrulous, bibulous dolt of all - that's what she told me," Günther retorted spitefully, and lashed out with his boot at a fieldmouse lying dead in the bottom of the trench, where one of our grenadiers had killed it with his spade.

I saw Captain Eglofstein give an angry frown, for he disliked us to quarrel within earshot of our men. Brockendorf, however, was less aggrieved than gratified.

"Is it true she spoke of me?" he asked with a broad grin. "You mean it?"

"Yes," said Günther, all mockery and malice. "She wants to put you in her herb garden to scare the rabbits away."

"Günther!" Eglofstein interposed. "Kindly address Brockendorf in a more respectful fashion. He was serving with the regiment before you could hold a sword."

"I didn't come here to be lectured," snapped Günther.

"You need a lecture," Eglofstein told him, "— on good manners, to be precise. You're for ever arguing, for ever carping."

Günther jumped to his feet.

"Captain," he said heatedly, "if the colonel addresses me by my rank, I can surely demand the same courtesy from you."

Eglofstein stared at him for a moment.

"Günther," he said, very calmly, "sit down again. Your impertinence is so gross, I find it quite disarming."

"That's enough!" shouted Günther, hoarse with rage. "You'll either withdraw that insult, or . . ."

"Or what? Pray go on."