The Marquis of Bolibar (20 page)

Salignac drew himself up proudly.

"Would you teach me how to wield my sabre, Colonel?"

"Be reasonable, Salignac!" cried the colonel, thoroughly at a loss now. "The fate of the regiment — indeed, the success of the whole campaign — depends on the outcome of your mission." "You may rest easy on that score, Colonel," Salignac replied with perfect equanimity.

The colonel paced furiously up and down the room. Then Eglofstein stepped in.

"I've known the captain since the East Prussian campaign," he said. "If anyone can get through the guerrillas' lines unscathed - by God, he's the man."

The colonel stood there irresolutely for a while, thinking hard. Then he shrugged.

"Very well," he grunted. "How you get through is your business, after all, no one else's." He took the map from the table, unfolded it, and pointed out the spot where Salignac was to meet General d'Hilliers' advance guard.

"I'll lend you my best horse, the dun that bears the brand of the Ivenec stud. Ride like the wind."

We passed Günther's room on the way out. The fever seemed to have left him for a space, and he was half sitting up in bed.

"How goes it, Günther?" the colonel asked him in passing.

"I'm wounded
mortaliter
," he mumbled, "—
bestialiter, diaboliter."
Then his mind clouded over again. "Donop!" he called. "Can you understand my Latin? Don't weep, dearest, I told you not to. You look like Mary Magdalene when you weep ..."

We opened the door and went out. The first rays of a dismal dawn were visible in the east. The colonel shook Salignac by the hand.

"It's time. Do your best, but have a care. May God preserve you."

"Never fear, Colonel," Salignac said serenely, "— he will."

THE COURIER

The sun had not yet risen when we left our lines toward seven that morning, and all that could be seen in the sky was the moon, which floated among the louring clouds like a big silver thaler. Corporal Thiele and four dragoons came with us. We were all unmounted save Salignac, who was leading his horse by the bridle. The dun proceeded at a placid walk, head bowed.

We came upon our outermost line of sentries where the buckthorn bushes began. A sergeant and two grenadiers were stretched out on the ground, their greatcoats beaded with moisture and their shakos filmed with rime. The sergeant rose as we approached and kicked aside the pack of cards with which he and his comrades intended to play as soon as it became light enough. He did not trouble to ask for the password because he knew me and Corporal Thiele by sight.

"Colonel's courier on a special mission," Salignac told him curtly. The sergeant raised a hand to his cap in salute before resuming his seat on the ground. He rubbed his hands, shivering, and complained that he did not know how he would get the muskets to fire after a whole night of rain.

"There'll be more rain today," he said, "— warm rain. The toads and snails are venturing out of their holes."

Being tired and hungry, none of us felt disposed to engage in a conversation about the weather. We walked on. Our route took us straight through the scrub for a stretch; then we bore left. The dun, scenting the proximity of water, pricked up its ears and snorted softly.

The eastern sky paled, the wind drove swaths of mist across hill and meadow. Ahead of us, half devoured by foxes and birds of prey, lay a dead horse with a gaping wound in its flank. A flock of crows took wing as we approached and disappeared in the direction of the Alcar, cawing harshly. One lone bird, which turned back half-way and fluttered above us in great agitation, refused to be driven off.

Thiele paused and shook his head.

"Carrion crows are birds of ill omen," he growled. "Look at Satan's ambassador there. Now we know that one of us will stop a bullet this morning."

"That's not hard to predict," retorted one of the dragoons, glancing at Salignac, "and I know who he is, with or without the help of that Devil's messenger."

"It's a shame," said another, "— a shame to see a gallant officer go to his death in vain."

Thiele shook his head.

"Not he," he said. "He's not going to his death. You don't know him."

For a while we followed the course of the Alcar. The wind sang in the reeds that clothed its banks. On the other side we could see the long line of watchfires around which the guerrillas had spent the night. Then we changed direction and started up a hill overgrown with cork oaks. At its summit I saw a hut of the kind in which vine-dressers customarily kept their implements.

Just as I turned my back on the river, however, I was struck by a sudden thought and hurried in Salignac's wake.

I caught him up. His horse, which had slipped on the muddy ground, was lashing out and trying to bite. To calm the beast, Salignac offered it some morsels of bread from his pocket.

"It occurs to me," I said as I panted along beside him, "that if someone rowed upstream, keeping to the lee of the trees on the bank, he would very likely be out of range by the time the guerrillas sighted him."

"Jochberg," said Salignac without looking round, and his tone implied that I was frightened for myself, not for him, "take your men and go back. I have no more need of your assistance."

"Whether or not you need me," I replied, "my orders are to escort you to the enemy lines. We have little farther to go in any case, as you can see."

It was light by now. Hidden from view by the cork oaks' massive trunks, we had approached to within a hundred paces of the hut. A thin column of blackish smoke was rising from behind the stakes of the fence that enclosed it. We were, beyond doubt, confronted by a rebel outpost whose occupants had lit a fire on which to boil soup or roast maize cobs.

We paused among some thorn-apple and buckthorn bushes and waited for Thiele and his men to come up with us. Then we held a whispered conference on how best to take the hut. We all agreed that the insurgents must not be given time to fire a shot, for that would have brought the enemy down on us in hundreds.

We made ready. One of the dragoons took a swig of brandy and offered me his canteen. Then I gave the signal and we charged silently up the hill.

We were almost at the top when we saw the guerrillas' coloured stocking-caps and their startled, dismayed faces appear above the fence, but Corporal Thiele and I were already vaulting over it. One of our adversaries drew a bead on Thiele, but I dashed the carbine from his hands as I landed on the other side. Then the rest of my men swarmed over the fence, and the guerrillas, finding themselves at a disadvantage, surrendered with a curse or two but little active resistance. There were three of them. They wore jackets of brown cloth and, over these, sashes whose ends were woven with silver thread. Just then a fourth rebel emerged from the hut with a cauldron in his hand, having evidently been about to go down to the river to fetch water.

He was a giant of a man, a Carmelite friar with a sword belted about his habit. He dropped the cauldron when he saw us. Instead of drawing his sword, however, he stooped to pick up an axle-tree and, whirling this lethal weapon above his head, set about us.

We had some difficulty in disarming him, being unable to open fire. Thiele sustained a blow that numbed his arm for several minutes, but we at last contrived to wrest the axle-tree from the friar's grasp. Then we shut the guerrillas in the hut, all four of them, and barred the door.

Our task was complete. The dragoons found some slices of raw mule flesh and spitted them on their sabres to roast over the fire. Thiele's tobacco-pipe went the rounds. Meanwhile, Salignac strode impatiently up and down. At length, after pausing to adjust his horse's girth and stirrup, he came over to me.

"It's time, Jochberg. Give me the letter."

I handed him the pouch containing the map, a compass, and the dispatch addressed to General d'Hilliers. Followed by the rest of us, he led his horse out of the enclosure.

Our present position commanded an excellent view of the hilly terrain around us. Visible on every side were detachments of guerrillas large and small, many mounted with others on foot. Sentries paced the entrenchments with muskets shouldered, pack-mules congested the crossroads, a supply waggon drawn by oxen lumbered slowly over the bridge, horses were led to water, a distant trumpet summoned troops to muster, and two officers, recognizable as such by their thick pigtails and three-cornered hats, emerged from the door of the farmhouse.

Salignac had already mounted up. The dragoons eyed him with covert concern, and every man of us shuddered at the reckless impossibility of the venture. He bent forward in the saddle and gave the dun two lumps of sugar steeped in port wine. Then, with a perfunctory wave to me, he spurred his horse into motion. There was a jingle of harness, and a moment later he was careering down the hill.

I did my best to seem calm, but my hands were trembling with excitement. The lips of the man beside me shaped a silent prayer.

A shot rang out quite close at hand. We all flinched as if we had never heard a musket fired before, but Salignac rode on with scarcely a turn of the head, a white plume of snow streaming out behind him.

He vanished into a small copse of chestnut trees, only to reappear within seconds.

Another shot rang out, and another, and a third. Salignac sat his saddle like a rock. A man darted out from behind a hedge and tried to seize his reins. He drew back his arm, felled him with a sabre-stroke, and sped straight on like a steeplechaser. He looked neither right nor left, seemingly blind to what was going on around him.

By now the entire countryside was in turmoil. Guerrillas were clambering out of their trenches and horsemen converging on Salignac from all sides, yelling as they galloped at full stretch. A crisp rattle of musketry made itself heard, and puffs of blue powder-smoke rose into the air. Salignac rode straight through the tumult, standing in his stirrups and brandishing his sabre. He was almost at the bridge. Then I saw them, by heaven: there were men on the bridge, six or eight of them — no nine! No, ten or more! Couldn't he see them? He was on top of them now. One of them levelled a musket, Salignac's charger reared - he was done for! But no, he soared over their heads and across the bridge, leaving two of them sprawled in the roadway.

It was a spectacle so awesome, so heart-stopping, that I forgot to breathe. Only when the immediate danger was past did I become aware that I had seized Thiele's hand in my excitement and was gripping it convulsively. I let go of it. Salignac was now on the farther bank, whose wooded slopes gave promise of safety, but a moment later — someone beside me cried out in alarm - a band of horsemen burst from the trees and cut the courier off. Was he blind? "Veer left!" I shouted, though I knew he could not hear me. "Veer left!" Then they were on him. His horse fell and I could see him no longer, merely a confusion of heads, horses' manes, whirling blades, musket barrels, upraised arms - a surging, rearing, plunging mass of struggling human forms. Nothing could save Salignac now: his ride was at an end.

I heard a faint whistle, a sound familiar to me from a score of engagements, and ducked. Thiele, who was standing in front of me, sank silently to his knees and toppled over backwards. A stray bullet had found its mark.

"Thiele!" I cried. "Comrade! Are you wounded?"

"I'm done for," the corporal groaned, putting a hand to his chest.

I bent over him and tore his tunic open. Blood was welling from the wound.

I took Thiele by the shoulder, sat him up, and groped for a cloth to serve as a bandage. The others ignored my cries for help. One of them gripped my arm.

"Look, Lieutenant!" he shouted. "Look!"

The mêlée on the farther bank had broken up. Wounded horses were rolling on the ground, men crying quarter and fleeing with their hands in the air. And out of that chaos, still brandishing his sabre, rode Salignac. He was alive and unscathed! Erect in the saddle, he soared over trenches, mounds of snow, men, bushes, earthworks, gabions, shattered gun- carriages, smouldering camp-fires.

I heard laboured breathing beside me and turned to look. Corporal Thiele had propped himself on his hands and was staring after Salignac with glazed eyes.

"Don't you know him now?" he groaned. "I do. That man will never stop a bullet. The four elements have made a pact: fire will not burn him, nor water drown him, nor air desert his lungs, nor earth crush his limbs ..."

The others jubilant cries drowned his mutterings. The breath rattled in his throat, and his shirt and tunic were red with blood.

"He's through! He's safe!" the dragoons shouted exultantly. They hurled their shakos high in the air, brandished their carbines and cheered.

"Pray for his sinful soul," were Thiele's last, halting words. "Pray - pray for the Wandering Jew. He cannot die ..."

INSURRECTION

I had sent one of my dragoons on ahead to bring the colonel immediate word of the course and outcome of Salignac's mission. When I myself entered the orderly-room an hour later, the only person I found there was Captain Castel-Borckenstein, who had come to collect his company's latest orders and was on the point of leaving.

He lingered in the doorway for a moment to ask how matters had gone, and I gave him a brief account of what had happened. I was still speaking when Eglofstein emerged from the adjoining room. Quietly closing the door behind him, he went to the window and beckoned me over.

"I'm at my wits' end," he whispered with an anxious glance at the door. "Nothing will induce him to leave the man's bedside. He clings there like a limpet."

"Whom do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.

"The colonel, of course. Günther is delirious — he has been raving about Françoise-Marie."

Eglofstein's whispered words stabbed me to the heart - rang in my ears like a tocsin. Günther might well betray himself and us in his feverish condition, I could see that danger but had no idea how to avert it. We stared at each other helplessly, both thinking of the colonel's jealousy, his violent temper, his bouts of malicious fury.