'No one saw you,' he said softly. 'And no one shall know. Oh, you, translate, can't you?' he added impatiently, speaking to Beyle who was still too stunned by what had happened to open his mouth. Marianne laughed.
'It's not necessary now that you know my secret. You have found out so much that I may as well tell you the whole. I do speak French.'
She broke off then because a volley of musket fire rang out from the other side of the camp. Absorbed by the general's discovery, she had temporarily forgotten the danger they were in. Fortunately the Russians, shocked by the sudden death of two of their number, seemed to have halted their advance. Possibly they meant to withdraw now that they had lost the advantage of surprise.
All the same, as he knelt down at his post again, next to Marianne, Mourier could not help demanding, in an agonized whisper that made Marianne's lips twitch: 'Did you really understand all the time?'
For a moment, her better nature prompted her to say no, but the idea of that small vengeance at least was too seductive. She let her face break into a sudden, dazzling smile which completely rolled him up.
'Oh, everything,' she assured him. 'It was most amusing.'
The Russians attacked just then and saved Mourier from the necessity of a reply. For a few seconds, the sound of musket fire dominated everything. Then, almost as suddenly, it died away. The engagement had been short-lived, probably owing to the energetic defence put up by the convoy, unless, as Beyle suggested, the Russians had found their numbers insufficient. Mourier, however, was still uneasy. He did not like this sudden withdrawal, or the young auditor's hypothesis. When the last of the moving figures had vanished into the undergrowth, he got up and slipped off his greatcoat and his hat.
'I'm going to have a look round. We had better know what we're in for tomorrow. Tell the colonel in command of the escort. I'll be back in a moment.'
'Take care,' Marianne whispered. 'If anything were to happen to you, I think we should all panic. You are the only one able to keep order amongst us.'
'Don't worry. I can take care of myself.'
He vanished as silently as a shadow while the commander of the escort party was placing sentries and arranging watches. When he returned they could all see that he was looking very grim.
'Have they gone?' Marianne asked, without much hope.
'No. They have made camp some distance away. The forest ends a little farther north.'
The escort commander came up to them. He was a Dutchman, a Colonel Van Caulaert who, until the previous September, had belonged to the 2nd Hussars. He had been wounded, not seriously but enough to send him home, and had been given charge of the convoy on the way.
'Are there many of them?' he asked.
Mourier shrugged. 'Hard to say. The mist has got up. I saw several parties of infantry and round one of the fires was a group of peasants armed with scythes and pitchforks. I think they have us surrounded.'
While he went on to describe as well as he could what he had been able to discover of the enemy's position, Marianne felt a shiver run down her spine. There was something terrifying about the thought of those primitive weapons, especially the scythe, that emblem of death. They were so much more frightening than guns. They filled her imagination with horrible visions of hamstrung horses and men dying in pools of blood. It crossed her mind that her own hour might come, either that night or at dawn and she was suddenly afraid, afraid of dying there, in that enemy forest, among so many people who were strangers to her and far from all she loved.
It was impossible, surely it must be impossible! Her whole being rebelled against the horrible idea that all her youth and love of life could—Instinctively, she moved closer to the one-armed general who, until that moment, had seemed so detestable to her but whom she now thought of as the only man able to save them in this present peril. What he had to say, however, was not reassuring.
'I don't think we've very much to fear tonight. Even so, we must keep a strict watch. Tomorrow, at first light, we'll form a square with the wounded – and the weakest—' this with a flickering glance at the girl devouring him with her eyes, 'in the middle in the wagons. Then we'll try to make a breakthrough. If, as I fear is the case, we are surrounded, our one chance is to attack first.
'And – if we don't get through?' the Dutchman said.
'Then we'll have to consider abandoning the wagons and forming a smaller square – and so on until some of us do get through or we are all killed in the attempt.'
'All—?' Marianne said faintly.
'Yes, my – er – my young friend. All. Believe me, it's a deal better to die fighting than to wait to have your throat cut by the peasants – or worse.'
'I'm with you there,' Beyle sighed, checking the charge in his pistol with a frown. 'Trust me to see to it that neither I nor this young man here fall into their hands alive.'
It was a strange night in which no one was able to sleep very well. They were all, in their own ways, preparing for what lay ahead. Some were busy removing every ounce of unnecessary weight from the wagons and stripping down the ones that were to be left behind to make the convoy more compact. Some were giving each other messages to take back if they should escape. Others again were writing, a letter or a will, although with little hope that it would ever reach its destination. But they did it more to occupy their minds than because they really believed in it. Some, who happened to have money, were sharing it with others who had none. Some of the carts carried wine and that was shared out equally. Beyle had discovered a party of Belgian soldiers among the wounded and was chatting to them about Liege and the countryside around, which he knew well, having numerous friends there. He even went so far as to exchange addresses and messages with them, facing the prospect of death with perfect sang-froid.
Marianne sat by a fire with her back against a tree stump and watched them all with astonishment and envy. The probability of imminent death had produced a curious feeling of equality, had brought them all down to one level. Officers of all ranks, private soldiers and civilians like Beyle, they were all one in a strange brotherhood. Faced with a common end, they realized that they were all equally poor and naked. But they were together, while she was alone, shut out, as it were, from all this warmth.
There was Barbe of course, but the Polish woman had shown herself as brave as any man. A little while before, Beyle had advised her to escape.
'You speak the language and are dressed in the same fashion as the women hereabouts. You could easily slip through their lines, especially in this mist. Why don't you go?'
But Barbe had only shrugged and answered: 'We must all die some day. Like this or in some other way. You shall see that I, too, know how to fire a gun. Besides, didn't I tell you that when you take service with someone you share all their fortunes, good and bad?'
She had said no more but had gone calmly off to roll herself in a blanket and lie down under a tree. She had been sleeping ever since with as much tranquillity as if she expected to have many years before her.
Towards dawn Marianne, exhausted, fell asleep herself for a while. It was Beyle who woke her, shaking her gently.
'Come,' he said. 'We are going now. We must make the most of what God sends us.'
In fact, the forest was enveloped in a thick mist. They were moving in the heart of a damp, white cloud that made the men look like ghosts, the more so as they had orders to move with as little noise as possible. Like a machine, Marianne did as she was told and took her place in the convoy.
The wounded were loaded into as few of the wagons as could possibly hold them. The rest of the vehicles were abandoned, giving them extra horses for a last flight if the worst came to the worst. All the able-bodied men were on the outside, armed to the teeth, and so they set off through the mist.