I remembered that my great cloak, sodden with the rain, must weigh heavy, so I unclasped it at the throat and let it fall behind me…. Everything was spinning, and spitting sparks. There were fireworks in my head, I tell you! Still, I remembered that it is the odd, superfluous pound of weight that tries you at the last mile … and I was carrying in my pockets something like thirty thousand livres in gold, and forty thousand in good paper. My friend, it was not entirely delirium that inspired me to put my hands in my pockets and scatter to the mud and the rain more gold than I had ever touched in my life. The tail-pockets of my coat were heavy with the stuff, after I had emptied the side and breast-pockets; these same coat-tails were slapping heavily against Cocotte’s belly. My mind was set now on my objective. I unbuttoned my coat, and let that fall, too, and felt lighter for the loss of it. Gold and banknotes were in that coat, and my pistols too…. I tore off my watch and chain, which also I tossed into the ditch. I would have kicked off my boots, only I dared not take my feet from the stirrups.
Now, then, I was riding in my shirt, trousers, and waistcoat; there was no more to jettison. All the time, notwithstanding, Cocotte went slower and slower.
At last – it was dawn, I think – to my infinite relief, I heard a hoarse voice cry: ‘Qui va là?’
I could not speak, of course, so I pulled out my first written message. It said:
I have intelligence of the utmost importance to the Emperor. Conduct me to him immediately.
Tessier,
Colonel, Artillery.
A mounted trooper took the paper, and handed it to another man. Seen through the curtain of the road, through my tired eyes, he looked like one of those terra-cotta soldiers on terra-cotta horses that we used to play with when we were children; he was so plastered with mud. But he spoke very civilly in the French of Paris, saying: ‘What is your message, Colonel Tessier?’
I felt myself fainting, fading away. I had done all that I could do. I tapped my right-hand waistcoat pocket. It seems, then, that I slid out of the saddle; because I know that I had a sensation of falling, as it were, down the side of a mountain, and uppermost in my mind was a dread of what I should feel when my cracked face hit the road.
The terra-cotta man caught me. I heard him cry: ‘Hold up there, sir!’
I became senseless, as much from horror as from pain and exhaustion.
He had cried out in English.
When I came to life again, I was lying on the floor in the kitchen of a farmhouse. My clothes had been stripped off, and I was wrapped in a dry cloak. They had put me by the fire, which was blazing bright. I saw, still dimly, a tight-faced officer in a blue uniform, sitting at a table between two pair of candles. Standing beside him and behind him were four other officers in blue. I recognised that tight face: it belonged to Collaert of the Allied cavalry.
Also, I saw my muddy waistcoat and trousers on a chair. Collaert was holding between a fastidious thumb and forefinger a little piece of paper which I knew. It was my second note. It said:
Sire! Your guide Lacoste is a spy. His name is de Wissembourg. He is in the pay of the Allies. He intends to misdirect you between Genappe and the plateau of Mont St Jean. Wellington will place his infantry there, behind a sunken road, which leads from Ohain to Braine le Leud. For God’s sake, make reconnaissance of this terrain, against which Wellington hopes you will send cavalry….
Tessier,
Colonel (late), Artillery.
It was anguish of spirit that made me cry out at this, not pain of the body. Someone put something like a rolled-up greatcoat under my head, and the voice of the terra-cotta man murmured in English: ‘No shame in missing your way on a night like last night, in weather like this. Cheer up, monsieur; better luck next time!’ He was Captain Conconnel of Lord Wellington’s staff, but I did not learn that until later.
I made certain unmistakable motions with my fingers. The Englishman said: ‘He wants to write something.’
They gave me pencil and paper, and I wrote: Please give me a pistol and allow me to kill myself.
But they did not. Couriers were dispatched to Wellington with the intelligence which I had believed I had delivered to Napoleon. A doctor came to set my jaw, and later, locked in a bedroom, guarded by a grizzled old English trooper, I lay and listened to the rain on the shutters; and soon I heard the guns of Waterloo, and oh, but I wept bitterly! I had not the strength to lift my hand to wipe my eyes. The trooper came and wiped them for me: he had no handkerchief, so he offered me his cuff, saying: ‘Easy does it, mounseer – steady on, froggie. You’ll be a man before your mother yet….’ But he, also, was listening to the guns….
I need not tell you what happened. Blücher was delayed, indeed. The English cavalry was cut to pieces, and we had the balance of artillery in our favour. It remained only to break that infernal English infantry, and the battle was in our hands. Napoleon knew this, and therefore he ordered that terrible charge of cuirassiers at the plateau of Mont St Jean. The guide Lacoste – in other words the spy de Wissembourg – was at his elbow at the very moment when he gave that order. Lacoste, as he is called, omitted to mention the ‘hollow road’ of Ohain. There is no stopping a full charge of armoured cavalry, as you know. Before they could begin to pull up, two thousand cuirassiers were in the ditch of Ohain; the remainder were flying in disorder under volley upon volley of musket-fire; demoralisation had set in; the English had re-formed and were attacking; and that was the end of us. Napoleon fled.
So, brother, France felclass="underline" I blame myself for that.
Tessier sighed, and lit a fresh cigar. Ratapoil said: ‘Come now, old moustache – how can you talk like that? There are more causes than one to any conclusion. You might, for example, also say that Cornelys the blacksmith won the battle of Waterloo because, making eyes at the inn-keeper’s wife, he lamed your mare. No one is to blame … though, had I been you——’
‘Don’t say it,’ said Tessier. ‘You asked me to tell you how I lost my teeth, and I have told you. And now, with your kind permission, I will go to bed.’
In a Room Without Walls
‘IF it could only be like this for ever!’ said the quiet girl called Linda, looking over Jimmy’s shoulder at the dim grey face of the clock. ‘Oh, Jimmy, this is heaven! How happy I am! What can I have done, to deserve such happiness?’
She felt Jimmy smiling. ‘Are you happy too?’ she asked Jimmy. He nodded, observing the reflection of the clock face in the long mirror on the wardrobe door. He had been grimacing.
Last year, he thought chafing and trying not to fidget, I made a hundred and four thousand five hundred pounds. All that money in three hundred and sixty-five days. It works out at … what? … Twelve-pound-ten an hour. I have given this girl twenty-five pounds’ worth of my time, at that rate. Four shillings and twopence a minute – nearly a penny a second. I’ve thrown away twenty-five pounds, being gracious to Linda for two hours. And she talks of this going on for ever – for ever, at a penny a second! There isn’t that much money in the world!