‘He’s a spy, not a priest! You Americans are squeamish about such things, but agents are as necessary as artillery. Don’t think I don’t have my own reservations, about everyone.’ He gave me a hard stare. ‘I remain outnumbered two to one, my army is living on captured supplies, and I’m fearfully short of cannons. One loss and my rivals will have my throat. I know very well I have no true friends. Thank God Desaix has arrived from Egypt!’
Louis-Antoine Desaix, his favourite general, had landed in Toulon the same day we’d left Paris and been given a division here in Italy. Loyal, modest, shy of women, and extremely able, he was happiest sleeping under a cannon. He had Napoleon’s talent without his ambition, the perfect subordinate.
‘Perhaps I could carry word of your predicament to ministers in Paris?’ The last thing I wanted was to be caught on the losing side.
‘On the contrary, Gage, since you’re so suspicious I want you to spy on our spy. Renato suggested a rendezvous to pass on the latest from the Austrians and mentioned your reputation for daring. Take the road to Pavia and the Po, trail Renato, make the rendezvous, and report back. I know you like the perfume of gunsmoke as much as I do.’
Perfume of gunsmoke? ‘But I’m a savant, not a spy, First Consul. And I don’t speak German or Italian.’
‘We both know you’re an amateur savant at best, a dabbler and a dilettante. But when you look, you actually see. Humour me, Gage. Take a ride towards Genoa, confirm what we’ve been told, and then I’ll send you back to Paris.’
‘Maybe we should just believe Renato after all.’
‘Take your rifle, too.’
CHAPTER FIVE
So off I went, on a confiscated Italian horse (that’s a fancy word for ‘stolen’ that invaders use) and nervous as a virgin that I might stumble into the Austrian army. When you read about campaigns it’s all arrows and rectangles on a map, as choreographed as a ballet. In reality, war is a half-blind, sprawling affair, great masses of men halfheartedly groping for each other across yawning countryside while looting anything that can be carried. It’s all too easy for the observer to become disoriented. Gunshots echo alarmingly: fired accidentally, or from boredom, or sudden quarrel. Frightened, homesick eighteen-year-olds poke about with thirteen-pound muskets topped by wicked, two-foot bayonets. Passed-over colonels dream of suicidal charges that might restore their reputation. Sergeants stiffen a line in hopes for a sleeve of braid. It’s no place for a sensible man.
Within an hour after setting out on June 9th, I heard the ominous thunder of combat. Lieutenant General Jean Lannes had crashed into the Austrian advance force at the villages of Casteggio and Montebello, and by day’s end I was riding past long columns of Austrian prisoners, white uniforms spattered with blood and powder, expressions weary and sour. French wounded called insults to the prisoners plodding by. Wrecked wagons, dead horses and cows, and burning barns added to my disquiet. Gangs of pressed peasants were commandeered to tip heaps of battlefield dead into mass graves, while survivors matter-of-factly cleaned the muskets they called ‘clarinets’ with beef marrow and whitened crossbelts with pipe clay. Some soldiers hoped filth might make them less tempting a target, but others thought fastidiousness brought luck. They used a slit piece of wood called a patience to hold their buttons out from their uniform cloth, shining them with mutton fat until they gleamed.
‘Bones were cracking in my division like a shower of hail falling on a skylight,’ Lannes reported to Napoleon. The battle had produced four thousand casualties between the two sides – a mere dress rehearsal – and it was through this carnage that I reluctantly passed to skulk in the wake of the retreating Austrians into that netherworld between two armies.
What Napoleon didn’t realise is that, look as I might, I couldn’t really see. The Po Valley is flat, its fields bordered by tall poplar and cypress, and rain that June came down in buckets. Every rivulet was swollen, the landscape as different from Egypt and Syria as sponge from sandpaper. I could have plodded by the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan and not spotted it, should they happen to take this muddy lane instead of that one, down a cut and behind a hedge. So I wandered, asking directions of Italian refugees in sign language, sleeping in hayricks, and squinting for the missing sun. If Renato was lying, I was unlikely to catch him at it.
Instead, he told me himself.
At an abandoned farmhouse near Tortona I spied a red sash draped on a loose shutter, the agreed signal that our spy was waiting with information. Families had scurried out of the path of the armies like mice darting between the hooves of cattle, and rummaging soldiers had torn off the home’s door, eaten the barn’s animals, and burnt the furniture. What was left, walls and a tile roof, offered shelter from another spring downpour. I was nervous, but the Austrians seemed to be falling back. The enemy had reportedly destroyed the bridge leading to lightly defended Alessandria, and more Austrians were running southwest towards Acqui. Accordingly, Bonaparte had split his forces, with Lapoype’s division racing north and Desaix’s division south. In the confusion, we spies were surely safe. I tied my horse, checked the load on my longrifle, and warily entered the dark home.
‘Renato?’ I almost tripped. He was seated on the stone floor, muddy boots outstretched and bottles at his side. I heard the click of his pistol hammer. ‘It’s Gage, from Napoleon.’
‘You’ll forgive my caution.’ A softer tap as the hammer was eased back to rest near the pan. As my eyes adjusted I saw the muzzle lower, but he didn’t put his pistol away. He was watchful as a cat.
‘My orders are to meet you.’
‘How convenient for us both. And your reward, American?’
Why not the truth? ‘I go back to Paris.’
He saluted me with his pistol muzzle and laughed. ‘Better than this cold farmhouse, no? You have the loyalty of a mosquito. Some blood, and you’re off.’
I seated myself across from him, rifle by my side, only slightly reassured by our candour. ‘I’m no warrior. I’ve been riding around in the rain for four days, no good to anyone.’
‘Then you need this.’ He tossed me a bottle sitting next to him. ‘I found the trap to the cellar’s sparkling wine, just the thing for a party. To a fellow spy! And of course I could believe you really are a mosquito, irritating and aimless. On the other hand, I’ve heard you have a reputation for pluck and persistence as well. No, don’t deny it, Ethan Gage! So perhaps you’re here to fetch my latest missive. Or perhaps to spy on me.’
‘Why would I spy on you?’
‘Because the French don’t trust me! Yes, we men of intrigue see things clearly.’ He nodded to himself. ‘I don’t blame you for trying to get back to France. Can you imagine being a soldier in regimental line, shoulder to shoulder with a rank of similar idiots just fifty paces distant, everyone blazing away?’ He shuddered. ‘It’s amazing what armies get conscripts to do. If the morons survive, it will be the highlight of their lives.’
I took a drink, thinking. His bottle was two-thirds empty, the champagne loosening his tongue. ‘People better than me say they believe in something, Renato.’
He drank again too, and wiped his mouth. ‘Believe in Bonaparte? Or that old ass, Melas? What are they fighting about, really? Ask any of those soldiers to explain a war of a hundred years ago and they’ll go blank. Yet they’ll march to their death for this one. They’re all fools, every one. Fools universal, except for me.’
‘You serve the French, too, don’t you?’
‘Alas.’ He winked. ‘The cabbages pay better than the vain Corsican.’