At that date the veteran was seventy-one. He was a rough, illiterate man who had the sense to realise his shortcomings as a strategist and rely for planning on his brilliant Chief-of-Staff, Gneisenau; but he was a fearless, ferocious leader and, in spite of his age, still seething with fiery energy. The previous May he had put up a magnificent resistance against great odds at the battle of Lutzen. Later at Katezbach, he had defeated Marshal Macdonald, captured eighteen thousand prisoners and over one hundred guns. It was he who had delivered the most telling assault on Leipzig and had been made a Field Marshal for it.
For a moment he regarded Roger with interest. Then the excited voice of a young Uhlan officer in the background suddenly cut the silence, 'Breuc, did you say? The Comte de Breuc ?'
The adjutant looked in his direction and replied, 'Yes, von Zeiten, this is the Comte de Breuc.,'
'Gott im Himmel,’ cried the Uhlan. ‘It is the murderer! It was he who foully did to death his wife and my uncle, von Haugwitz, at Schloss Langenstein in 1810.'
Roger swung round to face him and retorted hotly. 'That is a lie. I was accused of their deaths, but was innocent.'
Young von Zeiten pushed his way to the front of the group and thrust out an accusing arm. 'I recognise you now. I was in court when you were tried and condemned to death.'
'Why, then, is he still alive?' asked Blucher gruffly.
'His sentence, Herr Feldmarschall, was commuted to ten years' imprisonment. But he escaped after a few months.'
Roger had not yet recovered from the shock of once more being identified as the man found guilty of the double death at Schloss Langenstein. His brain was whirling, but not so confused that he could not guess the awful fate that now threatened him. Next moment the doom he dreaded was pronounced by Blucher.
'Then send him back to Berlin to complete his sentence.'
As the Fieldmarshal turned away, Roger stared at the ring of hostile faces, rendered speechless by this terrible blow that Fate had dealt him. Whether, in a few months' time Napoleon agreed to an humiliating peace or was utterly crushed and dethroned could now make no difference to him. Instead of regaining his freedom, his lot was to suffer imprisonment among enemy criminals for all that remained of the best years of his life.
19
The House with the Red Shield
Blucher and his staff left the room. The guard was summoned to take charge of Roger and Dopet. As the former was led away he was careful not to look at Charles. He knew how distressed the boy must be, and for him to have shown sympathy for his supposed enemy might have aroused the Prussians' suspicions that he was not, after all, a British officer. To Roger it was at least some compensation that he had saved the life of his beloved Georgina's son, and that Charles was still free to rejoin her as soon as he was able to do so.
From the hallway Dopet was pushed out of the farmhouse toward some tents in a nearby field; but Roger was taken downstairs and locked up in a cellar which still contained two flitches of bacon hanging from the ceiling and a few sacks of meal in a corner.
The cellar was lit only by a small, iron grille near the ceiling. In the dim light Roger sat down on one of the sacks and ruefully contemplated his misfortune. To have to face years in prison without hope of remission was in itself one of the most terrible things that could befall a man; but in his case it would prove even more insufferable than simply confinement and being debarred from all life's pleasures. This he knew only too well after having spent three months in a prison outside Berlin. There he had been in the position of a solitary Frenchman among Germans. Such had been the hatred of the Prussians of all classes for the French as despoilers of their country that the other convicts had done everything they could to make his lot more miserable. Although regulations decreed silence when exercising in the yards, they always exchanged the news that came through the prison grapevine, and talked in whispers. But Roger had been denied even this small relaxation, because they had sent him to Coventry. That had also prevented him securing assistance to attempt an escape which might have been arranged with careful planning by a group, but was impossible for him unaided. And he had no doubt at all that, once he was back in a Prussian state prison, he would be treated by his fellow convicts as he had been before.
After about two hours a sergeant and two troopers came for him. They then escorted him upstairs and out of the farmhouse to the coach in which he had arrived, which was waiting outside the door. The sergeant, a big man with a walrus moustache, a mane of yellow hair and bright blue eyes, produced a length of cord, tied one end of it round his left wrist and the other round Roger's right. They then got into the coach. The two troopers mounted on to the box. One took the reins, shook them and the coach moved off.
When they had covered a mile or so they came to a signpost and Roger saw from it that they were taking the road to Frankfurt. That surprised him, as he had imagined that stronghold of the French to be still in their hands and that they would have strong outposts ringing the city for some miles round. But as the coach rolled on, the only soldiers to be seen were occasional troops of Uhlans, Prussian grenadiers and convoys supplying Blucher's army.
The December afternoon had been drawing, in when they started, and by the time they had covered the fifteen miles to the city it was fully dusk. The coach pulled up at an indifferent-looking inn a few hundred yards past the splendid Gothic Staathaus. With Roger still tied to him the sergeant showed the landlord a billeting order and parleyed with him for a few minutes, then Roger was taken upstairs to a room on the second floor.
Having untied the cord attached to their wrists the sergeant, who spoke a little French, made it clear that if Roger attempted to escape he had orders to shoot him, and that during the night one of his men would sleep in the passage on a palliasse outside the door. Then he locked Roger in.
Going to the window, Roger parted the worn curtains and looked out. The room was at the back of the house and below him lay the stable yard. A man carrying a lantern was watering a horse down there, and by its light Roger could faintly make out the outline of the buildings round the yard. Up there on the second floor he was at least twenty-five feet from the ground, but the roof of the lowest floor projected about two feet from the wall of the building. By hanging from the window sill his toes would have been only about five feet from that projection. Even in full health and not crippled, to risk a drop on to such a narrow ledge would have been extremely hazardous. As it was, still weak from his recent illness and with his right leg as yet barely able to take his weight, he realised that to attempt the drop would be madness. He would certainly break his leg as it hit the ledge and, on falling from it, probably his neck.
With a sigh he turned away and sat down on the edge of the bed. Looking out of the window had brought home to him acutely that, in any attempt to escape, he must not
count on using even moderate strength; his only hope lay . in outwitting his escort.
Presently a tray was brought in to him by one of the troopers. On it there were two brodchen filled with leberwurst, a piece of apfelstrudel and a mug of cheap draught wine. Slowly he ate his supper, pondering possible ways to fool the yellow-haired sergeant, but could think of none.
There was no heating in the room, so it was bitterly cold. Having examined the bedclothes he found they were far from clean, as might be expected in a second-rate inn. To sleep between them in only his underclothes would be to invite the attention of bed-bugs and probably lice. So he shook them all out, lay down fully dressed, then piled them on top of himself for warmth.