‘Pull yourself together, Captain, I beg you,’ a sergeant intervened.
Margont did not hear him. He was hurling insults, taut and wild with anger.
‘Poor fool! Madman! Fanatic!’
The prisoner was hastily led away in tears. Margont, motionless, arms dangling by his sides, watched the gunner leave.
The attack had been short-lived. Clusters of soldiers were still fighting but most of the Russians had fallen back. In the distance lieutenants could be seen waving their sabres to rally their men while the colonel who had given the order to fire, recognisable by his portliness, was breaking his horse into a trot to spur his troops on. The Russian musketeers were hastily reloading; the wounded bandaging a hand, an arm, a calf, a thigh or a forehead …
Colonel Delarse was shouting furiously: ‘Charge! Charge! Don’t let them recover! Come with me, Huard Brigade! Forward all!’
But the French were hesitating. He noticed Margont and rushed towards him.
‘Captain Margont, set an example! Charge!’
‘Colonel, the Russians far outnumber—’
‘So what? They’re only Russians! There were far more of them at Austerlitz.’
A roar of triumph interrupted the conversation.
‘The Russians are scarpering!’
The enemy front was retreating in good order. The French infantry, galvanised by the spectacle, rushed forward with a great roar. Then the Russian line changed shape. Its mass gradually thinned out as the numbers fleeing increased. It began to move faster and faster. The potbellied colonel seized hold of a flag and brandished the Russian double-headed eagle. The emblem stood out majestically against an orange disc rimmed with gilded laurel leaves and crested with a crown. The light green background bore a white diagonal cross decorated with laurel leaves and gilded crowns. Suddenly, without any warning, the Russians took to their heels. It was like a long dyke that had just given way under pressure. The French, giddy with success, were running around, leaping over the corpses and the tree roots. They felt capable of pressing on as far as Moscow in one go.
Margont stopped to take stock of the situation. He could hear the sound of fierce shooting on his right, way behind. He looked about anxiously for a senior officer. In vain. He grabbed a corporal by the arm, bringing him to a halt.
‘Where are Colonel Pégot and Colonel Delarse? And General Huard?’
‘I don’t know, Captain.’
Margont let him go and the NCO rushed straight ahead. Margont noticed Saber, who was examining the pelisse of a hussar lying at his feet.
‘Irénée, we’ve gone too far forward. We risk being surrounded.’
Saber noted the irresistible momentum of the French, who were carrying with them Russian musketeers, foot chasseurs and hussars, like a river sweeping twigs and branches along with it.
‘That’s clear, but we still have to pursue them to prevent them regrouping.’
‘But what about us? Shouldn’t we regroup, perhaps?’
‘I quite agree. Let’s catch up with Pégot or Delarse.’
‘But where on earth are they?’
‘Where? In front. Where do you think?’
The two men began running once more. Saber had the quirk of occasionally putting his hand on a tree trunk. He wanted to ‘touch wood’ whenever he was fighting. But he’d rather have been cut to shreds than admit it.
Twenty or thirty yards further on they reached the edge of the wood. Colonel Delarse was trotting back and forth to muster his troops. He was riding a magnificent Russian stallion. Victory could disorganise regiments as much as defeat. Delarse was signalling to the stragglers to hurry up, and to the overeager to slow down. Soldiers of the light infantry were herding the prisoners together. A lieutenant from the 8th Light was brandishing a sabre of the Russian hussars.
‘Victory! Victory!’
The French were bewitched by this magic word. The roar spread faster than a powder trail, and muskets and sabres were brandished aloft. Margont could not resist a smile. He was alive and they had won! By the time they had regrouped they would be ready to follow hot on the heels of the Russians, and capturing them would be as easy as picking flowers.
‘Moscow, here we come!’ shouted Saber.
‘Moscow, here we come!’ replied the whole line in unison.
‘Long live the Emperor! Long live Prince Eugène!’
There was a proverbial saying that a soldier or junior officer could see no further than the end of his company. Nothing could be truer. The Huard Brigade, although it had broken through the Russian lines, had indeed advanced too fast and too far. It now found itself in the middle of the Russian army, cut off from all support. The risk of being encircled was the price it paid for its daring. Margont noticed a stirring in the wood opposite, which was separated from them by a clearing two hundred paces wide. Something was moving; something huge. Margont attempted to convince himself that it was merely an illusion produced by the wind making the bushes and the foliage sway. But it was not that. A sort of Leviathan of the forests was crawling towards them, camouflaged by the vegetation.
Margont was about to speak when someone yelled out: ‘They’re coming back!’
CHAPTER 14
SILHOUETTED figures appeared. They were everywhere, crowded against one another.
‘They pulled themselves together quickly,’ murmured Saber admiringly.
Margont knew that his friend was mistaken. The Russians were too numerous for them to be the remnants of the regiments that the French had just broken through. So what now? Were they going to fight again? And then? It wouldn’t be the first time. Margont realised that the shakos of these particular Russians were topped with long black plumes. Only certain regiments of grenadiers and carabineers wore this distinctive item of uniform. It meant that he was dealing with crack troops. Eventually, the enemy poured out into the clearing, wave upon wave of Russians in serried ranks. The wood and the forests seemed to be spewing them forth.
Russian reserve troops had rallied their fleeing comrades and were now launching a counterattack. The French opened fire and Margont saw the green coats turn red with blood, and dozens of Russians collapse in a single movement. The moment of contact produced a roar of explosions and shouting. Margont was running, his sword in one hand and his pistol in the other. He was aware only of what was happening immediately around him. A grenadier took aim at him. He hurled himself at the man, deflected the weapon by a sword stroke and thrust the blade into his torso. Another grenadier charged at him to run him through but Margont shot him in the chest with his pistol. Two grenadiers simultaneously impaled Margont’s neighbour to the right, while the one to his left was hit full in the face by a musket butt. Margont recoiled but tripped over a corpse and found himself on the ground. Just as he was getting up, he had to ward off another bayonet attack. His assailant brandished his musket aloft with the intention of shattering his skull. Swiftly, Margont struck him a violent blow to the heel with his sword. The grenadier collapsed, howling. A Russian sergeant, thinking that Margont was wounded, merely hit him on the shoulder with his musket butt without even stopping running. Margont let out a cry of pain. A grenadier ran over his body at the double and two other Russians leapt over what they assumed to be a dying man.