He caught sight of Delarse grappling with three hussars, attracted like wasps to his honey-coloured braiding. Margont would have attempted to help him if he’d been armed. He had to make do with trying to find where the Russian hussars stowed their horse pistols. The colonel was amazing. Staying perfectly straight on his mount, he thrust his sabre into the side of the adversary to his right. He immediately withdrew the blade and swung round sharply to slash the face of the cavalryman attacking him on the left. The last Russian, who was further behind, trained his pistol at the colonel’s back. Darval, Delarse’s adjutant, who had himself just finished dealing with another hussar, brought his sabre down on the pelisse slung over the Russian’s left shoulder. This popular mode of dress protected the arm undefended by the sabre. The blade sliced through the garment, which softened the blow enough to prevent a serious wound. The hussar turned tail and fled.
Margont was stunned. He, who was always criticising his friends for judging people by appearances and having preconceptions, was now quite by accident being taught a lesson on the subject by Delarse! Margont had thought the colonel was at death’s door but he now had to admit that there was far more life in him than in those two hussars who had set upon him. He immediately restored Delarse to the status of possible suspect.
The situation remained criticaclass="underline" the Huard Brigade was pouring back to the French position in disarray. A captain galloped up to Margont and bombarded him with questions. Where was General Huard? What were the enemy forces? Margont did not reply. He was merely an empty shell, staring at a man who was gesticulating and raising his voice. The officer trotted away, shaking his head.
Russian and French soldiers were engaging in bayonet duels, shattering bodies with their musket butts, relentlessly shooting one another … The artillerymen, in their blue coats and trousers, were regrouping around their precious guns. A chaotic mêlée was taking place amidst swirling dust. The hussars had changed tactics. They were no longer harrying but charging and slashing at anything blue. Their dexterity was impressive. Margont noticed one galloping his way through. A horizontal sword-stroke to the right sent a gunner crashing to the ground, then a sideways stroke to the left made a soldier fall to his knees clutching his face, and a vertical stroke to the right sent a lieutenant toppling backwards … His horse shuddered and collapsed on to its hindquarters, like a dog sitting! Margont had never seen anything like it. The animal was bleeding profusely from its right flank.
Someone grabbed him by the arms and shook him frantically.
‘Captain, do something! Save us!’
It was the young soldier who had criticised him for not displaying his Légion d’Honneur. Tears were streaming down his face. He was talking incoherently. He ended by saying that they had to run away but, confused and distraught, he made straight for the Russians. A musketeer whirled his weapon about and brought it down on the nape of the boy’s neck, sending him to the ground. The Russian brandished his bayonet but Margont rushed at him and smashed straight into him, this time knocking him down. He picked up the musket and hammered his opponent with the butt.
‘Enough! Enough! Enough!’ he yelled as if he were the one being hit.
But he continued to strike him. When the Russian raised his arms to his face he gave him a blow to the stomach and when the Russian put his hands on his stomach he smashed his jaw or his ribs.
A hussar arrived at a gentle trot as his horse had been slowed down by the hand-to-hand fighting. Margont left the musketeer in order to hit the cavalryman in the stomach with the musket butt. The horse decided to take its master back towards his lines, bent double. The pounding of horses’ hoofs could be heard. Its intensity was increasing rapidly until it became deafening. Murat’s lancers were charging, flying to the rescue of the artillerymen and the Huard Brigade. The Russian infantry were well and truly run through. By flinging themselves flat on their stomachs they were beyond reach of the cavalry’s sabres but not of the lances, which struck them in the back. The 92nd of the Line arrived in a column and enthusiastically joined in the fray. Then it was the turn of the 8th Hussars to charge. The Russians were at last pushed back after suffering considerable losses.
CHAPTER 15
THERE were dead and wounded everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Margont, still suffering from concussion, was leaning against a weeping willow – a bittersweet irony. In some places, bodies were lying still locked in a deadly embrace. A magnificent grey horse was lying on its side, scraping the ground with its hoofs, trying to get back on its feet. All that was left of its forelegs was stumps. Everywhere men were groaning, crying, calling for help, pleading with the survivors or insulting them for their indifference. Many of the wounded were clamouring for a drink. Margont began to wander among them, tossing aside an empty gourd here and picking up a full one there from a dead body where it was no longer needed. He wondered about this question of thirst. Was this how the body tried to make up for the loss of blood? Or was it a psychological reaction? People often said, ‘If you’re wounded, drink some wine.’ Did they think the body short-sighted enough to mistake one sort of red liquid for another?
‘Thank yer, officer, sir. Will yer ’ave some wine as well?’ asked a French grenadier, handing his gourd to Margont.
His thick blond moustache glistened with drops of water. He was clenching his stomach to stanch the flow of blood.
‘Sorry, too much wine is bad for the health,’ Margont answered him.
The soldier began to laugh but pain contorted his smile. ‘That’s a good one, Captain!’
Margont only had to stretch out his arm to open the knapsack of a Russian musketeer lying flat on his stomach. He took out a flask, opened it, tasted the contents and handed it to the grenadier.
‘Vodka?’
The man’s moustache twitched with pleasure. ‘Is it Russian wine?’
‘Stronger stuff than that.’
The grenadier downed what was left in the flask in one gulp.
‘I feel like searching all the kitbags on this bloody plain!’
Margont patted him on the shoulder and moved on, motioning to some exhausted stretcher-bearers.
He stopped in front of a young hussar. He had been slashed across the chest with a sabre. Something was poking out of his slit coat. Intrigued, Margont took hold of the object. It was a small Russian icon of a slender Virgin Mary holding the newborn Christ in her arms. Strangely, the look on the mother’s face was uncertain: her joy seemed tinged with sadness, as if she had an intuition that her happiness would end in suffering. Margont replaced the icon on the corpse’s heart. A little further on he came across the body of the musketeer he had struck. The Russian was breathing oddly, breathing in and out in short gasps, as if wanting to taste life a little longer, on the tip of his tongue, before dying. Margont again motioned to the stretcher-bearers and moved on. He was lucky enough to find his sword, then spent the night going from one wounded soldier to the next, giving them a drink, promising to have a letter delivered to a wife or relative …