When they got up, Roger cut Mary's hair to within an inch of her scalp. As it was naturally curly, it only changed her appearance, without lessening her attractions. After she had dressed she looked, as he had hoped, like an impudent young boy. Having packed their things in his valise and the two panniers he had bought to go on her horse, they went downstairs and ate an exceptionally hearty breakfast.
By half past nine they were on the road to Moscow. To Moscow, which they could only hope would be the first stage on the far longer road home.
22
Napoleon Signs his Army's Death Warrant
Roger had long been accustomed to riding fast and for long distances, so it had taken him only four days to get from Moscow to St. Petersburg. But with Mary he had to amend his pace, and it was six days before they came in sight of such spires and gilded domes as had survived the fires in Moscow.
While in St. Petersburg, Roger had given Mary no details of his secret activities, but on the first morning of their journey he divulged the fact that, for many years, he had led a double life. Later he whiled away many hours telling her what he had really done during the two periods he had been absent from Lisbon, and enthralling her with accounts of his earlier adventures.
They decided that henceforth she was to be known as Hippolyte Abrail, and he would call her Hipe for short. She was to have been born in a suburb of Antwerp, the bastard son of a washerwoman, gone to St. Petersburg as a cabin boy, run away from her ship because she had been very ill treated by her drunken captain, and got a job as a potboy at the Laughing Tartar, from which Roger had taken her. It was agreed that, in no circumstances, even when alone, should they talk in anything but French.
They had, by exercising great care, escaped molestation by the sotnias of Cossacks and foraging parties of the
French which clashed daily in the deep belt of no-man's-land that formed a semi circle to the north of the city. Clad again in his uniform, and now with his young servant riding sedately behind him, late on the evening of October 17th Roger dismounted in one of the great courtyards of the Kremlin that was overlooked by the Imperial apartments.
Throwing Mary the reins of his horse, Roger pointed to an archway that led into another courtyard and, as there were several people within earshot, said curtly:
'The stables are through there. Take our mounts to them, ask for the A.D.Cs' head groom and hand them over to him to be rubbed down, watered and fed. Then return here and wait until I come out of the Palace. If anyone asks who you are, just tell them that you belong to me. I don't expect to be much more than three-quarters of an hour.'
As he expected, within a few minutes of sending in his name, a Chamberlain told him that the Emperor would receive him. He found Napoleon holding a conference in his map room; but, on Roger being announced, he abruptly cut short an officer who was speaking, and beckoned Roger to follow him into the next room. The moment they were inside it, he slammed the door and asked harshly:
'Well! What news do you bring?'
Roger bowed deeply, then sadly shook his head. 'Alas, Sire, my mission was a failure. I cannot sufficiently express my regret, but the Czar proved adamant. He will not talk of peace, at any price. That is unless and until Your Imperial Majesty withdraws the whole of the Grand Army from his territories.'
Napoleon burst into a spate of curses, using, as he did at times, expressions as filthy as any that could have been heard from a party of drunken troopers who had been robbed of their money in a whore house. As his pallid face
became purple, Roger, who had once had to revive him from an epileptic fit, thought he was going to have another. But after some minutes, he quietened down and, his fine eyes still bulging, angrily blurted out:
'Why were you so long away? You left here on the 7th. It does not take eleven days to get to St. Petersburg and back.'
'At first the Czar refused to see me, Sire,5 Roger promptly lied.
'Then you should have stopped him and spoken to him when he was out for a walk.'
Staggered at this piece of evidence of how far the Emperor's mind had deteriorated when assessing plausibilities, Roger hid his surprise and replied, 'I had no opportunity to accost His Imperial Majesty. Fearing that if I took an escort, Cossacks might not respect a flag of truce, but murder the men and myself, I travelled alone and in civilian clothes. In consequence no one but the Czar would have believed me had I said I was your envoy. Being apparently a person of little account, it took me three days to find a Chamberlain who could be bribed to secure me an audience. I am lucky to have got back alive.'
Pacing up and down, Napoleon began to mutter to himself. When he stopped and again looked at Roger, his shoulders were bowed and there were tears in his eyes. Giving Roger's ear a tweak, he said with a sigh:
'Well, Breuc; no doubt you did your best. But I fear that stinking Romanoff has won this round. I'll make him crawl yet, of course, and burn St. Petersburg about his ears next year. Meanwhile, we must face it that our lines of communication are too long and vulnerable. Find Rapp. Tell him to summon the Marshals and other Corps Commanders for a conference at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. You may go.'
As Roger went off to find the A.D.C.-in-Chief, he almost felt sorry for Napoleon; but quickly put the thought from him. It was absurd to waste one iota of pity on a man who had brought such wholesale misery on the world.
Rapp was in the A.D.Cs' Mess. There had been very little for them to do since entering Moscow; so, after the fires had been put out and a day or two spent in exploring the city, they had been reduced to whiling away several hours a day at cards. On seeing Roger come through the door, Rapp got up from a table of vingt-et-un, walked over to him and said in a low voice:
'Welcome back, Breuc. I'm glad those verdamter Cossacks didn't get you. The King of Naples says they come charging out from every coppice, even against numbers superior to their own. He's losing scores of his men that way every day.'
'Our master told you, then, where he'd sent me?' Roger asked.
'Yes. He no longer troubles to hide it from those close to him that he's as jumpy as a cat on hot bricks, and he's been expecting you back these past three days. When you had still failed to appear yesterday, I told him I feared he might have to go on expecting, but he seemed convinced that as you speak some Russian you'd manage to look after yourself. Did you succeed in seeing the Czar?'
'I did, though it wasn't easy. That's why I was away for so long.'
'Have you brought us good news or bad? I'd wager ten to one in napoleons that it's bad.',
'Then you'd be ten gold pieces better off. The Czar has got the bit between his teeth. He's sworn to drive every one of us out of his kingdom.'
'I felt sure of it and, if the wits of you know who hadn't become addled, we'd have been out of this accursed city a month ago. Teufel-nochmal! What a mess he's made of this campaign! First he kicks his heels in Vilna for eighteen days, then for sixteen at Vitebsk, then for fourteen at Smolensk; and we've been here for over five weeks. What a way to fight a war! We could easily have got here by the first week in August instead of mid-September. It was crazy to come on here so late in the year. We ought to have wintered at Smolensk.'