I was nearing the village of Studienka. I dismounted, tied up my horse and, despite the freezing cold, changed from the outer layers of my clothing into my French uniform. Skirting around the village, hidden by the woods, I made my way to a small hillock that overlooked the river itself. There I lay, concealed almost instantly beneath the falling snow, and observed the tattered remains of the Grande Armée.
Tattered and yet magnificent. There must have been fifty thousand before me; half of them soldiers, half non-combatants, all desperate to get across that river, to get out of Russia and to get home. Bonaparte's great campaign lay in ruins, the conquering ambition of every man transformed into self-preserving terror. None could have dreamed that the largest army ever assembled in the world would be reduced, in scarcely six months, to such a shambles. And yet it had happened, and I was thrilled to witness it.
But for an army slashed to less than a tenth of its former size, beset by the hellish cold of a foreign winter and caught between three Russian armies, each on its own the size of theirs, they had performed a remarkable feat. Two bridges had been built across the river. Even now I could see sappers and pontoniers up to their armpits in the icy water, strengthening and repairing the bridges as thousand upon thousands of men broke step to march across. Every building in the village had been torn down to provide timber. On the high ground on the far side of the river, the advance guard had already set up a defensive position. They were being engaged from the south. Tchitchagov, realizing his error, had travelled back north to the real crossing point. The French deployments already across the river were holding him off and allowing the remainder of the army to slip away to the west unmolested once they had crossed.
On the eastern bank, an innumerable multitude waited to cross along the two narrow, manmade isthmuses – not just soldiers, though of those there were many, but the entire entourage that any army requires to survive, particularly one so far from home. Men and women waited to cross the river, and those whose duties, however vital they might be, did not require them to carry a sword or a musket found themselves reckoned least in the pecking order. Cooks, washerwomen, smiths and armourers were among those who waited to cross and, even amongst them, an order of merit would be established. Would an army in hopeless, frozen retreat favour those who maintained its weapons or those who filled its belly?
My intention of spotting one man amongst the tens of thousands was not as futile as it could have been. Though it would be impossible to scan the crowds of weary-faced troops that milled and bustled on the riverbank, the bridges themselves were narrow and all had to cross by one or the other. Indeed, most crossed by the smaller bridge, the larger being used for guns, wagons and cavalry. When I had last seen him, Iuda had no horse. Whether he had acquired one by now, I could only guess.
Although, with the help of my spyglass, I could inspect the face of each man as he approached the bridge, I was so far away that Iuda would be across the river by the time I could get down to the bank. My only prospect was to get down there amongst the French.
However determined the French were in getting as many men across the river as possible, it was at the expense of every other feature of military discipline. I was not challenged for any password or credentials as I picked my way first through the crowds of casualties and camp followers who would be the last to cross the bridge, if at all, and secondly through the teeming infantry who waited impatiently for their turn to cross. I looked out of place; any idea of uniform had been abandoned by the majority of the Grande Armée, in favour of more practical clothes – any clothes – that might keep out the cold. Even so, nobody paid me any attention.
As I got close to the bridges themselves, I received a few angry shoves from those who thought I was trying to jump my turn, but it was easy to assure them that I was not planning to cross the bridge, but to guard it. I joined the exclusive band of truculent sentries who stood at the entrance to the smaller footbridge.
'What did you do to get posted here?' asked one.
Evidently, this thankless duty was assigned as a punishment, not an honour. 'I misheard an order,' I said.
'Lots of soldiers have been hard of hearing today,' he laughed. We said little more to one another. There was nothing to do but watch the lines of men as they jostled to get on to the bridge, giving them the occasional shove when they got too much out of shape. I inspected every face that went past, as well as trying to keep an eye on the mounted men that crossed by the other bridge, but there was no sign of Iuda. What I would do if I saw him, I was not sure. To kill him there and then – one French soldier killing another, apparently unprovoked – would mean almost certain and instant execution for me. Despite the fact that I had voluntarily walked into the midst of a desperate enemy, I was in no mood for suicide. Iuda's death was now a secondary issue to me. What I needed from him was certainty. If I was lucky, I would have the opportunity to see him die afterwards, but now I had to know, one way or the other, what had happened between him and Domnikiia.
I could think of no other way to determine it. I could ask Domnikiia herself, but I would not believe her answer; at least not if she denied it. I would believe her only if the answer she gave was the one I did not want to hear. I could find the man she claimed she had been with that night, but he would, for the sake of his reputation, instantly deny ever having heard of her. Iuda was the only other person who knew for sure. He had already told me that it had been Domnikiia, but he had previously allowed me to believe that it hadn't. I would go through hell – and this frozen exodus seemed to me a pretty close thing – to get a definitive answer from him.
That afternoon, I was bestowed with an unexpected privilege, if that is the correct word for it. For the first and only time in my life, I saw Bonaparte himself in the flesh. Accompanied by the once mighty Imperial Guard, he made his way across the larger bridge to the west bank of the river. He was not the man I had imagined him to be. My image of him was formed from engravings and paintings and stoked by his reputation. It was no surprise if today he was not at his best. He was both older and fatter than any picture I had seen of him. His nose was not hooked, as is often portrayed, but of normal size and with a slight, hardly noticeable bend. His hair was not black, but of a dark reddish-blond. I wondered if the images I had seen of his empress, Marie-Louise, were as inaccurate and whether Domnikiia in fact looked anything like her. Though he tried to ride upright and erect, he had a tendency to slouch in his saddle. His mouth held the grimace of a man in pain. Despite all this, his blue eyes still burnt with a fury. Was this the look of the intense desire for conquest that had brought the whole of Europe under his heel? Or was it the glazed shield of defiance of a man despairing at his humiliation?
For those tired remnants of the Grande Armée, it was still the former. A cheer – with which I instinctively joined in – went up as he passed by, even from those men still in the water, working to ensure that the bridges would hold up long enough to get not only their emperor, but every one of his subjects across to safety. For at least an hour after his crossing, there remained a stir in the atmosphere, an increase in conversation and a general feeling that all would survive and make it back home. Looking out across the mass of those still waiting to cross, however, I could see that the enthusiasm was not felt universally. But around me, the feelings were genuine. Only when he was long gone did some sense of reality return to the men with whom I stood.
'I'm surprised they're still bothering, now he's across,' said one, his eyes flicking back and forth between the men who continued unendingly to file past.
'He'll get us out,' said another.