'Why so sure?'
'Because it's another two hundred leagues to Warsaw. He needs us till then.'
'But do we need him?'
'Could you have got the bridges built?'
That night, to my astonishment, the horde that had been filing in unbroken procession across the bridges petered away to nothing. Tens of thousands still remained to cross, but they sat around huge campfires, roasting the flesh of fallen horses and waiting to recommence the crossing in the morning. With hindsight of the number that failed to make it across before the full Russian forces fell upon us, this was a ridiculous waste of time, but no one gave the order, and so no one crossed.
The quiet darkness would be a perfect opportunity for Iuda to slip over the bridge, avoiding the crowds, and I tried to stay awake and so prevent him, but I could not. Had Iuda come by that night, I would not have noticed. Had he seen me, he could have killed me with ease. But he did not come that night.
I woke at about seven. I could hear the sound of artillery, closer than it had been the night before, but I do not think it was that which woke me. I looked and saw a solitary figure crossing the river via the smaller bridge. There was no question of it being Iuda, although his hat and clothing completely obscured his face; he was far too short. He was dressed in a bearskin – at least, that was the outermost layer – with a hole cut in it from which his head protruded. It was practical, if inelegant. I could only guess that he was that rarity of a French soldier who had the independence of mind to cross the river when the opportunity was there. I felt sure he would be one of the few that made it safely back to France.
Soon the sun rose, and the crossing of the Berezina resumed en masse. The indolence of the previous night now forced an additional urgency during the day. All had heard rumours that the Russian forces were closing in on our side of the river, and we began to hear to the north and east the sound of battle which was not so far distant when it began, and grew ever nearer as the day went on.
Later in the day, when the first Russian cannonballs began to fall on the riverbank itself, any remaining vestige of orderliness evaporated. The crowds around the entrances to the bridges became more disorderly, and those who failed to angle themselves on to the bridges began to be pushed into the water by the crowds behind them.
Laden with too many horses and too many carts, the larger bridge began to sag in the middle and soon, with a wrenching and creaking of splintering wood, a section of it crumpled into the river. Horses, wagons and men were swept downstream. Those on what remained of the bridge on the far side dashed to safety with an alacrity they had not shown when it was intact. The crowds on the bank at first did not realize what had happened and continued to push on to what they thought was a bridge but was now a jetty. Dozens were forced off the bridge's broken end and into the river – soldiers becoming sailors as they were obliged to walk the plank into which the bridge had been transformed by its collapse – before any order was restored. As people realized what had happened, there was a rush to the other bridge, where I was standing watch. By now all the other guards had abandoned their post, either voluntarily or simply swept away by the crowd. A French marshal – I think it was Lefebvre – stood at the end of the bridge and tried to restore order, but the crowd ignored him and in the end he was forced to cross with them, rather than resist and be trampled underfoot. I retreated behind one of the piles that supported the bridge, my feet lapped by the river water as it scurried over the ice, and continued my vigil.
As darkness fell there was still no sign of Iuda. I had always known it was a long shot, but now I realized that, unclear as I was what I would do if I found him, I had no idea whatsoever of what to do if I didn't. If the evacuation continued then I would soon be swept across the bridge with the rest of the troops. Somehow, I would have to get away from them. Doing so on this side of the Berezina would be preferable, but I could foresee the possibility of having to creep back across this bridge or another, somewhere else along the river, to return to Russian lines.
Whatever plans I might have been able to formulate, I was interrupted by the sound of cannon fire. To the east, the Russian forces were much closer now. The French rearguard, which had been holding off the main body of the Russian army, was beginning to disengage. New swarms of men came down the banks of the river and tried to get on to the bridges. From the far bank, shells from French cannon were now screaming over our heads to rain down on the unseen Russian troops beyond the trees. With the fall of darkness, there was to be no cessation in the flow of people across the river as there had been the previous night.
As more and more soldiers crushed on to the narrow bridge, a sense began to fill the air that the end was coming; that if we did not get across now, then the Russians would be upon us and there would be no further chance to escape. Officers and men all around, who had been maintaining some slight degree of order, abandoned their posts and joined the mêlée that pushed and shoved around the bridges. Others decided to forget about the bridges and risk the river itself.
Close to the bank, the water remained frozen, and men began gingerly to walk out as far as they could. One reached the edge of the ice sheet and leapt into the water. Because of the thaw, the river was full and fast. He was swept away downstream. Others were luckier. I saw two or three who stripped themselves of guns, swords and boots – anything that weighed them down – and who thereby managed to swim across. How much further they would get without boots, I had to wonder, but on either side of the river there was a plentiful supply of dead men who had no further requirement for their footwear. One man who jumped in was again swept away, his head disappearing instantly beneath the turbulent water, only to emerge way, way downstream on the far side of the river and scramble thankfully on to dry land.
Upstream of the bridge, a group of a dozen or so were edging out across the ice. The man at the front turned to the others and began screaming at them, urging them to go back because their weight would break the fragile shelf. The vigour of his gesticulation unbalanced him and he slipped over on the ice. With the impact of his fall I heard a cracking sound as the whole sheet splintered away from the bank. Almost immediately it capsized, tipping the men into the water. The current took them rapidly downstream and dashed them into the side of the bridge. Some began to climb up on to the structure and were kicked back by those already desperately scrambling across it. Others remained in the water, clinging to the piles that supported the bridge until the sheet of ice itself slammed into the bridge, crushing those who clung beneath it and knocking several who were on the bridge into the water.
Memories of Austerlitz and the horrible mass of men drowned at Lake Satschan came rushing to me – memories that I had been fighting off ever since I had arrived at this place, ever since winter had begun to fall. At Austerlitz it had been Russian and Austrian lives, but now the score was evened. This time there had been no need to fire upon the ice to break it, as Bonaparte had at Satschan. That is not to say that there was no Russian cannon fire, only that it killed by more traditional means.
Terror finally overcame my desire to confront Iuda. It was time for me to leave, but even that was not going to be easy. Close to the bridge I was protected from the crowd, which travelled with a single mind and in a single direction. It would have been easier for me simply to get into the crowd and let it carry me across the river, but the bridge was now so swelled with bodies that I doubted whether more than half those who got on to it made it to the other side without falling into the water. I remembered crossing the Moskva Bridge, back when Moscow was being evacuated and when I again had found myself the only person wanting to travel against the flow. That had been an easier bridge to cross than this, but then the French crossing here were a hundred times more certain of their defeat than those Russians had been. I started out away from the river, against the direction that every other man on the bank was heading. They were not concerned or inquisitive about the direction I was going, they did not deliberately try to take me with them, but however much I pressed onward away from the icy water, still I found myself carried closer and closer towards it.