The Retreat Read Free Page B

axle-trees creaked; a hundred thousand men tore downhill and in moments none of them could see a thing; a storm of dust blotted out the sun. Blinded, this throng came to a halt at the gates of the suburbs. Youngsters fell to their knees from so much running, gasping, coated from head to gaiters in yellow sand. Captain d’Herbigny spat out a mouthful of grit, like everybody else, while his horse shook the dust from its long mane.
    Exhilarated by ten minutes’ headlong stampede, the soldiers’ anxiety gradually began to return. The Russians still weren’t showing themselves. The captain dismounted and stretched expansively, cutting a swagger; with his good hand he took off his coat, folded it loosely and strapped it behind his saddle. To one side he saw troops taking up position on the plain for as far as the eye could see, to the other he saw the last of Murat’s uhlans passing between the two forty-foot-high obelisks that flanked the gates of Moscow. In the suburb the dragoons had reached, low,mud-walled cottages pressed up against pine isbas. The street leading to the river and the bridge was as wide as the Smolensk road, which it continued, a dusty thoroughfare unrelieved by vegetation except for a few grey bushes dotted here and there. The captain checked his pistol and, just in case, tucked it through his belt like a corsair. He had fallen in again with the troopers of the 4th Squadron, who he knew by name and whose horses he envied – skeletally thin perhaps, but at least they were a decent size. As he was gazing covetously at Trooper Guyonnet’s worn-out old Rosinante, its rider suddenly stared wide-eyed, ‘What is that? King Carnival?’
    â€˜Eh?’
    â€˜The other side of the bridge, sir …’
    D’Herbigny looked around. Over on the right bank of the Moskova, a frenzied figure was shaking a three-pronged pitchfork. It was an old man sporting a sheepskin; he had long, greasy hair and a white beard that spilled over his chest and down to his belt. With Guyonnet following, the captain set off towards him. The old moujik gesticulated, threatening to run through anyone who dared to enter the city. D’Herbigny drew closer; the tramp grasped his fork with both hands and dashed at him; he stepped aside. Carried along by the momentum of his charge, the old man went flying. The captain helped him on his way with a kick, toppling him into the water; the strong current caught him and dragged him under.
    â€˜You see, Guyonnet,’ the captain said, ‘one can fight with one hand and a judicious kick in the backside.’
    As he turned back towards the dragoons, d’Herbigny saw the Emperor; thin-lipped, hunched forward in hissaddle, he hadn’t missed a thing; a turbaned Mameluke was holding his Arab by the bridle.
    *
    As he was already on the threshold of the city, d’Herbigny was detailed to reconnoitre it to bring back some Muscovites, or at least some information. He took command of thirty cavalry of the Imperial Guard, choosing them from amongst those riding small, wild horses, so he wouldn’t feel inferior on his diminutive model. Of consequence again, the captain entered Moscow at the head of his column, by the stone bridge spanning the Moskova, a river he’d imagined as broader and deeper, less of a rushing torrent. The patrol found itself again in city streets, narrow but cobbled with stones from the riverbed – touchstones, madrepores, ammonites of different sizes – in which the horses caught their hooves. They passed fountains, glasshouses and wooden houses painted green, yellow and pink with carved verandas and facades as intricately wrought as ironwork. Then the streets broadened out and the scenery changed. They rode alongside white stone edifices, palaces of brick and thickly wooded gardens overrun with wild flowers, with winding avenues, extravagant rockeries, gazebos and brooklets. The tread of the horses was the only sound