The Bronze Eagle (40 page)

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As de Marmont had told his Emperor, he had several hundred thousand
pounds invested in England, on which he could lay his hands: operations
on the Bourse were nothing new to him: and already while he was still
listening with respect and enthusiasm to his Emperor's instructions, he
was longing to get away. He knew the country well between here and
Brussels, and he was wildly longing to be at work, to be flying across
the low-lying land, on to Brussels and then across to England in the
wake of the awful news of complete disaster.

He would steal the uniform of some poor dead wretch—a Belgium or a
Hanoverian or a black Brunswicker, he didn't care which—it wouldn't
take long to strip the dead, and the greatness of the work at stake
would justify the sacrilege. In the uniform of one of the Allied army he
could safely continue his journey to Brussels, and with luck could reach
the city long before sunset.

In Brussels he would at once obtain civilian clothes and then catch the
evening packet for England at Ostend. Oh, no! it was not likely that
Wellington could send a messenger over to London quite so soon!

At this hour—it was just past five—he was still on Mont Saint Jean
making another desperate stand against the Imperial cavalry with troops
half worn out with discouragement and whose endurance must even now be
giving way.

At this hour the Prussians had appeared at Braine L'Alleud, they had
engaged Reille at Plancenoit, but Wellington and the British had still
to hold their ground or the news which de Marmont intended to accompany
to London might prove true after all.

Ye gods, if only that were possible! How gladly would Victor then have
lost the hundred thousands which he meant to risk to-morrow! Wellington
really vanquished before Blücher could come to his rescue! Napoleon
once
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more victorious, as he had always been, and a mightier monarch
than before! Then he, Victor de Marmont, the faithful young enthusiast
who had never ceased to believe when others wavered, who at this last
hour—when the whole world seemed to crumble away from under the feet of
the man who had once been its master—was still ready to serve his
Emperor, never doubting, always hoping, he would reap such a reward as
must at last dazzle the one woman who could make that reward for him
doubly precious.

Victor de Marmont had effected the gruesome exchange. He was now dressed
in the black uniform of a Brunswick regiment wherein so many French
royalists were serving. By a wide détour he had reached the approach to
Brussels. Indeed it seemed as if the news which he had sent flying to
Paris was true after all. Behind the forest of Soigne where he now was,
the fields and roads were full of running men and galloping horses. The
dull green of Belgian uniforms, the yellow facings of the Dutch, the
black of Brunswickers, all mingled together in a moving kaleidoscopic
mass of colour: men were flying unpursued yet panic-stricken towards
Brussels, carrying tidings of an awful disaster to the allied armies in
their haggard faces, their quivering lips, their blood-stained tunics.

De Marmont joined in with them: though his heart was full of hope, he
too contrived to look pale and spent and panic-stricken at will—he
heard the shouts of terror, the hastily murmured "All is lost! even the
British can no longer stand!" as horses maddened with fright bore their
half-senseless riders by. He set his teeth and rode on. His dark eyes
glowed with satisfaction; there was no fear that the great gambler would
stake his last in vain: the news would travel quick enough—as news of
disaster always will. Brussels even now must be full of weeping women
and children, as it soon would be of terror-driven
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men, of wounded and
of maimed crawling into the shelter of the town to die in peace.

And as he rode, de Marmont thought more and more of Crystal. The last
three months had only enhanced his passionate love for her and his
maddening desire to win her yet at all costs. St. Genis would of course
be fighting to-day. Perchance a convenient shot would put him
effectively out of the way. De Marmont had vainly tried in this wild
gallopade to distinguish his rival's face among this mass of foreigners.

As for the Englishman! Well! no doubt he had disappeared long ago out of
Crystal de Cambray's life. De Marmont had never feared him greatly. That
one look of understanding between Crystal and Clyffurde, and the
latter's strange conduct about the money at the inn, were alone
responsible for the few twinges of jealousy which de Marmont had
experienced in that quarter.

Indeed, the Englishman was a negligible quantity. De Marmont did not
fear him. There was only St. Genis, and with the royalist cause rendered
absolutely hopeless—as it would be, as it
must
be—St. Genis and the
Comte de Cambray and all those stiff-necked aristocrats of the old
regime who had thought fit to turn their proud backs on him at Brestalou
three months ago, would be irretrievably ruined and discredited and
would have to fly the country once more . . . and Crystal, faced with
the alternative of penury in England or a brilliant existence at the
Tuileries as the wife of the Emperor's most faithful friend, would make
her choice as he—de Marmont—never doubted that any woman would.

Hope for him had already become reality. Brussels was the half-way halt
to the uttermost heights of his ambition. Fortune, the Emperor's
gratitude, the woman he loved, all waited for him there. He reached the
city just as that distant horizon in the west was lit up by a streak of
brilliant
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crimson from the fast sinking sun: just when—had he but
known it!—on the crest of Mont Saint Jean, Wellington had waved his hat
over his head and given the heroic British army—exhausted, but
undaunted—the order for a general charge; just when the Grand Army,
finally checked in its advance, had first set up the ominous call that
was like the passing-bell of its dying glory: "Sauve qui peut!"

"Sauve qui peut!"

Bobby Clyffurde heard the cry too through the fast gathering shadows of
unconsciousness that closed in round his wearied senses, and, as a film
that was so like the kindly veil of approaching Death spread over his
eyes, he raised them up just once to that vivid crimson glow far out in
the west, and on the winged chariot of the setting sun he sent up his
last sigh of gratitude to God. All day he had called for Death—all day
he had wooed her there where bullets and grape-shot were thickest—where
her huge scythe had been most busily at work.

Sons of fond mothers, husbands, sweethearts that were dearly loved,
brothers that would be endlessly mourned, lives that were more precious
than any earthly treasures—the ghostly harvester claimed them all with
impartial cruelty. And he—desolate and lonely—with no one greatly to
care if he came back or no—with not a single golden thread of hope to
which he might cling, without a dream to brighten the coming days of
dreariness—with a life in the future that could hold nothing but vain
regrets, Bobby had sought Death twenty times to-day and Death had
resolutely passed him by.

But now he was grateful for that: he was thankful that he had lived just
long enough to see the sunset, just long enough to take part in that
last glorious charge in obedience to Wellington's inspiring command:
"Up, guards, and at
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them!" he was glad to have lived just long enough
to hear the "Sauve qui peut!" to know that the Grand Army was in full
retreat, that Blücher had come up in time, that British pluck and
British endurance had won the greatest victory of all times for
Britain's flag and her national existence.

Now with a rough bandage hastily tied round his head where grape-shot
had lacerated cheek and ear, with a bayonet thrust in the thigh and
another in the arm, Bobby had remained lying there with many thousands
round him as silent, as uncomplaining, as he—in the down-trodden
corn—and with the tramp of thousands of galloping, fleeing horses, the
clash of steel and fusillade of tirailleurs and artillery reaching his
dimmed senses like a distant echo from the land of ghosts. And before
his eyes—half veiled in unconsciousness, there flitted the tender,
delicate vision of Crystal de Cambray: of her blue eyes and soft fair
hair, done up in a quaint mass of tiny curls; of the scarf of filmy lace
which she always liked to wrap round her shoulders, and through the lace
the pearly sheen of her skin, of her arms, and of her throat. The air
around him had become pure and rarified: that horrible stench of powder
and smoke and blood no longer struck his nostrils—it was roses, roses
all around him—crimson roses—sweet and caressing and fragrant—with
soft, velvety petals that brushed against his cheek—and from somewhere
close by came a dreamy melody, the half-sad, half-gay lilt of an
intoxicating dance.

It was delicious! and Bobby, wearied, sore and aching in body, felt his
soul lifted to some exquisite heights which were not yet heaven, of
course, but which must of a truth form the very threshold of Paradise.

He saw Crystal more and more clearly every moment: now he was looking
straight into her blue eyes, and her little hand, cool and white as
snow, rested upon his burning fore
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head. She smiled on him—as on a
friend—there was no contempt, no harshness in her look—only a great,
consoling pity and something that seemed like an appeal!

Yes! the longer he himself looked into those blue eyes of hers, the more
sure he was that there was an appeal in them. It almost seemed as if she
needed him, in a way that she had never needed him before. Apparently
she could not speak: she could not tell him what it was she wanted: but
her little hands seemed to draw him up, out of the trodden, trampled
corn, and having soothed his aches and pains they seemed to impel him to
do something—that was important . . . and imperative . . . something
that she wanted done.

He begged her to let him lie here in peace, for he was now comforted and
happy. He was quite sure now that he was dead, that her sweet face had
been the last tangible vision which he had seen on earth, ere he closed
his eyes in the last long sleep.

He had seen her and she had gone. All of a sudden she had vanished, and
darkness was closing in around him: the scent of roses faded into the
air, which was now filled again with horrid sounds—the deafening roar
of cannon, the sharp and incessant retort of rifle-fire, the awesome
mêlée of cries and groans and bugle-calls and sighs of agony, and one
deafening cry—so like the last wail of departing souls—which came from
somewhere—not very far away: "Vive l'Empereur!"

Bobby raised himself to a sitting posture. His head ached terribly—he
was stiff in every limb: a burning, almost intolerable pain gnawed at
his thigh and at his left arm. But consciousness had returned and with
it all the knowledge of what this day had meant: all round him there was
the broken corn, stained with blood and mud, all round him lay the dead
and the dying in their thousands. Far away
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in the west a crimson glow
like fire lit up this vast hecatomb of brave lives sacrificed, this
final agony of the vast Empire, the might and grandeur of one man laid
low this day by the mightier hand of God.

It lit up with the weird light of the dying day the pallid, clean-shaven
faces of gallant British boys, the rugged faces of the Scot, the olive
skin of the child of Provence, the bronzed cheeks of old veterans: it
threw its lurid glow on red coats and black coats, white facings and
gilt epaulettes; it drew sparks as of still-living fire from
breastplates and broken swords, discarded casques and bayonets,
sabretaches and kilts and bugles and drums, and dead horses and arms and
accoutrements and dead and dying men, all lying pell-mell in a huge
litter with the glow of midsummer sunset upon them—poor little
chessmen—pawns and knights—castles of strength and kings of some
lonely mourning hearts—all swept together by the Almighty hand of the
Great Master of this terrestrial game.

But with returning consciousness Bobby's gaze took in a wider range of
vision. He visualised exactly where he was—on the south slope of Mont
Saint Jean with La Haye Sainte on ahead a little to his left, and the
whitewashed walls of La Belle Alliance still further away gleaming
golden in the light of the setting sun.

He saw that on the wide road which leads to Genappe and Charleroi the
once invincible cavalry of the mighty Emperor was fleeing helter-skelter
from the scene of its disaster: he saw that the British—what was left
of them—were in hot pursuit! He saw from far Plancenoit the
scintillating casques of Blücher's Prussians.

And on the left a detachment of allied troops—Dutch, Belgian,
Brunswickers—had just started down the slope of the plateau to join in
this death-dealing pell-mell, where amongst the litter of dead and
dying, in the confusion of pursuer and pursued, comrade fought at times
against com
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rade, brother fired on brother—Prussian against British.

Down below behind the farm buildings of La Haye Sainte two battalions of
chasseurs of the Old Guard had made a stand around a tattered bit of
tricolour and the bronze eagle—symbol of so much decadent grandeur and
of such undying glory. "A moi chasseurs," brave Général Pelet had cried.
"Let us save the eagle or die beneath its wing."

And those who heard this last call of despair stopped in their headlong
flight; they forged a way for themselves through the mass of running
horses and men, they rallied to their flag, and with their
tirailleurs—kneeling on one knee—ranged in a circle round them, they
now formed a living bulwark for their eagle, of dauntless breasts and
bristling bayonets.