Valentina (12 page)

De Chavel had been travelling with Napoleon's entourage for the past three days; the Emperor had received him coldly on his return from Czartatz. He was fully informed of the reason for his Intelligence Chief's absence, and the knowledge that his supposed allies in the Grand Duchy were spying on him, combined with the details of a stupid intrigue involving Murat with yet another woman, had put him in a bad temper which he vented on De Chavel. ‘You are not, I trust, meddling with this Countess Grunowska yourself,' he said; his eyes were as flat as stones, with the dull glint in them which meant he was about to lose his temper. De Chavel had countered quickly and coolly.

‘I was not the man the lady was set to catch, Sire. I merely prevented the liaison and then gave the unhappy person our protection. Which, I assure you, she needs very badly.'

‘Everybody needs something from us,' the Emperor said curtly. ‘We are called upon to give, and give again and again, and then we ask something in return—ah, that's a different tale!' The Austrians were being as difficult as they dared over his demand for more troops and more money to help in the Russian campaign, and considering that he had beaten them into the ground at Wagram, and then married their Archduchess and bolstered the Austrian Emperor because he was his father-in-law, Napoleon was furious at their ingratitude. Everyone hated and envied him and snapped at his heels like furtive curs when his back was turned, however much they cringed before his face. He had married into the Hapsburgs, and he knew he couldn't even trust them. Or his wife; she was stupid and superficial—it was his grief to be able to see her so clearly, but he felt the need of support from someone close to him, beside his soldiers. In the last few months he had spent more time playing with his little son, in his search for affection, than he wasted on seeking it from his wife. Only Marie Walewska welcomed him with warmth and never asked for anything, or uttered a reproach. He loved her for that in his own way, but it was not enough. Sexually she had always been timid and haunted by scruples; in the end when she pleaded to withdraw from that aspect of their relationship, so that she could make peace with her conscience, Napoleon had agreed without much regret. She could not be beside him now, when he needed not a former mistress but a wife, and Empress, to support him and guard France till he returned. Even Josephine, whom he had adored with such public, foolish passion, had intrigued against him and taken lovers while he was away at the wars. He was not disposed to listen to the story of the Countess Grunowska with any sympathy.

‘Very well,' he said. ‘The affair is finished. You have made arrangements to have Grunowski watched? And his associates? Including Potocki—one can't trust anyone, it seems!'

‘It has been done, Sire,' De Chavel said. ‘And now I have a request to make.'

‘I am busy,' the Emperor said coldly. ‘If it's a personal request, I advise you to ask another time.'

‘It is personal, Sire,' De Chavel said. ‘But now is the time to ask you, and not later. I want to return to my regiment.'

Napoleon looked up. ‘You are asking to go back into the field? You want to go back under Ney's command?'

‘Yes, Sire. My work here is finished; I shall be wasted on the intelligence staff in Russia. I've served you in that capacity for a year; now I beg you to let me fight again.'

‘Eh,' the Emperor said, half to himself. ‘It's a change to hear someone wanting to get into battle instead of out of it. Tell me something, De Chavel! The truth, no lies—the plain truth!'

‘Yes, Sire, the truth, I promise you. What is it?'

‘In your heart, do you think we'll win?'

The question shocked him; it shocked him even more to see the Emperor's sallow face with the dark eyes sunken into it with anxiety, watching him and waiting to hear his fears allayed. Do you think we'll win? It was incredible.

‘I surprise you,' the Emperor said suddenly. ‘I can see it in your face, Colonel. I surprise myself.
I
am confident—make no mistake about it!
I
believe in victory. But all around me people are whispering, doubting … I want to know what my soldiers think—
they
are the important ones. Answer me. Do you see victory?'

‘Yes, Sire.' De Chavel didn't hesitate. ‘I have served under you for nearly fourteen years. I have fought with you from Egypt to Italy right through Europe. I have never seen you lose a battle. You will defeat the Czar, just as you've defeated all your enemies. Your army knows this. As you said, Sire, it's the soldiers who count. And they will follow you over the edge of the world.'

Napoleon stood up; there was a slight flush on his face, and like all Italians he was easily moved to tears; they were in his eyes as he held out his hand to De Chavel.

‘You are relieved of your duties, Colonel. I personally attach you to myself, under the command of Marshal Ney. And I thank you. When the Army speaks with that voice there can only be victory ahead.'

Three days after the advance guard crossed the Niemen into Russia the Emperor and his staff arrived. He came attended by Murat and his favourite, Marshal Junot, who had served under him as aide-de-camp from the Italian campaigns in 1789. Napoleon rode his grey horse; the veteran of many campaigns it had carried him across Europe, and many thousands had seen it in the smoke of battle standing sentinel well within enemy fire, the little Emperor motionless on its back, directing the attack. Now the famous grey approached the central pontoon at the head of a long and brilliant cavalcade of Marshals and staff officers, their splendid uniforms and richly accoutred horses contrasting with the small man in his dark grey field coat and black hat with the cockade of Imperial France on its brim, riding his plainly saddled horse up to the bridge. There was absolute silence for the first few moments; the hot sun beat down upon an incredible scene that June day, setting flashes of light off the massed bayonets and lances and the glittering breastplates of the great host of men waiting for their Emperor to join them on the opposite bank of the river, dancing like fire amongst the bright caterpillar stretched out behind him, moving so very slowly forward. De Chavel was with the advance party of the Imperial staff. He was mounted on a fine chestnut and he kept it standing, tossing its head with impatience, as Napoleon advanced to the pontoon. There was not a sound beyond the irregular jingling of bridles among the escorts as the grey horse walked forward on to the bridge; there was no sound except that of the hoof-beats of Napoleon's horse crossing the wooden bridge into Russia. It was a moment of extraordinary simplicity and indescribable emotion. It only lasted a few minutes, and then the head of the column began to move forward after the Emperor and they crossed the pontoon three abreast. As Napoleon reached the opposite bank there was a cheer from his waiting armies which shook the ground and rolled over their heads like thunder. De Chavel was directly behind Marshal Davoust; as they too stepped on to the Russian soil, Davoust turned and looked at him. He was a small man with a precise manner and he was staid and unemotional except when he was fighting.

‘I don't suppose there's another man in the world who knows how to win his troops like the Emperor,' he said. ‘Listen to them; you'd think we'd won already!'

‘He has something,' De Chavel said. ‘Men who fight with him, love him. That's all it is. I'd follow him to hell.'

‘Yes, well,' the Marshal said, ‘that's what you're doing, my friend. And we're all doing it with you. God help us!'

The nearest town was Kovno, and it was said to be garrisoned by a small Russian force; it was a few days' march away, and beyond it was Wilna, where the Czar Alexander and his staff were quartered. At Wilna the French Army would meet the Russians in what they expected to be the first major engagement of the war.

Very slowly the enormous mass of men, animals and transport began their journey, and the character of the countryside began to change with every mile. De Chavel rode with his own detachment of the Imperial Guard; there were now fifty thousand of the élite of the Imperial Army, men of such fighting calibre that there were no troops in the world to equal them, and they were commanded by men like Marshal Nay, by Murat, by Davoust and by Lannes.

For the first few days of that long march De Chavel felt a renewal of his old happiness at the idea of combat; he had grown cynical and stale in his intelligence duties; now, with a good horse under him and men of the first fighting quality behind him, he was expectant and alive again. War did not frighten him, he felt no shrinking at the prospect of death or wounds; he meant what he said to Davoust as they crossed the Niemen. He would have followed his Emperor to hell and fought the devil himself. One of the Majors in his platoon was a graduate of St. Cyr Academy with the improbable name of Marie Jean Macdonald; he was a kinsman of the famous Marshal and a descendant of the fugitive Catholic sects who had taken refuge in France after their ill-fated rebellion against the English nearly seventy years before. De Chavel liked the younger man; he was brave but well disciplined and he had seen action in many of the major campaigns, including the disastrous Peninsular War where he had served under Marshal Soult.

He spurred his horse to come up with the Colonel and they fell into a slow jogging trot. The sun blazing down and the clouds of dust they raised met that which drifted backwards from the advance guard; it was fine yellow dust and it settled in the eyelids and nostrils, and wedged itself under the collars of the tight uniforms. The horses disliked it and were restless and all along the lines of men were coughing and spitting.

‘It's damned hot,' De Chavel said. He wiped his face with a handkerchief, easing it under the line of his helmet where the sweat had gathered. ‘I'll be glad to see Wilna. We should have some word from the advance at Kovno.'

‘We should,' Major Macdonald said. ‘Tell me, Colonel, how much of the terrain is like this? It's very barren.'

‘I don't know,' De Chavel said. ‘It should improve as we go further in.'

‘I hope so,' the Major said. ‘There's hardly a tree or a bush in sight and there's no grazing for the horses—nothing at all. It reminds me of Spain in some ways.'

‘I notice what an impression that country made on you,' the Colonel said; he was becoming irritated by his junior officer's constant reference to the one campaign in which he had not taken part. ‘I'd advise you to forget it. The Emperor's sensitive about that war—you ought to know that!'

‘I know it only too well, sir,' Major Macdonald said stonily. ‘Everyone who fought in the cursed place hates the sound of its name. Those of us who came back, at least. But I'm sorry to say it again. This country reminds me of it. There's the same barrenness, the same lack of natural supplies. I hope to God we have taken that into account.'

De Chavel didn't answer him at once. The discordant note in all the fanfares of glory jarred on him and he was more sensitive to any appearance of doubt because it had come first from Napoleon himself. Then Davoust, making that remark at the Niemen; God help us. And now this veteran from Napoleon's one failure, making comparisons in a defeatist attitude. ‘I should go back with your men, Major,' De Chavel said, and the Major saluted and, turning his horse's head, rode back to his place in the column.

On July 1st the Emperor entered the ancient city of Wilna, where his enemy the Czar had stayed only a few days before. Heat, thirst and lack of provisions in the arid countryside had cost his army the astonishing total of twenty thousand horses and two thousand men in the space of the few days since they had crossed the Niemen.

And the Russians had not waited to give battle to Ney at Kovno or to Napoleon himself at Wilna. They had simply taken everything in the way of food and fodder and set fire to what they had to leave behind, and withdrawn deeper into their own country.

‘Alexandra! Has the messenger come?' Valentina called out as she ran up the stairs; she had been out riding for the past two hours. They had been waiting for news for three days and the suspense was more than Valentina could bear. It was also trying the patience of her sister, who declared that if she were asked the same question about the messenger one more time she would scream. As she dismounted Valentina saw one of the grooms leading away a horse that was covered in dust, its head hanging wearily.

‘Alexandra! Alexandra! Where are you?'

She stopped for a moment at the head of the stairs, and her sister came out of her study. ‘He's here,' she said. ‘Come and read it for yourself.'

She gave Valentina a stained and creased copy of a Polish news sheet; the man who had brought it had ridden for a week from Warsaw; he was down in the servants' quarters being given something to eat.

‘“The Imperial Army has advanced to within fifty kilometres of Moscow, where it is reported that the main Russian forces under General Kututzov are waiting to do battle with them. The forces of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French have suffered heavy casualties in the advance since the battle of Smolensk where the numbers of Russian dead exceeded fifty thousand and thirty thousand French perished on the field …”' Valentina threw the paper down, and covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh my God! Thirty thousand. He's dead, Sandra—I know he is!' She sat down and began to weep.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' Alexandra said quickly. She picked up the sheet and read it. Then she went and knelt beside her sister. Gently she put her arm round her. For the past three months Valentina had spent her time waiting for news of the war in Russia, and lying sleepless with anxiety for the man she loved. Morning after morning Alexandra found her drawn and hollow-eyed after a vigil spent in tears and prayers; time had done nothing to alleviate this hopeless passion for someone who had told her plainly that it was not returned. Alexandra had begun by laughing at her and then reproaching her angrily for lack of pride and common sense. Now she admitted that what her sister was suffering was beyond taunts or reason. There was nothing to be done but comfort her. Her words of prophecy to the Colonel had come true. For some women there is only one man. One love. And this had happened to Valentina. She had fallen in love in a way that Alexandra could not begin to understand; she understood passion, but even so the depth and power of Valentina's longing for De Chavel was a revelation to her. But the aching pain of loving, of needing to give and give again to another human being, was something alien to her own spirit. Except in respect of her own sister. But not for a man. She could never suffer for any man as Valentina was doing. Privately she wished him dead and damned to hell a thousand times before he had come into her sister's life to utterly destroy her happiness.