Wolf Hunt (2 page)

When the first bullet whistled past his ear, he told himself that he would settle for a captain. He approached Margont, leaning well forward on his lathered horse.

‘Hold firm! The 18th Infantry Regiment of the Line is on its way to help you! Pass the message on to your general.’

‘But that’s us - we are the 18th Regiment!’ protested Margont.

The aide-de-camp blinked. ‘You are? So you don’t belong to Molitor’s division then? Well, that won’t do at all - you shouldn’t even be here! You must go and assist Molitor!’

‘But that’s impossible ...’

‘Well, those are the orders, Captain!’

‘We don’t even know where Molitor’s division is!’

‘I don’t either, but that’s your problem. Transmit my message to your colonel.’

‘But look, you have to understand, we can’t just leave, and we need reinforcements immediately!’

‘You are the reinforcements! The reinforcements for General Molitor!’

This ridiculous dialogue came about because the aide-decamp, frightened at having to come to this scene of carnage, had delayed in carrying out his mission. He had received his orders half an hour ago and they were no longer valid, superseded by others delivered by another messenger. Margont, however, like all the subaltern officers, was unaware of this.

‘We don’t give a damn about your Molitor! Where’s our back-up, for God’s sake? And why is the rest of the army taking so long to reach us?’

There are no bridges left, the Austrians have destroyed them all! Go and assist General Molitor!’

With that, the aide-de-camp turned tail and fled, his horse speeding off at full gallop.

‘No bridges left?’ repeated Margont, dazedly.

His old friend Sergeant Lefine slipped along the barricade until he reached the captain, without ever exposing even the smallest part of his body.

‘What’s happening with the bridges? What does that mean, “No

bridges left”?’

The deafening sound of firing interrupted every conversation. Second Lieutenant Piquebois, who had only heard every third word of the conversation, exclaimed: ‘Excellent! Molitor is on the way with reinforcements!’

This happy news was received with cries of joy. The Austrian battalions, in their helmets, white coats and breeches, progressed in dense lines, like a tempestuous snowstorm in springtime. Bullets plundered their ranks, carpeting the streets with injured men, who crawled to the sides to avoid being trampled. The officers wore dark greatcoats and belts made of gold cloth. They brandished their swords so that they could be seen by their men and to exhort them to keep advancing.

Between the smoke from the weapons and the smoke from the fires, visibility was decreasing rapidly. Men were firing blindly. A first Austrian battalion came to break through the barricade that Margont was defending. The soldiers riddled each other with gunfire, standing within a few paces of each other. The white coats fell, again and again, but others came to replace them. The air was heavy with the smell of burnt powder. Lefine, who was standing near Margont, shouted something to him, but all Margont could hear were cries of rage or pain and the rattling of the explosions hammering against his eardrums.

‘What did you say?’

‘... lost!’

Margont knew how the rest of the sentence went. The French were falling back in disarray, hotly pursued by the Austrians. Every house had been turned into a bastion, and from the windows people were pelting the assailants. The church and its perimeter wall acted as a fortress. The French were sheltering behind sections of wall and the ruins of houses destroyed by the artillery. Some even crouched behind gravestones in the village cemetery, and piles of horse manure ... A corporal collapsed in front of Margont.

These idiots are killing as many of our men as they are Austrians!’ He grabbed Lefine by the sleeve and knocked loudly against the door of a stone building.

‘France! France!’ he thundered, knocking fit to break his fist.

They couldn’t retreat any further. The mass of withdrawing soldiers clogged the streets, and bullets were raining down on the panicking dark blue melee. Lieutenant Saber arrived at a run, forced a passage, stepped through a window and edged his way to the middle of the crush of muskets pointed at the Austrians. A moment later, he opened the door to his friends.

‘What would you have done if I hadn’t been here ...?’

Margont shoved him forward so that he could take cover, only to be jostled himself from behind by Lefine and other frightened soldiers.

The Austrian advance slowed, then stopped altogether. The determined resistance of the French had somewhat dented their confidence. Margont climbed to the first floor. He forced his way through the injured and the shooters to get to a skylight. Every window in the street was bristling with muskets, which were crushing the Austrians with their fire power. Were they winning? Were they losing? The situation was increasingly unclear. Before

Margont’s very eyes, the building opposite collapsed to the ground with its crowd of defenders. All that could be seen of it now were dancing flames and twirling tendrils of black smoke dotted with orange sparks. The aide-de-camp whom he had been conversing with earlier was galloping back towards them, but his horse turned tail almost immediately at the sound of the explosion. The sight of the building collapsing terrified him.

They make everything jump!’ cried a voice, referring to the cannon the Austrians had installed in the part of Aspern they controlled, and which they used to bombard the French point-blank. The French, decimated and discouraged, withdrew, houses collapsing in their path.

The minute Napoleon heard that Aspern was lost, he ordered its immediate recapture. If Aspern fell, the plains where his centre was concentrated would become indefensible. The French would have control only of the village of Essling, which would find itself encircled, and would also fall. The Emperor’s line of defence was like a row of dominoes. If one stronghold fell, all the others would

automatically follow suit. It was all or nothing. Aspern-plains-Essling or the very bottom of the Danube.

Margont hurried towards the back, trying to restore some order amongst the crush of survivors. No one understood what was going on except the very highest ranks - and even they were not absolutely sure ... He saw French troops milling about in the south of the village. Which ones and what they were doing he had not the faintest idea. The blue lines were spread out in the fields and the meadows as if on a training exercise. Were they not even going to launch another assault on this pile of stones and embers? Officers were giving signals to the survivors of Aspern to hasten their retreat.

‘I agree, let’s get on with it,’ fumed Lefine. ‘You don’t just hang about waiting to be killed, that makes no sense.’

They barely had time to get into line formation. A general - was it Molitor? No, it was another general whom Margont did not know — drew his sword and pointed it at Aspern’s steeple, which was still standing but riddled with holes made by round shot, its roof caved in and smoking, a laughable spike.

‘Advance!’

This counterattack, led by the Carra Saint-Cyr Division (which had just got across the river before the collapse of the bridge) and by the remains of the Legrand Division, was effective. The French drove back the white coats or trapped them in the gutted houses. The Austrians took their revenge by counterattacking in turn.

Finally the sky began to darken. No reinforcements had arrived, but night would bring relief- surely the fighting was not going to continue in darkness? The French were now losing house after house. On the Danube, the repaired bridge, repeatedly damaged by the skiffs the Austrians sent downriver, collapsed once again, hurling the troops of the 2nd Regiment of Cuirassiers into the brine where they sank like stones.

Finally the intensity of combat diminished. Margont, overjoyed at having survived, walked towards Lefine, to celebrate with him. He was so relieved and happy that, without thinking, he passed in front of the breach in a wall. A sharp report rang out. Instinctively

Margont dived for cover. He was not sure he had been hit because he had strained his muscles so much that he hurt all over. Lefine’s face was distorted in terror. Margont followed his friend’s gaze and looked at his side. A dark stain was spreading there.

‘I can’t believe I did that,’ said Margont, as he lay carefully down. 

MARGONT spent an interminable amount of time lying by the Danube in the company of a mass of other wounded. Groans and entreaties mingled with the deep rumbling of cannon fire. Medical orderlies, far too few of them, ran from casualty to casualty. One very young orderly regarded Margont with disdain and, without even taking the time to examine his wound, announced: ‘It’s nothing.’ Another, however, looked horrified whenever he passed him. Finally a small boat brought a handful of
voltigeurs
 overburdened with munitions, a pathetic reinforcement, and left with several lucky patients, one of whom was Margont.

Napoleon had planned to cross the Danube very quickly. He had not believed that the Austrians could hold out against his army and had thought they would withdraw. The totally unexpected turn of events generated utter confusion. Lobau was acting as a stopping-off point for the divisions who found themselves stranded, and also as a temporary hospital. Soldiers accumulated on the

island like grains of wheat in a granary. A hundred thousand Austrian soldiers still firmly held the east bank of the Danube, while Vienna, whose population was hostile to the French, lay on the west bank. Only yesterday Napoleon had controlled most of Europe, and now his empire appeared to have been reduced to the Isle of Lobau, two and a half miles long by two and a half miles wide.

Margont was treated by an orderly who was well-intentioned but intimidated by the officer’s rank. He apologised as he clumsily pricked Margont’s skin again and again. The wound was superficial; the bullet had only grazed his side, biting into the flesh without piercing his abdomen. Gangrene was what Margont was worried about. Was it going to devour his body like rot in an apple? He spent the night in a terrible state of anxiety.

The next day, at four in the morning, the battle resumed.

The groaning multitude of casualties on Lobau increased, spreading like a tide of agony. Medical orderlies and volunteers offered them pails of water that they refilled from the Danube. Not the best drink, but there was nothing else. More French and Badois arrived, bleeding.

One of the newly arrived sergeants, with as many slashes as an old patched shirt, propped himself up on one elbow and loudly proclaimed: ‘We’ve come from Aspern, troops! We recaptured that damned village! Long live Marshal Massena!’

This news was greeted with cries of ‘Long live Massena!’ and ‘Long live the Emperor!’ Margont thought of Lefine, Saber and Piquebois. Were they still wandering around amongst the heaped ruins, suffocated by the smoke, and fighting the Austrians bullet for bullet? Or had the regiment been relieved, was it resting at the rear, in reserve? Perhaps his friends were lying broken, in a boat, their hands trailing in the water, drifting ...

News and rumours continued to spread, and became more and more exaggerated. Aspern and Essling had been attacked again, and lost, or almost, then retaken, nearly ... And in the plains separating the two villages, the killing continued as ever. Meanwhile the bridges had been repaired again and soldiers swarmed over

them. Boats continued to cross to and fro, so weighed down with casualties that they became dangerously flooded. A major from the 57th of the Line was brought in, along with some cuirassiers furious at having been stopped in the middle of a charge.

‘Silence for the major!’ shouted a quartermaster sergeant.

‘Yes, listen to the major!’ echoed the cavalrymen.

The officer was placed in the shadow of a willow tree and the soldiers fell silent. His thigh was bleeding but he paid no attention to that and focused on his audience.

‘The Emperor is crushing the Austrian centre!’ he announced vigorously.

An explosion of ‘Hurrah!’ and ‘Long live the Emperor!’ followed. In fact the major, intoxicated by finding himself propelled into the limelight, had made his declaration more convincing than the attack he had participated in warranted. While the casualties on Lobau rejoiced at the demise of the Austrian army, in reality that army’s artillery was destroying the ranks of their attackers, and even the French cavalry, called in to back up the ranks, could not defeat them decisively. But it was true that the extreme aggression of an adversary far inferior to them in number had shaken the Austrians’ confidence and had forced them to exercise caution and moderate their hotheadedness.

Margont spotted Jean-Quenin Brémond, an old childhood friend. Brémond had reddish light brown hair and large side whiskers. Despite his boundless energy, he radiated calm. He indicated which of the wounded were to be operated on as soon as possible, teaching an orderly in passing how to tie bandages more securely and requisitioning the more able-bodied to help out the others ... His practised eye picked out Margont immediately. He turned pale and strode rapidly over to examine the wound.

‘It’s not serious.’

Margont breathed a sigh of relief.

‘But even so, there is still the risk of gangrene.’

‘I know, Jean-Quenin. I’ll change my bandages when they’re dirty and I’ll make sure that I eat properly. Have you treated anyone we know?’

‘No. But that doesn’t mean anything. There are wounded all over the place.’

‘And here come even more!’ cried several soldiers.

The Danube swept away the remains of the little bridge, which had just collapsed again. Pontoniers and infantry, carried away on the current, waved their arms frantically. While the thousands of soldiers of Marshal Davout’s III Corps found themselves trapped on the island, Napoleon fulminated on the east bank, searching for reinforcements to sustain his attack on the Austrian centre.

‘It’s going increasingly badly for the citizen emperor,’ said Brémond worriedly.