The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

A few minutes later I myself rode over the bridge, and immediately rode back again. It was something to feel that the devilish stream was conquered and the fruits of brave men's toil reaped to the full. Alas, how little I knew of what was to come after or of the slaughter which must attend the unspeakable morrow!

I have told you that I crossed the bridge and immediately recrossed it. This was upon an order of General Roguet himself, who told me that every surgeon would be needed upon the other side to help the sick across, and that I must rejoin our own company of Vélites as quickly as might be. It had never been in my head to desert old Monsieur d'Izambert and his daughter, and I sought them out directly I had recrossed to the eastern bank. My nephew was with them at this time, but Gabriel d'Izambert had not yet returned from the river, nor did any know his whereabouts. Naturally, we hoped that he had gone across with the Fusiliers of the Guard, but the old gentleman refused to believe that he had done so, and was already determined to spend the night in the shepherd's hut. Here he was well enough, and, for that matter, I thought we had all done wisely to camp where we were rather than to find an open bivouac on the farther shore.

That this was the general opinion the scene upon our side of the river quickly made manifest. Far to the north and south of the twin bridges which the pontonniers had now erected were the bivouac fires and the camps of the gathered remnants. Baggage wagons began to roll up, and their attendants to gather in hundreds, eyeing the dismal waters and promising to cross at dawn. No one seemed to think that there was any hurry or that it mattered where he slept to-night. In truth, I think the army believed that a great moral victory had already been won, and that the end of its sufferings was at hand. Let them but cross the river, and the fair fields of France would beckon them. Again I say that they had forgotten the bitter leagues which lay between them and liberty.

My own duty at this time was to see to the sick of our own regiment, and to provide for their crossing. Here I found willing helpers. We collected the wagons with their unhappy burdens, and drew them up as near to the river as we dared. Why they were not sent across that night, I cannot tell you. When I recall the precious hours that we wasted, the solitude of the bridges, and the miracle of the opportunity, it seems to me that no words can describe truly the magnitude of that blunder. Yet there it was, and so at length we slept during the long hours of storm and darkness. When we awoke the Russians were upon the hills about us, and their shells were already thundering upon our bivouac. God, what an awakening for men who had hoped so much!

V

The sound of cannon broke in upon our sleep a little after the hour of dawn.

We had made a comfortable bivouac in the hut, and were all dozing in the straw which covered its floor, when the earth about us began to tremble, and everyone started up to realise the dread alarm.

It chanced that I was lying cheek by jowl with Valerie St. Antoine, and that we were the first of them all to run into the open and ascertain the truth. It needed but a single glance at the hills and the river to tell us that story in all its menace.

It was just light at this time—a colder morning than that of yesterday, with a clearer heaven. As the clouds of night rolled away, the black figures of the Cossacks upon the hills were clearly to be discerned, while the smoke of their cannon drifted slowly upon the still air and hovered above the swirling river. It was plain that a considerable force had come up in the night, and, having discovered our intention, began immediately to fire upon the bridges. We could see their cannon-balls plumping into the water, striking the floes of driving ice, or even rending the frail pontoons which our engineers had moored with such difficulty. And while they did this a cry of horror ran from end to end of our own encampment—the cries of those who believed that delay had undone them, and that they were betrayed.

From every camp fire now, from the shelter of puny huts and caves dug out of the earth, from wagons and tents, there appeared a stream of men and women, too, camp followers who mingled with the soldiery and cursed or entreated as the mood dictated.