The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

"It will be a case of sauve qui peut," said I. "We are under no obligation to these people, and why should we perish because of them? Come with me now, and, if it is possible to do so, I will recross the river later in the day. I pledge my word upon that. But, mademoiselle," said I, "it is madness for you to listen to them."

She shook her head, smiling in the old, alluring way.

"It has all been madness," she exclaimed; and that was as true a thing as ever she said.

"We shall stand a better chance to-night, Monsieur Constant, than now, when there are so many on the bridge," she continued. "Let us wait upon our opportunity. Surely you would not attempt the passage at this moment?" And she pointed to the bridges, thronged already by a terrified mob, and pounded by the cannon of the Russians.

My answer to this was a shrug of the shoulders, for no other seemed possible.

Any man who was at the Bérézina will understand the terror and pity of the scene I now witnessed and the helplessness of any Frenchman who stood upon the eastern bank of the cursed river.

As a hail of death, the shells and the bullets of the Russians poured down upon the terror-stricken fugitives. Dreadful cries arose. So great was the press upon the pontoons that hundreds of our people were thrust headlong into the swirling waters, hundreds of the weak crushed beneath the feet of the stronger. All huddled together—wagons driven over living men, cavalry hewing their way with swords, the cries of cantinières, women and children screaming for pity—all, I say, pressed on in that mad quest of shelter which was to be offered to so few.

Soon the river was black with the bodies of the drowned. I saw wretched creatures clinging to the ice-floes or the pontoons of the bridge; some fighting as devils for a foothold upon the narrow way; others too weak to struggle as the strong thrust them aside and the black water enveloped them. Wisely indeed had Valerie insisted upon delay. Yet it was a melancholy thing to reflect that even an hour before the day had dawned we might all have passed over in safety and set out upon our way to the Paris of our dreams.

I shall not weary you with any undue recital of the horrors of that unnameable day. From dawn to dusk the slaughter continued. It was a tragic moment indeed when the Russians at length destroyed the greater bridge, and with it a regiment of cavalry of the Guard then passing over. This was quite early in the day, and thereafter the scenes upon the pontoons became beyond all words awful to witness. Even the bravest were as helpless as children in that terrible lutte pour la vie. I remember, about one o'clock in the afternoon, riding down to the water's edge with my old friend Gros-Jean of the Vélites, and watching the frantic endeavour that most courageous of men made to cross the bridge, despite my entreaties. Alas! he had but plunged into the medley when a Cuirassier of the Guard thrust him down, and he, in turn, clinging to his aggressor's cloak, they rolled headlong on to a great floe of ice, and were presently engulfed with the thousands the insatiable waters already had claimed. Who in the face of such scenes would have advised a woman and an old man to dare the transit? Not I, in truth, whatever the cost.

The miseries of our own situation will now be perceived by all. We had refrained from crossing upon a quixotic impulse, and it seemed that our sacrifice had cost us our liberty if not our lives. Hour by hour the Cossacks were drawing nearer, their fire becoming more terrible and their hosts more plainly to be seen. Night must find them down upon us, or we ourselves but units amidst the maddened people who fought like wild beasts for a foothold on the bridge. Even old Monsieur d'Izambert began to perceive the folly of it as the day waxed and waned, and vainly he waited for the son who did not return.