The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

Such Russians as we met had the most revolting aspect and were clad in the coarsest sheepskins. We knew that the best of them were convicts who had been released by the governor on our advent, and now they skulked like wolves to do us a mischief in every alley or by-street which sheltered them.

For the rest, Moscow might have been a mausoleum. We danced to the music of our own voices; the cheers that were raised were the cheers from French throats which heralded only a hollow victory.

The plunder that we seized came to our hands undisputed. No man contended with us save the brigands, and they were like jackals, whose howls were chiefly heard by night.

I have often wondered at the sang-froid with which all this was received at head-quarters. None of the staff appeared aware of the perils of our situation, nor did the fact that we were already running short of provisions alarm our leaders. Many things we had in abundance, and they should have provoked our irony. It was ridiculous to see whole companies of the Guard making merry over casks of French liqueur or wallowing like schoolgirls in boxes of sweetmeats. Yet such was the case, and nothing but the actual riches of the city blinded the rank and file to the truth.

Oh, what days of plunder they were, and how our good fellows revelled in them!

A man had but to sally forth with an axe in his hand to reach the riches of a Croesus. I have seen the veriest Gascons so laden with furs and jewels and the wealth of nobles that they themselves, could they have conveyed their burdens to Paris, might never have had an anxiety about their bread to the end of their days. It was the commonest thing to discover carts and wagons in Moscow piled high with the treasures of centuries and led uncontested to the camps of an enemy which had found the gates open and the ramparts undefended. Even the Imperial edict against pillage and rapine was useless to prevent this spoliation. The men had suffered much to reach the Holy City, and His Majesty the Emperor was wise enough to reward them according to their hopes.

Here I must tell you that the common troopers were by no means the only offenders in this respect. There was not an officer in or out of the Guards who did not claim his share of the plunder, while he shut his eyes to the doings of those under him. If I myself forbore to take a hand in this profitable amusement, it was because my burdens were heavy and owed not a little to the state of Moscow even in the early days of our occupation.

Then, as afterwards, fire was our almost daily enemy. One day it would be in the bazaars; the next in the poorest quarters of the city; again in the houses of the rich, which our troopers had pillaged. We were told the convicts fired the buildings by the governor's orders. We could not believe it, and yet we hunted the rascals down as though they were vermin.

I have often wondered what His Majesty the Emperor would have done had he known the true state of affairs in Moscow. He did not know them, however, and he was still anxious to propitiate those whom he believed to be its people. Every day we heard the story of the peace which was to be signed, and of the profit which was to come to our arms thereby; and every day we who served were abroad in street or alley wrestling with the flames and smoke of the burning houses, or hanging and shooting the incendiaries who had become the enemy.

Little wonder that my nephew Léon had no time for love-making. Often would I ask him if he had heard of or seen the beautiful Valerie again. The rascal pretended that he had forgotten her very existence, and yet I knew in my heart that he had remembered her. It was no surprise to me when, at the end of the third week, I heard from his servant, Gascogne, that he had received a letter from Valerie herself, and that it had contained an invitation to dinner in a house beyond the suburbs of the city. When I charged Léon with it he shook his head and smiled in his boyish way.