The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

I perceived that it was the only thing to be done, and, going out of the church with him, we began our search, which was to end so disastrously.

There was no street, house, nor cellar within a quarter of a mile of the place that we did not ransack to its depths. I have always been liked by the Guard, and many a good fellow proffered his help in such an emergency. Soon, I think, there must have been fifty of us crying the tidings far and wide and asking, "Have you seen the Frenchwoman named St. Antoine?" The astonishing thing was that we did not meet a human being who could help us by a word. None had seen Valerie; few thought that they would recognise her if they did see her.

"Possibly," said one, "she has gone to the guest house in the main street of the town." Another suggested that she might have set out with the advance guard which left just after dawn. But all agreed that she was not to be found, and when noon came and there were still no tidings of her, then I began to believe that she would never be found at all. This was a disaster so unlooked for, so terrible, that it paralysed every faculty I possessed. To die for a woman's temper, I said, while even my friends began to admit that I was in grave danger. When I met an aide-de-camp to General Dumesnil a little later in the afternoon, he told me that His Majesty was still waiting, but that his anger had not modified.

"By heaven," said he, "he will have you shot, major, if you do not find her."

I could only answer that I had done my best and was still doing it. It occurred to me that, after all, Valerie might return to the church eventually, and, telling every man I knew that I was going there, I sought out that now deserted building, and made myself its prisoner. What hours they were—what hours of waiting, of hope, and of fear! From the distance I could hear the rumble of the guns and the murmur of a great army moving, but the church itself was as silent as the dead and filled with the ghosts of yesterday. In the end the night came and found me still watching. I did not dare to return to head-quarters. Even Léon did not come back to me.

Well, a man dies but once, they say, and yet I died many deaths that night.

Often I rebuked myself that Léon was one of the few to whom I had not committed my intention of returning to the church, and a little after ten o'clock I set out to seek for him. This walk took me back to the main street of the town, and eventually to the very building wherein I had seen His Majesty that morning. Such a fact, if it is to be explained at all, must be set down to the magnetism of fate, which destroys men as well as animals. The rabbit, they say, is fascinated by the snake, and so was I by that intolerable uncertainty which I could not support in the stillness of the church. I must know the truth, I thought: I must see the Emperor again, if I were ordered out for execution there and then—well, a more terrible death might await me on the frozen plain beyond the town. "Have done with it," was my idea, as I pushed my way up the steps and asked if His Majesty was still there.

Well, it was a fearful ordeal. A young officer carried in my message and bade me wait at the door until he returned. It mattered not where it was. I do not think I was conscious of the time, the place, or of anything but the issue. Should I be summoned to that magic presence or should I not? Would the penalty be death? Few know what a man suffers who lives through such moments as these; few can understand the sudden reaction which attends the truth, whatever it be.

"His Majesty left at one o'clock," said the orderly when he returned.

The truth staggered me, and I reeled as at a blow.