The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

Remember that we marched like a beaten army, dejected and without spirit; thousands dying every day as we went: the road across the snows black with the bodies of our comrades who had fallen. Only the spirit which had conquered at Austerlitz and Jena prevented our swift annihilation by the Russian wolves, who barked at us from every thicket. If a man lost his way, the sabres of the Cossacks quickly showed him the road, or the hatchets of the peasantry put an end to his sufferings. And yet this laughing Payard could propose that we should brave the fastnesses of these savages just to find a good dinner beyond them—a soldier's invitation, surely, perhaps a madman's project.

I shall not dwell upon this aspect of the adventure, for it must be apparent to all. Whatever misgivings I had at dawn passed away as the day waxed and waned and the pangs of a savage hunger devoured me at nightfall. A starving man is no better than a starving dog when he is famished, and the Vélites were becoming but animals these latter days. So you will not wonder that Payard found us ready when he called us at sunset and that we set off as willingly as lads from a school. We were going to dine for the first time since we had quitted Moscow. Happy pilgrims upon a gourmet's road—how little we knew what was in store for us!

I should tell you here that the regiment had chosen but a bleak place for its bivouac that night; a night when the wind began to blow again and the moon shone clear in a starlit heaven. The road crossed a shallow valley, in the midst of which was a frozen river. The banks of this were not high enough to give much shelter from the bitter blasts, but such as it was our men availed themselves of it and lay in the hollows by the water, without fires, since the woods were some miles away to the south, and there was not a human habitation to be seen. When all that could be done for the good fellows had been accomplished, and those who perished of fatigue were carried out of sight of the living, Payard called to Léon and myself and we set off briskly over the frozen waste. The time to dine had arrived, though as yet we knew nothing of that strange café in the wilderness which should harbour us.

"It is an hour's ride from here," said Payard as he mounted his horse; "nothing at all, my friends, and no Cossacks until we come to the woods. Then we shall be ready for them. En avant, mes amis, I am going to feed you well."

With this he set off at a brisk trot and we followed him without protest. The way lay in the valley of the river I have mentioned, and we followed it for at least two miles until the bank rose more steeply and afforded no longer a safe footing for our horses.

Nevertheless, we pressed on until the woods drew down to the water's edge, and Payard declared that we had need of horses no longer. From this time, as he quickly told us, we must go afoot for safety's sake; and tethering the willing animals to the first of the trees about the river's border, we entered the forest.

III

Our confidence was wonderful. We knew no more than the dead where this merry fellow was leading us, and yet we followed him as joyous adventurers upon the gayest of pilgrimages. When we heard a distant bugle and surmised that we were not far from the Russian camp, we were still unable to check his headlong advance, and though it was difficult to imagine that he knew the country, our questions concerning it were asked in vain.

"A la bonne heure," he would say when checking his step. "I have promised you a good dinner, and I am taking you where you will get it. Do not trouble me until we arrive at the house. Then I will talk to you."

To this he added the intimation that it was dangerous to talk in a place where the trees had ears. "Do you wish to dine with the Cossacks?" he asked us. It was a question we could answer very decidedly in the negative.