CHAPTER VIII
THE AFFAIR AT THE POST-HOUSE
I
There was very little order kept among us after the Battle of Krasnoë, and you may depict us as a scattered host going covertly in fear of the Cossacks.
Men made little attempt to keep up with their regiments. The Chasseurs and Fusiliers of the Guard, with whom the Emperor marched, were, perhaps, the exception; but the rest of us went as we could, thinking more of food and shelter than of our own safety, and hardened to any feelings of pity.
The latter is a bold admission to make, but few of those who marched from Moscow will contest it. When comrades are perishing about you every day, when your milestones are the bodies of the frozen dead, the ultimate terror becomes the lesser thing and all the more brutal instincts are awakened. We could not help those who fell; we pushed on, deaf to their appeals. Let any man lag for an hour in this bitter cold, and he would sleep as they slept—so many thousands upon the great white highway.
Sometimes it befell that we did not see our regiment for many days together. This, I remember, happened to my nephew Léon and myself as we drew near the Bérézina.
The army heard many disquieting stories at this time, and most of them had to do with the passage of the famous river.
The timorous agreed that the Russians could not lose so favourable an opportunity of falling upon our disorganised units, and that he would be a lucky man who made the passage of the stream in safety.