Others comforted us with the assurance that our engineers would not fail us in this emergency, and were all ready at the Bérézina to strengthen and to guard the ancient bridge. The tales were contradictory, and we knew not which to believe. The river had become our Rubicon, and we imagined that if we recrossed it the victory was won.
This was the condition of affairs on the morning of November 25th, when Léon and I rode a little way with a detachment of some thirty pontonniers who were on their way to the Bérézina.
I remember well that the captain of the little company warned us to look well after our horses; "for," said he, "the Emperor has given instructions that all the best are to be taken for the use of the artillery and the wounded." The Imperial Guard was then some five miles ahead of us, and we had no intention of overtaking it. To that end we soon parted company with the pontonniers, and stopped for an hour about midday in what had been a farmhouse upon the high road. There we cooked a little of the rice we carried in our saddlebags, and drank of the brandy which I had carried out of Smolensk.
The repast gave us courage, and we rode on in better spirit afterwards. Alas, that such a mood turned too swiftly to one of despair, when we found that we had lost the road and that the bodies of dead and dying Frenchmen indicated no longer the route to the Bérézina.
II
We made this discovery about three o'clock of the afternoon.
The day was already done, and a great red sun sank into a billow of mist.
We saw nothing about us but vast fields of snow, gone crimson in the vanishing light, and woods which would tell no story but that of wolves.
A profound silence reigned in this frozen wilderness. We did not hear so much as the chime of a distant church bell, nor perceive a single human being upon all that waste. Yet it did not appear to us by the compass that we could be very far from the road to Bobr, through which the Emperor must pass; nor had we any misgivings that we should ultimately come to the banks of the Bérézina if we held upon our course.
"There are no Cossacks here," says Léon, "and there is not much advantage got by company. We have a little food and brandy, and may as well keep it to ourselves. Come on, mon oncle. Let us try to believe that the spires of Notre Dame are to be seen from yonder road, and all the rest will be easy."