“Under Providence, I owed my preservation to the trustiest and most faithful servant ever master had. Paul had been several years in the hussars—was an old soldier, in fact, although still a young man; and at a time when all discipline and subordination were at an end, when soldiers heeded not their officers, officers avoided their generals, and servants and masters were all alike and upon a level, Paul proved true as steel. As if cold and the Cossacks were not enough, hunger was added to our sufferings: there was no longer a commissariat or distribution of rations;—rations, forsooth!—dead horse was a luxury I have seen men fight for till death, lean meat though it was, for the poor brutes were as starved as their riders. What little there was to eat in the villages we passed through fell to the share of the first comers. Empty larders—often smoking ruins—were all that remained for those who came behind. Well, sir, when things were at the worst, and provender at the scarcest, Paul always had something for me in his haversack. One day it would be a bit of bread, on the morrow a handful of grain or some edible roots, now and then a slice of horse-beef—and how delicious that seemed, grilled over our smoky scanty fires! There was never enough to satisfy my hunger, but there was always a something—enough to keep body and soul together. Paul, as I afterwards discovered, husbanded his stores, for he well knew that if he gave me all at once I should leave nothing, and then I must have fasted for days, and perhaps have fallen from my horse for weakness. But think of the courage and affection of the poor fellow, himself half-starved, to carry food about him day after day, and refrain from devouring the share secretly set aside for me! There were not many men in the army, even of general’s rank, capable of such devotion to the dearest friend they had, for extreme misery had induced a ferocious selfishness, which made us more like hyenas than Christians.”
“I should think the cold must have been even worse to endure than hunger,” said I, screwing up my chilly extremities, which the interest of the doctor’s conversation had almost made me forget.
“It was, sir, harder and more fatal—at least a greater number died of it; although, to say the truth, frost and famine there worked hand in hand, and with such unity of action, that it was often hard to say which was the cause of death. But it was a shocking sight, of a morning, to see the poor fellows lying dead round the bivouac fires. Unable to resist fatigue and the drowsy influence of the cold, they yielded to slumber, and passed from sleep into death. For, there, sleep was death.”
“But how then,” I asked, “did any ever escape from Russia, for all must have slept at times?”
“I do not believe that any who escaped did sleep, at least not of a night, at the bivouac. We used to rouse each other continually, to prevent our giving way, and then get up and walk as briskly as we could, to quicken the sluggish circulation. We slept upon the march, in our saddles, and, strange as it may seem to you, even those on foot slept when marching. They marched in groups or clusters, and those in the centre slept, propped and supported by their companions, and moving their legs mechanically. I do not say that it was a sound, deep sleep, but rather a sort of feverish dozing. Such as it was, however, it was better than nothing, and assuredly saved some who would otherwise have sunk. Others, who would have given way to weariness upon the long monotonous march, were kept from utter despair and self-abandonment only by the repeated harassing attacks of the Cossacks. The excitement of the skirmish warmed their blood, and gave them, as it seemed, fresh hold upon life. In one of those skirmishes, or rather in a sharp combat, a dear friend of mine, a captain in the same regiment, had his left arm carried off by a cannon-shot. After the affair was over, I came suddenly upon him, where he lay moaning by the roadside, his face ashy pale, his arm still hanging by the sinews. His horse had either galloped away, or been taken by the fugitives.
“‘Ah, mon ami!’ he cried, when he saw me, ‘all is over—I can go no further. I shall never see France again!’
“I saw that, like the majority of those who received severe wounds in that retreat, his moral courage was subdued, and had given way to despair. I was terribly shocked, for I felt how slight was his chance of escape. I need hardly tell you there was very little dressing of wounds during that latter part of the retreat; most of the surgeons were dead, the hospital-waggons with medicine and instruments had been left on the road; transport for the sick was out of the question. I assumed as cheerful a countenance as I could.
“‘Why, Préville,’ I cried, ‘this will not do; we must get you along somehow. Come! courage, my friend! You shall see France again, in spite of all.’
“‘Ah! doctor,’ replied he, in piteous tones, ‘it is no use. Here I shall die. All you can do for me is to blow my brains out, and save me from the Cossack lances.’
“By this time I had dismounted and was at his side. The intense cold had stopped the bleeding of his wound. I saw that there was no lack of vitality in him, and that, but for this mishap, few would have got out of the campaign in better plight. Even now, his despondency was perhaps his greatest danger. I reminded him of his wife and child (he had been married little more than a year, and news of the birth of a daughter had reached him on our forward march), of his happy home, his old mother—of all the ties, in short, that bound him to life. Whilst speaking, I severed the sinews that still retained his shattered arm, and bound it up as best I might. He still despaired and moaned, but suffered me to do as I would. He was like an infant in my hands—that man who, in the hour of battle, was a very lion for courage. But long suffering and the sudden shock—occurring, too, when we seemed on the verge of safety—had overcome his fortitude. With Paul’s help I got him upon my horse. The poor brute was in no case to carry double, so I walked and led it, although at that time I could hardly hobble.