lantern and began to hum an aria of Glück’s that had been fashionable when he last saw Paris. His hair was loosened from the ribbon and half freed from powder; it showed in streaks of bright brown through the pomade.
“There will be no moving till dawn,” said M. de Biron with an air of disgust. The snow was beginning to invade their temporary shelter.
Another officer spoke impatiently.
“There must be food—many of our men have not eaten since they started. How many men does M. de Belleisle hope to get to Eger in this manner?”
There was no answer: the blast of heavy snow chilled speech. Some faint distant shouting and cries were heard, the neighing of a horse, the rumble of a cart, then silence.
Georges d’Espagnac continued his song; he seemed in a happy dream. Presently he fell asleep, resting his head against the shoulder of the other lieutenant. M. de Biron and the second captain either slept also or made a good feint of it. The Marquis rose and took the lantern from the wall; it was unbearable to him to sit there in the darkness, amid this silent company, while there was so much to do outside. The thought of his hungry men pricked him. The food wagons must have overlooked them. It was surely possible to find some member of the commissariat department. The army could not have reached already such a pitch of confusion.
He stepped softly from under the canvas. To his great relief he found that the snow had almost ceased, but the air was glacial. As he paused, endeavouring to see his way by means of the poor rays of the lantern, his horse gave a low whinny after him. The Marquis felt another pang—the poor brutes must be hungry too. He began to descend the rocky path; he was cold even through his heavy fur mantle, and his hands were stiff despite his fur gloves. The path was wet and slippery, half frozen already, though the snow had only lain a moment.
In every crevice and hole in the rocks the soldiers were lying or sitting; many of them were wrapped in the tent canvases and horses’ blankets; here and there was a dead mule with a man lying close for warmth, or a wounded trooper dying helplessly in his stiffening blood. The Marquis saw these sights intermittently and imperfectly by the wavering light of his lantern. He set his teeth; after nine years’ service he was still sensitive to sights of horror.
When he reached the level ground by the river that was the principal camping ground, he stopped bewildered amidst utter confusion.
There were neither tents, nor sentries, nor outposts, merely thousands of men, lying abandoned to cold and hunger, amidst useless wagons of furniture; and as the Marquis moved slowly across the field he saw no other sight than this.
What might lie beyond the range of his lantern he could not tell, but all he could see seemed abandoned to despair.
A man leading a mule knocked up against him; he also held a feeble lantern; his dress and the chests the mule carried showed him to be a surgeon.
“This is a pitiful sight, Monsieur,” he said. “Most of the wagons were lost in that storm yesterday, and how am I to work with nothing?” He lifted his shoulders and repeated, “with nothing?”
“Is there no food?” asked the Marquis.
“In Pürgitz, yes—but who is to distribute it on such a night?”
“We are like to have worse nights. Is M. de Belleisle in Pürgitz?”
“And some regiments. They are in luck, Monsieur.”
M. de Vauvenargues stood thoughtfully, and the surgeon passed on. Two officers rode up on horseback, attended by a soldier with a torch; the Marquis accosted them.
“Messieurs, I am Vauvenargues of the régiment du roi,” he said. “We are encamped up the ravine, and there is no provision for men or horses——”
By the light of the torch he recognized in the foremost officer M. de Broglie, whose bright hair gleamed above a pale face.
“Maréchal,” he added, “I do not know how many will be alive by the morning.”
“M. de Vauvenargues!” exclaimed the General, with a faint smile. “I am helpless—absolutely helpless. The food wagons have not come up—some, I believe, are lost.”
The Marquis looked at him keenly; M. de Broglie was so careless in manner that the young officer suspected he was in truth deeply troubled.
“Very well, Monsieur,” he answered. “I suppose we may look for some relief with the dawn?”
“I think the orders will be to march at daybreak,” answered de Broglie. He touched his beaver and rode on, first adding gravely, “Pray God it does not snow again.”
The Marquis remained holding the lantern and looking at the huddled shape of men and horses. A vast pity for the waste and unseen courage of war gripped his heart; none of these men complained, the horses dropped silently, the very mules died patiently—and what was the use of it? The war was wanton, unprovoked, expensive, and, so far, a failure; it had nothing heroic in its object, which was principally to satisfy the ambitious vanity of M. de Belleisle and the vague schemes of poor old well-meaning Cardinal Fleury who had never seen a battle-field in his life.
The end seemed so inadequate to the sacrifice asked. The Marquis had seen the soldiers suffer and die in Prague with secret pangs, but this seemed a sheer devastation. It was impossible to stand still long in that cold; it was obvious that nothing could be done till the dawn. He pulled out his silver filigree watch, but it had stopped.
Slowly he moved through the camp. Now the snow had ceased, several pitiful little fires were springing up in sheltered spots; and the men were moving about in their heavy wraps, and the surgeons coming in and out the groups of wounded and sick.
A dog barked in a home-sick fashion; there was not a star visible. A Hussite pastor came within range of the Marquis’s lantern; he was carrying a limp child, and murmuring, in the strange Bohemian, what seemed a prayer.
Soon the flickering orbit of light fell on a Catholic priest kneeling beside a dying man whose face was sharp and dull. He too prayed, but the familiar Latin supplications were as outside the Marquis’s sympathy as the Hussite’s appeal; he was tolerant to both, but his thoughts just touched them, no more. A strange haughty sadness came over his heart; he felt disdainful of humanity that could be so weak, so cruel, so patient.
His lantern had evidently been near empty of oil, for it began to flicker and flare, and finally sank out.
He put it from him and felt his way over a pile of rocks that rose up suddenly sheer and sharp.
Nothing could be done till the dawn; it was doubtful even if he could find his way back to his own regiment. He seated himself on the rock, wrapped his cloak tightly about him, and waited.
He thought that he must be in some kind of shelter, for he did not feel the wind, and here the cold was certainly less severe.
His sombre mood did not long endure; he ceased to see the darkness filled with weary, dispirited, wounded men; rather he fancied it full of light and even flowers, which were the thoughts, he fancied, and aspirations of these poor tired soldiers.
Obedience, courage, endurance, strength blossomed rich as red roses in the hearts of the feeblest of these sons of France—and in the bosom of such as Georges d’Espagnac bloomed a very glory, as of white passion flowers at midsummer and in his own heart there grew enough to render the bloodstained night fragrant.
He smiled at his conceit, but it was very real to him. He had not eaten since early the previous day; he wondered if he was beginning to grow light-headed, as he had done once before in Italy when he had been without food and several hours in the sun.
The reflection brought back a sudden picture of Italy, hard, brightly-coloured, gorgeous, brilliant; he shivered with a great longing for that purple sunshine that scorched the flesh and ran in the blood.
In particular he recalled a field of wheat sloping to a sea which was like a rough blue stone for colour, and huge-leaved