The Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne (1812-1813) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908692313
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Wagram Press
Published: 2010-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX.

FROM THE BÉRÉZINA TO WILNA-THE JEWS.

I HAD been walking in advance of the regiment for about half an hour, when I met a sergeant of the Fusiliers-Chasseurs whom I knew. He seemed very happy about something (a most unusual thing), so I asked him if he had anything to eat.

“I have found some potatoes,” he said, “in this village.”

I raised my head and saw that we were actually in a village at that moment. Walking with my eyes fixed on the ground, I had not noticed it. When I heard the word “potatoes” I stopped him to ask in which house he had found them, and I ran there as fast as my legs would carry me. After much searching, I had the luck to find three little potatoes under an oven, about the size of nuts. I half cooked them on an almost extinct fire I found a little distance off the road. When they were done enough, I ate them with a bit of horseflesh, but I hardly tasted them, as the fever I had on me for the last few days had destroyed my appetite entirely, and I was sure that if it continued I should soon be dead.

When the regiment passed I took my place, and we marched as far as Ziemben, where the Emperor, with part of the Guard, had already arrived. We could see him gazing at the road to Borisow on our left, where we were told the Russians would come. Several of the horse-Guards were sent on in front, but no Russians were to be seen that day. The Emperor slept at Kamen with half the Guard, and we, the Fusiliers, Grenadiers, and Chasseurs, spent the night close by.

On the 3oth the Emperor and his suite slept at Plechnitzié. We bivouacked some distance off. We arrived there on the following day, and heard that Marshal Oudinot had only just escaped being made prisoner there; that 2,000 Russians, with two field-pieces, had entered the place, and that the Marshal, although wounded, had entrenched himself in a house with twenty-five men, both officers and privates, many of them wounded. The Russians, astounded at these preparations for defence with so small a number of men, had retired on to some heights overlooking the house, and laid siege to it till the arrival of the Emperor with the troop of the Rhine Confederation and part of the Guard. As we passed, we looked at the house, pierced through by balls in many places. It seemed strange to us how 2,000 Cossacks had not sufficient courage to take an old wooden house defended by only twenty-five men.

On the next day, December 1st, we left early in the morning, and after an hour’s march we reached a village, where the Fusiliers-Chasseurs had spent the night. They were waiting to set out with us. I made inquiries if there was anything to buy there, and was told by a sergeant-major that there was some gin to be had from a Jew.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.