Napoleon's Spy by Ben Kane

Author:Ben Kane [Kane, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVIII

Borodino, 7 September 1812

Restless, I came to. Today would be the day, I thought, the day Napoleon had been wanting, longing for, since the crossing of the Niemen. Suddenly, I was wide awake. I did not feel remotely rested. My pocket watch had read two a.m. when I retired. It was also still pitch black outside, but the creak of wheels and tramp of feet announced the mobilisation of the army. Realising that I had had perhaps an hour and a half’s rest, and that it was not time yet to get up, I did my best to go back to sleep. My attempts were hindered by the noise outside, the heat and how it made my healing chest wound itch. François’s stentorious breathing and the snores of the two other messengers who shared our tent did not help.

I began to brood on what had happened since Smolensk. Eighteen thousand French soldiers had been slain or injured, massive casualties for taking what was not an important objective. The horrors I had seen had not ended on the field either. Visiting a fellow messenger in a temporary hospital, I had seen similarly appalling conditions. With no bandages available, his wound had been wrapped up with tow. Other men’s injuries had even been dressed with paper, torn out of books found in the town. Fortunately, my friend was recovering well; I wished the same could be said of the unfortunates who had been lying beside him.

On the twentieth of August had come good news; a Russian army commanded by Wittgenstein near Polotsk had been routed by the Marquis de Gouvion St Cyr, earning him a marshal’s baton from Napoleon. Encouraged, the emperor had sent a letter to Tsar Alexander, declaring, ‘We have burnt enough powder and shed enough blood. We must end this some time. But for Moscow to be occupied would be the equivalent to a girl losing her honour.’ No reply had been received, as had been the case with his previous messages.

This had not stopped Napoleon – after fatuous talk of overwintering at Witepsk – from insisting that the Grande Armée continue its advance. In doing so, he ignored the counsel of almost all his senior commanders. I remember hearing one, Berthier maybe, muttering on the way out of a meeting: ‘Well, so it’s “Forwards, forwards, always forwards,” is it? Hasn’t he had enough yet? Won’t he ever?’

It was concerning how many of Napoleon’s close aides disagreed with him – Caulaincourt, as ever, was among them, yet he paid no heed. There was nothing that I, a lowly messenger, could do about it either. I concentrated on what I had some chance with: surviving.

The morale of the rank and filers was even lower than the senior officers, and it was no surprise. Their march since Smolensk had been even more arduous. The landscape was vastly different now, dreary and desolate, covered only by scrub and conifers, and areas of silver birch forest. Every village lay abandoned, and burnt to the ground.

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