The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 131

It is growing dark, though nothing distinguishes where the sun sets. There is no sound except that of a shuffling of feet in the direction of a bivouac. Here are gathered tattered men like skeletons. Their noses and ears are frost-bitten, and pus is oozing from their eyes.

These stricken shades in a limbo of gloom are among the last survivors of the French army. Few of them carry arms. One squad, ploughing through snow above their knees, and with icicles dangling from their hair that clink like gla.s.s-l.u.s.tres as they walk, go into the birch wood, and are heard chopping. They bring back boughs, with which they make a screen on the windward side, and contrive to light a fire. With their swords they cut rashers from a dead horse, and grill them in the flames, using gunpowder for salt to eat them with. Two others return from a search, with a dead rat and some candle-ends. Their meal shared, some try to repair their gaping shoes and to tie up their feet, that are chilblained to the bone.

A straggler enters, who whispers to one or two soldiers of the group. A shudder runs through them at his words.]

FIRST SOLDIER [dazed]

What--gone, do you say? Gone?

STRAGGLER

Yes, I say gone!

He left us at Smorgoni hours ago.

The Sacred Squadron even he has left behind.

By this time he's at Warsaw or beyond, Full pace for Paris.

SECOND SOLDIER [jumping up wildly]

Gone? How did he go?

No, surely! He could not desert us so!

STRAGGLER

He started in a carriage, with Roustan The Mameluke on the box: Caulaincourt, too, Was inside with him. Monton and Duroc Rode on a sledge behind.--The order bade That we should not be told it for a while.

[Other soldiers spring up as they realize the news, and stamp hither and thither, impotent with rage, grief, and despair, many in their physical weakness sobbing like children.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

Good. It is the selfish and unconscionable characters who are so much regretted.

STRAGGLER

He felt, or feigned, he ought to leave no longer A land like Prussia 'twixt himself and home.

There was great need for him to go, he said, To quiet France, and raise another army That shall replace our bones.

SEVERAL [distractedly]

Deserted us!

Deserted us!--O, after all our pangs We shall see France no more!

[Some become insane, and go dancing round. One of them sings.]

MAD SOLDIER'S SONG

I Ha, for the snow and h.o.a.r!

Ho, for our fortune's made!

We can shape our bed without sheets to spread, And our graves without a spade.

So foolish Life adieu, And ingrate Leader too.

--Ah, but we loved you true!

Yet--he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho-!-- We'll never return to you.

II

What can we wish for more?

Thanks to the frost and flood We are grinning crones--thin bags of bones Who once were flesh and blood.

So foolish Life adieu, And ingrate Leader too.

--Ah, but we loved you true!

Yet--he-he-he! and ho-ho-ho!-- We'll never return to you.

[Exhausted, they again crouch round the fire. Officers and privates press together for warmth. Other stragglers arrive, and sit at the backs of the first. With the progress of the night the stars come out in unusual brilliancy, Sirius and those in Orion flas.h.i.+ng like stilettos; and the frost stiffens.

The fire sinks and goes out; but the Frenchmen do not move. The day dawns, and still they sit on.

In the background enter some light horse of the Russian army, followed by KUTUZOF himself and a few of his staff. He presents a terrible appearance now--bravely serving though slowly dying, his face puffed with the intense cold, his one eye staring out as he sits in a heap in the saddle, his head sunk into his shoulders.

The whole detachment pauses at the sight of the French asleep.

They shout; but the bivouackers give no sign.

KUTUZOF

Go, stir them up! We slay not sleeping men.

[The Russians advance and prod the French with their lances.]

RUSSIAN OFFICER

Prince, here's a curious picture. They are dead.

KUTUZOF [with indifference]

Oh, naturally. After the snow was down I marked a sharpening of the air last night.

We shall be stumbling on such frost-baked meat Most of the way to Wilna.

OFFICER [examining the bodies]

They all sit As they were living still, but stiff as horns; And even the colour has not left their cheeks, Whereon the tears remain in strings of ice.-- It was a marvel they were not consumed: Their clothes are cindered by the fire in front, While at their back the frost has caked them hard.