He asked me if I was
Russki--I! Then he wanted to hold my hand. And he went to sleep.
He will wake among the angels--that parishioner."
Not only had no one heard of Charles Darragon, but few knew the name
of the commander to whose staff he had been attached in Moscow.
There was nothing for it but to go on towards Kowno, where it was
understood temporary head-quarters had been established.
Rapp himself had told D'Arragon that officers had been despatched to
Kowno to form a base--a sort of rock in the midst of a torrent to
divert the currents. There had then been a talk of Tilsit, and
diverting the stream, or part of it towards Macdonald in the north.
But D'Arragon knew that Macdonald was likely to be in no better
plight than Murat; for it was an open secret in Dantzig that Yorck,
with four-fifths of Macdonald's army, was about to abandon him.
The road to Kowno was not to be mistaken. On either side of it,
like fallen landmarks, the dead lay huddled on the snow. Sometimes
D'Arragon and Barlasch found the remains of a fire, where, amid the
ashes, the chains and rings showed that a gun-carriage had been
burnt. The trees were cut and scored where, as a forlorn hope, some
poor imbecile had stripped the bark with the thought that it might
burn. Nearly every fire had its grim guardian; for the wounds of
the injured nearly always mortified when the flesh was melted by the
warmth. Once or twice, with their ragged feet in the ashes, a whole
company had never awakened from their sleep.
Pages:
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192