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  The Officer's Prey

  ( The Napoleonic Murders - 1 )

  Armand Cabasson

  June 1812. Napoleon Bonaparte begins his invasion of Russia leading the largest army Europe has ever seen. But amongst the troops of the Grande Armée is a savage murderer whose bloodlust is not satisfied in battle.

  When a Polish woman is brutally stabbed, Captain Quentin Margont of the eighty-forth regiment is put in charge of an investigation to unmask the perpetrator. Armed with the fact that the killer is an officer, Margont knows that he faces an impossible task and the greatest challenge of his military career.

  THE OFFICER’S PREY

  ARMAND CABASSON

  Translated from the French by Michael Glencross

  For Emmanuelle

  with whom I have the joy of sharing my life

  and for Françoise

  CHAPTER 1

  STRANGELY, his hands were not trembling. The man was gazing at the body of the servant to whom he had been talking just a few moments earlier. His victim, now a pitifully bloodied and mutilated corpse, was real enough. But he was staring at her with as little feeling as if she were a broken doll. What made him uneasy was not that he had killed her, but that he felt no guilt. In sharp contrast to his inner turmoil as he’d stabbed the woman again and again, he now felt calm.

  He stood up so suddenly that his chair almost toppled over. Time was against him. The innkeeper or one of his employees was bound to knock on the door sooner or later to ask for help serving the customers. The man knew he had to shake off his lethargy. His shoes, trousers, shirt and hair were all covered in blood. He had managed only partially to clean it from his hands and face. Impossible to run the risk of encountering a customer in the corridor. And how could he walk through the main room downstairs without being accosted by one of the infantrymen that were eating, getting drunk, smoking, chatting and leering at the serving girls? When he had entered the bedroom he had not known he was going to kill the woman. Now he realised he was trapped and his only route of escape was through the window.

  The bedroom was on the third floor, under the eaves. It had rained the whole evening and heavy cloud still hid the moon. The pitch-dark gave him a reasonable chance of being unnoticed by the many soldiers passing in the street. He opened the window and cautiously looked down. Three infantrymen were staggering along, laughing and bumping into each other. Groups of Italians and Frenchmen were arguing, neither understanding what the other was saying. The French army IV Corps was camped nearby, so the small town and all the neighbouring villages were thronged with soldiers.

  Like a hussar committed to the charge, the man decided to go for it. With his bloodstained shirt concealed by an ordinary soldier’s grey greatcoat, he climbed on to the windowsill and hauled himself up on to the overhang of the tiles. From there he reached the top of the roof without difficulty, crawled carefully along to the large stone chimney and hid behind it. Now what? There was nothing he could hold on to in order to climb down. In any case, that was out of the question for the time being. For the moment he stayed hidden in the darkness.

  The street seemed to belong to another world; it was bathed in light and full of activity. The inns and private houses with rooms to let to soldiers had put lamps and candles in their windows. A constant stream of soldiers was arriving from outlying areas, lighting their way with torches, which made the countryside look as if it were swarming with fireflies. Most did not have the required passes, but the soldiers that were supposed to escort them back to their dreary camps were instead joining in the revelry.

  The man looked at the next roof. There was a narrow street between but he should be able to leap across it. He stood up, negotiated his way round the chimney and flung himself into space. Stumbling against the other chimney, he fell forward, but managed to cling on to the ridge of the roof. A few tiles, dislodged around him, slid halfway down. He recovered himself and began moving again. He was in a hurry, trying not to think about the abyss that had opened up inside him in that bedroom, the chasm he was only just discovering. The roof of the adjoining house was rather less steeply pitched. The minutes were ticking by and he had still managed to advance only a few yards. Taking a risk, he stood up and moved forward, arms spread out, treading hesitantly like a tightrope walker. Fortunately, the ridge of the roof was a tile wide and, quickly learning dexterity, he speeded up. In this way he went past two houses, scrambled on to a raised roof and leapt across a second narrow street to land three feet below on the chimney of an inn.

  By now he was almost running. Then an old tile suddenly gave way beneath him. He whirled his arms about, twisting this way and that, his body swaying as if unsure which way to fall, but eventually he regained his balance. The tile, meanwhile, continued its descent and shattered at the feet of a soldier in a grey greatcoat. The man immediately levelled his musket at the rooftops.

  ‘Stop! Who goes there?’

  ‘Private Mirambeau, what are you playing at?’ roared a sergeant.

  ‘A tile nearly hit me on the head, Sergeant. Someone’s walking on the rooftops.’

  The sergeant looked up. ‘There’s nobody up there, Mirambeau, just crumbling tiles that—’

  The sound of firing cut short the NCO’s words. The soldier’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he had just made out the outline of a rapidly disappearing figure.

  ‘To arms! There’s someone on the rooftops.’

  Immediately a crowd gathered around the two men. A corporal, completely drunk, pointed his musket skywards.

  ‘It’s a Russian spy! Fire away like at Eylau, lads.’

  He fired and two infantrymen did likewise. A hot-headed young lieutenant rushed up, sabre in hand.

  ‘Who’s attacking us?’

  ‘Private Mirambeau’s seen a Russian spy leaping about on the rooftops, sir.’

  ‘There are three of them at least,’ someone claimed authoritatively.

  Further along the street other soldiers were firing or calling on their comrades to do so.

  ‘A great big devil of a fellow!’ declared one unsuccessful marksman.

  His companion took aim.

  ‘Devils don’t scare me – take that!’ But his shot failed to halt the moving figure.

  ‘Surround the buildings!’ the lieutenant shouted excitedly.

  The gang of soldiers split into two groups which charged off in opposite directions. Some were laughing their heads off, finding, in their drunken high spirits, this manhunt even better entertainment than a game of cards.

  The fugitive kept running and with each step might have fallen to his death. A bullet struck a chimney near him, showering him with fragments of stone. He could hear shouts and cries, and the sound of firing. Someone yelled: ‘The Russians are taking pot shots at us from the rooftops!’ and the street was soon alive with the rumour. One bullet shattered a tile at the fleeing man’s feet, another whistled past his ears while a third broke a windowpane and produced a burst of drunken laughter.

  Suddenly he noticed a tree growing against the back of the building. Without hesitating, he ran down the steep slope and flung himself as far forward as possible, arms outstretched. The leap seemed to last an eternity. Then foliage grazed his face. He grabbed a branch but immediately it bent beneath his weight and snapped. His ribs were struck a painful blow by another considerably thicker branch, but he clung on to it, now only a few feet above the ground. He dropped down and landed in a puddle.

  He was about to rush off into the shelter of the nearby forest when a voice rang out behind him.

  ‘Hold it. So where do you think you’re going, old son? You wouldn’t be the cause of all these fireworks, would you?’

  The man turned round. A sergeant was
pointing his musket at him, the bayonet fixed.

  ‘Come closer to the light.’

  The shouting was getting nearer. The man obeyed.

  The sergeant blinked several times, straightened his musket and stood to attention. ‘Beg your pardon, Colonel. I’ve only just recognised you.’

  The man lunged forward and stabbed him with his knife, right in the heart.

  ‘More’s the pity for you …’

  *

  That 29 June 1812, Captain Margont watched the crossing of the Niemen in fascination. The river marked the border between the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, an ally of France, and Russia. Getting across this obstacle was therefore the first test in this campaign. A few days earlier, Napoleon and the bulk of his troops had crossed the broad stretch of water further to the north via the three bridges built by General Éblé in record time. Margont was serving in IV Corps, made up of forty thousand men under the command of Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s stepson and Viceroy of Italy. Now it was the turn of this force to enter Russian territory.

  The regiments were impatiently crowding one another, bunching up the ranks of those in front, who were going too slowly. The infantrymen were calling the cavalry mounts ‘lame hacks’, ‘worn-out nags’ and ‘meat barely good enough for the butcher’s knife’, to which the mounted chasseurs retorted that the battalions were just ‘brainless centipedes’ and the infantrymen ‘big mouths on short legs’.

  Perched on a hilltop, Margont could make out nothing but a seething mass of humanity. This dark, tightly packed column of men, their muskets glinting in the brilliant sunshine, cut a swathe through the green expanse of fields and the blue strip of river. The 84th Infantry Regiment of the Line, in which Margont served, had still not crossed and the men were wilting in the heat. Since it would not be their turn for some time yet, they had been allowed to make themselves more comfortable. They had fallen out of line, stacked their muskets and taken off their knapsacks before spreading out. There had been a brief scramble for the few shady spots under the trees, but now the pragmatists were dozing while the idealists hotly debated the merits of the campaign.

  Margont wiped his brow with the back of his hand. The sun was giving him a headache and he regretted not being able to remove his shako, the cylindrical headgear that was so heavy. This campaign meant a lot to him. He was not the staunchest supporter of the Emperor’s decisions, considering that Napoleon had let himself get carried away by his countless successes. Worse than that, the wars, which had formerly been intended to defend the state, safeguard the ideals of the Revolution and free nations from the yoke of ancient monarchies, were now turning into imperial conquests. But he admired the genius of the man, a strategist who had won so many unlikely, even impossible, victories. By defeating Austria, Prussia and many other countries, Napoleon had preserved the achievements of the Revolution: the abolition of feudal privileges, the establishment of the Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, including the passage that appealed so much to both heart and mind: ‘Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything that injures no one else …’

  The war between France and Russia had broken out because of the Tsar’s decision to stop enforcing the blockade imposed by Napoleon with the aim of ruining England financially until she was forced to sue for peace. But Margont was not naïve. He knew that another reason for this conflict was that Europe was too small for two such powerful emperors. He himself was preparing to take part in this war for other reasons (though he would have been forced to fight anyway). Committed to the values of republicanism, citizenship and liberalism, he dreamt of the day when all monarchies would collapse and be replaced by republics that would blossom like flowers in a wasteland. Although he was now thirty-two, his ideas were the clear-cut, strongly held convictions of youth. Nevertheless, he was aware of the irony of a situation whereby, in the interests of the republican cause, he was serving a republican emperor who was becoming ever more imperialistic. Reality has an unpleasant habit of overriding one’s ideals with its contradictions, disillusions and ironies. But Margont thought that it was Napoleon who was really the plaything of the Revolution and not the reverse. French soldiers carried with them the ideas of liberty and equality and these ideals took root in people’s minds.

  An aide-de-camp galloped down a hillside, knocking over a stack of muskets, and brought his horse to a halt in front of a group of men. Three infantrymen turned round and pointed towards Margont, and the horseman set off again in his direction. On reaching Margont, he reined in his horse, wheeling it round under control. His uniform was soaked with sweat. His chubby cheeks and round face made him look like a peach oozing its juice. Locks of fair hair were plastered to his forehead. He must have wished he was back in Alsace or Normandy.

  He hurriedly returned Margont’s salute and asked hopefully: ‘Are you Captain Margont of the 84th?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘In that case, I request that you follow me without further ado.’

  ‘May I know why?’

  ‘No. They are orders.’

  This type of answer annoyed Margont. And he hated even more what he was going to reply.

  ‘I’ll follow you.’

  The two men set off at a gallop. Margont turned round for a last look at the Niemen. But he would be seeing it again before long. He would even have the pleasure of hearing it flowing beneath him.

  Margont took the same route as the day before, but in the opposite direction. Soon he reached the 15th Division, the Pino Division, consisting of Italians, who made up the rearguard of IV Corps. The Italians were easily recognisable from their green or white and green coats, whereas the dominant colour in the French infantry was dark blue.

  After what seemed an excessively long ride, as is always the case when you don’t know where you are going or why, the aide-de-camp stopped his horse not far from a blue and white striped tent. It had a four-sided roof and was big enough to sleep a dozen men. Six soldiers in green coats were guarding it: grenadiers from the Royal Italian Guard, wearing enormous black bearskins, each topped with a red plume; and guards of honour whose gilded helmets had black crests and white plumes. A very eminent person was here.

  A moment later, a grenadier called out Margont’s name and the captain entered the tent.

  CHAPTER 2

  MARGONT found himself face to face with Prince Eugène and immediately stood stiffly to attention. With a wave of the hand the prince invited him to sit. Two chairs, probably commandeered from a nearby farm, had been placed in the centre of the tent. As it was out of the question for a prince to sit on a seat identical to that of one of his subordinates, the guards of honour had used all their inventiveness. One of the chairs, bedecked with an elaborately embroidered cushion, had been arranged on a dais covered with a sumptuous Turkish rug decorated with red, gold and brown arabesques. It was an unconvincing imitation of a throne. The rest of the furniture was simple: a sofa used as a bed, a trunk and a trestle table with a large map of Europe spread out on it. The Empire and its allies covered the entire map with the exception of three countries: Portugal, England, and Russia in all its immensity.

  Prince Eugène was thirty-one. His puffy oval face was elongated by his high forehead. His slightly untidy auburn hair detracted somewhat from the formality of his coat, with its collar heavily embroidered in gold, voluminous epaulettes and colourful medals. His uniform could not, however, disguise his youthfulness, and many thought him a man promoted too soon and too far. He was said to be constantly cheerful. That was not true. He scrutinised Margont closely, noting his attractive face, his slightly prominent cheekbones and the scar on his left cheek. This gave him a martial appearance that held a particular appeal for Prussian ladies, as such marks were much appreciated in Berlin. His blue eyes and fair hair gave him a slightly Nordic look, whereas in fact he came from the south-east of France. The prince kicked back the dais with the tip of his boot, grabbed his chair and placed it opposite Margont’s.


  ‘Hang all this absurd protocol. We’re at war. I shall come straight to the point.’

  Splendid, thought Margont.

  However, Eugène still hesitated. He tried to sound firm but his face betrayed his anxiety.

  ‘I need someone for a secret mission of the highest importance. But I know nobody who can carry it out with the necessary speed, panache and discretion. You were recommended to me, hence your presence here. Secrecy is one of the key aspects of this business! If you take on this heavy responsibility and anything leaks out, you will be shot even before a court martial can be convened to sentence you.’

  Margont wondered who the person was to whom he owed the pleasure of this summons.

  ‘If you are successful, you will be promoted to major. You will immediately receive ten years’ pay.’

  Margont had visions of himself in a small mansion in Nîmes or Montpellier …

  The prince continued, ‘The necessary official explanations will be given but the mission must never be mentioned. Do you accept?’

  ‘The fact is, Your Highness has not—’

  ‘Thank you for this resounding and unqualified “yes”. I knew the Empire could count on you. Here is a quick summary of this whole wretched business. Last night in Tresno, a small Polish town near the River Niemen, a woman was murdered in her bedroom. She was called Maria Dorlovna – Polish but of German extraction. Her murder was a terrible butchery. If that were the whole story I wouldn’t even have been informed of it and the military police would now be investigating. The problem is, it is possible that the culprit may be an officer serving in the army corps that I have the honour of commanding.’

  Margont responded to the news with an aplomb that both pleased and amazed the prince.

  ‘Such calmness, Captain. You barely seem surprised. It couldn’t be you, by any chance, could it? That would simplify my life considerably.’