A RUSSIAN REMINISCENCE.

A RUSSIAN REMINISCENCE.

Upon one of the coldest days of February 1853, I left Paris by the Orleans Railway. The weather was extremely severe, the frozen snow lay thick in the streets, the asphalt of the boulevards was slippery as glass, sledges scoured the Champs Elysées and Bois de Boulogne. An icy wind whistled round the train as we quitted the shelter of the station, and I regretted, as I buttoned myself to the chin, and shrank into my corner, that the carriage was not full, instead of having but one occupant besides myself.

Opposite to me sat a hale man of about sixty-five, with a quick bright eye, an intelligent, good-humoured countenance—somewhat weather-beaten—and the red rosette of the Legion of Honour in his button-hole. During the first half-hour he pored over a letter, whose contents, judging from the animated expression of his physiognomy, interested him strongly. He seemed scarcely aware of my presence. At last he put up the letter, and then for the first time looked me in the face. I had been but a few days out of a sick-bed, and was sensitive to the cold, and doubtless my appearance was chilly and woebegone enough, for I detected a slight approach to a smile at the corners of the stranger’s mouth. To one or two commonplace remarks he replied courteously but laconically, like a man who is neither unsociable nor averse to conversation, but who prefers his own thoughts to that bald talk with which travellers sometimes weary each other rather than sit silent. So our dialogue soon dropped. The cold increased, my feet were benumbed, and I stamped them on the floor of the carriage to revive the circulation. My companion observed my proceedings with a comical look, as if he thought me a very tender traveller.

“This carriage must be badly closed,” I remarked. “It is bitter cold to the feet.”

“For that discomfort I have little pity,” replied the Frenchman. “A ride on the railway is soon over, and a good fire or a brisk walk is a quick and easy remedy. Mine is a different case. For forty years I have never known warm feet.”

“For forty years?” I repeated, thinking I had misunderstood him.

“Yes, sir, forty years; since the winter of 1812—the winter of the Russian campaign.”

“You were in that terrible campaign?” I inquired, in a tone of interest and curiosity. My companion, previously taciturn, suddenly became communicative.

“All through it, sir,” he replied; “from the Niemen to the Kremlin, and back again. It was my first campaign, and was near being my last. I was in others afterwards; in Germany in 1813, when the combined Germans and Russians drove us before them, for want of the brave fellows we had left in Muscovy’s snows; in France in 1814, when the Emperor made his gallant struggle against overwhelming forces; and at the closing scene in Flanders: but not all those three campaigns put together, nor, as I believe, all that this century has witnessed, can match the horrors of that dreadful winter in Russia.”

He paused, and, leaning back in his corner, seemed to revolve in his mind events of powerful interest long gone by. I waited a while, in hopes he would resume the subject. As he did not do so, I asked him to what arm he belonged when in Russia.

“I was assistant-surgeon in a regiment of hussars,” he answered, “and in my medical capacity I had abundant opportunity to make acquaintance with the horrors of war. On the 7th of September, for instance, at the Moskwa—Heavens! what a shambles that was! Ah, it was fine to see such valour on both sides—for the Russians fought well—gallantly, sir, or where would have been the glory of beating them? But Ney! Ney! Oh! he was splendid that day! His whole countenance gleamed, as he again and again led the bloody charge, exposing himself as freely as any corporal in the ranks. And Eugene, the Viceroy, with what vigour he hurled his masses against that terrible redoubt! When at last it was his, what a sight was there! The ground was not strewn with dead; it was heaped, piled with them. They had been shot down by whole ranks, and there they lay, prostrate, in line as they had stood.”

The surgeon paused. I thought of Byron’s beautiful lines, beginning, “Even as they fell, in files they lay;” but I said nothing, for I saw that my companion was now fairly started, and needed no spurring.

“Monsieur,” he presently resumed, “all those things have been brought strongly to my mind by the letter you saw me just now reading. It is from an old friend, a captain in 1812, a general now, who went through the campaign, and whom I was so fortunate as to save from a grave in those infernal plains where most of our poor comrades perished. I will tell you how it happened. We were talking of the battle of Borodino. Seventy thousand men, it is said, were killed and wounded in that murderous fight. We surgeons, as you may well think, had our hands full, and still could not suffice for a tithe of the sufferers. It was a rough breaking-in for a young hand, as I then was. Such frightful wounds as were there, of every kind and description—from shot, shell, and bullet, pike and sabre. Well, sir, all the misery and suffering I then saw, all that vast amount of human agony and bloodshed, whose steam, ascending to Heaven, might well have brought down God’s malediction on His creatures, who could thus destroy and deface each other, was nothing compared with the horrible misery we witnessed on our retreat. I have read everything that has appeared in France concerning that campaign—Ségur, Labaume, and other writers. Their narratives are shocking enough, but nothing to the reality. They would have sickened their readers had they told all they saw. If anybody, who went through the campaign, could remember and set down all he witnessed, he would make the most heart-rending book that ever yet was printed, and would be accused of gross exaggeration. Exaggeration, indeed! there was no need to heighten the horrors of the winter of 1812. All that frost and famine, lead and steel, could inflict, was then endured; all the crimes that reckless despair and ruthless cruelty could prompt were then perpetrated.”

“And how,” I asked, “did you escape, when so many, doubtless as strong and courageous, and more inured to hardship, miserably perished?”

“Under Providence, I owed my preservation to the trustiest and most faithful servant ever master had. Paul had been several years in the hussars—was an old soldier, in fact, although still a young man; and at a time when all discipline and subordination were at an end, when soldiers heeded not their officers, officers avoided their generals, and servants and masters were all alike and upon a level, Paul proved true as steel. As if cold and the Cossacks were not enough, hunger was added to our sufferings: there was no longer a commissariat or distribution of rations;—rations, forsooth!—dead horse was a luxury I have seen men fight for till death, lean meat though it was, for the poor brutes were as starved as their riders. What little there was to eat in the villages we passed through fell to the share of the first comers. Empty larders—often smoking ruins—were all that remained for those who came behind. Well, sir, when things were at the worst, and provender at the scarcest, Paul always had something for me in his haversack. One day it would be a bit of bread, on the morrow a handful of grain or some edible roots, now and then a slice of horse-beef—and how delicious that seemed, grilled over our smoky scanty fires! There was never enough to satisfy my hunger, but there was always asomething—enough to keep body and soul together. Paul, as I afterwards discovered, husbanded his stores, for he well knew that if he gave me all at once I should leave nothing, and then I must have fasted for days, and perhaps have fallen from my horse for weakness. But think of the courage and affection of the poor fellow, himself half-starved, to carry food about him day after day, and refrain from devouring the share secretly set aside for me! There were not many men in the army, even of general’s rank, capable of such devotion to the dearest friend they had, for extreme misery had induced a ferocious selfishness, which made us more like hyenas than Christians.”

“I should think the cold must have been even worse to endure than hunger,” said I, screwing up my chilly extremities, which the interest of the doctor’s conversation had almost made me forget.

“It was, sir, harder and more fatal—at least a greater number died of it; although, to say the truth, frost and famine there worked hand in hand, and with such unity of action, that it was often hard to say which was the cause of death. But it was a shocking sight, of a morning, to see the poor fellows lying dead round the bivouac fires. Unable to resist fatigue and the drowsy influence of the cold, they yielded to slumber, and passed from sleep into death. For, there, sleepwasdeath.”

“But how then,” I asked, “did any ever escape from Russia, for all must have slept at times?”

“I do not believe that any who escapeddidsleep, at least not of a night, at the bivouac. We used to rouse each other continually, to prevent our giving way, and then get up and walk as briskly as we could, to quicken the sluggish circulation. We slept upon the march, in our saddles, and, strange as it may seem to you, even those on foot slept when marching. They marched in groups or clusters, and those in the centre slept, propped and supported by their companions, and moving their legs mechanically. I do not say that it was a sound, deep sleep, but rather a sort of feverish dozing. Such as it was, however, it was better than nothing, and assuredly saved some who would otherwise have sunk. Others, who would have given way to weariness upon the long monotonous march, were kept from utter despair and self-abandonment only by the repeated harassing attacks of the Cossacks. The excitement of the skirmish warmed their blood, and gave them, as it seemed, fresh hold upon life. In one of those skirmishes, or rather in a sharp combat, a dear friend of mine, a captain in the same regiment, had his left arm carried off by a cannon-shot. After the affair was over, I came suddenly upon him, where he lay moaning by the roadside, his face ashy pale, his arm still hanging by the sinews. His horse had either galloped away, or been taken by the fugitives.

“‘Ah, mon ami!’ he cried, when he saw me, ‘all is over—I can go no further. I shall never see France again!’

“I saw that, like the majority of those who received severe wounds in that retreat, his moral courage was subdued, and had given way to despair. I was terribly shocked, for I felt how slight was his chance of escape. I need hardly tell you there was very little dressing of wounds during that latter part of the retreat; most of the surgeons were dead, the hospital-waggons with medicine and instruments had been left on the road; transport for the sick was out of the question. I assumed as cheerful a countenance as I could.

“‘Why, Préville,’ I cried, ‘this will not do; we must get you along somehow. Come! courage, my friend! Youshallsee France again, in spite of all.’

“‘Ah! doctor,’ replied he, in piteous tones, ‘it is no use. Here I shall die. All you can do for me is to blow my brains out, and save me from the Cossack lances.’

“By this time I had dismounted and was at his side. The intense cold had stopped the bleeding of his wound. I saw that there was no lack of vitality in him, and that, but for this mishap, few would have got out of the campaign in better plight. Even now, his despondency was perhaps his greatest danger. I reminded him of his wife and child (he had been married little more than a year, and news of the birth of a daughter had reached him on our forward march), of his happy home, his old mother—of all the ties, in short, that bound him to life. Whilst speaking, I severed the sinews that still retained his shattered arm, and bound it up as best I might. He still despaired and moaned, but suffered me to do as I would. He was like an infant in my hands—that man who, in the hour of battle, was a very lion for courage. But long suffering and the sudden shock—occurring, too, when we seemed on the verge of safety—had overcome his fortitude. With Paul’s help I got him upon my horse. The poor brute was in no case to carry double, so I walked and led it, although at that time I could hardly hobble.

“‘It is all useless, my dear doctor,’ Préville said; ‘this is my last day; I feel that. Far better shoot me, or leave me by the roadside, than risk your life for my sake.’

“I took no heed, but tried to cheer him. Those unclean beasts, the Cossacks, were hovering around us as usual, and at times the bullets fell pretty thick. Not a quarter of an hour had elapsed since I set Préville on my horse, when a shot struck his right eye—not entering the head, but glancing across the globe, and completely destroying the sight. Well, sir, then there occurred a physiological phenomenon which I have never been able satisfactorily to account for. This man, whom the loss of an arm had reduced to despair, seemed to derive fresh courage from the loss of an eye. At any rate, from that moment he complained no more of his fate, resumed his usual manly tone, and bore up like a hero. Paul was lucky enough to catch a riderless horse, which I mounted. The worst was over, and we soon got a respite. Without troubling you with details, and incredible though it may seem to you, my poor friend escaped with life, although with a limb and an eye the less.”

“There must have been many extraordinary escapes from that campaign,” I remarked.

“Innumerable. There was a sergeant of dragoons, a former comrade of my servant’s, who, for many days, marched beside me and Paul. He received a severe wound. There were some vehicles still with us at that time, and we got him a place in one of them, and made him as comfortable as we could. The following night we stopped at a town. In the morning, as we were about to march, the Cossacks came down. There was great confusion; several baggage-carts were captured in the street, and some of the wounded were abandoned in the houses where they had passed the night. Amongst these was Sergeant Fritz. Not many houses in the town were still in good condition—most of them had been burned and knocked to pieces by the soldiers. The house in which Fritz lay had still its doors and windows, and was one of the most comfortable in the place, on which account it had been converted into a temporary hospital. Well, the Russians came in, brought their wounded, and turned out our poor fellows to make room for them. Some, who could not move quickly enough, were brutally pitched through a low window into a garden behind the house, there to perish miserably. Fritz was one of these. Only just able to crawl, he made his way round the garden, seeking egress. He reached a gate communicating with another garden. It was locked, and pain and weakness forbade his climbing over. He sat close to the gate, propped against it, and looking wistfully through the bars at the windows of a house, and at the cheerful glow of a fire, when he was perceived by a young girl. She came out and opened the gate, and helped him into the house. Her father was a German clockmaker, long settled in Russia, and Fritz, a Swiss, spoke German well. The kind people put him to bed, hid his uniform, and tended him like a son. When, in the following spring, his health was restored, and he would have left them, the German proposed to him to remain and assist him in his trade. He accepted the offer, married the German’s daughter, and remained in Russia until his father-in-law’s death, when he was taken with a longing to revisit his native mountains, and returned to Switzerland with his wife and family. I met him since at Paris, and he told me his story. But although his escape was narrow, and romantic enough, there must have been others much more remarkable. Most of the prisoners made by the Russians, and who survived severe cold and harsh treatment, were sent to Moscow, to labour at rebuilding the city. When the fine season came, some of them managed to escape, and to make their way, in various disguises, and through countless adventures, back to their own country.”

I have set down but the most striking portions of our conversation—or rather, of the doctor’s narrative, since I did little but listen; and occasionally, by a question or remark, direct his communicativeness into the channel I wished it to take. We were now near Orleans.

“The letter I was reading when we started,” said my companion, “and which has brought back to my memory all that I have told you—at risk, perhaps, of wearying you,” he added with a slight bow and smile, “and a host of other circumstances, to me of thrilling and everlasting interest, is from General Préville, who lives in the south of France, but has come unexpectedly to Orleans to pass a month with me. That is his way. He lives happily with a married daughter; but now and then the desire to see an old comrade, and to fight old battles over again, comes so strongly upon him, that he has his valise packed at an hour’s notice, and takes me by surprise. He knows well that ‘The General’s Room’ and an affectionate reception always await him. I received his letter—full of references to old times—yesterday evening, and am now hurrying back to Orleans to see him. He may very likely be waiting for me at the station; and you will see that, for a man who gave himself up for dead forty years ago in the snows of Russia, and begged, as a favour, a bullet through his brain, he looks tolerably hearty and satisfied to live.”

“There is one thing,Monsieur le Docteur,” I said, “which you have not yet explained to me, and which I do not understand. Did you mean literally what you said, that since the Russian campaign you have never had your feet warm?”

“Literally and truly, sir. When we got to Orcha, where Jomini was in command, and where the heroic Ney, who had been separated from the army, rejoined us with the skeleton of his corps—having cut his way, by sheer valour and soldiership, through clouds of Platoff’s Cossacks—we took a day’s rest. It was the 20th of November, the last day of anything approaching to comfort which we were to enjoy before crossing the Russian frontier. True, we made one more halt, at Molodetschino, whence Napoleon dated his bulletin of our terrible disasters, but then only a portion of us could find lodging; we were sick, half-frozen, and numbers died in the streets. At Orcha we found shelter and tranquillity; the governor had provided provisions against our passage, the enemy left us quiet, and we enjoyed a day of complete repose. My baggage had long since been lost, and my only pair of boots were torn to shreds. I had been riding with fragments of a soldier’s jacket tied round my feet, which I usually kept out of the stirrups, the contact of the iron increasing the cold. At Orcha, the invaluable Paul brought me a Jew (the Jews were our chief purveyors on that retreat) with boots for sale. I selected a pair and threw away my old ones, which for many days I had not taken off. My feet were already in a bad state, sore and livid. I bathed them, put on fresh stockings and my new boots, and contrived with a pair of old trousers, a sort of leggings or overalls, closed at the bottom, and to be worn over the boots. From that day till we got beyond the Niemen, a distance of one hundred and ten leagues, which we took three weeks to perform, I never took off any part of my dress. During that time I suffered greatly from my feet; they swelled till my boots were too tight for me, and at times I was in agony. When we at last were comparatively in safety, and I found myself, for the first time since I left Orcha, in a warm room, with a bed to lie upon and water to wash, I called Paul to pull off my boots. Sir, with them came off my stockings, and the entire skin of both feet. A flayer’s knife could hardly have done the thing more completely. For a moment I gave myself up as lost. I had seen enough of this kind of thing to know that my feet were on the verge of mortification. There was scarcely time to amputate, had any been at hand to do it, and had I been willing to preserve life at such a price. Only one thing could save me, and I resolved to try it. I ordered Paul to bring a bottle of brandy; I put a piece of silver between my teeth, and bade him pour the spirits over my feet. I can give you no idea of the excruciating torture I then endured. Whilst it lasted, assuredly no martyr’s sufferings ever exceeded mine. It was agony—but it was safety. I bit the florin nearly in two, and broke this tooth.” (Here the doctor drew up his lip and exhibited a defective tooth, in company with some very white and powerful grinders.) “The martyrdom saved me; I recovered, but the new integuments, which in time covered my scarred feet, seem chilled by the recollection of their predecessors’ sufferings, and from that day to this I have never had my feet otherwise than cold. But here we are at Orleans, sir, and yonder as I expected stands my old Préville.”

The train stopped as he concluded, and a fine-looking veteran, with white hair, an empty sleeve, and a silken patch over one eye, peered inquisitively into the carriages. Like most Englishmen, I have a particular aversion to the Continental fashion of men kissing and hugging each other, but I confess I beheld with interest and sympathy the cordial embrace of these two old comrades, who then quickly separated, and, with hands grasped, looked joyously and affectionately into each other’s faces, whilst a thousand recollections of old kindness and long comradeship were evidently swelling at their hearts. In his joy, my travelling companion did not forget the attentive listener, whose journey he had so agreeably shortened. Turning to me, he presented me to the general, as an Englishman and a new acquaintance, and then cordially invited me to pass the rest of the day at his house. But the business that took me to Orleans was urgent, and my return to Paris must be speedy. And had it been otherwise, I think I still should have scrupled to restrain, by a stranger’s presence, the first flow of intimate communion to which the two friends evidently looked forward with such warm and pleasurable feelings. So I gratefully declined, but pledged myself to take advantage of the doctor’s hospitality upon my next visit to Orleans. When that occurs, I shall hope to glean another Russian Reminiscence.

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