Читать книгу The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon - Александр Дюма, Alexandre Dumas - Страница 10

ROLAND LISTENED.

“The service I ask of you, monsieur, is to negotiate with General Harty for me.”

“To what end?”

“I have several proposals to make before we begin battle.”

“I presume,” said Roland, “that among the proposals which you do me the honor of charging me with, you are not including one that asks him to lay down his arms?”

“On the contrary, Colonel. You must understand that such a proposal is at the top of my list.”

“General Harty will refuse,” said Roland, clenching his fists.

“Probably,” Cadoudal answered calmly.

“And then?”

“And then I shall offer him the option of two other proposals that he will be perfectly free to accept without forfeiting his honor and without damaging his reputation.”

“May I know what they are?” Roland asked.

“You will know them at the appropriate time. Please be so good as to begin with the first proposal.”

“Spell it out for me.”

“General Harty and his one hundred men are surrounded by a force three times stronger. You know it, and you can say as much to him. I offer them safe conduct, but they must lay down their arms and swear that for five years they will not serve against the Vendée or Brittany.”

“A useless message,” said Roland.

“That would be better than getting crushed, both him and his men.”

“True, but he will prefer to have them crushed and himself crushed with them.”

“Beforehand, it would be good, however, to make him the proposal.”

“As for that, you are right,” said Roland. “My horse?”

They brought his horse to him. He leaped into the saddle and rapidly crossed the space separating them from the waiting group.

General Harty’s surprise was great when he saw an officer wearing the uniform of a Republican colonel coming toward him. He moved three paces toward the messenger, who introduced himself, explained how he happened to be with the Royalist Whites, and conveyed Cadoudal’s proposal. As the young officer had predicted, the general refused.

Roland galloped back toward where Cadoudal was waiting. “He refuses!” he shouted as soon as he was within earshot.

“In that case,” said Cadoudal, “take him my second proposal. I don’t want to have anything to blame myself for afterwards, having to answer to an honorable judge such as you.”

Roland bowed. “Let us move on the second proposal,” he said.

“Here it is,” answered Cadoudal. “General Harty is on horseback, as am I. He will leave the ranks of his soldiers and ride out to meet me in the space between the two armies. Like me, he will be carrying his saber and his pistols. And then we can decide the issue between ourselves. If I kill him, his men will accept the conditions I’ve dictated, not to serve for five years against us; for you surely understand that I cannot take any prisoners. If he kills me, his men will have free passage to Vannes with their supplies intact and with no fear of attack by my troops. Ah! I hope this is a proposal you would be able to accept, Colonel?”

“I do accept it,” said Roland.

“Yes, but you are not General Harty. For the moment, just be content with your role as negotiator. And if this proposal—which, in his place, I would not pass up—is not enough to satisfy him, well, you will come back, and, good soul that I am, I shall make him a third one.”

Roland galloped back to the Republicans and General Harty, who were waiting impatiently for him. He conveyed his message to the general.

“Colonel,” the general answered, “I must give account to the First Consul for my actions. You are his aide-de-camp, and when you return to Paris, I charge you with being my witness when you speak to him. What would you do in my place? I will do what you would do.”

Roland winced. An expression of deep gravity spread over his face. He paused to reflect. Then, a few moments later: “General,” he said, “I would refuse.”

“Give me your reasons,” Harty answered, “so that I may see if they are in accordance with my own.”

“The outcome of a duel is totally uncertain, and you cannot subject the destiny of one hundred brave men to such chances. In a business such as this, where each is engaged for himself, each man should defend his hide as best he can.”

“Is that your opinion, Colonel?”

“Yes, on my honor.”

“It is mine as well. So, take my answer back to the Royalist general.”

Roland returned to Cadoudal as fast as he had ridden to meet Harty.

Cadoudal smiled when he heard the Republican general’s answer. “I suspected as much,” he said.

“How could you suspect such an answer, since I’m the one who gave it to him?”

“And yet you were of a different opinion a short while ago.”

“Yes, but you accurately reminded me that I was not General Harty. Let us hear your third proposal,” Roland continued a little impatiently, for he was beginning to realize that ever since the negotiations had gotten under way, Cadoudal had been coming off the better.

“The third proposal,” said Cadoudal, “is an order, the order that two hundred of my own men withdraw. General Harty has one hundred men, I shall keep one hundred. Ever since the Combat of the Thirty, Bretons have had the custom of fighting face to face, chest to chest, man to man, and we prefer to battle one against one rather than three. If General Harty is the victor, he can walk over our bodies and return to Vannes without danger from the two hundred men who will not participate in the combat. If he is vanquished, he will not be able to say that he failed because he was greatly outnumbered. Go on, Monsieur de Montrevel, go back to your friends. I give them now the advantage of numbers, since you alone are worth ten men.”

Roland raised his hat.

“What do you say, monsieur?” asked Cadoudal.

“It is my custom to salute those I see as great, and I salute you.”

“Colonel,” said Cadoudal, “one last glass of wine. Let each of us drink to what he loves most, to what he is most sorry to leave behind, to what he hopes to see again in heaven.”

He took the only glass, filled it halfway, and handed it to Roland. “We have only one glass, Monsieur de Montrevel. You drink first.”

“Why first?”

“Because you are my guest, and also because there’s a proverb that says he who drinks after another shall know what the other person is thinking. I want to know what you are thinking, Monsieur de Montrevel.”

Roland drained the glass and handed it back to Cadoudal. As he had done for Roland, he filled the glass halfway, and then emptied it in turn.

“So, do you know now what I was thinking?” asked Roland.

“Help me,” laughed Cadoudal.

“Well, here are my thoughts,” replied Roland without guile. “I’m thinking that you are a good man, General, and I would be honored if now that we are about to fight each other, you would agree to shake my hand.”

More like two friends parting than like two enemies preparing to fight, the two young men shook hands. With simple grandeur, they each then executed a military salute.

“Good luck!” said Roland to Cadoudal. “But permit me to doubt that my wish will come true—though I say this from my lips, not my heart.”

“May God protect you, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said Cadoudal, “and may He grant that my own wish come true, for it expresses the sum of my best thoughts.”

“By what signal will we know you are ready?” asked Roland.

“We shall shoot into the air.”

“Very well, General.”

Putting his horse to a gallop, for the third time Roland crossed the space between the Royalist and the Republican generals. Cadoudal pointed toward him. “Do you see that young man?” he asked his Chouans.

Everyone looked at Roland. “Yes, General,” the Chouans answered.

“By the souls of your fathers, consider his life sacred! You may capture him, but take him alive and with no harm to a hair on his head.”

“Very well, General,” the Bretons replied.

“And now, my friends,” he continued in a louder voice. “Remember that you are the sons of those thirty heroes who once fought thirty Englishmen, ten leagues from here, between Ploërmel and Josselin: the sons of victors! Our ancestors were made immortal by that combat of the Thirty. Now prove yourselves as illustrious in this combat of the One Hundred.”

“Unfortunately,” he added quietly, “this time we are fighting not the English, but our own brothers.”

The fog had disappeared; with a golden tint the first rays of the springtime sun mottled the Plescop plain. It would be easy to see whatever maneuvers the two armies made.

As Roland returned to the Republican side, Branche-d’Or’s men began to withdraw so that only Cadoudal and his force of one hundred men would be left to face General Harty and his Blues.

The men who had been dismissed from the combat separated into two groups: one marched toward Plumergat, the other toward Saint-Avé. The road was soon clear.

Branche-d’Or came back to Cadoudal. “Your orders, General,” he said.

“One only,” the general answered. “Pick eight men and follow me. When you see the young Republican I had breakfast with fall from his horse, you and your men shall throw yourselves upon him and take him prisoner before he can get away.”

“Yes, General.”

“You know I want to see him again safe and sound.”

“I understand, General.”

“Choose your men; and if he gives his word, you may act as you will.”

“And if he won’t give his word?”

“You will bind him so that he is unable to flee, and you will hold him until the battle is over.”

Branche-d’Or sighed.

“It will be unhappy for us,” he said, “to stand there twiddling our thumbs while our compatriots are spreading out to fight.”

“God is good,” said Cadoudal. “Go on, there will be enough for everyone to do.”

Then, seeing the Republicans amassed for battle, Cadoudal called for a gun. He shot once into the air. At the same moment, within the Republican ranks two drummers began to beat out the charge.

Cadoudal stood up in his stirrups. “My sons,” he said, his voice sonorous, “has everyone offered up his morning prayer?”

In unison they answered: “Yes, yes!”

“If anyone has forgotten to pray or has not found the opportunity to,” Cadoudal pronounced, “now is the time!” Five or six peasants dropped to their knees.

The drums were moving rapidly closer. “General! General!” several voices called out impatiently, but the general pointed to the kneeling Chouans. And the impatient men waited while their fellows, each in his own time, finished their prayers.

When the last of them had risen to his feet, the Republicans had already covered about a third of the distance between the two camps. Their bayonets fixed, they were marching in three rows, thirty to a row. Behind them marched the officers in serried ranks, with Roland riding ahead of one row and General Harty between the other two. No one else rode on horseback. Among the Chouans, there was only one horseman: Cadoudal. Branche-d’Or had tied his mount to a tree so that he could fight on foot with the eight men charged with taking Roland prisoner.

“General,” said Branche-d’Or, “the prayers are over, and everyone is ready.”

Cadoudal assured himself that was so, and then with command in his voice he shouted: “All right, my men, everybody scatter!”

Scarcely had he given the order than the Chouans, waving their hats in one hand and brandishing their guns with the other, spread out over the plain to cries of “Long live the king!” Fanning farther outward, they took the shape of an immense crescent, with George and his horse at the center.

In an instant the Republicans, who held their ranks, were overrun, and the shooting began. As almost all of Cadoudal’s men were poachers, they were good shots. And they were armed with English rifles, which could shoot twice as far as general-issue guns. Although the Chouans, who had fired first, appeared to be out of range, some of their death’s messengers managed to reach the Republican ranks nonetheless.

“Forward!” General Harty shouted.

His soldiers continued to march with bayonets extended, but in a matter of seconds there was nobody facing them.

Cadoudal’s one hundred men had disbanded; his army had become snipers, with fifty men splayed on each side of the Republican ranks. General Harty ordered an about-face to the right and to the left, and then his command rang out:

“Fire!”

But to no success. For the Republicans were firing at individual men, while the Chouans were shooting at a mass of soldiers in formation. Their shots almost always reached their mark.

Roland saw the disadvantages of the Republican position. He looked around, and in the middle of the smoke he descried Cadoudal standing immobile like an equestrian statue: The Royalist leader was waiting for him. With a cry, Roland rode straight for him.

As for Cadoudal, he galloped toward the brave Republican but stopped fifty paces away from him.

“Get ready,” Cadoudal said to Branche-d’Or and his men.

“Rest easy, General. We’re ready,” Branche-d’Or replied.

Cadoudal drew a pistol from the saddle holster and loaded it. Roland, his saber in hand and his body leaning down over his horse’s neck, was charging. He was only twenty paces away when Cadoudal slowly raised his hand and took aim at Roland. At ten paces, he fired.

Roland’s horse had a white star in the middle of its forehead. Cadoudal’s bullet struck the middle of the star. The horse, mortally wounded, rolled with its rider at Cadoudal’s feet.

Cadoudal put his spurs to his horse’s flanks, and it leaped over the fallen horse and rider. Branche-d’Or and his men were ready. Like a pack of jaguars they pounced on Roland, who lay trapped under his horse’s body.

The young man dropped his saber and reached for his pistols. But before he could put hand to holster, two men had seized each of his arms, while the other six dragged the horse off his legs. They worked with such coordination that it was apparent a plan had been laid in advance.

Roland roared in anger. Branche-d’Or handed him his hat.

“I will not surrender,” Roland shouted.

“There’s no reason you need to surrender, Monsieur de Montrevel,” Branche-d’Or answered politely.

“And why not?” asked Roland, wasting his efforts in a desperate, useless struggle.

“Because you have been captured, monsieur.”

The obvious truth precluded any reasonable response Roland might make. “Then kill me,” he shouted.

“We have no intention of killing you, monsieur.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Your word that you will take no further part in this combat. At that price, we’ll set you free.”

“Never!” cried Roland.

“Excuse me, Monsieur de Montrevel. What you are doing is not very loyal,” Branche-d’Or responded.

“Not loyal! Ah, you wretch! You are insulting me because you know that I can neither defend myself nor punish you.”

“I am not a wretch, and I am not insulting you, Monsieur de Montrevel. All I’m saying is that by not giving your word and by forcing us to guard you, you are depriving the general of nine men who could be of use to him. That is not the way the great Tête-Ronde treated you. He had two hundred men more than you, and he sent them away. Now we are only ninety-one against your one hundred.”

A flame flashed through Roland’s eyes, then suddenly he went pale. “You are right, Branche-d’Or,” he said. “Whether or not I can expect help, I surrender. You may go fight with your companions.”

Shouting for joy, the Chouans released Roland. Then, waving their hats and guns and crying “Long live the king!” they rushed into the melee.