When he came to, the Russian fusillade aimed at him had ceased and he could hear only distant, sporadic firing. Again he attempted to wriggle his leg from under the dead mare3 but with each effort stabs of pain streaked up to his heart, making him, in spite of the appalling cold, break out into a sweat. At length he was forced to resign himself to the fact that, without help, he must remain there a prisoner.
Whether Ney had arrived in time to save Davoust he had no idea; nor who had proved the victors in this most bloody battle. As far as he could judge, it had been a draw, so any claim to victory could be made only by the side that did not withdraw to a stronger position during the night. At least it seemed that in the Russians Napoleon had at last found his match, for they were most tenacious fighters. As he had himself said of them. 'It is not enough to kill a Russian. You must then push him over before he will lie down.'
But Roger was no longer concerned with the issue of the war. It was not his quarrel, and he was now silently cursing himself for his folly in taking part in it. After Trafalgar, he could perfectly well have remained at home in England and settled down as a country gentleman. Although he was generous by nature, he had inherited his Scottish mother's prudence about money; so he had saved a great part of his earnings and these, together with the money left him by his father, the Admiral, amounted to a respectable fortune. It was not even the call of duty that had caused him to go abroad again, but simply restlessness and discontent.
As he lay there in the snow, his head, in the fur hood of his cloak, muffled against the biting cold, he thought back on the events that had driven him to his decision. Georgina, he admitted, could not really be blamed; yet it was a whim of that beautiful, self-willed, tempestuous lady that had led to his again having himself smuggled across to France.
He had been married twice and had had many mistresses; but Georgina, the now widowed Countess of St. Ermins, had been his first love and remained the great love of his life. To her indignation he often twitted her with having seduced him when they were in their teens; but that had been on a long-past afternoon just before he had run away from home to escape having to become a Midshipman. Four years had elapsed before he had returned from the Continent. By then she was married, but had taken him as her lover. In the years that followed, he had spent many long spells abroad, but always on his return they renewed their passionate attachment. There had even been a night when both of them had decided to marry again then, with wicked delight, had slept together. After both of them had been widowed for the second time, whenever he had returned from one of his missions, he had begged her to marry him. But she contended that it was not in his nature to settle down definitely and that, even if he did, their being together as man and wife for any considerable time must inevitably take the edge off the wondrous joy they had in each other when, for only a month or two, they were reunited after a long interval.
At length he had accepted that; so, on their return to England after Trafalgar, he had not again pressed her. But he had expected to be a frequent warmly-welcomed visitor at her lovely home, Stillwaters, near Ripley, where they had so often known great happiness together.
Alas for his expectations. The unpredictable and impetuous Georgina had suddenly become serious. Just as at one time she had declared herself to be utterly weary of balls, routs and a score of beaux constantly begging her to sleep with them—and, overnight, had metamorphosed herself into a model wife interested only in country pursuits—so now she announced that everyone owed a debt to the Navy that had saved England from the horrors of invasion, and that she intended to pay hers.
Her plan was to buy a big house near Portsmouth and convert it into a convalescent home to accommodate from fifty to a hundred seamen. She would engage a doctor and a staff of nurses and herself become the matron. Under her supervision relays of these poor, wounded heroes should be nursed back to health and strength and taught some trade that would later enable them to earn a wage in civil life sufficient to support them.
Roger had heartily applauded her idea, for in those days Britain's treatment of men invalided from the Services on account of serious wounds was a scandal that cried to heaven. No sooner were they able to walk on crutches or, still half-blind, able to make their way about, than they were put out of the hospitals near-penniless, to fend for themselves. Thousands of them now roamed the streets of the cities, begging their bread.
Georgina's great wealth enabled her without delay to carry out her project. Roger helped her find a suitable mansion, assisted in furnishing it suitably and engaging staff. By February, the first inmates were installed and Georgina, relinquishing the fortune in jewels, unadorned by which she was normally never to be seen abroad, and exchanging her gay furbelows for more sober attire, had entered enthusiastically on her new role as ministering angel.
So far, so good. But, as far as Roger was concerned, not for long. Gone were the happy days at Stillwaters when Georgina had entertained, big house parties and Roger had delighted in conversing with her other guests: statesmen, ambassadors, painters and playwrights; the dinners for fifty with dancing or gambling afterwards until the small hours. Gone, too, were those halcyon midweeks that they had spent alone, dallying in her great bed until nearly midday, and later picnicking in a boat on the lovely lake.
At the convalescent home, life was earnest; the state of its inmates depressing. In vain Roger had endeavoured to reconcile himself to the role of comforter and adviser as he listened patiently to the stories of the stricken seamen. And Georgina had thrown herself into her part so determinedly that often when night came she was too tired to make love.
To break the monotony of his wearisome round Roger had made several trips to London. But they, too, proved unsatisfactory. He was a member of White's, but he had lived for so long abroad that he had few friends. More and more he had begun to long for the companionship of those gay paladins with whom he had shared many dangers in Italy, Egypt and across the Rhine.
In England he was a nobody: just the son of the late Admiral Sir Christopher Brook. In France he was 'le brave Breuc', and A.D.C. to the Emperor, an intimate friend of the Empress Josephine and of all the members of the Bonaparte family. He was one of the very few Colonels to whom, for personal services, Napoleon had given the second rank in his new order of chivalry. Roger ranked as a Commander of the Legion of Honour, and, as a Knight in the new Napoleonic aristocracy, again ranked as le Chevalier de Breuc.
By May, acute boredom with Georgina's Home and a London that offered no advancement to him had decided him to return to France.
In 1800 Roger, sent by Talleyrand as Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to England with an offer of peace, had quarrelled bitterly with his master, Pitt, for refusing it. Thenceforth, he had no longer been employed by the British Government, although he had undertaken certain missions for the Prime Minister and aided Britain's cause whenever possible.
In May 1806 he would have at least gone to Pitt and enquired if there was any special information about the plans of Britain's enemy that he might secure for him. But in January of that year, broken-hearted by the news of Austerlitz and the collapse of the Third Coalition, the great and courageous man who, for over twenty years had been the mainstay of resistance to the terrorists of the French Revolution becoming dominant over all Europe, had died.
His regime had been succeeded by a so-called 'Ministry of All the Talents'—a coalition led by Charles Fox. The great Whig was one of Georgina's friends, so Roger had often met him at Stillwaters, and found it difficult to resist his personal charm. But the fact remained that Fox had shown ardent sympathy with the French Revolution, and actively advocated England, too, becoming a Republic. For many years he had consistently thwarted and endeavoured to sabotage Pitt's plans for the defeat of Napoleon and, during the brief Peace of 1803, had received and lionised in France. Such treachery Roger could not forgive, and nothing would have induced him to serve under such a master.