In consequence, with no brief, but believing that he could do neither good nor harm to Britain in Napoleon's Continental wars, Roger had reported back for duty, to be warmly received by the Emperor and his many friends in France.
Yet now, a prisoner beneath his horse, the cold steadily creeping upon him, he realised how stupid he had been to risk death in one of Napoleon's battles, instead of settling for a safe, if humdrum, life in England.
His chances of survival were very slender. It was just possible that French stretcher-bearers might come upon him; but they were comparatively few and the casualties in the battle ran to many thousands. There was an equally slender chance that he might be picked up by the Russians; yet it was more probable than either that the vultures of the battlefield would find and kill him.
All armies in those days were dogged by swarms of camp-followers : women who made a precarious living as whores to the troops, and men who, after every engagement, went out by night to rob the wounded of all they possessed, and even stripped them of their clothes. The still greater likelihood was that he would remain lying there in the snow until he slowly froze to death.
He seemed to have been hunched beside his mare for many hours, yet it was only a little after midnight when, muffled by the fur hood over his head, he caught the sound of voices. Pushing away one side of the hood, he heard a gruff voice say in French:
'Here's another. From his fine mount and fur-edged cloak he must be an officer, so he should yield good pickings.'
In the money belt that he always wore about him Roger had over one hundred louis in gold. To offer it in exchange for his life he knew would be useless. These human vultures would only laugh, kill him and take the money from his dead body. Squirming over, he pulled a pistol from the upper holster of his horse.
As he moved, he heard the voice exclaim, 'Quick, Jean! This one is still alive. Bash him over the head with your iron bar and send him to join the others we have done well from.'
His heart beating madly in his chest, Roger turned over. Above him there loomed two tall figures, made grotesquely bulky by furs they had stolen from several dead men on the battlefield. Raising his pistol, he levelled it at the nearer. Offering up a prayer that the powder had not become damp, he pulled the trigger. There came a flash and a loud report that shattered the silence of the night. The man at whom he had aimed gave a choking gasp, sagged at the knees and fell dead in the snow.
With a furious curse, the other flung himself upon Roger. The pistol was single-barrelled, so he could not fire it again. In spite of his imprisoned leg, he still had the full use of his muscular arms and torso; so he grappled desperately with his attacker, pulling him down upon him.
The man was strong and ruthless. Seizing Roger by the throat, he endeavoured to strangle him. In such a situation Roger would normally have kneed him in the groin, but he was in no position to do so. Gasping for breath, he used his hands. Stiffening his fingers, he thrust them violently at his would-be murderer's face. One finger pierced his antagonist's left eye. With a howl of pain, he released his hold on Roger's neck and jerked himself up. Knowing that his life hung in the balance, Roger seized his momentary advantage. His hands fastened on the man's throat. There ensued a ghastly struggle. Thrashing at Roger's face with clenched fists, the human vulture strove to free himself. As in a nightmare, Roger knew that his eyes had been blacked, his mouth smashed so that his lips were swelling, and he could taste the salt blood running down from his nose. But, ignoring the pain, he hung on.
Gradually, the blows he was receiving grew weaker, then ceased. In the dim light reflected from the snow, he could see his attacker's face becoming contused and blackened. His eyes bulged from his head, his tongue jutted out from between his uneven teeth. After what seemed an age, he collapsed, strangled, across Roger's body.
Groaning and exhausted, Roger feebly pushed his victim from him. Panting from his exertions, he lay there, still a prisoner of the horse that pinned down his leg. By a miracle he had fought off this brutal attempt to murder him. Temporarily the violent struggle had warmed him up, but it was as yet early in the night and, with the increasing cold, he had little hope of surviving until morning.
The Bill is Presented
One benefit at least that Roger derived from having been attacked by these human vultures was that both were clad in thick furs which they had evidently looted earlier from other casualties on the battlefield. Handicapped though he was by his trapped foot, he managed to wiggle a big, coarse, bearskin coat off the man he had strangled. The one he had shot lay beyond his reach, but he was able to use the bearskin as extra cover for his body and free leg which, until his desperate fight for life, had gradually been becoming numb with cold.
After a while his thoughts turned again to Georgina. It was, no doubt, the gipsy blood she had inherited from her mother which enabled her to foretell the future with some accuracy, and form with Roger a strange psychic link which, for his part, he attributed to their complete understanding of each other's mind and mutual life-long devotion. There had been occasions when he had been in acute danger and she many hundred miles away, yet he had clearly heard her voice warning him and telling him how to save himself; and once, when she was nearly drowning in the Caribbean he, in Paris, had fainted and fallen from his horse, later to learn that his spirit had gone to her and imbued her with the strength to swim ashore.
He wondered now if she was aware of his present desperate plight and would, in some way, aid him. But he did not see how she could, as he had left no means untried to free himself; and no warning of the approach of human vultures was necessary as long as he could remain awake.
From Georgina his mind drifted to another lovely woman: the Countess Marie Walewska, Napoleon's latest mistress.
When Napoleon married Josephine, he had loved her most desperately, whereas she was indifferent to him, and only persuaded to the match by her ex-lover, the then all-powerful Director, Barras. So indifferent to him was she that she had been flagrantly unfaithful to him with a handsome army contractor named Hippolyte Charles, during Napoleon's absence on the Italian campaign. Her husband found out, but was still so much under her spell that he forgave her. No sooner had he set sail for Egypt than Josephine began openly to indulge in further amours. His family loathed her; so, on his return, provided him with chapter and verse about her infidelities, hoping that he would get rid of her. Having, while in Egypt, had a hectic affair with a most charming young woman known as La Bellelotte, he was inclined to do so; but Josephine's children by her first marriage, Eugene and Hor-tense Beauharnais, whom Napoleon loved as though they were his own children, interceded with tears for their mother so effectively that she was again forgiven.
But thenceforth Napoleon did not scruple to take any woman he desired, and Josephine's tragedy was that, all too late, her indifference to him had turned to love. At intervals, between dozens of the beauties from the Opera and the Comedie Francaise spending a night or two in his bed, there had been more lengthy affairs with Grassini, the Italian singer; Mile Georges, the Nell Gwyn of his seraglio, who truly loved him for himself and kept him in fits of laughter; a gold-digging tragedienne named Therese Bourgoin; the autocratic and inveterate gambler Madame de Vaudey who was one of Josephine's ladies-in-waiting; then Madame Duchatel, a ravishing blonde with cornflower-blue eyes, who was another of Josephine's ladies.