Free The Retreat by Patrick Rambaud Page A

in one hand she carried her half-boots with their slit laces and with the other she held her friend Catherine Hugonnet’s arm. Both of them were barely dressed, with embroidered damask tablecloths draped over their shoulders, and they cursed that swine of an officer who had set about slitting, ripping and taking their clothes apart stitch by stitch the minute they’d gone to sleep. They watched him up there in front, strutting along like a cock of the walk, even though his troopers were laden with furs and trinkets as if they were about to perform an opera. Still, they thought to themselves, at least they were alive; destitute but alive. They had looked on miserably as their green chalet had burned to the ground, but the wooden houses in this part of town had been spared and, at the end of the avenue on an untouched square, there stood a church – or perhaps cathedral – with blue domes. They had nearly reached it when the dragoons’ horses refused to go any further. At the foot of a clump of trees, a pack of large, silent dogs wasstaring up into the branches; they had powerful chests and grey coats. The party came to a halt; the captain’s voice rang out, ‘These nags are a little afraid of fire, but dogs give them the mortal terrors, is that it?’
    At the sound of this voice, the dogs in question quit their trees and glanced over at the stationary group. They had slanting, green eyes and flat heads.
    â€˜Those aren’t dogs, sir,’ said Trooper Bonet, ‘they’re wolves.’
    â€˜You’ve seen wolves, then, have you?’
    â€˜Oh, I’ve seen them close up, in the Jura. There was one that ate a woman from my village and attacked a whole score of other people. Dangerous, they are. They love war: the more dead and carrion and snakes there are, the more wolves you’re going to get.’
    No one had interrupted the trooper. They were all standing stock-still, observing the wild beasts. Were they going to attack? Those who still had sabres unsheathed them. No need. At that moment, a band of red-uniformed hussars came riding past the great church’s porch, leading two moujiks with their hands bound. Too many men, too much risk: the wolves ran off.
    The hussars led their prisoners to the trees. D’Herbigny called to them and a lieutenant rode over at a gentle trot and asked, ‘Do you understand French?’
    â€˜Captain d’Herbigny of the Dragoons of the Guard.’
    â€˜Forgive me, Captain, but I wouldn’t have guessed …’
    â€˜I know!’
    â€˜Sir’s uniforms are in that portmanteau,’ said Paulin, pointing to the baggage strapped to his donkey.
    â€˜We’ve just escaped a fire by the skin of our teeth,’ said Mme Aurore.
    â€˜I wouldn’t stay out in the open, if I was you. Take cover in that church; it’s good solid stone, a fair old distance from any wooden buildings, there shouldn’t be any danger of it going up.’
    â€˜Do you think I’m just going to stand around twiddling my thumbs, Lieutenant?’
    â€˜Captain, drunken convicts are swarming all over this neighbourhood, spreading the fires with these …’ He threw a lance at d’Herbigny which the captain studied closely. ‘They stoke them with tarred lances like that,’ the hussar reiterated, then rejoined his companions who were stringing up two of the alleged incendiaries.
    When d’Herbigny and his troop rode round the copse before taking shelter in the church, they saw a dozen or so hanged men: dinner for the wolves. Ornella looked down and didn’t look up again until they were inside the church and, as it seemed to her, in another world: in the side aisles, between each of the pillars and in front of the choir, hundreds of candles gleamed in bulky candelabras. Lit by whose hands? It didn’t occur to her to ask. Instead she clung tighter to her friend. She would have liked to have fallen