Текст книги "Officer's Prey"

Автор книги: Armand Cabasson

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

The sun rose. Napoleon exclaimed that it was the sun of Austerlitz, the one that had broken through the clouds on 2 December 1805 to hail the victory. But today the sun was dazzling the French and showing up their positions. The sky was clear. Dew moistened the grass, pleasantly cooling the atmosphere. It could have been a beautiful day.

CHAPTER 24

AT five thirty a battery of the Guard’s artillery fired three shots, giving the signal for hostilities to begin. The roar of artillery fire was already deafening a few minutes later as the French attacked at several points. In both camps they were saying: ‘This is it at last.’

Time was passing. The Morand Division was positioned in the front line on the left wing, in column by regiment, motionless, awaiting orders. Elsewhere there was slaughter; here there was waiting.

Margont rode along the ranks of his new battalion. He tried to reassure those who were as white-faced as a Russian winter, and to calm down those who were overwrought. The soldiers were glancing up and seeing cannonballs buzzing through the sky. One young chasseur was marvelling at the scene. He found the masses of French and Russian troops rushing at each other ‘fantastic’, the exploding shells ‘amazing’, and the thunder of the cannon ‘awesome’. Exhilarated by the sight, he was gazing up at the black shapes flying over him.

‘And that? What’s that?’

Margont went up to him and removed the bayonet from his musket. Otherwise in a couple of minutes he would accidentally have run his neighbour through. He slid it into its sheath.

‘Only when we launch the attack.’

The soldier had still not taken his eyes off the spectacle overhead.

‘They look like huge insects!’

‘They are in fact insects. Their precise scientific name is Russiae rondishoti. This subspecies of the bumblebee family is a large spherical insect with an especially hard shell. They are clumsy and awkward and not very good at flying, so they always end up on the ground. They don’t sting but crush their prey beneath their weight. As they are gregarious by nature, when one of them arrives near you it’s always followed by the whole swarm.’

‘No, they’re cannonballs, Captain.’

‘That’s another way of looking at it.’

The waiting continued. Some were beginning to hope that the battle would pass them by. Margont surveyed the battlefield. On the tops of the hills and on the slopes, in the smallest valleys and gullies, on the plains and even in the streams, as far as he could see, there were masses of soldiers. He had never seen so many. There were lines going into the attack, retreating or remaining still, squares, columns closely packed or split up, scattered hordes, fluctuating groups, soldiers isolated, lost or dug in, troopers whirling around or charging en masse … Coils of white smoke showed where muskets or artillery guns were being fired. Whole areas disappeared from view beneath these fluffy clouds that then rose slowly into the air until they filled the sky. On the top of its hill the Great Redoubt was hidden by the smoke of its artillery fire. It looked like an erupting volcano.

Saber approached Margont. ‘Prince Eugène has taken the village of Borodino. But it’s probably a diversionary attack. The Emperor’s going to try to break through the Russian left so it’s imperative that we take the Great Redoubt, otherwise our troops will be crushed by its guns and will lay themselves open to attack.’

Margont had realised that they had occupied Borodino. For the rest, he knew his friend only too well. Saber was smiling. He had some good news to announce.

‘The Great Redoubt will be ours.’

The French artillery was pounding the Great Redoubt and the Three Flèches. To the left Eugène had indeed seized the village of Borodino but his progress had been halted. To the right the Three Flèches had already fallen – they had in fact been taken, lost and retaken. Ney’s troops and those of Davout, Murat and Nansouty were trying to link up with Poniatowski’s Poles, who were coming from the far right. But, from the village of Semenovskaya, which was set on a hilltop, the Russians overlooked the victorious French and were showering them with round shot, shells, grapeshot and bullets. Although Murat and La Tour Maubourg were attacking them with heavy cavalry – the Saxony Cuirassiers and Life Guards, and the Westphalian and Polish Cuirassiers – they were being counterattacked by a wave of Russian cuirassiers. The Friant Division took advantage of the impetus of the allied charge to storm the houses. The confusion and slaughter were at their height.

All this time the 13th Light were chewing on blades of grass and kicking their heels. Aides-de-camp and orderlies kept galloping up, wheeling their horses round once or twice to calm them, handing over a missive and immediately setting off again. More and more of them kept arriving and they were in more and more of a hurry.

‘The Redoubt! The Redoubt! The Redoubt!’ Saber began to chant.

His company took up the cry. A superstitious corporal, terror-stricken at the thought and appalled that no one was listening to his pleas, brandished the butt of his musket ready to smash Saber’s skull. The lieutenant had not noticed him because now all he could think of was ‘his’ Redoubt.

Margont grabbed the man by the sleeve. ‘That’s not a Russian. Control yourself.’

General Morand and his general staff galloped past the 13th Light. A few moments later, at about ten in the morning, the order was given to carry the Great Redoubt. The Morand Division began to march. Only the 30th of the Line and a battalion of the 13th Light were going to attack the Great Redoubt itself. The role of the other regiments was to take on the Russian troops deployed round about.

The infantry went forward perfectly aligned, coming under direct fire from the Great Redoubt. There was a buzzing that became a whistling sound, which got louder and louder, and then a breach appeared in the line. Another whistling sound and another gory void.

‘Close ranks! Close ranks!’ shouted the officers.

The soldiers moved closer together to fill the gaps but more shells exploded, more cannonballs struck them full in the chest or tore off their limbs, and there were more shouts of ‘Close ranks! Close ranks!’

Lefine had followed Margont. He had told a sergeant who was unhappy at seeing him leave the 84th for the day: ‘If you’re going to die, it might as well be with your friends.’

‘At this rate there soon won’t be any ranks left,’ he muttered.

‘Who cares? We’ll shout: “Close!”’ replied Margont.

‘Why are there so few of us to attack this redoubt? Who’s the fool who gave this order?’

‘Close ranks, Sergeant.’

‘Yes, well, the other regiments in the division could also close ranks with us! I hate the army, which is only reasonable since the army obviously hates me!’

Margont was looking straight ahead and thinking only of keeping the ranks close together.

Galouche was reciting a passage from the Bible: ‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’ The Apocalypse. It was an appropriate choice.

The cannonballs were raining down more and more heavily, dropping, killing, bouncing off the grass, dropping back down again, killing once more … At last, the enemy was close enough and the line charged forward, yelling as it went. Grapeshot swept away whole ranks in a deafening din. The infantrymen following leapt nimbly over the dead and wounded and took their places. The attackers were in a frenzied state. Fear, vengeance, hatred, a desire for glory, and an obsession with fighting to avoid thinking about those dying around them – all these feelings mingled to produce an excited, exhilarated, enraged sort of euphoria. The Russians positioned on the edges of the redoubt had been pushed back or wiped out.

Disorientated by the smoke surrounding the entrenchment – a warm fog that smelt of burnt gunpowder – Margont fell into a ditch. He tried to get up but other soldiers tumbled on top of him, screaming with fear. He struggled and quickly got back on his feet to avoid choking to death under a human shroud. He was suffocating and could hardly see. There were flashes of light: men were shooting one another inside the ditch itself. Terror-stricken Russians had hidden there and were firing at anything that moved, killing as many of their own men as of the enemy. They were swiftly slaughtered. The French gave one another a leg up to get out of what a grenadier from the 30th quite rightly called a ‘trap for prats’ and went back on the attack.

The French were entering the Great Redoubt through the gaps made for the cannon or those caused by French artillery fire. Other infantrymen were clinging to the earthworks, digging their feet in and climbing up as best they could before shooting at the Russians from the top or throwing themselves at them. Some of the gunners were no longer even defending themselves but reloading their gun and firing so as to blow dozens of Frenchmen to smithereens. The cannon fell silent, the shooting gradually died away.

When Margont entered the stronghold, he saw Saber stroking a cannon as if it were the muzzle of a horse.

‘You see, it was easy. I told you so!’

At that precise moment the Great Redoubt and the Three Flèches had been taken. The enemy line was seriously weakened. Ney and Murat asked for reinforcements so they could try to penetrate the Russian army. Napoleon sent them very few. He wanted to preserve his Guard. Sending it into the attack at this moment would probably ensure victory but not without sustaining very heavy losses. The situation was not yet clear and he feared a second battle the next day or the day after. Napoleon therefore wanted to win without deploying his Guard … if possible.

Seeing that all would be lost if he did not react, Kutuzov ordered a general counterattack, throwing considerable reserves into the fray. In the centre, the infantrymen of Lithuania, Ismailov and the Prince of Württemberg as well as the cuirassiers of Astrakhan and those of the Empress attacked the village of Semenovskaya while Barclay de Tolly and Bagration set about recapturing the entrenchments. On the Russian right, Hetman Platov’s Cossacks and Uvarov’s troopers went into action and, on the left, Olsuviev’s soldiers came to support Tuchkov’s in order to halt Poniatowski.

From the Great Redoubt a host of Russians could be seen, pressed shoulder to shoulder. Their courage bolstered by vodka, they formed a compact wall and were shouting ‘Huzza! Huzza!’ to thank the French for being kind enough to take them on. In the entrenchment, mainly occupied by the 30th of the Line because the other regiments were placed on either side of the position, the French were astounded. What was going on? Hadn’t they won? Wasn’t it all over? The French were firing from all sides but the Russians did not even slacken their pace. The seething green and white mass glinting with bayonets immediately swarmed over those who fell, giving the impression that the volley of fire had had no effect.

‘For God’s sake, are we firing at ghosts or what?’ someone swore.

Margont saw Saber and a few men knocking down the double stockade that closed off the gorge of the redoubt. They were pushing with both hands against the tree trunks spared by the cannonballs or leaning against the wood. It was difficult to work out quite why they were doing this. Didn’t they realise that the Russians were going to come back this way?

‘Stop these idiots or I’ll have them shot on the spot against their posts!’ yelled a colonel, pointing at Saber and his men with the tip of his sabre.

Margont pushed his way through the throng of fusiliers to get to his friend.

‘You’re mad. What are you doing?’

Saber had seized hold of a tree trunk, which he was gradually bending. He was so stubborn that even if three men had got hold of him to remove him forcibly, he would have taken his bit of the stockade with him.

‘The redoubt’s lost! We’re going to be swept up like dead leaves and the green coats will cling to this battery like limpets. The only way of getting back here will be a combined pincer attack, with the infantry head on and the cavalry to the rear. So we need to clear a path for our troopers!’

‘A combined attack?’ yelled Margont uncomprehendingly.

The previous night Saber had not taken account of the human factor in drawing his battle plans on the ground. That was one thing. But even now, when a human wave was about to engulf them, he was continuing to reason in a cold, mathematical way, a disembodied way, even. Saber collapsed, along with his post.

A trooper suddenly appeared in front of them. His horse was pawing the ground and tossing its head to shake the foam from its lips. The man and his mount were silhouetted against the light and their dark, proud, magnificent outlines were terrifying. He looked like one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. When the soldiers’ eyes had adjusted to the light, they recognised Colonel Delarse. He had his back to the enemy. The Russians, who were getting closer and closer, were all attempting to cut down this officer, who some of them thought was Napoleon himself. Delarse pointed at the heart of the redoubt.

‘Gentlemen, this is the gate to Moscow. Do not let them shut it again!’

A cheer went up at these words and shouts of ‘Long live the Emperor!’ rang out. Delarse set off again at a gallop, followed by a riderless black horse. Darval, his adjutant, had just rolled down dead at the foot of the earthworks.

The Russian horde swooped down on the entrenchment. Dark shadows appeared on all sides in the suffocating smoke caused by the firing. Flashes of light burst out constantly amidst a deafening roar. The Russians were trying to get in through the gorge but the French were blocking their way. Bodies were piling up on both sides. The Russians coming up behind flung themselves with all their might against their comrades to break this bottleneck. The soldiers of the 30th and the 13th Light were massing to counterbalance the Russian push. Those who were in the middle of this fray were caught in the vice. Squashed one against the other, some who had been killed could not even fall to the ground, giving the illusion that the dead had risen again to take part in the fighting.

Margont looked up. The Russians were firing from the top of the earthworks. Their bodies stood out so clearly that they were immediately cut down. Others took their places, only to suffer the same fate. The defenders of the gorge were eventually overwhelmed. Men were trampled to death whilst the Russians, whooping with joy, flooded in, running their bayonets through anything that moved. A petrified Margont thought of the amphitheatre in Nîmes. He had the impression of being in the middle of that ancient building, a wretched gladiator lost amidst a host of other gladiators. But there was no public, no Caesar poised to raise his thumb to bring the slaughter to an end. He saw green musketeers rushing towards him. A French fusilier next to him began howling with laughter. He was standing motionless, his weapon at his side, and laughing, just laughing.

Someone bent double in front of Margont. A piece of blood-soaked metal was sticking out of his back. Margont fired his pistol at the chest of an attacker. An indistinct figure charged at him, shouting at the top of his voice and wielding a bayonet. Margont dashed towards him, avoided the blade and thrust his sword into his stomach. To his right, someone fired a shot in someone’s face. A hand caught him by the ankle. He leapt back without attempting to ascertain whether it was a Russian who had been knocked down or a wounded soldier asking for help. He was struck from behind on the left shoulder by a musket butt and lost his balance. He turned round sharply to discover an infantryman raising his bayonet to nail him to the ground. Margont had let go of his sword. He sprang forward, grabbed the Russian by the waist and both fell to the ground.

Margont got back up. The French were pulling back. He noticed General Bonnamy, who was commanding the 30th of the Line and the 2nd Baden of the Line. Bonnamy was bleeding. A mass of Russians surrounding him were about to jab him to death with their bayonets. The fusilier was still laughing. He hadn’t moved an inch. A Russian thrust his bayonet into his stomach. The Frenchman made no effort to defend himself. He collapsed. He had stopped laughing, recovering his senses only to die.

Margont retrieved his sword. The soldier who had attempted to run him through had picked up his musket. Margont trained his empty pistol at him. The Russian hesitated. Was he going to fight or give up? A stray bullet made the decision for him and went straight through his chest. Everywhere muskets were being thrown to the ground and hands were being raised in the air. The Russians had won. Margont caught up with those who were withdrawing but, since they had been surrounded, they would have to fight their way through the enemy.

Two-thirds of the 30th had perished in the redoubt and the area around it. But the survivors, added to those of the 13th Light and the other regiments, still made up a powerful force. They had begun to withdraw in good order when they suddenly turned into a surging mass. It was as if their minds had undergone a strange chemical reaction, producing a state of volatility. Paradoxically, their fear increased when the danger was receding since they were going back to their lines. A drummer had speeded up to overtake a grenadier and it was this trivial incident that had sparked off the stampede. The grenadier speeded up to overtake the drummer and soon everyone was running. Fear turned to panic and panic is the most contagious of all diseases. Margont looked back. The Russians were pursuing them.

‘Fall in again or they’ll slaughter us!’ he yelled.

Saber, who was close at hand, shouted: ‘You’re a disgrace to our army! Fight for the honour of France!’

One was appealing to their reason, the other to their pride, but all the soldiers had turned deaf. The French ranks broke up in complete disarray and they began running faster and faster, hurtling down the slope of the hill in total confusion. Colonel Delarse positioned his magnificent brown horse across their path to bar the way.

‘About turn! Stand up to the enemy!’ he shouted. ‘I recognise you! You’re Lucien Malouin! Stop or you’re for the firing squad! And you there, Captain André Dosse!’

His mount found itself surrounded by men on the run and was swept away by this human tide. Delarse was the only one standing up to the enemy but was going backwards despite himself. He was like a man astride a log being carried along by a raging current. Panic reached the point of madness. Soldiers began changing direction for no reason, accidentally bumping into their comrades. The stampede had turned into a sort of mysterious creature behaving irrationally, ignoring what was important and reacting excessively to the quite insignificant. So, if a foot chasseur ran to the left, the crowd immediately veered off in the same direction.

On the other side of the Semenovskaya Ravine, a dark blue mass was moving forward, perfectly in line. Its pointed bayonets were glinting in the sun, a brilliant and deadly streak of light. They were General Gérard’s troops coming to the rescue of the routed Morand Division. The crowd could have continued to flee but it stopped and made an about-turn. Saber, who had just shouted, ‘Stop fleeing like cowards!’ had the delightful but false impression that he was the one who had effected this turnaround of events. Some of the soldiers who had kept on running broke their bones in the ravine or vanished behind clumps of bushes. Others did not rally until they reached the reinforcements. The wave of Russians smashed head-on into those daring to stand up to it but it was hit hard in return by the dark blue floodtide of Gérard’s troops. The cannonballs made holes in the mêlée, which were immediately filled in. The shells sent smoke, earth and human remains flying into the air.

A carabineer next to Margont was reloading his weapon at top speed.

‘You know what we are when all’s said and done, comrade? Nothing but bloodstains.’

On the Russian left, Bagration declared that he would retake the Flèches or die. He launched a large-scale counterattack but the French smashed this action. Then a shell splinter broke Bagration’s shinbone. The general tried desperately to conceal his wound but he eventually had to be evacuated. He had received a mortal blow. The news spread through the Russian army like wildfire. Bagration enjoyed such popularity that by about one in the afternoon the morale of the Russian left wing had fallen considerably. Also on the Russian far left, Kutuzov was beaten, this time by Poniatowski’s Poles. Once more, Ney and Murat estimated that the Russian army could be destroyed if Napoleon sent in the Guard. Belliard, Ney’s chief of staff, galloped off to find the Emperor.

Napoleon decided to send just the Young Guard into combat. But then he immediately ordered a halt to this manoeuvre. The reason was that on the Russian far right Uvarov’s light cavalry and Platov’s Cossacks had launched a counterattack. They were slaughtering the baggage escort of the Grande Armée, forcing one part of Eugène’s troops and d’Ornano’s cavalry to intervene against them. Napoleon could not afford to part with some of his Guard without first being sure of the stability of his left flank and knowing that they could not be skirted. Kutuzov used this unexpected respite to reinforce his centre by sending in Ostermann’s corps, which was supporting his right and which was under relatively little threat, as well as the Russian Guard. So the Russian centre now had so many troops that it was futile to hope to sweep it aside. Napoleon responded by having a large battery of three hundred guns set up to crush the Russian army with its firepower.

At two in the afternoon the Russians were still in control of the Great Redoubt. The soldiers of the 13th Light were awaiting orders. The roar of artillery fire was frightening and soldiers had to shout in their neighbours’ ears for any hope of being heard.

Margont was observing the battlefield through his field glasses. He could see troopers stirring up clouds of dust, coils of white and black smoke, dark patches moving across the hills and running into other dark patches coming up towards them before disappearing into the smoke.

‘Are we winning or losing?’ yelled Lefine.

‘There’s a lot of moving around. That’s all I can tell you.’

Lefine took the field glasses and surveyed the scene. His face dropped when he saw the hordes of Russians that had appeared in the middle of the enemy position.

‘Good God! Hell has got a bout of Russian indigestion and it’s puking up all the ones we’ve already killed!’

He’d made a joke of it to save face but it was he who, at the prospect of more butchery to come, wanted to vomit.

‘I can’t believe there are so many Russians in the world!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’ve already wiped them all out! It’s just their dead bodies rising up again. They pick up the pieces, gather around the rivers and have a big washday to make themselves more presentable. They bury the ones who are really too messed up: the ones chopped in half or squashed or with a head missing or in too many bits … Then they get back in line and there they are, starting all over again. With the Russians you’ve got to kill them and then kill their corpses, otherwise they come back to life.’

‘I’m going to end up believing your theory of the Russian army’s big washday. They’re bound to send us in again to storm the Great Redoubt,’ prophesied Margont.

‘Here we are! More bad news! And this time it’s enough to make you jump off the Pont du Gard.’

Saber was pacing up and down, his hands behind his back. Why didn’t the Emperor send in his Guard to break through the Russian centre? he asked himself. He had noted the attack by the Russian cavalry on Kutuzov’s far right but he was convinced that the French would hold out on that side and that this manoeuvre was just incidental.

Delarse galloped past, followed by two aides-de-camp, a captain and his former second-in-command’s black horse.

‘That one really gets on my nerves,’ muttered Lefine. He turned towards Margont. ‘He’s earned himself a new nickname since his show of courage at the Great Redoubt: “Death-dealer”. They really meant “Death-dodger” because he defies it so much but “Death-dealer” sounds better.’

‘And what was his old nickname?’ yelled Margont at the top of his voice.

‘“Breathless.”’

‘What’s mine, then?’

Lefine burst out laughing.

‘“Bookworm”, “the bookseller”, and “Captain Freedom”.’

‘It’s better than “Lefine the wheeler-dealer”, “Lefine the nosy parker” and “hoodwinker”.’

Lefine was outraged. ‘That’s an insult, sir. Who said that? It was that bastard Irénée, wasn’t it?’

Piquebois was weaving in and out of the bodies lying on the ground. He grabbed Saber by the sleeve, rousing him from his daydreams just as the Imperial Guard was smashing the Russian centre to pieces and encircling the enemy wings … in his imagination. Margont and Lefine joined them beside Galouche, who was sitting down leaning against the trunk of a half-shattered birch tree. His hands were joined both for prayer and to try to stanch the flow of blood from his stomach. Saber sped off to look for a surgeon. Galouche motioned to Margont to come close to his ear.

‘God’s heard too many prayers at once today. He can’t look after everyone …’ He added with a smile: ‘That’s a very down-to-earth way of putting things. I lived life as a mystic and now I’m dying as an atheist. It’s usually the opposite.’

‘You’re going to pull through!’ Margont declared.

It was a platitude and he was annoyed with himself at not finding anything more convincing to say. Galouche was going to pat him on the arm but stopped. He didn’t want to leave bloodstains on his friend’s sleeve.

‘Ask Lefine to give you lessons in how to tell lies.’

Delarse galloped past again, flourishing his sabre. ‘Everyone to the redoubt! Everyone to the redoubt!’ he shouted.

‘Go there yourself, you git!’ someone yelled.

The insult was lost in the cloud of dust thrown up by the colonel’s horse.

‘We might as well lie down where we are!’ someone else chipped in.

A surgeon came running up. His clothes were dripping with blood, as were his medical bag and his shoes. He was sticky with death. Piquebois, Margont and Lefine shook their friend’s hand for the last time. Saber waved at him from a distance as if expecting to see him again. Then he addressed all those who were willing to listen. The 13th Light had again lost a large number of officers, so they listened to this fired-up lieutenant as they would a general.

‘Soldiers! These are the same Russians as those you crushed at Austerlitz, Eylau and Friedland. Let’s charge at them, my friends, and walk over their bodies! They’re used to it. They still bear the marks of our boots on their stomachs!’

Saber was cheered. A moment later the Morand, Gérard and Broussier Divisions, led by Prince Eugène himself, were moving up to attack the Great Redoubt. It was three in the afternoon.

The drummers were playing to urge them on, adding further to the commotion. The Great Redoubt was still swathed in the smoke from gunfire and only the flashes of firing pierced the thick white cloud. The shots once more caused havoc in the French line, churning it up and cutting through it.

‘Close ranks!’ Margont shouted automatically.

He forced himself to think of other things. He tried to recall Natalia’s face. She was asking him to bring his book back and her clear voice eased the noise of gunfire and his headache. The ground began to tremble beneath his feet, as if Dante’s Hell, which Brother Medrelli had so often told him about, were slowly opening its jaws to swallow up the world.

There were shouts of joy. A mass of cuirassiers and carabineers pounded past at the gallop. The cavalrymen were riding thigh to thigh, tight against one another like bricks in a wall. The sun glinted on their breastplates, helmets and sabres. The floodtide engulfed the Russian infantry and cavalry, sweeping them aside, and carrying on past the Great Redoubt. Eugène’s troops started to charge. Suddenly, the Raevsky cannon stopped firing, as if by magic. The smoke cleared and inside the entrenchment metal gleamed in the sunlight. It was the cuirassiers of the 5th and 8th Regiments, led by General Auguste de Caulaincourt, who had just entered the Great Redoubt from the rear via the gorge. The French infantrymen, wild with joy, immediately climbed up the breastworks. The cuirassiers had decimated the defenders but were now being pushed back under fire from the last remaining Russians. However, Eugène’s soldiers were springing up to take over. ‘Long live the cuirassiers!’ the soldiers shouted, while shooting at Russians.

Margont noticed Colonel Pirgnon at the top of a breastwork. He was urging his men on, and they, uplifted by his courage, were passing him on either side and pouring into the redoubt. His presence, in such an exposed position, was considered an insult by the Russians. They took aim at him, cursing him as they did so. But for the devotion of his soldiers who pounced on them, and the smoke and general confusion, Pirgnon would probably have been hit. It was as if Delarse and he were in competition to see who was the more reckless. He remained there in full view whilst his soldiers stoutly defended what they had just named the ‘Pirgnon breastwork’. At that precise moment, this man who so admired Achilles did indeed resemble the mythical warrior.