Read Online Beat the Drums Slowly by Adrian Goldsworthy - Free Book Online Page B

subsided, and since his fellow cuirassier seemed disinclined for farther talk, the taller man fell silent. There was still a degree of confusion, but the main plea was for protection for the convent buildings, and security for the relics and treasures kept there. The Emperor confirmed his existing order forbidding all plundering and any mistreatment of the local population as long as they welcomed the French and offered no resistance. He repeated some of his proclamations, reminding them that he wished only the best for the Spanish, that his brother King Joseph brought honest government in the place of corruption and decadence. If they spurned his friendship then they had only themselves to blame for the punishment they received. He even threatened to send his kind brother to another realm and take the crown for himself. The interpreter struggled to convey the menace with which this was delivered, but the suppliants were already sufficiently terrorised, for they had heard so many stories of French atrocities. If some tales had grown in the telling, they were not to know, and in any case the truth was terrible enough.
    The monks were ushered out, and the Emperor and Berthier dealt with each of the officers in turn, apart from the two cuirassiers. The Emperor sat on a chair beside a table, on which a map was spread. Far bigger maps, pinned together where they overlapped, covered a good third of the floor. They waited at least five minutes after all had been done before summoning the taller officer and giving him orders to carry. The other man wondered whether he had been forgotten, but simply stood there patiently. There was an even longer pause before the round-faced Prince of Neufchâtel called to him. His uniform was a glorious confection of lace.
    ‘Capitaine Dalmas.’
    The thickset man marched stiffly in his knee-high boots and stamped to attention. ‘Sire!’
    The Emperor’s pale eyes looked at him squarely from under that famous lick of hair. As so often he was wearing the dark green undress uniform of the Chasseurs of his Imperial Guard. He pointed. ‘I remember you from Eylau.’ Dalmas nodded. ‘And before that I gave you the cross. That was at Boulogne.’ Another nod. ‘We have travelled a long way since then.’
    The Emperor paused, and his chief of staff asked sharply, ‘Where is your squadron?’ It surprised Dalmas when the prince appeared to recognise the name of the village. He had never heard it before in his life until they reached it just before dawn this morning. ‘It is not on this map,’ continued Berthier, ‘but should be about here.’ He pressed his thumb into the paper.
    ‘Your strength?’
    ‘My own company, of forty-five men, and another from the Legion of the Visula with seventy-three.’
    ‘Horses?’
    ‘As good as any in the army.’ Few cuirassiers had been sent to Spain, for the big horses they rode were too valuable to suffer on the bad roads and eat the poor fodder available.
    ‘You think your cuirassiers suitable for detached duties?’ the Emperor interrupted. ‘You carry no carbines, so cannot fight on foot.’
    ‘The legionnaires have them.’ Dalmas’ tone was matter of fact.
    ‘Yes, the Poles are good men, why not take more of them?’
    ‘I trust my men. They are the best.’
    The Emperor was pleased with such assurance. ‘I asked Marshal Ney for a good man, and he has sent me you.’ Actually he had asked Ney for his best man, not just the prettiest uniform on his staff. ‘I want someone who can fight like a demon and think like a thief. He may well get killed,’ he had warned.
    Dalmas managed to conceal his surprise. He was a supernumerary ADC on the marshal’s staff, recommended by a wounded divisional commander unable to serve, and not one of red-faced Ney’s own protégés. Supernumeraries usually got only the difficult jobs, the ones that brought danger with little hope of glory. Silently he wondered whether he was being given a task likely to prove a