Gerald Kersh - The Best of Gerald Kersh

‘I have. Continue.’

‘Good. Listen again: ‘ If Wellington makes a show of English infantry on the plateau of Mont St Jean, behind a light covering fire of canister from the masked batteries on the Nivelles road, the odds are that Napoleon will make one of his master-strokes – his heavy cavalry, en masse, will charge the English infantry line, with a view to smashing it and cutting the Allies in two, before the German reinforcements arrive; Blücher and Bülow being already delayed …. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly clear – not that I understand. Go on. It is written in my head as on a slate.’

‘You are neither expected nor required to understand, only to remember. Listen again: Before the French cavalry can reach the English infantry, therefore, they must cross a certain little road that runs across the plain from Ohain to Mont St Jean ——’

‘Cross it, how?’ said Cornelys. ‘I know the Ohain road. Road? It is a ditch, twelve feet deep, banked up steep on either side. Mountaineers cross such a road, not cavalry. I know the Ohain road.’

‘All the better. Tell Collaert so, and answer clearly any questions he may ask. Meanwhile, remember again: If Wellington, having arranged his foot-guards above the Ohain road, draws the main charge of Napoleon’s heavy cavalry, he will break the head off Napoleon’s sledge - hammer, and break off the jaws of his tongs, too. It is Jan Klaes who says so, having received word from de Wissembourg, alias Lacoste, Napoleon’s own guide …. For God’s sake, is all I have said impressed upon your memory, Cornelys?’

‘Every word,’ said the blacksmith, ‘firm as print, clear as ink – aie – aie! What’s this?——’ He had put out his hand, instinctively stroking and stroking as blacksmiths will, feeling the back of the mare Cocotte. ‘– Why, may I die, if Morkens hasn’t saddled the Englishman’s mare!’

‘What Englishman? What mare?’ Klaes asked.

‘A bony dapple-grey, sixteen hands. I shod her myself today. Fed like a fighting-cock. Broken to shafts and saddle, and good for anything; a horse for a lady or a gentleman.’

‘What Englishman?’

‘Oh, a millionaire, a nabob. He left the horse as a tip for his valet; simple as that! Not to go into details: I guess that Morkens had her saddled and ready, knowing that my little gelding is a little too light for my weight. This dapple-grey will carry two hundred pounds over fifty miles of mud. A good idea!’ said Cornelys.

‘The Englishman is gone. And the valet?’ Klaes asked.

Cornelys said: ‘I think the valet won’t be needing the dapple-grey tonight.’ I almost felt the darkness contract and expand as he winked unseen.

‘Good,’ said Klaes. ‘To horse and away, hell for leather! Be off!’

But now Cornelys became insolent and, quoting some clownish proverb, ‘Patience, fleas, the night is long!’ he then said: ‘Those two sots have left the best part of half a bowl of punch, eh?’

‘Hurry,’ said Klaes.

But Cornelys insisted: ‘A stirrup-cup first, and then we’re off!’ – and splashed back to the house.

Crouching in the hay with my hands on my pistols, I was almost sorry then for the man Klaes, squatting on his truss of straw; for I perceived the weary misery of him when (believing himself to be alone in the dark) he moaned ‘… Oh Lord, Lord, Lord! … Is it for me to choose Your instruments? … I can no more, I have done my best….’ Wow, but that man was tired!

Then the oaf Cornelys came back chuckling, saying: ‘May the Lord forgive all the sins of the man who mixed that punch! It goes down well on a night like this. I finished it to keep out the damp….’

So Cornelys had drunk the rest of my punch, then! Good.

‘Away with you!’ cried Klaes. The blacksmith swung himself into Cocotte’s saddle, said au revoir, and was off.

I kept still in the hay, working over in my mind the tremendous significance of the message which Klaes had conveyed to Cornelys, and which Cornelys was to carry to Wellington. The weight of this message crushed the breath out of me, because the fate of an Empire depended upon it! I knew that this messenger Cornelys must, at all costs, be intercepted and his message diverted. But, I ask you – how? Violence is not in my line – I live or die by my wits. He was a powerful and resolute man, mounted on a strong, fresh horse. I was a shrimp of a man with nothing to put between my thighs but an exhausted scrub. True, I had a pair of pistols in my pockets; so, without doubt, had Cornelys.

But the odds, as I counted them, were evened by the laudanum in the punch Cornelys had drunk. He had told Klaes that he had drunk half a bowl of the mixture; so he had (the shallower half of the bowl, which was, therefore, only a third of the total volume); still, that should be sufficient, in a literal sense, to tip the balance – Cornelys’s equilibrium – in my favour.

In a flash, you realise, I had seen my duty. I did not like Napoleon; indeed, in my time I had plotted against him. But in this moment I saw him not as the renegade Republican, not as the ingrate, not as the ambitious little deserter of Egypt and of Russia; I saw him as the old eagle hatched again. I saw in him something symbolic of the Spirit of the Man that goeth Upwards. In this extraordinarily indomitable little rogue returned from Elba to confront the gathered might of the Allies I saw – for give the comparison – something of myself. I recaptured a little of the old enthusiasm. Yes, old comrade, I saw again the red dawn of Egypt. I knew then that I must, by hook or by crook, warn Napoleon of the menace at his elbow.

Ah, if only I had had with me then you, or any one of half a dozen other stout fellows I could name! Then I should have let Cornelys carry his message to Collaert, while you carried to Napoleon the intelligence of that message well in advance. Thus forewarned, having allowed the English infantry to form, Napoleon would have fallen upon their left flank and carried the plateau of Mont St Jean!

But I was alone, and only one course was open to me: I must intercept Cornelys, before he reached Collaert, and cut him down. This, as a first move, was the wisest for me, situated as I was. I had something like a dog’s chance of overtaking Cornelys, and then, mounted on the mare Cocotte, making my way to the French lines. And this I resolved to do.

Hence, when the tired man Klaes dragged himself back to the inn, I mounted that weary horse of his, and, using my pen-knife as a spur, made after the blacksmith. That horse had heart. He drew a long breath, and hit the road.

And do you know what, old comrade-in-arms? Then it was as if I had shed the weight of a quarter of a century. I felt as I had felt on a certain dawn in the spring of 1795, when, seeing sunlight through the powder-smoke, I first realised that I was a grown man, and therefore too old to be afraid…. Then my heart, which had been flapping and fluttering somewhere below my belt, found its wings and soared, singing to high heaven; Fear of Death was a shadow in the valley far below and far behind me; and I laughed and cried, delighting in my new-found freedom from that fear….

So I felt, then, when I nudged and goaded Klaes’s weary horse back into the mud and the darkness. Ah, but that was an enchanted moment – how good it was to feel that rain, and to see so far away that struggling, watery moonlight!

The horse seemed to catch my exhilaration. He was winded, so that I might have been sitting astride Cornelys’s own heaving, wheezing bellows; but still he galloped. All the same, exaltation apart, my reason had not deserted me. The blacksmith was mounted on Cocotte, who was strong and fresh, and had the start of my poor nag. But I had not forgotten that, within the hour, Cornelys should be most insecure in that little hunting saddle, if he were seated at all. By the time I overtook him, he must in any case be too befuddled to aim a pistol; and then I should have him.