If an officer were to accompany her, some of the soldiers might be a little more courteous, and her search would be much more effective.’
‘I’ll go and help her.’
Margont stood up, grimacing: an invisible beast was devouring his side. But helping out whenever possible came naturally to these two men. The reality of war had failed to poison their humanist spirit. They did not view the woman as an enemy. Their adversaries were the kings, and those who supported them. As fervent republicans, they wished to liberate the Austrian people from the monarch’s stronghold.
‘But be careful!’ added Jean-Quenin Brémond. ‘Don’t start leaping about, forgetting about your injury.’
Margont nodded meekly.
‘Yes, yes, I know. Good doctors see bad patients everywhere!’
As he approached the young woman, Margont scrutinised her without her noticing. She was undeniably charming. Her brown hair emphasised her pale complexion, and her face, with its narrow nose, fine eyebrows and delicate features, attracted many glances. But as well as her enchanting appearance, she also gave a disconcerting impression, perhaps false, of both strength and fragility. This paradox, infuriating, like a jumble of knots impossible to unravel, made a profound impression on Margont. He asked himself if he was the only one who felt it. She was going up to Austrians as well as French, shuddering at the horror of their injuries, asking them something, but they all, invariably, shook their heads. She stopped for a while, undecided, in front of a soldier of the Landwehr, the Austrian military service, whose head was no more than a bundle of bandages, his grey uniform an amalgam of shredded linen. As he appeared to be deaf to her questions – or perhaps he was dead – she had to make do with examining his hands and then she moved away. She repeated the same sentences, sometimes in German, sometimes in lightly accented French.
‘I’m looking for a young Austrian, Wilhelm Gurtz. He’s sixteen years old, blond and quite well built. He may have signed up for the Austrian army, so he might be here somewhere.’
She spoke with composure despite the sight of all the martyred bodies and the weight of the looks she was receiving. Margont was struck by a feeling of consternation tinged with jealousy. He had been injured, but no woman had seen fit to seek him out. The Austrian girl disappeared into a wood where there were more injured men than trees. A cuirassier motioned her over. His mouth was bleeding, coating his red moustache with scarlet foam.
‘He’s lucky to have such a concerned sister!’
The Austrian girl shook her head. ‘I’m only a friend. He has no family, he’s an orphan.’
‘I’m an orphan too!’ cried a voltigeur with bandaged hands. ‘But I don’t have a friend looking for me!’
Margont appeared at that moment. He bowed courteously. ‘Mademoiselle, allow me to introduce myself – Captain Margont, of the 18th Infantry Regiment of the Line. Perhaps you would accept my assistance in your search?’
The young woman suppressed a smile – how chivalrous. She gazed at him briefly, trying to decide whether she could trust him.
‘That’s very kind. My name’s Luise Mitterburg. Do you know where there are other prisoners or wounded?’
Everywhere, Margont almost replied.
‘Let’s follow the river,’ he said.
The abandoned voltigeur watched them moving away. He felt he had paid his dues – he was too often sent to the front line for his liking – was he not due something in return?
‘Beautiful girls for the officers, wenches for the soldiers and misfortune for the voltigeurs,’ he concluded.
There were two people accompanying Luise: a scowling old woman dressed in black and an aged servant. Luise oscillated between discouragement and determination.
‘I spent part of my childhood in an orphanage,’ she explained spontaneously. ‘I’m very attached to it, even though I had the good fortune to be adopted. One of the orphans, Wilhelm Gurtz, an adolescent, disappeared three days ago. We’re looking everywhere for him. Perhaps he took it into his head to join one of the regiments as a volunteer. We absolutely must find him.’
Her voice faltered on the last sentence. But her eyes remained dry.
Margont asked, ‘What does he look like, your—’
‘Quite plump, with chubby cheeks – he eats out of loneliness and despair. Straw-blond hair, thickset, bandy-legged, and he walks slowly. He has very blue eyes, and he seems young for his age. A regiment probably wouldn’t take him … oh, what am I saying, of course they would! Regiments accept everyone. Soon battalions will be made up of children and old people.’
It was already a bit like that, in fact. As for a lower age limit, there were child-soldiers as young as ten, platoon members as young as fourteen, and combatants as young as sixteen.
‘So what do you suggest, Captain?’
‘The prisoners are gathered—’
‘I’ve already been there.’
Margont found her habit of interrupting him irritating but rather seductive.
‘Why do you keep looking in that direction?’ she asked, indicating Aspern.
Although the ruins of the village were hidden by the woods surrounding it, fat columns of smoke, either white or black, signalled its presence. The Austrian woman was obviously observant.
‘I was there yesterday,’ replied Margont. ‘That’s where I was injured. My friends are probably still there. As everything has been destroyed, I’m wondering what is still burning.’
‘Even when war has ravaged everything, it must still burn the cinders.’
Luise leant against a tree. Her face was filmed with perspiration. The heat was crushing, and the sight of the wounded made the atmosphere even more suffocating. ‘I’ll never find him. The war has plunged the world into chaos – who will care about an orphan?’
‘Me,’ retorted Margont.
She laughed, perhaps mockingly – he could not tell.
‘Why?’
Margont hesitated, then said more than he would have liked. ‘Because at a certain stage of my childhood, I also found myself more or less an orphan.’
Either he had said too much or too little. Luise, however, unnerved him by replying: ‘That doesn’t surprise me. I had guessed as much.’
She paled and, forgetting about Margont, went over to a greying man who was wandering amongst the injured, trying to avoid looking at them. With his eyes reddened by crying and his black clothes, he looked like a crow of ill omen. When he saw her, he shook his head sadly. ‘He’s dead,’ he announced in German. ‘It’s not the war, he was murdered.’
‘That’s what we were afraid of, isn’t it?’ she answered with surprising calm.
‘Some French soldiers are guarding his remains. They asked me a great many questions and they don’t want to let us have the body. They think he
