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“As long as we’re eating, things will be fine. But when we need to drink.…”
“Ah, you don’t like cider,” said Cadoudal. “Damn! This is embarrassing. Cider and water. I have to admit that my wine cellar has nothing else.”
“That is not the problem. To whose health will we be drinking?”
“So that’s what troubling you, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said Cadoudal in a dignified tone. “We shall drink to the health of our common mother, to the health of France! We serve France with different minds, but, I hope, with the same love.
“To France, good sir!” said Cadoudal, filling his glass.
“To France, General!” replied Roland, clinking his glass against the general’s.
Their consciences clear, they both sat down gaily, and with good appetites they dug into the cabbage soup. The elder of the two was not yet thirty years old.
V The Mousetrap (#ulink_2f265fb8-703c-59b7-8443-229f3a12f1a3)
A BELL WAS RINGING vibrantly, playing “Ave Maria.” Cadoudal pulled out his watch. “Eleven o’clock,” he announced.
“You know that I am at your orders,” Roland answered.
“We have an expedition to complete six leagues away. Do you need some rest?”
“Me?”
“Yes. If so, you may sleep for an hour.”
“Thanks, but that is unnecessary.”
“In that case,” said Cadoudal, “we shall leave when you are ready.”
“And your men?”
“Oh, my men! My men are ready.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“I’ll be damned. I’d like to see them!”
“You’ll see them.”
“But when?”
“Whenever you want. My men are quite discreet. They show themselves only when I give the signal.”
“So that if I wanted to see them.…”
“You have only to tell me; I shall give the signal and they will appear.”
Roland began to laugh. “Do you doubt it?” asked Cadoudal.
“Not in the slightest. Only… Let’s go, General.”
“Let’s go.”
The two young men wrapped themselves in their coats and stepped outside.
“Let’s get on our horses,” said Cadoudal.
“Which horse shall I take?” asked Roland.
“I thought you would be pleased to find your own horse well rested, so I chose two of my horses for our expedition. Take your pick. They are both equally good, and each has in its saddle holsters a pair of English-made pistols.”
“Already loaded?” Roland asked.
“And loaded with great care, Colonel. That’s a job I never entrust to anyone else.”
“Well, then, let’s mount,” said Roland.
Cadoudal and his companion climbed up onto their saddles and started down the road toward Vannes. Cadoudal rode beside Roland, while Branche-d’Or, the major general of Cadoudal’s army, rode twenty paces behind them.
As for the army itself, it remained invisible. The road, so straight it seemed to have been drawn by a tight rope, appeared to be totally deserted.
When they had ridden approximately a half league, Roland grew impatient: “Where in the devil are your men?”
“My men? … On our right, on our left, in front of us, behind us; everywhere.”
“That’s a good one,” said Roland.
“I’m not joking, Colonel. Do you think me so imprudent as to venture out without scouts in the midst of men so experienced and vigilant as your Republicans?”
Roland kept silent for a moment; and then, with a doubtful gesture, he said, “You told me, General, that if I wished to see your men, all I needed to do was say so. Well, I’d like to see them now.”
“All of them or just a part?”
“How many did you say would be with you?”
“Three hundred.”
“Well, then, I’d like to see one hundred and fifty.”
“Halt!” Cadoudal ordered.
Bringing his hands to his mouth, he imitated the call first of a screech owl, then of a barn owl. For the first call, he turned to the right, and for the second, to the left. The last plaintive notes had barely died away when suddenly on both sides of the road shadowy human shapes appeared. Crossing the ditch that separated them from the road, they began lining up on both sides of the horsemen.
“Who is in command on the right?” asked Cadoudal.
“I am, General,” answered a peasant, stepping forward.
“Who are you?”
“Moustache.”
“Who is in command on the left?” Cadoudal inquired.
“I am, Chante-en-Hiver,” answered a second peasant as he stepped forward.
“How many men do you have with you, Moustache?”
“One hundred, General.”
“How many men are with you, Chante-en-Hiver?”
“Fifty, General.”
“So, are there one hundred fifty in all?” asked Cadoudal.
“Yes,” the two Breton leaders answered together.
“Does that match your figure, Colonel?” asked George with a laugh.
“You are a magician, General.”
“No, I am only a poor Chouan, just another unfortunate Breton. I command a troop in which each brain knows what it’s doing and in which each heart beats for the two great principles of this world: religion and royalty.” Then, turning toward his men: “Who is commanding the vanguard?” he asked.
“Fend-l’Air,” the two Chouans answered.
“And the rear guard?”
“La Giberne.”
“So we can safely continue on?” Cadoudal asked the two Chouans.
“As if you were going to mass in your village church,” Fend-l’Air answered.
“Let’s continue on, then,” Cadoudal said to Roland. And turning back to his troops, he said: “Now scatter, my good men!”
In an instant, every man had leaped across the ditch and disappeared. For a few seconds, the horsemen could hear branches rustling and a trace of footsteps in the underbrush. Then nothing at all.
“Well,” said Cadoudal. “Do you believe that with such men I have anything to fear from your Blues, however brave and skillful they might be?”
Roland sighed. He agreed totally with Cadoudal.
They continued riding.
About one league from La Trinité, they saw on the road a dark mass that kept getting larger. Suddenly it stopped.
“What’s that?” asked Roland.
“A man,” said Cadoudal.
“I can see that,” Roland answered. “But who is it?”
“By his speed, you ought to have guessed that it’s a messenger.”
“Why has he stopped?”
“Why, because he saw three men on horseback, and he doesn’t know if he should continue forward or start back.”
“What will he do?”
“He’s waiting before he decides.”
“Waiting for what?”
“A signal, of course.”
“And will he respond to the signal?”
“Not merely respond; he’ll obey it. Would you like him to come forward or move backward? Or to jump to one side?”
“I would like him to come forward,” said Roland. “That way we can find out what news he’s bringing.”
The Breton leader imitated a cuckoo’s call with such perfection that Roland looked around for the bird. “It’s me,” said Cadoudal. “No need to look around.”
“So the messenger will start toward us?”
“No, he is already on his way.”
And indeed, the messenger had begun moving rapidly forward. In just a few seconds he was beside his general.
“Ah!” Cadoudal said. “Is that you, Monte-à-l’Assaut?”
The general leaned forward, and Monte-à-l’Assaut whispered a few words in his ear.
“I have already been warned by Bénédicité,” said George.
After exchanging several words with Monte-à-l’Assaut, Cadoudal twice more imitated the call of a barn owl and then once again a screech owl. In an instant he was surrounded by his three hundred men.
“We’re getting close,” he said to Roland, “and we need to leave the highway.”
Just above the village of Trédion they started out across the fields. Then, leaving Vannes on their left, they reached Trefféan. But instead of following the road into the village, the Breton leader went to the edge of a little woods that extends from Grand-Champ to Larré and ventured no farther. Cadoudal seemed to be waiting for some news.
A grayish glow appeared in the direction of Trefféan and Saint-Nolff. It was the first glimmer of dawn, but a thick layer of fog arising from the ground made it impossible to see more than fifty steps ahead.
Suddenly, about five hundred steps away, they heard a cock crow. George pricked up his ears. The Chouans looked at each other and laughed. The cock crowed once more, closer this time. “It’s him,” said Cadoudal. “Answer him.”
Roland heard a howl three steps away; it imitated a dog with such perfection that the young man, although forewarned, looked around for the animal that was howling so lugubriously. At the same moment, out of the fog, the two horsemen saw a man coming rapidly toward them.
