Margont looked at his uniform. It was spattered with blood, the blood of those he had wounded or killed, the bodily remains of men blown to pieces by round shot.

‘Check that all those you’ve put in that wretched cart really are dead,’ he ordered, more by way of punishment than in the vain hope of saving anyone.

The soldiers carried out the order, still terrified by what they had superstitiously thought was someone rising from the dead.

Margont ascertained the whereabouts of his regiment. On his way there he looked at his watch, an extravagance that had cost him a fortune but whose mathematical precision was in keeping with his own methodical mind. It was four o’clock. He did not grasp immediately what the two hands were stubbornly telling him. He called out to a cavalryman from the 9th Chasseurs who was wandering about in search of a comrade. The fellow confirmed that it was already late afternoon. Margont also learnt that more fighting had taken place that very morning, near Vitebsk, though it had not lasted long.

Margont bought a handsome horse with a brown coat and a black mane from a crafty mounted chasseur, who swore that he had set off on the campaign with a spare mount. The beast was surprisingly robust and well fed.

‘He’s called Wagram,’ the seller explained.

‘For the price you’re charging me, you could have included its Russian saddle.’

‘Not at all, Captain! It’s my horse! He’s called Wagram!’

‘That horse is more likely to be called Ostrovno than Wagram.’

At that moment Lefine arrived.

‘So you’ve just joined the hussars of the Russian Guard, have you, Captain?’

‘He’s called Wagram!’ the chasseur stubbornly maintained.

Margont shrugged his shoulders. ‘Wagram or Jena, as long as it’s not called Eylau or Spain.’

The chasseur walked away grumbling about his poor old father who’d bled himself dry, struggling to plough a barren field in order to be able to buy Wagram for his son from the meagre proceeds of his hard toil. His poor father must now be turning in his grave, hearing today the insults of ‘certain people’.

Lefine felt the horse’s flanks. ‘I’ve never seen such a fat horse.’

‘But all our horses were like that before the start of the campaign.’

Lefine continued to stroke the animal’s belly. He was envious of this stomach, which was so much fuller than his own.

‘He’s so impressive that next to him our cavalry look as if they’re mounted on dogs. What’s he to be called, then?’

‘Macbeth.’

‘Macbeth. What gibberish is that? I prefer Wagram. I can show you a good shop for a saddle,’ he added, indicating the battlefield with a broad sweep of his arm.

‘Let’s go back to the regiment for news of our friends.’

‘On that very subject I’m pleased to find you still in one piece. Antoine, Irénée and I have been looking for you everywhere.’

‘I was knocked out by a musket butt,’ Margont lied.

‘Before returning to the regiment, I’m going to take you somewhere. But first I want to tell you what Colonel Delarse has been up to. The farce began as soon as the fighting had ended. The colonel wanted an interpreter. While everyone was scurrying around trying to find one for him, he was moving from one prisoner to another trying to make himself understood, because patience isn’t his strong point. Dozens of people were staring at him goggle-eyed, not understanding a word. He was shouting: “Where is Lieutenant Nakalin? Lieutenant Nakalin, you ignorant peasants!” In the end they found a Russian trumpeter who spoke French.’

‘Why didn’t they get a Polish lancer to act as an interpreter?’

Lefine looked up to the heavens. ‘They’d brought the colonel at least fifteen of them but he sent them all packing. He’s no longer on speaking terms with the Poles. He thinks they waited too long before charging to extricate us from the green coats.’

Margont gritted his teeth.

‘Well, yes. It is pretty stupid, of course,’ Lefine concluded.

‘As he can’t blame it on bad luck, he’s blaming it on the Poles. It’s a typical reaction. The Russians, Prussians and Austrians have been doing the same thing for centuries. So then what happened?’

‘In a nutshell, the Russian translated but they were still no better off. Would the colonel give up? No chance. He then did the rounds of the hospitals. He didn’t find out anything about the mysterious Nakalin, so off he went to walk around the battlefield with his musician, questioning the wounded who hadn’t yet been picked up.’

‘Does your story have an ending? I should remind you that you’re not being paid for wasting your breath.’

‘The colonel eventually found his Nakalin. His horse had been disembowelled by a cannonball and had fallen over, trapping his rider’s leg. I’m taking you to them. They’re playing chess.’

The scene was unreal, absurd. Whilst all around them men were limping about or supporting their bleeding companions, Colonel Delarse and his Russian lieutenant were playing chess. Each seated on a box, they were moving their pieces whilst the grass about them was strewn with remains: sabres, shakos, bayonets, cannonballs, knapsacks, muskets.

‘No sooner has he emerged from one slaughter than he’s rushing into the next,’ muttered Margont.

French officers were watching the game, which cannot have helped the concentration of the Russian, a solitary red pawn surrounded by fifteen or so dark blue pawns. Nakalin was barely twenty. His dark curly hair was dishevelled and his uniform speckled with blades of grass. He had a disconcerting way of playing. He almost never looked at the chessboard and when it was his turn, his startled look gave the impression that he was seeing the position of the pieces for the first time. He would immediately seize one of them and move it somewhere else. You could have sworn that his decisions were totally random. He would look away before he had even finished placing his bishop or his knight and would once more immediately lose himself in contemplation of the flood of wounded. Colonel Delarse seemed puzzled. He would think long and hard but when he placed his fingers on a piece, it was to play it. ‘A piece touched is a piece played’: he adhered strictly to the rules. When attacked by the queen, the Russian responded by moving his knight, without even a cursory glance at the chessboard. Margont was fascinated by the fact that this man was capable of memorising the game so well that he could play in his head. Delarse took the knight and smiled. Not for long. The Russian had conceded the centre of the board but, when he unleashed his attack to the side, his moves considerably restricted Delarse’s room for manoeuvre.

‘Mate within six moves,’ Nakalin announced.

Delarse was shocked. He lost within four.

‘Checkmate. There was a better combination,’ the Russian declared soberly.

‘Let’s have another game!’ exclaimed Delarse, who was already lining up his troops again.

‘I’m tired. I’ve been wounded.’

‘Are you conceding the return match?’

‘“Concede” and “surrender” are words that have no equivalent in the Russian language when the motherland is at war.’

Delarse began a new game but the lieutenant did not move a single piece. After a few minutes Delarse stood up in annoyance.

‘Very well. You’ve won the game with the little wooden soldiers. But I’m the one who won the game out there on the plain! The battlefield is strewn with green pawns and red knights.’

At last the Russian came to life. His cheeks reddened and his expression became more animated.

‘Yes, but that particular game is not over yet …’

Delarse turned towards one of his captains. ‘I want him to be well treated! See that he has a tent, blankets and proper food. Because when I defeat him I don’t want him to be able to say he was in a weakened state. Let him have a chess set as well! I don’t want him claiming that he was prevented from practising.’