1812.
Amidst the White Sea of slashing winds and perpetually grey skies of the infernal Russian snowscape were the remnants of Napoleon's Grande Armee, their once instrumental precision of the proud Empire reduced to the pathetic hobbles of the condemned. Columns of men in silent desperation, trudging towards the man ahead of them, they were driven neither by hope nor glory, but the instinctual will to survive. From conscript to veteran of the Guard, distinction mattered little in the realm of infinite cold. The briefest stoppage of wind an appreciated reprieve, only momentarily absent from the solitary torture of freezing air.
All men were equal in despair; an officer's ration offered little more than what a recruit could scrounge, the brilliant jackets of hussars just as ill suited for hail as the frock of a fusilier. Men of all classes, ranks and nationalities, their uniforms caked in heavy, accumulated snow and their fingers blue, black and numb, their feet blistered, bloody and wet, joints screaming for relief; their eyes closed in resigned terror, moved as one. The endless snow obscured most of any uniform distinction, the broken army a monolith of agony.
Napoleon stood along the path of the death march, hands in his pockets and scowling. By his side freezing marshals attempted a stoic facade by wrestling the urge to shake, but it was too Herculean a task for even the fiercest resolve. Men once having only observed him from distant positions were impartial to his presence, disappointing. Enraging. Some retained the spirit to glare in defiance, but the emperor simply refused to meet the gaze of any man, his expression introspective and distant. Behind his empty face were crushed dreams of grand conquest and shame for what he could not give his loyal followers. Within his mind raged a silent battle between the duty to his beloved corps and his fear of death in defeat, but his pride was powerful even when painfully wounded and could not muster a single tear. Refusing to observe his final review, there briefly glimmered the truth, and in that moment it became self-evident that he was no God-but a man who was foolish to have believed his ambition was invincible. Now an entire army decayed and he was powerless.
In the distance men kindled the red and orange embers of infant fires, growing flames licking at Imperial Brass Eagles. The weak wisps of acrid smoke were barely acknowledged through the sterile chill; together they huddled and stood helplessly still, too tired to shiver, eyes shut, prayed for the fire to grow, to burn away their wretched glory and to give relief. Some thought of their fallen brothers at Borodino, Smolensk, and The Berezina, the brave Dutch sappers who laid the bridge for them to continue living, and how they would look on them with shame, but that they had been granted the privilege of a soldier's death. And others, that perhaps the Emperor retained a streak of greatness, to perform a miracle as he always had, to rescue his sons in arms. But every man stood yet with a minute drive to continue, if not for themselves, then for legacy. For a purpose they shaped with their naked hands. For something.
The cold marched against the Grande Armee. Exhausted soldiers overtaken by the urge to sleep collapsed with a crunch. They were hoisted by their comrades - death was certain, but it should still be as brothers, together to the last. Each step was another action of living automatons, as their unspoken misery stayed confined to the stolen voice of the army. Men nibbled at rations frozen solid as granite, hopelessly grinding with weak but aggressive fervour, every attempt leading them closer to failure and imprisoned rage. Through the hopeless struggle towering swaths of Russian forest dotted the horizon - their endless, looming presence made men feel as ants - their suffering was insignificant to the majesty of earth. Neither nature nor necessity granted the luxury of grief. An infantryman enduring thirty days and nights of marching, his knees fractured and his fingers blackened by gangrene, tried to force a shout of desperation, but there was no voice to be found, so he died in muted anguish. His final thoughts of home in the Alps, the familiar sight of childhood snow now but a corrupted comfort.
Cossacks tracked men as animals, striking at the slowest and savouring the precise art of their butchery. In the shadows they lurked, concealed by their mastery of terrain and the natural fog of war. Beneath clouded moonlight men in their feverish visions and drooping eyes halted to behold the mysterious spectacle of exotic warhorses in hieroglyphic step. Their softened plodding of thunderous hooves executed perfect precision; seated silhouettes moved like ancient symbols in rhythmic motion, the harmonious swaying of their pulsing lamps casting long shadows of mounted barbarians unearthly in proportion. The distant image struck palpable terror in even the numbest man, and relief was well-breathed as their figure vanished behind fog like the guards to Olympus. Trailing laughter lingered, momentarily piercing the veil of relentless wind alongside shrieks of men. The deep, enveloping sensations of hunger, beginning with the gnawing from days without, to the rabid starvation of months of savage desire, soon drove once noble soldiers to unrestrained depravity.
The French Emperor sat in a rumbling carriage, his eyes fixed forward and nose buried within his collar. Anguished veterans spent sacred strength to lift their weary eyes, glaring with only inner contempt - as his escape rolled forwards and past his battalions he blinked sharply - yet again he leaves his men to annihilation. The cold seemed to rise from within their bones, their shielding from the elements seemingly redundant. Their agony was maddening, and every urge to produce flowing tears of surrender were present, but the action simply impossible. The layered coats of the dead and their makeshift shoes did nothing to evade the unbearable freeze. Five-hundred more torturous miles lay ahead for every man, a brutal test of mortal will.
Beneath a grey sky of mindless marching were the wild remains of former soldiers. Men in hypnotized states, arose suddenly in desperate vigour, fighting to quarter the freshly dead with bayonets, human vultures devouring human flesh, tearing, chewing, and swallowing. To any living who dared look at them he was met with a hellish visage, their eyes black and soulless as the freezing night, their faces stained with gore-inhuman abominations.
Trudging through the darkness of the unlit expanse and amidst the whistling of midnight crescendoed the wet sounds of desperate eating and the scraping of bones. Men chose to slaughter their weakest amidst the cover of night, believing it would conceal their sin to both men and God. The disturbing sound grew louder with each agonizing step in the biting cold until there reached a monstrous cacophony of evil curtained by blackness, until its repulsive noise slowly fading to the chorus of the breeze as men trudged along and trudged along.
