Young bloods - Scarrow Simon - Страница 18

'There!' Carlos straightened up and took two paces back. 'You're quite the young gentleman.'

Napoleon stiffened his back and smiled at his father. The uniform felt good on him. It made him feel older and wiser, and somehow a little braver. In this coat he was not so different from the other students who were passing in the hall outside the quartermaster's door now that morning lessons had finished. At least, he would not look so different. But that, Napoleon knew, was where the similarity would end. As soon as he opened his mouth his origins would be painfully apparent. What then?

His father was still examining him with a pleased expression. 'It suits you. I'm sure you will be a fine soldier some day. One I can be proud of.'

Napoleon felt his throat tighten and he could not trust himself to reply immediately, but nodded with a vague mumble that he would do his best.

'I'm sure you will.' The smile faded from Carlos's lips. 'Now, I must go.'

He stared down at his son, and for a moment saw only the smooth-featured child whose birth seemed only a little while ago. So short a time. Perhaps too short a time, he reflected guiltily, and for an instant he felt the urge to bundle the boy into his arms and bear him back home to his family. Then he tried to dismiss the feeling. He could not shield the boy from this world for ever. It was better that Napoleon became acquainted with its challenges as soon as possible. And what better opportunity than a scholarship in one of the most prestigious colleges in France? Carlos had done everything in his power to secure advancement for his sons. It was all for them, he told himself, and this parting was just one of the many sacrifices he had made. Carlos extended his hand formally.

'I'll give your love to your mother. Be good and work hard.'

Napoleon hesitated a moment before he reached out and pressed his hand into the palm of his father's, feeling the warmth that briefly passed between their connected flesh, before his father loosened his grip.

Napoleon swallowed. 'When will I see you again?'

Carlos frowned. He had not considered this, but he must reassure his son. 'Soon. I'll come and visit the moment the family affairs are in order.'

'When will that be?'

'Soon, Napoleon. Then I'll see you and Joseph again. Perhaps your mother will come with me.'

'I'd like that,' Napoleon said quietly, wanting to commit his father to a definite time, but knowing it was impossible. 'You will write to me?'

'Of course I will! As often as possible.' Carlos flashed one of his brilliant smiles.'And I expect you to respond in kind, young man.'

'I will. I promise.'

'Very well… Then I must go.'

'Yes.'

Carlos patted his son on the shoulder one last time and turned away towards the large doorway at the end of the hall that gave out on to the stables courtyard. As his father strode stiffly away Napoleon felt a desperate urge to reach out to him and his hand lifted from his side instinctively. But as soon as he was aware of the gesture he burned with shame and furiously forced the hand into a gap between the buttons of his uniform coat, trapping it against his stomach where it could not betray him.

Ten paces away his father paused and turned back. With a reassuring nod of his head he called out, 'Remember, Napoleon. Courage!'

Napoleon nodded. Then his father strode off, amid the scurrying ranks of the other students.

The boy watched until Carlos had passed through the doorway and out of sight. Part of him wanted to run down the hall, to catch one glimpse of his father, but then he became aware that some of the boys in the hall were watching him curiously. Napoleon took a deep breath, turned round and walked, unhurriedly, to his cell.

Chapter 16

Napoleon turned over in his bed and drew his knees up to his chest in an effort to keep warm. Even though it was June, the nights had been cold the last few days and the single blanket that cadets were permitted, all year round, was hardly enough to make sleep possible.The bed on which he lay was a crude affair: a straw-filled mattress resting on simple bedstraps that had sagged with the years and made the whole feel more like a hammock than a proper bed. Around the bed the plain plaster walls of the cell rose up to rafters, angling down from the tiled roof-pitch above. A single, narrow window high on the outside wall provided illumination during the day, and now, as the sun rose, a faint grey finger picked its way into the room, illuminating a slow swirl of dust motes.

With a muttered curse he jerked up from the mattress and heaved his bolster back against the wall. Then, reaching into the small locker beside the bed, he fumbled for the copy of Livy he had rented from the local subscription library. He had too little grasp of Latin to attempt to read it in the original and had opted for a recent translation into French. He had come to speak and write the language quite fluently, even though he had not managed to shed, or hide, his Corsican accent. Indeed, it was something he was beginning to affect some pride in, as part of the identity that made him different from the sons of the French aristocracy.

Settling back against the bolster, he opened the covers of the book, flicked to the chapter he had marked with an old slip of parchment and began to read. Ever since he had first attended school in Ajaccio and been made aware of the history of the ancients, Napoleon had a fervent enthusiasm for the subject. Something he had in common with another boy – Louis de Bourrienne – who was the closest thing that Napoleon had to a friend. Louis was happy to share his collection of books with the young Corsican. Napoleon spent long hours poring over the campaigns of Hannibal, Caesar and Alexander. And so, covered by his blanket, he read on, immersing himself in the war between Carthage and Rome, until the dull, booming thud of the drum beat out its summons.

Napoleon set the book down on the locker and jumped out of bed. His stockings, breeches and shirt were already on, as he had worn them against the chill of the previous night. In any case, they gave him an advantage when the drum called the cadets to morning assembly. He pulled on his boots, tied the laces and stood up, glancing over his clothes. They were badly creased in places and he hurriedly rubbed his hands over the worst spots to try to ease out the creases.Then he snatched up his coat, thrust his arms down the sleeves and grabbed his hat before quitting the cell and joining the last of the cadets hurrying down to the quadrangle.

By the time he emerged from the building almost all the other boys had lined up and were standing silently. Napoleon scrambled across the cobbled stones, acutely conscious that he would be the last one in place. He reached his position, at the end of the front line in his class by virtue of his small stature, and quickly straightened his back, stiffened his spine and stared straight ahead.

'Cadet Buona Parte!' Father Bertillon, the duty teacher, bellowed across the quadrangle. 'Last man on parade. One demerit!'

'Yes, sir!' Napoleon shouted back in acknowledgement.

To the side he was aware that some of the boys in his class were casting angry glances at him, and a voice whispered from behind, 'That's one demerit too many, Napoleon.You'll pay for that.'

Napoleon's lips curled into a mirthless smile. He knew the voice well enough. Alexander de Fontaine, the tall, fair-haired son of a landed aristocrat in Picardy. From the moment of Napoleon's arrival at Brienne, Alexander had made his contempt for the Coriscan quite clear. At first it had been by quiet slights and sneering judgements about the new boy's poverty. Alexander had been delighted to discover a ready target for his bullying who never failed to respond to the bait with incandescent explosions of rage that left everyone who witnessed them in fits of laughter. Blows had been exchanged between them, the kind of half-hearted fights that provided plenty of scope for others to intervene and stop them, but both boys knew that there must be a full reckoning some day. One that Alexander was bound to win, since he was by far the bigger of the two, and fit and strong besides. Napoleon knew that he was facing a beating, but it was better to fight and be beaten than to be branded a coward.