The Crimson Snow - A Story of the Napoleonic Wars (Part 2)

[dupuy 318]

            Philippe's unit trudged east, meeting up with other detachments along the way. Many of these other soldiers were not even French, Philippe noticed. Among their growing numbers were Sicilians, Italians, and Spaniards: soldiers from nations that the emperor had previously conquered and made his own. As the day progressed, more and more units fell in with them, until at their maximum number they had the equivalent of four or five regiments.

            Despite Philippe's remaining shock from the news of the unexpected invasion, he was gradually acclimating to the circumstances. His apprehension was not diminished, however, but rather intensified by the situation. He had not even had a chance to tell his mother goodbye before he was mustered out, and he knew that she would be terrified once she found out what had happened. He was concerned about her too, since her health, both mental and physical, had declined in recent years from the stress and turmoil of the past decades. Philippe could only hope that she would be safe while he was gone and pray that he would make it back alive to care for her.

            As the day passed, Philippe's feet grew more and more sore from the hard-packed earth on which they trod without end. His only break from walking was at lunchtime, when the unit stopped briefly for a scant meal of hard tack, salt pork, and water from their mess bags and canteens. The hastily eaten meal was barely enough to satisfy Philippe's hunger, and its unappetizing taste left him longing for the comparative banquets he had enjoyed in the mess hall. The food brought back memories from his days during the still continuing war with Britain - days that he would rather have forgotten. As he began to take off his boots in order to relieve the pressure on his feet, the sergeant's voice came bellowing to his ears.

            "On your feet! We resume the march now!" Philippe held back a curse as he hastily pulled his leggings back up, unable to rest for even a moment. He slowly pulled himself to his feet and sighed as he faced the road once again.

 

             Quaint farmhouses began to dot the land in ever-increasing numbers. Philippe's unit continued to march slowly through the countryside, and many of the residents came out to wave at them.  Cries of "Bon voyage" and "Apportez-nous la victoire!" were on the lips of every person that saw them go by, and Philippe was nearly hoarse from replying. Every farm looked the same, every family looked the same, and even the countryside itself was beginning to look like a giant carpet of the same bright green to Philippe. He stared at the ground the entire time, not trying to talk with any of his camarades but only watching his feet as they shuffled back and forth along the dusty road.

            "So how did you get into this?" Philippe was startled by a voice to his right and slowly looked to see who had addressed him. By his side walked a young soldier whose unkempt blonde hair stuck out in every direction. His blue uniform hung on his slight figure like a bag and he was several inches shorter than every other soldier in the unit.

            "Huh?" Philippe mumbled, surprised by the question.

            "How did you get into this? This invasion, I mean," the young soldier asked again. Philippe's senses slowly awoke. He had kept his eyes to the ground and his tongue silent for so long that conversation suddenly seemed unfamiliar. He finally answered:

            "Uhhm, I was drafted and got sent, I suppose." The other soldier seemed enthusiastic.

            "Me too! I enlisted just weeks ago! I've wanted to serve in la Grande Armée since I was a child!" Philippe grinned for the first time that day; it appeared by his companion's mannerisms that he still was one, in a sense. As if on cue, the young soldier leaned close and whispered in Philippe's ear.

            "Don't tell anyone, but I'm only sixteen. If the sergeant finds out, I'll be sent home." Philippe was not surprised. This was far from the first time he had encountered underage soldiers on the battlefield. Many of the troops in his unit as a drummer boy had lied about their age. He gave the same reply to the boy that he had given to them: 

            "Ok, it'll be a secret." If this lad wanted to go to war and get blown to smithereens four years before he would otherwise be conscripted, it was his business.

            "What's your name, then?" Philippe asked, his curiosity piqued. The young soldier answered immediately, "Oh, my name's Andre. Andre Dupont."

            Philippe stuck out his arm. "Philippe Cartier," he replied. The young soldier shook Philippe's hand vigorously. Before long, the two were in a conversation about the war, the government, the invasion, and every other subject relating to their current situation. They talked for several hours during the march until the question that Philippe didn't want to hear finally came:

            "So what is your background? Your family, I mean?"  Philippe bit his lip. He had not talked about anyone in his family, especially his father, since he was a child during the revolution. From his earliest years, he could remember his mother's words, pleading with him to not reveal that he was of the nobility for fear of what might happen to him. Even though the Reign of Terror had officially ended in 1794, he had never revealed his family lineage out of the fear his mother had expressed. But now, Philippe was wondering if that fear was no longer logical caution, but paranoia. After all, the Revolution had officially ended with the rise of Napoleon.

            "My father was an advisor to the king," Philippe replied, finally letting go of past fears for the first time. Andre looked perplexed.

            "The emperor, you mean?" he asked.

            "No, the king. The late king," Philippe winced as the words left his mouth. Surprisingly, Andre did not recoil as Philippe expected him to. Instead, his interest seemed to grow.

            "Oh, is he still alive?" The innocent question fueled a brief spike of sadness followed by anger in Philippe, which he fought down as quickly as it arose.

            "No, he was - killed before I was even able to walk," he answered.

            "Oh, I'm sorry," Andre said. "Was it an accident?" Andre's naivety to the time in which Philippe was born was slowly beginning to wear his patience thin. He answered tersely:

            "He was taken to the Place de Revolution at the end of the madness." Andre still did not seem to understand.

            "What Place de Revolution? I've yet to hear of it." Philippe finally had had enough. His bitterness exploded in a wave of anger.

            "The Place de Revolution!" he yelled in a rage. "He was guillotined by the radicals! In the name of liberty they murdered an innocent man!" Andre recoiled from the sudden outburst and every soldier within earshot was suddenly staring at Philippe as if he were a mad dog. Philippe's anger quickly turned to mortification and his face reddened. Gradually the other soldiers turned their heads away from him and resumed their own conversations. Andre continued to walk several feet farther from Philippe than he had been.

            "I'm sorry," Philippe said to him, entirely humiliated. "I never knew my father, but the pain that the revolution caused my mother and the resentment that she had towards much of humanity seems to have rubbed off on me."

           Andre gradually moved back to his side. "It's ok. I suppose I could have seemed a bit annoying. I've been told I have a habit of doing that," he replied with a sheepish grin. Philippe smiled slightly. He was not about to argue with that statement.

            The two gradually regained the conversation, and Philippe opened up about his family for the first time. He found that Andre was from Paris, like him, and had grown up as the son of an army officer who was now in the Imperial Guard, Napoleon's elite bodyguard-soldiers. Andre had enlisted - an uncommon act in a France where every able-bodied man was conscripted at the age of twenty anyway. He, like others, had lied about his age to get into the army.

            The unlikely pair, Philippe, who was tall and strong for his age, and Andre, who was a head shorter than him, talked until the entire detachment stopped for the night. The country sun finally yielded to an orange glow as the soldiers bedded down, and the chirping of crickets soon replaced the songs of birds. Philippe laid down more at peace than he had woken up that morning, having made a friend in his new regiment. The invasion had not yet begun, but he would have someone to stand by when it did.

 

[Venerable 2,971]

Approved!

 

With a fantastic continuation of the historical series, "The Crimson Snow - A Story of the Napoleonic Wars", dupuy strikes again! Chapter two helps us understand the protagonist(s?) better and further lays the foundation of an action-packed adventure.  

Your vocabulary never fails to catch me unawares, dupuy! This chapter is very well written, and the description, the character development, the plot - all are excellent. 

 

Edits: a few typos, very minor grammatical edits

Spoiler

-  Either of these is correct: "Quaint farmhouses began to dot the land in ever-increasing numbers." or "Quaint farmhouses began to dot the land in an ever-increasing number."

- I did not edit your "ok"s, but I'd recommend you to use either "OK" or "okay". I was about to change them, but a few authors have used "ok" in their works too.

- If possible, you could include the meanings of the French phrases that you use in a spoiler at the end of each chapter.

- In case you are writing a character's dialogue in the next line, I feel you should end the previous line with a colon rather than a full stop. 

Spoiler

On 1/18/2021 at 6:15 PM, dupuy said:

He had kept his eyes to the ground and his tongue silent for so long that conversation suddenly seemed unfamiliar. He finally answered:

            "Uhhm, I was drafted and got sent, I suppose." The other soldier seemed enthusiastic.

I changed the full stop to a colon (after "he finally answered"). 

 

- In the text quoted below, I feel you could have used "stand by him" instead of just "stand by" to convey the meaning better.

On 1/18/2021 at 6:15 PM, dupuy said:

The invasion had not yet begun, but he would have someone to stand by him when it did.

 

- Other than that, try to proofread your work at least once before you hit the "Submit" button to avoid miscellaneous typos. I found one instance where you meant "he" but wrote "we". Reading your work aloud always helps.

 

Note: It might seem that I've pointed out a lot of mistakes in your piece, dupuy, but they're merely some minor errors in an otherwise wonderful story. Also, my personal opinions and suggestions take up most of the spoiler .

[dupuy 318]

5 hours ago, Venerable said:

Approved!

 

With a fantastic continuation of the historical series, "The Crimson Snow - A Story of the Napoleonic Wars", dupuy strikes again! Chapter two helps us understand the protagonist(s?) better and further lays the foundation of an action-packed adventure.  

Your vocabulary never fails to catch me unawares, dupuy! This chapter is very well written, and the description, the character development, the plot - all are excellent. 

 

Edits: a few typos, very minor grammatical edits

  Reveal hidden contents

-  Either of these is correct: "Quaint farmhouses began to dot the land in ever-increasing numbers." or "Quaint farmhouses began to dot the land in an ever-increasing number."

- I did not edit your "ok"s, but I'd recommend you to use either "OK" or "okay". I was about to change them, but a few authors have used "ok" in their works too.

- If possible, you could include the meanings of the French phrases that you use in a spoiler at the end of each chapter.

- In case you are writing a character's dialogue in the next line, I feel you should end the previous line with a colon rather than a full stop. 

  Reveal hidden contents

I changed the full stop to a colon (after "he finally answered"). 

 

- In the text quoted below, I feel you could have used "stand by him" instead of just "stand by" to convey the meaning better.

 

- Other than that, try to proofread your work at least once before you hit the "Submit" button to avoid miscellaneous typos. I found one instance where you meant "he" but wrote "we". Reading your work aloud always helps.

 

Note: It might seem that I've pointed out a lot of mistakes in your piece, dupuy, but they're merely some minor errors in an otherwise wonderful story. Also, my personal opinions and suggestions take up most of the spoiler .

Well! Nice to see a new, or rather promoted face among the helpers! Congratulations on your candidacy. It's always an honor to be critiqued by the venerable. . . well. . .Venerable! I'm always glad to see errors brought out in my work, as recognizing those errors can help improvements in the future. Plus they're also errors that I don't have to correct myself. In all seriousness, however, I shall try to keep more on top of things as far as proof reading goes. Also, I hadn't thought of the spoiler with translations. As a French speaker myself, I suppose that the idea may not have quite been at the forefront of my mind, but I can do that from now on. Thanks again!