ison you would be likely to fall upon your feet, because you always
had the knack of making yourself at home anywhere; but I had no idea of
anything like this. Well, I don't think you are to blame for having
entered the French service rather than remaining a prisoner, especially
as you were, as far as you knew, cut off from returning home. Still, I
agree with you that it is as well not to talk about it at present. It is
marvellous to think that you were with Ney through all that fighting.
The doings of the rear-guard were, I can assure you, the subject of the
warmest admiration on the part of the Russians. Sir Robert Wilson
considers that the retreat from Smolensk was one of the most
extraordinary military exploits ever performed. And so you were made a
sergeant after Borodino? Well, Julian, to win your stripes among such a
body as Ney led is no slight honour."

"I received another, Frank; not so much for valour as for taking things
easy." He took from his pocket the cross of the Legion of Honour. "This,
Frank, is an honour Napoleon sent to me, and Ney pinned on my breast. I
would rather that it had been Wellington who sent it, and say Picton who
pinned it on; but it is a big honour none the less, and at any rate it
was not won in fighting against my own countrymen. This document it is
wrapped up in, is the official guarantee that I received on enlisting,
that I should under no circumstances whatever be called upon to serve
against the English."

"You have a right to be proud of the cross, Julian. I should be proud of
it myself, British officer as I am. But how do you say that you got it
for taking things easy?"

"It was not exactly for taking things easy, but for keeping up the men's
spirits. Discipline was getting terribly relaxed, and they were losing
their military bearing altogether. A lot of us non-commissioned officers
were talking round a fire, and I suggested that we should start marching
songs again as we used to do on our way through Germany. It would cheer
the men up, get them to march in military order and time, and shorten
the road. Ney and some of his staff happened to be within hearing, and
he praised the idea much more than it deserved. However, the men took it
up, and the effect was excellent. Other regiments followed our example,
and there can be no doubt that, for a time, it did have a good effect.
Ney reported the business to Napoleon, who issued an order praising the
Grenadiers of the Rhone for t