At the close, the old survivor has a dying dream of his comrades in Nicholette's wagon welcoming him aboard. And through it all-from the Danube to Moscow and back, a period of imprisonment in England, then gradual decimation-the caniniere Nicholette appears with her ""canteen,"" weds three times and is widowed twice. The deaths match personalities: the best-liked member, a Jew, is crucified the intellectual is shot by a firing squad for desertion the gentle horse lover dies protecting his mount and the grizzled sergeant dies in a last battle, while an enemy scavenger swipes the Medal of Honor from his corpse. There's both a sneaking admiration for the noble endurance of men who fight on and on, and a passing recognition of the futility of wars staged by idols like Napoleon. This is the familiar tale, utilized ad infinitum in WW II movies, of how a small close-knit group of infantrymen-in this case a section of seven French ""voltigers""-fight a long series of battles and die one by one, leaving a sole survivor. A 1949 novel set in the period of the Napoleonic Wars, which the late author published in the salad days of the mainly masculine-oriented historical novels (Kenneth Roberts, Nordhoff & Hall) before the thrust of the bosom superseded that of the bayonet.
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