Last month I was intending to post a blog about the battle of Eylau. It was a Napoleonic battle fought in modern day Poland against the Russians. It was infamous for being fought in February snow. It was our unusual snowfall here in February that reminded me of it. Many of the wounded simply froze to death overnight on the field. But Napoleon's surgeons also noticed that the wounded who did survive had much lower rates of infections and made the connection between temperature and infection. A small piece of medical knowledge was added to the collective bank.
There is an excellent French film called "Le Colonel Chabert" starring Gerard Depardieu as a cuirassier colonel who is wounded during the battle, presumed dead and put into a burial pit . He survives and returns to France, struggling to re-assert his identity. It's a great film and the flashback scenes of the French heavy cavalry charging over the snow are wonderful. There is also a harrowing, early scene that I borrowed, or at least copied for the short story, "The Ghosting of Stan Palfrey." I'm not going to say what it is, but it's in there.
So I have Colonel Chabert to thank for giving me a key part of Stan's tortured memories. If you have a spare half hour, please have a read of 'The Ghosting of Stan Palfrey.' It was one of my first forays into the short story genre. And if you come across the film, that's worth a look too.
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