Flight From the Eagle Page 10

  She was crouching behind her cart, her lower lip caught between her small, even white teeth. He walked over and knelt beside her, speaking in a very quiet voice, hardly more than a whisper. 'I don't wish to appear melodramatic, but if things go wrong and later on you feel it has become necessary----' He put one of the pistols into her hand. She looked at it and then at his face.

  'Be careful with it!' he warned. 'It's cocked. A small squeeze on the trigger here will fire it.' He indicated. 'Put the end of the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. I promise it will be very quick and very certain—I doubt if you'll feel anything.'

  She looked him straight in the eyes and he forced himself to smile. 'I'm being ridiculously over-cautious,' he said. 'I don't expect they're French at all, but just in case anything goes dreadfully wrong—I wouldn't die easy, thinking you couldn't escape...’

  To his amazement, she returned his smile and thanked him as if he had handed her a dropped glove. Only the look in her eyes gave any indication of her real feelings. He touched her cheek gently on a sudden impulse and then said, 'Get right under the cart and stay there until I tell you to come out.'

  She obeyed, clutching the large pistol in one small hand and Orlov turned away to flatten himself against the cart nearest the road. They waited.

  The faint jingling grew steadily nearer. The sounds of men talking quietly, as if they were tired, was too indistinct to tell what language they were speaking. Suddenly, one voice rang out louder, 'Eh, ma foi! Pourquoi pas?'

  Kolniev, who had materialized beside him, grabbed Orlov's arm—his right one, fortunately—but Orlov shook his head. It struck him that the accent of the voice was not very good and most Russian'aristocrats habitually spoke French (he did himself)—a cavalry officer certainly would.

  One of the men lying on his front behind the bushes nearer the road turned his head and mouthed 'Green!' Orlov shook his head again. Several French cavalry regiments wore green.

  Suddenly he realized that one of the riders was humming and he gave a grin and strode forward, down the lane and into the road. The tune was a lullaby his own nurse used to sing to him, centuries ago in his childhood.

  The Captain of the hussar squadron drew up in some surprise at the sight of a solitary white-clad figure suddenly appearing in the road and clapped his hand to his sabre. Orlov raised his hand, but as it held a pistol and his helmet was still hanging on his saddle, he executed more of a hail than a salute.

  'Good morning,' he said politely.

  'Er, good morning sir.' The hussar was a young fellow, very dashing in his fur-lined pelisse heavily ornamented with frogs and gold braid, a tall white plume in his high shako, and a flourishing yellow moustache on his upper lip. He accepted the apparition of a bare-headed Staff officer in a dusty uniform in the middle of a forest, a pistol in one hand and the other arm in a silk sling as if it were a fairly commonplace occurrence. Orlov imagined that it would grow into a fine tale after a few dinners. Briefly, he explained his presence and asked the hussar where he was taking his men.

  'Smolensk,' he replied. 'We're a half-squadron of the Alexandria's from the depot at Kaluga under orders to report to General Barclay at Smolensk, First West Army.'

  'The Second West Army left Smolensk four days ago,' Orlov informed him. 'The First followed the next day and the French will be in the city now, if they haven't moved on yet.'

  The hussar was shocked by the news. 'Good God! What happened? Has there been a battle?'

  'Running fight,' replied Orlov. 'They're not exactly advancing unopposed. I'd estimate General Bagration will be in Dorogobuzh by now. You'd better take this side road and head north from here.'

  'Smolensk gone!' The hussar seemed utterly shaken. 'Good Lord! There's nothing else before Moscow—they won't fall back to Moscow, surely?'

  'I'm not in Their Excellencies' confidence,' replied Orlov. 'Not at this distance, anyway. My advice to you is to go north.'

  'Yes sir. Thank you.' The hussar pulled himself together, and signaling to his men to follow, he turned off into the side track. Orlov walked beside him and the hussar advanced slowly, taking in the camouflaged carts.

  'You were expecting someone else?' he enquired.

  'We weren't sure of your identity,' Orlov replied. 'We're in no state to fight, as you see. There are only two men un-wounded in the whole party. We thought you might be an enemy foraging party, so we hid.'

  'How much warning did you get?'

  'About fifteen minutes. You were making rather a lot of noise. If we had been French, you'd all be dead by now, I fancy.' Fie felt he was being a little unfair—in fact the hussars had been making very little noise but if it made them extra careful, it might save a few lives.

  The hussar Captain took the point. 'Anything we can do to help you?' he asked.

  'I don't think so,' Orlov replied after a moment's thought. 'If you find yourself at Barclay's headquarters, I'd be obliged if you'd ask for Major Danilov and tell him you've seen me. My name is Orlov.'

  The hussar produced his notebook and wrote down the names. ‘I’ll make a point of it,' he promised. 'I'll wish you l he best of luck, too, if I may.'

  Orlov reciprocated the good wishes, and the hussar Captain saluted and led his men off up the track in single file, harness and spurs jingling gaily and sabretaches swinging.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The men began clearing the branches and bracken off the carts and Kolniev sent a man to tell the party with the horses to return. Orlov leaned against the side of one of the carts and closed his eyes for a moment. He could hear water running behind him and saw when he looked round that a little stream ran alongside the track. He walked round the cart, steadying himself by holding onto it, and dropped on his knees by the water, tucking the pistol into his sash and scooping up water with his hand to wet his lips and his face. He felt dizzy and sick.

  A quiet voice, almost in his ear, said, 'May I come out yet?' and he looked round to find the Countess regarding him, on her hands and knees under the cart, the pistol still held in one hand. He stammered an apology and she crawled out and knelt beside him, producing a handkerchief of unusually practical size for a lady, which she dipped in the water and began to bathe his face.

  'I've no doubt you had rather a lot on your mind,' she said in answer to his apology. 'What on earth made you go galloping off like that? Dr Kusminsky was furious and you were gone such a long time—over half an hour. I was afraid at every turn in the road we'd come on you lying in the ditch.'

  'There isn't a ditch,' Orlov pointed out. He was surprised to hear her make such a long speech, particularly as it sounded as if she were scolding him. She bathed his face again and then suddenly seemed to become aware that she still held his pistol in her other hand. She held it out to him and he took it and uncocked it.

  'I'm glad you didn't need it,' he said, conscious of the inadequacy of the statement.

  'If they had been French...' she swallowed nervously. 'We wouldn't have had a chance, would we?'

  'They possibly wouldn't have seen us. If they had, well—a half-squadron would just about equal us in numbers. We'd have the slight advantage of surprise and the bigger one of a sheltered position with the carts. On the other hand, we're mostly at least partially incapacitated. To be honest, no, not much chance, but we'd have taken some of them with us.'

  'If I did as you said with that—it would kill me?' She pointed to the pistol.

  'It would blow the back of your head off,' he assured her. 'No doubt at all—it's the surest way I know. If ever I had to kill myself, it's the way I'd choose.'

  She nodded. Orlov wondered if she was going to be sick, or faint, but she merely dipped her handkerchief in the stream and bathed his face yet again. He suffered it patiently, although he was beginning to feel a bit damp.

  Fortunately, he was saved from drowning by the appearance of Kolniev and Kusminsky, who seemed to have been looking for him. Kolniev said diffidently, 'It's just after noon. Shall we... ?'

 
'We may as well stop here, then,' Orlov took him up. 'I could do with a rest after all that excitement.'

  'No doubt you will claim that your horse ran away with you?' Kusminsky sounded coldly annoyed. He knelt by Orlov, stripped off his coat and shirt and partly unwound his bandages. Orlov set his teeth, but once Kusminsky was sure that there was no bleeding, he replaced the bandages, pushed Orlov into a prostrate position, rolled up his coat and put it under his head, and said sharply, 'Lie still!' and to the Countess, 'Don't let him sit up! Sit on his stomach if he tries.' She nodded.

  Orlov closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel terrible. He decided that he hated horses and never wanted to ride again. After a few minutes, he became aware that something other than his arm was hurting—there was a small sharp nagging pain in his back. He tried to sit up, but the Countess put one small hand on his chest and pushed him back.

  'But there's something digging in my back!' he protested. She slid one hand under him and he directed it until she withdrew it holding a stone. 'It's a very small one,' she said.

  'It felt like the Caucasus!' he replied, and closed his eyes again. It was very pleasant, apart from his arm, to lie still under the trees and listen to the water flowing and the sounds of people working—he was quite sorry when the other two returned with food and coffee and helped him to sit propped against the wheel of the cart.

  He wondered if his bare chest embarrassed the Countess, but she seemed quite unperturbed and was nibbling her chunk of hard bread with a good appetite. 'Extraordinary woman!' he thought. 'I'm sure Tatia would have had the vapors half-a-dozen times this morning and I've always thought she was about the most sensible woman I know. This little sparrow seems to thrive on dreadful adventures! I wonder what Tatia would do if I suggested that she might have to choose between blowing the top off her own head with a pistol ball or being raped by the French!'

  He tried to visualize his attractive, intellectual sister in such a predicament, but it was all too unlikely. He chewed the hard bread and washed it down with some more of the Governor's good coffee and wished the cheese were a little less rancid.

  'This is rotten cheese.' Kolniev echoed his thoughts. 'There's some better in the stores, but I thought we should eat this before it becomes impossible.'

  'Does cheese ever become impossible?' asked Kusminsky. 'I thought the more mouldy and green it got, the more the stuff delighted the connoisseurs.'

  'I think some cheese starts off dreadful and gets steadily worse,' Orlov said viciously.

  'Acid-tongued, aren't we!' said Kusminsky. 'Galloping about on our big horse when we've been told not to and then being sarcastic to our friends when we've hurt ourself. After our friends have been so restrained and kind-hearted too and never once said I told you so!'

  Orlov flushed. 'All right! I'm a fool!' he said. ‘I’m a fool in twenty-four different directions. I'm sorry.'

  There was an awkward pause. Kolniev looked acutely embarrassed and Kusminsky clearly wished he hadn't said anything. Countess Barova said quietly, 'But they might have been French.'

  'Yes,' said Kusminsky, in his more gentle, bedside voice. 'And if they had been, we'd have a chance of still being alive and free in spite of them, thanks to you galloping on your big horse and using your not inconsiderable intelligence. Only, for God's sake, don't do it again! If that wound breaks open, I dread to think what might happen! I don't want to have the job of taking your arm off and you know Kolniev doesn't fancy conducting a burial service.'

  'I'll be more careful,' Orlov promised. He closed his eyes again, hoping he might fall asleep, and he drifted into a half-dream full of enormous horses galloping endlessly over rolling meadows of lush grass, pursued by nightmare riders in French cuirassier uniforms, with white, bleached skull faces and skeleton hands grasping heavy sabres which slashed and Hashed fire in his face. One of them seemed to gain on him, looming over him and blotting out the sky until there was only the ghastly, eyeless face bearing down on him and the great cutting blade sweeping down with agonizing slowness to cut off his arm. 'No!' he cried. 'Not my arm—don't cut it off!'

  'I'm not going to!' said Kusminsky's sharp voice, breaking through the dream. Orlov opened his eyes and found the surgeon kneeling beside him, his tawny eyes fixed anxiously on his face. Someone was holding his right hand in a curiously comforting grip and the spokes of the cartwheel were digging into his back. He felt cramped and dazed, returning Kusminsky's gaze with a puzzled look, which gradually faded as he became properly conscious of his whereabouts.

  'I was dreaming,' he said self-consciously. 'I'm sorry.' Kusminsky nodded and moved away. Kolniev was curled up in 11 is usual ungainly manner, fast asleep, and Orlov realized that the Countess was holding his own hand. He regarded it thoughtfully and wondered if perhaps it was more the case that he was holding her hand. It was interesting to compare them—his own large and brown, despite the fact that he normally wore gloves, and hers small and white and fragile, with long tapering fingers. He lifted it to his lips and then released it, closed his eyes and drifted into a doze.

  When he awoke again, the horses were being put to the carts, and there was the usual stir of purposeful activity. Josef appeared and helped him on with his clothes. Orlov thought that he seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time putting on his shirt and coat, but perhaps he was just more conscious of the business because it hurt. He considered giving in to Kusminsky and riding on the box of Josef's cart, but he really believed it would be more uncomfortable than riding and anyway, it would be an admission of weakness.

  Josef picked up the pistols, which were still lying on the ground, checked that they were not cocked and carried them off to replace them in the saddle holsters with an expression of distaste on his face—he did not care for firearms. He returned leading the grey and Orlov heaved himself into the saddle and started off down the rutted track, the carts bumping behind him, and swung out into the main road, scowling irritably at the everpresent clouds of little black flies.

  The heat was as bad as ever. The early morning coolness had not lasted long and seemed to belong to the infinite past. He realized that the ground they had covered during the day had been rising in a series of gentle uphill stretches, with shorter downhill ones between, and Orlov tried to visualize how it would look stripped of forest—a landscape of rolling hills, rising towards the watershed presumably, with Kaluga somewhere over on the far side.

  The upper valley of the Dnieper must be over on his left, across the hills towards the Moscow road, and far ahead would be the valley of the river Oka which flowed through Kaluga and on eastwards to his own province. His thoughts naturally followed the river to Ryazan and he fell to daydreaming about his home again.

  The long sultry afternoon crawled along and he divided it up into sections to help pass the time. Amazing how dull a journey like this could be, between crises. An hour to daydream of home, an hour to ride alongside the carts, an hour to do complicated sums in his head about sacks of oats, wheels of cheese and handfuls of raisins, knowing full well that Kolniev would have done it all much more efficiently already.

  'Keep an eye open for a good camp site,' he told himself eventually. 'Some grass, as well as water, to eke out the hay,' and before long he found one, and the day's travel came to an end.

  The routine of making camp went very smoothly—there were enough veterans in the group to see that the essential jobs were well done, despite the difficulties of damaged arms and legs. The three officers fitted their responsibilities together with an ease which might have been envied by a regimental staff with a couple of years' experience of working as a team; Kolniev seeing to the commissariat, Kusminsky to the wounded and Orlov exercising a general supervision which dealt with each problem as it arose, competently and quietly, and left him time to go down the picket line afterwards, inspecting the horses' feet.

  He picked up a hundred and twenty hooves, one after another, making himself go on down the line long after his good arm ached and his back felt like brea
king, with his customary stubborn refusal to give up until the job was completed. Most of them were in remarkably good condition, and he gave a few brisk orders about the doubtful cases. None of them was really bad, but it seemed sensible to keep them in as good a state as possible -they could not afford the problem of lame horses as well as lame men.

  As he straightened up for the last time at the end of the line, he looked up at the sky, a large patch of which was visible over the clearing in which they were camped. There were long streaks of crimson and gold cloud flaming across in great ribbons and streamers, and Orlov stood appreciating its beauty for a few minutes before returning to the prosaic consideration that tomorrow looked like being another long, hot, uncomfortable day.

  Josef was waiting behind the tents with water and clean linen and Orlov made a point of thanking him for his trouble, but Josef's prim face was unmoved and he merely remarked that he regretted the impossibility of ironing the garments. Orlov thought he rather overdid it—after seven years of war in a variety of uncomfortable places, he had probably worn more unironed shirts than ironed ones.

  'One would wish to maintain a reasonable standard,' Josef observed impersonally, which made Orlov wonder if the man had become a thought-reader as well as a laundry maid, cart-driver and (with a sudden memory of something he had noticed unconsciously during the morning's excitement) a musketeer.

  'When did you learn to handle a musket?' he asked.

  'One acquires a variety of skills in the military life, Your Excellency,' Josef replied with unruffled solemnity. Orlov had to admit that he was right.

  While he waited for supper, Orlov stood talking quietly to Kusminsky, asking him how long he thought the men could go on without a day's rest. The surgeon shrugged. 'In theory, they should nearly all have collapsed the first night out from Smolensk,' he said. 'In practice—well, it depends. One or two shouldn't really be moved at all but, apart from the boy, who is beyond ... Frankly, I don't know.