Flight From the Eagle Page 11

  Obviously, I'm watching for signs of exhaustion, but it's difficult to judge. For example, you and Grushchev should be in about equally bad condition, but he's in better shape than you, I think, although you are far more active and he just sits about all the time. He worries me, but that's another matter. All I can advise is, push on for another day or so, and then lay up for a bit if you think we can risk the delay. Obviously, the more distance there is between us and the French the better, but you'll have worked that out for yourself.'

  'Any other problems? What about Countess Barova?'

  'Comparatively speaking, she's no problem,' Kusminsky replied. 'Like most women, she has far greater powers of endurance than a man would credit. She may be a problem from your purely personal point of view, if only because you've assumed responsibility for her—or had it thrust on you. As far as the men are concerned, she's become a sort of extension of you, judging from the way they talk. They're well aware that she's "quality", not just an officer's whore.

  She's "the Major's lady" and I think they would die to defend her in much the same spirit in which you nearly died to defend them. She's a sort of talisman—if she's driving that cart and putting up with the heat and the dust, then they're ashamed to complain about their own discomforts. She helps to keep them going, in a way, though not to the extent that you do.'

  Orlov looked at him with a startled puzzlement and he went on, 'Yes, you needn't look so surprised! You mean a lot to these men. You're one of those Lords of Creation, the aristocratic Staff officer, who descends from the Olympus of Headquarters with the orders that mean life or death, misery or relief to them and then rides off again—but you didn't ride oil. You stayed and fought for them, took on a horde of French single-handed.

  Oh, I know it was one of those lunatic things we do without a thought in our heads about why! And then, you didn't ride off and leave them in Smolensk, either, you helped them escape. They know how badly you're hurt, but they see you go on doing the duty you've voluntarily taken on yourself, driving yourself to keep going. As long as they see you there in front of them, they feel safe—somebody cares about them. Certainly, Kolniev looks after them and they give him his due, but he's their officer—he has a duty to them. You don't, but you've taken them on and, well, they love you for it.'

  His sharp, impersonal voice sounded completely matter-of-Fact as he said all this and he was obviously sincere. Orlov looked at him in blank astonishment, too startled to be embarrassed, and after a pause, Kusminsky said in exactly the same tone of voice, 'What about the horses?'

  Orlov's cavalry training snapped him into an automatic reaction to the familiar question and he delivered a succinct report on the condition of the horses without a second i bought. 'In fact,' he concluded, 'they're in better condition i ban the men. They have four good legs apiece and are eating at least as well as normal, with rather less work to do. That grey's got more life in him than my charger has—had—and he cost me a small fortune.'

  Kolniev called them to come for supper and they found that they had the luxury of a dining table tonight. In fact, it was four boxes pushed together and they still had to sit on l he ground, but it gave a semblance of civilized living. The meal was the usual thick stew of meat and vegetables, mostly roots and dried peas, with some sort of doughcake and honey for a sweet. Kusminsky produced another bottle of wine from his store and there was more of the excellent coffee which Kolniev had rescued from Smolensk. There were four candles on the table, which gave quite an air of festivity.

  Halfway through the meal, Orlov noticed that the Countess had changed her dress. The fresh one was just as plain and unflattering as the other, in the same sort of serviceable, hardwearing, dowdy material, but it was dark green and he was sure she had been wearing dark red before. Perhaps he was mistaken—it was difficult to be sure of colours in the poor light, but he ventured on a safe compliment and said, 'That colour is very becoming to you,' and she smiled and looked quite pleased.

  After the meal, Orlov rooted in his trunk for writing materials, retiring with them and a lantern to sit on the box of one of the carts, and wrote a fairly lengthy letter to his lawyer in Ryazan. It had occurred to him during the day that if he died or was killed on this journey, the Countess would be left with only her aunt's hundred roubles and no one in the world to turn to for help. His two fellow-officers were not likely to have either the money or the connections to do much for her, and in any case, she was his responsibility— he didn't think to ask himself why this was—he simply accepted it as a fact.

  The letter took a great deal of thought before it was completed to his satisfaction. He felt that he should give some account of the circumstances of his acquaintance with the Countess, for fear that otherwise the lawyers would make assumptions about their relationship—not that it mattered to him as he would be dead if they ever read the letter but for her sake.

  He set out various instructions for providing her with enough to live on in reasonable comfort, but didn't like to make it too much, partly because a large settlement on a comparative stranger would lead everyone to assume the very things he was trying to prevent them assuming, and partly because he had a strong suspicion that she would simply refuse to accept it.

  He wrote a short note to Tatia as well, telling her why he had in effect willed a part of his estate to a young woman he had known for ... Good Lord! was it only fifty hours? The reason he gave was simply that he had found her destitute and promised to look after her but it still didn't occur to him that this was not much of a reason.

  By the time he had finished the two letters and sealed them into a packet with the lawyer's address on the outside, it was quite late and everyone else had turned in. He went to his tent, wondering if Countess Barova was asleep. The lantern was still burning and he saw by its light that her eyes were open, although she was lying down, snugly wrapped in her blankets.

  He placed the letter beside her and said casually as he started to undress, 'If I don't survive this journey for any reason, take that to my lawyer in Ryazan—the direction is written on the outside. He'll see that you're provided for. Put it somewhere safe, preferably on your person.'

  She sat up and held the letter in her hands for a moment, then said, 'Why? You're very kind, but I've no claim on your generosity. Why should you provide for me?'

  'I said I'd look after you,' he replied. 'If I'm killed, or die, you'll be left with no one. This is a sort of insurance, to see that there is someone to look after you and help you if I can't.'

  'But I must provide for myself. I must find some means of earning my own living. I can't accept money from you.'

  'After this journey, I've no doubt it will be a few days at least before you're in much of a state to start seeking employment,' he said. 'And what will you do, in a strange town, where you're not known to anyone, without any references?'

  'I shall find something.' Her voice betrayed her frightened knowledge that this was unlikely.

  Orlov sat down and began to wrestle with his boots. It was difficult to get them off with one hand. He spoke harshly with deliberate intent and rather overdid it. 'What will you do? Set up as a prostitute? Sell yourself into slavery to another autocratic old lady with ulcerated legs? Spend your life looking after another woman's spoiled brats?'

  She gave a little gasp, almost a sob, and then replied with pathetic dignity, 'I've no doubt I shall find a respectable occupation. I wouldn't have thought there was very much difference between being ... the first thing you said, and being a Kept Woman. You're very kind, but I can't let you provide for me! I can't live on your charity! It would be wrong, I've no claim on you!'

  'Kept woman!' Orlov exclaimed, losing his temper. 'The whole point of this arrangement is that it only applies if I die before I've managed to see you settled! I'm not proposing to keep you—I wouldn't insult you with such an idea! It's simply that I want to be sure that you'll be safe, secure and happy! Certainly, find a situation and be independent, but let me help you find someth
ing both respectable and congenial. All I ask is that if I die, you will take that letter to the address written on it and let my lawyers sort out your problems."

  'But why should you be burdened with my troubles?' She was still worried.

  Orlov pulled his blankets round him and replied sharply, 'Because I choose to be! I'm an Orlov and I do as I damned well please!' He followed it with, 'Anyway, while you're under my command, you will kindly obey my orders! Now lie down and go to sleep,' and blew out the candle.

  As he wriggled about trying to get comfortable, he was smitten with the guilty feeling that he had been quite unnecessarily harsh with her, and he said softly, 'Goodnight Sparrow!' in as gentle and affectionate a tone as he could muster.

  There was a tiny pause, then she replied in a voice entirely devoid of expression, 'Goodnight, Your Excellency.' It was a second or two before Orlov realized that he had been given a very neat little set-down and he smiled to himself in the darkness with a guilty feeling that he had thoroughly deserved it. In fact, he had an unpleasant suspicion that he really deserved something a great deal worse, but he was too tired to think about it. Much too tired…

  Some time later, he drifted out of his exhausted sleep, vaguely conscious that something was wrong. His arm ached, nagging at him like toothache, but it did that all the time. He felt cold and realized that the temperature had dropped sharply. He thought he had probably been having one of his feverish spells and the combination of that and the increasing cold had woken him.

  He sat up and groped for his heavy greatcoat and woke up completely as he discovered that he had been so busy bullying the Countess that he had forgotten to get it out or to give her his cloak. The moon gave enough light to make out roughly where things were and he began to unwind himself from his blankets, trying not to make any noise which might wake his companion. Silently, he crept over to his trunk and drew out the coat and cloak, tossed the coat onto his own bed and turned to move the few steps across to the dark shape on the far side of the row of boxes. As he turned, he heard a tiny sound and suddenly realized that it was a similar sound which had really woken him—a small muffled sob. 'What's the matter?' he asked.

  She gave a louder sob which was partly an exclamation and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! Did I wake you?'

  'No. I was cold. Why are you crying?'

  'I'm sorry ... oh, please forgive me! I didn't mean to be rude and ungrateful ... you've been so kind to me ... more kind than anyone ever was before ... and I was silly and rude. I am grateful, truly, and I didn't really think you meant to insult me! I wouldn't be a ... a...' (she couldn't bring herself to say the word). 'And you talked about being killed as if you expected ... and I was so rude to you!' It all came out in a jumbled rush, her voice broken with sobs which she was clearly trying to control.

  Orlov's first reaction was to go to her, but he checked himself: sharply. If he took her in his arms as his instincts wanted him to, she might very well misinterpret his intentions. Anyway, if he did go to her now, anything might happen—he wasn't made of stone!

  He stood still, stooping awkwardly under the low roof of the tent, and said gently, 'It was my fault. I was very unkind to speak to you like that—I deserved a good hard set-down. I said a number of things which were wrong and downright cruel and I'm very sorry for it. I've never for one moment thought that you might turn prostitute and I deserve a flogging for even saying the word to you. I'm sorry if I upset you, talking about being killed. I suppose I've lived with the idea for so long that I'm used to it. I was only trying to be practical. Please don't cry—you make me feel such a brute. I'm sorry, Sparrow.'

  'Why do you call me Sparrow?' she asked, much more calmly.

  'You remind me of one,' he replied. 'I'm sorry if you don't like it.'

  'I d-don't mind.'

  There was silence for a moment, and then he said, still very gently, 'Are you cold? I forgot to give you the cloak. Would you like it?'

  'Y-yes please.'

  He knelt beside her and spread the thick cloak over her, tucking it round her clumsily with his one hand and then gently stroked her soft hair.

  'Will you forgive me?'

  'Yes.' She gave a little hiccup. 'Will you forgive me?'

  'I was never offended,' he replied, touching her cheek briefly. He would have liked to kiss her, but didn't dare and went back to his blankets quickly, shivering in the cold air. It was a long time before he could get to sleep again and he lay still with his eyes closed, trying to calm himself down, amazed at the extent to which the girl's tears had moved him.

  He felt a contempt for himself for being the cause of them which exceeded anything he had ever experienced before, even during the most introspective and self-critical periods of his life. In addition, his arm ached and he was still cold.

  Josef's arrival in the morning dragged him out of a restless, shallow sleep and he got up and went outside without a word, still feeling ashamed. He answered Josef's polite enquiries after his health morosely and sat silent while he was shaved, his black brows drawn together in a way which conveyed to his servant that his master had passed a bad night.

  At breakfast, he remained silent and the other men apparently assumed that his arm was troubling him. The Countess was also silent and rather pale and serious-looking. Kusminsky looked at her with some concern and asked if she felt quite well.

  'Yes, thank you,' she replied. 'I didn't sleep very well.'

  'It was very cold in the night,' said Kolniev sympathetically. 'And I expect you find the ground very hard. I'm sorry we've so few blankets. Two each is hardly enough.'

  'Major Orlov gave me his cloak,' she said. 'It's very warm —I was all right with that.'

  This merely deferred the problem by one stage as far as Kolniev was concerned. 'But the Major would need it ...' he began.

  'I have a greatcoat,' said Orlov briefly. He finished his break-l.isi and went over to the cart where the boy Petrushka was lying and spoke to the men with him. They said there was no change in him and Orlov stood looking at him for a moment. He was a small lad who had once been sturdy, with a blunt, wide-mouthed peasant face, very brown and freckled, but now his cheeks had fallen in and there was a sickly pallor under the tan. His eyes were half-closed, unseeing, and he was breathing in a harsh uneven way as if he might stop at any minute.

  'Why did he join the army?' Orlov asked.

  The men fidgeted and looked at each other. One of them ·said. 'He was caught poaching. His master gave him the choice, the knout or the army. He chose the army.'

  Orlov turned on his heel and walked away scowling. How old was the boy? Eighteen, nineteen? Perhaps less. Offered the choice between a flogging and death, he chose death—for what? A few rabbits?

  He went to the picket line and industriously inspected all the horses' hooves again to the obvious puzzlement of the men in charge of them. By the time he had reached the end of the line, the animals at the other end were being led away to their carts, and he was able to mount his horse and start off along the road without the necessity of forcing himself to speak civilly to anyone, apart from a word of thanks to Josef for leading the grey to him.

  He spent the morning hating himself, the landowning nobility to which he belonged, the octopus-like monster of the army, which took men and broke their bodies for the sake of a few yards of ground or a battery of guns, the hideousness of war which killed boys and maimed men and uprooted people from their secure little lives and tossed them about like twigs in a mountain stream.

  Nothing seemed to pierce the black cloud of depression which engulfed him. The beauty of the dew-spangled flowers and spiders' webs, the grandeur of the forest, the golden glory of the morning, all failed to make any impression on him at all.

  After more than two hours of travelling, Kusminsky rode up alongside him and said in a professional manner, 'Are your bandages uncomfortable?'

  Orlov roused himself and replied, 'No, they're quite comfortable, thank you.'

  'Arm painful?' Kusminsky pres
sed on. 'Not bad—much as usual.' 'Something annoyed you?'

  Orlov looked at him and said, 'I'm sorry. I'm out of humor with myself this morning. It's no one's fault but my own.'

  'Aren't you going to ride with the carts today?' Kusminsky asked. 'The men are wondering—they think you're angry with them.'

  Orlov felt more disgusted with himself than ever, and he pulled over to the side of the road to begin the little ceremony which appeared already to have become an expected part of the daily routine.

  Josef's cart creaked past and he exchanged a few words with its passengers, then felt a sudden spasm of—what? Fear? Surely not. Embarrassment? Not that either. He looked down at the sandy dust round his horse's hooves, then raised his head again to look straight into Countess Barova's face as she drew level with him, his pale face with its black brows and clear grey eyes a picture of perplexity. She gave him a friendly smile and Sergeant Platov asked him if his horse was behaving any better this morning.

  Orlov answered him, asked how his shoulder felt, and then turned his attention to the next cart and so on down the line until they had all passed. He began his slow progress back up the line, restraining himself from hurrying, wondering what he could say to her when he reached the second cart.

  He felt extraordinarily ill-at-ease, quite incomprehensibly so for a man used to talking to all kinds of people, from a serf to the Czar himself. It wasn't the first time he'd made a woman cry (not that he was proud of the fact—it was always an unpleasant business, but they usually seemed to dissolve into tears at some point in even the mildest affaire, if only at the ending of it). It wasn't even as if he had done anything very terrible!

  Admittedly, he'd spoken to her rather harshly, but it was for her own good, trying to help her and part of it had been because she had misunderstood him—he hadn't intended accusing her of being a whore or even envisaged the possibility. He'd only meant to make her realize— 'Listen to me!' he thought. 'I only meant ... It was for her own good! All the classic excuses of a man in the wrong!'