Flight From the Eagle Page 4

  'We must try to find something we can use for bandages when we l'each a village,' he said. 'We've pitifully little with us.'

  'Yes,' agreed Kusminsky. 'There was very little available in Smolensk. If the French haven't brought plenty with them, they'll find their men bleeding to death for lack of dressings. We need more blankets too. It may be hot as hell during the day, but it's damned cold at night.'

  Orlov opened the leather wallet on his cross belt and pulled out the map Danilov had given him at General Barclay's headquarters. He spread it out on the ground where all three of them could look at it and pointed out the road towards which they were heading. It ran straight from west to east towards Kaluga for nearly two hundred miles but no owns were marked along it, and very few villages. The map was small scale and Orlov suspected it was not very accurate.

  'The main problem,' he said, 'is that, we are near enough to 1 he assumed line of march of the French army to be within range of their foraging parties and therefore of the area which the Cossacks will be clearing. That means that for at least a hundred miles, until this road diverges far enough from the Moscow road to make the French foragers ignore it, probably all the buildings will be burnt and all the people fled. That's always assuming that the French continue to advance.'

  'Do you think they will?' asked Kolniev.

  'Unless they're prepared to spend the winter in what remains of Smolensk,' replied Orlov. 'I think that may have been their intention but Smolensk no longer provides enough shelter for two thin cats, let alone an army the size of Bonaparte's. If he's going to hold what he's gained so far, lie must advance, for he can't stay where he is, or go back. 11 is army has no organization for a line of supply—it has always lived on the country before. The Smolensk area is devastated: it can't support his army until the spring. He must go on, either to Moscow or to Petersburg, and I think it will be Moscow.'

  'Moscow!' Kolniev was horrified. 'Surely even Barclay will stand and fight before that! It was bad enough to let them take Smolensk, but you can't seriously think the French could be allowed to go as far as Moscow!'

  Orlov noted the 'even Barclay' with an inward sigh. So many of the Line officers seemed quite unable to appreciate Barclay's many good qualities. 'Look,' he said, 'what purpose would it have served to hold Smolensk? The French would simply have besieged the place and gone on hammering at it until our army was either destroyed or forced to surrender. The days of impregnable fortresses passed long ago, and Smolensk never qualified as one anyway. Strategy in Russia must lie in movement, in using the vast size of the country —Suvorov taught us that.

  Our army must be mobile, not tied down to the defence of one city, not even Holy Moscow. Let the cities go—they're only wood and stone—burn them and let them go! They can be rebuilt, but the army can't. Once the army is pinned down, it can be destroyed, and then we're lost. As long as the army exists and is free to move, we can't be beaten. Even Bonaparte can't take and occupy every town in Russia, or keep his army fed and equipped in a devastated desert. Let him go to Moscow, let him sit there in a burning city surrounded by an empty wilderness until he rots. Let him spend the winter there, and see how his Grande Armee likes that!' He had become quite impassioned during this speech, and now stopped in sudden embarrassment.

  Kolniev looked thoughtful and said, 'Barclay's not one of Suvorov's old gang. Do you think Suvorov would have gone on retreating?'

  'Yes,' Orlov replied. 'And when, and if, Kutuzov is given command, he'll do the same.'

  Kusminsky and Kolniev both looked at him with alert interest. 'Kutuzov?' said Kusminsky. 'Do you think the Czar...?'

  Orlov remembered not to shrug this time. "Who else?' he said. 'Barclay can't go on when his subordinates are near-mutinous. Kutuzov is the army's choice. I think the Czar will have to accept him sooner or later.'

  'Let's hope it's sooner!' said Kolniev. He suddenly colored. 'I'm sorry. Of course, you're Barclay's adjutant so I suppose it's tactless of me to criticize him. How will you feel if Kutuzov supersedes him?'

  Orlov smiled. 'I was on Kutuzov's staff until a few months ago,' he replied. 'To be honest, I prefer Mikhail Harionovitch to Mikhail Bogdanovitch as a general, but not as a man. Barclay may be cautious, but he's hard-working, clear-thinking, even-tempered and courteous, while Kutuzov's lecherous, lazy, and inclined to go to sleep at every opportunity, though it's very insubordinate of me to say so!'

  'I suppose you'll be a general eventually,' said Kolniev thoughtfully.

  'Not me,' replied Orlov. 'I've had enough of the army. As soon as this invasion is finished with, I shall resign. It's time I married and settled down.'

  'I'd assumed you were married,' said Kusminsky.

  'I guessed he wasn't,' Kolniev grinned. 'He wouldn't charge a French squadron single-handed if he had a wife and children to think of!'

  'No,' said Orlov soberly. ('Did I do that?' he thought. 'I must have been mad!') 'My sister's husband lost both legs and half his face at Austerlitz. Fortunately for both of them, he didn't live long. I wouldn't want to inflict myself on a woman in that sort of state.'

  The other two nodded agreement and all three lapsed into their private thoughts for a time. Orlov fell into a doze—it was frightening to find himself tiring so easily. His tough, powerfully-built body would usually obey him for long hours at a stretch, and he felt curiously betrayed when it became so ragging and weary after only a morning of easy riding.

  He woke to find the cavalcade stirring itself into readiness to move on. He hauled himself back into the saddle with a heavy reluctance, looking bleakly out across the long uphill Stretch of baking grassland, mercilessly bare and shimmering in the heat-haze. It would be like a furnace out there. He kicked his horse into movement and rode out ahead, sitting slack and easy in the saddle in the manner of a man accustomed to days spent on horseback.

  The line of carts rumbled and jolted after him with their canvas awnings hanging limp in the motionless air and the boy with the crushed pelvis moaning in delirium. The men fell silent and lay still in the carts or sat slumped on the driver's boxes, sweltering in the heat as they moved slowly over the open country, inching towards a skyline that seemed always as far away as ever in the blinding, shimmering light.

  After an eternity which lasted two weary hours by Orlov's watch, they reached the top of the rising ground, and saw the interminable cart track running on a gradual downhill slope to a dark line in the far distance—the road to Kaluga.

  The men's spirits rose for a time, but they went plodding onwards for a further eternity during which the dark line seemed to stand still while they moved and moved without making progress. Orlov realized that he was becoming lightheaded again as his surroundings began to assume a nightmare quality and he started to imagine that he was moving in a world which stood still. His horse picked up and put down his feet without moving forwards, the sun seemed to grow imperceptibly larger, nearer and hotter. He was startled when the sound of his horse's hooves suddenly changed and pulled himself together with a jerk which jarred his arm, becoming aware that he had reached the road and ridden diagonally halfway across it.

  He reined in the grey and turned to look back at the line of carts. It was strung out, with intervals of several yards between the carts. All the men except Kusminsky were riding in the carts, with the spare horses tied on behind. The surgeon was jogging along at the back, head bowed and apparently dozing as Orlov suspected most of the men were doing. He let out a long call of 'Halt!' and the carts came up one by one to form a line on the road, the horses standing with their heads hanging and sides heaving. There was no shade of any kind.

  Orlov looked along the road into the distance. Right on the horizon there was something—a clump of trees, perhaps, or a building. It made an objective and he decided that they would stop when they reached it. He started to say so and was surprised to find that his voice came out as a hoarse croak. He cleared his throat, started again, and once more the men's heads came up. They began to look about them,
talking to each other as their spirits revived a little at the prospect of something to look forward to.

  'We're making good progress, better than I expected,' Orlov (old them encouragingly. He wondered if it was true and occupied himself for a couple of miles in estimating how far (hey had come—thirty miles from Smolensk?—and whether it was a good distance for men in their condition. Then he wondered where the army was, and, more important, where the French were. He tried to remember the post road from Smolensk to Moscow and to visualize whereabouts would be a good place to make a stand against the French, assuming (hat one decided there was any point in giving battle at all. He could think of only one place, about eighty miles from Moscow, near a village called—what was it called?

  Trying to remember occupied him for another half-mile or so and as he remembered that it was called Borodino, he looked ahead and saw that the objective he had picked was a group of buildings standing by a clump of trees at the side of the road.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The little procession moved slowly on towards the buildings, the sounds of their progress muffled by the thick layer of dust, ankle-deep on the road. It occurred to Orlov that the breeze he had longed for earlier would prove a mixed blessing if it ever arrived, unless it brought some rain to lay the dust.

  He drew out his watch to confirm his feeling that the afternoon was well advanced and found that he had correctly estimated that they had been on the move for about three hours since the midday halt. Far enough, under the circumstances. This place would do for their overnight stay.

  The buildings, as they drew near, proved to be a posting inn, consisting of a solid house set back from the road and forming an open square with a row of stables and a large barn. There was a pond to one side and a sheltering clump of trees behind the house. The place looked deserted, with no sign of life at all. There were no chickens in the yard or ducks on the pond. The stable doors hung open, as did the big doors of the barn and an abandoned cart lay with one wheel off by the roadside, partly blocking the highway.

  Orlov turned into the yard and the carts followed, forming up in a row beside the barn. As Orlov sat his horse, waiting until they were all in position before beginning to reel off his orders, he was surprised by a sound from the house. He turned sharply as the door opened and a young woman came out onto the steps. He saw that she was fairly tall, with rich brown hair swept up beneath a coronet of plaits, and wearing plain dark travelling dress. Her face was white and strained and seemed all eyes. Kusminsky gave an exclamation, dismounted and walked quickly over to her and Orlov turned away to give the instructions which he had been preparing in his mind, wondering what the devil a lady was doing in this god-forsaken place.

  In a few minutes, he had the men divided into groups and busily involved in various necessary activities, according to their abilities.

  He decided swiftly that the men should sleep in the barn, which was well-filled with bales of hay. The badly hurt men were gently carried in and made comfortable, except for the boy with the crushed pelvis, who was still moaning. Orlov hesitated over him for a moment, then instructed that he be left where he was for the time being. The cook's squad went

  011 to inspect the kitchen and the horses were being seen to. At length, he was free to dismount from the grey, stiffly and with considerable relief. His back ached, his arm hurt, his legs were sore with the chafing of his sweat-soaked clothing, and the unexpected appearance of what looked like a lady of quality was a little cloud of apprehension at the back of his preooccupied mind.

  He found Kusminsky and Kolniev were both talking to her and he went over to them and stood silently looking at her. She appeared about twenty, clearly a lady, but thin in both body and face, pale, with, big shadowed eyes and she looked tired and frightened.

  Kusminsky turned and said, 'This is Major Orlov who is in charge of the party. Major, Countess Barova has been left stranded here with her sick aunt. Everyone else has run away.'

  Orlov started to think what a damned nuisance of a complication this was likely to be, met the girl's eyes and felt instead a wave of pity for her, an almost unwilling admiration for the way she kept her head up and her back straight. He cleared his throat, remembered his manners, swept off his In I met, bowed, and kissed the hand she held out to him, marring the effect by dropping his helmet as he did so. 'Shall we go inside?' he said mildly.

  The interior of the inn showed signs of the hurried departure of its normal occupants, but fortunately they seemed to have left most of the furniture. Orlov ushered the Countess into the small parlor which was simply furnished with a few upright chairs and a round table. The Countess sat down and put her folded hands on the table. Kolniev sat astride a chair with his arms along the back of it and Orlov remained standing. Kusminsky said gently, I'm a surgeon. I'll go and see your aunt. Where is she?'

  'In the first room at the top of the stairs,' the Countess replied. 'She hasn't moved since yesterday. I think she's...' She gave a small sob, clasped her hands together tightly and swallowed convulsively. Kusminsky went out and could be heard running up the stairs.

  Orlov sat down facing the Countess and said quietly, 'What happened? How do you come to be here?'

  'My aunt lives—lived—on her estate near Orsha,' she said. 'I'm her companion. We heard that the French were coming and she decided to leave. She had the baggage packed into carts and all the house serfs were to come. We set out a week ago.'

  'Where were you heading?' asked Kolniev.

  'I don't know.' The Countess looked more distressed than ever. 'It sounds ridiculous, I know, but my aunt never discussed anything with me, never told me what she intended.

  She is very ... autocratic.' Her voice died away. Orlov had a sudden vision of what the girl's life must have been like. He'd seen a good many like her—poor relations, dependent on the charity of a domineering old lady, made to fetch and carry, treated as a sort of superior servant. Years of long servility turned them into timid faded spinsters, shadows in dowdy clothes, ignored and slighted. He said suddenly, 'I suppose you were the poor relation?'

  She met his eyes. The look they exchanged conveyed to her that he understood what her position had been and to him how relieved she was at his understanding. She nodded and continued, 'When we reached here, my aunt complained of feeling ill. That was three days ago. She stayed in bed and I tried to persuade the innkeeper to send for a doctor but he wouldn't do anything. He wanted us to go, to move on. Then, the night before last a man came here, stopped to rest his horse. He said the French were almost at Smolensk and everyone panicked. All the inn people harnessed their carts and carriages and went off in a wild scramble.

  My aunt's people were frightened and wanted, to go too but my aunt u is too ill. The steward went in to her and told her the French Were coming, but she just lay there and didn't say anything. They took everything except what we had in our rooms and ran away after the innkeeper. I begged them not to go but they wouldn't listen.' Tears began to run down her cheeks. She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped them away quickly, keeping a tight control on herself.

  ()rlov looked at her with the same curious mixture of pity and admiration he had felt earlier, trying to think of something to say. He heard Kusminsky coming down the stairs and both he and the Countess stood up as the surgeon entered the room, as if anticipating his news.

  ‘I m sorry but I'm afraid she's dead,' Kusminsky said gently. The Countess made a little helpless gesture with her hands and the tears began to run down her cheeks again. Orlov brushed past the surgeon, knocking against the table in his haste and gathered her to him with his good arm round her thin, shaking shoulders. She hid her face against his white coat and sobbed bitterly while he stood quite still, his face woodenly expressionless and his grey eyes fixed on a point half way up the opposite wall. Kusminsky looked at Kolniev, jerked his head, and the two of them quietly left the room.

  'The pair of rats!' thought Orlov. 'Fancy sneaking off and leaving me with this!' The top of the girl's
head came to his chin and he absent-mindedly leaned his cheek against her soft hair. He seemed to be standing there for a long time, listening to the sobbing which shook her slender body and hearing the stir and bustle outside as the men went about their various chores. In fact it was only a few minutes before the Countess gently drew away from him, and sat down again .ii the table, wiping her eyes and making an effort to control herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,' she said, in a small broken voice. 'I suppose I knew really, but it's so final to hear it put into words. Oh, God ! What shall I do? I've nowhere to go, no one to turn to!' She sounded panic-stricken and Orlov quickly said in as Matter-of-fact a voice as he could manage, 'Oh, you'd better come with us, of course. We'll save you from the French.'

  She looked at him, her eyes enormous and swimming with tears. 'But where are you going?' she asked. 'Surely you're going towards the fighting?'

  'No,' said Orlov. 'We're a convoy of wounded, escaping from Smolensk. We're heading for Kaluga to begin with.'

  'Are all your men wounded?' She seemed to take in for the first time that his own arm was in a sling. Orlov was relieved to see that she had been side-tracked out of her panic.

  'Yes,' he replied. 'All except Dr Kusminsky and my servant. We're a pretty battered collection but we'll make shift to protect you if you care to come with us.'

  'You're very kind,' she said. 'You must have more than enough to worry about without ... oh, but I've no money— nowhere to go.'

  'Haven't you any relations at all?' Orlov asked, still keeping his voice steady and deliberately speaking as if this were a normal conversation. She shook her head. 'I found a little over a hundred roubles in my aunt's purse,' she said, 'but it's not mine and I don't know if I should take it... I've nothing-else at all.'

  Orlov thought for a moment. 'Look, as an army officer, I have the power to requisition almost anything,' he said. 'I'll requisition the money on your behalf. When we get to Kaluga, I'll contact my lawyers and they can sort out your aunt's affairs. I expect she had a man of business somewhere?'