Flight From the Eagle (4 page)

When he judged that an hour had passed, Orlov stood up again and looked around him, putting on his crested helmet. Kusminsky suddenly opened his eyes and sat up, drew out his watch, and said: 'Time to move.'

Kolniev stirred, yawned and stretched, blinked owlishly round him, then let out a shout which started up a general stir of movement in the camp. The fire had burnt low and the embers were soon doused and covered with a layer of earth. The horses were harnessed, the cooking gear stowed in the carts, the men climbed into their places and the line formed ready to move off.

Josef led up the big grey and held it while Orlov hauled
himself into the saddle. It was an effort, but he managed it .ii the first attempt and shook his head when Kolniev suggested diffidently that he might go in one of the carts. He rode slowly along the waiting line of carts and horses and looked them over carefully. They were all good stout carts, well looked after, solidly built for the army, and not likely to collapse under the strain of a long journey, but equally not likely to provide a comfortable ride for injured men.

The horses were mostly the sturdy little draught animals favoured by the Russian artillery, capable of pulling a field-gun clear through a snow drift. The harness was good reliable stuff, most of it nearly new. Kolniev was clearly a man who took good care of his equipment as well as his men.

Any problem could arise from the condition of the men. Some of them looked exhausted still, despite their rest, and there were not enough of them with two good arms to drive all the carts. The third in the line had a driver who was dearly in considerable pain from a wrist injury and Orlov called Josef over. 'You can drive this cart,' he said. 'It's ridiculous for a man with two good arms to ride when we haven't enough drivers.'

'I'll drive too,' volunteered Kolniev. 'Stupid of me not to think of that before.' Both he and Josef took over a cart each from drivers who were obviously relieved not to have to face hours of jerking strain on damaged limbs. Kusminsky also Offered to drive, but Orlov said, 'No. You've more than enough to do. You should be riding in one of the carts.' He grinned impishly as he said it, and raised a laugh from the men at the sly humour of throwing back the surgeon's repeated words to himself.

As they set off, Orlov said more seriously to Kusminsky, 'If this heat lasts, I think we should move in two spells, fairly early in the morning and later in the afternoon, and take a longish break in the middle of the day. Today is different, Of course. We must move on, but if we can get to the post road without too much strain,
I think that will have to be
far
enough for the day.'

Kusminsky nodded.
‘I’ll
tell you if I think the men are being pressed too hard,' he said. 'You'll have to decide the priorities.'

Orlov and Kusminsky led the procession along a rough track which ran straight through the birch forest in a fairly south-easterly direction. The shade of the trees saved them from the direct burning heat of the sun, but the airless, sultry atmosphere was oppressive. They were soon wiping trickles of sweat from their faces and brushing at the clouds of irritating little black flies which swarmed around every man and horse. Orlov's neck was chafed by his buckled stock and the rough sash he was using as a sling and the thick cloth of his white coat felt like a blanket.

By the end of the first half-hour, his shirt was soaked with sweat, the thick bandages seemed to drag painfully at his arm, his boots had shrunk on his feet and his whole body felt sticky, unbearably hot and thoroughly wretched. His helmet kept slipping about and the chinstrap worried him. He was tempted to take ofE the helmet and his stock—his coat too, but he supposed that he had better attempt to maintain some semblance of proper military order in his appearance.

To take his mind off his discomfort, he drew aside from the track and let the carts pass him. He exchanged a few words with each driver as they passed, enquiring if they were comfortable and trying to find a cheerful remark or a joke for each. They all seemed reasonably cheerful. The poor lad with the crushed pelvis was moaning in delirium, and the Guard sergeant was slumped against the side of the cart with his chin on his chest, but he could have been asleep. The carts were jolting painfully over the ruts of the rough track and the flies and the heat were obviously trying to men and horses, but Orlov felt that things could be a great deal worse.

When the last cart had passed, he looked back along the track and listened. There was no sound at all. The whole world seemed to be stupefied into silence by the heat. It seemed strange not to hear the bark and rattle of musketry and the dull boom of cannon, the drumming of hooves or the steady tramp of marching feet, all the sounds which had filled Orlov's life during the past few weeks. Now all he could hear were the creak and rumble of the carts and the muted voices of the men talking among themselves.

Someone started up a song and one by one the others joined in until most of them were singing. It was the sort of melancholy, longing-for-home
song which soldiers liked, particularly Russian ones, and it echoed the feeling of heart-weary homesickness which Orlov had felt earlier, sitting by the little stream. He felt a lump in I he back of his throat and a wave of nostalgia for the home he had seen only two or three times in the past eight years. I le scrubbed irritably at his face with a grubby handkerchief, wondering what on earth was the matter with him. He kicked Ins horse into motion and rode after the carts, ramming his helmet down hard on his mop of curly hair and scowling Inociously, his black brows turning up at a sharper angle ih an ever.

After two hours, the trees thinned out suddenly, and the Country became open and grassy, rising in a long hill to the skyline a couple of miles ahead. Nothing was stirring in the shimmering heat haze and the
sun shone out of a brilliant, c
loudless sky. Orlov called a halt.

'We'll rest in the shade for an hour,' he said. 'Let the horses cool off a bit before we start on that stretch.' He
headed the thought of long hours in that baking heat and wished there was a breath of wind to stir the air a little.

Kusminsky went round the carts, checking his patients. Kolniev had half a dozen of the fitter ones drag out a pile of folded canvas sheets from among the miscellaneous collection of equipment, and set them to work rigging awnings over the carts to keep off the worst of the sun.

Orlov dismounted stiffly and leant against his horse until 1 lie usual spell of dizziness passed. His arm ached in a bone-gnawing fashion which was both tiring and depressing. He pulled himself together, took off his helmet and hung it on his saddle and went over to the cart which carried the boy with the crushed pelvis. He was clearly in a bad way and Orlov wondered if he should have been left behind in Smolensk.

'It wouldn't make any difference
,' Kusminsky said quietly, hav
ing come up behind him. 'He wanted to come. He's better
ca
red for here than he would have been with the French, and he's with his friends.' He didn't say so, but Orlov gathered that there was very little hope for the lad. He turned away with a shrug, and wondered how many more times it would take before the resulting pain cured him of the habit.

A ration of hard bread and a chunk of cheese was issued, with a handful of raisins for each man, and they sat about in groups wherever they could find a patch of shade. The three officers sat together under a tree and Kolniev produced a pipe and tobacco to set up a cloud of smoke to keep off the insects. Kusminsky suddenly said, in his sharp, rather edgy voice, 'I suppose you're related to the famous Orlovs?'

Orlov turned over the piece of bread he was eating, and looked at it carefully while he considered the implications of the question. 'If you mean the
notorious
Orlovs,' he replied, 'yes, we're distantly related, but we consider ourselves to be the relatively poor, but respectable branch of the family.'

He detected in the tone, as well as in the wording of Kusminsky's question, a certain resentment of his presumed social position. He thought Kusminsky probably came from a merchant family and Kolniev from the provincial nobility. In either case, his name, with its implication of high social standing, and his Staff officer status were likely to count heavily against him and the success or failure of the journey ahead of them could well depend on the extent to which he could overcome their prejudices.

'I thought all the Orlovs were fabulously rich and important,' said Kolniev in his naively outspoken way.

'Only since cousin Grigor Grigorievitch caught the fancy of the Empress Ekaterina,' replied Orlov, with a deliberate air of careless irreverence. 'Before that, we were just a provincial family from Novgorod, like anyone else. There's nothing very grand about rising t
o importance via the bedchamber.
I'd rather belong to a family with a more creditable claim to glory.'

The others made no reply to this, but after a few minutes Kusminsky said in a slightly more friendly tone, 'I'd better take a look at your bandages, I think.' He helped Orlov take off his coat and shirt, then made him bend and stretch the arm a few times after scrutinizing the hand and lower arm very carefully.

It hurt a great deal but Orlov gritted his teeth and bore it with no obvious sign of distress. Kusminsky noticed the sweat on his forehead and the tight muscles of his face and decided not to untie the bandages. He helped
Orlov dress again and arranged his arm in a more comfortable position in the sash which he was still using as a sling. 'That's not very good,' he observed. 'It's too rough—it's chafing your neck.' Orlov was quite well aware of this.

'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 Genera
l Barc
lay'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 th
e 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 be
fore. The Smolensk area is devast
ated: 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 H
arionovitch
to
Mikhail Bogdanovitch as a general, but not as a man. Barclay may be cautious
, but he's hard-working, clear-t
hinking, even-tempered and c
ourteous, while Kutuzov's lecher
ous, lazy, and inclined to go to sleep at
every opportunity, t
hough 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 w
as, and, more important, where t
he 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.