Flight From the Eagle (9 page)

His features were regular and clear-cut, with black, strongly marked eyebrows with that curious upturn at the inner corners and long thick black eyelashes, which looked oddly feminine and out of place on such a masculine face. He was tanned, but very pale under it and his mouth was set in a
stern
thin-lipped line, with noti
ceable tension in the muscles at
its corners.

H
er eyes widened suddenly i
n an expression of fear and f
illed with tears, but she blinked them away, twisting her hands together and looking hopelessly round the little camp. Most of the men were lying down,
resting. Kolniev was ins
pecting the feet of the horses and Kusminsky was bandaging a man's leg. It was very quiet.

The sun declined almost imperceptibly below the tops of the trees, but the breathles
s heat seemed if anything to in
tensify. First Kolniev and then Kusminsky returned to the two figures under the tree and sat down s
ilently. Kolniev curled u
p in an ungainly, snoring bundle and the surgeon stretched
out
neatly and dropped into one of
his cat-like dozes. Countess B
arova drowsed, her mind r
unning squirrel-like over and ov
er the same questions, and finding very little cause for hope.

At two o'clock, Kusminsky sat up, consulted his watch,
which
obligingly confirmed his expectations, and rose to his
feet
.
Kolniev stirred, grunted and sat up, stretching and yawning, Orlov reluctantly opened his eyes to find himself
loo
king straight into those of the Countess. They stared at
one
another for a long second and he understood the fright
ening
question in her brown eyes.
He tried to put some sort of re
assurance into his own gaze, f
orcing his face to relax into a
slight smile. Her mouth trembled and she looked away. He suspected that she had fo
und no comfort in his face. ‘Pro
bably thought I had a lecherous look and a wolfish grin,' he thought, wryly.

With an effort, he dragged himself to his feet and allowed the world to settle down after its expected acrobatics. Kolniev passed him a mug of strong cof
fee which he gulped down, watch
ing the men harnessing the horses and moving the carts
into
line on the road.

'Are you going to drive again?' he asked the Countess, with
out
looking at her.

Yes,' she replied. 'It's quite easy—I don't mind it at all.' She walked across to her cart and Orlov followed a little too quickly, determined to hand her up before one of the others
could
beat him to it. He must somehow establish a normal
relationship with her before she became so frightened that the sight of him sent her into a fit. 'Normal!' he thought. 'My God! This is normal?' He held out his hand and she rested hers on it briefly as she climbed nimbly onto the box and gathered up the reins.

There was, momentarily, no one else in the immediate vicinity, and he said in a low, urgent voice, 'Countess,
please
don't be so frightened of me! I swear I won't hurt you.'

She looked down at his upturned face, arrested by his intense, anxious expression and again her lips trembled. 'It's not you—it's—oh—just everything! Suddenly losing everything familiar, finding myself alone in the world with nothing, and nowhere to go.' She gave a little sob, then straightened her shoulders and raised her chin, looking straight in front of her. 'I'm sorry—I'm just being foolish. I'll be all right.'

Sergeant Platov was scrambling into the back of the cart, hampered by his injured shoulder, and a corporal with a bandaged leg and a rough wooden crutch was giving him a lift from behind. Josef was approaching with the big grey horse, which was plunging about restlessly, and Orlov went over to him.

'What's up with him?' he asked.

Josef looked down his nose in his usual solemn fashion. 'I fancy he's feeling the effect of better feeding than he's accustomed to, Your Excellency,' he said with dignity. Orlov reflected that this was probably true—oats, being less bulky than hay, formed a major part of the horses' rations, and the beasts were probably eating a great deal better than they normally did. He got his foot into the stirrup and had to hop a few steps as the horse pranced about, before he could get into the saddle. As he passed the Countess, he deliberately grinned at her in his most engaging manner, and was rewarded with a faint, fleeting smile.

The afternoon was even more tedious than the morning had been. The grey was full of energy and would have been the better for a good gallop across country, and Orlov found his right arm beginning to ache from the effort of holding him in. He considered letting him have his head for a bit, but the thought of jolting his injured arm along in a gallop was not at all attractive and he thought it likely that it would
take very little to make him fall off the damned beast. His imagination blanched at the thought of a fall on the hard, dry ground and he continued to keep the horse reined down to a walk, despite
its prancing and curvetting.

After a while, Kusminsky c
ame up alongside him and said c
heerfully, 'Thinking of working in a circus?'

'Damned horse,' replied Orlov. 'Stuffed full of oats and hellbent on making life difficult.'

'Let him have his head for a bit,' Kusminsky advised. 'No! Don't!' he amended hastily. 'You'll probably come off. Change mounts with me and I'll let him run a bit.'

Orlov dismounted and the grey promptly tried to kick him. He hung onto the reins and dodged out of the way while Kusminsky got down and took the horse from him. Orlov held the surgeon's placid chestnut and watched him ride off down the road at a furious gallop.

He returned presently with the horse much more quiet and amenable, and found Orlov walking along the grass verge, leading the chestnut and looking white and exhausted.

'Are you hurt?' he asked, looking closely at the Major's face as he dismounted.

'No,' replied Orlov shortly. 'Thank you.' He remounted the grey with an obvious effort which he equally obviously tried to disguise.

'For God's sake, man!' Kusminsky said. 'Will you give in and admit you're not fit to ride?'

Orlov gave him an icy glance. 'I'm perfectly fit,' he said coldly, and kicked the grey into a walk. Kusminsky watched him with a mixture of exa
speration and admiration and re
sumed his place at the back of the column.

The grey was much quieter and Orlov jogged along in a daze of misery. He had jarred his arm painfully when the horse had tried to kick him, and he felt sickened by the whole situation—literally so as a spasm of nausea made him wonder if he was going to vomit. It passed off after a few minutes, and he relapsed into
torpor
, trying not to think about anything at all in the present, but directing his mind to his home in Ryazan, trying to recall, room by room, the furniture, the pictures and ornaments. He was surprised how clearly he could visualize most of it, particularly the entrance
hall, and he wondered if it was still the same or if his widowed sister had changed it all in his absence.

'I'll ask her when I write,' he thought. 'Hell and damnation! Why didn't I write to her from Smolensk before we left? Danilov would have seen a letter off for me. She'll be worrying, thinking the French have got me, or that I'm dead. Poor Tatia! It's time she was married again and raising some children. Time I went home and did something about it all. I've left her to run the estates all these years, never giving a thought to whether she's happy or not. I wonder if there's anyone she wants to marry? Her husband wasn't much good to her—she didn't even like him much. I wonder why Father was so set on her having him. Well, she can choose for herself now. She's a wealthy widow, reasonably pretty and still quite young.'

He reckoned up how old she was with an effort, and eventually had to start again from the fact that she was eight years his junior, therefore was now twenty-four. 'Married and widowed at seventeen!' he thought. 'Poor Tatia!' He remembered his dull, middle-aged brother-in-law, maimed in an encounter with Murat's cavalry at Austerlitz and dying soon after. He realized that he couldn't even recall his face.

He then started on a round of his friends and relations, seeing how well he could recall their features and the tones of their voices. It was interesting to find that, apart from his long-dead mother, there were very few women who remained at all clearly in his memory. There was a plump little Princess who had fluttered her eyelashes at him at a ball in Petersburg last winter and occupied his attention for a week or two, and a black-eyed beauty who had captured his heart years ago, before he joined the army even, but had been un-attainably betrothed to one of his friends.

That little dancer from the Opera—he couldn't remember her name. He couldn't remember her face either, he realized on reflection: he was confusing her with another—several others. What about Danilov's sister? He had seriously thought of marrying her a couple of years ago, before he went off to the Turkish campaign with Kutuzov. More than three years now, he supposed. Anyway he couldn't remember her at all—was she dark or fair? Just as well he hadn't married her.

Nevertheless, time he did marry. Thirty-two, and not even
betrothed yet. 'If I marry this year,' he thought,
‘I’ll
be in my mid fifties when my eldest son comes of age! Surely the war
can’t
go on much longer? The French have been fighting— how long now? Twenty years
? Surely no country can stand a
war that long. It must end
soon. End! For all I know, Bona
parte could go on marching through Russia from Smolensk to Moscow, and then on to Petersburg and from there to Sevastopol! We could be fighting him for another twenty years! I low old is he? Forty-odd? Kutuzov's nearly seventy. Another thirty years of Bonaparte!'

He was suddenly aware that Kusminsky was riding at his elbow and he turned to look at him.

‘
Sorry,' he said. 'I was thinking.'

'Nothing very cheerful, from the look of you. What was making you scowl like that?'

'I'd just worked out that we could go on fighting Bonaparte I'H another thirty years. Wouldn't it make you scowl?'

'God forbid!' exclaimed the surgeon. 'Surely someone will put a bullet through his head before that!'

'Surely,' replied Orlov grimly. 'But it won't necessarily kill him, you know. Kutuzov has been shot through the head iu ice and it doesn't seem to have prevented him from going on with his military career.'

'Ah, but Mikhail Ilarionovitch is a Russian!' said Kusminsky with fine chauvinism. 'One bullet through the head
should
do for a mere Italian!'

'Let it be soon!' said Orlov. He glanced up at the sky and drew out his watch. To his surprise, it was five o'clock.

'There appears to be a clearing just ahead,' said Kusminsky, anticipating his thoughts. 'And a convenient stream as
well.
How fortuitous!'

'Indeed,' replied Orlov. 'Most pro
vidential,' he said in the same
spirit.

CHAPTER FIVE

The clearing proved a suitable camp-site for the night and Orlov gave a succession of clear, logical instructions for making camp with the ease of long practice. He forced himself to fight down his fatigue long enough to see that everything was proceeding properly, knowing that the pattern set tonight would be the precedent for every night as long as "the journey lasted.

When everything was going on to his satisfaction, sheer perversity made him go over to the little group of men whose leg injuries prevented them from walking about, and he stood talking to them for a few minutes as they lay industriously turning the sheets from the inn into piles of neatly rolled bandages. After that, there was a shaky cart-wheel to look at and a few queries about the horses to answer.

By the time he had finished, the camp was settling into a routine of preparation for the evening meal and he saw that the two tents had been set up a little distance away, between the stream and a clump of bushes. Kolniev's green coat was hanging from the corner pole of one so Orlov made for the other, but was intercepted by Josef just as he was about to enter.

'The Countess is refreshing herself in the tent,' Josef informed him. 'If Your Excellency will come over here—' He led Orlov past the tent to the bushes behind it and helped him off with his clothes. There were a number of wet garments hanging to dry on the bushes and Orlov said lightly:

'Are you running a laundry?'

'A change of linen is a minor but important addition to the comfort of the situation,' replied Josef primly.

'Indeed,' said Orlov gravely. 'I'm much indebted to you for your forethought and ingenuity in the matter.' Josef acknowledged his appreciatio
n with a slight bow and gave Or
lov's clothes a violent shaking to rid them of some of the dust. 11 is master noticed that there were several shirts on the bushes and deduced that Josef had taken the other officers under his wing. Not only the officers, he realized, seeing that some of ! he garments had a little discreet lace trimming on them.

Josef indicated a couple of buckets of water and Orlov washed himself one-handedly, sluicing off the dust and sweat of the journey, and towelling himself briskly afterwards. 'We seem to be well provided with towels,' he remarked.

'There were a number at the inn,' replied Josef, handing him clean linen and helping
him to dress. 'There seemed litt
le point in leaving them for the French.' His tone implied that he doubted if the French washed very frequently, if at all.

Orlov emerged from his alfresco dressing room feeling a little less tired and a great deal more cheerful, and found his companions equally refreshed by plentiful applications of water and a change of linen.

'God bless your Josef,' said Kolniev in heartfelt tones.

Supper was served as the sun
was declining and by the end of
it, the strip of sky visible above the road was filled with crimson glory. The meal was the usual stewed meat and vegetables, mostly cabbage and dried peas, but the thick meaty gravy made it appetizing and at least it was plentiful and sustaining. The Countess, sitting very straight on the hard ground in contrast to the lounging men, did not appear to have much appetite and Koln
iev, noticing this, apologized f
or the quality of the food.

'It's good by army standards,' he said. 'But I'm afraid you don't much care for it. I expect you're used to daintier fare.'

'It's very good,' she replied. 'It's just that I don't feel very hungry. I'm sorry.'

Kusminsky looked at her thoughtfully, got up, and went over to the tent he shared with Kolniev, coming back with a bottle of wine. 'We could all do with something to hearten
us,' he said. 'There was enough decent stuff in the inn to give us a bottle for dinner each night until we get to Kaluga. Not much between four of us, but a glassful is better than nothing.' In fact, it was a good cupful, enough to make them all feel a bit more hearty. The Countess made an effort to eat her plateful of food and had a little more
color
in her cheeks by the end of the meal.

Before it became completely dark, Kusminsky went to make his rounds, changing a few dressings and checking the progress of his patients. Orlov joined him and Kusminsky, surprisingly, made no protest and didn't urge him to rest, but drew him into conversation with the men.

They spent quite a long time beside the boy with the crushed pelvis, Petrushka. He seemed sufficiently conscious to understand when they spoke to him, but he replied slowly and after a long pause. He said he was not in pain any more.

'Where do you come from?' Orlov asked him gently.

'From Yaroslavl.'

'Are your parents there?'

'Yes.' The boy looked into Orlov's face. 'Please sir, would you tell them?' 'Of course.'

'Would you write to them?'

'What would you like me to say?' Orlov drew out his notebook and pencil and the boy slowly dictated a few messages to his mother, his sister, his little brother and his father. At length, his voice faded away, and Kusminsky, who had been holding a lantern for Orlov to see to write by, shone it on the boy's face for a moment and felt his pulse.

'He's asleep. I think he'll last another day or so, but it's only a matter of time. It's good of you to trouble with him.'

'Trouble!' Orlov scowled. 'It's not much to do for the boy, is it?'

Kusminsky recognized the frown as one of concern and frustration at not being able to help the boy, and reminded himself that Orlov had never seen the lad until a few days ago.

'He's not your responsibility,' he said quietly.

'It was my horse, wasn't it?' Orlov sounded helplessly angry.

'But not your fault.' Kusminsky put a hand on his shoulder.

"You'll never make a general—you care too much about the men.'

‘I
don't damned well want to be a general,' r
eplied Orlov. 'I
want to go home, and grow c
abbages or something. I'm sick o
f blood and killing and burning places. I've done nothing but destroy for the last eight years. It's time I found a decent
o
ccupation!

Kusminsky patted his shoulder sympatheticall
y. 'Well, start off
with a decent night's sleep,' he advised.

Orlov wished him goodnight,
and walked slowly over to the te
nt. As he ducked through the entrance flap, there was
a
little gasp and he straightened up inside to see that it was lit by a candle lantern standing o
n a box by one of the supportin
g poles. Two or three boxes a
nd his own and the Countess' tr
unks were ranged down the middle and two piles of bedding were lying on the ground, one on the far side, one by the entrance. The Countess was sitting on one of the boxes plaiting her long, thick hair. She had taken off her dress, and was wearing a long petticoat which left her shoulders and arms bare. Her eyes we
re enormous in her small white f
ace.

Orlov hastily averted his gaze and stripped off his coat and shirt. He sat down on his b
lankets and struggled out of h
is boots, remarking in a cheerful, conversational voice, 'I was thinking this afternoon that the idiot who designed this uniform ought to be made to wear it, particularly the helmet! Did you ever see anything so ridiculous? I can't walk through a normal door with it on and if I le
an forward, ten to one the thin
g falls off.

And the rest of the outfit!
Who in their right mind would dress a soldier in white? It shows every mark, not to mention the bloodstains! I suppose they thought the Chevalier Guard would be kept for strictly ceremonial uses, not given grubby occupations like fighting battles and riding around the provinces. They let us wear grey trousers on active duty, but they're not much better.'

He thought perhaps lie shouldn't have mentioned trousers to a lady, and glanced over his shoulder at her. She had finished plaiting her hair and was sitting looking down at her clasped hands, her knuckles shining white.

'Do you think you'll be reasonably comfortable?' he asked.
'I don't suppose you've slept in a tent before.' She shook her head. 'Nor on the ground,' he added. 'Shall I show you how to fold your blankets?'

'Please.' It was hardly more than a whisper.

Orlov sorted out the little pile of bedding. There was a palliasse—only a sack of hay, but better than nothing.

'The important thing is to have plenty underneath you,' he rambled on. 'Otherwise the cold and damp strikes up from the ground. You put the palliasse down on top of the bit of canvas, and sort of interleave the blankets like this.' He laid the things in place, clumsily with only one hand. 'Then you fold them over you in opposite directions—here, come and lie down and I'll show you.'

She moved forward hesitantly and he glanced up at her. The thick plait was hanging in front of her shoulder, curving round her white neck and dropping down over her small, shapely breast. She stepped out of her shoes, gave a little sob, and lay down on the blankets with a quick, nervous movement, smoothing down her long skirt decorously round her ankles.

'That's it,' said Orlov, carefully not looking at her. 'Now you fold them over like this.' He swiftly cocooned her in the rough blankets. 'Then tuck them in so they won't pull loose, fold them under your feet, so—and there you are. Will you be warm enough? It gets very cold at night.' He looked round and saw his cloak lying in the top of his open trunk. He fetched it and spread it over her, tucking the collar round her chin.

'But you'll need it yourself,' she protested.

'I have a greatcoat as well,' he assured her. 'Actually, I'm supposed to wear it, but I prefer a cloak. No one bothers on active service, so I keep the coat for parades.' He felt that he was talking far too much and in a ridiculously stilted manner but at least she no longer looked completely petrified with fright.

He clambered awkwardly to his feet and returning to his own side of the tent, drew his sword and stuck it in the ground just inside the flap where he could grab it in a hurry. Then he wound up his watch, hung it on the nail Josef had banged into the tentpole for the purpose and arranged his
own bed. No palliasse for him, he noted—clearly only the woman and the badly wounded qu
alified for such luxury. On the
other hand, it was encouraging that Kusminsky apparently no longer counted him among the delicate.

An eddy of cold air across his bare back made him root in his trunk for his greatcoat which he spread on top of his blankets when he had wound himself up in them.

'All right?' he asked.

'Yes, thank you.'

'Goodnight then. Try to sle
ep, and don't worry. No one ca
n get at you while I'm here.'

'No. Thank you. Goodnight,' she replied.

Orlov blew out the candle and lay o
n his side, looking out of the
tent opening, across the clearing. A few patches of cold moonl
ight penetrated the trees and d
appled the ground, and a patchy red glow showed where the cooking fire was damped down with turves. The carts were drawn up in a semi-circle nid the men were sleeping in and under them. The horses moved about quietly on the picket line, and the stream Inn bled and chattered a few yards away. There was still a light in the other tent and Orlov assumed that Kusminsky would probably keep it alight all night, in case he was called out.

The familiar, dragging weariness nagged at his body and he felt the sensation of unreality that warned of a feverish spell—it seemed to come on him at night. He closed his eyes and tried to make his body relax, to forget the jolting motion of his horse, the aching in his arm, the nearness of the woman a few feet away. 'Girl,' he told himself. 'Think of her as a girl, not a woman. She's hardly more than a child. You don't care for thin little girls. You like plump, pink and white, voluptuous creatures, not skinny little hen-sparrows.' It didn't seem to help much, but sheer fatigue made him fall into a restless sleep.

Later in the night, the restlessness became more pronounced. He began to toss, his head moving from side to side, and occasionally he moaned softly. The Countess sat up and looked across at him. A faint greyness was beginning to appear outside and it was possible to distinguish the shapes of things. She thought it must be near dawn.

Orlov gave a groan which sounded quite agonized and the Countess wriggled out of her blankets and moved quietly across to kneel beside him. He was asleep, or unconscious, but his forehead was burning with a dry heat and he seemed very distressed. She remembered that there was a pail of water and a towel outside the tent, and creeping out, dipped a corner of the towel in the water and returned with it to wipe Orlov's face very gently. He stopped tossing about and lay still and after a few moments, he said in a vague, dreamy voice, 'That's very pleasant. Where am I?'

'In the forest.'

'Forest? Enchanted forest. Trolls and goblins.' Her words had somehow become confused with the things he had been thinking about during the morning. 'You're not a troll?'