Flight From the Eagle (2 page)

Kolniev sat down opposite and fell to with a good will. Orlov looked at him thoughtfully. He was a lanky young man with a shock of brown curly hair inside the bandage circling his head. He had a red, healthy-looking face and seemed rather young to be a captain.

'How old are you?' Orlov asked.

'Twenty-five.' Kolniev grinned amiably. 'How old are you?' Both his answer and the question were said without any sign of offence and Orlov answered 'Thirty-two' absent-mindedly, already thinking of something else.

'How many of your men are in the Archive building?'

'About sixty.' Kolniev sobered suddenly. 'We were pretty badly cut up by those cuirassiers. There wer
e only about a dozen men unhurt
—the rest were killed.'

'All?' Orlov was startled.

'Yes.' Kolniev looked so sick that Orlov hastily continued: 'Of the sixty in hospital, how many could travel?' Kolniev shrugged. 'Nearly all if they have to. I doubt if
most of them could march, but in waggons they'd be all right.
Why?'

O
rlov made no reply. No point in
worrying the lad but he had a strong suspicion that if Barclay did order a withdrawal from Smolensk, it would not include the wounded—there were too many and they would slow up the army and block the roads too much. 'Wait and see,' he told himself, and concentrated on the food. There were no knives and forks, which perhaps was just as well as it was easier to eat one-handed with his fingers. Kolniev poured out some wine for him and he drank it slowly and cautiously in case it fuddled him in his weakened state. It certainly made him feel less bloodless.

Danilov and his two assistants were kept busy with the air of jugglers with a dozen balls in the air at once, writing copies of orders, receiving messages and passing out sheaves of papers to the messengers constantly entering and leaving the room. Kolniev watched them with a kind of fascination, and after a time remarked in a quiet voice: 'I don't know how they manage to keep everything straight. What happens if they give out the wrong paper?'

Orlov's rather grim expression relaxed into a near-smile. 'Someone gets a chit for a waggon-load of canister shot instead of orders to attack,' he said. 'It doesn't make much difference really. Nine-tenths of the orders issued can't be carried out.'

Kolniev looked blankly at him, his mouth half-open in a ludicrous expression of shock. Orlov's smile became a little broader. 'Either the order never arrives because the messenger gets lost or killed, or the situation has changed, or the General didn't know what it was to begin with, or perhaps the man who receives it misunderstands—a hundred things can go wrong. Haven't you ever received an order you couldn't carry out?'

'Yes,' replied Kolniev. 'The one you brought, for example. That attack came before you handed it to me. It was still in your hand when we picked you up afterwards but soaked with your blood so I couldn't read it, and anyway there was no one left in a sufficiently healthy state to do anything but crawl to the surgeons.'

Orlov frowned, accentuating the sharp upward turn of his eyebrows. He was trying to remember what the orders had contained, but he was distracted by Danilov suddenly standing to attention as the door of the inner room opened and a trio of generals emerged from Barclay de Tolly's office.

Kolniev also stood up and Orlov, without thinking, tried to follow suit, caught his left arm on the edge of the table, and had to lean forward across the table, the world spinning round him, desperately trying to prevent himself crying out or fainting. Kolniev darted round the table to his side. The generals arrested their progress and stood watching as Kolniev helped him to sit down again and gave him a little more wine.

'What is he doing here?' General Raevsky asked sharply. 'It's Count Orlov, isn't it? If that's his own blood on his coat, he ought to be in hospital.'

'He was,' replied Kolniev, not particularly subdued by finding himself in such exalted company. 'Unfortunately, he wouldn't stay there. He's stubborn.'

Raevsky laughed. 'Yes, I've met him before!' he said. 'Stubborn as a mule!'

'Who is?' enquired a pleasant, quiet voice from the inner doorway. The speaker, General Barclay, came out into the room, his long, sensitive scholar's face completely calm, showing no sign of the violent argument which had just been raging in his office or of the intolerable strain he was under. He had to attempt to control an army broken up into widely separated segments, commanded by other generals, some senior to himself, most of whom disliked him and disagreed with his entire policy. And all this while under continuous attack by what must be the largest and most confident army in all history.

He paused by Danilov's desk to give him some papers, handling them awkwardly with his one arm. 'See that these orders are copied and sent out at once,' he said, speaking
German, as was his habit. 'The First West Army will march to the east tonight in accordance with my earlier orders. You will confirm that they are to move in two columns in order to mislead the enemy concerning the direction of march. There are individual instructions for particular officers in addition to the general order.'

His voice was mild and conversational and if Danilov had not heard the arguments which had raged all day over this very decision to withdraw from Smolensk, he might have assumed that the orders were concerned only with trivialities for all that Barclay's manner betrayed. Danilov hurried off to instruct his subordinates, sorting out the papers as he went.

Barclay crossed to Orlov's side of the room and regarded him with a calm, enquiring look. 'Lev Petrovitch, you are badly hurt,' he said kindly. 'Why are you on duty?'

Orlov pushed aside Kolniev's restraining hand and rose unsteadily to his feet. He was still dizzy and his surroundings had a curious remoteness, but he could sense the animosity and near insubordination of Raevsky and the others towards Barclay. They had been clustered round him, but at Barclay's approach they drew back and began to filter out of the door as if they felt unable to remain in the same room as the commander. Barclay took no notice. He had listened to their arguments, ignored their insults, made his decision and given his orders. He now stood looking at Orlov with the air of a university professor chiding a
favorite
student for working too hard.

'I thought you might need me.' Orlov tried to put some indication of his loyalty and admiration into his voice.

Barclay gave him a long, searching look, noticing the extreme pallor of his face, the more marked because of the contrast with his black hair, the lines of pain round his mouth, and the dark shadows under his grey eyes. He shook his head with a faint smile.

'My dear boy, you're likely to die on your feet,' he replied. 'We have a difficult time ahead of us, as you must realize. The retreat cannot go on indefinitely. At some point we must stand and fight, and you are in no condition for the
rigors
of retreat or the strain of battle. Go back to the hospital and obey the surgeons. I shall not forget that you tried to return
to duty and when the opportunity arises for an exchange of prisoners, you shall be among the first.'

'Prisoners!' Kolniev jerked out. Barclay glanced at him, and then met Orlov's steady gaze.

'You mean to abandon the wounded.' Orlov made a statement rather than asked a question.

Barclay held his gaze. 'We have to move fast on an unobstructed road,' he said evenly. 'If any of the wounded are able to remove themselves from the city, they are free to do so as long as they do not obstruct the passage of the army.'

He turned away to go back to the inner office but paused in the doorway to add, 'They could, for example, move on a parallel course to the south of the postroad, or head in the direction of the camp at Kaluga. You understand, Lev Petrovitch, that I appreciate your attempt to resume your duties, but I do not consider you fit and I order you to take sick leave—what you choose to do with it is your own affair. God be with you.' He went into his office and closed the door behind him.

Orlov sat down and eased his arm into a more comfortable position. 'Transport?' he said.

'I know where there are a dozen carts belonging to my company and I think I can find extra horses too,' Kolniev said. 'Smolensk was my home—there's none of my family left here now, but I still have a few contacts.'

'Go and find them, then,' Orlov said. 'Where would be a good place to gather the carts and load them?'

'There's a courtyard at the back of the Archive building.' Kolniev picked up a piece of paper and drew a quick sketch map. 'We'll need food and blankets.'

'Come back to the hospital with me,' Orlov said. 'We'll get your men together and tell them what we propose to do. Those of them who can move about can help collect stuff together.' He stood up cautiously, this time without any ill-effect.

Danilov came back into the room, very occupied with his fistful of papers, but he listened while Orlov told him briefly what he and Kolniev were planning. He raised his eyebrows and looked doubtfully at Orlov's arm, but made no comment, merely remarking: 'Your servant's here with your baggage —do you want it?' and picked up a map from his desk which he handed over silently.

Orlov took it with a word of thanks and said: 'That's good —I could do with a clean shirt.' He was surprised that Danilov and Kolniev both laughed at this until he caught sight of himself in a mirror in the corridor outside and saw what a nightmare figure he looked in his blood-soaked coat.

Outside in the street, the noise seemed to have diminished a little. Dusk had fallen, but the whole city was bathed in the lurid glow of hundreds of fires which raged unchecked through the wooden houses. Whole streets were blazing and in some areas where the fire had passed, nothing was left but the black skeletons of trees in what had been gardens, and the cracked stone of the few solid walls among the charcoal that was all that remained of the wooden buildings.

Among the wreckage, the stone churches and public buildings still stood largely untouched, except where a shell had scored a direct hit and blown down part of a wall. The streets were littered with wreckage and bodies still but there was hardly anything living, man or beast, to be seen. Those civilians who had not fled the city were huddled together in the churches.

The wounded soldiers were in the comparative safety of the public buildings round the main square, and the rest of the rearguard which remained to hold the city were on the thirty-foot walls and in the many towers, so solidly built that even years of neglect and the weight of the French bombardment had hardly begun to destroy them. The guns were still firing, with a continuous heavy rumble from the cannon, punctuated by the sharper explosion of the shells lobbed over the walls by the French howitzers.

So much of the city had been razed that even from the central area it was possible to look across the ruins to the walls, where Raevsky's gunners could be seen moving about in an orderly, purposeful manner, keeping up a rate and accuracy of fire which far excelled that of the French.

Kolniev and Orlov made their way back to the Archive building without talking, partly because the devastation shocked them into silence, and partly because both of them were thinking hard and fast. In any case, their minds seemed to be well in accord about what they intended to do.

Orlov's servant Josef followed them pulling a little handcart which he had produced from somewhere, with Orlov's
baggage on it.
He normally travelled with a minimum of accoutrements, and the 'baggage' was in fact only one stout leather-bound trunk, which carried his spare clothing and other necessities.

In the Archive building, they gathered together the remnants of Kolniev's company. There were fifty-eight of them, all wounded, but mostly about the head, arms and trunk as they had been attacked by cavalry. This also meant that the wounds were cuts and gashes rather than the fearful funnel-shaped mutilations caused by musket balls. About a dozen men were unable to stand, mostly because of broken legs or ankles, and one man was more seriously injured by the death agonies of a horse which had fallen on him—Orlov's own horse, he later discovered.

The men listened quietly as Kolniev explained to them that the army would withdraw from Smolensk that night. 'It has been decided,' he said, 'that the army cannot be burdened and slowed down by the mass of wounded men who are in the city, many of whom will only die if they are moved. The wounded will be left here and will become prisoners when the French enter the city tomorrow.' His voice gave no indication, Orlov noticed, of his own feelings about the lightness or wrongness of the decision—he simply reported it.

'There is no reason,' he continued, 'why any of the wounded who can move should stay to await the French. As long as we don't hamper the army, we are free to try to escape, so we propose to take as many of you who care to come and get away to the south-east tonight. I'm not ordering anyone to come, just inviting you. Each of you knows how he feels— if you are not fit to travel, don't feel bound to make the attempt. You'll be risking your life and endangering the rest of us. I'm going out now to find more horses for our carts and we'll take all the food and stuff we can carry. I think most of us will stand a good chance of surviving. Any questions?'

There was a shuffle of movement and whispering among the men, then one grizzled sergeant said: 'Where are we to head for, sir?'