Flight From the Eagle (21 page)

'They're all free,' Orlov replied. 'I can't order them to do anything.'

Kolniev was stunned by this, but he soon recovered and asked a great many questions about the process of freeing serfs and its relative advantages and disadvantages. Orlov was delighted to expound on the matter—it was one of his favourite subjects.

When they reached the camp, Orlov could see that the
wounded men were not up to standing a soaking. There was an air of dejection about them, unlike their usual brave spirit, and a few were rolled up in their blankets, lying under the carts. Kusminsky came to meet them, and said in a low voice, 'I hope you've found shelter. Half the men will be really ill by tomorrow if we don't get them under cover.'

Kolniev told him about the house, speaking out loudly about the stack of firewood and the store-rooms full of food and there was a perceptible lightening of spirits as the men prepared to move.

Orlov gave the bridle of his horse and his helmet to Josef as he passed him and went over to the Countess, who was sitting on a box under the awning, busily patching a shirt. He dropped on his knees in front of her, groping inside his coat for his wallet and drew out the bundle of hairpins, which he placed carefully in one of her small hands. He knelt looking up at her face, his grey eyes alight with laughter an
d tri
umph at her expression of delight when she saw what he had brought her.

'Oh, how kind of you to remember!' she exclaimed and smiled into his eyes. For a long second they looked at one another and then she bent forward, put her arms round his neck and held his head close against her breast. His good arm slid round her, and her sewing dropped unheeded to the ground, the reel of thread rolling away into a puddle.

For a full minute, Orlov pressed his face against the curve of her breasts, his nostrils filled with the faint scent of lavender. He closed his eyes and felt the world whirling round him while he was somehow alone with her in a still, silent place, suspended in time and space. Then his surroundings crowded back to him and he felt as if a hundred curious eyes were riveted on his broad back.

Hastily, he drew away from her and scrambled to his feet, hearing himself say, 'I thought you'd be pleased,' in a horribly mundane tone of smug satisfaction. He glanced round quickly and found that no one was taking the slightest notice—they were all too busy—and he regretted breaking the embrace so soon.

The Countess bent to retrieve her sewing, her cheeks a little flushed, and he picked up the soggy reel of thread and gave it to her. She held it between finger and thumb and pulled
a little face.

Orlov said, 'There'll be a fire to dry it by soon. We've found a big house with proper fireplaces and enough firewood for months, as well as food and fodder.'

'An empty house? But why is there food there, then?'

'The owners have taken the furniture and left the food. We'll have bacon and cheese and a bottle of wine, even if there's no table to eat it off, and you'll have the prettiest bedroom, even if there's no bed in it!'

'I must pack my things!' She pulled the big collar of his cloak over her head, gathered up the trailing skirts and ran through the rain to the tent. Orlov sat down on the box and watched her go, still smiling and breathing in the scent of lavender until Kusminsky came over, swearing at the rain, and shook a spray of water from his cocked hat all over him.

'I suppose you're soaked?' he asked grumpily. 'Half the men will be running a fever by tonight. How's your arm?'

'Fine,' Orlov replied. He had almost forgotten about it and he realized that it must be a great deal better—it had not really hurt him all the morning apart from the usual dull ache which he hardly noticed.

Kusminsky felt his forehead and peered thoughtfully into his eyes. 'You look as if you're enjoying yourself,' he said accusingly. 'Riding about in a deluge when you should be in hospital. How's a poor devil of a surgeon supposed to heal the sick when they go driving and riding all over Russia getting heat exhaustion, then soaked to the skin, breaking their wounds open and raising a fever?'

He went off muttering crossly while Orlov laughed unsym-pathetically and went to look over the horses as they were being harnessed.

Soon everything was packed and ready, the carts lined up, and Kusminsky warned the men to keep under the awnings and out of the wet as much as possible.

The Countess was standing by the second cart but before she could climb onto it, Orlov mounted his big grey and walked him over to her. 'Will you ride with me?' he asked, leaning down towards her. She looked up at him, smiling, and he bent low in the saddle to grasp her waist and lift her as she stepped up on his foot.

She flew up to sit in front of him
so lightly that he said with a grin, 'We're becoming quite expert at this. When I've both arms available, we'll have some very comfortable rides.'

He wedged her securely against his body with his right arm, holding the reins in the same hand and hoped that the grey would remain as docile as he had been all the morning, as he wasn't sure that he could hold the girl and control the horse at the same time if the grey became restless. The big horse ambled to the head of the procession and they moved off through the rain towards the distant house.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The rain continued to fall down endlessly, forming miniature rivers in the dust of the road and streaming off the awnings of the carts, soaking the drivers and turning the horses into a bedraggled collection of head-drooping nags. Despite the miserable trickles running down their necks and the generally sodden, cold atmosphere, the men seemed cheerful at the prospect of spending a few hours under a roof and relieved at their reprieve from the unbearable heat of the past days. They began to sing as the procession jolted down the slight hill towards the village, a cheerful song of a successful lover with a reasonably respectable lyric in deference to the Countess.

Kolniev joined in from his place on the box of one of the carts, bellowing away with obvious enjoyment, slightly off-key, and Orlov joined in the first chorus in a pleasant baritone. It was a simple tune with an enormous number of verses and the Countess started to hum the tune after a few choruses. Orlov interrupted himself in the middle to say to her, 'Are you happier today?'

She smiled. 'I wasn't really unhappy—just very hot and tired, and—oh—frightened, I suppose.' A trickle of rainwater ran down her nose and Orlov pulled out a clean handkerchief and wiped it away, but she was obviously getting very wet and he said, 'I suppose it would have been more sensible for you to have gone in one of the carts.'

'I'd rather be with you,' she replied, obviously without
thinking, for she blushed crimson when she realized what she had said. Orlov only laughed and gave her a clumsy hug with his over-employed right arm.

As they approached the village, the unnatural emptiness and desolation of the place made the singing die away and the men fell silent, looking about them in an uneasy manner. The Countess said, 'Is there no one left here at all? Where can they have gone?'

'I expect the owner took them away,' Orlov replied. 'It's uncanny, isn't it? I've seen dozens of places, destroyed by battle, burned or sacked, but a place just left empty seems curiously menacing.'

After leaving the village, the road ran uphill again towards the edge of the forest and the carts slowed down as the horses felt the gradient. It was not at all steep, but the beasts seemed determined to make the most of it and the drivers shouted and slapped their reins to encourage them as they panted and plodded along with the carts groaning behind them. They eventually followed Orlov into the dripping blackness of the forest and then swung off between the dilapidated gateposts onto the gravel drive of the house.

As they entered into the open forecourt, the Countess twisted round a little to see it and exclaimed, 'Oh, what a shame to have to go away and leave such a fine house to the French!'

'You had to do the same.' Orlov sounded a little surprised.

'My aunt's house wasn't as grand as this,' she said. 'It was very plain, with no garden at the front.'

Orlov set her down on the steps and dismounted, leaving the grey with Josef. He ushered her into the house with his arm protectively round her shoulders and noticed with well-concealed amusement that she seemed very impressed by the shabby grandeur of the old-fashioned interior, gazing around her wide-eyed at the high-ceilinged entrance hall and the fine sweep of the staircase as he led her up to the second floor and flung open the door of the pink and white bedroom.

'There!' he said. 'How do you like that?'

She went into the room, looking around at the rose silk on the walls, the white swags of plaster flowers and ribbons, the pretty marble fireplace. 'Oh, it's the prettiest room I've
ever seen!' she exclaimed. 'I wonder what the furniture was like'

'White and gold, I should think, with white draperies. Is it prettier than your room in your aunt's house?' He asked the question quite sincerely, but i
t was clear from her face that t
he thought he was joking and not ve
ry kindly at that. After an
awkward pause, he asked, 'What was your room like?'

'All the rooms were the same. The walls were white-washed and the floors were plain deal boards, scrubbed white and the furniture was made by the estate carpenter. Very plain and serviceable. My aunt didn't approve of fripperies.'

'And would you prefer a
room like this?' Orlov asked. 'You shall have one just like this at Ryazan. I'll write to Tatia and tell her exactly how it's to be.' He said it lightly, half joking, half serious and was puzzled by the look on her face. It was a curious mixture of laughter and something else which looked peculiarly like grief, but before he could say anything, Josef appeared in the doorway with an armful of blankets, followed by four men carrying various objects, including Countess Barova's little trunk.

'Is this the room Your Excellency has selected?' he asked Orlov and advanced into it, assuming his master's reply. He instructed the men where to set down their burdens and sent them off to fetch various oth
er specified things. 'Charming!
' he said, glancing round, and went to investigate the fireplace to see if it would be practicable to light a fire.

As he emerged from peering up the chimney, he remarked to a point somewhere midway between his master and the Countess, 'I noticed a number of hip-baths hanging in the outhouse where the horses are stabled. I have instructed that they be taken to the dairy which is next to the kitchen, and I will have one conveyed up here for Mademoiselle's use. There is a large range in the kitchen and ample hot water will soon be available.'

'Excellent man!' exclaimed Orlov. 'Not only clean linen but hot baths as well!' He left the Countess to take off her wet things, surrendering his own dripping coat to Josef and. went downstairs to see how the men were faring.

Kolniev had put most of them in the large ground-floor salon and the equally large servants' hall and already fires
were being lighted in these and several other rooms and wet belongings were being spread out to dry. The cooks were concocting a cauldron of hot soup for luncheon, plentifully thickened with root vegetables and chopped up bacon.

Gradually everything was sorted out: the men settled comfortably; the horses rubbed down and stabled; the momentous decision made as to whether the officers would dine in the dining room or in a small salon on the first floor; and Kolniev's and Kusminsky's bedrooms selected. The water was heated, and Josef called them to the dairy to take their baths.

As the servant helped him to dry and dress himself afterwards, Orlov asked him if the Countess was all right. 'Very comfortable, sir,' Josef replied. 'I have lit the fire in the lady's room and taken up a plentiful supply of wood. Her bath was the first to be prepared.'

Orlov thanked him for looking after her. 'My pleasure, Your Excellency. It is always a great satisfaction to be of service to a real lady of quality.' Despite his expressionless face and voice, he managed to convey that he considered the Countess infinitely superior to any other female he had come across while he was in Orlov's service, which amused his master a great deal.

'You approve of my companion in this adventure, then, Josef?'

'A fortuitously happy accident, sir,' he replied gravely.

Luncheon was served on a rough trestle table with boxes for seats in the small salon which was stripped of all its furniture and draperies, and looked decidedly shabby with its pale green paint flaking in places and square patches showing where pictures had hung. The rain streamed down the big-sash windows which revealed a prospect of grey wet garden, backed by black forest, but there was a cheerful fire crackling in the grate of the prettily-tiled fireplace, there was plenty of hot, meaty soup, good cheese, hard bread, little wizened, waxy apples and a couple of bottles of red wine.

All four of them felt pleasantly warm, clean and comfortable with a proper roof and four walls about them for the first time for more than a week and the inclement weather safely shut out for a while.

The Countess had put on another dress which Orlov was
sure he hadn't seen before. It was dark grey and as plain and dowdy as her others. Remembering that her aunt 'didn't approve of fripperies', he wond
ered if she had ever had an attr
active dress—something colourful, silk perhaps, or an embroidered muslin, lace-trimmed and low-cut—he hastily switched his attention to her hair, which was once more swept up into a smooth coronet. He enquired if the hairpins had proved satisfactory and was rewarded with a radiant smile. 'Why did I ever think she was plain?' he thought.

After luncheon, they sat for some time finishing the wine and drinking coffee, enjoying the comparative comfort of i heir surroundings, then Kusminsky asked the Countess to assist him in a grand reba
ndaging session which occupied t
hem for the whole afternoon. Kolniev and Orlov went to work out how much of the food in the store-rooms they needed to take to keep them supplied for the rest of the journey and whether they would be able to get it all packed into the carts, plus a quantity of the oats and hay in the barns.

'How long do we need to calculate for?' Kolniev asked, peering into a large barrel which appeared to be half-full of dried peas.

'At the rate we've been moving, three days,' Orlov replied. 'Say five to be on the safe side. If it takes longer, we'll have to find another house full of food. I'm sure that by then we'll be back in an inhabited region.'

Kolniev produced a notebook and a stubby pencil and began working out quantities. 'You're very good at the commissariat arrangements,' Orlov said. 'They should put you in charge of the Quartermaster General's department. We might find ourselves with the right amounts of the right things instead of all the riflemen getting musket-balls and the infantry being issued with cavalry boots all the time.'

'Ah, well,' Kolniev replied slyly, 'according to something you told me, it's all the fault of the adjutants in the Staff offices, sending out the wrong orders. You remember? A waggon-load of canister shot instead of orders to attack?'

Orlov thought the words sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember why and said so.

'When we were eating cold meat in General Barclay's headquarters in Smolensk,' Kolniev reminded him. 'You must have
been in a bad way—I don't believe you remember it at all.'

Orlov admitted that he could only remember talking to General Barclay—all the rest was very hazy and confused.

Kolniev worked out what they should take, interrupting himself from time to time to see if the various commodities he thought of were there in sufficient quantities. Orlov poked about among a number of crocks and preserving jars in a large closet and found pickled cucumbers and beetroots, preserved fruit, pickled eggs and a number of other desirable delicacies.

Then, while Kolniev had their selection carried out to the big barn where the carts had been put under cover, he copied out the list on a sheet of paper, making out a receipt for it all to leave for the owner of the house. When he had finished, he pinned it up in a prominent place on the store-room wall, adding a few words of thank
s. Then he went to see how Kusm
insky was getting on.

The surgeon had turned the entrance hall into a dressing station and was working his way through the assorted collection of wounds, dealing with the men as they became available between their various jobs such as loading things for Kolniev, carrying firewood, seeing to the horses, helping the cooks and all the other things which had to be done.

Josef had found some sheets, left behind by the owners, in a large press in one of the attics and half-a-dozen men with damaged legs were comfortably propped up on their stretchers round the fire, converting them into neatly rolled bandages.

When Orlov appeared, Kusm
insky looked up from the stump of an amputated arm which he was dealing with and said sharply, 'Get your coat and shirt off. I'll see to your arm next.'

Orlov opened his mouth to protest that he didn't need seeing to, but the Countess came over to help him and he submitted without a word. She helped him out of the garments and then carefully undid his bandages. When she reached the dressing, Orlov said, 'You needn't
…’

'It's all right,' she said gently. 'I've seen several worse than yours.' She eased the pad off the wound almost painlessly while Orlov was trying to phrase his regrets that she should have to see such unpleasant sights.

Kusrninsky came over, drying his hands on a large piece of sheeting. Orlov had noticed that the surgeon seemed to wash his hands a great many times, particularly between patients and wondered why he was so fastidious. He was about to ask when the surgeon tugged briskly at the sutures in his wound and the pain put t
he question out of his mind.

H
e gasped and closed his eyes, biting his lips to prevent himself crying out, his right hand gripping convulsively at whatever came within his grasp. When the world returned to an even keel, he found he was clutching Countess Barova's wrist in what must have been a painfully crushing grip, but she made no complaint and didn't attempt to release herself until he let go himself.

He apologized, but sh
e merely smiled and handed Kusm
insky a fresh dressing which he placed over the wound and bandaged firmly. 'Doing well now,' he said. 'If you'll just be sensible for a few more days, I think it will do quite nicely. The stitches can come out in another week.' Orlov didn't relish the thought.