Flight From the Eagle (26 page)

Orlov replied, 'Thank you,' without succeeding in keeping the surprise out of his voice and was even more surprised when Josef added, 'Most gratifying! An excellent outcome in every way!'

After supper, Kusminsky wanted him to help in changing the bandages on three particularly bad wounds—a messy, unpleasant business, in which Orlov's part was mainly to keep up a flow of conversation to distract the men's attention from what the surgeon was doing. He was touched and embarrassed when a number of the men approached him as an official delegation to offer their respectful congratulations on his betrothal.

By the time he went to the tent, the camp was quiet and the Countess had retired some time before. He stripped off his coat and shirt in the dim light of the lantern, glancing occasionally towards the dark shape on the far side of the
tent in the hope that she was not yet asleep.

It was, of course, just as he was engaged in the usual struggle with his boots, that she spoke. ('Why do we always have our most important conversations while I'm taking my boots off?' he wondered.) 'Major Orlov?' she said quietly.

'Yes?'

'Why did you say we are betrothed?'

'You know why,' he replied. 'You heard what the Hetman said.'

'Yes, but it wasn't true. There's no reason for you to pretend to be betrothed to me.'

'I'm not pretending and there's a very good reason,' he replied gently. 'There has been ever since the night of the thunderstorm.'

'But you didn't ... you couldn't ... not without me knowing...!'

'No, I didn't,' he assured her. 'That wasn't the reason. I meant that I've known since that night that I want to marry you. As far as I'm concerned, we're really betrothed. I hold myself bound to marry you. This isn't the way I would have wished to go about it, but my hand was forced by the Hetman. I suggest we regard ourselves as betrothed for the present ... it gives me the right to assume responsibility for your safety and welfare and to make some sort of provision for you as soon as I can contact my lawyers. It means that I can send you to stay with Tatia with perfect respectability and you can stay with her until all this business is over without anyone thinking it odd. Then, when I can come home and sort everything out, if you decide that you don't want to marry me, we can simply break the engagement.'

'But I couldn't...' she began.

'But you could,' he said, still gently but very firmly. 'I tried to tell you last night that I might be badly wounded and that would automatically release you as far as I'm concerned. In any case, I've no intention of letting you marry me unless you really want to, for love, not gratitude or anything like that.' He was sitting on the ground with one boot in his hand and he put it down beside the other and lined them up neatly side by side before he asked the question which was vitally important to him.

'Is the idea of marrying me distasteful to you?' It came out in a raw, nervous voice, not at all as he would have liked.

'No.' There was something convincing in the sincerity of the one word of her answer.

He got up, crossed the tent and knelt beside her. 'Is the arrangement all right, then?'

'Yes. Thank you.' She was sitting up and he put his arms round her and kissed her mouth very gently. She returned the kiss and leaned against him, touching his face with the tips of her fingers.

'What shall I call you?' she asked.

'Lev. It tends not to have a diminutive.'

She laughed. 'No, it wouldn't. My name is Irina.'

'Peace!' he exclaimed. 'How extraordinary! I was longing for peace the day I met you!' He kissed her again, keeping a curb on himself for fear of losing his self-control and abruptly told her so in case she should think him half-hearted about the betrothal.

'Yes, I understand,' she said softly. He gave her a last kiss and then returned to his own side of the tent, bidding her 'goodnight'. With sudden realization, he amended it to 'Goodnight, Irina' and then added 'Darling'.

'Goodnight, Lev,' she replied.

He blew out the candle and pulled his blankets round him, looking out across the camp, which was dappled with patches of silvery moonlight and areas of black shadow, the fire glowing red in the middle. The nearby stream chattered over the stones and the horses moved gently, snorting and pulling at their hay over in the picket lines. He gave a sigh of contentment and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was daylight and the carts and the boles of the trees were wreathed in white mist which swirled about the moving figures of men going about their early morning chores. He scrambled out of his bedding and ducked through the opening of the tent, shivering and yawning as he looked up at the sky, already bright with sunlight.

By the time breakfast was ready, the mist was melting away from the trees, leaving the bracken and leaves and the awnings of the carts dripping with dew. There was no wind
and already the long ribbon of the road was baking and shimmering in the growing strength of the sun.

Orlov stood by the improvised dining table, talking to Kolniev and cautiously stretched himself, spreading his arms above his head until the muscles cracked. It hurt his arm but it was nothing compared with the pleasure of feeling his muscles move and flex. 'Big cat,' commented Kusminsky, coming up behind him. 'You look like a great panther. Don't do that again for another week.'

' Orlov turned to say something rude but saw the Countess coming and went forward to greet her instead, putting his hands on her shoulders and kissing her cheek in a very proprietary manner. She smiled happily at him and the others and they sat down to eat.

The morning was very hot after the last of the mist had cleared but the men talked, sang and whistled cheerfully as they jolted on their way, greeting the shade of the next band of forest with a cheer. There was a slightly festive air about them. They felt safe and nearly at the end of their journey after the meeting with the Cossacks.

The woodland was again the open, broad-leaved variety and the sun dappled the road with patches of black shadow and dazzling brightness which was trying to the eyes and gave Orlov a headache. It was a relief to stop at midday and bathe his head with cool water and then lie in the shade with his eyes shut, particularly as Countess Irina sympathized with him, stroking his hair in a very soothing manner.

His little idyll was shattered by Kolniev remarking in a gloomy voice that the weak wheel on the cart they had found at the inn was about to collapse at any moment. Orlov opened his eyes, refrained from cursing with commendable self-restraint, and went to have a look at it. There was nothing to be done. It was quite beyond repair by now, the iron tyre quite worn through and the wood shredded away all round the rim. 'Pity it couldn't have lasted one more day,' he commented and called together the men who rode in that particular cart.

There were six, including the driver, and Orlov asked how many of them could ride a horse. 'I mean, how many of you are capable of staying on a horse now, not how many have
ever actually ridden.' Fortunately, they were all prepared to try and with the two horses belonging to the cart and the spares normally tied on behind some of the others, there were plenty of mounts.

Orlov told them to improvise saddles and left them in a huddle with various pieces of blanket, rope, canvas and anything else which occurred to them. Kolniev was already sorting out the essentials from the useless cart and fitting them into the remaining twelve.

'God knows how they'll manage!' Orlov commented to Kusminsky while they were eating. 'They all claim they can ride but they've no saddles, apart from the two Josef and Kolniev used when we started out.'

'Oh, you're not prepared to ride bareback and let one of them have yours?' Kusminsky asked and Orlov scowled thoughtfully. 'Well, I suppose I could,' he replied seriously. 'But I'm not sure that I could manage on that grey. He's a bit tricky.'

'You won't try!' Kusminsky told him. 'I was joking, you great idiot!' Orlov was secretly relieved. He had come to the conclusion that he was not as good a rider as he had thought —not with one arm out of action, at any rate.

During the afternoon they passed through a village which was still inhabited and quite a crowd of peasants turned out to see them pass. It was a poor little place, just a huddle of wooden shacks dominated by the well-sweep, dirty and decrepit with a few scrawny hens squawking under the horses' feet. The inhabitants shouted a few comments and questions which the soldiers answered, but they were not particularly friendly.

The country became more broken with occasional streams meandering across the line of the road in little gorges only ten or so feet deep, but they would have been formidable barriers for the carts if the bridges had gone. Fortunately, they were all still there and so too was the one over a much larger river which they reached at the end of the afternoon.

There was an open area at the far side, big enough for a camp, and Orlov led the way across the bridge and off the road to it with relief. He made it his first job to enquire how the new riders had fared. He had checked on them several times during the afternoon and had been amused by the
curious postures some of them had adopted. He found now that they were only complaining of stiffness, nothing worse.

'We should get to Kaluga tomorrow,' he told them encouragingly and was surprised at his own reaction to the words, it was such a mixture of relief and regret. Relief at the thought of getting the party to safety, to a place where they could be properly looked after and he could shed responsibility for them, and regret at the ending of a strange, dream-like interlude in his life. Even more regret that it would mean parting with Sparrow—Irina—the nickname came more easily than her real name. Extraordinary to think that he had reached the point of becoming betrothed to her before he found out her name!

His next duty was to see Adraksin and he found Kusminsky there before him, kneeling beside the corporal's stretcher which was still firmly lashed down inside the cart. Kusmin-sky's face was expressionless and Orlov said tentatively, 'I expect you'll be glad to get him into hospital?'

The surgeon looked at Adraksin to make sure he was still unconscious before replying curtly, 'It depends. I don't know Kaluga hospital. Do you?'

Orlov said he had seen it, but only from the outside and knew nothing about its reputation.

'Hm. Could be a good sign. Some of them are notorious,' Kusminsky commented. He drew Orlov aside, well out of earshot of anyone else and enlarged, 'Some hospitals are breeding grounds for fevers of all kinds. Dirt and disease go together, you know. Even the best have the fault of bringing together all kinds of sick and disabled and infections spread. It would be a great pity if the corporal had survived the loss of his foot and the rigours of the journey, only to die of typhus. Granted, he should be somewhere settled, not banging about on the roads, but a hospital isn't necessarily the best place.'

There was something of a scramble going on among the men to get their duties done so that they could bathe in the river before the sun went below the level of the trees. It rapidly grew chilly after that and midges appeared with the coming of evening. Orlov could see nothing requiring his immediate attention so he took a towel and clean linen and
went to find himself a private pool. The men were going downstream so he went up, above the bridge.

He found a pleasantly secluded place, well-screened with bushes, but at the bottom of a steep bank which required a climb to get down to the water. He was not much worried about privacy for himself but wanted a place to bring Irina afterwards, so he hurried, simply throwing off his clothes, plunging into the water and getting out again as soon as he had rinsed away the dust and sweat of the day. The water was cold and even though his teeth chattered as he towelled himself dry and pulled his clothes on again, he felt better for it.

Scrambling up the bank was difficult with one arm and he found himself using the left one to steady himself without much pain. Once at the top, he hurried back to the camp to fetch Irina who had no trouble climbing down, despite her long skirts. Orlov was pleased to see how agile and neat-footed she was—she would probably be a good dancer, he thought.

He sat down on the top of the bank, gazing steadfastly downstream, feeling quite proud of himself for managing not to look down towards the screening bushes at the water's edge until Irina was climbing up towards him again, clutching her damp towel with her hair streaming down her back. He stretched out a hand and pulled her up to sit beside him, laughing and gasping.

'Oh, it was so cold!' she exclaimed. He twisted round to watch her comb and plait her hair and after a few minutes she sighed and said, 'I wonder if I'll ever be able to bathe in a river again.'

'Of course,' he replied. 'The river at home is actually in the garden. There's a fine pool there. We'll often bathe and I'll teach you to swim.'

'I can't believe you really want to marry me,' she said soberly. 'I keep wondering if I'll wake up and find it's all a dream.'

Orlov put his arm round her and squeezed her until she gasped. 'Shall I pinch you as well? No, I've a better idea.' He undid the back fastening of the high collar of her dress, turned back one corner and gently bit her neck. 'There—are you awake?'

'Yes!' she said. 'Oh, Lev—I'm more awake than I've ever been in my life!' She turned towards him and he gathered her into his arms.