The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire (32 page)

“Alexandrov!” he said. “Why did you let the French do this to you? You weren’t so careful, were you?”

I smiled for the first time in days. Then I remembered Alcides. I drank up the best soup in Borodino, my tears salting the broth.

Chapter 49

Outside Moscow

September 1812

After two days, I regained my strength and returned to the battlefield. Captain Podjampolsky gave me command of a small detachment—two dozen uhlans—to bring our depleted squadron up to strength.

Too many faces were unfamiliar. Most of my squadron had fallen in battle.

I forbade myself to think of them, just as I could not think of killing the damned goose.

Or Alcides. In order to survive I had to push all I loved and cared about aside.

I was a soldier fighting for Russia—that was all that mattered.

Despite our hopes after the battle, we retreated yet again. Our new encampment was just ten versts from Moscow. I asked permission to ride to Moscow, where I could have a warm coat tailored for me. I planned to stay in the Kremlin with my father’s old comrade-in-arms Colonel Mitrofanov. I was given permission to ride in a supply wagon to Moscow’s gates.

Inside the city, I stopped to stare up at the majesty of the white walls of the Kremlin.

The Muscovites were as frantic as bees after a foolish boy has thrown a rock at their hive. They were packing their belongings and boarding up the windows. There was little left in the stores. I found a tailor who agreed to fit a warm coat for me. In the meantime I went in search of Mitrofanov’s house.

He had left—like so many Muscovites—but when I stood, stymied outside his building, I was taken in by a young merchant’s wife.

“Come in, sir!” she said at once, seeing by my uniform that I was an officer.

“Monsieur Mitrofanov is a dear friend of my father,” I told her. “They served many years in the cavalry together.”

She clapped her hands.

“A friend of Colonel Mitrofanov! Oh, please do us the honor of staying with us, sir.”

She asked me to take a seat next to her on the sofa and then bade her young daughter Katenka to make tea. She asked her younger daughter Anna to bring some butter and bread, a satisfying black rye.

Katenka’s eyes were blue as chips of a sunny sky. She was a sweet girl whose eyes flashed open at each bit of news she could glean from me.

“The enemy—Napoleon—how near is he to Moscow?”

“Twenty versts at most. But he is regrouping his army,” I said. “As are we. I will only be here as long as it takes to get my coat made.”

“We hear Napoleon forces his enemies to convert,” said Anna. “He brands his prisoners over the heart with the Catholic cross.”

I took a bite of my buttered bread and nodded solemnly.

“I have heard the same, though I don’t think it’s true. Fear breeds tales like a fire stretches shadows. But Napoleon surely has no regard for our Orthodox religion.”

The young girl clapped her hands over her heart as if Napoleon were wielding the branding iron then and there.

“Oh, dear sir! You won’t let the French in to Moscow, will you? Our army will protect us, won’t they?”

And seeing her frightened face and angelic pose, reminding me of an icon on a church wall, I made a promise.

“Of course we will! The Corsican will never be permitted into our capital. The military governor Rostopchin and his army will protect the walls. Our army will keep the French away. Do not cry, little Anna.”

Now I know that I lied that day. But at that moment we all believed Moscow would never fall.

How could it?

When my new jacket was finished I set off to find a livery to take me back to camp. Every coach and buggy, every wagon and old nag, was engaged as Muscovites fled the city. I was forced to walk on my wounded leg.

I had gone only three versts when the throbbing in my leg forced me to stop. I lay down in the grass. Fortunately a supply wagon loaded with saddles, saddle blankets, canteens, and knapsacks came rumbling down the road.

The officer made room for me, taking me back to camp.

When I got there, I found that my reserve horse—now my main mount—Zelant had been sent along with the reserve horses to another village five versts away. I was given a hideous Cossack horse with a thin, elongated neck. He was past his prime and had neither speed nor spirit. The saddle I was given had an enormous bolster in front of it, making it as clumsy as riding a camel in an overstuffed armchair.

On this horse I am to lead my squadron into battle?

But again the orders came. “Retreat. Retreat.”

Rostopchin’s army had deserted Moscow! Our ancient capital was left defenseless, with no one guarding the gates and walls.

I saw the stunned look in my comrades’ eyes as they went through the motions of tightening their horses’ cinches, mounting up, and staring at the great white walls of Moscow.

Defenseless. Only we, the defeated, stood between Napoleon and Moscow. There would be no further battle. Kutuzov had ordered a stand-down.

Our regiment rode through Moscow. Wagons and carts still choked the streets, though the majority of inhabitants had already fled. Civilians who had no horses or means of transportation cried out to us.

“Do not surrender Moscow! Protect us!”

“Defend our ancient capital! Do not let Napoleon defile our city!”

Kutuzov rode ahead in his carriage, pulling down the canvas shades on his windows.

We camped two or three versts beyond the walls, while the main army was stationed even further away.

One of my uhlans suddenly turned in his saddle, looking back to Moscow.

“Look!”

All eyes swiveled. Bright yellow and red flames leaped amongst the wooden houses in one corner of the city. It was not long before the smell of smoke filled our nostrils.

“The demons!” said one of the uhlans.

“It would have been better to perish to a man than to sacrifice Moscow!”

“This is how our General Kutuzov defends Russia!” said another.

“No, this is how Rostopchin leaves our sacred capital. He was ordered to stay and fight. Instead he leaves the city in ashes!”

“Shut up,” hissed a soldier. “You’ll be facing a firing squad if you keep up that talk.”

He was right. The words were treasonous. But I’d wager my soul that everyone in our squadron—the entire regiment—was thinking the same thing.

“What barbarians are these French,” said another uhlan, turning the conversation away from Kutuzov. “Why would they set fire to Moscow after fighting so hard to get here? What will be left for them?”

“They will ransack our churches,” said the one who had complained so bitterly about Kutuzov. “Mark my words: Napoleon has no respect for our religion.”

Captain Podjampolsky rode up.

“Hold your tongues and move out, soldiers!” he said.

He must have seen the emptiness in my eyes, the supreme sense of loss.

“Kutuzov has not forsaken Russia. Napoleon will find as winter approaches that his soldiers cannot eat gold.”

My donkey of a horse set off at a trot only after I gave him a smack with the flat of my saber. His jolting action threatened to loosen my teeth from my jaw. A cavalry soldier is only as good as his mount. With this Cossack nag I could neither ride to meet the enemy nor run away from him.

Colonel Stackelberg charged me with forage detail, to procure hay for the regiment’s horses.

All I could think of was Alcides. No horse would ever be the same as he—so brave, so willing. How he trusted me. And I brought him to this war.

I forced myself to stop thinking of him, at least for minutes at a time. The vision of his suffering rendered me immobile, useless. Lost. A danger to myself and everyone around.

I set off with a detachment and two hay wagons toward a little hamlet. My sergeant pointed beyond our destination.

“That’s where the reserve horses are kept, sir,” he said. “It is about a verst beyond.”

Zelant! Only a verst away. Minutes from me!

“Load up your wagons and then wait there in the forest edge to hide. I will be back immediately.”

But Fate has no mercy. The uhlan reserve horses were stationed another three versts beyond. I spurred my unhappy nag into what one could not call a gallop but a “galumpf.” Then it stopped, resisting my kicks and traveling only at a snoring walk. If I had the choice of fighting two more battles of Borodino or riding this beast two more days, I would have chosen the former.

As I approached the camp, I spied Zelant on the picket line and threw my reins to the attending solider.

“Take this horse!” I said. “Give me a decent saddle and I’ll gladly give you mine. Zelant there, that is my horse.”

It took a few minutes for the sergeant to find a saddle but within a quarter of an hour, I was on my way.

When I finally reached the edge of the forest where my detachment should have been waiting for me, I found no one.

The soft grass was churned up by galloping horses. I thought the worst. I raced back to the encampment.

When Colonel Stackelberg saw me riding into camp alone he turned blue with rage.

“Where is your detachment, Alexandrov?”

I explained the situation.

“You left your troops! How dare you commit such a stupid act?” he shouted. “Now they are lost and the enemy has occupied the forest. Go find those men and if you return without them, I shall report you and you will be shot!”

Stunned, I reined Zelant back to the forest. When I reached the edge I encountered an officer I knew from the Imperial Guards standing in the front line of our skirmishers.

“Where are you going, Alexandrov?” he said.

I told him my story of woe and that I was sent to return with the foragers or face a firing squad.

“Not to worry, brother. I’m willing to bet that your detachment took cover and went the long way to safety. Ride to the hamlet where we’re keeping our rearguard reserve horses. You’ll find them there.”

“But that’s where I came from!” I said.

I galloped away along the road, skirting the action in the forest. When I reached the picket line, there was my detachment.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” I asked.

“We heard galloping and gunfire in the forest, sir,” said the sergeant. “I ordered the wagons down the road away from the action. We thought we’d meet up with you.”

“Well, Colonel Stackelberg has threatened to shoot me because of this escapade!” I said. “Let’s return to camp and hope Stackelberg isn’t aiming a pistol my way when we get there.”

I was angrier than I have ever been. Damned German! I didn’t go looking for Stackelberg to make my report. Using a pencil stub in my pack I dashed off a note on a rag of paper to Captain Podjampolsky:

Inform Col. Stackelberg that I am not eager to be shot. I’m going to the commander in chief and try to obtain a post on his staff.

Kutuzov. I would apply directly to General Kutuzov, commander in chief of the entire Russian army. It seemed I still had an endless supply of sheer brash nerve.

I rode to the commander in chief’s temporary headquarters several versts down the road at a Muscovite’s country estate that Kutuzov had requisitioned.

The attending sergeant directed me to the main house, where adjutant generals hurried in and out the doors like ants.

I entered the anteroom, which was filled with the masculine smell of tobacco, leather, and cognac—far more appealing than our officers’ hovel.

There was a group of adjutants. I studied their faces and went up to the one who had the kindest face, a colonel.

“Please, sir, I must speak to the commander in chief,” I said.

“About what?” asked the colonel, raising his eyebrows. His face wrinkled with amusement. “You must know he is waging a war against Napoleon.”

I pressed my lips tight with determination. He did not take me seriously.

“Please, Colonel!”

“Tell me your business and I will relay the message.”

“No. I must speak to him personally without witnesses. Please do not refuse me this favor,” I said, bowing.

He gave me a curious look, tangled with irritation.

“Let me see what I can do,” he said.

He entered Kutuzov’s room. A minute later he returned.

“If you please,” he said, holding open the door.

I entered a room thick with tobacco smoke. With my first step toward the gray-haired veteran, the legendary leader, venerable hero of Russia, I felt my heart hammering.

General Kutuzov looked at me like a jovial crow out of his one good eye. He gestured with an open hand. “What can I do for you, my friend?”

My friend
—the great Kutuzov’s first words to me.

Overcome with awe I stood dry mouthed before him. The general stared at me. I was just one among hundreds of thousands of soldiers he commanded. How did I have the nerve to demand a private interview?

“I have come to ask you to grant a great favor. I would like the good fortune to be an orderly for the rest of the campaign.”

Kutuzov’s fleshy face drew up, wrinkling.

“What’s the reason for this extraordinary request and, more importantly, for the manner in which you propose it?”

“Colonel Stackelberg has threatened to have me shot.”

I launched into my story of how I had been born into the army and had only one desire in life—to be in Russia’s cavalry.