Far Flies the Eagle (12 page)

“Which is the road to Moscow?” he shouted suddenly.

Balachov raised his eyes and looked at him blankly.

“Your Majesty's question embarrasses me a little. The Russians have a saying like the French, that all roads lead to Rome. To reach Moscow one takes the road one fancies; Charles XII set out by way of Pultava.”

Napoleon swallowed. Pultava, where the Swedish invaders had been annihilated by Peter the Great in 1709. Pultava …

He swung round and walked away.

Balachov was escorted beyond the French outposts and rode out to rejoin the Czar.

Alexander was with the main Russian forces commanded by Barclay de Tolly, and the army was withdrawing towards the encampment at Drissa in accordance with the official strategy. Bagration, with a smaller force of 45,000 men, waited in the province of Volhynia. When the French advanced to attack Barclay, Bagration would strike at their flank.

As the Imperial army passed, it burnt crops and villages to the ground on the Czar's order. Nothing was to be left for the invader; he would march into a smouldering desert, abandoned by the people who were driven ahead by their own troops. All possible shelter was razed, the livestock carried off or slaughtered.

In the course of the long march to Drissa, Alexander rode through the ruins of his own countryside, with the smoke of burning villages rising into the summer sky, the golden wheat fields trodden down by his cavalry, the water wells blocked, the carcasses of cattle and horses putrefying under the hot sun.

“A desert,” he had promised,” where nothing grows or stirs. The soldiers of Bonaparte will never live off Russian land.”

The scenes of desolation did not move him outwardly; he felt nothing because he dared not. He saw devastation and misery with blind eyes, knew that his troops were driving the peasants to starvation and death, that they pillaged and raped like an invader in some cases, but the knowledge made no difference. Nothing mattered. He would destroy Russia if he had to, before he left a grain of wheat or a wall standing for the benefit of the French.

Barclay de Tolly spent long hours conferring with him; he was a dour man, hard-headed and cautious, and he was convinced that the Prussian strategy would mean disaster.

“If we fight Napoleon before Drissa we're lost!” he declared as he rode beside the Emperor. Alexander shifted the reins to one hand and wiped his sweating face with a handkerchief.

“Pfühl has perfect confidence in the plan,” he replied. They had been riding for some hours, and for most of the time De Tolly had been warning him not to listen to the Prussian and risk a pitched battle.

“Pfühl's a German, Sire. He's sure he's right, and by God when a German thinks he's right there's no more obstinate fool alive! We're dealing with Bonaparte, not Frederick the Great! Is it likely he'll oblige us by attacking Drissa and letting Bagration encircle him?

“No, Sire, I tell you if I wouldn't fall into that trap, no more will he. He'll wipe out Bagration, that's what he'll do and then come after us. And small use Pfühl's plan will be then. For God's sake, Sire, abandon it, send for Bagration, and link up your armies before it's too late.”

“Bagration says the same,” Alexander answered. “And my sister writes urging me to listen to him.” He turned to Barclay, frowning, and the Commander-in-Chief realized how tired he looked. His face was drawn and lined through lack of sleep.

“If Pfühl's wrong, I'll abandon him. I'll abandon anyone, you, Bagration, Araktcheief, anyone, but I won't lose this war. We'll inspect Drissa as soon as we arrive. There may be some news of Napoleon's movements by the time we get there.”

At Drissa Alexander set out to look over the artificial bastion, followed by General Pfühl himself. The General stamped along a few paces behind the Czar, red-faced and scowling; he took the inspection as a personal insult; he had spent years working out his plan, his invincible theory, and now these miserable Russians were trying to alter it. He intended to question the Emperor, but somehow the opportunity did not arise; Alexander seemed suddenly cold and aloof, he walked through the encampment in a silence that no one dared to break. And he returned to his headquarters in silence. There he found a courier waiting with Araktcheief.

“Sire,” Araktcheief burst out as soon as he entered. “Sire, Bonaparte's sent Marshal Davoust and his forces out towards Volhynia.”

“I knew it.” Barclay swung round. “He's going to attack Bagration! God in Heaven, he's splitting us up; if he meets Bagration and defeats him we're lost!”

“Nonsense, nonsense. It's a feint, he'll attack Drissa, he's bound by my theory …” Pfühl interrupted, and Barclay turned on him.

“Damn your theory! Now see where it's brought us!”

“Gentlemen. One moment!” Alexander's voice cut through them harshly. He was white and the expression on his face closed even Pfühl's mouth.

He took off his gloves and threw them on to a chair. Then he spoke softly. “Your plan is abandoned, General. You may go.”

Pfühl stared at him and seemed about to speak, then he bowed stiffly and went out. There was a moment of dead silence after the door had closed behind him.

“We will march the garrison out of Drissa and join them with your forces,” Alexander said to Barclay. “What news is there from Bagration?”

“None, Sire,” Araktcheief answered. “He's probably unaware that the French are advancing on him.”

“Then send word at once. Order him to avoid contact with them and to retire towards Vitepsk. There the main army will join him. Hurry! Barclay!”

“Sire!” The Commander-in-Chief stepped forward; he was red with delight at Pfûhl's dismissal and the prospect of conducting the war in his own way.

“From now on, you are to take what course you think fit. I shall leave the army and go back to St. Petersburg; you are in complete charge. What do you propose to do?”

“I propose to retreat,” Barclay said quietly. “I shall draw Napoleon after me for as far as he will come, without ever giving battle. Raiding parties can harass him, cut down the stragglers. I shall carry out your orders and destroy everything so that if he can't supply his troops they'll starve. And the longer his lines of communication, the weaker he will be! It is now July, Sire. If he goes far enough into the heart of Russia, Russia itself will defeat him.”

“The French are there,” Alexander said, pointing to a place on the map. “In three days they'll reach Smolensk.”

Marie was standing beside him in his study in the Summer Palace, bending over the table on which he had spread the map of Russia; his arm was round her shoulders and she reached up and caught hold of his hand.

“Will it be taken?” she asked.

“If God wills.”

She looked up at him, puzzled. He was always talking about the will of God, and he spent hours in the Palace chapel praying before the High Altar; he invoked the aid of the Almighty in every order issued to his army and commanded his people to pray daily for the defeat of the enemy. To Marie it was inexplicable; Alexander the atheist, whose materialism was as honest as her own, Alexander religious, listening to priests, wasting hours in draughty churches when he might have been amusing himself and taking everyone's minds off the danger.…

“He's not well,” she thought tenderly, and kissed the hand that lay on her shoulder. “He's worried so much and he sleeps so badly now; even I don't seem able to help him.…”

The idea that his sudden conversion might be genuine was something she refused to accept; he did nothing by half measure, she knew that; if religion were really to take root in his mind it might be followed by morality, and that would be the end of her. No, she brushed the fear aside, it was all due to anxiety … he would come back to her when this miserable war was won; he'd make love to her as often as he used to instead of sitting in her rooms talking about the war.

“Barclay and Bagration are going to make a stand at Smolensk,” he was saying. “Bagration insisted; he says the troops' morale is weakening with all this retreating from the enemy. I don't think they'll hold the city, neither does Barclay.”

“Why don't you forget it for a moment,” Marie pleaded. “You're wearing yourself out. Beloved, you're at Petersburg and they are at Smolensk, there's nothing you can do now. Why don't you let me put all these maps and papers away and come and relax?”

He smiled down at her.

“Have I neglected you so much lately?”

She slipped between him and the table, some instinct of self-preservation urging her.

‘This withdrawal I sense in him, it's not just preoccupation with the war. It's the beginning of indifference, it means I'm losing him.…'

She reached up and pulled his head down and began to kiss him.

“We never used to talk politics in the old days, do you remember,” she murmured. “Now whenever we're together it's nothing but the war, the war, all the time.”

He was holding her in his arms and she clung to him. trying to arouse and maintain the warmth of the affection which had existed between them for so long. He rested his chin against her forehead and his lips touched her temple.

“Do you remember that day on the islands?” she asked suddenly. “We were like this then; just before you went to Erfurt, and I'd been warning you about plots in the capital. You told me you couldn't do without me, Alexander. You begged me to stay with you always, and I promised. You were in trouble then and you needed me.…”

“Then it was only myself,” he answered. “Now it's my people, my country—the whole world. I challenged him, Marie, and if I lose, all Europe is lost, perhaps for ever.”

He released her and stepped back.

“Do you know what's happening in Russia? Do you know that our troops are burning every town and village they pass through? From Wilna to Smolensk Russia is a desert, Marie. That's what I promised Napoleon and I've kept my promise. He's conquering a desert. If he takes Smolensk Barclay will blow it to pieces first. His soldiers are nearly starving, dysentery's broken out … and my own people are also starving, homeless. I ordered it, Marie, and nothing will make me rescind that order, nothing!”

“He wanted to make peace,” she said dully, leaning back against the table, crumpling the map. “Why didn't you, and stop all this?”

Alexander turned and looked at her.

“I will never make peace,” he said. “Not until I've driven him out of Russia.”

She made a movement with her hand and then stopped.

“You are not in love with me any longer, are you?” was what she said.

He shook his head but his expression was kind.

“I have always loved you, Marie,” he said gently. “But I haven't time to think of you now.”

He walked to the door and closed it quietly behind him. For some moments Marie stayed by the table, then she turned and swept the map to the floor; she was crying helplessly, heaving books and papers off the table until the mirrored surface suddenly showed her a reflection of herself. She leant forward and stared at her own image, remembering that Alexander had given her the table years ago. It was marble, inlaid with lapiz-lazuli; at that time no one in Petersburg had possessed a table with a looking-glass top. It had become the rage. She wiped the tears away with her fingers and gazed at herself.

“Am I growing old?… Is it that? Is that why I almost have to kneel to him now before he consents to make love to me? Am I ugly?… Why, why, after all these years! He's changed to me, ever since he came back to Petersburg since he left that damned army at Drissa. He's gone to other women, in the past, I know that, but he's always come back to me. He loved me!” She cried the words aloud. “But not now, not any more. I've tried everything, everything to please him, but it's no use.”

She stood upright away from the looking-glass and instinctively one hand strayed to her tumbled hair. After months of self-deceit she had faced the truth, and the truth suddenly restored her composure. He had begun to grow cold to her; he was affectionate and kind, but the tremendous sexual bond was broken between them and she was experienced enough to know that with a man of his type her principal hold over him had gone.

She moved one of the books aside with her foot and thought that whoever won the war, she had lost everything.

She went to her bedroom and sent for her maid; an hour later she left the Summer Palace, dressed in her most beautiful white dress, wearing the rubies and diamonds round her neck and in her ears that she never wore because the Emperor didn't think jewels suited her. Her coach drove to a magnificent house on the Nevsky Prospect, belonging to a Polish nobleman who had never made any secret of his admiration for her.

“Is it true,” her new lover whispered that evening, “is it true that the Czar had you painted like this?”

Marie opened her eyes.

‘I have always loved you, but I haven't time to think of you now.… I'm tired, my dear, too tired even to talk.… His Majesty is detained in conference with General Araktcheief, Madame, he regrets he cannot dine with you this evening.…'

The voices in her mind receded; they had been running through it while she dined, when she came upstairs to the bedroom and took the only revenge on Alexander Pavlovitch that she could.

Things she hadn't realized had wounded her so deeply came out in an endless repetition; excuses, evasions, the innumerable hints that after all these years their love affair was dying.

“Is it true?” her lover questioned.

“Aphrodite, rising from the waves. Yes, it's true. But I wasn't wearing these,” she said, touching the big jewels in her ears.

The man laughed. “The Czar has the portrait, but I have the original,” he said. “Madame, I adore you.”

On August 16th the battle for Smolensk began.