Russian series 03 - The Eagle's Fate (11 page)

‘Yes.’ Tatya seemed inclined to say no more on the subject, but after a moment she added, ‘It was a disaster. His wife takes so many lovers that he has nothing to do with her. I doubt if she’s even been near him, and he wouldn’t see her if she did,’ and then firmly changed the subject.

Irina received a few letters from Lev as well. He always seemed to write in a great hurry, but at least he let her and his sister know that he was safe, and more or less where he was. He had been into Tula province for remounts after Irina parted from him in Kaluga, but he was now back at Headquarters, serving on the Marshal’s staff, General Barclay having left the Army and returned to Petersburg to resume his duties as Minister of War. He seemed to be finding the constant riding about to deal with trivial matters tedious in the extreme.

Suddenly, in the second week in October, things began to happen, although there was a week’s delay before the news reached Ryazan. It started with a muddled attack by part of the Russian Army on Marshal Murat’s cavalry camp at Vinkovo, very near the Russian camp, which seemed an abortive affair, but the next day, Cossack patrols noticed considerable activity where the Kaluga road left Moscow. They observed it carefully, but could not quite make out what was to do, so were very slow to report it.

Two days later, the whole Moscow area was shaken by a great shock which many people thought was an earthquake. Another Cossack patrol thought it sounded more like an explosion, and circumspectly moved closer to the city to investigate. They found the eastern suburbs deserted, and crept through the ruins of the city until they reached Red Square itself, and cautiously looked into the Kremlin through the Spassky Gate, to find signs that an attempt had been made to blow up some of the buildings, including the great bell-tower of Ivan Veliki.

There was no one about but a fatigue party of French soldiers, engaged, under the eagle eye of Marshal Mortier, in emptying the contents of a great number of bottles of vodka on to the ground. Shocked by the waste, and more that a little surprised by their discovery, the Cossacks promptly withdrew, and hastened to send the news to Marshal Kutuzov that the enemy was leaving Moscow!

This much the ladies at Ryazan had managed to glean from the governor, and from a scribbled note from Lev. Naturally, they were glad to hear that Holy Moscow, or what was left it, was free of the contamination of Bonaparte’s presence. Tatya had also a secret reason for being relieved, for she had not told the others that the governor had warned her some time ago to be prepared to leave at any moment if the French appeared near Ryazan—they had actually been seen at Kolomna only two weeks before.

For three more days, the ladies wondered and prayed as they busied themselves with their preparations to travel to Petersburg, and then a footman brought another packet of letters from the post-office in town and handed them on a salver to Tatya as she sat with the other two in the salon. The topmost one was addressed to Irina in Lev’s bold handwriting, so she handed it to Irina, and waited, leaving the rest aside, until Irina had ripped it open, tearing it a little in her haste, and began to read it aloud, passing over the opening and closing endearments for the moment.

‘We’ve fought a brisk action—wouldn’t call it a battle as only two Corps of Ours were engaged—at Maloyaroslavets, on the Kaluga road. It was Eugene’s Corps, trying to break through to the southern route back to Smolensk, we think. It was hard work while it lasted, but they were held long enough for the artillery to come up and bottle them up in the town, and now they’re returning by the road they came on, which means they’ll find nothing but the places they burned on their way into the country! You’ll remember that they burned Smolensk as well, so they won’t find much comfort there!

‘Have just heard that the Marshal is sending me west with dispatches for Admiral Chichagov, who’s come up from Turkey with an army and is to intercept the French somewhere between Smolensk and Vilna. Boris Kalinsky is coming with me—Tatya will explain who he is. Tell her I’ll take good care of him.”

‘That’s all,’ Irina finished, turning the single sheet of paper over and around in the hope of finding something more. ‘Who is Boris Kalinsky?’

‘My—my husband’s nephew.’ Tatya replied, with her usual hesitation over naming the late General. ‘He’s a charming fellow, but he’s barely eighteen, and only passed out of the Cadets in June. He’s ensign in Nikolai Volkhov’s regiment, so I can’t imagine why he’s serving on the Staff—oh, of course! Admiral Chichagov is his godfather!’

‘Why is an Admiral commanding an army?’ Irina enquired, which was something neither Tatya nor Nadya—and probably no one else except the Emperor and the Admiral—could explain. ‘If he’s going beyond Smolensk, he’ll be further away than ever,’ she commented. ‘Still, if he’s taking good care of your nephew, at least he’ll have to keep out of trouble himself. won’t he?’

She sounded uncertain, so both Tatya and Nadya made reassuring comments, and Tatya created a diversion by turning to the rest of the letters.

‘There’s one here for you!’ she exclaimed, holding out a folded and sealed sheet of once-white paper to Nadya. It looked as if it had been dropped in some mud and then trodden on.

‘For me?’ Nadya exclaimed, taking it. ‘Whoever can that be from?’

Chapter Five

The letter was sealed by a plain wafer, which gave no clue to the sender, and when she opened it and started to read she still did not realise what it was. It was dated from a hospital in Kaluga, and began with an extremely formal greeting, then continued with equal formality:

‘First, I must apologise that I cannot write in my own hand, but must ask Sasha Alexandrovich, who is visiting me, to be my amanuensis, as I have suffered a slight accident to my hands. As a result, I have nothing to do but lie here and think, and being in hospital with the sights and sounds of death constantly about me, my thoughts tend to linger on the errors of my past life, and I find myself increasingly worried about my behaviour towards you during our brief acquaintance.

‘To be frank, I did not believe your protest that you did not know why I had no wish to have anything to do with you, but I realise now that it is more than likely that you spoke the truth. In that case, my hostility must have been inexplicable to you, and probably added to the distress which you were already suffering.

‘Perhaps by now you have forgotten all about it, dismissed me from your mind as an ill-mannered boor, which is no more than I deserve, but I find I cannot forget. It preys on my mind that I was unjust and treated you in a manner which was cruel, considering the circumstances into which you had been thrown. I offer my humblest apologies although I fear you will not find it possible to forgive me.’

There followed Sasha Tuchin’s signature and ‘on behalf of Andrei Ivanovich Valyev’, but that was not the end of the letter. The same hand continued, covering the rest of the sheet and finally resorting to crossing itself, in a more hurried scrawl and considerably less formality.

‘Andrei Ivanovich is asleep at last, so I take this chance to scribble down the things he is too proud to tell you. You may have heard that there was a fracas at Vinkovo lately. We were involved, and it was a very confused business. At one time, we were standing by a grove of trees, and there were a dozen wounded men nearby, lying on stretchers and waiting for an ambulance cart. There was a shed nearby, and a sort of low wall of bales of straw. Andrei had dismounted to tighten his girth, and as he did so, a shell landed near the wounded and lay there with its fuse burning. We scattered, naturally, but the wounded men couldn’t move. Andrei ran over and picked up the shell, then dropped it over the other side of the straw bales. It exploded as it hit the ground, but the bales saved his body, and only his hands were caught. Some of his fingers were blown off. He was unconscious for two days, and must fight hard against the fever and loss of blood, but he is very low, and his treatment of you is haunting him and dragging him down. If he goes on like this, he will have no will to resist infection and may die. I beg you to write him a line, and even if you can’t forgive him, please remember his courage and try to pretend. Sorry about the paper, it was all I could find. No time for more.’ This part was signed by Sasha Tuchin on his own behalf.

By the time she reached the end of the letter, tears had filled Nadya’s eyes, and were spilling over. Tatya, who was reading the rest of the letters, and Irina, who was reading Lev’s again for the third time, did not notice anything until Nadya stood up suddenly and moved towards the door, hands outstretched as though she were blind.

‘What is it, Nadya?’ Tatya exclaimed, looking up. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To the church,’ Nadya replied. ‘I’ll not be long.’

‘Is something wrong?’ Tatya tried to see her face, but she had turned her head away.

‘R-read the letter.’ Nadya made a vague gesture to where it lay on the floor by her chair, and went out. It had turned much colder in the past few days, and she automatically put on overshoes and flung a cloak about her shoulders, but she did not notice that a few snowflakes were fluttering down as she left the house, nor even that, by the time she reached the bridge, they were falling quite fast.

The parish priest was in the church when she reached it, and he stepped forward to greet her, but after one look at her face, he retreated into his vestry behind the iconostasis and busied himself there, leaving the curtain pulled back and frequently looking into the church to see if Nadya needed his help.

She lit a candle before the icon of St Andrei the first-called, then stood before it, her eyes on the flame, which flickered in the slight draught from the doors. She could hardly recall a word of the formal sentences which Andrei had dictated, but some of the hurried, blunt phrases of Sasha’s addition were very clear in her mind, sending a cold chill through her, as much by what they left unsaid as anything.

Maimed hands—fingers town off—How long had he waited before anything was done to ease the pain? How much blood had he lost? Was there a surgeon in the hospital, or was he left to the hurried attention of some ignorant apothecary?

He had survived the first few days, but the pain and shock must have been…Was this how Tatya had felt when she heard about Nikolai Volkhov—a dear friend? But she’d only known him a little more than two days, and they’d exchanged only a few sentences—not even a conversation. Why should she feel this news about him so deeply?

‘I think I must be in love with him,’ Nadya thought, looking at the dark, inscrutable eyes of the icon. ‘I can’t bear to think of him in pain, and to know that he’s anxious and wretched because of me…I want to help him, but I can’t do anything except pray…Please! You’re his saint—help him, give him peace of mind—be with him in his pain!’

She stood for a long time, praying in much the same terms, and then it seemed that something touched her very lightly, and the numb, helpless feeling faded. She sighed, looked about her, then walked slowly towards the church door. The priest came out of the sanctuary and hurried after her, catching her in the doorway.

Daughter, may I help you? You looked very distressed.’