Twelve (9 page)

I
T HAS ALWAYS STRUCK ME AS INTERESTING THE WAY THAT MEANING
transcends language. Recalling, for instance, the conversation we had exchanged with those French soldiers that night, I know that it took place in French, but if I were to recount it, I could do it just as well in French or Russian or even Italian. I had remembered the meaning of what was said rather than the details of the words.

Once, back in Petersburg, I had had a long conversation with an old soldier. He had received a head wound fighting the Turks during the reign of the Tsarina Yekaterina, under General Suvarov. A huge chunk of his brain was missing. It affected his ability to move and his ability to speak, but within that straitjacket of incapacity, his mind was as sharp as ever. Communication was difficult, though with practice it became easier. When he spoke, I had to listen carefully to the ill-formed sounds he produced. When he found he was at a loss to express himself, I had to guess his meaning and prompt him with suggestions until we found one with which he was happy.

And yet when I later was talking to Marfa about him, I could recall every detail of his fascinating life as if he had told me it in perfect, fluent Russian. Although I remembered the difficulties we had had in communicating, that memory was stored separately in my mind from what had actually been communicated.

Thus, as Pierre hailed us with his wish of 'good luck', one part of my mind reacted to its friendly meaning. Another part screamed at me the warning that the phrase was spoken in Russian – a tongue that I should not comprehend. It was a race between the two thoughts as to which I would act upon first. In the end, the victor did not matter. Vadim spoke before I could react in any way.

'Pardon?' he said, turning back to Pierre and sticking with French.

Pierre repeated the phrase, and then explained in French. 'It's Russian for "good luck".'

'Ah, I see,' smiled Vadim. 'I thought it sounded Russian.'

'You don't speak it?' asked Pierre.

'Not a word,' said Vadim, while I shook my head.

'Pierre here speaks it like a native,' said Stephan. 'He should be a spy.' He paused and considered for a moment. 'Unless, of course, he already is. He could be spying on us for them.' Louis and Guillaume both laughed.

'Go on, Pierre,' said Louis. 'Hit us with some more.'

Pierre rolled out a few sentences in a passable accent. They were clearly intended to catch out any honest Russian who understood them.

'Your wife is a whore, and last night she screwed my dog' was the first, followed by 'Tsar Aleksandr likes to suck General Kutuzov's cock.' Finally, he recounted an often told but utterly false story concerning the death of Tsarina Yekaterina. While I might have fallen for the trickery of his surprise 'good luck', it was easy enough for Vadim and me now to pretend not to understand a word he said. For many senior officers of the generation before ours, little pretence would have been necessary. For a century, French had been the language of the cultivated Russian. Russian was the language of the serf. For most nations, the spies are chosen from amongst men who are fluent in a foreign tongue – men like Pierre. In Russia, spies were men such as Vadim, Dmitry, Maks and myself who, unusually, could communicate with our own populace. Only now, thanks largely to the common enemy that all Russians saw in Bonaparte, were things changing.

'And what was all that about, Pierre?' asked Louis. Pierre translated and we all laughed, particularly about Yekaterina and the horse.

We said goodbye once more and made our way out of the camp, not convinced that they trusted us, but resisting the urge to break into a run. We were almost beyond sight of the group around the fire when we saw ahead of us three French officers about to enter the camp. I readied myself to nonchalantly salute as we passed, but as they came closer, their three faces became recognizable.

It was Iuda, Foma and Matfei.

'Aleksei Ivanovich! Vadim Fyodorovich! What might you be doing here?' asked Iuda. 'Surely you haven't gone over to the other side?' He had a degree of good-humoured sarcasm that I was surprised to hear from any of the Oprichniki.

'Just a little espionage,' explained Vadim. 'And you?'

Iuda smiled. 'We come not to spy, but to kill.' Matfei and Foma shuffled their feet, impatient that this needless conversation was delaying the action. 'It's a good job we didn't come sooner,' continued Iuda. 'You make such convincing Frenchmen.'

I was keen to leave, but I felt we owed Iuda some of the benefit of our research. 'There's over a hundred men back there,' I told him. 'You don't stand a chance.' Even as I spoke, I remembered what we had witnessed Pyetr, Ioann and Varfolomei achieve earlier that night, and I doubted my own words.

Iuda patted my shoulder condescendingly. 'Thanks for your concern, Aleksei. See you soon.'

Then they were gone, vanishing into the darkness of the night to become shadows illuminated only by the campfires, mingling amicably amongst the men that they were soon to turn on. Vadim and I walked briskly away, each of us secretly hoping to be out of earshot before the Oprichniki began their work.

Back in Goryachkino, we changed into our regular clothes. Vadim's horse was still tied up where he had left it. He mounted and set off ahead of me towards our own encampments to the east of Borodino. I continued on foot. The rain poured down on me, driven even harder by the gusting wind, and the road became muddy under my feet. I envied Vadim his quick journey on horseback, but I pressed on.

Dawn broke with no sound of birdsong. The sound of those birds that even dared to speak was smothered by the sound of twelve hundred guns opening fire as the battle began to the south. It was a beautiful sound, at least to a soldier, which was what I still liked to regard myself as. There is a simplicity to a battle that appeals to every soldier, be he the most cerebral officer or the basest
ryadovoy
. It is a suspension of morality that allows a man to act without conscience, safe in the knowledge that it is his duty to destroy the enemy. The politics, for that short duration, are the business of others. Between battles, some men suppress their doubts with unconditional love for the tsar, some with complex political reasoning, some with plain, brute stupidity.

I belonged to the middle group, and I had been a long time between battles. But I knew that I could make little difference as a soldier on my own, and so I walked on, trying to pass the battle, to meet up with Vadim, rejoin the Oprichniki and direct them to do some real damage.

To the north of Borodino, the Moskva flowed east to Moscow, but here it turned a little to the south, forcing me closer to the battlefield than my head – though not my heart – would have liked. I skirted the village of Loginovo, close enough to see that it was swarming with Bavarian cavalry, but not close enough for them to see me. My next problem was to cross the Kolocha. It wasn't a huge river, just a tributary of the Moskva, but I knew I would have to head south, towards the battle, to find a suitable point to ford it. Eventually, I found a shallow. Thinking of Maks, and musing as to whether I would simply be able to walk across the water, I stepped out into the river.

Almost as my foot touched it, the surface began to shake and ripple. It was already broken by rainfall, but this disturbance had a different pattern – one with which I was familiar. The air was still filled with the sound of cannon fire, but as I listened more carefully, I heard what I had been expecting: the sound of hooves.

Before I could turn to look, I was surrounded by horsemen; Cossacks – from the Astrakhan
voisko
, by the look of them. But they were in full retreat, almost a stampede. They crossed the river without troubling to pause, ignoring me and galloping by on either side. Amongst them were several horses that had thrown or lost their riders. They had been initially caught up in the frenzy of their stablemates, but now they were beginning to slow. I grabbed the harness of one of them and hauled myself on to it, spurring it on to catch up with the rest of the group. I glanced behind me and caught a glimpse of what they were fleeing from – a squad of Bavarian cavalry pursuing them at full gallop. I didn't pause to wait for them. Once across the river, it was easy for me to get ahead of the disorganized rabble and then turn my horse to face them.

'Pull yourselves together,' I shouted, but I suspect it was more the need to avoid collision with me than any order I gave which ultimately caused them to halt. Once a dozen or so had pulled up and gathered around me, some degree of order was returned, and most of the remainder turned to join us. A few galloped off into the distance, but I had no time to concern myself with them. There were almost fifty who stayed with me. I drew my sabre, and charged back towards the Bavarians with an incoherent roar.

For a moment, I did not know if the Cossacks would follow, but I soon found myself riding with horsemen at my side, behind me, and even a few stretching out in front. Within seconds, we were upon the Bavarians. Our two squadrons clashed and then intermingled without resistance, like two droplets of water forming into one. But within that new, single droplet a battle raged. I fought with my sabre, as did many of the Cossacks, but others fired pistols at close range. The enemy was similarly armed, and whilst the two sides might have been on a level in their use of pistols, a pistol can only be fired once. After that, the Cossacks showed far greater skill – and savagery – with the use of the blade.

Even in the heat of battle, I made a comparison with the Oprichniki, or rather how I had imagined our working with the Oprichniki would be; that they would require leadership, but once given that they would fight beside their Russian leaders like heroes. But that was not how it had turned out. The Oprichniki shunned us, and when they did fight, they fought like cowards, both in their ambush at the farmhouse and later when they infiltrated the French camp. It was, in contrast, an honour to fight alongside these Cossacks, even though their customs were as strange to me as were those of the Wallachians.

I didn't hear the Bavarians' call to retreat, but in an instant the two droplets had separated again and the enemy was in flight. I charged after them, elated by the heat of the battle.

'Come back and fight, God damn you!' I heard a voice shout, and realized it was my own. At the same time, I knew that pursuit was foolish. We were heading back towards Loginovo, where I had seen so many more Bavarians; more than we could ever defeat. I turned my horse around and the Cossacks followed. Once we had crossed the Kolocha for the third time in but a few minutes, we slowed down to a canter, and I asked the sergeant to lead us back to their camp.

He pointed us to the south-east, and then spoke to me.

'That was very impressive, sir. After we lost our lieutenant, I thought we were done for.'

'Thank you.' I was too out of breath to say much more. There were a few moments' silence before he spoke again.

'Just one thing, sir.'

'Yes?'

'Why all the swearing, sir? Fighting's a sacred business. Swearing in battle, well, it's like swearing in church.'

I looked at him in amazement, and yet I already knew that Cossacks took their fighting extremely seriously.

'I'll try to keep that in mind,' I said.

'God will punish you, sir,' he continued, not in the blood-and-guts tone of a priest, but just as if he were reminding me that it was a good idea to keep the lock of my musket clean. His reasoning was equally straightforward. 'You'll get killed . . . and so will we.'

I laughed, throwing my head back, more out of the euphoria of the battle than anything else, but I admired the practicality of his piety.

Once back behind our own lines, we were passed from officer to officer until I finally faced the Cossacks' commander, General Platov. The sergeant explained what had happened. Platov stroked his thin moustache and eyed me up and down.

'And who the devil are you?' he asked.

'Captain Danilov, sir; Hussar Life Guard Regiment.'

'And where's your uniform?'

'I've been on special duties, sir.'

Platov knew that if this was true, then he would get little response to any further questions. On the other hand, it was an easy enough claim for anyone to make. I was about to show him my papers, but before I could he spoke briefly to an adjutant, who then rode off.

'We'll soon see about that,' he said.

He didn't speak to me any further, but rode a little way away and began viewing the terrain through his spyglass. A few minutes later, his adjutant returned, accompanied by a figure that even from a distance I could recognize by his mop of thick, dark curly hair. It was Lieutenant-General Fyedor Pyetrovich Uvarov, officially my commanding officer. On seeing his arrival, Platov rode back over to join the two of us. He arrived just as Uvarov greeted me.

'Come back to join us, Aleksei Ivanovich?' asked Uvarov, with half a smile. He had not been resentful when Vadim had asked him if I might be temporarily borrowed from his regiment, but he had been sorry to see me go.

'Just passing through, sir,' I replied.

'You can vouch for this man then?' asked Platov.

'As much as anyone can,' said Uvarov.

'You want him back?' Platov spoke in the same tone as he would have discussed a lost dog.

Uvarov raised a questioning eyebrow at me.

'I think I'm happy where I am, sir,' I said.

'Very good,' said Platov, still scarcely bothering to look at me. He looked at his pocket watch. 'Make yourself ready, we advance in ten minutes.'

And so, a quarter of an hour later, I had led my Cossacks across the Kolocha once more, accompanied by many others. All of Platov's Cossacks, Bashkirs and Tatars took part in the attack, along with Uvarov's more regular cavalry, amongst whom I might in a different life have found myself. This time, we outflanked the Bavarians, but almost as soon as we had crossed the river, we encountered both cavalry and light infantry, which Uvarov's forces engaged, allowing the rest of us to further outflank the enemy and get behind their lines.