The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire (17 page)

At Grodno, my colonel bid me farewell.

“You have much to learn, Aleksandr Vasilevich,” he said. “Be frank with any commander you may have. And write immediately to your family for confirmation of your entitlements as a nobleman. Otherwise you will never be an officer.”

I bid the colonel good-bye. As I watched the regiment depart, I had an urge to gallop Alcides after them. Suddenly, I was all alone.

I stayed at a roadside tavern. Alcides, hearing the regiment’s horses move on, pawed the ground and danced nervously in his stall. Outside the tavern there was a great commotion. Uhlan cavalrymen were playing music and singing at full voice, dancing and leaping about. They swilled vodka from canteens and invited the young lads of Grodno to join in.

As I later learned very well, this was the
Verbunok
, the military recruiting ritual, much like a traveling circus, enticing young men to join the ranks. I watched the parade of merry soldiers, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders. A cadet approached me.

“How do you like our life? It’s marvelous, isn’t it?”

“Indeed!” I replied, though I found this carnival atmosphere odd and undignified.

“Join us, then!” replied the cadet. “We are the Polish horse lancers. Be one of our uhlans, lad!”

He strode on in pursuit of new recruits.

I learned that the Polish uhlans were recruiting after heavy losses in battle. They needed every breathing body they could find. There were loud dinners where recruits were swayed by camaraderie and vodka. For me, this intimacy and drinking were poison. I wanted only to ride and fight, not be scrutinized by drunken soldiers who might comment on my feminine build.

The next day I saw the same cadet and asked if I could join the Polish regiment—which had an excellent reputation as courageous horsemen—without attending the raucous parties.

He laughed. “You will be in the commander’s good graces forgoing the
Verbunok
! I will take you to see him at once!”

The cadet escorted me to Cavalry Captain Kazimirski’s office. On the way we passed through the large public room, typical of any tavern. Drunken cadets and prospective recruits capered and danced, one uhlan catching me by the waist. He spun me across the floor, preparing to dance the mazurka.

The deputy cadet came to my rescue, pulling me by my long Cossack sleeve toward the captain’s office.

The captain was about fifty years old. His good-natured face was tempered with a steely look earned from valor and experience in battle. He looked me over.

“State your business.”

“My name is Aleksandr Durov,” I said, using my father’s last name for the first time. “I come to join the Polish uhlans.”

“But you are a Don Cossack! You should be serving there.”

“My clothes deceive you, forgive me. I am a Russian nobleman but have traveled here with the Don Cossacks. They gave me these clothes. I wish to be part of your regiment, Captain Kazimirski.”

“A noble? Can you prove it?”

“No. I have run away from home without consent of my father. At the end of the campaign I will write him. You will see that I speak the truth.”

“Your age?”

“I am in my seventeenth year.”

He turned to one of the regiment’s officers and asked in Polish, “What shall we do? What if he is a Cossack, run away from his unit?”

“He is no Cossack. And he is too young to lie so convincingly. Obviously he is noble born,” said a lieutenant. “Look at his hands. Unscarred and uncallused. There is a war on and we need good recruits.”

The captain was not convinced. “He is terribly young.”

“I have my own horse,” I offered.

“Impossible!” said the captain, turning to me. “An uhlan is given a horse from the picket line. If we take you, you will have a chance to sell your horse here in Grodno.”

“Sell him!” I said. “God preserve me from that misfortune! I have money. I will feed my horse at my own expense, and I won’t part from him for anything on earth.”

I saw the reluctance in the captain melt. He was a cavalryman, and my fierce attachment to my horse was the deciding factor.

“I will have to secure permission for you to serve on him. All right, Durov!” he motioned to an uhlan. “Go with uhlan Orlov. He will teach you to ride in formation, wield a saber, shoot, master a lance, and tack your horse with our equipment.”

With a curt salute to the captain, Orlov escorted me to a simple cottage where I would be instructed along with all the other new recruits.

Every day at dawn, the new recruits met at the muster room and then went on to the stables. I learned quickly, and the instructor told me I would be a gallant lad.

But brandishing the heavy eight-foot lance! The uhlans’ spear was even heavier than the Cossacks’! I didn’t have the muscles for it. I hit my head several times as my arm gave way to fatigue. I was not much better with the saber, despite practicing Denisov’s technique. I was deathly tired, my arm quivering under the weight. For days my muscles made me feel like some bird whose wings had been stretched to snapping from the joint.

As a nobleman, I was invited to dine with Captain Kazimirski. Although I could barely keep my eyes open during the meal, the captain quizzed me to see how much I had learned in my instruction.

“What do you think of military craft?” he asked me.

I told him I had devoted myself to learning the uhlan exercises and that I considered a cavalryman’s calling to be the noblest on earth.

“Most important is fearlessness!” I said. Perhaps it was the glass of vodka forced on me or my fatigue that made me so adamant. “Fearlessness is indivisible from the greatness of the soul, and the combination of these two great virtues leaves no room for vice and low passions.”

The room of officers laughed at my passion. But Captain Kazimirski silenced them with a stern look.

“Cadet Durov. Do you really think, young man, that it is impossible to have qualities meriting respect without being fearless? There are a great number of people who are timid by nature and have outstanding qualities.”

“I can well believe it, Captain,” I answered. “But I also think that a fearless man must surely be virtuous. And it is a fearless man who can serve our tsar.”

How I have revisited that conversation! I was drunk on devotion to the uhlans. I wanted nothing more than to serve my country . . . and my tsar.

“Ah! To Tsar Alexander!” shouted the officers, standing and raising their glasses.

I pulled myself to my feet unsteadily, lifting my glass high.

“To our blessed Tsar Alexander!” I said. “The most fearless of all Russians!”

The captain patted me on the shoulder. “Perhaps you are right, Cadet Durov, about the qualities of fearlessness. But let’s wait for your first battle—experience can be rather disillusioning.”

I heard the grunts of affirmation from the other officers as they drained their glasses of wine and vodka.

How true those words were.

We rode on to Lithuania, toward Vilna. The land was choked with stones, the soil dense with brittle clay. Despite the toil of farmers and serfs, the earth delivered a poor crop. The people were sullen, their faces hollow, their eyes haunted with starvation. The only bread to be had was as black as soot, the dough full of bits of dirt.

At last I was awarded a uniform: my own saber, lance, wooden epaulets, a plumed helmet, and a white cross-belt with cartridges.

Ah, and government-issued boots!

As hard as the lance was to brandish, my boots were the true tyranny! They were like iron traps clamped on my feet. Attached to my heels were heavy spurs that clanked as I walked. Fettered with such footwear I had to stop taking the carefree walks in the woods when we were stationed in a camp—at least until I had developed a fine set of calluses.

In Lithuania, we were stationed at the edge of a swamp in a poor village. Captain Kazimirski assigned me and another young comrade, Wyszemirski, to the first platoon under the command of Lieutenant Boshnjakov.

Wyszemirski was not but a year or so older than I was. He had fair hair and pale eyes, faded as blue fabric left in sun. He knew only a little more than I did but helped me learn maneuvers, how to clean my weapons, where and how to tie Alcides on the picket line. In formation next to me was Kosmy Banka, a stout young man who was a dark as Wyszemirski was fair. He was always first to dinner and drank my ration of vodka that I gave him happily.

“An uhlan who does not drink!” Banka exclaimed merrily, his pudgy hands cradling a tin cup. “I have indeed found a good comrade.”

In my spare time after drills and maneuvers, I scavenged the harvested field, searching for overlooked potatoes. I filled my plumed cap with what I found under the clotted earth, my fingernails caked with its brown clay.

My Lithuanian hostess accepted them each day with a scowl. She hated the Russians who occupied her home. Although she cooked the potatoes I brought, she would shove the clay bowl sullenly across the table. On her face was written her deep spite for us, regarding us only as occupiers.

I remembered the babushka who nursed me when I was a dying girl, feverish with smallpox, here in the same land. That good woman had sung of horse spirits and placed horse bones beside my pallet to call down magic to cure me.

I lay awake in bed wondering about these strange Lithuanians whose land we had conquered and annexed. Having recently tasted my own liberty for the first time, I sensed more keenly the bitter hatred they had for the Russians who so casually requisitioned their houses for quarters, turning the owners into servants.

Their independence was worth fighting for! They had once ruled the Russian lands in their own empire. They had conquered Moscow!

But I still became angry when the woman treated my gift of potatoes with contempt. Spiteful woman!

Chapter 24

Guttstadt, Prussia

May 22, 1807

At last! We ride into battle. This is what I had been waiting for. After months of drilling, action at last! We entered Prussia and faced the enemy in Guttstadt. I was given permission to ride Alcides. Now I could prove myself to my country and tsar.

I still could not hold my oak lance as high as I should have, despite all the will I could muster. But I was ready to face whatever came my way.

I had never heard the boom of cannon fire, nor had my horse. Alcides jumped sideways, skittering along the rutted road. The roar and ominous rumble of the cannonballs filled the air.

Our regiment was ordered on attack several times, rotating by squadrons. I did not understand the tactics and joined each squadron every time they were called into battle. I rode hard into the attack, circled around to regroup, and attacked again.

I thought that was how it was done.

A squadron leader—not my own—rode alongside me shouting, “Get the hell out of here! Go back to your own squadron!”

I rode back, Alcides lathered and heaving. His barrel expanded and collapsed like giant bellows.

“I’m sorry, boy,” I said, stroking him.

Our squadron was ordered to rest while the other squadrons pressed on. I thought this a terrible waste of time—why should we not all ride forward together and defeat the enemy at once?

Instead of following orders, I rode Alcides to a nearby knoll where I could better see the battle scene. Suddenly I caught sight of several enemy dragoons surrounding a Russian officer. A pistol shot rang out and the officer fell to the ground from his horse. The enemy prepared to hack him to death where he lay.

Finding a burst of strength, I hoisted my oak lance and galloped Alcides down toward the murderous scene. The dragoons saw the lance pointed at them, approaching at a thunderous pace. They scattered, leaving the Russian officer bleeding on the muddy patch of grass. I rode over to him, Alcides and I blanketing him with our shadow. The officer lay deathly still, his eyes closed.

As the moment wore on, he twitched his eye. I could see he was feigning death, sure I was a Frenchman standing over him.

“Are you all right, sir,” I asked him in Russian. “They have fled. But so has your horse.”

“You are Russian!” he gasped. “My horse?”

“Galloped away.” I thought for a second. “Do you have need of mine?”

The officer winced, pulling himself up to a sitting position. He clapped a hand over his shoulder, blood oozing through his uniform.

“Oh, be so kind, my friend,” he said. “I must get back to my regiment.”

I did not think. I slid off my beloved Alcides and tried to help the officer astride.

Weakened from his wound, he could not mount, even with my help. We struggled trying to get him into the saddle, but he was as immobile as a bag of stones.

With luck a soldier from his regiment saw us and offered help. We got the officer into the saddle, though he slumped forward, making Alcides prance.

“Ride off before he falls!” I ordered the soldier. “Return my horse to Recruit Durov in the Polish Horse Regiment.”

“Of course, Durov,” he said, taking the reins over Alcides’s head, leading off the wounded man. “You have saved Lieutenant Panin of the Finnish Dragoons. On behalf of our regiment, we thank you,” he said, touching his heart.

He spotted a group of soldiers crossing the edge of the wood. “Over here!” he shouted. “We need help!”

I watched Alcides swing his head toward me as the soldiers led him off. I was left alone in the muddy trampled field. The thud of cannonballs was coming closer, as were the shouts of men.

Alcides! What have I done?

Running through the charges, gunfire, and swordfights, I dashed like a rabbit across the battlefield. Horses’ hooves churned up clods of mud and grass, pelting my face and obscuring my vision. I stumbled through the flash of guns, clambered over dead soldiers and horses torn open by cannonballs, their guts slippery underfoot. Men on horses charged by me, once a pair of spurs snagged my uniform jacket.

And I? A cavalry soldier without a horse, scrambling back to my squadron.

Alcides! Where are you now?

When I finally staggered back to my regiment, the captain rode up to me.

“Are you wounded, Durov? Did they kill your horse?”

“That great horse!” exclaimed another. “These French demons!”

When I explained what had happened, the captain shouted at me.

“Get away from the front, you fool!”

I ran further back where I saw lances with the pennons of the Polish Horse Regiment.

Men looked down on me from their horses.

“Oh, my God! Look, at the blood on his uniform!”

“What! Such a young boy to be wounded!”

I looked down on my breast and saw the swath of blood from where I had supported Lieutenant Panin’s body against mine. My sleeves too were still wet in blood.

And Alcides was gone.

No one can describe the fatigue that comes from a day at battle. First the fiendish cold! That year spring forgot to appear. I had my great coat—a soldier’s salvation—stashed in my saddlebags, which had disappeared with Alcides. My uniform jacket was wet, chilling me to the bone. And the cold rain showed no mercy. Wind blew stinging drops sideways until I shivered in spasms.

Grapeshot from the French cannons rained down on us even when we were too far out of range for them to do real damage, pinging against my hat, bouncing off the sleeves of my jacket. The cold of fear, wind, and rain permeated my bones until I ached like an old man. My eyes were swollen into slits from the chill and lack of sleep until I could barely see.

Haunted by the crack of gunfire, the bright red and blues of the French army, the fierce crimson of blood, I fell asleep huddled at the foot of a linden tree.

An infantry soldier from our regiment came by, shaking me by the shoulder. “Vodka, comrade? A piece of bread and lard?”

He obviously took pity on me, a weak child splashed in blood, asleep.

“Eat,” he said. “You have seen your share of battle today. They say you have lost your horse.”

He offered me a draft of vodka.

“Yes,” I said, groaning. I pulled myself up to a sitting position, every muscle in my body rebelling. I drew a gulp of vodka from his canteen and made a face.

“I will give you water,” he said. “But the vodka will warm your bones, lad.”

He pulled another canteen from his leather bag. I drank greedily.

The soldier squatted beside me watching me chew the food. Even my jaw hurt, though I could not understand why.

“My horse, Alcides. I asked them to return him.”

The soldier laughed.

“You are wet behind the ears! Do you think that wounded officer will have the wits to return your pretty horse when we are in battle? Best forget that horse, lad.”

Alcides? Forget my best friend, my only link to my home, my father?

I fought back tears, pushing them away savagely with the pad of my thumb. The infantry solider regarded me, offering me another swallow of his precious vodka.

“You need to recover,” he said. “You need to eat. You are not a man yet. Our blessed Emperor Alexander would not wish a child’s blood spilt in this terrible war.”

“I am seventeen
,” I mumbled.

“You are a liar,” he said, spitting on the ground. “You do not look older than fourteen. And if you are seventeen, you are the puniest runt I ever saw. Your mother should have drowned you at birth.”

A few days later, after fighting on an unwieldy gelding that did not respond to my heels, reins, or whip, I chanced to see one of our lieutenants, Podwayzacki, galloping away from the enemy position on Alcides.

Alcides saw me and neighed loudly, shaking the lieutenant with his roar.

“He knows you!”

“Lieutenant! He is my horse,” I said, jumping off my nag to greet my old friend. “I joined the regiment on him, do you not remember?”

Alcides began to prance and frisk about.

I broke out in a smile, the first since battle.

“Is this really your horse?” said Lieutenant Podwayzacki.

“I gave him to a wounded Lieutenant Panin of the Finnish Dragoons. They said they would return him to me.”

“You gave your horse away? You are a fool, Durov! I bought this horse from Cossacks for two gold pieces. And I mean to keep him.”

“But—”

“If you are fool enough to give your horse away in battle, you are not intelligent enough to ride so magnificent a mount! I will keep him.”

“No!”

“What did you say, Recruit Durov?” Alcides felt the lieutenant’s hand tighten on the reins. He threw his head. “Did you contradict me, Durov? You! Who gave away your horse in the heat of battle, you walk across a raging battlefield like a blind dog—”

“I have money, lieutenant! I will give you twice what you paid for him, just give him back to me. My father gave me Alcides. He is the only friend I have!”

Alcides nickered and, ignoring Lieutenant Podwayzacki’s hand on the reins, took a step toward me, nudging my shoulder. He made me lose my balance and I fell into the mud.

The lieutenant took a deep breath. He looked down at my blood-encrusted uniform, my smoke-streaked face.

Who else but a horse would choose me for a friend? I was rash, incompetent, pitifully weak.

“You know, Durov, we are fighting Napoleon for our Tsar and country. This is not a child’s romp on ponies. I will give you back your horse if you reimburse me my expense. But let me have him now. My horse was killed and I must carry on in the field with my squadron. There is a battle to fight.”

“All right,” I said, nodding. He spurred forward Alcides, heading back toward the battlefield. “God bless you, Lieutenant.”

As he rode off to the blackened, smoking hillside, I called to him.

“Take care of yourself, Lieutenant Podwayzacki! And my horse! Take care of my Alcides!”