The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire (26 page)

I returned to the apartment where the emperor’s aide-de-camp Captain Zass hosted me until I left for the Mariupol Hussars’ regiment. Madame Zass fussed over me until I almost couldn’t stand it.

I was taking a cup of tea one afternoon when we heard a knock at the door. An orderly answered and I heard another voice, vaguely familiar.

“May I see Recruit Durov of the Polish Horse Regiment?”

“I am Durov,” I answered, at once standing. An old man entered, hat in hand.

I stared. He was my father’s young brother, Nicolaj Durov.

My uncle approached me and then gave me an embrace. He whispered in my ear.

“Nadezhda. Your mother is dead.”

When we were out of Zass’s apartment on the street, I finally trusted myself to talk. His words had pierced my heart.

“Dead?” I said. I trembled, my face drained of blood.

“Nadezhda, come home with me,” Uncle Nicolaj said, motioning to his sleigh. “I will tell you all there.”

I nodded, being guided like a half-wit. The rush of grief and shock robbed me of all senses. I settled into the black leather seat. I ducked my face into my greatcoat so that the residents of St. Petersburg wouldn’t see me cry as the sleigh glided by.

“Your father received the letter you wrote,” said my uncle, guiding the horse through the snowy city streets.

The letter! I had written to my father to obtain his word that I came from a noble family so that I might become an officer. I had begged him to forgive me for the unbearable suffering and sadness I must have caused him.

I had told him how life with my mother’s scrutiny had become unbearable, how I would rather die than live under the restrictions she proposed for me.

My uncle could see that I could not bear more. He said no more until we reached his apartment, not more than twenty minutes from the Winter Palace. It was another world, a grim building of broken stucco, the red brick exposed like wounds. His rooms smelled of boiled cabbage. My uncle Nicolaj had fallen on hard times.

He lit a single lantern and put a kettle on to boil over the embers of a feeble fire.

“Your father was beside himself trying to find you and get you back, Nadya.” He looked at me sadly across the grimy table. “In his hysteria, he showed your mother the letter, not thinking of how its contents would affect her.”

Oh, no!

“Your mother was already quite ill. Your condemnation of her pushed her over the edge. She said, ‘Nadezhda blames me?’”

He reached across the table and took my hand. “Then she turned her face to the wall and died.”

My face crumpled in agony and I sobbed like a child. Behind the tears, my mind was whirling at the unfairness of it all.

Why is he telling me this? Is he trying to torture me? My mother never loved me. She never said a kind word to me. I only wrote the truth in my letter—if the truth killed her, why am I to blame? How was I to know that my father would show her the letter?

“Let me finish, dear niece,” said my uncle. “There is good that comes along with tragedy. Your father, who loves you, realized you were alive. He sent a letter to me, trying to find your regiment. I showed it to various generals in the Ukraine and again here in St. Petersburg. Finally he wrote to the emperor himself.”

“That is how the Tsar knew!” I said. “He knew I was a woman, Uncle Nikolaj.”

“The letter moved Tsar Alexander to tears, Nadya,” he said. “He contacted me. He wrote your father. The emperor also asked for a full report on your comportment from your commanders. Every officer gave a brilliant commentary to your valor and conduct.”

It was all too much for me to comprehend. I didn’t know what I could say.

“Your father is very proud of you,” my uncle said. “When he hears the emperor awarded you the St. George Cross, he will cry with joy, Nadya!”

I fingered the St. George Cross attached to my buttonhole.

“Call me Alexander Alexandrov, Uncle,” I said, thinking of my dead mother. “The girl Nadya died the day I joined the cavalry.”

Chapter 39

St. Petersburg

February 1808

My uncle wanted me to return to my father’s home immediately, but I told him that it was not possible. I refused to tell him of my new assignment in the Ukraine with the Mariupol Hussars. He badgered me mercilessly, but I did not want him or my father to interfere with my military career.

“I will visit my father when the time is right. Tell him that now I must serve my tsar and Russia.”

Emperor Alexander paid for my Hussar officer uniform: two thousand rubles! Only a son of wealthy nobility could pay such a sum. I was given a travel pass and regimental orders to travel to the Ukraine—my mother’s homeland. That cast a slight shade of a bitter joke on what should have been a joyous voyage.

The other bitter joke was that the Tsar—despite his overwhelming generosity—had not thought to give me money to pay for my trip.

When Alcides and I finally arrived, dusty and weary, I had only one ruble, one single coin, to my name—now Alexander Alexandrov, a name I carried with pride, despite my empty pockets.

I delivered my orders, issued by Count Lieven of the Imperial Court, to the battalion commander, Major Dymchevich. He lifted his eyes from his paperwork, scrutinizing me.

“Did you meet Grand Duke Constantine, the Tsar’s younger brother?” he asked gruffly.

“No,” I replied. “Only the Tsar himself.”

“Hmm.” He nodded. I thought he should have been impressed, but he didn’t show any sign that he was. “Go to the regimental adjutant and give him these papers,” he said with a flourish of signature.

I was immediately given command of the Fourth Squadron until the return of the regular commander away on leave. This squadron was based in a hamlet of Berezolupy, where I was given quarters with a woman landowner, Pani Staroscina. She treated me as if I were one of her grandsons, giving me a cup of warm milk for breakfast.

“You are too young to be an officer!” she said to me. “What are the Mariupol Hussars thinking, giving a command to you.”

“I am nearly nineteen,” I protested. “I fought in the Battle of Friedland!”

“Well,” she said, suppressing a smile. “At least wipe the milk foam from your mouth before you address your new squadron.”

A junior officer, with all the pomposity and gas of a rotten melon, greeted me. “Fine horse,” he boomed. Then he looked about. “But where are the rest of your horses?”

“I was told I would be assigned another from the regiment.”

“Yes, but you are an officer! You must have one for your pack and one in reserve, of course. And you must have an orderly.”

I groaned inwardly.

“I have no money,” I told him. “I cannot possibly buy another horse, let alone pay an orderly.”

“You are a Hussar now!” he roared as if I had been accepted into Olympus as a new god. “You can buy a horse on credit. I know a man who has one to sell you.”

I was sent to see the horse in question, a lop-eared gelding, whose conformation and wit could not compare with Alcides.

But what horse could?

I bought the horse at the price of one hundred rubles silver, paid on credit until I received my wages. I named him Lop Ear.

I wasted no time writing to Count Lieven in St. Petersburg. Tsar Alexander had instructed me to write if I required anything.

I asked for the loan of five hundred rubles to begin my career. I wrote with regret that I had not a ruble to my name.

My request was answered immediately, and I paid the horse dealer his one hundred rubles.

And now it seemed as if my military training had to begin anew. With the Polish uhlans, I had learned—painfully—about lances and sabers. Now I had to master a new weapon: the carbine.

I had to train with old Grebennik, the flank Hussar of my platoon.

“Order arms! Slope arms! Present arms!” He rattled commands while my head spun.

I was hopelessly clumsy. My hands were slow and awkward when Grebennik commanded, “Slope arms!” or “Present arms!” But when he barked “Order arms!”—with the carbine butt on the ground and the barrel in my hand—I failed even more miserably.

“Don’t worry about your foot, Your Honor!” he insisted. “Toss the gun more boldly!”

“I’m trying!”

“Don’t worry about your foot, damn it!”

I gritted my teeth and tried not to worry. The heavy gun stock crashed down on my instep. I limped for a month. My new squadron fought smiles as they watched me dismount from my lop-eared horse, wincing.

But I had learned the carbine drill.

“You are to present your regiment to the divisional commander, Count Suvorov.”

“Suvorov?” I repeated in wonderment.

“Yes, the son of the great general.”

There was no name more revered in Russian military history than Suvorov—except for Peter the Great. In sixty battles over his lifetime, General Suvorov had never known defeat. His victories against the Turks had saved Russia in the Ottoman wars, lest we all be subjects of the sultan. Every Russian knew his name: the general who had crossed the snowy Alps with his army as only Hannibal had done before—and then driven Napoleon out of northern Italy.

My first review would be an inspection by the son of Russia’s hero.

My colonel’s voice pulled me from my reverie. “Make sure your squadron is perfectly drilled, Alexandrov.”

The name Suvorov echoed in my ears as I made certain that my squadron was turned out perfectly in their white dress uniforms, gold trim, and white-plumed shakos. As we stood, arrayed and waiting, I could not help but think we resembled ladies at a St. Petersburg ball, especially the youngest of us with our fresh faces and slender waists.

I rode Lop Ear, wanting to save Alcides for the final inspection the next day by our corps commander Dokhturov. Besides, I needed to expose the new horse to drills to give him the training he needed.

Unfortunately, Lop Ear decided it was I who needed training.

I realized quickly that Lop Ear must never have ridden at the front of the ranks before, for when I urged him forward to the lead role, he kept backing up and shying sideways, working his way back into formation. I spurred him forward and he reciprocated by arching his neck and rearing.

Count Suvorov rode past our regiment, inspecting our formation. I held my breath, my spurs at the ready at my horse’s side. The count moved ahead and gave the command, “Honorable officers!”

At this command the entire regiment charged forward at a full gallop to their commander. Lop Ear refused to budge, despite my spurs. I gave him a few hard whacks with the flat of my saber. He responded with a languid gallop, his donkey ears waving like banners.

Count Suvorov waited patiently until I had rejoined my squadron. Then he proceeded to call out the orders we would perform the next day for Commander Dokhturov.

“By the platoon, to the right, wheel!” he called.

Lop Ear would have no part of it. He arched his back, snorting, jumping sideways, knocking aside my subordinates’ horses. Seeing that there was no good end in sight, I ordered my sergeant to take my place before the platoon.

I smacked my mount with the broad end of my sword, making him race full speed down the Lutsk road.

My platoon watched me disappear, riding the vinegar out of old Lop Ear.

Count Suvorov observed wryly, “The young officer doesn’t appear to want to drill with us.”

That night I was invited to dine with this gracious count. With impeccable manners he avoided all reference to my hasty exit down the Lutsk road.

Lop Ear proved a disastrous purchase. Six weeks passed while I tried in vain to train the obstreperous horse. Finally Captain Podjampolsky gave me one of his string, a frisky young stallion.

Oh, that Podjampolsky! He must have laughed up his sleeve when he assigned me that horse!

Our maneuvers were proceeding well when I gave the final command.

“From your places charge—
charge!
”

My stallion reared and then surged ahead. The abrupt lurch ripped the scabbard of my saber loose from its front strap, leaving it dangling between my horse’s legs.

As the scabbard whacked him, my horse bucked at full gallop, loosening me from the saddle. On the third galloping buck, I fell hard to the ground, losing consciousness.

What happened next was almost my undoing.

The officers picked me up from the ground, unhooking my tunic. They undid my necktie, calling for the regiment physician to bleed me immediately.

I slowly regained consciousness feeling the cool air on my bare skin as they prepared to undress me completely!

I struggled up to a sitting position. “I am all right. All right, I say!” batting their hands away from me.

“Fetch my horse, I shall remount immediately!” The world was still spinning, but I could not risk my identity being discovered, even if I stood a chance of killing myself on the wild-eyed stallion.

This was not the end of the adventure. After the maneuvers, Major General Dymchevich, the battalion commander, sent for me. He rode with me apart from the other cavalrymen.

“Alexandrov! You fell off your horse!”

“Sir, the horse threw me. Captain Podjampolsky mounted me on a half-broke stallion! The scabbard tore from—”

“Alexandrov!
You fell from your horse
. A Hussar only falls with his horse, not off it!”

I made up my mind to ride only Alcides from that day on. To hell with these other nags!

I wrote to Count Lieven to ask the emperor for leave. It had been three long years since I had left my father’s house. I knew that since I had been so recently attached to the Mariupol Hussars, there was little chance of being granted leave without some special intervention.

I took my chance writing to the emperor, but he had instructed me to let him know of any desire I had.

This did not play well with the new commander in chief, Baron Egor Meller-Zakomelsky. He ordered me to headquarters, asking why I had bypassed the chain of command to apply for leave to the emperor himself.

“The emperor requested—no, sir, ordered!—that I keep him informed of any requirement. I knew that this was the only way I could be granted leave as soon as possible.”

The commander in chief was astonished at my candid reply. How could he argue with the Tsar? He was left sputtering.

“Report to Count Suvorov in Dubno for your travel orders.”

As I left, I heard the commander remark to his orderly: “Lieutenant Alexandrov hides behind the Tsar’s coattails.”

The remark struck me like the flat side of a saber.

I vowed then and there I would never depend on the emperor’s protection again. I would be my own man.

I reported to Count Suvorov, still embarrassed about my last encounter with him when I had disappeared down the Lutsk road astride old Lop Ear.

“Ah, Alexandrov! We meet again,” he said, clapping his hand around my shoulder. “Yes, I have your travel orders. But they won’t take effect until the day after my grand ball. You shall be my special guest. It is a Moroccan affair, you see. No chance I will let you slip away before that!”

He clapped me once more on the back and strode away.

Indeed there was much going on about us as we spoke. Dust spun with the sweeping and cleaning of the mansion. I joined many officers of my regiment, and we stood drinking tea.