The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire (35 page)

Chapter 54

Bunzlau, Prussia

January 1813

Kutuzov followed the Russian army in his carriage, his bloated body thrown from side to side as they traveled the rutted road. Just a few nights before, Alexander had awarded him the Cross of St. George for his leadership in the battles following Berezina. He looked out of the coach at the pine trees shawled in snow, the lavender light of the three-o’clock dusk casting long shadows across the northern countryside.

Nightfall pounced upon the winter world.

Kutuzov’s footman lit the carriage lanterns. Light glinted off the medal on the general’s chest. He looked down at the orange and black ribbon and the gold medallion. He fingered the medal, his fingers stiff with the cold.

He thought of the hundreds—no, thousands—of white mounds across the Russian steppes, like bushes or shrubs covered in snow. Frozen soldiers—both Russian and French—finally blessed with slumber. Eternal slumber.

And the living envy the sleep of the dead. How long can we go on?

But the old general followed the Tsar as they pursued Napoleon. Even though he disagreed with him.

“We can chase Napoleon beyond our borders. We can fight,” he told Alexander. “But we will return with our faces bloody. For what?”

“We must finish this madman!” said Alexander. “Any lasting peace must be signed in Paris. Europe must rid itself forever of this tyrant!”

Alexander’s words seemed fresh and naive.

Our tsar has been in St. Petersburg, warm and comfortable, studying maps and figures all winter. We soldiers are nothing to him. He can’t feel our troops’ exhaustion, the nightmares they suffer remembering their comrades’ deaths. Thinking of their own.

Our army is weary. I am weary.

The old patriot shrugged, his shoulders now bent with age and hardship. He accepted the Tsar’s command, taking the Russian army as far as he could until he collapsed ill and exhausted in the Polish lands of Prussia.

Kutuzov had been dying since the late winter, and it was now April. The Russian army had left their commander in chief in Prussia to press on, pushing Napoleon back to Paris.

Winter had turned to spring. The general tossed on his canvas camp bed, stained with sour sweat of an old man.

I have overstayed my welcome on this earth.

His breath was hoarse, a raspy whine.

I’m surrounded by men who speak Polish or German at best.

Why must I die here, like Moses forbidden to enter the Promised Land?

I am no Moses.

What was the name of that girl . . . the girl who fought with us?

Kutuzov tried to moisten his cracked lips, but his tongue lay fat and helpless at the corner of his mouth.

I am dying. The retreating tide is pulling at my soul. Why must I be bothered with these small things. What trivial nonsense—cracked lips that need licking. These minutiae keep my spirit anchored here on the rocky shoals.

“General, please take some water.”

At least he speaks Russian.

The doctor’s aide gave him the edge of a linen rag, sopping wet.

“Suck on this, Your Excellency.”

The old general gummed the towel. His gut twisted as the moisture slid down his throat, a few drops at a time.

“That’s enough, General,” said the aide, pulling the cloth away. “Let go of the cloth, I beg of you.”

The border of the cloth snagged, with Kutuzov’s jaw clamped down in a spasm. He was powerless to open his mouth. The aide yanked the last centimeter free.

So many men, so many sacrifices . . .

Kutuzov wrinkled his brow fighting to remember.

What happened to the girl? Did she survive? What was her name?

A voice in his ear. “The priest is here, General Kutuzov.”

A priest in dark robes, his long beard stiff with winter grease, stood beside the bed holding an icon. As he raised his arms, a whiff of odor from his unwashed body wafted over Kutuzov’s nostrils, making them wrinkle in disgust.

The stench of rancid pork lard and self-righteous sweat! Wretched man, go away. Leave me in peace.

“In the name of the Father, the Son . . .” chanted the priest. “Let my mouth be filled with thy praise, O Lord, that I may sing thy glory and majesty all the day long.”

Napoleon. Will we ever be free of this French curse? Will his stain be washed from our land?

“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal. Have mercy on us.”

Who will inherit my estate? My eldest daughter. Her husband . . . Tolstoy.

My lands shall go to the Tolstoys. May they remember me with kindness.

“Let my mouth be filled with thy praise, O Lord, that I may sing thy glory and majesty all the day long.”

Look at the light lingering on my hand. Spilling from the window. Is it spring at last?

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be . . .”

Will this man not leave me in peace!

“Lord, have mercy!”

The girl. How could a girl survive such a war? She told me of a horse. A brave horse lost in battle.

“Lord, have mercy!”

Mercy. Mercy for the girl who disguises herself. Mercy to my daughters who lose a father.

“Look on my suffering and deliver me. For I have not forgotten your law. Many are the foes who persecute me. But I have not turned from your statutes.”

My guts are jelly. This hairy priest torments me.

Kutuzov’s jaw dropped open in a gasp.

“Is this your confession?” asked the priest, bending close over the dying man. “Absolve yourself of this earthly burden, that you may know God!”

Leave me in peace. What shall happen to Russia? Alexander . . . can he . . .

“Confess your sins and you shall be absolved,” said the priest, hovering over Kutuzov’s ear.

I can stand this no longer.

Kutuzov closed his eyes for the last time.

Chapter 55

Sarapul, Russia

May 1813

At last when the snows receded, my brother and I left for Moscow. My father begged us not to leave.

“Never start a trip on a Monday!” he said. “Stay until tomorrow, I beg you.”

“Papa, you promised we could leave when snows melted. We cannot delay any longer.”

So we left that same day, but my conscience bothered me. Why could I not wait one more day to ease the worried mind of an old man—my father.

And then, part way to Kazan our carriage rolled off a slope and smashed to bits. Vasily and I were thrown into a ditch, but luckily not injured. We were forced to travel in a farmer’s cart to Kazan. How wrong I was not to heed my father’s warning!

When we reached Moscow I received the news from General Mitrofanov, my father’s old friend, that Kutuzov was dead.

“Dead?” I whispered. “Dead?”

“He perished of illness in Prussia. He was tired. Tired of war, tired of seeing so many brave men die. Our tsar had removed him from command. Perhaps the great General Kutuzov felt he had fulfilled his duty on earth.”

I fought back tears.

“It is all right to cry, Lieutenant Alexandrov.” Mitrofanov placed his hand on my shoulder. “All of us have. General Kutuzov loved his soldiers. He loved us like his sons.”

I explained that I had brought Vasily here under Kutuzov’s protection. He was already enrolled in the Department of Mines and we left without asking permission. If Kutuzov were alive, this would have posed no problem. But now, without written permission from the general himself, how would I explain Vasily’s absence.

General Mitrofanov sighed. “I would advise you to send your brother home,” he said, looking regretfully at Vasily.

“No, Your Excellency!” said Vasily, full of the Durov impetuous nature. “Nothing on earth could force me to return home. I will stay here and serve in the army like my brother.”

Mitrofanov smiled at him. “If you are half the soldier your brother is, you will serve Russia honorably. Stay with us, young man.”

We followed behind the French on their way back to Paris.

We followed their ghosts, the traces of their last moments—a scent more malodorous than any stench on the earth.

“Those are the Frenchmen rotting in the forests,” said the wagon driver. “It will get worse on the warmer days, now that spring has come.”

I looked up at the crows circling like a funnel of black smoke, diving into the woods in a cacophony of caws.

On the Smolensk road we passed Borodino. I pointed out to my brother the redoubt where we had been ordered to stand: “Here so-and-so met his death. Here I was wounded by a cannonball.”

“Here Alcides died.”

The smell, the rot! Our own Russian peasants were ordered to collect the bodies, both French and Russian, that had been buried under the snow. But here it was mostly French bodies, one after another, soldiers who succumbed to our harsh Russian winter and starvation.

Poor wretches! They were punished for their emperor’s presumption and conceit.

At a post station I saw a young girl whose sweet face reflected the joy of life, of the springtime. I was so exhausted with the stink of death that it was pure joy to see such a tender child and be reminded of once-carefree days.

The little girl turned up her face to kiss the station mistress. In turn the woman embraced her.

“What a beautiful child,” I said. “Is she your daughter?”

“No,” answered the mistress. “She’s French, an orphan.”

I studied the little girl’s face until she turned away shyly, burying her face in the station mistress’s bosom.

“And how did she come to be here?” I had to know what strange tragedy had brought such an innocent child to this distant place—and as an orphan.

“The French came through here after the Smolensk battle. They were so sure of themselves that they started little settlements, moving their families into homesteads. This little girl came from one of those settlements right there in the forest,” she said, pointing to the edge of a dark woods.

“It was the beginning of the winter. Russia’s revenge on Napoleon. Ah, but others suffered too. One night, as they were cooking supper, they heard the blood-curdling whoop of the Cossacks. Platov’s Cossacks!”

The little girl began to whimper.

“I should not speak the word—
Cossack!
”
the woman whispered to me. “It terrifies her.

“The family scattered in all directions. This one here ran to an impenetrable thicket. She crawled through the snow and finally out onto the highway you travel now. She wore only a thin white frock. A Cossack officer—one of Platov’s men—rode by and saw the white bunch of rags in the road.

“She cried out to him and when he stopped, he saw it was a child, her frock in tatters. She was half-naked on the frozen ground. And that hardened Cossack, who hated the French with all his heart, picked up this little girl and brought her here, to this post station. Can you imagine a Cossack taking pity on anyone?”

“What did he look like?” I asked.

“Tall, with green eyes. Handsome, but all flint and bone.”

Denisov! Could it have been?

I stopped breathing. The woman didn’t notice, she was caught up in her story.

‘“Do me a favor,’ the Cossack had said. ‘Take this child and care for her.’ I protested that I had my own children to feed and care for. ‘Then I’ll dash her brains out right here before your eyes,’ he said, ‘for I will not let this little one suffer any more.’

“I rushed to grab the unconscious girl from the front of his saddle. She weighed no more than a feather pillow.

“The officer galloped off and for two months this child lay at death’s gates. She was badly frostbitten. Skin peeled in long shreds from her arms and legs. Her glorious hair fell out. But she survived. We taught her Polish and found out that she is from a noble family in Lyon. I have spoken of her returning to France—”

“No!” shouted the little girl, breaking into the story, balling her birdlike hands into a fist. “Mama brought me back to life; I will never leave her!”

The little girl buried her face again in her new mother’s bosom. The station mistress began to weep, wiping tears from her eyes with sleeve.

This scene moved me to the depth of my soul. A simple act of kindness in the face of an innocence that somehow survived in the midst of war had forged loyalty—no, love—between two bitter enemies. Inseparable now.

And . . . Denisov!

I was promoted, a lieutenant no more. With the promotion came new orders—ones that would separate me from my little brother.

“Captain Alexandrov,” said my senior commanding office. “You have received orders to ride to the Ukraine.”

“The Ukraine?”

“A special assignment, Alexandrov,” said my commander. “You leave at dawn tomorrow.”

I was forced to leave Vasily behind. My companions promised to look after him and treat him like a brother.

I rode south and east through the territories of Belarus and then down into the Ukraine. I was stationed in the beautiful Ukrainian lands of Lapshin, surrounded by forest and crystal-clear lakes.

Ah, the Ukraine! Half my heart and blood is yours. At the sight of your graceful landscape I feel a quickening deep in my soul.

My quarters were a spacious shed, its floors strewn with sand and walls decorated with sweet garlands of flowers and green grasses. Four stumps with plank boards served as a couch, cushioned with sweet hay and covered with a velvet rug. There I read, slept, and thought, far from the booming of cannon and the stench of rotting bodies.

My mission was simple: taking care of horses. I was charged to revive the exhausted, emaciated, and wounded horses that had fought so bravely in the war. To start, I was assigned one hundred fifty horses along with fifty uhlans to help me with my task. More and more horses arrived each day. And every day I thought of my Alcides and I cried—I cried in grief for his loss and I cried in gratitude that I could bring new life to others who had served like him.

Ah! Could there be a better balm to my soul than to watch our injured, emaciated horses graze breast-high in July grass? To see their saddle sores, their gashes and powder burns, heal a little every day! And when they at last lifted their heads and tails, galloping in play across the Ukrainian pastures, once more full of life I thought of our wounded soldiers, praying that they could recover as these horses had.

But could they? Wounded in both body and spirit—could those men ever heal? Hundreds of thousands had died on the battlefield, and those who had survived their wounds had lain writhing next to their comrades’ corpses. Did they envy the stillness and sleep of the dead man who suffered no more? Or did they crawl over their bodies, screaming for help?

Or death.

How did a man ever forget? How could they ever heal, remembering such horror?

We fed our herd on sweet grass and oats. Their heads buoyed up gradually, a spark came back to their dull eyes, eyes that had witnessed and endured what no man or beast should. Perhaps they would forget what a human could not.

In the evening, I would wander through the grassy fields checking on our herds and then sit beside the river, marveling at my good fortune. Away from war, an interlude of peace.

Instead of watching a bullet tear through a comrade or a cannonball shatter the bones of his mount, I saw a horse take its first tentative step toward healing. I watched an emaciated steed feed on good oats. My fingers traced my horses’ crests
,
the top line u
nder the mane. I felt good fat slowly accumulating there and smiled. The horses snorted contentedly and closed their eyes under my touch.

I often took my rest in the evening with the horses under a grove of beech trees, listening to the call of the cuckoos. Ah, the peace! The snorting of the horses nosing through their hay and the chuckle of the stream just beyond the paddocks was the balm that soothed my soul after the horror of losing my beloved Alcides.

Caring for animals, this is what I was meant for. After years of the battlefield, I realized I was not a killer.

I loved the cavalry marches, the hours on horseback, the camaraderie with my brave friends. But I have seen enough of bloodshed for a lifetime.