The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire (22 page)

Chapter 31

Beyond Friedland, Prussia

1807

Now I was once again a cavalry soldier without a horse. And again, the saddlebags and my provisions were gone. I fought back tears of frustration, berating myself for my situation.

I walked for a half hour and spied a bit of white in a pasture off the road. It looked odd, like an ivory bird nesting in the grass. I took a few steps toward it, then a few more. I broke into a run. It was a shred of my grandmother’s embroidered kerchief!

A neigh broke over the meadow. It was Alcides! He galloped toward me, trailing the tattered remains of the handkerchiefs that had so unsuitably served as a hobble.

But as he trotted to me I saw he had no saddle, no bridle.

A squadron of dragoons were breaking camp near us. I walked over to them, my horse following like a dog behind me.

“
Dobre utra
,” I said. Good morning.

“
Dobre utra
,” an officer said to me. “Well-trained horse you have. Where is your tack? Your provisions?”

“All has been stolen,” I said. “I have nothing to ride him in.”

The officer raised his eyebrow. Several other dragoons turned toward me.

“I can give you a leather strap, lad,” said one. “I am sorry I cannot do better. But you can make it serve as reins. Tie it to that leather halter and see if it will hold.”

The strap he gave me was of rotting leather, spotted with white mold. I thanked him for his offer and went to work tying it fast and hard as I could to the halter.

For the remaining day of our march I rode bareback, attracting the stares and comments of dozens of soldiers and civilians.

At last I reached my squadron. What would the sergeant major say this time?

Ah, but it was not the sergeant major who first saw me approach, but Captain Kazimirski.

“Cadet Durov!” he roared. “What is the meaning of this? You disgrace our regiment by riding your horse without a saddle, without your lance? Where are your supplies?”

I explained to Kazimirski what had happened when I took pity on a wounded uhlan, giving him my horse.

“You left your squadron on the battlefield? You purposely deserted our company.”

“But sir, he was dying—”

“First you ride in circles, joining every squadron you can to fight in battle without being called. Then you dismount on the battlefield to give your horse to another, leaving yourself on foot scampering across the battlefield in the heat of conflict. Then, after being reprimanded you once again leave your squadron to rescue an uhlan. You show up here, days later, without a saddle, lance, even a bridle!”

“But sir . . .”

“No! I have had enough of your childish pranks. Give your horse to the sergeant major for safekeeping. You get onto the wagon for the rest of this campaign.”

“The wagon, sir?”

“You do not deserve the fine horse you ride or the honor entrusted to the Polish uhlans,” he said, red faced with anger. Then he sighed.

“I am doing this for your own good, Durov. You will not survive long at this rate. I want to preserve you to fight with the daring you so foolishly display. A few years’ maturity and experience will keep your head on your shoulders. We need soldiers of your caliber of courage—but tempered with common sense to fight another day.”

Never had I imagined a punishment more severe. I felt lightheaded, bloodless. I stared, my mouth open in horror.

“Aide! Take the boy’s horse.”

I dismounted, pressing my face into Alcides’s neck and cried hot tears. For once I did not care if my emotion tipped off the general and the other officers that I was a girl. Besides, I had seen men cry in battle, men’s dirty, bloodied faces streaked with meandering rivulets, as they called out for help and mumbled last words to send to their loved ones.

To be sent back from the battlefield, stripped of my horse and in the flatbed of a supply wagon was worse than death.

“Durov,” said the general’s aide. “Let go of the reins, Durov. Let me have him.”

My tears and phlegm glistened on Alcides’s black mane as the aide led him away.

Chapter 32

Road to Tilsit

July 1807

As I climbed into the wagon I was shocked to see Wyszemirski sitting on a bag of oats. I didn’t dare speak to him—he looked angry enough to hit me and so distressed, he could easily burst into tears.

For once I kept my silence. I rocked along in the supply wagon, my spine jolted by each rut in the road. In the distance I could see Alcides, tied to one of the stable wagons, along with the other reserve mounts. He pulled against the tether, indignant.

“Why did you get ordered off your horse?” I finally asked Wyszemirski.

He shrugged.

“I do not know. The general said, ‘No child’s blood will be spilt under my command.’” He looked accusingly at me. “A child! I am nearly eighteen. I always obey orders. Not like you, Durov—”

“Shut up.”

“It is true! Falling asleep, riding away from the squadron, giving your horse away on the battlefield—”

“I told you to shut up! I gave up my horse once to a man who was dying—”

“An uhlan is nothing without his horse. It is a disgraceful act and—”

He did not have time to finish his sentence. I leapt on him, punching him hard in the stomach.

“Ugh!” He bent over, convulsing.

I expected a fight from him, a tussle. But the punch had hit the top of his stomach where the muscles converge. He doubled over and vomited.

“Wyszemirski!” I said. “Are you all right?”

“Leave me alone, Durov.”

“I—I did not mean to—”

He vomited again, long sticky threads hanging from his mouth.

The wagon pulled to stop, making us both lose our balance. We tumbled to the floor of the flatbed. I struck my elbow hard on a barrel of vodka and winced.

“What is going on back here?” shouted the driver. He coughed in the spinning dust still settling from the abrupt halt.

“Nothing,” said Wyszemirski wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“What was that commotion back here? Yelling and moving about. You scared the horses.”

Wyszemirski bent over the wooden rails of the wagon, throwing up what was left of his morning kasha.

“You aren’t carrying disease, are you, soldier?” said the driver. “We will quarantine you—”

“It is just we are not used to riding a wagon,” I said quickly. “The motion over the ruts makes us both queasy.”

“You’re sick from the rocking, lad?” said the driver, mirth dancing in his eyes. “The general is right. You two are babes in the woods! Better in wagon than on horse.”

He spat merrily into the dust, climbing back to the platform. We took off with a lurch.

“I am sorry,” I said to Wyszemirski, offering him my canteen. “Will you forgive me?”

He took a long swig.

“I will consider it, Durov,” he said.

He stoppered the canteen, handing it back to me.

“You have one hell of a punch for a baby-faced cadet.”

“You—” I said and then I squinted. From the left flank rode several squadrons of riders in blue. Don Cossacks.

Leading them was a blond captain who sat bolt straight in the saddle, so unlike the rest of the motley horsemen. His shoulder was bandaged in a sling.

He swiveled his head toward us.

“Aleksandr!” he shouted. He spurred his horse into a gallop approaching us.

“Oh, Mother of God!” I said, shrinking down against the splintered panels of the wagon.

“Aleksandr!” he said, riding alongside the jolting wagon.

“Are you injured?

I shook my head.

“Where is that magnificent Circassian horse of yours?

I pointed to the end of the wagon train where the reserve horses were tethered, trotting along the dusty road.

“Tell me you are not—”

“Cossack!” shouted Kazimirski. “Return to your squadron at once.”

Denisov scrutinized my commanding officer. He leaned over deliberately and slowly. He spat into the dust.

“You take care of yourself, Aleksandr,” he said to me. “Promise me that. Keep your head low.” Without a word to the officer, he reined his horse back to the Cossack division.

Why did he have to see me in disgrace?

“Who was that?” asked Wyszemirski.

“No one,” I said.

“But he—”

“Shut up,” I said, sinking down against the bag of oats. I felt as I had been punched in the stomach too.

From the back of the wagon I had my first glance of Tilsit. My first reaction was astonished delight. A village that had not been burned to the ground, its inhabitants alive and busy. After battlefields of dead men, gaping holes, charred remains, the simple wooden houses and stone streets reminded me of a normal life I had forgotten.

I spied something in the middle of the river. It looked like two small white houses afloat. There were boats sailing toward it from either bank of the Niemen.

“What’s that?” I said, pulling at Wyszemirski’s sleeve. “Look!”

The boats flew flags—one the imperial standard of Russia and the other Napoleonic French.

“Lads!” said the driver. “This is the end of the road.”

We turned to see our sergeant major riding toward us.

“Get your horses and mount up. The emperor has ordered a review of all troops!”

I mounted Alcides and rode to formation. I noticed a new uhlan next to me, and my vodka-swigging comrade missing from behind. It could only mean Oleg and Kosmy Banka had fallen in battle.

My breath caught in my throat. I thought of my two merry comrades, nearly as young as I, dead on the battlefield.

“The emperor is meeting with that Corsican devil?” asked a gray-bearded uhlan next to me. He gripped his oak lance so tight I could see the white bones of his knuckles.

“Shhh!” said a coronet next to him. “Careful what you say.”

“I do not care!” said the uhlan. “My best comrades died in the battle of Friedland!”

I thought of Oleg and Kosmy Banka, feeling the cold wake of their absence in the ranks.

Jolly Kosmy! Drinking my ration of vodka. Maybe I would drink it myself now.

“My brother and cousin both died in Heilsberg and Austerlitz,” said a young cadet, his voice raising an octave. “How can he—”

“Shut up, I am warning you all!” said the coronet. “The emperor will do what is right for Russia.”

“Making peace with the French butcher?” countered the old uhlan.

“What are they talking about?” I asked Wyszemirski.

“I just heard,” whispered Wyszemirski. “The Tsar is meeting Napoleon midway in the Niemen River on a raft. Those were the little white houses we saw floating on the water. The emperor and Napoleon are negotiating a truce of some kind. A treaty—”

“A truce!” I said. “How can we have a truce after . . . losing so many comrades? The villages and towns burned to the ground—”

“I know,” said Wyszemirski. “But watch what you say. It is our honorable tsar.”

“For what, all these deaths?” I said, nearly in tears. “The burned villages, the sacrifice—”

Wyszemirski held up his hand that held his reins, making his horse swing into Alcides. “It is the end of the campaign, Durov, if the Tsar agrees. No more battles. No more death.”

I stared off toward the blue streak of the Niemen, shaking my head in wonderment.

A truce! All those souls lost on the battlefield, their bloody flesh and shattered bones. For what? To shake hands with the French Satan? The crumpled bodies of our comrades still lay rotting in the fields, unrecovered corpses lying among their dead horses. And our emperor is sitting across a table from their murderer.

The trumpets sounded, an order rang out, and we lowered our lances in respect for the Tsar. He cantered a fine bay horse up to our ranks. His eyes were an imperial blue with blond eyelashes. Yes, he was that close. Eyes that shone with his noble soul. Lips as rosy as a woman’s, pulling at a benevolent smile. He is one of us. He will not sell the Russian soul to the French demon.

Would he?

Alexander trotted his prancing horse among our regiment. His mouth twisted in sorrow—or shame—as he spied me and Wyszemirski among the ranks.

He gave us a benevolent nod. He stopped and wheeled his horse around, riding back to say something to Captain Kazimirski. Then he cantered on, thin lines of worry etching his brow.