Russian series 03 - The Eagle's Fate (5 page)

Captain Valyev returned with something white in his hand, picked up the coveted bucket, and to her surprise, brought it over and put it beside her, dropping the white object, which was a towel, into her lap. It was a normally courteous act, of course, but made abnormal by the lack of accompanying remark. Thanking that she had imagined his earlier coldness, she thanked him and added ‘I was longing to wash off some of the dust!’ but he made no reply and walked away without so much as glancing at her.

Nadya shook as much dust as she could from her clothes and washed her face and hands, dabbing the sore place on her cheek, which now felt bruised and painful. After a hesitant look round to see if anyone might be watching, she unpinned her hair from its high chignon and rinsed it in the water as best she could, wringing it out and toweling off the excess water before pinning it up again. Then she realised guiltily that the towel was soaked and that Captain Valyev might not have another. She wrung it out, got to her feet and lifted the bucket, which was quite heavy despite being make of leather, intending to empty and refill it, but one of the troopers took it and the towel from her with a pleasant, ‘If you please, Princess’. And curried them away.

Nadya went over to Captain Tuchin by the fire and said, ‘May I help?’

‘Sit down by the fire and warm yourself,’ he invited, smiling up at her. ‘There’s nothing to do, really. We’ve cheese and smoked meat and hard bread, that’s all—nothing to cook. It’s not very appetizing, but it’s surprising what you can eat when you’re hungry, and we’ll have plenty of tea when the water boils.’ A can of water was suspended over the fire now, hanging from a simple iron frame.

Nadya started to sit down, then remembered her bundle of provisions.

‘I’ve some food as well,’ she said. “I’ll fetch it.’

She went to the stacked baggage and found her valise and bundle on top of it. She took the bundle back to Captain Tuchin, untied it and gave him the apple, cheese and bread, which was still quite fresh, if a little dusty.

‘Fresh bread!’ he exclaimed. ‘Well, this is luxury!’ He looked at her, smiling as she sat down, then his face sobered and he said tentatively, ‘Er—what happened to your face?’

Nadya had noticed him looking at the mark on her cheek before. She told him briefly what had happened when she tried to ask the cart-driver for help, and he exclaimed in disgust, ‘I don’t know what’s happened to make ordinary, decent people so selfish and unfeeling! It’s as though they’re possess by some devil . .!’

‘I suppose it’s fear,’ Nadya replied.

Before long, the animals had been rubbed down and fed, and all five of the party were seated round the fire, the troopers in a properly respectful little huddle on one side, leaving the greater part of the circle of light and warmth to their superiors. Captain Tuchin sat squarely between Nadya and Captain Valyev, still trying to behave as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about his friend’s conduct.

‘Princess Serova’s contribution!’ he said cheerfully, handing round a wooden platter piled with chunks of the bread. ‘She’s produced some apples as well!’

Captain Valyev hesitated when he was offered the bread, and Nadya thought he meant to refuse it, but Captain Tuchin jerked the platter at him in a meaningful way, and he took a piece with a murmured ‘Thank you’, then sat holding it for some time while he ate cheese and meat, but finally broke a piece off and put it in his mouth. It didn’t choke him, so he eventually finished it off.

The two troopers also hesitated over the bread, as if they were not sure if they should accept what must have seemed a rare treasure, but Captain Tuchin said, ‘Take it, lads!’ in an encouraging manner, and they did, with little bobs of thanks to Nadya.

The food really was very unpalatable, and Nadya felt very sorry for the Army if this was all the men had to eat. She thought at first that she would not be able to get it down her dust-parched throat, but fortunately the water boiled, and she soon had a tin mug of strong tea with an odd smoky flavour to help it down.

‘We’ll stand guard two at a time,’ Captain Valyev said as they were all savouring the pleasure of their second mug of tea. ‘There are too many possible rogues about for one to suffice. The trooper guards the horses, and the officer the baggage. Three hours each watch.’

‘
That means each of them will only have three hours sleep!’
Nadya thought, and said aloud, ‘Can I help in any way?’

Captain Valyev looked at her. The firelight strengthened the fine-drawn lines of his face to a harsh chiaroscuro and made his expression difficult to read, but Nadya felt that his eyes regarded her with outright hostility and she unconsciously shrank back.

Captain Tuchin said gently, ‘It’s men’s work, my dear! You sleep while you can, for you must be very tired, and tomorrow’ll be a long day. Thank you for offering.’

Apparently the two officers had traveled together before, and had some customary arrangement, for when the cups and platters had been washed and put away, Captain Tuchin and one of the troopers stretched out on either side of the fire and settled down to sleep, and the other two took an unusually short-barrelled pair of muskets from the piled baggage and positioned themselves, each by his particular charge. Nadya spread her shawl over her and lay down, feet towards the fire, keeping her shoes on because she now felt quite cold, although she would dearly have liked to take them off to ease her feet.

She had never slept on the ground before, and she found it extremely uncomfortable. The ground underneath her felt damp and uneven, and it was very hard. However she tried to lie, something seemed to stick into her in a painful fashion, particularly the bag of money under her skirts. For a time sheer fatigue sent her into an uneasy sleep, but gradually she became aware of an icy feeling, as if she was lying in cold water, and she became fully awake again to find herself thoroughly chilled.

She looked about her, conscious of the many, many people and animals encamped all around, for there was a constant background of noise as they moved, cried out, even snored. The fire was still burning well, and must have been mended recently, so she sat up and stretched out her hands to it to warm them. A chilly little breeze had sprung up, which crept round her shoulders and set her shivering.

Captain Tuchin was lying nearby, fast asleep, wrapped in a dark blanket, his knees drawn up so that even his feet were covered, and the trooper on the other side of the fire was similarly cocooned. Nadya spread out her shawl again, but it was too light and thing to be much use.

‘What’s wrong?’ a quiet voice suddenly asked from behind her.

She started and looked up with a gasp as Captain Valyev dropped to one knee beside her.

‘N-nothing,’ she stammered, with a confused feeling that as he obviously did not want her with them for some reason, she had better not incur his greater displeasure by complaining.

He stretched out a hand and felt her shawl.

‘That’s a useless thing! You must be frozen! Why didn’t you say you’d nothing to wrap round you?’

‘I—I didn’t think,’ Nadya replied, feeling foolish.

He stood up and walked away, and she thought he was leaving her to deal with her own problem as best she could, but he returned almost immediately with a blanket, which he dropped beside her with a curt, ‘Wrap yourself in that.’

‘But what will you do?’ she asked.

He had already been moving away, but he stopped and looked at her for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll take Sasha Alexandrovich’s when we change over. While I’m moving, about, my pelisse is warm enough.’

‘I didn’t know you could wear the pelisse,’ she said, speaking in nervous reaction to his hostility.

She immediately wished she had kept quiet, for her replied, ‘Were you never sufficiently interested to take a good look at your brother’s uniform?’ in a tone which was well-night sneering.

‘I don’t believe I saw him in uniform more than two or three times, and he was not given to explaining anything to me,’ she was stung to reply, and was surprised at the bitterness in her own voice as she recalled Maxim’s impatient, unfriendly attitude towards his young sister.

He was silent for a moment, and then said quietly, ‘The pelisse is a proper coat, and can be worn for extra warmth, although it’s usually slung from the shoulder. Wrap yourself up and try to sleep. You’re not in any danger now.’

Nadya started to thank him, but he had walked away before she could begin, so she rolled herself up in the blanket and closed her eyes, feeling a little comforted by the faint note of kindness in his last remark.

The blanket was arm and seemed to insulate her from the hardness of the ground as well as the cold. It smelled of wool and horses and woodsmoke, and seemed to provide as much comfort as a feather-bed at this moment. She snuggled into it, sighed, and drifted back to sleep.

When she opened her eyes, it was just getting light, and Captain Valyev was lying, blanket-wrapped a few feet away, fast asleep. His face was relaxed, his lips slightly parted, and his hair tousled. Nadya though that he was really a handsome man, in a lean, self-contained fashion, and she wished she could reach out to him in some way, find out what he disliked about her so much, and set it right. She disliked the idea of not being on terms of friendship with anyone in Tatya’s circle.

His eyes suddenly opened, looking straight at her, and for a brief moment he seemed about to smile. And then the cold rejection closed over his face like a shade, leaving her feeling that something important had been lost. She turned away and sat up, looking about her in the grey dawn light.

The river banks looked like a giant gipsy encampment, and everywhere people were rousing and setting about feeding themselves and gathering their belongings, ready to move on. A shrill female voice urged a child to hurry, ‘Or you’ll have that Bonaparte catching up with us!’, and this caused a ripple of alarm among all the people within hearing, as if they really feared that the French were on their heels.

Captain Tuchin was huddled over the fire, coaxing it to go on burning long enough to boil some water, for the wood-pile had dwindled to its last few twigs. He was wearing his pelisse, over his dolman, and looked quite unlike the spruce figure normally presented by a Guards officer. The silver lace was blackened in patches, the white fur edging filthy, and the frogs strained at the buttons as if the garment was too small for him.

Nadya got up and shook out her skirts, which were dreadfully creased, and tidied her hair as best she could, then she shook and folded Captain Valyev’s blanket. He was up by now, saddling the horses, and she found that she was actually afraid to go to him and return the blanket because she might receive another rebuff, so she stood holding the bundle, wondering why this man’s coldness hurt so much, and what he had against some member of her family that he disliked the Serovs so much. It must be something serious, and she was sure it could be nothing she had done, or her kindly father and q2uiet mother, so presumably it had been Maxim. It was somehow only too easy to believe that he had been capable of such a thing.

‘I’m sorry I forgot about that,’ Captain Tuchin said, coming and taking the blanket from her. ‘Good morning, if you can find anything good about it after a hard bed and a cold night! There’ll be hot tea in a few minutes!’

Nadya replied smilingly and went over to the fire, where one of the troopers brought her some water and a towel to rinse her face and hands. The water was icy and the towel was damp and rather grubby, but she was grateful for both, and thanked him sincerely, getting a blushing grim and a funny little awkward bob in return. Her cut cheek was swollen and very tender now.

Breakfast was eaten standing, for the grass was wet with dew, and consisted of the last of the once-fresh bread and a mug of tea, and then the fire was stamped out and the ashes scattered, the last bundles loaded on to the mules, and they were on the road again as the sun showed its topmost rim over the trees. The horses were slightly fresher after a night’s rest and managed a trot at first, but before mid-morning, as the heat and dust increased, they had dropped to a walk and looked thoroughly dejected.

During the morning, they passed through three villages, two of which were deserted, but the third was still inhabited, and the little cabins were besieged by fugitives trying to buy, beg or steal food.

Captain Tuchin insisted on stopping at the post-house just beyond this place, despite a cold remark from Captain Valyev that they were supposed to be on an errand of some urgency. He tried to buy or hire a horse and saddle for Nadya, but the postmaster assured him indignantly that the only riding-horses they had were reserved exclusively for the Imperial post, and it was more than his life was worth to sell or hire one, for he would be sent to Siberia, or into the Army—which he obviously thought was the worse of two evils—and the Army’s normal powers of requisition did not apply in this case, even if Marshal Kutuzov himself wanted a mount.

The Captain returned to his hangdog mount looking a little anxious. Captain Valyev said nothing, but the look he gave his friend clearly implied that the result was no more than he had expected, and they rode on in silence.

Nadya and Captain Tuchin had made a little desultory conversation to begin with, but the increasing heat, the choking dust and the depressing sight of the poor fugitives around them were discoursing, and their remarks grew more and more infrequent, and finally died away altogether. Captain Valyev said nothing at all for hours.

About noon, they stopped for a short time by a fairly clean-looking stream, baited the horses and ate some hard bread and smoked meat, helping it down with more tea, and not long after, passed through the small town of Kolomna, where Captain Tuchin made another attempt to get a mount for Nadya, but again without success. The town was packed with refugees who were unable or unwilling to go further, and every horse available had already been taken by those who wanted to go on but whose beasts were foundered.

During the afternoon, Nadya began to worry about what would happen when the hussars must turn off the road, and she would be left to go on alone. After her experience with the would-be thief, she felt quite sick with fear at the thought of those last forty or fifty
versts
alone, but there was no alternative.