In the late afternoon the officer commanding their escort rallied his men, and with much yelling and forceful persuasion got in among the baggage-trains and fetched the prisoners, surrounded on all sides, out on to the Kaluga road.
They set off at a quick pace, took no breaks and only halted when the sun was going down. The baggage-carts were shunted up close together, and the men began to bed down for the night. Every man jack of them seemed irritable and unhappy. The cursing, angry bellowing and fighting went on and on. A carriage had driven into one of their carts from behind and run a shaft through it. Soldiers rushed up from all sides, some lashed the carriage horses across their heads as they turned them round, others scrapped among themselves, and Pierre saw one German badly wounded by a blow to the head from a short sword.
Now they had come to a standstill out in the country on a dismal and chilly autumn evening, all these men seemed to have been struck by the same sensation, a nasty awakening from the sense of urgency that had carried them along as they left the city. Now they were at a halt it seemed to have dawned on them they had no idea where they were going, and that there was a lot of pain and hardship ahead of them along the way.
During this halt the prisoners came in for rougher handling by the soldiers in charge than they had had when they set off. For the first time they were given horse-meat to eat.
Every single member of the escorting force, from the officers down to the commonest soldier, now harboured a kind of personal animosity towards every one of the prisoners, all of which was in stark contrast to their earlier friendly relations.
This animosity was redoubled when the roll was called and it was discovered that in the hurly-burly of getting out of Moscow one Russian soldier had managed to escape by pretending he was ill with stomach pains. Pierre had watched a Frenchman lash out at a Russian soldier for wandering too far from the road and heard the captain who had been friendly with him reprimanding an NCO for letting the prisoner escape, and threatening him with court martial. When the NCO argued that the prisoner was too ill to walk the officer told him their orders were to shoot anyone who couldn't keep up. Pierre felt that the fateful force that had laid him low during the execution, and had been nowhere apparent during his imprisonment, had now taken over his existence again. It made him feel scared, but he also felt that even as this fateful force did its best to crush him, a new, independent, vital strength was building up in his soul all the time.
Pierre's evening meal, as he chatted to his companions, consisted of rye flour and horse-meat soup.
Neither Pierre nor any of his companions made any mention of what they had seen in Moscow, or the harsh treatment they were now getting from the French, or the orders to shoot stragglers they had just heard about. All of them seemed determined to defy their worsening circumstances by remaining particularly cheerful and lively. They reminisced and talked about funny things they had seen on the march, steering well clear of anything to do with their present situation.
It was long after sunset. A few stars were lit up across the sky, the rising full moon had painted a red glow along the horizon as if it was on fire, and the huge red ball hung there in the grey darkness, shimmering strangely. There was more and more light. It was the end of the evening, but night had not yet begun. Pierre got up and walked away from his new companions, wandering off between the camp-fires to the other side of the road, where he had been told the common prisoners were camping. He wanted to talk to them. On the road a French sentry stopped him and told him to go back.
Pierre did go back, but not to his companions by the camp-fire; he went over to an unharnessed wagon where there was nobody about. Tucking his legs up under him, and lowering his head, he sat down on the cold ground, leant back against a wagon wheel, and spent a long time sitting there quite still, just thinking. More than an hour went by. No one disturbed him. Suddenly he burst out laughing, and his heavy, good-humoured laughter was so loud that men looked round in astonishment on every side to hear such a burst of weird hilarity evidently coming from a man sitting there on his own.
'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Pierre. And he talked to himself out loud. 'The soldier wouldn't let me through. They've taken me and locked me up. They keep me prisoner. Me? What me? My immortal soul! Ha, ha, ha! . . . Ha, ha, ha!' he laughed, and his eyes filled with tears.
A man got up and came over to see what this strange, big fellow was laughing about all by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got to his feet and walked away from the inquisitive intruder, taking a good look round.
The vast makeshift camp that seemed to go on for ever had been abuzz with the sounds of fires crackling and men talking, but now it was settling down. The red camp-fires were burning down and going out. The full moon stood high in the limpid sky. Far away forests and fields that had been invisible beyond the confines of the camp were now coming into sight. And out there beyond the forests and fields lay all the shimmering, beckoning distance of infinity. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the play of the stars receding into the depths. 'And it's all mine, and it's all within me, and it all adds up to me!' thought Pierre. 'And they caught all that, shut it up in a shed and boarded it in!'
He smiled as he walked back to bed down with his companions.
CHAPTER 15
At the beginning of October another messenger came to Kutuzov from Napoleon bearing overtures for peace in a letter purporting to have been written from Moscow, though in fact Napoleon was slightly ahead of Kutuzov down the old Kaluga road. Kutuzov's response was the same as before, when Lauriston had been the messenger: peace was out of the question.
Soon after this a report came in from Dorokhov's guerrilla army to the left of Tarutino claiming that French troops had been spotted at Fominsk, troops belonging to Broussier's division, which was cut off from the rest of the army and could be easily destroyed. The soldiers and officers were spoiling for a fight. The staff generals, buoyed up by the memory of an easy victory at Tarutino, urged Kutuzov to act on Dorokhov's proposal. Kutuzov could see no reason to go on the attack. The inevitable compromise was decided on, and a small detachment was sent to Fominsk to attack Broussier.
By a strange turn of events this task, which would turn out to be both difficult and highly significant, was entrusted to Dokhturov, a modest little general, nobody's idea of a master planner or a regimental commander, who dashed around showering military crosses on batteries, and such like, a man looked on and spoken of as indecisive and ineffective, even though in every Russian war against the French, from Austerlitz to the year 1813, we always find him taking command where the situation is at its toughest. At Austerlitz he was the last to abandon the Augezd dam, and he rallied the regiments, saving what he could from flight and disaster when there were no other generals left in the rearguard. Stricken with fever, he marched twenty thousand men over to Smolensk to defend the town and take on the whole of Napoleon's army. Once there, he had barely nodded off at the Molokhov gate, shivering with fever, when he was woken up by the roar of a cannonade directed against Smolensk, and he held the city for a whole day. At Borodino, with Bagration killed and nine-tenths of our left flank lying dead, and the full fire of the French artillery raining down on them, it is our indecisive and ineffective Dokhturov who is sent there by a Kutuzov only too anxious to make up for sending the wrong man in the first place. Off he goes, the quiet little Dokhturov, and Borodino ends up as the greatest glory in Russian military history with many of its heroes celebrated in poetry and prose, but scarcely a word about Dokhturov.
So Dokhturov is now sent to Fominsk, and then to Maloyaroslavets, where the French are engaged for the last time, and where, quite clearly, the final downfall of the French army really begins. And once again we have many accounts of heroes and geniuses at this point in the campaign, but of Dokhturov nothing - a few words at the most, and those of faint praise. The silence surrounding Dokhturov is the clearest endorsement of his merit.
It is natural for a man who doesn't understand how a machine works to imagi
ne, when he sees it in action, that a chip that has fallen in by accident and is now jumping about and stopping things working properly is the most important part of the whole mechanism. Anyone who doesn't understand the construction of the machine cannot conceive that this chip is just jamming up the works and reining them, unlike one little cog-wheel, spinning away quietly, which is one of the most essential parts of the machine.
On the 10th of October, by the time Dokhturov had marched half-way to Fominsk and halted at the village of Aristovo, making careful preparations for carrying out his orders to the letter, the whole of the French army had made its way in fits and starts to the position occupied by Murat, ostensibly to give battle, but suddenly and for no apparent reason it then lunged off left down the new Kaluga road, and began marching into Fominsk, where until now Broussier had been standing alone. At this time Dokhturov had at his disposal nothing more than Dorokhov's troops and the two small detachments of Figner and Seslavin.
On the evening of the 11th of October Seslavin brought a captured French guardsman to the headquarters at Aristovo. The prisoner said that the troops that had entered Fominsk that day were the advance guard of the whole army, Napoleon was with them, and the whole army had marched out of Moscow five days before. That same evening a house serf coming in from Borovsk brought word that he had seen a huge army entering the town. Some of Dorokhov's Cossacks reported that they had seen French guardsmen marching along the road to Borovsk. All of this intelligence made one thing clear: in the place where they had been expecting to encounter a single division they were faced with the entire French army, marching away from Moscow in an unexpected direction - down the old Kaluga road. Dokhturov insisted on holding back since it was not clear now where his duty lay. He had been ordered to attack Fominsk, but at that time only Broussier had been in Fominsk, and now the whole French army was there. Yermolov wanted to take the initiative, but Dokhturov kept on insisting that he must have instructions from his Serene Highness, General Kutuzov. They decided to report back to staff headquarters.
For this purpose they chose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, who was given the task of delivering a written report and explaining the whole thing in words. It was just before midnight when Bolkhovitinov received his dispatch and verbal instructions, and galloped off to headquarters, accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses.
CHAPTER 16
The autumn night was dark and warm. It had been drizzling for the last four days. With two changes of horses Bolkhovitinov covered twenty miles in an hour and a half on a muddy, sticky road and got to Letashovko not much after one in the morning. Dismounting at a peasant's hut with a wattle fence bearing the inscription General Staff, he dropped the reins and walked into the dark entry.
'Quick. The duty general! Very important!' he cried as someone jumped to his feet, snorting in the darkness.
'His Honour has been ill since yesterday evening. He hasn't slept for three nights,' an orderly's voice pleaded in a whisper. 'You'll have to wake the captain first.'
'It's urgent. I'm from General Dokhturov,' said Bolkhovitinov, groping his way in through an open door.
The orderly was ahead of him, waking somebody up. 'Your Honour, your Honour, there's a cullier.'
'You what? What? Who from?' said a sleepy voice.
'From Dokhturov and Alexey Petrovich. Napoleon is at Fominsk,' said Bolkhovitinov. He couldn't see the speaker in the darkness, but he could tell from the voice that it wasn't Konovnitsyn.
The man who had been woken up was yawning and stretching. 'I'm not keen on waking him up,' he said, fumbling with something. 'He's not at all well. Could be a rumour, couldn't it?'
'Here's the report,' said Bolkhovitinov. 'My instructions are to hand it straight to the duty general.'
'Hang on. Let me strike a light. Why do you keep hiding things away, damn your eyes?' said the man who had been doing all the stretching, to his orderly. It was Shcherbinin, one of Konovnitsyn's adjutants. 'Oh, here we are. I've got it,' he added.
The orderly struck a light, and Shcherbinin felt for a candlestick.
'Oh, the swine!' he said with disgust. By the light of the sparks Bolkhovitinov caught a glimpse of Shcherbinin's youthful face as he held the candle, and there was another man there asleep in a corner. It was Konovnitsyn.
When the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder had flared up into a blue flame, then a red one, Shcherbinin lit a tallow candle, which sent the cockroaches that had been gnawing at it scurrying away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was spattered all over with mud, and his face was smeared where he had wiped it with his sleeve.
'Who is it from?' asked Shcherbinin, taking the packet.
'It's true all right,' said Bolkhovitinov. 'Prisoners, Cossacks, spies, they all tell the same story.'
'That's it, then. We'll have to wake him,' said Shcherbinin. He got to his feet and went over to the sleeping man, who was wearing a night-cap and was covered with a greatcoat. 'Sir!' he said. Konovnitsyn did not stir. 'You're wanted at headquarters!' he said with a smile, knowing these words would be sure to wake him. And sure enough, the head in the night-cap came up in a flash. For a moment Konovnitsyn's strong, handsome face, with its cheeks feverishly inflamed, wore a far-away, dreamy look, but he gave a sudden start and his face resumed its usual expression of composure and strength.
'Well, what is it? Who wants me?' he asked at once, but with no haste, blinking at the light. Konovnitsyn listened to the officer, then broke open the seal and read the dispatch. Without waiting to finish reading he lowered his feet in their worsted stockings to the earth floor and started pulling on his boots. Then he took off his night-cap, ran a comb down both sides of his head, and put on his forage cap.
'How long did it take you to get here? We must go and see his Highness.'
Konovnitsyn had not been slow to realize that this news was of vital importance, and there was no time to be lost. It never crossed his mind to wonder whether it was good news or bad. This was not the point. His whole attitude to the war was based on something other than intellect or reason. Deep in his heart he had an unspoken conviction that all would be well, but it was not his job to entertain any such belief, let alone talk about it; his job was to go on doing his duty. He was doing his duty, and putting all his energy into it.
Like Dokhturov, General Konovnitsyn gets only a passing mention in the 1812 roll of honour, alongside the Barclays, Rayevskys, Yermolovs, Platovs and Miloradoviches. Like Dokhturov, he was dismissed as a man of very limited ability and knowledge. Again like Dokhturov, he was no compiler of battle-plans, but he was always there in the thick of things. Ever since being appointed duty general he had slept with his door open, and given orders to be woken up if a messenger arrived. In battle he was always under fire, so much so that Kutuzov told him off about it, and was reluctant to send him out. Like Dokhturov, he was one of those inconspicuous cog-wheels that never judder or rattle; they just go on working as the most essential parts of the machine.
As he walked out of the hut into the damp, dark night, Konovnitsyn gave a scowl, partly because his headache was getting worse, and partly from a nasty thought that had occurred to him: this news would create a stir in the nest of all these important staff people, and especially with Bennigsen, who had been at daggers drawn with Kutuzov ever since the battle of Tarutino. They were in for a stream of proposals, arguments, orders and counter-orders. He could see it all coming, and although it gave him no pleasure, he knew it had to be.
And sure enough, Toll, to whom he reported the new developments, launched forth immediately with his version of events for the benefit of the general who shared his quarters, until Konovnitsyn, after listening for some time in weary silence, reminded him they ought to go and see his Serene Highness.
CHAPTER 17
Like all old people Kutuzov was a poor sleeper. During the day he would often nod off unexpectedly, but at night he would lie there on his bed without getting undressed, and more often than not he just lay awake,
thinking.
He was lying on his bed like that now, with his huge, heavy, disfigured head resting on a fat hand. He was thinking, with his one eye wide open, staring into the darkness.
Since he was being cold-shouldered by Bennigsen, the one man who was in correspondence with the Tsar and carried more weight than anybody else on the staff, Kutuzov was more at ease with himself in one respect: he didn't have to lead his soldiers into attack when it was useless to do so. And he could only imagine that the lesson learnt at Tarutino and the day before the battle, a painful memory for Kutuzov, must surely have an effect on them too.
'They've got to understand we can only lose by going on the offensive. Patience and time, these are my heroes of the battlefield!' thought Kutuzov. He knew better than to pick apples while they are still green. An apple will fall when it's good and ripe, but if you pick it while it's still green you spoil the apple and the tree and you set your teeth on edge. Like a good hunter, he knew the beast had been wounded, wounded as only the whole might of Russia could have wounded it, but the question of whether it was mortally wounded was still open. Now from the overtures made through Lauriston and Barthelemy, and from the reports coming in from guerrillas, Kutuzov was virtually certain the wound was a deadly one. But more proof was needed. They must wait.
'They want to run off and watch him die. Better to wait and see. Nothing but new manoeuvres, new attacks . . .' he thought. 'And what's it all for? Anything to cover themselves with glory. As if it's fun to go out fighting. They're like children who won't tell you what really happened because they all want to show themselves off as the best fighters. And that's not the point now. Oh, and what wonderful manoeuvres these people keep coming out with! They think when they've thought about two or three contingencies (he had in mind the general plan sent down from Petersburg) there aren't any more to think about. But there's no end to them!'