month. They was just layin' there, their lot, clean and white like pieces of paper, and there wasn't no smell comin' off 'em.'
'Oh, that'd be the cold, wouldn't it?' asked one.
'Nay, son. I'll give you cold! No, it were really 'ot. If it 'ad been cold, our boys wouldn't 'ave rotted neither. But what they said was: go anywhere near one of ours, and 'e'd be all rottin' away - maggots everywhere. 'Ad to put 'andkerchiefs over their noses an' turn their'eads away before they could shift 'em. That's what they said. They could 'ardly stand it. But they was clean and white like pieces of paper, and there wasn't no smell comin' off 'em.'
Nobody spoke.
'Must be the grub,' said the sergeant. 'Fed 'em like gentry they did.'
There was no comment.
'That there peasant down near Mozhaysk, where the battle was, 'e was saying they was fetched in from ten villages round, and they was at it twenty days and they still didn't shift all the dead bodies. And all them wolves, he was sayin' . . .'
'Now, that were a right battle, that were,' said an old soldier. 'The only one worth talkin' about. After that it was all . . . well, just puttin' people through it.'
'You're right there, old boy. Day before yesterday we came across'em. Nothing doin'. Couldn't get near 'em. Chucked their guns away just like that. Down on their knees they was, sayin', "We do beg your pardong!" And that was just one example. I've 'eard it said that Platov'ad 'is 'ands on Boneypart - twice! Grabs 'im once, an' whoosh! - 'e's off again. Turned into a bird in 'is 'ands. Off 'e goes! No chance of killin' 'im neither.'
'You're a lying sod, Kiselyov. I can tell by the look of you.'
'God's truth, I ain't lyin'.'
'By God, if I got me 'ands on 'im, 'e'd be six foot under. Aye, an' a wooden stake through 'is 'eart. Just think 'ow many men 'e's killed!'
'Anyway, 'e's 'ad it now, an' 'e won't be comin' 'ere again,' said the old soldier, yawning.
The conversation died down. The soldiers settled down for the night.
'Look at them stars. Never seen 'em shine like that! Like a string o' washin' 'ung out by the women!' said one soldier, goggling at the Milky Way.
'Means a good 'arvest next year, boys!'
'We need a bit more wood.'
'Give your back a little warm and your belly's frozen. Funny thing that.'
'Oh my God!'
'Who d'you think you're shovin'? It's a nice fire, but there's more than you, you know. Look at 'im, sprawled out all over the place.'
Through the gathering silence came the sound of a few men snoring. The others were turning over and over to keep warm. A few words were exchanged.
From a fire a hundred paces away came a roar of merry laughter.
' 'Ark at that lot. It's the Fifth, 'avin' a good laugh,' said a soldier. 'Plenty of people there!'
Another soldier got to his feet and walked over to the Fifth.
'Laugh?' he said, coming back. 'Two Froggies 'as turned up. One's froze to death, but the other's a good fellow! He's started singing.'
'Oho! Worth a quick look . . .'
Several soldiers walked over to the Fifth Company.
CHAPTER 9
The Fifth Company had set up its makeshift camp at the very edge of the forest. A huge camp-fire was blazing away in the midst of the snow, casting a bright light on branches heavy with hoar-frost.
About midnight the soldiers had heard footsteps and the snapping of twigs in the woods.
'It's a bear, boys,' said one soldier.
They all looked up and strained their ears. Out of the copse and into the bright firelight staggered two weirdly dressed human figures clinging to one another.
It was two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They came over towards the fire, speaking in hoarse voices and saying things in a language the soldiers couldn't understand. The taller of the two, a man wearing an officer's hat, seemed almost dead on his feet. As he got to the fire he tried to sit down but collapsed in a heap. The other, a stocky little soldier with a handkerchief tied round his head, was stronger. He helped his companion up, pointed to his own mouth and said something. The soldiers gathered round the Frenchmen, laid the sick man out on a greatcoat, and brought some porridge and vodka for them both. The exhausted French officer was Ramballe; the little man with the handkerchief round his head was his servant, Morel.
When Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge he suddenly became deliriously happy, and started babbling away to the soldiers, who couldn't understand a word he was saying. Ramballe refused any food, and just lay there leaning on one elbow by the fire, gazing at the Russian soldiers with a blank look in his red eyes. Now and then he gave a long-drawn-out groan followed by a relapse into silence. Morel kept pointing to his shoulders, letting the soldiers know that this was an officer, and he needed warming up. A Russian officer, who had come up to the fire, sent someone to ask the colonel whether he would take in a French officer and allow him to get warm. When the word came back that the colonel wanted them to bring the officer over, Ramballe was told where to go. He got to his feet and tried to walk, but staggered, and would have fallen if he hadn't been caught by a soldier standing near by.
'So, you don't want to go, then?' said a soldier to Ramballe with a jokey wink.
'Damn fool! Don't talk stupid. Peasant. 'E's a real peasant,' came voices from all sides as they rounded on the joking soldier. Ramballe was quickly surrounded, two men held him up with their hands crossed under him and carried him off to the cottage. Ramballe put his arms round the soldiers' necks, and as they carried him along he kept up a plaintive chant.
'Oh, good boys! Oh you are my good, kind friends. Real men! Oh, my brave, kind friends!' And he leant his head against the soldier's shoulder like a child.
Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the prime position, surrounded by the soldiers.
Morel, a stocky little Frenchman with swollen, streaming eyes, was wearing a woman's little coat and a handkerchief tied round his forage cap like a peasant woman's. He was obviously under the influence, and with one arm flung round the soldier sitting next to him, he was singing a French song in a husky, broken voice. The soldiers held their sides as they looked at him.
'Come on then, teach me. Tell me 'ow it goes. I'll soon pick it up.'Ow does it go?' said the soldier embraced by Morel, himself a singer who liked a good joke.
Vive Henri Quatre!
Vive ce roi vaillant!
sang Morel with a broad wink.
Ce diable a quatre . . .2
'Veeva-reeka! Veef-seru-vayar! Sidyablaka!' parroted the soldier, waving his hand and catching the tune well.
'Bravo! Ha-ha-ha!' A roar of happy laughter came from all sides. Morel screwed up his face and joined in with it.
'Come on! More, more!'
Qui eut le triple talent
De boire, de battre,
Et d'etre un vert gallant . . .3
'Sounds good. Your turn, Zaletayev! . . .'
'Kyu . . .' began Zaletayev, struggling with the sounds. 'Kyu-yuyu . . .' he warbled, straining manfully to purse his lips properly. 'Letrip-tala! Deboo-deba! Ee detravagala . . .'
'That's great! Just like the Froggy! Ha-ha-ha! Hey, do you want something else to eat?'
'Give 'im some more porridge. 'E's famished. Take some time to fill'im up.'
They handed him more porridge, and Morel gave a laugh as he launched into his third bowlful. There were happy smiles on the faces of all the young soldiers as they watched him. The old soldiers, who considered themselves above this kind of nonsense, lay there on the other side of the fire, but now and again one of them would raise himself up on one elbow and look across at Morel with a smile on his face too.
'They're men like us,' said one, snuggling down inside his coat. 'Even wormwood grows from a root.'
'God in heaven! Look at all them stars! Means a hard frost.'
And then everybody was silent.
The stars, as if they knew they could do it without being seen, danced across the black sky. Flaring up and dying down, and trembling as they did so, they seemed to be sharing some happy whispered mystery.
CHAPTER 10
The French army was melting away with the regularity of a mathematical progression. And the crossing of the Berezina, about which so much has been written, far from being the decisive episode in the campaign, was only one of the intermediate stages on the army's road to destruction. On the French side the reason so much has been written about the Berezina is that it was there, at the broken-down bridge across the river, that the disasters raining down on the French in a kind of steady progression were suddenly concentrated in a single moment - a single tragic, never-to-be-forgotten catastrophe. On the Russian side, the reason so much has been made of the Berezina was simply that far away in Petersburg a plan had been devised (by Pfuel, of course) for the capture of Napoleon in a strategic trap on the banks of the Berezina. Everyone was so sure in advance that the trap would work exactly as planned that they were all insistent: it was indeed the crossing of the Berezina that finished off the French. In point of fact, statistics show that in terms of guns and men lost the results of the Berezina were less disastrous to the French than the fighting at Krasnoye.
The sole significance of the Berezina crossing lies in the fact that it proved conclusively and beyond a shadow of doubt the wrongness of all those plans for cutting off the enemy's retreat, and the rightness of the only possible policy - the one demanded by Kutuzov and the mass of the Russian army - which was to follow on behind the enemy. The horde of French soldiers was fleeing and constantly accelerating as it did so, with all its energies directed towards the attainment of a single goal. It was fleeing unstoppably, like a wounded beast. This was demonstrated not so much by the arrangements that existed for crossing as by what happened at the bridges themselves. When the bridges were broken down, unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow, even women with children who were travelling with the French transport, were all propelled forward by the force of inertia. Instead of surrendering they made a rush for the boats, or plunged into the ice-covered water.
This impulse was a reasonable one. The situation was equally fraught for fugitives and pursuers alike. By sticking with his own kind each fleeing individual might be able to rely on help from his comrades in misfortune, and finding a definite place of his own among them. By surrendering to the Russians he would find himself in the same miserable plight, but lower down the order when it came to the satisfaction of his basic needs. The French didn't have to wait for incontrovertible evidence that half the prisoners - men that the Russians simply couldn't handle, however much they wanted to save them - were dying of cold and starvation. They sensed that it couldn't be otherwise. The most compassionate and pro-French Russian generals, even Frenchmen serving in the Russian army, could do nothing for the prisoners. The French were perishing in the same catastrophe that the Russians themselves were involved in. There could be no question of taking bread and clothing away from our starving, much-needed soldiers to give it to Frenchmen who, although they were not hated, not dangerous, and in no way to blame, were simply superfluous to requirements. Sometimes this was actually done, though it was the exception rather than the rule.
Behind the French lay certain destruction; ahead lay hope. They had burnt their boats; massed flight was their only salvation, and it was on massed flight that the French concentrated all their efforts.
The further they fled the more wretched became the plight of those who remained, especially after the Berezina, which the Russians had set great store by because of the Petersburg plan, and the more virulently the Russian generals railed against each other, and especially against Kutuzov. The assumption was that the failure of the Petersburg plan would be laid at his door, so the dissatisfaction with him, the derision and mockery he had to put up with, became more and more pronounced. Naturally enough, the mockery and derision were always couched in terms of respect, in such terms that made it impossible for Kutuzov even to ask what he stood accused of. They didn't take him seriously, they submitted their reports and asked for his decisions like men going through the motions of some sad ritual, they winked at one another behind his back, and at every step they did their best to pull the wool over his eyes.
It was generally accepted by all those men - because they had no understanding of him - that there was no point in talking to the old man. The profound significance of their plans was beyond him; he would simply come out with all his old phrases (which they took to be meaningless) about crossing a golden bridge, and the inadvisability of going abroad with a bunch of tramps, and so on and so forth. They had heard it all before. Meanwhile everything he said - they must wait for supplies, for instance, or the men had no boots - was simplicity itself, whereas everything they proposed was so complicated and so clever that the whole thing was obvious: he was a stupid old dodderer, while they were military officers of genius, lacking only in authority.
This moody vilification by men on the staff came to a climax once the brilliant admiral, the hero of Petersburg, Wittgenstein, had joined the army. Kutuzov took note of this development with nothing more than a sigh and a shrug. Just once in the aftermath of the Berezina affair he lost his temper and wrote the following note to Bennigsen, who was still reporting back to the Tsar: On account of your bouts of ill-health your Excellency will be so good as to retire to Kaluga on receipt of this letter, there to await further instructions from His Majesty the Emperor.
But Bennigsen's dismissal was followed by the arrival on the scene of the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, who had been a participant in the early stages of the campaign, only to be removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now the grand duke on rejoining the army informed Kutuzov of the Tsar's displeasure at the poor achievements of our troops, and the slow progress that was being made. The Tsar himself intended to be with the army in a few days' time.
The old man, as well versed in court procedure as in warfare - the same Kutuzov who in the August of that year had been chosen commander-in-chief against the Tsar's will, who had removed the grand duke and heir-apparent from the army, and had acted on his own initiative in defiance of the Tsar's will by ordering the abandonment of Moscow - saw at once that his day was done, his part was played, and his purported authority was no more. And he could see this not only from the attitude shown to him by the court. On the one hand he could appreciate that the war itself - the theatre he had been acting in - was over, and he sensed quite naturally that his work was completed. On the other hand, he was becoming conscious at this very time of a physical weariness besetting his old man's body, and the need for physical rest.
On the 29th of November Kutuzov reached Vilna - his dear Vilna, as he used to call it. Twice during his military career he had been governor of Vilna.
In the wealthy town of Vilna, which had emerged unscathed, in addition to the comforts he had gone without for so long Kutuzov rediscovered old friends and old associations. At a stroke he turned his back on all military and political matters, and immersed himself in the quiet routine of everyday life, so far as the passions raging all round him would permit, as if to say that everything that was now happening, or about to happen, in the world of history was no longer any concern of his.
It was Chichagov, a 'cutter-off' and 'overthrower' if ever there was one; Chichagov, the man who at an early stage had favoured making a diversion in Greece and then in Warsaw but was never willing to go where he was ordered; Chichagov, notorious for speaking out in the presence of the Tsar; who considered Kutuzov to be under an obligation to him, because in 1811, when he had been sent to conclude peace with Turkey over Kutuzov's head, and found when he got there that peace had already been concluded, he had admitted to the Tsar that the credit for concluding that peace belonged to Kutuzov - Chichagov it was who came out first to meet Kutuzov at the castle in Vilna where the latter was to stay. In undress naval uniform with a dirk, and his cap under his arm, he handed the commander-in-chief a garrison report and the keys to the city. The peculiar mixture of respect and derision shown by youth to old age in its dotage was quite unmistakable in Chichagov's whole bearing, he being well aware of the accusations now levelled at Kutuzov.
In conversation with Chichagov Kutuzov happened to mention that his carts packed with china that had been seized by the enemy at Borisovo had been recovered intact and would soon be restored to him.
'Are you implying I have nothing to eat from? On the contrary, I can provide you with anything, even if you want to give dinner parties,' Chichagov protested, hot under the collar, intending with every word he uttered (in French) to put himself in the right, and assuming that Kutuzov was thinking along exactly the same lines. Kutuzov gave a slight shrug, smiled his usual shrewd and subtle smile, and answered, also in French, 'I mean no more than what I say.'
In defiance of the Tsar's wishes, Kutuzov kept the greater part of the troops back in Vilna. Those who were close to him kept saying how much he had declined, how much weaker he had become during his stay in Vilna. He was reluctant to deal with the army, and left everything to his generals. Meanwhile he gave himself up to the pleasures of the flesh as he waited for the Tsar to arrive.
The Tsar left Petersburg on the 7th of December with his suite - Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkonsky, Arakcheyev, and the rest - and reached Vilna on the 11th, driving straight up to the castle in his travelling sledge. There by the castle, in spite of the intense cold, stood nigh on a hundred generals and staff-officers in full dress uniform, with a guard of honour provided by the Semyonovsky regiment.
A courier galloped up to the castle ahead of the Tsar in a troika with steaming horses, and shouted, 'He's on his way!', which prompted Konovnitsyn to hurry over to the vestibule and inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the porter's little room.
A minute later the big, bulky figure of the old man, in dress uniform and full regalia, with a scarf drawn tight beneath his belly, tottered out on to the steps. He donned his cocked hat with the peaks sideways on, picked up his gloves and sidled ponderously down the steps, clutching the report prepared for presentation to his M