The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire

by Linda Lafferty

  “I do what I can with my squadron. But we are human beings, deprived of days’ and nights’ sleep. Of course our uhlans will doze!”

  Ah, but we had our revenge. The day after this harsh reprimand we both spied Podjampolsky riding along with his eyes closed, despite his prancing, high-spirited horse.

  “Watch!” said Cesar, with a devilish grin. “You stay here and just enjoy some fun.”

  He reined up his horse and then galloped ahead, racing past Podjampolsky. The captain’s horse bolted ahead a full run, spooked by the commotion. Captain Podjampolsky struggled to gather up the reins, which had fallen from his hands as his horse raced ahead, willy-nilly.

  Cesar and I kept straight faces—and we never discussed the incident with the captain.

  We finally camped about fifty versts before Smolensk, receiving orders to halt until further notice. We joined with other regiments. I spread out my greatcoat in a stack of hay and slept ten hours. When I emerged, my short hair studded with grass and seed, it was near sundown.

  The camp was lively with cuirassiers, uhlans, and Hussars walking about, discussing if we would have, at last, a chance to fight the enemy. Soldiers squatted near campfires, cleaning their firearms, sharpening their sabers or lances. Our regiment’s band attracted throngs who yearned to hear a merry song.

  At nightfall I climbed a hill, still able to hear the chatter of the soldiers. Hundreds upon hundreds of campfires lit up the countryside below me. I could hear the snorting and stomping of horses tied to their pickets.

  Then I descended the ridge on the other side. Stillness enveloped me. The sound of peace. I stood listening to my own breath.

  Tsar Alexander sent his orders: “The emperor will no longer restrain your valor and frees you to take revenge on the enemy for the tedium of involuntary retreat which until now has been essential.”

  “Hurrah!” shouted the regiments, loud enough I thought to terrorize the French.

  Never had I been so wrong.

  When I heard the distant rumble of cannons and saw the flashes of light reflected from shining bayonets, a shiver of excitement coursed up my spine. Bracing fresh was the memory of the battles of Friedland and Heilsberg, before our tsar had made peace with the French enemy. The smell of smoke, acrid and pungent, struck memories so vivid, they seemed only yesterday.

  All around me, our soldiers were freshly shaved and dressed in their finest parade uniforms. Battle was dirty business and those fine uniforms would suffer—but they knew that death hovered close at hand for all of us and they wanted to look their best if they were called to meet their God.

  Waiting outside the walls of Smolensk, ready for battle orders, we heard the cheers of the inhabitants.

  “Rout the enemy!”

  “Show the French what a Russian soldier is!”

  “Save our dear town, our Smolensk!”

  We exchanged proud smiles. We had been waiting months—no years!—for this revenge. Finally we’d be able to meet the Grand Armée in battle, rather than retreating ahead of Napoleon.

  It was the old men’s wishes, shouted down from the walls, that haunted me. They knew what battle was and what awaited us.

  “God save you!”

  “God help you!” Their old voices cracked in solemn tones.

  Our first order was to delay the enemy, engaging them in skirmishes. Ivan Tornesi was the first to volunteer.

  He rode out with twenty uhlans under his command to lead the French away on a chase. But instead he rode full gallop into a large squadron, eager for battle. No matter how loud the uhlans called to him to come back, he did not heed them. Brandishing his saber, he charged the French, slashing left and right.

  Surprised initially to finally be engaged in battle by at least one Russian, the Frenchmen hesitated. Then annoyed, they engulfed the brave officer, killing him instantly. He tumbled from his horse, slashed to death.

  Our regiment was ordered to wait at the top of a knoll until needed. We watched the course of battle from our hilltop: the spiraling plumes of cannon fire, the rain of dirt, the flash of bayonets, and the ever-widening sea of fallen bodies both men and horse.

  Our regimental priest Wartminski—the bravest man among us—came dashing up the hill, waving his crop, the only weapon he had.

  “Look!” he said, pointing behind him.

  There was the enemy galloping toward us!

  Captain Podjampolsky shouted, “Second half squadron, left wheel! Take command, Lieutenant Alexandrov!”

  I knew my role. I was ready. Now I was the battle-hardened veteran. “From your places! Charge! Charge!”

  Then, even as we began our charge, the captain shouted.

  “Back! Back!”

  He had reassessed the situation. We were outnumbered.

  I looked over my shoulder to see my half squadron galloping at full speed back the way we had come. I was left behind.

  I was riding Zelant, my auxiliary horse. I wheeled him around. Zelant had a bad habit of flinging his head in the air and catching the bit in his teeth when I reined him in. Now, he reared up, wasting precious time.

  I spurred him back toward my regiment, the half squadron I commanded now far ahead of me. I heard the pounding of hoofbeats behind me and glanced over my shoulder.

  There were three or four French dragoons right behind me, one just three feet from my flank. I could hear the jingle of the hilt as he brandished his broadsword.

  I could have turned to fight, like Ivan Tornesi, but, like him, I would have been slaughtered on the spot and the Frenchmen would have been free to pursue my squadron.

  I raised my sword, but instead of engaging, I brought the broadside down hard on my horse’s rump. Zelant dashed forward like a tempest leaving the dragoons to chase us hopelessly.

  In the few minutes I had diverted the enemy, the squadrons had reformed. “Charge!” came the command and our uhlans rushed forward, making the French pay for their impetuous attack. The uhlan’s pennons fluttered in the wind, a forest of lances rushing to meet Napoleon’s men. Now it was their time to retreat and run, but our fast horses formed flanks around them. They fell one by one or raced away to safety, thoroughly thrashed.

  After the battle we returned to our post where we were to protect a nearby fortress. Captain Podjampolsky looked over at me, shaking his head.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “We almost lost you, Alexandrov!”

  “It was my horse, sir. Zelant reared up when I checked him.”

  The captain shook his head again, looking out into the distance. The cannon smoke wafted over the landscape, strong enough to choke us.

  “We should have advanced by now,” he said. “The French draw nearer and nearer.”

  To punctuate his words, bullets showered us. They fell short, harmless chunks of lead at the end of their trajectory. One of our regiments was engaged in battle just beyond us.

  Podjampolsky watched the lead fall from the sky, pelting his uhlans and their horses. “Alexandrov! Ride to Smolensk and ask Colonel Stackelberg what his orders are. We cannot stand until tomorrow. The bullets will find their targets soon enough.”

  We heard a groan and one of our uhlans slumped in his saddle.

  “Go!” shouted Captain Podjampolsky. “As fast as you can ride, Alexandrov!”

  I galloped Zelant to the walled city four versts away and found Colonel Stackelberg.

  “Why does he send you, Lieutenant Alexandrov?” the German colonel said. “You are an officer in command. He should have sent a courier of lesser rank, one without a platoon to lead. And he must never question an order. His order is to stand!”

  I galloped back to my squadron gritting my teeth. How could I deliver such a death sentence? We were to stand and die, without the satisfaction of a fight.

  “Well?” shouted Podjampolsky from a distance. “What does he say?”

  I feel the eyes of all my brother uhlans on me. Their horses shifted nervously.

  “Colonel Stackelberg says to
stand,” I shouted over the boom of the cannons.

  “Stand?” Podjampolsky rubbed his eyes in the thick smoke. He wheeled his horse around to face the troops.

  “Colonel Stackelberg has commanded us to stand. Stand we will,” his voice rang out.

  The uhlans straightened their backs and shouted, “Yes, sir!” The skirmish with the French earlier in the day had filled their veins with fresh blood and courage. They would stand.

  The battle raged before us and still we stood.

  Toward evening, my half squadron was given permission to dismount and rest. I took advantage of this time to approach Captain Podjampolsky. Something had been bothering me since I was dispatched with the message to Smolensk.

  “Why, sir, did you send me instead of the sergeant with the message to Stackelberg?”

  Captain Podjampolsky didn’t answer. His tongue poked a bulge in his cheek, smudged with smoke and grime.

  “Is it because you were afraid the bullets might hit me?” I asked, guessing his motive.

  Podjampolsky brought his hand to his head, as if in pain. “Da. It is true. Ah, Alexandrov! You are still so young. In the midst of this ferocity, all gun smoke and death, you are so innocent. When I saw you lead your half squadron on the attack, it felt as if I had loosed a lamb into a pack of wolves. Blood rushed to my head—a senseless sacrifice, a murder of a child.”

  “But I am not a child—”

  “I cannot help what I think, Alexandrov! I have a little brother in the Mariupol Hussars. I remember you in the Hussar blues. I suppose I see him in you.”

  Podjampolsky turned away from me. I suspected he did not want me to see tears in his eyes. There was no braver, no more soulful, officer in our regiment.

  “Now get an hour’s sleep, Lieutenant Alexandrov,” he commanded. “And do not question my orders again.”

  I fell asleep and awoke when a spent bullet slammed into my helmet. My eyes flashed open and I saw bullets scattered around me. I collected them into my hand as a child would marbles and carried them over to show the captain.

  Podjampolsky laughed, staring at my handful of bullets.

  Any one of them could have killed me. Or my comrades.

  “Do you find it really such a wonder, these French bullets? We are in battle whether we stand or not!”

  I stared at the French bullets in my palm, turning one over with my finger.

  “Stop playing with ammunition, Alexandrov. Get back on your horse. We just received orders to retreat.”

  Retreat? We have surrendered Smolensk!

  But not before our army set fire to the entire town and the crops in the fields.

  Smolensk was ablaze, the black smoke choking us as we fell further back toward Moscow.

  Chapter 47

  Borodino, Russia

  August 1812

  We rode toward Borodino, a village on a rolling plain spotted with knolls and forests. We rode through rain and muck. My uhlan greatcoat was not near as good as the Hussars’ uniform. It had no lining and my kolet was made of flimsy cloth. I was yet again shivering as if it were winter, for the wind was blowing hard from the north.

  This boded ominously for the winter to come. It was only August.

  “Cheer up, Alexandrov,” said Cesar, riding beside me. “The rain will stop one day.”

  A shiver rocked me in the saddle. I decided losing my temper would warm my blood.

  “It’s not the rain. It’s this bitter north wind. I can’t feel my fingers or my toes, Cesar!”

  “Better that way,” he said, scratching his neck. He drew his collar tighter.

  “Why the devil weren’t we given the order to fight?” I said. “Why weren’t our squadrons ordered into battle? We stood like stuffed scarecrows on the battlefield.”

  “You squawk like a wet hen,” said Cesar. “A battle isn’t won by counting the last body dropped.”

  Cesar drew a sharp breath. I guessed that he was thinking about his brother.

  “General de Tolly must have felt there was too much to lose,” he said. “That’s why we retreated.”

  This answer angered me even more. I had the smoke and soot of the holy city of Smolensk in my eyes. Alcides’s nose ran with black phlegm and he had a bad cough.

  “You mean we Russians couldn’t beat Napoleon in the heart of our own country? I want to stand our ground and fight.”

  “De Tolly has seen hundreds of battles,” said Cesar. “He is not vainglorious. I think he’s set on drawing Napoleon as far into Russia as he dares.”

  “What? And let him into the gates of Moscow?”

  Cesar scratched his head under his helmet. “Maybe. Maybe even that.”

  I drew back in revulsion at the image of the French in our sacred ancient capital.

  That night Captain Podjampolsky gave me orders to procure hay. “And find something for us to eat. I’m so tired of kasha. A chicken or a goose!”

  It was harvest time, the second cutting. The rain had stopped, though the wind still bent the stalks of rye still in the fields. I took a few uhlans with me and a hay wagon. Three versts away there was a village with fields piled high with haystacks. The serfs had finished scything the hay fields and fled before threshing the grain.

  I left my men to load the wagon.

  It was twilight and darkness was descending. I scouted around and found a ghostly sight: a farm with the doors of its house, shed, granaries, barns, and stalls all left agape. Cows were wandering about the garden, munching on cucumbers and melons, trampling the cabbages. Chickens, ducks, and geese pecked at bugs and rotting vegetables as if they owned the place.

  I remembered my captain’s wish for fresh meat. I caught a goose by the neck. It squawked, trying to peck my hands.

  I lifted my saber over the struggling fowl. With a quick move, I sliced off its head.

  I stood there, not able to move.

  I’ve killed it!

  There was warm blood on my hands, the animal just seconds before so animated and squawking, hot-blooded with rage and fear. Now its lifeless body was cooling in my hands.

  I heard the far-off boom of a cannon. Then another.

  As I looked at my bloody saber I shook with emotion. Battle-hardened veteran, hah! I had never killed anything in my life before this moment. Now, with my noble saber, I had cut off the head of an innocent bird.

  How could I ever kill a human being?

  I came back with the limp goose swinging from my saddle to find that the uhlans had loaded the wagon full of hay and even tied up great sheaves behind their horses’ saddles.

  “Good God! Don’t you think that’s enough hay?”

  “Hay is light, sir,” answered one of my squad.

  “Light as air,” chuckled another. I noticed his mare was agitated, prancing about under him.

  “That hay must be scratching her flanks,” I said. “Well, let’s ride on. It’s getting late.”

  We had ridden only a verst when an orderly galloped up to me.

  “Orders from Captain Podjampolsky! You are to abandon your mission. We are ordered to leave camp.”

  “What?”

  Just then one of the mares who had been protesting her cargo of hay reared up. To my surprise a sheep fell out of the hay and off the horse’s rump!

  The sheep began to baa and set off a chorus behind every uhlan’s saddle. The horses began bucking and rearing, hay cascading off their flanks. Sheep rained down from the horses’ hindquarters, forming a wild-eyed flock that darted this way and that.

  “Get yourself in order!” I shouted. “The captain has ordered us to resume our march! Look lively!”

  “But, sir …”

  “Leave the livestock. We are to rejoin the regiment at once!”

  The men pulled long faces.

  “Kasha be damned!” said one. “I can’t stand another day of it! I feel like I’m eating dirt.”

  “I can taste the roasted shank—and smell the mutton grease on the fire!”

  “Get on, you lads!
” I ordered. I flung my dead goose in the road just to make things even for all of us. It landed with a flop in the dust.

  We left the decapitated goose among the flock of bewildered sheep and trotted off toward Borodino—the last stand we would make to defend Moscow.

  Captain Podjampolsky was in a foul mood. We were all cold, miserable—the sluicing rains soaked us. The biting, unseasonal wind was brutal, like none I had ever known.

  Can winter be closing in so early? What will winter bring if this is a harbinger?

  We were on the march again. But when we were ordered to halt late that night, I heard the news that brought howls of joy from the troops.

  “They say de Tolly had no choice. The scorch and retreat tactics have caused such humiliation to our troops, he had to do it—”

  “I heard one officer say de Tolly was an agent of Napoleon.”

  “Rubbish!” said Captain Podjampolsky. “Idiots will babble whatever mounds of dung flow through their minds. De Tolly was a brave general who had no other choice but retreat, given our odds.”

  “We could have stood and fought!” said a young officer from another regiment who visited our fire.

  Captain Podjampolsky’s eyes glittered in the firelight.

  “And lose every last one of us? Perhaps we could have won a battle but it would have decimated our troops. Who, tell me, would fight the next battle, and the next, and the next after that?”

  The young officer lifted his chin in defiance. “Forgive me, sir. But brave men should have the chance to fight for Russia. Our cavalry hated General de Tolly for depriving them of the honor of dying for our country and tsar—”

  Cesar jumped in, his face animated with joy. “Wait until the regiments hear about de Tolly’s replacement. We will hear the roars of joy! ”

  Replacement? Could it be?

  “Who is it?” I asked. “Who is to replace General de Tolly as commander in chief?”

  “General Kutuzov,” said Podjampolsky. In the flickering light I could see my commander’s sooty face crease with fine lines. He was smiling too.

  The great Kutuzov!

  I let out a girlish squeal of delight that made the other officers stare at me.

  But I didn’t care.

  Captain Podjampolsky stretched out his hand and ruffled my hair.