The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire
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“There’s the lad,” he said. “All soldiers need heroes. We deserve a Kutuzov to stir the blood of our men.”
“Kutuzov will let us fight at last!” I said.
“Da!” said Cesar. “Our men would rather stand their ground for Russia than run like scurrying rats. If I hear ‘Retreat!’ one more time, I’ll … I’ll …”
Podjampolsky gave his subordinate officer a curious look. Cesar reminded me of myself that first dinner with officers before the battles of Heilsberg and Friedland, when I had talked so proudly about the valor of a Russian cavalry officer.
What a fool I had been!
Like Captain Kazimirski, Podjampolsky’s face was kind and indulgent. He saw that Cesar could not complete his sentence and held up his hand to stop him from trying.
“Remember that General de Tolly was a good and honorable commanding officer,” he said, resting his hand on the officer’s shoulders. “His orders to retreat saved many lives. Maybe you and I—and Alexandrov, here—are alive because of his orders.”
“We ran away like cowardly dogs,” said Cesar. “Our men were aching to fight and we were ordered to retreat. Captain Podjampolsky! We lost the battles!”
“But not the war,” said Podjampolsky, extending his other arm over my shoulders. He held us tight like beloved children. “Not the war. Remember that.”
Chapter 48
Peterhof Palace, St. Petersburg
August 1812
Empress Elizabeth could find no peace. She paced the great Peterhof Palace like a cat, rankled with heat and restlessness.
Finally she sat at her desk to compose a letter to her mother in Baden. The tsarina dipped her quill into the ink pot.
I am sure you are badly informed as to what transpires here in Russia. Perhaps you have heard the rumors that we have fled St. Petersburg for Siberia as Napoleon hunts us like a wolf after lame prey.
We are far from cowering. We will not flee! We are ready for anything except negotiations.
The more Napoleon advances, the less the chance for eventual peace. All Russia is united in that respect: peasants and noblemen alike.
This is what Napoleon did not expect. He was wrong about this, like so many other things. How could a Frenchman ever understand a Russian?
Each step he takes in our vast Russia is a step closer to the abyss. We will see how he bears the winter!
Elizabeth signed her name and then blotted the paper. She gazed at the extra ink and indentation her quill had gouged in the paper on one word: winter.
In early September, we united the armies once more near Borodino. We took the Kolotsk monastery after a thirteen-hour battle and those of us in the rear guard took up position southwest of Borodino, near the village of Shervardino.
“Our army is too heavy on the right flank,” said Cesar, pointing to the bright campfires that lit up the battlefield like stars on a moonless night. “De Tolly’s army is over there along with Platov’s Cossacks.”
“General Platov’s regiment?” I said.
Denisov would be there.
“Cossacks aren’t their best on the regular battlefield. They hunt like a pack of wolves, attacking when there is vulnerability.”
“And now?”
“They’ll be at a real disadvantage. Cossacks don’t fight in formation—they descend helter-skelter like a swarm of hornets upon the enemy in an ambush. But on the battlefield Napoleon’s army will mow them down with their artillery.”
I stood blinking out into the darkness punctured with thousands of small glittering lights. Somewhere out there was Denisov. I don’t know why I worried about that man who had treated me so roughly.
“But I don’t care about the Cossacks,” said Cesar. “I’m worried about our position. Napoleon will be determined to capture this redoubt and the high ground. They will pound us mercilessly.”
We were stationed between a heavily fortified artillery position, a mound called the Raevsky redoubt and three minor fortifications—the flèches—just south.
The wind didn’t cease—its blasts chilled me to the bone. There were no fires lit for two nights. I shook inside my unlined greatcoat, trying to shiver myself to sleep.
At dawn the next day, the signal cannon rumbled, a sound that resonated in my chest. Its roar filled the plains and hills, haunting us. As the army awoke around me, I stared into the gray that wasn’t still night, but wasn’t yet day.
I thought of the gathering storm, the human beings who would lose their lives over the course of the next few hours, the next days. Not just Russians.
The Grand Armée hears the same cannons—are their Catholic prayers the same as our Orthodox? So many different nations make up Napoleon’s army now. The conquered are impressed. Soldiers who just months ago fought against the French now are part of that same French army. They were our allies before, but now they will kill us or we will kill them. But they don’t hate us. We Russians are not their enemy. If the Austrians, Poles, Italians—a dozen nationalities—could manage it, they would desert Napoleon and his Grand Armée. But now they are deep in Russia, almost at the gates of Moscow. If they run away, they will be shot or starve. If they stand, then we will kill them.
None of it makes any sense. We are enemies only on the battlefield. A soldier in the Grand Armée is not fighting for Napoleon, he’s fighting for the chance to return to his homeland, to embrace his wife, hold his child, kiss his aging parents.
War. There is nothing so filthy.
The French marched toward us in dense columns. We watched from our redoubt as our Russian troops moved to meet them, regroup, and battle again.
Another hellish day! Now we were fully engaged.
I was nearly deaf from the explosions from both artilleries. The ground rocked under us, and our balance was shaken by the constant thunder of cannons in our ears. Bullets rained down on us, whistling, hissing, pelting us like hail. We ignored them. It was the roar of cannons that rattled us, made us jump, even in our saddles, with the threat of instant destruction from the shattering impact of the iron balls.
Our squadron went on the attack. Even in the heat of battle, that strange, unseasonable wind was freezing, stealing the warmth from my body. Without gloves my hands were so numb that I could barely bend my fingers around the hilt of my saber. Between attacks I replaced my blade into its scabbard and dug my hands under my greatcoat to warm them against my body.
Sitting on Alcides between attacks I whispered to him, “What have we gotten ourselves into, old boy?”
He stepped sideways, swinging his head toward my right stirrup, the way he used to when he’d nibble on my bare feet on our nightly rides years ago.
This was not what I thought war would be. Yes, I loved my horse, the adventure of riding all day and sleeping in a tent at night—the freedom from the tedium that is the life of a woman.
But I realized that I had lost the overwhelming courage that had made me so bold before my captains. Having fought in Heilsberg, Friedland, Smolensk, and now Borodino, I no longer had a youthful edge, that biting, innocent, ignorant hunger for war.
I would simply be thankful when I could feel my limbs again. I was so cold and numb. I wished with all my heart to escape from this freezing hell.
And my wish was granted. But as our Russian tales tell us, a wish is rarely granted without a curse.
I shall tell you what happened, though I desperately don’t want to. I cannot bear to remember.
Half of Platov’s Cossacks—twenty-four hundred or so—crossed the Voina north of Borodino and attacked the French left rear. The French overreacted and sent seventeen cavalry regiments to counterattack. Platov’s heroic move bought time for the Russian army to maneuver and reinforce its right flank.
I thought for a moment of Denisov. Had he survived?
But just as Cesar had predicted, Napoleon was still determined to capture our redoubt. We were pounded by artillery.
And then—I almost do not have the courage to tell you any more …
Alcides and I were hit by a cannonball. I heard his scream and saw the earth flying up around us. I fell to the ground half under him but he rolled away from me.
Cesar saw me fall. He disengaged from the enemy, galloping over to me.
“Alexandrov!” he cried. “Are you wounded?”
“Alcides!” I screamed. My beloved horse writhed beside me in agony.
His guts spilled out of his abdomen and he screamed, a piteous high-pitched whinny.
“Alexandrov! Are you wounded? Answer me!”
“Shoot him!” I screamed. “Shoot my horse. Don’t let him suffer, I beg you. Cesar!
He did not even dismount. We were still in the thick of the battle. But I saw his hand reach for his pistol. A shot rang out. Alcides lay suddenly still in the midst of the infernal movement and whistling artillery of the battlefield.
Absolutely still.
“No!” I cried, crawling over to embrace his neck. I pressed my lips against his long jawbone, kissing it over and over. His glassy eyes stared back at me.
“Sergeant Major!” shouted Cesar. “A fresh mount for Lieutenant Alexandrov at once!”
It was only as I struggled to stand up that I realized I was wounded. Although the skin was not punctured, I had been hit. My knee and lower leg had been smashed by the cannonball that killed my beloved Alcides. I had no control over my leg. I tried to stand, but my leg crumpled uselessly under me.
I fought to make my leg obey me and suddenly, as if something had snapped in place, I gained control of it. I could stand, even walk—although the pain made me feel faint.
I was helped by a sergeant major to a spot behind our lines and given a fresh horse, the feisty Zelant. I saw no blood on my leg and no evidence of broken bones. I decided I was ready to return to battle.
When I rode out to the front, Captain Podjampolsky glanced at me.
“Alexandrov! What are you doing back?”
“I’m fit to fight,” I answered. “Permission to take back command of my half squadron.”
We continued to hold our position until nightfall. My blood was ice and the pain in my leg unbearable, a constant throbbing torment.
I was finally forced to be relieved from duty. Captain Podjampolsky sent an uhlan to accompany me into the village of Borodino.
Each trotting step jostled my leg, sending me into agony. At stretches, the uhlan rode alongside me, grabbing my coat to steady me in the saddle. When we reached Borodino we found even the tiniest cottage jammed with wounded.
I was unable to dismount and remount, so my uhlan companion went from house to house, asking for permission to take shelter. We were turned away everywhere.
Finally I decided to enter a large peasant cottage without asking permission. I opened the door and was greeted with the dark and stink of the grave. Soiled, wounded flesh blasted an acrid cloud from the warmth within.
But it was warmth.
Voices greeted me. “Who’s that?”
“What do you want?”
“Who came in?”
“Shut the door, you devil!”
“I am from the Lithuanian Uhlans, an officer,” I said, answering the unseen men in the darkness. “Lieutenant Alexandrov. I am wounded. Let me spend the night with you. I’m freezing.”
“Impossible!” shouted several voices. “There is no room! Go away.”
I limped forward. “You should find it in your heart to help a wounded comrade!”
A voice called through the darkness. “Well, stay if you like. But there is no room here for you to lie down.”
I signaled for my uhlan to stay outside with the horses. I moved forward slowly, my eyes slowly accustoming themselves to the darkness. I crawled with my leg as stiff as a board to the stove and lay against the corner of it. I still wore my weapons, even my helmet. I was cold, hungry, and in extreme pain. My limbs began to warm and the pain lessened. I fell asleep in a minute.
Sometime during the night I must have tried to turn over or shift my weight. My saber clanked against the iron stove. A chorus of voices filled the room in great fright: “Who goes there?” “Who is it?”
I could hear the anxiety in their voices. We were all wounded and unable to defend ourselves. We were struggling to stay alive.
“Who is there, damn it?”
A voice of what passed for reason under the circumstances rang out.
“It’s just the uhlan officer fussing about, the one the devil delivered us last night.”
The voices died down and soon returned the snores. I could not return to sleep, however, because the pain had returned and I had a high fever.
The smell of the unwashed and wounded—fetid and sour—nauseated me.
A few hours later, the pink light of dawn seeped through the cracks in the shutters.
How dare the dawn still be pink after all that has happened?
I made my way across the room to the door, dragging my injured leg across grumbling soldiers. My uhlan was asleep in the saddle outside the door.
He awoke with a start and then helped me mount Zelant. We rode further on to the wagon encampment. There, one of my companions, the regimental paymaster Burogo—a face and voice I knew, for we had fought together, faced death together—greeted me. He placed me in a big chair by the stove, wrapping me in his sheepskin coat, and handed me a cup of soup. Then he wrapped my leg in alcohol-soaked bandages.
“Alexandrov!” he said. “Why did you let the French do this to you? You weren’t so careful, were you?”
I smiled for the first time in days. Then I remembered Alcides. I drank up the best soup in Borodino, my tears salting the broth.
Chapter 49
Outside Moscow
September 1812
After two days, I regained my strength and returned to the battlefield. Captain Podjampolsky gave me command of a small detachment—two dozen uhlans—to bring our depleted squadron up to strength.
Too many faces were unfamiliar. Most of my squadron had fallen in battle.
I forbade myself to think of them, just as I could not think of killing the damned goose.
Or Alcides. In order to survive I had to push all I loved and cared about aside.
I was a soldier fighting for Russia—that was all that mattered.
Despite our hopes after the battle, we retreated yet again. Our new encampment was just ten versts from Moscow. I asked permission to ride to Moscow, where I could have a warm coat tailored for me. I planned to stay in the Kremlin with my father’s old comrade-in-arms Colonel Mitrofanov. I was given permission to ride in a supply wagon to Moscow’s gates.
Inside the city, I stopped to stare up at the majesty of the white walls of the Kremlin.
The Muscovites were as frantic as bees after a foolish boy has thrown a rock at their hive. They were packing their belongings and boarding up the windows. There was little left in the stores. I found a tailor who agreed to fit a warm coat for me. In the meantime I went in search of Mitrofanov’s house.
He had left—like so many Muscovites—but when I stood, stymied outside his building, I was taken in by a young merchant’s wife.
“Come in, sir!” she said at once, seeing by my uniform that I was an officer.
“Monsieur Mitrofanov is a dear friend of my father,” I told her. “They served many years in the cavalry together.”
She clapped her hands.
“A friend of Colonel Mitrofanov! Oh, please do us the honor of staying with us, sir.”
She asked me to take a seat next to her on the sofa and then bade her young daughter Katenka to make tea. She asked her younger daughter Anna to bring some butter and bread, a satisfying black rye.
Katenka’s eyes were blue as chips of a sunny sky. She was a sweet girl whose eyes flashed open at each bit of news she could glean from me.
“The enemy—Napoleon—how near
is he to Moscow?”
“Twenty versts at most. But he is regrouping his army,” I said. “As are we. I will only be here as long as it takes to get my coat made.”
“We hear Napoleon forces his enemies to convert,” said Anna. “He brands his prisoners over the heart with the Catholic cross.”
I took a bite of my buttered bread and nodded solemnly.
“I have heard the same, though I don’t think it’s true. Fear breeds tales like a fire stretches shadows. But Napoleon surely has no regard for our Orthodox religion.”
The young girl clapped her hands over her heart as if Napoleon were wielding the branding iron then and there.
“Oh, dear sir! You won’t let the French in to Moscow, will you? Our army will protect us, won’t they?”
And seeing her frightened face and angelic pose, reminding me of an icon on a church wall, I made a promise.
“Of course we will! The Corsican will never be permitted into our capital. The military governor Rostopchin and his army will protect the walls. Our army will keep the French away. Do not cry, little Anna.”
Now I know that I lied that day. But at that moment we all believed Moscow would never fall.
How could it?
When my new jacket was finished I set off to find a livery to take me back to camp. Every coach and buggy, every wagon and old nag, was engaged as Muscovites fled the city. I was forced to walk on my wounded leg.
I had gone only three versts when the throbbing in my leg forced me to stop. I lay down in the grass. Fortunately a supply wagon loaded with saddles, saddle blankets, canteens, and knapsacks came rumbling down the road.
The officer made room for me, taking me back to camp.
When I got there, I found that my reserve horse—now my main mount—Zelant had been sent along with the reserve horses to another village five versts away. I was given a hideous Cossack horse with a thin, elongated neck. He was past his prime and had neither speed nor spirit. The saddle I was given had an enormous bolster in front of it, making it as clumsy as riding a camel in an overstuffed armchair.
On this horse I am to lead my squadron into battle?