‘It’s probably only the heat,’ Anne said. ‘I shall be all right once the cooler weather begins.’
‘Why don’t you go down to the country?’ Basil said. ‘Moscow is impossible in August. Go down to the dacha at Fili.’
‘I might,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me. Take care of Rose – see she does her exercises.’
‘Of course I will.’
Left alone at Byeloskoye, Anne spent the first few days quietly, walking in the gardens, sitting under the deep shade of the old medlar, pondering her situation. It was different, of course, from last time: there was more of pleasure now, and less of apprehension – but still it was a matter for concern. There seemed, at least, no doubt about it this time. Apart from the fainting fit, she had felt nausea several times on waking in the morning, and a second flux had not begun when it was due. She must have conceived some time during her stay in Vilna in June.
But what to do about it was beyond her to decide. She was married to Basil Andreyevitch. To leave his official protection would place her outside society, and she had already tasted, in Shoora’s refusal to visit her, the aloes of being an outcast. Not only that, but it would bring shame on Rose and on the unborn child. She trusted Nikolai absolutely to take care of her in every physical and emotional way, but even his protection could not change the rules of society.
She could think of nothing to do, but to do nothing. Inside her body, the seed he had planted had begun to grow. She was with child to her love. For the moment, she wanted nothing but to enjoy it in sweet secrecy. Eventually some decision must be made, some action taken; but not now, not yet.
News came regularly from Nikolai. Tolly’s strategy of withdrawal was doing just what it was intended to do – slowing down Napoleon’s advance, weakening his forces and lowering their morale by harrying their flanks, and increasing day by day the problem of feeding and supplying the vast body of men he had brought with him into Russia.
After spending, inexplicably, more than two weeks at Vilna, Napoleon had left on the 16th of July and advanced north-east to Sventsiany, and then turned eastwards towards Vitebsk. He had marched his men fast through the terrible country: marshes into which they sank to the knees; dense forests of fir which scratched their faces and pulled at their clothes; bare roads where the dust rose so thick that the weary, hungry men could only find their way by following the sound of the drummer boys at the head of each section. By day the sun beat down mercilessly on men whose woollen uniforms had been designed for more temperate climates; by night fierce hailstorms beat down on their bivouacs, and the rapid changes of temperature brought on agues and lung sickness.
They marched so fast that their supply train was left far behind, and they had scant time to forage, even if there had been anything to find. But Tolly’s army was marching before them, stripping the country as it went. All the Grande Armée found was deserted, ruined villages; and those who strayed too far from the road in a desperate search for food were picked off by the Cossacks, or slaughtered by the few native Russians who remained in the woods and more distant hamlets.
Nikolai told her in his letters of the terrible sights he had seen along the roads. Horses had continued to die by the thousand: the road was lined with their corpses, and with sick and dying soldiers, abandoned field pieces, carts of equipment for which there were no longer teams to draw them. The French were losing men through dysentery, typhus, festering wounds, desertion, and sheer hunger and exhaustion.
Some of the stragglers we have picked up speak of such misery and disillusionment amongst the ranks, that I imagine many are dying simply because they have no desire to live. Hardly any are Frenchmen, and most seem not to understand why they are here at all. Napoleon is promising them all they need– food, rest, clothing – when they reach Vitebsk, and that gets them along a little. But by my estimates he must have lost half the force with which he crossed the Nieman. His numbers are still formidable – but they are only flesh and blood, which I think he sometimes forgets.
At Vitebsk the old argument for making a stand had been renewed amongst the Russian commanders, but Tolly’s first army had not yet been able to join up with Bagration’s second army, and so was still vastly outnumbered. The Russians quietly vacated the city during the night as the French approached, and withdrew towards Smolensk, leaving Napoleon to enter the next morning a city empty of inhabitants, save the very old and the very sick. Empty, also, of everything they needed – food, medical supplies, doctors, fodder for the horses.
Nevertheless, Napoleon remained there for more than two weeks, and Nikolai concluded in one of his letters that the French supremo was unsure how to proceed.
Prudence must make him realise that to advance further will only result in more loss. His advisers – Caulaincourt, at least – will try to persuade him to make Vitebsk his winter quarters, to consolidate his position and begin the campaign again next year. It remains to be seen what he will decide. We march on for Smolensk, and a rendezvous with Prince Bagration’s army there.
On August the 12th, Napoleon’s ambition evidently outweighed his adviser’s caution, for he left Vitebsk and continued the march eastwards towards Smolensk. Here the Russians made a stand, and on the 17th of August a battle was fought, resulting in heavy losses on both sides. When firing ceased at nightfall, the French had managed to take the suburbs, but the Russians still held the old city itself.
Now Prince Bagration was amongst them, the arguments for withdrawing no further and ‘finishing it’ here at Smolensk were advanced with great passion. Smolensk was an extremely holy city, and to abandon it would be close to blasphemy. The whole of Russia was smarting under the humiliation of this continuous retreat, he declared. History would never forgive them for having allowed the Corsican Bandit to penetrate so far into the heartland of Russia. Now was their chance to make amends, to prove what they were made of, to make an heroic stand, and write their names in letters of fire and blood on the pages of history!
It was splendid, stirring stuff, Nikolai wrote. I must tell you that as he spoke, I even found my own pulse responding. After all, the French had taken a heavy loss that day, to add to their undoubted losses on the march. And I longed – and do long still – to be freed from the necessity of this war, so that I can come home to you, dearest, and rest in your arms.
But then Tolly spoke up quietly, and pointed out that the old town, which was largely made of wood and had been set on fire by French artillery shells, was burning briskly around us, and that the streets were filled with corpses. More seriously, though we might have the bridges over the Dnieper under our control, there was a ford at Prudishevo three miles downstream, and it was only a matter of time before Napoleon’s scouts found it. Once they crossed the river, they would surround us, and our position would be hopeless.
So we evacuated the city during the night, burnt the bridges behind us, and withdrew down the Smolensk-Moscow High Road. We are now at Viazma, and I hear that Tolly is to be replaced as commander-in-chief by Kutuzov, who is being sent to us from St Petersburg by the Emperor himself. Poor Tolly takes it very hard; but / tell him that His Majesty is obliged to take some account of public opinion, which is as vociferous as it is uninformed. And Kutuzov is, at least, a soldier, so there may be some hope of guiding him rationally, if we can keep Bagration away from his right ear. We are to meet Kutuzov at Tsarevo on the 29th.