‘Anyway, your Excellency, do you think we’ve had it?’ he asked again.
Instead of replying Prince Andrey took out his note-book, propped up one knee, and scribbled a pencilled message on a torn-out page. He wrote this to his sister:
Smolensk is surrendering. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy within a week. Go to Moscow immediately. Let me know the moment you leave. Send special messenger to Usvyazh.
When he had given Alpatych this written message he gave him some more instructions about getting the old prince, the princess, his son and the tutor on the road, and how and where he could be contacted once this was done. The words were hardly out of his mouth when a staff officer, complete with entourage, galloped up to him.
‘You’re a colonel, aren’t you?’ shouted the staff officer in a voice that Prince Andrey recognized, with its German accent. ‘Houses are being set on fire under your very nose and you just stand there! What’s the meaning of this? You will answer for it!’ shouted Berg, who was now assisting the Head of Staff commanding the First Army infantry, left flank – a good position, ‘nice and prominent’, as Berg put it.
Prince Andrey glanced at him without any reaction, and carried on talking to Alpatych.
‘So, tell them that I shall wait for an answer until the 10th, and if I don’t receive news by the 10th that they’ve all gone away, I shall have to drop everything and go over to Bald Hills in person.’
By now Berg had recognized Prince Andrey.
‘Prince,’ he said, ‘I spoke like that purely because it’s my duty to carry out instructions . . . and I’m a stickler for . . . I do beg your pardon.’ Berg was most apologetic.
There was a great crash in the middle of the fire. The flames died down for a second or two, and clouds of black smoke swirled out from under the roof. This was followed by another fearful crash and a massive collapse.
‘Oooh!’ roared the crowd as the roofing of the barn came crashing down and a smell of baking wafted up from the burning grain. The flames flared up again, lighting up the happy, careworn faces of the crowd round the fire.
The man in the rough coat raised both arms and yelled out, ‘That’s it! There she goes! Well done, boys!’
‘He’s the owner,’ went the word.
‘There you have it then,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘Tell them everything I’ve told you.’
This was addressed to Alpatych. Without a word to Berg, who was standing speechless at his side, he put spurs to his horse and rode off down the lane.
CHAPTER 5
The troops continued their retreat from Smolensk. The enemy came on behind. On the 10th of August, as the regiment under Prince Andrey’s command marched along the main road, they went past the avenue leading off to Bald Hills. There had been more than three weeks of hot weather and drought. Every day fleecy clouds floated across the heavens, now and then hiding the sun, but the sky always cleared in the late afternoon and the sun went down in a deep red haze. The earth got its only refreshment from a heavy dew at night. Any wheat left in the fields was scorched and scattered. The marshes had dried up. The cattle bellowed from hunger, finding nothing to graze on in the sun-baked meadows. Only at night and in the woods was there any cool air, and then only while the dew lasted. Out on the road, the high road where the troops were marching, there was never any cool air, not even at night, not even when the road went through a wood. No dew touched the six inches of churned-up sandy dust. They were on the road at first light. Axle-deep, the wagons and big guns trundled on without a sound, while the infantry marched up to their ankles in soft, choking, burning dust that never cooled off overnight. Sandy dust stuck to feet and wheels, and rose in a cloud over the marching men, getting into eyes and hair and nostrils and, worst of all, down into the lungs of man and beast moving down the road. The higher the sun, the higher the cloud of dust, and through the filter of tiny, burning dust-particles you could look straight at the sun, hanging there like a huge crimson ball in a sky devoid of clouds. There wasn’t a breath of wind, and men were left gasping in the thick, still atmosphere. They marched with cloths over their mouths and noses. Whenever they got to a village there was a rush for the wells. They fought over the water, and drank it down to the mud.
