‘Here, you take the baby,’ said Pierre, speaking forcefully and shoving the child on to the peasant woman. ‘You take her back. Go on, take her!’ His voice had risen almost to a shout, and he put the screaming child down on the ground before turning back to watch the Frenchmen and the Armenian family. By now the old man was sitting on the ground with nothing on his feet. The little Frenchman had just taken the second boot, and was slapping the boots together. The old man was sobbing as he spoke, but Pierre noticed all this only in passing. His eyes were riveted on the Frenchman in the tunic, who had taken his hands out of his pockets, sidled up to the young woman with a deliberate little swagger, and was now fingering her neck.
The beautiful Armenian girl sat there as before, completely immobile, with her long eyelashes drooping downwards, apparently not seeing or feeling what the soldier was doing to her.
In the short time it took for Pierre to cover the few steps separating him from the Frenchmen, the tall, thin marauder in the tunic managed to tear a necklace from the Armenian beauty’s neck, which left the young woman clutching at her neck with both hands and screaming.
‘Leave her alone!’ Pierre roared in a voice that sounded hoarse with rage. He grabbed the tall, stooping soldier by his round shoulders and gave him a good shove. The soldier fell down, scrambled to his feet and ran away. But his comrade threw the boots to one side, and bore down on Pierre drawing his sword threateningly.
‘Let’s not do anything stupid, now,’ he shouted.
Pierre was in the kind of furious rage that made him oblivious to everything, and he had the strength of ten men. He flung himself at the barefoot Frenchman before the man could finish drawing his sword, flattened him and began hammering him with both fists. Roars of encouragement came from the crowd, but just then a patrol of French lancers came riding round the corner. The lancers trotted up to Pierre and the Frenchman, surrounding them both. Pierre never remembered what happened next. He had a vague recollection of hitting somebody and being hit back until eventually he found himself with his hands tied, being searched by a group of French soldiers standing all round him.
‘Lieutenant, he’s got a dagger,’ were the first words Pierre recognized.
‘Aha, a weapon,’ said the officer, and he turned to the barefoot soldier, who had been taken along with Pierre. ‘All right. You can tell your story at the court martial,’ said the officer. Then he turned and said to Pierre, ‘Listen you. Do you speak French?’
Pierre looked around with bloodshot eyes, and said nothing. His face must have looked terrible, because the officer whispered something, and four more lancers detached themselves from the rest, came over and stationed themselves next to Pierre on both sides.
‘Do you speak French?’ The officer repeated the question, but kept his distance as he did so. ‘Get the interpreter.’
A little man in Russian civilian clothing emerged from the ranks. Pierre could tell immediately from the way he dressed and spoke that he was a French salesman from a Moscow shop.
‘He doesn’t look like a common man,’ said the interpreter, eyeing Pierre.
‘Oh no? He looks very much like an arsonist to me,’ said the officer. ‘Ask him who he is.’
‘’Oo are you?’ asked the interpreter in very Frenchified Russian. ‘You must answer ze officer.’
‘I’m not saying who I am. I’m your prisoner. Take me away,’ Pierre blurted out in French.
‘Aha!’ commented the officer with a scowl. ‘All right, march him away!’
A crowd had collected round the lancers. Nearest of all to Pierre stood the peasant woman with the pockmarked face, who now had the baby. As the patrol moved off she came forward.
‘Hey, where are they taking you, dearie?’ she said. ‘The baby! What shall I to do with the baby if it’s not theirs?’ she cried.
‘What does this woman want?’ inquired the officer.
Pierre was behaving as if he had been drinking. His blood was up and his spirits soared at the sight of the little girl he had saved.
‘What is she talking about?’ he said. ‘She’s bringing me my daughter. I’ve just saved her from the fire,’ he declared. ‘Goodbye!’ And he strode off solemnly between the Frenchmen, wondering why on earth he had blurted out such a pointless lie.
The lancers’ patrol was one of the ones Durosnel had ordered out on to the streets of Moscow to stop any looting, and, more importantly, to catch the arsonists who, according to a widespread opinion mooted among the top-ranking French officers that day, were behind all the fires. In the course of patrolling a few more streets the lancers arrested another half-dozen suspicious characters, all Russian – a shopkeeper, a couple of theology students, a peasant and a house serf – along with several people caught looting. But of all these suspicious characters Pierre seemed more suspicious than anyone.
