Flight From the Eagle Read Free

to the messengers constantly entering and leaving the room. Kolniev watched them with a kind of fascination, and after a time remarked in a quiet voice: 'I don't know how they manage to keep everything straight. What happens if they give out the wrong paper?'
    Orlov's rather grim expression relaxed into a near-smile. 'Someone gets a chit for a waggon-load of canister shot instead of orders to attack,' he said. 'It doesn't make much difference really. Nine-tenths of the orders issued can't be carried out.'
    Kolniev looked blankly at him, his mouth half-open in a ludicrous expression of shock. Orlov's smile became a little broader. 'Either the order never arrives because the messenger gets lost or killed, or the situation has changed, or the General didn't know what it was to begin with, or perhaps the man who receives it misunderstands—a hundred things can go wrong. Haven't you ever received an order you couldn't carry out?'
    'Yes,' replied Kolniev. 'The one you brought, for example. That attack came before you handed it to me. It was still in your hand when we picked you up afterwards but soaked with your blood so I couldn't read it, and anyway there was no one left in a sufficiently healthy state to do anything but crawl to the surgeons.'
    Orlov frowned, accentuating the sharp upward turn of his eyebrows. He was trying to remember what the orders had contained, but he was distracted by Danilov suddenly standing to attention as the door of the inner room opened and a trio of generals emerged from Barclay de Tolly's office.
    Kolniev also stood up and Orlov, without thinking, tried to follow suit, caught his left arm on the edge of the table, and had to lean forward across the table, the world spinning round him, desperately trying to prevent himself crying out or fainting. Kolniev darted round the table to his side. The generals arrested their progress and stood watching as Kolniev helped him to sit down again and gave him a little more wine.
    'What is he doing here?' General Raevsky asked sharply. 'It's Count Orlov, isn't it? If that's his own blood on his coat, he ought to be in hospital.'
    'He was,' replied Kolniev, not particularly subdued by finding himself in such exalted company. 'Unfortunately, he wouldn't stay there. He's stubborn.'
    Raevsky laughed. 'Yes, I've met him before!' he said. 'Stubborn as a mule!'
    'Who is?' enquired a pleasant, quiet voice from the inner doorway. The speaker, General Barclay, came out into the room, his long, sensitive scholar's face completely calm, showing no sign of the violent argument which had just been raging in his office or of the intolerable strain he was under. He had to attempt to control an army broken up into widely separated segments, commanded by other generals, some senior to himself, most of whom disliked him and disagreed with his entire policy. And all this while under continuous attack by what must be the largest and most confident army in all history.
    He paused by Danilov's desk to give him some papers, handling them awkwardly with his one arm. 'See that these orders are copied and sent out at once,' he said, speaking German, as was his habit. 'The First West Army will march to the east tonight in accordance with my earlier orders. You will confirm that they are to move in two columns in order to mislead the enemy concerning the direction of march. There are individual instructions for particular officers in addition to the general order.'
    His voice was mild and conversational and if Danilov had not heard the arguments which had raged all day over this very decision to withdraw from Smolensk, he might have assumed that the orders were concerned only with trivialities for all that Barclay's manner betrayed. Danilov hurried off to instruct his subordinates, sorting out the papers as he went.
    Barclay crossed to Orlov's side of the room and regarded him with a calm, enquiring look. 'Lev Petrovitch, you are badly hurt,' he said kindly. 'Why are you on duty?'
    Orlov