Flight From the Eagle Read Free Page B

was bathed in the lurid glow of hundreds of fires which raged unchecked through the wooden houses. Whole streets were blazing and in some areas where the fire had passed, nothing was left but the black skeletons of trees in what had been gardens, and the cracked stone of the few solid walls among the charcoal that was all that remained of the wooden buildings.
    Among the wreckage, the stone churches and public buildings still stood largely untouched, except where a shell had scored a direct hit and blown down part of a wall. The streets were littered with wreckage and bodies still but there was hardly anything living, man or beast, to be seen. Those civilians who had not fled the city were huddled together in the churches.
    The wounded soldiers were in the comparative safety of the public buildings round the main square, and the rest of the rearguard which remained to hold the city were on the thirty-foot walls and in the many towers, so solidly built that even years of neglect and the weight of the French bombardment had hardly begun to destroy them. The guns were still firing, with a continuous heavy rumble from the cannon, punctuated by the sharper explosion of the shells lobbed over the walls by the French howitzers.
    So much of the city had been razed that even from the central area it was possible to look across the ruins to the walls, where Raevsky's gunners could be seen moving about in an orderly, purposeful manner, keeping up a rate and accuracy of fire which far excelled that of the French.
    Kolniev and Orlov made their way back to the Archive building without talking, partly because the devastation shocked them into silence, and partly because both of them were thinking hard and fast. In any case, their minds seemed to be well in accord about what they intended to do.
    Orlov's servant Josef followed them pulling a little handcart which he had produced from somewhere, with Orlov's baggage on it. He normally travelled with a minimum of accoutrements, and the 'baggage' was in fact only one stout leather-bound trunk, which carried his spare clothing and other necessities.
    In the Archive building, they gathered together the remnants of Kolniev's company. There were fifty-eight of them, all wounded, but mostly about the head, arms and trunk as they had been attacked by cavalry. This also meant that the wounds were cuts and gashes rather than the fearful funnel-shaped mutilations caused by musket balls. About a dozen men were unable to stand, mostly because of broken legs or ankles, and one man was more seriously injured by the death agonies of a horse which had fallen on him—Orlov's own horse, he later discovered.
    The men listened quietly as Kolniev explained to them that the army would withdraw from Smolensk that night. 'It has been decided,' he said, 'that the army cannot be burdened and slowed down by the mass of wounded men who are in the city, many of whom will only die if they are moved. The wounded will be left here and will become prisoners when the French enter the city tomorrow.' His voice gave no indication, Orlov noticed, of his own feelings about the lightness or wrongness of the decision—he simply reported it.
    'There is no reason,' he continued, 'why any of the wounded who can move should stay to await the French. As long as we don't hamper the army, we are free to try to escape, so we propose to take as many of you who care to come and get away to the south-east tonight. I'm not ordering anyone to come, just inviting you. Each of you knows how he feels— if you are not fit to travel, don't feel bound to make the attempt. You'll be risking your life and endangering the rest of us. I'm going out now to find more horses for our carts and we'll take all the food and stuff we can carry. I think most of us will stand a good chance of surviving. Any questions?'
    There was a shuffle of movement and whispering among the men, then one grizzled sergeant said: 'Where are we to head for, sir?'
    'At first to the